Chapter 12: Peter And I Are The Bestest of Friends

(Andi)

It had been 4 minutes, 37 seconds, and 49 jiffies and Peter was still sitting outside on the steps of the Big House.

I sighed. I still had over 2 minutes and 52 seconds to go before I could go over and talk to him.

Earlier today, Peter had surprised me by sitting with me, Grover, and Nico in the meadow without me even inviting him to. It was ground breaking. Even if all he wanted to talk about was his weird dream. I had been living on Cloud 9, but then I had to go to my advance mist manipulation lessons and our group broke up.

Nico said he had things to do and disappeared into the day. Peter had wondered off and Grover being Grover, had stayed just long enough to give me a stupid brochure on the Hunters.

After my advance mist manipulation lesson, I got yet another surprise. Peter was sitting outside on the steps of the Big House. He had told me he wanted to be alone for a bit.

Only a bit![1] And he had said it nicely too. He hadn't even used a bad word.

I could hardly wait to talk to him so I had decided to lay down in the strawberry fields just out of sight.

It wasn't spying. It was waiting which I wouldn't have to do if Grover wasn't off chasing after the Hunters.

When there was only 16 seconds and 3 jiffies to go, Peter looked this way and that. Then he got up and crept inside the Big House.

I waited and counted down the last 4 seconds. Then when the bit of time was officially over, I dashed towards the house to find Peter.

I looked around the house. If Peter was looking for company, there wasn't any to be found in the house. Chiron was conducting target practice down at the archery fields. Mr. D and Argus were gone. Even Nico was off doing who knows what.

I checked every room on the ground floor just to be sure, but no one else was here. I hadn't found Peter either.

"Peter?" I hissed hesitantly. Something about the empty house made me want to be quiet.

I heard a crashing sound up above.

Of course!

There was still one person in the Big House.

The Oracle!

Peter must be in the attic. I made my way upstairs just as Peter was coming down.

"Fuck!" he swore, inappropriately as he saw me. "What are you doing here, Sunshine?"

I wrinkled my nose at his language and informed him, "It's been a bit, so I wanted to give you some female companionship. I'm much better company than the Oracle."

Peter just stared at me with his mouth open.

"And it's not against the rules to talk with me, so there's that too." Though consulting the Oracle wasn't a bad idea. Maybe I should ask for permission. I could ask her about Luke. Maybe the Oracle would know something the gods didn't.

Peter interrupted my musing by asking nervously, "You're not going to rat me out, are you?"

"Well..." I wasn't sure. "Did the Oracle tell you anything?"

"No, she just sat there," he said boringly.

"Really?" I asked intensely.

"Really," he said, believably.

"Oh." That was disappointing.

"So?" he prompted, anxiously.

"I don't know." I was still undecided. This was the fourth camp rule Peter had broken since coming to camp. Even if the Oracle hadn't said anything, it might be time for him to be taught some sort of lesson.

"Come on Sunshine. Don't be a snitch," he pleaded, beggingly. After a moment he even added, "Please."

My eyes lit up. He had said please again. The last time that had happened, I got him to agree to sit with me. I kept my face serious as I tapped my chin and said, "Sounds like you really want me to stay quiet. I might be persuaded, but it'll cost ya~"

"What do you want?" he said, seriously.

"Another month," I said promptly.

He closed his eyes. "I should have fucking guessed. Fine. But you tell no one about this, not even Nico and Grover, alright? This will be our little secret."

A secret!

Only friends and hot guys have secrets. I doubted that Peter and Grover had any shared secrets.

I nodded gravely.

"Stop smiling," he pouted, "And come on. Let's get out of here."

I happily followed him downstairs.

Once we left the Big House, I wasn't able to convince Peter to do volleyball, or archery, or swimming at the lake, or horseback riding, or sword fighting, or even rolling around in the strawberry fields.

Instead, he told me, "Really Sunshine, when I said 'a bit' I meant more than like 5 minutes." Which I already knew. I was good at counting.

Then he'd gone to the beach and dove in the water fully clothed and didn't come out until dinner time. I know because I waited for him and he let me accompany him to the dining pavilion like the friends we now were.

Peter had then distracted Nico by asking him about Mythomagic. Nico had been suspicious at first, but soon he perked up and told Peter all about his favorite game. Peter listened and asked questions like he really cared. Nico enjoyed the attention.

I suddenly felt like the bestest friend ever. I had given my two boy friends another friend. I felt more than ready to show those silly Hunters the power of male friendship.

