[Welcome to Womanhood]

Summary: Annabeth gets an unexpected visitor from Mother Nature (no, not Gaea or Demeter) while on their quest for Zeus's Master Bolt :: AU, set during TLT

Warning(s): Period talk, awkwardness

Pairing(s): Hinted Percabeth (their twelve I'm not going to make them fuck)

Disclaimer: Hey what's that? Oh, it's the rights to PJO and guess what? I don't own them.

A/N This is heavily inspired by the second chapter of "Offday Antics" by Dust in the Light- Crisi in the sense that they are young and an awkward period story happens.

At age ten, Annabeth was told by some older girl campers that when you grow up, you get something called a period.

She knew that blood came out of places blood normally wasn't supposed to come out of, and that when you got it, you were able to get pregnant.

So, when she was twelve and on her first quest trying not to get killed by angry gods, she didn't exactly worry about getting her period.

By now, she had what people called "mosquito bites" on her chest, which would later become... boobs. But then came the blood.

They were staying at Crusty's Beds for awhile after they'd gotten rid of him and Annabeth was in the bathroom, when the spot appeared.

She immediately... wiped and pulled her pants on and ran out, wide-eyed and shaking. "What's wrong?" Percy asked her.

Annabeth stared up at him. "Blood," she muttered and his eyes widened. "What? Where are you-" She cut him off.

"In my underwear..." Her face reddened. Percy's eyes got bigger, if that was even possible.

He never had experience with this kind of thing before- the closest thing to this was finding a box of pads under the sink in his mom's bathroom.

"Do you wanna-?" he gestured to the door and she shrugged.

"We should probably go to the drug store or something," she said defiantly and strode towards the door. "Grover's sleeping and we'll only be there for like, five minutes."

Percy nodded and swallowed hard, following her around the block to the nearest drug store.

Annabeth was taking forever to choose a box of... whatevers. "Can you hurry up, Wise Girl?" Percy groaned. "You're an Athena kid, aren't you supposed to know everything about this stuff?"

The blonde glared at him and he put his hands up in exasperation. "I'm just saying, you would've... bled through your pants by now."

"Tissue," Annabeth muttered, turning red and Percy stood beside her. "Let me help."

His green eyes scanned the shelves, landing on a black box with a girl on the back that read "Pads for normal flow" and he picked it up, along with a blue box that said "Tampons".

He threw them to his companion, and she stared down at them, then glanced up at him. "How would you know to get these?" she asked.

"Instinct... and the boxes looked pretty; mostly the second one." He shrugged. Annabeth smirked.

"I bet you say that to all the girls you buy period stuff for," she smiled then facepalmed. "Oh my Gods that sounded better in my head! So much for being an Athena kid..."

They both walked to the cashier, blushing red, and put them on the conveyor. The lady smiled at them.

"Buying pads and tampons for your girlfriend?" She smirked. They turned even redder and shook their heads.

With Percy standing at five foot three and Annabeth at five foot five, they looked pretty teenager-ish.

"Oh no! We're just friends!" Percy explained. "And we're twelve."

The lady nodded and winked at Annabeth. "Of course." She turned an even deeper shade of red.

The woman handed Percy the boxes and he gave one to Annabeth, hearing her holler a "Thank you for shopping at the Quickie-Mart!" before walking back to Crusty's in the dark and silence, both flushed pink.