"Annabeth!" cried Hazel as she waved to the blonde. Annabeth made her way over to the table where her friends were all seated, having had to come from the opposite side of the school from her art class she had without her friends. Hazel was beaming at her and bouncing in her seat. Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"Yes, they apologised again," she sighed.

"I knew it!" the dark-skinned girl yelled. "In your face Dakoda!"

"Who knew our sweet little Hazel had a competitive side," Gwen remarked.

"She's rather passionate about soulmates, unfortunately," replied Annabeth.

"That's because they're amazing! Now tell me all about it. What kind of message did they leave?" Hazel leaned across the table as she spoke.

Annabeth sighed again, "Here, read it yourself." She pulled off her beanie and spun around in her seat so the back of her head was facing the younger girl. Written in small blue letters (her soulmate seemed to have a liking towards blue, something she's sure her cousin would find revolting) across the stubble she called her hair was the words 'I'm sorry please talk to me or colour my hair or shave it again anything really I miss you'. Her soulmate also seemed to have a distinct lack of punctuation, something she found revolting.

"Awwwww," Hazel cooed. Annabeth spun back around. "That's adorable, how can you keep saying no to that?"

"Easy. I –"

"It's okay Chase. You can't help being a freak. I accept your apology." Octavian's shrill voice cut through all conversations within the cafeteria.

"Let it go!" a girl much older than any of Annabeth's friends shouted from across the room. Octavian's face paled as Hylla Ramírez-Arellano, the school president, stared him down from her lunch table. "Gods you're so annoying. The first time you said it, it was witty. But this is the third day in a row, just get over it. Or at least come up with something new!"

The other seniors sitting with her laughed as Octavian spluttered before he scampered to his table and sat down red-faced. Annabeth frowned with embarrassment; she could take care of herself, she didn't need anyone fighting her fights. Her friends didn't share her frustration, laughing at the look on Octavian's face.

"Damn Reyna, how'd you get such a cool sister?" said Gwen.

"Obviously I brought her up well," deadpanned the Puerto Rican. Even Annabeth's lips twitched at that remark, for it was a response which was uniquely Reyna. "But seriously Annabeth, you need to do something about this soulmate of yours. It's not fair to just leave them in the dark, and you can't keep walking around with an apology across the back of your head."

"I know… but if I acknowledge them they're going to keep trying to talk to me. I don't want that, I don't want them!" the blonde replied.

"What? Annabeth you can't be serious?" cried Hazel, "You just think that because you haven't met them. They're perfect for you Annabeth! Just you wait, you're gonna meet someday and you'll fall in love and it's going to be beautiful and you'll forget this ever happened!"

"Look Hazel… I don't want a soulmate, I never have. I-"

"The grass is always greener Annabeth," said Reyna.

Annabeth stopped talking. There was no response to that. "Reyna," she said softly.

"Wait, what?" Hazel asked, eyes wide with worry. Jason spared her a pained glance, but before he could answer, Reyna spoke over him.

"Look, I don't know what's gone on in your life Annabeth, so I don't know what makes you tick. I get that there's obviously something pretty major there for you to hate soulmates so much. Maybe you're aroace and this is your way of fighting the whole soulmate thing until you can figure yourself out properly. I don't know, but what I do know is that if I was in your position, I would do everything I could to see how this thing would go." With that, she picked up her lunch tray to return to the lunch ladies and left.

Annabeth watched her walk away, deep in thought.

"I better go make sure she's okay," said Gwen, "I hope you work this out Annabeth." She gave the blonde a tight-lipped smile and then followed her friend.

"What am I missing?" asked Hazel.

"Reyna doesn't have a soulmate, as far as we can tell. There's no indicator at all, and she's never felt like there was someone waiting for her, even though she's the oldest of us all," answered Jason solemnly.

"Oh my," gasped Hazel, "I had no idea."

"She doesn't advertise it like Octavian has in the past. She deals with her business by herself, we're lucky she even let Gwen in. That's the only reason we know, she convinced her to tell us. In case you haven't noticed, Reyna's a bit of a closed off person. Always willing to take everyone's burdens but never considers letting others help her. Reminds you of someone else we know, doesn't it?" said Jason, looking pointedly at Annabeth. She just glared back, then smirked when he flinched ever so slightly. Her glare was still as intimidating as ever.

"So, I'm guessing Reyna wishes she had a soulmate?" said Hazel.

"I guess so, that's the first I've ever heard of it. What do you think Annabeth?"

The grey-eyed girl sighed, "I guess. Like you said, Reyna doesn't let us in that often, she's a mystery even to me sometimes." That was a lie, Annabeth was brilliant at reading people, she just saw too much of herself in Reyna to risk exposing the girl. Besides, Reyna had a right to privacy, it wasn't her place to expose her.

"So what are you going to do Annabeth?" asked Hazel.

"Reyna's right, as usual. I can't leave this person in the dark, no matter how terrible their grammar is," she tried for a joke to reduce the seriousness of the conversation.

"Annabeth, you're dyslexic, you struggle with punctuation at the best of times too," jibed Jason.

"You're dyslexic too? Why am I only learning all this stuff now?" Hazel groaned.

"Join the club Haze, it's very prestigious," said Dakota, straightening an imaginary tie.

"You too?" she cried.

"Actually, that would be all of us," laughed Jason. "But at least you know you belong here."

Hazel smiled at that, "Yeah, I guess I do. But this is off topic! Annabeth, this means you're going to talk to them?"

"Yeah, I will. Tonight. I need set everything straight."

