Bonjour peoples :)

I've just become insanely addicted to A Very Potter Musical, and I'm listening to one of the songs from on there right now. Random piece of information I'm sure no one gives a damn about, but anyway.

Oh and thank you very much to: pandadada, Me, and just a fan. Loved your reviews. :)

Happy reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Chapter 7: Graduation

*Annabeth POV*

"Can you believe it's over?" Alice yelled through the din.

"I know!" I shrieked back, smothered by the throng of people. "How'd two years go by so fast?"

"I have no clue!" the dark-haired girl replied, trying to peek above the crowd. "Where the heck is Tom? He was here just a minute ago and now he seems to have disapparated!"

As you can probably tell, Alice is a huge Harry Potter fan. She was constantly spouting stuff only a HP fan would know and I had been flummoxed as to what some of her expressions meant until she coerced me to try the series. Needless to say, I had completely related to Hermione Granger. She was my favourite character in the whole series.

"Annabeth! Stop drifting off into your dreamland!" Alice yelled. "We have to find Thomas and Percy."

"And burn this hideous robe, of course," she added as an afterthought.

I laughed, the ugly yellow polyester robe draped over my arm. I may not be Aphrodite, but I did have certain standards about what I was going to wear. This puke-worthy yellow did not make that standard.

"I'll go and try to find them," Alice told me. "They should be around here somewhere."

She plunged into the chattering crowd, treading on one of the yellow hats that were scattered all over the floor. My own hat was lost somewhere among dozens of the others, and although I knew where it had landed, I felt no urge to go retrieve the thing. My gaze travelled around the hall, taking in the scene around me. Students were hugging their parents, making promises to keep in touch, exchanging contact details. I still couldn't quite believe I was eighteen. A legal adult.

It felt like yesterday that I was trying not to strangle Percy for irritating me to Tartarus.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear, I thought wryly as I felt someone pick me up and swing me off the ground. Turning around, I saw to my surprise that it was Malcolm.

"What are you doing here?" I cried in delight. Out of all my siblings, I was closest to Malcolm. He was just two years older than me, (please see AN below) so we had always gotten along well together. Malcolm had taught me archery and trained me in basic karate so I had always looked up to him.

"I wasn't going to miss your graduation!" my brother replied, beaming. "He was freaking out that we wouldn't reach here in time," a familiar voice broke in. I turned to see Isabelle, my brother's steady girlfriend of three years.

"Izzy!" I exclaimed, stepping forward to hug her. "What're you doing here?"

"Same reason as Malcolm of course!" Izzy laughed. "Wouldn't miss your graduation for the world!"

"This brings back fond memories," Malcolm reminisced, looking around the hall. "It feels like I'm back at my own graduation with Izzy."

I hadn't been able to attend Malcolm's graduation as that was when we had discovered the existence of the Labyrinth, and Clarisse and I had been working on how to use it to our advantage. Malcolm had pressed me to stay at camp, insisting that I was needed there more.

"Your clothes are all crumpled," Izzy commented, looking me up and down. "Here." She snapped her fingers and instantly my dress became perfectly pressed and neat.

Did I forget to mention that Isabelle is a daughter of Aphrodite?

"Thanks," I told her, just as Alice returned with Thomas and Percy. "I found them!" the little pixie yelled happily. "They were at-"

She broke off when she saw Malcolm and Isabelle. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm being very rude."

"Alice, Thomas, this is my brother Malcolm, and his girlfriend Isabelle."

"It's nice to meet you," Alice said courteously, shaking hands with Isabelle and Malcolm before stepping aside to let Thomas greet my brother. "You never told me you had a brother," she murmured in my ear.

"My mother is a Greek goddess," I murmured back. "I have a lot of siblings, remember?"

"Oh, right."

It had been less than a month since Percy and I told Alice and Tom the truth about ourselves. They had taken the shock pretty well, and we were now closer than ever. I felt sad at the thought of saying goodbye to Alice. She was going to the California College of Arts in LA (this college actually exists, but it is in San Francisco, not LA) along with Thomas, who was attending the University of Southern California.

I would really miss them, but I knew we would stay in touch. "Shall we go celebrate then?" Alice asked cheerfully. "Wait, we still haven't met your parents Percy," I remembered. "We need to go see Paul and Sally first."

