Author's Note:

Okay, so, this is my first ever long story in English. I'm not a native English speaker, so try to understand the mistakes I make. I also can't promise I'll update very often, but I am planning on finishing this story someday in the next couple of years.

Chapter 1

Hey and welcome back! My name is Mellie and you're listening to Radio Aialos's pop news! I must say we have some very interesting newbies on the top-lists, and here's one of them: Camp Half-Blood!

This band is claimed to be bigger sensation than One Direction and Justin Bieber combined– and some say this is nearing the popularity of the Beatles and Elvis Presley. Camp Half-Blood plays their own kind of music, something amazing between pop and glam-rock without all that Freddie Mercury, and now, only two days after their first single Six Degrees Of Separation came out last Friday, it is already third on the America's Music Chart list.

It is actually weird to think about it, but behind the thick red curtains of rising world-wide stars these guys are just ordinary teenagers around the United States. There's five of them. Dark and curious Nico di Angelo in the bass guitar while his cousin Thalia Grace is the lord of the keyboards. Lead singer Annabeth Chase shines with her golden curls and amazing voice, Nico and Thalia's cousin Percy Jackson plays the guitar like the God himself and, last but not least, Charles Beckendorf gives the beat like no other. These guys have some serious talent. Nico is the youngest of them, can you believe it, only fifteen years old!

I am happy to tell you that we managed to call Percy yesterday to ask him what they all felt about the release of their single.

"It's all a bit of a blur. I mean, this is all amazing and stuff, but it's kind of hard to think anything of it just yet. Music is what we love to do, and yeah, it's amazing that others seem to like it too."

There has been many speculative questions about the name, Camp Half-Blood. Where did that come from?

"Well that's actually a pretty funny story. Thals, Nico and I used to go to this summer camp when we were kids. The camp had many kinds of stuff about Greek mythology. That's where we first met Annabeth, when we were six, and Beckendorf came along on a 4th of July party there. So when Olympus Recording discovered us somewhat a year ago, it was kind of obvious that we wanted the name to have something to do with that stuff. Half-blood is another name for a demigod, a person who is partly human, partly a Greek god."

Whoa, seems like we were right to think about them as gods! So tell me Percy, as I'm sure all the girls and in Annabeth and Thalia's cases boys too out there are dying to know: are any of you guys dating anyone?

"Um... well. I mean, Beckendorf's got a girlfriend, Silena, who has been our friend for years. But yeah, no other couples that I know about. At the moment at least."

So does this mean you're free to catch, or is there someone you have your eye on?

"...I don't think I'm going to answer that."

I guess there is someone after all. We are definitely looking forward to hear some more about that, but you heard it girls, Nico is available and hotter than ever! And now we're going to hear from Camp Half-Blood their first single, Six Degrees Of Separation, from their very first album with the same name...

I switched the volume down (we had heard the song too many times for one day already and it was barely noon, and Annabeth didn't like to hear her own voice on tape more than was necessary) and grinned at Nico next to me. "Hotter than ever, huh? I guess Bianca is going to have a say on that soon enough."

"I can't believe it!" Thalia yelled from the back seat while Annabeth rolled her eyes. If there was something Thalia had common with her dad, it was being a natural drama queen. "They talk all about you and Mr Bass Guitar here! Where am I? 'Oh, I forgot to mention, Thalia Grace plays the keyboards...' That's disgusting!"

"Calm down, Thals. I think she said you are 'the lord of the keyboards'", Beckendorf smirked. He was typing on his iPhone, probably texting Silena. "Besides, it was just one interview. I bet you're going to have your own soon enough, and knowing you your name will be on everyone's lips by the end of the year."

"Thanks, Beckendorf, that was really thoughtful of you."

I laughed and turned my head so that I could see my cousin better. "Is it really true that Thalia Grace, the one who originally didn't even want to be in the band, is wanting more and more attention? That is really – "

"Eyes on the road, Seaweed Brain", Annabeth snapped at me and hit my head. Hard.

"Down, tiger! Jeez, that was just a few seconds!"

"A few seconds is enough to get us all killed, Percy. Keep that in mind."

