"Come on, Annabeth! It's not that bad!" I protested, staring in exasperation at my beautiful, stubborn girlfriend.
She shook her head. "No way, Percy. I can't even stand that well in these stupid things, what makes you think I can walk around on ice with them on?"
I skated over to her. "I'll hold your hand," I offered.
"No way. You'd just knock me down and laugh at me."
Dang. She was smart.
"Only once or twice," I promised, but she shook her head.
"No, Percy. There is no way I am going ice skating with you!"
"Annabeth, it's not even that hard!" I protested, skating around the canoe lake twice just to prove my point.
"For you!" she called. "You're the son of Poseidon, anything on water comes easily to you!"
I sighed and looked up at the sky. It was an unusually cold day for Camp Half-Blood. Chiron had allowed the temperature to drop and snow and ice to form inside the borders in an attempt to get us all into the Christmas spirit. And it had worked, sort of. Most campers were preparing for a huge snowball fight over by the dining pavilion, but I was trying to get Annabeth to go ice skating with me.
And failing miserably.
"Look, Annabeth, it's Christmas. Come on! I'll be nice, I promise," I said, skating over and sitting down next to her at the edge of the ice. Still, she shook her head stubbornly. I decided to use my best persuasion tool.
"Please?" I mumbled, leaning in close to her, pressing my face into her neck.
"No."
"Please, Annabeth?" I mumbled again, slowly kissing my way up her neck to the sensitive spot under her ear (I only know that because she hit it with an earring once, OK? Stop being perverted!).
"N-no," she said, but I felt her shiver and grinned.
"Come on, you know you want to," I teased, kissing her jawline, working my way toward her lips.
"Percy..." she said, and I could sense victory. She turned her head towards me as I got to her cheek, but I pulled back.
"Come ice skating first, Wise Girl, then we'll see."
She glared at me. "Fine."
"Yes!" I cheered, helping her to her feet. She wobbled a little, but I helped her find her balance, and she took a few steps on the snow before deciding to tackle the lake.
"If you let me go, Percy, Tartarus will look lame compared to me," she threatened. I laughed.
"I won't let you go. Promise." Not that I could if I wanted to. Her hand was a vise on mine. But I didn't say that.
She carefully put first one foot, then the other onto the ice, still gripping my hand tightly. She tried to move one foot and promptly lost her balance. I held her up from behind as she repositioned her feet, my chin on her shoulder.
"There. It's not that bad, is it?" I asked, nuzzling her neck again. She wobbled dangerously and gasped.
"Yes it is! What idiot thought of the idea to put people on blades, and then put them on ice?"
"Obviously not a child of Athena," I quipped. I could tell she wanted to cause me bodily harm, but she wouldn't let go of me long enough to do it.
"Percy Jackson, you are so...so..."
"Handsome? Amazing? Why yes, I am," I replied, smirking at the expression on her face.
"How about infuriating? Or annoying?" she shot back.
"Ouch." I pretended to be hurt, moving away from her while still holding one of her hands.
"Percy! Don't let me go!" she gasped as she slid forward a little on the ice.
"Come on, Wise Girl," I said. "Let's try moving."
I didn't wait for her to protest, I just took her other hand and then slowly began skating backward, causing her to slide forward a little. She wobbled again, but managed to balance her weight. I did this around the entire lake, and not once did she look up at me and smile, like I was hoping she would. Instead, she stared at her feet intensely the whole time, working on keeping her weight balanced.
When we got back to the place where we'd started, I stopped moving and tugged on her, trying to bring her closer to me so I could hug her. Unfortunately, she had relaxed, not realizing what I was going to do, and she went tumbling down on the ice.
"PERCY JACKSON, YOU IDIOT!" she yelled. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?"
"I'm sorry, Annabeth, I wasn't trying to!"
"Then what were you trying to do?"
"Pull you closer so I could kiss you," I said, leaning down to help her back up. She just glared at me and proceded to try to crawl to the edge of the lake.
"What are you doing?" I asked, skating along behind her slowly.
"I'm getting off this stupid lake," she snapped. "I never should have listened to you!"
"Oh, come on, Annabeth," I complained. "It's our first day together in four months, and it's almost Christmas. Quit acting like a Grinch. Falling's part of learning, after all."
She stopped and stared at me. For a second, I was afraid she was going to punch me. But instead, she sighed.
"You're right," she admitted.
