A/N: Profile page for updates on my status. This is a very different writing style that I usually use, I'm hoping that it's working, but if I'm confusing you in any way possible, just tell me.

Enjoy.

"Now that I've updated your situation and treatment here as remuneration, can I have a chat with you?" Percy asked, sitting down at the same spot that he was at exactly a week ago. Annabeth was doing the same thing as she always do, smoke.

"I can't promise you that I'm going to answer everything." She looked at him solemnly.

"I know. You'll need time to trust me." He shrugged, completely getting her.

"Then tell me what can I get out of each conversation?"

"Whatever you want that I can do in my power."

"What is it that you want from me? You've been doing everything to get me to talk."

"I am trying to make this movie about the female prison, and you are the main character, at least the female lead will be portrayed based on you."

"Interesting." She scoffed, looking away, really not finding any of his words interesting in any way possible.

"I know your parents." He stated calmly, as a matter of fact. That caught her attention immediately. "In person." He added in effect.

¢.¢

Just a few hours before Percy arrived, Annabeth was already in that corner, with Piper next to her. She didn't forget about his promised visit, or perhaps, routined visit. This time, unlike the previous, she was looking forward to it. Piper was next to her, explaining something to her, but she tuned out.

"Are you even listening, Annabeth?" Piper stopped, looking at Annabeth angrily.

"Keep going." Was all she said before turning back to the same expression that she had when Piper was talking.

Piper sighed, but didn't defy the order.

"I don't feel comfortable when people put the pieces together and know that I'm the daughter of one of their biggest stars. My dad was their role model."

"So you were afraid of letting your father down and ruining his reputation?" Annabeth said, not wanting her to think that she wasn't listening again.

"No, hell to the no!" Piper exclaimed in a rush, feeling the desperate need to get everything straight. "I don't belong to the McLean family, I am nowhere near the celebrity standard and I don't want to be a celebrity. When I was a kid, I tried to do everything to get my dad's attention, because I was the unwanted kid to him, but then I got off doing all those things. I liked them and enjoyed committing crimes. Knowing that it would get him pissed off and make him hate me more, but I couldn't care less. I wanted to be excluded from this family. My mother disowned me, my father practically did as well. The day when I was eighteen, he practically called the police and pressed charges to let them have me, the longer the merrier."

"So you were ashamed of this name?" Annabeth asked lazily, just trying to say something to prove that she was at least paying a little attention to what was coming out of her mouth.

"No! Well, yes, you can say so. But, I just don't want to be put together with Hollywood stars and fame. I am a rebel, that's a fact. I hate it when people recognize me as the daughter of Tristan McLean, I wanted to be just another Piper in this world, someone who will be living not under her father's shadow."

Annabeth nodded, not wanting to hear anything anymore, she just wanted to sit there and wait for Percy to come. The last few days, she got beers from the guards and got to sit on the rooftops and chat with the guards, while watching the sunset. If it was not Percy fulfilling his promise, Annabeth couldn't think of anyone else who had the same influence doing it specifically for her.

"Visiting hours." A voice came from the common area, Piper's head peaked up.

"Jason's waiting." Annabeth dismissed her dully, looking forward to spend time by herself. Piper gave her a look, but didn't press on, she knew something was off with Annabeth today, but she just couldn't get her hands on them. "Piper," the voice from the corner suddenly brought her to a halt, she stuck her head back around the corner.

"Yes?"

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you telling me this all of a sudden?"

Piper shrugged, it just came out of her, she really didn't think much before she spilled.

Annabeth narrowed her eyes at Piper, not believing her a tiny bit.

"Jason's waiting." The latter said in a singing voice, half serious. Then, remembering why she was left alone, Annabeth nodded and let Piper go.

¢.¢

"'Get busy living, get busy dying'." Percy sighed, leaning his head against the concrete wall that his back was leaning against.

In his hand, a luxurious cigaret brand smoke lit, glowing in the darkness. Turning to his right, Annabeth sat there, staring at him. Taking a closer look at her eyes, she wasn't just staring, she was studying him, taking everything in. Putting the cigaret that tasted so foreign, yet weak, in a good way, in her mouth and taking a long sip through it, she felt like she was been washed by cash. Without letting her eyes leave him, she blew out the smoke in experienced like she always did. Her movements were so smooth and relaxed, he felt like he wasn't even in a prison cell. The moves made him felt calm, somehow.

