Hello there! I feel bad about my hiatus and my brother spends too much time on the computer anyway, so I'm just going to write a bunch of chapters to make up for it! Plus, it will annoy my brother…that's a bonus…

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Mark's POV:

"You know I can't do that." I was actually looking at her now, and she was staring back at me impassively.

"I don't know anything, Annabeth! That's the problem. I don't know why you keep secrets from us, or why you supposedly can't tell us anything. For all I know, you really could tell us but instead you're choosing not to." Her eyes flashed but I kept going. "And I don't know what to think."

"Can't you just talk to me without some sort of crazy price?" Annabeth asked, and I wondered. Laura would already kill me if she'd found out I'd even talked to Annabeth Chase. It wasn't like she could kill me even more if I talked to her about our friendship. Well, she could mangle my body…or hide it so I was named missing.

"Fine." Her face didn't even move. That was part of the reason she'd seemed like we weren't really her friends. She'd laugh sometimes, but for the most part, Annabeth's face was impassive and poker-faced, but when she was talking to those people, Silena and Thalia and Grover and whatever…her face had lit up. Annabeth had laughed, and playfully slapped, and done…human things. Instead of being stone-faced and cold like she seemed to be with us.

"What do you want to do from here, anyway?" she was silent. "Try again?" the fog was rolling in and mist soaked through my shirt and I shivered, though Annabeth seemed unaffected. New York was colder, anyway. And she'd just come from New York.

"Maybe." The note in her voice was wistful, as if she knew it couldn't happen but wasn't afraid to keep dreaming, keep hoping. "We can see."

And we talked. It was comfortable, easy, the way it used to be when it was just Annabeth and I and Percy wasn't yet in the picture.

"Are we ever going to get a true professor for Greek? They're all…really young."

"And all really experienced." Annabeth reminded me as if she knew each of their degrees by memory. It wouldn't have surprised me.

"I dunno. That Ms. La Rue one wasn't the nicest." Annabeth laughed, a tinkling, happy laugh.

"Clarisse never is."

"You know her?"

"I wish I didn't." Annabeth winced.

"You don't like her very much?"

"She's a camp counselor. Clarisse also has the slightly cruel habit of flushing kids' heads down the toilets when they first arrive at Camp."

"Ah. Did she ever try that with you when you first went to camp? Weren't you, like, seven?" Annabeth smiled at the memory with a faraway look in her silvery gray eyes.

"Yeah. She didn't try it with me, but when Percy first came to camp, I was assigned the task of showing him around, and Clarisse struck. She tried to get Percy's head down the toilet but there was a freak accident with the toilets and we all got covered in toilet water. It was really, really gross and Clarisse has a personal vendetta against Percy nowadays because of it. She says she's going to get her revenge on him someday, that she's just planning things right now even though it's been years and he can withstand Clarisse by now."

"That doesn't bode well for Percy." I said, concerned, but Annabeth shook her head lightly, a soft gesture.

"I don't think so. They've got a…sort of mutual respect for each other now, apparently when Percy first went to New York he and Clarisse had a run in or something and gained some sort of understanding. I don't understand it though. Clarisse is prickly on the best of days."

"Do you like New York better?"

"It's my home." Annabeth said quietly. "Both of us grew up there, but I stayed there for years…even if my time was almost always at camp. So it's not really New York I like better but camp. And New York has a lot of good architecture opportunities. I'll probably go to NYU or something near New York when I go to college."

And then a strange question.

"Do you ever see…strange…things? That follow you or just watch you?" Annabeth wasn't looking at me, her eyes were on the water, which was beginning to shine with orange as the sun came down. I looked at her but she didn't look up, and she seemed focused on the rippling pattern of the surface of the water- even when there was no pattern.

It was an odd question, definitely. Why would she want to know if I could see weird things that were stalking me? The only strange thing I'd seen was that face in the water that I'd imagined. The mirage of a girl staring up at me before sinking back in was the only thing I'd seen that was out of the ordinary. An odd hissing sound startled me. Annabeth had her glowing glowstick with her again.

"Why do you carry it around? The glowstick? And no, I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary." Annabeth looked surprised and kind of sad.

"I just like the light." Her answer was simple and she stood up. "I'll see you at school tomorrow." She moved away, and I could've sworn I saw the girl again, laughing at me.

"Hey, guys." I said nervously. After the conversation with Annabeth yesterday, we'd established our friendship again, and I'd told her to meet us by the regular lunch table. I'd been the first to lunch today. They sat down next to me, unsuspicious. "Amy, Joey, can I talk to you?" Laura was oblivious and I whispered to them.

"I sort of, um, made up with Annabeth." Their eyes widened and I hurried on. "Don't be mad. She's coming to have lunch with us soon…and…"

"It's fine. It's just Laura you'll have to watch out for," Amy said, Joey nodding in agreement. "We understand, and we missed Annabeth too. Not to mention she was, like, your best friend before we met Percy." I smiled. "How are we going to stop Laura from…killing you?"

"I don't know." I said, unnerved. I'd already known Laura would be very angry at me for even talking to Annabeth. "What do you guys think? Do I act like Annabeth just joined us and hope Annabeth doesn't call me out on it? Do I explain outright?" They shrugged.

"Just go with it, here she comes." Laura looked up and tensed, Annabeth locked eyes with me and noticed that she was going to murder me if I said anything, and paused, before walking toward our table confidently. Totally oblivious to the fact that we might have to fend off Laura from her.

I mouthed to her, 'meet us outside'. Annabeth got the message and walked right past us but caught Laura's eye.

"She's meeting us outside." I told Amy and Joey. They nodded, quiet.

