Author's Note: I know Annabeth is a little out of character as she would never allow the events that follow to happen. My only excuse is that she was sleep deprived and had a lot on her mind.

Annabeth, Makeup, and Fireworks

"No!" Annabeth shouted. "I won't subject myself to being treated like a Barbie doll."

Silena rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Percy will think you're a knockout," the daughter of Aphrodite tried to tempt her. "I'll bet he'll ask you to the fireworks tonight."

Annabeth glared at Silena. "I don't care what Percy thinks."

Secretly, she wondered if Percy would ask her to the fireworks if she changed her appearance. She stared hard at the other girl in front of her critically, taking in the tastefully designed dress and the gobs of makeup Silena wore that somehow enhanced her already beautiful features.

Annabeth mentally shook her head. Hades would freeze over before she allowed anyone to come close to her with a compact. She kept repeating to herself that she didn't care what Percy thought.

Silena tried a different tactic. "You're very beautiful, Annabeth, and makeup will only highlight your features, I promise."

"I don't care," Annabeth remained persistently stubborn.

Silena sighed to herself. Now was the time to use her secret weapon, she sent a quick prayer to her mother that they wouldn't ruin everything.

While Annabeth was distracted with waving to a fellow camper, she gave Travis and Connor the signal they'd been waiting for while goofing around near their cabin. Silena knew Annabeth's fatal flaw was pride and she was going to use her flaw against her to get Annabeth to wear makeup. Maybe even a new set of clothes.

The Stoll brothers had readily agreed to help the daughter of Aphrodite for the price of a small amount of permanent makeup. While the makeup wasn't actually permanent it did take a very long time to get off. Silena shuddered to think of such a thing in the hands of Travis and Connor, but desperate times calls for desperate measures.

The dark haired teenager surreptitiously watched as they bounded over to the two girls.

"What's up?" Connor asked.

"The sky," Annabeth replied at the same time Silena answered, "Annabeth won't let me put makeup on her," she pouted delicately. Sherman from Ares cabin passed by them on his way to the Arena for his sword fighting class and fainted at the sight of her. Silena frowned to herself and made a mental note to stop pouting since it seemed to have an unusual affect on some guys.

Travis winked at his brother conspiratorially. "Then she probably wouldn't want to know what we overheard Percy saying to Grover." They started to walk away when Annabeth stopped them.

"What did Percy say?" she tried to act casual and uninterested. To Silena's ears she sounded like she was one step away from punching someone in the face. The daughter of Aphrodite surreptitiously moved farther away until the Stoll brothers were between her and Annabeth.

"What'll you give us to tell you?" Connor grinned.

"I won't bribe the Apollo kids to curse the Hermes cabin with bad haiku for a day," Annabeth suggested menacingly.

"Fair enough," Travis hurriedly jumped in before Connor could protest. He'd been on the receiving end of the haiku curse before and for some reason he had only been able wax poetry in Japanese. Asking to be excused from Greek lessons to go to the bathroom had been a nightmare. "He told Grover he wishes you'd wear makeup sometimes."

"You made that up!" Annabeth accused.

Silena rolled her eyes again. She should have made them practice what to say because there was no way Annabeth would ever believe that.

"Honest!" Connor said. "We totally heard him say that." He shoved his brother on the shoulder, smirking. "Tell her what we told Percy."

Travis shook his head and grinned. "Nah, she'd get mad at us."

Annabeth frowned suspiciously. "And why would I get mad at you two?" Her stare could have made grown men cry.

"Because—" Travis clamped his hand over his brother's mouth.

"Tell me!" Annabeth demanded.

Travis sighed dramatically and removed his hand.

"We told him you didn't have the guts to wear makeup," Connor blurted out.

Silena groaned and clapped her slender hand to her forehead. "All right, you can go now." She started to shoo them away, seething at their pathetic attempts to wound Annabeth's pride.

"Wait!" Annabeth stopped her. "What did Percy say after that?"

Travis shrugged. "He said, 'I guess you're right'."

Annabeth's hands clenched into fists. "I have the guts to wear makeup," she snarled. "I just think it's a waste of valuable time."