When he gave her a look, she averted her eyes from him in slow motion and fixed on to the smoke in her hand. Her eyes gazed at the cigaret, thinking of something, because it wasn't out of focus.

"Exquisite." She mused out loud, commenting on the burning stick she was holding in between her fingers. "You just quoted from my favorite movie." She continued, her eyes not moving away from the glowing cigaret that was slowly burning towards her finger tips. "Tell me," she continued slowly, dragging each word dramatically, "where did you got all the information on me? From digging my parents' files or what?" She glanced at him from the side of her eyes and placed the mouthpiece in between her slightly parted lips. Nipping it with her thumb and her index finger, she took the short cigaret out of her mouth, careful not to let the hot ash touch her.

"I have my ways." He simply shrugged, not wanting to reveal the source of his information. To him, that wasn't important.

"'Everyone has a breaking point', you know?" She said, still in that calm, lazy voice. After studying the cigaret in her hand a while longer, she pressed it on to the wall next to her, extinguishing it.

"And you're now quoting from my favorite movie." He stated, just inputting an information that was useless to both of them in their current state.

"What do you want to know?" She asked, roaming her finger above the mark that just appeared from extinguishing her cigaret.

"What would you share with me?" He said back, not wanting to push her but also wanting to get something out of her at the same time. He knew to be gentle and extra careful with what he was saying.

"You name it." She answered almost immediately, catching him off guard. Of all answers, he wasn't expecting that one. "Oh, don't look so surprised, I'm sure you didn't do all that work just for me to give you some bullshit."

"I genuinely wanted to know more about you, if not for the movie, then for myself." He sounded like he was offended, but she couldn't really make out his face from the dark. "I honestly find your experience intriguing. I mean," he quickly justified himself, "if you don't want me to publish anything, then I won't, but I just want to know more about you."

"Why?"

"Because of your personal experience." Percy replied simply, not sure what kind of answer she was looking for.

"Okay, this may look like I'm taking advantage of you, but tell me something about you. Something that can make me feel like sharing all my information and digging up my past for you is worth it." Annabeth suggested, she knew she was pushing it, but she also didn't want to give out information that easily, since her past wasn't something she'd like everyone to hear about. Percy had visited them for four times, including this time, and he was always aimed for her, so she felt that he must've been determined.

"Sure." He agreed in a heart beat. Sort of taking her off guard but on the other hand, it didn't. She raised an eyebrow at him to mark her surprised look. "Let me tell you something about myself."

"Not something that the media or the public defines you as."

"No, nothing of that sort. I'm not reciting from my wikipedia page." He smiled assuringly.

Annabeth nodded for him to start. Lighting yet another cigaret, though, this time she didn't rush it to take a sip, instead, she picked up the lighter and started to examine it absentmindedly. "Can I have a drink next time? Beer, alcohol, anything strong or you find suitable." She asked just before he was about to start.

"No problem, my Lord." He teased cautiously, silently thanking the gods that he was granted a second chance.

"Now, start your story, or anecdote, per se." She took a long sip of the expensive branded cigaret that he brought for her, really tasting it with her tongue.

"I know your parents and Piper's dad, personally, I've met them before." He started, and that statement itself caught Annabeth's attention, her eyes were immediately focused on him. All of her movement terminated. He pretended not to notice his success in catching her attention and continued casually. "Piper knows my dad, Poseidon, personally. Tristan and my dad collaborated for several films, and that included many of my dad's masterpiece." He paused for an effect, not glancing at her. "Though, at that time, I wasn't exactly in the spotlight and I wasn't exactly eager to be under it. Piper however, on the contrary, wanted to catch her dad's attention desperately, so she started to do all those excessive actions, like shoplifting, car stealing. Although nothing big, she still got caught several times." Percy stopped, looking sideways to see Annabeth's reaction, thinking that it may be good to just pause there and focus on what he was interested and should get more information on. "Enough about Piper, since it will not be my place to expose anything else I know about her."

