Just a quick authors note, this story was written for Phoenix Phantom on Tumblr as part of the Feast of Fortuna gift exchange. It was mean to be an approximately 1,500 word one-shot, however once I had my idea I went too far with it. So now I have to upload as I write it unfortunately, so to you Phantom, I sincerely apologise for this. Additionally, there are going to be some age changes to make the story fit, specifically Piper and Jason will be the same age as Percy and Annabeth. This is a Soulmate AU which focuses on Percabeth, but most other characters will feature in the story somewhere along the lines. But for now, thanks for your time, and I hope you enjoy.

If Annabeth didn't like the idea of soulmates before, she definitely hated them now. She'd watched her dad deal with the loss of her mother, his first soulmate, for years, and don't get her started on her stepmother. Yet even the woman who'd pushed her to run away from home at age seven paled in comparison to what her soulmate had done. It didn't help that Jason was standing over her shoulder, trying to be sympathetic but failing miserably as his scarred lip twitched, fighting away the inevitable smile. She can't blame him, because staring back at her in the mirror was her eyes, her face, her body, but it was most certainly not her hair. Her hair was a tangled mess of blonde curls pulled back smartly in a ponytail, and whilst she wasn't the biggest fan of the colour (it invited too many jokes and questions about her intelligence), at least she could pass it off as professional. What she could not get away with was the vibrant, electric blue ringlets reflected back in the mirror.

She opened her mouth once, twice, three times to say something, however the best she could do was squeak. That was all it took for Jason, who burst into loud laughter which was sure to attract even more attention than she'd already gained in her homeroom. She glared at him through the mirror, hoping it'd shut him up.

Eventually, he sobered. "Sorry Annabeth, but you've got to admit, it's kinda funny. Your hair must be your Soul Link."
"Why did it have to be hair?" she whined. "Why couldn't I be like the majority and just have a tattoo or a timer? I'd even take your skin thing over this! How am I meant to face anyone with this?" she pulled a handful of hair to emphasise her point.

"You should feel honoured Annabeth, you know what a weird link means, it means you have a stronger bond than the average soulmate."

"I just wish it wasn't something so obvious? What if it never goes back, what if I'm stuck with blue hair forever? No one will ever take me seriously!"

"Annabeth, you need to calm down. It's probably like my Soul Link, it'll fade in a couple of hours, I'm sure of it."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It'll go away. It has to." Annabeth sighed a heavy sigh and turned to face her best friend, "I just wish I could've been born without one, you know? No Soul Link means no soulmate, which means no troubles and no pain."

"Hey, having a soul mate is great! You've just had bad experiences with 'em, you know, with your mum leaving and your stepmum being Tartarus spawn. And don't even get me started on the whole Thalia-Luke thing. But look at Piper and me, we live on opposite sides of the country and yet we still make it work. Soulmates can be great Annabeth, I just wish you'd give them a chance."

"Thank you for that lovely reminder Jason, I feel so much better," the girl deadpanned. Jason cringed.

"Sorry, but I stand by my point. Now come on, you can't hide for the rest of the day, let's just head straight to English, homeroom must be nearly finished."

Annabeth turned to the mirror and sighed once more. "Yeah alright, let's get this over and done with." She began to exit the girl's bathroom they'd been hiding in when she noticed he wasn't following, but instead furiously scribbling on his forearm with a sharpie. "Really Jason, can't you leave my humiliation between just us for once, I'd rather Piper kept her image of me to a respectable blonde thank you very much."
Jason looked like a kicked puppy. "Come on Annabeth, we tell each other everything! Plus you know she's mad for this soulmate thing. She'll be even more excited than me for this day to come."
"Ugh fine! You can tell her about it, but there's no way she's getting pictures." With that, she strode purposefully into the corridor towards their first class, with Jason trailing behind her, signing off his message to his soulmate with two x's and letting his arm drop.

"Man, Piper's not going to know what to do," Jason said with a chuckle.

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"Piper, what did you do?" Percy yelled into the phone, his voice cracking in panic.

"What are you talking about?"

"My hair! I wanted a nice shade of Gabe-is-finally-out-of-our-lives blue, not a buzzcut!"

"I didn't give you a buzzcut, you know that! All I did was dye your hair!"

"Well obviously you've done something wrong, 'cause my hair is gone!"

"I didn't do anything wrong, I used the same stuff I always have, my hair has always been fine. Maybe there's something wrong with your head!"

"There's nothing wrong with my head!"

"I beg to differ."
"Piper!" Percy groaned, "You're not helping!"
"Look, it's too late to be dealing with this, let's go into school early tomorrow and we can talk about it then," she suggested.

