Hello, everyone! How's your day going so far? I actually had a pretty rotten day, but then I stepped outside and it finally felt like fall! Leaves were falling and it was cool for the first time since March! Instantly put me in a better mood. Haha sorry for that little ramble, but I'm just so excited for fall (anyone else?). Also, thank you to everyone who reviewed, followed, favorited, and voted last chapter (my poll hit 100 votes! finally! Big bundles of awesomeness officially achieved). I promise I'll hush now... Thank you in advance for reading, and please, enjoy Chapter 4! :)

"Exactly how many of these clues are there?" Percy asked her when she'd finally caught up to him (somewhere around the cabins). He noticed her breathing hard, which was unusual for Annabeth, but he stopped jogging and slowed to a nice, easy walk beside her anyway.

She didn't answer for a minute, as she was still catching her breath. Odd, he thought, but didn't comment.

"More than you count," she teased, though she sounded winded when she said it.

He glanced at her in concern. "You okay, Wise Girl?"

Her eyes widened in alarm. "Yeah! Of course! Why wouldn't I be?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, you just seem...tired."

She huffed indignantly, though it didn't sound like she meant it. "So what, it's okay to be tired when it's nighttime, but it's forbidden to be just a little bit fatigued when the sun's out? How ridiculous is that!"

"Whoa, okay, I didn't know you felt like that," he backpedaled, his hands held up in surrender. "Sorry, Wise Girl."

She nodded assertively. "Good. Now come on, slowpoke." And with that, she picked up her previous pace and broke into a run, though from the back it seemed as though her arms were pumping faster and her shoulders were working harder than they usually had to. Still, he followed her, not one to stir up an argument (after all, it was the Husband Rule that your wife was always right, a rule that must have been invented with Annabeth in mind).

Quickly, they arrived at the climbing wall, and they stopped to lean back and admire the tall structure. The treacherous terrain of rocks that could disappear from underneath your hands and feet, the scolding-hot lava that poured off of the side, the boulders that rained down on unsuspecting campers... It was beautiful, in a terrifying, I-will-kill-you sort of way.

"So...now what?" asked Percy after they had waited a moment.

Annabeth glanced impatiently at her watch that she wore at all times; she had to be efficient and prompt to be the co-head director of camp, along with her husband, of course. "Where are they?" she muttered. "They were supposed to be here already. I wonder if - "

Percy didn't get to hear the end of her sentence, but he suspected that her question was answered as someone yelled something unintelligible from the top of the tower, and a person half-jumped, half-fell off of the very top. A guttural scream escaped the person's throat as he fell through the air, and he almost sounded like he was...laughing. But the laughter was quickly cut off as the person collapsed onto the ground with a sickening thud and lay still.

"Oh my gods!" cried Annabeth as she raced over, Percy right beside her. They knelt by the person - a man with a mop curly brown hair - and flipped him over so that he lay face-up.

"Connor!" Percy said, recognizing the man. In the past, identifying him when he was not right next to his brother would have been impossible, for they had looked exactly alike except for the fact that Travis was taller. Nowadays though, it was easier, for though they still resembled each other an extraordinary amount for siblings who weren't twins, Travis had since grown a beard, and Connor remained as baby-faced as ever.

In response to Percy's voice, Connor's eyelashes fluttered open, and he grinned when he saw Percy. "Hey dude," he drawled in a drunken tone as he flashed his friend a peace-sign. "What's up?"

Annabeth didn't give her husband a chance to answer, instead asking in a slightly exasperated voice, "Connor, can we please just have the clue?"

"Sheesh! Someone's a little impatient" noted the son of Hermes with a roll of his eyes. Still, he began to rummage around in his pockets, as if searching for something."Just gimme a second. I stuck it in my pocket this morning. At least... At least I think I did."

His brown eyes widened in obvious panic at the thought of facing Annabeth when she was angry, and he held up his hands to ward her off. "I swear it was in here earlier. You can ask Travis, he saw me do it, just ask -"

He halted midway through his sentence, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Travis," he muttered, his gaze darting upwards to the rock wall on which his brother perched.

Upon seeing his brother's expression, Travis simply waved innocently, a devilish smile on his face being the only giveaway that he was up to no good.

"Travis!" Connor shouted, even wagging his fist for good measure. "Give me the clue!"

"Oh," his brother sighed nonchalantly, drawing a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket casually. "You mean...this clue?"

The only response was a menacing growl, to which he replied by brandishing the clue and waving it tauntingly in the air.

Apparently, this was the last straw for Annabeth, for the smidgen of patience she had managed to retain suddenly evaporated into thin air, and she exploded: "Travis! Connor! Enough! We are on a deadline here, so if you two could please just hurry up, I would really appreciate it!"

The pair of mischief-makers muttered something intelligible, but the older brother reluctantly folded the piece of paper into an airplane and threw it down.

Annabeth watched with an incredible amount of patience as the makeshift-airplane glided down leisurely from the tower, seemingly taking its time. Noticing the pinched expression on her face, Percy attempted to repress a chuckle, but his wife heard him anyway, and threw him a sour look.

Ages later, the clue got close enough for the daughter of Athena' to snatch it out of the air and uncrumple it, and her husband came to stand beside her so that they could both read it:

See them from the Big House,

They smell so sweet.

A batch of these

Is hard to beat.

"I'm assuming that doesn't mean a batch of cookies?" guessed Percy as he tucked the clue into his pocket.

Annabeth laughed, and looped her arm through his as they began to walk away. "Please. As if anyone could replicate your mom's blue cookies."

"Alright, guys," Connor called after them forlornly, looking quite pitiful as he lay sprawled on the ground all alone. "See you later..."

Thank you for reading! I really appreciate you taking the time to read my little story. :) Any chance we can get five reviews for this chapter? Please? I love hearing what y'all have to say, criticism included. Anyway, thanks again for everything. See you next Monday with another chapter for this story!

And I hope you have a really lovely day!

Love,

~Princess Andromeda II