I watched as Malcom went and spoke to Percy and Jason, telling them his decision. I got as much food as I could, realising that this was my first hot meal in a while. It was grilled steaks, toasted bread, cheese, dried olives and dried fruit, and I filled my plate greedily. I noticed that there were three small fires around the camp, so I went and sat with the other girls, huddled against the cold night.

'What was that about?' Piper asked me as I sat down.

'Ha. Piper's just annoyed that you led Malcom behind a tree so she couldn't find out what you were saying,' Thalia teased. 'But you better tell us what you were talking about.'

'Malcom was invited to join the monster hunters,' I explained.

If anyone was surprised they didn't show it, which made me feel even more awkward that I hadn't expected it.

'So you told him to say no,' Piper concluded.

'What? Why would you think that? I thought it was a great idea.'

'Err... Annabeth?' Thalia looked like she was trying not to laugh. 'You know Percy is a son of Poseidon. Athena will kill him if he joins.'

'I think you're over reacting. How much can Athena actually do? I mean it's Malcom's choice, and Athena is wiser than to do something as rash as getting angry about what her children do.' Even as I said that, I had a feeling that everything wouldn't be quite that diplomatic.

'I hope you're right,' Piper said. 'So is he going to accept?'

'He said he would think about it,' I replied.

Looking around the various camp fires I noticed that there weren't as many people as there should have been. There were thirteen people huddled round the campfires, and if you counted the two people on guard, we were still one short.

'Where's Nico?' I asked.

Hazel took a moment before answering. 'Whenever someone dies, like Lee, Nico goes down to the underworld to make sure that the soul gets across the river quickly, because often souls can be waiting for Charon's ferry for years. And then he makes sure that they get a fair judgment, and send and bring back final messages between us and Lee. It sort of helps, as a final goodbye.'

'And can you do that as well, being the daughter of Hades?'

Hazel shook her head, looking slightly nervous. 'I only control riches and things, but even if I could, I wouldn't.'

'Why not?'

'I've been to the underworld once. That was enough.'

Hazel was answering my questions, but there was a slight edge to her voice which was saying "enough with the personal stuff". I stopped talking, and went back to looking around the camp, letting my eyes wander. I stopped at Percy, my eyes watching him for several seconds. I guessed he must have sensed that someone was watching him because he looked over. I let me eyes drop to my dinner before he noticed I was looking.

Glancing up again I was surprised to see that Jason's eyes were looking over at us, specifically at Piper. I smiled inwardly to myself. Piper had a special place reserved in her imagination for boys who fell in love with her. She would simply tell them to do crazy and bizarre things with her best charmspeak, and of course they would just do it. Afterwards any reputation they had would be shattered, and most of them would then need a therapist, like the guy with the chicken and the olives who... but I'm getting distracted. The point is, boys who fall in love with Piper are lucky to leave with their sanity intact. I felt bad for Jason when I saw that Piper noticed him looking at her, or at least I did until I saw that they made eye contact, and both dropped their gaze. In the firelight Piper's face looked remarkably flushed.

I wasn't the only one trying not to laugh. The two them kept glancing up at each other, but looked back down as soon as they noticed. Soon Thalia and Hazel joined me in biting our lips to stop making any sound, trying not to catch each other's eyes as we knew that would set us off.

'What are you doing with my baby brother?' Thalia asked, still straining to stop herself from laughing.

If it was possible, Piper's face went even redder than it already was. 'I- I'm- I mean-' Piper stammered.

That was the last straw. The floodgates opened and all three of us were rolling on the floor laughing. Laughter went up from around Jason, and I imagined that the boys over there had been trying to hold in the laughter for as long as us.

'Right that's it,' Piper scowled. 'Say you are sorry and I'll let you off lightly.'

'I'm...' Thalia gasped for breath, tears of laughter in her eyes as she looked straight at Piper. 'I'm so sorry that your first crush had to be my little brother.'

I couldn't help it, I snorted loudly at that. Hazel admirably kept a straight face, which probably managed to excuse her from whatever revenge Piper had in store for us.

'Annabeth, there is a spider on your back.'

I couldn't help it, I yelped and began rolling around on the ground, trying to get it off. Sure, I knew in my mind that there wasn't a spider on my back, that it was all just a trick, but fears are illogical and Pipers charmspeak worked perfectly, terrifying me about a spider I knew didn't really exist. I guess it helps that Piper's half-brother is Phobos, God of fear.

Piper then turned to Thalia, with an evil smile on her face, and I knew she had something big planned. I wondered what it could be. Maybe Piper would tell Thalia to climb to the top of the tree. That would terrify her. But Piper paused as though she was still wondering what to say. She whispered something in the hunters ear, and Thalia went deathly pale and her eyes widened as Piper spoke. As I watched Thalia turned to Piper, her normal colour restored and her eyes fierce. Whatever Piper had told her, it had terrified her.

