Yup. Here I am again. Well. No time to waste. I am dreadfully out of that. As always, ThatGirlWithaCat is the ultimate beta, but she's kinda quit FF so I wouldn't ask her to beta for you, happy chapter #12. Also titled 'Once More but Not for Long'.
ThatGirlWithaCat: Jeez.
I like the past.
Of course you do. Thank you for not putting one here, as I would have to comment on that too and this thing is über-long.
Ugh. Keep the KOTLC out of here. Especially stuff about her. Yes, you have been reading too much Keeper of the Lost Cities.
No I'm not. Gods forbid. And no, I don't see myself a math tutor to a snobby rich kid, thank you very much. I have some pride. :/ You should be bringing this up somewhere else, but I was trying to sleep by then. And yeah, you did poof. Hmph.
Interesting, you didn't tell me. Interesting, but not needed. Greensleeves is a nice song, I like to listen to it on Musescore. Cause that's what I do.
California because you're ridiculously hung up on CA, which is kind of sad, and then when you add the San Francisco music I have to say it turns pathetic. :/ I'm also not satisfied with your musical taste, you could listen to so much more.
Oh, leave me alone with what I'm doing here. There might be some in this next one…you'll have to see even though you already know.
IE, yes, February Fourteenth. You didn't really plan it that much except for kids. So. Yeah. She wasn't a side character, no. Well, thanks. And eh. I don't care, because it was mine. And okay. And no, it won't. I'm skipping over…the Catholic part about St. V, because I can.
Blind dates. Yes. It's Doug Harris, btw. Not Mike like you thought. And, okay? I don't really care. And no, Piper won't be…a secretary of state, she's a therapist getting a music degree. *rolls eyes* I know what Piper does.
Annabeth's mom went back to Olympia, Washington where the Olympians live. Cause that's what happens here now. Thanks!
Nothing could go wrong: Yes, yes she is! :) I'm glad you do. You'll see what he said here…hehe, yeah, it wouldn't really be the best manners to decline. Thank you! Oof. That sucks…that's what my mother did to me…except it was everything I had wrote from about 2015-2019. She didn't even know she had done it…lol. Favorite dessert XD.
SunBear: … *sigh* I will bring out the screenshot. It is most glorious.
Sure you didn't…sure you didn't…not at all. Not a pinch. Not a smidge.
Yes, it does.
Yeah…and yes, now she cannot bottle it up and then it would explode, which would not be good. Figuratively, of course, but still not good.
Lol. It is very cute. Piper is a bit of a stalker. Eh…anyways.
(It's not a surprise. It's in no way a surprise. I was waiting for this.) Thanks! That is good. Yes, he is a gentleman, despite probably being very rich and very famous. Yeah, not many would. Especially not if they were famous. Sacrifices must be made, and Jason must make them, so he did.
Hehehe, we'll see.
Thank you! I think so too XD. That is a possibility…you will find the outcome if you scroll down. *cough* I'm onto you *cough cough* tis truth *cough cough* *cough* I see? That was kinda confusing lol.
If he says yes, Piper shall owe Annabeth big time. (Even though I've already kinda sorta written the chapter, so there is no if.) We shall see, hehehe…
Thank you! (True that.) Mhm.
-Me
Guest: Thank you! Annabeth's a mischievous friend.
Writer2006: Hey, you're back on FF? And thanks!
The8horcrux: It hurt to write. …I can do more than imagine…I found out that it had happened to me last weekend. Except, ah, more extreme. It sucked a lot. :(
Daughter of Sally Jackson: Hehe yes, yes they are. Well, to be fair, it's more what Jason says to Annabeth that counts here, but I see your point. I agree. (Don't worry about it. One of my friends called me an alien for no apparent reason, and then proceeded, with my other two friends, to plague me with terrible songs. It was terrible. They were terrible.) Thanks!
Annabeth's POV:
It was miraculous, Annabeth thought to herself, that Jason agreed. After all, he was an actor (she was pretty sure, at least), and a lawyer, and why he'd moved to New Pine Creek she didn't know. But as she assisted Piper in getting ready for her blind date, Annabeth was grinning.
