A/N: I own nothing but plot. Enjoy!

During the midst of capture-the-flag, Annabeth took on Percy herself. From just a few sword training sessions, Annabeth already knew that Percy was a great swordsman, perhaps even rivaling Jason or Luke Castellan. Percy's Roman swordsmanship was completely different from that taught by the Greek camp who preferred a slashing style. He had already eliminated a few other Athena campers in the game.

Still, Annabeth wasn't without tricks up her sleeve. She wore her trusty Yankees cap, keeping Percy at bay who stabbed at random patches of air to try to guess where she was. Then, Percy waved his hand at the nearby pond. A huge gush of water flew all around them, splashing Annabeth and soaking her everywhere. Suddenly, she was no longer as invisible. Though the cap still made her body unseen, the water droplets falling from her wet armor was all too telling as they fell to the ground, dotting the ground.

Percy grinned and thrust his sword forward. Annabeth dodged to the side and rolled up to a standing position, her bronze dagger at the ready just in time to parry his sword away. Her cap fell off and there was no time to grab it again.

The clang of metal resounded in the woods again and again. Unfortunately, the range of Annabeth's dagger was just a little too short. In order to surprise Percy, she hadn't taken a clanky sword. Then, the world turned upside down as Annabeth found herself falling into the pond.

Just then, the horn blew. The game was over. Annabeth grinned as she heard the sound of her teammates cheering throughout the woods. Unlike during sword training practice, she hadn't planned to win at all. Annabeth had pretended to fall back, intentionally drawing Percy closer to the pond which was his territory, but it would also make him further away from the midst of the fighting while the flag was being captured.

"You were stalling for time." Percy realized. "Or stalling me."

Annabeth shrugged. What could she say? She was a daughter of Athena after all. Percy was the biggest threat on the opposing team, even bigger than Clarisse.

"Better luck next time, Seaweed Brain."

Percy shook his head in disbelief, though a little smile was tugging on his lips.

Annabeth stood up from the pond. But the mud on the ground was a tad too slippery as her foot lost all friction.

"Careful!"

But it was too late as Annabeth crashed into Percy.

"Oof!" Annabeth grumbled.

The impact of armor clanging against armor made her ears ring. She had fallen on top of Percy, whose hair was now streaked with mud.

"Shit, are you okay?" Annabeth asked.

"Ow. Yeah, I'm fine. Been through worse when I fell off of Festus. What about you? Did you get hurt?"

"I'm fine, thanks to someone acting as my safety net," she joked.

Percy smiled up at her. "Glad to see I have a future career in catching people as they fall."

"Hey, don't quit your day job."

Annabeth suddenly realized that she and Percy were close. Super close enough that his face was a mere few inches away. Her stomach fluttered.

Her skin crawled with awkwardness and embarrassment. Annabeth quickly scrambled up, accidentally elbowing Percy in the face.

"Oh gods, I'm so sorry, Percy!"

"No, it's fine, really. I was thirsty but I didn't really want to taste pond water." Percy groaned as Annabeth helped him up.

"Shut up, Seaweed Brain."

The seasons melted from winter to spring. Annabeth had to return to school with no word from Jason. She could only assume that he was still alive.

During spring break, she returned to check on the progress of the building of Argo II. Leo and the other Hephaestus campers had done a great job, and Annabeth loved helping to design every bit of it. Pity that designs always seemed good in theory but not always practical. Things never worked perfectly or needed adjustments, which ended up delaying their trip to Camp Jupiter. The summer months were inching closer and closer, with no hope of getting to Jason sooner.

"It's still a solid ship," Percy commented. "The Romans didn't like sailing a lot, but I'm sure even they would marvel it greatly."

Annabeth smiled, a little proud of the work herself. "It's a shame Olympus is closed off. Otherwise, I'd bring you to see some of the other designs I've made."

"Oh yeah? I'll have to take you up on your offer one day. It's not every day one gets to see the great works of the head architect of Olympus. I bet you put statues of yourself up there. How many did you place?" Percy teased.

"You're impossible." Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"I've also been told that I'm insufferable."

"That, too."

"You're such a seaweed brain."

Percy grinned at her, his smile lighting up his face. Annabeth had the urge to brush the dark hair falling onto his forehead. His hair was like a wild horse's mane when he neglected to comb it, which was often.

If only he wasn't a son of Neptune, Annabeth found herself thinking. Even a son of Poseidon would be better, because when this was all over, he would have to return home, and she didn't blame him.

Squeak! Leo wheeled himself from under the engine.

"Hey, can you two stop flirting and pass me the oil? I've got a ship to build." Leo complained.

"We're not flirting!" Annabeth protested.

Whoever thought insulting another person was flirting clearly needed his brain checked. As a daughter of Aphrodite, Piper wouldn't have thought that way. But when she looked to Piper for assistance, she caught Leo and Piper exchanging amused looks.

"Whatever. Get off my ship if you're not going to help. I don't understand why this darn thing is broken again. We just worked on it a couple days ago!" Leo grumbled.

The ship building had slowed as more things didn't work as planned. Annabeth had a feeling that misfortune found them so often because someone, Gaea, was deliberately slowing them down. Even if the ship was built off the ground in an effort to prevent any magical earth goddess intervention, mysterious parts of the ships would be found not working the next day.

