All rights belong to Rick Riordan

Lingerie and Lingering Thoughts

(Percy)

I had made a mistake and I regretted my choices already. I had seen the option to potentially get some rest after a week of 'exertion' and in my tired state did not consider my choice correctly.

Option one, come with the Hunt to Delos and have to help them set up camp. That would have required some small effort on my part but once it was done I could have likely happily found somewhere on the island or better yet by the shoreline and taken a well-deserved break there.

Option two, stay in the comfy bed I was currently spread-eagled on for a few more hours, then take a short trip into the city below and go shopping with Thalia for new clothes before joining back up with the Hunt at Delos.

Stupidly I did not stop and consider that choice hard enough, now I found myself slowly getting burdened under an ever growing pile of bags. Watching as Thalia shopped her way up and down Fifth Avenue as soon as the shops had opened. Some of the things she was buying I had no idea why she was buying them considering she did not even try on half of it. But almost all of it had a price tag that made my eyes water.

Once she had finished perusing up and down the aisles and collected whatever items she wanted. She would simply pull out a credit card from the new Gucci Handbag over her shoulder and less than a minute later I would have several new bags to tote around.

"Thalia, I shudder to think but who is paying for all of this?" I asked as the young woman tried wedging another bag under my arm.

"You don't need to worry about this costing anyone important anything. I suppose technically you could call it my money actually." The daughter of Zeus said after pausing for a few seconds and putting her hand on her hip. The five-figure coat with some fancy Italian name she was currently wearing doing a good job of still highlighting her new figure, despite the almost negative temperatures in the city. Throughout the trip she had been getting glances from most of the men that had come into contact with her. To a lesser extent I too was getting looks from both sexes making me deeply uncomfortable.

I hoped it was the guys being jealous thinking that I must have been Thalia's partner or bodyguard. Which, technically the second option was true, because luckily it was a proven fact that mortals could not even see my actual fiancée for them to be really jealous of me.

"Making my life hell is not a paying job I hope. Unless you kept the money that Perseus won." I said accusingly.

"No to both, though I did try with the second but Reyna was being stingy, saying the city needed it more than I did." She said with a brief playful pout.

"Speaking of Reyna, why do you even need to go shopping, doesn't she get anything for free from Amazon. Her sister is an actual billionaire queen right?" I guess it was one of those really strange things that demigods were advised to stay away from technology products as they supposedly attract monsters but the Amazon's had thrived in this digital market. Then again if any monster attacked their headquarters it would find itself, captured, boxed up in packaging and shipped out the door to its new buyer with next day delivery guarantees for its troubles.

"Correct, but no this is about the principle. My mum was a complete fuck up of a human being, she made my childhood a living hell. She gave her own child away to a crazy goddess as reparations, in the end she drove me away and drunk herself into oblivion… The only thing she was ever good at was blowing producers into giving her a decent paycheck… When she died all of her assets were liquidated and put into trust for me, should I reappear. Jason has been presumed dead for the last seventeen years after all. Besides he is a god so he realistically shouldn't need it, besides the little whore he is sleeping with has a dad who is a millionaire if he did. So whilst you and Harmony were busy being… busy, Hylla hooked me up with an accountant who was able to get my mother's accounts unlocked. So I am going to unrepentantly spend every dime in there, think of it Seaweed Brain as a lot of extremely late birthday presents from my mother to me." Thalia explained bitterly with such venom in her tone that made me wish I hadn't asked. Sure her self-esteem might have improved with her figure but her other issues like her parents were still very much there.

"My last birthday present was the news I was going to be a father, I want the money instead." I complained weakly trying to break the mood. Well technically that was the following day but close enough.

"Now it is like every day is your birthday then I guess. I wonder if you can knock up Harmony as well." Thalia said suddenly joking back light-heartedly.

"She can't be… well I mean she already is… well Arty and Dian… fuck I hope not." I said lost for words as I actually considered that possibility. The only protection we had in the room for the last week was the still severed halves of my shield. Jokes aside did I even want to consider a child of Harmony and me as well, it was probably bad to think that I wanted our children to have nowhere near the same level of power as either of constituent goddesses that made up Harmony and certainly not me. Not because like my grandfather I was scared of my own children, but I didn't want them to be spoiled brats like Artemis's siblings were. Able to abuse their power to get anything they wanted, I hoped they would have some humility. Hopefully they took a greater influence from me then rather their mothers… or Perseus.

"Just think of the possibilities, you may need a vasectomy before you get to nineteen. Now what shop is next door… oh this should be fun, come on we could be in here for a while…" Thalia said whistling in amusement as she read the signs outside the store.

