So maybe it was just me, but when I read the two lines in italics in MoA, I just about died from the Percabeth feels. It didn't make up for the fact that they'd been separated for eight months, but my inner Percabeth fangirl had been appeased. I am not, however, (note the present tense) pleased in the slightest that the scene I borrowed these lines from was told from Annabeth's POV and there was nothing, nothing, in her internal dialogue about confessing her love for him for the first time, which indicates it's happened before and we haven't been lucky enough to be witness to that.

Well, I say screw that and I'm assuming that this is the first time she's told him she loves him and I'm providing the internal dialogue I felt this scene missed.

Disclaimer: Does not belong to me. All characters and those two lines of dialogue belong to Mr Riordan.

"You dropped this."

"I love you!"

Holy Hephaestus. Did she just say...?

Well, surely he knows by now, doesn't he, that she loves him? Doesn't he? Wouldn't it have been obvious from her actions, from her frantic searching of him, from her saving his life Zeus knows how many times, from her voyaging to New Rome to find him when the Romans are so obviously hateful towards the Greeks and embarking on the Prophecy of Seven with him?

If he didn't then, he certainly knows now. If he doubted the sincerity of her words, he'd have to answer to her.

In her defence, she hadn't meant to say that to him, not at all.

Cue mental revision of that statement: she hadn't meant to say that to him at that time. If she'd had more time to plan something like this, it would not have happened the way it did. She would have planned it all out and have it followed to the letter. It would have been a nice, romantic (as romantic as two demigods can get when not fending for their lives) moment between them, without anyone watching. They weren't supposed to be at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. They were supposed to be at Camp Half-Blood, New York.

She'd planned the whole thing out in her head a million times.

They would have just come back from the arena, having sparred until Clarisse or Chiron kicked them out. Or they would have just come back from a day in the city, having watched a movie and visited Sally and gone out for lunch. Or they would have been relaxing on the beach, soaking up the summer sun and playing around in – and in his case, with – the water. Or he'd be walking her back to her cabin after the campfire. Or – this would have been so like him – they would have been in the middle of a fight, red-faced and shouting at each other for all they were worth.

In every single scenario, he'd be the one to say to say it first.

It wasn't like she expected him to say it first because he was the boy and he had to initiate everything and some other chauvinistic crap – it was just that between someone with excessive loyalty as their fatal flaw and someone else with excessive pride as theirs, naturally the excessively loyal person would say 'I love you' before the excessively prideful one. If she had the personal loyalty flaw, she would have definitely been the one to say it first.

In the fighting scenario, it would have been the one thing to get her to stop shouting at him. It would have just slipped out from him, something along the lines of, "Sometimes I can't believe I'm in love with you" or something, and she would have stopped and stared or shouted back, "Sometimes I can't believe I'm in love with you either" before they kissed and made up. In one particular version, he would have shouted it at her and she would have stared, dumb-struck, and he would have laughed and kissed her nose and she would have blushed and laughed too and kissed him and told him she loved him back and that would have been the end of that fight.

The walking-her-back-to-her-cabin one was simpler. They would have just been talking about their day and planning their next game of Capture-the-Flag and right in front of her cabin – knowing full well that her siblings would have been watching and listening, as well as the Aphrodite cabin two doors down, and knowing full well that she'd have to chase him across the commons in between their cabins and say it back or shout it out from the safety of her cabin with the Aphrodite kids only two cabins away – he would have given her a long, deep kiss, whispered it in her ear and walked away, smirking, while she tried to regain her faculties.

Well, she'd let him think that's what was happening. In reality, she would have been waiting for him to be far away enough to give him a nice ego boost that he managed to render her speechless, but not too far that he thought she wouldn't say it back.

Times like this she thought to herself that she'd had too much time on her hands while he'd been away.

Times like this she realised she was right.

The relaxing-on-the-beach would have been the simplest, by far. He would have been in his element – nothing would ensure that Percy Jackson would be in a good mood quite like the ocean. They would have had a heartfelt conversation, for sure, and right at the end he would have turned to her and said simply, "I love you." Without a doubt, she would have said it back and kissed him long enough to make them late for their next activity.

The spending-the-day-out-in-the-city was harder to calculate. There were so many unknown variables – what they'd do, where they'd go, who they'd see, if there were any monsters...

No. She would have consulted Rachel and asked for the best time to go into the city and be safe from monster attacks.

If they'd been to see Sally, for example, she would have been gushing about how much she loved his mom and how great a cook she was. If they'd been so see a movie (an architectural or historically based one, naturally), she would have been ranting about what they got wrong and admiring what they got right. If they'd just gone out for lunch and a walk around Central Park, she would have talked about how nice of a day it was and how nice it was to be able to spend time with him since her time had been taken up by rebuilding Olympus and school was just getting more demanding for both of them.

And in all these versions, he'd kiss her to get her to shut up and he'd say he was happy she was happy. She would have thanked him for the wonderful day out, and he would have replied that he loved her, and she would have replied back that she loved him.

But her favourite one – if she'd been allowed to choose which version she'd want to most – she would have chosen the just-walked-out-of-the-arena one. She could see it so vividly in her mind's eye she had to remind herself many times that it was a fantasy, not a memory.

It was a common occurrence for the two of them to be sparring in the arena. He may have had the Curse of Achilles, but he still needed to train, regardless of the amount of people he beat, and she was the only one who had to chance to beat him.

In her imagination, they'd be walking out of the arena, laughing that Clarisse or Chiron had kicked them out for showing off (it had happened before), and she'd be gloating about her victory.

"I almost had you in that last one," he'd insist, and she'd laugh.

"You wish you did. Just admit it – you just had your invincible butt handed to you by your not-so-invincible girlfriend."

He'd sigh at that point. "How is it that you're the only one that can beat me? It's putting some pretty sizeable holes in my ego."

She'd laugh again. "Please, you love it that I'm the only one that can beat you."

His voice would turn serious here, and he'd stop walking. "Yeah, I do."

She'd stop, both at his comment and upon noticing he wasn't walking beside her anymore, and turn around to look at him. "What?"

He'd look at her in the eyes then, green meeting grey. "Annabeth, I love you."

Their eyes would lock before the moment passed, and she'd smirk.

"I know," she'd say simply, before running off, knowing he'd chase her. He'd catch up to her soon enough, wrap his tanned arms around her waist from behind and pull her to him, both of them laughing. He'd turn her around to look at him, both their eyes twinkling.

"Aren't you going to say it?" he'd joke, an underlying tone of seriousness in his voice.

"Say what?" she'd reply, playing dumb.

"I think you know."

"Know what?"

His smirk would grow. "You're still not making this easy for me."

"I never said I'd stop," she'd say, and pull him in for a kiss, before pulling back and, looking into his eyes, saying, "I love you, Percy."

That was how it was supposed to happen. Not this almost capture by the Romans, saved only by her wild idea to throw her knife into the harbour and the luck that he was in the harbour.

However, she thought to herself, her arms still wrapped around him, they were together. They were alive. They were happy (ignoring the angry horde of Romans). Isn't that what they were in all her scenarios? Together, alive, happy?

She supposed it didn't matter how you planned the first time you said "I love you", so long as you said it. And, judging from the look on his face, she'd definitely said it.

There was one small thing that surprised her, though: after all her planning, after all her careful calculations and measurements and notation of variations...she'd been the one to say it before him.

So much for excessive pride.