Hi! This is just a one-shot I decided I wanted to post because I was kind of bored…so there's that. It's another Percabeth story because that's my favorite ship.

I'm putting this in a one-shot collection because, technically, doesn't allow you to post those. So now it's a story full of one-shots.

I'll post periodically because it really isn't a story it's just a bunch of one-shots.

In this one, Percy and Annabeth are both mortals, no Camp Half-Blood or demigods.

He was pretty sure he'd seen this girl around before. She had these golden princess curls, and stormy gray eyes. He was pretty sure he had a little bit of attraction to her. Maybe. Just maybe. Jason and Nico loved to tease him about it, but Percy tried to not let it get to him. Just because he was suddenly seeing her in the other New Yorkers with golden hair and gray eyes, just because when it was the real girl he sat up straight and unconsciously willed her to look at him, maybe smile, just do something, just because he'd woken up three times this week to the fading memory of gray eyes and blond curls, her laughing, or how he'd imagined her laugh.

But here she was again, and she was driving Percy Jackson crazy.

She saw him this time, he saw her eyes widen with recognition and a little amusement from where she was standing in the middle of the coffee line, seeing him sitting down with no one across from him at a table for two, and waiting for his coffee to be called.

"Percy J!" the barista was a brunette, pretty, with ever-changing eyes, but as he moved up to grab the warm black coffee from her hands, he only felt the gray-eyed girl's eyes on him. He watched her as she got to the front, spoke to the brunette, laughed and smiled, and waltzed across the shop and sat, right across from him at his table.

He was a little surprised, he'd admit. She was forward. She smiled at him across the table while he watched her, reading her. She was the way he'd imagined her in all the dreams, her face perfect and pixie-shaped, a few freckles dotting her cheeks.

"Annabeth C!" she hadn't uttered one word, but as she moved away to grab her own coffee, Percy wondered. Annabeth, huh? I can work with that, definitely. I could date an Annabeth. They were definitely both college kids, he'd seen her across the NYU campus. He'd seen her in the elevator up to his dorm room, once or twice, but he always left the elevator before she did, to go to 6D. There were always more people in there, too, so he had no idea knowing which light-up button led to her floor.

But now, he knew she was an Annabeth. A combination of 'Anna' and 'Beth'. He liked the way it felt on his tongue. But as Annabeth reappeared across from him, he decided to stop thinking about that and think about the girl herself.

"Percy?" she tested the name on her tongue. He could tell she hadn't known his name before today just as he hadn't known about hers. Annabeth. A pretty name for a very pretty girl.

"Annabeth." He echoed her, trying to copy the tone of her voice. It was female, and high, but it was obvious that Annabeth, wearing jeans and a blouse, was not girly. She seemed, on the contrary, rather tomboyish on the inside despite the curls in her hair and the female skinny jeans on her long legs. His heart flip flopped a little, surprised at being in such close proximity to the girl he'd been noticing for a month on end.

"I've been seeing you around campus for a while," she started, a little nervous. He nodded. "only recently. I'd never seen you before." There was a lot of awkwardness and tension in the air, and I could tell she was wondering about her impulsive decision to sit down next to me.

"Yeah…me too."

After that, they got pretty close. Percy still got teased by Jason and Nico, but Annabeth was over at his dorm room a lot (she actually lived in 7D, right above his room!), and so that compensated for all the teasing. She was worth a few suggestive smiles.

Though, he couldn't pretend he didn't like the idea of what those smiles were suggesting. It was a little hard to imagine being alone with Annabeth and, well, doing things, but actually doing things? More than a few images were coming to mind when Percy thought about that.

"Hey, Percy?" Annabeth was crying, over the phone. He'd never heard or seen her cry. "Can I, uh, come over?" there was no one else in the house. No reason not to let her in. Especially if Annabeth was crying.

