"Oh thank the gods it's finally over!"

"It wasn't that bad, was it Elisabeth?"

"You kidding?! They all acted like I was a freak! Next time, I'm not dressing up for your amusement, Nico."

"Oh come on! You look beautiful!"

"Yeah, and they are used to me looking like I could kill them with a single punch! Not this dainty little pansy that can't hurt a fly!"

Percy groaned as he drank another gulp of his coffee. Nico and Elizabeth had been fighting all morning after Nico had forced her out of the house and practically dragged her to the orphanage so that they could do the weekly check ups. It's been at least a month since they had all moved in, and Percy had already invested in ear plugs for when they get into horrible fights. Mostly about her appearance.

"You are a growing woman-"

"I'm 14! We celebrated my Birthday yesterday!"

"I know that! But seriously, you can't keep looking like you just walked out of a homeless shelter!"

"Nico, I don't expect you to understand at all."

"Elisabeth! Don't you dare-"

SLAM! Percy sighed. This was the third time she had slammed the door that day. And this was tripled over the week, and triple that over the month. "If that door breaks, I'm not replacing it." Percy grumbled as he took another swig from his dolphin coffee cup. Nico came in, dressed in a nice black suit and red undershirt, with anger written all over his face. "So, how did the meeting go?"

Nico glared at him, taking a seat across from Percy, then staring out the window. Percy could see the steam coming out of his nose and lazers out of his eyes. "Fine."

Percy didn't push the subject, instead, he was reading the paper. "So... how we gunna make this up to her?"

Nico rolled his eyes. " Who knows."

Percy sighed. "You really are just as bad as her, Nico. Just calm down and I'll talk to her when she calms down." Nico sighed.

"What were we doing, Percy?" This caught Percy off guard,from the tone in his voice, the the way he was just staring sadly out the window. "I don't think we were ready for a kid."

Percy got up and started washing dishes, shaking his head. "No, Nico, we are not having this talk again."

"Percy, I'm not a good father! Look, I just got her mad at me! All cause I want her to look pretty!"

Percy sighed, the water flowing out of the faucet and hitting the dishes for a few minutes before he finally spoke. "Nico. You remember how you were when you were that age?"

"I was an orphaned kid with no sister and blaming the man I loved for her murder." Percy winced, feeling the dagger in his words sink into his back slowly. " Not to mention I tried killing you by plotting with my father to get you into a trap."

"Ok, not the best comparison." Nico looked him in the eyes, his words laced thickly with sarcasm.

"No shit, Sherlock." Percy groaned.

"Well, she's getting used to feeling pretty, having a family, and her boyfriend isn't texting her. Ease up a litt-"

Nico slammed his fist on the table. "What do you mean?! He has been texting her all through the meeting! "

Percy rolled his eyes. "Thats his half brother, dear. Elisabeth and him have been great friends lately."

"Why?!"

Percy closed his eyes. He needed more coffee, or at least some 5 Hour Energy. This was exhausting. "They are both moving into new homes, they both are being told to change, and they both need a friend. That, and Nick seems to be disgusted with her friendship with him so he is threatening her to choose. It's going to be a pain for a while Nico, trust me. I have dealt with plenty of these situations."

Nico stared at him dumbfounded. "How the hell do you know this?"

Percy shrugged. "You are forgetting that I used to be a new kid in a lot of new schools. I learned my way around the board and I learned my ways around avoiding the girls at this age. They are drama mamas."

Nico arched an eyebrow, then sighed. "I wish there was a handbook for taking care of teenagers."

"There is one, love." Percy said, turning off the water and hugging him from behind. "It's called trial and error."

"Haha, very funny, Percy. Very funny." Nico said dryly, his voice not hiding the hint of amusement that was deep within the words. "So, you going to take my mind of this, like always? Then deal with the twit?"

"Yep." Percy said, a tired smile on his face. "Flip a coin and see who's on top?"

"Sure."

Elisabeth looked up at the sky, laying back in the grass with her sketch pad and her notebook on either side of her. Her new IPhone 3GS was in her pocket of her faded blue jeans. Her hair was freely flowing in waves across the grass like a river of golden brown and honey blond, pined back so that it stayed out of her makeup covered face. She hated this. She thought that this was a blessing, having two people to listen to her, a boyfriend who liked her and understood her, and now a new friend who could easily be the coolest person she has ever met. Now it was turning out to be a cure, and the only good thing that was coming out of it was her new friendship. She sighed as she closed her amber eyes and took a deep breath. The aroma of roses, daisies, bluebells, bleeding hearts, and lavenders filled the sog filled air, and she treasured this smell for as long as she could. Then her phone went off.

