Chapter Sixteen! Oof. Well, let's see how well I can squeeze Percabeth, Jasper, and soulmate drama into five chapter. Happy Holidays!
Nothing could go wrong: Of course! I know a lot of people haven't read it yet so. Yep. We shall see, we shall see...
Poseidon1702: Thanks! I happen to think my cats are cute also. Yep. We'll see...is it Percy, is it not...you too.
Daughter of Sally Jackson: Yep, Jiper.
SunBear: Oh? Where did you see this mention?
Yep. Jiper ReLaTiOnShIp TrOuBlEs. The Reyna/Jason/Piper/Soulmate problem I hope is interesting.
We'll see...I mean, after all, isn't this whole thing about Percabeth having lots of drama angst?
Oh? What SaL project? The only SaL project I know of is SnowBear17's SaL project...anyway, yep, thanks, Willow! (*cough cough* You revealed it! *cough cough*)
Annabeth's POV:
Annabeth was wishing she'd never set Piper and Jason up as she sat waiting for Jason's friend in the restaurant he'd arranged the blind date in. What if he didn't show up? What if he was an utter slob? Should she really have trusted a celebrity's judgement?
He's been nothing but nice to Piper, a voice spoke in Annabeth's head. Why wouldn't he be the same to you?
He's dating Piper, said the other voice. He's not dating us. Why would he be the same?
Annabeth gritted her teeth, determined to avoid the little voices. She'd already gotten driven by Piper, got treated rudely by a snobby waiter because there weren't pearls round her neck, and Mango had managed to get her black and white cat hair on her nice blind date dress that somehow was still not up to par with the restaurant's standards.
And it was a nice dress. Dark blue to accent her hair, which had been curled loosely and framing her face in a half-up, half-down style. Her feet ached in the strappy white heels Piper had forced her into before the date, and she had argued about why she had to look so nice for a stranger. But the glint in Piper's eyes had been too mischievous and manic for Annabeth to ignore.
"He could be your future husband," Piper persisted. "Don't you want to look nice for your first date with your future husband?" Annabeth rolled her eyes.
"It's some guy, Piper, I'm not going to marry him." Piper shrugs and pokes her arm, hard. "Ow!"
"Annabeth, you know I know fashion, I know I know fashion, so just put on the pretty dress, turn on your curling iron, and let me dress you up. You're going to knock your mystery date's socks off." The mischievous glint in Piper's eye should have made Annabeth suspicious, but she merely did as her friend asked.
"Alright…but do I really have to wear the heels? Because Piper, I think I would be better off wearing something more comfortable so that I'm comfortable, you know what I mean?" Piper tsked, steering Annabeth in the direction of their bathroom.
"You need to wear heels sometimes," she told her. "How are you going to branch out if you shy away?"
"I don't want to branch out," Annabeth said like a petulant child, "I want to be comfortable when I sit at a restaurant and talk to a stranger." Piper rolled her eyes.
"My dear Annabeth, you're going to have such a nice time you won't even feel your heels, and not just because they're going to numb your feet with pain. Now, unless you want me to find worse heels, just let me do my job."
"You're a therapist!" Annabeth called as she shut the bathroom door. She could almost hear Piper rolling her eyes.
And by the time Annabeth had to leave for the blind date, Piper had forced her into the strappy white heels and the dress and curled her hair and fussed about Mango getting her hair on it, but Annabeth almost thought it was cute. After all, Mango didn't like to sit on clothing, not usually, so Annabeth took it as a sign of cat love.
Of course, she'd prefer cat love not getting cat hair on her dress.
"Miss, are you ready to order?" a waitress asked- a different one, with a fresh light in her almond shaped eyes. Annabeth only shook her head.
"Sorry, the rest of my reservation should be here shortly." Strictly speaking, it wasn't Annabeth's reservation, and there was only one more person, but the young waitress didn't need to know that. She gave her a small smile, which was returned, before turning back to her staring contest with the restaurant's logo on the menu- which looked awfully like a face.
"Well, let me know when you wish to order." Her voice was bright, and Annabeth thought idly that the girl- whatever her name was- was not yet disillusioned by the real world. This was a new job for her. Annabeth wondered why she even cared about a waitress she'd talked to once. After all…the probability of them meeting again was not high.
And then it happened.
Annabeth looked up, just for a moment, from her brief staring contest with the menu- which she was definitely winning- to see the familiar head of messy black hair and the vibrant sea green eyes that had stared at her two, three weeks ago in her home, meeting her own across the parking lot almost every day.
No. This was not supposed to be happening. She'd only gone on this blind date because nothing had been happening with the Seaweed Brain upstairs. But just because nothing had been happening didn't mean there wasn't something there! Annabeth cursed Jason.
Why?
Percy Jackson didn't notice her for a moment, talking to the waiter seating guests. Annabeth wondered what the chances were of his seat being all the way across the room from Annabeth's so that he wouldn't see her.
She came up with not very high. She was sitting almost in the middle of the restaurant, if Percy turned around, they'd meet eyes.
"The rest of your party has already arrived," she heard the waiter talking to Percy say. "I'll show you to your table." She wondered, briefly, who was in the rest of Percy's 'party', but she put the thought out of her mind and tried to look like she was there alone when the two started walking to her.
They're going to walk past, they're going to walk- what? Annabeth tore her gaze away from the table as the pairs of feet stopped, and Percy smiled at her.
"Hey, Annabeth." For a moment, Annabeth wondered how Jason and Percy knew each other. Then she realized that she was being stupid.
Jason always walked upstairs. Percy was upstairs. Why would Jason move to New Pine Creek? Percy lived alone. Annabeth knew she couldn't have known, but she still kicked herself for not putting the pieces together. Had this been Percy's idea? For Jason to set them up on a blind date? That didn't seem like Percy's style. From what she'd seen of Jason since Piper had started dating him, he'd probably set them together not knowing of their history. He'd probably told Percy about her, and the latter hadn't said anything.
