Disclaimer: I do not own PJO. All I own is this idea for Father Nico.

Thalia looked at the stranger, then at Macy's. Nico could see she wanted to run, but it was either running back to that employee in Macy's, or running into a mall full of strangers.

Instead, she settled for running in circles around Nico.

"Stanger! Stranger! STRANGER!" She screeched.

"Thalia, shut it!" Nico hissed, grabbing her by the arm to force her to stop. "He's a nice stranger. He's not going to hurt you!"

Nico groaned inwardly as Thalia approached him, and again went through her procedure of checking to make sure he was clean.

"He's clean." She finally declared.

The poor man looked sorry that he'd ever come to the mall that day.

"Let's go get something to eat." Nico suggested brightly. He briefly apologized to the man before Thalia grabbed Percy and his own arm and dragged them to the food court.

Every time Thalia saw someone she didn't know, she freaked out, but Nico managed to shut her mouth quick enough. Eventually, he resorted to carrying her.

With her face buried in his shirt, she couldn't see any strangers, was his logical thinking.

"Bum. Bum. Bum. Ba-dum ba-dum." Percy hummed under his breath.

Nico looked at him suspiciously. "What are you singing?"

"Nothing." Percy looked back at him innocently.

Nico shrugged it off. He had enough problems with Thalia squirming around.

"What do you guys want to eat?" Nico asked as they stopped in front of a McDonalds.

"Blue cake." Percy announced.

"They don't serve blue cake at McDonalds, stupid." Thalia snapped at him. She twisted around to see the menu.

"I'll take some chicken nuggets and fries." Thalia decided.

"Me too! Me too!" Percy nodded.

"Okay then." Nico stepped up to the man who was going to be taking their order, putting Thalia down.

"We'll have one twenty piece chicken nugget, three fries, and three waters." He ordered.

He pulled his wallet out as the guy read his price out.

"For here or to go?" The guy asked, sounding bored.

"For here, I guess." Nico glanced around for Thalia and Percy.

Wait a second. Where were Thalia and Percy?

"On second thought, make that to go." Nico muttered as he did a three-sixty, searching for them. "Oh, gods."

The guy handed him his bag (guess it must have been a slow day at McDonalds) and Nico took off, trying to locate them before he heard the siren, "STANGER," and found a really confused and startled shopper.