Annabeth glared at him, knowing that it couldn't be argued, because it was simply a person's rights.

"My older brother, Triton, was a frequent customer of your mother's."

Her eyes widened upon hearing the confession, however, to maintain her coolness, she decided to not make any sounds.

"However, he somehow got ahold of many crucial information on your mother and their organization, so when she, Athena, died, her people stopped trading with him, because he was heavily indebted to them." Percy continued his story, a smirk was evident in his tone.

"He threatened to sell my mom out." Annabeth guessed a very obvious option that would explain the story.

He nodded, despite knowing that she might not be able to see his gesture. "Yes," he added, "so here's when and how your father comes in handy."

"He was asked to murder Triton in order to keep his mouth shut." She explained, which made it even more obvious.

"Smart girl." Percy complimented.

"Fuck you." Annabeth glared at him, but only muttered the curse, she didn't like being called that.

"So, moving on." He announced, ignoring the glare. "After your father finished off my brother, he committed suicide."

"Way to end his life." She muttered to herself sarcastically, since she wasn't exactly proud of her parents either.

"I'm sure you are unfamiliar to all of this because you weren't exactly trusted by your parents?" He ignored her comment earlier and stepped on the line, it was really up to her now, whether to kick him out or open up to him.

"Nope, you're right, I know nothing." She clicked her tongue in annoyance, she hated when people point out that she actually knew nothing and was nothing, she'd like her facade to be on her at all times.

"But, here's the thing." For some reason, she felt like she should explain something to him. "They don't trust me, and that's not a one-way thing, it's a mutual feeling. I don't trust them either." She confessed, as if it was pretty obvious and everyone should know. "Do you even know why my voice is like this? Hoarse, rough like sand paper, scratchy, raspy." When he shook his head, she smirked dryly. "Yeah, of course you don't." She whispered to herself, heaving a silent sigh.

"My parents are one kind of special creatures." She continued, seemingly irrelevant to her previous subject. "Fredrick, my father, was the serial killer that everyone feared; my mom, Athena, was the drug lord that every drug dealer look up to. With everything they came up with, every new invention, I was their experiment." She stopped, suddenly feeling like she was spilling too much.

"Wow that sucked." He said it to himself, not expecting her to make anything of it.

"I've had worse." She replied, as if she had this new found need to show-off her tough experience at home. "Though after I met Luke, things seemed to get a little better.

"So is Luke Castellan still your boyfriend?"

"How much research have you done on me?" She chuckled humorlessly, her voice full of irony.

"A lot. To be frank." He answered sheepishly. "I'm not going to hide anything from you, but I really do need a lot of information."

"I don't want a biography and I don't want to be famous, mind you." She warned, not at all excited by the idea of a movie based on her life.

"It doesn't have to be about you."

"Then why the fuck are you still here?" She almost felt like she was enraged by his visit for some reason that she couldn't put her hands on.

"I like you, and I want to know more about you."

"You can't fucking like me, not in all seriousness." She retorted. "You only say that because you find me interesting and I'm nothing like the other people you deal with every day."

"You're right, about everything, but that still doesn't stop my curiosity."

"How the fuck can someone be so stubborn?" Annabeth thrusted the cigaret that was almost finishing off against the wall, jumping up to her feet and stomped away from that corner, leaving Percy speechless and stunned.

"Do I still have a next time?" He called behind her, still on her floor, staring at her retreating figure.

She whipped her head back and glared at him, but other than that, he got nothing from her whatsoever.

"So moody." He covered his face with his hand and stayed there.

¢.¢

"What are you in for?"

"'I'm innocent, lawyer fucked me.'"

It had slowly become a trend and a fashion in the prison to quote from Percy and Annabeth's favorite film of all times, The Shawshank Redemption. Though, not everyone was familiar with the movie, but since it was what their Lord liked, they felt like it should also be theirs.

"Will Percy come today?" Piper asked Annabeth as they got their food from the cafeteria. None of them were feeling like eating much, so their plate was rather empty, but the yogurt that Annabeth got them was the most appealing.