#

Percy stood straight, eyes wide with wonder. Five seconds ago, he'd barely been awake, even though he'd eaten breakfast and was now brushing his teeth. But now, as he stared at the white writing in his hair, he could only freeze with shock. After so many days of radio silence, they'd finally contacted him. A giant grin broke across his face and toothpaste began to drip down his chin, but he didn't care. He spat, despite being only halfway through his routine, and ran through the house to his mother.

"Mum! Mum! Mum! They're not dead! They're talking to me! Mum!"

"Percy, where's the fire?" said Sally, but her matching smile told Percy she knew exactly what he was talking about. The boy took a flying leap into her arms. "Oof," she grunted. "Percy, though I love the fact you still want to give your old mom a hug, you're a little bit big to be doing that honey," she told him, though she held him tighter as she said it.

Percy let himself slide back to the floor and grinned sheepishly. "Sorry Mum, but this is so exciting! They're talking to me again! Mum, you were right! You were right! They did write to me Mum!" Percy grabbed his mother in another crushing hug, this time with both feet firmly planted on the ground.

"Well, what are they saying honey? Don't leave me in the dark here," Sally laughed.

"Oh… um… I don't know," he replied awkwardly, shuffling his feet.

Sally smiled down at her son, "Would you perhaps want me to read it to you?"

Percy sighed and smiled, "You're the best Mum."

The woman shook her head at her son's antics, a content smile on her face. "Let me just get my reading glasses first." She walked into her bedroom and re-emerged with the glasses balanced on her nose. "Head down Percy, let's get a good look at this message of yours."

The boy did as he was told, though he fidgeted from one foot to the other, excited to hear what his soulmate had to say.

"Percy honey, you're going to have to stand still for a moment. It's hard to read with you moving the whole time."

Percy looked up at his mum with an embarrassed look on his face.

Sally held up a hand to forestall the apology she knew was coming. "It's okay, I know you're excited and that plays with your ADHD. Just try really hard for me okay?"

Percy nodded enthusiastically, before bowing his head again for his mum to read what was on his head once more, focusing on staying as still as possible.

"Dear Soulmate," Sally read aloud, "thank you for your apology, but – oh no, oh Gods." Sally held her hands to her mouth and could feel tears pressing her eyes for what was to come.

"Mum? What is it?" asked Percy, his smile slowly slipping from his face as he looked up to see his mother's reaction.

Sally cleared her throat, "But I don't want a soulmate. Please never contact me again. I hope you understand. Oh baby, I'm so sorry." She pulled her son into a tight hug as if to protect him from the words she herself had just read to him.

Percy felt as if all the energy in his life had been sucked right out of him. He felt like he'd just been told Gabe was going to be living with them again. No, it was worse than that. Not quite being told he could never see his mother again, but it was a close second. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to think. He stood there limply as his mother held him, unable to move with shock.

His mother pulled away and cupped his face, looking him in the eyes. "This isn't your fault okay? Obviously, they've had bad experiences in their life with soulmates. Or maybe they're aromantic. I don't know, but this is not because of you." Sally desperately tried to convey the message to her son, to make sure he knew and believed it, but she could see in his eyes already that he didn't.

"I don't think I'm going to go to school today Mum, I think I've got a bit of a fever," Percy said hollowly.

"Okay baby, why don't you go curl up on the couch and put on a movie? I'll bake up a fresh batch of cookies."

Percy's mouth turned into a small, sad half-smile and Sally's heart broke at the sight. "I don't think cookies will fix this one Mum," he said as he pushed away from her and dejectedly slumped to his room. He shut the door quietly and moved towards his bed. He leaned forward and let gravity take him down, the first tears splashing on his pillow a split-second before his face landed on it.

"What's wrong with me?" he thought to himself. "Why doesn't anybody want me?" The memory of a man with his hair and eyes walking out his front door for the last time surfaced and the emotions it brought melded with the ones he felt now. He couldn't work out which person leaving had hurt more. He kept thinking back to that stupid argument he'd had with his soulmate, fuelled by pride and the euphoria of a good comeback. Was that what had tipped the scales? Was that the reason his soulmate didn't want him? He rolled over to face his bedside cupboard, where a can of hairspray and two handheld mirrors sat. He debated with himself for a few minutes, before making a decision. He needed to know.

He grabbed the can and a mirror and began to write a short message, something he'd become quite good at doing himself. The blue writing read "is this my fault" when he finished. He wasn't sure if he'd get a reply, but he had to try.

He sat there for almost thirty minutes, handheld mirrors rotating around his head, so he could check every possible angle of hair. Finally, he felt the familiar tingle in his scalp of something being transferred to his hair. He moved his mirrors around until he finally found what he was looking for. On the right-hand side of his head was a reply; two letter which simultaneously built-up and destroyed the hope he held for fixing this mess. Two letters which broke his heart just a little more.

"No."

#

So remember when I said I was going to upload this within two weeks… yeah me neither. I apologise, life has been really busy and kinda crappy and that's kinda been reflected in this chapter. It was originally meant to just be a filler but instead it's become an important piece in the progression of the story. From here, time skips will start to occur, so I apologise for those who don't like them, but the story wouldn't progress without them.

Thank you again to all the reviewers, you're probably the reason I got this chapter out this early. And thank you to everyone who's put up with me and my sporadic uploads, I won't promise another expected time frame because look how well that went last time. Plus uni starts again this week for me (I'm Australian) so my time shall go out the window. But I know where I'm going with the next chapter, plus I'll need to procrastinate any and all homework I have, so who knows. Stranger things have happened.