"I am going to question who let Kelp Head drive in the first place", Thalia mumbled, but didn't bother to say that any louder.

I drove in silence for a while, listening to Nico, Thalia and Annabeth talking about the movie they were watching the night before while I was having a very long and nice Skype-conversation with my mom and Paul, and Beckendorf had a date night with Silena. It sounded like they had a good time. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't jealous at all – in fact it was kind of nice to have a day off, living with all of them 24/7 could be exhausting sometimes. (Especially Thalia. She was my cousin and I loved her to bits, but to tell you the truth, she could be a real bitch if she wanted. And when I was around she seemed to really want to be just that.) Besides (call me a whimp) I really missed my mom.

As I turned to the parking lot and we got out of the car we saw some paparazzi just around the corner. I guess that was something we had to get used to: not being able to have a Starbucks without pictures ending up around the web. By the looks of it, though, Thals seemed to enjoy it. She winked at the cameras (something I never imagined I'd see in my entire life) and seemed to be very comfortable with the fact that soon everyone would see her facial expressions.

Once we got our coffees and sat down to a table far from the windows, we were already having a great time. It was always like that with them – they were (mostly) my best friends, and since I had grown up with them, we knew almost everything about each other, so there was no silence between us and definitely not a minute without teasing someone.

And yeah, as it turned out, first thing they wanted to hear was if I really had a specific girl in my mind like the reporter had said.

"Come on, Perce, who is that girl, do I know her? You know you can tell me!" Thalia teased me and Nico and Annabeth snickered, knowing better than well that Thalia was the last person I'd ever tell anything like this. "I'm not going to tell anyone, I promise, really. I'll take your biggest secret to my grave!"

"Before or after you announce it on Twitter for the whole world to read?" I raised my eyebrows at her. "Yeah, not gonna happen."

They all laughed and Thalia closed the Twitter application on her iPhone. "No offense, but you just told us that there is someone after all", Beckendorf smiled at me apologetically and I had to hide my face in my hands as I felt my cheeks warm up. Annabeth chocked out her coffee and probably looked like she could die in laughter.

"Aw, does my little Seaweed Brain have a crush?" she teased, which made me blush even more.

"Okay, let's find out who she is!" Nico said and snatched my phone from my pocket before I could say anything. I tried to take it back, but it seemed that they were all against me now, and the phone ended up in Annabeth's hands while Beckendorf was holding me back. I groaned, because Annabeth happened to be the only one in the entire world who knew my screen lock. She always guessed it right away and there just wasn't no use for her not knowing it, so I didn't bother changing it anymore. "Search for girls with hearts from his contacts."

As Annabeth scrolled down, looking like the devil herself, Thalia kept on smirking at me just the way she knew I hated it. "There's 'Rach' with a heart. You mean Rachel Dare?" Annabeth raised an eyebrow. "Are you two back together or something? How come I haven't heard anything about that?"

"There's a heart just after your name too. And Mom's. And Calypso's, and Hazel's. Even Leo has a heart after his name, though he put it there himself." I rolled my eyes and was actually pretty proud of myself. Damn I'm good. This was the only thing I was hiding from Annabeth, and I really wished to keep it like that. "You're not gonna find out that way."

"Check his texts", Thalia said quickly before turning back to me. "What do you mean, don't I have a heart after my name on your phone?"

"No, you have a grim face. For putting a heart there would need you to actually have one."

Beckendorf and Annabeth (who, I assume, was now reading my texts, which would be pretty annoying if she wasn't my very best friend and if most of the texts weren't from her) laughed at Thalia's expression while Nico whispered very loudly: "Would you like some Aloe Vera for that? 'Cause you just got burned." She just glared at all of us and asked Annabeth for results and I thought Nico watched way too much TV.

"Nothing interesting, sorry", Annabeth sighed handing the phone over to me. "Most of the texts are from me, and then there are the ones from Grover and Jason. Some random ones from Rachel and his mom, and maybe one or two from Leo and a two-word text from Calypso, but that's it."

Beckendorf looked pretty amused. "You guys live in the same house, you're practically attached by the hip – why do you text each other so much?" he asked looking at me and Annabeth. "Don't you ever need a break? Some time alone?"

