Chapter Three! Right here! Written and ready for you to read, and beta read by the amazing ThatGirlWithaCat! This sounds like an advertisement! I don't like it! I need to stop using exclamation marks! And I shall! Right now! That rhymed!

Uhh…okay, I'm free of the exclamation mark plague! …I guess I'm not as free as I thought… LOL. Anyway, here is chapter three, thank you to everyone who reviewed or favorited or followed and stuff, but anyway, let's go on with the actual story! Okay, so I'm not free. I blame Man- I blame my cat, who Mango isn't based off of in any way, shape or form. Obviously. :D

Soulmate: The term for two people drawn by 'Destiny' to fall in love and be together.
Soulmating: The science of soulmates, and the 'act' of soulmates.
Soulbond: The bond of two soulmates, encompassing the mental and physical parts.
Soullink: The physical link and/or bond of the two soulmates.
Soulshard: The spiritual or mental link and/or bond of the two soulmates.
Soulbreak: The term for the bond of two soulmates being severed or broken.

EL/ELLIE: I know. YOLO. You only live once. Mwah.

KaptainKashew: Thanks LiLith! Yes, they were mentioned in the first chapter. And yes. It's a cat. Her name is Mango. Mango is an amazing name, thank you. I like mangoes…though, only really the green ones. The others are MuShY. But anyways. Maybe she'll go by Kate…Cate, though, could happen, hehe. I said thanks to El, and…she had to leave. Thank you! #LilithIsAGrump
…second review. Thank you! And of course El mentioned that you were a grump. That started on the other story you don't read.

LivingInBibliomania: …you aren't first, Ellie beat ya again. *sigh* …if you mean you're the first one to get a reply, that's cause you were the last one to review and the order by which I reply is the top to bottom. Yes, hoorah for inspiration. Well, why are you distracted? Eh…I don't think you're going to tell me, but I could at least try.
Yes, yay for Priscilla, AKA Piper McLean, AKA…lots of things. AKA Beauty Queen? IDK where I'm going with this. And yes. YAY for Perry. …wait a sec…uhh…oh, good. I thought I'd already put that Percy had 'Percival' on his cup, but it doesn't look like it.
*cough* There is an umlaut and it's Bookstall. *cough* Yes. Bücherregal Bookstall…meaning 'Bookshelf Bookstall' LOL. …in my defense it sounds nice.
Yes. PIPERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrr.

Reader12859: You know, I never understood why Annabeth would magically change her mind for the Seaweed Brain. :/ Just such an odd thing for her to do since pride is her fatal flaw…well, I mean, maybe I'll explain whether or not Percy believes, and maybe I won't, in the story…if I do Percy's point of view anyway. I might not. I like reading the reviews! :D

PJAC0606: Well, I couldn't not embarrass Percy. Well, I didn't plan to, but then my fingers did it…my fingers do a lot of things. We can blame them for everything. I'm not sure why you want to know who Harrell's granddaughter is, but if you really want to know, she has no significance and is an OC. Percy and Piper want to go there because of personal reasons. If I told you, that would just ruin the thing I have planned later. So I can't tell you. Sorry. :/ It might be revealed one day…

ThatGirlWithaCat: Yay, you're back! Sad that you're hungry, hopefully you aren't anymore though. *cough* Social Studies, Soul Shards…all the 'SS's' *cough* Le SiGh
1. Yup. I have screenshots with proof, dating all the way back to- …yesterday. We will go someday. Even if the pact is in handshake emojis. It's a promise, though.
2. Pine Creek is apparently a common name…I wonder if there's pine trees and a creek in Pine Creek? I hope so.
3. It is, just a bit…I think you already know who Piper's friend's granddad is, but even if you didn't, you'll know after you read this, even though I know you're just skipping the parts since you already beta read them.
4. I might. And yeah, she's Annalyn here.
5. It's…close enough, I suppose. And I guess it worked anyways, and yeah, I'm here now. I know you'reout there somewhere…unless I've been talking to robot O_O XD And yeah, Nights in White Satin is a Gift from…somewhere. Well, it's a gift from Justin Hayward.
6. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you- this could go on for a while…thank you!
7. …Purple Roses is in January though. And yeah, it worked anyways and I am here anyway, so yeah…
8. Interessant.
9. Really, why not?
10. *so much nostalgia* #LilithIsAGrump
11. There are more bullets? Wowza!
12. I guess it was faster, but IDK. You tell me.
13. *sigh* And then you went to bed early the next night. LOL. I remember, I was there ish.
14. Yes. Remember Lupa? In Jason's dream? You are our saving Grace.
15. YeS yOu WeRe InSpIrAtIoN

Bye!

Annabeth's POV:

Knock, knock. Annabeth stepped back, waiting and tapping her foot semi-impatiently as she thought about all the things, she could have been doing instead of standing here waiting for Darrell Harrell to show up, so that she could chew him out for making so much noise this week. It was too much for a girl to handle sometimes. And so she was standing, hair tucked into her New York Yankees baseball cap, arms crossed, glaring at the door with the force of a raging bull.

