A soft clicking echoed through the cavern. Red light seemed to be flickering out from the walls. Annabeth turned in a circle, but there was nothing to see but the rough-cut stone walls. She tried to take a step forward, but her feet were unbelievably heavy. Trying to walk was like attempting to balance a million cinderblocks on her back. The clicking noise was getting louder. Annabeth looked down at the floor. The tiles were peeling downwards into a yawning abyss. She tried to run but was frozen in place.

"Annabeth." Percy had appeared next to her. He sounded extremely calm for being two seconds away from being swallowed by the darkness below them. He reached out to take her hand, but before she could grab it, the lip of the tiles reached his feet and he tumbled. As he fell, his mouth was open in a silent scream as he tumbled out of sight. Then the tiles beneath Annabeth's feet gave way and she tumbled headfirst into the unknown.

Percy's voice spoke around her, it seemed to be coming out of the dark. "Hey, hey, hey, Annabeth, it's alright." Something reached out of the darkness to touch her face and she slapped it away. She was surrounded by complete darkness now, and she knew that her eyes would never dilate enough to see anything around her.

"Did you really have to hit me?" Percy asked.

Annabeth tried to respond, but her tongue was glued to her mouth. Where was Percy? He had fallen before her and should be far below by now. Annabeth was still falling, probably nearing terminal velocity. She tried to turn over, but a weight over her chest was stopping her from moving forward or spinning.

"Would you please wake up before you give me a fucking black eye?" Annabeth pushed her arm out in the direction of the voice and something wrapped around her wrist not letting go. She could finally scream, her tongue gaining the ability to move.

Something was pressed over her mouth. She tried to bite at it and caught a taste of salt. Salt. Why was Percy covering her mouth? How could Percy be covering her mouth? She had just seen him take a unplanned dive into what may as well have been hell.

"Annabeth," his voice was soft and soothing. "Annabeth, wake up."

Wake up? There was no way that this was a dream. Her dreams were never this focused and clear. She tended to dream with a bad connection, like some god was messing with her signal and trying to pixilate it. God… She was a half-blood.

It was like the camera man in charge of her life's story was panning out from the scene. Annabeth's eyes snapped open.

Percy was sitting on her chest, pinning her arms under his knees. His hand was still pressed over her mouth.

"Sorry, that probably wasn't the best way to wake up, but you were fully trying to attack me and screaming bloody murder."

Annabeth turned her head to check the digital clock next to the bed. 6:15. She'd been asleep for less that an hour. It was far too early to get up. Or think.

"It's fine." She let out a long, heavy sigh.

Percy rolled off her to the side. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Annabeth groaned. "Just promise me that you won't take a running leap off of any cliffs into the unknown."

"Wasn't planning on it. But you had a dream about me?" His facial expression was innocent enough, but the sparkle in his eyes showed that he was back to his favorite hobby: annoying Annabeth.

"I think once you started talking to me, you appeared, only to be promptly swallowed up by the earth."

"Let's try to avoid that shall we?"

"Did I wake you up?" Annabeth asked.

"No, I was already awake."

"Doing what?"

Percy looked away and played with the corner of a poster next to his bed. "Ah, you know, nothing."

"You were watching me sleep weren't you."

Percy's finger stilled on the poster.

"Ha. I knew it."

He shot her a guilty glance.

Annabeth pulled him closer to her, laughing.

"I'd watch you sleep too, Seaweed Brain."

"Oh, creeper, okay." He kissed the top of her head and gave her a one-armed hug. "Try to get some sleep, hmm Beth?"

Annabeth was incredibly nervous, which on one regard was extremely stupid – she had already been to Camp Half-Blood. But that had been a rush. She had had no time to anticipate what could happen. And the last time she had been a mortal, now she was attending as a demigod. And an old one too. Most kids should have been claimed when they were around twelve Percy had explained. She was about ten years overdue, apparently. And yesterday, she and Percy had kind of, sort of, made a massive scene with their fight and subsequent storming out.

The apprehension was building in her the entire flight to Camp. This time she was sitting behind Percy, her arms wrapped tightly around him and her head just barely peeking over her shoulder.

Blackjack dropped them off at the top of one of the hills that ringed the valley. Annabeth jumped about a mile when she saw the dragon wrapped around the tree. She took a closer look and realized that the dragon must have been protecting the giant golden sheep's fleece that was draped from one of the pine trees branches.

"Hey, Peleus." Percy scratched the dragon behind the ears of one of its heads. Peleus let some steam out of his nostrils in a contented way.

"That's the Golden Fleece," Annabeth stated somewhat numbly.

"Yeah, I helped rescue that when I was twelve. And then it healed the tree and one of my best friends popped out of the tree."

Annabeth spluttered. "Excuse me?"

"Long story."

Annabeth wanted to hear the story, no matter how long it was, but Percy was already walking down the hill. He paused partway down to wait for her to catch up when he noticed she was not next to him.

