I am SOOO sorry I didn't post last weekend. My computer was giving me all sorts of issues and I also had major writer's block with this story. I could've either tried to post something really crappy last week or something decent this week. I'm still not the biggest fan of how this turned out, but I didn't want to leave you all hanging for another week.

Thanks to all who reviewed last chapter: Alexandra Nightshade, biancadiangelo0703, lilslybud, bubbly chick, kldsn123, HiThereSmiley, Perseus12, Firehawk97, MelRose520, storyteller1425, PercyJackson-PeetaM-Fang-Fan11, Cherry Louise, candy0304, Damon-salvatore-lover15, ScarletGrcae45, SeaweedBrain113097, Coqui's Song, SoccerGirl8, Tomato Loving Spaniard, courixoxo, ApollosFavoriteDaughter3927

I don't own PJO.

Percy POV

School dances aren't really my strong point. Mainly because I'm the worst dancer ever, but also because I'm just not a huge fan of them. At least no one comes to prom too wasted because that doesn't really go down until the after parties. There was a Valentine's Day dance earlier in the year that I didn't go to, but I heard it got shut down in less than forty-five minutes because everyone was such a mess.

Anyway, I just don't really like dances. Even though it's only junior prom, it's still one of those things that you just feel obligated to go to. And Annabeth kept insisted we go which I found odd. And I won't even get started on Silena. She took all of us guys suit shopping one day and that was a total disaster. We got kicked out of three stores, almost forgot two ties at a store, and nearly left without buying dress shoes. Not to mention that I don't think that group went five minutes without some sort of an argument.

I guess it all paid off though. Annabeth showed up at my apartment about a half an hour before we had to leave because my mom wanted pictures. When I opened the door to find Annabeth there, my jaw dropped in shock. I had a hard time picturing her in a dress, nonetheless looking so good in one. It was a simple gray dress that hugged her curves well and she silver flats to match along with a set of owl earrings. It was pretty subtle, but I could tell she had a bit of make up on. When my mom finally finished fretting over how cute we looked and stopped taking pictures, we were free to leave.

As we were walking into the dance, we ran into Travis and Katie. After many 'words of encouragement' (threats is more like it) from Silena, Travis finally got the balls to not only ask Katie to prom, but he asked her out in general. It was about time.

"Annabeth in a dress?" Travis looked just as shocked as I probably had. "I see you finally decided to do something feminine."

She shoved his shoulder playfully, "Shut up. Even in a dress, I bet I could still kick your ass."

"Alright, no fights," Katie intervened, "The last thing we need is Silena on our case if one of us ends up with a black eye."

No one argued that.

I linked arms with Annabeth and headed in. We got stopped a bunch of times to take pictures with people until we finally reached a table to sit at. Silena and Beckendorf plopped down in the chairs across from us a few minutes later.

At Silena's presence I couldn't help but let out a small, "Oh no."

She narrowed her eyes at me, "You should be thanking me. I did help you get that suit after all. And you look nice in it. Doesn't he, Annabeth?"

Annabeth nodded, "He looks great. And thanks for all of the help."

"And my job isn't even done yet." I don't know which was scarier, the way she said that or the knowing glance she shared with Annabeth. I looked to Beckendorf for an answer, but he merely shrugged. He's helpful.

Thankfully Luke showed up before Silena could speak again.

Immediately, Annabeth told him, "We've already been over this; I'm not dancing with you."

He laughed a little, then turned to Silena, "Since Annabeth's being stubborn, care to dance?"

Beckendorf didn't look too thrilled as Silena nodded and went off with Luke.

"Don't worry about it," I assured him. "She likes you too much to betray you."

I really, really shouldn't have said that. Instantly, I started to feel like a hypocrite. I had cared about Thalia, but I cheated on her. Who am I to be telling people stuff like that? Especially after all that led to. That whole thing led absolute disaster. I didn't hurt just Thalia either. The crash killed her mom. Nico hated me for it. Annabeth felt guilty. And I became borderline insane. I started to feel like I was suffocating.

"Are you okay?" I snapped out of my trance to meet Annabeth's intense grey eyes.

"Yeah," I lied, loosening the green tie around my neck.

I met her eyes with my green ones again and I knew that she figured out what was up, "Let's go. Dancing will take your mind off of it."

"But I can't dance," I protested.

She hauled me out of my chair and towards the floor, "Then that means you'll have to use more of your concentration, which will make it easier to take your mind off of things."

I hate logic.

So that was the start of my dance-filled torture. Through the slow songs I was trying not to crush Annabeth's feet too much and through the fast ones that everyone was jumping around and fist-pumping to I was busy making sure I didn't accidentally elbow her in the face or something. I succeeded…for the most part. During one slow song my hands were on her waist and her arms were around my neck, and I was actually doing a good job of not hurting her.

"To be completely honest, I didn't think I would have any fun at this," I admitted.

She shrugged, "Neither did I. This has actually been really fun though."

"That might just be because nothing has gone wrong yet," I pointed out.

Lightly hitting the back of my head, she laughed, "Don't jinx it. If something goes wrong now I'm blaming you."

It was my turn to laugh, "You would do that anyway."

She didn't argue. Toward the end of the song though, she began acting weird. She kept looking over my shoulder into the crowd for people. Her eyes lit up like she'd found what she was looking for which kind of offset set me. Just as the song was changing, she winked at someone and things happened really fast.

Annabeth took my hand and spun me away from her, causing me to bump into someone. Feeling bad, I caught the person before they could fall and ended up face-to-face with Thalia.

"Sorry," we both said at the same time.

"I don't know what got into Annabeth," I added. "She just spun me away and I crashed into you."

