Hello again! I'm back from my hiatus with the twenty-first chapter, so that's fun…

For the people who asked, I'm fine it was some family/personal stuff.

Mark's POV:

Annabeth flew back into San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon- three days after school had started and looking relatively carefree and very much unlike the Annabeth that we knew to be very uptight about schoolwork. But that wasn't the only surprise- she hadn't told us when she was coming back- does it give you a sense of déjà vu about when she left? And also, there were people with her. A lot of people.

We didn't know when she was coming back, we happened to see her in Golden Gate Park having a picnic with some other people. Percy was with them, and a lot of kids we'd seen once or twice and some that we hadn't.

She looked happy- almost too happy. Her blonde hair was beautiful in the sunlight and shone like spun gold, her gray eyes sparkling and dancing like they'd been set alight. She'd somehow rebirthed her fading California tan- which was definitely weird because one- it was winter, there was never that much sunlight in January and it was too cold- and two, New York was probably colder than San Francisco was. Percy had put an arm around her recently, and she shrugged it off, giving him a teasing smile.

I saw a girl with spiky black hair and some weird silver crown in her hair, her blue eyes blazing as she gestured animatedly at Annabeth, talking rather fast. Another black haired girl, but it was long and shiny, with dark brown eyes and a really pretty face, sat cuddled up to a large teenage boy, African American, who smiled down at her. An olive-skinned boy wearing an aviator jacket, very skinny and noticeably younger than the rest of them, sat hugging his knees, a few feet away from the rest of them. Two twin boys with troublemaker smiles were inching closer and closer to the crowned girl's pocket. A boy with acne and the wisps of a goatee and a Rasta cap, crutches laid next to the picnic blanket and shoes taken off, showing off…what was that? Showing off his feet, I guessed, was talking comfortably to another big boy, with big dark eyes.

Laura looked mad. She'd been, of course, the one who mainly yelled at Annabeth when she'd flown out to New York in December. Amy, however, flinched back with a startled gasp. She was staring at two people in particular, and they weren't Percy and Annabeth. It was the boy with the Rasta cap and his crutches and the shoes next to him, and the big boy he was talking to. Her jaw had dropped and her eyes were wide with what looked like…was that horror?

"What the…" her voice trailed off, and her hand slipped from Joey's where'd they'd been talking and sometimes kissing. Laura was marching across the grass and I could almost see the figurative smoke pouring out of her ears while the rest of us mostly stood there before following, Amy trailing a few feet away and still scared-looking.

Percy's face stilled as he saw us coming, the first of them, and they all turned, conversations dying off:

"Annabeth-" Percy started to say.

"Tyson, we have company." The Rasta cap boy said. His feet were bare, but I could barely make them out.

"Charlie!" the girl who had been cuddling the African American drew away from him worriedly.

"Annie, I think these are your-" the spiky haired girl stopped as we neared them.

"Friends?" the aviator jacket boy said, curling up tighter and rocking on his ankles.

Laura was trembling with rage, Amy let out a frightened squeak as they neared. Joey and I were mainly apprehensive as we stared at them and Laura's angry, squinted eyes, dark with anger.

"Guys-" Annabeth started to say, but Laura exploded and started ranting.

were coming back! Do you have any idea how worried we were? About you? About Percy, as well, who disappeared without a trace?" she rounded on him. "Oh, wait, no, you weren't, you had all your real friends, because it's really apparent to us that you don't particularly care about us as we care for you! Don't even try to deny it, Annabeth Minerva Chase!" Laura was shaking and her hands clenched into fists, her eyes livid.

No one spoke. And then-

"Your middle name is Minerva, Annie?" Annabeth hissed at the spiky-haired girl; her silver crown nestled firmly on her head.

"Thalia!" Annabeth reprimanded. And then, to us- "if you don't want me to deny it, Laura, then I won't. Now, I was kind of-"

"See! There's another one. Real friends try to deny it, real friends don't give up so easily." Now Annabeth was even angrier, and Percy looked annoyed too. The others- Thalia, and the nameless ones, looked concerned.

