Disclaimer: Ugh. Yeah, I own nothing besides my laptop and the clothes on my back. Any inquiries about the intellectual property of Mr. Riordan's books can be made to his extensive team of lawyers.

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Updated and revised! Enjoy.

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I woke up a couple of minutes later. The fires around me were more or less burnt out, with cinders gently flickering in the darkness. Not a single monster, as far as the eye could see. I slowly sat up, inhaling sharply as my side felt like nothing but bruises. I gingerly unbuckled my chest piece and hiked my shirt up, and inspected the side of my ribcage. Some light prodding and several pained gasps testified that my initial diagnosis was correct, two of the ribs were some measure of fractured. And they hurt like hell,

"Hey, you okay?" The gentle but unexpected question made me flinch and whip my head around.

It was the girl, who I had completely forgotten about. I blame the inevitable concussion for that.

She had propped herself up against a tree trunk, and gotten rid of the rag she had in her mouth the first time I saw her. She was looking at me with genuine concern, but also a solid measure of caution. After the display I put on, I can't say I'm surprised. I'm guessing she was having difficulties determining if the crazy pyromaniac could be trusted or not, while simultaneously realising that right now she didn't have a lot of choices.

"That looks like it hurts a lot," she murmured while looking at my bruise with a concerned expression,

"if you get me out of these ropes I could have a look at it you know." Now she was looking into my eyes with furrowed brows. I was confused as to why she was sounding so unsure.

Anyway, I stood up and brushed myself off. I pulled back my hood and ruffled my hair a bit to get all the gold dust out.

"I've been through worse, but thanks for asking," I said with a crooked smile while tying my hair up in a ponytail with a black leather cord. I got an uncertain smile back. That's something at least.

"Nothing a little nectar and a good night's sleep can't fix. But let's see about those ropes." I looked around the forest floor, and finding my dagger I twirled it carefully in my tingling left hand before walking over to the girl. "Would you mind turning around for a sec?" I gave her a gentle smile and put a supporting hand on her shoulder while she wiggled onto her side to give me access to the binding. Some quick sawing later and she could sit back a bit less awkwardly, rubbing her wrists. The skin had the telltale angry blush from friction burns, and fresh scabs covered certain parts. Some of my earlier fury came back.

"Nothing a little nectar can't fix, right?" she said with a cheeky but somewhat pained tone. She'd caught me staring, again.

"Oh yeah, let me get that for you," I said as I rummaged through the impossibly deep pockets on my cloak. After a few seconds, I pulled out a hip-flask and a brownie-sized piece of ambrosia wrapped in cling film. She raised one eyebrow at the ambrosia as I reached out to hand it over.

"Stale ambrosia just isn't as nice as the fresh stuff, trust me. Even the food of the gods turns bad after a while. Been there, done that." I explained before waving the chunk enticingly in front of her. She picked it out of my hand and started tearing into the multiple layers of plastic.

"I wasn't complaining." she paused. "I've had basically nothing to eat for the last three days. My stomach feels like it's halfway to Tartarus." She said and shrugged. "It was just a weird habit, that's all."

While she was scarfing down the ambrosia I splashed some nectar onto a piece of unscathed tent canvas, and pressed it gently against my side. After a few seconds a warm, tingling feeling emitted from where the bruise was, and I could feel a slight itch underneath my skin as the ribs began fusing together again. I tried to help it along as well as possible with my rapidly draining energy reserves. A low grunt of satisfaction escaped my lips.

When the girl was done eating I simply held the flask in front of her and wiggled it in the same manner as I had the ambrosia. She took it gratefully and took a few mouthfuls. By now her wounds were almost all healed, but she still looked worn out as hell. She made a similar grunt as I had when she lowered the bottle and handed it back.

"Now, that's really good." A few seconds went by where we said nothing and just passed the flask back and forth, feeling our wounds heal and our energy return. When the nectar was all out she spoke again.

"You don't happen to have something stronger in that magical cape of yours flamehead? After the week I've had, I could really go for something a bit stiffer than nectar." She looked at me questionably, with a tilting smile and a posture that screamed attitude. I could see she wasn't completely unaffected by the ordeal, and some traces of the painful treatment were still visible in those bright blue eyes of hers even if she tried to mask it with cockiness. I couldn't resist chuckling at her nickname though.

"Flamehead?" I questioned incredulously and tilted my head.

"Yeah, well, you seem to like to set things on fire. And after what I saw here, I think you might have a few aggression issues. No offence." she answered and looked at me with a teasing expression. "And I don't really have the energy to get too creative." I chuckled again.

"Huh. I suppose it's pretty spot on then." She just nodded a quick affirmative and smirked. "But to answer your question, no, I don't have any booze on me." She frowned.

"But fortunately I've got something better." I said and winked at her. I then proceeded to stand and started tossing scraps from logs and collapsed tents into the small crater in the middle of the camp.

"Better than liquor? I somewhat doubt it." But nonetheless, she just settled back against her log and watched me move around with brisk efficiency. After a small pile of wood and cloth was stacked up I simply snapped my fingers to ignite it. What was the point of fire powers if you couldn't show off sometimes? I then started rummaged in my pockets.

