"Come on G-man!"

Percy was sprinting across the gym parking lot, once again impatiently waiting for his friend to catch up. He wasn't oblivious to the parallel drawn between now, and yesterday evening when they had been eager to catch their plane. However, today's difference was what was waiting for them at the end. Personally Percy was much more excited to see a beautiful sexy girl perform outstanding tricks in her element, than hop into a hunk of hollow metal.

"I'm coming Perce. Geez, this girl has really got you wound up tight. You do realize she's only fifteen right? And you're going on seventeen?" Percy frowned. "So? She's going on sixteen, we're only a year and a half apart." Grover shrugged. "I'm just saying man, if you're falling for an Olympic athlete, age differences will be the least of your problems."

Percy immediately felt his face flush. "Wh-? Falling? For her?...you're crazy dude." However, his mumbled blustering didn't do anything to deter Grover, in fact, it just made the swimmer grin wider. "Uh huh, sure I believe that. You two have only been flirting like crazy for the past six hours. Come on man, don't bother trying to lie to me. You can fool yourself and Thalia, but never me. And I know what I'm talking about. You've never been this flirtatious and charming, not even during the Golden Days of Calypso, or the days of Rachel."

The dark haired boy twitched at the mention of the redhead from his past. "Oh yeah, I forgot about Rach. I heard she's going to be at the Olympics, she's now Apollo Grace's public relations person, or something to that affect." Lost in his daydreams about the former object of his affection, he was barely aware of Grover snapping his fingers in front of his face.

"What?" He asked, seeing the look of concern on his best friend's face. "You're not- you aren't still attracted to Rachel, are you?" Grover asked hesitantly. Percy and Rachel had flirted for quite a long time, and gone out on a few dates, but they had never become official. Percy had relished the normalcy Rachel brought, and had wanted to ask her to be his girlfriend. Then she chose to work for Apollo, and she had moved. Grover had assumed that Percy was still hung up on Rachel, but today, with Anna, Grover was having his doubts.

Percy sighed. "Look, I'll probably always be attracted to Rachel. She's pretty and quirky, and she's not training for some crazy competition that ruins people's lives and creates their dreams. But she chose to leave, and honestly, after meeting Anna today, I just don't think there's anything left between me and Rachel."

Grover smirked. Not only did Percy's statement assuage his fears, but it also proved, that against Percy's will or knowledge, he was falling head over heels for this girl. And Grover could only assume that Anna was doing the same, considering the obvious chemistry that had appeared between the two earlier in the day.

"Now let's go! Thalia and Anna will kill us if we're late!"

Stepping into the spacious gym, Percy was met with extraordinary sights. He saw girls running at incredible speeds and then flipping in the air, off of some sort of springboard, while others were doing things that shouldn't even be possible on a four inch block of wood, suspended a few feet from the ground.

Percy wanted to look for Anna, but he decided he ought to find a seat first. "Hey Percy, look, there's Beckendorf." Grover pointed out, obviously all previous animosity towards the weightlifter dissipated. Percy and Grover made their way over to the athlete, and greeted their old friend.

"You two came as well?" Beckendorf questioned, a little surprised to see the swimmers there. Grover nodded. "Yeah, we've got some friends, Thalia and Anna. Are you here for Silena?" Percy was glad there wasn't a trace of bitterness in Grover's voice when he questioned about the weightlifter's girlfriend. He seemed to have accepted there was no chance.

"Anna?" Beckendorf asked, momentarily confused. "Oh, Anna! Wow, you guys must be close then. She doesn't really socialize all that much. But yeah, June and I came to see Silena." Though Percy was dying to question Beckendorf what he meant about Anna not being a socialite, Grover focused on the second half of Beckendorf's statement.

"June?" He asked, and with that statement, a tiny wisp of a girl peeked out from behind Charles' large body. "Hey, I'm Juniper. Field and track." Grover gaped at her, not even ashamed. Percy couldn't help but roll his eyes. Juniper was pretty enough, he supposed, but when he had friends like Anna, well, no one could really compare.

Speaking of Anna, he finally found her, by a tub of chalk, rubbing it all over her hands. From what little knowledge he had regarding gymnastics, he knew that she would most likely be going on the beam or bars next. And honestly, he was excited to see her perform period, no matter what apparatus she was practicing on.

Looking around the gym, Percy decided to try and find Annabeth Chase. It was a rather difficult task, considering that he had no idea what she looked like. And unfortunately, his mental image didn't match any of the present girls. They were all rather pretty, though Anna outshone them all. He was about to ask Beckendorf, when he overheard an offhand comment he made to Juniper and Grover.

