A/N: Hello fellow greekheads! I haven't done a Percy Jackson fanfiction in a while, but Mark of Athena has rekindled my desire to do so (even though I STILL haven't finished reading it)! Here's chapter 1!

Enjoy!

Ice, Fire, and Love

Chapter 1 - A New School

Percy POV

I sighed as I shouldered my backpack and walked through the doorway, my hair hanging in my eyes a bit as I tried to blend in with the crowd. I hoped I wouldn't attract attention.

That usually led to my expulsion.

Unfortunately, blending in wasn't much of an option. If I had come on the first day of school it would have been great, but I had been expelled from my last school during October. I was now starting at Goode High School in early November.

I got a couple odd looks as people realized that they hadn't seen me before, and I tried to tuck my head down and go straight to my locker, where my books were already waiting. Apparently I was banned from the library since that was where the incident happened at the last school, so the staff had stocked my locker full of the books I needed.

I sighed as I took out the book I'd need for first period, English, and ignored the curious looks that were being cast my way. It was only a few seconds until class started when I finally arrived.

Oddly enough, it looked as though I was the last one to show up for class considering there was only one seat left. It was in the far back corner, right next to the large window that constituted the entire wall. There was a girl sitting to my right, her face hidden behind a book, her blonde curls trailing down her back. She didn't even glance over at me as I took my seat, and I shrugged indifferently before taking out my binder and flipping it to the first page. I was determined to finish the school year here no matter what it took. My mother already had enough to worry about without trying to find me a new school every three months.

A group of popular kids were all gathered around four desks near the middle. How could I tell they were popular? Well, after going to so many schools it was painfully obvious who was cool and who wasn't. They all had different airs around them that were pretty easy to read and determine where on the social ladder they were.

It wasn't very hard to determine that the girl sitting next to me was a nerd. I didn't mind nerds, bookworms, or brown-nosers that much since they were generally pretty nice, but it was generally pretty difficult to get them to open up about themselves.

One of the popular guys, a taller blond guy, noticed me. He called across the room, "Watch out for Annabeth, new guy. You don't want to get infected by her weird."

And it was already decision time. The girl sitting next to me stiffened, making me assume she was Annabeth. Her head lowered a bit, and I couldn't help but think to myself that it was unfair of her to make a gesture like that. I couldn't help it when girls were involved; my mom had ingrained it into me to always be nice to them.

So I looked the guy dead in the eye and light-heartedly said, "Better weird than an asshole."

The room went silent as everyone looked at me, even Annabeth. I glanced over at her to find that she was looking at me like I was an idiot, which confused me. Wasn't I helping her out?

The cool guy looked stunned for a moment, then laughed disbelievingly. "I'm going to tell you this now..."

"Percy," I said challengingly. I was a demi-god. I wasn't afraid of some punk like this guy, who I already decided I didn't like.

The guy shook his head at my tone. "I understand where you're coming from, Percy. You're standing up for someone. I get it. I respect that. I'm going to tell you, though, that there's no point in standing up for her. She's just going to be a bitch to you regardless. You look like you have potential, Percy, like you can hang with us. So think before you act in the future." He pointed at me seriously. "I'm letting you slide this time."

Now it was my turn to look at someone like an idiot, which is exactly what I did to the back of the 'popular' guy's head as he sat down. What a jerk. Those type of people were exactly the one's I didn't want to associate with.

The teacher came in at that moment, and I was immediately taken by surprise by how young he was. If I had to guess, I would have put him at 25 years old. No wonder all the popular kids weren't sitting in the back; this teacher must have been pretty cool.

"Annabeth, as much it pleases me that you love to read, I believe you know the drill," he said without even looking at her.

Annabeth paused, sighed, and slowly closed her book, looking up at the teacher with boredom.

The teacher then turned to me and said, "Well class, we have a new student joining our English class today, and I'd like you all to meet him."