'Ok, I'm sorry for laughing. Quits?'

I couldn't believe my ears. Thalia NEVER said sorry, about anything. I wondered if this would affect their friendship. Thalia wasn't one to forgive and forget. Piper smiled

'Quits,' she agreed and took the hand the daughter of Zeus held out for her, suddenly yelping as Thalia sent a shock of electricity into her hand. 'Ok, I deserved that. Now can we call it quits?'

'I thought we already had.'

'I hate you.'

Thalia walked off, and I looked at Piper in surprise. 'What did you tell her? I have never seen anyone get an apology out of her before.'

'Honestly I have no idea what she heard me say.' Piper fiddled with the feather at the end of her braid. 'I told her in my best charmspeak "you will hear me say something about yourself that you don't know you know, something that will make you apologise to me and fear me but not hate me for." I have practiced something like that a few times before, and some people I talked to said that they heard me tell them their fatal flaw, others their secret romances. Maybe with Thalia it was different, maybe not, but I doubt we will ever get a confession as to what she heard me say.'

'That sounds a lot like a siren,' Hazel pointed out. 'With less eating victims at the end.'

'Can you do it to me?' I asked. Hazel was right, it was like a siren, and I had always wanted to hear the sirens call. They said that if you survived the encounter you would be wiser for it. Maybe it was the same with Piper's charmspeak.

She shook her head. 'It doesn't work if you know how it works if you have a strong mind like yours. I could try, but I promise all you will hear is exactly what I say. The only reason it worked with Thalia was that she was expecting me to tell her bad things, or make her do something weird, which allowed her mind to bend more.'

'That is an awful lot like how the mist works. It works best if you show them what they are expecting to see.' Hazel fiddled with what looked like a ruby. 'I imagine that there are a lot of similarities between charmspeak and the mist. They are both branches of a similar type of magic after all.'

