Summary: After her the love of her life falls in love with her best friend and then disappears for a whole year, Annabeth is completely sure that nothing in her life could possibly get worse. And then she meets the brazen and chaotic Greek Percy Jackson. AU | RomanAnnabeth | Percabeth

I'm sure that this kind of fic has probably been done before in the fandom, but I heard the song Hoping to Find and for some reason got this very specific wave of inspiration and am ECSTATIC to have ideas for a chapter based fic.

This chapter should read as a preface or an introduction just to set up and give background - the rest of the chapters for this fic will move with more pace and be happening in present time versus the recap done here.

Disclaimer: I own nothing :0 (shocking I know)

Thank you for reading!

Annabeth's first kiss was exactly who she thought it would be. They both started at Camp Jupiter extremely young and had been magnetized together through their shared interest in order and consistency. They were eight years old and he had been dared to kiss her by a few rowdy children of Mars and he leaned in and out so quickly she barely felt it. The natural electrical current running under his skin gave her a shock at the contact and she figured that must be the sparks everyone talked about.

She always feels a little awkward saying that was the one of two total kisses she's ever had. The other was a mortal boy named Derek who went to her high school and had given her his differential equation notes. After that encounter, she was one thousand percent sure Derek was not a son of Jupiter.

Her love for Jason had been static essentially since the first day she laid eyes on him. His spiked blonde hair and small scar over his lip drew her in, and as soon as he opened his mouth about the correct way to wield a gladius versus a spatha, she knew she was a goner. She's never looked back since, either.

Over the years it's gotten both easier and more complicated when she thinks about Jason. They always had an easy chemistry and the entire camp had been waiting for them to date because they just seemed to make so much sense. On one hand, they were both arguably each other's backbones and ran the entire camp together as co praetors with precision and efficiency; dating would be like when a high school quarterback and head cheerleader got together. On the other, their other best friend Reyna was already dating Jason.

…...

Going through the titan war was quite frankly hell. The gods were essentially absent through it and it felt like it came on very suddenly. She tactfully planned to conquer the Titan base Mount Othrys and watched as Jason swept through and saved the day.

It was over just as soon as it started it seemed. By the end of the battles, Reyna's face was stained red from blood slipping down her skull and a fractured leg. Jason wouldn't let her out of his sight as she healed and eventually their little trio seemed to turn in to a duo plus one. To be completely honest, Annabeth never even considered that Jason would ever be interested in anyone other than her, her hubris swirling in her heart and spreading fire through her veins.

But that's still how it worked out, and after so much time later, Annabeth starts to adjust to this new rhythm. She sees her otherwise nonemotive best girl friend start to blush and giggle and wonders if Reyna always had that side to her, but saved it just for Jason before. They still hang out and train together and she quickly learns to look away from their intertwined hands.

And Reyna comes to her with gossip, something the two of them have never really shared unless it concerned their competitive battle edges. Reyna says how full her heart has been and how he makes her feel like she's flying (Annabeth mistakenly snorts at that remark thinking it was a pun). Annabeth reserves the tiniest corner of her heart to keep pinning after Jason in silence but it expands and contracts, some days making her world go black and blank, other days she can almost kind of be completely supportive of them. Almost.

…...

The year without Jason scrapes her hollow. She instantly goes on a solo scouting mission and entrusts Reyna with the promotion of praetor to properly protect the camp while she's gone. Reyna begrudgingly agrees to stay behind and thanks Annabeth for accepting a mission "her heart couldn't handle". (Annabeth accidentally snorts at this remark too, thinking about what a cruel twisted joke her entire life felt like.)

She winds up searching all across the country and even finds a few international leads and the only thing she's sure of is that the world felt as if it was unraveling right beneath her feet. Feeling lost and like she didn't know what was going on was draining, making her feel completely unaligned with herself. In short, she was sure the gods were punishing her with a very specifically branded, personal hell for her.

While she's out desperate each night sleeping in hammocks high in trees and trying to live off the rations she could sneak out of open markets, she catches snippets of a powerful and rather unruly new guy at camp. He demonstrated immense power and was claimed by Neptune and immediately went on a quest and Annabeth is so distracted by Jason being gone she almost doesn't even care. But she at the very least knows she does not trust the guy, Peter Johnson or whatever Reyna said his name was.

She runs into a lot more monsters when she reaches New York City and she is absolutely sure it's not a coincidence. She knows that there must be a lot of demigods in such a crowded city and can almost feel a slight hum of energy in the air, but not the regular city-that-never-sleeps energy. Somehow she knows he must be near and she doesn't sleep for two days straight as she wanders, stuck on a trace leading out toward Long Island.