"I know what it is," she declared, looking behind me before pointing that way, "We've been set up."

Tossing a glance over my shoulder, I saw Annabeth and Nico dancing together. They were looking at us and grinning uncontrollably. Only then did I realize what song was playing: Everything by Lifehouse. This had been mine and Thalia's song when we were dating. I guess I know what Silena had been planning.

"Want to dance?" I asked her. "It was our song after all."

I was surprised that she didn't even think about it, "Sure."

Next thing I knew we were shuffling around on the dance floor. I had my eyes targeted on my feet to make sure I didn't hurt her. She seemed to have a limp in her step but she wasn't on crutches or anything. She must've been getting tired though.

"Percy," she called, drawing my eyes up to meet her electric blue ones. "It's okay; I'm not going to break if you accidentally step on my feet."

"Uh…yeah," I stuttered, slightly embarrassed, "Sorry."

I had been too busy looking at her feet, it hadn't even completely registered in my mind that she was wearing a dress. It was probably an even rarer sighting than seeing Annabeth in one. The dress was dark blue and went all the way down to her ankles. She was wearing a black, long-sleeve cardigan over it that actually matched pretty well. Matched well? I knew that suit-shopping trip with Silena messed up my mind. What really caught my eye though was the necklace I had given her for Christmas.

"You still wear that necklace?" I asked in disbelief.

She smiled, "Yeah. I really like it. It also helps me with things, come to terms with the past."

"I still wear mine sometimes," I confessed.

"Why?" she asked. "Annabeth made it sound like you were just trying to forget everything."

"I wore it because I've missed you," I told her. Then I thought it sounded flirty, so I immediately started rambling, "N-not like that. I mean like…like I've missed seeing you. I'm kind of glad we aren't together anymore because it was hurting both of us, but I've still missed having you around."

Her chuckling cut off my rant, "You really need to relax. I can tell it's weird for you to be around me because of the accident, but like Annabeth has told you a million times, no one blames you."

"You've been avoiding me because of it," I pointed out, "And Nico still hates me."

"I've only been avoiding you to gather my life together so it wouldn't be a death match when we saw each other again," she rolled her eyes. "And Nico doesn't really hate you. He's just being protective of me."

"You sound happy with him."

She couldn't help but grin, "We aren't technically together, but we sure do act like it most of the time."

"Do you plan on finally going out with him?"

"Let's just say if he tries to kiss me at the end of the night, I won't object."

I actually smiled at that. She seemed content with her life now. Everyone had been telling me she was fine, but all I really needed was to hear it from her. It took most of my guilt away.

Considering our song was a good six or so minutes long, we continued shuffling around before speaking again. I hadn't even noticed that we had ended up dancing like I had with Annabeth earlier; her arms around my neck and my hands on her waist.

"This must've been what Silena was plotting," I mumbled.

She nodded, "That's a pretty safe bet. How did the guys shopping trip with her go? Nico just said it was a disaster."

"That pretty much sums it up," I agreed. "How did the girls' one go? I heard she originally planned on making you wear a pink dress."

"She did. I got out of it though."

"How?" my voice must've been one of utter shock. Silena rarely lets people get out of her plans. The only reason she didn't make Nico wear a pink suit was because she thought it just didn't complement him well.

"She understood that it was a little too…revealing."

My eyebrow arched, "She actually cared that you didn't want to dress like a slut?"

She bit her lip, "Not that type of revealing. It just wasn't as long as this one though and we couldn't find a cardigan to go with it…" She realized I still wasn't catching on so she snapped, "It didn't hide my scars."

"Oh. Are they really that bad?"

She nodded, "Some of them are. I just didn't want to deal with everyone looking at me like I had five heads." I went to apologize, but she cut me off, "And if you dare say sorry, you'll be sporting some nice scars."

I laughed, "Does this mean we're cool now? I don't have to keep my distance anymore?"

She leaned against me in a hug, "Do I even need to answer that?"

We finished out the song and then she went off to find Nico, her limp only slightly noticeable. Annabeth came up to me, trying to contain her laughter.

"Did all go well?" she choked out.

"Yeah," I assured her. "I'm still going to get my revenge on you guys for setting us up like that though."

"Good luck with that," she told me, doubting my capability of revenge.

The rest of the night was a blast but mostly uneventful. At the end of the night, I was helping Annabeth look for her purse I misplaced. Don't look down on me for losing it; I warned her that she shouldn't have trusted me to put it down somewhere in the first place. I was glad we stayed back though, because I spotted Nico and Thalia in the exit. Thalia was using her forearm crutches again; she must've brought them just in case.

They seemed to be having a pretty deep conversation when Thalia leaned in and kissed him. I was surprised she did it so abruptly but at the same time I was truly happy for them. When they broke apart, I clapped just to bug them. Next thing I knew, Annabeth was next to me and clapping for them to. Thalia laughed, Nico flipped us off.

A few minutes later, we were in my car (Annabeth had found her purse, I didn't know where though).

"Answer me honestly," she told me, "Do you end up having fun tonight?"

"Honestly," I responded, "It was one of the best nights I've had in the while."

It was true. I was finally on good terms with Thalia. I don't think Nico hated me anymore. And I got to spend plenty of time with the girl who I think had been my crush since I was little. For the first time in a while, things actually seemed okay.

And that is the last chapter of this story, but don't worry because next up is the epilogue! WOOO! I actually like how this chapter kind of brought everything together. It was refreshing to write something less dramatic. And the song that was mentioned, Everything by Lifehouse, is amazing and you should all listen to it if you never have.

I hope you all loved the chapter and please review :)