"Why don't we go now?" Percy offered. "Then we can all head out of here and ditch this place. The heat's killing me."

"You're not the only one," Malcolm groaned, and we all burst into laughter.

"Best graduation party ever," Isabelle laughed as we settled ourselves onto the sofa or the carpeted floor. The pizza had arrived just a couple of minutes ago, and we were trying to decide which movie to watch.

"Harry Potter!" Alice exclaimed immediately.

Percy groaned. "Alice, no. I'm not in the mood to watch people wave around wooden sticks."

"Hey!" Alice and I complained together. "Just because you don't appreciate the awesomeness of Hogwarts, Jackson, doesn't mean it's crappy," Alice frowned, a pout on her face.

"I'm sorry Ali," Percy apologized, smiling at her. "It was very wrong of me."

Before Alice could reply, Isabelle cut in. "What about Titanic?"

"Too mushy," the guys chorused together.

"Inception?"

"Complicated as hell."

"You pick then," Isabelle protested.

Percy and Thomas exchanged evil grins before Percy rummaged through his drawer, found a DVD, and put it in. "What did you pick?" I asked, trying to see past him at the DVD cover.

"You'll see," he replied, grinning.

Something told me I wouldn't like this, and I was right.

*Percy POV*

"You could at least have picked a good zombie movie," Annabeth protested. "This one is complete garbage."

"It's perfectly fine," I defended.

"Fine, my foot," she muttered but leaned her head on my shoulder and continued to watch.

"I see why you picked this movie," Alice commented, eyebrows raised as the screen opened up to a shot of the main character naked in the shower. "Of course she's naked, why wouldn't she be?" Annabeth muttered.

"The nudity is essential to the plot," I replied seriously.

She laughed as we continued to watch. "Of course she would put on a dress to go fight. Why not?"

"Short skirts give you flexibility to fight," I argued in mock seriousness.

"We should let camp know," Annabeth said sarcastically. "The new and improved outfit for fighting monsters! Mini-dresses and black leather boots! Fight in fashion!"

Alice started giggling. "Fight in fashion!" she repeated before falling off the couch and positively howling in laughter. Her laughter was contagious and soon we were all falling over the place, laughing.

Eventually, we managed to calm down enough to finish the movie. Malcolm and Isabelle left first, followed shortly after by Thomas and Alice who both had curfews to keep. Annabeth's family was in Australia visiting her stepmother's parents, but Annabeth had decided to stay behind for graduation. My mom had immediately offered to have her stay with us. Mom and Annabeth got along too well for my liking. The first thing I did before Annabeth came was hide all the photo albums and photos of me as a baby. That still didn't stop my mom from telling her every baby story about me that she could remember.

If I heard any more stories about how cute I looked in the bathtub when I was three, I was going to jump into Tartarus. (Percy says nearly the same thing in the Titan's Curse.)

I headed to my room to see if my Mom had texted me when she would be coming home, but found out that my battery was very low. Just as I found the charger, the screen went black. Plugging it in, I set the phone down.

"When will Paul and Sally be back?" I heard Annabeth's voice behind me. "I'm not really sure-" I began but then I made the fatal mistake of turning around.

Annabeth hadn't moved all her stuff to my mom's apartment yet, so Mom had been lending her clothes to wear. They were nearly the same height so it was normally a pretty good fit. But Annabeth was wearing something that I had never seen on her before. I didn't even know my mom owned something like that, and I definitely didn't want to know what she was using it for.

"Is something wrong?" Annabeth asked, frowning. "You have a really odd look on your face, Percy."

"No, nothing's wrong," I replied as calmly as I could. "Are you going to sleep?"

"Yes," she replied, stretching and arching her back. The black nightgown rode up on her legs, and it now only came to mid-thigh. The dark colour contrasted sharply against her creamy skin. Against my own will, my eyes flicked up to her face, and the soft rose of her lips drew me in before I could stop myself.

I moved forward and kissed her.

*Annabeth POV*

I didn't even know what it was I said. Percy was completely fine the whole evening, and all of a sudden he was kissing me like his life depended on it.

My body responded before my mind could, and I tilted my face up to his. His arms locked around my waist, pulling me against his chest. My own hands wrapped around his shoulder, bringing my face closer to his. I felt my back against the wall, and wrapped my own legs around his waist, forgetting that the black silk nightgown only came till my knees.