"We can talk to Chiron. And maybe some of the campers and see what they think, but once you're here for long enough, you should get claimed. Or something else will happen to explain what is going on. Either way, it'll be okay." He gave her a reassuring smile.

A guy about Percy's age trotted up to them at the bottom of the hill. Annabeth did a doubletake, and then she did it again. The guy was actually trotting. He had furry goat legs instead of human ones.

"Hey, Grover."

"Hey, Percy. Is this Annabeth?" The satyr had a reedy voice.

"How'd you know?" Percy cut himself off. "Right."

"What?" Annabeth asked.

"Empathy link." Grover answered.

"You can read his mind?"

"No." Grover didn't explain, and Annabeth had a feeling that it was for Percy's benefit.

"What does Annabeth smell like?" Percy asked. He looked eager to change the subject.

Grover took a step closer. "Definitely demigod. There's something else repressing the smell though. Probably why she made it this far without getting attacked. The smell is still pretty strong though. She's been lucky."

"Strong like me?"

"No, definitely not Big Three, but maybe Demeter, Athena, Apollo… How are you with plants?"

"Absolutely horrible," Annabeth answered.

"Probably not Demeter then."

Percy laughed. "We can figure that out later. Can you find Rachel? See if she knows anything?"

"Course, Percy. I'll tell her to go to the Big House later?"

Percy gave him finger guns, which was such a 2005 gesture that Annabeth couldn't resist smiling at him.

"Is Rachel your friend from the tree?"

"No, Rachel's the oracle. Thalia came from the tree. Long story short, she got turned into a tree when she got cornered on the hill. Her dad, Zeus, turned her into a tree and when the tree got poisoned and we put the fleece on it, Thalia popped out. It healed the tree a little too well. We kind of got along, but she became a Hunter of Artemis, so she's eternally 16 years old. She also shoved the weight of the world onto my shoulders, but who can blame her. You'd like her." His explanation raised more questions than it answered, but Annabeth decided to ignore that for the time being.

Chiron explained about the gods and the rules. He also remarked on her age and ability to have survived so long. But neither him nor Percy ventured any guesses as to who her godly parent could be. Percy looked like he wanted to say something, but decided against it. Rachel also had nothing interesting to say, but she seemed nice enough. Her shock of red hair and demeanor startled Annabeth at first, but she said that they could sit down and have a conversation sometime if Annabeth wanted, to see if she would get any impressions of the future.

Annabeth spent the day following Percy around. He taught a few sword fighting lessons to the younger campers and played some one-on-one basketball with a kid named Will with a mop of bright blond hair, but he spent most of the day in his cabin.

In the evening, after dinner, they had campfire, and Percy spent most of the time staring at a spot directly over her head as though he was waiting for something, to the point which he burnt all of his marshmallows.

Annabeth still hadn't been claimed when it was time to call lights out, so she followed Percy to his cabin. Some of the other campers were watching her with undisclosed interest which made her feel very self-conscious about what they thought of her, and more particularly where she was going. She didn't figure that people's girlfriends often stayed over at the boyfriend's cabin. If she was Percy's girlfriend. She definitely thought of him as her boyfriend, but they hadn't yet had a conversation to make it official. And they still hadn't technically been on a date.

"You have class tomorrow?" Percy asked.

"Yeah."

"I'll take you back to the city in the morning. Round 8?" he yawned.

"Sounds good." Annabeth yawned too. The contagion spreading throughout the cabin.

Percy produced sweatpants and a sweatshirt from his dresser and passed them over to Annabeth. They both changed quickly, and Percy put his pen on the bunks' bed frame for easy access. Annabeth put her knife next to it.

"Do you want to sleep with me?" he asked.

"Umm…" Annabeth started unsure of if she should make some sort of joke or not.

"Wait. Fuck. That came out wrong."

"Yeah, I figured. But yeah. We can sleep together."

"Great." Percy pulled his shirt over his head, leaving Annabeth to stare at his chest. There was a pregnant pause before Percy snapped his fingers, grabbing her attention. She looked up at his face and immediately blushed. "Sleeping, Wise Girl, remember?"

Annabeth stuck her tongue out at him, which was very immature. But so was teasing. Percy did it back, and her stomach twisted at how cute he looked when he did it.

"Are you going to sleep or stand there all-night making faces?" Annabeth asked as she crawled into bed.

"Eager much?" Percy asked, as he proceeded to steal the covers.

He was passed out on his stomach and snoring before Annabeth was even able to berate him for not sharing. The boy's ability to just pass out would never cease to amaze her. She cuddled up to his back to try to get further under the comforter, with limited success.

"Annabeth?"

She hummed in response. She squinted through her eyelids, saw early morning light streaming through the windows and squeezed her eyes shut again. She had slept well, for the first time in days and was more than ready to relish the feeling by going back to sleep.

"I know you're awake."

"What," she hissed.

"You're a pleasure in the morning," he said, way too chipper for the hour. "Do you want to get off of me?"

"Stis your fault. Blanket hogger." Annabeth pushed her face into his shoulder, trying to block out the light.