Annabeth's POV

I cried. Then, I cried a bit more. Then – just to shake things up a little – I turned over on my other side and started crying again. I'd been better lately, whether it was just because I was running out of tears or if it was that I was becoming almost numbed, it didn't matter. I had slowly started to cry less, displaying less emotion to the other campers and people around me in general. Still, it felt like all I did was cry.

Crying seemed to be my reaction to everything I feared right about now. Nothing physically that would harm me, just emotionally. I was so scared, for Percy, about Percy, about what it would do to me if… I couldn't consider the possibilities anymore. I couldn't set myself off on another round of hysterics when I'd just begun to calm down. The crying hadn't been horrible lately, but today was the eighteenth. It had been four months since Percy and I had kissed and really became a couple. It made everything especially hard to think about. When someone was part of quite literally your every waking thought, it was hard to just drop them. Not in a few days, not in a few weeks, and, obviously, not in a few months.

Maybe the problem was hope. Did I have too much of it? Too much hope, stored in my usually logical mind, just hoping that I can still allow myself to have hope? Percy would come home…soon, very soon, he would. The Argo II would be finished and then…

You're kidding yourself, my logical, rather pessimistic side argued. He's been brainwashed, like Jason. He's not your Percy, your Seaweed Brain anymore. Gods, he might even be another girl's Seaweed Brain now.

I knew that. I was well aware that Percy was extremely, extremely desirable. Physically so, as well as personality-wise, he was the perfect catch for pretty much any girl. My eyes welled up at the thought of all the things about Percy that I loved: his fluffy, messy hair; his sea-green eyes that sparkled whenever he smiled; his smile that reflected the happiness he was feeling; the way he looked at me like I was something precious, to be loved and cherished; the way he held me with my face in his shirt and his arms protective around my back, making sure I was not only comfortable, but safe. He was brave, and kind, and hilarious, and empathetic, and smart in his own dopey way, and everything else I could possibly want. So, yes, the thought he might have found someone new in three months with no memory had crossed my mind. I still had small faith in him: he might remember just enough to know he still had a girlfriend waiting for him to come home safe, someone who would love him no matter what, after anything.

But who knows what Percy's been through these last three months? Interrogation? To the point of torture, perhaps? A shudder ran up my spine, causing an unshed tear to fall onto my pillow, gravity pulling the salty water away from the track of tears down my cheek. My pillow was completely soaked underneath my matted blond hair and I flipped my pillow over to the dry side so I would have a fresh cloth surface to saturate with my tears.

A picture of Percy came into my mind. I'd seen him wounded before, obviously, in the last five years, but to think what could be done to him when he was at his most vulnerable, perhaps not knowing if there is anyone at all who cares whether he lives or dies, when he doesn't know what's happening to him… The prospects are extremely frightening to me…

You could give up.

That makes absolutely no sense.

He might not be alone, bleeding in a damp corner, you know. He might be happy.

Another thought that had crossed my mind before. What if he has new friends, and a new girlfriend? What if he's happier being a son of Neptune than Poseidon? If he's happier where he is, I'd rather he stay there, but what about Sally and Paul? What about Grover and Thalia and Nico?

…What about me?

Percy's POV

I paced my dormitory. The fourth floorboard to the right in the seventh row creaked whenever my sock-covered foot would step on it. What did I know? I am Percy. I am roughly sixteen or seventeen years old. I am a son of Poseidon – Neptune – Poseidon…? I do not belong at this camp. I am not trusted here. I used to belong to another place. I had friends there. They cared about me, but they don't know how to find me. Until Lupa and the camp leaders can decide what to do with me, they've placed me in the daily activities of camp with the other Roman half-bloods, although I know too much about things I shouldn't.

My knowledge stopped there. I had brief memories from long ago: a blue birthday cake with a big "8" candle stuck in the top, a man with black hair and eyes much like my own, a satyr – or is it a faun? These things are so confusing – with a colorful Rasta cap, a boy with blond hair and a long scar down his pale face, and a girl with blonde hair and grey eyes. I haven't seen anything but brief flashes of anything at all, but I seem to know things about how this camp and being a demigod works that Lupa knows I'm not just another late half-blood to be Identified by my godly parent.

I can fight with swords better than the class instructor, I can face the obstacle course with no problem which almost no one else can do, and – though it's probably mostly because of my powers – I can kayak like nobody's business. I know all the terms for all the mythological stuff we deal with, but in Greek. Empousai, when they should have been lamiae; Artemis when everyone here says Diana; satyrs when the half-goat servant of nature who teaches Herbalism and Scavenging calls himself a faun.

My pacing continues.

"Do you mind?" asked James, my roommate, from his bed on the opposite wall from mine.

"What?" I asked, jumping a little: I'd forgotten he was there.

