Thank you all so much for the lovely reviews! I'd like to thank each and every one of you guys for all of the support, I don't know what I did to deserve you guys. Anyway! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: There's a .000000000133 percent chance that I'm Rick Riordan. The stakes are pretty low.

~headline: percy jackson and his nefarious affairs~

…

Piper was completely right when she said that this school wasn't great. In fact, as Annabeth explored it more and more, it was less than great. Way, way less. Maybe it's because Annabeth is cynical, but each person at this school seemed pretentious. Drew Tanaka, who Piper had told her about, is even worse. She goes out of her way to be rude to people, especially Piper. Annabeth, luckily, hasn't been targeted yet, but she's awaiting the day it'll arrive. She even knows what she'll say. Back in Brooklyn, she was never the target of bullying, except from her friends, which was inevitable, because they were all assholes to each other. Here, in LA, where everything is laced with superficiality, it seems pretty common. She's seen people being pushed in the hallways for not wearing on brand sneakers for Christ's sake.

They're like cartoon bullies. Drew Tanaka is the classic mean girl, who wears all designer clothes, and completely takes advantage of her mother's "fame". Annabeth has witnessed multiple rude remarks by her towards Piper, about how Aphrodite loves her more. The thing is, as Annabeth has observed, Piper hates Aphrodite with a burning passion. Sure, that doesn't mean she doesn't care that Aphrodite cheated, but it does mean that Drew's insults don't hurt as much.

Mostly, Piper goes out of her way to avoid her half-sister. And because Piper is Annabeth's student guide, she does that too. To be honest, she is thankful that Piper ended up being her guide, because she doesn't know how much longer she can stand the people at this school. And it's not like her half-brothers help her at all. They conveniently ignore her at home and in school, acting like she doesn't exist. Sometimes, Annabeth feels like Harry Potter around her family, like she's supposed to stay in her room, and not make a sound. Her father tries, but Annabeth doesn't like talking to him or Helen for that matter, so most of the time, she stays in her room. At family dinners, which Helen insists on having every night, she picks at her food, giving one word answers to their questions. She can see the exasperation on Frederick's face, and at first, it made her feel bad, but then ignored that feeling. He left her when she was six. What parent does that? Not a good one, Annabeth knows that for sure.

The academic side of school is going okay, and most of the assignments she finds easy. Her teachers are a mix of weird, condescending, and problematic, and the only one that's okay is Dr. Brunner, who teaches her Greek class, along with being the school psychologist. He's a nice guy, and although Annabeth always questions the fact that there's a greek class at Goode, she isn't complaining, because she actually likes it. Piper's in that class too, which makes everything better, though she sleeps through most of it. Piper doesn't really give a shot about school, or her grades really. She's a rebel type. Annabeth doesn't know if this is true or not, but when she was going to the bathroom one day in the middle of class, she heard Drew and some other girls talking about how Piper once stole a BMW, and then claimed she just asked for it. Annabeth questioned Piper about it when she got back, but the girl just shrugged, and fell back asleep.

Annabeth's gone to Dr. Brunner's office frequently, since it's Piper's resting place. They hang out there during lunches, because Piper doesn't like sitting in the lunchroom. She always says it's too crowded and stupid. Piper thinks a lot of things are stupid, she's found. So they spend their time in Dr. Brunner's room, eating, and he doesn't mind. In fact, he sometimes even talks to them, in the midst of his work. He's the most down to earth teacher Annabeth's had, and he gives strangely good advice, like he can predict the future.

In short, school is going… the best it can. She hasn't been able to talk to Pylos as much, or post anything on her blog, and to be honest, she hasn't had the motivation either. She's talked to Pulos a couple of times about it, and he tries to help, giving her ideas, but it doesn't always work.

So now she has to wait. Wait for that "big thing" to happen. Something that'll make a splash, something she can dig her teeth into for a couple hours, consumed in gossip, information and/or culture. A lot of times, it's a scandal, or the announcement of a new movie. Other times, it's a cool new concept, or a hashtag that's going around. Although her blog isn't huge, she has some consistent viewers that leave comments and likes on her posts. She'd say that overall, she has about fifty avid followers, maybe sixty. It's a pop culture blog, but because it also talks about Greece, (hence the blog name, "Athens Acropolis"), certain viewers are drawn in. Along with Pylos, there are several other viewers, ones with different varieties of usernames associated with greece. She also posts about Percy Jackson (more frequently then she'd like to admit), so she has a fair share of Percy Jackson fans. For a while, there was one troll that always left mean comments, but when she talked to Pylos about it, the troll strangely disappeared.

