MMkay, this shall be told from thy goddess's point of view. Aphrodite. She's deeper then ya think. Actually, SOME of it will be told from her POV. I know this is a sign of a bad fic, chapters with multi POV's, but it was necessary here.

Anyway. I want to give a shoutout to Percaabeth lover and Honest Flamer/Philo0sophia. You guys have reviewed the most and given me great ideas and told me what's wrong with this fic so I can make it better. Thank you so so much for that, it means a trillion to me.

Note: Guys, people have been PM'ing me saying stuff like, "you're losing readers, update soon!"

If you're one of those people who have stopped reading because I haven't updated in a few weeks, then you're not a true fan. I'm sorry, but it's true.

Chapter Title: Dinner Date.

"Aphrodite!" Zeus barged in, and I raised my eyebrow expectantly.

"Yes?"

"Have you been interfering with mortals again?"

I thought of Nico. Of Percy and Annabeth. "Nope."

He narrowed his eyes. "It's bad enough my daughter had to fall in love with that foolish Death child, but now he's beginning to fall in love with her. Did you do something to bring them together?"

'Nope. Well, maybe."

"You know it's against our laws to interfere with mortals when they are living their lives."

I went on the defensive. "Excuse me? Weren't you the one who awakened the brass angels at Hoover Dam during that quest to save Annabeth? Weren't you the one who granted Perceus his any wish after the war? Weren't you the one who let them pass through your domain on the way back from the Underworld? Weren't you the one who allowed Calypso Percy's company? Weren't you the one who-"

"Yes, I was the one. But you know the laws."

"I do. And I also know that I am allowed to use my powers to help them. Nothing ever says that I can't send them gifts. It says that I'm not allowed to help them directly. And I didn't."

"What did you do?"

"I gave Iris a note to give to Nico. Nothing said that was against the laws."

Zeus scowled. "Very well. But if you interfere again I shall have to punish you." With that, he left in a storm cloud. I sat on my throne and began filing my nails.

That's why we have children, no?

-o-

Chris stood before us, watching us squirm and be nervous. Finally, he took the liberty of speaking. "We shall have two more activities before Annabeth chooses her man. You shall have to introduce her to your parents."

I could practically see Nico having a panic attack behind me. When he spoke, I thought for sure he was going to tell him he had no parent. Instead, he went with the more simple; "When?"

"Tomorrow."

I could sense him wondering if he was going to have to pull something off. I knew he would. The question would be how?

-o-

"You must be Annabeth! Oh my goodness, Austin has told us so much about you! He's practically planned your wedding! Our Austin, oh he's just perfect. You know, in eighth grade, he had to get braces. No one would go near him until his second year of high school when he got them off! He just got rid of his acne problem a few months ago, and ever since he's been getting calls and friend requests and tweets and, what's that other one honey? Oh, yes. There's this new thing he's been getting a lot of, this thing called texting. Have you heard of it? I'm sure you haven't. It's practically brand new!" Austin's mother told me. She was right up in front of me. She looked proud that she knew something 'hip'. I could smell the lime shampoo and her bright pink lipstick that went way outside the lip line. Her frizzy white hair looked fake and stiff. Her leopard print dress hung to her knees, and her sixteen inch high heels look like they were bought off a Lady Gaga clothing line.

"Oh, yeah. I've heard of it, Mrs. Caro."

"You have? And please, call me Mae." Mae? Luke... I shoved that thought out of my head and locked it up.

"Um... yeah. I learned about it a few weeks ago." If you count weeks as years.

"Wonderful! Maybe you could text Austin sometime! If you buy one of those fancy thingamajigs, what are they called Harold? Oh yes. Cell phones. I think Austin has one."

A bell rang. Saved by the bell. Austin's mother's eyes lit up. "That must be the vegetarian tofu tuna casserole. Everyone go sit at the table."

We did as she said. I ended up sitting next to Austin and his father. He squinted his eyes at me, examining me. I heard a clang from the kitchen and a vile smell entered the room. Mae burst into the room carrying a white dish that was filled with a bluish green substance. It was bubbling. She placed it on the table smack dab in front of me and cut off a large piece and plunked it in front of me. I felt breakfast coming up when I lifted the first bite to my mouth. The smell rocketed up my nose as I opened my mouth. I could see the cameraman trying to bite back a laugh as I put the awful food into my mouth. I chewed, tried not to puke, and swallowed. When I finished the first bite, I glanced around as everybody was staring at me. They hadn't taken a bite.