I grinned. "Best friends, remember?" I earned a smack from Annabeth with that one, but she didn't seem too mad. To tell you the truth, I had been thinking the exactly same thing not so long ago myself – how did we stand each other so well? And most importantly, how come Annabeth hadn't killed me already? But we just stayed best friends. As Beckendorf had noted, we were hardly ever seen apart. And when we weren't in the same place, or even if we were in the same room, we were texting. A lot. It was a very good thing that it was Annabeth who had read my texts; anyone else might have thought something very different about them.

Nico seemed very pissed that they didn't find out who my secret crush was (if I even had one, I might add), so he just continued sipping his latte and looking like a super depressed emo kid as he did most of the time nowadays. He wasn't really depressed, I think, or wasn't anymore anyway, even though he admittedly looked like it. Nico was just... really dark, I think, and a bit sad, too. He had been that way since his parents died four years ago and Bianca left for college. I think he felt that no one wanted him or something. After the funeral Nico moved in with me and my mom and step-dad Paul, which was pretty cool, and it was actually Nico who first came up with the idea of a band a couple of years ago.

Suddenly the poor boy got a call and his iPhone started playing some Spice Girls song a little too loud for my liking – or Nico's for that matter. He stood up and answered the call walking outside with his face all red, raising his middle finger to our snickering cousin. This was definitely not the first time Thalia had changed his ring tone, but this was one of the best tunes she had picked.

"When the hell did you do that?" I asked laughing and finished my hot chocolate. (I know, hot chocolate in the middle of summer? But does it really matter?)

Thalia shrugged. "This morning – but don't tell him his alarm clock plays Pussycat Dolls, I promised Bianca I'd take that on tape tomorrow morning."

We hadn't stopped laughing when Nico came back. His face was still red when he told us it was Bianca that called – just like I had thought. He didn't say a word to Thals for a good ten minutes, until Annabeth checked the time and reminded us that we were supposed to be at the studio in fifteen minutes, and Nico muttered something about how everything in the world was Thalia's fault. Oh, how often I wanted to agree with him on that one.

At the studio we were greeted by our manager, who called himself Chiron. I have to tell you, it was a bit embarrassing that I didn't remember his real name, but in the contract it said "C. Brunner" and everyone just called him Chiron, so I'm not sure if it even mattered. Grover, our agent and my best friend beside Annabeth, was there too, a bit nervous as he always was, eating his lunch salad. It seemed like they were not actually waiting for us to show up in another twenty minutes, since we were always late, but Annabeth had this thing that she wanted to schedule everything we do, so – for the first time ever – Camp Half-Blood was in the right place in the right time.

"Good job, kids, you're getting better at this!" Chiron smiled at us and nodded us to take seats next to him, because, well, he was in a wheel chair. (To be honest, Nico was the only real kid of us, being fifteen. Me, Annabeth and Thalia were eighteen already, so we were of age just like Beckendorf, who had just turned 21. But if you asked Chiron, we were all just children.) "Sit, sit. They took your first single quite well, now, didn't they?"

"'Quite well'?" Thalia laughed. "You call the top 10 of the chart list 'quite well'? I'd say pretty amazing."

"No one asked your opinion", Nico mumbled, still mad at her.

"Shut up, Spice Girl."

"Guys, stop it", Annabeth snapped. She was getting really annoyed about the two of them always fighting. "One meeting, okay? One meeting, then you are free to keep on fighting while walking home." Thalia and Nico glared at each other as me and Beckendorf grinned. "Now, Chiron. Sorry. You may continue."

"Thank you, my dear. As I was saying, they took your first single very well, and the next one is out in two weeks. And now it's time to decide which one's it gonna be: How To Be A Heart Breaker or The Only Exception."

We had to debate between those two songs a long time, because me, Beckendorf and Thalia wanted it to be How To Be A Heart Breaker while Annabeth and Nico were hailing for The Only Exception, and obviously Nico and Thalia couldn't agree with anything even when Annabeth decided to jump on our side after the first five minutes. Nico kept saying that How To Be A Heart Breaker was so good we should save it for the opening track of the album, while we others agreed that making it a single would want people to buy the CD more desperately. I could see that Nico knew we were right, but he just couldn't give up with Thals on our side, but we ended up deciding against him (although he didn't seem to be too sad about it).