Still, the limiting factor was Percy's memory as he couldn't quite remember the exact location of Camp Jupiter yet. Just that it was near the San Francisco Bay Area but not quite in San Francisco itself.

Yup. Very helpful there, it was.

"We need a break. Let's go and explore New York City," Annabeth declared one weekend when the ship building had stalled again.

Ignoring Piper and Leo who gave each other looks and mouthed "date," Annabeth turned to Percy.

"You in? The Big Apple is quite different from San Francisco."

Percy frowned. "We were always warned to stay away from New York City. If we wandered too far from the Bay Area, it was like we would be too far to defend the world from the Titan's camp."

"Just like how we were warned about staying away from San Francisco, just because it was so close to the Titans' fortress." Annabeth turned to Leo and Piper. "Are you both coming?"

Leo shook his head. "Nah. I wanna finish putting these in. Beauty Queen is going to help me."

"Call me Beauty Queen one more time–"

Annabeth wasn't sure if she was happy spending one-on-one time with Percy or not.

The pair spend the day milling about on the streets. Annabeth showed him some of Daedalus's statues that had helped out in the Second Titan War last year. In fact some of the statues still had dents or chips from being damaged in battle.

"It's incredible to think that both camps were fighting the same war at the same time on the same sides, just at different geographic locations." Annabeth marveled.

"Gives one hope that we can work together, can't we? Even for a son of Neptune and daughter of Athena?"

Annabeth grinned at him. "Yeah, I guess we can."

The wind picked up and ruffled her curly hair. Before she could move, Percy reached out and brushed the strands off of her forehead. Green eyes met gray. Annabeth's breath caught in her throat.

"There was a feather in your hair." Percy held up the tiny gray wisp. He let it go and the feather drifted away in the wind.

Was it an owl feather, a reminder that her mother was watching?

Gurrrgle. Both of them looked down at Percy's stomach.

"Sorry. All this walking made me hungry." Percy admitted.

"I'm hungry, too. Let's eat." Annabeth declared.

She took him to her favorite falafel restaurant. A long line was outside for food so Annabeth and Percy fell into line. It was nice to feel like a normal teenager for once, just chatting while waiting for food. It almost felt like a…date?

Despite every logical fiber of her being telling her that she shouldn't be catching any feelings at this time, Annabeth's mood couldn't be dimmed.

"Excuse me."

Annabeth turned to see a teen wave at her.

"Do you know if this place is any good?" The guy asked, pointing to the falafel restaurant.

"Yeah, it's a great place, actually!" Annabeth smiled. "The line's a little long, but it's worth it."

The guy seemed to be attracted to her smile, gathering more courage. "Oh, okay. That's good to hear. Hey, I was wondering if I could maybe get your num—"

His words stopped as he seemed to be staring at something over her shoulder. Annabeth looked back, but all she saw was Percy, his expression blank. Percy raised an eyebrow at her.

"Um, you know what? Never mind." The dude muttered and quickly walked away. "Sorry for bothering you."

"Did you do something?" Annabeth asked Percy when the dude was gone.

"Me? I didn't say anything." Percy shrugged.

Annabeth studied him for a bit, eyes narrowed.

Percy simply smiled. "Hey, the line's moving now."

The falafel was indeed delicious, reminding her of why it was her favorite place, and somehow disappeared faster than Annabeth expected. Maybe it was because she found herself enjoying the conversation more than expected as they traded stories of quests they had gone on. For all the seaweed in his brain, Percy was an excellent conversation partner.

She was pleasantly surprised that Percy hadn't died yet from insulting all the gods he had encountered. His sarcastic wit had a tendency to make people exasperated or annoyed. As for her, Percy's sarcasm gave her more of a fond exasperation as she shook her head at he told her how he managed to piss off Ares, er, Mars.

Eventually, the two found their way to the Empire State Building. As expected, they couldn't go up. The elevator security guard just shook his head at them regretfully.

"Orders from above, I'm afraid. Not even for you, Miss Chase. I'm not sure when we'll open, if ever, really."

Once outside, Percy looked all the way at the top of the building, trying to imagine what Olympus was like.

"It's absolutely beautiful. Next time," Annabeth promised. "I'll bring you there for sure."

"So, it's a date?" Percy teased.

Before Annabeth could reply, there was a sudden scream behind them on the sidewalk. People started running past them like a stampede. Just a couple hundred feet away, Annabeth spotted two Laistrygonian giants swinging baseball bats chasing after a young boy.

Percy and Annabeth looked at each other and sprang into action. It was as if they had rehearsed exactly what they were doing. Annabeth took out her dagger and slipped on her Yankees cap.

One of the giants took a swing at the young boy, who dodged out of the way just in time. The giant's swing made its target an innocent fire hydrant instead, bursting it open. Percy took advantage of the gushing water and caused it to blast into the nearest Laistrygonian. Before the second Laistrygonian could react to its friend's demise, Annabeth's dagger had already erupted from his chest.

"We make a good team," Percy noted.

"Yeah, we do. Now let's get out of here before the police blame the damage on us."

"Noted."

All around them was carnage like a water park had suddenly burst open in the middle of the city's streets, flooding the sidewalks and streets with wet debris. The two grabbed the kid, most likely a demigod, and whisked him to Camp Half-Blood.

Neither of them mentioned the word "date" again.