I KNOW YOU ARE ALL WAITING SO VERY PATIENTLY FOR ME TO UPDATE WEDDING BELLS, BUT I CAME UP WITH THIS WHILE WRITING THE NEXT CHAPTER AND GOT A LITTLE SIDETRACKED…SO ENJOY THIS AND WEDDING BELLS SHOULD BE UP WHEN I GET BACK FROM VACATION. PLEASE REVIEW!

DISCLAIMER: IS THIS REALLY NEEDED?

"Hey Annabeth, where do you want these boxes?"

I looked up from the bookcase in my old room in San Francisco. Percy was standing in the doorway with an armful of empty cardboard boxes.

"Um, just put them down there." I answered, turning back to the bookcase. Percy and I were getting an apartment together in New York, and while we visited my dad and stepmother in San Francisco, I decided to get a few things to bring with us.

"Could you put those boxes in the car?" I continued; pointing at the boxes I had already packed. "I just want to get a few more books and then we can go.

"Sure." Percy started piling boxes in the hallway. "But you'd better hurry up, or your stepmother will stuff me so full with food, I won't be able to move."

I laughed. My stepmother was completely convinced that Percy was too thin for his own good. And since I couldn't cook to save my life, she insisted on feeding him as many "home cooked meals" as she could before we left.

Percy came over to where I was seated on the floor, and kissed the top of my head.

"I'll hurry." I promised as Percy walked out of the room.

I looked over my collection of architecture books. I picked up my Ten Books on Architecture collection and put it into a box. A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals and the Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture soon followed. When I bent down to the bottom shelf to look for my Greek and Roman Architecture book, I picked up something that surprised me.

A withered and dusty copy of Cinderella looked up at me. I had never really been a big fan of fairy tales, but my dad's mother (my grandmother) used to read it to me when I was a kid.

I flipped through the book and smiled to myself. How could children believe this stuff? It was just a bunch of fiction that made little girls believe that one day, a handsome prince would come and rescue them and that they would live happily ever after. But no one actually did that in real life. It didn't prepare you for the challenges life would throw at you, especially if you were a demigod. Happily ever after never happened to a demigod. You were luck to live ever after, let alone happily. That's what they should teach in these stories, not to look for something more, but to be happy with what you had.

Cinderella had had a good life. Sure she had to work all day, and her stepmother and sisters weren't that nice, but she was fed and clothed (sort of). And if she didn't like it, she should have run away like I had. Not cry to her fairy godmother to go to a ball. Crying and balls never get you anywhere in life. You need to fight for yourself. Prince charming wasn't going to come to your doorstep and save you.

I put the book back on the bottom shelf and stood up and stretched. I looked out the window. Percy was in the front yard, showing Bobby and Matthew how to impale our tree with an old javelin. I laughed and shook my head. I really wished he wouldn't teach them things like that, they were to hurt each other.

I watched as Percy handed the javelin to Bobby. He threw it with all his might, but he angled it too high. It got caught in one of the branches near the top of the tree. Matthew pointed at Bobby and laughed while Percy ran his fingers through his hair, probably wondering how to get it down.

"Stupid Seaweed Brain." I muttered, smiling to myself. He may be a stupid Seaweed Brain, but he was my stupid Seaweed Brain.

I thought back to the first time I ever saw Percy. He had just defeated a Minotaur when he collapsed on the porch of the Big House.

Percy Jackson had saved me, not only has he saved my life countless times (and me his, I might add), but he also showed me to think with my feelings, and not my head.

He helped me fulfill my dream to build something permanent.

I bent down and picked up Cinderella again. I looked down at the torn cover, and then back up at Percy, now attempting to climb a tree.

I smiled as I put the book in the box along with the others, because maybe, just maybe, fairy tales did come true.

I picked up the box and walked down the stairs towards my prince charming (before he broke something climbing a tree).

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