Chapter One - Static and Hope

Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or HoO. Rick Riordan does.

Author's Note: Well, nothing really happens in this first chapter, but I've rewritten it, and it's taken a sort of new direction with things. It also reads a lot nicer than it did before, or that's just me :p

I'm sorry for the lack updates, but I hope you enjoy what I've written.

Annabeth

After applying the final amount of concealer over and around the purplish mark, I took a step back from the mirror, holding my arm up to check my handiwork. Feeling rather lackluster, I noticed that I'd improved over the years - in hiding all the blemishes. I started to lose myself in thought when a sudden, yet expected, knock sounded on the door.

"You done?" After catching the hint of unease in his voice coming through the door, the usual feeling of guilt began to form in the pit of my stomach.

"Yes," I replied, doing my best to sound as soothing as possible, "You're lucky I've got a hand for the arts. I kind of look like a model right now, my skin's so clear."

There was a lull in the conversation. Nervously, I wondered what he was thinking, his next words, though, put me at ease. "I'm sorry, you know. I shouldn't have done that."

"It's okay, I know you would never do anything to purposefully hurt me."

"Really?" He gave a sigh. "You're too good for me, Annabeth. I'm so lucky to have you."

I let out a tiny smile. "You think much too highly of me."

The door cracked open, and Ryan's dark brown orbs gave off a needy glint as he looked me up and down. His eyes were apprehensive as they traveled down the length of my arm, wanting to see how well I'd hidden the bruises. Then, after a long stretch of silence, he heaved out a deep breath and murmured, "Perfect."

"We still on for dinner tomorrow?" Ryan twiddled his thumbs, anxiously glancing around his front porch, as if he wanted to hide from unwanted stares. I leaned forward to give him a kiss, and he eagerly reciprocated the act of affection. When our lips parted, it seemed as if he'd become much more at ease.

"Of course. You know how much I love Italian."

Ryan gave me a toothy grin, but it vanished almost immediately, irritation proceeding to dance across his face. "I'm sorry about earlier."

I pursed my lips, and the memory of his hand on my arm flashed back into mind. "It's okay," I told him, trying my best to shrug it off, "It's not like it was the first time it happened. You can't help it, I know."

Ryan didn't respond. I was about to break the silence when he murmured ,"You should probably head on back now, it's getting dark."

I eyed him, his expression was unreadable. After a couple of seconds passed, I gave a brisk nod. "Sure. Goodnight, Ryan."

"'Night, Annabeth."

I offered him a smile, as I made my way off his porch and back home.

I entered the house, and was greeted with familiar silence. Father was probably coming home late again, he was always one to work late in the office.

I pursed my lips, setting myself the task of finding something I could have for dinner in our fridge, which was quite hard to accomplish, if I had to say so myself. After eating a meagre dinner, which was plain leftover cheese pizza, I made my way up to my room. Just as I had arrived on the second landing, my phone gave a buzz. I pulled it outand on the screen flashed a text from Ryan, it was an emoji of a heart. A smile found it's way on my face, without missing a beat, I replied with my ever constant, 'Love you'.

Travis

"Katie! Katie!"

Recklessly, I slammed open the door to 'Chuck's Chips', a small, yet great diner. Well, it was only great due to the fact that she was here.

However, the love of my life didn't think as highly of me as I did of her. Which is rather unfortunate, to be honest. Maybe if I'd realized sooner how pretty and funny and kind she was, I could've saved myself a lot of trouble of trying to get back into her good graces.

I barely had the time to look around and search for the object of my affections, due to the fact that the moment I'd entered, I'd crashed right into somebody.

"Oh shit!" I yelped, my feet giving way, causing me to smack head first into the hard, tiled floor. Ouch.

"Fucking retard," was the only consolation I got. I peeked up at the guy I'd slammed into and was greeted with a dark scowl, with menacing black eyes to boot. An instant later, he'd walked out, carrying a brown paper bag, which was pretty much crumpled already. I felt a tinge of guilt. However, the moment a flash of familiar brown hair entered my view, any emotion that wasn't one of love dissipated.

I pushed myself up, onto my knees first, before jumping right back up, a smile already back and shining on my face. "Ka-"

A unforeseen and painful, albeit nicely executed, punch to my gut caused my words to change into squeals. Of pain, mind you, not of joy, despite the fact that I was finally face to face with my beloved.

"Stoll," a hiss slithered it's way into my ears, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Recovering rather quickly, at the sound of her sweet voice, I wrapped my arms around Katie, raising her up into the air, making quite the scene. "Katie!" I cried, overjoyed, "It's been too long since I've last seen you!"

"Put me down, Stoll," was the only thing she said, her face deadpan.

I threw her a pout, mocking a woeful expression as I set her back down on her feet. She gave herself a pat down, taking a cautious step away from me, and looking a bit annoyed. Well, that was actually an understatement. She looked ready to kill. I couldn't blame her, either, I mean, I think that was her manager giving me the death stare.

Despite all that, I cast her another dopey grin. She just rolled her eyes in return. "Take a seat, Stoll, and don't you even dare think of unsettling the peace once again." To emphasise her point, she threw her arm out, leading me to gaze upon an old couple seated across from each other. The two of them held identical disgruntled expressions. I immediately bowed my head as an apology, doing my best to quench the sudden bashfulness that I began to feel.

Katie hesitantly gave my arm a pat, after I'd kept my head bowed for a bit too long, before leading me to an open booth.

"I'll have the usual. Thanks," I said, collapsing down onto the seat. My good mood was a bit shaky, as I kept recalling my foolish actions from just before. It seemed that if I went too long without my 'Katie dose', it was guaranteed I'd become a little bit mad.

