Chapter Two: My Worst Nightmare
The gossamer white curtains of the east bedroom did little to hide the slanting shafts of sunlight that crept in every morning causing Annabeth to always wake up before she really wanted to. Every morning she would roll over slapping the pillow over her head to try to block the light grumbling at Rachel for tricking her into this room and telling herself to buy some real curtains. By the time she fully woke up she would always forget to write down to buy curtains so every morning it was the same thing. This morning the sun wasn't the only thing pissing Annabeth off. She opened her eyes just to have them snap close again as the sun hit her sensitive eyes, the normal soothing sound of the streets below were jarringly loud and her stomach was rolling like the sea of monsters. A hangover and the beginnings of a migraine fucking A she thought. Reaching her arm down towards the floor she hooked three fingers around her purse strap and pulled it towards her pillow-covered head. Rummaging around the seemingly bottomless pit Annabeth finally extracted a super size bottle of Advil and ambrosia. It wasn't really a good thing to mix human and godly cures but she really felt like shit.
Rachel was feeling almost as bad across the suite in the west bedroom, for her Advil was the only cure and Annabeth had the bottle. Cursing she reluctantly swung her tired and drained body out of the bed and padded towards the living room. Thalia was on the sofa sleeping, the only sign she was alive was the random twitches of the limbs hanging off the edge. It was like watching a dog dream about chasing animals; perhaps it was a left over instinctual tic from her days as a hunter. "Oh man" Rachel said as she quietly made her way across, sleep had erased the events of the night before and now they came roaring back. She had a feeling that today she would be playing the role of mediator between Thalia and Annabeth.
"Did you come for the Advil?" Annabeth asked as her roommate knocked and came in. Rachel nodded silently taking the bottle and dry swallowing two pills. "Is she still here?" unlike Rachel neither the alcohol nor sleep had made her forget about Thalia's surprise appearance. "Yeah and I think when she wakes up you guys should have breakfast or something, she was your best friend Annabeth that means something you can't just get mad at her without knowing the whole story." Annabeth knew Rachel was right something about being the Oracle and had made the other girl logical and wise which was what had made the girls stop being enemies. "I know that's the right thing to do but…" Rachel put her arm around her friend. "It's going to be awkward and hard but you owe her a talk at least."
Three hours later Annabeth and Thalia sat tight lipped and cross-legged at a little Greek bistro waiting for their orders to arrive. "So." Thalia said looking up from her nails at her old friend. "You wanted to talk." "Well I didn't want to talk, my friends wanted us to." Annabeth answered. Thalia rolled her eyes at this. "Your friends? They're my friends too." Annabeth leaned over the table, her stormy gray eyes boring into Thalia's. "They were, before you dropped off of the face of the planet." Thalia leaned back crossing her arms and smirking. "I'm not going to even bother arguing with you, this is stupid. Look I'm sorry that you feel hurt if I could make it up to you I would but you obviously don't want me to, so all I can do is say I'm sorry. I don't really expect you to come running back Zeus knows you and your mom can hold a grudge." When she was finished she threw a couple bills on the table standing up to leave, Thalia Grace never stayed where she wasn't wanted. She was almost out of the door when she heard a chair scrape back and Annabeth call "Wait."
"Come back at least eat, I do want to umm apologize too." "See now was that so hard to say?" Thalia asked. Even with the years apart she still knew what to do to open Annabeth up. "Well I'm still mad that our friendship kind of faded off and that you didn't tell me you were back-" "Wait, wait did Rachel tell you that no one knew?" cut in Thalia. "She did, but still that's almost worst if I wasn't the first you thought you could count on ok, but to think you were alone out there. I was alone when you and, and well you know who found me and we said we'd always be there for each other."
Their food had arrived by then so they sat in silence for a few seconds sipping tea and pondering over their words. "Let's spend time together then we can catch up, fight some monsters like old times." Suggested Thalia finally. "I can't I'm leaving for camp next weekend. Percy, Nico, and I are going to be counselors for a new class. "Battle in real world situations." Said Annabeth. "What the hell is that?" Thalia asked curiously. "We're just going to teach kids how to battle around mortals, in cities things like that, things like what we did." Thinking for a moment and idea formed in Thalia's head. "Need another teacher you seem to be at an odd number right now." "Well that's true Rachel isn't coming to camp for another three weeks and she'll be busy with prophecies and quest. That could work." Said Annabeth giving her friend a tentative smile. Thalia smiled back. "We have all summer to patch things up and maybe you can help me find the Hunters… wise girl." Annabeth laughed at her old nickname. " I do love a challenge."
For the next two days the three girls mostly stayed to themselves having girl time and helping Thalia get situated in the Dare Suite. It was a four bedroom place so Rachel had kindly offered to let Thalia stay there and not on the sofa. They helped her decorate her room and shop for clothes to wear at camp and whenever they went out. Although it had only been two days Thalia could already feel a lot of Annabeth's animosity towards her fading. For this she was thankful, with all that was going on it was nice to have someone that really got her back on her side.
Meanwhile Percy and Nico were getting ready for camp slowly but surely. They'd been spending most of their time cleaning their incredibly messy apartment and occasionally throwing things in their "Camp Pile" that would eventually be shoved into a couple suitcases. Wednesday night found them done with cleaning and laying haphazardly on the sofa and love seat flipping through channels and drinking beer out of a cooler. "This is our last week in the city and we haven't done shit." Nico complained gulping down the last of his third beer. "Blame Annabeth she refuses to go out with so much left to do." Percy said. "Why blame Annabeth all that's left to do has to do with Thalia, I blame her." Replied Nico. "Gee thanks." Came a distinctive girl voice from the doorway. Crossing through the frame came Thalia dressed in black skinny jeans and purple zebra print vest. Sometime over the past few days she'd added purple streaks to her ebony hair. "Percy, Annabeth wants to hang out with you she's downstairs."
