Encounters

AN: You guys! I finished Exceptions! And it was perfect! If you haven't checked it out, PLEASE check it out. Pwease? Also, if you're wondering, I've started writing for the sequel, so yeah. Anyway, thanks for your reviews, every review matters, even the bad ones. Enjoy.

Percy

"Alright, let's get started." Was the sentence that started it all. It was all going okay at first. I'd been watching quietly as she arranged her cheetos in order from tallest to shortest, then began eating them starting from the tallest. I had smiled at the fact that I'd just figured out she was a control freak. I mean, she made it pretty clear that was the only way she'd be eating the cheetos, and any other way was down right sinful. She'd almost smiled at me. Almost. And then, everything went down hill.

I was learning things about her. I mean, she wasn't that horrible. She actually wasn't horrible at all. She was such a mystery to me, which made me curious, which made me want to decipher what exactly made her up. I had my mother's curiosity.

I got my looks from my dad. I was pretty thankful for that, too, considering the fact that he'd vanished my life way before I could even comprehend what was happening. I mean, it wasn't his fault. He didn't choose to die. It was the plane.

If I didn't have something that tied me back to my dad, I think I'd just lose it. I mean I really missed him. I never really got to know him like a little kid should get too. We never played catch in the backyard, or picked out puppies together, or anything else that remotely came with having a father. But whenever I looked in the mirror, what I saw held me together.

It's not that I was cocky. I wasn't. In fact, some people might find me insecure despite the fact that I had girls chasing me everywhere I went. But I looked just like Dad. And that made me feel hopeful for the future because from what Mom told me, he was a great man, and if he could be one, then so could I. Knowing I was practically an exact replica of him brightened me up somehow. I could grow up to be like him. I could have a good future, get a good education, find a good girl who would follow me into a good life and a good marriage. My life had the potential to be good.

Everything I did revolved around my Dad. I joined football because of him. I tried extra hard in my classes because of him- and that was a hard task considering I had dyslexia and ADHD. Everything I did, led back to him. And it pained me that I never really got to connect with him. But sometimes, that's the way things have to be.

"So, I think we should do Artemis and Apollo." I'd suggested, to which I got no response except her eyes glancing up to meet mine, and her stuffing her face with hot cheetos. I was almost surprised. The girl could eat more than a football player, and I would know because I am one. It wasn't that she was fat, she definitley wasn't that. She was in great shape and everything. But I'd never seen anyone other than my mom eat that much. I'm pretty sure if I'd said that out loud, she would've taken offence, but really, it was not meant to be taken that way. I admired a girl who wasn't scared of what others thought of her.

"Nope. That one's already taken, I asked Ms. Raymond as soon as I could." She'd responded, pouring the remaining cheetos back in the bag and then getting up, grabbing a small little pouch that contained cleansing wipes. She then proceeded to wipe off her fingers one by one, and I smirked because the action just supported my control freak theory. She met my eyes and raised an eyebrow, stacking her curls in a bun on the top of her head.

"What?" I shook my head quickly and leaned back against her rug. I heard a creak that could only mean she was on her bed.

"I don't like not knowing things, Jackson. Tell me." I sat up and gave her a look.

"Last time I checked, I'm not under oath, I don't have to tell you anything." She paused with her mouth half open then clamped it shut and leaned her chin against a pillow. And I was shocked. It was the first time that coffee shop girl hadn't had a comeback ready in hand.

Ever since the first day that I came to Goode, we'd been at each other's throats. Going through mornings was a living hell. I woke up squinting into the sunlight and dreading the fact that I'd have to see her face again first thing I walked into school. When either of us saw the other in English, we'd glare so hard at each other that any normal person would cower. English was a pain, History was a pile of shit, and Biology was like getting shot through the head. All in all, both of our days were full of glares and distasteful glances at the other, and when we absolutely had to talk, insults spilled out of our mouths like vomit.

"I forgot. Most people don't think I'm a bitch." She stated quickly as she shot up and towards her computer, opening up her browser and typing something into the search bar. "They willingly give me information because believe it or not, I'm not a horrible person. I mean, I don't know why I'm explaining myself to you, but hey, why the hell not?"

"You're not a horrible person?" I replied sarcastically, getting up and wandering around her room. I stopped at a bookshelf and stared at the covers.

"Stop being such a smartass, that's my area of expertise." The reply was so bland that I busted out laughing without meaning to, and whipped around to find her swiveling around in her computer chair.

"So, I'm guessing that this not knowing thing is bothering you." She shot me a glare as I held a smirk, knowing that I had ticked her off.

