A/N: Know where I am? At my cottage! Best part? It's warm enough to go ... ready for it? ... SWIMMING! That's right; the lake water is warm enough to swim. So basically for the weekend I'm up here, I'll be living in a lake. Best time ever. Anyways; I know all of you are happy Hunter is okay and now I will let you read on.

Percy: We've Screwed Up, Again

Sometime in the hours between midnight and dawn; I woke up. See, I had anticipated that Cora wouldn't wake me up, so I made sure that I woke myself up. And what I did see when I woke up, I had not been expecting.

Instead of Cora sitting there awake, like I thought, it was Hunter. I was shocked to see he was awake. Annabeth must have done a great job on that gash. He looked perfectly fine, maybe a little muddled, but fine. Then with a chill, I thought about Cora. I doubted she would be asleep if he had woken up. Yet there in the dim firelight, I saw her lying on her side. Actually sleeping.

I realized that she had either been 1) forced too. Or 2) been convinced. I doubted it was the first one, since Cora could not be forced to do anything she didn't want. Believe me; I only made that mistake once back at camp and that turned out bad. That left one option . . . and the only way to know the answer was to ask the French kid.

"You – got – her – to – sleep?" I asked Hunter, extremely slowly, gesturing the best I could to make my words clear. He looked up at me startled. I ended up having to repeat myself a couple times. But eventually he did understand in the end. I think.

"Oui," he nodded. "Je encouragé elle dormit. Tu vont garder la montre maintenant?" He used gestures as well. It took me a minute to understand. He had asked me if I was going to keep watch. I nodded for my reply.

He gave a grateful smile and lay down. I thought about the first thing he said, reworking the words to English. It had been something like 'I convinced her to sleep'. If that was true, it meant she was just being weird. Still, maybe I ought to have used him if I had to do a diplomatic approach with her . . .

I wasn't sure how much time passed exactly. I kind of spaced out and fidgeted around. The next time I looked up the moon was half down in the sky. I was bored, so you can understand I was surprised when an Iris-message appeared in front of me.

Please deposit one Drachma, said a pleasant female voice – it was actually Iris this time. I sighed and reached into my pocket. I thought I might have been the only demigod Iris actually has pay her (why, I didn't know. It was just how things go sometimes. I thought it was because of Fleecy). I tossed my Drachma in and it vanished in a golden shimmer. The mist changed and showed me the image of Chiron. I frowned, thinking this could not be good news.

"Hi Chiron, uh, is there a problem?" I asked keeping my voice down. I didn't think the others would like it if I woke them up. Especially since it was so early.

"Hello Percy; and yes you could say there is a slight problem. Two actually," he told, also keeping quiet.

"Really? What's happened?" I asked him.

"I'll start with the simpler one. That French boy . . . Hunter is name I believe, Cora's friend, he disappeared the same day you three did. I thought I should tell you, but I've been unable to contact you until now," he explained. I could have done a facepalm, we already knew about Hunter.

"Yeah . . . we kind of know now," I said. "We ran into him. And sorry you couldn't contact us, that's a bit of a long story involving a boat and some weird things. So uh, what's the other problem?" Chiron sighed.

"Of course that . . . any who, back to the other problem on hand. The gods are a bit angry. Now, not with each other. So do not panic, there is no impending war. They are more, disappointed, upset, anxious. Something is troubling them. I have made inquiries, but all of them refuse to talk about it. I do not know what is happening or why, but I must advise you to be on your guard."

I frowned hard, thinking fiercely. The gods angry? Again? I had no idea as to why. As far as I knew (which wasn't too reliable) there were no more ultra-horrible titans or giants or goddesses or monsters out there. At least I hoped . . . but things had been fine for the past year, so that must have meant things are fine.

"Well that's . . . strange. But what does this have to do with us exactly?" I asked.

"Because, according to Mr. D, who decided to turn up late last night, they have only been like this since you left," Chiron explained, making me groan in response.

"What did we do now?" I complained.

Chiron gave a shrug, "I do not know. Just beware." I nodded, leaving one last question.

"Okay, beware like always, and Chiron, why do you I-M me in the middle of the night?"

Chiron gave a tight, pained smile. It made it seem like he was sleep deprived. "Have you looked at the time Percy? It is six in the morning." Then he waved his hand through the mist; cutting our connection.

I blinked and looked out at the sky; the horizon was a little lighter on one side. Hm, more time had passed then I had thought. I sighed and leaned back against the wall. I'd worry once the others were up. But for now I'd be content to let them sleep and watch the fire as it flickered to embers.

It wasn't until the sun had almost fully risen that anyone woke up. Annabeth was the first. We didn't talk; she just crawled next to me. We cuddled and shared our warmth after the coldness of the night. Unfortunally, we had no food to eat except for our emergency supplies; which meant we'd have to figure it out later.

Hunter was the next to wake up, which was odd because he needed the most rest, even if he seemed fine. We ended up all sitting there in awkward silence. I almost wished he was still asleep. I didn't get much time alone with Annabeth these days. You know the camp rule about two campers, that really prevented it, unless we got really lucky.

Finally Cora woke up. She looked terrible; sad expression, eyes full of sleep. I couldn't blame her. After what she went through yesterday I could understand why she looked like that. She also looked nervous. I wondered if it was a dream. Or if it was something else - impossible to tell with her.

I took a deep breath. Time to tell them about Chiron's message. I cleared my throat to get their attention. Everyone looked at me, a little unsure. I guessed my expression gave a lot away. I took another deep breath and began.

A/N: What do you think? What about Chiron's message? Let me know your thoughts, whether it's via review or fav or alert or anything I don't care! Just let me know! See you all in a week!