"Annabeth, calm down," Percy says.

I stop my pacing long enough to give him an annoyed look. "Calm up!" I command. I can't believe he is just sitting there. "Percy, I swear to gods, I realize that's not a real phrase. But you understood the meaning, didn't you?"

He rubbed his forehead, hiding an eyeroll, clearly wishing I hadn't woken him up this early. His relationship with sleep never ceases to annoy me. He's not himself until he's been up and at 'em for a while and had breakfast. And sometimes second breakfast.

Unable to get his attention any other way, I straddle and kiss him. After a moment, he responds, wrapping his arms around me, pulling me against him. "Okay," I say loudly, standing up. I hold out a finger. "Now listen. We have a crisis to deal with. I'm going to die."

"You're not going to die!" he says, exasperated. He forces himself to get up and walks to the bathroom. I follow him.

"Can I get a little privacy?" he huffs.

"No."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You're not going to get rid of me! You need to listen."

"Fine! At least turn around."

I face the wall and continue to talk. "Okay, I went—ew, don't pee so loudly—I went for a walk in the forest, and I was praying to Athena. Then, this owl came out of nowhere and was saying my name, but it was in Athena's voice. Then it left this coin for me. Then I came back here to show you."

"That's all?"

"Oh, wait. Also, I had this prophetic dream this morning that I died."

Percy turns on the faucet, and I think it safe to turn around. "How did you die?"

"I evaporated and turned into mist."

"Doesn't sound too bad."

"You would think," I agree. "But it was really freaky. Normally, I wouldn't get worked up over it. However, the dream plus the coin equals worked up. So I'm talking to Athena, asking for wisdom. Her response? 'Goodbye.' So, since she has never responded to me before, it would be highly unlikely for her to respond today. But she did. Therefore, it must be serious." I take a breath. "I don't know, maybe you had to be there to understand the gravity of the situation. Do you understand the gravity of the situation?"

Percy turns to face me. "No. But I understand you're freaked out, and it's kind of freaking me out."

I follow him out of the bathroom. "Okay, so first things first. We need to go talk to Chiron."

"Alright, but I need to get dressed first." He slides on the pink slippers, then shoots them a quizzical look. "You know what I just realized, Annabeth? I'm going to have to do the walk of shame. All the way to the Poseidon cabin."

I manage a smile, wishing I were in a better mood to fully appreciate this moment. "Leave the slippers and you won't look too weird. Oh, and sneak out the back."

He sighs and kicks the slippers under my bed. "Meet you at the pavilion in five?"

"Okay."

He wraps me in a hug and whispers, "Don't worry. It's going to be okay."

"Okay," I murmur.

He kisses me on the cheek and makes his exit. After he disappears from sight, I take the coin out of my pocket and analyze it. When I first saw it, I thought it was another silver drachma bearing the mark of Athena. But it is not. It's shiny silver, but the surface and edges are rough, malformed. It bears no other mark but the engraving of goodbye, which is shaky and uneven.

I slip it into my pocket and head for the dining pavilion. It's still early, so only about half of the campers are already eating breakfast. Piper waves when she see me, but I don't have the energy to make polite conversation now. I wave back, smile, and hold up a finger like one minute. She shoots me a thumbs up. As I lean against a column, I remember Percy's faux pas last night, almost calling Piper pretty in my presence. She is pretty. Nothing wrong with noticing that. Though I do enjoy watching him squirm.

Think of the devil.

"Hey," says Percy. He is now wearing tennis shoes.

"Hey." I slip my hand into his, and we make our way over to Piper and Jason's table. "It's our dear pals Jason the Just and Piper the—what was it again, Percy?"

Percy pretends not to have heard me and asks Jason something about swords.

"What was that about?" Piper asks me.

I wink like I'll tell her later when we're not around the boys. (That will give me time to make something up that isn't awkward.)

She wiggles her eyebrows. "Yeah, we need to talk about some stuff." She glances over at Jason suggestively.

I refuse breakfast, too nervous to eat, but I quickly drink a cup of coffee. Percy and Jason are still talking in depth about swords, but Piper keeps trying to talk politics, how we plan on bringing the camps together. Half of me is too concerned with this "goodbye" message to think about that, and the other half just wants to procrastinate it as long as possible since I have no idea what we should do. Throwing caution to the wind, I whisper to Piper that Percy stayed in my room last night. Daughter of Aphrodite that she is, this keeps her occupied for a while. Between whispered juicy details I'm making up as I go along, I try to rush Percy, who is taking forever to eat. Finally, he polishes off his blue blueberry muffin, and we take off to find Chiron, promising to be back soon, maybe even before Leo decides to drag his butt up there.

As we walk around camp searching for Chiron, I feel the anxiousness and stress build up inside me, and it's turning into a huge ball of anger. I really, really want to go kill some dummies in the arena. I want to escape in battle. Battle is simple. Well, it's hard, but that's what makes it simple. You focus, you do things, you plan more things to do, you do them. You win or you lose (mostly win). Life is hard. There are so many different paths, so many choices. And you can't win. You can have small victories, but then there's always something else. And something else, and another thing at the same time, and—

"Percy, make some jokes. I'm driving myself crazy thinking."

"Driving yourself crazy? Girl, you already done crashed! You been at crazy for a while now. Do you have amnesia?"

"Okay, sweetie. I meant tell some jokes that are not lame."

He hit imaginary drums. "Ba dum tsh!" His face went serious. "Okay, did you ever hear the one about the river nymph at the Hoover dam?"

"Nope, what about her?"

I try to district myself with Percy's (still lame) jokes, but I can't shake this feeling of dread. I feel the weight of the coin in my pocket, like an anchor tied around my waist, dragging me underwater, compressing my chest. I can't breathe. Reaching for Percy's hand, I find the best thing you can have when you're drowning: your loving boyfriend.

In spite of myself, a smile tugs at my lips. It also helps when he's the son of Poseidon and can breathe underwater. (Ba dum tsh!)

A/N: What's up readers! I'm getting a little stuck trying to write, basically, in the future since I don't know what happens in BoO. But! Something crazy is about to happen that will take the story in a completely different direction, so I won't have to worry about that anymore. I'm enjoying writing this so much, by the way!