"What are you thinking about?" she asks me, brushing her blue-painted toenails along the rim of my shoe. "Your head's up in the clouds again. Quit fooling around up there."

"I love the view from up here, are you kidding me? Warm sun and wind in my ear. Besides, I'm just thinking."

"About?"

"You."

"Oh. Well, let's spend the evening in the clouds together. We'll watch the world from Olympus."

"I love you, did I ever tell you that?"

"Percy, quit being silly. We've only got tonight together, and then it's back to Manhattan for another year. I want to spend it just being with you, and loving you."

"I just told you I loved you. It wasn't silly. And we'll still see each other. From time to time."

"Yeah, but I'm practically across the state. I won't get to see you enough. I've never been in a... relationship before. I don't know how this long term thing works."

I stroke her forehead and lean in for a kiss. "Everything will be fine. We'll be back here at camp before you know it. Besides, we still have the rest of the night."

"Until the morning sun rises, you're going to be mine. And only mine. I won't let you out of my sight, Seaweed Brain."

I pull her close to me, dreading the moment when I have to let go. She reaches out a hand to crank down the volume on Chiron's cruddy old radio, and we lie there like that for what seems like forever.

"Did I ever tell you that you're a goofball, Percy?"

"Many times. Did I ever tell you you're a smart-aleck, Annabeth?"

"Many times."

"You're beautiful too, though." She is. Like a chord strummed on Apollo's lyre, she's poignantly elegant. I twirl her princess curls of hair for a moment, lost in her eyes. I love the deep gray, like a stormy sea. Dad would appreciate my thinking of them like that.

"I love you."

We laugh for a moment, her misty gray eyes rolling in a circle at me, not for the first time and certainly not for the last.

"I'm going to miss you so much, Wise Girl."

"We've still got tonight."

But even we know that tonight won't last forever. I brush the hair out of her eyes and she leans into the kiss, rising up against me like an ocean tide. I smile against her lips, knowing that she's right too. We can pretend that tonight is eternal. A few more hours, please Zeus. Until the morning sun rises, let this beautiful girl remain mine. Leave the music quiet and the air silent, and let us hold this precious moment together for a few more hours.

The moon begins to rise eventually, and I pull her off our bench.

"Dance with me?" I ask her, and she takes my hand in hers. I pull her close, pressing my cheek to the crown of her head, and we sway back and forth. "We'll be back at camp soon," I murmur into her golden hair. "It's only a year."

"A year without you," she adds, and then all of a sudden she's crying silently into my shirt.

"No, no no no. I'll still see you. Every few weeks. We'll fight monsters and read architecture books and talk about our stupid parents." At this, I glance at the sky and pray Athena doesn't catch that last line.

"I can't cry," she mumbles into my shoulder. "It's our last night, and it needs to be perfect. I won't cry."

I lean back, brushing my fingers along her cheeks and wiping away the tears. "It's okay to cry once in a while. The tears will dry before you know it, and then we'll be back together again."

We sit back down again, and talk and laugh and kiss and hold each other tight and sometimes she cries, but it's okay. Then the morning sun rises. Argus arrives, telling me I have to go catch a bus and more than anything else, I don't want to go. I just can't.

But I kiss Annabeth one last time, tenderly, and let go of her gentle hand. I'll see her again before we know it. I have to.

As I walk up the crest of the hill, past Thalia's tree, I'm still humming that stupid old song on Chiron's radio. Something about the Rhythm of Love.