I tensed when I saw Annabeth walk towards us in the San Francisco sun. She was wearing her jeans and a bright orange T-shirt reading, 'Camp Half-Blood, Long Island Sound' with a picture of a Pegasus. Her Camp.

"Hi." She said. The word died away in the wind that was whipping her long golden hair and I felt Laura getting ready to hiss at her to go away.

"Wait!" I told her. "I invited Annabeth here." She stared at me with something like betrayal. "Hear me out. I know Annabeth said some bad things-" Laura snorted derisively- "but I think all of us did. And I know that you're hurt, and I'm sure deep down somewhere Annabeth is too, but can you just…give it another chance?"

"And you guys are willing to go through with this?" she stared at Joey and Amy, who shrugged. "Did you all plan this."

"It was Mark," Joey said quickly.

"I'll give her a chance." Laura said.

"Laura, that's great-" I faltered as Laura gave me an ice cold glare, her blue eyes like frost- cold and without the playful happiness of snow.

"Did you guys hear anything just now?" she seemed to be looking right through me at Amy, who gulped at me as I turned and gave Amy an incredulous look.

"No?" Laura nodded, satisfied, before walking away.

"Good."

"What just happened?" I asked, as Amy gave me a look.

"She's ignoring you, mate," Joey said. "She's really hung up about Annabeth. Speaking of, glad to have you back. But I have an idea."

"Where are you taking me?" Annabeth said. We'd taken her out of her house at about three P.M. this Saturday. Laura was being taken by Amy and Joey and I were walking Annabeth, blindfolded, to our destination.

"Surprise, Annabeth."

Amy and Laura were there already.

"I need a room for two people." We ushered Annabeth in first, and then Laura, taking off their blindfolds, before closing the door.

"An hour long escape room. Just the two of them. Watch the camera." Amy said as Laura glared at her and Annabeth asked a question.

Slowly, the two girls started working together, and just talking. Thanks to Annabeth's trap-solving skill, they escaped with about two minutes to go, and it was easy to see the friendship had mended at least a little while they'd been in there- Laura wasn't glaring, Annabeth as at ease as ever. The past week hadn't been the nicest. Laura had ignored me sitting next to her, and across from her, and next to Joey and Amy and most often Annabeth. Joey and Amy had accepted and welcomed her again but Laura was stubborn and prideful and like a diluted Annabeth, with less vibrancy in her hair and eyes and less stubbornness and deadly pride.

It was nice, though. I was glad that she wasn't too much like Annabeth, because Annabeth could be impossible sometimes and while Laura had been impossible, it had also been kind of endearing that she cared so much about her opinion of Annabeth. And annoying. Hard to say.

"How'd it go?" Amy asked easily, like we hadn't just been watching them exit the escape room a few seconds prior. We started walking toward the exit as Annabeth offered us a smile. "Did you guys solve it? It was Arctic-themed, right?" Laura nodded.

"I know what you tried to do," Laura grumbled as we walked outside into the cool air, breathing in deeply, "and it succeeded." A smile bloomed on Amy's face, and she smiled like a cat that had caught the canary. The very, very important canary.

"I don't forgive you." She told me. She walked away again, and for the second time this week, I said:

"What just happened?" Amy gave me a sympathetic look.

"She needs time. She felt like you betrayed her when you went and talked and became friends with Annabeth again," Amy said, "and she was really upset about it because even though Joey and I were on board with it, Laura had been the angriest when Annabeth left us at Christmas Break."

"Said Annabeth is still here you know," Annabeth said dryly, Joey chuckling but it died down when Amy and I stared at him, and then at Annabeth, cold as ever. She had really perfected the art of the poker face.

"We know." Amy said lightly, and we continued walking home, Laura long gone by this time.

Slowly, our group fell back into the pattern we'd had when we knew of no Percy Jackson who lived in New York, when as far as we knew, we were Annabeth's best friends. Laura was still a little distant to me but it slowly thawed as we approached February, where all of us were nervous. School was having a big dance, and obviously, Joey and Amy would be going. Annabeth, well, a lot of guys wanted to take her but she declined each and every one.

"Hey, Laura?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you, um, want to go to the dance with me? Like, as friends?" I could've sworn there was some sort of disappointment there but I shrugged it off, Amy and Annabeth giving me knowing looks that made me confused.

"Yeah…yeah, of course."

"Annabeth? Who are you going to go with?" there was some sort of sadness in her eyes then, but she shook her head.

"If I go, I'm not going with anyone. You guys are all going to the Valentine's Dance with each other. Should Amy, Joey and I be expecting another couple?" she raised an eyebrow wickedly and Laura and I started sputtering and blushing.

"O- of course not! Where would you get that idea?"

"The fact that both of you are blushing." Annabeth said knowingly. "Amy, back me up, will ya?" Amy's eyes sparkled.

"Definitely. You guys are blushing like crazy and sputtering and looking everywhere but each other. Friends my foot."

"Guys, no!" I protested. "We're just friends." Amy zeroed in on Laura in a flash and so did Annabeth, though I hadn't seen anything.

"Laura, Annabeth? Can you talk to me in the bathroom for a moment?" It was during lunch. Joey stared at me.

"Yeesh, man. At the dance, she'll probably hook up with some guy and you'll just be there realizing your feelings and staring sadly after her."

"Never going to happen!"

"Really? We'll see, Mark. We'll see. And when you do, you owe me twenty bucks."

"I never agreed to that!"

So there's that! I was so bored and annoyed because of quarantine and my brother so I made this big whole plan for the next few chapters! Now I have to go write my story request…yay…

I actually wrote this on Saturday a day before I posted it because I already had a bunch of weird chapter stuff today I don't want to repeat the weird 'not in the archive' thing it did.