Edit(18/9/16): Third has given me her blessing! Hope you love it!

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize. Also I sort of borrowed the whole chess thing idea from the story Send Me On My Way by Super Chocolate Bear.

The Game

Because Frank can be super passionate.

Because Reyna is awesome at everything.

Frank

The Praetors' office wasn't too large. It wasn't too small either. Frank never really thought about its size though, or the plain white walls, or even the fact that his desk was too close to the window.

Yeah, he definitely needed to get that thing moved.

That probably wouldn't be an easy challenge. His desk was pretty congested with files and stuff. He didn't spend that much time in the office. He did most of the grunt work, like training the Probatios, overseeing the reconstruction of New Rome and stuff like that.

Reyna did most of the real work. That might have contributed to why she was so good at chess.

Chess had been his game from the beginning. He beat everybody, Percy (not much surprise there), Jason, Hazel and even Annabeth on occasion.

Annabeth!

When he'd suggested the game he'd thought: Hey why not prove how awesome I am at chess by taking Reyna to school.

The game had started out well, Frank had taken out one if her knights in a matter of seconds.

His lead didn't last too long. Now he had like five pieces on the board.

And Reyna was trying to hide her growing smirk. That was never a good sign.

"Your move Zhang." She gestured to the board.

Frank's mind went into overdrive. Five pieces left against Reyna's eleven. He could move his rook, but then his King would be wide open. His bishop was pretty usless at the moment and he had two pawns. He made to move the bishop, but paused to watch his co-worker's face.

Her face was the stoic mask it usually was. She didn't seem worried, but she didn't seem impassive either. Her obsidian eyes glared elsewhere, like she was thinking of something more important.

She was playing him.

He moved his bishop and Reyna cringed. It was indecisive. Not an 'oh-my-gods-I'm-screwed' or a crap-there-goes-my-plan' cringe. Just a cringe.

"What?" He asked.

Reyna raised an eyebrow at his irritability before answering. "I don't think you should make that move."

Frank stared at the board, then at Reyna and back at the board. She was bluffing.

Was she bluffing?

Wasn't she though? Chess was all about mind games. And Reyna was a mind-game master. He'd seen her convince Octavian to buy Greeks birthday presents, he'd seen her get Leo to be her little mechanic slave.

"No, I'm good," He said, though it sounded more like a question. But he wasn't backing down. Battle strategies were his thing, he wasn't letting anyone win. Not even the great Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano.

Reyna nodded with a tight lipped smile and moved her queen forward. "How's Hazel?"

Frank scratched the back of his ears. "Hazel?" In the short month they'd been working together, Reyna had never asked about Hazel. Ever. Not even that one time Hazel fell off the Pluto temple. This was part of the game wasn't it?

"I'm not falling for it?" He said more to himspelf than to Reyna. She heard though, and she didn't seem very amused.

"I don't follow." Of course she did. She was Reyna. The all-knowing, all powerful, all everything Praetor.

"You're playing mind games with me, trying to get to my weak spots." Frank's narrowed his eyes. "I can see straight through your ploy."

"Ploy? Frank I only asked how Hazel was."

Frank glared. She seemed genuinly confused, but then again when was Reyna ever confused. "Exactly! Since when do you ask about Hazel?"

"Since I noticed that you haven't talked to her in weeks." Reyna said smoothly. "Not since you asked her to move in with us a while back."

Oh no. She knew. But how? He hadn't told anyone. "What happened Frank?" Reyna asked, her voice slightly laced with concern.

Frank hesitated. Reyna was a friend. Sure they weren't exaggeratedly close (they'd only been co-Praetors for five weeks) but they worked together and lived in the same apartment. And she wasn't as bad as he'd first thought she was.

He thought about it. She'd opened up to him about the whole Jason thing (granted, it was a mistake. Details, details…) and let him in on the closet secret.

Now that he was thinking about it, he realized he told her tones of stuff too.

He breathed. "Hazel isn't sure she's all for moving in with me."

"So..." Reyna coaxed when he took a long silence.

"So, I'm not sure I'm good for her y'know." Frank confessed shyly. "I mean we've been on like two dates and I didn't even think those up on my own. She's such an amazing person, and I'm the stupid clumsy guy just holding her back."

"Holding her back?" Reyna clarified.

"She wants to start high school and I feel like I'm the reason she isn't going for it."

"Right," Reyna sighed. She had an expression on her face like she'd got a whole lot more than she bargained for. "Have you, I don't know, talked to her about it?"

"Why do you think I haven't talked to her in so long," Frank frowned. "We had a fight about it–"

"And now you're trying to convince yourself that you want her to start school even though you'll miss her like crazy?" Reyna interrupted, finishing his sentence perfectly. "I get it, I once had the same problem with my sister, Hylla."

"Really?" Frank couldn't help but ask. Reyna never talked about her relationship with her sister. It was like, the no-go zone.

"Yup," Reyna admitted. "She wanted to join the Amazons and I was so reliant on her I couldn't imagine a life without my big sister over my shoulder."

"But you split anyway?"

"Hylla wanted the Amazons, I didn't. Besides, Camp Jupiter is awesome." She cleared her throat to cover the last word, but Frank heard it. "You've just got to decide what's more important: the fact that you'll miss her or the fact that if she doesn't go she'll miss out on a new experience."

Frank thought about what she'd said in the silence that followed their conversation. His obsession with winning the game had steamed from the stress of his argument with Hazel. He wanted Hazel to get what she wanted, that was it. He didn't care about how much he'd miss her, not really. Because that just proved that he cared for her.

He looked at the board. He hadn't noticed before, but when Reyna moved her queen, she left her king right open for his rook. "Checkmate."

Reyna just rolled her eyes and clapped her hands sarcastically. "Good move Zhang."

Frank felt pretty good about himself. He was still King of the Chessboard. Hades, he would might even find time to move his desk. He got up with pride, but couldn't help but notice Reyna's smirk.

It hit him like a pile of bricks. She'd played to get him to the point of frustration and used that to milk information out of him.

Mind games.

"You let me win didn't you?"

"Yes."

Hope you liked it. I tried to keep them in character as much as possible.

Question: When is Frank's Birthday?

First reviewer to answer gets to have an OC in one of these oneshots and gets to tell me what to write about.

Don't forget to review!