𝙸 𝙲𝚊𝚗'𝚝 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚜

𝚂𝟺𝙴𝟽: 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝙴𝚙𝚒𝚜𝚘𝚍𝚎 𝙳𝚘𝚎𝚜 𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝙵𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚊𝚢 𝙻𝚘𝚑𝚊𝚗

Inspired by Community S4E11: "Basic Human Anatomy."

Annabeth POV

If you ask Annabeth, midterms are worse than finals by far. Her reasoning? When you're taking finals, you get the whole week off classes so that you have more time to study, write your papers, and paint your dioramas. Don't underestimate a New Rome Community College professor's ability to assign a diorama.

During midterms week, you have to do all that stuff on top of your regular class load, so that means Annabeth is up until like six in the morning working on her projects because ADHD is a bitch and she couldn't find the will to stop looking at memes and start working until about midnight.

Needless to say, her mental health tanks during this week, and she can't afford a much-needed break because her study group can't decide what kind of a project they're going to do for their senior capstone seminar with—you guessed it—Mr. Brunner.

"I don't understand why we can't do a video presentation," Percy says.

"Speaking as the guy who loves video presentations," Leo says, "no."

"But why not?" Percy whines.

Jason crosses another idea off the list of suggested project ideas from Mr. Brunner. "Because we don't want you getting the sock puppets out."

Piper shivers. "Good god, never again."

"Hear me out," says Annabeth. "I know we were all trying to avoid this because we've made these for like, every single one of Brunner's classes ever, but we could just take the easy route and do a diorama."

Frank sighs. "I'm so sick of dioramas though."

"Does anyone have a better idea?"

Hazel raises her hand. "I was going to suggest we all paint banners, but we'd need to find the paint."

"We have all the materials we need for a diorama right here," says Annabeth.

"We do?" Hazel asks.

Annabeth turns to Leo. "Do we?"

He opens his backpack to reveal a large assortment of tools that probably shouldn't be allowed on a college campus, and then drags the recycling can out from its corner. "Someone threw away an Amazon box we can use... Aha!"

Leo tapes some trash together and all of a sudden, they've got their base for a diorama that'll sum up everything the New Rome Seven learned in this stupid capstone seminar, which isn't much.

"So," Hazel says to Jason and Piper, "what are you guys doing for your sixth-month anniversary tomorrow?"

Piper jumps in her seat and Jason looks at his watch. There's no way they remembered their sixth-month anniversary the way Frank and Hazel will their fourteenth-month anniversary.

"Oh, uh..."

"We'll probably just..."

Neither of them can find a good response.

"Oh! You know what would be so cute?" Hazel asks. "You could do something like Frank and I did last month and recreate your first date."

Piper finishes off her coffee and then shrugs. "Yeah, okay. What do you think, babe, El Taco Fiesta?"

"Yeah, alright," Jason says.

They don't seem like they're really feeling this date.

"Got it!" Leo shouts from the floor. "I had to take the zipper off Frank's backpack to make it, but the box for our diorama is ready!" Surrounding him is a wide variety of trash and art supplies. Annabeth admires Leo's commitment to sustainability, but the used tissues are a bit of an eyesore.