A/N: In particular this time, I'd like to thank Kioko and believeinthegods for their immense help—this one took a lot more editing than usual. I hope it paid off!

By the way, I completely and totally disregarded everything that was actually in the books when they were fourteen. Please note that Grover is away searching for Pan in this particular fic. =)

This turned out very different than how I imagined it, but I rather like it. Hope you enjoy this one-shot!

Song: Seasons of Love by Original Broadway Cast of RENT

The Weather of Wishes

Winter

Percy Jackson, youngest son of Poseidon, stared out his fifth-story New York apartment window at midnight. It was chilly, but he didn't care. He opened the window anyway.

January first—an end to one year and a beginning to another.

Was he happy? Sure, you could say that. You could also say that he was confused. If you wanted, you could also say that trees are made of spaghetti. It's all a matter of opinion and views.

To himself, Percy wished he had someone to ring in the New Year with. Sure, he had his mom, but that couldn't be any more different. Besides, she was off celebrating with Paul.

With a fair amount of fatigue, he scrounged up a piece of paper to write on. In scrawled handwriting (he'd never gotten around to making it…you know…legible), he wrote down his wish for the year. He folded the piece of paper and put it in a drawer of his desk—the one he kept his favorite pictures in. The one he almost never opened. He was certain each time he opened it that he would find something more exciting than a bunch of old pieces of paper.

But, alas, he never did. All that drawer held were discarded memories. Percy could not see what was exciting about days passed.

I wish those memories didn't feel like I imagined them.

*****

Annabeth Chase, barely-younger than Percy daughter of Athena, flopped onto her gray comforter. The wind bit at her from the wide-open window, but she left it ajar.

The alarm clock on her nightstand went off, signifying the arrival of midnight. January First had finally come. A new year.

She wasn't exactly what she would call elated with the arrival of the second half of her last year of middle school. No one was there to celebrate with her the arrival of this new assurance of stress.

Downstairs, she could hear the madness of her "family." Her dad, her stepmom, her two stepbrothers—could she really call them her family? Apparently so. She was living with them. But she didn't feel at home.

With an inward sigh, Annabeth dragged herself out of her bed. It was a little tradition of hers to write down her wish for the year on a piece of paper, stick it in a balloon, and let it fly out her window.

Instead of the usual gray, she had selected a green balloon this year (call it a coincidence, if you will). Sealing it with a tight knot, Annabeth released her balloon out the window and watched it dance away on the breeze.

I wish this balloon wasn't flying away from me, like everything else green.

Spring

"Hey, nice game, man!" Dallas Standen, completely mortal boy, held up his hand for Percy to high-five. They were sweaty and gross from the game of basketball they'd been playing.

"Mhmm. Yeah," Percy said. His high-five was half-hearted, but his somewhat-shallow best (mortal) friend didn't particularly notice. He was nice and all, but Percy missed Grover. And Annabeth. But mostly Grover, right? Right…kind of.

Spring break was quickly approaching, as was the end of Percy's middle school experience—gods, was that a cause for celebration.

One more week of pure torture, then he'd be free for nine glorious days. Today was March 17th. Saint Patrick's Day. His school celebrated the holiday full-force, what with their school color being green.

The year had been rough, full of failing grades, confusion, longing, all that blah blah blah emotional crap that Percy couldn't stand.

Camp was so close, but sometimes it felt like it may as well be on the other side of the world. He couldn't wait to get back. And, yes. He'll admit it. He wanted to see Annabeth just as much.

The distance between them wasn't quite 3,000 miles. It wasn't quite the whole word. But to Percy, it was close enough.

Could you wish on a fake four-leaf clover? The kind they string around the school for the holiday of green? Percy didn't know, but he tried.

I wish "far away" wasn't so dang far away.

*****

"Oh my gosh! A week of no school. Can you even contain your excitement?" Naomi Constance bubbled as she walked up to Annabeth.

