And so their next adventures begin. And we gets some poor Annabeth and some cute cuddles.

It was strange to think that it had been almost a year since Percy and Piper had met Annabeth, since the daughter of Athena had came into their lives.

And Percy felt that it had been a good year. One of the best. Annabeth had settled in at school, had found her place in Brooklyn House- she was used to a much more structured way of life and helping Carter with some of the work Amos sent him- after all he was still the Pharaoh even if he was going to college and doing normal things- had helped her feel useful.

Amos might take care of the day to day things but Carter did need to be kept in the loop, and Annabeth made a pretty good assistant for him. And he made sure she didn't burn herself out.

And Annabeth had somehow slotted into place with Piper and Percy as if they'd been born to be the best friends.

Piper and Percy were the reckless lunatics- as Annabeth had often called them, and Annabeth was their voice of reason. They often commented that they didn't understand how they hadn't been killed a dozen times before the girl had come into their lives.

So yeah, in Percy's opinion things were pretty damn good at the moment. Though- she was a little bit worried about Annabeth. The daughter of Athena had been doing really well and then recently she'd started having nightmares.

Nightmares about her friend Thalia, about their flight from the monsters and how it had ended. And Percy was doing what she could. She was the only one who could get Annabeth back to sleep after the nightmares- she was generally peoples go to when it came to people's sleep.

Ever since she'd become Nephthys eye- no matter how brief it had been, she'd been very gifted at all things connecting to sleep. Which made sense given the fact that Nephthys was a goddess of sleep.

Percy could usually use her magic to sooth peoples dreams, to ward off nightmares and to put people to sleep when they couldn't manage to go themselves.

The problem was that Percy's magic didn't seem to be able to keep Annabeth's nightmares away long term. It would work for a couple of days before they came back. And it had been a few days since Percy had done the most recent spell to help her, so Percy wasn't exactly surprised when, at around 1am she woke up to the sound of knocking on her door.

She forced back a tired groan as she pushed her sheets aside and swung her legs off the bed, pushing herself to her feet and making her way to the door- and she gave a tired smile when she opened it and saw Annabeth and Piper.

Piper had an arm slung over Annabeth's shoulder, a worried gleam in her eyes, which looked almost black in the darkness, and Annabeth- Percy sighed softly to herself, holding out her hand for Annabeth, "C'mere."

Because Annabeth looked like crap- and that might sound mean but she did. There were dark bags under her eyes, which were slightly red and puffy, and she was worryingly pale. It made Percy want to pull her into a hug- but Annabeth didn't always like being touched after her nightmares- Percy and Piper had gotten into the habit of holding out their arms or hands and letting Annabeth make the move when she was ready.

"I'm sorry." Annabeth's voice was small as she grabbed Percy's hand tightly and let the daughter of Poseidon tow her and Piper into the bedroom. "I couldn't- I tried and- and I had- and I- I must have been screaming."

"I was getting some water." Piper spoke up, "I guess the magic knew what was happening because the sound proofing on the bedrooms stopped as I walked past."

"She woke me up." Annabeth swallowed hard. "I'm so sorry Percy I know it's- I don't know why they won't stop."

"It's okay." Percy reassured Annabeth quickly, "I still get nightmares of Apophis occasionally." and those were nightmares that she'd never, not ever, tell the other about. Not in any detail anyway. But she never screamed during those nightmares. She physically couldn't. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"I thought I was doing better though." Annabeth's shoulders slumped. "I thought- I mean I'd been doing so well lately. I wasn't having any nightmares about Luke or anything. Now every time your spells wear off I'm dreaming of Thalia."

"You wanna talk about it?" Piper asked gently, tilting her head, "I may not have that many nightmares but I know that sometimes talking about them helps." And as they spoke they made their way over to Percy's bed, Percy sitting down and drawing Annabeth down too, so that the other girl was sat by her side, and Piper sat down next to Annabeth on the other side, sandwiching the daughter of Athena between them.

"I- I dream about the hell hounds." Annabeth spoke slowly, her voice unsteady. "I dream about- about Thalia telling Luke and I to run, yelling at Grover- our friend he's a Satyr, to get us out of there. And- and Luke picked me up and he carried me- and I-" Annabeth had to take a deep breath to calm herself. "And I saw- I saw them attacking her, I saw her fighting. Saw them- and I saw her fall. And I watched her- I watched her transform."

"Into a tree." Percy nodded, "Which sounds real weird but I mean, under the circumstances it's not."

"She-" Annabeth swallowed hard. "I always felt like a part of her was still there. As long as Thalia's tree was standing she wasn't completely gone. And now-" she shook her head, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "In my dreams the tree- it's dying- it's dying and she's dying and I can't do anything. And I know- I know it's probably just because of- of what happened with Luke. I know it's probably because I lost everything when he-" she looked down at her hands-at her right hand, which was hanging limply- since she wasn't wearing her bracelet. "It doesn't- I just- I know all of that. So you'd think I'd be able to deal with the nightmares. That they'd stop like- I know- so why won't they go away."