"What's so funny?" Piper kept asking her.
"Nothing," Annabeth would reply. "I'm just excited. The guy's really great, and you're going to love him." Piper raised her eyebrows. Annabeth raised hers back- Piper was already half in love with Jason.
"I'll put it out there that I don't believe in blind dates, but whatever. If it's enough to get you this riled up, it's probably worth it." Annabeth gave her a slightly malicious grin. Piper darling, if you only knew…
But she quit it before Piper decided not to go. Yeah, maybe it wasn't the best idea, to set her friend up with her celebrity crush, but things like this only came around once in a lifetime, and after all, Jason had said yes. Annabeth didn't know why. She didn't want to ask.
"Can you tell me something about this guy, since you're so adamant I give him a shot?" Piper asked. Annabeth hesitated. Well, there was no way she'd guess that Annabeth had set her up with Jason Grace. It struck her as a little mean, to do this with no warning, but she wasn't going to back down now. Piper would probably appreciate this, right?
"Hm, he's blond, and he has blue eyes." Annabeth said. Piper raised her eyebrows. "Okay, I don't want to spoil the surprise. And he's a lawyer, I think."
"It's a blind date, what did you do, gift wrap a celebrity?" Piper asked teasingly. "Jeez, it's a date, not my surprise birthday party. It's not even anywhere near my birthday. You're being weird, Annie."
"I know," Annabeth replied. In truth, she hadn't known until Piper revealed that, but she didn't care. She knew now. It didn't matter. She even disregarded the Annie part. "But I want to keep it a surprise. Anyway, it's almost six thirty, so I'll drive you down, and you can go and meet him." Jason was meeting Piper, she knew, at the same Pablo's Pizzeria that she and Percy had had their first- and only- date in. Piper just nodded, looking a little confused. "Come on, get a coat or something. It's the rainy season."
Annabeth sat on her bed, Mango purring and putting most of her weight on Annabeth's ankle- the bad one from when she'd fallen a long distance and broken it- listening to the sound of the rain. Her laptop hovered on her knee, but she didn't open it up. The torrential rainfall was calming, and she could see why Mango was sleeping, though she herself was wide awake. Her hands itched to be on the keys, and the promise of a story were enough to lure her into opening the screen, fully expecting to open up to her sticky notes of ideas littering the screen, none of them used.
Instead, she saw a white document, its Cochin font beautifully familiar. No way. She'd kept it off for days, not wanting to return with her document gone, fully erased for forever. But it was still there.
Thank the gods. She stared at it, reacquainting herself with the last thing she had typed, the story, the document, changing the size and color of the font and page to fit what she needed now, almost not hearing her phone's buzz over the sound of the rain and her own thoughts.
Piper (the Queen) McLean: OMG Bethhhh Jason freaking Grace is in the pizzeria! My date's gonna have a lot to show up to ;)
Piper (the Queen) McLean: Annabeth why is he here? He's a movie star and a lawyer how does he have time to be in a nondescript Oregon town?
Piper (the Queen) McLean: He's walking towards meeeeee
Annabeth didn't want Piper to see that she'd read the messages, so she only read the notifications. Piper would realize the sweet truth soon enough, anyways. She opened up her contacts and thumbed through them until she arrived at Piper (the Queen) McLean, and, opening it up, changed the name. Piper wasn't the queen, she didn't have to say that whenever Annabeth got a text from her.
The Pied Piper: Whaddo I do?
The messages stopped coming through, probably as Jason approached Piper and Piper (probably) realized that Annabeth had somehow set her up with Jason Grace. She was probably going to make a fool of herself, Annabeth thought to herself, but that didn't really matter. It would be funny to hear about, probably, and it was Jason Grace. Piper's idol, basically.
Piper's POV: (Yeah, I used someone else!)
