Annabeth's POV

Percy had been a Godsend the last couple of weeks. Even by my usual standards, I was seriously over worked. I had so many exams to study for. And even though Sally tried to cut my hours down to give me extra time, working at the shop was a welcome break from studying, it just wasn't as good a break as Percy provided.

With everything else going on since he'd given me the list, the list had really taken a back seat. But he'd brought it back in full force to make me take breaks from studying.

Since he'd given me the list we'd unintentionally crossed a couple more off of it. Take part in fancy dress. Check. Estelle's party covered that one. Stay out until the sun comes up. Check. When Percy was in hospital covered that one.

Percy had been really determined to help me complete the list before we graduated. For the last few weeks he'd been teaching me to cook more than microwave noodles. Which he had been horrified, that was the extent of my cooking abilities. We'd also gone to a pub quiz with Piper, Jason, Thalia, Hazel and Frank which had been a blast and had checked one more thing off the list.

Which left; No. 3 pub crawl, No. 10 uni BBQ, No. 12 Party all night in the students union, No. 13 Road trip with House mates and No. 15 Get a Tattoo.

As tonight was Saturday and neither of use had work tomorrow Percy decided it was the ideal night for a pub crawl. Considering he didn't drink, except from that one time, I didn't really understand how this would be fun for him, but I'd take any time with Percy regardless of what we were doing.

I was really looking forward to letting my hair down and not thinking about architecture for a few hours. Piper had work in the morning so she and Jason had opted for a night in instead.

We started at a bar that was close to campus. Percy ordered a soda and I ordered a Raspberry Crush Spritz.

"So you've been on many a bar crawl have you?" I teased Percy as we sat down.

"We'll sort of," he said sheepishly. "I never drank but after a swim meet the team always went out to celebrate after."

I nodded. I kept forgetting he was on the swim team. His coach had him on the bench currently to help him with his recovery. Percy hated it, he missed it terribly. I knew he loved being in the water but both his coach and his doctor felt his lungs needed longer to recover before he tried to add competitive swimming back into his life.

"Sorry," I said "I didn't mean to bring up swimming."

"That's okay, you didn't know." He smiled at me but it didn't quite meet his eyes. I wanted to suggest going swimming as a leisurely activity but I didn't know if that would make it harder for him to comply with his doctor's orders.

"How are Bobby and Matthew?" He asked, changing the subject before I could.

"Good, they actually asked about you on our last Sunday morning call, they want to know when you're coming home for a rematch." He smiled.

"Maybe I could drive, over the summer?" He asked.

"I'm sure they'd love it. I could drive with you if you like, help cut the time down. It's nearly 4 days driving."

"We could make a road trip out of it." He said smiling.

"We could" I smiled back.

We spent the whole night planning the road trip to San Francisco as be bounced from bar to bar. I found myself feeling really excited to go home this summer.

Percy's P.O.V

I knew Piper was on to me. She'd caught me arranging to meet Annabeth's dad. I had lied and told her I was arranging a surprise for Annabeth's graduation present, which technically wasn't a lie; it just wasn't the whole truth. Piper promised to keep me meeting Annabeth's dad to herself but I knew I'd made her suspicious.

The trouble with having such a good relationship with your girlfriend's best friend is that they know when you're lying. Piper, unfortunately for me, was like a dog with a bone. Dog with a bone, who was incredibly impressive with computers. It took her less than a week to turn up at the Aquarium and confront me.

"Percy, you have a visitor, and she looks might pissed off." My boss said. "Take the meeting room." He advised before, before letting me know my visitor was waiting for me near the reception entrance. I'd been expecting Annabeth and I was trying to figure out why she would be angry with me, so I was really surprised to see Piper standing there with her arms crossed looking like, I'd put salt in her coffee instead of sugar or something.

"Piper, my boss said we could use the meeting room, it's right this way." I said as I lead her back down the corridor and through a staff only door. I was trying to think of what I'd done to anger Piper before I could get very far on that, Piper shut the meeting room door and rounded on me.

"Percy Jackson! How dare you?!" Piper yelled at me.

"How dare I what?" I asked very much taken aback by the aggression in her voice.

"Don't use that shocked tone with me, you know what!" She yelled pulling paper from her pocket and throwing it at me.

It was a conversation I'd had with the jeweller on the internet but I'd been really careful when writing it that I didn't mention what I actually wanted in case Annabeth saw it. What I'd actual inadvertently done was made it look like I was flirting with the jeweller.

