Hey guys! Here's the next chapter, I hope you enjoy!

"Hey." It was Monday, and the weekend had past. Annabeth hadn't heard from Percy since the party, apart from a "good night, sweet dreams" text he'd sent. Annabeth had smiled at her phone, and hugged it to her chest when she read that.

Her weekend had gone by normally. She worked on editing the couple of chapters she had already finished, and drew out some sketches of scenes in the book. Annabeth had always admired beautiful architecture, and because her story changed settings quite frequently, in her art, she was able to design the infrastructure and buildings her characters were placed near.

She'd also hung out with Bobby and Matthew, and worked on her homework, like a normal weekend. She helped clean up the remains of board games, food, and other questionable objects around the floor from game-night, while at that time, she was still reminiscing of her time with Percy.

"Annabeth?" Percy's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. Right. She tilted her head to look up at him, and smiled.

"Percy," she said. "Hey. What are you doing here?" Here, meaning the lunch table. Annabeth knew that this question was now overused, but at this point it was basically tradition.

Percy winked. "You know why I am." He said, and sat down across from her. "What's up?" He asked, after a couple seconds of silence.

"I'm doing okay." Annabeth replied. "I had a pretty normal weekend. What about you?"

"It was fine." Percy sighed. "I swam a lot, did a lot of studying. It was normal too."

"So not super productive?" Annabeth deplored.

"I guess so." Percy looked away for a moment. "But I never really am, am I?"

Annabeth raised her eyebrows, confused. To her, Percy seemed really productive. He was an award winning competitive swimmer, the most popular guy in school, while managing to be a nice person, and had an active social life. Sure, maybe he wasn't as productive in grades and work, but he had made a lot of progress in terms of sociability. "I don't think I agree with that." Annabeth simply said, and took a sip of her water. "You underestimate yourself."

"I don't know about that. Maybe. Whatever you say." Percy smiled weakly.

"Nobody is perfect." Annabeth continued, shrugging.

Percy chuckled. "Well, that's obvious. Whatever you say about my social life, sure, it's good, but grades and stuff? That's the important stuff. If only I'd realized that earlier. I've been preoccupied with…" Percy hesitated. "Things."

Annabeth looked a little closer at him. Maybe he wasn't as adjusted as people thought. As she looked more definley, she noticed slight dark circles in his eyes, and just barely, the beginnings of redness on the sides of his eyes. These were things you couldn't detect if you weren't looking.

"I'm sorry Percy." Annabeth said softly to him.

Percy averted his eyes away once more. "It's fine. I- I'm good now. But…" He trailed off. "I don't want to talk about this right now." He started again. "The next chapter of your thing comes tomorrow. That's cool. What's the usual reaction with it?"

Annabeth looked around to see if anyone was listening, which they weren't, obviously. Everyone was focused on their own conversations, and there was no reason why anybody would care about her conversation specifically. Even so, as she looked around, she caught the eye of one person- Drew, who was arguably the most popular girl in the grade- if she could say that without being cliche. She was glaring, directly at Annabeth, and from what Annabeth knew, Drew was not someone you wanted to be mad at you.

She looked away quickly.

"I have pretty consistent notifications throughout the week." Despite the other conversations around her, she was still nervous someone would hear what she was saying. "When I post a chapter, there's usually a blast of stuff, and that goes on for about a day. Um… I have friends that manage the merch store, which is in partnership with the site." Annabeth took a deep breath. She hadn't talked about Rachel and Reyna to anyone really.

See, her parents didn't know about them, because they didn't need to, they didn't even know how popular her story was. They were really her only friends up until Percy, and so she never had to talk about them for anyone else.

"Which friends?" Percy asked. "I've never seen you with anyone around here."

"Are you saying I'm a loner?" Annabeth joked, but nodded. "Yeah. Online friends, that's what they are. They were some of the first readers of my story, and became my first friends really."

"Oh. That's nice. Have you ever met them in person?"

Annabeth sighed. That was one of the things she had always wanted to do. Meet her best friends in person. "No. One of them lives on the other side of the country, and the other lives in Puerto Rico. I'd love to meet them, but Reyna's a college student, so she doesn't have the time, and Rachel's father, who does have a lot of money won't invest in his daughter meeting 'online friends.'"

"What about you?"

"I could never explain it to my parents." Annabeth said. It felt oddly refreshing to say that to someone. She'd never really talked to anyone about this. "They only know about my story- not how popular it is, or Rachel and Reyna."

Percy grimaced. "Oh." he said. "That sucks. I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I'm good with what I have now. I talk to them everyday. That's good for all of us."

"It must be nice, you know, being that accomplished at your age. Your writing, I saw some drawings in your notebook, designs, it's all just… really good Annabeth, it's really good." Percy said earnestly.

Annabeth blushed, and pushed a lock of hair out of her face. "Thanks Percy. I-I really appreciate that. It means a lot to me. More coming from you." I can't believe I said that, Annabeth thought, blushing even redder than before. She cautiously looked up and Percy, who was smiling widely, his cheeks with a tint of red.

"I-I… yeah." Percy took a final bite of his lunch, and then wrapped his stuff up, walking towards the trash can, and throwing it away. Did I say the wrong thing? Annabeth thought, suddenly doubting herself. Was that too forward?

Percy returned, and smiled again, reassuring Annabeth. He started to speak, but then was interrupted by the bell. Once it had stopped ringing, Annabeth asked him what he had said.

He shook his head and said he'd talk to her later, smiling and saying goodbye.

And Annabeth smiled too. Because it was nice to have someone to talk about her story, her thoughts, really anything with. And although they got off on the wrong start, Annabeth was happy Percy was that someone.

Thanks so much for reading! I hope you liked this one! Be prepared for new updates Monday and Wednesday this week!

Oh, and a question: What's your favorite book by Uncle Rick? Mine is a tie between The Mark of Athena and The Blood of Olympus.