HEY FUNNY BUNNIES! Okay so this chapter is probably one of the shortest ones the story is going to have, but this chapter is just the set up for chapter 11, I promise. ANYWAY here is chapter 10 of Layers! I hope you like it and please give me some feedback.
The Percy Jackson books and all of their characters belong to the oh so wonderful...Rick Riordan. *applause*.

"Okay. So it says here that dreaming of aliens usually means that, and I quote, 'you are afraid of being in hostile environments and has had a strange and unfamiliar relationship placed upon you recently'." Thalia shrugged, "Does any of that ring a bell?"

Annabeth sighed and ran a hand across her forehead, "I didn't have a dream about an alien Thalia."

"Fine. We'll check 'odd children'."

"That's not going to work. There were too many things happening. It was the setting and the time of day and the fact that a glowing eyed little girl was the main part! I honestly don't think the internet is going to help us with this." She said exasperated.

"Well maybe we're thinking too far into this," Jason started from the right side of Annabeth. "What if this was just a random dream that means nothing at all?"

"I've had it for 5 days straight, Jace. I don't think that's a coincidence."

It was Wednesday night and Annabeth was over at the twins' house after Thalia insisted that she come over to get to the bottom of the strange dreams that have become a constant thing in her life now. Her reaction to them was significantly less intense than the first morning because she was sure she had grown used to them, but that didn't mean she wasn't still weirded out.

She was tired of being weary about something that once was her favorite past time.

"Well maybe you were just so shaken up with the dream initially, that it keeps occurring." He offered shrugging.

"That might be it, Annabeth.

Look at you little brother. Not so dumb after all." Thalia said with a grin.

Jason rolled his eyes.

"Well Google is still failing us. I searched 'reoccurring dreams' and it says to make them stop, you have to figure out why you're having them in the first place...which is our problem anyway."

"Does it help you? You know with trying to find out?"

Thalia nodded, "Yeah, it has steps."

"Okay, what are they." Annabeth said, suddenly interested. She peaked over at the laptop in Thalia's hands.

"Step 1: Find the root of your problem."

Annabeth groaned and fell back onto the couch.

"No wait, don't give up yet," Jason said, "What are the rest of the steps, Thals?"

"Step 2: Find all the details of your dream

Step 3: Connect the dots and find out what they have in common with what's going on in your life.

Step 4: Once you work on your problems your dreams should stop."

"That wasn't very helpful," Annabeth mumbled.

Thalia sighed and closed her laptop. "Fine, if the internet can't help you then what can?"

"Talking about it might help," Jason said with a shrug.

"Like professionally?" Annabeth was already thinking of ways to shut that down.

"No, I mean right now. With us. Talk to someone you trust." he said with a soft smile.

"Yeah. What's bothering you?" Thalia joined in.

Annabeth shrugged, "Nothing's bothering me. Nothing's changed so I don't think that's the problem."

"Fine then Miss Moody, we can talk about this later when you aren't so hormonal." Thalia said standing up.

Jason stood with her with a chuckle and walked towards the door. "This is where I leave."

Thalia grabbed Annabeth's hands and pulled her up. "When your done being grumpy about surfing your crimson waves, then we will be here to talk." She said with a smirk and walked away.

(line break)

Walking into school hand in hand with Jason after their previous "break" has been one of the best parts of Annabeth's time at school. Being apart had strengthened their relationship and brought them closer together so she really couldn't complain about what happened in between.

Jason started going to football practice at the end of the day so he could walk her to school every morning and then in the afternoons Thalia could take her to work. Annabeth hadn't felt more loved.

They made their way over to her locker, Jason leaned towards her. "I *kiss* love *kiss* you *kiss* so *kiss* much *kiss kiss*." He said, making her blush and walked toward his class with a wave.

Piper and Thalia rounded the corner both with smiles on their faces, Piper's more forced.

"You okay Pipes?"

Piper nodded and grinned widely, "Yeah, I got some bad news earlier, but I'm fine."

"Bad news? About what...if you don't mind me asking?"

Annabeth said as she got her books from her locker and placed them in her bag.

The girl shrugged, "My grades. I'm uh failing calculus."

"Really?" She nodded, "I can tutor you y'know. It wouldn't be a problem, you could just come over to the bookstore and when I have some free time I could help you. I'm sure Sally wouldn't mind."

"Sure, that sounds good. Thanks." She said unenthusiastically.

Annabeth looked at her friend for a beat more and then nodded and walked into class.

Calculus passed by swiftly. There was a test that only took Annabeth 15 minutes to complete so she spent the rest of the class watching Piper. She didn't look like she was having much trouble with the work itself, she was just distracted. Whatever was bothering her was also making her antsy.

When the bell rung Annabeth stayed back to wait for Piper, but was quickly regretting that decision when Piper flew past her and out of the door without a word.

Walking into psychology, Annabeth was confused when she walked over to find a large manila folder on both her desk and Percy's.

She went to open it when Mr. Brunner appeared at her side in an instant. "Does anyone read things anymore these days?" He said exasperated.

Annabeth was embarrassed to find that there was indeed a large sticky note on the front saying "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL INSTRUCTED TO DO SO".

"Sorry," she mumbled and sat down and waited for class to start.

When Percy walked in right after the bell rang, which was pretty early for him, he went straight for the folder; holding out his hand to open it.

Annabeth was happy to slap his hand away.

"Stop it, we aren't supposed to touch it."

He glared at her, "What's in it?"

