Alright, here's your next chapter: Annabeth on Ogygia, trapped with the beautiful, immortal Calypso, Percy's old flame, Chloe, Percy's potential daughter, and Jason, who's earned a new interest.

What could go wrong?

21/Annabeth

Numb. It's a strange feeling, most would agree. The sensation that, well, there's no sensation at all. It's somewhat disconcerting, how skin, on some deep level, can feel what's under it, but at the same time feels nothing at all.

She marvels at it now, as her fingertips scrape along the surface of the stone bench, curling into a white fist. She wonders why she gets the same sort of feeling in her when she looks at Calypso, who sits across from her, wearing an expression she can't place.

Annabeth eyes her. It's hard to look at the nymph without getting angry. She's so lovely, so sweet, so...persuasive with her large eyes and happy composure. No one could say no to that face. Annabeth resists the urge to shake her head. It's sickening, almost. How could anyone, let alone Percy—a seaweed brain, in and of himself—turn down this beautiful girl? For Annabeth? What is Annabeth compared to Calypso?

Calypso opens her mouth, then closes it, yet another attempt to explain herself. Annabeth doesn't encourage her. She won't even meet her eyes. Why should she? She doubts she wants to hear the origin of Chloe's existence.

But the silence becomes too much to bear. "Talk," she says finally, cooling her gaze. Calypso's eyes dart up, suddenly hopeful. Annabeth frowns. She doesn't want to see any trace of hope. "Start from the beginning."

Calypso looks down at her hands. "Percy was not the first hero to come here," she admits quietly. "But he was the last."

Annabeth blinks. She knows, before Percy, there were many who washed onto Ogygia's shores. Odysseus was one of them, and it was well known that Calypso had held him here for nearly seven years before the gods ordered her to release him. It suddenly occurs in her mind that, perhaps, all the men that Calypso received weren't exactly her decision, but she brushes that away. For now.

"He was troubled," Calypso recalls, her brow furrowing. "He would talk of things I did not understand, mostly in his sleep. Daedalus, the labyrinth, Tyson, Rachel, Nico, Grover…" She paused. "You."

She stops again, but Annabeth gives no response.

"I admit," a light blush appears on her face, "that I did not want him to leave. He had stayed for a matter of days, I believe. Time is never easy here. But even in such a small period, it was easy to…" She trails off, but Annabeth knows the end of the sentence. It was easy to love him.

"He did not stay, despite my offer," Calypso continues. Her speech has quickened, as if sensing Annabeth's rising impatience with the explanation. As if she's nervous. "I believe something in the outside world was more important than I was." She glances down. "That he would rather salvage what he could than be here, waiting for someone else to do it."

Silence. "And?" The demand is brooding at best. Calypso's lip trembles. Annabeth scowls, determined to keep herself from pitying her. Still, the sympathetic thoughts crowd in. Calypso was simply a girl, after all, whose love left her. Who's to say Annabeth would be any different?

She scolds herself mentally. She's contradicting herself, comparing and contrasting herself to Calypso, trying to determine if she was truly meant to be with Percy after all.

Clearly not.

Calypso sighs. "And he left." It takes a moment for Annabeth to remember what the nymph is talking about, having been lost in her own thoughts, and remembers in the instant of Calypso's hesitation. "I…did keep his clothes. I grieved as if he were dead, because he could have been. Easily. I don't get much news here. Hermes never appeared to tell me anything.

"But Ilithyia came to me. She had time to visit with me briefly." Calypso's eyes lock on her fingernails. "I helped her, once. One of her sons came here, nearly dead. I healed him."

"She offered to repay the debt," Annabeth guesses in a monotone.

Calypso nods. "I missed him," she blurts. "I so wanted him to return, though I knew I would never see him again." She blinks back tears Annabeth tries to ignore. "I gave Ilithyia his clothes. She gave me Chloe." Calypso glances over her shoulder, as if expecting someone to be listening. "She's almost exactly like him," she whispers.

And there's that silence again, the one that can only happen between two rivals that don't really want to be rivals at all. The one that makes it all so unforgiving. Annabeth lets it extend beyond reason, mainly because she has nothing else to say.

"What now?" she manages finally.

Calypso stands, shaking her head. "I'm afraid I don't know." She slumps slightly. "I don't know much anymore."

And, as Annabeth follows Calypso into the green, she can only think of how true the nymph's words are.

Testing them for what seems like the hundredth time, she places her fingers ever so slightly at the tips of Jason's blonde hair, teasing the strands lightly. She's irritated to find she can't feel it, not really. He does, though, somewhere in his herb-muddled mind, and stirs, making her freeze.

It seems like an eternity ago that Calypso had fed—or rather, forced—one putrid herbal mixture after another down Annabeth's throat, rendering all senses technically useless.

She sighs. She'd given up all hope of planning hours ago. Briefly, she revisits the thought of stealing Calypso's only boat, loading Jason inside, and taking her chances in the Sea of Monsters, but casts it away almost immediately. It'd take more than Calypso's whole hoard of food and water to make it back to Florida. It's better than being here, she thinks sourly.

Again, she glances at the cave entrance. Outside sways Calypso's precious plants. Fountain water gurgles. Birds sing. But there is no trace of Calypso herself. Or Chloe.

It's still surreal. The notion that Chloe could—she thinks the word firmly—be Percy's daughter. I gave her his clothes. She gave me Chloe, Calypso had said. What does that even mean? Is that possible? Frustrated, Annabeth tugs at her own blonde hair, mostly because she knows it is.