During the next hour we also decided what other songs we were putting on the CD and in what order. We had recorded like thirty songs in the spring, so there were many to choose from. To give Nico some credit, we put How To Be A Heart Breaker on the first track. After that came our more of a rock-version of Imagine by John Lennon, and then one of my first own songs, Monster, which I had written more or less four years ago. Six Degrees Of Separation, our first single, took the fourth track, and then we had Decode and a cover of Madonna's Material Girl with changed lyrics before the biggest flop from my part.

Track seven: Good Time. The song was good, it was really, really good, and Annabeth totally killed it, but then came my part... Yes, me, Percy Jackson, singing something more than backs. At first the thought of making a duet with Annabeth was simply interesting, and really, we were super tired that night we wrote it after a long day at the studio (and on top of that it happened to be Annabeth's birthday, and yes, we were pissed). The next week I tried to say I didn't want to record it, but Chiron actually liked it a lot and kind of begged me to do it. So I did. Beckendorf just kept telling me I had a great voice, and yeah, maybe I did, but I still didn't like hearing my voice on tape. It sounded... not normal. And now Annabeth insisted on putting Good Time on track seven, and no one was behind me. Typical.

So after that, on track eight we had The Only Exception, then Complicated, What The Hell (Thalia's personal favorite, no surprise there) and the only song written by Beckendorf, Safe And Sound. We also added a hidden track. Shake It Out was something Annabeth had written the previous winter, and it was kind of personal. Nico and Beckendorf knew the basics of the thing, but Thalia and I knew the whole dirty story behind the lyrics. It was not my favorite story, not at all.

You see, Annabeth didn't live a life from a fairytale. Her mother left when she was a baby, and her dad remarried her step-mom soon after that. She never really got along with her step-mom, nothing like me and Paul, and when she was only seven she felt like she didn't belong. So she left. I know, a seven-year-old little girl alone on the streets of San Francisco. Maybe not the best idea. But Annabeth was smart, and she knew she couldn't do it with her dad or on her own. She moved to New York to live with her Aunt Artemis, who happened to be Thalia's nanny at the time.

So her childhood wasn't very pretty, but that's not all, because just a year ago Annabeth was dating Luke Castellan. I admit it, I never really liked Luke in the first place, first because I was kind of over-protective towards Annabeth and second because, well, had a tiny little crush on her (which had nothing to do with the fact that I ended up hating Luke's guts), and then because I realized Luke was an arrogant ass. He acted like Annabeth was his pet dog, he was practically using her every way possible, and she was just so broken she needed someone to love her. So she was with Luke, loving him blindly, even though Thalia and I tried to tell her to snap out of it. She didn't listen, she yelled at us, but we kept telling her Luke wasn't good for her. It took her six months to see we were right, and three more to break up with him. He didn't go down without a fight, and since I was helping her, I ended up spending a night at the hospital.

But Luke left Annabeth alone after that – almost. He sent her some nasty texts a couple of times before she changed her number, and paid her a couple of drunk visits, but Aunt Artemis ended them soon enough. (She was great. She didn't really like men in general, not even me or Nico or Thalia's brother Jason, but she absolutely loathed men like Luke.) Annabeth was hurt and broken and spent three weeks at Thalia's not wanting to see anyone but me or Thals, and yeah, basically after that my "tiny little crush" wasn't so tiny and little anymore.

Anyway, my crush on her was not important at that point. Annabeth needed a friend, I was there. She needed a shoulder to cry on (what a cliché), I was there. She needed someone to take her to the movies when she was down and stand laughing in the rain just because it's incredibly stupid and tell her old jokes until she fell asleep. I was there. End of story.

At first I was actually pretty surprised to hear that she wanted to make Shake It Out the hidden track. She had broken into tears while recording it, and it had taken me and Thalia half an hour to make her calm enough to sing again. But as I was looking at her right there at the studio, I realized she was very well over Luke, and that song was like the final take. I was proud of her. Only a year ago she was so in love with him it hurt me and Thalia to see her with him, and now she was there, at a studio in Los Angeles, very independent, very strong and very single.

