Music of the Gods

A by UndeniablyMe

Full Summery: Short, one-shot like things inspired by some of my favorite songs. Involves the characters Annabeth, Percy, Grover, Juniper, and more to come.

A/n: Hey there all! This is all more of an… experiment than anything, to see if I'm any good at writing PJO fics. I thought that it'd be fun to see if anyone actually would like the ones I write. So, I guess that it'd be up to you if you do like them. Enjoy, and tell me if it's any good. :D

-UndeniablyMe ;)

Valentine's Day- Linkin Park

February 14th was a day that Annabeth absolutely despised with a burning passion enviable of that of the forges of Hephaestus. There was a good reason for all of it too. February meant that it was cold, even if she was in San Francisco, and February meant that it was still five months until she could go back to Camp Half-Blood; five months until she'd get to walk down by not just any beach but their beach, and five months until she'd get to see… She didn't finish the thought.

Annabeth sat, staring out her window to the suburbs that surrounded her. It was hard to sit there sometimes and stare out her window and tell herself that, no, she didn't imagine everything that had ever happened in her life. In Suburbia, it was extremely hard to believe that Camp Half-Blood wasn't just some dream/nightmare that she had dreamed up, but there were always reminders tying her back to a past that, sometimes, she would like to forget. For instance, the celestial bronze knife she was twisting over and over in her hands, examining the brilliant metal it was crafted of and the Yankees cap that was stuffed in her back jeans pocket. And the picture...

Her eyes averted back to her bedroom mirror and she sighed, a smile coming to her face despite everything. It was a picture of her, Percy and Grover taken at the end of the last summer, the day before all of them had gone their separate ways. Grover had a tin can in his mouth and looked a little, for lack of a better word, sheepish at being caught sneaking another can. You could see Juniper's hand in his, though she had managed to shy away from the camera at the last second, and Grover looked happier than he had in a long, long time. But the real point of the picture that made her smile was what her and Percy were doing.

Percy was giving a half, slightly lopsided, grin, and his arm was cautiously around her shoulder while she shot him a sideways look, eyebrows raised, but with a smile on her face too. At that point, they had been avoiding each other because things had become so complicated between them. Moments when her and Percy were together, at the end, were rare. It hurt, she remembered, to be with him because all she could think of was the choice she'd soon have to make. It hurt to be away though, at the same time, because all she did was wish she was with him. Like she was now...

Today was a horrible day to be thinking of it all though. It was Valentine's Day, and she'd hardly slept a wink the night before. Usually her dreams were tormented with the indecision that she usually nursed between the choice she'd have to make, but last night's had been, if possible, slightly more horrifying.

The first half was the life that she had imagined with Luke; the one that the Sirens had showed her in the Sea of Monsters. The beautiful buildings, her mother and father, and most of all... Luke. Luke, loving her and holding her hand, Luke, being as wonderful as she knew he could be, Luke, as he should be. Luke... Luke... Luke... She wished that things were like that now, and something told her that if she chose, when the time came, to save Luke things could be like she imagined. She and Luke could be a possibility... She could change him...

But then, that left life without Percy. And life without Percy was an extremely painful thing to imagine.

The second half of the dream had showed what life could be like with Percy. Things were fuzzy, hard to make out, and hard to understand, but she knew that it had to do somewhat with what Percy would chose too. Percy was his own person, and he'd never wait to be acted upon. That much she knew. And that was something she loved most about him. He was like the sea, changeable, unpredictable, strangely beautiful, dangerous, and yet... comforting.

And then the dream had taken a dark turn. She had seen Percy... and he was gone... And she was alone.

I used to be my own protection, Annabeth thought to herself, clenching her fists and creating a small cut in her palm. She looked down at her blood and anger pulsed in her mind. What's happened to me? A daughter of Athena shouldn't have to bend to the will of something as trivial as love.

She knew why this dream had come to her, and she knew it had nothing to do with Janus or Hera torturing her. It was all Aphrodite's doing. And right then, that goddess seemed even more dangerous than Hades.

"Valentine's Day sucks," she said out loud, moving away from the window. "And I don't care if you did hear me."

It started raining outside, and she figured that she had heard her.

Five months, she repeated to herself. Five months…

A/n: Well... That's all here! You know what to do now... Or, at least, what you should do. :D See you all around!

-UndeniablyMe ;)