At that moment, if the happiest person on Earth was granted their hearts desire, they still wouldn't be as happy as Percy.

The past two months had been some of the best is his life. His mom was doing well in school, his step dad Paul was turning out to be a pretty cool guy (he'd even learned to either not ask or look it up in a mythology book), and, best of all, he was dating Annabeth. Even if it was long distance most of the time and they couldn't really talk outside of camp, the weekends and monster fighting missions they'd been on since summer ended had been fantastic. He'd never had this much ice cream in his life, he hadn't gotten so much as a paper cut since his bath the River of Dead People, and...Well thinking about that turned his face a horrible shade of red and made any living equestrian or sea creature start snickering. How do fish and horses snicker?

Don't ask or look it up in an autobiography of a son of Poseidon. That pretty much leaves don't ask.

There weren't any horses around on the beach Percy was sitting on, but he was pretty sure he saw a few small fish in the surf scurry off to spread the gossip all the way down to his brother Tyson when he started thinking about what Annabeth had told him.

It had been a few days since his sixteenth birthday when they had that picnic under the tree. Nico would be returning to the Underworld the next day and a few days later the summer campers would return to school, so Percy, Tyson, Grover, Nico, Rachel, and Annabeth snuck some food out of breakfast and stole some strawberries from the fields (at great personal risk) and put together a picnic under a tree looking over the lake. Percy was leaning against the tree with Annabeth under his arm, leaning her head against his shoulder, when Nico decided Grover and Rachel's conversation on nature paintings wasn't interesting enough.

"So, Annabeth," he had asked, cutting Grover off mid sentence. "What's the best part about dating Percy, camp status or the underwater make-out sessions?"

Percy started choking on his strawberry and used his hacking up of strawberry seeds to try and hide how hot his face felt.

He couldn't see Annabeth's face, but he could hear the smile in her voice - no doubt caused more by Percy's reaction than being embarrassed herself - complementing Grover's sniggers. "Well," she drew out thoughtfully, "he is a pretty good kisser."

That was when the water pitcher exploded.

Rachael was the first to start laughing. There was no doubt in Percy's mind that the shade of his face put the strawberries to shame.

Annabeth took Percy's hand and squeezed it. When he looked back up at her she gave him a smile saying, I'm just teasing. "Percy smiled back and gave her a kiss on the lips. He put his arm around her waist and cracked a smile at Nico and told him, "Please, she obviously likes me for my magic sword." This statement was more or less lost on Tyson, but Grover choked, Rachel shot her hands over her mouth to hide her giggles, and Nico was rolling on the ground.

It was great to be able to hand out with Tyson and Grover. Being able to be around Rachel without tension from Annabeth was nice. It was cool to see Nico acting more his age. But the best part about that moment had to have been Annabeth burying her face in Percy's shoulder and punching him in the gut (which he didn't even feel, courtesy of Dead People River).

Now the last time he had kissed Annabeth was just a few minutes ago on the sane he was running through his toes, under the stars he was looking at. Sitting on the beach, he couldn't believe how lucky he was. All then things he'd survived and all the people who'd wanted him dean and/or tortured and he got the girl in the end. Talk about cliché, but maybe a cliché happy ending was better than some new threat wanting to decorate their lunch with his intestines.

Percy stood up and looked over the waves one last time when he heard the voice behind him. "Percy Jackson."

He turned around to look them in the face. He didn't like it, but Percy had gotten used to gods popping out of nowhere. Through the simple greeting he kept a straight face and kept any emotion out of his voice.

"Hera."

"Where's Percy...?"

A/N

So I wrote this as part of a journal entry in my creative writing class this past semester and I gifured I might as well type it up for the internet to see. I didn't get this betad or anything to if I spelled something wrong or some sentance sounds horrendous feel free to tell me.

This is my bread, reviews are my butter.

-One