Annabeth gave little effort into her laugh and smile.

"Hey, I mean, I knew you love school and all, but you can't seriously be sad that it's spring break, can you?"

"I guess not."

"Good. 'Cause we've got some major hanging out to do."

Annabeth smiled. Although she and Naomi had their differences, she was glad they had their friendship. Sometimes, when she was with Naomi, she got to be a normal teenage girl—concerned with frivolous things.

But even when she was happy to be careless, Annabeth still thought about camp. She missed the nightly campfires and sing-a-longs. Everyone there was like family. Which, technically they were. Except for the fact that Annabeth actually loved this family. With Thalia (even if she wasn't at camp), Grover, Chiron, and, yes, the Seaweed Brain, she was perfectly content at camp. No matter how insanely stressful it could be.

She turned the corner onto her street, as Naomi walked the opposite way. Annabeth had never been much of one for wishing, but she had found herself taking every chance she got this year. Now, she bent down to pick up a flower—one of those obnoxious weeds that children blew the petals off of.

Over and over, she repeated her wish in her head. Maybe, for once, it would come true.

I wish I could stop wishing and just know what I wanted.

Summer

Sitting on the shores of Camp Half-Blood, Percy pondered his life. Well, at least, that's what he meant to be doing. In truth, he ended up sitting at the edge of the water, allowing it to tentatively skim against his feet. His mind was all but blank—unthinking.

From sweat in the arena to ice cream in the pavilion, Percy loved every moment of camp. And yet, he still had that sliver of loneliness that just would not leave him. It held on for all its worth.

All his friends were there, surrounding him at almost every moment of the day. But there was something missing, as if his life was a puzzle with just that one stupid middle piece that was lost under a couch somewhere, and only found when the puzzle had been dismantled, thinking it would never be complete.

Okay, maybe that piece wasn't so stupid. Maybe it was actually really smart, nice, funny, impressive, and even a little cute. Okay, a lot cute. Okay, seriously beautiful happened to be the words that popped into Percy's brain.

But even if the piece was amazing and gorgeous (and as near to perfect as you can get, Percy thought), it was still missing. Or, at the moment, it just refused to fit into the spot provided.

He had been sitting on that beach now past dinner, well into the night. The last glimmers of color were fading in the sky. He dragged himself from the ground to head back to the cabins. Sorry, harpies. No sea snack for you tonight.

Percy turned one last time to look into the night sky. A single star shone in the deep blue sea of air.

I wish the perfect fit would actually fit perfectly.

*****

The Fourth of July fireworks were, as always, a masterpiece. The Hephaestus cabin had outdone themselves once again.

But the true wonder of the night was not the jaw-dropping colors in the sky. She sat next to the Seaweed Brain, as if her thoughts on him were not complicated. As if they were the same little kids they'd been two years ago. In some ways, they were. In others, they couldn't have changed more.

They still laughed together, thought the same jokes were funny. He still kicked her sorry butt at sword fighting; whereas he ate her dust in pretty much every single other camp event.

Yet, when they talked, there was something else there—a little spark of something new. Annabeth tried not to care. She tried to ignore it. And so far, it had been working pretty well for her. But when it was silent like this, and he was sitting so close, she couldn't keep her thoughts from straying to that feeling she'd pushed to the deepest recesses of her mind.

She turned to look at him. Somehow, he too managed to tear his eyes from the sky to look back. They shared a smile, and the moment passed. The two looked back at the fireworks.

"Make a wish, Wise Girl," Percy said, eyes reflecting the dazzling colors of the show.

I wish two inches didn't feel like two miles.

Autumn

"Gods, school sucks!" Percy threw his pen against the wall. The non-lethal pen. He kept the lethal one in his pocket. For emergencies only, his mom said.

He tore open his drawer of pictures. Each and every one of them—worthless. Why had he bothered to keep them, anyway? He picked up the first one, ripped it. The next one—shredded in mere moments.

