Here's the next chapter, and thanks to the8horcrux for being a Harry Potter fan and also for supporting this story, I'm glad you liked that phrase!
Please review or PM me with ideas on where the story should continue to grow. Also, Wednesdays are probably the day I will update this story, it might be a few days early or late, if its early you might not get another chapter on Wednesday.
If I owned PJO I would not have to write fanfiction, I could write books…actually, scratch that. I'm only devoted to each story for so long. But this will keep going until it says complete in the summary section.
Annabeth's POV:
Coming back from Athens sucked. It was worse than leaving New York City to attend New Rome University with Percy years ago, it was almost worse than going back to work the following day. She was still in Athenian time, dammit. Her firm was great, but she'd just gotten married and wanted time to enjoy her new marital status. Now when her assistant talked to her, she wasn't Annabeth and/or Miss Chase, she was Annabeth and/or Mrs. Jackson. Mrs. Annabeth Jackson. She liked the sound. And maybe one day, there would be a Zoe Jackson running around a house. Maybe not Zoe. She didn't know whether she wanted a Zoe, she'd been so horrible to Thalia once.
Piper was still ecstatic about her new engagement, but that had been a week and a half ago. Annabeth wanted to tell her to slow down. She'd just gotten married herself and she was in no rush to get herself pregnant to have a kid, but Piper, twenty-five and bubbly enthusiastic, was in her 'planning mode', the mode where she planned everything she could in her life for the next five years, and Jason had spent many a night on their apartment's couch while they were away to get away from the planning.
"That's the monster you want to marry, Jason," Annabeth had remarked dryly. "The horror of Piper McLean, soon to be Grace." Jason had stared at her in mock-horror, but said that he would have to manage the horror of 'Piper Grace', but he'd just as quickly strode off in wide-eyed shock as it sank in that someday soon, he would sign a document binding himself and Piper 'until death do you part', and with demigods, that day was an always changing unpredicatability.
Piper, on the other hand, had apparently never been surer of anything in her entire life- including stealing cars (charmspeaking, she claimed), choosing her friends over her father and then going back for said father, cutting a rope into a vent that would seal hers and Annabeth's fates.
Piper was just talking about this to Annabeth as Annabeth tried to zone it out on the way to the firm, for her first day there as Mrs. Annabeth Jackson. This had been a big step and Piper felt the same about her big day, coming up soon. "Annabeth, we never threw you a bachelorette party!" the thought passed over Annabeth's mind without much complaint, she'd only had two loves, Luke Castellan as a crush, Percy as the real thing. Why did she need a bachelorette party when there was really nothing to celebrate passing- all the old boyfriends most girls had, she had one who had seen her as a little sister until the end when he changed his mind. There wasn't anything. When Annabeth protested over her need for a bachelorette party, Piper protested against her protest.
"When I have my bachelorette party, it'll be yours too." She said firmly, and Annabeth's mouth twitched.
"Jason is your first and only love." Piper frowned at her.
"You are not making this easy. So Jason was my boyfriend when I was sixteen and in love with the Mist's Jason. So we've gone steady like you and Percy and he's the only guy I've really ever had a crush on. I need to celebrate my last days as a free girl able to do whatever she wants until I don't have any of those days left." Annabeth turned her head toward Piper in the passenger seat. "Don't get me wrong, I really need to marry Jason, he's my one and only, literally. But there's something freeing about knowing you aren't tied to anyone, and with a fractured dad in Oklahoma and a mother who only talks to me to fantasize about the romantic life ahead of me, there's really nothing tying me down, and I like that feeling. Knowing that's going to be gone once I sign all the papers in my name, well, it's kind of sad. You aren't like me in that way, Annabeth, your parents accepted it, you had Chiron from camp." There was a little mistiness in her eyes now. "And it's good for you."
"Piper, are you having second thoughts?" the shock in Annabeth's voice couldn't be concealed, and she didn't try, but Piper's head shake was decisive.
"No. I just know that I want to be Piper McLean for as long as I can and to soak up every last moment. I haven't even told my dad yet, and Jason couldn't get his blessing because, well, he's in Oklahoma, and this is not Oklahoma." Tristan McLean. A once-famous movie star with a blown-up and shattered career. Piper's father, who'd been out of the picture ever since Piper moved back to Cali, to San Francisco, to go to New Rome University with the paid scholarship as a savior of Olympus.
"Piper, can I ask you a question?" Annabeth said after silence built and her apprehension at the subject rose in turn.
"Of course." Piper sounded surprised that Annabeth had to ask, but there was a bit of worry as she wondered what Annabeth could have to ask to ask about. "What is it?"