He gestured to me and I sighed as I stood up. I hadn't had to do this since the fifth grade. "Hey everyone," I said, looking out at everyone. Public speech was actually one of my strengths. "I'm Percy, which is short for Perseus Jackson." I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Annabeth finally looked at me. I felt oddly exposed to her gaze, as if she could see absolutely everything about me; even more than I knew about myself. "I move around a lot and have the bad habit of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I often get blamed for things I don't do, so if you do something noticeably wrong, just blame it on me."

Some of the class laughed as I sat down, which kind of confused me. I wasn't trying to be funny; I was telling them the truth. I didn't deserve to be expelled from my previous schools. Trouble just had a knack for finding me and making me look bad.

I glanced over at Annabeth to find that she was now writing on a pad of paper that looked like it had blueprints on it.

As the teacher began his lesson for the day, I whispered, "Hey, what is that?"

I figured she seemed nice enough to be friendly toward.

But when she looked up at me with her incredibly keen grey eyes, they were cold as she said, "None of your business."

I frowned and turned back toward the front of the class, noticing as I did so that the blond dude from earlier was giving me a look that said, 'I told you so.'

I had to give it to him. The man wasn't exaggerating.

It turned out English wasn't so bad. The teacher, Mr. Wallace, was really cool and kept the class pretty fun by being energetic and spontaneous. I found myself wondering if this was how all teachers started out. After all, there was no way somebody could maintain the energy that Mr. Wallace kept for long.

Despite the class being fun and engaging, I spent most of the class period trying to break my bad habit of spinning Riptide between my fingers. One day the cap was going to go flying off and my celestial bronze sword, made to slay the monsters that inhabited Tartarus, would pass right through my mortal classmates.

It wouldn't do anything other than give them a scare unless I ended up accidentally cutting myself, of course.

I tried to start conversations with Annabeth multiple times. I didn't know why, but the colder she acted toward me the more interested I became in her and becoming her friend. Besides wondering about Mr. Wallace's energy, I also spent a bit of the class wondering what Annabeth's friends would be like.

And for some reason, they looked like my mom's book club that she met with on Tuesday nights.

When the bell rang I stood up and stretched, and the blond guy came to the back to me and held out his hand, a smile on his face. "Hey, Percy, I think we got off on the wrong foot. Welcome to Goode High. I'm Luke Castellan."

Now that was more like it. I took his hand and said, "Thanks."

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Annabeth was already leaving the room, her head down.

"Don't mind her," Luke said, pushing my back so I would get moving out of the classroom. "She's a bit different. She likes being alone."

"Alone?" I couldn't help but ask. "So you mean she doesn't even have any friends at all?" So much for the book club.

Luke sighed. "I think I was her only friend at one point, but that was forever ago, all the way back in middle school, and even then she ended up pushing me away."

I was caught by surprised that he actually seemed sad about the fact that their friendship had ended.

"Anyway," Luke continued, "life goes on. I'm captain of the basketball team right now despite my height." He looked over at me, sizing me up. "You play any sports?" he asked.

"I'm not really a...uh...team player, I guess," I said truthfully. I had always done everything alone, even back down in my dad's palace when we were supposed to be practicing group exercises and formations. "I'm a pretty good swimmer, though."

Luke nodded, impressed. I was more impressed by the fact that people were parting in the hallways so we could pass through. Luke must have been seriously popular. "I can introduce you to the swim captain if you want. If I might offer you a warning, though, he's pretty dang strict." He leaned in towards me as if he was about to divulge the most important secret known to man. "If you try to join the team, you all go shopping together and you can't eat anything that's even remotely delicious."

I slowly nodded. Being forced to eat certain foods wasn't new to me and I certainly loved being in the water enough, so I figured I would give it a go. "Thanks for the warning," I said.

A bell rang at that moment and Luke slapped his forehead. "I totally forgot to ask you what your next class was, man. I've been walking towards my next class this whole time."

"Oh, I completely forgot too," I admitted, pulling out my schedule. "My bad."

Luke took a look at my schedule and said, "Bad luck, dude, that was the two minute warning bell and your class is on the other side of the school. Sorry."