"This is it,

the Apocalypse.

Im waking up,

I feel it in my bones,

enough to make my systems blow!

Welcome to the new age,

to the new age,

welcome to the new age,

to the new age!

Oooh oh oh!

Oooh oh oh!

I'm Radioactive!

Radioactive!"

Elisabeth smiled a little and sat up. The rooftop of the apartment was like a greenhouse guardian, the fake grass all over the cement roof and the potted plants made it feel like Nirvana. Though it was "Uncle" Grover's, she had claimed it while he was still preaching to the woodland world of the death of the great Pan, god of the forests. She took the phone out of her pocket and slide the bar and put in the code. Nick had texted her, apologizing again about how he had treated her, how wrong it was that he was jealous. And then proceed to pleading for her to talk to him. She sighed and wrote out her reply, but before she could send it, she got another text.

Opening it, she looked at the ID, and smiled. It was Henry, Nick's half brother who had just moved into their house a few weeks back.

'How are you?'

She smiled a little, and with fast fingers, she typed out her response. 'Good, just hanging out on the roof again. You?' then she pressed Send.

While she waited for his text back, she looked back at Nick's. Slowly, she pressed the send button and instantly got a reply.

'I love you, you know that Lis.' She sighed. She didn't really believe Nick anymore. One minute he was the sweetest guy, next he was jealous of her getting attention form other guys. Some of her best friends from the orphanage were guys. The one time she tried to introduce them to him, he turned and dragged her away, saying how she shouldn't be hanging out with them.

She got another text, breaking her out of her depressing thoughts. This time it was Henry.

'You want some company? You sound lonely.' She smiled a little, and replied with a yes, please added in for politeness. It was scary how fast this kid could text. 'I'll be right there. Close your eyes.'

She laughed. He always did this, but she always did as he asked. She knew his secret, and she swore to keep it. After all, is it every day that you get a friend who is a son of Hades?

Within seconds, she heard the soft crunch of the plastic grass under his feet as he came out of the shadows like a ghost. She smiled a little, but didn't open her eyes at all, just sat there and waited for him to give her that little sign he was there. Just like always.

"Hey..." He said softly in her ear, his hand on her shoulder ever so slightly. She smiled and opened her eyes, and looked into a pair of lovely brown, almost blood red eyes, that were softly looking at her in concern. Henry looked like a god the way the sun hit him, his tan skin shining off the morning rays like a aura of calmness and love around him, though the way he dressed you would have never noticed. Black, black, black, black. Everything he wore was black, his long trench coat that was worn out and faded from being worn in every weather and every occasion, his dark black jeans that were ripped up from skateboarding and skinning his knees on the pavement, his Black Veil Brides teeshirt that had the sleeves cut out of it to show off his strong muscular arms when he rarely took off his trench coat, even down to his black Doc Martian boots he had on his feet. His red tipped, naturally sun bleached blond hair fell in his face a little, giving his eyes a lovely little mist to them. Like Nick, he was 14, and unlike Nick, he never told her to change. Never.

"Hey to you too." She said, giving him a big hug around the neck, like she alwasy gave him. And like always, he reluctantly hugged back. It was getting easier to tell he was nervous around her, now that she was getting to know him better. So, the hugs were short, the talks were long, and he only stayed for a small bit. But she always loved it like this.

"So," Henry said, taking off his jacket and sitting down beside her. "fight with one of your dads again?"

Elisabeth sighed, getting comfortable in the fake grass and looking up at the sky. "Yeah... Nico was trying to make me dress like this."

He looked her up and down, observing her pastel pink Hippie shirt that flowed nicely around her well developed form, faded bellbottoms, and her classic black Converse shoes that didn't match the outfit at all. He also noticed the light makeup on her face, making her look a little plastic to him. Honestly, he liked everything else other than the makeup, but he shrugged so she wouldn't flip out on him. "You try telling him its not a you kind of thing to wear pink?" Elisabeth laughed, earning a small little grin from him.

"Tried and failed, dear boy. Tried and failed." She sighed and counted the clouds. She felt his arm brush up against hers as he laid down beside her, and she felt his hand gently brush hers.