"Luke Castellan isn't here, which is why half of the female athletes already left. Something about his coach wanting to train him in private. He's expected to take home most of the golds in Athens, especially the All-Around."

It made sense in Percy's mind. The coach had obviously wanted the National Champions to have a private practice session. He remembered hearing that Luke had won gold at nationals. He was happy for his friend, he seemed like a nice enough dude. Figuring that Annabeth Chase was with Castellan, Percy turned all of his attention on Anna Sophos, who was now preparing to practice on the uneven bars.

"Now this is something worth watching." He heard Beckendorf mutter to Juniper. And watch was exactly what Percy intended to do. He watched in awe as Anna flipped onto the lower bar, unlike everyone else, who had simply hopped onto it. As he watched the beautiful blonde, he saw her practically fly through the air, flipping and twisting as she reached the other bar.

Percy didn't know the name of any of the tricks Anna did, but he knew they were amazing, and based on some of the envious, covetous looks other gymnasts were sending Anna's way, they were difficult, things that only the best could do. So why wasn't Anna the national champion? Why Chase? Something about that question seemed to click into place, but Percy wasn't sure what. All he knew, was that somehow, he was sure Anna and Chase were connected, he just wasn't sure how. But he wasn't going to focus on that. He was going to focus on the beautiful girl who had now dismounted the bars, and was grinning widely.

At the coach's orders, she moved from apparatus to apparatus, doing things that no other gymnast could imitate, though others did try, and projected it poorly. Percy enjoyed watching Anna outperform everyone, even though he couldn't quite place his finger on why that was. All he knew was he felt a sense of pride, every time she accomplished some amazing feat, and every time she threw herself into the air, he felt a tingle of fear, emitting from the small of his back.

When practice was finally over, Percy made his way over to Anna, leaving Grover behind to talk to Juniper. Percy waited patiently as some of the other athletes came and talked to Anna, congratulating her, and occasionally hugging her. He felt ferociously jealous and protective anytime a male would approach her.

Anna noticed Percy out of the corner of her eye, and to his bliss, a brilliant smile lit up her face. He did that. He made her smile like that. Anna hurried the other athletes along, and before long, he was the only one facing her.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he shot her a crooked grin, to which she replied with a large smile. "You were…um, well…you were really amazing." Percy admitted, ducking his head to hide his blush. He wasn't sure why he was blushing like this. Couldn't he just pay a girl a compliment?

Anna returned the blush, biting her lip rather provocatively. Maybe it was the rising heat in the room, maybe it was the way Anna looked at the moment, or maybe it was just the memories of what Percy had just seen, but something caused him to blurt out the garbled question, "Anna, will you go to tonight's Olympic mixer with me? As my date I mean, not just as a friend?"

Anna's shocked expression had to be a mirror image of what Percy's face looked like, though she hadn't quite gotten around to blushing furiously yet. Her blush was just stunning, slowly creeping up on her face, illuminating her skin.

"Um, well, yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice." Anna said softly, still biting her lip, though Percy suspected this time was to hide a smile. "Great." Percy said, after swallowing. If he had been a part of some sappy TV drama intended for teens, he should be giving a internal spiel about how shocked he was that she said yes, but in all honesty, he wasn't.

Percy Jackson was not some cocky, arrogant Olympic Asslete, as some of the athletes had been named, but he was confident, with a healthy dose of realism, which kept his head on the ground, no matter how much Thalia liked to joke about it floating off at sea. Percy knew he was attractive, in fact, very much so. He wasn't oblivious to the fact, though he never seemed to be able to pick up on girls flirting with him. But he knew that Anna had been doing just that all day, and he was fairly sure they had chemistry. In fact, he was positive. So he wasn't surprised, per se, more ecstatic at his luck than anything.

"How about we meet at the mixer?" Anna asked, her sweet voice bringing Percy out of his profound thoughts. "And we can hang out with each other there as…dates." The red that crept up her neck at the word 'dates' was absolutely radiant, and Percy had the sudden urge to make her blush once more.

"It's a date then."

A/N: Okay guys, so I've gone back to university, and discovered that updates will be happening once a week, most likely. I might not even be able to update during the week at all, and only on weekends, I'm just not sure. I'm not going to go months without updating, but you will have to wait a week. I might be able to update more than once during the weekends, it all just depends.

In other news, one of my lovely reviewers has nominated my story for the Veritas Awards, so thank you so much whoever did that! I'm glad you liked it enough to think it deserved an award!