It was pretty smart of me to re-read the series only AFTER I'd gotten, like, every friggin fact in this story wrong. Hm. Well, whatever. You can just pretend I described Athena with dark hair last chapter. :D

I am deeply afraid I'm losing my touch… I can pretty much guarantee they're going to be at least a little OOC. My apologies, but as soon as I get back onto my feet things will be better.

oOo

For the first time in a long while, I had no dreams. No crazy prophetic demigod dreams, not even normal ones. Nothing. Everything was quiet and peaceful to the very second I woke up in the morning.

I awoke up to silence, except for Annabeth's hushed breathing as she slept, and she was asleep. For once I was up before her.

Well, it was our last full day together there. Friday we'd have to pack up and leave for the several-hour drive to her and then back to mine. Though there wasn't exactly anything particularly remarkable to do on our last day. I should at least make an attempt to make it special.

As gently as I could, I rolled out of bed and stood up. Thank goodness, Annabeth's was still asleep. Her blond hair was spread like a fan across the pillows, a hand under her cheek, her body curled around the stuffed panda I'd won her at the boardwalk festival. Contrary to popular belief, not all women took up the entire bed and hogged the blankets when they slept. Annabeth rarely ever moved at all.

Thoughts full of pleasant things, I drifted quietly from the bedroom into the kitchen. Maybe I could make eggs and bacon for us. That couldn't be too hard, right?

I tossed a handful of bacon into one pan and cracked a few eggs over another. Yeah, I had this down. Shift the bacon occasionally, scramble the eggs into oblivion. Wasn't that hard.

As I was reaching for some salt on the counter, I for a funny prickling feeling on the back of my neck, so I turned to look behind me.

Of course it was Annabeth. She was leaning against the way next to the door and watching me through waking-up eyes.

"…I didn't know you could cook."

I laughed and put a few pieces of hot bacon on a plate. "Yeah, well, neither did I. You've seen me do weirder things, though."

Annabeth visibly suppressed a snicker and detached herself from the wall to stand next to me. "Any particular reason you're up before me making bacon and eggs in Mickey Mouse boxers?"

I glanced down at my shorts and chose to ignore that part. "I don't see why I shouldn't. Tomorrow we have to go back to civilization." I put the rest of the bacon on the plate. "No more spending hours on the beach without worrying about anyone else."

"I admit, I'll miss that a lot…"

There was silence after that. I finished up breakfast and laid it out for us on the table. Still silent, we sat around a corner of the table next to each other. Neither of us touched the food, full of dismay.

"…It's going to be hard being so far away…especially after such an awesome summer," Annabeth said finally, glancing up at me through her eyelashes with a sort of sad expression. "We'll still see each other, right?"

"Of course," I said automatically. "Weekends."

"You'd spend two hours driving up to where I live just to spend the day with me?" For a moment she looked incredibly touched, but then her expression darkened. "Oh gods, I just remembered… I'm taking collage classes on the weekends. Every other weekend. You know—"

"We'll make it work," I promised, and to show I meant it (and to turn her upsetting little frown upside-down) I flicked the side of her head and grinned. "You can't get rid of me that easily."

After that, the subject was obviously dropped.

"Thank you for making breakfast," Annabeth said, filling her plate up. "You really didn't have to do this."

"Just wanted to make the best of our last day, that's all. Though, I don't know if the weather will let us go swimming again… Worth a shot, though."

Outside the kitchen window, clouds were slowly making their way across the dim morning sky. It wasn't too menacing-looking, but not the warm, nice conditions we had yesterday. The weather that week had been awful bipolar…

The rest of breakfast was mostly quiet, with the occasional laughter and kicking of shins under the table. When we were finished, we washed the dishes together and Annabeth announced that she was going to go change into a swimsuit.

Not thirty seconds after she closed the bathroom door and I was just about to change into my own swim trunks, a muffled shriek came from the bathroom. I dropped everything, sprinted down the hall and threw open the bathroom door, Riptide drawn, ready to slay an army of monsters.

What I saw there was not close to that at all.

Annabeth was flattened against the opposite wall, white with fright, a shaking finger pointing towards the sink. "S-S-Sp-Spi—!"