...I didn't say that last part, okay? She'd kill me for that.

Chiron, who didn't know a thing about Annabeth's problems with her family and Luke, absolutely loved the song. He wasn't stupid (he was a genius actually), he knew there was something not-so-pretty behind it, but he didn't ask. Instead of that he seemed to take Annabeth under his wing and treat her like his own daughter. She didn't mind, and I could see she actually liked to have someone to look up to. Beckendorf was like the cool big brother we never had, and Nico was like a baby brother to all of us, and now we even had a dad. A big happy family (note the sarcasm).

I think I mentioned my texting with Annabeth before. We were texting all the time, sometimes even when we were in the same room, so I wasn't surprised to feel my phone vibrate in the pocket of my jeans just after we had finally agreed with every song. I unlocked my screen and smiled a little as I saw a picture of me and Annabeth just a couple of days ago in a bookstore. I wasn't so into books, but she was a huge bookworm and somehow she always managed to drag me with her. Shaking my head, I opened her text.

Since we don't really have anywhere to go tomorrow, is it OK that I planned a best friend's sleepover to your room for tonight? ;)

That was definitely not our first sleepover, we had those more or less once a week. Mostly it meant that we'd be laying on my bed and having deep conversations all night long, maybe pick up some movie if we were on the mood, but basically just hanging around. I found myself grinning as I typed my answer. Works for me. We can go and buy blue cupcakes on our way home. You have a reason not to ask out loud? :D I managed to send it right before Nico realized I was texting.

"Texting to your specific girl, Perce?" he asked and wiggled his brows. I just winked at him and said that yeah, maybe I was. It was funny how they didn't seem to notice that Annabeth rolled her eyes and typed on her phone like crazy.

So I'm your specific girl now, eh? ;) And just for your information, Seaweed Brain, I am not in the mood of listening to Thalia and Nico and their stupid suggestive comments about me sleeping in the same bed with you, especially in front of Chiron. I'll sneak in to your room around midnight, OK? Be a good boy.

Sounds like a plan, Wise Girl. Can't wait! ;) I typed back before putting my phone away, knowing she wouldn't answer that. You see what I meant about someone misunderstanding out texts? That wasn't even bad. Some of our texts were like, pure flirting and teasing (in every meaning of the word), some with even mild sexual content, but it was all really just for laughs. I would be horrified if someone else read our texts, but I have to admit that I would pay to see Thalia's face when she saw a text including something about the size of her breasts or the fact that I liked to sleep with my hand loosely around her waste and her face hidden in the crook of my neck.

Oh God, that sounded like we were really dating. It was nothing like that, I swear, we were just very close friends. Annabeth used to say that she was my other half, that we knew each other so well we didn't really need to speak, and that we felt extremely comfortable around each other. That's what I meant. Besides I think that after breaking up with Luke she needed a guy to hold her (one of my great theories), and I wanted to hold her, so it was a win-win situation.

After we had discussed about everything we needed with Chiron and Grover, we came to the conclusion that Nico and Thalia weren't that bad and that we could very well give them a ride home – although Annabeth told them that if they even talked to each other during the way they would be walking rest of the way. Grover said something about coming over the next day, and Chiron reminded us about the meeting the following Monday, which was almost a week ahead. I didn't give it much of a thought, knowing that Annabeth and Beckendorf would make sure we'd all be there.

On our way we stopped by my favorite café. It was my favorite simply because it seemed to be the only place in the world where they had blue cupcakes and didn't give you a weird look if you wanted your chocolate milkshake blue. Me and Annabeth were there for only ten minutes, and when we got back to the car, it was obvious my cousins had been arguing. No one said a word, though, and the rest of the drive was spent in a comfortable silence.

Now, a couple of words about our house. It wasn't really a house, it was more of a manor. It was a property of my dad and his two brothers – Thalia's dad and Nico's dad, who had passed away. (I think that meant a third of the house was Nico and Bianca's, but since he was under aged and his sister didn't really care a shit, the other two brothers took care of it.) Our family wasn't actually poor, because our dads owned a huge company producing solar power, wind mills and (my favorite part) super cool yachts. (Don't ask me how the three of them worked together, I wouldn't know.) As we were discovered by Olympus Recording and Chiron asked us to move to L.A. our dads insisted us all to be living in that place. It was on the rich side of Los Angeles, so I think you can pretty much guess what it looked like.