"Nope not doing it, you couldn't pay me to go in there with you." I said digging my heels into the sidewalk as I looked through the doors of Victoria's Secret, the mannequins and pictures as well as its own reputation telling me everything I needed to know.

"I will give you twenty-thousand bucks if you do. How much does being a Titan Lord or Artemis actually pay you again?" Thalia whispered into my ear coming closer to me before stepping back with a cruel smile as I ground my teeth together.

"Not a word of this ever reaches anyone's ears." I muttered back as Thalia grabbed my arm and dragged me inside the boutique.

"Hey Percy what about this?" Thalia asked as I looked at the floor feeling really uncomfortable in my present surroundings. I didn't need eyes in the top of my head to know exactly what Thalia was wearing. I had seen the extremely skimpy pieces of black lace lingerie being taken off the shelves a short while ago.

Around us the other customers and store assistants seemed frozen in place at the sight, but the truth was they were just frozen in time out of my own convenience to avoid unnecessary embarrassment. However, as expected this just meant that Thalia decided that the entire store was now her dressing room as she walked around the store half-naked, or more.

"Still not looking Thalia." I muttered even as a pair of bare feet came into my extremely limited field of view.

"Don't be a prude; it is not as if you haven't seen a girl with no clothes on before. I sure as hell know you are not gay. I might be in a relationship with Reyna but I can still appreciate a good looking guy." Thalia told me before putting her hand under my chin and tilting my head back.

Sure enough the scarcely dressed young woman looked absolutely stunning; her pale white skin sharply accentuated by the black garments that barely covered and indeed contained her modesty.

"Thalia I am in a relationship." I told her bluntly.

"So am I, I am not asking you if you want to go out on a date, I am asking for your opinion."

"How am I supposed to give you an opinion when I see you as being like a little sister to me, hell I know more about you than I do my own actual sister. I know that makes no sense considering I am marrying your sister but I don't see you or Reyna or any of the Hunters in any form of romantic light. I swore to Artemis that I would never do anything like that." I told her coldly as I averted my eyes from her body.

"You…You idiot! There are over three billion men on this planet and you are the only one I would let see me like this! I get it, Harmony is prettier than me, spoiler alert! Harmony is better looking than everyone, any one man or woman would be attracted to her. Anyone who claimed otherwise is a fucking liar. But on just this one occasion I wanted to be told that I too could be attractive, why else do you think I dressed the way I did. It wasn't because it made me happy; it was just the closest reflection of how I felt inside. Dark and lifeless, if I made others uncomfortable with how I looked, then that was on them. They could feel similar to how I did… Oh and your promise to my sister doesn't mean shit because I am not currently a Hunter. But then again I am also not Annabeth or my perfect goddess sister. Like it matters anyway, I might as well just put on a king size bed sheet and dress like a member of the Klan. I would stand more chance of you looking at me that way." Thalia spat angrily turning away and running away between the shelves as I silently sat by myself.

'You really are an idiot.' I thought to myself bitterly. I may have just in the space of a minute or two just destroyed any positive improvements in my relationship with my cousin that I had fostered over the last few months.

I had spoken the truth I had started to see her as closer to a sister figure in my life than as friend. Not just because she was technically going to be my sister-in-law eventually, but because we had got so much closer during my tenure with the Hunt. Sure she could be a major pain in my ass at times, figuratively and literally with her sadistic tendencies but the truth was despite our similar heritages as children of the 'Big Three'. I knew her upbringing was so much worse even without the whole dying and turning into a tree.

My mom and I may have been poor but we still cared about each other, when I learned she was being held by Hades. I as a scared kid with no idea what was going on dragged myself across a continent fighting for my life the entire way, to get her back.

Thalia meanwhile ran away as far as possible to avoid any further heartache the woman could cause. The whole point of today was that she was trying to get the only form of revenge she could against her own mother, even if she was long dead by this point.

"Harmony if you are spying on me, please don't judge what I am about to do." I whispered to myself as I slowly stood up and began to walk in the direction the other daughter of Zeus had run away in, passing past frozen mortals who remained oblivious to everything that was happening in the shop.

Reaching the far left corner of the store I passed into the last aisle and looked down at the crying half-naked girl who had pulled her knees up to her chest.

"Go away Kelp Head."

"Thalia I want to apologise, I realise that by trying to be what I perceived as respectful I was actually doing the opposite in your eyes. The truth is you truly are beautiful now, and despite what you may think. You were always cute in your own special way, sure you might have got some uhh… upgrades up top now but you always had a cute backside." I complimented uncomfortably even as I secretly expected the building to be hit with a hypersonic projectile and vaporised. I guess the goddess really was not judging me or was simply busy doing something else.

"Seriously that is your apology." Thalia said with a cold tone as she slowly lifted her head up so she could look me in the eyes.