My shoulders slumped as I lowered my sword, frantically racing heart draining of adrenaline. My eyes followed to where she was pointing, and in the sink I saw a fuzzy little brown spider trying to climb up the slippery porcelain walls, but it kept sliding back down to the bottom.

"For the love of Zeus, Annabeth, you nearly gave me a heart attack," I said, capping Riptide and bending near the sink.

Annabeth obviously didn't hear me, or didn't care. She was still plastered to the wall, trembling with fear, and when I picked up the spider to show her its harmlessness, she screamed again.

"Okay, okay…" To get rid of it, I opened the window and shook the spider out.

Even after it was gone, Annabeth remained frozen. Her breaths came out in quick, terrified pants, and her eyes darted around the room as if more spiders were going to come out of the walls and eat her.

"Annabeth, get off the toilet. There are no more spiders."

She took a deep breath, locked her eyes on me, and decided that I was telling the truth.

"Come on." I offered my hand up to her and helped her off the closed toilet seat where she'd been cowering. Through the hand of hers that I was holding, I could feel her heartbeat racing a million miles an hour.

"…Thank you, Percy," Annabeth said at last, getting a little pink in the cheeks. "Spiders just really…freak me out."

It was hard not smiling. She was one of the bravest, strongest, smartest demigods I knew, yet all it took to break her was a little spider. It was obviously not her favorite attribute, judging by her humiliated expression.

I just rolled my eyes with amusement at her and left to let her continue changing.

Outside, it was uncomfortable. The air wasn't necessarily cold, but there was a breeze that gave me goosebumps.

"IT's not that cold," Annabeth said, but it sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than me.

Clouds were more abundant in the sky, turning from a sort of flat slate to a darker grey. Part of me was saying that I was crazy, but it was worth a try.

"Race you to the dock," I offered, as tradition.

Annabeth grinned and tossed her jacket on the sand. "As always."

We took off, sprinting across the chilly sand towards the dock. I got there a second after Annabeth and catapulted myself into the ocean.

Being the son of Poseidon, water didn't bother me. Pressure, light, temperature. It just didn't affect me like everyone else. Even though that was true, I could still feel the iciness of the Atlantic seeping through my clothing.

I surfaced the water and gasped, not because of the lack of oxygen but because the cold surprised me. Annabeth was not so fortunate. She came up coughing and gasping and had to grab onto the dock while the shock passed.

"Oh, gods, it's cold," she panted, and then laughed through a shiver. "That's not fair; it was so warm yesterday."

I swam up and held onto the dock next to her. "Maybe we should have stayed inside and done crossword puzzles," I suggested jokingly.

"No, no. Just have to get used to it." Annabeth shook water out of her eyes and grinned at me before swimming away, leaving me rolling my eyes after her.

We swam around for about an hour. The last bit of the blue sky vanished behind a cloud around ten and the rain started just fifteen minute after that.

"Okay, time out." I called to Annabeth, pulling myself up on the dock. "I don't want you to get hypothermia."

She crawled up onto the wood next to me and snorted. "Of course you wouldn't be in risk of that, oh no."

I was about to laugh when a particularly freezing gust of wind spurted from the north and interrupted our laughter with violent shivers. Under the water it may have been tolerable, but not out in the open with sheets of rain pummeling us with no mercy.

I grabbed Annabeth's hand and we sort of shuffled back in the direction of the house, backs hunched against the small storm that had erupted out of the blue. Annabeth shivered next to me, fingers numb in mine. It would seriously suck for her to get deathly sick at my hand.

On our way up the beach, I picked up her jacket from the sand, but it was drenched.

We ran the rest of the way, and burst inside, laughing and shivering and wringing water out of our hair. Without waiting, I dragged Annabeth into the guest bedroom where I gave her a fluffy towel to dry off with.

"Thanks, Percy," she said, teeth clattering together.

The wind was picking up outside, sending curtains of rain washing against the bedroom window. It hammered viciously on the cabin, but thankfully it remained upright and did not give way under the merciless rainstorm.

As always, I found myself distractedly staring at Annabeth as she rubbed herself down with a towel right there in the middle of my room. Her hair was disheveled and darker from the water, framing a frighteningly pale face. Her lips looked…purple.