It was a three-story building with a dozen balconies and a huge backyard. I'm not going into detail, Annabeth would do that way better than me, but it was built of gray stone and had a black roof – and most importantly, a big pool. It was in the back, though, behind our garage, where we kept my car and Beckendorf's van.

You might thing how come we lived there, just the five of us on our own. The thing was we weren't on our own, we had Hestia. She was one of my dad's relatives, I think a cousin or something, and she was also a very good friend of Chiron's. She didn't live there with us, but she spent many hours a day just checking on us, keeping the house home-like, making sure we had food in our fridge, trying to be our mother sort of. That would have worked better if she wasn't just two years older than Beckendorf, but she still was one of those persons who just made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Hestia was there when we got home. She was sitting in our living room, watching one of the many shows with Jamie Oliver cooking from TV. We all knew she had a soft spot for men who knew how to cook and do all kinds of things at home. She was a bit weird that way, but be let her be. We all had our weird habits and stuff.

"Hey, kids!" she smiled warmly as we entered. Thals went straight to her room on second floor (she was actually scared of the hight, but she said she needed to get used to it – still she didn't want her room to the third floor) without saying another word to anyone and Nico made his way to our basement, which had our band room and also his bedroom. (None of us really understood why he wanted his room to be in the basement, but we didn't ask.) "I was watching MTV earlier, they seemed to be very excited about your album release next month."

"Aren't we all?" Beckendorf smiled and went to the kitchen, probably to grab a snack or something. I sat down on a couch as Jamie Oliver started the dessert with strawberries, champagne and vanilla ice cream. "Silena said every single one of her friends and 'friends' from the music business is expecting us to throw a huge party", Beckendorf continued as he came back with a can of soda in his hand.

"No." I smirked. Of course Hestia would say no. Annabeth rolled her eyes before mumbling something about taking a shower. "Absolutely not. You are not having any kind of a party here. What would your parents say? I'm pretty sure Percy's mom would take you all back to New York straight away."

I had no doubt of that, and I bet neither did Beckendorf, but he still smiled widely. "Calm down. We weren't having a party anyway, Nico is under aged."

"Like that'd stop us", I just had to say before I stood up and headed to my room to change for my swimming shorts. "If someone asks, I'm by the pool."

Me and Beckendorf kind of shared the top floor with the game room and our own bathrooms, but we didn't really spend much time there. The thing was, in a big house like that, you could feel so alone sometimes, and you just wanted some company. And that's one of the reasons we had made the hall in the second floor our other living room.

My room was the farthest room away from the staircase on third floor. It was the size of my mom's apartment back in New York, and it made me feel a little guilty. But I shook it off quickly, knowing that if mom and Paul wanted they could very well move to a bigger place. They just happened to like the crammed spaces. I didn't really need a huge room, though, since I didn't have much stuff. I had my bed (I liked sleeping a lot, so yeah, a king-sized bed), a writing desk (I didn't use it that much, the drawers were filled with Annabeth's architecture stuff), my own balcony and a wardrobe. And, of course, one of the most beautiful items in the whole world, I had Riptide.

Riptide was my very first guitar. It was also the first gift I ever got from my dad, when I first met him on my eleventh birthday. Of course he had sent me letters and given me some pocket money on Christmas (does 200 dollars count as pocket money?) and of course mom had showed me a couple of pictures, but dad was busy with the company, so he didn't have the chance to show up before that. I'm not saying that I understood that or that I forgave him, but I had learned to live with the fact that my dad preferred work over getting to know his son. Sounds harsh, but it was the truth.

I had two other guitars now, too, and they were also better ones, but Riptide was my all time favorite. It was my baby, after all. It was old, dad had bought it when he was sixteen, and even though he never became a very good player, he had kept it. Now it was mine, and I valued it more than anything else in my room. It was a dark blue acoustic Fender and it had many scratches on it's neck, and dad had written the name Riptide to it's side. Dad had also put some stickers on it and I didn't really have the heart to take them off, even when Thalia teased me about the one that said (first in Chinese and under that in English) "Inc. bits of peanuts and seaweed." I had no idea where dad got that one, maybe from China Town or something, but it was kind of cool.

