Disclaimer: I don't own the PJO characters

Chapter Nine

There were no sparkles or fog when the genie came out of Frank's lamp. One second it was just Percy and Annabeth on her bed and the next, a blond-haired, tall guy was standing in front of them. Percy's jaw dropped open and Frank's lamp fell from his fingers, rolling on the ground and stopping near the foreign genie's foot.

Annabeth studied the genie. Frank's genie had neat blonde hair with pale skin and a long face. There were dark circles underneath his blue eyes and despite his well-built figure, he was slouching and looked utterly exhausted. In the yellow lighting of her room, a small scar glittered on the genie's upper lip. His gaze darted around the room and Annabeth watched as his expression went from emotionless, surprised, confused, and disbelief.

For a moment, it was silent.

Percy gawked at the foreign genie. The foreign genie gawked at Percy.

Then, the genie doubled backwards as if someone had punched his stomach. "This is not happening."

"Mason!"

"Jason," the genie scowled.

Percy went red. "Let me off the hook, okay? I can't even remember my mom's name…" His voice went high-pitched and he trailed off. Something dawned on Percy's face and the ball in his throat bobbed.

"Hell. Percy?" Jason croaked. His eyes glistened and he swiped at them hurriedly to hide the unshed tears. "There's no way. No way you're here."

Percy launched himself off the bed, throwing his arms around Jason. Annabeth bowed her head when she saw both genies crying. Jason was repeating a mantra under his breath, telling himself nothing was real but Annabeth saw him take fistfuls of Percy's shirt and heard him choking. It looked like Percy was hugging his little brother the way he protectively patted Jason's back and hid his own tears in his shoulder. Her heart broke. She couldn't imagine not remembering Helen or her dad's names. If she ever forgot Leo, Annabeth would be a blind mouse stumbling around on all fours.

Seeing them reunited and so happy made up for all the paranoia Annabeth had about getting caught. She'd steal Frank's lamp over and over again just to see Percy and Jason smiling like they were.

"How?" Jason said. "This isn't happening."

"It's me. I promise."

"I'm dreaming."

"No," Annabeth says, amused. "You're Frank's genie, right?"

Jason looked up at her as if only just noticing she was there. "You're human."

"I am. My name is Annabeth."

"I've never seen another human in my life. Not at least one I remember." Jason's eyes widened and he backed away, arms raised protectively. He cowered and crouched into a corner. "You're not supposed to see me. Oh gods, if Frank found out."

"Hey," Percy said suddenly. He grabbed the back of Jason's shirt and hauled him to his feet. "Deep breaths. Don't freak out on me."

Annabeth shook her head. "Frank won't know. He's gone for the whole week so you're free to stay here for that time if you want to. As long as no one knows I have two genie lamps, of course. I'll return your lamp before he gets back. He'll never know you're gone."

"Frank follows the rule book religiously. Oh gods, how many rules have you broken, Percy? They'll kill you."

"Who's going to kill me?"

"I don't know, they just will! There are consequences to breaking rules. Frank has always told me they'll come for me if I don't listen to him."

Percy's expression twisted and Annabeth caught an underlying frustration in his features. Yes, Frank threatening Jason was unacceptable but what Percy didn't know was that after the honeymoon period of getting your genie, it was custom to talk down to your genie. In fact, Annabeth often wondered how she wound up calling Percy her friend seeing how she should've probably hated him more than anyone else hated their genie. His first impression on her was terrible.

"Jason," Annabeth cut in. "Calm down. It's okay." She met his eyes across the room where Percy was the only thing keeping Jason from falling. Annabeth wondered if this was the state most genies were in: anxious, panicking, and terrified. Jason's chains around his wrists were smoky trails, just like Percy willed his own to look like, but Jason's control over them were faltering and Annabeth could distantly see the chains and smoky trails flickering as if they were fighting to stay visible.

