A/N Ello. So, this is one with our darling Seaweed Brain. Its set after the war with Gaia...Aria is my OC, we're going to pretend that Paul had a daughter from a previous marriage, alright? ;) :P Enjoy!

Disclaimer: If I owned PJO, I would have given Percy a sister :P. So, its pretty obvious that I don't own anything except my OC.

Percy's POV

Percy came home to an empty house...which was weird because his step sister was supposed to be at home. His day at school had been long and exhausting (apparently, saving the world from Mother Earth herself didn't count as extra credit) and all he wanted to do was eat and IM Annabeth and convince her to come over and forget about his trig homework. But first, he had to find his missing step sister.

Not many people knew (heck, he didn't know until he came back home after defeating Gaia) but Paul had a daughter from his previous marriage, a 14 year old girl with long black hair, dark brown eyes and enough sarcasm to shut Thalia up (probably). She used to live with Paul's ex-wife, but after a court trial involving drug usage, Paul was given custody of her. Aria and Percy barely knew each other (courtesy Hera's little cross country exchange program and the end of the world and what not) but they got along fairly well. She knew about demigods ('I KNEW you weren't human!' had been her reaction) and had clear sight.

She went to a regular public school and was usually at home 15 minutes before Percy. Which brought him back to the problem at hand...he couldn't see her anywhere.

Percy's heart rate accelerated as he looked around the apartment. She wasn't in the living room, or the kitchen or the dining room. Thoughts of evil monsters who kidnapped anybody they could find in association with heroes they wanted dead floated around in his head. He was on the verge of a full on panic attack when he noticed the door of Aria's room shut.

Mentally cursing himself for being so stupid, Percy tapped the door.

"Aria? You there?"

"Yeah?" came her reply, her voice sounding hoarse and strangled.

"You okay?" Percy asked, worried. He'd known the girl for 3 weeks, but even then, he'd never seen her so much as frown. Now she sounded like she had been crying.

"Yeah fine. Why?" the choke at the end of her sentence gave her away.

"Nice try. Can I come in?" Percy asked, hand already on the doorknob.

Bed springs squeaked from the other side of the door, and something fell onto the floor. A minute later, a more composed sounding Aria called out "Come in!"

Percy opened the door and stepped in. Now, he was no expert on teenage girls, but he was pretty sure messy hair, tear stains and red rimmed eyes weren't indications of being 'fine'. It broke his heart a bit to see her like this.

"What happened?" he asked, as gently as he could.

She shook her head, "Nothing, absolutely nothing." She shot him a smile faker than the drachma the Stolls used to pay off their bets.

"You're lying," Percy dead panned, and sat next to her. Aria sat with her legs crossed on her bed, face half hidden behind hair that she tossed in front, hands twisting in her lap and eyes fixed on the floor.

"It doesn't matter,"she said, her voice barely audible now.

"If it's got you this upset, yeah it does matter," Percy replied, voice still soft.

Aria glanced up, eyes full of surprise, "Its just this stupid guy and a stupid bet and my stupid heart," she sighed dramatically and flopped backwards onto her bed.

"What guy?" the protective growl in his tone surprised Percy too.

Aria looked at him for a moment, still lying down, before sighing.

"This guy in my class, he's captain of the football team, regular cliche jock. We'd been going out for a few months but turns out he only asked me out cuz his friend had a bet with him. And yeah, tah dah! End of story," Aria explained. She tried to sound all cool about it, but Percy could hear the catch in her voice.

He was disgusted. That was understandable, any guy who treated a girl like that deserved the deepest pit of Tartarus. He was about to say something, when Aria's phone rang.

She looked at the caller ID and groaned.

"Who is it?" Percy asked.

"Him," Aria said.

Percy saw red. Before he had fully thought through what he was doing, he had grabbed Aria's phone and picked up.

"Hello?" he greeted, barely managing to keep the growl out of his voice.

"Um, hi. Is Aria there?"

"No. And I swear to the gods, if I find out you've so much as looked at her again, I promise you, you won't walk straight for a month," Percy growled while Aria gaped at him.

The guy on the other end of the line had the nerve to laugh. "Right. Listen dude, I don't take orders from people. Who are you?"

"Aria's brother. And I suggest you listen to me. Don't trust me? Why don't you Google 'Percy Jackson'?"

Silence filled the line. After a minute, the guy spoke up, "Percy Jackson? Like, the guy who made national news when he was 12? The kid who got kicked out of like 30 schools?"

"Yeah. Also the guy who's going to kick your butt into next year if you mess with his little sister again."

More silence. "Right, right. No problem man. I'm sorry, by the,"

Percy hung up before he could get further.

Aria was staring at him, mouth open.

"What?" he asked.

She blushed, "Nothing, nothing. Just...wow. You didn't have to do that."

He smiled at her, "Of course I did. People need to know that they can't mess with my little sister."

"I count?"

"Duh."

Aria gave him a smile so bright, he was pretty sure Apollo was jealous.

A/N So, what do you think? Let me knoww!