"It's been a week! Why haven't I heard from either of them?" I whined once again.
"As I've said twenty million times, they probably haven't had time…" Tash sighed, attempting to finish her cross-word, demi-god style. Who knew they made crosswords in ancient Greek? "What's 7 letters, starts with H. Means two against one."
"Hemiola. You should know that." (A/N: If any of you are wondering, Hemiola is a musical term, relating to the time signature of the piece.)
"Oh yeah!" Tash chuckled to herself, adding "I'm so stoopid."
"That you are." I found myself getting a crossword book to the butt as I stood up. "Thanks. Really appreciated that. I'm gonna go IM Nico, see if I can get him to drop by for a bit."
"Have fun! Oh Will! Care for some volleyball?"

I walked around to the back of the Demeter cabin, to their hose. I set it off, and waited for the rainbow to appear. "O, Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow. Show me Nico Di Angelo." The mist swirled around and finally focused, on something I hoped I'd never see.
"Shit! I mean, hey Ellie…" Nico went from his normal skin colour to lobster red in about half a second, with a moment of shock in between.
"I'm just gonna give you a minute…"
"That might be smart." I turned around, humming to myself, until I heard the flush of the toilet. "You, um, decent?"
"Yeah. Sorry about that." Nico's face has dropped about 2 shades closer to normal, and I'm sure mine would have been worse.
"S'ok. I'm used to it." I gave Nico a weird look, which, for once, he picked up on straight away. "Oh, woah. Not that exactly… Awkward situations. Percy and Annabeth. Tyson and Grover. Gah! I don't know which of those two was worse…"
"So where exactly are you? You found them?"
"Well they found me, but yeah. We're at this ranch. Dude with six nipples runs it. He's creepy." Shuddered Nico.
"Because he has cat boobs?"
"Cat boobs? No! Because he has three chests! Where did you get cat boobs from?"
"You said he's got 6 nipples! Cat's have 6 nipples! Or 8 or something… You didn't say anything about 3 chests!"
"Oh, right. Hehe. I'm smart." Nico smiled proudly, which I thought was utterly stupid, like him.
"You know, I had a conversation exactly like this with Tash earlier today…"
Nico suddenly looked as if he'd been slapped by a fish. "About nipples?"
"No! Argh! Just forget it!"
"Jeez, someone's mental…" I totally disproved Nico's point by poking my tongue out at him.
"I'm not mental, I'm just tired."
"Sleep more then… That's what I do." Nico shrugged.
I sighed before continuing. "I know that Mr. 9 o'clock is an early morning. I can't get to sleep. I'm too freaked about you and Annabeth. You can both hold your own, but I'm still worried."
Nico started to say something, but then got interrupted by a knock on the bathroom door. "Hey, I gotta go, but first chance I get, I'm coming to visit you. I'll leave a note on your bed during whatever meal I'm there in time for, and I'm yours for the rest of the day. I promise. Miss you."
"Miss you too, and sounds amazing. Bye."
Nico smiled before waving his hand through the screen.

A week passed before Nico managed to escape. He left a message at breakfast, and I met him in the clearing after faking being sick to get out of the day's activities. He filled me in on what happened, but looked totally exhausted. I probably didn't look much better. I'd been avoiding mirrors and anything Aphrodite-related for the last week and a half. After Nico had finished talking, it took us less than 5 minutes to both fall asleep on each other, and we only woke when Tash came in at about 4:30. Nico wasn't as crabby, and I had the first night of nightmare-less sleep since Nico had left 6 months ago.

A few days after that, Annabeth turned up, sleep-deprived and trails of dead tears down her face. "He, he went in. He went in and blew it up."
"Is this Percy?" Chiron asked as she clung onto me.
She nodded numbly before Chiron continued. "And Grover and Tyson. Do you know where they are?"
A shake of her head, followed by one of her first constructed sentences since returning. "We split up. I have no clue where they are."
Chiron nodded, and turned to me. "Take her to the cabin. You might as well not go to your activities today. You're here all the time so you're not missing anything. I'll send someone to tell the others."
"Thank you." I gave him a smile before helping my sister to her feet. "Come on. You need some sleep."
We made our way back to Cabin 6, and I helped Annabeth change into her pajamas and tucked her into bed. I sat down with a book on the bunk across from Annabeth's; Jake wouldn't mind me using his bed.
Right before falling asleep, she muttered one thing. "I kissed him. I kissed him and he blew himself up."