Her world turns inside out when she's near Smithtown and bumps into some faun named Grover who had a lot to say to her.

Seeing Jason in the traffic cone orange shirt twists her heart into her stomach. She had imagined the moment many times, when she would heroically rush into where he had been kept captive and save the day (without a hair out place, she might add). Maybe she would just punch him in the arm and try to play it cool, maybe she would shove him around a bit before pulling him in close, maybe she would run into his arms and he would spin her around and then she'd lecture him about never scaring her like that again.

Instead, she got a curt wave and warm smile from across a field as he talked and laughed with a rather tall girl with choppy hair. A crowd formed around her and different chants streamed from it, some people demanding to know about some boy named Percy, some saying unrecognizable Ancient Greek (gods, she thinks to herself, and people say Latin is a dead language) mantras, and she's very sure only a select few of them are saying nice things amidst it all.

A centaurus approaches her slowly and the look in his eyes is the only reason she doesn't instinctively draw her knife.

"Annabeth Chase, daughter of Minerva," he says with a mischievous glint in his eyes, "welcome to Camp Half Blood. I've been expecting you."

…...

She grew up knowing never to trust the Greeks. She knows that there's a reason they're famous for the whole Trojan horse thing, even if she did admire their cleverness. So when she was guided into the big blue house where they're supposed "council" was going to convene, clutching onto her hidden weapons was second nature.

Jason strides in confidently and with ease, like he had walked up and down the house's halls a million times. Annabeth, however, started to laugh when they directed her to a room with a ton of porch chairs shoved around a ping pong table thinking it must be a joke, and after their silent glares in response, she just stood awkwardly off to the side. She was missing her marble columns and proper senate meetings.

She peered down her nose at everyone in the room, inspecting and calculating carefully. She was well versed in the Greek counterparts of the Roman gods from her obsessive reading, and she was trying to match the surrounding demigods with their godly parents.

Jason was sitting comfortably next to the choppy haired girl from earlier, and she giggled as her eyes glinted like a kaleidoscope; Annabeth assumed she was likely a descendant of Ceres or maybe even Apollo with her slight and lithe looking frame. Next to her was a shorter boy in singed jeans and white t-shirt with wild hair and she knew without a doubt that he was the son of Vulcan.

A few more piled into the space and she was surprised when one girl with short pitch black hair made her way in and smirked right at her.

"This the Roman?" The short black haired girl said toward the centaurus, who she now knew was Chiron, and Annabeth stood up a little straighter as everyone's eyes quickly trained over her.

Jason smiles warmly at her and looks back towards everyone else. "Yeah, she's roman," he says in response. Her face is steely in shock. What the hell is going on here? She thought.

"Yes, this Annabeth, another Roman from Camp Jupiter. And I'm assuming she may have more information for us concerning the whereabouts of one of our campers," Chiron said simply as he took command over the room again. Everyone seemed settled with the fact that Jason was a Roman, but they looked at Annabeth like a six headed hydra.

"More information for you?" She says more snarkily than she meant to, but she was absolutely incredulous with the presumption that she was hiding something from them. Hadn't they kept Jason captive for months?

Chiron clasped his hands gently together, a patient and almost sympathetic look to him. Annabeth felt a flash of heat spread on her face and set her jaw, digging her nails deep into her hand.

"One of our campers appears to have been switched with Jason by a certain goddess of marriage. Jason has been here with us for the past year, and the more he shares as his memory starts clearing, I am to believe that Percy Jackson has taken his place at Camp Jupiter."

"Juno gave you guys Jason and we got Peter Johnson?" She burst, bewildered. The anger still simmered within her. A grumbling from the sky echoed through the room, and an older man in a Hawaiian shirt cackled uncontrollably in the corner.

Chiron cringed slightly at the sound of the thunder. "Ms. Chase, I must advise you not to use names, especially Roman names-"

She fervently shot up from leaning against the wall, directly addressing Jason now. "And I must advise you that we should get out of here and go home. Now. Or maybe you just forgot about everyone that you left behind while you've been busy roasting s'mores here." Without missing a beat, she storms out and doesn't look back.

She leans against the white railing wrapped around the porch and grips the underside with her hands, fingernails digging into the splintering wood.

Her eyes prick and she feels herself sinking, feeling meaning and purpose and just plain rationale slipping from her sanity.