(She was wearing too-small sweatpants, very old socks, and an oversized UO hoodie over her also oversized UCLA t-shirt, but that didn't mean she couldn't look threatening.)

There was no answer to her knock behind the door, and Annabeth growled. The noise hadn't stopped- it had started up again two days ago, she remembered, as if Mr. Harrell was rearranging all his furniture, something that had aggravated Annabeth to no end. She had been trusted with an architecture-related assignment, finally, at Pallas, (that architecture degree wasn't for nothing, think of it as a backup plan), and she'd brought the work hope, and what did she come home to?

Voices, and moving, and distractions.

It wasn't that the architecture work she had to do was the most important thing in the world, but still…it was her job, it was work, and she didn't have a roommate, so she couldn't really afford to lose a job because she hadn't completed something expected of her. And even though architecture was a passion she'd let slip away, it was still a passion.

She couldn't let her coworkers down, anyway.

The door swung open, and Annabeth opened her mouth ready to unleash her wrath upon Darrell Harrell until- "Hello, Miss?" She blinked and took an involuntary step back. The man who opened the door was not her elderly upstairs neighbor who made too much of a fuss over the noise Annabeth made, who had been making noise all week, but someone else.

Hadn't she seen him before somewhere?

"Uh, did you need something?" The guy asked her awkwardly, running a hand through his tousled black hair self-consciously. Annabeth looked up and dear God, his eyes…Annabeth prided herself on being a writer with a large vocabulary, and days later she would pride herself on the description she could call forth on the man's eyes.

A shade of sea green, vibrant, changing, an eye color Annabeth hadn't seen on anyone, and it took her by surprise. She glared at him, however, undeterred from her purpose- to chew out Mr. Harrell for making so much noise…or, to chew out this guy for making so much noise.

"What have you been doing up here?" She said, not waiting for an answer. "Where's Darrell? I need to speak to him immediately. It doesn't matter if you're a guest of his or something, Mister, but some people have to work and they cannot accomplish it when there are people tromping around above them just- just making so much noise and not being more considerate, honestly-" while she intended to go on, the guy shushed her.

He shushed her? He didn't…and Annabeth said as much.

"Did you just shush me?" Whatever expression had previously been on the guy's face vanished to be replaced fleetingly by one of fear- Annabeth knew her death glare was no joke. "Because excuse me, I think I have a right to ask someone to kindly shut up-" she was aggravated.

"I just wanted to ask…who's Darrell?" The guy asked blankly, his expression not giving Annabeth the answers she needed. She'd learned to read people years ago, and apparently this guy didn't know what she was talking about in the slightest…

"What do you mean, who's Darrell? He's the bloke who lives here!" Annabeth said, confused but unable to back down. She knew that pride was her fatal flaw, and it was going to win. She was not going to step back because she was wrong…because she wasn't wrong. It wasn't like Darrell had moved out and this…loud dude…had moved in.

"Wait, you mean that Harold dude?"

"What? No, Harrell, he lives here, did you not hear me before?" The guy looked confused.

"I'm renting this apartment. Landlord said the previous tenant died not long before I moved in." Annabeth reeled- he had to be talking about Mr. Harrell, the only 'previous tenant' that had lived in this apartment in Annabeth's short time here. He'd died?

Hadn't that Piper McLean girl said something about someone's grandfather dying? If it was so, why hadn't she gotten the apartment…and not this…wasn't this the guy who'd come into the Bookstall and tripped over his own feet? She suppressed a slight laugh as she remembered- the guy who'd made a fool of himself- Perry, wasn't it? Yeah, this was...this was Perry.

"So you are the one who's been making all the noise...I have to work and I can't work when you're doing that, so if you would kindly stop it, I'll be going." Annabeth said, vaguely unsettled. This confrontation had not gone at all the way she planned- for one thing, this guy was much too cute and much too young. She shuddered as she compared Perry and Mr. Harrell in her head- wrinkly old dude versus sorta cute young dude.

"Uh- what's your name?" the guy asked, rubbing his neck. "And, uh, I'm sorry about the noise. Really sorry."

"You apologized twice," Annabeth pointed out, not angry, but not really that happy with the situation.

"Sorry!" The guy said again, before blinking and noticing his slip-up. "Aw, crap."

Annabeth walked downstairs before he could see her smile.

About twenty seconds later, she collided with a bunch of boxes, and the person who was carrying them.

She was thankful that Perry wasn't watching her- that would make her look like an idiot, and Annabeth Chase was not an idiot.

"Sorry, sorry, are you okay?" Annabeth was getting tired of hearing the word 'sorry'. That was the fifth time in roughly forty seconds. It was nice, when it was once. It wasn't so nice when it was twice in one sentence, not just once, but twice.

