Percy sat on the porch of the big house with Chiron, enjoying a nice light beer, after all he was 18 now, and you could drink at 18 in Greece, in camp was good as Greece right? Well, Chiron seem to think so. It was a warm afternoon, it was December, but it was always warm at camp, and Percy was finally getting to enjoy just being at camp once again. Annabeth came out of the big house, kissed him on the cheek, and went off to go teach some battle strategy class or something. 3 minutes later, Percy spied a familiar sight coming over the hill. If you wasn't mistaken, it was Thalia grace, one of her she's very best friends. He read the meter and nearly tackled her with a giant hug.
"Where are the hunters?" Asked Percy when he noticed she was alone, "I mean you are there lieutenant right?"
"Well," answer Thalia, breaking away from the embrace, "that has a lot to do with why I'm here. I'll explain later when there are more people around so I don't have to explain it more than once. Then the two of them walk back to camp to get Thalia checked in."
That night after dinner Percy, Annabeth, Chiron, and Thalia gathered in the living room of the big house to tell the tale of how she ended up here at Camp alone.
"Well," begin Thalia, "Artemis and I had a huge fight. It was something along the lines of me having to always be in charge and her technically being the leader but never actually being around to lead. She said it was my job is lieutenant, and I said it was her job is Queen of the huntresses. She claimed she had bigger duties on Olympus, but I know better than that, we all do. At the end of it, she said why don't you just leave then, and I said maybe I will, in through the circlet she'd given me after. She was all like if you walk out this camp, your blessing is good as gone, and I was like, that's fine with me. Thankfully, we were only in New Hampshire hunting a White Stag so it wasn't all that far to get here, at least compared to what I've done in the past"
Then Chiron asked, "So that's it? You're no longer immortal? All the years you spent with her we just lost to the wind?"
"Yeah well, my birthday's in a couple days, so I only lost a couple years really. Anyway, that means I get to be the little kid this time," said Thalia punching Percy in the arm and giggling.
"Well anyway," said Annabeth, "fight or no fight it's always nice to have you at camp. Maybe you can teach a course on using a spear in combat. Or maybe on using…"
Thalia cut her off short. "I just want to be a camper for once. I want to go to classes and climb the wall and eat dinner with my friends. I don't want to be worried about teaching or being a leader come I did that for 4 years, I don't want to worry about that for a while."
"I have a great idea," said Percy, "you could tag along with me for a week or so until you get back into the camp mood."
"That sounds like a fun time. But hey, I've got to get to bed it's been a long day".
"Hey, I'm walking back that way, why don't we go back together. I need my sleep too," said Percy.
That night, however, Percy had weird dreams, and for a demigod dreams were never to be taken lightly. He thought Annabeth and Thalia and himself fighting a huge monster when it came out of the ground and killed Annabeth. The scene played over and over again in his head until he couldn't even tell what was real and what was fake. How many times he saw it, he couldn't move I couldn't scream I couldn't save her. The only thing that broke Percy from his terror was a knock at the door.
"Percy!" Shouted Thalia, "you're late for breakfast. Everyone is waiting for you, because you're the senior camp counselor! She ceaselessly pounded on the door, forcing Percy to get up and tell her he was awake."
"I'm up, I'm up, I'm up!" Replied Percy, "I'll be out in just a minute I need to grab a shirt and some pants, he said pulling the door open to see Thalia trying to look the opposite way into his peep hole."
Thalia, looking slightly aggravated, looked down at Percy's Trident print boxers and turned several shades of red. Her electric blue eyes rows up to meet Percy's once again. She stuttered for a moment then darted off to go to breakfast. It then occurred to Percy, that he probably shouldn't have answered the door in his boxers. He threw on a camp half-blood t-shirt, trusty pair of jeans, and the blue jacket Annabeth had gotten for him for his birthday and ran after her.
After the boxer incident, the day went fairly well. Percy and Thalia had a nice time around camp, climbed the wall, went swimming, and had a fun time failing together at the archery range. When dinner rolled around, the two of them were laughing so hard that somebody thought they were the ones who TP'd the Hermes cabin. I mean, that was the Ares cabin, but hey anything to take away Clarisse's ego. Annabeth saw the two of them sitting together at the head table with Chiron, and although she knew she had nothing to worry about between the two of them, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy. After all, she was more athletic, and had that whole punk-chic thing going on, and her breasts were bigger and perkier, and she could make Percy laugh like he hadn't since the titan war. She shrugged off the sight and went to the nightly activities.
That night in capture the flag Percy and Thalia had a great double play bringing home the flag for their team. They ran a dual pinsir position spreading out the other team's defence allowing Percy and Thalia to sneak up to and knock out the guards, taking the flag and that evening at the camp-fire something even more unexpected happened.