Blogging is one of her passions, she thinks about becoming a journalist one day. Perhaps an architectural journalist, she's always loved the great buildings of Rome, like the Pantheon and the Colosseum. Just looking at the structures of them, it's mesmerizing. She's done a couple posts about them before, but maybe, if she researches them a bit more, she'll find something new.

Annabeth doesn't know what she's going to do. But what she does know is that it's getting late, and she has school tomorrow. So if she doesn't go to bed now, she'll wake up, exhausted, and Piper will make fun of the bags under her eyes, (because that's just what she does). She sometimes wonders if Piper's an actual human, or if she's a robot. It would make sense. She's perfect looking in terms of appearance, but has the personality of a cinder block. The only time that she sees her crack, is when Annabeth tells a genuinely funny joke, or when she's listening to music. Piper's pretty closed off, and Annabeth hopes she'll be able to help open her personality more.

It's not her responsibility, and this is just a late night thought which'll probably vanish soon enough. Annabeth shuts her light off, and leans against her bed, with it's mit-matched sheets, and looks up at the ceiling. Soon enough, she feels her eyes shut, as she drifts off to sleep, entering the world of dreams.

…

She has a bad dream. It's about her mom, as if her mom were still alive. Once Annabeth sees her, she almost has a heart attack, before realizing that it's a dream. She reaches out to touch her mother, but it's just a reflection into water, and her hand gets wet.

"Mom?" She questions, but her voice just echoes, throughout the white box she's trapped in. She looks down again, and moves her hand to the right. Her mother, or the reflection, moves her hand to the left, copying her same action. Annabeth kneels down, on her knees, and the reflection follows again.

She feels a tear dripping down her cheek, and leans closer to the water, putting her head into it. And then, she feels like she's being pulled down by others, so quickly, so fast. Her vision is obscured, and now, she can only see black. "Mom?" She tries to scream, but her voice is muffled by the water. The water, which used to be cold, is now hot, burning hot.

She tries to wake up, because she knows this is a dream— it has to be. She feels herself twisting in turning, until there's a gentle tap on her head, and her eyes flash open, to see Frederick Chase, the absolute last person she wants to see, rubbing her forehead.

She gasps. "It was a dream." She says, trying to reassure herself. Frederick looks concerned, and moves his hand away from her forehead.

"You were mumbling…" he trails off, "you were talking about Athena." He finishes.

She looks up at her ceiling. "Out loud?"

"Do you sleep talk frequently?"

"Only when I'm stressed out," Or traumatized, Annabeth wants to add. When she lived with Thalia, she would sleep-talk a lot, and wake up to Thalia comforting her, in this same position. And even though Frederick is doing the same thing, she doesn't like it. He doesn't get to be all… to be all fatherly to her. He doesn't deserve that. So she scoots away. "I'm fine."

"Honey—" Frederick says, but Annabeth stops him.

She grunts, "you don't get to call me 'honey'" she swallows, feeling tears falling down her face. "You don't get to call me anything, you don't deserve that."

Frederick bites his lip, but stays next to her bed. "I know," he says, "I know Annie-bear. That's what I used to call you, you know? Annie-bear. When you were young, you loved the name." He chuckled, "now I assume you despise it."

"More than life itself." She says harshly, turning away from him. "You don't get to do this, you left me. Leave now, please." Her voice comes out strangled. "Please."

Frederick gets up from his seat, and turns around. He looks back at Annabeth once, and then speaks. "I know I made a mistake all those years ago, but at least I'm trying to fix it."

"You shouldn't have to try!" Annabeth shouts after him. "This shouldn't be a conversation we're having. Don't leave your child! Don't leave your family!" She continues, but the door is already shut, and her father is leaving her alone, once more.

She tries to get some more sleep, but it's hard. It's already three pm, so it's not like she'll be able to get any restful hours. She tries though, for the sake of her own sanity. She's watched a million youtube videos about how getting at least eight hours of sleep is good, and while she doesn't get sleep anywhere close to that, it's a nice thought to live off of. So she shuts her eyes, and concentrates on her breathing, until she feels herself slowly drift away. She's not asleep, far from that, but at least her eyes are closed, and she's resting.

And soon enough, the non-existent rooster crows, and it's time to start another amazing day.

