Sorry for not updating :'( I had really bad writer's block.

6/Percy

Feeling.

It's a trait that he doesn't get anymore. He knows it's ridiculous that he can say that, but it's true.

Ever since that day when Nico di Angelo proposed the impossible: the Styx. Ever since he hit that water, he'd only been imagining he could feel that pain.

He's only getting bits and pieces back from the queen of the gods, yet it's enough to know that he can't feel much now. He gets snitches of pain from a long-lost war, fear from an epic battle. He doesn't feel that anymore. He can't be surprised.

His gaze shifts from the surface of the water to behind him, where the three girls sit together. He's not looking at Piper, telling a joke he couldn't hear, or Rachel, rolling on the floor. He's watching Annabeth, laughing as if she doesn't have a care in the world.

The sun bounces in sparkles off her golden curls, high in a ponytail. Her owl earrings brush softly against the smooth skin of her throat. Her gray eyes, clear and happy, shine in the light.

She is what he feels.

He's near her, and he gets a warm, fuzzy sort of sensation in his chest, a tingling in his throat when she laughs, just like she is now. She's angry, he's the same. She's sad, he can be nothing but.

Now he smiles, watching her grab onto Piper to stay up, gasping for her breath.

"Someone's in love."

Nico stands beside him, grinning annoyingly.

Percy frowns. "Maybe," is all he's willing to say. He may be getting memories back, but he doesn't trust a faded friend like Nico. He's certain no one does.

Nico sighs dramatically. "Me too, buddy." He grins some more.

"Don't tease the lovesick guy, Nico; you might be one of them someday," Leo says ominously.

"I'll laugh when I see the day," Jason smiles absently in Piper's direction.

"Hey!" Rachel calls. "Stop staring, you stalkers!" That earns fresh peals of giggles from Piper and Annabeth, who finally falls off her seat and hits the floor next to Rachel.

"Girls," Nico snorts. "Sometimes I think it isn't worth it."

"It is," Percy and Jason say at the same time, then they laugh.

Leo rolls his eyes. "Gods, you guys are starting to push me onto Nico's side."

"Jason!" Piper chokes out. "Get over here! Rachel's got the dirtiest jokes!"

"Oh I gotta see this," Nico says. Leo agrees, and the three of them head over to the girls.

Percy stays behind. He doesn't know why, but somehow he doesn't feel quite right with them. Out of place. Left out.

Yes, he belongs with them. He knows that well, the information having been drilled into his brain a number of times. Yet he can't help being insecure.

The Roman life he'd built for himself is nothing short of a mirage, a simple, deceiving image he can never reach. He's not meant for the world of honor, discipline, and battle that the Romans so favor. He's not meant to be a great ruler, like Caesar or Augustus. He's not meant to be a soldier. As the Fates would tell him, he imagines, he is not cut from Roman cloth.

A place where a man can prove his worth. An empire where a soldier can assert his dominance. That is the life he is now accustomed to, not the peaceful, playful way of the Greeks he's supposedly come from. He's torn, from the people of his origin, and the tempting style of the glorious position he's being offered.

But he knows now: the offer has expired. He's exiled from that world now. There's no going back.

"What's going on in that head of yours, Seaweed Brain?" Her voice sends a whirlwind of strange emotions through him. He turns, with a slight smile.

"Nothing." He answers without thinking, a rather stupid mistake on his part.

"Isn't it like that always?" she replies with a grin. She laughs at his expression, putting her arms around his neck. "You always fall for my traps, Jackson."

When she kisses him, he's hit with that faintly-memorable sensation of his Roman-tuned brain melting out of his skull.

The day passes without so much as one attack, something that troubles Percy. They are demigods, after all; something should've happened by now. The lack of such made him uneasy.

He'd spent countless time controlling the currents around the Argo II. Annabeth had sat on the starboard edge, flipping through an old architecture book. Jason had stood at the prow, manipulating the winds in their favor. Leo had been scrambling below deck like an insane monkey, checking the gears and constantly adjusting the settings. Piper had climbed the ropes all the way to the top of the mast; Jason found her asleep up there. Rachel had done over half an hour of yoga on deck; Nico had been standing in the shadows behind her the whole time, a goofy grin on his face.

Now it was nightfall. They're sitting around a small hearth of portable fire Leo had somehow managed to make. Piper's head is resting lightly on Jason's shoulder while he looks off into the distance, drawing the clouds around the ship like a cool blanket. Annabeth and Rachel are singing songs and laughing on every line. Nico's staring into the firelight, a grim expression on his face that's too old for his age. Leo's on his back, gazing up at the sky.

