Title: meet-cutes are only for the movies (1/5)
Fandom: Percy Jackson & the Olympians/Heroes of Olympus
Word Count: 682 words
Characters/Pairings: Jason/Reyna and Jason/Piper, with mentions of Thalia and Mrs. Grace.
Summary: Five occasions, given time, Jason and Reyna might have been something more.
Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or the Heroes of Olympus.
Notes: Each part varies in style and AU-ness, from "could be pre-TLH if you want it to be" to "indulge me by suspending your disbelief as you read this crack!fic where everyone happens to be in the same place at the same time instead of opposite seaboards." Nothing super spoilery, though it makes reference to The Lost Hero and The Son of Neptune.

one. in which they are teenage mortals, living it up on the west coast

There are times Jason wishes he'd followed his sister out east, but then his mother will smile, kissing him on the cheek in that way of hers, as if to say she is grateful he didn't run away from home too. He knows, though, that Thalia hadn't, not really; she'd just packed up her things, enrolled in a boarding school, promising to always look out for him, and that was that. Jason hadn't been old enough to go with her, but by the time he was, their mother had fully cleaned up her act and he felt too guilty to do anything but stay. It's only later, much later, when he's visiting Thalia in New York that she confesses: her teacher, Ms. Juno, had told her the scholarship was something only a fool would turn down and lose. (Jason is never resentful, ever grateful for all those moments that his beloved sister had kept the monsters of their less-than-perfect childhood at bay.)

His mother steadily works her way back up into the limelight, getting better and better roles until one day her agent calls, bursting with the news that she'll be starring opposite none other than A-lister Tristan McLean. She's not the main love interest by a long shot, but his mother waves her hand and says it doesn't matter, because no man, fictional or otherwise, could ever measure up to his father in a million years. (Jason wouldn't know; he's never had the pleasure of meeting him.)

The movie is an action-packed thriller full of warring gods, but it's not the stunts or the special effects that catch Jason's eye. It's a girl that looks positively bored on set, and he learns - by asking no less than three members of the crew - that her name is Piper. There are other things that he finds out about her, like the fact that she speaks fluent French and doesn't eat meat and clutches tightly at his hand when they sit in the back of theaters, watching horror films during matinees. (He discovers the last two on their first and second date, respectively.) She's charming and sweet and smart, and even Thalia teases him that he's found his first love, giving them her seal of approval.

Everything's perfect until they grow up and apart, and it's with reluctance that they make their goodbyes. "Friends?" Piper asks.

"Of course," he replies, and he means it. They write constantly, even when she goes to another far off school that's practically in the wilderness, and he rather likes the fact that they're still a part of one another's lives even if they're no longer together.

Then summer comes and he is sitting in his room, reading up on gladiators when his mother knocks on his door, script in hand. "I'll be flying to Seattle in a couple days to start filming," she says, "so why don't you and Thalia come visit me there?" He's got nothing but time to kill until his sister can request vacation to meet them all, so he buys an Amtrak ticket for the Coast Starlight route, even though it's faster to fly and he has a love-hate relationship with the sea. (It's pretty and it's cool and all, but sometimes he feels like the waves are out to get him when he wastes long days away at the beach, being laughed at by friends for how he struggles with the surf.)

The train stops in San Francisco and when he gets back on after a brief stretch, he sees a girl struggling just a bit to get her suitcase up on the overhead bins. When he offers her a hand, she thanks him, smoothing out her purple dress and sliding gracefully into the empty seat in his row. They chat for a while and he learns that she grew up on a small island, owns two very rare dogs, and is heading north to visit her sister. Her name is Reyna and he repeats it to himself even when she falls asleep. (Next stop? He's asking for her number.)