Percy's POV:

After Bella and I arrive back to Charlie's house, I go straight up to my room and jump onto the bed with a loud thump and smoosh the pillow harshly into my face and let out a groan of frustration. I could not believe what just happened at the beach not even an hour ago. I almost kissed her. Why did I almost kiss her? Before I left the house for the bonfire, I was still hurting over her- I mean Annabeth… And now I can think her name without feeling that familiar sharp pain in my chest that occurred every single time anything even remotely reminded me of her.

Annabeth.

Annabeth Chase.

Annabeth Wise Girl Chase.

Nothing. No pain. Only the sweet twinge of nostalgia of all the good times and memories of my lost friend. How is it that I go from crying over thinking her name to being able to recall full memories of her without even a tear. Before I met Leah, none of this was seemed even remotely possible. Oh, but her name – Leah Clearwater – that name resounded in my chest in a way that I had never felt before, and that scared me in a way that I can't describe.

Leah.

Leah Clearwater.

Leah My Beautiful Native Girl Clearwater.

I let out yet another sound of frustration. I have never been very good with the whole feelings thing. Annabeth used to say I was too clueless to pick up on the obvious things in life, much less the things that required a much more "delicate understanding" such as feelings. But one thing that I do know for certain, no matter how much this one night has healed the one-ever-present ache in my chest, I am no where near ready to jump into another relationship.

I just wish that I had someone to talk to about this whole mess. All of the people that I feel close enough to talk about this stuff to is on the other side of the country. Honestly, I just want to talk to my mom, and not over the phone. After not having a phone for so long, I just don't feel comfortable using it, especially not for such issues. But sadly, there isn't a way tha–

A light bulb goes off in my mind, and instantly I feel like the seaweed brain that I was so affectionately dubbed. While I may not have had a phone, I have had another way of communication for the past six years – Iris messaging. And this way was so much better than a phone call anyways because you could talk face to face. I almost face palm myself for almost forgetting this way of communication, but instead I half walk, half run over to my duffle bag in the corner of the room which held my drachmas. Quickly ruffling through my things, I soon find the small, leather pouch that the small, golden coins were stored in. I grab a couple out of the bag and walk out of my room. I try to walk as swiftly down the stairs and out the door without causing suspicion with my uncle and cousin. Right before I walk out of the front door, I call out half-heartedly something about going for a run, not realizing until later how silly that excuse would sound as I'm still in my jeans that I went to the bonfire in. As soon as I am out of the house, I break out into a sprint until I hit the tree line, and once I'm there, I fish one of the drachmas out of my pocket. For a couple minutes a walk around a bit aimlessly trying to find somewhere where the sun is able to come through the thick leaves from above so that the sun could hit the mist already in the air to create the rainbow needed to use Iris Messaging. Finding just the right spot I grin and hold up the golden coin to about eye level and an arm's length away from me.

"Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering." I recite the phrase that I haven't used in years. "Show me Sally Jackson, our apartment, Manhattan, New York. Please." I add on the please as an afterthought. You never know what kind of mood the gods might be in. Wouldn't want to get blown up without doing something marginally fun first. But Iris must have been in a good mood today as a golden light appears in front of me and begins to take the form of my mom standing in our kitchen in the apartment washing dishes. The sight of her makes me smile. I had not realized how much I have missed her since I came to Forks.

"Mom," I call out gently to get her attention. She jumps a bit, clearly startled, and turns around quickly with a soapy, wet plate and a dripping rag still in her hands. But as soon as she sees me, she puts both items onto the counter, seemingly not caring that now the counter will be wet and soapy.

"Percy!" She exclaims and throws her arms out to hug me before quickly realizing that as this is an Iris message, she can't actually touch me. "How are you? How is Forks? Are Charlie and Bella being nice to you?" She opens her mouth and takes a breath, presumably to ask yet another question before I raise my hands to get her to stop, but the smile doesn't leave my face. I really had missed her.

"I'm doing good mom, for real this time." I say as I continue to answer her questions. "Forks is good. It rains a lot, but you know I don't really mind the water. Charlie and Bella have been great. I actually just went to a bonfire with Bella tonight to La Push which is the local reservation here. That is actually what I wanted to talk to you about."

I take a deep breath before continuing, "As you know, I've been struggling since Annabeth…" I see my mom's eyes widen at my use of her name. "But something happened tonight and…" I lose my words and flounder just a bit.