Annabeth looked up, caught me staring, and let out a noise that sounded like half-laughter, half-shivering. "I guess it was pretty stupid of me to bring only one jacket here, huh?" she said, wrapping the used towel around her trembling self.

Not thinking twice, I went over to my open suitcase and grabbed a thick grey hoodie and a pair of my pajama bottoms. Surely she had dry pants of her own, but nevertheless, I handed the clothes to her.

The look on Annabeth's face was curious, and then moved. She accepted the garments with a smile—the kind that made me forget my own name—but before putting them on, she reached up and gave me a kiss.

It dawned on me that I should perhaps leave to change, but the thought came a millisecond too late. She tugged on the hoodie over her damp swimsuit and sighed with comfort.

It was endearingly huge on her. The sweatshirt was a little big on me to begin with, but on her the sleeves hung past her fingers, and the bottom went halfway down her thighs.

The pajama bottoms that I'd given her? They weren't pajama bottoms. The second I realized I'd given Annabeth a pair of my plaid boxers, it was too late.

"Oh, sorry," I said quickly, reaching to grab them, but Annabeth clutched them away from me.

"No, no. I want to wear these," she said, and pulled them on.

It was a little embarrassing seeing my boxers on her (hey, they were clean!).

Annabeth simply laughed when she saw my red face. "Thank you, Percy." She held the sleeve up to her face and laughed again. "It smells like you."

Okay, that was a little weird.

I ignored that last comment and waved it off. "You wear them better. You can have them."

"I wasn't planning on giving them back. Hey, aren't you cold?"

For some reason, I had this vision of her letting me wear her clothes, but I doubted I'd look as good in her purple pajamas as she looked in my hoodie.

I nodded honestly, trying not to smile. "Give me a minute and I'll be out, okay?"

"Take your time."

In the bathroom, I put on some warmer clothing, and when I was done, went back out.

Annabeth was in the kitchen, seated at the table with her hands wrapped around a cup of what I guessed was hot chocolate. My mom sat opposite her, and they were laughing.

When I came in, Mom looked up. "There's hot chocolate on the counter for you, dear. What were you thinking going swimming in weather like this? I saw you two splashing around in the ocean in the middle of a storm. You could've caught hypothermia!"

Annabeth grinned.

"We're fine, Mom," I reassured my mother, taking my hot chocolate and sitting next to Annabeth. "I don't make a habit of giving my friends hypothermia."

"Friends who wear your underwear?"

"Mom!"

"Sorry, honey, just an observation." Mom stood and set her mug on the counter. "Let me know when you two are hungry for lunch, okay? I'm going to be in the bath."

When she was gone, I hid my face in my fingers. "…Why does she always have to do that?"

Annabeth, who hadn't said anything since I got into the kitchen, smirked into her hot coco. "She has a point, Perce. And why did you call me your friend instead of girlfriend, just out of curiosity?"

"It…it feels weird, since you are wearing my boxers, and you do sleep in my bed often. Calling you my girlfriend just then would have made my mom think I'm…up to something."

"Heaven forbid Percy Jackson is up to something." Annabeth laughed and drained the last bit of coco. "You really are something else, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Hey," she leaned forwards on her elbows towards me, letting a sweet little smile onto her lips. "We should build a fort."

"A fort?" I was genuinely confused.

"Yes, a fort. You know, a few walls, a ceiling, a space where you crawl in, with chairs and blankets."

"…A fort."

"Yes, Kelp Face. What part about a fort don't you understand?"

"…The part where I haven't made a fort since I was nine years old."

"Don't worry; I'll help you."

She was serious.

"Well, you're the architect. Building a fort it is," I said finally, and to that, Annabeth grinned widely again.

"Great. Now, we're going to need every blanket we can get."

It took a few minutes, but pretty soon we had a pile of blankets and quilts heaped on the couch, and Annabeth was dragging chairs from the kitchen into the tiny living room.

Once, my mom came in to check on us in the middle of building, and she watched us for a minute with an amused expression on. Annabeth and I didn't pay any attention to her and kept draping blankets and rearranging chairs.