"Percy and I were, well, thinking about kids recently. When do you think we should try?" there was a heartbeat of stunned silence on Piper's end and only the light sound of Annabeth's breathing as she waited for Piper to come back to Earth, and Annabeth herself.
"Really?" Piper exploded in shock and surprise, and partial happiness- "that's so great for you guys! Moving so fast, aren't you? But, in all seriousness, there's never really a right time to have kids, is there? But you're twenty-six, you have ten years before the fertility rate will decline, and if you wait until after Jason and I get married, we can be new mothers together!"
"So you two have talked?" Annabeth concealed her own surprise with the ease of an actress who knew the part by heart- reading people, and herself, was something she prided herself on.
"Oh, of course. It was a big thing when we decided to move in together, a 'where is this going, is it going to last' sort of thing. And we both want to have kids, it's just a matter of when, honestly. But I'm sure it'll be one day after we get married." Annabeth had to hide her own jealousy- Piper, being the love goddess's favorite daughter, was so sure of herself and where her relationship was going. She had easily answered Annabeth's question about kids without so much as a second thought, while Annabeth's own mind, born straight from the wisdom goddess, was a terrified whirl of fear and tension at the subject, however, Annabeth said nothing else.
"Are you guys going to move out of your apartment?" Piper stilled beside her, and Annabeth knew that apartment held a lot of good memories for the brunette. She and Annabeth had been roommates for a while, until Annabeth moved in with Percy a year later, and Piper had gotten her boyfriend as a roommate after trying to room with someone she didn't already know.
"I don't know. Probably. Soon. You?" Piper's voice sounded strange, but Annabeth tried to dismiss it as the way it came across to her ears.
"Yeah. I, Percy and I might move to New Rome for the added protection, and Frank and Hazel live there as retired praetors, and you know, my dad's side of the family lives there. But we're also thinking about staying in Manhattan, with the gods, and Camp Half-Blood…it's practically my home." Piper nodded her voice still strange.
"Jason and I are leaving," she blurted after a moment. Annabeth turned to stare at her.
Piper's POV:
Annabeth twisted to stare at Piper in her seat, gray eyes wide. Piper felt a twinge. This was going to be hard.
"Leaving where?" her voice was calm and the eyes betrayed her. Why was it so hard to leave?
"We're thinking of going to the Midwest. Leo and Calypso run the, um, Waystation down there, and Leo's Jason's best friend. My father's in Oklahoma, and I want him to be a part of my child's life, Annabeth…" Piper started to cry, and Annabeth pulled over at the firm, starting to open the door but giving Piper a hug.
"Come on. Get out of the car."
Annabeth's POV:
Piper's leaving. Annabeth guessed it was inevitable. Hazel and Frank remained in their home, Leo and Calypso in theirs since the whole Apollo thing. Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano had joined the Hunters with Thalia, and Piper and Jason were going. Nico and Will Solace were in Italy now. There wasn't going to be anybody in New York anymore. The Seven, and the few that had been pulled into their knot of friendship, were all drifting apart. Percy and Annabeth might be the sole New Yorkers from one of the few great prophecies.
"So…California, the Midwest? When?" Piper was a mess of red eyes and a running nose, but no one in New York really cared about that sort of thing when it was just morning commute. They sat down on a stone bench outside the large building and Piper's face went into Annabeth's shoulder.
"Once we get married, we won't come back to New York for the honeymoon," Piper's voice was muffled and Annabeth could feel her heart sinking; "but it's probably going to be Camp Jupiter." Like that, Annabeth realized what it was she'd have to do- besides Thalia, who only popped around once every few months, and Percy, who she'd married, Piper was her best friend. Jason was one of Percy's bros, she guessed. They weren't brothers like Leo and Jason, or Tyson and Percy, but they were close in a friendly way.
"Maybe you don't have to leave us," Annabeth ventured. Piper stared up at her, Annabeth just a little taller than the brunette. Her chin was quivering.
"What do you mean?"
I'm sacrificing my father figure, Percy's mother, our godly parents, Camp, the place I dreamed a child with the surname Jackson could go to, for Piper and Jason's close friendship with us. Is it all worth it in the end, Annabeth Jackson?
"You don't have to leave us," Annabeth repeated determinedly, "because if you move to Camp Jupiter, Percy and I are going to go with you."
I know that it's kind of weird, and sort of stupid, but I was sort of at a writer's block because I don't want to go straight to the Jiper wedding or put in a pregnancy, it would be moving too fast. I'm adding a Jiper romance to it because why shouldn't I, everything's more fun with friends.
Also, during my spring break be prepared for a chapter burst, and also on Friday I might add some because I have nothing to do but sit at home!
If there's anything you think should happen to Percabeth and/or Jiper, review the story of PM my fanfiction account.
Silversky