"Annabeth-"

"Well, Laura, maybe you aren't our real friends, okay? I don't fully belong here anyway. I should be back on the East Coast, and yet, you're here messing up the last few hours I have with my 'real' friends."

Laura was gone before I could blink, and I suspected there were tears on her face. "Any of you have something to ask?"

Amy spoke bravely. "What are those?" she gestured at the boy with the cap and the big guy he'd been talking to. Annabeth suddenly looked rather scared. "No, wait, don't tell me, keep another secret from your fake friends, Annabeth." She ran off as well, after Laura, who lurked at the edge of the grass.

"Amy- oh, gods." Annabeth moaned. "Not another one."

"I second Amy," Joey said halfheartedly. "Don't even try it with me, Annabeth." She seemed alarmed now, and the girl called Thalia snapped her fingers.

"You don't remember any of this." Joey and I both stared at her.

"Uh, yes, we do." She shook her head.

"Annabeth, I think you'll have to bring in the four of them." Annabeth shook her head violently.

"No way."

"Joey." Annabeth said softly, pleadingly. He shook his head.

I was the only one left.

"Mark?" Percy asked. I was shaking, left staring at them.

"Do you remember, Annabeth? The day Percy came to visit you the first time? When we first met him?" she nodded mutely. "When you asked me who the closest person to me was that wasn't my family, I said it was you. And it was the truth. You said it was Percy, and I was shocked, and hurt, and angry, but all of it can't compare to this. You said yourself that we aren't really your friends, you couldn't even tell us you were coming back." I paused. "I guess I'll see you at school tomorrow, Annabeth." I was about to leave when she spoke.

"Maybe one day, you'll see I have a good reason."

I stared at her.

"You'd never let us go to your Camp anyway. You guys are probably just a bunch of drug addicts who are high or something." The wounded look that flashed on her face hurt me as well and I couldn't pretend what I'd said hadn't been wrong. "I'm sorry, Annabeth. Really. Maybe one day, you'll look back on this and you'll realize that maybe, maybe we had a point to make and feelings and emotion as well. We were born just like you."

The guy with the cap sniggered. "I hope not." Annabeth shot him a glare, but everybody else was suppressing smiles at the inside joke.

"You can't see them," Annabeth said, sounding hopeful. "You can't see them…can you?"

"The only thing I can see is that you are probably crazy and that all the years with you as my best friend were wasted." I walked away then.

"Worth a shot," I heard Annabeth mutter behind me.

"You know it's never that easy with…, Anna." Percy said softly. I heard her sigh softly.

Laura, being the persistent, resentful girl she was, had set up a picnic with Amy and Joey over by the edge of the grass, I knew there were stares from Annabeth's group of friends and occasionally their laughter, or their words, drifted with the wind.

"Amy." Amy jerked up at the sound of her dad's voice, accompanied by a woman with hair the color of golden wheat, and eyes like green grass. Her father's voice was apprehensive, and I realized with a jolt that heading over warily were Annabeth, Percy, and the others.

"Dad? Who is…?" Annabeth started murmuring to Percy, and I noticed there was a triumphant glint in her steel-gray eyes.

"I told you, Perce. There was at least one of them that was strange." I felt a hot flash of anger on Amy's behalf and just stared at Annabeth. She'd never looked so strange and terrible to me as she did right now.

"This is your mother, Amy. Her name is…" he glanced at her, a crease in his brow, as a light came up in the girl with the long black hair.

"My name is Demeter, Amy." Annabeth smiled like the Cheshire Cat, and muttered to Rasta Cap Boy:

"I don't know how I didn't see it before."

"So? You just come back into my life when I'm fifteen? In the middle of my freshman year of high school? When everything else in my life has gone fully and totally wrong?" Percy and Annabeth flinched as she said this but kept watching without comment. "I don't want to see you again." The golden-haired woman smiled.

"Very well. Miss Chase? Mr. Underwood? Mr. Jackson? You've picked them up before. My daughter is your friend, yes?" she spoke to Annabeth primarily, and as she said, 'you've picked them up before', Annabeth grimaced.

"Not anymore," Amy growled. "Not after today."

"Miss Beauregard?" the girl with the long black hair spoke sweetly.

