A/N: Hey guys! I'm back with a chapter that strays from the norm but I thought it'd be fun!

Here ya go:

When Annabeth wakes up it's the first day of junior year and she might scream because this can't be happening. She stares in horror at her periwinkle room, her long locks, and god why did she wear those stupid hair clips every day.

She's convinced it's just a bad dream because there is no way she is back in high school, especially not when she's just about to graduate college.

And then she stubs her toe on the bed frame that always jutted out a bit to far and the pain is real. Has a dream ever been this vivid?

Her dad calls to her and her heart almost stops because when was the last time she talked to her dad?

She stumbles back and falls on the bed, barely able to breathe properly because this is seeming more and more real and the college life she had been living in seemed more and more far away.

She doesn't believe in Groundhog Day shit, if you can even call this that, but the time constraint of school is present and she finds herself getting ready as easily as she had back then.

Wow, high school really did set a routine. She remembers stumbling in at two in the morning half drunk and thanking her roommate for staying up and thinks that consistent routines really weren't a thing in college.

She washes her face and winces at the bags and acne and really misses her twenty-one-year-old self. But here she is sixteen and awkward and off to hell high school.

She gets on the bus and yeah she still takes the bus at this point in her life and wonders what the fuck she's doing back here and why is she back here, now. What was so special about junior year anyway?

It was just stress and standardized tests and AP Physics hell. She gets off the bus and wonders if she really did get taller by twenty-one because everything seems a little off and she almost misses a step.

She goes to her locker and prays she remembers the combination when she gets there because she sure as hell can't now and she's hoping that the sight will trigger something. A chill washes through her as she steps through the front doors and a feeling of dread starts to overtake her.

She really doesn't want to re-live high school. There's a pit in her stomach and she's blinking back tears at the prospect of a long year in front of her. She wants out. She wants back to her life in college, free and eating hot pockets while half drunk.

She's so lost in thought she doesn't even realize she's bumped into someone until the touch jolts her out of her mind.

"Sorry," she mumbles, looking down and hating herself at how easily she's falling into her sixteen-year-old self.

"It's okay, I wasn't paying attention either."

Her head snaps up at the voice and oh god.

There he is, slightly lanky, with an apologetic smile. He's rubbing the back of his neck and the action is so familiar she almost gets whiplash. And his eyes-oh god had his eyes always been that deep of a sea-green?

She's gaping at him and he looks at her in a mixture of confusion and awkwardness. She snaps her mouth shut and nods, not trusting her voice.

"Right, well, I better…uh…go…see you around?" he ends in a confused question and stumbles away. She watches him walk away and it's a stab to her gut as she remembers the last time she watched him walk away.

She moves numbly through the halls after that and opens her locker like she it was something she did every day. The bell rings loudly and snaps her out of it enough to walk to first period English and everything is coming back to her.

She's almost late and when she walks in to the full class she sees the empty desk that she's always been meant to sit in.

He looks from her to the empty desk beside him and offers a small smile and she almost collapses because she's pretty sure she's figured it out.

The reason she might be back, to this day in junior year.

Percy Jackson.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Have you ever wished you had a second chance to meet someone again for the first time?

She walks into the room and takes her seat and tries not to shake too much. He's still somewhat looking at her from the side and she focuses her attention on collecting herself.

His smile drops a little and it takes all her energy, but she manages a smile back only to see him lighten up.

It's amazing how she can read him. This lanky sixteen-year-old in English class who can't stop playing with the pen and she can read the anxiety and excitement from his face. She knows his dad gave him that pen, and that his ADD prevents him from keeping still. She knows his life story and that he prefers chocolate over vanilla.

She knows so much about a stranger.

It hits her that he's only a stranger now. That he wasn't always one. And she wonders if the man she's seen through tiny Facebook stalks still likes chocolate milkshakes or if he prefers the beer she's seen him hold in photos with friends. She wonders if he actually goes on those hikes because he likes them or out of obligation.

He never really liked hikes when she knew him. He would complain and moan about nature trying to kill him when she dragged him with her because she loved hikes.

She wonders if he remembers that she loved them.

The teacher is passing out a paper and she's brought back to the present when the girl in front of her hands her a sheet and she almost laughs because when was the last time someone passed her a paper backwards.

Or maybe she almost laughs cause she might cry.

She looks at the paper, a typical ice breaker for the first day, and then up at sixteen-year-old him and almost cries again because she can fill this stupid paper for him and be 100 percent accurate.

But if she tried with twenty-one-year-old him she would be at a loss for what to put down.

