A/N: so, how does this completely 'random' chapter have anything to do with the chapter before? mostly because, well. can't say yet. but just want to let you guys know that I'm not going crazy, lol - I have a reason for everything I do.

let's go back to the beginning - a very good place to start.

For her seventh birthday, Annabeth asked for a friend as her present.

She wasn't stupid. She wasn't ignorant. She was bright for a kid her age, except for that her dylexia always seemed to cloud her teachers' eyes. Her mind gears spinned much faster than her classmates, and her parents had realized that long ago. That was the main reason they were the ones that were the most surprised when she told them.

"But, Annabeth -" her stepmother, Clara, had already started spluttering. She loved Annabeth more than enough for a stepmother, but sometimes, just sometimes, in the corner of her mind, she thought her a freak. Just a little bit.

Frederick stopped her and looked at his daughter very curiously. "Are you sure, Annie? Is this your birthday wish?"

She grinned up at her daddy.

He scratched his beard, not sure what to do. "And you want this wish to come true very much, right?"

"Of course, daddy. That's why I asked for it."

"Don't talk back to your father," Clara said. "But Annabeth, this is going to be very hard. We don't know if we can fulfill your request."

Annabeth looked at her lap and unconciously picked at her food. Matthew spit out his food into his bowl, and started gurgling at his mother, while Bobby picked the spit-out food and stuffed them down his mouth.

And that was where the conversation ended, really. Frederick just decided to not bring it up that night at the dinner table, and Clara was too busy scolding Bobby while cleaning up after Matthew. Annabeth just took a few more bites at her mashed potatoes and excused herself to bed.

Later, when all the children were safely tucked into their beds, Clara brought it up with her husband.

"What are we going to do?"

"What do you mean?"

She rolled her eyes. "I mean, what are you going to do about her little wish?"

He took a sip of his tea. "Well, it is going to be her birthday. And we always fulfill her wishes every year, don't we?"

"But this time -"

"But this time is special, I know. Nobody said it couldn't be done, though. We could - we could adopt a kid." He smiled. "Yeah, that would be a good solution. We would adopt a kid her age, and then they could live with us, in the guest room next to hers, and -"

"You're going crazy again. Maybe I should get some asprin."

Frederick smiled, as if there was a joke he was keeping to himself. "No, I'm not, Clara. It could be done. I have a friend who donates to this orphanage, and she could take me there, show me around, and it would be done."

Clara stared at him. It didn't need to be said audibly that she already had enough on her hands with the twins, and Annabeth wasn't exactly a little angel, either. There had been many happenings since she married Frederick and met his daughter - many that she wasn't even sure of herself. The memories were always clouded, always mysterious, but they were always related to Annabeth.

And adopting another kid? That was just complete ruddish. She already worked hard enough to support the family, to keep it in once piece - and now some kid (whose parents threw away, just like that, no doubt) was going to jump right in? They weren't exactly rich, either.

Maybe she should just get Annabeth an iPad or something to shut her up.

And her husband read her thoughts perfectly.

"Look." He gripped his mug tighter. "I know this is a ridiculous idea. It's totally out of this world, but...it's our only perfect solution."

"So?"

"One day, she's going to find out that you aren't her real mother, and that we kept it a secret from her for all these years. I want to do everything possible so that when she does find out, she can remember that we loved her, and we did everything in our power to make her happy; that we are really her parents, not completely by blood, but by love. Give me a chance. I want to make up to her in advance, Clara. I really do."

Clara presses her lips together.

"Fine."

That little girl better had remember, in ten years, twenty years, thirty years, that her stepmother had sacrificed a lot for her.

A lot.

Frederick got in touch with Sally, the friend, and told her about the situation. She didn't sound very surprised, or maybe it was just his imagination - he was way too frantic trying to get the story out at once to notice. Sally had replied quite nicely, saying that he could go over tomorrow, and she would show him around. It was more than he could have hoped for.