"It's fine," I said as he began looking around for something.

He seemed to spot it pretty quickly, and led me over to an emo-looking dude who was probably a couple years younger than us. "Nico," Luke called.

"What do you want this time, Luke?" Nico asked, obviously not a big fan of his senior.

Luke rolled his eyes and said, "Look dude, the new guy here has a class that's on the other side of school and I've seen you walking over there at this time with Thalia." Luke said Thalia as if it was the most lovely thing in existence. Somebody had a crush. "Will you show him to his next class?"

Nico sighed the long, defeated sigh of someone who knew they couldn't say no. "Fine," he said. "I'm waiting on Thalia anyway."

Luke had already turned around and waved over his shoulder. "Thanks!" he called.

So it was just me and Mr. Moody. We stood in silence for a couple seconds before I finally said, "So...I'm Percy Jackson."

"Nico di Angelo," he replied without looking at me, his arms folded over his chest as he stared down the hall while leaning against the lockers. "And watch out for Luke. He seems to be acting nice toward you at the moment, but you make one little slip-up and you're excommunicated from the 'popular' club for life."

I nodded, unsure of what to say. This school seemed to be the same as any other so far. As usual, I found it funny that everybody warned me to watch out for everyone else. I already knew that everyone was out to get each other and that they all had their own motives for acting friendly towards me or not.

"I'll...uh...make sure to keep that in mind I guess," I said.

At that second a girl showed up, backpack on one arm and short, pitch-black hair spiked up. She looked more punk than emo and was wearing a shirt with a band on it I've never heard of, and I was surprised to find that she had the bluest eyes I had ever seen. Being in her very presence made the hairs on my arms stand up, as if she was emitting powerful electricity.

"Hey," she said to me. "I'm Thalia."

"Percy Jackson," I said. "Nice to meet you."

She nodded her head and said, "Likewise."

Thalia looked at Nico questioningly, and he said, "He's new. I'm showing him to his class."

"Ah," said Thalia. "Shall we get going then?"

And so the three of us headed over to class, which I discovered on my way over there was my History class. History was normally cool, but in senior year of high school history was government and economics.

Booooooring.

As we walked I discovered that Thalia did a really good job with bringing energy to the table that Nico was lacking. She kept up the conversation the entire walk, asking about my past, in which I made sure to not reveal that I was a demi-god.

Admitting that aloud was the first step towards being admitted into an insane asylum.

By the time we arrived at my next class (a couple minutes late, to be precise), I had decided that Nico and Thalia were pretty cool people...as in I could see myself becoming friends with them. I usually had no desire to make new friends at school because I would probably be expelled pretty quickly, but I was determined to stick it out this time. And if I wanted to make it through the year, I figured the easiest way to do that would be to make reasons for wanting to stay, such as making friends that would miss me and that I would miss if I had to leave again.

When I got to history class I took the only available seat, which happened to be in a new back corner next to Annabeth. She wasn't reading this time, though, she had that sheet with the blueprints on it on her desk once again. She seemed to be deep in thought, and had taken care of any possible issues of her hair getting in the way by putting it up in a messy bun, which was being held together by a single pencil.

I tried sneaking a peak again as the history instructor went into his lecture, which was about the judicial branch of the government.

Like I said, boring stuff.

"What do you want?" Annabeth asked in an annoyed voice without looking over at me.

I just shook my head and turned back toward the board, deciding it wasn't worth it during class. Maybe I could give it a try during lunch.

Third period was much of the same, with me sitting next to Annabeth again. She never seemed to pay attention in class; she was always either reading or working on that blueprint-thingy of hers, and I found myself wondering if she got good grades or not with that kind of work ethic.

I had a free fourth period, which I used to scope out the school. I also went to the counselor's office to get a note for P.E. that would instead let me go to the pool to try out for the swim team.

When lunch rolled around, I headed out to the outdoor quad area and searched for either Annabeth or Nico and Thalia, deciding that I'd sit with whoever I found first. It took almost five minutes for me to find either one of them, and when I did spot one it was Annabeth.