Annabeth shrugged in response, she hadn't been talking much lately, especially not about her conversation with Percy yesterday. Everyone saw her storming out of the corner that she was usually in with a disturbed expression, though Percy didn't come out after a long while, it was hard for everyone to guess what really went down. Of course, as the leader in the jail, she wasn't to be questioned or doubted unless she wanted to share her experience.

Her conversation with him had been swarming in her mind ever since, she had no idea why she walked away. If it wasn't the feeling of someone liking her and wanting to know her that scared her, she assumed it was the fact that she'd had to tell a complete stranger about herself. The gospel that he actually knew her parents personally made her uncomfortable.

All her life, she was never a fan of her parents, nor was her parents a fan of her. There was no trust between the two parties, let along family life. Her parents were focused on their own criminal career life, and she was only at school because she wanted to be there. Annabeth had never had any objection towards killing and drug dealing, she didn't do any of them didn't mean she hated it. To her parents, she was always holding a neutral ground. Knowing that she would learn nothing sensational from her parents, she decided to try it in school.

Ever since she was able to walk and think by herself, she had been taking care of herself and at the same time act as the experiment model for her parents. It wasn't an understatement to her that she should care about life, because she really didn't care that much about it, she sometimes drown herself in thoughts along the lines of why was she ever born.

Annabeth was numb all her life. She wasn't exactly lost, but she really had no idea what she could do. She knew a lot about the black market and about murdering, including all the kinds of weapons and surveillance. As much as her parents tried to hide everything from her, her sneaky trait allowed her to discover everything that her parents didn't want her to know about. With the environment that she grew up in, it had occurred to her naturally that she was sensitive about everything and cautious about everything she did.

And that became one of the advantages that she had in prison, also one of the many reasons why she could be the head and not the others in cell.

It was obvious and displayed everywhere on her that she didn't have a childhood, and she didn't have a family. When she got involved with Luke in high school, it wasn't mutual attraction, it was only because Luke found her special and significantly different from others in the society, and vice versa.

Annabeth didn't think that she had the ability to have feelings for anyone, because she never thought that was necessary. Luke on the other hand, was just someone that she felt like she had many things in common with.

When Percy told her that he wanted to know more about her, she was startled. When she started her relationship with Luke, it was nothing like the way normal people did. They didn't go out on dates, they were nothing romantic. Luke never asked her to tell him about herself, and she never asked him to do the same. All her life until she got in to jail, she had been surrounded by illegal dealers. To her, drugs were norm and murders were what people's life depend on.

"Did you tell him much?" Piper's voice shook her out of her thoughts once again, it was the fourth time this morning that her thoughts were interrupted.

"No." Annabeth snapped back, irritated by her constantly cutting her thread of thoughts.

"What really happened?" Piper didn't seemed to get the hint, it was rare for her to act this bold.

"Nothing that concerns you." Her irritation was hardly concealed from her voice, she glared at Piper, making up a plan to have Piper pay later.

¢.¢

Despite Annabeth's vexed attitude towards Piper, and her alienating action towards her, Piper, curious as ever, turned her attention to Jason, wanting to get something out of him.

"Do you know something that I don't?" She asked Jason. For some reason, she felt like they were all hiding stuff from her.

"Depends." He answered honestly. "What area are you referring to?"

"Annabeth."

"And there's a lot about her, which aspect are you talking about?"

"Tell me everything you know."

"Why?"

"Why are you hiding it from me? Jason, I thought you trust me, aren't relationships build on trusts?" She sounded hysterical, but she was only desperate for information, because Annabeth had been distant lately and it made her felt powerless. She had been depending on Annabeth ever since she got in here.

"It's simply not my place to say." Jason shrugged, knowing that he was offending Piper, but also know that there was nothing he could do. "Why do you want to know anyways? You're going to be out of here soon."

"She's my friend, and I want to help."

"But she doesn't seemed to want your help."

"Why are you doing this?"

"What am I doing?"

"Why are you not telling me all this? Why are you defending her?"

"I'm not defending her." Jason was still calm, whereas Piper was ready to jump up from her chair and struck him. "I'm simply keeping my words."