"Right," Conner grinned. "You don't have to justify yourself to us— "

"— we're on your side," Travis finished.

"I don't need to wear makeup!"

The Stoll brothers held up their hands simultaneously. "It's not our fault everyone thinks you're too scared to put on a little makeup," Travis replied.

"Everyone?" Annabeth turned to give Silena a hard look.

"Well," Silena seemed to choose her words with care. "Why else would you refuse to let me put some on you?"

"Some friend you are," Annabeth scowled. "I'll show you. I'll show Percy and all of you that I'm not scared. Come on Silena." With that Annabeth purposely marched toward the Aphrodite cabin.

"You two are geniuses!" Silena squealed excitedly. "At first I didn't think it was going to work, but—wow!"

"Of course we're geniuses," Travis held out his hand. "Our payment?"

Silena handed him a medium sized makeup case and planted a kiss on their cheeks, smearing red lipstick on them. For a moment they looked slightly dazed, then hurriedly wiped the lip print off.

"Ah, gross!"

"Yuck!"

Silena laughed at them and dashed off to catch up with Annabeth, leaving Travis and Connor to open the makeup case and grin evilly at each other.

Four hours later:

"I feel ridiculous," Annabeth self-consciously tugged on her new way-too-short shorts.

"You look gorgeous!" Silena gushed.

"I look like a flamingo," Annabeth touched her pink spaghetti shoulder strap blouse, thinking that Hades must have indeed frozen over for her to look this silly.

"Percy will love the new look," Silena reminded her.

Annabeth made a face at her reflection. She hardly recognized the girl grimacing back. Silena had curled her hair, piling it high on top of her head like a bird's nest, leaving some curls around her ears and—did Silena call that a little makeup? It looked like tons to her. Leave it to a daughter of Aphrodite to not know what only a little bit of makeup meant.

"I've changed my mind," Annabeth said.

She heard Silena's siblings snickering at her and chose to ignore them in favor of edging toward the bathroom to wash her face before anyone else saw how absurd she looked.

"Nope," Silena steered her away from the bathroom. "I didn't go through all that trouble for you to wash off my masterpiece. Besides, you only have an hour until the fireworks start." She gave her a shove toward the door. "Go find Percy."

"It would have been simpler if we had used a love spell," Drew said condescendingly. Silena shot her a glare and hustled the daughter of Athena out of the cabin.

Annabeth took in a deep breath, enjoying the fresh aroma of strawberries wafting from the fields. The mixture of perfume smells in there had been giving her a headache. She glanced over at her cabin wondering if she could make it before anyone noticed her.

"Don't even think about it," Silena had a firm grip on her arm. "Trust me, you look beautiful."

"I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb," Annabeth muttered.

Jake Mason from Cabin 11 happened to be walking by at that moment and glanced at her. "Hey Annabeth!"

"Hey," she muttered, relieved he hadn't noticed anything different about her. Then as if realizing what he was seeing, Jake stopped in his tracks and stared at her. His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish.

Annabeth felt her face heating up. "What are you staring at?"

"Um, nothing," he managed to squeak out and hurried away, turning to look back at her with a wide eyed expression and collided into a tree. A dryad melted out of the trunk and proceeded to give the confused demigod a severe dressing down.

Silena giggled.

"Oh gods! This is humiliating."

"Almost there," Silena wrapped her arm around Annabeth's waist.

They were headed toward the Arena where Percy spent most of his free time practicing his sword fighting skills. They found him with Michael Yew from Apollo cabin. Michael held his sword up in front of him like he was afraid it would turn into a snake and bite him, so Percy probably wasn't getting much practice done.

"Keep your sword up," Percy instructed.

"I don't want to do this anymore," Michael complained. "Can't we practice archery or something?"

Percy looked like he was having difficulty controlling his temper. "Dude, I need the practice and so do you." He swung Riptide at Michael and the boy shrieked, dropping his sword on the ground.

"I give up," he said holding his hands in a time-out gesture.

"Michael!"

Silena disappeared as Annabeth nervously walked over to the two boys. "Hi," she said tentatively.

