Hey, I'm back, trying to update a little more, but I'm not sure. This week has been hectic, but on the bright side, I've got some good news! Me and my ff friend, ThatGirlWithaCat, have started a forum. It's called The Contingency Code, it's really cool and it's a very different idea, and a link is on my profile, so please check it out. :) Anyways, we have finally moved into the Percabeth stage!

AmazingAthenaGirl: I have 4 stories, a collection of regular PJO one-shots, and two collections of one-shots for writing forums, thanks for asking. I try to update as much as I can, though for this one, I don't really have a schedule. If I did…well, I'd need to redo it every five seconds.

Reader12859: Yeah, I didn't like Jake either, but he was kinda necessary…he's gone now! He might make a special appearance, but no more Lukabeth/Jakabeth/Jukabeth. :D He does a lot of bad things. Thank you! This is the first real romance story I've done so this really made my day. (I'm sorry about whoever did that to you, however). And people are manipulative, so…what can you do. Anyways, the rant was fine, I like long reviews, regardless of rants. And thanks again!

Anyways, unfortunately for our dear Percy and Annabeth, a few curveballs have been thrown their way…and here's one right now.

Annabeth's POV, I guess?

Annabeth sat on a swing set, legs swinging slightly as she watched the dusky sky, shivering slightly as she hugged her dark jeans jacket over her skinny frame. She was wearing a white dress with colored floral patterns, that fell to her ankles. The daughter of Athena waited quietly, the swinging slightly on the swing, her bare feet barely curled, and her golden curls a mess of perfection.

She glanced at her watch- the sun was beginning to set, and it was still sort of early in the afternoon- the sun set earlier in winter, after all. A slight frown grew on her face as she looked at the glowing numbers, and she swung her feet absentmindedly, wincing as a splinter embedded itself in one.

Annabeth laid the foot with a splinter over her other leg, pulling it out with thin, nimble fingers. Whoever she was waiting for hadn't arrived, and Annabeth Chase was alone in the park.

It had been a week since Dr. Jaxon Buckingham had left the hospital a little bit angry and very confused, and Thalia Grace went back to the Hunters of Artemis but not before giving the same guy a half wistful glance, since Percy Jackson felt a weight had been lifted off his shoulders now that the guy Piper said Annabeth was in love with was gone, since Annabeth Chase had laid back on her pillows, promised she wouldn't cry, and stuck to it, and she was honoring that promise still.

She was also honoring the fact that she was single in a (semi) big city, and a promise she'd made to Piper the day she stumbled, half drunk with pain over the breakup the day before, that she would try if the day came that Percy Jackson came back and Annabeth wanted a second chance.

That was why Annabeth Chase was sitting on a swing set made for kids, ignoring the pain on her hips from the smaller seat, swinging her legs and dropping a splinter of wood back into the bark chips, glancing at her watch, frowning at the sinking sun, and waiting for Percy Jackson

Was her wait worth it?

Annabeth wasn't thinking so.

She was pretty sure her ex boyfriend had stood her up on a meeting that wasn't even a date, at least on her end, and, well, she wasn't too pleased. The date had been set days ago. Four days ago, to be exact, and Annabeth had thought that Percy would at least have the decency to tell her if he was late or something like that.

It appeared that Annabeth was wrong on that count.

She kept waiting anyway, because some part of her knew that Percy was going to show up, he was going to, he had to- so as the sun sank past the horizon and the moon rose on Annabeth's other side, she kept waiting, as the chains holding the swing turned cold and the jeans jacket she was wearing- she wasn't sure what she had been thinking, it was the middle of January after all- became less than sufficient cover for New Rome winter, she kept waiting.

He's not coming, he's stood you up and it wasn't a date, you should go home you're starting to freeze, and the gods know you don't have even healthy body fat anyways. The little voice spoke in Annabeth's head, and she recognized it, knew it very well. It was that little voice that was there when she and Percy broke up, the voice she heard when she looked in a mirror, the voice of self doubt and painful self deprecation.

Needless to say, it wasn't the best voice Annabeth had heard, but it was always sort of lurking in the background like it was some sort of invisible posse that Annabeth just wasn't listening to all the time and when she did listen to it, it talked. A lot. And Annabeth didn't exactly like its voice but it just kept talking and talking and drowning her out.

Annabeth was more than a little afraid that she had schizophrenia in moments like these.

Forty five minutes after she'd arrived, Annabeth felt the tears prickling her eyes, but refused to let them run. If you cry right now, Annabeth, it'll only prove that you're weak.