"Amy, you want to come with us, don't you?" Amy hesitated before shaking her head, Joey clutching her hand violently as a flush rose in his usually pale cheeks.

"Hell no." the girl, 'Miss Beauregard', shook her head.

"Silena, I don't think you can help too much here then," Annabeth said to her. "Thalia, you either and Beckendorf…" she shook her head uneasily.

"You never told me what those were," Amy said, pointing to the boys still unnamed.

"It would be explained if you came with us." The Rasta Cap Boy interjected.

"Hush, Grover! Tyson…maybe you two can go with Mrs. O'Leary and Nico." Nico was the boy with the aviator jacket, and the three of them, plus Percy's big black dog, left.

"Amy," the woman named Demeter- Amy's mother? – said, "if you don't go with them…you may not have another chance…you may not have a chance at all." Thalia winced, her back stiff and straight, the silver in her hair glimmering in the sunlight.

"I don't want a chance," Amy said. "I want my 'friends' back, only this time I want them to actually be my friends. And not keep so many secrets." Annabeth stared back.

"Can't unless you come with us."

"No." Amy resisted, but I could see her resolve crumbling. Joey squeezed her hand, worry all over her face.

"Oh, are you two a couple?" the girl named Silena said. "You're really cute together." Amy gave her a fake smile, but it was obvious she appreciated the remark.

"What about my friends?" Amy said. She looked really, really torn. Her mother and knowledge of the secrets we'd been dying to find out since Percy first appeared in our lives, the same people who let slip that we weren't really their friends, or the real friends."

"Well, the boy, Joey…" Demeter looked him over critically, but her eyes softened. "I'm pretty sure he's one of a minor."

"My parents weren't minors!" Joey said indignantly. "They were both of age." Annabeth stared at Amy and Joey like she'd never seen them before.

"Two…" she whispered.

"The other boy, Mark…" she paused. "Isn't a clear-sighted, but the other girl, Laura, seems to be the case. "I can't tell about him. But he resists the Mist." Annabeth frowned.

"Your friends could probably follow," Demeter said. Demeter, like the Greek goddess? An odd name for a girl. Though, Percy's name was actually Perseus, so… "but maybe not."

"I don't…" Amy said. "I need to go." She'd grabbed Laura's and my hands and started to run, dragging us behind her, picnic and blanket forgotten for the time being, and my face burned as I felt the heat of all their gazes behind us- especially Percy's and Annabeth's. Amy, however, didn't stop until we'd reached not hers but Annabeth's house- the same old pale blue with white trim and the Victorian windows that had always been charming. The same house we had visited the past few days, hopeful for at least a glimpse of Annabeth. She knocked on the door, the rest of us confused. This was Annabeth's house. Not hers, or Laura's, or Joey's or mine. Annabeth's, the same Annabeth that we'd all rejected and fought with half an hour prior. Why did Amy want to go to her house? It wasn't like Annabeth was there.

Mr. Chase opened the door, looking confused, I saw Helen/Mrs. Chase, Annabeth's stepmom, behind him looking confused.

"Amy, Joey, Laura, Mark…Annabeth will be home sometime soon, her flight came in the afternoon." He informed us bemusedly.

"We know." Amy said tensely. "We saw her just now." He looked very confused now and tilted his head at Amy before speaking again.

"So?" he prompted. Amy paused and looked at us before speaking.

"Can we speak in private?" he nodded, surprised, as Helen moved off to the kitchen and we went to his study- a cramped, messy room full of airplane models.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"No…not wrong exactly." Amy answered before going on. "Annabeth and the rest of us had a, um, fight, because she didn't tell us she was leaving for New York and she didn't tell us she was coming back. One of us, um, said that we weren't her real friends and she didn't deny it and it escalated from there." She spoke before he could answer. "I've never had a mother, just my dad, and about five minutes after we left them, they came back with a woman who claimed to be my mother, calling herself Demeter." He paled. "I wondered…if you knew about what they do up in New York and why they knew her." He was looking at us for so long I started to get a little scared, before he spoke at last.

"I'll tell you a little about it."

That's a wrap! My updates might be a little slow for the next weeks, online school just started and it has ruined my routine.