AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hiya, peeps! :D This is just some random idea that got into my head when I was feeling REAAAL down and depressed. Hopefully, it's not going to be short. :))) It's also gonna be switching times and dates a lot...but...enjoy! (Oh, and please review, too! ;P)

Disclaimer: I SOOOOO do not own either the Percy Jackson or Heroes of Olympus series...unfortunately... ;(

CHAPTER I

ANNABETH

One Year Ago

"Why are you going? And why is she going, too?" Annabeth Chase demanded from her bed in the overcrowded infirmary of Camp Half-Blood.

Percy couldn't meet her eyes. Being his girlfriend, she knew that that wasn't a good sign. And being his girlfriend, she liked the fact that she was a little intimidating in his eyes. After all, you never knew when you would have to glare down your boyfriend to make him pay attention to your monster-killing battle plans.

"Why are you going?" Annabeth repeated. "Why can't somebody else go?"

"Um, hello, Wise Girl?" he said. "Life-risking quest here. Goal: Find a bunch of giants in hiding and kill them. Piece of cake."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. Percy was so obnoxious sometimes, it surprised even her how she was able to cope with him for so long.

"You're avoiding my question," she accused.

Percy sighed. "OK, so I get that you're worried, but I'll come back." His sea-green eyes flickered upward at her, crinkling in that familiar troublemaker smirk of his. "Promise."

"You might not," said Annabeth. "As you said, this is dangerous."

"I said life-risking," he said.

"Same difference. Anyway, you don't have to go, you know. You've done so much already—you've defeated Gaea; you've helped in both the Second Titan War and the Second Gigante War. Plus, you helped on the quest of seven, and if you hadn't been in Tartarus with me, I would be dead by now."

His smirk melted. "This should be my responsibility. I know it is. Rachel said—"

Annabeth's cold glare silenced him. He didn't seem to know why she was suddenly mad at him, but she was, and that was, for him, terrifying. After watching—with satisfaction—her boyfriend quail under her gaze for several minutes, she relaxed into the pillows, letting him off the hook for now. Seeing your boyfriend squirm nervously under your gaze was a huge morale-booster, she thought contentedly.

"Remind me again why Dare, of all people, will travel with you."

"Uh, she can warn me about things before they happen?" he suggested.

"She can't fight," said Annabeth. Boys, she thought. Seriously, how clueless were they?

"I can," Percy said.

Annabeth snorted in derision. "Yeah. You and a mortal girl versus a bunch of giants? Puh-lease. You'd be in the soup before you could get a chance to learn how to tie your shoelaces."

Involuntarily, Percy looked down at his sneakers. The shoelaces were untied.

"Well, I'm not the son of the god of shoelaces," grumbled Percy. "You can't expect me to be able to do everything."

"And I'm not the daughter of the goddess of pepperoni pizza and tangerines, but I still eat them, don't I?" Annabeth felt proud that she had scored a valid point in the argument.

"But you can make onion soup," Percy said.

Annabeth frowned at this. Had her boyfriend gone nuts? She hoped not, although the signs were starting to show. It would certainly make her life a tad harder if she had to break in into an insane asylum and sneak Percy out. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"You're the daughter of the goddess of onions," said Percy in an obvious, drawling tone, the way one would say that A was the first letter in the English alphabet.

OK, so it seemed that no asylum break-ins would be staged yet.

"No, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth said patiently, "Athena's the goddess of olives, not onions."

"Ohhhh…" Percy looked enlightened, understanding finally dawning upon him. "OK."

"So, back to your giant-hunting quest," Annabeth prompted.

"Right. OK." Percy inhaled deeply. "Rachel and I are going to hunt down the giants and kill them."

"You need a god. You know; god and demigod working together? Or have you forgotten all about that?"

Percy snorted. "Hardly. So, I've got the Hephaestus kids working on a statue of Terminus. They're fixing him up so that he'll be an automaton, 'cause carrying a life-size statue around would be exhausting."

"Why Terminus?" Annabeth's curiosity was aroused. "He's not a very nice chap."

"No," he agreed, "but since he and I worked together first, and the nearest statues we could find were all of him, he's gonna be my godly travel buddy."

