Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson characters at all, or the lyrics to the song All This Time by OneRepublic.

~"Six on the second hand till new year's resolutions
There's just no question what this man should do
Take all the time lost, all the days that I cost
Take what I took and give it back to you"~

"That's your brother Tyson?" Jason asked, pointing over to the crowd of kids hustled together by the school bus. The dark red brick elementary school loomed behind them, giving him back all his memories of the place since he was little and he went here. Judging by Percy's annoyed face, he could tell that he felt this too. Or it could also be the fact that the only reason why they came back there was because Percy was sent by his mom to go pick up his brother for the weekend.

"Yep. That's him," Percy answered monotonously, and Jason laughed. The kid they were talking about looked around four feet above the ground, had a head full of curly dark hair, and had the most goofiest expression he had ever seen in a while. He was a walking hairball.

"How can you hate him? He looks like a lot of fun," Jason told him truthfully, rolling his eyes, partially annoyed with his friend's behavior.

Percy snapped his head back at him, green eyes blown wide, and he had to bite back down another laugh. "He's a freak. Just last night, he spread macaroni and cheese all over my bedroom walls, and don't even get me started on what he did to my mother's room."

Jason shrugged. "Whatever. So how are you the one who's getting punished tonight again? If you hadn't even done anything?"

"I don't know! It's not even fair! Every time my mom comes home, she always ends up blaming whatever he did on me, and I'm freaking sick of it. And now mom doesn't even trust me enough to watch over my own brother," he began to explain, though Jason began to doze off to the conversation. He'd heard this story so many times, he about memorized it. "I'm not complaining though, trust me. It's just someone else who has to put up with him and not me. I'm perfectly okay with that. My God, I can't wait to meet whoever the hell is gonna get that burden off my chest."

Jason snorted. "Yeah. Then you'll probably have to live with what will probably end up being some old geezer off the street trying to pick up some money for, what? Every Friday?"

"If it occupies him?" While he said it, Tyson, Percy's brother, finally noticed his brother's car and waved goodbye to his friends while clambering on after them. "Hell, yeah," Percy finished right in time before Tyson could meet up with them.

"Finally, you came. What took you so long?" His kiddish voice said a little loudly, loud enough for it to make Jason wince a little, and then his face turned to him and he immediately frowned. "Who's that? You finally got a boyfriend, Perce?"

"Shut up. He's a friend from school. Get in the car," Percy said, opening the door for his brother while hitting his head while he was going through the door.

"Do you always like keeping your conversations short with him?" Jason asked him, going in the passenger seat, eyeing the boy in the rear-view mirror particularly.

"When it comes to him, then yeah."

The ride to Percy's house was short, and before you'd know it, Percy's mom already forced Percy to stay in the house while the babysitter watched over Tyson. He'd complained about it, but Sally Jackson never took no for an answer. Even Jason was pushed around a little as soon as she left the house.

"Dude, you gotta stay with me. I can't handle it if you left," Percy pleaded with him, just as Jason was going to walk out on him. He even had his coat on and everything, ready to go back to his own home where his own family was waiting for him.

~"All this time we were waiting for each other
All this time I was waiting for you
We got all these words, can't waste them on another
So I'm straight in a straight line running back to you"~

"Why? The babysitter can't be that bad. And if they are, then you can just, like, watch TV or something. You've been home alone so many times," Jason said, not getting the big deal on his whole play he was putting on.

"I don't even know the person! It could be a rapist for all I know!"

Jason threw his head back in exhaustion and frowned even deeper. "Don't be ridiculous. Your mother would never hire someone she didn't know. Or like. Or, well, I don't know what your mother thinks. Whatever. You'll be fine."

"No!" Percy gripped on to his forearm - right when the doorbell rang soundly through the house, and the two of them flinched.

"Where's Tyson?" Jason talked lowly.

"I don't know. Upstairs, maybe?" He answered back, in the same tone as he was using.

"Here's what I'll do. If the person is someone I know you won't be able to handle, I'll stay," Jason tried to negotiate, "but if you're just tripping, like I already told you you were, then I'm out the door three seconds flat."

The black-haired boy looked at him murderously in the dark, and Jason actually started to feel intimidated by the glare a little bit. But he shoved it down and crossed his arms and stared back. Percy finally grit his teeth, "Fine," and made to get the door just as it rang again.

Jason smirked while walking towards the kitchen and decided to make himself some hot chocolate while he was at it. The place was so familiar to him, he could say all what he knew from the back of his hand. Suffice to say, Jason knew exactly where all the food was at. He took out the packet and dumped the powder into the glass, shortly followed by some hot water in a faucet he knew Percy had.

While he was in the middle of pouring some water in the cup, he started to overhear what was going on by the door, wondering what was taking so long and why Percy hadn't come back with some probably middle aged person already. The first voice he heard was feminine, which sort of confused him. Then he rolled it off, figuring that of course, the babysitter could have been a woman, but it wasn't something he had considered at first.

The next voice was Percy, and that was something he could hear quite clearly. "Uh...uhm...yeah. Yeah."

The other voice spoke again, something that sounded a lot like, "What's your name?"

