Hello everyone!

So, I started writing this story about two years ago after TLO came out. I've gone through random bursts of inspiration and abandonment with this story and I feel like I have grown a lot as a writer since I originally uploaded it. That is why I came to the decision to rewrite most of it and re-upload it as a new story. I'm going to be honest, I can't promise this is any good and I can't promise constant updates, but I have some of this already written so I'll try to update regularly at first.

This story takes place 10 years after The Last Olympian. I guess it's considered AU now because I give no recognition to any of The Hero's of Olympus series, but when I started this TLO had just been released. POV will always be Annabeth's unless I say otherwise. Well now that that long, introductory A/N is over, enjoy the first chapter everyone!

Annabeth Chase hugged her friends and said goodbye. Percy took her hand and they walked out to the road where her cab was waiting to take her to the airport. "I'll miss you," Percy said. Annabeth was scheduled to be in California with her dad for the next two months. "I'll miss you too," she smiled at him, and they kissed. They stood there hugging each other for a few moments, but she couldn't delay leaving any longer. Once everything was in the cab she pressed her hand against the glass and tried to smile, but her guess was that she looked considerably listless. She saw him wave as the cab drove away. She kept trying to remember the fact that they would be together again in two months, and that it isn't that long.

10 years passed.

Annabeth eyed the clock on her wall. She had about 5 minutes before she absolutely had to leave the house, or she would no longer count as fashionably late. Running behind was just the icing on a not so great day.

Her hair was almost done, as well as her makeup. She walked over to her bed, where her dress was laying and she pulled it on over her head. She knew she had to get going, so she grabbed some strappy black heels, not bothering to check which pair she had taken. Once her hair was clipped up she dabbed a little more eyeliner on, then ran back towards her bed to grab her black handbag. One quick look in the mirror and she was ready to go. She had been going to these types of events for years now, but each one was still tricky. What do you wear to an engagement party? It took a little planning on her part but all in all she thought she was dressed appropriately for the occasion. She was wearing a short, purple sequined Neiman Marcus dress, her hair was up with only a few strands hanging lose, and the pearls she had on were subtle compared to the dress.

She almost made it out the door before she realized she had forgotten something.

"Shit!" Annabeth cursed, and ran back into the apartment.

"Where is my damn phone?" she whined to herself as she went on a rampage through her apartment. Once she had thoroughly wrecked her apartment she realized that she must have left it at her office.

"Great…" she muttered, "isn't that just great?"

Fashionably late no longer applied to this situation, she was now full blown, carelessly late. Seeing no way to remedy the circumstances without her phone, she ran out of her building and hailed a cab. Once the cab driver had the address of her firm the anxiety of missing her phone for a whole afternoon started to kicked in. Hopefully nothing disastrous had happened. Hopefully none of her buildings had crumbled, hopefully no projects fell through. Hopefully the sky wasn't falling.

Hopefully her sky wasn't falling.

The taxi sped through the congested streets of the city. When they arrived she asked him to wait, hopefully she would only be a few minutes.

The elevator wasn't moving fast enough. Being late was one of the things she hated most in the world. Missing deadlines could mean the end of your career. Showing up late to appointments and events just displayed poor planning and no class. Lucy was probably going to kill her at this point. This party was the most important thing in Lucy's life at the moment, and Annabeth would not sacrifice weeks of listening to Lucy stress and complain just to miss it because she had forgotten to think for a day.

She ran down the hallway, and stopped when she reached her office door. Pausing, she stood in the doorway looking for an easy fix for her problem. And thank God, her phone was sitting on her desk. Well, that was one good thing today. But of course the only bit of luck she'd had all day was immediately followed up by something awful. Whirling around as fast as she could to try and get out the door and back to her cab, she managed to smash her knee into a table next to her desk. Yelping and losing her balance in her 6 inch heels, she hit the floor, all of her weight falling onto the knee she had hit on the table. She screamed a curse as she hit the floor, but the sound was drowned out by the items that had been sitting on the table crashing to the ground.

She pulled herself up and started to pick up what had fallen. Luckily it was just a couple of photos, nothing had broken.