"What are you looking for now? Marshmallows?" I could hear the curiosity in her voice as she tried to peak over my shoulder.

I said nothing, and instead just held the two tin cans I'd pulled out up to show her.

"Maybe next time, but for now, some hearty meat stew." I mentally chuckled at my hidden pun, but she just shone up at the mention of some real food, and didn't really notice.

I punched some holes in the tins with my hunting knife, before nestling them into the smouldering coals at the edge of the fire. Pretty soon they were bubbling and whistling quietly, The fires in her eyes paralleled mine when she looked at the food.

I dug around in some of the abandoned tents while our meal was boiling, and managed to find two crudely hammered metal cups that some of the more civilized monsters must have used, Picking the tins out of the fire I peeled back the lids and poured the stew into the cups.

Handing her the steaming meal, I observed her starving face as she got the first waft of the smells coming off the stew, The look in her eyes vaguely resembled that of a particularly feral wolf eyeing a sheep. Safe to say, I didn't have to wiggle the mug in front of her before she took it this tíme.

A heavy burp echoed through the woods as she set her mug down. I smiled behind my own cup at her content expression as she leaned back against her tree.

"Okay, that was just friggin' delicious. And that isn't just the three days of hunger speaking, let me tell you." I just smiled.

"Glad you liked it. You looked like you could use a nice home-cooked meal" She smiled gratefully back at me, but slightly raised one eyebrow.

"Home-cooked? I thought it was canned?" she asked.

"Well, yeah." I said, while rubbing my neck. 'If she thought me cling-filming my ambrosia was weird, she's gonna laugh at me for this.' "Since I'm on the road a lot, I sort of tend to miss home cooked meals out of here. So I kind of bought a canning machine so I could easily bring my food out here."

She eyed me sceptically.

"So you mean you take food cooked at home and put it in cans so you can easily bring them out here?" I threw my arms out in exasperation.

"Well, I can't bring my kitchen out here, can I? And I was raised with a serious appreciation for good, warm, food. Let me tell you." Her eyebrows went even higher.

"You cook? This incredible stuff?" She asked while pointing at her mug.

"Yeah, I suppose." I said, not understanding why she was so sceptical. She just huffed and looked annoyed. Then I vaguely heard her grumble to herself.

"He couldn't just be hot, he had to cook too…" I mentally chuckled, and grinned slightly to myself. Luckily the spiky-haired girl with the tough attitude didn't see it, or else I could have been in some serious trouble. Looking up, I noticed the sky was almost completely black, and realised how late it was getting.

"Well, anyways, it seems like we'll need to set up camp for the night. How about we get introduced for real? After all, my mum taught me not to talk to strangers. And definitely not sleep next to one." I said with a crooked smile. She looked up as well and nodded slightly.

"I s'pose. My name's Thalia," she said, stood, and stretched. "Oh, I almost forgot." I, as the curious sucker I was, made a questioning noise and looked up at her.

"Thanks for the whole saving me thing." I smiled at her.

"My pleasure." She gave me a sharp jab in the shoulder. It gave me a strange numbing feeling I didn't quite recognize.

"Don't look so smug, flamehead. You did almost get killed while trying after all." I just kept smiling.

"Debatable. But I'm Percy. Percy Jackson. Great to meet you." She gave me a quick smile back before returning to her previous look of toughness and attitude. I could definitely get used to that smile, if only because it seemed pretty rare.

I took the first watch, just in case any monsters returned looking for scraps.

While sitting outside of the tent we had set up, the least thrashed one, I went up through the events of the evening as I cleaned and reloaded my revolver. Thalia did have a point. It could definitely have gone better, even if it turned out alright in the end. Goddamn fireproof monsters. I have to learn not to rely too much on my abilities. There's also the fact that they were extremely exhausting to use. I mean, I might have faked a large part of my tiredness at the end of the fight, but I wasn't far away from reaching that state for real. Up until this point, my missions consisted mostly of hunting and killing the odd monsters and squads here and there, but my first meeting with something a bit more powerful wasn't exactly ideal. I've got some stuff to work on during my next hunt, to say the very least.

I jumped slightly when I heard the tent flap rustle behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I was met with a sleepy looking Thalia peeking out at me.

"Hey, I thought you were sleeping. Hope I didn't wake you." I said gently, with my brow furrowed in concern. She rubbed her eyes and yawned cutely. Again, not something I'd ever describe it as out loud.

"Nah, don't worry. Nightmare." Her dismissive tone made sure I wasn't about to ask her about it.

She looked curiously over my shoulder.

"That's really cool." She said, nodding at the firearm in my hand. "I've never seen anyone using guns on monsters. It seemed pretty effective." Her eyes were wide as she looked at the engraved barrel shining in the firelight. I held it up, appreciating the beauty of the piece. It was an old Colt, an 1851 Navy to be exact. The grips were polished ebony, and thin gold etchings covered the length of the revolver in winding geometric patterns.

