Hi all, it's been a while but here's another chapter. If anyone could stick around and answer the question at the end that would be great, but otherwise enjoy the read!

Chapter 4

"Well, no prizes for guessing which one of those is Miss Chase." Percy said, nudging Grover as the blonde girl that had climbed off the bus just after his father looked at them. Her face pinched ever so slightly, eyes narrowing and nose scrunching, before she hurriedly smoothed her features and handed her bags over to the concierge.

"Wow. Congratulations, man, haven't even met the woman yet and you've managed to piss her off. I'm impressed."

"Shut up. It was hilarious and you know it."

They had stashed the golf cart out of Poseidon's view in the hope that he would forget about it, and stood in front of the hotel doors. Percy had since tried six different poses while they waited for the bus to arrive. None of which made him look cool and suave like he'd hoped. He'd gone for the 'hands-in-pockets, shades off, neutral stance' vibe after Grover had ridiculed him for leaning on the wall and sliding down it every few seconds.

Percy's father walked the group over, and Percy spent the precious few seconds scrutinising them. Small crew, thank the gods. Less names to remember, less people to screw up in front of. Win-win. Luckily, very few of them were sporting a look equal to Miss Chase.

"Percy!" Wow. Dad played the 'happy father' shtick pretty well. "I trust everything is running well in the aquarium?" His father ran a critical eye over him as he held Percy's shoulders. Evidently, he'd hidden all signs of damage well enough.

"Oh, yeah. Everything's fine. Just a minor mishap with a catfish, but we've put a plan together to correct it."

"Oh really? What kind of problem?" Ah. Miss Chase was one of those people. Well, fair enough, he'd take the test.

"Just a bout of swim bladder disease." See, I can test you too.

Miss Chase blinked, then nodded. "Sounds serious."

"Nah, nothing too major. She was swimming around on her back, so we've altered the tank temperature and adjusted her feeding pattern. She'll probably be fine by the time you see her in a couple of days."

"Excellent!" Percy's dad interrupted. "Then I believe introductions are in order! Percy, this is Annabeth Chase, your director for the project, along with her crew."

Percy barely paid attention to the other names as his dad listed them off. Why was Annabeth such a cute name? Come to think of it, the director herself was kind of cute. In like, a scary way. Luckily, his years of event training kicked in.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all." He said, his smile almost reaching his eyes. "I look forward to working with you, I'm sure we'll get along swimmingly."

His dad laughed. Everyone else groaned. Oh goodie. It was nice to know he could still make dad laugh, even after all of their disagreements.

"Oh, before I forget, this is Grover Underwood, my best friend and, uh, assistant I guess?"

"Yeah, we'll go with that. Sounds official." Grover supplied, and Percy cracked a grin.

"Ok!" He said, clapping his hands. "I guess we're going on a tour, dad?"

"Of course! A brief walk-around of the hotel and resort before dinner seems to be in order, allow our film crew to stretch their legs and scope the place out, so to speak. I'm sure their legs could do with it after being cramped on the jet and the bus for so long."

Percy almost snorted at the incredulous faces behind Poseidon. Honestly, how his dad could possibly call the jet cramped was beyond him. There were only nine of them. That jet held nearly twice that number comfortably.

"Rich people, so out of touch, right?" He joked, earning a reproachful glance from his father and a snigger from someone at the back of the film crew. He could have sworn Miss Chase's eyebrow twitched.

A very familiar aquatic theme song sounded, and everyone glanced around at the suddenness of it. Percy's grin fell. His dad's phone. Of course. Please don't be a business thing.

"Hello." That was Poseidon's business voice. Dam. He was screwed. "Uh-huh. Ok. Yeah. I see. Alright, I'm on my way."

Poseidon hung up the phone, managing to pull off an incredibly remorseful expression as he turned to face the group.

"I'm afraid I won't be joining you on the jaunt around the resort, something's come up that requires my immediate attention. I hope you'll forgive me, but I really must attend to this. I'll leave you in Percy's capable hands, and I'll see you all at dinner." He rested a hand on Percy's shoulder. "I'm sorry my boy, you know how it is."

"Yeah, gotcha." Percy kept his voice neutral and his reply short. No use getting angry. It wouldn't change anything. "See you at dinner." It would be the first one they'd shared since the construction of the resort had completed.

Poseidon nodded, clapping his shoulder once again, and Percy had to hold back a groan. It had jolted his freshly bruised ribs. The man then took his leave, opening his phone once again and raising it to his ear, barking instructions into it as he entered the hotel. That left Percy with the crew. Great. At least he had Grover.

"So, what would you like to see first?"

"Well, we could always walk the documentary route from the plan I emailed you?" Chase suggested, and Percy froze. There was no way he was gonna remember that. And he didn't even have a copy on his phone.