"Thalia I have realistically interacted with five women in my life. The first is my mother, she saw through me like a human x-ray. Annabeth and I took four years and almost dying for each other a dozen times before we even had the courage to hold hands and be honest with one another. Rachel was smart enough to know my heart lay elsewhere back then, but she saw me as a gateway into the real world that she had been observing all her life. Fourth is your sister and I don't need to talk about her. Finally there is you, the person who was both the closest in understanding what I was going through and yet possibly the furthest away from me in terms of actually understanding." I explained as the girl focused on me.

"Before you came back, people used to compare me and you. Saying that we were so much alike we would either be the best of friends… or we would kill one another out of annoyance. Despite several close attempts we fortunately never managed to do the latter. However the truth was it was all a lie in the first place, we were not really alike at all. Sure our situation with our fathers was similar but the similarities ended there with the exception that we would both give our lives for those we cared about. I won't say I envy you for what happened on Half-Blood Hill, but you saved your friends lives. The barrier created by your sacrifice saved countless more lives including my own. Your story was the first I ever heard that was not from some old legend that ended badly for everyone involved and it stuck with me. I wanted to be thought of as the same type of hero as I thought you were when I first came into this world. If anything your legacy helped make me the person I ended up becoming, more than anyone else did. Not Chiron, not Annabeth or Grover, certainly not my dad or any of the other gods. So when you came back it was a shock." I explained honestly realising the truth myself as I let my heart do the talking.

"Bet that was a disappointment, shame my death almost triggered the potential end of the world as the person who actually knew me best took out his grief on the rest of the world instead."

"I only knew Luke for a short amount of time, but deep down he was a good guy. However powerful forces were able to act upon the darkness in his heart caused by the gods neglect of all of their children. For weeks after his betrayal everyone was in a state of shock because there was no one in the camp that could say that he had ever wronged one of them up to that point. His anger was not at the Camp or any of us but at the system as a whole. I would be lying if I said I did not feel the same at points and I imagine you did too, even Annabeth wanted to remake the entire world and make it in her image." I explained honestly even though a lot of it was likely stuff she already knew.

"Despite what you may think Harmony is not as perfect as you may think, she is just powerful enough to hide her own insecurities behind bravado of strength and lust. When she loses control however she simply rewrites the situation until she gets one more favourable to her. She cries and worries like anyone else when she faces the unknown, even if it is the unknown that has every reason to be afraid of her. It has been over a week and we still have no real explanation as to why she is the way she is now. She distracts herself through sex because that is one of the few things she understands without panicking herself, if she was to find herself in a situation she could not control I do not know how she would react other than poorly. That was why we took a whole week to come back and get you all, not because you might think we were having an early honeymoon. But because I was worried how she would react around all of you, if something were to happen there was no guarantee I can protect all of you from her. That promise I made to Artemis is still in effect, I told her I would guard your lives until I was told I was no longer required. Even if the thing I am protecting you from is your own goddess or yourselves. I hope it never comes to it but if need be, I would fight or attempt to hold off Harmony to protect all of you even if I knew it would inevitably result in my death. As an immortal that may sound somewhat cheap nowadays but that was the legacy you left with me."

"Way to go sounding so sappy and making me sound like some super inspirational version of Leonidas. I was nothing but a scared and angry girl hopped up on Redbull armed with nothing but a spear and a bad attitude lashing out at what I perceived as all of the injustices in my life. I never expected to inspire anyone; I simply expected to finally die in as painful way as possible. I don't actually remember what the fatal blow was back then." She sighed with a shudder, slowly I sat down next to the girl and wrapped an arm around her neck and held her close to me.

"I think there was a saying about never seeing the final blow or something like that, perhaps that is for the better. After losing an arm to Chronos I can only imagin-." I said talking nervously only to be cut off as Thalia brought her hand up to my face holding it in place before suddenly I found my lips in contact with hers for a few seconds before the blushing girl suddenly pulled away. Unlike with the goddess or even Annabeth before the whole action was rather chaste. There was none of the tongue action I was now accustomed to, no fighting for dominance of one another.

It was both terribly unexpected and terribly boring at the same time, leaving me sitting there blinking in shock. If anything it was like that first time Artemis kissed me back when we were having that practise fight. I didn't know how to respond at all.

As I simply sat there in shock trying to understand what had just happened the young woman simply giggled to herself, before practically bouncing to her feet even as her overpriced non-practical bra struggled to keep her under control.

"That was the first and last time I will kiss a man, thanks for understanding." She said before disappearing suddenly around the corner.

'Thanks for understanding? You have just doomed us both.' I screamingly thought to myself as I lunged across the floor around the corner to see where she had run off to.