The next day, he had gotten himself all shaved and in a proper suit, and went to the orphanage. St. Mungos Orphanage, it said. (HARRY POTTER FTW, lol.) Sally was there waiting for him. They had been classmates in college. She smiled at him pleasantly, and then led him into the place.

"So, why did you decide to donate this orphanage?" He said, after they had greeted each other warmly.

Sally Jackson had been originally one of the poorest students at their college. She had gotten in on a scholarship, and was commonly looked down at from the other students, who were mostly from rich families. Back in the day, only families with good income could support college students, and Sally was a joke to all of them, a community project.

Later, she had started up a sweets store chain, and word got around quick. Soon enough she was one of the most rich females in America - after all of the actors and singers and Oprah, of course. She had settled down with a husband, a chef at a five-star hotel. Nobody could have predicted that she would donate astonishing amounts of money to some unknown orphanage in San Francisco.

She nodded, as if she had been asked this question a million times by now. And maybe she had been. "People don't need reasons to do things, Frederick." She looked at him, still smiling. "If I get all this money, I should share to the poor. I mean, it's not like I donate to UNICEF, too."

He wasn't that curious to continue on prodding her, so he just nodded slightly and followed her into the building. It was quite nice for an orphanage - that money didn't go to waste after all.

She had introduced him to the people working there, and then took him around to make the rounds and look at the children.

"What kind of child do you want?"

Frederick couldn't help but feel wrong that the children were like teddy bears lining on the store shelves, and not treated like human beings, but they couldn't help it. "I'll just look around, thanks."

There were all sorts of children, from infants to preteens, and some were having fun, while some just sat around on couches and read, or coloured. It was like a madhouse, and even an army couldn't have controlled the kids. All of them were cute and seemed like nice children - or, the majority did. They were children that had been left alone by their parents, and whether or not their parents were against their will, they had been hurt deeply. It wasn't their fault that some would turn into troubled children.

A boy caught his eye, all of a sudden, just as he was delving into his thoughts.

If a child could be handsome, this boy was. His raven black hair was messy, as if he had just gotten up, but it was scruffed in a cute way. His eyes were the perfect shade of grassy green, searching the room, as if he could one day see something else than what was there in reality. He was one of the kids who were sitting around, but he wasn't reading, he was just playing by himself.

Sally seemed to have seen him look at that boy, and he felt her tense next to him, for some reason.

"What's the name of that boy in the corner?"

"Which one?" She said, and he could detect that she was lying.

"The black haired one, with the green eyes - the one playing with the toy truck."

"Oh," Sally said. "That's Percy."

He waited.

"And he's seven years old. Same as Annabeth, I believe. Shall we move on?"

Frederick stood his ground. "Maybe I could talk with Percy?"

She didn't reply, and he went up to Percy. His green eyes looked up, and he started to stand up, feeling a bit frightened, before Frederick smiled at him.

"Hi. What's your name, buddy?"

After a week of pondering between the choices, they had decided to take in Percy as Annabeth's birthday gift. It felt kind of wrong, but it was all they could do. And Frederick thought it was worth it. When they told Sally, she just smiled politely. Frederick had decided to ignore the odd expression and started on signing the papers.

But there was a story they hadn't known, one that Sally had kept a secret for so long, and one that Sally decided to take with her to her grave.

It wasn't a cold, snowy night when the woman had brought her child to the orphanage. That was only a cliche myth - it wasn't as if all orphans, or to-be orphans, were born in the winter season. This little boy, with a wisp of fair hair on the top of his head, was born on a warm day in August.

If it wasn't for the way he gurgled in her arms and smiled that baby smile at her all the time, she would have given him up earlier. She knew she couldn't keep a child - not when she was still in college, and on a scholarship for god's sakes. And the child's father...

He was no help at all. And she didn't expect him to care.

