Kill me now. As states in my previous story, I will rewrite and post HSwaT at the end of summers, in other words, June. Till then, please enjoy the two One-Shots I just posted, and hopefully regular updates of 'Past, Here We Come!'. This one is related to my companion One-Shots, 'What Annabeth Chase Has Become' and 'What Percy Jackson Has Become', though it is set, like, way before either of them. Enjoy!

'Thank you!' Annabeth smiled at the waitress serving her. She smiled back, and excused herself. Annabeth walked out the front door of the coffee shop and breathed in the salty air. Her life had been put on stake here in San Francisco so many times before, but she seemed to always put it behind her because of her amazing fiancé. A soft smile played across her lips as she remembered the proposal.

'Annabeth? Annabeth Chase?' a voice gasped, startled, from behind her. Annabeth turned around, a confused look on her face.

'Melissa Blake?' Annabeth gasped back. It had been years since she met anyone from high school, and she was happier without it. But it seemed to her that the Fates did not want us to have a peaceful life.

'Yes!' Melissa beamed in a fake way. 'It's been too long, if you ask me!'

Annabeth smiled an equally fake smile in response. Melissa had been her best friend in the mortal world after Thalia left the school (yes, Thalia had joined Annabeth in her school because of Artemis' persistence). Melissa had been very sweet, and helped Annabeth with advice and sometimes sharing her tears, but one day, she suddenly decided that she had better and more important things to do, and completely ditched Annabeth.

'So, how are you?' Melissa asked. It seemed that all she wanted was to get Annabeth to say that her life had gone downhill ever since Melissa had broken off their friendship.

'Oh, things are going absolutely great,' Annabeth nodded. She felt her phone buzz in her pocket as she said this.

'Oh!' she gasped, and transferred her coffee cup from her right hand to her left, and pulled out her phone. She started seeing the text from Percy and taking a sip of coffee, when she heard a gasp.

'Oh my god Annabeth! You're engaged?' Melissa shrieked. Annabeth looked down at her left hand in surprise; she'd almost forgotten about the ring.

'Oh, yeah,' Annabeth confirmed. 'My boyfriend, well fiancé, now, proposed end of last month.

'How'd he do it?' Melissa asked, eager for more information.

'Just a sec, Melissa,' Annabeth said, peering down at her phone. She looked at the message for a moment, eyebrows raised, before she burst out laughing, almost upsetting her coffee.

'What?' Melissa asked. Annabeth continued laughing.

'Oh, it was my fiancé; said he saw a loon feeding,' Annabeth said, shaking her head at Percy's idiocy.

'Really?' Melissa asked in a bored voice.

'Well, yeah, we're a couple of ADHD people, excuse us for getting distracted,' Annabeth said defensively.

'Whatever,' Melissa rolled her eyes with disdain. 'Anyway, how did your fiancé propose, what does he look like, what does he do?'

Annabeth tapped a few keys on her phone before showing it to Melissa. 'That's Percy Jackson.'

The picture showed Percy and Annabeth sitting in front of a lake or creek of some sort. It was dark in the background and the stars were bright. Annabeth was holding the phone and clicking the picture while she pressed her lips on Percy's cheek. Percy was making a weird expression at the camera. She had her hair open in the photo, and was wearing a dress of some sort, as Melissa guessed.

'He is a dreamboat,' Melissa sighed.

'He is, isn't he?' Annabeth smiled fondly. 'He's a marine biologist. This picture was taken just before he proposed. It's this Camp I go to, and someone took a picture of him on one knee, too. We'd just had a lovely, romantic dinner.'

She swiped her finger across the screen to show Percy on one knee in front of Annabeth with an open box in his hand, and she was holding her hands over her mouth. This picture confirmed the fact that Annabeth was wearing dress. She had on a beautiful green dress, which went to her knees, and she also wore slight heeled sandals the same color. Percy was dressed in black jeans and a green T-shirt the same color as Annabeth's dress.

'It looks sweet,' Melissa smiled.

'Yeah, it was,' Annabeth said. 'After that… well, history repeated itself.'

Annabeth smirked as she remembered being sixteen and being thrown with Percy at the bottom of the creek.

'Anyway,' Annabeth asked her one-time-friend. 'What do you do now?'

'Oh, you know, jobs here and there,' Melissa said, suddenly bashful.

'Oh,' Annabeth nodded. 'What happened to becoming a doctor?'

'The dream fell through,' Melissa said shortly. Annabeth got the feeling that she didn't want to talk about it. 'Dad's fortune keeps me up.'

'Right,' Annabeth said, rolling her eyes. According to her, Melissa did always like to throw money around.

'What about you?' Melissa asked cattily. 'Become an architect yet?'

'Why, yes, I have,' Annabeth beamed in a smug manner. 'I relocated to NYC and work at a firm there. I'm just here visiting my family.'

'Oh,' Melissa said in a small voice. The fact that Annabeth seemed to have done better than her in life seemed to have hit her hard.

'Annabeth!' called a voice. Said woman turned to find Percy jogging toward her on the sidewalk.

'Hey Percy,' Annabeth smiled, and gave him a kiss, which he enthusiastically responded to.

'Ahem,' Melissa coughed and directed the attention back to her. 'I take it you're Annabeth's fiancé?'

'Yeah,' Percy nodded. 'And you are?'

'Melissa Blake, Annabeth's friend from high school,' Melisa said.

'It's that Melissa -?' Percy looked at his fiancée questioningly. Annabeth nodded. Percy opened his mouth to say something, but changing his mind, closed it again.

'Well,' Annabeth said, breaking the silence. 'We ought to get going. Dad must be waiting.'

'Yeah, I gotta tell him that I'm getting married to his amazing daughter, after all,' Percy grinned, and they started walking down to Percy's rented car.

'Bye Melissa!' Annabeth called over her shoulder.

Melissa gave a half-smile and turned back toward the road, waiting for the bus. She couldn't help but feel envious of Annabeth's relationship with Percy. It was clear that they both loved each other very much. And try as she might, Melissa couldn't help but feel that breaking off her friendship with Annabeth Chase was one of the biggest mistakes of her life.

I hope you enjoyed this story! Keep your eyes open for updates on PHWC. Until then, sayonara!

Yours truly,

Stella