…

The first thing Annabeth does when she wakes up is to go downstairs to Helen and Frederick, who are taking sips of their morning coffee. She tells them that she's going to school late. Helen tries to argue, but Frederick cuts her off, looking guilty.

"Annabeth," Helen says, her voice smooth. "You can't do that, school is important—"

And then, her father goes, defending her for the first time ever. "She had a hard night darling, okay?" He looks at Annabeth. "I'll take a couple hours off from work, and I'll drive you to the school at ten. That's two hours, is that okay?"

Annabeth nods, and offers Frederick a small smile. She's still mad at him, but she appreciates his efforts. She walks back up the huge stairs of their house, and goes back to her room. Taking her phone out of the charging station, she heads to her news feed, which is blowing up with multiple headlines of the same topic:

"Pop-Star Percy Jackson caught kissing the daughter of rival management company, Atlas Management leader."

"A forbidden love: Smooth-star Percy Jackson and Calypso Atlas"

"Exclusive footage of the hottest musician of the new age, publicly snogging Ms. Calypso Atlas."

Annabeth eyes widen, as she clicks onto the headline, which reveals a three minute long video of Percy Jackson and Calypso Atlas passionately making out. It ends abruptly as the pair escape, and that's when Annabeth knows what her next blog post is going to be about.

She rubs her eyes, which have bags under them because of the late night crying, and little sleep she got, and gets to work, finding all she knows about the two of them. Researching, although boring, can be calming for Annabeth. It helps her forget her problems, and delve deeper into the other peoples problems, however sadistic that sounds. She knows that there are people in the world with more issues than her, but she's found she undermines her own problems too much, until they blow up, and cause her to get to a boiling point. It's problematic, and she tries to fix it, but mostly, drowning out her own sorrows works.

Distractions are good. It's healthy to be distracted. It's even good, in some cases. Escapism, if she can call it that. So if digging her head into Percy Jackson's latest scandal will help, she'll do it.

But the time she's done researching, it's nine am, and she decides to write the first draft of the blog post. With all the information she gathered from various news articles and gossip sites (not all accurate), she tries to put together a piece about the night, and perhaps, exactly why they kissed. There's no record of a relationship before, in fact, they hadn't even met before, so perhaps, it was love at first site. Annabeth can't help but feel a pang in her heart when she thinks that, because the person she loves doesn't know who she is, and she doesn't know who he is.

She sometimes imagines what Pylos looks like. For a while, she thought of him as if he looked like Luke, but then, when she realized she had fallen for Pylos's personality, she didn't assign him a specific look. For a while, she thought of him as Percy Jackson, as ridiculous as that sounds. She knows that Pylos will never be him, but damn, no one can deny how hot Percy is. He's got ruggish looks, messy raven black hair, that any person would love to run their hands through. Piercing sea green eyes, that could make anyone swoon, and a toned body, probably from working out.

And the weird part about it, is that he's her age. He's peaking in looks, and he isn't even at his life peak yet. The kids at her school could never compare to him. It's unrealistic beauty standards. Annabeth is fine with her body, that's one of the only things she's completely fine with, because she stopped believing in the unrealistic beauty standards of Hollywood when her mother sat her down, and gave her a long talk about it.

Her mother… god, she wishes that she were with her. Everything would be so much easier, Annabeth would know what to do. She'd be back in New York, with her friends, she'd be living the same life she always lived. The empty void in Annabeth's head would be closed, and she could be fully happy again.

Dealing with loss takes a long time, and it really sucks. Annabeth hopes that she'll be able to get over it soon enough, though her hopes aren't high.

…

She goes to school at ten, her father driving her to the building in silence. He says goodbye, and "I love you," which Annabeth pretends she didn't hear. It doesn't sound right in his voice, and when he says it, she imagines her.

She walks into the school late at ten fifteen, going to Ms. Hargreaves's class, who teaches third period trigonometry. She hands her pass to the old woman, and sits next to Piper, at the back of the class.

"Why're you late?" Piper says, chewing on the back of a pencil. Gross. Annabeth thinks, trying not to wrinkle her nose.

Annabeth shrugs, "I had some stuff."

"Cool stuff, or stuff that you don't want to talk about?" Piper asks. This is what she likes about her, she's blunt, honest, and to the point.