She couldn't say she was weak, not after all she'd struggled to accomplish, that she had accomplished. She'd followed the Mark of Athena. She'd fallen into Tartarus. She was the daughter of a goddess.

And her fatal flaw was hubris. Percy had to show up, she couldn't be wrong- she just couldn't.

So it wasn't easy when Annabeth was forced to swallow her pride because no, Percy was not there, yes, she had been waiting for forty five minutes on the faint gleam of hope and her own hubris. She'd really thought he would show.

Annabeth, pulling her jean jacket tighter around her, stood up off the swing, blinking rapidly. She could see her breath in the air, a jacket had been a really bad idea.

Then again, he was supposed to be there forty five minutes ago when it wasn't so cold. And California winters, as far as winters went, weren't terribly cold, at least not in New Rome. She began to walk rapidly away from the park, ignoring splinters embedding themselves in her feet and her frosty breath coming in short gasps.

How could she have been so stupid? Of course Percy wasn't going to show, why would he have? So what if he had shown the last time. It wasn't like they were dating. Quite the opposite. She broke up with him. Was this Percy's way of revenge? What had she done wrong? Where had they gone wrong? Annabeth kept walking, heedless of the cold and the stares of judgmental people who didn't recognize her with her face hidden in the limp golden curls and her gray eyes staring at the concrete sidewalks. As she got closer to her apartment, she walked faster, not daring to run. If she was running, that meant she was running away, and that meant she was scared, and why would she be scared?

It was something that happened to…maybe not everyone, but it happened to people, why would Annabeth have been the exception? A Joni Mitchell song lyric rang in Annabeth's head.

You don't know what you've got till it's gone. They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.

Annabeth didn't know what she had with Percy until it was gone. Well- she'd known, on some level, but it hadn't ever truly clicked until what she had had slipped through her fingers in the form of New York and the airport.

Annabeth stepped inside the apartment and shut the door, blinking furiously past the hot sting of salty tears.

Why did this matter so much to you?

Percy couldn't believe he'd screwed up so badly. What exactly had he screwed up? Well. You'll see.

He'd run into the park he was meeting Annabeth a little over an hour late, for one thing. And, you know, she was gone by that point. He couldn't really blame her. If he'd been waiting for her for an hour, he would have gone home too, would have decided she had stood him up or something.

For whatever reason, though, he held out hope for a little while. He sat down on a bench in front of a swing set and stared at the seat, barely feeling the cold's bitter sting.

Why am I waiting here? Why does this matter so much to me?

Because, as far as he knew, Annabeth had been sitting on this bench. She might've been right where he was sitting, she had been waiting for him. For him. And he'd screwed it all up by being an hour late. That was if she'd even shown. Perhaps she had stood him up- except he hadn't been there for it to happen. But that wasn't the Annabeth that Percy knew and he didn't think she would be able to do that, Annabeth was nice. Sure, she was prideful and could be a little bossy and brash, and maybe she was a bit arrogant at times, but a lot of the time she was nice and she was kind and she had loved him.

That had to count for something, right?

She had loved him. Once upon a time, Percy Jackson had felt like he was the luckiest guy in the world. Now…he did not feel like the luckiest guy in the world. He was sitting in the cold waiting for a girl who wasn't going to show up because he had been the late one, and for some reason he actually thought Annabeth Chase was going to show up. Why would she? She didn't owe him anything, and she never had, she'd done so much.

Percy waited for half an hour- his damned sentimentality, but it had been clear from the get-go that Annabeth wasn't going to show, so he didn't know why he had been waiting so long. He stood up and walked slowly back to the little apartment he now rented for the rest of the college school year while on his gap semester, wondering, wondering, but not finding any answers.

Annabeth, upon stepping into her apartment, had taken a shower, hitting her answering machine for messages as she did so. It was amazing how far they'd come that monsters couldn't detect these devices that had been for so long a bane of a demigod's existence. The first messages were generic things, nothing Annabeth bothered about.

Annabeth was in her room when the last one was playing, getting ready for the said shower, and by the time it started playing, the blonde girl was in the shower, unable to hear the message playing in the living room, and the apartment was empty- Piper was at Jason's tonight.

"Annabeth, I'm really sorry, my boss at the temp job I just took is making me stay late, I'll be there as soon as I can be."

A couple of mistakes, thrown against one another, had culminated into a night of heartache.

Percy had meant to call Annabeth's cell phone, didn't have her number, and thought he was calling her cell when it was in fact the home phone she and Piper shared for some weird reason.

Annabeth had been inexplicably early to her and Percy's meeting at that little park, and so, had the message reached her beforehand, she still would never have heard it.

If only she knew.