Disclaimer:

I do not own the PJO characters.

I walked into the infirmary and everyone's eyes drifted towards me. The only one who didn't seem affected by my presence was Will. He came right over to me, "Good, you're here." He then grabbed my arm and pulled me to a patient.

"There was a Greek fire incident and half the camp has burn marks on them," he explained, " We could really use your help."

"Uh, okay," I said nervously. I walked up to the person and said, "I'm going to help you okay? Just tell me where your burns are and I can heal them."

"Nah uh, no way," she said, "Will, there is no way I'm going to let her heal me."

"Fine, be covered in burn marks and be really uncomfortable for days. Or you can just let her heal you," Will said and walked away.

I looked at her. "Please, just let me heal you, I promise I won't hurt you, I don't want to hurt anyone. Why do you think I kept trying to leave?"

"If it were up to me, you would've stayed home," she snapped.

I ignored her and placed my hands on her arms and began healing her.

I kept getting one insult from another. I just kept on healing them and ignoring what they had to say. After I had healed everyone as much as I could, Will walked up to me, but I ignored him and walked out of the infirmary without saying anything. It was late, and I had heard more insults than I ever had, and quite frankly I just wanted to see my little sister.

I walked into my cabin, exhausted. I looked over at Coral's bed to see her curled up in it and asleep. I walked up to her bed as quietly as I could without waking her. I kneeled down and kissed her on the forehead. Afterwards, I collapsed in my bed and immediately fell asleep.

I woke up to "Wake up dummy! Wake up dummy!" When I finally figured out what was happening I sat up immediately. At the edge of my bed sat Jamie's alarm clock, I started laughing hysterically. I'm not sure if it was the alarm clock that made me laugh or the lack of sleep I had.

I got up out of bed after calming down a little and turned off the squealing alarm. After ten minutes of getting ready and about twenty minutes trying to get a cranky two-year-old out of bed, we finally headed to breakfast. We arrive at the pavilion just to be paraded with even more insults. I trudged over to the Poseidon table like always, as Coral sat with Katie at her table.

"Hey, how are things, uh, going?" Percy asked. I just glared at him.

"Hey," Annabeth said soothingly, "It will get better."

"You don't know that. I'm this close to exploding again, and these people just don't freaking get it. The more they insult me the more they endanger themselves."

"How are you staying calm by the way?" Percy asked.

"Chiron taught me a trick," I said. I finished my breakfast as quickly as I could and hurried out of the pavilion. I felt miserable so I decided to go to the arena and try and meditate for a bit.

I get there and see Clarisse there. "Hey," I said as I walked up to her.

"Hey, girly."

I sat beside her on the one bench. "What are you doing here?" She asked.

"I came here to calm down. No one will listen to me. They're all putting themselves in danger, and I don't want to hurt anyone."

We sat there in silence for a little while until Clarisse said, "you know, you remind me of Silena."

I sat there for a moment thinking about Silena for a little while until I said, "H-how?"

"Well first off, you're really kind to me, unlike most people. You have black hair, you see the best in people, and you just sort of act like her."

"Oh."

"Well," Clarisse said getting up, "I'll leave you to do whatever you were going to do." And then left. I didn't want her to leave but I needed to calm down a bit.

I don't know how long I was there, but when I was finally finished I saw Nico come out of the shadows. "Hey," he said, "I just came here to practice, but I'll leave you alone.

"Wait, no, it's fine, I was just about done anyway."

"Oh," he fell silent, "You want to train a bit?"

"Sure."

"How about we practice with that curse of yours, try to get it under control."

"Uh, I don't think that's a good idea," I explained.

"Look, I know exactly what you're going through. I went through the exact same thing when I first decided to stay here. Plus at first, I had no clue how to use my underworld powers, but I eventually learned to control them. I can do the same with you."

"Are you okay? You're not acting like yourself." I asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Now try using a little bit of your curse at a time, see how long you can hold it."

I did want he said and lifted my hand up causing everything around me to darken and Nico's face to get paler. I sighed but kept my hand up.

It surprised me how long I was able to keep it up. Fourteen minutes and three seconds to be exact. In that time Nico was able to get a happy meal and was now munching on it. As most of my energy ran out, I sank to my knees. The darkness went away and Nico's face turned back to its normal color.

I looked at him. He stared back and chewed on a fry. "Wow. I wasn't expecting it to take so long."

I was really weak but somehow I managed to walk over to where Nico was sitting and sit down beside him.

"C-can I have a fry?" I asked Nico.

"No."

"Well too bad," I said as I reached over and grabbed one of his fries. He looked at me, then his fries. He then stuck his tongue out at me and I returned the gesture.

"Well, we'll meet back here tomorrow, at let's say after breakfast. We'll train some more." He got up and walked out of the arena.

Thanks for reading! I hope you liked this one.

Daily Fun Fact: Mars hosts one of the tallest volcanoes in our solar system, Olympus Mons. It stands at 72,000 feet tall.

Stay safe and eat a potato.

-Lou Ellen and her trust sidekick Sydney the fanfic reader