YAS! Look who's back! I am well aware that it's been forever since my last update, but summer is approaching, which means more time for writing! I'm currently working on the plot of a new interesting story that I hope to share with you guys soon! I'm excited for you guys to read this chapter, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson series Rick Riordon does.

Annabeth's POV

For once, lunch seemed to come by way too early for my liking. Thalia, unsurprisingly, didn't show up for Social Studies and as much as I hate to admit it I was glad she ditched, relieved even. I didn't want to sit next to her when things were so rocky between us. That would only make things worse and remind me of Percy with the stupid elephant in the room situation.

I didn't see Percy in science either…Now that was strange. I prayed that he didn't get into any trouble with Luke. The last thing I needed was for him to 'fight for my honor' especially with the vultures waiting for more gossip to spread.

I rounded a corner when I began to falter. The cafeteria was down the hall and my heart began to pound. I stopped walking as the nerves and adrenaline hit me like truck, even though I saw the truck coming four periods ago. I fidgeted with the straps on my shoulders as I stared at the cafeteria doors. It was white with a small silver handle and it seemed to be mocking me now. I felt out of control. Fear gripped me tight as thoughts about Luke's gang and Thalia swirled in my mind. I felt pathetic and weak. I wasn't supposed to care about this crap!

I thought of other places I could go. Maybe, I don't have to meet Thalia. I could go to the deli or the pizza shop? No…that's too far away, I'd never get back in time for class. I can just skip lunch all together and go study in the library-

"Annabeth?"

I turned around to see devil himself, walking towards me. I swiftly turn around on my heels and speed walk towards the library. I hear his footsteps speed up to catch up to me, but I only move faster.

"Annabeth." Luke called again suddenly much closer. He grabbed my right arm roughly before spinning me around to face him. "Just hear me out for a sec-"

"No. Get away from me." I growl yanking my arm from him, but he only reaches for my other one. I give him a warning look as he pulls me to him once more.

"You don't understand-"

"I don't want to understand Luke! Let me go."

"I just need to-"

"Is everything alright here?" We both turn to the right as a feminine voice interrupts us. A petit woman with brown hair stood with her arms folded as she stared the two of us down. Her perfectly shaped eyebrows were raised in a concerned manner that made Luke step away from me. And of course, standing right next to her was a noticeably miffed Percy. Just great.

"Yes, everything's fine!" Luke lied, shooting them both a charming smile, his eyes lingering a little longer on Percy. "We were just messing around…Talk to you later Annie."

I glare at him for that last part wanting nothing more than to rip his head off as he walked away. How dare he think he could just waltz in and try to strike a conversation with me like we were friends! Oh, violent thoughts were running through my mind-

"Annabeth, is it?" The lady next to Percy asked me. They were much closer now and I could see the anger in Percy's eyes rising as he watched Luke's figure get smaller and smaller. It was like watching a violent storm brewing.

"Yeah." I said detaching myself from Percy's eyes. "Annabeth Chase."

"Is this your lunch period?" She asked and I felt my nerves spike, at her speculation.

"Yes, I was just on my way to the library…I can show you my schedule if you want-"

"She's telling the truth." Percy chimed in and I shot him a grateful look. "We have the same lunch period…Am I free to go?"

The women nodded her head, but with her dark, hawk like eyes still on me. "You know where my office is." She states curtly though I'm not sure whether she was talking to me or to Percy.

Apparently Percy did, as he nodded his head at the women. We both watch as she turns around and makes her way down the hall. Percy waits until she turns the corner before letting out a sigh of relief.

"Sorry about that-"

"You have nothing to apologize for." I interrupt. "I didn't mean to cut in on your conversation with her…"

Percy looked off into the direction in which Luke left. "Everything okay?" He asked quirking an eyebrow.

I didn't know whether to lie to him about Luke or tell the truth. I mean, nothing really happened. Nothing that was worth telling anyone, but…he is Thalia's cousin. He should know, considering that Luke's her ex-boyfriend and he's talking to me, her best friend. Yeah, that sounds about right. Right?

"Are you okay?" I counter trying to change the subject and he frowns.

"Why wouldn't I be?" He asks. We slowly start making our way down the hall as I rack my brain to think of a valid excuse.

"I don't know…You sound different."