The first picture was of herself and Lucy, Annabeth's bestfriend. Annabeth had met Lucy shortly after her move to the city. The girls were very similar in personality and always managed to have a good time together. Lucy was truly Annabeth's best friend, always being able to tell when something was wrong and being able to say the right things to cheer her up. No one had cared about Annabeth like Lucy did in a very long time. But, if she didn't get to Lucy's party within the next ten minutes, Annabeth's guess was that she would soon be Lucy's former best friend.

The second photo was of Ryan, Annabeth's boyfriend. Ryan had been part of Annabeth's life for three years, and she had been able to call him her boyfriend for two. She absolutely adored him, but there was something lacking in their relationship. Sometimes it felt like there was not enough tenderness there, like their relationship was always either on fire with passion, or they were together simply out of obligation. Sometimes she never saw him, he worked so much. Of course he was half of the reason for her status in this city. She probably could have achieved it herself, but it was nice to have someone to share it with. He knew everything that went on in her life, and he was usually good about being a supportive boyfriend.

The last picture she paused to look at before she put back on the table. She always did this with that photo; it had become sort of a ritual. The photo had been taken exactly 10 years before. Ryan had asked about this picture before, but it was the one part of her past Annabeth wasn't willing to share. It was one of her favorite photos, which was most of the reason it was on display in her office. The photo portrayed a much younger, youthful Annabeth Chase, at 16. Her companion, a young boy with black hair and bright green eyes, had his arm around her waist and was smiling at her, while she smiled at the camera. Not only did she love the picture, she loved the memories associated with it.

Percy Jackson, Annabeth thought to herself. Whatever happened to you?

Her daze was interrupted when her phone buzzed in her hand.

Lucy Hamilton:

Where are you? The party started twenty minutes ago. Annabeth Chase. The possibility that you die tragically and mysteriously goes up greatly if you skip out on my party.

Annabeth jumped up. Her knee screamed in protest. There was already a knot forming and the knot was already turning purple. Maybe by the end of the night her knee would match her dress, lovely.

15 minutes later she arrived at the place of the party. On the way there she had sorted through her missed calls and messages. Luckily she hadn't missed anything too important. Two text messages from Lucy, one from Ryan, a voicemail on something work related, and three missed calls from a restricted number. No voicemail, no text, nothing. That struck her as strange, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

The party was already in full swing when Annabeth arrived, only 40 minutes late. Half of the people she didn't recognize, but the other half she identified as mutual friends or people she knew from her social circle. She waved at a few people, but set off to find Lucy, or Ryan, or someone else she was close to.

She succeeded a few minutes later, when she noticed Lucy talking to some people and holding a drink a few feet away.

"Lucy!" Annabeth called her name, walking in that direction.

"Annabeth, where have you been?" Lucy asked and hugged her.

"I was running late, and had to stop by my office because I lost my phone, and yeah, things just aren't going my way tonight," Annabeth smiled sheepishly, and decided to change the subject. "I love your dress! Who are you wearing?" The dress was a simple black one shoulder, skin tight. Her shoes were black too, and her only accessory were her small diamond studs, no doubt to draw attention to the huge ring on her finger.

"Thanks, its Versace, I wanted to go simple tonight," She laughed and flashed her left hand.

"Nothing's simple with that giant rock on your finger. Noah did well, I'm proud. Formal congratulations are in order, considering this is your engagement party,"

"Thanks a million, have you found Ryan yet? He's here somewhere, I saw him earlier with some of his golf buddies," Lucy commented.

"No, but I should probably go look for him. He texted me earlier and told me he had something important to tell me. I'll catch up with you later, okay? And sorry again for being late!" Lucy didn't seem mad at all, which was a relief.

"Just another day in the life of Annabeth Chase. Go get a drink, you look tense."