"Could've given me some warning." Percy mumbled running to the bathroom to brush his teeth and swipe on some deodorant. "I don't think your going anywhere fancy if that helps." Thalia called down the hall to where Percy had disappeared. Nico steadily ignored Thalia and kept trying to find something to watch. "Hey Thalia go ahead and sit down instead of just standing there. Thanks Nico I will." Thalia finally said sarcastically. "What you know how to sit." Said Nico never taking his eyes off the TV. Rolling her eyes Thalia couldn't help but notice that despite his bad attitude Nico had definitely grown up a lot, even seeing how attractive Percy had gotten was surprising but she had never thought that Nico could ever be considered hot yet here he was. To bad his personality ruined it. "Jerk." She hissed absentmindedly fiddling with her silver drakon fang necklace. "I try." He said "I feel special."
"Alright see you guys later, try not to kill each other while I'm gone." Said Percy slipping out the door to meet his girlfriend. "Wait your not staying are you?" asked Nico finally looking at Thalia. "They're spraying some kind of chemical at the suite, Annabeth is going out, Rachel has a family dinner, so I'm here with you." Answered Thalia fake smiling innocently. "You have to have something better you could be doing." "Actually no I mean, I could look for something but I have to talk to you about something anyway." What could she have to talk to me about thought Nico. He scanned his thoughts trying to think of anything that he'd done lately that could possibly involve her in some way but nothing came to mind. "Have you seen the camp counselor, class schedule thing yet?" she asked him, bringing him back from his thoughts. Nico vaguely remembered Percy reading it laughing and saying that he should really take a look, of course he hadn't and now who knew where it was. "No, should I have?" he asked.
Wordlessly she handed a thick piece of paper to him. He rubbed it between his fingers, papyrus, the half-blood symbol was stamped on it in the upper right hand corner. His eyes slowly took in what it said reading the ancient Greek a little better than they would read regular English. He swore when he reached the line where his name was. It said "Real World Battle Prep. Mon, Weds, Fri: Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson, 10am to 11:30am. Tues, Thurs, Sat: Nico Di Angelo and Thalia Grace, 10 am to 11:30am. "Are you kidding me." He finally said looking up. "Hey I didn't make it." Thalia said shrugging her shoulders. "That's why I thought I'd attempt to hang with you for at least a little while, apparently we'll be spending a lot of time together this summer between planning class and teaching it."
"No we won't, I'm getting this fixed." Said Nico standing up looking for a shirt to put on before going out. Thalia was momentarily put off seeing his smooth tan skin but quickly snapped out of it. "Already tried were, stuck skeleton boy." Rubbing his head Nico sighed and flopped back down putting his vans shoes on the wooden coffee table before him. "This really fucking sucks." "Hey!" said Thalia standing up with her hands on her hips staring down at him. "What did I ever do to you? Ok I've never even really talked to you and you just like hate me." Nico raised an eyebrow, he knew what she could do but it was still hard to be intimidated by a skinny 5'5 girl when he himself was 6'3 and practically all muscle. "Hey you hate me right back." "Well I'm not going to be nice to someone that's mean to me, what's the point. You have this pre-judgment of me, and you shouldn't. You don't know me at all." During this she had moved closer and jabbed her finger in his chest emphasizing her last words. Knocking her hand aside Nico stood up, towering over her.
"I know enough to know that I don't want to know more. You think your so tough standing up to some monsters and getting turned into a tree and everything, then when things get really bad you back down and join the Hunters instead of fighting with the rest of us." Nico said low and angrily. Thalia scoffed. "I did fight with the rest of you. Hello I was there at the last battle. I was there before you!" "That's not what I meant, Percy and I embraced our roles of the prophecy you, you ran from yours, if it wasn't for whatever happened in the forest you would still be 15." "I don't have to explain my choices to you." Said Thalia coldly. Nico had struck a nerve, she wouldn't let him see that thought. At 15 fresh from near death she had been scared and now years later she did feel that her choice had been one of a weak, scared, young girl. Not the girl she was now.
Through out they fight they had moved closer and were now inches apart, both could see the shadows growing from Nico's anger and feel the static in the air from Thalia's. "I didn't ask you to, I'm just telling you why I don't think you're worth my time or respect." At this Nico saw her emerald green eyes waver a little and go lighter as a sheen of tears swept across, they didn't fall though and she didn't look away. She held his gaze until with a sigh he sat back down and once again picked up the remote. Not being completely heartless Nico did feel a little bad about making a pretty girl upset. It was Thalia though she'd get over it fast. The TV was the only sound in the apartment for the next hour until Percy and Annabeth came back.
"This isn't going to work." Thalia told Annabeth as soon as the door had closed behind them.
"This is so not going to work." Nico said to Percy as soon as the girls had gone outside. "It will just give it time." Percy said not really paying attention. "Why are you so happy, I'm so fucked." Percy just smiled winking at his friend as he went to take a shower. At least one of us is getting fucked in the good way Nico thought turning the TV up to ear splitting volume.
*Next on " For The Love of Death": The busyness of camp keeps the friends from spending much time with anyone but their teaching partners. Between being stuck with Nico all the time and the stares she's getting Thalia is thinking maybe coming back wasn't such a good idea after all.