Jason's mumble captures Annabeth's attention instantly. Shocked, she looks down at him. Does everyone look younger when they sleep? Because she swears it takes years of Jason's hardened demeanor. With his furrowed brows, pouted lips, and curled position, he looks like…a child.

Hesitantly, she takes his hand. He shifts, and his fingers tighten, as if he knows. She doesn't know why she feels guilty. Oh, but that's a lie, because she knows exactly why. Even touching Jason feels traitorous because of Percy.

She frowns. She and Percy are over, aren't they? She distinctly remembers smashing wood over his head and screaming at him. She should be free from that, shouldn't she? Which begs the question: why does she feel as though she's still his?

She doesn't remember falling asleep, but the next thing she knows she's snapping awake, the sound of crunching twigs alarming her. She's surprised to find Jason's head in her lap, and shoves him away awkwardly before thinking.

To her dismay, his blue eyes flicker open.

"Wha… Annabeth?" he mumbles.

Another crunch stiffens Annabeth's back. She whirls towards the cave entrance, ready for anything, anyone to walk through, but only finds—Chloe.

The small girl walks not far away, just near the back of the cave, where a silk screen—aged and faded, but still a spring green—hides what Annabeth guesses is her "bedroom." Chloe raises her eyebrows in a way that is too mature for her age. Her green eyes flick from Annabeth to Jason. A hint of curiosity flares in her expression, but she doesn't act upon it.

"Good," she says simply. "Mother was worried." Then, without another word of either explanation of her presence (or attitude), she disappears behind the screen.

Silence. "Where are we?"

His voice is so weak she never would've believed it's his. She turns, surprised only for a moment, before she overcomes her foolish blunder. She doesn't answer. Instead she takes his arm gently and says, "Come on. Let's go outside." She helps Jason to his feet and makes for the door, throwing one cautious look at Chloe, who, hidden from view, does not move to stop her.

Jason puts nearly all his weight on Annabeth's shoulder, who grimaces, but finds that she doesn't mind so much. When she helps him sit on a carpet of grass, he looks pale under the greenish light, sickly even. Not the tall, proud Roman leader she had come to know. No, they couldn't leave, even if they had the resources. Jason would never last without Calypso's magic.

She's beginning to think it's no coincidence. Any of it. Jason and Percy's personality changes. Reyna's presence. Annabeth on Ogygia. With Calypso. And Jason, who'd already kissed her once.

She doesn't want to believe it, but it's clouding that annoying part of her brain that just won't stop thinking about it. It all seems to be orchestrated to create just the right amount of tension, just enough to make it…entertaining.

And then she almost laughs, because it's so ridiculous. She sobers suddenly. Because then again, it's not so ridiculous after all. Everyone knows the gods love a good show.

Maybe that's the real problem.

"Annabeth?"

She's glad for Jason. She doesn't want to be alone, because being alone gives you time to think. And maybe you don't always like what you're thinking. So she smiles, albeit a little weakly. "It's good to see you awake."

"How long…?"

She shakes her head. "I don't know." She turns to stare at Ogygia's phantom, surreal beauty. "Time is never easy here."

Jason is quiet for a moment, pondering. "Where exactly…are we?"

"Nowhere," she says, repeating Chloe's words. "Everywhere." She barely sees Jason's frustrated expression, but still knows it's there. If it's anything besides their blood that demigods hate, it's riddles. So she makes it simple, clear. "We're on a phantom island, Jason. Ogygia."

She can see him struggling to make the connection, from Greek to Roman history. She sees the widening of his eyes, the frantic turn of his head as he surveys what's around him, and knows exactly what's going on in his head.

"No, they won't kill us," she assures him. "They're against violence." She doesn't know if that's really true, but she wouldn't be surprised if it was.

"Calypso," he mumbles. "Odysseus?"

"Yes," she whispers.

"How…" He stops. His hand fumbles around in the grass. He stares at it, as if it's not obeying him. Finally it moves to touch her fingers. She stares too, because, even though Calypso's herbs have long worn off, she can't feel him. Not even if she grips back.

"How do we get back?"

"We're lost." Her voice drops to barely audible. "And I don't know how to get found." She turns to him, suddenly frustrated. She's supposed to know. She's supposed to be the one who gets asked. She's supposed to be the one who can snap her fingers and just whip the solution out of thin air. She's supposed to have all the answers.

"Do you?" she demands of him. She searches his eyes, for answers—any answers. Just something to make her feel safe. Something to make everything better. A band-aid. A piece of candy. A mother's kiss.

But they're blank. There's no hint of that electric charge that made them spark so often, or the determination that so repeatedly moved him. There's nothing at all. Nothing to help her. She's on her own.

And then the feelings—anger, frustration, hope—are gone.

Almost as if they were never there at all.

That was too fun to write :) Makes you want more, doesn't it? Me too. Good thing I'm the one writing it.

Next chapter: Who exactly is this mysterious Julia? Where has our long-lost friend Nico di Angelo been all this time? What's all this talk about the famous lost city, Atlantis? Are Percy and Annabeth ever going to see each other again?

Well, I guess you'll just have to find out.

~ Mia ~

P.S.: My school's first day is Monday, the day after tomorrow ('cause today is Saturday, you know, and tomorrow's Sunday...), and I'm starting the year with three advanced classes and one extremely time-consuming extracurricular activity, so I might be occupied for quite a while.

And also, the reason I haven't posted anything is because I can never find time to get to my computer, which is upstairs in my house. My dog isn't allowed upstairs, and can't be left alone downstairs or she might do something I will have to clean up. Yay.

So, until then, my lovelies. Au revoir!