"I wasn't watching where I was going- boxes in the way...uh, here, I'll just...get that..." The voice belonged to a woman- Annabeth was sure she'd know who it was if she thought about it for a few moments, because chances were they'd talked at least once or twice, as both Annabeth and the mystery lady probably lived in this little town where no one ever really seemed to leave.

Annabeth blinked and opened her eyes. Piper? Hmm. Holding...lots of boxes. Well, three boxes stacked on top of one another, and one of them had fallen to the side when they'd collided, but still. A lot of boxes. Piper awkwardly picked up a piece of tissue paper that had fallen out of one of them.

"Uh...hi," Annabeth glanced at the boxes, and then at the above floor. Piper followed her gaze. "...You didn't get the apartment, I'm guessing?"

Piper looked at her for a second, startled. "How'd you know?" she sighed. "But, no, I didn't. Some other guy." She shrugged halfheartedly.

"Because I was just talking to the guy who did get the apartment? Well," Annabeth said, half-rambling, "It was more trying to get him to stop making so much noise because I do have to work...but I still talked to him, sorta." Piper laughed.

"Sounds like a charmer." Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"You have no idea." One cup of chai spiced black tea with 'Alondra' scrawled on it later, Annabeth made an offer. "Are you still looking for an apartment?" She asked after a few moments. Piper smiled at her.

"If you're-" Annabeth didn't have to wait for Piper McLean to finish her sentence.

"I am."

"Then...I am." Piper's eyes gleamed- Annabeth kept trying to pin down their color, however, it was proving easier said than done. The girl shifted, and Annabeth frowned- they had appeared a hazel green shade only a second ago, however now they seemed brown. She gave up trying to figure it out for the moment. "Give me a hand with my boxes, will you?" Annabeth laughed. She didn't doubt that it would be louder in her apartment from now on...but at least it was something she could control, sorta. It wasn't an upstairs neighbor who she couldn't get to turn the music off.

"Sure." Annabeth had never gotten a roommate on the spur of the moment before- she'd been the roommate on the spur of the moment before- but this was something mostly new to her. However, she knew the roommate-ly thing to do was to help her new friend and, well, roommate, with her boxes, so she did that.

It wasn't such a bad thing to do with her time anyway, or at least compared to what she could have done with her time.

"So- which one is it?" Piper asked, shifting a box's weight from her arms to her shoulder and peering to the side of it down the hallway. They'd taken the elevator, because neither girl wanted to take the stairs up to Annabeth's floor, as that was more time and energy put into climbing stairs and lifting boxes, and, well, sometimes less was more, and in this scenario Annabeth could and would say that it definitely was.

"It's this one- here-" Annabeth motioned towards her door, setting down the box in her arms and searching her pockets for the key. Where is it? Finding her key, and breathing a sigh of relief, she unlocked the door and opened it up. "Home sweet home." She said halfheartedly.

Piper stumbled over the threshold on the way in. Annabeth held back her snort, hiding it behind her hand. Piper looked around. "You have a nice place." She complimented.

"No," Annabeth corrected, smiling slightly. "We have a nice place." Piper blinked but smiled at her, showing Annabeth that she appreciated the sentiment- even if she didn't believe that it was true. Annabeth was glad that she'd secured a roommate- no one in town was looking for a place that wasn't new, and Piper seemed like a better option than that Perry guy upstairs. And plus, her apartment had been far too cold and empty for far too long.

"By the way," Piper commented, "I met this guy when I was checking out the apartment- he's not my type...but he seems like yours." Annabeth waited for the inevitable words to arrive, and wasn't surprised when Piper spoke them. "He could be your soulmate." Sighing, Annabeth chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, unsure of what to do but doing what had to be done. Piper would find out some way- either from Annabeth or a passing stranger on the street commenting on Annabeth's so-called 'unbelieving'.

"Piper- I'm not sure what your belief is with the whole soulmate thing, but I think I should tell you before you hear it from someone else in this tiny town. I- don't believe in soulmates. I'm not going to tell you why at this moment, because it's a rather personal matter, and while we are roommates, we don't know each other well enough for me to burden you with my sob story. I just don't believe in soulmates, and while I'm not averse to romance as a whole, the whole system is not mine to no end. If I find my 'one and only', it will be on my terms, and not Destiny's, and I'm sorry if this offends you." Annabeth paused to take a breath, almost afraid to meet Piper's eyes. Many thought she was cold, to have this sort of thinking on the terms of love, love that was 'foolproof'.

"But I hope you can understand that I would never date, much less fall in love, with the person that 'Destiny' has chosen to be my soulmate."

Yay dramatic ending. Anyway, I don't have much to say. Thank you so much to ThatGirlWithaCat for betaing this, because she does deserve lots of thanks even though she just poofed on me -_- XD but anyways...song of the...chapter. The Actor, by the Moody Blues. :)