"What?"

"We haven't said Grace yet." Harold grumbled. "Rule is, you don't eat 'till you say Grace."

"Oh," I said and put the fork down. "sorry."

"You should be." Mae snapped. I flinched. Figures. I, Annabeth Chase, monster fighter and warrior in the Second Titan War, flinched when a boy's mother criticized her.

"Sorry!" I apologized again. "Sorry!"

"Yeah, well. Now you say Grace." Harold said gruffly. I nodded, desperately trying to remember a prayer about thankfulness from the two days I had gone to church when I was fifteen, in case this kind of situation occurred.

"Um... God is good, God is great. Let us... thank him for our food?" I said cautiously. Which god did mortals believe in? Then I remembered to say, "Amen."

"Wonderful! Now dig in!" Mae said, instantly returning to her old self. Within minutes all of them had finished their casserole. I was about a quarter of the way through with it. I picked up the pace, and by the time they were done with their third piece, I was finally done with my first.

"Yum!" I said weakly. I clutched my stomach under the table. "That was great Mae."

"I know." She said proudly. "It's my specialty. My best dish."

"I can see why."

The cameraman, his name is Caleb, signaled for me to wrap it up. I did. "Well, I have to go now. Austin, it was wonderful meeting your parents. Their great. I'll see you Wednesday."

He nodded his farewell and we hugged goodbye. Finally, I was in the open air of Oklahoma walking on cracked pavement and breathing in late December air. I pulled my winter coat around me and turned to the cameraman. "That went well."

He raised his eyebrow. "Really?"

"What do you think? I feel like I'm gonna throw up."

"You looked like you were being tortured. You're not exactly the best actress, unless you were trying to fake torture-ism."

"That bad?"

"Worse."

"Dammit."

"Well, there's the car." He said, pointing to a limo waiting at the end of the block. "We better hurry."

So we did. We ran through the wet snow to the limousine. I stepped inside and practically melted when I realized how hot it was. I could see the cameraman sweating all the way to the airport, where I would exit to meet Nico's parents.

This oughta be interesting.

-o-

I stepped out of the yellow cab and paid the cabbie. I walked through up the long, winding walkway up to a large front door. This was where Nico lived? It was a mansion of sorts. The two hour plane ride to Colorado was cramped and too hot. It was a relief to step outside and into the freezing cold, snow covered ground of Colorado. We entered another scorching taxi and minutes ago arrived here. Now, I knocked on the door and a women answered. She was wearing sunglasses and her hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. She was wearing worn jeans with a hole in one knee and a loose T-shirt.

"Hi, I'm Annabeth."

"Welcome! We've been expecting you!" She led me and the cameraman in, plopped me down in a chair next to Nico, who looked like he was stripped of his last bit of dignity, which left me to wonder; who was this women pretending to be Nico's mother?

Ten minutes later of brute silence, the woman came through two mahogany double doors carrying a two plates and five bowls. She placed the two plates and two of the bowls in the center of the table, and distributed the rest of the bowls between us. They were filled with a thick yellow chowder type thing, and it smelled delicious. I looked at the larger of the plates and saw a perfectly cooked turkey. The smaller of the plates held a mountain of mashed potatoes. I saw Nico serving himself to a turkey leg, so I did the same. I plopped a pile of mashed potatoes on top and tucked in. It was delicious. Heavenly. only a god could have made it this good.

Wait.

Only a god.

Holy... erm... cow. Nico's mother was a goddess!

I looked at his 'mother' and she lowered her sunglasses enough so I could see her eyes. They were piercing gray.

Nico's mother was Athena!

I was eating dinner with my mother, who was pretending to be Nico's mother. Could this get any weirder? I nearly spat out my dinner, but that would've been suspicious and I didn't feel like explaining anything. I took a deep breath and tried to contain my spaz attack. Nico sensed something was wrong, and he glanced nervously at me. I stared him in the eye and mouthed, Athena?

He nodded sheepishly. He was sort-of beginning to remind me of the little kid I had first met all those years ago. I looked back at the goddess.

"This is delicious."

"Thank you Annabeth." Which further more proves that it was my mother, since I never told her my name. I heard a click. Then a beep. Nico's 'mother's' eyes widened. "Um, I think you should get going."