"This isn't part of the research project, you know." She said, trying to deflect my truthful statement.

"Well, we haven't exactly picked who we're doing the project on. And also, you're ticked off."

"I'm always ticked off when it comes to you."

"Keep it up, and you won't ever find out what I was smirking about." She pressed her lips together and turned away from me. After a couple of silent moments of me staring at her bookshelf, I spoke. "You're a control freak." She looked up from her computer screen and got up, making her way towards me.

"Hmm?"

"That's what I was laughing about. You're a control freak." I leaned down to analyze the bottom half of her bookshelf and met one particular book title that caught my eye.

"Well, I guess everyone learns that about me eventually." She stated simply, and I was surprised when I didn't hear a bite in her voice. I grabbed the book that I'd been staring at and slowly dislodged it from the rest of the books on the shelf.

"Dare You To. I didn't peg you as a romance type of girl." I said as I flipped through the pages quickly.

"So what if I am? It's not a crime, is it?" She shot back in a defensive manner.

"No, but with the way you build yourself up to be so badass, I wouldn't take you as the type of girl that likes to read sappy romance novels."

"Everyone has their guilty pleasures. Mine just happens to be romance novels." She paused and I looked up to meet her face. "Wait. How do you know anything about this book?" I tried not to burst into flames in front of her as she grabbed the book from my hands and held it to her chest. After a moment of silence, she bursted out laughing. I hated to say it because she was laughing at my expense, but it wasn't a horrible sound. I preferred her laughing to dumping crap on me. And that's when I realized that this was the most civil we'd been since we met.

"You read romance novels?"

"It was one time." Her laugh continued after my response. I figure she'd say something about how I couldn't read books like that because I was a football player, but instead she shot something else at me.

"Jocks usually aren't smart. Their muscles feast on their brains." She replied, quoting the book with ease and sending me a smirk that wasn't wry or filled with hate. I shook my head at her and resisted the urge to smile at the fact that right now, neither of us were yelling at the other. Her eyes weren't set in a glare, and they didn't show any sign of scrutiny. They were light.

"Isn't that stereotyping?" And that's where I screwed up. Her face fell, her eyebrows came together, and her lips pressed.

"Yeah, but the difference is that I was just pulling a quote from the book, while when you did that at Starbucks, it was completely genuine." And then without another word, she whipped around and headed back to her computer. "Come on, pull up a chair and bring your things." She ordered flatly, typing at the speed of lightning. I pulled my bag closer and pulled the chair out next to her.

"Annabeth, I was trying to apologize yesterday. I-"

"We should do Athena." She interrupted, pointing her finger at the screen. I watched as she attempted to scratch off the black nail polish coating her fingernail. I pulled out my computer from my bag and opened it up, starting it up and looking back at the screen.

"Goddess of wisdom and war." She commented, and I swear I almost heard some type of emotion in her voice. I typed my password into my computer and turned back to her.

"What about Poseidon?" She continued trying to chip at her nail polish and I, unthinkingly, snatched her hand away, dropping it by her thighs then reverting my attention back to my computer. She glanced up at me and gave me a look.

"What was that?"

"Stop chipping your nails, okay? It's bad." I went up to my home screen and scowled at the fact that I couldn't get my office word open. I cussed under my breath and repeated the process, but it was no use. There was something wrong with it.

"You need to open task manager." I looked up and glanced at her, confused and perplexed as to what she was talking about. She rolled her eyes at me then leaned over me, going to my start button and opening up a thousand applications at once. I watched in a daze as she typed a million things into word bars. My computer lit up and after a minute, she opened up google chrome and downloaded something. She leaned back in her chair and spun around, tucking her knees into her chest and pushing up the black framed glasses that were perched on her nose. After a couple minutes of me sitting there wondering what the hell she just did, she leaned over me again and clicked on multiple things.

"You have a Kuma Satra virus. I downloaded a cheap antivirus software, but it won't last long so you need to gather up some money to get a good software, otherwise you can kiss your computer goodbye." I stared at her as she leaned on her elbows and stared at the screen like nothing had happened. "So anyway, Athena?"

"What was that?" I asked after a beat of silence from both of us.

"What was what?"

"That thing you just did. I didn't know you were good with computers."

"Yeah, well you don't know anything about me anyway. All I did was reboot it, no big deal. Now, about Athena-"

"Thanks, I guess?" I interrupted again. She raised an eyebrow at me and adjusted her glasses as I cleared my throat. "So, um, Poseidon? What do you think? I mean he's interesting." I watched quietly as a loading bar popped up on my computer, starting a procedure which I assumed was the removal of the virus.