"Uh, sure. We can do that. Can you just, uh, remind me where it starts again?"

Chase sighed, hand coming up to massage the bridge of her nose.

"Did you even read the plan? I didn't hear back from you so I'm gonna assume that you didn't."

"Of course I read the plan." Percy countered. "I've just had a lot on my plate recently. My animals don't exactly look after themselves, you know. Though we have recently had a breakthrough with the octopi. Turns out those guys almost can look after themselves if you set everything up right. Not that I'd trust them, Dave nearly massacred our shrimp population last time I trusted him enough to leave the top of his tank open. And the dolphins are probably smart enough to help clean the inside of their tank, they already do basic fetch commands, wouldn't be that hard to teach them to scrub algae off the walls I guess…" He broke off as he realised that they were all staring at him. "What?"

"You were rambling again." Grover said, sighing and pulling Percy along. "Luckily, I happen to remember that the plan was to start in the hotel foyer."

"See, this is why you're my favourite assistant."

"I'm your only assistant."

"Touché. This way folks, we'll get this tour started."

(Line Break)

"So, this is the foyer. Cost a tonne, looks fancy, nothing else to say about it." Percy said, gesturing around him. It was indeed fancy, and Annabeth couldn't help but marvel at the ingenuity of whichever architect they'd hired. It didn't seem to fit any one particular style, but she could pick out influences here and there that she knew of.

"Who did you get to design this place?" She breathed; face turned upwards as she turned in a slow circle. The blend of curves and sharp edges contrasted perfectly, not to mention the way they played with the light refraction from the various water features around the gargantuan room.

"Eh? No clue." Percy said dismissively, already striding toward the back of the room, which was made entirely out of huge window panels, with multiple sets of double doors. She felt her brow knit together. This was her host? Had he seriously not even bothered to gather the information she'd asked for?

"You know this stuff is supposed to be in your script drafts, right?" She called, hurrying after him, hearing muffled groans from her crew. She'd deal with them later. "How can you not know? It's your resort."

"No. It's not." Jackson's tone was sharp, and he sounded so much like his father that she stopped dead. "This place has nothing to do with me. I wasn't consulted on it, neither did I ask to be. This is all dad's domain. His and Triton's little money earner."

Evidently, she'd touched a nerve. Ok then, discussion tabled. Jackson sighed, taking in her expression, and looking behind her at the crew.

"I'm sorry. That wasn't fair. I'll explain as much as I can on the way round, but let's get outside first, ok?"

She nodded. At least he knew enough to apologise. She could work with that.

"Lead the way."

They followed the winding path, adorned with shrubbery and trees, along with hidden mist sprayers that felt like heaven on Annabeth's skin as it cooled her off. She was a Cali girl at heart, normally having no problem with the heat, but this year-round Florida sun was starting to get to her. Maybe it was more humid here. She was just about to ask Jackson about it when he started talking.

"These mist sprayers are piped directly from rainwater tanks; collected and stored underground in a cooling system until we turn them on. Of course, that only works when we have actual rain, so in the dry spells we have to make do with the usual water system. You may have heard about the Disneyland ones supposedly causing Legionnaire's disease, and I assure you everything here is strictly up to code with regular checks. That being said, if you experience tightness in your chest or start to get a cold, please seek medical assistance." He paused, waiting for something. "That was a joke."

It was a start. She could see potential in him. The natural charm, easy-going nature. He could work. Given an extra couple of months. Which they didn't have. He ploughed on before she could ask any questions.

"In response to your earlier question; I genuinely can't tell you who designed the building. Dad and Triton cycled through dozens of architects, apparently it was a brutal process. At one point they had three different firms collaborating, which I'm pretty sure never happens, but then again I know nothing about architecture."

Annabeth did. And she had to agree, it did sound brutal. But she supposed you had to be brutal in a multi-billion-dollar project. Jackson spun to face them, walking backwards around corners with almost a sixth-sense. He'd probably memorised the path if he lived here.

"Ok, what else do you wanna know?"

"Oooh, is it true the wave pool reaches over six feet?" Silena asked. Jackson smiled.

"Absolutely. It's pretty amazing to surf when there's no one around. You guys should feel free to make use of it while you're here. We had to stop at six feet though, apparently there's safety regulations in place. Kinda sucks. I think we can easy hit seven."

"There a gym in this place?" Clarisse asked. Annabeth rolled her eyes, but she had to admit that if she could, she would also make use of the gym.

"Yeah, there's one that takes up like half of the fifth floor. Gives you a great view of the beach and pools, open from five til ten, but I think there's some kind of VIP package that gets you access at a later time."

Despite Jackson's indifference, it appeared he knew a lot more than he cared to admit.

"Alternatively, you can borrow a bike and cycle the grounds, or go for a run. We have one of those weird outdoor gyms out near the golf course if you're into that."