Katie just gave a simple and brisk nod, turning on her heel and proceeding to walk away, as I had finally settled down. I was ready to cock my head to the side, just to gaze out of the window and out onto the street, but the Katie's voice led me to quickly change plans, as I hadn't expected her to say anything else until she'd served my food to me.

Although she was still walking away, she had tilted her head around so I could see the little smile she had on. Her voice was painfully sweet and gentle as she began to speak, "Oh, and Travis? As much as I hate to admit it, I missed you. It's nice to have you back."

My grin returned with gusto.

"You don't have to walk me home, you know? Heck, you didn't have to wait three hours there just to do so, either!"

I raised an eyebrow. "You know, I was hoping for just a thank you, but just as long as you keep on talking to me, pretty much anything will suffice."

Katie flushed. "Sorry. Thank you. You-"

"I didn't have to, I know. I wanted to, though."

There was a pause, and she gave me a once over. "You're not a bad guy, Stoll," she mused, slowly, "Why is that you don't have a girlfriend, again?"

"Why are you forgetting that you, yourself, is the very reason why?"

Katie stared at me, her expression abruptly becoming so impassive, that it gave me the chills for a split second. Her pace slowed to a stop, I halted right beside her, dutifully.

"Oh, Travis," she said, her voice was a little bit shaky, and there was a lengthy pause before she continued, "I just realised that I never gave you a proper answer to any of your confessions."

I smirked. "A bit late on the uptake, aren't you?" The silence arrived right on back, and I shifted my weight, feeling a bit confused. Normally, she'd throw a retort right back at me, but she stayed uncharacteristically silent. "I don't mind, though," I spoke up again, my words coming out quick. I didn't like this quiet atmosphere. It wasn't natural for us. For me.

"Travis, this is coming quite late, but I only see you as a friend. I'm sorry, really. I'm really sorry."

I couldn't help it. I really, really couldn't, but, I snorted. "Gosh, Kat, that's pretty much common knowledge."

At my words, everything instantly returned to normalcy. Katie's blank expression morphed into one of confusion. She blinked, then stared at me, her eyes becoming comically wide. "What?"

I shrugged. "You pretty much always roll your eyes or dodge the subject whenever I tell you that I like you, and you treat me like a normal guy afterwards. I'm so far in the friend zone that I've got nothing to worry about. You see, I know I'm such a good friend to you, that I'll never not be your friend."

Katie continued to goggle at me, her stunning emerald eyes wide were with incredulity. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her jaw proceeded to just hang there. I took a chance, leaning forward, and pressed my fingertips against the bottom of her chin. Then, I slowly slid her chin up, so that her lips met.

"You don't want to catch flies, am I right?" I teased, doing my best to hide how apprehensive I was feeling about this whole situation. I mean, Katie always had something to snark back with, now, it was like as if she was at a loss for words.

The silence had made another appearance, and as it continued to linger on, I hoped that I had hid my anxiety well enough though. It seemed that I had though, because when Katie suddenly showed signs of life, she made no signal that she had even sensed how unnerved I'd been feeling. At first, Katie kind of flailed around for a few moments, admittedly looking like a lunatic, but still managing to look downright adorable. After a few more awkward moments of watching her flapping about like a madman, Katie let everything out, first exhaling a gigantic sigh, before blathering out, her face charmingly red, "Argh! You had no idea how worried I was feeling! I was so scared, I didn't want to hurt you."

I rolled my eyes, although I did feel quite touched at her confession. "You overthink things, Katie," I chided.

She huffed, folding her arms, sticking her nose up in the air, but I caught her smile. At seeing that, I really had to hold myself back from wrapping her up into another hug. She'd probably kill me if I'd succumbed to that desire once again.

"Come on," I said, after throwing a quick glance up at the sky, "It's getting dark. Best to get home."

Katie gave me an appraising look, before assenting, her eyes shifting a little over to the other side of the road. Jokingly, I held out my arm for her, drawing her attention back to me. She gave me a dry look, but to my surprise, and probably to her own, she took it.

I nearly had a stroke right then and there, not because this was one of the rare times when she willingly touched me, but because - oh my goodness, her hand was as soft as my old teddy bear, and I wanted to nuzzle her skin just like I did with my pillow right before I fell asleep. In short, Katie Gardner had the softest skin imaginable.

I'd only realised I was standing stock still until she called my name, "Travis?"

Hell, she also had a very sweet voice. I knew that already, of course, but it sounded a billion times better than an angel singing, not that I've ever heard one, but I was pretty damn confident that it did anyway. I probably had a stupid grin on my face, but I didn't give a damn.

"Yeah, sorry. My mind just kind of went blank," I apologised, taking a hesitant step forwards, unsure if she was just playing around with me. However, following my lead, Katie took a step onwards as well. My heart gave a little jump from where it lay inside my chest.

Man, I was never going to get enough of this girl.

Author's Note: There wasn't much happening in this chapter, just sort of establishing characters and their relationships. Annabeth's very dense, so OOC alert, lol. I was kind of bored writing about her, but when it jumped to Travis and Katie I got a lot more excited and had some fun with them, which is why there's a lot more written about them than Annabeth. Apologies for that, but I'll promise there is going to be a lot of Annabeth next time.

Anyway, I'm sorry for the wait for this rewritten chapter, if you were waiting for it.

If you're rereading this as I'm rewriting this, then thank you for doing so. I know I've lost a lot of readers, and I only have myself to blame, but I'm just happy that in the end, someone is reading this.

Please tell me what I can improve on, and I'll do my best to have the second chapter much more nicely written that it was before.

Till next time :)