"Yes. I stole your lamp but you don't have to worry about Frank. Take it from me. We're not getting caught. I'll make sure of it."

Jason's lip trembled. He whispered, "No way."

"You can trust her," Percy supplied off-handedly. "We're trying to figure out how to me out of the lamp. We can help you too."

"Get out of the lamp? That's impossible," Jason frowned. He paused. "Wait, wait, Annabeth, it was your voice I heard saying Percy's name back when we were at school! You saw me struggling to get to you! I never thought that would work but when you started talking about Percy, the name struck me and I went crazy."

"It worked. It happened a couple of hours ago. Do you remember anything from your past?"

Jason strained. "My memories of the past are gone. But strangely, bits and pieces of some things are coming back to me now. Few reminders of what life was like. A couple names I had forgotten before." He paused. "Damn it, I still believe any of this. How many rules have you two broken?"

"More than one," Percy replied. "but forget that. Dude, we haven't seen each other in three years. How… how have you been doing?"

Annabeth backed away and left the boys alone to catch up on their own. She plugged in her headphones and took out her calculus homework to finish but her legs, as usual, refused to take her to her desk. Instead, she curled up against her bed's headboard and used a nearby encyclopaedia as something hard to write on. She chewed at the end of pencil, glancing at Jason and Percy every few minutes. They sat on the ground, cross-legged, making wild gestures with their hands and going from happy to sad to happy in the same second. Of course: They had a lot to catch up on.

Annabeth's phone binged from her backpack on the ground and Percy, bless his soul, unzipped her front pocket to toss the phone to her while Jason babbled on.

Leo: We seriously need to talk. Public holiday tomorrow. Meet then.

Annabeth agreed, texting a reply, before scrolling through the rest of the texts she got. Her heart dropped to her stomach.

Athena: Why is it that I find out you've been in a museum fire three weeks ago and can't walk now? Why are you so stubborn to screw your life up? I'm on my way back from my business trip and I expect answers on arrival. I had to cut the trip short to get back.

Athena never texted Annabeth. Annabeth's grip around the phone tightened and her eyes burned. So she failed a few tests at school once in a while. So she walked straight into a genie trap when Percy warned her to stay away from Luke. So she couldn't beat Frank at a single calculus test. Did that make her failure? Did that make her dumb?

Yes.

Anyone who said Annabeth had potential was a failure themselves in life. Athena was right. There was something wrong with Annabeth, something screwed up in her brain that kept her from making the right choices. Who, even after hours of studying, got a forty percent on their test? Idiots, that is.

She rubbed at her eyes and dried the tears with the hem of her shirt. She promised herself she'd never cry over Athena again. Annabeth hadn't even known Athena was on a business trip. Mascara rubbed off on her fingers, and Annabeth moved to take the make up off at the bathroom. She remembered her legs too late and fell on the floor with a loud squeak.

"Angel?"

"I'm fine," Annabeth said. She used her arms to sit up, her legs sprawled in front of her. "Just fell."

Percy stood up and took her arm gently, hoisting her up until her legs were wrapped securely around his waist. Jason peered at them from the ground and Annabeth went red in embarrassment. It was the worst first impression on anyone knowing she needed help just going to the bathroom.

Percy spun around and kicked the bathroom door open. He pushed her onto the counter next to the sink as the door closed behind him with a click. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just needed to wash my face."

"Angel. I can see you're upset."

Percy had trapped her on either side. He was deathly close to her so much so that she could hear his heart beating. "Athena found out that I walked into the museum voluntarily and now she's cut her business trip short to come scream at me. Yay. I still don't know why she scares me so much."

Percy's eyes went dark. "You know not to listen to her. You're nothing like what she says you are."

"I know."

"You're a miracle worker."

"Percy. Jason is waiting for you outside."

"I'm not leaving," he said fiercely. He lifted one hand to brush a stray curl from in front of her face. "You need to know what you've done for me and how fucking amazing you are. Forget Athena."