"I know you're mad at him, but he's had a tough year, too."

Annabeth wipes her eyes immediately and frantically, steadying her emotions before turning to face whoever just broke her concentration.

With a light silver quiver and bow slung over her shoulder, the black haired girl stared at her pointedly with her icy blue eyes. Annabeth could not figure out for the life of her who this girl's godly parent was-she had the same eyes as Jason, but children from the big three gods were few and far between. Her silver glow was reminiscent of Diana, but she's a maiden goddess. She had an upturned nose similar to Mercury's descendants, but doesn't share any of their mischievous traits. Her many piercings, tattoos and black leather jacket surprisingly didn't make Annabeth scoff. She even found herself fixated on a detailed pine tree tattoo trailing up the girl's forearm, wondering what the story behind that might be.

"You don't understand," Annabeth mutters dejectedly.

The girl scoffs in response. "Let me guess; Jason being gone felt like you had lost the only family you have in this world."

Annabeth's eyes instinctively flash up, and she bit back the absolute shock she was feeling.

"Yeah, I understand," the girl said snarkily but Annabeth didn't feel like she was taking a dig at her, "because I've been you. Hell, I am you right now." She throws her arms over the porch railing and stares idly out at the rolling fields of strawberries.

Annabeth doesn't respond but mimics the girl's actions, blowing a puff of air at a stray curl on her face.

"My name's Thalia," the girl said without making eye contact, "Thalia Grace."

Annabeth's throat closes and she pinches the skin right beneath her denim shorts, sure that all of this is just a horrible, horrible dream. "Grace?" Is all she is able to utter.

Thalia laughs, "Yeah, I didn't think my baby bro ever mentioned me. But he's not the only family I've lost. And you can help me find him."

Annabeth's shoulders drop, and knowing that Thalia was Jason's sister puts her at ease. "Find who? Perry Jenkins?"

Thalia clutched her abdomen as she laughed a little louder, and the sound makes Annabeth crack a slight smile. "Oh yeah, I definitely like you," Thalia chuckles out before continuing, "but yes, Perry Jenkins was my only family for years. And I can't believe it, but I actually miss his stupid kelp head."

Annabeth recognizes the loss looming in Thalia's eyes, and can sense that there are a few stories buried in them. She sighs dramatically and scratches behind her ear, pondering what her next move should be.

"What's so special about him anyway? You Greeks are acting like he's your savior or something. Is he really that important?"

Thalia turned to face her, her eyes welled up slightly and the rest of her face blank and stony. Her gaze flicked down and out again, suddenly unable to meet Annabeth's eyes. "Yeah, yeah he is."

…...

Planning a trip back to New Rome with Jason was complicated, mainly because Jason did not want to go back.

"What do you mean you're not going back?" She hissed with more venom dripping from her tongue than a gorgon. She latched a hand firmly around his wrist and yanked him backward to face her.

Sheepishly, his gaze fixated on a patch of grass beneath them. "I didn't say I'm not going back. I'm just not going back… yet," he finishes with a wispy sigh, and she could feel the rest of his breath catching in his lungs.

Dumbfounded, she steeled her emotions and stared blankly back. "You're a praetor, Jason. Or what, do you want me to hand that position over to Octavian?"

"C'mon Annie," she cringed at the sound of her least favorite nickname, "don't be so obtuse. Things have changed now. I can't just abandon everyone here. Besides, I've heard Percy has been appointed my old rank."

Smoke rises out of her ears faster than a train whistle. "Abandon everyone here? Yeah, sure, you really shouldn't abandon them now should you?" And she storms off as her eyes prickle. If nothing else, the Greeks were providing her with ample opportunities to practice her furious and dramatic exits.

…...

She's leaving in the morning with the faun Grover (who gave her half of his peanut butter sandwich at the mess hall and respected her choice to decline his offer of a personal reed pipe concert pick-me-up) and her heart is flimsy and frail in her chest. Of all the scenarios she had imagined that could have happened when she found Jason, this was absolutely something she was not prepared for.

In terms of Camp Half Blood and its constituents, she had drastically polarized opinions. She was humbled and honored to meet Chiron and gratefully accepted the mentorship he had offered her in such a short time. The girl with choppy hair that sometimes had feathers in it, Piper, was actually a very formidable fighter and Annabeth had been happy to swap knife techniques with her. The entire camp felt lawless and rather nonsensical to her, but after a few days of rubbing elbows with everyone, she had to admit that there was an admirable kind of spirit in their lives.

