Hello all.

Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.

This is not a sequel or a continuation of anything that has come before. I just reread LH and I was disappointed all over again by firstly the lack of Nico and secondly the lack of focus on the fact that Percy was missing. I mean, I know that we're probably going to hear something about it in The Son of Neptune (which I have already pre-ordered because I am nothing if not a loser without a life) but still. In the meantime, this is going to be a very small glimpse of a short period of time during the search for Percy, starring Annabeth and Nico (NOT in that way because, well, ew).

I'm guessing three chapters or less. I'm not saying it will be fascinating or enthralling, but it's one of those things that my brain is just telling me to write and so I must. Title is from a Nickelback song that made me go into montage mode while driving, the title and lyrics of which I do not own any more than than I own PJO, which belongs to Rick Riordan.

So if your ever lost and find yourself all alone
I'd search forever just to bring you home,
Here and now this I vow.

[...]

I'd fight for you
I'd lie, it's true
Give my life for you
You know I'd always come for you.

[...]

No matter what gets in my way
As long as there's still life in me
No matter what, remember

You know I'll always come for you
I'd crawl across this world for you
Do anything you want me to
No matter what, remember

You know I'll always come for you.

With that out of the way, let's go.

Marzipan.

Annabeth allowed a sigh to escape her lips as she sunk down into the water. Thankfully, she'd picked a motel where the bottom of the bathtub didn't make her flinch — providing she didn't look too closely, of course. It was a shame she couldn't say the same about the sheets but, hey, she was a demigod that had ran away aged seven and so had slept in plenty of worse places (storm drains anyone?) but at least a relatively clean tub meant that she could climb in a hot bath without worrying what she might catch.

The hot water bit at the cuts and grazes in various stages of healing covering her body, remnants of the various scrapes she had been in since setting off from Camp with the intention of finding Percy. Her latest injury was going to hurt like a bitch in the morning she knew; she had been thrown backwards into a brick wall and her back already felt like one massive bruise, hence the hot bath to try and get some of the muscles to unwind. Hopefully, it would relieve some of the pain and she'd actually be able to move tomorrow without gulping so much nectar that she'd have to resort to standing in front of an open window again — in north Idaho, in midwinter — just to cool herself down.

Blowing air out of her nose she let her head sink under the water and screwed her eyes shut, beginning to gently run her fingers through her hair in an attempt to dislodge some of the grime. It fanned out and was floating on the water as she listened to her heart hammering in her head and the roar of the bubbles from her nose. When she came back up, she slicked her hair back and relaxed against the back of the tub, sighing again. It seemed like her life had been nothing but one big sigh lately — tired ones, frustrated ones, angry ones… All of them were appropriate given the fact that the wheels of her investigation were spinning and she was getting no closer to finding Percy, no matter how many monsters or other kinds of evil she vanquished along the way.

The hot water had set a cut above her eye bleeding again, another gift given by her latest monster slaying. She cursed and dabbed at it with the back of her hand; the blood had turned thin and diluted thanks to the water and ran right off her skin. It hit the water and immediately unfurled into a writhing red clump.

Closing her eyes, she listened to the sound of the tap dripping by her feet and the mysterious gurgling that was coming from the pipes and breathed in and out heavily, feeling her body begin to unravel in the water that she had ran as hot as she could bear. In some small way, being in the water, even just the bath, made her feel a little closer to Percy.

When she thought of him, a frown creased what had previously been serene facial features and her heart and stomach both gave an unpleasant lurch. The memory of their last exchange before they went to bed that night was still branded on her brain and wouldn't be leaving any time soon. If she knew that she'd have woken up in the morning to find Percy gone, there were so many extra things that she would have said to him — granted, it was mostly mushy stuff that she'd have been embarrassed to share, but had she known that he'd be gone the next day she would have told him just so much stuff about how much she loved him, the way he made her feel… It made her feel sick with nerves to realise that, if she didn't find him, she'd never get to say those things to him ever.

When she opened her eyes, desperate for some kind of distraction, she saw that the bathroom was full of coils and spirals of steam lazily bobbing around the room — the fan was apparently broken. The hot water, the relaxation, and the gentle drifting of the steam all around her had started to make her feel sleepy. Despite herself, she started to drift off, lulled by the small cocoon of peace that she had created for herself in the bathroom.

There was so much else she had to do — there were huge maps tacked to the motel room's walls, which was why the 'Do Not Disturb' sign was permanently on the outside of the door. She thought housekeeping would probably throw a fit if they saw the holes she'd put in the walls.

The maps were all dotted with colour-coded stickers depending on what they referred to — some were places that she had already been, some were places she was going to go looking for Percy. Others marked what she had gathered were monster hotspots — Detroit, for instance.