And when Percy spoke again, Jason flinched from how flustered he sounded. How was this person affecting him so much? "It's...it's, uh..."

The woman giggled, and something about the voice seemed so familiar to his ears that it made his stomach start to do flops, and suddenly, Jason didn't like how things were turning out to be. "Did you forget or something?" He vaguely heard her say teasingly.

"Wha...no, no of course not. It's..." Jason sighed and decided to save his best friend from his obvious looming failure with a girl, while having one last sip of his hot chocolate before throwing the empty foam cup away.

~"I don't know what day it is, I had to check the paper
I don't know the city but it isn't home
You say I'm lucky to love something that loves me
But I'm torn as I could be wherever I roam"~

"His name's Percy..." Jason spoke aloud, though his words immediately faltered while his thoughts vanished at what he was seeing at the door. A tanned and curvy body with long wavy cocoa hair and the most colorful eyes he had ever seen with complete red lips stood before him. A freaking girl stood right there, right in front of the both of them, and he didn't know how to answer to her at all. And she wasn't just any girl, either. That girl was Piper McLean, the most beautiful girl in his school, and Jason was pretty sure that she was the most beautiful girl about ever, really. He didn't know how he knew it, but he knew it. There was just no other explanation.

He stared at her, no doubt, throughout his days at school, not being able to look at anything except her until his friends had to force him out of it. She probably thought that he was some freak by now. He wouldn't blame her. He'd do anything for her, and he barely even knew her. He'd been stalking her since they were little and he first saw her. It was pretty much disgusting how much he adored her.

"Right," she answered back. She looked back down at her phone in her hands and read something off of it. "I'm sorry, but when I called earlier I talked to a woman named Sally Jackson. Is she here right now?"

Jason shot a quick glance at his friend who seemed to be at a loss of words at the moment, his face looking like it was trying to gulp up air, and though Jason's wasn't any better, he still answered for him. "Yeah. That would be his mom. She's not here right now, 'cause she left. He's..." - Jason gestured to Percy - "gonna be here every Friday night, too. If that's okay with you, of course."

Piper answered, nodding her beautiful head, "Yeah, that's fine. Guess I'll be seeing more of you, then." She pointed her finger onto Percy's chest, making his eyes widen at her, and she smirked knowingly. At the mere exchange that Jason saw happen, he immediately regretted that he did see it because of that sharp twist of annoyance that rang through his belly, and he wished he knew why he was so attracted to this girl he barely knew.

As soon as Piper walked in to the living room (which, for some reason, Tyson had magically appeared there), Percy walked up to him and said hastily, "Nevermind. I'm not bored. You may leave."

"Hey, hold it," Jason gripped the back of Percy's shirt, secretly forbidding himself to leave this place now that he knew who was in it. "I'm not going anywhere." Okay, so maybe not so secret.

The other boy raised his eyebrow questioningly. "Why? Just a second ago, you were practically begging to leave."

"I'm not leaving you alone with her, and you already knew that. So I'm staying," he said to him stubbornly.

Percy's eyes twinkled with mischief, an unsettling feature which was exactly why Jason didn't want Piper to stay with him. "You're afraid I'm going to steal your girl, even though she doesn't even know you exist. You have nothing on her."

"Don't you think I know that?" he hissed back, but walked ahead of Percy toward the girl and Tyson.

He was half-way there when he heard Tyson say to Piper, "Do you like video games?"

Jason wanted to roll his eyes at the kid's stupidity, knowing full well that that wasn't the first question or way you were supposed to treat a lady, but instead to his surprise, she answered, "Of course I do, kiddo. Whatchya got?"

So him and Percy were about stood up as the elementary kid seemed to be getting more moves on than the both of them combined on Piper.

~"All this time we were waiting for each other
All this time I was waiting for you
Got all these words, can't waste them on another
So I'm straight in a straight line running back to you, yeah"~

The next week on Monday, Jason was partnered up with Piper for a quick chemistry project, and while someone from one of the back rows practically exploded one of their test tubes, it gave Jason some time to actually speak with her. "So, Tyson told me he actually liked spending time with you on Friday. He said he was looking forward to this Friday, too."

Piper smiled graciously at his words, and Jason immediately felt his heart melt at the sight, before forcing himself to look up to her eyes again. "Tell him that he was pretty cool, too. He's a cool kid, really."

Jason nodded his head after that, involuntarily moving his body a little more to her radiating warmth, and he smiled back down at her. "You're pretty cool, too, you know."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Percy says that he'd never seen Tyson behave so well. You're great with kids, you know. You're brilliant," he said while practically blushing heatedly through every single word spoken. He might as well have said, "I hope you also carry my children one day 'cause you're so great and awesome and goddamn beautfiul and nice, and My God I want to kiss you and be with you forever," and he could have even gotten away with it too, from the way he was talking so fast.

"Thank you," she said shyly while looking down and brushing a piece of her dark hair behind her ear, though Jason had been having an urge to do it for her for so long. "All I did though was teach him some tricks on that video game of his. No need for exaggeration."

"Yeah, but you handled him really nicely."

"You think?"

"Yeah. You're brilliant."