By noon it was finished; a work of art stood before our eyes. We'd brought to use all five kitchen chairs, the couch, the armchair, two brooms, the doorknob of the front door, and six huge blankets. There was an entrance at the front of the couch just big enough for me o crawl in. When it was finished, Annabeth and I stood in front of it, admiring our workmanship.

"See?" Annabeth said proudly. "Building a fort isn't that hard."

"I never said it was hard…"

To be honest, I was pretty impressed. I was alright at stuff like sword fighting and pegasus riding and climbing rock walls pouring lava. That was all part of my amazing demigod life. Doing all that stuff, I'd never in a million years think that then I'd be having a normal vacation with Annabeth, doing just about the most normal thing possible: building a fort.

Part of my body was on high-alert, like things couldn't stay that normal without something terrible happening, but hey. I was going to enjoy it as much as I could.

From nowhere, my mom appeared behind us with a disposable camera. "Turn around, you two! Let me get a picture."

It was past the point of being exasperated at her for being such a mother. I did what she asked and turned with a roll of my eyes. Annabeth was less reluctant and pulled me down to give me a painful noogie right as the camera clicked.

After the picture, the three of us took a second to look at the fort. It wasn't beautiful, but there was a strange sense of pride that came with it completion. I knew that Annabeth was feeling that, too, when I looked over at her.

She smiled widely, eyes sparkling, and it was hard imagining her as she was during the first few years I knew her: stiff, cocky (okay, she was still a little cocky), and she sneered and scowled a lot more. Seeing her drowning in my clothes, grinning at me through messy blond hair, standing in front of this fort—

"Don't' give me that look," Annabeth mumbled, bumping her shoulder into mine and nodding in my mom's direction.

What? What look? I opened my mouth to ask but Mom interrupted my train of thought.

"Before you two get lost in your own little world, do you want lunch?" she asked, already heading off to the kitchen.

"Sure. Thanks, Mom."

"Thanks Ms. J— Sally."

We both followed my mom into the kitchen.

Apparently, the fort-making wasn't the only reminder of my little-kid life. For lunch, Mom made us a big platter of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches cut into triangles, and fixed a big pitcher of lemonade. We sat cross-legged on the counters (much to my mom's disapproval, but hey, there weren't any chairs!) and messed around, laughing the whole time.

When we finished eating, she hopped off the counter and dragged me with her. We snuck out of the kitchen and into our new fort, which took up most of the living room. Let's hope no one needed to use the front door any time soon…

Annabeth entered the fort first and I crawled in after.

It was pitch-black, except for a strip of light near the end and a faint glowing coming from the kitchen. I had to feel my way blindly across the floor to the front of the couch where Annabeth was sitting.

I accidentally put my hand on something soft and a little squishy, but it moved.

"That's my leg, idiot," Annabeth's voice said off to my left.

"Oh. Sorry."

I sat and there was silence for a moment.

I cleared my throat. "Well, this is a little—"

"Do not say 'anticlimactic.'"

"I wasn't. I don't even know what that word means."

"…You never fail to impress me, Percy. It's a word you use to describe disappointment where you'd thought something would be exciting.

"Oh."

For a while we just joked around in the fort, shoving each other and laughing and talking about camp and the vacation and how we weren't looking forward to mortal school. After an especially long pause from the conversation, there was a more serious change to the atmosphere.

Annabeth shifted next to me and I could just barely see the silhouette of her face from the glow. "…I've really needed this break from life, Percy. Thank you—again—for inviting me. Really." She found my hand and laced our fingers together.

You know… There in the dark, it felt easier to be brave, if you know what I mean. Things that I'd been wanting to talk about and say to her came to the tip of my tongue, and for some reason I wasn't afraid to say to them.

"Annabeth, I don't…I don't know what to do after camp. We still have two summers left, but…after that?"

"I know…" She sounded weary. "I…I want to go to college after finishing up mortal school and camp. There's an excellent engineering and architecture school in Georgia."

"Georgia?"

I could literally feel my heart dripping into a pool of despair in my gut. How could she—? I wouldn't ever see her again… Maybe if I moved, too, just to be with her. That was a huge commitment, though, and if I proposed that idea, I might as well propose another…

If it was possible, my organs sank even lower.

That was the first time that certain word had came to mind when thinking about Annabeth.