"Percy."

"I remember my mom now, angel," Percy cut in. Annabeth froze seeing his eyes glistening. "I guess seeing someone familiar from my past surfaced other memories too. My mom's name is Sally. She's got these beautiful brown eyes and always makes blue food. She's so independent and powerful and loving that I swear if I see her again, I'll just break down right there. I have a best friend named Grover who sounds like a goat when he bleats. He was stuffed into a lamp before I was and now I have no idea where the hell he is. My dad died when I was a baby but he used to snap his fingers and make hearts chase me around to teach me to walk. Then, he's tickle me until I couldn't breath. I wouldn't have remembered any of them if it weren't for you, angel."

"When."

"What?"

Annabeth smiled softly. "When you see your mom again. Not if. I made a promise to get you out that I plan to go through with to the end. I'm glad seeing Jason helped you remember, though."

Percy squeezed her arm. "No, thank you. Frank treats Jason like absolute trash but you treat me like your equal. I don't know if I can ever pay you back."

"No need." Annabeth gave Percy a light push. "Now get out there and let me be."

Percy stuck his tongue out at her and within seconds, she was alone again. Annabeth went through the motions robotically, rubbing her face free of the little make up she wore to school. It was Athena who originally got Annabeth into it because "no woman should leave the house looking like you do." Annabeth was leaving her face bare more and more often nowadays, especially since there was no way for Athena to know whether Annabeth was following her rules.

She lunged over the sink to grab the towel and dabbed her face dry before slumping. Annabeth considered pushing herself off the counter and crawling back to bed but how long would that be?

"Percy!" She yelled out. "I need a ride!"

It was silence for a second before the door opened to Jason.

"Where's Percy?"

"In his lamp," Jason said. "Something about his dog barfing all over his carpet."

"Oh."

"I can help you?"

Annabeth sighed. "Yeah, that'll be great."

She awkwardly swung one arm over Jason's neck to keep herself aloft. Leaning on Jason heavily, Annabeth moved one foot in front the other and shakily dropped onto her bed at the end.

"I have a question," Jason hesitated. "I'm sorry if this comes out as intrusive but it doesn't seem like you're used to not being to walk. So it must be a pretty recent thing, right? Why can't you walk?"

"In a nutshell, I walked into a genie trap and some genie touched me and suddenly I couldn't walk. So yes, I could walk before and this is a recent happening. I'm getting better though and the doctors think that in a couple more weeks, I should be able to walk around on my own."

"Genie trap? How…?"

Annabeth tilted her head. "Percy didn't tell you? We've found two genies who are out here in our world rather than in their lamps."

"No. He's been going on about his dog for the last ten minutes and telling me how fluffy it is."

Annabeth cracked a smile. "That's Percy." She launched into the whole story with Luke and other genie at the trap. Jason's expression barely changed throughout her exchange but by the end of her explanation, he looked stoned.

He pointed at her folded legs. "May I?"

"Um… okay?"

Jason closed his eyes and put on hand on her knee. Annabeth shifted, trying her best not to look she was uncomfortable. Finally, Jason retracted his arm. He spent a good few minutes staring her down before Annabeth asked him what he was doing.

"You're cursed," Jason said abruptly. "My healing magic is strong and I've been training to be a healer since I was a child. An old genie language is physically carved into the bones of your legs. But some holes are starting to fill up which means the genie trying to curse you was interrupted halfway through the process. You should be fine in a couple weeks, the doctor is right. It'd be hard for Percy to heal you since he's not good with healer magic but at least you'll get better without making a wish."

"Cursed?"

"It sounds bad but don't worry, like I said, the curse was never finished."

"And if it was?"

Jason pursed his lips. "You'd be deteriorating like a mummy. Your bones would shrink. Your muscles will get floppy. And you'll die. Painfully. Genie curses can be quite powerful."

Percy appeared behind them from his lamp on the ground. "Wait, did I just hear that right?"