He'd learned a lot about her now. Her last name was Chase, she was Annabeth Chase, a perfect name, she was an architecture major. She lived in a double room with her best friend Piper McLean, who Jason was dating, they were both freshman just as Percy was. She was born a month and almost a week before he was. Her hair was naturally curly but she straightened it often. Her favorite color was gray and her favorite Greek goddess was Athena, and her mom was out of the picture like Percy's dad was. They both had step-parents and step-siblings. Annabeth had a stepmom, Helen, and two twin stepbrothers, Bobby and Matthew. Percy had a stepdad, Paul, and a stepsister, Estelle. He felt like Annabeth was getting past the friendship point and that was both scary and very, very anticipated. Because he'd been dreaming about this girl ever since his first sighting of her, and he was very, very infatuated. In fact, he was probably too creepily attracted to Miss Annabeth Chase, and he'd been waiting to kiss her pink lips for God knows how long.

So when Annabeth showed up at his door a mess, crying and collapsed against him, he knew it must've been bad. He wasn't sure exactly what it was, but Jason was on a date with her best friend and Nico was probably still at the coffee shop chatting up the male barista, a blondie that was way too cheerful and probably gay just like Nico, so he wishes them well.

"Hey…hey, it's okay. What's wrong?" his voice was gentle, soft even, the way it was only for Annabeth, even though she hadn't noticed this. Maybe there'd been an accident. Maybe she had terminal cancer. Maybe she wasn't going to be able to stay in school.

"L-L-L-Luke…broke up with me…" and she's sobbing and a terrible heap of tears and moaning cries, and his heart twists because, did he forget to mention, Annabeth was dating someone after they met, and he was actually had become one of Percy's newfound college friends?

She met him, Luke Castellan, before she met Percy, years before Percy. They went to high school together, even though he was a senior when she was a freshman. Same pattern now, and they only started dating about two months ago, a few weeks after he and Annabeth officially met, but he still liked her and his heart still twisted and tried to die when she told him, teary-eyed and happy, that he'd kissed her and now they were dating. But this, this breakup is even worse, because if Annabeth was crying, he'd rather it be happy and not grieving and sad like this as she falls against him and he closes the door gently.

But he can't deny that somewhere his heart is feeling pretty happy about the whole Luke thing.

"Why? You two…you two were great together. You started to love him." He's genuinely confused, and Annabeth shakes her head, mussing those blond curls he'd- he- loves. But she keeps speaking and her eyes are red-rimmed and he knows after this betrayal that he can't be friend with Luke anymore, because Annabeth is so much more important than Luke and will pine after him for long after this has since passed.

"He- he said that, that he'd grown out of it. That since he would be graduating or dropping out, he didn't need me anymore. He said I could drop out with him, and that we could be together then, but I need my degree and so he broke it off." And he's surprised that Luke could be such a jerk to Annabeth, but not entirely so, because Luke's kind of shady, he's known that since Annabeth introduced them, bright-eyed, smiling anxiously and squeezing Luke's hand like she used to do to Percy's.

"I'm so sorry, Wise Girl," and that's his new nickname because she's a straight-A student and she helps him with math and reading because while they're both dyslexic she reads better than him, and helps him sit through any classes they have together because they both have ADHD, and she calls him Seaweed Brain because he has so much trouble paying attention.

It's genuine impulse that makes him do it, but the impulse strikes perfectly because Annabeth is in need of some emotional help and that translates in Percy's ruined mind to capturing her full lips in a heated kiss, and Annabeth stiffens as his lips meet hers before melting into the kiss and dragging her fingers through his hair.

Somehow, they make it to Percy's bed, where he registers coming to the next day spooning Annabeth with their arms around each other and Nico's snickering at them and Jason's taking pictures, but he doesn't care because he remembers kissing Annabeth and her not protesting and he's in bed with her and his cousins scatter once she wakes.

But when she wakes, there's no regret in Annabeth's eyes.

They date through college, she's Percy's first serious girlfriend and he's sure of himself when he gets down on one knee and proposes, and he's sure of himself when she says, 'I do' and then he does and she becomes Mrs. Annabeth Jackson.

He's sure of himself when they have their first kid, and then their second, and he even thanks Luke the last time he sees him before walking away, dignity intact.