A/N: Okay, I'm trying something new with this fic. (For my apology for being away for so long, read my profile.) I haven't written any Percy Jackson fanfiction before, at least not any that I've shown to the public. I think Annabeth came out a little too Hermione-ish, but oh well. If no one likes it, I'll go back to writing Twilight, but I'm kinda in love with PJO right now. Anyway, this takes place after BotL. Annabeth went on a school trip to Paris and is visiting New York over winter break. Right now she's visiting Percy.

"Come on, Percy. There's only a few more," she said.

"No way! I already looked at way too many pictures," I insisted. "How can you take six hundred and twenty eight pictures in ten days?"

"I wanted to remember it," Annabeth said. "I love Paris. Okay, if you look at the rest of them with me, we can do whatever you want for an hour."

"Two hours."

She glared at me for a moment, then said, "Okay."

"Really?"

"Sure... as long as it's not something stupid, Seaweed Brain."

I used to hate it when she called me that, but now...well, it wasn't so bad, I guess. Maybe. "Okay, fine," I relented. "Finish the slideshow already."

Annabeth smirked and pressed play, and French music started playing. "Look, there's me and Jenna at the Eiffel Tower," she said excitedly, pointing at a picture of her with her arms around a tiny Asian girl, the Eiffel Tower standing tall in the background. "It's 324 meters tall, or--"

"1,024 feet. And it weighs 10,000 tons, and it's made of 18,038 pieces of puddled iron, and it was built in 1889 by Gustave Eiffel," I finished automatically. "And it's one of your top ten monuments of all time." Oops.

Annabeth glanced over at me. She looked surprised, but kept going. "Um.. right. And there we all are at the Champs-Élysées...and the Arc de Triomphe." She looked at me expectantly. Okay, time to play dumb.

"What?"

"Don't you have a ton of random facts to spew to prove that I talk too much?"

"Well.. actually, I kind of only know stuff about the Eiffel Tower. And the Empire State Building, and the Hoover Dam, and a couple others...just the ones I knew were your favorites."

"So.. you just went and memorized a bunch of facts about buildings that I like to... to what, exactly? To make me think you actually paid attention to what I said?" She looked confused, but also kind of mad, and hurt.

"No!" Crap. "It's just... I only remember the ones that you really seemed to like. I wasn't doing it on purpose or anything..." I trailed off.

"What, you mean like subconsciously?" she asked. She still didn't look like she believed me.

"Um.. kind of?"

"Forget it, Percy. Let's just finish looking at the pictures."

That went well.

The next set of pictures was pretty boring, just a lot of shots of her friends in various cafes, parks, and museums. "I didn't know they let you take pictures in there," I said, trying to break the awkward silence.

"Of course they do. How else would people get pictures of the Joconde?"

"Uh.. the what?"

"The Mona Lisa, Seaweed Brain." She rolled her eyes. She still sounded annoyed, but a lot more willing to talk. Maybe that was the way to get her to relax - make some stupid mistake and let her correct me.

We didn't talk much for the next forty or so pictures, but it wasn't as awkward as before. Then we came to a picture of her sitting on the banks of some river with another of her friends. She was laughing and trying to grab the camera away from whoever was taking the picture, and the Eiffel Tower behind them was lit up for the night, illuminating her golden hair.

"That's a really pretty picture," I blurted out. "Oh, Zeus." I heard thunder rumble.

"Huh?" She looked over at me like I was crazy.

"I mean, your hair is really shiny, and, uh.. Stupid ADHD." Gah. Well, this is just wonderful.

To my complete surprise and confusion, she started cracking up.

"Wait, why are you laughing at me?" She officially thinks I'm an idiot. Great.

"No...Seaweed Brain...your face...it just..." She couldn't stop giggling.

"Oh, shut up," I said irritably. "Okay, you can stop laughing! It's not that funny!"

"Wait....just...give me a minute...." She took several huge gasps of air. "Sorry," she grinned. "It's just...you looked so scared, like I was going to punch you or something."

Now I was staring at the picture, having just noticed something. "Who's that guy you're with?"

"What's that, Seaweed Brain?" She was still smiling, but I wasn't as I pointed to the guy sitting next to her in the picture with his arm around her.

"Oh...that's Jacques. He's just a guy I met in Paris."

"Oh, okay," I said, trying to look like I couldn't care less who hugged or didn't hug Annabeth. Because I didn't care. Not at all. It's not like I like her or anything. I mean, of course I like her! But only as a friend. Honestly. No romantic feelings here.

No, seriously.

We finished the slideshow, and she closed her laptop and straightened up. "Okay, Seaweed Brain," she said, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. "Your turn. What d'you want to do?" She turned around and looked at me. "What's up?"

"What? Nothing!" Oops. I was still thinking about Jack or Jake or whatever his name was. I unclenched my fists and tried to rearrange my features into a normal expression.

"Um, obviously it's something. You look...like you did when you punched Ares." She stood up and put her hands on her hips. "Just tell me."

"I was just thinking about you...and that Jack guy," I muttered.

"Yeah? What about Jacques?" she said, sounding defensive.

"Just, uh...you looked pretty cozy there..."

"Not that it's any of your business, but we had plenty reason to be 'cozy,' as you put it. We went dancing while we were there."

Uh, what?

"You went dancing? With a guy you hardly knew?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, we did. Why do you care? I don't have a fit when you go out with that Rachel chick, so this shouldn't be a big deal for you either!"

"Rachel and I are just friends! And it's not a big deal, I just don't want you to get hurt. I mean, you only knew him for ten days!"

"Jacques and I are just friends," she sneered. "What, so I'm not allowed to have friends who aren't demigods?"

"Calm down! I'm not telling you what to do!"

"Really? Because it sure sounds like it." She grabbed her Daedalus laptop off the table and stalked to the door. "You know what? Send me an Iris-message when you're feeling more mature. I'll be at camp."

"No, wait, Annabeth, don't--"

Too late. The door slammed shut behind her. She was gone.

I threw myself back on the couch and punched the cushion next to me.

A/N: So... Love it? Hate it? Let me know what you think!