The thought strikes her to her core and she hates the emotional whiplash she's been getting at it's only been twenty minutes. She needs to pull herself together.

Luckily twenty-one-year-old her knows how even though she's sitting in her sixteen- year-old body.

"Hey, so want to do this ice breaker thing? We need a partner and I don't think you have one?"

She turns at the sound of his voice and musters a smile. She's going to do this. She's going to re-learn everything. She's going to re-meet the guy who's going to go from best friend to maybe something more to stranger. And maybe this time she won't fuck it up.

She gathers her courage takes a deep breath and stares into those familiar eyes.

"Sure! Hi, I'm Annabeth Chase. What's your name?"

-.-.-.-.-.-

Percy Jackson, she learns, is a swimmer, his favorite color is blue, and he doesn't like milkshakes. She hides a smile and remembers his face when he finally tries one and declares it as the new love of his life.

But she doesn't tell him that, she just smiles and nods and tells him about herself.

"My favorite color is-"she pauses because sixteen-year-old Annabeth loved a dark grey and twenty-one-year-old Annabeth yearned for a special kind of sea-green.

"Dark grey," she finishes because she's going to do this right.

"That's an interesting choice…I like it!" He grins, and god does she miss that smile.

"Thanks," she replies. She's gotten better at taking compliments and she realizes that that's a skill learned, and her junior year self would have blushed or mumbled. But what's the point in keeping your mind if you can't improve the situation.

They continue the ice breaker, asking the normal, how many languages you speak or if you have any siblings. Annabeth bites her lip when he mentions wanting a little sister.

Give it a year, she thinks, you'll get one.

As strange as it is, it almost feels good to re-meet Percy Jackson. It's cathartic in a way. Like scrubbing out old wounds, cleaning them.

And when they make plans to sit together at lunch, and even though it happened this way last time, she feels like it's the start of something new.

-.-.-.-.-.-

They become fast friends, no surprise to anyone, especially not Annabeth. But she still can't help but breathe a sigh of relief when it's established because there was always that tiny, sprinkling off chance that they wouldn't.

But they do and a lot of it is the same, down the milkshakes and the hikes. And she knows what to say this time round when he asks for help or advice and school is actually not that bad because she does remember more than she thought she did (probably because she's prompted by the environment and seeing everything again).

And for once life is good, even though she doesn't have that much freedom and she still needs to sit through AP Physics.

"You know it's crazy how smart you are," Percy says one day as they're chilling at the park.

"What do you mean?" she asks. She doesn't remember this conversation but then again she doesn't always remember everything.

"Like, you always know what to say and you give the best advice, it's like you can see the future."

She freezes at the words and lets out a breathy laugh. "You caught me, I've actually already gone though high school and I'm just re-living it again."

He laughs. "Sounds like a nightmare."

She smiles. "You'd be surprised it's not that bad."

"Maybe that's why you're doing so well in school you already have the answers!" He grins and she rolls her eyes.

"Yep, I've lived the future and the thing I hold on to this time round are test answers."

He nods vigorously. "That explains everything!"

She playfully pushes him, unable to stop the smile from her face. "Shut up."

There's a moment of quiet before he turns to look at her. "Hey Annabeth?" His voice is quiet, and she looks up in concern.

"Yeah?"

"If you've lived the future then you know what happens once we graduate…." He trails off.

"Sure," she decided to indulge him. She wants to know why where he's going with this.

He sighs and looks down. "So what does happen?" He looks back up. "With us."

And she freezes because fuck there is no "us" in the future she's lived.

Memories flash by her eyes, graduating, making promises, some tense meet-ups, text chains disappearing, ignoring and avoiding and then, nothing.

Simply nothing.

And then she looks up at his worried and hopeful face, He's rubbing the back of his neck and letting his hair fall in front of his eyes. He's waiting for her answer.

"I..uh..we.." she stumbles over her words because in all this time she forgot the reality she had lived. She forgot the pain and loss of a best friend. In all this time, going through high school again she had fallen back in her old ways, drinking in the comfort of a best friend.

She realizes then that she doesn't know if she can live that future again. The one without the teasing and reluctant smiles and the bright grins and deep sea-green eyes.

And then she remembers being sixteen and feeling the same as she was now, unable to imagine a future without Percy, and yet it happened. It happened, and she lived through it.

He's looking at her expectantly, nervously fiddling with a leaf and she wonders if his question holds something more.

And fuck it all, if she's going to re-live fucking high school again she's going to do it right this time.