I regret the words as soon as they come out of my mouth. It was a stupid thing to say, a claim on which I can barely build on.

"I do?" Percy asked his bright eyes flickering between me and the hallway.

"Yeah…In the morning your voice was deeper. Didn't know you had a morning voice."

He frowned at my strange comment for second and I honestly couldn't see where I was going with it either.

"I didn't know either…" He trailed off. We walked in awkward silence for a few seconds, neither of us knowing what to say next. The sound of our heavy footsteps tracking through the hallway, filled up our disturbingly dead silence for a little while until Percy cleared his throat.

"Is it nice?" He asked suddenly with an unsettling glint in his eyes.

Tilting my head up to him I quirked an eyebrow. "What?"

"My morning voice," He repeated holding back a smile. "is it nice? Does it sound all sexy like-"

"Oh God." I exasperated shaking my head. "I can't believe you just said that."

"What?" He laughed brushing his shoulder against mine. "I wanna know, you can tell me!"

"I don't want to tell you-"

"Is it all masculine and gruff or just slow and seductive-"

"Percy!" I glared growing increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation. He put his hands up in a mock surrender, but continued his relentless teasing.

"Hey, you're the one who brought it up. Now answer my question, is my morning voice sexy with a slow, seductiveness to it or is it all deep and manly-"

"None of the above."

"That's not a choice."

"Well it's my answer, so drop it." Percy gave me an irritatingly, knowing look and I could feel the heat rising to my face.

"Stop looking at me like that." I murmured as we passed a group of people, who luckily payed us no mind. "You're so annoying."

"I'm just messing with you Annabeth…pulling your leg." Percy said dropping the look and the topic. I felt my heart rate go back to normal, relieved that we had stopped talking about…what we were talking about! But when I finally registered what he had said I gave him a sharp glare.

"You know I don't know what that means!" I say referring to his last expression.

"Yeah you do!" He laughed again not believing me, but I was telling the truth. "You're just trying to-"

Percy suddenly faltered, his face becoming serious as looked straight ahead. I followed his gaze only to see Thalia staring directly at us from the end of the hall.

Ships!

"I've been waiting for over-"

"We were just on our way to meet you." Percy lied, interrupting Thalia's premature rant as she marched closer to us. "We thought it might be best to meet in the library, barely anyone's there-"

"Let's go." Thalia said pushing past us and heading in the opposite direction of the library.

I let her walk a few more steps before speaking up. "The library's this way." I say pointing down the hall from which she just came. Figures Thalia wouldn't know where the library was.

She stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of my voice before turning back to us. Once again walking past us she muttered a stubborn,

"I knew that."

I rolled my eyes at her antics, but felt at least some of the tension subside between us.

After an awkward two minute walk to the library, Percy and I sat down at a table with Thalia sitting across us. We both waited for the other to say something as Percy looked back and forth between the two of us.

"So…" Percy started after another tense moment of silence. "There's obviously a lot of, uh, stuff going on between the three of us."

I nodded my head in agreement as Thalia looked at him dead-faced.

"No shit Sherlock."

Percy's eyes narrowed and I threw her a glare.

"Do you always have to be so rude? He's trying to help."

"What's rude is screaming like a ranging lunatic in the hallway-"

"What's rude is bringing your scumbag of an ex in my presence after he tried to get with me while he was still. With. You."

"Oh, I am so sorry I brought him into the great Annabeth Chase's presence! Don't worry, next time I'll consult with you first and let you decide who I can associate with-"

"Okay." Percy interjected in a sing song voice. "Let's remember! We're all friends here. Well you're my cousin Thalia, but other than that we're all friends-"

"You're absolutely right Percy." I smiled bitterly. "We are all friends here. And as a best friend it was very inconsiderate of you, Thalia, to just surprise me like that with Luke-"

"It's not my fault that you overreacted!"

"That's not the point! What the hell were you thinking Thalia? Were you thinking that I was just supposed to be okay with you being with Luke? Was I supposed to be happy that you two were on speaking terms?"

"You weren't supposed to go crazy and shout like a lunatic that you and Percy were dating."

"None of that would've happened if you would've just considered-"

"Do you two want to be friends?" Percy asked out of the blue, cutting me off.

