It was really incredible, Percy thought to himself, how utterly tongue-tied he seemed to end up whenever placed in the same room as Annabeth Chase. He reached into his pocket for some notes he'd made on his cell phone a few hours earlier.

"I've got notes on…"

Annabeth waved a hand in dismissal. "Okay, so when I said come in here and talk, I think I might have actually meant come in here and listen."

Percy blinked. "Okay."

"See, there were a bunch of things on the agenda when your job opened up," Annabeth said, reaching into her desk for a sheet of paper and a pen, which she passed to Percy. "Some of which I assume you knew about, like getting green energy kickbacks approved, making a stink about drug treatment over incarceration, and generally, human rights across the board."

"Pushing back against school vouchers, too," Percy noted, glancing down at the notes on his phone. "Annabeth, this all matches the list I got from Jason the day I started. It's been a week. What's going on that I don't know about?"

She pushed her desk chair back, crossing her legs at the ankles, and sighed. "Did Jason say anything to you about federal appointments?"

Percy's brow furrowed. "Not anything specific. Who's retiring?"

"Does the name Eleanor Gasket mean anything to you?" Annabeth asked.

Percy hesitated before venturing, "why am I picturing her name next to a poster about loan premiums and insurance?"

"Because she's the current secretary of Housing and Urban Development," Annabeth confirmed.

Percy's eyebrows lifted infinitesimally. "Oh."

"Anyway, Gasket's retiring. Something about wanting to spend time with her grandsons before she's too old to have any fun, or something. So, it's on us to figure out a replacement," Annabeth continued.

"Right, because federal confirmations are a thing, and that's us."

Annabeth gave him an odd look. "Right. So for a job that includes not only loan insurance but also deals with low-income disenfranchised neighborhoods, and handles homelessness assistance and public housing…"

Percy's eyes widened. "Wait, you're asking- oh. This is…"

"Yeah, part of your job," Annabeth nodded with an eye roll. "I know you're new, but didn't you read your job description?"

"I'll be honest, I was looking more at the parts about speechwriting than appointments."

Another eye roll. "Presidential advising, Seaweed Brain."

"Why are you calling me that?" Percy asked, trying to focus on something, anything, on top of the many names and acronyms he was trying to keep straight in his head.

"Because you left law school to spend a year in the water, and now you're blinking at me like you still have seaweed stuck between your ears?"

"It was mostly chlorine pools, I haven't been to the beach in..." Percy looked up to see those gray eyes staring down at him. He let out a long exhale. "Not the point."

"Right. So? For HUD?" She crossed her arms, expectant. "Who would you have us nominate?"

"I'd…" Percy paused for a moment before blurting the first name that came to mind. "Clarisse LaRue. Only please, god, do not tell her that it was my idea."

Annabeth narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

Percy shook his head. "Not important, she just doesn't like me very much."

Annabeth made a note. "Right. Because the whole world revolves around you and you're the only one who put her name forward, and absolutely no one in this office came up with it either."

Percy resisted the impulse to smash his face into the doorframe he was currently standing against. "Who else suggested her, then?"

"Me," Annabeth admitted. "She doesn't talk about it, but she's from a low-income area that got pretty devastated during Katrina—"

"And she served on a public works committee in Louisiana for like, five years without telling anyone," Percy interrupted. "Yeah."

"And she doesn't like you, because…" Annabeth tilted her head to the side. "Wait. Was this over the funding thing? Disaster relief? New York got some after Sandy, and New Orleans needed…"

"Cash that they didn't get because the grant didn't cover enough, yeah," Percy nodded. "I swear, I didn't do anything to actively offend her, I was still clerking for Dionysus at the time, but… I may have been quoted in an interview. Like, once. And she really doesn't like me. Oh, god, does she even know I'm working here?"

Annabeth grimaced. "Probably. Look, I know she has a temper, but someone has to go and talk to her in order to get her officially named to the position…"

Percy took a step back, nearly whacking his head on the corner of a bookshelf in the process. "Oh, no. Please do not make me."

Annabeth held both hands up in the air innocently. "Oh, no, I wasn't going to. But I thought it'd be funny to see your face if you thought you had to. Don't worry, talking to potential nominees is half my job and half Jason's. Then it goes up to Reyna and the President."

"Yes, I know how nominations work," Percy couldn't help but snark back. "So, LaRue?"

Annabeth nodded. "I'm taking it to Reyna in an hour, I just wanted extra confirmation. Jason was on the fence, but if you want her too, then it's just a question of getting the President on board."

"Who else do we have shortlisted?" Percy asked.

"Gardner and Chavez," Annabeth shrugged, "but I don't think they'll get anywhere, too partisan."

"I don't even know who Gardner is," Percy frowned. "But wait a minute. Partisan. Isn't that going to be a problem if we're nominating LaRue?"

Annabeth tilted her head to the side. "Why's that?"

"Because she's an immigrant, and we're Democrats with a Republican majority in the House…?"

"And a damn near even split in the Senate," Annabeth returned. "Even if they push back—"

"They're going to push back."

"Even if they push back," she continued as though Percy hadn't said anything, "we'll put together a dossier to beat them. Or, well, I will. And you'll come up with the words to make it sound half decent. In other words, we'll do our damn jobs. I don't think this one's going to be too much of a fight, to be honest."

"Okay…" Percy tapped out a few more notes on his phone. "So appointing Clarisse LaRue. Is that the only reason I'm in here?"

Annabeth hesitated, then nodded.

Percy looked at her suspiciously.

"Okay, no," she relented. "I just wanted to make sure that we're good, since…"

"Since law school? Five years ago?" Percy finally realized. "Oh. Oh. Yeah, we're… look, it might be awkward, but if Reyna and Jason can work together… I mean. If he can work with her after she married his sister-"

"Who she met while dating him, yeah. No excuses for the rest of us," Annabeth agreed, a hint of a smile finally appearing on her face.

"Besides, we never— I took the year off before— it's not like we ever put a label on it," he finally said.

"Yeah," Annabeth nodded, "Not like anything actually happened. Right?"

Not for lack of trying, Percy thought. But that wasn't the point and he knew it. "Right. How's, uh, Representative Castellan doing, by the way?"

The small smile that had been playing on Annabeth's lips vanished. "I assume he's already plotting his Senate run next term."

"Moving fast," Percy observed.

"Yes, well." There was a new look on Annabeth's face now, a cold sharpness that Percy remembered all too well from law school as the look she got when the rules of polite conversation prevented her from stabbing someone. "Politics."

Hello again and thanks for reading this wacky lil daydream of mine! Your reviews/comments/etc continue to make my day every time. As some of you have surmised, this is going to be a bit of a slow burn, but YES it's a romance on many counts! Just... probably slow. I'm aiming for a 30-chap minimum story here, but if I end up with a more detailed outline it may well end up being 50-60. In any case! Y'all are lovely and I appreciate each and every one of you! ~GT