She rolled her eyes, "We can't touch it. Which means we can't open it. Which means-"

"Yeah never mind I get it smart ass." He huffed as Annabeth smiled.

Mr. Brunner clapped loudly, silencing the whole class.

"Okay, now since everyone is finally here." He said shooting a look towards Percy who just grinned in return.

He has nice teeth, Annabeth thought.

Too bad that's the only thing nice about him...aside from his face; she continued.

"The folders in front of you are a collection of case files...murders. We've been studying human behavior and how the brain makes decisions for a few weeks now. So I want you and your partner; the person next to you, to use your minds and notes that you took on the subject to find out what each cereal killer was probably feeling, what they were striving for and what was the purpose for the killings. Then I want you to write a collaborative 3 page essay, front and back, about your findings. If you actually try on this, then you and your partner shouldn't have any problem with getting a good grade. But I would suggest you don't take this lightly, this project is worth 4 test grades so failure to take this seriously...well it'll fail you. I also suggest you don't and cheat, you all have different case files and different suspects." he paused. "Any questions?"

"So you're just gonna have us looking at dead bodies and crap just to find out that the killer was probably just bored?" A kid from the back of the room asked, earning a few laughs from the class.

Mr. Brunner rolled his eyes, "Yes and no. There's evidence, diagrams of the bodies, and personal information about the deceased and the killer. That should be plenty of information to complete the project."

Annabeth's hand shot up and Percy chuckled mockingly at her. "When is this due?"

"3 weeks from today. I figure you would need some time to properly investigate and then you'd need time to write the essay. I also realize that sometimes schedules don't work out and you guys should have some extra time for those days."

Annabeth was surprised when Percy spoke up, "How much class time do we get?"

Mr. Brunner smiled. "None. As a matter of fact, put those folders up, we have some notes to take care of."

Annabeth's eyes bugged out and she quickly turned towards Percy who was already looking at her with a horrified expression.

He sputtered, "So you mean to tell me that I have to work outside of school...with her?"

She didn't have time to act offended, she was thinking the same thing.

"Yep," the older man said and then turned towards the black board.

Message received.

This discussion was over.

(line break)

Annabeth and Percy were both silent for the rest of the class, her taking notes and him tapping his pencils on the desk to no beat whatsoever.

When the bell rang Annabeth collected her things and watched as Percy sped passed her to the doors.

"Percy, wait!" She called, never thinking she'd ever said those words.

"Nope," he said and sped up and out the room.

Annabeth huffed and jogged through the door to catch up to him. It didn't take much, he had slown down once he made it to the hall so it wasn't hard for her to fall in line with his walking.

"So we need to talk about meeting places." She said slightly out of breath.

Percy seemed surprised to see her next to him and quickly glared at her like she was a smudge of dirt that just wouldn't come out.

"Here's a solution," he drawled, "Let's just not do it."

Annabeth scoffed, "Of course we're doing it, we'll fail if we don't."

He shrugged and Annabeth had to breath out of her nose to stop her from saying something mean.

"If you don't cooperate, I'm telling Sally." She said trying to bring out the big guns when she got an idea. "Hey! We can work on the project at the bookstore."

Percy didn't seem too thrilled with the idea. "Yeah...about that."

"What?" Annabeth asked tiredly.

"I'm gonna need you to quit."

She backpedaled, "What?"

"You. Need. To. Quit."

"What-," Percy cut her off.

"Is that all you say?"

She ignored him. "Why do I have to quit?"

"Because I'm going to start working more hours after the swim season is over."

"Okay. What does that have to do with me leaving the store?"

He looked at her like she was dumb, "Because I don't like you."

"Okay...I don't like you either. I'm not following where this is going."

"It means I don't want to work with you, Blondie. Man you really are stupid sometimes."

She threw up her hands, "Are you fucking kidding me? You act I like seeing your assholeish self everywhere I go. I like my job and you aren't gonna make me quit." She stopped in front of her next class, "And you will be at the bookstore whenever we need to study or I will personally deliver the message to Sally that you're slacking on your work and trying to kick me out. I'd like to see how she feels about that."

She smirked and turned into her class without another word.

Annabeth 2 Percy 0.

(line break)

"I swear Annie, you have the worst luck when it comes to Percy Jackson," Thalia chuckled, "Everything you do goes back to him."

"Not everything." Annabeth mumbled, not in the mood to be the center of Thalia's jokes today.

"Yes everything." Piper added laughing with Thalia. She seemed to be in a much better mood since lunch started.

"It doesn't matter how much time they spend together. It's not like they talk or anything so it doesn't mean anything."

Jason, who sat next to Thalia, added hotly.

"Jason they're working together. They have to talk at some point."

Piper defended.

"Whatever," he said and rose to dump his trash and grab his bag. "I'm gonna go."

He walked by Annabeth and she reached for his hand, pulling him back, "Jace...".

He shook his head and pecked her lips. "I'm fine, just hanging out with some of the guys."

She nodded and he kissed her once more before walking quickly away from the table.

"He's just jealous, Annie. You know how boys get. They're very territorial."

"I'm not a piece of meat, Thalia."

The small girl held her hands up defensively, "I never said that. It's just whatever is going on in Jace's mind right now, doesn't know that."

There you have it!
So I know that this chapter probably felt like a bunch of one shots, I promise you that they are there for a reason.
LOVE YOU GUYS! Please tell me how you felt about it.

QUESTION: What do you guys think of Mr. Brunner's psych project? (I personally would love to get to do something like that I think I would find it entertaining.)
REVIEW.

~TUTU