His rage subsided when he came to a candid photo of Grover, Annabeth, and himself. He and Annabeth were looking at what appeared to be detailed blueprints while Grover sat next to them, munching on a tin can. Percy remembered the day down to the last detail. The two demigods had been working on their chariot plans when Grover had come by. Soon, they had been just relaxing in the fields of Camp Half-Blood. Basically, this meant that Percy and Grover had been joking around like the teenage boys they were. Annabeth had been laughing.

"Percy, you're kind of an idiot," she said through her small laughter.

"Hey! What about Grover?"

"Yeah, Grover, you're kind of an idiot, too," she had said, turning back to Percy. "But you're a Seaweed Brain."

"But I'm your Seaweed Brain." He didn't seem to realize what he was saying.

Annabeth glared at Percy and hit him in the shoulder. "True." Then she had smiled.

He tried to breathe, slowly, deeply. His anger was still churning inside, but the memory brought him from boil to simmer. He reached into his pocket and located Riptide. Uncapping it, Percy stared at the familiar blade, calming himself with the comfortable leather grip.

This didn't exactly classify as an emergency, but he needed something to keep him from further trashing his room. Not that the floor was visible to begin with.

Instead of destroying the rest of his pictures, he took the picture of Grover and Annabeth and set in on his desk. Maybe it would keep him from screaming the next time he was working on homework. Percy was starting to realize that days passed can be just what you need to make your present a better place.

He wished he had something to wish on—a new year, the first star in the sky, a four-leaf clover. But, hey. Who says you can't wish on a memory?

I wish my best friends weren't my also best reasons to scream.

*****

Mid-October had finally come, and with it, Annabeth turned fifteen years old. She was fifty-seven days younger than him. Two months and six days.

Instead of celebrating like her friends had wanted to, Annabeth was out on her own. She had wanted to spend the day in her own way. And sometimes, whether she knew how that was yet or not, she just couldn't do that with bubbly, giggling girls all around her.

Annabeth had stepped into a bakery. She had allowed herself twenty dollars today, and she didn't have any clue what she was going to do with any of it.

But as soon as she saw the bakery, she knew exactly how to celebrate. Just what she needed to make her day special.

The bell on the door jingled as she stepped inside. A brown-haired girl, looking barely older than Annabeth, sat behind the counter, looking exceedingly bored. Annabeth selected her birthday treat and told the girl what she wanted. As the employee set her cupcake into the purple bag, she looked up at Annabeth.

"That'll be two dollars and forty-nine cents, please," she said.

Her eyes were piercing green, framed by thick glasses. Annabeth's breath stopped short.

"Hey…are you okay?" the girl asked her.

"Um, yeah…" Annabeth handed the girl money.

Now Annabeth sat upon the swing tied to a tree. The cupcake's blue icing was still pristine. She didn't have a candle, but that didn't matter to her. She'd make a wish anyway.

I wish blue pastry wasn't my only way of celebrating you.

December 31st

One year. Twelve months. Fifty-two weeks. Three-hundred-sixty-five days. Five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand, six-hundred minutes. The sequence had come full circle once more.

Once again, the two teenagers celebrated New Years Eve, ringing in the new year, ready (or maybe not so) for whatever it held in store for them.

But something was different this year. It was as if, for once, all was in place.

She was standing in his arms, on the shores of Camp Half-Blood, staring at the dark sky, her watch signifying an end and a beginning.

"Happy New Year, Seaweed Brain," she said.

"Happy New Year," he said, looking down at her. For the first time, he felt truly, completely, irrevocably…

Content.

"Happy New Year, Percy." It was but a breath in the wind, swept away. But he heard it. And he took his cue.

"I missed you, Annabeth."

One year. Twelve months. Fifty-two weeks. Three-hundred-sixty-five days. Five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand, six-hundred minutes. And yet…this was the only moment that mattered. And, for them, it would last forever.