"Because trauma doesn't work like that. I know Apophis is dead, doesn't stop me from having nightmares about it- and I know Set's relatively harmless at the moment but from time to time I have nightmares about the first time I met him." Percy pointed out reasonably, "It sucks but logic doesn't help with nightmares Annabeth."

"I hate that you're right." Annabeth shifted so that her head was resting on Percy's shoulder.

"She often is." Piper laughed, "It's strange. I've said it before I'll say it again- I do not understand how someone can be so very smart and very very stupid all at once."

"Hey- I haven't been that stupid lately-"

"Red Bull, Monster and three shots of espresso-"

"You cannot judge me for that-"

"How about the time you tried to make blue popcorn-"

"Okay, okay that was a genuine mistake and I learned from it Annabeth don't be mean-"

"You dumped half a bottle of blue food dye on it and it went all soggy Percy it was gross."

"Shut up." Percy pouted, "This is bullying you know that." and she felt her face flushing when Annabeth shifted and pressed her lips to Percy's cheek, her soft curls brushing against Percy's shoulder.

"Thank you. Your brain might be made of Seaweed but you're good at making me feel better." she twisted, squeezing Piper's hand. "And you Piper. For waking me up."

"Of course I did." Piper rolled her eyes, "You're my friend." she glanced at the clock and winced, "But uh- I think we should try and get a bit more sleep. It's the last day of school tomorrow before summer and you know that Sally said she wanted us to at least try to last out the last day."

"Of course." Percy nodded, "Do you want me to just cast a spell to help you sleep or do you guys want to crash in here since it's so late?"

"Can-" Aannabeth hesitated, "Can we just stay in here please?" her voice was quiet, "Your mom won't mind us crashing with you will she?"

"Of course not." Percy reassured her, "She knows about the nightmares."

"I just- I wish I understood them. They feel so real." Annabeth sounded so lost that it made Percy's chest tighten.

"If you want we can ask uncle H when we visit him after school tomorrow. Maybe he knows something."

"I- you think he'll help us?"

"Are you kidding?" Piper laughed, "Lord Hades loves Percy. She's his favorite-"

"I just remember Lady Persephone's reaction." Annabeth giggled, smiling faintly.

"It's not my fault." Percy groaned, "She jumped to conclusions-"

"To be fair at the time Hades was yelling at you to climb down off of Cerberus' back because he was worried you were going to hurt yourself."

"Yeah but I don't actually look like uncle Hades." Percy pointed out, "Not really."

"You were dressed all black and gothic-"

"That is a total sterotype and I'd just come back from that audition. That does not mean that I'm one of Hades kids!"

"The look on her face when Hades told her that you were just an annoying child he couldn't chase off-"

"The look on her face?" Piper laughed, "I was more interested in the look on Percy's face. She looked so offended."

"Shut up." Percy shoved Piper's shoulder lightly before stifling a yawn, which made Annabeth shift.

"We should get some sleep." and within a few minutes the three girls were snuggled up in the bed, Annabeth sandwiched between Percy and Piper, and Percy closed her eyes, humming a soft gentle tune before she started singing softly- imbuing the lullaby with magic.

And she felt the tension easing out of Annabeth's body, the daughter of Athena's face pressing into Percy's shoulder as she fell asleep- and the spell effected Piper too because soon enough both girls were snoring softly, and Percy very gently brushed Annabeth's hair out of her face.

She knew that Annabeth couldn't keep going like this with the nightmares. Even with Percy's magic shielding her and helping her get to sleep it was taking a toll on her. On all of them. She knew it worried Piper a lot.

And Percy sighed quietly to herself.

She wasn't sure if Hades would be able to help or not.

Oh if he could help he would, Percy had no doubts about that. He might not really care about Annabeth or Piper but they weren't wrong when they said that Hades cared about her- he was a damn good uncle and unlike with most of his nieces and nephews Percy was actually respectful and she liked him. That made a difference.

The real question was if he would be able to help. After all even if there was something going on there was no guarantee that he'd know what it was- the other gods tended to be assholes to Hades. he wasn't exactly kept in the loop most of the time.

Ugh.

It would be so much simpler if Annabeth wasn't having the dreams. Percy had a horrible feeling that something bigger was going on and that would mean change. And Percy didn't actually want change right now. She was happy with how things were. Getting sucked into more Greek drama- that was dangerous.

Percy knew Zeus wasn't going to be happy when he found out about her. And she didn't want things to get too out of control. That sort of chaos wasn't the type she liked.

She shook her head.

If it came down to it she'd deal with whatever she had to- whatever it took to help Annabeth stop the dreams- and she couldn't help but think about Luke. Who was still out there somewhere. Unaware that Annabeth was alive.

She would much rather things stayed like that. If they got involved in the Greek stuff again- but she knew. Deep down in her heart she knew.

They weren't going to have a choice.