"My dear, you try, you fail, you try, you fail. But the true failure is when you stop trying."

Elisabeth started laughing hysterically, unable to hold back on it. "Ok, you have either eaten a fortune cookie or you watched The Haunted Mansion again!" He laughed a little too, his walls slowly falling. Just ever so slightly that she could see the real, genuine him.

"Hey, the crystal ball gypsie heads never lies, Elisabeth! It's good advice."

"Yeah..." She gave him a sideways glance, before looking back at the sky. She smiled as she watched the clouds pass, changing ever so slightly, little by little. It was silent for a long time, only the whisks of wind and the dull buzz of the streets bellow piercing through the calm vale. "Hey... Can I ask you something?" Elisabeth finally said, turning over on her side to face him. He had already done the same to face her.

"Shoot."

"Will it always be like this? Not the whole fighting with my dads and you being unwanted in your home, but... This. Just us, watching the sky together. Belonging. Understanding." He smiled kindly, his free hand that wasn't pinned to the ground whipping away her hair from her face gently. His eyes seemed sad though, and that worried her.

"I don't know." He admitted. "Things change a lot. Maybe you'll drift into being what your dad's want, or the girl Nick wants... But maybe, just maybe, you'll fight back and stay the way you are. I already made my choice, and I will never let them change me... So I'll always be a text away from you... Whenever you need me."

Elisabeth smiled brightly, her eyes closing from trying not to cry at how much that meant to her. "Than you Henry." She said, and hr heart was completely in it. Nothing was fake this time? "You are the best friend I could ever have." Then she laid back down on the grass, her eyes still closed as she soaked up the sun's warm rays.

But when she wasn't looking, his expression saddened, and he looked like he would cry. Like a lost soul in the graveyard with a hopeless search for something they had lost, he sighed softly so Elisabeth would never hear. His eyes slowly drifted to her hand, open and palm up to the sky like she was waiting for raindrops to fall so she could catch them. Slowly, he reached his hand out to take her's, but stopped. He knew it wasn't his place. He knew she would never understand exactly why he was here, why he had reached out to her. For now, this was enough. Being friends was enough.

"So," Elisabeth teased, breaking him out of his thoughts. "Still going to refuse to come to Camp Halfblood next year?" He sighed.

"You know that I can't. If they found out I am a son of The Lord of the Dead, I'm screwed." She sighed.

"Yeah, that's a bummer. I would have loved for you to meet everyone." He arched an eyebrows, but knew she was choosing her words. She had a habit of doing that, and he always waited five seconds before talking. "And I'm sure that not everyone would hate you. You'd have me!" He laughed a little.

"I'll think about it then." She grinned wider, and opened her eyes to the sky, the amber orbs sparkling in the light. Then they heard the rustle of the iron bars. "Shit."

Elisabeth jumped up to her feet, fast, and ran over and threw him his coat. "Hurry up and go!" She hissed to him. He nodded, and she turned her back to him. Then he disappeared in a cloud of black and smoke.

Percy poked his head over the wall, his hands gripping the iron step ladder as he looked around the small garden Grover had insisted on making while they were teenagers with freedom. He saw Elisabeth looking at her phone, her lips turning up into a smile. "Hey, am I interrupting sanctuary time?"

She looked up and shook her head no. "Come to calm the savage beast? Or get me to apologize for being mad?"

"Nope." Percy lifted himself the rest of the way up, his muscles straining a little under the effort of getting up there after the little teasing he did to Nico. "I am just going to listen to you. After all, I'm a little concerned."

Elisabeth sat on the fake grass as picked up her sketchbook, her other hand setting down the phone and replacing it with a pencil. "I'm fine, dad... Nick texted me."

"Finally!" Percy grinned wide as he sat in his blue plastic beach chair, taking this moment to relax for the few sacred minutes before she would go on about how bad it really was. "I thought I would have to kick his rear end into Tartarus so he would understand not to ignore my daughter!" Elisabeth laughed, making Percy grin ever so wider.

"Dad, that would be the sweetest thing you have ever done. But..." She trailed off, her smiling face switching to a sadder mask. "I'm not really sure it's a good thing."

"Why?" Percy said, concern filling his voice as he sat up straiter to look at her better. "Don't you like him?"

"I do!" Elisabeth said defensively, then looked back at her drawing. "Or... I think I do."

