Okay, so I know this chapter is like a really stereotypical one,
but I just needed them to have some fun. We've had so much injury,fear and romance, I thought a little humour would do them some good.
Also I find it hard to believe they would never do anything silly on this quest, I mean they're seven (or in this case eight) young teenagers, how could they spend all that time together
and never do something normal, or funny? So that's why I decided to write this :)
Enjoy, review and watch out for the next update!

Chapter forty-one: Truth or Dare
~Penelope's POV~

When she woke up the next morning, Penelope felt more at peace than she'd ever felt before.
The sun shone in through the ship windows and filled the sickbay with bright morning light.
Next to her, Pen could feel Leo's chest rising and falling steadily. It felt so nice that she didn't move at first, until at some point she decided they'd better get up.
"Leo." she whispered, looking at his face, which looked much younger when asleep.
No response. Typical.
"Fire boy" she whispered more loudly, poking his side. This time she was rewarded with a little
grumble.
Fine, have it your way she thought, slid out of bed and yanked the covers away forcefully.
"Get up!"
"Argh!" Leo cried, sitting up straight and looking around wildly.
Penelope laughed, chucking some spare clothes at him. "Come on, rise and shine. Just because you were seriously injured yesterday doesn't mean you can be lazy today!"
Leo rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, half grinning, half scowling. "You're impossible, you are."
"Yup. I'm going to get dressed, meet you at the mess hall in ten."
With that she swept out of the room, giggling silently at the expression on Leo's face before the door shut.
Secretly she would have liked to stay cuddled up like that for a bit more, but she knew the others would be up soon and that they would all want to see Leo and make sure he was okay.
Also, a tiny part of her was still reluctant to...expose herself like that. She knew something elemental had changed that night, but in the morning light it was difficult to acknowledge it.
Still, she had a grin on her face all the time she was getting dressed and when she walked into the mess hall.
All the others save Hazel and Percy were already there, more or less awake. Hazel, Penelope expected, was sea-sick and Percy would still be asleep like a rock.
Leo was sitting at the table, looking almost back to normal with his usual devilish grin on his face.
When Pen walked in, he moved over and motioned to her to sit down next to him.
She did so, blushing a little and quickly busied herself with her breakfast, not meeting Piper's eyes, whom she could feel staring at her.
"So" Leo said when finally Hazel and Percy had arrived as well, Percy bleary eyed and Hazel's face slightly green "We're about a day and a half away from Rome. What do we do when we get there?"
They all fell silent, until Hazel spoke up, her voice shaky "We need to save Nico. He's only got two days left."
Nods went around the table, and Penelope felt her heart go out to the golden eyed girl.
What must it feel like knowing your brother only had forty-eight hours to live, and that it was up to you to save him? She didn't even want to imagine it.
"I have to follow the Mark of Athena." Annabeth suddenly spoke up, and they all looked at her. The mark had been talked about before, but not until now did they all realise how dangerous Annabeth's solo quest would be. Penelope saw a flicker of fear pass over Percy's face, and her heart ached.
It was bad enough for her that her friend was going on this dangerous mission, how awful must it be for the son of Poseidon?
"And the twin giants. We'll have to fight those." Jason added grimly.
Nobody spoke, and Penelope could literally feel the mood dropping like a stone tossed into water.
It was a shame, she thought, that so much danger and fear lay ahead of them. If it weren't for the quest, their time together on the Argo II would probably be just about the best time any of them would ever have.
Rome was looming ahead of them, and with it came more confusion and enemies.
What they needed now was something to boost their spirits, something they could enjoy together one more time before things got really serious.
Apparently, she wasn't the only one to be thinking along these lines.
"Let's play truth or dare" Annabeth said, breaking the silence and surprising everybody.
"What?" Percy asked, looking at Annabeth like she'd lost it.
"Let's play truth or dare" she repeated "We all need to loosen up for a bit, that's obvious. We can't do anything until we arrive in Rome and that won't be until tomorrow, so why not enjoy ourselves why we still can? I don't know about you guys, but I could definitely use a laugh."
At first everybody seemed so perplexed by her suggestion that they all just sat there, but then Piper
laughed. "You're right Annabeth. We should do something fun, who knows when we'll next get the chance."
"Alright!" Leo said happily, and Penelope grinned at the sight of his excitement. Sometimes he was just such a kid, but she liked him all the more for it.
"Who goes first?" Penelope asked.
"Me." said Piper, and directed her question at Percy. "Truth or dare?"
Percy thought for a second before saying "Dare."
This made an evil grin appear on Piper's face, and Pen chuckled.
"I dare you, Percy Jackson, to kiss the person on your right's cheek, say you love them and tell them they're sexy."
Everybody erupted into laughter as they all looked at the person on Percy's right: Frank.
Percy himself was red like a tomato, but he lent over to Frank, kissed his cheek, which made Frank's mouth turn down in disgust and then said, "Frank, I love you. You're awesome and I think" here Percy had to laugh himself "I think you're really sexy Frank."
Penelope couldn't stop giggling.
"Okay..." Percy chuckled "Me next. Jason, truth or dare."
Jason's pondered it and then said "Truth."
"If you could be the son of any other god or goddess, who would it be?"
"That's boring Percy" Piper complained, and Percy, doing the mature thing, stuck his tongue out at her.
"Well, Poseidon's pretty cool I guess" Jason said slowly. Percy wiggled his eyebrows. "But I'd probably say Apollo."
"Why Apollo?" Annabeth asked.
"I just always thought he was kinda cool." Jason explained, shrugging. "Right, Hazel truth or dare?"
"Dare."
This surprised Penelope, as she wouldn't have thought Hazel would go for dare. But the game seemed to be having the effect Annabeth had planned, everybody was enjoying themselves and for the moment, their troubles faded into the background.
"Pretend you're a boy and ask a girl for a dance." Jason told Hazel who grinned and then, in a very un-Hazel-ish way, rolled her sleeves up, puffed her chest out and strolled over to Penelope, who snickered.
"Why hello, my fine lady." Hazel drawled, and Percy and Leo howled with laughter. "Would ya do me the honour of dancing with me?"
Pen accepted Hazel's offered hand and they got up to waltz a few turns around the room, with Piper and Annabeth humming a melody.
At the end, Hazel even kissed Penelope's hand, and they both sat down again, giggling.
"Right." Hazel said, her voice back to normal. "Leo: Truth or dare?"
Of course, Leo didn't hesitate for a second "Dare."
Hazel smiled, like this was exactly what she'd been hoping for.
"I dare you" she said, meeting Piper's eyes, both of them smiling the same knowing smile "to stop pretending."
Huh? Penelope looked around, yet nobody seemed to understand Hazel's order.
"Hazel, what do you-" Percy started to say, but just then Leo turned to Penelope, and pulled her to him, kissing her right on the mouth. Right there. In front of everybody.
Pen could feel the heat rising to her cheeks but at the same time she felt glad that finally they weren't pretending anymore.
When they broke apart, there was silence for a second, before a few wolf-whistled, and Piper and Hazel grinned.
Leo and Pen laughed self-consciously and then picked up the game again.
They spent most of the morning in the mess hall and Penelope felt like it was the perfect day.
Leo was well again, they were all having a good time and she had kissed Leo in front of everyone.
Of course, she realised later, it was all too peaceful to last.