The GPS she had installed on Daedalus' laptop was a blend of computer wizardry care of an Athena-Hephaestus cabin alliance, Greek magic and just the general technology that made up the computer. A new addition was the new and not-so-attractive celestial bronze case in an attempt to shield it from any monsters that might pick up on its signal. It showed up a whole load of things, including monsters and some locations of interest that she would write into a schedule to check out when she could. She was convinced that it was slightly on the blink though — an enormous department store had randomly appeared in Chicago one day, hovering in and out of view on the map until it had one day disappeared altogether. Also, a mansion a little west of Chicago had lit up one day like a freaking beacon, even though Street View had revealed absolutely nothing out of the ordinary when she had looked. Then again, she thought, given the collaboration with the Hephaestus cabin, what could be expected? Yes, the cabin had managed to part-build, part-reactivate a very impressive and massive bronze automaton dragon, but the thing was just haywire and plain nuts if you asked her.

Charts were on the opposite wall to the maps — looking over the seas in case the laptop revealed something out to sea that could be Percy. After all, that would be a pretty logical place to be given that it was Percy, but there was nothing really out of the ordinary to be seen there either. The nightstands were both stacked with books (as many as she'd dared to steal from the Big House's library and shoved in her newly magically-expanded purse) and on the dressing table was laid with her daggers and other weaponry paraphernalia — ankle and thigh holsters, gun oil for cleaning them and whetstones were all spread out of newspaper. The door was locked up as tight as a motel room could be; the deadbolt, the chain and that mostly-useless little pop-in lock on the doorknob were accompanied by a chair jammed up against it.

Call her paranoid, but she was a demigod — unexpected visitors were very unlikely to be friendly and, although it was incredibly likely that they could bash through the flimsy door with ease, she hoped that the locks would give her enough time to act to save her life.

She had been fighting monster after monster since she went looking for Percy — nearly everywhere she went on her search she had had to kill at least one monster and it was taking its toll. When she got out of the bath, she would have to rewrap the ace bandage around her wrist and, even with the hot water helping her back, she wasn't convinced that she hadn't cracked a few ribs today in that alley when she'd been flung against the wall and smacked down on top of a (thankfully closed) Dumpster.

Despite all of the monsters that she managed to kill, none of them had led her any closer to Percy and it seemed to have put her in more danger — she had managed to kill a dracaena that she'd been stalking by throwing a knife before it had seen her, but she wasn't entirely sure that she hadn't killed the monster already before that. Something weird was going on definitely and she wished she knew what it was.

Though it was incredibly tempting to find out what Chiron might know about it, she still felt stung from his rejection of her and his refusal to tell her the entire story, despite the fact that her knowing could have helped lead her to Percy, and had resolved not to contact him unless absolutely necessary. Even if she did contact him, there was probably nothing he would tell her anyway. Plus, they'd had an argument before she left — Chiron had advised her not to go alone to find Percy, which had pissed her off no end because it wasn't like she was incapable. Also, finding Percy was her mission — yes, most of the people at Camp (including, perhaps, some of the Ares cabin, whether they admitted it or not) wanted Percy back but she wasn't going to drag people out of the safety of Camp and then around on a dangerous mission that wasn't really theirs. This was something best done by herself and she was doing an okay job of it, providing the quality of her job could be judged by the monsters she had killed anyway.

Her face still felt grimy so she dipped herself under the water again, this time holding her breath so she could really hear the slow, rhythmic throb of her heart in her ears and let it soothe her. She worked to slow the beat even more, attempting to reach a place near a meditative state aided by the underwater silence she was wrapped in.

Meditation was easier, though, when something wasn't trying to kill you with a speargun like a fish in a barrel.

Even if, to be fair, she probably did resemble one right now.

Somehow she had known it was coming, call it good reflexes or ADHD or whatever, and had managed to twist to the side; the harpoon had lodged in the acrylic bottom of the bath and a rush of bubbles announced that her tub had sprung a leak. She burst up out of the water, gasping for breath, but in the few seconds it had taken to dash the water from her face and eyes something rushed her, coming at her through the steam. Reaching backwards, she tried to pull the spear from the bottom of the bath to use as a weapon but it was stuck tight, so she threw herself backwards into the water again and the trident that had been aimed at her chest shattered the tiles on the wall and sunk deep into the drywall beneath.

She lurched to her feet; it was a telkhine that had attacked her and the monster was trying to pull the trident from the wall. Balling her fists under her chin, she pivoted and snapped a roundhouse kick to the telkhine's snout. Fed up of fighting with Percy, Nico, Thalia or any other of the demigods that could summon a whole arsenal of special powers to help them, after the Battle of Manhattan she had started taking kickboxing lessons. As well as being good for self-defence, it was actually a pretty good outlet for any pent-up rage.

As the telkhine stumbled backwards into the corner, she sprang from the bathtub, the adrenaline masking all but the tiniest amount of protesting from her back and ribs, and grabbed a towel. Before she'd managed to wrap it around her, the door came crashing inwards, followed by a blur of black. When she realised it was human she yelped and wrapped the towel around her immediately — somehow a monster that she was about to send back to Hades seeing her naked was way, way better than someone she couldn't kill seeing the same thing.

As the steam escaped through the door and the air cleared, she realised that it was Nico, of all people, who had burst in. Indignant, she was about to protest about invasion of privacy when the telkhine grabbed him and swung him so hard he was lifted off his feet and slammed into the mirror above the sink. The glass spiderwebbed and shards feel at the same time he did; he landed hard face down on the counter with a thousand reflections raining about him. His sword had vanished.