Marriage.

Goosebumps appeared on my arms, but it was not because I was cold.

Annabeth squeezed my hand. "I know that's a long ways away, but…Perce?"

I forced myself to start breathing again. "I'm okay. That's okay. You don't…you don't need my permission. I'll figure something out."

In the dark, I felt one of Annabeth's hands come up and cup my face, bringing it a little towards hers.

"Come with me," she whispered.

That was more or less what I was planning on, but I didn't tell her that.

I cleared my throat nervously and tried to ignore how close her body was to mine. "Do you actually mean it?"

"Of course I mean it! We'll rent an apartment near campus together or something."

Rent an apartment together?

Now it was really was hard to breathe.

"Easy, Seaweed Brain. We still have a good couple years to go. There's not rush." Annabeth moved to take her hand away from my cheek, but I reached up and took hold of it.

I wished we could have stayed like that forever. Both our hands in one another's in the shadows of the fort, it felt like there was no one else in the world, no one listening or judging or anything. We were sitting angled towards each other, leaning against the foot of the couch. I couldn't resist taking my hands away from hers and putting my arms around her instead.

Annabeth let me fold her into my lap, her head on my shoulder.

"…I don't understand you sometimes, Percy," she whispered, settling against me, "but I'd rather not understand you and love you than be able to read you like a book and be uninterested."

What could I say back to that? Words just kept getting caught in my throat.

"Annabeth…" I started, but was rudely cut off by a blast of music. Not good music, either; the old kind my mom liked.

"Sorry if it's too loud!" Mom called over the guitar solo from the kitchen. "Just let me know if you want me to turn it down!"

Even over the music, my sigh was audible.

Annabeth didn't pay any attention to the music and just tilted her head back to look up at me. "What were you going to say?"

"Nothing," I said automatically. That was probably better. It seemed to be having trouble filtering what went through my head lately. Not everything I began to say should be said; I just got lucky every time something cut off my train of thought.

"Percy."

"Nothing!"

"Please tell me?"

Something different than what I was going to say popped into my head, but it seemed less harmful, so I shrugged.

"I was just going to say that…I love you, too?"

Said aloud, it seemed stupider than in my head. Good thing she couldn't see my blush.

To my surprise, Annabeth snorted. "Liar."

"What? I do!"

"I know that, but that wasn't what you were going to say."

"…It doesn't matter."

"I know you, Percy," She detangled herself from my arms to face me indignantly. "You only refuse to tell me anything nowadays if it's important."

"Or if it's really embarrassing," I pointed out."

"You know there's nothing to be embarrassed about around me," she said, her tone hovering on the verge of exasperation. "I'll never try to force answers out of you, but sometimes it just drives me insane."

A snappy retort came to mind but I shoved it down and only answered with an honest, "I don't mean to drive you insane. Most of the time."

"Well, you manage."

A long silence followed. Annabeth remained huffy, not so much as touching me. I honestly didn't mean to drive her insane (most of the time, like I said), it's just that I realize a second too late that perhaps what I was going to say shouldn't be said.

The song from the kitchen changed and I heard my mom humming along to some weird, instrumental Styx, and the smell of chocolate chip cookies wafted into our fort.

Maybe I should tell her after all. It drove me insane when she gave me the short-term silent treatment as she liked to every now and again. Unfortunately, the moment was seriously lacking in courage, so I had to take several minutes to build it up.

"…Have…Have you ever thought about marriage, Annabeth?"

Annabeth audibly caught her breath.

Mom's music played on.

Then finally, in a tiny voice that I could barely hear, she said, "Oh. That's why you didn't tell me…"

"Sorry," I mumbled, drawing my knees up to my chest and feeling my face burn. "Just some food for thought."

A few awkward seconds passed and my mom's feet came into view at the fort entryway and over the music, she said, "There are some chocolate chip cookies on the counter if you two want." She left again, still humming.

Neither of us moved.

Then, suddenly, laughter broke the uncomfortable silence as Annabeth cracked up.

"That isn't what I thought you were going to say at all," she sniggered. "And to be honest, I have, it's just not my place to bring it up, you know?"

I was stunned with relief and disbelief.

"That was what you were going to ask me, wasn't it?"