It wasn't much of a surprised to me at that point that she was alone and reading a book as she slowly ate her sandwich, oblivious to everything happening around her. I walked over to her and sat next to her, taking my packed lunch out as I did so I could eat some of my mom's delicious cooking, even if it was just a turkey sandwich with some mustard and mayonnaise.

I noticed that Annabeth barely even reacted when I sat next to her; she stiffened up only the tiniest bit for a second before relaxing and ignoring me, which wasn't so weird at this point. I ate in silence for a little as Annabeth read, but a few minutes after I sat down she set down her book.

She stared straight forward as she took a bite of her own sandwich before saying, "Why don't you just leave me alone? Luke's right about me, you know."

I shrugged. I honestly didn't know why I couldn't leave her alone. There was just something about her that made it impossible to do so. So I said, "So what if Luke's right? I don't like people much either." That was a lie, but I decided it was okay in this case. "At least it'll be quiet this way."

The truth was that I was very much a people's person and generally got along well with people, but I didn't think it would be the best thing to take that back at that moment.

Annabeth finally looked over at me with narrowed eyes. I couldn't help but notice again how grey they were. She would have been a stereotypical California girl if it wasn't for those eyes. "Don't expect me to be friendly or anything."

I shrugged again. "Okay," I said simply, hoping I could make her break that promise sometime soon.

The rest of the lunch period passed in silence as we didn't look at each other and ate. I watched the people and decided this school was just like any other, though I hadn't really met anybody (or at least talked to anybody) like Annabeth in any of my other schools. When the bell rang we both stood up, Annabeth grabbing a pencil out of her pocket and twirling it between her fingers as she did so.

Odd.

We walked toward class together, and I was surprised to find that Annabeth and I had the same class again. I voiced aloud that this coincidence was a bit odd, to which Annabeth merely said, "My stepmother is the principal here. She put you in the same classes as me in the hope that we'd become friends." I looked at her in surprise and found that she looked really annoyed about it. "It's become really old really quickly."

"Hey, at least she's trying to look out for you," I said positively. "And it's working pretty well, don't you think?"

Annabeth's tone became a little colder as she said, "We aren't friends...and don't expect us to ever be friends."

I couldn't help the laugh that escaped my mouth. "I'll try to keep that in mind," I said.

I glanced over at her to find that she looked a little irked. Man, she was cute when she was annoyed.

Well, she was plain cute period.

When we got to our science class, which was physics, we sat together again, though Annabeth went back to work on what I had now determined was most definitely a blueprint for a building. There were so many lines and minuscule numbers going on on the paper that I had no clue what she was writing about or planning to build.

Annabeth and I parted ways at the end of the period so I could head to the pool while she went off to P.E. While I was a little sad that I wouldn't get to see what sort of athleticism Annabeth possessed, I was more excited to get in the water and swim to my heart's content.

I could only be thankful that I had actually brought my swimming stuff.

I arrived at the pool to find what looked like all of the school's guy's swim teams (frosh, jv, and varsity), lined up around the pool with two men standing at the head. One of them looked to be my age while the other one was probably in his early twenties. Was the slightly older guy the coach?

The older one came up to me and shook my hand. "I'm Coach Robin," he said as way of introduction. He brought forth the guy my age and said, "This is Jordan Roberts. You're going to have to beat him if you want a spot on the team."

I looked around and determined that from the types of looks this Jordan guy was receiving, he was the top dog here...he had to have been the captain.

Somewhat of a large barrier to overcome had I not been a son of Poseidon. I could smoke this guy and I knew it. I could smoke pretty much anybody on the planet, actually, considering I was the only human child of Poseidon alive.

I shook his hand before going and changing, then came back out to find him ready to race. I stretched a bit and joined him. As we stood there ready to race, Jordan quietly said, "Coach doesn't expect you to beat me, you know. Just finish within five seconds of me and I'm sure you'll have a spot."

