~~~~~~~~~ 14 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I yawned, trying my best to get out of bed. Why does Camp tradition state we have to wake Annabeth with noisemakers? Why not - I don't know, serenade her later, at a far more reasonable hour? But I didn't want to be left out of the celebration, so I heaved myself up, yanked on some clothes, smoothed down my hair and staggered out to the green.

"Hey." I heard someone behind me and turned to see.

"Oh. Uh, hi Thalia." I still wasn't sure what to think of her. Here's this famous child of the Big Three. The famed hero of Camp who died to save her friends, whose spirit still protects demigods. Ever since she came back to life, everyone's assumed she's going to be the child of the prophecy. No one even gives me a second glance anymore. And - ok, fine. You want the truth? I didn't care at all about Thalia taking my place with the prophecy. In fact, I'd love it if I weren't the child of the prophecy. How awesome would that be? I'd get to just chill at Camp, doing the normal demigod stuff and not have to worry about the world ending. But she was Annabeth's best friend before she died. What if… well, what if Annabeth wasn't my friend anymore? What if Thalia replaced me, and I just became that kid she went on two quests with?

"So, we just blow these in her face to wake her up?" Thalia asked, holding up the usual Camp birthday noisemaker.

"Yeah, then jump back before you get stabbed."

Thalia gave me a small smile, then looked down. "You know, she's told me about your quest for the Master Bolt. I… I guess I should thank you for looking out for her."

"Uh, yeah. No problem. I mean, she protected me just as much. She's a great warrior."

Thalia flashed me a grin and murmured, "Yeah, she is. She's grown a lot. I…. I'm happy she invited me to this. With everything changing, it's nice to know she's still my friend, you know?"

I hadn't thought of that. How weird would it be to die, then come back seven years later and everything be different, everyone be different? I felt a stab of guilt. Here I'd been getting jealous of her, and I hadn't even thought of how weird that would be to be frozen in time, then come back and the world be totally different. I was trying to think of something to say when we were interrupted.

"Ugh. Why do we have to do this so early?" Grover muttered, staggering over while he rubbed his eyes. He wasn't wearing pants and his shirt was fairly messed up, so I knew he was as tired as I felt.

Thalia and I laughed and our eyes met. Maybe, Thalia's appearance didn't mean I was losing a friend - maybe, it meant I could gain one. The three of us trooped to the Athena cabin and were let in by Malcolm, who gestured for us to be quiet. We waited as one of Annabeth's sisters counted down on her fingers, then blew our noise makers and screamed, "Happy Birthday!" loud enough that we heard kids shouting from the Demeter cabin for us to be quiet. Thalia and I nearly tripped on each other as we jumped back from Annabeth's attacks.

At breakfast, I watched as the Athena cabin got rowdy, laughing and teasing each other. I normally don't like sitting alone at the Poseidon table, but days like today, I really, really don't like it. It just makes you feel extra alone. I looked over at Thalia who gave me an ironic grin. Here we were, sitting at tables next to each other, but not allowed to actually sit together. She tossed me a pad of paper and showed me she had a matching one.

"What's new?" She wrote on the paper, then held it up for me to see.

I grinned and wrote, "Nothing much. Ready for the party games?"

"Party games?" She wrote back.

"You'll see."

We started the games off with pin the tail on the cyclops, which we all stank at and made me miss Tyson. Then we did a demigod version of musical chairs. How is it different from regular musical chairs? Everyone has a sword and is allowed to fight for the chairs. It was a mess and we all ended up needing some nectar and ambrosia after that game. Still, Annabeth had ended up winning, mostly because Thalia and I were too absorbed sparring with each other to notice her slip in and take the last chair. She seemed happy, despite the fact that she had a bruise on the side of her face from where one of her siblings caught her with a fist while trying to get a chair.

We decided to have a picnic lunch on the beach and I found myself sitting between Annabeth and Grover, just like old times. We joked about Medusa's garden gnomes, teased Grover about his choice of wedding dress, and, thankfully, Annabeth didn't even bring up the embarrassing guinea pig incident. It was cool to hear stories of her from when she was on the run with Thalia - I didn't even know Annabeth was skilled at picking locks until Thalia asked if she had broken in anywhere interesting lately. From the looks her siblings gave her, this was common knowledge in the Athena cabin, and definitely not something talked to the rest of the Camp.