Annabeth decided to take Lucy's advice and walked over the bar, ordered a vodka soda, and sat down to drink it. She looked around. People were standing around drinking and talking, most likely superficial conversations about things Annabeth had little interest in. She had witnessed scenes like this for years, being in New York's social class, and had learned to tolerate them. Her mind flashed back to the picture of herself and Percy she had knocked off the table earlier. Annabeth at 16 was very different from Annabeth and 26. Somehow she had evolved from a girl who could be happy in an orange camp tee shirt (back then sometimes even battle armor), hair a mess, and stains on her jeans to a woman who walked around in designer labels on a daily basis, always had her hair done, and wouldn't step foot out of her apartment without makeup on. She loved her life, but sometimes she wondered how that free spirited tomboy had ended up a successful woman in New York society.

Someone sat down next to her. "You, look, amazing," Ryan kissed her cheek.

"Hey honey," Annabeth responded, pecked him on the lips and took another sip of her drink. "How's the party been so far?"

"Pretty good, Lucy seems happy, and so does Noah. But honestly, if this is how they throw an engagement party, I'm scared to see the wedding," He pretended to cringe. And he was right to do so. Annabeth thought that Lucy had mentioned something around 400 people here tonight. Lucy ran one of the top event planning companies in New York, so of course she knew how to throw a party.

"I'm scared to be the one to have to deal with Lucy's nervous breakdowns that are bound to occur over the next year," Annabeth admitted. Planning a wedding was chaotic enough if you aren't Lucy Hamilton, but if you are multiply that stress by five. Lucy didn't have any sisters, and Annabeth was her closest friend, so naturally she would assume the position of maid of honor, also known as the woman who has to hold everything together when it starts to fall apart.

"I'm sure you'll be fine. Frankly I'd be more scared if you weren't the maid of honor. Lucy might be insane, but you're the only one that has a decent hold on her. I think she'd go off the deep end if you weren't around," Ryan explained.

"Isn't that what Noah's for now?" Annabeth laughed.

They made light hearted conversation for a few minutes before Ryan quickly changed the subject.

"Oh hey, I forgot to tell you. You remember Derek right?" He asked.

"He's one of your regional manager's right? Accounting wasn't it?"

"You got it," he confirmed. "Well Derek handed in his letter of resignation today. He'll be leaving next month. Guess who is being recommended to take his position?" Ryan had a sly smile on his face.

"That's wonderful!" Annabeth squealed, throwing an arm around him. "I'm so happy for you, baby!"

Secretly, Annabeth's stomach churned at the thought of Ryan taking an even more time consuming job. He was already away so often. They had been together for two years, but there were times when she wouldn't see him for weeks. She didn't know how much longer she could endure him being away constantly.

Annabeth let the conversation die. Eventually they found Lucy and Noah. Annabeth stayed with them as their friend Elliot joined them, and Ryan went off with a couple of his gold buddies. A typical night out for Annabeth.

Besides social events she had no interest in, the most exciting thing she had to look forward to was a new project she was starting at her architectural firm next week. She couldn't think of anything other than that. Your new Louis Vuitton bag should arrive sometime in the next couple days… She thought to herself, but somehow even that had lost its appeal. Getting bored of all the people she was around, she excused herself to go find a restroom, and that's when her night got interesting.

The restroom was down a hallway off of the main ballroom. It took a little searching but she eventually found it. After touching up her makeup and hair she headed back out. She heard someone walking further down the hallway, but didn't pay much mind to it. She glanced down at her knee, it hurt, and the heels weren't helping. She detected a slight limp, because she couldn't put much weight on it. She picked up on the footsteps again. They were getting closer and a little more rapid, but again she didn't pay much attention to it.

She kept walking down the hallway. "Annabeth!" Someone shouted from behind her. She turned around nonchalantly at first, before being hit with the biggest shock she had received in ten years.

His green eyes glowed, she had to be hallucinating. She probably wasn't even here right now, she had hit her head when she fell and was passed out in her office. That was the only logical solution she could think of at this point.

It was no trick of the mind. Percy Jackson was running right for her.

"P-Percy!" She stammered in disbelief. "What?"

"Annabeth," he gasped as he caught his breath."I need your help right now!"

I hope you liked it! I'm not going to pretend like I won't beg for reviews, but they honestly do make me smile and encourage me to write more, so R&R!

I will hopefully update within the next couple of days, if not by next Wednesday!