Their brochure was still burning a hole in my pocket. I had glanced at it 68 times while I waited on the beach for Peter to return. It had been insulting.

Why would I want to forsake men? Just because I was cursed didn't mean I wanted to give up on love or men.[2] The sirens had shown me what I wanted.[3]

And I liked men. They liked me. Every week I was sorting through a mountain of kind and thoughtful love letters.

Plus, there was Nico, Grover, and Peter. They all really liked me. And I really liked Peter and Nico. Plus, there was Luke. I really really really liked him.

So as much as I wanted to please Daddy by making female friends, it wasn't worth it. It really wasn't. Boys made the best friends. Forsaking them was dumb and I'd prove it by defeating the Hunters in a game of capture the flag.

So, when dinner ended, I looked around to see who would join me in victory tonight. There were 13 campers who were playing: Me, Becky, Sherman from the Ares cabin, the Stoll brothers from the Hermes cabin, Drew, the other Mitchell, Harriet, and Belle from the Aphrodite cabin, Lee and Mitchell from the Apollo cabin, Nico, and of course Peter.[4]

As Peter, Nico and I headed over to join the other campers, Peter said, suddenly out of nowhere, "I'll take the offense. You take defense."

"Oh." I hesitated because I had wanted to do offense, but I guess I shouldn't be picky. After all, friends made sacrifices for each other.

But before I could agree with him, Peter surprised me by saying, "Or I could take defense."

"Really?" I clapped my hands together. He was being so nice!

"Yeah," he said, kindly.

"Goody!" I said, smilingly.

Peter shrugged and smiled like he had won something.

I smiled even wider. He'd been smiling at me a lot recently. It was clear as crystal that I had finally gotten through to him yesterday.

"Hey Andi," Nico whispered.

I turned. His face was deadly serious.

"What is it, Nico?" I asked, but I already knew.

"I'll be on defense," he declared softly.

I nodded.

"Be careful," he murmured.

At that moment, Chiron's hoof thundered on the pavilion floor.

"Heroes!" he called, sagely. "You know the rules! The creek is the boundary line. Pink team—Camp Half-Blood—shall take the west woods. Hunters of Artemis—silver team—shall take the east woods. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. No intentional maiming, please! All magic items are allowed. To your positions!"

"Tally-ho! Pink team!" I cried out.

Everyone cheered and followed.

We set up our flag at the top of Zeus's Fist which is a cluster of boulders in the middle of the west woods that, if you look at it just the right way, looks like a huge fist sticking out of the ground. It was nifty that Daddy had something at camp named after him and it was such a swell place to set the flag.

The top boulder was twenty feet and 2.5 inches tall and really hard to climb, but the flag was clearly visible, like the rules said it had to be, and it didn't matter that the guards weren't allowed to stand within ten yards of it.

I let Peter set Becky and the Stoll brothers on guard duty with Nico. Then I said, "We'll send out decoys. Drew, you lead a team to the left."

"Like if you like insist!"

"I do. Take Harriet, Belle, Lee, and the Mitchells. They are our best archers. Make a wide arc around the Hunters. Use your bow and arrows to attract as many Hunters as possible. Sherman, you and the other boys go right. Take care of any stragglers and aim for the flag."

The Ares boy grunted his agreement.

"While you all are doing that, I'll do my thing and catch them all by surprise."

Everybody nodded. I looked at Peter. "Anything to add, Peter?"

"Um, yeah. Keep sharp on defense. We've got four guards and some scouts, but that's not much for a big forest. I'll be roving. Yell if you need help."

"That's nice of you, Peter," I said agreeably.

"You're wel— I mean, remember it's okay to leave your post if you see a golden opportunity."

"Sounds good," I said agreeably.

Peter scowled.

He had been so happy 5 minutes, 12 seconds, and 46 jiffies ago. Why was he grumpy now? He was so hard to read. I gave him a confused look.

Peter just shrugged and addressed the group. "Now, is everybody clear?"

Everybody nodded. We broke into our smaller groups. The horn sounded, and the game began.

Drew's group disappeared into the woods on the left. The other group went right. Peter and his group stayed and guarded. I waited with them, standing with Nico.

"Why are you still here?" Peter asked me.

"It's all part of the plan," I said, assuredly.

"What plan?" he asked and I realized we had never played capture the flag together before. I didn't usually participate, not since I was claimed during my first year.[5]

I smiled and began to explain, "Well you see—"

"Hey!" someone shouted.

We all turned. Bianca was walking toward us with her bow in hand.