We were all told to go get some rest - tonight we were having a Capture the Flag game. Annabeth was team captain - Thalia and I were on her team, as well as the Apollo, Demeter, Dionysus and Aphrodite cabins. The Stolls were co-captains of the other team, and Clarisse had promised to try to get the flag for her cabin this week, so we knew it was going to be a bloody mess. I loved capture the flag, so I went to my cabin for a nap. I woke up to a quiet knock on the door. I went to open it to find no one there. I felt something press on my shoulder and stepped back. The door closed and Annabeth popped off her cap.

"We aren't supposed to be, you know, alone in a cabin together." She rolled her eyes at my stammering then pointed to the back window. Thalia was climbing in with Lee Fletcher behind her.

"Strategy meeting." Annabeth explained. "I've had spies from the Hermes cabin following me all day. Went to the girls' bathrooms and put the cap on to sneak here."

We all sat around my cabin and quietly talked about strategy for the game. After dinner, I was nearly vibrating with excitement. I loved this game, and tonight was looking like it would be legendary. As soon as the game started, I took my squad of Demeter kids while Thalia took a second squad to the other side. Annabeth had set the Aphrodite kids around the flag to act as lookouts, with the Apollo kids ranging through the forest to help defend and alert us to any action. As soon as we started, Annabeth nodded to us and popped her cap on. The Aphrodite kids immediately became alert - they knew Annabeth could be watching at any time, and they weren't about to be caught slacking off.

I snuck my squad through the forest, where we were caught by Clarisse and a group of Ares thugs. It was a tough fight - Clarisse wasn't about to go easy on me even though we helped her with the quest. Her spear caught on my sword as we exchanged blows, and the electricity buzzed around us. I hated that dang electric spear, it always makes me feel like we're fighting near a bomb. For all I know, it could explode at any moment. Clarisse backed me up against a tree.

"Give up, Prissy?"

I wasn't about to give up, but I also didn't see a way out of this. I could tell my squad was just as badly outmatched here. Suddenly, something yanked Clarisse back and, while she was off-balance, threw her against the ground. I grinned - Annabeth had followed us.

"Thanks!" I called out.

"Annabeth!" Clarisse roared, lunging to her feet. But it was too late - her cabin mates had turned to see what happened to her and my friends had used that moment to disarm them. Now we had about six Ares campers to take hostage. We tied their wrists and led them, complaining the whole way, back to our flag where we made them sit.

Silena grinned at me. "Nice catch, Percy. Looks like you brought in a whole load of fish today."

I had to smile back. "Any word from the others?"

She tossed me a scroll. It was from an Apollo camper - Stolls just passed me.

"Which way?"

Silena pointed to where the arrow had come from. I picked one Demeter kid and one Apollo camper to join me, then told the rest to stay to help guard our flag and our prisoners. The three of us plunged into the woods looking for the Stolls. It wasn't long until we found them - they had apparently gotten into a disagreement on which direction to go and were arguing in the woods. Soon they were bound up by vines and ready to be taken back to our base camp.

When I got there, I found Annabeth waiting. She grinned at me.

"Looks like you went fishing again."

I groaned. "You're on the fishing metaphors too?"

She shrugged.

"Any word on if we got the flag?"

"If all goes as planned, Thalia should be crossing the river any moment."

As if she could speak it into existence, we heard the horn blow. We released our captives and trooped down to the river, where Thalia was grinning as an Apollo camper bound up her arm. She pointed to the flag, now proudly showing an eagle holding a lightning bolt.

"Nice!" I called to her. "You got the flag on your first game!"

She winced as the Apollo camper tied off the bandage, then came over to us. "It was a lot more fun than I expected."

Annabeth hugged her. "Told you you'd do great."

We all went to the campfire to do the sing-a-long. I found Annabeth before we began and handed her a cupcake.

"Make a wish." I told her as I lit the candle with match.

She raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure that's fair. You saw what I saw with the Sirens. You know what my deepest wishes are."

I shrugged. "Seems like a lot for a year. Maybe… pick a piece that you want for this year?"

She thought about that, smiled and closed her eyes. When she opened them she blew out the cupcake and patted the bench next to her. I sat down and passed cupcakes to the rest of the Athena campers, Grover, and Thalia.

"Happy birthday." I told her, showing her my cupcake. It had taken some work, but I'd managed to frost a guinea pig onto it. She started laughing, which made it all worth it.