"And Rachel's coming," Annabeth said, "but apparently, I'm not." She reinforced this last statement with a renewed glower.

"That's 'cause you're wounded," Percy pointed out.

Annabeth huffed. He was right. She had just undergone surgery to remove the pieces of shrapnel stuck in her back, and boy had it hurt!

"Not my fault I stood in front of the bomb," she complained. "Take me, Percy. Come on, it's been two months since the war. I'm fine."

"Nope." Percy shook his head adamantly. He was unsure about many things, but this was not one of them. Unfortunately. "If you were fine, you wouldn't be in a bed in the infirmary, would you now?"

Annabeth had to appraise his logic. The war with Gaea and the giants had cost them many campers for both camps and many more were injured to varying degrees. The infirmary at Camp Half-Blood was flooded with the wounded and the dying, although it had gotten better over the past two months. Still, only the seriously wounded were treated to beds.

"Fine," she said, reluctant to let her reckless boyfriend go off on some harebrained journey around the world with only a statue of a pompous god and a mortal human girl to keep him away from death. Especially the mortal human girl. "When are you coming back?"

"Dunno. When I learn how to tie my shoelaces?" Percy laughed; she didn't. As far as she was concerned, he was heading straight for the Underworld, and that was nothing to joke about. "I am coming back, Wise Girl."

"If you don't," threatened Annabeth with a shaky voice, "I'll…I'll kill you. I'll strangle you with my bare hands."

"When you get out of bed, maybe."

"Hey!" Annabeth crossed her arms, glad that he didn't seem to notice her misting eyes. "At least you don't have to watch me drool all over the pillows and bed sheets."

Percy groaned at that. "Don't mention it. I beg of you, don't mention it ever again."

"Embarrassed, Seaweed Brain?"

"You wish."

"OK, I won't mention it." He let out a relieved sigh. "On one condition: Come back to me in one piece."

"Jeez, you're worse than my mom, Annabeth."

Her chin trembled infinitesimally, but Annabeth kept her voice steady. It wouldn't do for Percy to see her cry, she thought. "Percy Jackson, I am completely serious."

"OK, OK."

"Swear it."

"That I'll return?" Percy's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Isn't that a little over the top?"

Not if you'll return to me alive and well, thought Annabeth.

"Swear it on the River Styx or I'm not letting you go." Her mouth puckered distastefully. "Especially not with Rachel Elizabeth Dare."

"We've gathered a group of giant-hunting buddies to come with," said Percy. "Don't worry; I'll come back in one piece."

Thank the gods they would have backup. He wasn't such a no-brainer as she had originally thought—he was quite smart sometimes. "Sorry, but I don't think I heard you swear yet."

"OK, whatever. I swear on the River Styx that I'll, um, come back. To you. Alive."

Annabeth closed her gray eyes, satisfied at last. She still had a very bad feeling about this quest—but nowadays, she had a very bad feeling about approximately everything, so her gut instinct needed to get repaired before she listened to it again. It was not a bad omen that Percy had unsuccessfully dodged the oath, she told herself. In a few months, her boyfriend would be back. Alive. And well. And preferably with pizza with extra olives—but then again, that was optional.

"Annabeth…" Percy sounded nervous.

A big, red UH-OH sign flashed through Annabeth's mind. She knew that tone, and it was not going to be anything good. She opened her eyes slowly; warily. Something big was up.

"Yes?" she asked cautiously.

Percy grimaced. "Uh…Annabeth…um… can…I…"

"What is it?"

"Erm, Annabeth, can you teach me how to tie my shoelaces?"

Annabeth was stumped. "That's what made you go into stuttering mode?" she asked incredulously.

"Well…" Percy scratched his windswept black hair, a guilty look on his face. It was the kind of look which said: Uh-oh, I'm in trouble. I broke a window by accident and now I'm seriously screwed and that made responsible moms—or really mature (and undeniably awesome) girlfriends—around the world fret about what had been smashed this time.

"What have you done this time? It's not the shoelaces—I can tell."

"That's part of it!" he defended. "Um, so…what if I don't come back?"

That should have alerted Annabeth to the changes ahead; to the bumps in the road that they would try to swerve around, but would fail and crash the car. It should have. But it didn't.

Not back then.

Not back then, when things were still good.