Clutching the towel to her chest, she made a mad dash from the room, feeling a piece of mirror gash her foot open as she ran. She was running so fast she nearly overbalanced when she reached the dressing table and her knife and had to grab on to stop herself falling. Why had she been so stupid as to not bring a weapon into the bathroom with her? Snatching up a knife she ran back into the bathroom — strands of wet hair plastered to her face and back — to find Nico up and fighting. He was standing on the counter now, dodging swipes with the trident that the telkhine had retrieved from the wall.

Annabeth ran at the monster, her knife raised, but he saw her coming and swept round in a full circle, hitting her in the side with its flipper tail and knocking her hard against the edge of the tub. Nausea immediately roiled in her stomach and black spots danced in front of her eyes at the pain from her already-damaged back and ribs. For a minute she couldn't move, but she had distracted the monster enough for Nico to leap off the counter with a large shard of mirror in his hand and plunge it into the telkhine's shoulder.

The telkhine reeled with anger, bucking and throwing Nico off. He sailed out of the bathroom and hit the wardrobes facing the door, splintering the wood and disappearing inside.

Annabeth had tears in her eyes still from the pain, but realised that her knife was still in her hand. She switched it to her left hand — not her preferred hand but the ribs on her right side wouldn't give her the movement she needed — and feigned semi-consciousness until the telkhine was standing above her. The knife flashed as she stabbed upwards, but the telkhine had twisted slightly, seeing her move, and the knife left a long gash in its flank but not one that proved fatal and resulted in monster dust. That was one of the things she disliked about knife fighting: sometimes, her blade was just too short to do the damage that a sword like Riptide could do.

Not that she'd ever tell anyone that of course.

"Find my sword!" Nico yelled at her, limping into the doorway and leading heavily on the frame while clutching at his shoulder.

"I'm good," Annabeth snapped, wondering if somehow Nico had read her mind about her weapon sometimes not being adequate.

"It won't work," Nico said through gritted teeth, but before he could explain just why the telkhine rounded on him and he scurried backwards into the hotel room. Annabeth heard a loud crash and managed to pull herself to her feet using the edge of the bath, even if it did make the black spots procreate right in front of her face, and, knife in hand, made her way into the main room.

Nico was on the floor next to the bed; the crash appeared to have been him demolishing the nightstand. The telkhine was looming over him with the trident, but Nico flashed a wicked grin that briefly transformed his face into a mirror of one of his father's crazed expressions, and reached out for the lamp that had fallen next to him.

Ripping the shade off, he smashed the bulb against the wall behind him, plunging the room into nearly total darkness, and jabbed the light into the gash Annabeth had made in the monster's side, letting go quickly. The bathroom light behind Annabeth dimmed and flickered and the whole room began to reek of burning blubber until a bright blue light flashed and the monster exploded into golden dust.

The silence afterwards was deafening and Annabeth's body sagged in relief, but Nico immediately jumped up and ran into the bathroom, almost knocking her flying. He came out with his sword, his face like some kind of madman, peppered with cuts as it was and puffy on one side from a yellowing bruise healing under his left eye.

"Get behind me," he barked, grabbing Annabeth's wrist and dragging her behind him.

"I will not," Annabeth said, yanking her wrist (luckily, Nico had grabbed the good one) from his grip. "I don't need you to protect me. What is your problem? How did you find me?"

"Shut up," Nico hissed, crouching in a battle stance.

Annabeth opened her mouth to give an acerbic retort, but suddenly she saw something that caused her mouth to snap shut in surprise. The monster dust on the floor had begun to swirl into little currents and eddies, as if propelled by a totally undetectable light wind. Slowly, the dust was lifted into the air and it started to take on the form of the telkhine again.

"What in Hades…?" Annabeth asked quietly, squinting at the phenomena and automatically stepping towards it to try and satisfy her curiosity.

"Don't," Nico bit out, pissed that he'd had to tell her more than once. She probably thought that he wasn't worth listening to, being just a kid, but gods dammit she was so ignorant at the moment, which was so unlike her, and she needed to listen to him or get killed.

"Is it reforming?" she asked him. "Coming back?"

"No shit," Nico said sardonically, his lip curling at her.

"How?" she demanded, cocking her head as the golden dust outline began to get filled in as if the telkhine were being redrawn by the world's quickest painter.

"How about we try not to die first and then you can ask stupid questions later?" Nico suggested, swinging his sword in circles as he prepared to attack.

The telkhine reappeared suddenly, enraged. The regeneration had also apparently returned the speargun to him and he fired it at them; they both dropped to the floor and rolled out of the way and the spear pierced the mirror above the dressing table. Nico had rolled towards the monster and he slashed at it with his sword, which sucked the monster's essence in and killed it.

"Now it's dead," Nico said finally, flopping down onto his back and staring at the ceiling, which had a rather attractive brown water stain on it and closing his eyes. He could feel Annabeth's glare radiating throughout his body and just let himself relax into the floor, anything to avoid having to face what would probably turn out to be her quite-considerable wrath.