"Stuff I'd rather not talk about." Annabeth replies. "It's okay now." Well, in truth it isn't. There will always be a never-ending battle in her head because of her mother's loss. But for now, she's mentally stable, and that's what's important.

Piper nods, and leans against her chair, continuing to chew on her pencil, probably not listening to the teacher, as she drones on about trigonometric functions and inverse trig. Annabeth listens, because she's a goody-two shoes, and likes to have good grades. Plus, this kind of stuff comes easy to her. English, not so much, she thinks she might have Dyslexia, but it's not confirmed. Although she likes writing, she sometimes struggles at holding onto words. Even so, Annabeth's grown accustomed to it, and can read pretty easily now, except for chance situations.

She goes through the rest of the school day pretty smoothly, coming out with a couple pages to read, and a stack of homework. Her father picks them up in his car, and makes small talk with the twins, after realizing Annabeth's not in the mood to chat.

Once she gets home, she goes straight to her room, which is becoming her solace point. Although it's ugly and gross, it's the only place in the house that she can truly feel free. Helen and Fredrick don't come in unless needed, and the twins rarely bother her.

She opens up her blog posts, and edits it, putting it through a text-to-speech website to make sure there are no awkward sentences. With one last look through, she hits the publish button, and it's off to the world.

The Percy Problem, Part 6: Calypso Atlas and Percy Jackson compete in a passionate tongue jest.

It's a series of sorts. The first "Percy Problem" blog post wasn't intended to become a series, but it got her a lot of the readers she has now, so she decided to continue it. In fact, the first Percy Problem was what brought Pylos in first. He started an argument over it, and in the process, they became friends. Since then, she's covered his various other scandals with this name, gaining more traction. Her other blog posts aren't as popular as these, but she knows that this will bring in a couple more viewers.

Annabeth sighs, and feels her eyes shutting on themselves, but reminds herself that she needs to get to work. She takes out her binder from her backpack, which has somehow already exploded with papers, and starts her homework. She'll probably start getting notifications within the next hour, so she puts her phone on charge, and gets to work.

…

Thirty minutes later, she feels a familiar ding, telling her she has received a new message. She opens it, to see something from Pylos, a detailed paragraph about her blog post.

"Hey A," it says, "just read the new post, and I must admit, that title was clever. But being the person I am (ofc), I have a few points: kissing another celebrity barely constitutes a scandal. In fact, according to google, a scandal is defined as this: an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage. Maybe it caused a little bit of outrage, but there was nothing done wrong legally. And I don't think you have a right to assess "his track record:" especially since there's been nothing wrong done. Fine, it was probably not the best time to kiss Calypso, but there's nothing in the law that says flings and hookups aren't allowed. With that being said, I think that it was pretty entertaining so whatever."

She quickly types up her responses, smiling. She loves it when they get into debates like this. Pushing her work aside, she begins to state her case. "A little big of public outrage?" She writes, "my news feed was blowing up with the two of them. And, admittedly, he hasn't done anything fundamentally wrong, but still, hookups aren't great… seriously P." She adds a shrugging emoji to the end.

"Your news feed? That's because you have a strange addiction with a certain pop star."

"That's not true! You do too." She shakes her head.

Pylos replies quickly, almost as if he's prepared beforehand. "Well… in reality not really. Quite the opposite of that."

"What do you mean? You're always defending him."

Pylos doesn't reply for a long while, and when he does, he changes the subject completely. "I got another song out," he writes, "and now, I'm back at square one again."

Annabeth realizes this might be a sore subject, so she doesn't push him. Instead, she tries to help him. They talk for two hours, until she's called down for dinner, and realizes she'll have to stay up late to finish her homework. So much for a reasonable sleep schedule.

She thinks about what Pylos said, about being back on square one. There's nothing she wants more than to be back in square one. Square one is good, it's traveling back in time, to the very start. She wishes she could go to that time period, when she is naive, ignorant, and happy.

…

~you can be living your dreams and nightmares at the same time~

Hello! I hope you're all doing well! The summer has officially kicked off for me, and I am conveniently left with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do. But tbh, that's fine, and I really shouldn't be complaining, some people are actually suffering, and that's where we need to direct our energy. Ty to everyone who said my lyrics weren't total crap, I appreciate it! And I forgot to say this last chapter, but shout out to [guest] for catching the Stranger Things reference!

But yeah! Tysm for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and feel free to leave a review, I'd love to know what you think! Stay safe and healthy all of you! Until the next chapter!

TheLil'Lion