I stood there, shuffling from foot to foot for what seemed like hours. Oh yeah, lets just take an ADHD compulsive kid who's spent the past six years of his life blowing up cruise ships, returning magical lightning bolts, and fighting immortal Titans, and make him stand in one spot for an hour and do nothing but wait. Gods, I hated waiting.

'Oh, don't worry about it, I just have to finish up a few more statues of Apollo and Artemis and ill be down by five,' Annabeth had told me.

I looked at my watch, ten after six. Of course, I didn't blame the girl for making me wait... she got so caught up in her architecture sometimes, she lost all track of time. But- shit! an hour late? I sighed and walked up to the door of the empire state building for the three hundredth time. Whatever, I told myself, I'm not really supposed to go into Olympus without an invitation, but I was tired of waiting. I put a hand on the door and started to push it open when it was flung open from the inside. Annabeth came storming out and attacked me with a bear hug, franticly saying; "Oh Gods Percy! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to leave you out here, but Apollo, well, he was being, Apollo, you know, had to make sure his statue of himself was just perfect, and I just got caught up in it all and next thing I know its six o' clock and- I'm so sorry!"

"Hey, don't worry about it, its not like designing the home of the Gods is a small job okay?" Despite everything, despite the fact I'd been standing out there in the cold early October air, I felt a warmth in my chest and a smile found its way to my face. Annabeth did that to me, we'd been through so much together, the way she apologized reminded me that she truly did care about me, and I couldn't help but be happy just to be with her.

"so..." she stammered, "Your not mad?"

"Naw," I said, giving her a quick kiss, "Just happy to see you. And, I might add, that we can finally get out of this cold. C'mon, were running a little late so why don't we just head straight for dinner?"

She smiled, "Alright then seaweed brain, lets go."

I took her hand and started leading her towards the diner, but out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement. I swear I glimpsed a long scaly tail disappearing behind a corner of a building, but then there was nothing. Your just edgy, I told myself, it was only a couple moths ago you fought for your life defending this place, and your nerves are playing tricks with your eyes. My thoughts sounded so reasonable I almost convinced myself it was true. Almost.