'Come to think of it, she really does have a nice ass. Goddammit Harmony is going to kill me!' I cursed to myself as I hurriedly picked myself off the floor and went after the crazy girl. All the while expecting to hear the sudden crack of a sonic boom before I and part of Manhattan was utterly annihilated.

(Thalia)

Needless to say things were a little awkward between Percy and me afterwards. Once I changed back into normal clothes and collected a few additional items that were sure to be 'beneficial' in my soon to be rekindled love life. Percy had simply walked outside the shop whilst I went and paid for them all as the shop was suddenly filled with life again as everyone began to move again. Completely oblivious to what had transpired around them, some of them would eventually question where they had misplaced forty-five minutes but that was not my concern.

Instead I was more focused on the pouting figure of the Titan Lord who was leaning against a wall around the corner, bags set on the floor around him not looking in my direction.

Was what I did inappropriate and wrong, almost certainly. But I was being truthful that was the only kiss I would ever give to a member of the opposite sex. If anything it was a kiss goodbye to the only doubts that remained in my mind against my relationship with Reyna. From now on I would remain focused on the person I loved, not on a relationship I thought I could have potentially had.

"Hand over the bag and you won't get hurt!" A voice demanded harshly as I carried on walking towards Percy before I felt a sharp tug on my handbag and realised it was directed at me.

"Are you being serious?" I cursed quietly under my breath even as I turned towards my would-be mugger.

My first thought upon seeing the almost middle-aged homeless man grabbing my bag was that this guy looked like he was on every narcotic under the sun, the second was that he looked like he had been living in a pigeon coop, as what I assumed was their excrement stained his green jacket.

Unfortunately the last thing I noticed was the object he held in his free hand. A blocky metal and plastic Hi-point pistol, the kind that any self-respecting firearm enthusiast, would not be seen dead using in place of something better known like a Glock. However as much as an expert might lambast my assailants choice in cheap weaponry, at a range of three feet the ergonomics and ballistics of the pistol made little difference.

I was unarmed, I had no way of defending myself quickly and for the first time since the fire I suddenly felt very mortal.

"I said give me the BAG!..." He shouted again before an ear splitting bang sound went off right in front of me and I felt something hit my chest as my face was covered in liquid. Somewhere in the shop behind me a woman screamed.

Reflexively I fell backwards onto the sidewalk where I lay dazed, slowly I raised my hand to my chest and after lightly touching my coat I pulled it away and saw the red fluid on my fingers.

"Reyna, sorry." I thought to myself with finality as my eyes tearfully focused on the bright red liquid on my fingers.

The often forgotten rule of being a demigod, we were vulnerable to both mortal and divine slaying weapons. A hobo on the street could just as easily do the job as much a wrathful god or the most terrible of monster.

"Thalia!"

AN. Just gonna pull the pin on that grenade, leave it right here and run the fuck away.

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So now that I have your attention and you have your pitchforks. I would like to hear your actual opinions as pretty much no one commented on the last chapter. As to the issues that people have with the story that have been raised over the last thirty-ish chapters or if anyone is counting 7 fucking years since the whole Sins debacle which to this date I still have regrets with implementing. Pride and Lust were fine as was Wrath for his short tenure but the rest were just a waste of everyone's time both in story and outside. I regretted it within about four chapters but by that point the damage was done. However once this current arc is finished Perseus will be back as arrogant as ever. Where I can then punt him off to the side of the main story turning up as and when I want him too. Short of his little projects that interest me in writing.

Next Elephant in the room is obviously Harmony. As you may have noticed in the last chapter (not that anyone commented) She is a emotional wreck when away from Percy. This is the key that she is not going to be around for much longer as her own psyche cannot maintain her, she is composed of two goddesses that do not generally agree eye to eye on anything other than Percy Jackson. The main mystery will be once she is gone is trying to find out WTF was going on there in the first place.

Delia will not be rejoining the Hunt as will be explained but we will be seeing the introduction of a Monster/Lamia Hunter, in case anyone is confused. This will not be a buy one get one free situation.

The question I have for all of you, is do you want the pacing of the story sped up as much as possible. IE: I quite literally skip out most of the rest of the time until the children's births, we are currently in-story at mid-January and the kids will be born in April. The only somewhat major event after Delos in that time frame is Artemis's Birthday so it will not be that bad if I do skip it. Or I can carry on with extremely over active imagination and write what comes to mind to fill the gap, which bearing in mind the last 7 years of chapters has covered less than three weeks is probably not a good thing.

So honestly please I want to hear from all of YOU! On what you want from ME.

Thalia's life depends on me getting an adequate amount of correspondence from all of you.

Ok that one is a lie, could you imagine if I literally killed her by Hobo with a Hollow-point from a Hi-Point.