"What happened Percy?" My mom asked gently, using a voice that she always used when I had nightmares as a kid and then after the wars.

I smile lightly at my feet as I answer, "I might have met someone. And I know it's way too soon, and I am not ready to be with anyone like that right now, but I just spent like two hours with her and I just felt happy and carefree again, like I used to feel before the even the first war. And when I think about her, I feel things that I haven't felt since Annabeth, and I just feel like there might be something there. Eventually." I take a deep breath as I finish my spiel, still looking down at my feet. I'm worried about her reaction.

"Percy, look at me." I hear my mom say softly. I lift my head first and then let my eyes trail up slower than my head came up. But when I look into my mom's eyes, all I see is love. I let out a breath that released a huge bout of tension from my body. "Tell me about her."

My smile breaks out wider across my face.

Bella's POV

While Percy was out for his run, Charlie and I were sitting in the living room, Charlie watching the news while I was doing homework for school. But as I stared down at my books with my notebook open and my pencil poised to write down the answer to the questions assigned, I found my mind stuck on my newfound cousin. First thing to consider was the Edward's reaction to Percy. He seemed to treat Percy with the same amount of animosity as he does Jacob or the rest of the La Push residents. Edward said that Percy smelled even better than I did, but a couple months ago with the Volturi, they all believed that having a singer was such a rare thing, so surely Edward couldn't have two singers within the same human life time, town, or even the same family! So, either Percy is something different or Edward just defies the odds yet again. Second, Alice lost her visions of me since Percy has arrived, and that only happens with the wolves of La Push. Third, and lastly, was that Leah imprinted on him and then his subsequent reaction to that imprint. Jake has described the sensation before, and even though he said that human party of the imprint can feel the bond sort of, the way he described it, it certainly didn't seem like it would be a strong enough sensation to warrant that type of reaction.

I just don't understand. With all of these things added together, there had to be something different about Percy.

"Hey Bella." I jump in my seat slightly. I guess I was so into my thoughts that I didn't notice Charlie trying to get my attention. "What's up kiddo, that's the third time I called your name."

I shook my head, "Nothing Ch-Dad. I was just thinking. What's up?"

Charlie gestures towards the tv. When I turned to look, I saw multiple missing person's cases from Seattle up on the screen. "What is going on in Seattle Dad?" I push my untouched school stuff to the side and focus all of my attention to the screen in front of me.

"We have been called in on the case. The Seattle PD need as much help as they can get. The first missing was about a year ago and the kid was from Forks, Riley Biers?" I shook my head, I hadn't heard of him. "Well since he was a Forks local, Seattle decided to call us in as well."

"Just be careful dad."

"Always am kid."

Suddenly my phone goes off, and I look down and see that it's Edward calling me. I grab the phone and look up at my dad.

He waves hand dismissively at me. "Go ahead, I'm just gonna watch the baseball game now." As I get up and answer the phone, I register that Charlie changes the tv from the news to some sports channel.

"Hey Edward."

"Hello Bella."

"What's up?" I smile. Hearing his voice always calms me down.

"We have been talking and the family has decided that it would probable be for the best to invite your cousin over for dinner soon. To get everything out in the air."

I scowled. "You mean to see if Percy is a threat or not don't you."

I hear Edward sigh over the phone. "Bella…"

"I agree with you," I say cutting him off mid-sentence.

"You do? What changed your mind?"

"I have been thinking and some things just do not add up. There has to be something different about him."

"You will ask him then, Bella?"

"Yeah, he's out right now, but I'll tell him that your family wants to meet him."

"Good, good. Thank you, Love."

"You're welcome." We said our pleasantries and just as we were about to hang up, I remembered what all had occurred tonight. "Wait, Edward!"

"Yes Love?"

"I just wanted to let you know what happened tonight at the bonfire." I take a breath before continuing. "When we got there, Leah Clearwater imprinted on Percy."

"The new female shapeshifter?"

"Yes, but that's not the weirdest part. The way he reacted when it happened… it was like he knew what had happened. Percy completely freaked out and ran away from everyone. Sam and the Elders said that it is pretty rare for an imprint to react that way." Edward just hummed in response. After that, we hung up pretty quickly. Edward must have found that behavior as strange as I did, but after being around as long as his family had, I am sure they must have some kind of explanation. I sighed in frustration. Even if Edward did have any suspicions about Percy, he wouldn't tell me about them. Why does he have to be so stupidly protective?