"Oh, no Piper! I can explain, this totally isn't how it reads, I promise. Will you hear me out?" I asked panicked.

"Yes" She huffed, I could see the anger was still there but there was also a hope in her eyes that I was telling the truth, which thankfully I was.

"Okay, why don't you sit down and I'll start from the beginning." I sand and she nodded taking a seat at the table.

"Right so," I said taking the ring box out of my pocket, I'd picked it up that morning, I slid it across the table. "When you caught me on the phone to Annabeth's dad I knew you were suspicious. I am planning a surprise for Annabeth on graduation day and I swear I'm not cheating on her. What I told you wasn't a lie it just wasn't the full truth. This conversation is with the jeweller and I was being really careful to try and word it so Annabeth wouldn't know what I was buying if she saw it. What your super duper computer wasn't able to rescue which puts the conversation into context is these random lines of code which are pictures."

"I know that," She said but I could see the realisation dawning on her.

"When I respond with beautiful, I was talking about the image, you can't see but it was nothing untoward, I promise, open the box and it'll make sense. The pictures were encrypted to only be accessible for five minutes, I didn't realise how it would look without them. Which I now realise after reading this, is awful."

Piper opened the box and I waiting anxiously for her reaction.

"Oh Percy, it's wow, Oh God I'm so sorry! I just totally jumped down your throat –"

"But you did hear me out, which I'm very thankful for. Do you think Annabeth will like it?"

"I do. I'm so sorry Percy." She said.

"It's okay Piper, you were just defending Annabeth. You're a good friend." I said smiling.

"Thanks, Percy." She smiled and slid the box back to me, which I re-pocketed. "So graduation day, can I know the plan?"

"It's not that I don't want you to know Piper, it's that I don't want to rob Annabeth of that moment where she gets to tell you how I did it, y'know if she says yes-"

"Oh she'll totally say yes!" Piper said, who was now completely back to her normal love loving self.

"You don't even know how I'm going to ask." I teased.

"I don't need to, the fact you won't tell me because you don't want to deprive Annabeth of that moment, tells me enough. That being said I should probably let you get back to work."

I lead Piper back to the exit of the aquarium and she turned and hugged me. "Again, I'm really sorry, I'll see you at home?" She asked.

"I'll see you at home." I confirmed before heading back the way I came, to feed the turtles.

Jason's P.O.V

Piper was acting really weird this morning. She had a look of fiery determination when she'd left to do whatever it was she was going to do and I was glad I was not on the receiving end of that. Then she'd come back and it was like this morning had never happened she was back to being Pipes. I was on the fence about whether I should ask her about it or not, but in the end I decided I'd be a rubbish boyfriend if I at least didn't make sure she was okay.

We were sitting on the sofa in mine and Thalia's apartment watching TV; we'd both finished our exams and were both equally thankful that we didn't have as many as Annabeth.

"Pipes, can I ask you something?" I asked.

"Sure, Jay, what's up?" She said muting the TV and turning to face me.

"Is everything okay? It's just this morning you seemed ready to kill someone and then when you got back it was like whatever it was never happened. I just wanted to make sure that you're okay?"

Piper leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to my lips before pulling back and responding.

"I'm fine, I misunderstood something and what I thought it meant made me very angry. What it actually meant made me very happy. I know that doesn't make much sense, but I promise I'm okay and as soon as you know what I know, I'll tell you about it." She promised.

"You can't tell me?" I asked.

"Well, I don't know, I just know that what it is, is a surprise for someone and I don't know who else knows about it." She said looking apologetically.

"That's fair, as long as you're okay, that's what I care about." I promised though I'll admit I was intrigued.

She leaned in a kissed me again. "I'm okay I promise. I promise to tell you if I'm not in the future."

"And one more thing" I said.

"Yes?" She asked.

"Never let me do anything that makes you as mad as you looked this morning." I said and she threw her head back as she laughed, clutching at her side.

"Deal" She whispered before leaning into to kiss me again.

Ψ

~ Author's Note ~

Hi All, apologies for the delay in updates, between work and Christmas I've been a bit tied up. I hope you all enjoy this chapter!

Going Dark – Welcome back :) Thank you for the review and I think the email system went down because I missed a few updates for other stories that I'm following too as well as PM notifications. But hopefully it's all back up and running smoothly now! I hope you've managed to catch up and are enjoying!

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Sorry for the short replies to your reviews I really do appreciate them all, I've just got a lot to accomplish before Christmas so please bear with me. Happy reading all!