Anxious for the long trip back to New Rome empty handed, she found herself wandering down to the sound in the middle of the night. The shoreline gave her peace over the past week, something she found particularly curious as she had never been drawn to any beach before. Generally, she avoided Neptune's territory out of respect and solidarity for her mother.

Slipping her toes deep into the sand as she waded into the lapping tide, she felt a deep tension release from within.

Jason had effectively squashed her like a pestering beetle. Not only had she spent the year with a gaping hole in her heart, but he had brushed her and their entire culture off so dismissively. He had barely even asked about Reyna, let alone tried to catch up with Annabeth. She tried to reason with herself, knowing that Jason was a man of logic and sense versus his newly acquainted, over emotional Greek friends. Her mind knew better than to take his distance personally, but her heart was completely disconnected from her deductive reasoning.

Her brain buzzed with competing thoughts so intensely she could feel a physical pressure building. Willing the water to wash away some of her distracting anguish, she imagined slipping away to an underwater utopia permanently.

…...

Her mission was to get back to her own camp safely and send the Greek demigod that had infiltrated her camp back with Grover. She was skeptical of Percy's powers, not understanding how someone everyone claimed to be so in awe of would need a faun of all creatures as a guide.

Still, she felt Grover overall was an excellent traveling companion. He wasn't a picky eater (he swore he once lived off of tin cans and a wedding veil when trapped in the sea of monsters), he had experience traveling across the country from previous quests, and shared her love for silence and sarcastic commentary.

She wanted to pry about his connection with Percy. Apparently, they had an established empathy link that connected their two life forces and could allow them to communicate telepathically. Grover had insisted that Percy sit still at Camp Jupiter, but with the way he chewed on a fast food napkin as he said that, she could tell that Percy was a flight risk.

"His memory is coming back and he just wants to get back to all of us," Grover explained. Annabeth masked her envy of the entire situation. From the way Grover had described it, Percy seemed ready to start walking all the way back to Long Island if it meant he could be back with his people. Meanwhile, Jason had been sunbathing with a few girls from the Venus cabin when she descended down the big hill.

It irked her the way everyone seemed to worship Percy. Grover had shared a few stories where Percy seemed to accidentally save the day at the very last second. She pictured a reckless ego maniac hungry for glory and drunk on the power he had over everyone as he was a child of the big three.

Piper had considered coming with them, as she had been alongside Percy and Grover and Thalia in countless battles beforehand. Annabeth didn't push or try to pull information out of anyone, but from the pieces she gathered, she assumed that the Romans weren't the only ones that fought the Titans last year.

Once they've put a considerable amount of distance between them and that infernal camp, Annabeth feels air rush back into her lungs. She's ready to play war games until she's cross eyed and mindlessly sketch buildings in the peace of the aviary. She wants to be back with Reyna so they can sit in the Senate past curfew and complain about how stupid boys are, one of the few totally normal teenage acts she likes to engage in. At this point, she would pluck out all of her eyelashes if it meant she could zap herself back across Little Tiber. Hell, she might even feel desperate and heartbroken enough to throw her arms around Reyna and pull her in for one of their extremely rare hugs.

Grover breaks the silence of the train ride when they get off at the St. Louis station. "You ever seen the arch?" He asks a little too peppy for her taste. She was content with making the entire journey quiet, but not because she wasn't growing fond of his company.

"Never up close or anything," she sighs out, remembering a time when she was traveling across the country and Jason and Reyna had absolutely refused to indulge her obsession with architecture, "but I've always wanted to." She feels a little gushy as she sits up straighter, lightening at the thought of a geeky side excursion.

"You know, the arch's legs were built separately and if they were off by even 1/64th of an inch, they wouldn't have been able to connect them," she says involuntarily, completely unable to help herself.

"That's cool. Percy fell off the top of the thing when he was 12. All the way down."

"Forty whole blocks were demolished to build-wait, what?"

…

They're passing through Colorado (at this point, she's gotten comfortable enough in front of Grover that she'll actually giggle at his jokes) when he bends over, gripping his forehead as his brow becomes one furrowed line.

She lightly places a hand on his back and he bends slightly to look back at her, only to confirm what she was afraid of. "It's Percy. He left camp."

And suddenly they have to reroute their plans so they can intercept this foolishly reckless son of Neptune and absolute pain in her ass.

A/N: Let me know your thoughts in a review :) thank you for reading! Next chapter we'll have our first percabeth interaction :)