Hey! So, here is the update that is… long overdue. I probably should've put it on hiatus, as a warning, but there have been 2-3 hiatus chapters out of, say, twelve.

I'm terrible at updating, I know.

But! I've recently found a co-author and I owe it to him for helping me write and finish this chapter!

Shoutout to MANation! You are fabulous and I appreciate you so much.

He doesn't have any stories (yet) but there's a Percabeth one in progress of being written.

Chapters will be longer now, since he has the amazing skill to lengthen things to more than one line (I can't relate, but I'll get there… one day).

Sending regards (and love) to my beta and cousin, whose name is yet to be revealed!

Thank you all for reading and sticking with me, haha! I know I've been terrible in the past, but I'm working on fixing all of it.

Disclaimer: this is NOT Lukabeth. This is Percabeth. with some side ships.

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Percy didn't want to go to work the next day. He really didn't. Unfortunately, he had to. So he did.

He avoided the top floor as best as he could - heck, he even avoided the elevator… just in case.

He knew the other janitor could take care of the top floor. Whoever the other janitor was. For some reason, they never seemed to show up. Percy wondered why they hadn't been fired yet. He would have been.

Or maybe the other person had been here the whole time and they just never crossed paths. Which was very unlikely. Probably. Percy wasn't exactly sure how large the whole building was, but the other person couldn't accidentally avoid him that much, right?

He brushed away the thought.

He was here to work, not speculate on whether or not he knew the other janitor. Whoever it was, it didn't matter. At least not at the moment. He sighed and settled in for a long day.

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Annabeth's coffee machine was broken. She was not happy. She'd become very dependent on the stuff.

Oh, the downsides of drinking too much coffee. Besides shakiness and sleepless nights. Obviously. She pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face, fingers trembling.

Excessive consumption of caffeine. She needed to stop. But when she slept, there were… dreams. About him. About them.

She needed to clear her head. Annabeth rubbed her eyes, then pressed a button that called for maintenance.

The moment the line connected she barked into the phone, "I- my coffee machine is broken. I need you to fix it." She winced inwardly. She hadn't meant to be that aggressive. This caffeine headache was killing her.

A deep, gruff voice came through the line. "I'll be right up," it said. Then the line abruptly cut off.

Several minutes later, a large African American man walked in. He looked sort of clumsy and didn't seem to be carrying any tools, Annabeth noticed.

"Are you- you're maintenance?" she asked, eyeing him suspiciously. She was pretty sure her maintenance worker had been a small Latino guy.

He grunted in reply. "Yup, that's me."

She watched him nervously as he quickly began to disassemble her coffee machine (where he pulled those tools from, she had no idea). She noticed that for such a big man, he was surprisingly delicate.

Annabeth decided to make some small talk, to fill the awkward silence that had fallen over them.

"What's your name?" she asked. "I haven't seen you before. What happened to…" she drifted off as she realized she hadn't actually bothered to learn the name of the last maintenance guy. Annabeth was starting to wonder if she was a bad boss.

"Beckendorf," he grunted, still tinkering with the coffee maker.

"Beckendorf...?" she said his name like a question, frowning. "That's a strange name. Not that it's a bad one!" She added quickly, wincing internally at her awkwardness. Annabeth really needed her coffee in the mornings, especially this morning.

The large man paused for a moment, before running his hand through his hair, seemingly embarrassed. "I mean, my first name is Charles, but nobody calls me that. It's just Beckendorf. But you are my boss, so if you want to call me Charlie, I get it..." he said, frowning, clearly uncomfortable.

Even without her coffee, Annabeth could tell he'd prefer her to call him by his last name. Maybe it was because she felt a sudden wave of guilt wash over her for not even bothering to learn her last employee's name (she made a mental note to check if he still worked for her), but she decided to go with it.

"Beckendorf is fine with me," she said. It was subtle, but she noticed his shoulders relax in relief. He gave her a small nod and then returned to working on her malfunctioning coffee maker.

In less than 10 minutes, he was finished.

"Thank you," she said, smiling weakly at him. "You can, um, go now." Without another word, he turned and left. With a sigh of relief, Annabeth sat down again and made another cup of coffee.

As she waited for her coffee to brew, Annabeth's mind drifted to the lack of response from Luke. She was stressed out about it; she still had gotten nothing from him. She resisted the urge to check her phone again. She had made sure her ringer was on several times. She'd know when he responded. If he responded.

She shook her head to try and clear her thoughts, looking around the room for something to distract her, anything. As she glanced out the large window in her office she noticed a dark raven sitting on the roof of the building opposite her. Her thoughts unwillingly drifted to her newly hired janitor. Percy, was his name.

She wondered why she could remember his name so clearly, compared to some of her other workers. It's because she hired him herself, she reasoned, nothing more than that. Then she wondered why she had taken the time to hire him personally, when her secretary, Silena, usually handled hiring employees, other than those who worked on the design and planning process for the firm's various projects.

Annabeth tapped her hands on her desk impatiently, annoyed her coffee wasn't ready yet. Which is the only reason she was annoyed. There was no other reason, she told herself.

Still, her mind drifted back to the boy with the sad, sea green eyes. She felt something stir in her chest when she remembered how sad he looked that day he delivered her pizza. She wanted to help him, she thought to herself. It was just pity, that's all. I have a boyfriend, she thought. Well, she maybe had a boyfriend.