"Hello, sister," Nico said coming up to meet her.[5]

The two twins glared at each other. The area around them filled with darkness.

"What the fuck," Peter said, swearingly.

"Language," I hissed, chastisingly.

Then Bianca pushed Nico aside and shouted rudely, "Hey ANN-DYE![7] Stop gossiping with your fan club and come over here and fight me!"

I stared at her as Nico was still trying to control her and I told her, "Firstly, I've told you before my name is AnDi and secondly, Peter is not in my fan club. Though he's welcome to join," I turned to him. "Grover leads the meetings. They happen every Thursday at 1 pm." [8] I turned back to her. "And thirdly, Bianca, we're in the middle of capture the flag. Now's not really the—"

I stopped talking because as quick as Jack, Bianca had lifted her bow and shot an arrow at us. It was easy to use my mind to blow it off course, but still.

"Hey!" I cried angrily. "What was that for!"

"Shutting you up because now is the perfect time to fight.[9] So, fight me, Ann-dye," she pulled back another arrow.

I might have just redirected the arrow and not fallen for her bait if not for what happened next.

Nico tried to stop his sister from attacking me again. He moved forward and was whispering something to her.

In response, Bianca lowered her bow and arrow. She smiled at him, announcing, "Oh brother, I once believed you when you said such things to me but," Her voice rose. "I don't have time for puny words from puny men anymore!" Then with her newly free hand, she thwacked Nico so hard he fell down to the ground.[10]

"Nico!" I cried. I waited for Nico to get up, but he didn't.[11]

Meanwhile, Bianca laughed cruelly.

"You shouldn't have done that," I growled menacingly because now it was personal. I turned to one of the Stoll Brothers. "You get the flag."

"I'll go!" Peter offered before the brother could speak.

I glanced at him. I wasn't sure Peter was up to this.

"Let him," one of the Stoll Brother said.

"I'm waiting, Ann-dye!" Bianca shouted. She had her foot on Nico's stomach like some sort of roman gladiator.[12]

"Get the flag," I repeated commandingly to the boys. Then I pressed my hand to my chest and summoned my mini master bolt. "I'll be back."

Footnotes

[1] Fun fact: a bit is 12.5 cents. So, I guess Andi thinks a bit of time is 12.5 per cent of an hour i.e., 7.5 minutes.

[2] Again, Aphrodite has cursed Andi to never experience requited love.

[3] In the Sea of Monsters fic, Andi pulls an Annabeth and asks Nico to let her listen to the siren song. We then got to see Andi's true desire: to have a family, and experience requited love with Luke.

[4] Of all the names mentioned here, only Harriet and Belle are non-canon. I looked to see whether there might be some appropriate canon female names to sub in here, but there is a startling lack of Aphrodite names to choose from especially from the pre-Lost Hero era. Lacy is 12 in Lost Hero and probably wouldn't be at camp yet and Valentina doesn't show up until Trials of Apollo. Obviously, there is still Silena, but I was not going to include her. It would just be too weird.

[5] The reason for this will become apparent next chapter, but I bet you can guess.

[6] He said! For Nico, this is practically shouting.

[7] Ann-dye is Bianca's special nickname for Andi. Interestingly, it's a much less effective taunt than Annie.

[8] The fan club was established in the Lightning Thief fic after people found out that Andi was the daughter of Zeus.

[9] As a continuation from previous stories in the fic series, Bianca continues to have bad timing.

[10] This unfortunately is not the first time Bianca has hit her brother in this fic series. The two of them have always had an unhealthy relationship. Think anime tsundere type violence. It could be brutal and yet no one seemed to see it as such. I am glad it is taken more seriously here.

[11] In previous installments, when Bianca attacked Nico, he would get up immediately. She never left bruises or anything like that. Again, their relationship ran on anime comedy violence rules.

[12] So, I definitely feel like Bianca's hamming it up this chapter, but I'm not sure whether this is because fanfic or whether this is an intentional move on Bianca's part to lure Andi into a fight.

A/N: Thanks for your guesses! It was cool to hear them. I'm not going to tell you if you're right or wrong. You all can keep guessing as we get more info. For now, I'll just explain what I guessed when I first read chapter 11 and why it was wrong. I was sure it was Artemis. She has grey eyes, is a Hunter, and could talk like New Moon. Plus she is the moon goddess, but on closer inspection, Artemis's eyes are described as yellow-silver in the books Alpha R and Beta R would have read and she isn't a new moon. She's a regular moon. I was very bummed to be wrong, but now I have a story to tell so there is that.