"I mean... I guess. Athena and Poseidon should be fine, they definitley have ties that we can talk about. " She assured. I could tell she was still upset about the stereotype thing, and after we'd been starting to get along, I wanted nothing more than to go back and retrace my steps. "So, I think that's enough for today. I mean, we've picked our two subjects, so after this, everything else shouldn't take that long. You can go hang out in my brother's room if you want, but I think we should wrap this up." My eyebrows knit together, and I shut my computer as she removed her reading glasses and set them next to her keyboard.

"You're kicking me out?"

"Yes. My room. We're not friends." She replied quickly as she slipped on a headset and opened up a game on her computer. I smirked at the fact that Malcolm was right. Annabeth was a complete game junkie. I shoved my things in my bag, zipped it up, and then walked around her room, pausing at the bookshelf again. I viewed the objects resting on the shelf. There was a framed picture of her and Thalia, a girl I'd come to meet in Math, with Piper kissing Annabeth's cheek and Annabeth's eyes scrunched up tightly. Thalia was scowling deeply, but there was a layer of mischeif hidden in her eyes.

There was a snowglobe, a hook that held about a thousand blue and silver bows, and next to that, a small rugged owl stuffed animal.

"Don't touch that!" I heard her scream, and in half a second, she was lunging herself at me and I was being knocked over on the ground. We landed with a thud, knocking heads because of the impact and almost groaning in unison.

"Ow, what the hell?" I asked as I held my head in my hands.

"I thought you were touching Tartar Sauce." She muttered as she rubbed her temple and went to get up. Unfortunately, my limbs were still trying to recover from the fall, and so she ended up tripping on them and falling on me yet again.

"Not that I mind having a hot girl on me, but this is the second time, and you're a cheerleader. Isn't this like burning your soul somehow? It's like a vampire touching holy water. And what the hell is Tartar Sauce?" I replied through a groan because her elbow had jabbed into my stomach and it was not a nice feeling in the slightest bit.

"Well does it look like I'm bursting into flames? You're acting like I'm trying to do this on purpose, I wanna get off you asap, I hate you remember? And Tartar Sauce is the name of my owl. Don't touch him." She said trying to crawl off of me, but in the process she shifted her knee up so it was near my crotch and I froze, my eyes widening as I realized what would happen if she moved any further. I tried to wriggle my hand from underneath me but it was pinned.

"Don't move." She gave me a look as she leaned on her left arm, letting out a breath of exesperation and shooting me a glare.

"And why not?"

"Because if you do, you'll hit my happy place, and then my happy place won't be as happy as it could be if you hadn't hit it, understand what I'm trying to say?" Her eyes widened slightly and then quickly shut, as if wishing that she wasn't in this position would magically pull her out of it. "Give me a second." I muttered as I managed to unpin my arm and wriggle my way out from underneath her. I let out a breath of relief as we backed away from each other succesfully. "And what the heck kind of name is Tartar Sauce?" I asked standing up.

"Give me a break, I was three, alright?" She paused, and then opened her mouth. I knew that whatever was about to come out of it would be some type on insult, so I grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the room and down the stairs before she could yell at me for being an arse.

"What are you doing?!" I ignored her shout of protest and shoved her in my car quickly, jumping in and driving away before she could try to get out. "This is considered kidnapping!"

"No one's stopping you from jumping out, sweetheart. Go ahead." I replied, almost unsure of what I was trying to do. "I've only known you for four days and I'm already sick of our arguments."

"If you don't wanna argue, you don't have to talk to me." She all but yelled while staring out the window.

"Didn't we agree to be civil while we were doing this project?"

"Well are we doing the project now?" I parked into the Starbucks lot and groaned.

"God, will you just please stop talking for five minutes? Maybe then I'd be able to get a word out of my mouth." I cringed as she shifted in her seat to shoot me a look that could kill. Instead of yelling at me, though, she stared down at her phone screen and frowned.

"Malcolm's not picking up his phone. I'm getting worried, he said he'd be back in an hour over an hour ago." She mumbled under her breath and I watched quietly as she shoved her phone in her pocket and then looked up at me expectantly. "Well? Are you gonna talk? Because after what you said, I'd expect you to be spilling things out right now." I rolled my eyes at her and jumped out of the car, slamming the door almost at the exact same time she did. "Why are we here?"