Percy and Michael stopped and stared opened mouthed at her. She glared at Michael and he got the hint. "Uh, see you later, Percy." He glanced between them at Percy's guppy impersonation and Annabeth's glower, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "So, yeah, I'll just go." He took off, not once glancing back.

"Shut your mouth, Seaweed Brain, before you attract flies."

Percy closed his mouth, though his eyes were still bugged out. "Annabeth?"

"Who else would it be?" she asked scornfully, her face getting redder by the second.

Percy blinked several times. "Are you— you're wearing makeup and a pink shirt." He rubbed his eyes like he thought he was dreaming.

"Yes," she said shortly. Percy continued to stare uncomprehendingly and she cleared her throat nervously, tugging on her shorts before pulling out her sword. "Are we going to stand here all day or are we going to fight?"

Too stunned to say anything, Percy held up Riptide and Annabeth swung her sword at him. She disarmed him in ten seconds.

"What's the matter with you? I haven't beaten you this fast since the first time we fought together." Annabeth was seriously regretting letting Silena talk her into changing her appearance.

Percy shook his head slowly, still unable to talk, which was unlike him. If this were a normal day he would have laughed and said he'd surrendered on purpose. Finally, he broke his silence. "Why are you dressed like that?"

Annabeth shoved her sword hard into the ground. "I thought you wanted me to look like this," she ground out, wishing she could punch something.

Percy blinked again. "I don't know where you heard that from."

"You mean I am wearing this stupid outfit for nothing?"

Percy blushed and scuffed the dirt with his shoe. "You look hot. It's just not you," he gestured to her entire body. "You look like an Aphrodite wannabe."

They stared at each other for several moments, then Annabeth laughed and Percy gave her a puzzled smile. "I'm going to kill Travis and Connor, maybe even Silena while I'm at it."

"Why?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Chiron might think it matters when some of the campers go missing," Percy joked.

They heard a girl laugh and turned to see a couple heading toward the beach to watch the fireworks in a half hour. Annabeth glanced back at Percy. He was running his fingers through his hair, messing it up and looking extremely uncomfortable.

"What?"

"So, um…want to go to the fireworks with me?" He made eye contact with her and blushed again.

Annabeth smiled. "Sure Seaweed Brain, let me change my clothes and wash this stuff off first."

"Cool, I'll meet you there."

Annabeth ran to her cabin, scrubbed her face and soaked her hair to get the curls out, then tossed on some jeans and a t-shirt. She stood in front of the mirror and smiled, feeling much more like herself.

At the beach she found Percy sitting on a blanket with Grover and sat down in between them glumly. So, much for it being a date. "Hey Grover," she tried to sound cheerful.

Grover chewed on a Diet Coke can and flashed her a toothy smile. "What's this I hear about you wearing makeup and pink clothes?"

Annabeth glared at Percy and he held up his hands. "I didn't tell him."

"I heard it from a dryad," Grover said casually. "Earlier today, Jake Mason walked into her tree and babbled something about seeing you with makeup and a pink shirt. She sent him to the infirmary to have his head checked out."

"You can't believe everything you hear," Annabeth said disdainfully. "Imagine me wearing something like that."

Grover shrugged and bit into another can.

Percy looked at her out of the corner of his eye and Annabeth sent him a death stare, warning him to keep his mouth shut. "I don't know," he ignored her message. "I think I could imagine it."

"I can't," Grover snorted. "That would be something to see though. If we were allowed to use the internet around here I would post a picture to facespace."

Annabeth wanted to ring Percy's neck. "It's facebook," she growled, keeping her eyes focused on Percy.

Grover shrugged again and looked up at the sky, thinking they should be starting any second.

Percy grinned at her before turning his attention upward as the first firework was released and burst into a kaleidoscope of color in the shape of Hercules fighting the Nemean Lion. Around them, campers shouted excitedly and clapped.

Annabeth leaned back to get comfortable and watch the show. She promised herself that no one would ever be able to convince her to wear makeup again. And she really needed to work on her fatal flaw. It always got her into trouble.