Piper thought the whole thing with Annabeth and the blind date was oddly shady of her roommate, and she didn't know what was going on, but she did think Pablo's Pizzeria was a cute little place- but the man sitting in a corner booth, his slightly shaded sunglasses failing to hide his identity almost made her turn tail and run out. Jason freaking Grace? She looked closer at him- he had the star's short cropped blond hair, and while his eyes were hidden by amber tinted glasses, even though it was fairly dark in the pizzeria, she knew that they would be blue when she got a good look at them. How was this even possible? What were the chances of Jason Grace being in the restaurant she was having a blind date in? She pulled out her phone- intent on texting Annabeth. She wouldn't believe what Piper was about to tell her.
You: OMG Bethhhh Jason freaking Grace is in the pizzeria! My date's gonna have a lot to show up to ;)
You: Annabeth why is he here? He's a movie star and a lawyer how does he have the time to be in a nondescript Oregon town?
You: He's walking towards meeeeee
You: Whaddo I do?
Annabeth gave no answers, and Piper stared as Jason got up and started walking in Piper's direction. A movie star approaching her? A hotshot lawyer too? Piper thought about Annabeth's words. Hm, he's blond, and he has blue eyes. Okay, I don't want to spoil the surprise. And he's a lawyer, I think.
Gosh, how could she have been so dense? A lawyer with blond hair and blue eyes. Jason Grace- a lawyer with blond hair and blue eyes, too. And he was here. Piper had been obsessed with Jason Grace for so long. Piper looked around- there was one blond, with sky blue eyes too, but he was talking to an olive-skinned Italian boy with messy dark hair and even darker eyes- a nice pair that seemed like polar opposites, balancing each other out.
"Excuse me, Miss, is your name Piper, by any chance?" Piper stared at him. He really was Jason Grace. He was close enough to see his sky blue eyes up close, and no high definition film or picture could have done them justice, and no amount of watching Murder Birds or When the Sky Sings could have prepared her, not in Piper's opinion.
But the worst thing was that, just like the tabloids had gossiped, not all of his eyes were their crystal clear blue. Because in maybe two thirds of the left iris was the dark color of obsidian. It had to be a soulmark, heterochromia was rare and no one ever commented on Jason Grace with heterochromia, which meant that Jason Grace had a soulmate somewhere in this world. One that wasn't her. Well...that would've been expected.
"Uhh, y-yeah." Piper managed, before playing innocent- "And who are you?" Jason Grace laughed. Piper had seen him laugh on the big screen before- when he played Collin, and Fala, who was cast as Bianca di Angelo, made him laugh in the scene, and his laugh had been carefree and light. Neither Collin, nor Jason, had understood what was happening at the time. When he was Ethan, the serious son of a famous owner of a large airline in When the Sky Sings, his laugh had been cynical, cynical because he was a movie star who, according to news at the time, didn't want to be, cynical because Ethan, just like Jason, didn't want to be thrust what he'd ended up with- a famous father who was barely around and a spotlight on him, too.
"Pleased to meet you, I'm Jason Grace. And according to Annabeth, you're my blind date." Piper was glad he introduced himself- she was going to get Annabeth back for this but still, Jason Grace had manners. She was on a blind date with none other than Jason Grace.
"Oh…" she trailed off as he confirmed what she already knew. "So," she changed the subject, "how do you know Annabeth?" She asked as he led her towards the booth and sat with her, back to the rest of the restaurant as he took off his sunglasses, exposing his face only to her.
"We met a few days ago," Jason told her, "I helped her with taking in her groceries, she seemed cool, and she asked me for this favor." So I'm a favor? Piper thought, careful to keep her thoughts off her face. "What about you, who are you to Annabeth?"
"She's my roommate. We didn't meet that long ago, but we're friends, I'd say. This is probably…a joke on her part-" Piper was cut off when Jason's phone rang. He was looking intently at her, but she gestured to his phone. "Take it. You're busy, I take it." She knew very well that he was busy, being a lawyer now, still acting in smaller parts. And she was just a girl that he'd been saddled with for a night- why would Piper matter to Jason Grace?