"You know her personally?"

Jason said nothing, but that simple nod from him explained everything.

"How?"

Looking at the door and around the room, he pondered how to phrase everything so that he would tell Piper what she needed to know and not leak out anything.

"School." Jason settled for a simple answer that would allow Piper some space to use her imagination. "We met in school and that's how we know each other."

"Are you still talking to her?"

"No. What I have with her is entirely different with what we have between us, please don't act all jealous and angered when we talk about her." He asked her gently, hoping that he didn't make the wrong decision by keeping his mouth shut.

Piper sighed; she was a rational person, she always had been and she knew that if someone had asked her to do the same she would've done it.

For the first time, Jason ended their visit earlier than usual, and he walked Piper back to her cell. A privilege of his as the son of the warden. As they were walking past the visiting area, they spotted two blondes. Luke and Annabeth.

Jason caught his gaze and nodded at him subtly, in which he returned to the same degree. Annabeth narrowed her eyes at Jason than at Piper, she wasn't exactly favoring Piper at the time.

"How much does that chick know?" Luke turned back to Annabeth, referring to Piper.

"Not much." Annabeth's eyes were still trained on Piper's retreating back, at that point, she wasn't sure if she could trust Jason anymore.

"He said nothing." Luke read her mind and reassured her. "I talked to Jason recently, and he said she didn't know much."

"She shouldn't, especially she'll be out of here in months." Annabeth spat.

"Heartless." Luke commented on her attitude towards what he thought would be a valuable friend.

"Am I?" Annabeth raised a challenging eyebrow. "I still have three more years to serve in prison." She exhaled, blowing every air that came out of her mouth on to his face.

"Jackson?"

"What about him?" Annabeth's attention was dragged back to her conversation once again, her thoughts about Piper gone for the time being.

"Anything I need to know?"

"Nah. He's in good use currently."

Luke nodded, they fell into a comfortable silence.

"You should really focus on your career, I will try my best to help from here, but you should stop visiting." Annabeth's voice was suddenly low and guarded, she was looking around as she spoke.

"Why?" Luke looked up at her with the same guarded pair of eyes that she held.

"No one knows that you're carrying out my commands, let along knowing that I'm in charge. I know people that you can contact, but you'll have to listen to me and work with me. I'm not out of her in another three years, you'll be my only hope in succeeding." She explained to him in a rush in an undertone, afraid that they'd be heard by the guards.

"How am I supposed to contact you then?" He used the same tone, suddenly serious and discussing business.

"For now, you don't need to contact me." She glanced around, sending a charming smile to the guard walking past and behind her to smile at Jason who was just walking past the entrance. "Keep an eye on Jason. He's know enough from ten years ago." She said, referring to the time when they were still friend back in school.

When Annabeth was still in school, Jason and Luke were her closest friends. The trio were devious and always pranking, but never got into serious trouble with the teachers. They would always look at drugs and all kinds of trafficking together. But as they grew older, Jason started to distant himself from them, he was more decent and obedience to the regulations, which left Annabeth with Luke. The trio still hang out together and talk about stuff, but they stopped getting him involved with the more serious stuff they were up to.

The summer when Luke got arrested for shoplifting, Annabeth was just lucky enough to slip through the fingers of the video tape caught on camera. That summer, she had spent it with Jason and she had filled him in about all sorts of acts that she had been doing, only because she felt lonely. It was the only summer that she spent without violating any laws.

Jason became a lawyer and Luke dropped out of college to pursue his dream as a trafficker. It was when Jason found out about the real identity of Annabeth's family. With Annabeth's help, using the influence of her mother and father, he started to work under the two associations, acting as an intermediary for the drug lord and the serial killer.

A year later, Annabeth and Jason met again. In the cell that Jason's father was the warden of. Jason, once again, became the only visitor of Annabeth's. She was lucky that Jason had never thought of her in a negative way, he had always thought she needed help, mentally, due to her childhood life. So when Bianca Di Angelo appeared in the prison cell he thought Annabeth might be saved.

Though, with his genuine intention in mind, he was still proved wrong.

A/N: Penny for your thoughts.