The next day there was a meeting between the cabin leaders, to discuss the quest so far and Percy's fate. I wasn't invited, but there were no activities, so I spent the morning with Tash, Chloe and Will. Chloe and Will were still going out, but seemed to be reaching the end of their tether.
"Will you just give it a rest, Chloe?" Will stormed around, as Tash and I flicked popcorn at each other.
A sigh came from where Chloe was sat upon a rock. "I'm sorry, but I don't think it's that big a deal about Nyssa walking in on us kissing. She was looking for May, but found us on your bed. So what? And unless there's some big thing you're hiding from me, then I can't see why you can't just tell me why you're so freaked out about it and why you've been avoiding her."
"Because we used to have a thing, ok? Before you came to camp, I liked her, and she was starting to like me back as I got to know you, so yeah. I'm avoiding her to save her feelings. Sorry for being such a nice guy once in a while!"
Chloe had baby poison ivy plants curling around her feet, which is a sure sign that you should get the hell away from her. "Go, go, go!" Tash panicked as we tried to gather our stuff. "You get the jackets, I got the popcorn, now go!" We took off, only slowing when we got to the lake.
"Those two are going to kill someone soon…" With a huff of sand, I plopped down and took the multi-coloured popcorn off of Tash.
"At least you don't sleep next to one of them. Geez Will's sleep-talking is annoying. His sleep singing is even worse."
"Sleep sing? I didn't know you could sleep sing…"
Tash smiled her evil little smile. "Because in your cabin it's sleep algebra and sleep physics."
"Oi! We do not!" The rest of the afternoon passed quickly as Tash and I attributed different sleep-things to the cabins, while flicking magenta and green popcorn at peeping naiads.

The days flicked over, and Annabeth became more depressed. I woke up in the middle of the night, to find her pulling apart the shroud we had been making, insisting that he was not dead. I had to take her out of the cabin so she wouldn't wake up the others. She did anyway with her hysterical crying. As she did every night.

Annabeth shuddered once more, and Erin slipped her arm around her, trying to stop another round of tears. Annabeth shook Erin off, insisting she was fine, as tears dripped onto her lap.
Chiron rose from his wheelchair and stood in the middle of the amphitheatre, waiting for quiet to fall. "As you know, A quest was sent into the labyrinth, the party including Perseus Jackson." For once there was no laughing at Percy's full name. "He was involved in the explosion at Mt. St. Helens. He has been missing so long, we can assume he is dead." Annabeth locked up by my side, and Erin took her hand, in an attempt to calm her down. "After so long a silence, it is unlikely that our prayers will be answered. I have asked his best surviving friend to do the final honours."
Annabeth shifted, and took the remade shroud out of my hands, before clambering to her feet and into the center. "He was probably the bravest friend I've ever had. He's…" A rare look of confusion appeared on her face, before red took over. "He's right there!"

A collective whip of necks surpassed, as our attention was directed to the back of the amphitheatre. A majority of people stumbled to their feet and attempted to breach the growing circle around Percy. Chiron sauntered up, parting the crowd as if it were putty. "Well, I don't believe I've ever been happier to see a camper return. But you must tell me-"
"Where have you been?" In the short space of time since Percy had arrived, Annabeth had gone from normal, to red, to purple, to blue, back to red, and was now yelling at Percy and storming up to him.
"Should I tackle her?" Tash whispered to me from behind.
"No, just leave it. She should be fine. Anyway, I've got her knife."
Percy's eye's widened, and Annabeth looked like she was about to punch him, but instead wrapped her arms around him tightly, which Percy responded by freaking for a millisecond, before wrapping his arms around her. They stayed like that for about a second, before Annabeth's eyes flicked open and she stepped back. "I - We thought you were dead, Seaweed Brain!"
Percy looked as bewildered as the rest of us, but managed to stammer something out. "I'm sorry. I got lost." Not the most intelligent of words, considering the fuming girl in front of him, but nevertheless, words.
"Lost?" Annabeth screamed. "Two weeks, Percy? Where in the world-"
Chiron cleared his throat. "Annabeth, perhaps we should discuss this somewhere more private, shall we? The rest of you, back to your normal activities!"Chiron swung Annabeth and Percy onto his back and galloped away from the groans of the demigods.

"Come on, cabin 6, it's canoeing time!" I called. "I know we've been messed up for a while, but none of us need to be with Annabeth right now. I do appreciate you helping look after her, and I'm sure she does too. I owe you guys one."
"Can we use that favour now and skip canoeing and play trivial pursuit instead?" Jake asked, grin on his face.
"That is an excellent idea! Come on!" I ran up to Cabin 6, the rest of my siblings in tow, for the first time in a fortnight Annabeth totally out of my mind. Why? I had a feeling Annabeth was going to be just fine, now that Percy was back.

A/N: Don't kill me! It's up! It's crappy, but it's up! Honestly, I'm just deciding which parts of the book Ellie would be seeing and putting stuff in between it, so it is gonna come out a little forced... But the next chapter is already partially written, with a scene between Percy and Ellie, and I'm currently halfway through a scene with Ellie and Chloe. But about 2 or 3 chapters away from this one, is the Battle Of The Labyrinth, which Nico comes back to camp! And then it gets really cute! Hehe, I'm evil, telling you stuff and making you wait! Oh well! xxy Elena