"You're making me all jittery," he complained, holding the book he was evidently reading, Roman Battle Strategy and How to Perfect Your Technique, and scowling at me. "And I need to finish chapter nine if I'm ever going to pass Master Pugna's test next hour."

"Sorry…" I apologized distractedly, not really caring about the test that I, too, should be studying for.

James was a son of Mars (my instincts told me Ares), and had many siblings here at camp, for which he was lucky. I was alone, the only child of Neptune here. I often found myself jealous of sons and daughters of gods and goddesses like Mercury or Venus, who had many siblings. There were many child-less gods, of course – Pluto, Uranus, Diana, and Juno – and previous to my coming here, there had been no children of Neptune here, but I still felt lonely knowing that no one was family to me here, by blood or otherwise.

In every dorm of the housing buildings near the archery ranges, there lived two to four siblings of all one god or goddess, except in my dorm. I was the exception. Every child of Mars had three siblings living with them except for James, the one who'd gotten to have a dorm all to himself until I showed up. They didn't trust me, and they wanted to place me with one of the best fighters in the camp – "Just in case," Lupa had said to a counselor. The best and most deadly fighter of the camp was a daughter of Athena, and you can see the complications there.

I stopped my pacing. A piece of a memory flashed in my head, then another. Another daughter of Athena… "I'm never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain," I heard in a girl's voice. Then being so unbearably happy I felt I might just explode. Then I felt the splash of water consuming me and a pressure on my hand as I was thrown into a body of river… What brought these memories on? I didn't know… Memories came back to me at the strangest of times, whenever there was mention of a god's name in Greek or something of the like, or a situation I felt I'd been in before… It was the name of Minerva that had brought attention to this.

I walked over to the red journal I'd found in this room under the bed when I'd moved in that I'd put on my bedside table. Digging through the drawer of the table, I found a pencil and opened the journal. I'd made a list of the things that had brought on stirrings of memory.

Andromeda – That had brought back lots of pain. The loss of someone I'd admired weighed down my heart and I heard a girl's voice, sobbing in devastation: "Charlie! Charlie! No!"

Traitor – That word gave me a strange memory. It was another girl's voice, husky with tears. "You stupid Aphrodite girl!" the voice sobbed. "You charged a drakon? Why?" Who charged a drakon, exactly? And why is she so stupid?

Gorgon – The word "gorgon" presented me with two different memories, from two different times, I was sure. In the first, I saw dozens and dozens of giant stone garden gnomes that I later realized weren't just gnomes but people – small children to full-sized adults, young and old, mythical and mortal. The second: a Beanie Baby. That one stumped me.

Empathy – This one intrigued me the most. It had caused a stirring in my head that made me wonder at who my friends were. It also told me that whoever they were, they were looking for me. "…he might have gone to…" a male voice had said. Something stirred in me then, and I remembered the first name of my past: "Grover!" I'd called for no apparent reason in the middle of tracking class.

I added Athena, to my list and next to that wrote: Pretty blond girl, gray eyes. Daughter of Athena. Said "I'm never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain." I felt really happy, then felt myself being thrown into water.

I shut the journal and accidently knocked it off onto the floor. Bending to pick it up, I heard James say, "You remembered something new?" Though James may not have liked me much, he was one of the few who actually seemed to care about my recovery.

"Yeah. Um, it's a daughter of Ath – Minerva," I said, sitting back down on my bed and sliding the journal into the drawer. "She…" I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell James the whole memory. "She called me 'Seaweed Brain.'"

James laughed at that, placing a bookmark in his book and turning to face me. "Seaweed Brain, huh? I like it." There was something wrong with him calling me Seaweed Brain. I wanted to tell him that no one could call me that but her, but I didn't want to get into an argument with him. "So is she your girlfriend or something?"

"I don't know." I ran my hand through my hair.

"Is she pretty?"

I felt a blush creep up into my cheeks. The Roman campers weren't very emotional, and it was rare that any of them cared enough about me to talk to me, and I found myself spilling my thoughts unashamedly to my roommate.

"She's beautiful. She's got this hair… And these eyes… And this smile…!" I gushed. The happiness that I felt before came back to me, muted, but still strong. All of a sudden, I couldn't stop smiling.

"Do you remember her name?" he asked, chuckling but looking cautious, probably knowing that my not knowing her name would upset me.

But I didn't. I shook my head slowly. "No…" I thought hard. "But I want to say that it's Beth or something…"

"Beth…" James mused. He smiled and shook his head. "I just can't see you with a Beth, Perce." That was the first time anyone here called me Perce. I didn't expect it to happen again.

I smiled, too, hiding my face a little from James's eyes.

Beth… I thought. She was gorgeous. After that, I could only think that I needed her. Even not in a romantic way. This Beth might be my girlfriend, but she could just as easily not be. She was at least my friend, though, and I knew she could help me with my memory. I knew that she had answers.

I need to find this girl.