Hey everyone! I haven't published a one-shot in a while, and I've been wanting to do something for the Hidden Oracle ever since I finished it. (PM me if you want to fangirl/boy about how good it was!) So...this little one-shot is basically what I came up with. I know I could never do proper justice to Uncle Rick's amazing writing and his incredible characters, but I tried to get as close as I could to getting Meg's character just right. So..yeah! I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: All rights go to Uncle Rick.

Hi. My name is Meg.

Okay, obviously I have a middle and last name too; I'm not one of those old, lame wannabe celebrities like Sting or Cher trying to be all "hip" and cool (I better watch my mouth on that; my stepdad goes by one name too, though I've never been to fond of it).

To be totally truthful, my full name is actually Margaret Mabel McCaffrey. Yeah, yeah, I know, it sounds slightly made-up, but it's the real thing; alliteration tends to freak people out, I guess. Whatever.

Anyway, you can call me Meg. Call me Margaret and I'll stab you. Call me Marge and I'll shoot you in the face. Call me Maggie or any other cutesy variation that you can think of, and I will march down to the nearest aquarium, grab all of the turtles I can find, and force them to slowly nibble off your fingers and toes, all while I torture you by forcing you to listen to New Wave music from the 80's. Then I'll shoot you, just for good measure.

Understand? Good.

*Ahem*. Where was I? Oh yeah: Hi. My name's Meg. I'm a demigod, which is basically the child of a Greek god and a human. It's all a bunch of complicated stuff, which I really don't have the time, energy, or patience to go into. So, do us both a favor, and just don't ask, okay?

Right now, I'm not exactly in the best position to have a long chat with you about all the crappy stuff I've been through in my life (and trust me, there's a lot). Even telling you about everything that's happened in the past week would probably take... Well, it would take a long time, alright? Heck, I could probably write a whole novel just on the past week, but I don't really think anyone would read a book like that anyway...

I'm rambling, aren't I? Yeah. It's a habit of mine, I guess. Along with biting my nails, mugging people, summoning fruit demons, betraying my friends and family, and also doing impromptu cartwheels in the middle of the street. I really should break some of those habits...

Anyway, where was I, again? Right. I was about to tell you about how I think I might be in love.

I'll stop right there for a second. Your first thought might be Oh brother, another obsessive teenage girl falling "in love" with a guy after knowing him for one week. What a refreshing plot twist.

Yeah, I know. It gets even better when I tell you that the guy I like *cough cough love* is nearly eighteen, and meanwhile, I'm only thirteen. (Technically, I'm thirteen and a half, give or take a few months.)

Now you say Wow! There's a five-year age difference too? Does this story get any better?!

Well, you can just hold the sarcasm for now, alright? Trust me, I've got enough sass in my little cartwheeling body for the both of us, and I really don't want you stealing my self-imposed title of Sass Queen. (A title I have received for the last three years in a row! What an honor...)

Ugh, sorry, I'm rambling again. Let me back up a little bit.

See, it all started when my dad (stepdad, whatever), Nero, a.k.a. the guy with the weird one-name thing going on, sent me to befriend and ultimately betray the god Apollo, who had been turned into a mortal as punishment by his dad, Zeus, the King of the Gods. (Ok, seriously, what is up with the lack of last names in Greek mythology? As smart and powerful as they all claim to be, you'd think at least one god - just one - would have been creative enough to come up with a second name. Is it really that hard?)

Rambling again, sorry not sorry. Anyway, a whole bunch of other stuff happened, yada yada yada, blah blah blah. I'm not really hear to talk about that. I'm talking about how I, Meg McCaffrey, the Sass Queen, wound up unintentionally handing over my heart to just about the dreamiest, most perfect guy you could ever imagine.

Here's what happened: I was minding my own business, searching for some spare scrap paper to burn, when I came across this guy named Lester Papadopoulos. (I'm not even gonna pretend to know how to pronounce that, by the way.) He was actually the god Apollo, but now he's mortal and ugh, there's just a whole bunch of complicated crap that I really don't feel like getting into. Anyway, I basically had to pretend that I was on his side, even though I knew I would have to betray him eventually, and I even started to like him after a while.

Wait... Oh, gross! I know earlier I said I thought I was in love, but please tell me you don't think I meant with Lester! Ew. Yuck! (If you could see my right now, you'd know how hard I'm gagging at the thought of it.)

I mean, I know I'm not the shiniest apple on the tree - that's right, that was a Demeter pun - but I like to think that I'm at least higher up on the metaphorical fruit hierarchy that Lester! But the guy that I really think I'm in love with, I know I don't stand a chance with.

Honestly, how is a girl like me supposed to impress a guy like Percy Jackson?

That's right. I'm not. Because it's freaking impossible. I was talking to Apollo - er, I mean Lester - about Percy when we were going to his house for help and, although I've had some pretty bad views on demigods in the past, the way Apollo - dang it, Lester - spoke about him started to make me think otherwise. And that was even before I actually saw the guy!

Let's see, how do I break this down for a bunch of mortals like yourselves?... Percy Jackson is what we in the street-crime business like to call a fine specimen. Seriously, it's like his parents genetically wired their DNA to produce the paragon of a person, and bam! Out popped Percy Freaking Jackson, with his perfect dark hair and perfect sea green eyes and perfect sense of humor and perfect bravery and perfect muscles and...

I won't even apologize for rambling for that. It was worth it!

When me and Percy (or would that be "Percy and I"?) first started talking, I had trouble concentrating on his words, as his face seemed to be somewhat...distracting. But the more we talked, the more I realized how funny and cute and brave and nice and smart (street-smart, specifically) he was. And the more I realized how funny, cute, brave, nice, and smart he was, the more I realized that I must be in love with him.

It only makes sense. I'm 99% sure that we're destined to be together. I mean, surely, since I now know that the Fates exist, they must have woven our paths together and caused them to intersect. I've never been a big believer in fate and destiny and all that bull crap, but hey, extenuating circumstances cause me to see the light, and now I've changed my mind.

And for anyone insisting that this is "just a crush", well, have I got some news for you. I've never really had a crush on anyone before in my life (being homeless and living out of a garbage can will do that to you). So my theory is that since I've never had a crush before, I must've just skipped the whole silly crush phase and gone straight to love, amor, agape, or whatever you care to call it.

I know I'm only thirteen, and that he's almost eighteen, but whoever said that five years was too much was a liar. I mean, isn't there some saying about "Age is just a number" or something like that? Well, yeah. I think that's true.

And yeah, he's got a girlfriend for now (an unbelievably gorgeous girlfriend...dang it), who knows? Maybe if I stay relentless in my pursuit of love and don't give up, in a few years or so...

Meg McCaffrey might just win over Percy Jackson after all.

Later gators.

So, what did you think? Please leave me a review to let me know what you thought, and also if you feel like it, maybe check out my story "Moments" too. But most importantly review, because it really helps me so much and I like to take the criticism I get from reviews and use them to make the story better. Ok, I'll shut up now haha. Thank you so much for reading; hope you enjoyed it, and that you have a wonderful day. :)

Love,

~Princess Andromeda II