"What? Why?"

"Just get out of my house!" Athena snapped. Something was wrong, I knew it. I couldn't figure it out, but me and the cameraman were shoved out of the house.

"Well," I said. "that was interesting."

"Indeed it was."

I sighed. "Well, it's nine o' clock. We better check into the motel."

He agreed. We were stuffed into yet another stuffy cab and about an hour later we pulled up to a building. The walls had paint chipping off them, the O, S, and E in Sandy Hook Motel was out.

"Is this where we're staying?" I asked nervously. Caleb nodded, and he opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted was a loud smash.

"Get out!" A woman screamed, chucking a pack of beers at a man who stumbled who was obviously drunk, right into the car. The woman screamed wordlessly and disappeared for a moment into the motel. When she came back out, she was lugging a paper bag. She threw it at the man, who just barely managed to dodge it. He drunkenly swung hit fist, missing the woman by a mile, and it ended up hitting the window. He cheek smashed up against the window as he tried to push the cab out of the way. The cabbie locked the door and pulled into a different parking spot, much farther from the entrance.

"Get out." The cabbie grumbled, reluctantly unlocking the doors.

"What? Can't we-"

"No. Get out."

Grudgingly, I opened the door and grabbed my bag. Caleb followed suit and we entered the hotel. I immediately started to cough, and I could barely see. The place was clouded with smoke, and I could see several faint orange dots floating in the air. Caleb led me toward the desk, squinting his eyes and ringing the bell.

"Hello? Hello!"

"Hold yer horses, I'm gettin' there. I'm comin'." A gruff voice grumbled. "Whaddya want?"

"We have reservations...?"

"Yeah. The couple thas' had reservations in four years."

"I can see why." I muttered. The man glared at me but didn't sat anything. He just took out a brass key and handed it to Caleb. "Here. Now, you and your girlfriend better keep it down up there."

"What? No no no, she's not my girlfriend." Caleb stuttered. "I'm her-"

"I don't care. Look, I have a wife and a kid. D'you think I want to be here? No. I'd rather be home helping Suzanne with Emma-Lee. But no. I'm stuck here, bringing into 16.50 an hour. Now, be nice and polite and go up to the room, and do whatever you want to do. But do it quietly. I do not wish to have a repeat of yesterday." He leaned against the wall behind him, glaring.

"Um, okay." I said. "Come on, Caleb. Lets go."

We darted down the hallway and entered our room. It was just a smokey as the lobby, mixed with the smell of rotten eggs and dirty socks. I groaned in harmony with Caleb.

"Can we just get to sleep?"

Then, I realized with a start the most horrible part of the room.

There was only one bed.

-o-

So. A smokey hotel room, a seedy hotel, one bed and two people. What would you do?

Don't do what we did: nothing.

We couldn't do anything. The hotel manager refused to let us have another room. He didn't let us have another bed. He couldn't sleep in a car, because we did not have one.

"Do you want me to have the floor...?" Caleb asked for the fiftieth time.

"No. I swear I saw a rat run on that floor, and I'd rather not have my cameraman get infected with rabies or something."

"Well then what are we going to do?"

"I have no idea." My phone vibrated on the table and I picked it up. One new message. It read.

I opened it, and saw it was from an unfamiliar number. I look at the message. Athena always has a plan.

Just at that moment, someone knocked on the door. Caleb went over and opened it, and a perky blonde came waltzing in sophisticatedly. "Heeelllo!"

"Huh?" Caleb asked. The blonde's intelligent grey eyes lit up when they landed on me.

"Annabeth, sweetie!" She said and air kissed me. "Ugh, Aphrodite told me you were here. You simply cannot stay here! You must come with me?"

I hugged her, never to have been so grateful to see my mother. "Mom?"

"What?"

"This is your mother?" Caleb asked. "She looks a bit... young."

Athena smiled. "Thank you! I don't hear that much."

"Trust me, Caleb." I said. "She's older then you think."

It's been a while.

Okay, I have no reason to why I haven't updated. I just didn't get around to it. Anyway, yes. Athena pretended to be Nico's mother, and then saved Annabeth from sleeping in that seedy motel. Caleb on the other hand...

Anyway, Percy gets an entire chapter to himself and his dinner with Annabeth!

Two more chapters until Annabeth makes her choice!