Again, Percy can't help the sense that he doesn't fit with them. They seem so absorbed to him, so wrapped up in their happy little minds. So oblivious to everything else. He gets a tiny spark of curiosity at that; what would it be like, to trap yourself in a place where you can be happy for eternity? Ignore the troubles of the world? It sounds so...peaceful. He wonders briefly if he would want that kind of eternity.

"Hey," Leo says suddenly.

Annabeth and Rachel stop in the middle of their song to glance over. Piper lifts her head. Jason looks down. Nico's eyes shift to him. Percy sighs internally, but follows suit.

"I just noticed something," Leo goes on.

"What?" Rachel asks.

"See that?"

They all scoot closer to follow Leo's finger. "What?" Rachel repeats.

"That shadow," Leo says. "It's moving."

"Shadows move depending on light patterns," Annabeth says. "Or you could just be experiencing an optical illusion from staring at it too long."

Percy looks over at her, and he can't help but notice how cute she is; the expression that proves her mind is scattered over a million subjects, the numbers she's tracing on the deck with her fingers, the lock of blonde hair that falls onto her cheek.

Nico rolls his eyes. "Yes, Annabeth, we know."

"You know," Piper points out. "You're the one with shadow power, Death Boy."

"Meh," he shrugs. He frowns up at the shadow Leo was previously pointing at, stretching slowly across the clouds.

"I meant it's moving weird," Leo sighs in exasperation. "See? It's doing it."

They crowd a little closer. The shadow disappears, then reappears on a different cloud, as if it had jumped.

"I don't like that," Nico says.

"What are you thinking?" Rachel asks. "Kindly Ones? Harpies?"

"No, the Furies don't act unless my father commands it," Nico disagrees, ignoring everyone's uncomfortable shift at the name. "And the harpies don't leave camp."

"Ever heard of rogue, Nico?" Piper quips. "Harpies don't all work for Chiron."

"Okay, fine," he backtracks. "Just saying, I know harpies. That," he points up, "isn't one."

"Then what is it?" Jason says.

"It's got underworld aura," Nico says absently. His eyes widen. "Oh crap."

"What?" Percy asks.

He stands. "My dad—"

The sharp scream of an animal suddenly cuts through the air.

The seven of them are armed instantly, their seven sets of eyes scouring the sky. They inch closer to each other involuntarily, making a lopsided circle. Percy's trained eyes sweep the dark clouds fervently, searching for any sign of movement. He sees none. It couldn't have disappeared, could it?

"DUCK!" Piper screams. They all look up for a split second, then all of them hit the deck—literally. Percy's scrambling to his feet as soon as the dark shape swoops down over them, the resulting wind blowing his hair back hard.

He whirls, Riptide in hand, just in time to see Nico trip backwards over the edge of the Argo II.

"Nico!" he yells. He runs, ducking instinctively at the sound of the animal's shriek, and peers down into the water. "Nico where are you?"

A black aviator's jacket bobs to the surface. A spluttering Nico follows, screaming, "I HATE WATER!"

"Percy get down you idiot!" Annabeth tackles him from behind, a pair of talons missing them by inches.

"What the hell is that?" he shouts. "Just kill it already!"

"I'm trying!" she retorts. She throws her knife with such perfect precision that it shaves the beast's hide. They all clamp their hands over their ears at the piercing scream it emits.

"Nico, give me your hand!" Percy yells, hanging over the edge. He wills the water to push his friend up, until—

"No!" Nico calls. "Percy, stop!"

"What?"

"I was trying to tell you!" he shouts over the yelling of the others. "My dad—he wants me to—" Rachel's shriek cuts him off; all Percy hears is: "I can't travel with you!"

"Are you crazy?" Annabeth screams down before Percy can.

"I don't know, maybe!" he screams back.

"Cut the crap, Nico!" Percy bellows. "Get up here!"

"I'm not destined to go with you guys! I'm not one of the seven! The Fates have their plans, Perce, Annabeth! I'll find my own way to Greece!" And Nico's gone.

"NICO!" Percy shouts. He whirls around, finding Rachel mid-shoot with a bow and arrow. "Somebody! Get a rope or—"

"WAIT!" Annabeth seizes Rachel's bow. "Look, it's—!"

A second before she finishes her sentence, a pair of booted feet thud aboard.

The girl standing there raises an eyebrow, looking insanely punk in her ripped silvery camo pants, DEATH TO BIEBER t-shirt, and spiky black hair as she leans on a great metallic bow. Her silver tiara glints as she grins at them.

"'Sup, kids?"

Okay, just for the record, normally I wouldn't make Nico perverted, I thought that scene would be funny. Leave me some reviews to fill up my inbox if you've got thoughts :)

~ Mia ~