She hated the last days, and it was when the child had finally started to realize that he was now on this earth and that he couldn't go back, and that he was going to stay here for a very, very long time. He was so beautiful, and he looked just like his father, with his green eyes and that warm grin. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

Scuttling quickly down the streets, she was holding her child, hidden in a blanket. In it was a piece of paper she had typed out, with his name and birthday and letters of thanks in advance and all about him that she could ever find out in two weeks. Before her tears would start to stream down her face, she settled the child down at the top of the stairs and left.

Or, more like, she had hidden behind the bushes, watching her child, making sure he didn't come to any harm on that warm August night.

And the next morning, a cheerful looking woman had opened up the door, saw the baby, and took him in without a word.

She should have been happy, but she felt something else. Something much more painful.

Frederick and Clara had went to get 'her present', as Annabeth knew it, and the babysitter could hardly keep the children quiet when they were so happy and excited.

"Calm - down -" Miranda said, grabbing the twins, one in each arm, to stop them from breaking the lava lamp. "Annabeth! Can't you get your brothers calm?"

"Well, you're the babysitter, Miranda," she said, a youthful smirk on her face.

"We're not babies!" Bobby complained as he wriggled against Miranda's firm grip.

"Yeah, we're not babies!"

The twins escaped from her arms and started jumping up and down on the carpet, making thundering noises as they screamed. Miranda collapsed in a chair.

"God, your brothers are a handful," she said to Annabeth, who was just grinning to herself, sitting on the sofa. "It's not even their present."

"It is my birthday, though, and we had cake, which usually gets them all jumpy."

"Sugar equals the Chase twins full in divide-and-conquer mode, I know," she watched as the twins started attacking a large teddy bear.

It wasn't that far, though, before the parents would come home with him, though. Annabeth hoped he wouldn't care that he was her gift.

He's here.

And Annabeth is absolutely speechless.

He's beautiful. She's seven years old, yes, but she knows that much. Looking at him made her feel so self-conscious.

He also looked frightened, which wasn't very surprising, seeing as he was in a stranger's house, far away from the home he's been used to almost since ever he was born, and everything was so clean and had a home kind of feeling to it. The two adults didn't do much to make him feel better at all, anyways.

"Percy, meet Annabeth." Clara said gently. Annabeth looked at her 'mother' and stuck out a hand for him to shake.

"Welcome, Percy," she said all politely yet warm, like her mother did whenever they had house parties. "Welcome to your new home. I'm Annabeth, Annabeth Chase, and I'm going to show you around the house and be your friend and -"

He looked at the blonde girl, right in the eyes, and she shut up for some reason.

He didn't say anything for the rest of the time, just kind of floated around the place, and Annabeth showed him to his room - the guest room right next to hers, which had already been 'reformed' into his room.

"How do you like this?" She sat down on his bed, and gestured for him to sit next to here. "Do you like this house?"

He shrugged.

"I know this is very weird to you, Percy, but we're all going to help you out, and I'm going to be your friend. Or, you're going to be my friend, but it's all the same. "She grinned. "Maybe soon you'll come to school with me, and I can help you with your homework, since that's kind of the only thing I'm good at. I know you're not a girl, but we can still be friends, right?"

Silence.

"Ookay," Annabeth said plainly, but nobody could have ignored that disappointed look on her face. "Well, you can use the bathroom right next door, and I'll go to bed."

He nodded.

"Goodnight," she said as she closed the door, and it was after when she closed the door that he whispered one word.

"Annabeth."

There was just something about that grey-eyed girl that made him feel lost and yet found at the same time.

AGHHHHHHH FOR THE CLICHENESSSSS

but hey, who doesn't like a young Percy and Annabeth?

don't worry, everything's going to work out. Percy can be quite the charmer.

REVIEW! heh, you guys are the fuel to my soul, the angels to my despair. this was a bit long, but hey, I kind of feel good after writing this.

don't ask.

I'm probably going to do 1st person POV, don't worry. just keep on forgetting to switch into I-my-me mode.

toodles!