'Huh.' Piper looked surprised. 'I never thought about my charmspeak being magic rather than just a power, but I suppose you are right.'

~~~~~THIS LINE BREAK REPRESENTS THE PASSING OF TIME~~~~~

The night passed away, and it was an hour or so before dawn when Percy shook me awake. 'It's time for us to take a turn at watch,' he said, speaking quietly so that he didn't wake the other girls.

'What, I have to share a watch with you?'

'You sound disappointed.'

'You have no idea.'

He snorted and I followed him out of the tent, grabbing my dagger and a blanket as I left. I was instantly glad of the blanket; part of the tent's magic was that it was always warm in there, no matter the temperature outside, and with the sun still an hour off it was not much above freezing.

I was surprised to see that when I got outside, Percy hadn't got a weapon. In fact, I don't think I had ever seen him with the bronze sword he used, other then when he was fighting. Not wanting to seem stupid, I didn't mention it, but promised myself to keep my eyes open whenever he needed his sword. We climbed into the branches of a tree, high enough that could see all the camp and keep an eye out, but low enough we could jump straight down if needed.

I tried to ignore the fact that Percy was sitting so close to me, I could feel his body heat right next to me and smell the ocean in him. Instead I tried to focus on the edge of the clearing, looking for potential threats. Focus Annabeth, I mentally scolded myself.

'Do you have any idea who could be trying to kill me?'

I was surprised I found myself asking that. I had been thinking about it, but I had no reason to believe Percy would have answers for me. I was surprised when he answered.

'I'm not sure. I have a guess, but that might just be because of personal reasons than because there is any evidence.'

'So are you going to tell me your guess?'

'No.'

'You're impossible.'

'It's been mentioned before.'

I worked hard at keeping the smirk off my face. It was dark, but we were sitting close enough that the moon gave enough light for him to see my expression. Percy gave me an annoying lopsided grin. I guess he could see I was trying to hide a smirk.

'So I know you mother is Athena, but what about your father? Do you see him at all?'

'Hang on, I asked you about your family this morning and you flew away. Why should you get an answer when I don't?'

'Because it's me.'

I sighed, but Percy was the kind of person you just wanted to tell things to. And anyway, maybe me sharing would convince him to tell me about his mother.

'I don't get on with my dad. He never wanted to look after me, thought I was the biggest inconvenience that had happened to him. He got a new, "normal" wife and "normal" kids. I ran away when I was seven, went to Athens, where my mother allowed me to live near the temple. I used to see her more, but now I only see her occasionally, when she comes from Olympus to meet her children.'

'And last time she did, seven of them were killed.'

'I guess that if you want to kill daughters of Athena, you have them all together in one room, nicely lined up.'

He smirked again. He was kind of handsome, with dark, messy hair and brilliant green eyes. Looking at him it felt like I was getting lost in his bright, sea green eyes... focus Annabeth I mentally scolded myself. He was a son of Poseidon, the son of my mothers enemy. And anyway, he was really annoying.

I watched as the sun began to appear on the horizon, reds and yellows lighting up the sky above the camp.

'I'm sorry,' I whispered.

'About what?' The son of Poseidon asked.

'This morning, with the hydra. You wanted me to come up with a plan, and then it failed and Hazel got injured and Leo got exhausted and we all almost died and it was my fault because the plan didn't work.' I was speaking quickly as it all came pouring out, barely letting one word finish before the next one began.

'Calm down,' Percy laughed. 'There's a reason I never make plans, and that is because they never work. Your plan almost did, and you had barely known us for two hours. You didn't know what we could do, you didn't know that Leo isn't a fighter, or that Hazel is still learning the mist stuff, and yet you managed to create a plan that almost worked. That's a whole lot better then most of my team could ever manage. And anyway, you seem to be conveniently forgetting you singlehandedly killed the hydra in the end. I'd say that's pretty good going.'

I felt myself blush slightly from the compliment. It was only a small compliment though, barely even one, so why would I be so affected by it? I wanted to change the subject quickly. 'What do mean, Leo's not a fighter?'

Whether Percy didn't notice I had changed the subject or he decided to ignore it, he answered the question. 'We met Leo shortly after we decided to form a proper monster fighting team. He was a builder, and engineer. He has designed hundreds of amazing automatons and weapons and all sorts, he even helped Beckendorf repair the dragon, and was the one who gave it wings and named it Festus. He's also a great cook, one of the best excluding my mother.' He hesitated when he mentioned her, but coughed and carried on. 'And he cracks terrible jokes that, even if they don't make people laugh, they lighten the mood and give people a common interest of killing him, a particularly useful skill when people are arguing. Despite this his weapon of choice is a three pound hammer I don't think I've ever actually seen him use on a monster, and of course his fire which can make him really exhausted, really quickly as you saw. So yeah, not a fighter but still important. And you should see him when he has a few machines at his disposal.'

There wasn't really much I could say to that, so I remained silent and went back to watching the area for threats.

I noticed that Percy kept messing around, like he couldn't sit still. He began to fiddle with a pen from his pocket and would mess around with the branches of the tree, snapping twigs off and throwing them around. I guessed that like most demigods he was ADHD, so had trouble sitting still. He didn't seem very concerned about keeping watch either, I hadn't seen him look around once as though he was searching for threats.

'I notice you're not taking this keeping watch business very seriously.'

'I'm taking it as seriously as I need to.'

'You don't think anything is going to attack us?' I was surprised, I thought that as the leader of the monster hunters he would be more protective.

'What? Of course I do. But I'm not the only one on guard.'

'If you think that I'm going to keep watch on my own while you just mess around then you are severely mistaken-'

'I didn't mean you either.' Percy interrupted.

'Then who?'

'The horses.'

'The horse- you have got to be joking.'

'Why?' Percy looked confused. 'Before they were tamed by humans, horses were prey for wolves and monsters and stuff. They have great eyesight for movement.'

'Ok, so lets say for one minute that a hellhound is coming out of the bushes over there. How would the horses help?'

'Well, they would come up to me and say "There is a hellhound coming out of the bushes over there Lord." And then I would kill-'

'They would call you Lord?' I asked sceptically.

'Well, except Blackjack who calls me boss and Arion who I think has a problem for authority-'

'Of course,' I realised finally. 'Your the son of Poseidon who created horses, so you can speak to them.'

Percy looked surprised. 'It took you that long to figure it out? I thought you were supposed to be smart.'

'I just thought you were dumb enough that you thought horses would be able to help you without needing to be able to speak to you.'

'Well Wise Girl, you thought wrong.'

'Not necessarily; would you still try and use the horses even if they couldn't speak to you?'

Percy hesitated.

'Well there you go, Seaweed Brain.'

'You are so hard to argue with.'

'Yet you seem to manage anyway.'

He gave me another one of his lopsided grins, and I couldn't resist smiling slightly. He seemed to take this as a personal accomplishment and his smile grew even wider. I rolled my eyes, but I found myself kind of enjoying the company of this annoying son of Poseidon.

Wow, almost 3,000 words. So, there is my first attempt at Percabeth, what did you think? Good, bad? I'm not really a romance kind of person but I hope I did okay, there will be more in the future (obviously). Thank you so much to everyone who has favourited, reviewed or followed my story, or even to those people who are reading it and giving me another view, it means the world that people are actually reading and enjoying my story.

~Salty