A/N Hiya guys! I know I said it's an AU, but all I meant by that was that Jason and Piper are not dating and never were!

Enjoy!

Jason grabbed the flag from its place upon Zeus' fist and jumped back to the ground. He landed lightly in between the groaning sentries, and then took off at a run.

The creek, the boundary line, drew closer and closer as he raced towards it, the pink flag whistling in the breeze. He could just about make out a patch of light blue breaking through the trees on the other side: someone had got his own flag.

Putting on a burst of speed, he called the winds ho help him go faster. Twenty metres, ten. The other group was getting nearer too, but at a much slower rate. He saw Percy and a few Athena campers stumble out of the trees behind them, but they wouldn't make it in time to stop the group.

Five metres. Then:

"Turn left!"

He obeyed without thinking, and flew straight into a tree. Collapsed against the trunk, he could only watch helplessly as the small party carried his flag across the creek and it turned pink too. The lightning bolt rippled and became a dove.

The girl at the head of the group; the one carrying the flag, who had shouted, crouched down before him.

"You'll have to be better than that to beat my cabin, Grace."

She stood up, exchanged high fives with her cabin mates, and walked off laughing, her brown braid swishing behind her.

"I hate her..." Jason grumbled as Percy stretched out a hand to pull him up. "What did I ever do?"

"Dunno, mate." There was something pink on Percy's face, and his eyes were unfocused.

Annabeth walked up to Percy and kissed him passionately. One of the Stoll brothers wolf whistled.

"Um... guys? Guys?!"

They broke apart, and the smudge on Percy's face was gone.

Annabeth grinned. "I just had to make sure Drew hadn't got to him properly..."

That explained the lipstick .

"Anyway, Grace, are we teaming up again next week?" Percy rubbed the back of his neck. He was blushing slightly.

"You bet, Jackson. We gotta beat them soon. Who knew Aphrodite was so powerful?"

Lou Ellen walked up at that moment. "Nice flying, Jason!" She giggled. "Just, you know, watch out for trees."

"I- I- I didn't choose to fly into a tree, Lou!"

As if to add insult (and more injury) to injury, the flag chose that minute to fall out of the tree and onto Jason's head.

Percy laughed. Annabeth tried to stifle it, but pretty soon she was laughing too.

XxX

At dinner, the entire camp seemed to have heard about the tree incident. Sitting alone at table 1, Jason could hear giggles and the occasional jibing comment. To cap it all off, various people stood up all through the meal, shouting at him to "Turn left!".

On her table, the cause of all of this sat and joked with the rest of her cabin. Table 10 all wore golden laurel wreaths in their hair, due to their winning capture the flag, and had dressed to accent this. They drew the eye on any normal day, but now...

Jason glowered at their counseler's back.

You won today, McLean, he cast his thoughts towards her. But I'll get back to you...

Piper glanced in his direction and chuckled again.

A/N So if you didn't already guess, there is a rivalry between the two. I'm not sure how this is going to develop, but please tell me what you thought!

~Fi

(BookFiend)