She chuckled while coming a little closer to him as well, her overall scent smelling like honeysuckle and something that was purely her own, making something flutter harshly in his anatomy and making him wish that he had the guts to close the space between them. "You said that already."

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, trying his best to focus on what she was saying to him. "I...I did?"

She shrugged while still smiling brightly at him. "Yeah, but it's fine. So I'll be seeing you too on Fridays, then?"

He blinked at her; was this an invitation? "...Only if you want me too. I mean, if you want to see me too," he fumbled with his words.

She stared at him deeply before nodding to herself in thought. "Erm, sure. Okay. Uh...sorry, I didn't catch your name before. What was it?"

"Uh..." Now it was his turn to be lost for words. Granted, he was always lost for words when it came to her, but now he was really lost for words. What was she asking him again? Dang, was this going to be another thing like what happened with Percy on Friday? He got a sharp kick in his back, most likely from his other buddy Leo, and he suddenly came back to reality. Right. His name. What was that again?

"Mine's...Piper, by the way. If you didn't get it on Friday," she explained, as if she was trying to reason with herself that that was the reason why he was so quiet.

"Yeah, I know who you are," he said before he bit his tongue on purpose. Could he embarrass himself anymore than he already had? To try to cover it up, he quickly filled in, "My name is Jason. Jason Grace. I have a sister, too, who goes here. She looks nothing like me, except my eyes apparently. Her name's Thalia. I'm Jason." Well, he answered that question.

She looked up, amusement highly filling up her breathtaking eyes, looking like she could burst out laughing any given moment before saying, "You're really cute, you know that? I like you already," and she scooped up her book-bag around her bag and left the classroom as soon as everyone was finally dismissed (the explosion was somewhat taken care of). She turned back again and said to him, "Hope I see you this Friday, too."

He felt his smile crack so wide that he was sure his face would split in half, and he honestly thought that if he were to jump from the building, he would be able to fly away and never come back. At least, until Friday, that is. Friday's for babysitting. And he was sure that he'd be there for her every Friday or pretty much everyday.

And so yeah, he practically floated his way all the way to Christmas Eve. That day was a Friday too, and he and Piper had gotten so close, he was sure that there was nothing else he wanted for Christmas than for Piper McLean to love him back. That day, Percy's mom did invite Piper along, not for her normal babysitting job, but for Christmas dinner, and him and his sister was invited as well.

"You have no idea how freaking excited I am to meet this girlfriend of yours," Thalia told him happily, her normal annoyed mood getting washed away by the time of year. Jason himself couldn't help but feel content with life at the moment. Everything about the day just seemed right.

"She's not my girlfriend. You're so fucking annoying. Leave her alone, she doesn't want to be bothered by you," he told her straight-up, though he knew that wouldn't help much. When Thalia was committed, it was scary, and normally, he knew when to back the hell off. This time, he couldn't see why.

Nevertheless, the night went by fast, and everyone by the end of the day was rather joyous. Even Percy and Tyson were cooled down enough to sit down and laugh around with everyone else. They even got Percy to mention his new crush on Piper's friend Annabeth, this blonde girl that they'd met during lunch, and though he was angry at everyone for teasing him about it, he couldn't help but smile along.

There was one part, however, towards the end of the night where him and Piper were walking down one of the halls, and she had abruptly stopped. When Jason turned around to ask her what was wrong, he couldn't exactly pick on why she was so shocked until he looked up at what she was looking. And when he did, honestly, his heart stopped right in his chest.

~"Oh, running back to you
Oh, running back to you
Yeah

Oh, I would travel so far
I would travel so far
To get back where you are"~

Hanging up there, was the familiar green plant that Jason in the back of his mind knew that someone, most likely his fucking sister, put up there, knowing that it would boggle his brains out. And he was right, judging from where Thalia and the others were crowded at the door, ready to head into the night. Thalia looked up at him and chuckled before winking and making immature kissy faces, while he silently cursed her out. Were curses supposed to have blessings in them?

Jason turned back to Piper with a flushed face, "Oh my God, this was all my sister. All of it. She put it here to - "

And, then, of course of course of course of course, though it wasn't obvious at all, Piper reached up with one hand behind his flaming neck and effectively kissed him to shut him up. And Jason was amazed at how he actually had the guts to kiss her back, even through all the elation that was jumping up like Christmas booze through his system, and he thought he would float away with happiness. When she finally pulled back, she smiled up at him shyly once again before whispering, "See you next Friday?"

And all he could do was nod incoherently and snatch another kiss from her before she walked away from him for who knew how long, and he didn't even get to properly say goodnight to her. Though January wasn't until a couple of days, his new year's resolution was that Piper would kiss him without a fucking plant mingling in the way, and he'd finally get to be with her.

Then maybe, hopefully, one day, she'd want to see him on days not just Friday.

~"All this time we were waiting for each other
All this time I was waiting for you
Got all this love, can't waste it on another
So I'm straight in a straight line running back to you"~

A/N: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays (whatever, early I guess)! Hope y'all have a nice break! Also, a computer won't be available to me for a while since I'm going on vacation for like, 12 days? Probably. So don't expect updates till a while. Sorry about that.

Till next time,

Penguin