This guy must have thought he was some big shot. Five seconds? Now that was just insulting.

I decided that I probably shouldn't beat him though. Doing things like that generally got people believing that you were arrogant even if you weren't.

The members of the swim team looked as though they thought this was amusing, which made me think that this guy might actually be at least a little fast. Or maybe they were all just slow and he was the fastest of the slow guys.

The coach started the race, and in the end I made sure I only lost by about half a second. I made sure to try to look a little tired as I climbed out of the pool and sat waiting for the coach's verdict.

Jordan was looking at me like I was crazy as the coach walked towards me, and I noticed that pretty much everybody around the pool was looking at me much like Jordan was.

"Wow," the coach said, looking at me with wide eyes. "You only lost by a third of a second." So my estimation was a tiny bit off. "Jordan's the third-fastest high schooler in the country. Welcome to the team."

And so I was on the team. I joined in on their practice for sixth period and was told to be ready to swim every sixth period. While this wasn't much of a workout for me, it did help in training me to manage my control over water to an even further extent. Spending seven years in your father's underwater palace could only do so much, you know?

Jordan approached me at one point and thanked me for the race and for trying out for the team. Apparently none of the other guys were a real challenge for him and it was nice to have a new incentive to work hard. Many of the other swimming guys were pretty cool too.

I decided I liked being on the team.

I rushed to dry off change once the bell rang, hoping Annabeth wouldn't leave school too quickly. I had decided during practice that it would be pretty fun to walk home with her. Of course, her idea of fun and my idea of fun seemed to be polar opposites at the moment, though that didn't really bug me too much.

I rushed out to the gates and waited there, quickly apologizing to my new teammates, who were inviting me to hang out with them now that school was over. I made sure I didn't miss a face at entrance I was at, which was the front entrance. I just hoped Annabeth would take this exit rather than the back.

About ten minutes later, right when I was about to give it up as a lost cause, I spotted Annabeth leaving the school and heading right toward me.

I fell into step beside her and inwardly laughed as she quietly sighed. I didn't know why, but I found it kind of funny that she was annoyed.

So this was why she didn't have any friends.

I decided this was easy, though, and would view her cold attitude as funny. I knew how much she really wanted a friend, especially since I had spent my entire life trying to make friends at all the new schools I went to. I knew she was lonely and put the cold attitude on just for the sake of her reputation.

People rarely liked to deviate from what they were used to and I was threatening exactly that when it came to Annabeth.

We walked home in silence again, and I was pleased to find that Annabeth lived in the same direction from the school that I did. When we were only a block from the apartment complex I lived in, Annabeth suddenly stopped in front of what I assumed was the apartment building she lived in.

Without a word she went up to her door, and I called to her retreating back, "Annabeth." To my surprise, she completely stopped. I didn't even know what to say, and what came out of my mouth was the first thing that entered my brain. Looking back on it, I probably could have said almost anything else, even something like 'My dream is to ride on pink, fluffy unicorns when I grow up' and it would have been better than what I said next. "When's the last time you smiled?"

I didn't even know if I was being serious or sarcastic, maybe it was even subconscious maliciousness in reaction to her general demeanor.

Nevertheless, she turned and looked at me with those stormy eyes. Only this time, they looked pretty dead. The look made my insides feel like ice. Now that was one hell of a look. "Two years, seven months, and sixteen days."

The way she said it made me think that she was definitely counting day after miserable day. There was no way she was lying about this.

I should have said something right then.

But I didn't. I let her turn back around and go into her apartment building without another word from either of us. I did decide, though, that I would need to break her of her smiling drought. Everybody needed a good smile every once in awhile.

As I turned and began walking towards my own apartment complex, I found myself imagining what it would be like to have no reason to smile for almost three whole years.

And I felt alone.

A/N: Man, it feels good to write some PJO again. Writing in the first person is always interesting, too! I slipped up a couple times and began writing in the third person (okay, maybe it was more than a couple of times...)!

Thanks for reading and I hope you take a few seconds to review! ^_^