"Percy," she managed. "You're…Jason's friend." Percy only nodded. He paused for a moment and took the seat across from her, the waiter having left after they started to speak.
"So Miss Chase, we meet again." He sounded teasing, and Annabeth wasn't sure whether it was annoying or funny. "Jason's my cousin, just so you know…and he didn't know we were going out." Annabeth arched an eyebrow.
"We're going out?" Percy backtracked immediately.
"I mean- well- I didn't- we did- if you want to." He said all at once, tripping over every word. Annabeth smiled at him.
"That sounds lovely." She smirked at him, and Percy didn't really notice that she was laughing at him yet, and the look on his face when he did was utterly precious. "So, Percy Jackson," Annabeth drawled, "how are you on this fine evening?" she was suddenly grateful to Piper's insistence on her dressing up- she'd all but pushed her out of her not-as-nice blind date dress and into the nice blue one, and unbeknownst to Percy her heels lay abandoned below her feet, hanging off the chair, but covered by a tablecloth. She blew a curl of gold out of her face.
Had Piper been in on this? Annabeth saw no reason for Piper to insist that she dress up very nicely if she didn't know who Annabeth was dressing up for. After all, she was Jason's girlfriend. From what Piper had told her, they'd had a little talk about soulmates the night she met him up on the roof and Piper had decided not to meet hers.
Well, not yet, anyway. Annabeth hadn't wanted to pry, after all. Besides, she was never going to meet her soulmate, why did she care? And even if she did- nothing would ever happen with them.
"Even better now that you're here," Percy said cheesily, dropping a faint kiss to the back of Annabeth's hand in a gentlemanly gesture. Annabeth smiled at it, and the waitress that Annabeth had spoken to earlier approached them again.
"Are you two ready to order?" Percy froze up, turning around to stare at the girl- who Annabeth now realized was about their age.
"Cal- Calypso." Percy stammered. Annabeth narrowed her eyes. An ex? "You work here?"
"Percy?" the waitress- Calypso- asked. "…yes, I do. Uhh, are you two ready to order?" Annabeth took that as her cue and leaned forward.
"I'll have the smoked salmon." Calypso nodded at her and turned to Percy.
"I- can I have a minute?" Calypso nodded and moved toward the next table, leaving Percy's face red and Annabeth watching.
"Ex?" she asked, almost judgmentally. Percy looked briefly startled, before relaxing.
"A summer fling," he said slowly, as if wondering how to phrase his words. "We met on my summer vacation- she lived on the island, I was only there for a few weeks…we didn't part on the greatest of terms."
"Ah." Annabeth said, as if she understood. When she was of the age to attend high school, there was the Half-Blood orphanage she'd lived at with Luke until his death, where she'd struggled to reach with Thalia before her 'demise', as she could call it. There was no summer vacation; there wasn't even high school- she was deemed 'high risk' as a troublemaker and instead received her schooling for 'Chiron' Brunner, a man who'd become her father figure.
Her only 'fling' had been with Luke himself- and it had barely lasted before the issues Thalia had left him with got the best of him.
Calypso came back, and Percy ordered a steak and an Italian soda that he asked to be colored blue- for a reason Annabeth didn't know if she wanted to ask about- and Calypso gave him a strained smile and that was the last they saw of her. A good thing, too. This was their date, not their date plus Calypso.
"So," Annabeth said after a moment. "What do you…do? Like, a job." She added hastily. "I don't think we ever talked about that…" Or much else, she added silently. The first date had been ended quickly by Annabeth herself and the second had been talking, joking, fighting over which was the better flavor of ice cream.
"Uh, Annabeth," Percy said slowly, "we have. Remember? I teach kindergarten, you're an architect but you want to write?"
"…oh." The corners of Percy's mouth pulled up in a smile and his eyes twinkled with what Annabeth thought was either humor or mischief. "You're laughing at me!" Annabeth exclaimed with a sense of déjà vu- had Percy not said the exact same thing those weeks ago to her?
"Can you blame me? Anyway, Miss Chase," Annabeth was thinking that Miss Chase had become Percy's thing for her, "what sort of books do you want to write?" Annabeth sat up straighter, and Percy noticed that her eyes brightened.
"Well, right now my…project, I guess you could say, is a fiction book. For, you know, kids eleven to fourteen, I guess? But I'm not really sure. I've never been able to finish anything, but when I was a kid I wrote fiction, and it's always been something, I think, that I've wanted to do." Annabeth thought back to her old computer from when she was a kid, overflowing with Microsoft Word documents with so many ideas. How did she go from that hopeful girl with the messy elf-locks and glitter-soft eyes to this? An unsatisfied twenty-six year old without the inspiration to get through the day?
The date progressed easily after that- there was laughing and talking and Annabeth realized with a jolt that he was actually listening- not like the one guy a year ago who had been staring concentratedly at her chest, or the guy who had droned on about himself all night long. He walked her home from the small place in New Pine Creek and just…kept her company.
The walk to her door was silent, both of them unsure what to say even as Annabeth unlocked her door quietly as not to alert Piper, or Mango and Pandora. She turned to him as she stepped inside, her eyes questioning even as he leaned in and kissed her- a real kiss, a sweet one.
When he pulled away, Annabeth was left breathless. "Good night, Miss Chase," he whispered softly, closing the door behind him and walking away. Annabeth sighed as she turned around to see Piper with a Cheshire Cat grin on her face, ignoring her and turning on her computer.
The next character introduced in Annabeth's book had brilliant green eyes.
P.S. Lost and Found, Moody Blues