I smiled at the guitar that was on it's stand right next to my bed – I had a habit to play it before going to sleep – and grabbed my swimming shorts from the floor. I changed and took my towel from the bathroom. It was getting pretty late, but I still wanted to swim a couple of laps.

Water had always been sort of my element. I'd always loved the sea, maybe because it was impossible to be tamed, just like me, and swimming had been my thing since forever. At school I was the captain of my swim team – at least before I dropped out of high school to move to the other side of the country. I thought about that as I swam. It had been hardest to Annabeth, to move and leave school, because she really loved school and reading and learning and all that crap, but she managed to finish the semester despite the distance, and she was insisting on all of us to attend in one of the local high schools next fall. Well, not Beckendorf, he had just started college a year ago, and he said he'd have a break to focus on music. Lucky one.

I had been swimming for maybe half an hour when I saw Nico sitting on the edge of the pool with his feet in the water. He was wearing black denim shorts and a black t-shirt, and he seemed pretty depressed. But he looked like that a lot, it was a part of him, and now that it was really getting dark the shadows made his face look almost creepy.

As I swam by him I saw that he had a ring in his hands – his dad's ring, the one with a tiny skull on it. I know, it sounded a weird thing to have to remember your dead dad from, but Nico was very keen on the ring. He was always wearing it, and sometimes (like now) when he was feeling more sad than usual, he used to observe it very closely. I could have sworn he knew everything there was to know about the ring.

"What's up?" I asked as I pulled myself up from the pool and sat down beside him. I wasn't waiting for an answer, and he didn't give me one.

Nico wasn't much of a talker, and I didn't want to push him. When he first moved in with me and my mom and Paul it took him two months to say a word, and it still was hard for him to talk to people about some things, like his parents. He had taken a habit to come and sit by the pool as I was swimming, because since me and Thalia were the closest family he had left, I was the only one he felt somewhat comfortable around. He didn't talk, but he wanted me to be around. I was kind of his protective big brother or something.

"Bianca called me today", Nico said after a few minutes of silence. "In the Starbucks and then after we got back here. Told me to be careful with fame and all that bullshit. I think she's just jealous for not having the talent we have."

I smiled as I heard the sarcasm in his voice. I had taught him well. "I think she's right, though", I said. "There are good publicity and bad publicity. You know what Chiron always says, that we have to avoid bad publicity the best we can, but we can't do that forever."

"When did you become so smart?"

"I didn't", I laughed and stood up, grabbing my towel from one of the benches. "That's Annabeth's job, being smart." I messed his hair before starting to walk back inside and he groaned. He hated when I did that. "See you in the morning, kiddo. Don't think too much – you know, stuff. It's not good for you."

It seemed that Hestia had left while I was swimming, and as I glanced at the clock in our living room I was kind of surprised to see it was eleven already. On second floor I knocked on both Thalia's and Annabeth's doors and said good night. That's what I always did, and I knew just how much Thalia hated it, so I wasn't going to stop. Beckendorf had his door open and he seemed to be on his computer, so I popped in.

"Hey, bud", he smiled as I stepped in and I saw that he was on Skype with Leo, his little brother. "Had a good time swimming?"

"Yeah", I waved my hand to Leo and smiled. "Hey Leo, how's it going on Long Island?"

Leo was short and had a brown curly hair, and his smile yelled I AM SO MUCH TROUBLE. He was ADHD just like me, but he had it worse. He always needed to have something to do with his hands, and now he was playing with a Rubik's cube. He was on Long Island on that camp we all used to go a couple of years ago. He was there with our mutual friend Nyssa and Thalia's brother Jason, and Silena said her sister Piper was going there too. Jason was actually a counselor already, being two years younger than me, and so was Piper. Leo, despite his small form, was the same age as Nico.