It was a couple hours later when Percy came back inside the house, and by that time I had formulated how I was going to ask him to have dinner with the Cullens. When he walked in the door he smiled at both Charlie and I before jogging up the stairs, taking two at a time. A couple minutes later I hear the shower turn on. I sigh as I turn back to the stove as I was preparing dinner, I guess I was going to have wait a little bit longer to talk to him. By the time the shower turns off, dinner was ready, and I called that out to both of the guys. And as soon as the words leave my lips, I hear Charlie walking in from the living room and Percy rushing back down the stairs towards the kitchen. I smile and shake my head at the boys that could only think with their stomachs and got three plates out of the cabinet and moved out of the way as the boys rush to put food on their plates. I laugh out loud as they are already seated and tucking into their food before I have even started walking towards the table.

I wait to discuss the dinner with Percy until he has eaten most of his food.

"So, Percy…" He looks up from his plate with his mouth stuffed with food.

"Hmm?" He continues chewing his food.

"I was thinking, since you're new to town and everything, I thought that you might like to meet some more people." Percy swallows his food and nods his head slowly.

"Sure, I guess."

"Good, good. I was wondering if maybe you would like to have dinner with me and the Cullens sometime this week?" He chokes a bit on the food that he had just put into his mouth.

"The Cullens?" He looks confused. "I thought Edwin didn't like me." Charlie starts laughing loudly at Percy's blatantly obvious misuse of Edward's name.

I sigh. "It's Edward." Percy just waves his hand dismissively. "And how can he not like you, he doesn't even know you. And this is a way for everyone to get to know everyone." Percy just looks at me with a pensive expression on his face.

"Umm... I guess..." He stutters out.

I smiled sweetly. "Thank you, Percy Jackson."

He laughed. "You are very welcome, Bella Swan."

Two days later, after I got home from school, I corralled Percy into getting ready to have dinner at the Cullen's. It was not easy.

"I don't see why we have to start getting ready so early."

"Because I need time to get ready AND try to fix your hair into being at least sort of presentable."

"Have you seen your boyfriend's hair? I think mine will fit right in." Percy said sneeringly.

"Ha ha ha." I said with my nose in the air. "You are just so funny."

It was really not easy.

"What's wrong with these jeans?"

"Percy, there are grass stains on them." He just looks at me. "And I know that you have at least one pair of jeans without grass stains on them."

It was not easy at all.

"Fine! Percy just quit sitting around and put on some shoes and come on!"

He snickers. "I thought the reason we started getting ready so early was so that we had time to sit around."

"Percy." I groan out, drawing out the last syllable in his name.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming." He hops off the couch and slips on his shoes.

We made it to the truck with little to no casualties.

"Bella, are you sure this truck is not going to break down on the way to the Cullen's house? Because I'm not sure if I have ever seen anything with this much rust actually work." I spoke too soon.

"Percy, if you do not get into the truck right now and stop talking, no actually stop complaining about everything, then I am going to hit you in the face." He looks at me with disbelief.

"Yeah right Bella. You don't have a violent bone in your body."

"Well there is about to be one if we are late getting to the Cullen's because you will not get into the dang truck." Percy's hands shoot up so that he is now standing in a defensive position. He then wordlessly gets into the truck and buckles up.

The drive to the Cullen's house was a quiet one. It seems that Percy got all of his little comments out of his system while still at the house. Which is good since I was already nervous about how this meeting was gonna go. What were the Cullen's going to talk to Percy about? How was Percy going to react to whatever the Cullen's going to ask him about? My nervousness gets so much worse at those thoughts. What if Percy gets mad? What if he goes back to the depressive state that he was in when he first came to Forks?

My nervousness must have been showing because Percy starts looking at me with worried eyes.

"Bella are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." My voice sounded high and shakey even to me.

"Mhm, I totally believe you. You know that everything is going to be fine with this dinner. I promise I'll be on my very best behavior. No snide or sarcastic comment or making fun of Edward and his hair. Everything will be just fine."

I let out a breath to try to release the tension in my body. "I sure hope so Percy. I sure hope so."

But no matter how much tension I released, it didn't matter because as soon as we pulled up to the huge, white house, all of the tension returned to my body.

Something told me that this dinner was not going to go very well.

Author's Notes: So sorry that it's taken me so long to update team! But just for future reference, the updates are going to be as sporadic as they have been in the past. I'm double majoring in college and I'm graduating early so I don't have a ton of time to write future chapters. So just bear with me through all of this craziness. Love you guys.