"Fine, but you owe me a weeks' worth of lunches for this McLean."
"I still stand by my theory, your head is the issue, not my amazing dyeing skills."

"I'm going to be the bigger man and ignore that comment. I'll see you tomorrow Pipes."

Piper's tone softened, "Yeah okay Perce, see you. Wait, before you go Percy!"

Percy's finger stopped over the end call button, before he brought the phone back to his ear, "Yeah?"

"If it was my fault, well… I'm sorry. But it wasn't, it was your head I swear!"

Percy cracked a smile for the first time since he'd gone to brush his teeth and noticed his dilemma. "Whatever you say Pipes."

"Damn straight," his friend replied, before she quickly hung up the phone.

Percy looked down at the phone, "Always have to have the last word, don't you?" he said. Percy placed the phone back in its socket and turned back to finish getting ready for bed, only to be confronted by his mum standing in the doorway, grinning widely. Percy's stopped, like a deer caught in some headlights, "I can explain".

His mother laughed, "It's okay Percy, I heard the whole conversation. And before you start blaming Piper, remember she's been dyeing her hair to get her father's attention for years, she's a pro by now."

"So you're saying it is my head's fault?"

"Not necessarily," she replied.

"Then what could it possibly be?" he yelled.

"Percy, how old are you?"

"Mum, I'm twelve, how could you forge – ooooohhh."

"Yeeeeaaaaahhh," Sally smiled a broad smile, which Percy began to match.

"This is so cool! I've finally got my Soul Link!"

"Well… it could still be your head, you never know."

"Nope, I refuse to believe that. I want a cool Soul Link like Piper and I am going to take this one with both hands and run with it far away from your non-believer ways!"

Sally smiled a soft, sad smile down at her son. "You know, that's the first time I've heard you get excited over soulmates since you were eight."

Percy looked down at his feet. "Yeah well, Gabe didn't really give me much hope, did he? But it's all good now, he was a fraud and he's now rotting in jail for everything he did to us." He looked up at his mum and smiled.

Sally wrapped her son up in a hug, "Don't think I don't know a fake smile when I see one."

Percy relaxed into the embrace, "Yeah yeah, you're Supermom, I know."

"Oh, so I'm Supermom now huh? Does that mean you'll start cleaning your room in fear of my powers?"

"Woah woah woah! Let's not get ridiculous, how about we start with some eternal love and we'll work from there?"

"You drive a hard bargain Perseus Jackson. How about eternal love and you start bringing Piper around more? Her house is much too big to be home alone, and there is no reason now to not bring her."

"There's a perfectly good reason, she takes my cookies!"

Sally rolled her eyes, "You do realise I cooked a double batch when she was coming over, so you actually got more cookies."

"Well why didn't you say so earlier?" he yelled excitedly, before springing to the phone and picking it up. "Yeah, uhuh, uhuh, sure that works, okay see you then!" He replaced the phone and turned to his mother with a troublemaker smirk. "So that was Piper, she says she's going to be coming around every day for the rest of the time I live with you so I guess you better get cooking because you wouldn't want to be rude to a guest you know?

"Oh really? Well someone who comes around that often can't possibly be a guest, which means she must be a Jackson. And if she's a Jackson, that means she shares the Jackson plate of cookies."

"Oh, would you look at that, the phone's ringing again." He picked up the device, which had remained silent all evening, and repeated his fake conversation, before returning it once more. "So that was Piper again, and gosh, has her schedule filled up. She says she's only going to be able to come around enough times to keep her status as a guest, but it will still be a lot so you better have some cookies ready just in case."

"Oh well isn't that convenient? You know it's a good thing I stopped considering her a guest and started thinking of her as my daughter when she was five, otherwise I'd have to spend so much money on these cookies." Before Percy could reply, she cut him off. "As much as I enjoy this Percy, it's eleven o'clock, you need to go to bed now mister. I struggle to get you out of bed as it is, without throwing in late nights too."

"But we were having so much fun, we're bonding! You wouldn't deny a son some wonderful mother-son bonding time, would you?"

"I would if it effects your schooling."

"You are a harsh, harsh lady Sally Jackson, I don't know if I will ever recover from this brutal rejection."

"You will if you want any more cookies."

Percy forced a fake yawn. "Oh, would you look at that, I feel so tired all of a sudden, I guess I'll have to go to bed." He gave his mother a chaste kiss on the cheek, "Night Mom, love you."

"Love you too sweetie, remember to brush your teeth."
"Uuuugghh," the boy groaned as he walked down the hallway.

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