"You should know something," Jason said. "It might help to make sense of the genie trap. Frank likes to threaten me quite a lot with what could happen to me if I don't follow the rules or do something he wants me to do. In that process, he's spilled quite a lot of information about genies and humans. His dad, some guy named Ares, works with the team that chains genies up and distributes them to seventeen-year-olds on their Coming. His colleague, Aphrodite, comes over a lot to and I've overheard some conversations."

Percy glanced at Annabeth. "Doesn't that name sound familiar? Aphrodite?"

"Yeah. She was the woman who gave me your lamp on the day of my Coming. Aphrodite is really sweet. I can't imagine her being one of those people kidnapping genies from their homeland and chaining them."

"Because she's not. Ares and Aphrodite always acted… afraid of whoever is ordering them to chain and distribute genies."

"What? That makes no sense."

Jason shrugged. "It didn't to me for a long time either. Let me explain. Frank has always used humans to threaten me. He'd go on and on about how if I didn't grant him some wish, he'd tell the spies that I'm acting out. After a while of this, as well as Ares and Aphrodite's conversations, I finally started connecting the dots on what he meant." He sat back, crossing his arms with lips in a thin line.

"So?"

"So what?"

"What did you connect?" Percy rolled his eyes. "We don't know what conversations you overheard."

Jason blinked. "Well… nothing significant yet. I know some humans, like Ares and Aphrodite, are following orders and they're terrified of whoever is giving the orders. The same agency that's distributing the genie lamps has human spies of all ages lurking around as well. At first I thought it was to maintain the order but I guess they know that some genies are escaping their lamps and they want to watch out for those genies."

Annabeth exchanged a look with Percy. "Like what we're trying to do."

"We deal with spies later," Percy said. "I think the first issue is how do I even get out of this dumb lamp? Yeah, okay, maybe my memories can help but I barely have enough to go on. We could always go back to the genie in the trap, I guess but…" He glanced at Annabeth's legs and frowned.

"I mean, I'll keep looking for clues through Frank," Jason said. "But of course I don't know when we'll see each other next…"

"We have a week," Percy said. "Let's just forget about all this crazy and focus on trying to make up for the last three years."

"I do, however," Annabeth said. "have a question for you, Jason. How many wishes has Frank made?"

"Five. His first wish was to ace every test this year for calculus."

Percy burst out laughing and Annabeth scowled. Her entire desk was covered with workbooks with hours and hours of calculus practice just to find out the guy she was trying to beat was going to get a hundred regardless of what she did. But five wishes? Frank seemed desperate for something to have made so many wishes, or he hated Jason a lot and wanted to get rid of his genie as soon as possible.

The second Frank hit nine wishes, Jason would die. How would Percy react then?

Annabeth bit her lip, watching Percy shove Jason onto the ground. They were like a pair of overgrown, overexcited puppies. Annabeth was never going to make her ninth wish. Ever. She was going to spend her whole life with Percy by her side, hopefully with him outside his lamp and living among humans.

Not my best chapter, I'm sorry :( I know it was late too - I'm currently down with this horrid flu kind of thing (which doesn't even make sense because this isn't flu season?) - so I'm sorry about that too :(

I promise GROVER is coming soon, he's got HUGE role but it just comes a little while later. I hope you guys liked that chapter even though it was short and not so great and ugh. I'll do my best to make sure the next chapter makes up for this!

Review, Fav, and follow! See you next Friday (tho let's be honest, it'll be 1am Saturday morning)

~Ami

PS: Just wanted to reply to PJ HP luver who tried to guess what happens next. No, you weren't right! Luke isn't Rachel's genie. You'll just have to wait to see what happens :)

Also, Guest, I've been noticing ur reviews for a while now and thank u so much for all ur support! You always remind me when I don't update haha and I love you for that :))

I won't be making replying to guest reviews a chapter wise thing but I just thought I'd reply to those two specifically :)