PERCY was confused.

The girl- Annabeth –wasn't supposed to be nice. Wasn't supposed to be kind or caring or even mildly compassionate towards him. And yet here she was, refusing to let him remain enslaved. Refusing to play according to Zeuopolis's rules.

Maybe it was the scars? Percy wouldn't know; he'd never yet met a single person who gave a damn about his scars. The again, he'd only ever known other scarred people. Other tortured souls.

Annabeth had nothing for Percy to change into after he showered for the first time in weeks, so he just pulled on his ratty clothes again. They seemed dirtier and nastier than ever, but there was nothing to be done about that. It wouldn't do Percy any good to become snobbish now. He had to stay just as humble as he'd be in the Slave Shack. Which would probably be quite hard considering this house was literally a mini mansion.

Drying his feet on his damp used towel, Percy poked his head out of the doorway and checked if Annabeth was still there. She wasn't; the hallway was spookily empty.

"Hey… Wise Girl?" Percy called, the new nickname still strange on his tongue.

There was no reply. She must be too far into the villa to hear him. Percy took a deep breath and stepped out into the corridor, glancing around him to observe the neatly papered walls. The wallpaper itself was grey, imprinted with recurring birds that Percy had only heard about when he was younger.

A loud thumping noise came from downstairs. Percy started, then mustered up his courage and made his way down the carpeted staircase and into a huge sitting room. The floor was shiny white tile, the walls hanging with expensive-looking paintings and a large window with view to a yard opposite the staircase. Percy was tempted to go outside and look around, but the thumping noise came from one floor lower down. He descended another floor and ended up in a basement of some sorts that seemed at least the size of some apartments (or so he thought. He'd never been to a proper apartment).

Down a darkened hallway the sound started up again. Percy crept along a few closed doors until he reached the end of the hallway, where the last door was cracked slightly ajar and let out light from within. Sucking in air, Percy gave the door a shove and leaned inside.

Annabeth sat behind a desk, scribbling furiously on a pile of lined sheet paper. She kicked her legs against her chair like a frustrated little kid and threw a nearby paperweight against a corkboard that was propped in the corner. Percy realized that the paperweight hitting the board was the source of the loud thumping noise he'd heard.

"Owls." He said, entering the room.

Annabeth jumped and spun around, a letter opener gripped threateningly in her hand. Percy took a step back as she sighed at him and threw the knife onto the table again, rubbing her forehead.

"Gods, Seaweed Brain." Annabeth groaned. "You nearly gave me a heart attack. And what about owls?"

"On your walls. Those are owls."

"Yeah, genius."

Percy shrugged. "I wasn't sure. Never seen one."

"Oh. Well. I saw a few for the first time when I was in Year Three. They took us to the Owl Sanctuary, about ten miles away. I've gone back there dozens of times since." Annabeth replied matter-of-factly.

Percy nodded, then took a few steps forwards towards her and stopped. Every move he made was calculated, an instinct developed during years of having to stay on his masters' good side. Annabeth raised an eyebrow and moved aside to let him see what she was doing. He peered over at the papers; every line was crammed with mathematical equations and sketches of pillars and supporting arches and whatnot that Percy assumed were common in this area.

"You wrote all this?" he asked her, eyes wide with shock.

"Yeah. Trying to figure something out, but my brain is mush. Most of this doesn't even make any sense."

Percy blinked and then snorted, running a finger over the page. "Damn, you really are a Wise Girl."

Annabeth whapped him playfully with her pencil, but Percy jolted back as though he'd been electrocuted. Frowning, Annabeth almost asked what was wrong; then she remembered the scars on Percy's back and realized he might not appreciate her hitting him any time soon.

"I'm sor-"

Percy shook his head, cutting her off, and smirked. "Instead of apologizing, you can do something for me."

"What, exactly?" Annabeth asked, crossing her arms.

"Take me outside."

Annabeth's yard was an enormous stretch of lawn with trees lining the sides and a vegetable garden on either end. Once you emerged from the house, a neat picket fence would pop into view about a hundred meters immediately to your right, behind a patch of lettuce and carrots; to your left, about sixty meters away, a small storage shed would be revealed (hidden behind a tree and a flowerbed with radishes and tulips). Percy gazed around him in wonder, soaking the sight in. It was one of the most beautiful things he'd seen in his life.

Annabeth scratched her head. "Well. To be honest, I was going to set you up a room down in the third floor, but seeing as you seem to like it here so much-"

She strode over the grass and around the tulip-and-radish-bed, fishing a brass key out of her jeans pocket and unlocking the shed door. It swung open with a loud creak and Annabeth beckoned Percy over, ducking inside.

The shed was musty and dark and smelled like a freshly-mown lawn. It wasn't a smell that Percy liked very much, but he instantly felt an urge to remain in the little cobwebbed place.

"I'll stay here?" he questioned, looking around at the dusty shelved piled with gardening equipment and the window thick with grime.

"If you want to."

Slowly, Percy turned back to Annabeth. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I do."

They hung around in the shed together until evening, cleaning the shelves and making the place more livable. Annabeth dragged a mattress out of the house and set it by the wall, completing the bed affect with a spare pillow and one of her old quilts. Percy brushed a whole load of spiderwebs and filth from the corners of the shack, sweeping it all into a heap beside one of the trees outside. By five o'clock the shed was neater and cleaner than before, though the windows were left dirty (to conceal Percy from any people wandering the garden). After the scrubbing they gave the indoor walls, Percy and Annabeth sat down beside eachother on the lawn and ate dinner. It was just leftovers from Annabeth's previous day's meal, but both agreed that the food was unexplainably delicious. The sun began to go down; Annabeth gathered the plates and whispered a few short words to Percy: he mustn't go out between sunset and midnight or sunrise and noon; he mustn't make any obvious changes to the garden; he mustn't go up into Annabeth's room or toilet before four PM on Tuesdays. Then she waved a quick goodbye and hurried back into the house.

Percy headed for the shed. Despite the fact that he was going into hiding again, he shut the wodden door with a smile on his face.