"Thank you, di Angelo, and don't think I don't see you right over there." Jason's eyes flashed at the Italian man with the sunny blond boy who he was still sitting with- the Italian watching Jason with an odd look on his face, phone up to his ear. "Don't you and Sunshine have places to be?" Piper heard a barely audible goodbye that sounded suspiciously like a curse, before Jason turned back to her with a strained smile. "Sorry, my cousin, Nico. He's…well, here, and decided now was the perfect time to call me about this deal with Tristan McLean-"
Piper tried to keep a detached interest on her face- the sort you'd expect from some schmuck you were on a blind date with. "Oh?"
Jason blanked for a second. "I'm sorry…you probably know who I am and I don't mean to drag you into my…life." Piper rushed to reassure him.
"No, it's fine. In fact, I have connections to movie things as well, it's not a problem." Jason looked as if he was about to ask her what she meant, and Piper wasn't sure if he was acting, or whether he was actually interested in her and their blind date, and Piper tried not to stare at a scar on his lip.
The unmistakable sound of a camera flash temporarily blinded her, and when her vision was clear again, there were two reporters sliding into their booth. "Mr. Grace, is it true that you're going to be acting in the movie From Morning to Light with Tristan McLean?" Piper knew of the movie; it wasn't very far along, but her dad had been casted as one of the two main characters. Jason looked almost blindsided.
"I can't tell you that for sure; everything is only in the early stages. I haven't auditioned, and while I am looking at it, everything, including casting, is a shot in the dark." He answered smoothly.
The reporters ate it up before staring blatantly at Piper, whose only choice was to stare blatantly back. "I see you've met Miss McLean- perhaps a way of getting into the movie?"
"What?" Jason looked like a deer in headlights. "No! I didn't- we're not-" their pizza had, somewhere in the middle of it all, arrived, and Piper wondered if it would be considered rude to take a slice.
"I see," the woman reporter said, making a note on her clipboard. "Then what are you two doing?" Piper took that as her cue.
"Excuse me," she said, smiling sweetly, gritting her teeth when the guy snapped a picture of the two of them sitting together, "Jason and I were just about to leave…why don't you go home, delete those pictures, throw away your story, and forget we were here?" the paparazzi's eyes appeared almost glazed over.
"We'll do that. Have a nice night." Piper stood up after them. Jason looked mostly confused.
"Come on, let's go." She said, grabbing her coat. "Before it wears off." She hoped they'd forget, but there was no use waiting around.
Jason walked her to her door after the Piper asked a lovely young man to give them his Mazda. He did so, and Piper would see it returned after it served its purpose. Their pizza, which had been put in a box and eaten during the drive, was the nicest part of the night, and even after the drive had ended, Piper kept her eyes off Jason. It was better that way.
"So…Miss McLean? Piper McLean?" she winced.
"Yes."
"Tristan's daughter."
"Yes."
"Oh." Jason kept quiet as they walked toward the Catnip Cottages. "What did you mean, earlier, when you said this was a joke on Annabeth's part?" the two stopped at Piper's door.
"Well, just that you're Jason Grace." Piper said, gesturing sort of wildly. "It's no big deal, really." The silence fell, shadowed and awkward between them.
"You're Piper McLean, " Jason told her. "A movie star's daughter."
"A delinquent, too. You're Jason Grace. A movie star. Annabeth knew this wouldn't work out, she thought it was funny." Piper's eyes stung, and she had to leave before she started crying in front of Jason Grace.
"Piper," Jason studied her cautiously, probably trying to find the best way to let her down easy. What he did, she was not prepared for. "Would you like to go out again sometime?" Embarrassingly, a few more tears welled up in her eyes.
"I- I'd like that." She gave him a watery smile, which he returned.
"Goodnight, Piper." The kiss on her cheek was gone too soon as he walked towards the stairs, leaving Piper to sag against her door.
Annabeth opened it.
Piper fell down.
Yay! Your song of the chapter is I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band).