"Yeah, it's a bit tricky to make it really efficient. I picked this model because of the relatively large calibre, and the cap and ball model of the rounds. It makes it pretty easy to make new bullets, but they need to be a specific alloy of godly metals."

'Does she know about the roman and greek aspects of the Olympians?' I glanced at her. She was still completely entranced by the gun. 'Might be best not to mention olympian gold or celestial bronze, just to be safe.' "Plus, I do give it a fair bit of extra oomph when it goes off. Fire and explosions mix pretty well y'know? If not for that, you'd need something like a mounted machine gun to get through most monsters' hides, and that's not really ideal." I smiled. It had been an idea at the early stage of planning with Hephaestus but had been quickly scrapped. Too bulky for the more mobile monsters.

She snapped out of it and looked me over a bit critically.

"I suppose. But it's still kinda strange. Actually, your entire equipment looks kinda odd." She tilted her head. "Where's that weird curvy sword of yours?"

My hand instinctively went to my hip, only to realise my scabbard was empty. 'Oh right. The sword. Shite.'

"Umm, I think it sort of went flying into the woods during the fight," I looked over pleadingly,

"Would you mind helping me look? It was a gift." She just huffed loudly, sounding slightly exaggerated to my ears, and stood up.

"Well, I'm not gonna be able to sleep for a bit anyway, so might as well." I grinned happily.

"Thank you Thals. Here, you might need this." I said while handing her a burning stick out of the fire.

"Thanks. Not everyone can light themselves on fire you know." She thumped my arm again, and the numbness returned even stronger this time. "Also, I never said you could call me Thals." Her deadpan expression made me chuckle.

"I know, that's what makes it fun." She just sighed and started walking into the forest, scanning the ground. The leaves crunched underfoot, and I made sure to keep track of Thalia's torch flickering between the trees. After a couple of minutes, I heard a shout of triumph from where Thalia was.

"Found it!"

I jogged in her direction, slowing down as I reached the little clearing she was standing in. When I got close to her I noticed she had a strange expression on her face. As I reached my hand out for the sword, I was met with a sharp, wavering tip keeping me at a distance. My brow furrowed in confusion, and she looked genuinely sad.

"You know, I really hate to do this, and I hope I don't offend you. I'm grateful that you saved me and all, but I've got serious problems when it comes to trusting people." Her face was now completely devoid of her normal mask of attitude, and I could see all the marks of all the painful things that had happened in her life. The sight broke my heart.

"So, I'm going to hold on to this until I feel like I can trust you, okay? Sorry, I really don't want this, but I just have no idea who you are and what you did out here burning monsters and killing stuff." her eyes were now misty, and her face was contorted as if she was in pain.

I had to do something. I shut my eyes for a second, and when I opened them again they were pure fire.

I gently pushed the sword out of the way, moving too fast for Thalia to react. I picked the blade out of her hand and stepped close to her slow-moving body. I let the fires in my eyes cool, and time moved normally again. The girl in front of me remained frozen in shock though. I stood silent for a heartbeat before I leaned in next to her ear. I made a split second decision. I don't really know where it came from.

"I'll always do my best to be honest with you." I paused. "I swear it on the Styx."

I stepped back as thunder rolled far far away. After flipping the sword so the hilt was pointed at her, I gently placed it in her hand. She was just looking at me in confusion. I kept stripping off my weapons, first the hunting knife and then the revolver, and placed them on the dirt in front of her.

"I hope you'll learn to trust me eventually. Take your time." I smiled sadly at her. "I'll be back at camp when you feel like returning." I then turned and walked slowly back to our tent.

It was a dark night, and the redwoods were towering above like silent giants.

The chilling breeze cooled my skin as I stripped off my armour and coat. I kept a pair of jeans and a t-shirt on for warmth as I lay down on one of the two bedrolls I had placed in the tent for us.

After about an hour I heard the canvas swish. I propped myself up by the elbows and looked at her as she entered. Her eyes were red, and I heard a muffled sniffle.

"You are just a genuinely nice guy, aren't you?"

I didn't know what to say, so I simply tilted my head and looked at her.

"Huh." She stopped talking and went over to her bedroll. But instead of lying down she gathered up her blanket and pillow, and walked over to me. I was just following her with my gaze, until she prodded my side with her boot-clad foot. I scooted over to make some room beside me. She plopped her pillow close to mine, and spread her blanket out carefully.

As she lay down next to me she leaned over and pulled my arm into a position where it was draped over her.

"Um, I know it's a weird thing to ask, but, hrm, keep me safe tonight?"

I gave her a small squeeze, pulling her just half an inch closer to my body.

"I promise." I heated my body up slightly to keep out the cool air that followed her into the tent, and fell asleep.

A/N

Sorry for the sickly sweet chapter, but I needed these two to build some attachment early on. Trust me, there's a reason to it besides doe-eyed romance ideals. And it saddens me to say, but my version of Thalia doesn't really have the nicest of backgrounds. The next chapter will most likely contain a large portion of background stories and explanations of Percy's abilities and past. Brownie points to anyone being able to figure out why Percy's "perception" of time can change? I mean, he's still a son of Hestia, so it's got something to do with fire obviously.

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