"Oh, man, it's great!" Leo grinned. I could see that he was in his cabin, because he had so many weird things around him, like the mechanic toothbrush that worked as his alarm clock. He had designed that himself, and he was actually very proud of it. "Mr. D is annoying as ever, but that doesn't stop us. The Stolls have been pranking like no tomorrow all summer. We had a great game of capture the flag on Friday, our team won – obviously, with Sir Leo in charge with Captain Jason. Oh, and guess what!" His smile grew even wilder and I was worried about his cheeks. "I caught Jason and Piper together from the strawberry fields yesterday! They told me not to tell anyone, which basically means everyone knew before dinner."

Me and Beckendorf laughed. What a great counselor Jason was. I chatted with Leo and Beckendorf a bit more and then went to my own room. It was almost midnight and I had a best friend's sleepover to attend, and I had to take a shower before that.

Annabeth was already sitting on my bed when I came from the bathroom wearing my pajamas. She had taken our cupcakes from the table and her laptop was in front of her, so I assumed we'd be watching some movie. Her hair was braided loosely and it fell down from her left shoulder and she was wearing her old orange camp-t-shirt with her gray pajama-shorts. I thought she looked stunning, but I didn't say anything about that or let it blow my mind. It was starting to become a routine, really.

"Leo said Jason and Piper are sort of dating now", I said quietly as I made myself comfortable on my bed. Annabeth didn't seem surprised when she smiled at me and moved to sit next to me. "It's weird, though. Does that make Thals and Beckendorf related somehow? You know, what with Beckendorf dating Silena and all."

She resisted the urge to laugh out loud, muttering something about me thinking too much about the weird stuff, and instead put her laptop in front of us. "We're watching a movie", she said and rested her head on my shoulder. "I had my pick so now it's your choice: Perks Of Being A Wallflower or Skyfall?"

"Didn't we watch Skyfall just two weeks ago?" I asked as I watched her open Netflix. "What's this Perks Of Being A Wallflower about?"

"Let's find out."

We watched the movie in silence, eating our cupcakes and enjoying each other's company. I had my other arm around Annabeth's shoulders the whole time, and she relaxed against me like she always did. If someone would have come in while we were watching the movie, they'd probably think we were a couple, which we weren't. As I played with some curls that had escaped her braid I wondered if it was a good or a bad thing. I didn't get an appropriate answer to that before the end of the movie, when I realized Annabeth had cried at some point without me even noticing. But now that I thought about it, it was actually a pretty sad movie. That Charlie-kid had had quite a life.

"You okay?" I asked worriedly. She just nodded and closed the laptop, putting it on my nightstand next to a framed photo of me, my mom, Paul and herself. It was taken last Christmas, when Annabeth and Thalia spent it with us back in New York. It was a happy Christmas really, even my dad dropped by to say hello to me and Thals. It was also just a month after Annabeth's break-up with Luke, and she was still a bit messed up while taking the picture.

"I'm fine", she whispered. She sounded very tired. "I think we'd better get some sleep. I was up late last night, I found this very interesting website about Daedalus – you know, from Greek mythology, son of Athena, invented the labyrinth for king Minos?"

"Yeah, that's about how much I remember about him", I said, getting under the covers and looking at her with raised eyebrows. "You wanna stay up here with me and my awesomeness or are you going back to your room to sleep alone in your cold bed?"

Annabeth rolled her eyes in the dark (I didn't see it, but I almost heard it). She didn't need my stupid comments, and the question itself was fairly stupid. "I'm staying, thank you very much." Of course she was. She lied down next to me and used my chest as her pillow – not the first time, it was normal for us. I reached to shut the lights and then got back. "It's called a sleepover for a good reason, Seaweed Brain."

"I know." I wrapped my arms around her waste and she snuggled closer. She'd kill me for telling you this, but Annabeth was an extremely cuddly sleeper. It was okay for me, though. "Good night, Wise Girl."

"Nightie, Perce", she said very quietly, almost asleep. "Love you."

It felt good to hear those words, even though we used them a lot and I knew she didn't mean them quite the same way I did. I smiled sadly to her curls. "Love you, too."

Author's Note:

So that was the first chapter, please review, follow and favorite and tell me if I should continue publishing this! Also go and check out my other stories, too.