"Whoa, wait, what? Did you just admit I was right? Somebody get me a recorder, I want to record this!"
"Shut up, Seaweed Brain," she said, a small smile on her lips. "It's just...it's always been really hard for me to fail at something I'm trying hard to do. It stems from my fatal flaw."
"Hubris," I remembered.
She nodded. "Deadly pride. Thinking you can do anything. If I find something I can't do, even if I try, I automatically reject it and never do it again."
I sat down next to her on the ice and took her hand.
"How do you know you've really tried? You've only gone around once," I pointed out. She leaned her head on my shoulder.
"I guess you're right. I just...I still don't understand why someone put a person on a blade, and then on ice."
"Because it's fun," I said. "As soon as you figure out how to do it, it really is fun."
"And how many bruises will I have tomorrow?" she asked me, a small smile on her lips.
"Probably a lot. But that's what ambrosia's for," I reminded her. She sighed.
"Alright. Help me back up," she said, and I got quickly to my feet, then took her hand. Very, very carefully, I helped her to her feet, then made sure she had her balance.
"You good?" I asked her after a few minutes.
"Yeah, I think so," she said, smiling at me.
"Good," I replied, and then leaned in to kiss her. "Because that's what I was originally going to do."
She laughed, her gray eyes sparkling in the winter sunlight, her nose cherry red from the cold. I kissed it, too, and she smiled.
"Come on, Seaweed Brain, teach me how to do this."
So I did. We spent almost two hours out there on the ice because Annabeth was so determined to get it right. She fell several more times (which resulted in several more kisses), but towards the end, she got it. She was good enough that we could skate around the rink holding hands, without my hand losing circulation.
Finally, Chiron came down to warn us that there was only about a half hour until dinner, and we decided to call it quits so we could each get in a shower before dinner.
"Ice skating is a real workout," Annabeth said as we skated toward the edge of the pond.
"Yeah," I said, wiping my forehead. "Especially when you're teaching a daughter of Athena to do it."
"Shut up, Seaweed Brain," she said, smacking me. "You know you love it - oh!"
Her smack had set her off balance, and she tumbled toward the ice again. "Dang it!" she cried in frustration. "I almost made it an entire half hour without falling down!"
"Hey, it's alright," I said, squatting down next to her. "We can practice again tomorrow, if you want."
"Really?" she asked, her gray eyes bright with excitement.
"Of course," I said. "We've got nothing better to do."
She threw her arms around me and kissed me. When she drew away, her eyes were sparkling with excitement.
"If this is the reaction I'm going to get, we'll be going ice skating a whole lot more," I informed her as I helped her to her feet and we skated the last few feet to the edge of the pond. She just laughed.
"Don't get used to it, Seaweed Brain," she said as we took off our skates and put on our boots. I stuck my tongue out at her, but we held hands on the way up the hill.
"I'm looking forward to the campfire tonight," she said as we approached the cabins. "It's going to be so much fun."
"Yeah," I agreed. "Roasting marshmallows in front of a fire. Just like we do every night."
"You're hopeless," she grumbled as we reached the Athena cabin.
"But you love me," I reminded her. She rolled her eyes.
"Whatever, Percy. I'll see you later."
"See you," I said, watching her as she walked to the door. "Hey Annabeth, wait!" I called a few moments later.
"What?" she asked, already at the opened door of her cabin. So all her cabinmates would witness this. Oh, well.
"You forgot something," I called, walking toward her. She frowned.
"What?"
"This," I replied, running over to her and swinging her in the air. When I set her down, I pulled her in for a kiss. She kissed me back, and I tangled my hands through her hair, enjoying the feeling of her lips on mine. Even after four months of being together, her smell still made my heart race and our kisses still made me short of breath.
"Ah-hem."
We broke apart to see the entirety of the Athena cabin watching us. In the front was Malcolm, the guy who'd walked in on us last time. He was grinning broadly, though, and so was everybody else. Annabeth's face turned bright red, and I'm sure mine did, too.
"Yes?" I asked. Malcolm just smirked at me.
"We would have let you continue, but there are youngsters in here, and we'd all like to get to the showers before dinner," he said.
"I'm coming, Malcolm," Annabeth said, then turned back to me. "I'll see you at dinner, she said, then kissed my cheek gently before disentangling herself and heading back to her cabin. I watched her go, then headed to the Poseidon cabin, a broad smile still on my face.
Not to sound really cheesy or cliche, but it really had been a perfect afternoon.