Annabeth was definitely not. It took a stupidly confident person to use an outdoor gym.

The faint lapping of waves on a shoreline made itself heard over the gentle spray of the mist, and the path widened to reveal the fake beach they had seen from the sky. Annabeth glanced at Jackson just in time to see him visibly relax. He stared out at the water before plopping down on one of the sun loungers.

"Make yourselves at home." He said, gesturing to the others that lay in neat rows along the beach. "We've still got a few hours of sunlight, no need to rush through everything. Dad won't be finished for a while, so dinner will likely be late."

Annabeth wanted to say no, but she had to admit that it was incredibly tempting. She turned to the crew, who were collectively giving the biggest puppy-dog eyes she had ever seen. Aside from Clarisse, who was just scowling. She noticed Jackson's friend had joined him on the lounger. They really seemed inseparable. Or maybe he was just anxious.

"Fine, go ahead." She caved, and the sigh of relief was audible. She chuckled, shaking her head as they all selected chairs near Jackson, ready to pepper him with more questions.

"Ok. Before we all get ahead of ourselves, we should talk business." She said, stopping them in their tracks. "What're our filming hours looking like? What's out of bounds? And is your script actually ready?"

Jackson took a minute to think, eyes closed, facing the sun.

"As far as I know, we're the only ones here, aside from essential staff, so filming hours are pretty much whenever you think you'll get the best shots." Annabeth could see Rachel's grin already, the girl's artistic mind already looking around to get inspiration for the ideal shot.

"Out of bounds isn't a problem. I doubt you're interested in doing a segment on the boiler room?" She shook her head. "Then I'll let you know as and when that becomes a thing."

He took a deep breath, glancing at his friend.

"I won't lie, the script has been… difficult." He started. "I was never any good with writing at college. Took me weeks to get essays done. So, I went more or less with suggestions. Figured we could, you know, workshop it in each location and just go from there?"

Annabeth had been expecting more. Had hoped for more. But she supposed she was working with someone with no experience in the industry, and she'd made him come up with his own script instead of getting a writer to work with him. Possibly her fault.

"I think I can agree to that. So long as you take it seriously."

"Pfft, I take everything seriously. Can't you tell?" He said, waving hand around. She sighed.

"Ok, so we'll likely take the first week to plan. Rachel can set up each location how she wants it, we can walk through with cameras. Get your ideas on each segment and draft a script from there. Second week we can fine tune. Third week get into the serious filming."

"Wait what about the last week and a half? Seems like you're rushing it a little?"

There was a collective intake of breath from Annabeth's crew. They knew not to question her methods. She'd give Jackson the benefit of the doubt this once.

"Realistically, everything won't go according to plan. Equipment might malfunction. Certain segments might be harder to write. We might have to do reshoots. Aim to have spare time and then we can account for all of those."

"Ah." Jackson said, nodding. "Makes sense."

"Thank you."

"How long are you wanting to spend on the resort? You splitting this thing down the middle between here and the aquarium?" He asked, and the fact that he'd even bothered to think about it surprised her. Maybe there was hope.

"Not sure. Whichever has the most material will get the most screen time, I guess. We kinda have free reign at the moment, there's no quota of either that we have to fill. We just have to feature it all at some point."

Her response seemed to breathe new life into Jackson; he sat up straighter, eyes trained on hers.

"Awesome."

She released a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. His eyes looked so alive, and in that moment, his very presence seemed to sweep her away like the tides.

"Wow." Silena said. "If you can put half as much of that intensity on the screen, I think we're onto a winner."

And the moment was gone. His cheeks reddened and he rubbed the back of his neck, looking every bit the embarrassed high-schooler that she supposed he must have been at some point.

"Sorry, I get kinda caught up in the aquarium. I was hoping we'd be spending most of our time in there, I won't lie."

"Maybe we can. I mean think about it, Annabeth, as cool as the hotel and resort is, there's not that much that sets it apart from every other hotel resort. The big draw is the aquarium and the private villas. The villas won't take more than a day's filming, surely." Leo spoke up, and Annabeth was pleasantly surprised at his use of logic.

"Wasn't aware you could think critically, Valdez." She teased. "Alright Jackson, here's the deal. Impress me with your material on the resort, and we'll see what we can do about giving your aquarium more screen time."

"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership, Miss Chase."

Annabeth only hoped he wouldn't prove her wrong.

Hi all, kinda short and a bit of 'filler' I guess, but I wanna take my time with this fic rather than rushing it to completion in like 10 chapters or so. Let me know what you want more of; railroaded structure and plot, or exploration of characters and their interaction? I like the second option myself, I've got loads of little moments between Percy, Annabeth, and a load of other characters that I wanna throw in there rather than focusing solely on the process of making a documentary. That's all for this time, reviews are always appreciated, but of course not mandatory.