Percy slowly nodded, sighing and getting down in the fake grass next to her. "Ok, spill. What's on that mind of yours?"

Elisabeth took a deep breath, her eyes still on her sketchpad as her pencil flew across the page. She attempted to talk slowly, so Percy could fallow better, but she had a hunch that he was still not going to anyway. "Well... You and dad want me to change who I am... Sure, it's nice that I look good like this, but I don't feel comfortable in this... Costume." Percy nodded, urging her to continue. "And Nick doesn't want me to hang out with my old friends cause they are guys, let alone with his half brother."

"Henry, right?" Elisabeth smiled and nodded. "You an him still good friends?"

"Yeah." She said, her eyes glossing over a little, her mind starting to wander. ADHD, go figure. "But I think it's not going to last."

"Think the Aphrodite effect will occur?" Percy asked.

Elisabeth stopped drawing and looked at him with a 'are you kidding me?' look. "It's the Aphrodite and Hephaestus effect." She corrected, then looked at her drawing. Percy looked over her shoulder and smiled a little. It was a picture of her and Nick and Henry, both on either side of her, looking up at the sky, smiling.

"I got it half right at least." Percy said, chuckling. "And might I say, that's not going to happen."

"Are you sure?" Elisabeth looked him in the eyes, stubborn and rather defeated. "Cause it happened. Hephaestus caught Aphrodite with Ares! But it was only cause Aphrodite didn't love him and Hephaestus was a jealous man!" Percy arched an eyebrow.

"Your not cheating on Nick with Henry, are you?" Elisabeth's face blushed dark red, and she looked like she had just been struck in the back of the head.

"N-n-no! NO! I would never cheat! I'm a loyal person!" Percy smiled a little and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"I know. But I just got to ask." He smiled as he held her chin in one hand so she would look at him. "Now, about us wanting you to change. I don't want to make you uncomfortable at all, and Nico... Well, he just wants what is best for you. We both do." Elisabeth sighed, leaning into his shoulders a little as she closed her eyes.

"Is it gunna stop soon? Because I really wanna wear my black and baggy cloths again." Percy laughed a little, his worn out face holding a bright smile in place.

"You can put up with us. Don't worry." Elisabeth looked back at her drawing, her smile fading just a little as her thoughts wandered.

"Yeah... Hey, can I ask two more questions?"

"That's one."

"Is everything going to change?" She asked him. "Do I have to change?" Percy took a moment to think, his expression showing a hint of how disturbed by this question he was.

"Hhhmmmm... That's a tricky one." He mused, stroking his five o'clock shadow as he tried to find the words. "There are things that can change, yes, but before each change comes a pesky little choice to make. It's something we have to go through, every day. But to answer your questions, it all depends on you. You don't have to change, weather me or your other father want you to." She sighed, looking back up at the sky, and she saw a little bird shaped cloud breaking out of it's fluffy cloud cage. She smiled a little, taking it as a good sign. "So yes things will change."

"And hopefully for the better." She mused, as she heard Nico come up the iron ladder and his tuft of messy black hair poking up over the wall.

"Did I just miss something important?" Bother Percy and Elisabeth looked at each other, then started laughing.

"Little bit, dad!" Elisabeth called. Nico took that as a good sign and hopped over the wall and landed on the grass with a thud. "But don't worry. It probably wasn't that important."

"Better not have." Nico smirked, his suit completely messed up from its crisp and classy form it once possessed before Percy pulled his little 'calming' session. He sat down next to Percy and snuggled up to his other arm, kissing his cheek gently and playfully messing up Elisabeth's hair. "Or else I might mess up later on." Elisabeth laughed.

"Trust me, you will. We all will."

"Oh look who is being a fortune cookie, Miss. Know-It-All!" Percy said, laughing as he looked up at the sky. "But your right. How else do we learn?" Nico groaned.

"I sense imposing doom with those words."

"Yeah, me too." Elisabeth said, her phone ringing again with another text. She ignored it and looked at her family. Her messed up, demigod, screwed up family. But it was hers none the less. "But hey, lets not get ahead of ourselves."

"Yeah!" Percy said as he pulled them in for a big family group hug. He smelt like ground coffee beans when he did this, which was oddly soothing. "Lets just live in the now! Us, a big, happy family!" Nico laughed, and so did Elisabeth. But, there was one thought that bugged her the rest of the time they stayed up on the roof, enjoying their company to its full potential.

'How long will this last?'