There was something in this kiss that hadn't been there in any of the others, a sort of wanting. Percy was a perfect gentleman, never pushing me for anything, or trying to coerce me into something I wasn't ready for. His kisses were normally sweet and chaste, but this one was full of desire and love.

That was when I realized that my back was no longer against the wall. In fact, it was against something soft…like a bed. My brain finally cottoned on to what was happening. Oh, I thought blankly, but surprisingly I didn't want to stop Percy. He was holding himself above me using his arms, and my own hands were curled into his hair, our faces close together. I saw the heat in his sea-green eyes, and I wasn't going to tell him no this time.

That was when I realized that his shirt was off, although I had no idea when that had happened. My fingers moved lightly over the muscles in his back, hearing his slight intake of breath. "Annabeth," he whispered, and then his lips touched mine again.

His lips were soft and salty, caressing mine with a fierce passion. My hands ran through his silky dark hair, feeling the smoothness beneath my fingertips. All rational thought had shut down long ago, leaving me to savour the moment and the feelings coursing through me. I felt him slip the outer covering of the gown off my shoulders and fling it away. He pulled away for a minute, gasping, and I felt my breath come in pants to match his.

Suddenly he looked into my eyes, and I saw the heat leave his eyes, sense return to him. He looked at me for a minute, and then rolled off me. "I'll go to the spare room. You stay here," he said quietly, voice low and husky.

"No, it's your bed. You should stay-"

"Annabeth," he started furiously. "Just do like you're told for once in your life. Please."

He turned to walk out of the door, but I moved and blocked it with my own body. "What're you going to do?" I demanded. "Just pretend like this didn't happen?"

"I'm sorry," Percy started, looking away from me. "I shouldn't have pushed you like that. I don't know what happened-"

"Have you ever seen me do something I didn't want?" I retorted. "You didn't push me into anything. In fact, I was the one who continued the kiss. Stop thinking everything is your fault, can you?"

"It is mine!" Percy burst, eyes blazing angrily. "I started it! I should've been more responsible, and not act like some-"

"Will you listen to yourself?" I demanded. "I started it, I should've been more responsible, blah blah blah. Haven't you ever heard that it takes two to tango?"

"But-"

I didn't want to hear anymore. I rose up on tiptoes, and pressed a kiss to his lips. "I don't want to fight now," I pleaded, suddenly feeling tired. "Not again."

"Okay," he murmured, voice more gentle. "But you should go to sleep. Don't you have plans with Alice and Jasmine?" He was right, although I didn't want to admit it. "Okay. I'll go."

I turned to leave, but his hand gripped my wrist. "Annabeth?"

I turned, cursing the eagerness in my own voice as I replied. "Yes?"

"Goodnight," he whispered, leaning down and giving me a chaste kiss. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Goodnight," I repeated, smiling slightly as I left the room. My arms wrapped around myself as I walked to the guest room where I usually stayed. The smile left my face as I realized the outer covering of my gown was still in Percy's room.

He had become more protective than usual during the past three weeks, ever since the night of the prom when Kelli had attacked me. I didn't know what exactly had made him act the way he did tonight, but I almost wished he hadn't stopped. I knew it was a stupid thing to be wishing. I wasn't married, and I had only just become eighteen. I hadn't even been to college yet, so it definitely wasn't time for sex.

Percy and I had never talked about the future, never lived in anything but the now. But as I lay down on the soft bed in the guest room, watching the dancing shadows on my ceiling, I knew with certainty that somehow everything would be alright.

I just made this story deserving of its T rating. I have never written anything even as lemonish as this was. And considering my age, I don't think I'm ready to write any lemons yet, and I definitely will never write any real ones for Percy and Annabeth. I just find it weird.

Anyway, you can see that this is 100% different from the original one, but I'm quite happy about the way it turned out. I will not be updating any new chapters till I fix all the old ones, because I have just got a plot idea, and I am going to implement that.

Also because I still don't like my writing, and I think it is much better now after being changed. And also: Malcolm.

I know in Last Olympian Malcolm fought alongside Annabeth at the Battle of Manhattan, but let's just pretend that he is actually two years older, okay? Just for this story. Thanks!

And please review, it would be awesome if we managed to reach three hundred and fifty within Chapter 25. Till next time!