I looked at him incredulously as he leaned back in his chair with his arms above him head.

"What?" Thalia asked and he rolled his eyes.

"You heard me. Do you want to be friends? Like best friends."

I glanced at Thalia before looking back at him. "Of course we do-"

"Then stop acting like a bunch of babies and make up already."

"Who do you think you're talking to-"

"Spare me the death threats Thalia and just admit it. You're sad, I heard you crying in your room yesterday, and you're sad as well Annabeth, you were crying yesterday too. So, let's just make up so we can all be happy again."

"It's not that simple jackas-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! Let's just get on with it. We've all done something wrong that's escalated the situation, have we not?"

Percy waited for us to agree with him, but I remained silent, looking at the table. I assume Thalia did the same as Percy sighed before leaning forward.

"Fine. I guess I'll be the first one to say, I'm sorry Thalia."

I looked up a little bit to see Thalia raise an eyebrow at Percy.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you in the hallway earlier today. I was mad because I felt like you were acting like a little bitch-"

"Language!"

"-by refusing to make amends with Annabeth when I know how much you want things to get better. Nonetheless I shouldn't have called you or insinuated that you were a bad best friend."

I looked at Thalia, who stared at Percy perplexed. Even I was confused by Percy demeanor and wondered where this Percy was when he slammed that door in my face a few days ago.

"I-I forgive you."

"Great. And I would also like to extend my sincerest apologies to you Annabeth."

I looked at Percy with wide eyes. "You've already apologized to me-"

"Yes, but I've yet to apologize for my worse offense against you." He said, his eyes holding a weird but sincere glint. His green eyes looked directly into mine and I watched as his eyes almost seemed to scan mine.

"I'm sorry for being so unbelievably handsome that you just felt compelled to shout to the entire school that we were dating. I know how hard it is to want something so badly and not share it with the rest of the world-"

"That's not funny!" I growled swatting his shoulder with my hand as he laughed. "Do you always have to be such a jerk?"

"You should've seen your face." He laughed, hysterical. "You gotta admit, that was a good one. Oh God! I crack myself up-"

"Can we go back to being serious here." Thalia interfered as I continued to scowl at him.

"Hold up, I need some water." Percy smiled barely able to contain his giggles.

We both watched as he dug inside his bag and took out a bottle of water. As he was drinking I contemplated how wrong it would really be of me to reach over squeeze the rest of the water into his unsuspecting mouth.

"Okay, but seriously," Percy continued. "you guys need to reconcile and stop the bullshit."

"Percy's right." Thalia relented. "This whole thing is so stupid. I mean, we're best friends. Let's just put an end to all this fighting and put this all behind us."

For a second, I thought that I was imagining this. It was an extremely rare occasion that Thalia acted mature nor initiated reconciliation between us. It was almost as if I were in a dream.

"Yes, Thalia." Percy exclaimed. "I agree. What a beautiful ending to a great, yet very tiring story. Now that you've made up we can all-"

"No." I said in a voice that didn't sound like my own. Percy's smile slowly slipped from his face and I turned away from him.

"Annabeth." Percy said as I heard him let out a strained chuckle. "What do you mean 'no'. She apologized, it's all good-"

"No, she didn't." I said as I stared at Thalia, who was trying to mask her true intentions. "That wasn't an apology. That wasn't anything but you trying to fix things without having to admit you were wrong…You don't think you did anything wrong do you?"

Thalia opened her mouth in protest for a split second before closing it again. She wouldn't meet my eyes and in that moment, I felt the true weight of our argument.

"That's what I thought." I said as I picked my bag off the floor. "When you're ready to admit that what you did was wrong, because you know it was, then we can bury the hatchet. I'm not gonna let you decide when we can be friends again because you don't feel like fighting anymore. When you're really ready to settle things, you know where to find me, but this…was just a waste of time."

On that final note I got up and left, not looking back for a second. Having finally spoken my mind I felt a lot lighter, and frankly…like a boss, female-dog.

Ohhhhhh! What did you guys think? Was Annabeth right to not accept Thalia's apology, or should she have forgiven her? Did Thalia even do anything wrong? Tell me what you guys think. Don't forget to follow, fav and review! I missed you guys so much and expect new updates really soon! PERCABETH IS BACK!

See ya!