"Well, we remain an us," she finally answers.

And the smile on his face, and hopeful look in his eyes tell her that she responded correctly and she's not imagining anything.

The continue to sit in the grass and this time he sneaks a hand to hold hers. She holds back.

-.-.-.-.-.-

They start dating soon after and it's some of the best years of her life. And she went through college. It's new and exciting and she sees a side of Percy she never did the first time round. The side with surprise hugs and kisses on the cheeks and an arm around her waist.

She only starts to worry when graduation rolls around (and she doesn't miss the irony of her graduating high school, again).

After graduation, when they went off to different colleges and life happened is mostly when everything turned bad last time. She needs to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Percy notices her anxiousness and gripes her hand tightly as they get in line to graduate and she's relieved at how well he knows her.

She wonders if the Percy she left behind ever thought about how well he knew her. She had changed too in those years apart. He wouldn't have been able to fill that ice breaker sheet either.

It's a two-way street. And she doesn't really know what went wrong last time. But he had stopped talking to her and she him. She didn't know who's fault it was or even what specifically caused it. She only knew it happened.

So how could she prevent it this time round? It's a two-way street. She plans to uphold her end. She looks at Percy and wonders if he's going to uphold his.

And with a sudden jolt she realizes she has no control if he does. She hopes he would, he is her boyfriend this time. But he had been her best friend last time and he hadn't so who's to say it wouldn't happen again.

She has no control over it and there is a chance this reality is going to be as messed up as the last one.

All she can do is hope. Percy must figure out the cause for her anxiety because he turns so he is facing her.

"Hey, I'm not going to leave you," her boyfriend smiles and gives her a kiss.

"I'm not going to leave you," her best friend smiled and pulled her in for a hug.

She shuddered violently and awoke with a gasp.

-.-.-.-.-.-

"Annabeth!" her roommate called as she opened the door to her room and walked in. "I got you some Advil, I know I'm the best roommate ever, just please don't puke everywhere cause you're gonna be in charge of cleaning it."

Her roommate moved to place the glass of water and pills on the bedside table and stopped when she saw her shaking.

"Hey? What's up? You okay?"

Unable to speak Annabeth just shook her head. She was still trembling, covered in a cold sweat with tears in her eyes.

"How much did you drink last night, you're having a pretty bad hangover," her roommate made a face of sympathy.

Shakily Annabeth reached for the water and downed it all in one go. Now that she was more awake she was conscious of the headache that had taken hold and groaned.

"She lives!" her roommate joked. "I'm gonna leave you to sleep off that hangover, I'll leave some waffles for you in the fridge." And with that she walked out, leaving Annabeth alone in her college dorm room and her thoughts.

She felt sad and angry and tired. So so tired, as if she had lived another lifetime. Then again, considering her dream she really had.

The shaking had died down as normalcy returned and she flipped to the side and fell asleep. She would deal with this when alcohol wasn't killing her.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Annabeth bounced with nervous energy, playing with the hem of her shirt. It was red and said the name of her University and she couldn't stop moving.

She got up and started to pace, staring down at the phone in her hand and hovering over an icon.

Memories flashed before her and she was reminded of everything. The friendship filled with teasing remarks and grins, and the dream world relationship with the kisses and hugs. But most importantly she was reminded of a broken promise, and a figure walking away.

She took a breath, pressed the icon, and held it up to her ear and waited.

"Hello?"

"Hi"

-.-.-.-.-.-

Have you ever wished you had a second chance to meet someone again for the first time?

When she walked into the coffee shop and saw him sitting there, nervously fiddling with his pen as he offered her a small smile, she realized she didn't need a dream world to have a second chance.

A/N: So what did you think? I think we all have people like Percy in our lives, past friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, or whatever else. People who you never thought would never leave but have. And trust me, I've been there, especially after high school. And mostly that's just a fact of life. People will come and go from your life. And that's necessary, sometimes we need people who might be toxic or harmful out of our lives.

But if a person came to mind when you read this, a person who you look back on with a small smile and wonder how they're doing. A person who went from friend to stranger because life just happened that way. Maybe reach out to them? Re-meet them, learn about how there life is now, see how much they've grown and changed.

You always have the power to reach out and try for a second chance, whether the other person reciprocates is out of your control but you can always try. And if you just want to leave that all in the past that's okay too. I hope that this fic may have resurfaced some fond memories of times long ago. And if it resurfaced regret, then remember you always can try for a second chance.

That said I'd love to hear your thoughts! Please Review!

And as always, thanks for reading!

See ya! :)