"Don't question it, please? You'll find out soon enough." I said, trying not to stomp into the store. A little bell jingled as I opened the door and held it out for her, trying not to notice the fact that people were looking our way. They obviously remembered us from last time we were in here. I marched up to the register and ordered a vanilla bean frappe, shoving a ten at the lady and rubbing my forehead. After she handed the coffee to me, I dragged Annabeth over to a booth and slid in on one side, placing the coffee in the middle and jamming an extra straw in the cup.

"I don't like Starbucks." Annabeth stated after a moment. I cocked an eyebrow and clamped my hands together.

"Well tough luck Princess, we're not moving till you drink some." I replied in a bored tone as I leaned on my elbows for support. I met her eyes and much like last time we were in here, noticed they were storming on the inside.

"Why?" I let out a breath and shook my head.

"Do you really have to question everything? It's my peace offering. I'm sorry for being an ass to you the other day. I was having a bad day. But, you're my best friend's sister. We're going to have to lern to tolerate each other, otherwise we'll make Malcolm unhappy, and as I can see, you care about him, so I'm guessing you don't want that." I saw the hesitation in her eyes and then smiled as I heard the almost inaudible sigh of defeat.

"Yeah. Okay." She muttered quietly. She looked up at me and swept her fingers behind her ears, playing with a small curl hanging out from her bun. "I'm sorry for holding such a grudge on you. I should've let it go. Then again, I never do anything I should do." She smirked at me and I couldn't help but shake my head at her. "I accept your apology, but I don't accept your form of apologizing. Starbucks sucks."

"I accept your apology as well, Chase #2, but Starbucks does not suck. Have you ever tried it?"

"No, but why should I? It's so fattening anyway." My jaw dropped open as she finished her statement.

"Coming from the girl that ate an entire bag of cheetos in the first thirty minutes of our study session. Come on, you're fishing for excuses. Try it."

"No."

"Try it."

"No."

"Please?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"No. And please fix your hair, I can't tolerate things being out of place. I mean I get that it's your natural style, but there's a piece that's just not working out well."

"I'll fix it if you take a sip." I challenged. Her eyebrows shot up, and she instantly grabbed the cup, taking a long swig of the drink. Her eyes screwed shut and she yelped as I laughed at her.

"Ow. Brain freeze." She informed as I ran my fingers through my hair, waiting for her nod of aprooval. After she gave it to me, I dropped my hands and grabbed the drink from her, sipping out of the other straw. As soon as our buisness was finished, we headed back to my car with her trying to subtly drink out of the cup, and me holding in my smirk.

"So do you like it?" I asked, knowing full an well that she did.

"Hm." Was her only response, to which I laughed loudly. She turned in her seat and stared at me, opening up her mouth to speak. "So we need to set ground rules. Just because we've apologized doesn't mean we can be all buddy buddy all the time. You're still a football player, I'm still a cheerleader. All the same rules apply." I nodded and she turned back in her seat.

"So what's with Tartar Sauce?" The car was silent for a while until there was a throat clearing, and then a sharp intake of breath.

"My mom gave it to me a while back when I was small. It's basically the only thing I have of hers."

"What happened to her? Did your parents get divorced? Malcolm never really told me much about you guy's mom." More throat clearing.

"Um, no. She.. passed away when we were small. She was in an airplane crash." I almost slammed the wheel when she said that. Luckily we were at a red light, so it wouldn't have made a difference. I turned to her quickly.

"Really? My dad was in an airplane crash too." And I guess the reason I mentioned that was because, well, could it really only be a coincidence that both of our parents died in a flight? "Where was she flying?"

"I don't remember." She admitted. "It was a really long time ago. Your dad was in a crash too?"

"Yeah. It was a long time ago too." I replied, parking into her drive way. And I was calm. I mean things were going pretty well between us. When we walked up to her door, things were still fine, even though I could see the troubled look on Annabeth's face as she noticed that Malcolm still wasn't there. But then things changed as soon as the door was swung open, and I met a woman with dark brown hair and cold dark pits as eyes. This, I assumed, was the Chase's stepmother. Malcolm absolutely hated her, and judging from the way Annabeth looked at her, so did she. Annabeth turned to me almost as soon as the door opened and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Percy, this is Helen... My stepmother."

AN: I know, this is like mega short. I just don't want to rush everything. Alright you guys, like my other story, there are going to be somethings you guys are going to have to piece together. Let the guessing begin. As usual, comment your favorite quote or part from this chapter, and also, try to piece up the little mystery as to where Malcolm went, or the airplane thing- which i'm pretty sure no one will get till later on in the story. Like a lot later. Alright, well drop me a review because it makes me happy, and hey, why not make someone else happy today? Till next time- ShyGal