Finally the coffee machine dinged, and Annabeth sighed in relief. She really needed her coffee this morning.

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Percy was milling about, getting used to the monotony, when suddenly he looked up to see a very big man with a scowl on his face approaching him quickly. Percy didn't remember doing anything that would make someone angry at him, but acknowledged to himself that didn't mean he hadn't.

"Excuse me," the large man said, "are you the newly hired janitor?"

"Uhh, yes that's me," Percy said. He was anxious; the man was still scowling at him.

He nodded in response. "You got any mechanical skills?"

The question caught Percy off guard. "Uh, like can I fix stuff? No, not really… I mean, I'm just the janitor. Maybe talk to maintenance?"

Big Man grunted. "Part of your job description is being able to do general, small repairs, the easy stuff. That way maintenance can focus on bigger things if needed. And," he said, pointing to the company name on his uniform, which Percy hadn't noticed before, "I am maintenance."

"Oh. So, uh…" Percy shifted uncomfortably. "If you're the other maintenance guy, how come I haven't seen you around before?"

The other man shrugged. "It's a pretty big building."

An awkward silence descended on both of them, but Mr. Maintenance (Percy liked to think that sounded cool) seemed unbothered. Deciding to extend the hand of friendship - or at least camaraderie, Percy held his hand out. "I'm Percy Jackson."

Mr. Maintenance took it in his larger, callused hand, which dwarfed Percy's. "Charles Beckendorf. But you can call me Beckendorf. Or," he wrinkled his nose, "Charlie."

Percy got the impression Beckendorf would really rather not be called Charlie. He didn't want to get on his coworker's bad side, partially because he figured this guy could break him in half if he wanted to, and partially because Percy figured nobody else in this building would bother making friends with a janitor.

"No worries, man, I'll call you Beckendorf."

Beckendorf inclined his head with something that looked akin to a smile. "Thanks. I appreciate it. So anyway, to business; Silena caught me upstairs earlier and she said I should see if you had any general maintenance skills, and to teach you if you didn't. So follow me," and without waiting for a response, he turned and began walking away.

"Oh…" Percy furrowed his brow in confusion. "Who?"

Beckendorf stopped short and turned back to look at him, his expression confused. "Silena. The girl that hired you."

Percy looked even more stumped. "I haven't met a Silena before. I just put my application in online and was sent a message saying I got the job," Percy said slowly.

Beckendorf raised his eyebrows slightly. "You mean you didn't have an interview?"

"Nope," Percy replied. "I'm assuming that that isn't normal around here then?" he asked. He had been confused about it before, but decided not to question anyone about it. He was just grateful to have a job.

Beckendorf frowned, then gave Percy a slight shake of his head. Then he shrugged slightly, turned and began walking away again. Percy had to rush to keep up, but he was looking forward to working with Beckendorf. He seemed like a cool enough guy, and Percy wouldn't mind having a new friend around the office.

OoOoOoOoO

It was several minutes before Annabeth heard a slight knock on her door. She glanced at the clock on the wall opposite her and frowned slightly. It wasn't like her secretary to be this late.

"Come in, Silena," she said without looking up from her desk. She heard the door gently open and close and waited until Silena approached her desk before setting her schematics down and addressing her secretary.

Silena was a cute girl, small with curly brown hair and brown eyes. She was very fashion forward, as well. If Annabeth cared about that sort of thing, she'd probably be jealous.

"Hello, O Wise one!"

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Hi to you, too."

Silena pulled out a chair and sat down in it. "So, how is my favorite boss of my favorite architecture company doing on this fine day?"

"I'm your only boss," she said shortly.

Silena laughed. "So cranky today, Beth. Did something happen with… you know… Luke?" Her cheerful demeanor faded away into mild concern.

Annabeth shrugged, looking away. "We haven't talked lately."

"Okay, Annabeth, what's up? I can tell you're acting weirdly." Silena folded her arms across her chest and stared unflinchingly at the blonde woman in front of her.

With a frustrated huff, Annabeth threw her hands in the air. "Fine, yes, there's a… thing. It's just someone that- I don't know, Silena!"

"Ooh, Annabeth! Is it a guy…?" Silena sang. "I'm glad you got over Luke, Beth, he was no good for you. Hey, but didn't you say you were going to go on another date with him, 'just to see if it works out'?" she asked, her eyebrows scrunching together.

Annabeth slumped down in her chair. "Yeah, so… I kind of… missed the date. I was working and I fell asleep and I didn't mean to but I think I just drank too much coffee and kind of… crashed, you know? I tried to call him back afterwards to apologize, but he won't reply. I don't know what to do." Annabeth buried her head in her hands and sighed.

Silena pursed her lips. She loved her boss, and hated to see her like this, but Annabeth had to make the decision to leave Luke on her own; Silena couldn't do it for her, no matter how much she tried. The best Silena could do was support her friend when she needed it.

"Things will work out Beth, one way or another," Silena said gently. "For now let's get your mind off things. Tell me about this new guy, maybe that'll help?"

Annabeth flushed. She didn't really want to tell Silena about Percy yet, especially not that he was her newest employee, who she hired personally. "Look, I'm not sure what's going on there, if anything is going on at all. Right now, I just want to figure out what to do about Luke. He is still my boyfriend, after all."

There was a loud, sharp ding from the table, startling both girls. Annabeth quickly reached for her phone, but before she even saw the message she felt a building sense of dread.

And sure enough, there it was.

Luke: I think we should break up.