I glanced up, even though the only thing I could see was a faint silhouette. "Yeah, it…it was. Told you I shouldn't have said it…"

"Don't act like it's a terrible thing. I'm glad you told me." Annabeth scooted a little closer until our shoulders touched. "I'm really glad you did. Have you thought about it a lot? Marriage?"

"Not too much," I admitted truthfully. "It's been at the back of my mind, but sometimes I can't help but think about it. Like just then when you said you wanted to…to go to Georgia. I couldn't stand it being so far away from you."

"You actually believed I'd leave you like that? You must be crazier than I thought."

The space between us buzzed with unrest. Though it was pitch black and I couldn't see anything from where I was sitting, I reached out my hand to touch Annabeth's cheek.

I missed and ended up running the tips of my fingers through her hair, which was okay, too.

"Percy…"

I opened my mouth to say something but had no chance, because Annabeth put her arms around me and pressed her lips against mine.

It was the kind that made my brain melt through my ears and turned my innards to jelly.

It was too dark to see, too loud to hear, and under the blackness of the fort it felt like we weren't really there. No one was missing us, no one needed us except for each other. It was fine to stay like that as long as we wanted, and I wanted.

Annabeth's hands gripped the material of my shirt. I could feel her eyelashes flutter against mine as she closed her eyes and leaned in.

Stay conscious, Percy, don't lose yourself— But I wanted to lose myself…

Come on, man. Your mom is in the kitchen. At any second she could catch you.

Who cares? said the little voice at the back of my head and the rest of me agreed. The music was loud enough to hide anything.

My fingers wrapped around the tops of her arms and pulled her against me. With a little, bubbly laugh, Annabeth went along with it and I felt her nails dig into the small of my back—

—right where my Achilles spot was.

It felt like bolts of electricity shot through my veins. From the small of my back, pain shot straight to my fingertips and I jerked away from Annabeth. My arms flew out to catch myself as my body involuntarily wrenched backwards.

My elbow hit the leg of a chair and it toppled over, followed by a second chair. Within seconds, our fort had collapsed all around us, trapping me and Annabeth in a swathe of blankets.

The aftermath of the shock left my heart beating painfully in my throat and wrists. It was only until it slowed down a little bit, I realized that the music in the kitchen had been turned down (almost silent) and Annabeth had landed on top of me, laughing and apologizing.

"Oh my!" said the voice of my mom from the general direction of the kitchen doorway. "Are you two okay?"

She came over and began peeling away several layers of blankets. Annabeth scrambled off of me just in time for us to burst out into the illumination of the living room. Her cheeks were bright pink and her hair quite disheveled. She held one of her hands over her mouth as she snorted.

When I sat up, disoriented from the jolt, she put her hand on my forehead.

"Are you okay, Perce?" Annabeth asked. "I really am sorry."

"Percy?" my mom inquired worriedly, wringing her hands a little and kneeling down next to us. "What happened, honey? You look sick. Do you need to lie down? Your eyes are all dilated. What happened, Annabeth?"

Thankfully, Annabeth was a good storyteller.

She shook her head and tutted, still smiling. "He was just telling me something funny that happened at camp, and I-I pushed him." Her eyes sparkled knowingly at me. "A little too hard, because his arm slipped out from under him and his head hit a chair. It fell over and made our fort cave in."

Excellent story, I wanted to tell her, but it came out in a laugh.

"I'm fine," I told both of them.

Mom didn't look quite convinced. "You sure, honey? I can get you some aspirin if you want."

"I'm fine," I told her again, and stood up, despite the wave of vertigo that buckled my knees.

Annabeth stood with me, keeping hold of my arm.

"Would a cookie help?"

I rolled my eyes, but let my mom and Annabeth lead me into the kitchen. Much to my reluctance, they stuffed me full of chocolate-chip cookies and gave me some lemonade, and soon I felt as good as new, despite my entire back tingling as if it had fallen asleep.

"I'm thinking you need to stop rough-housing," my mom said while dragging chairs back into the kitchen. "You've had enough adventure for today. Nearly giving yourself hypothermia, and then a concussion."

"Accidents," I pointed out.

"Details." Mom waved that off and changed the subject. "At any rate, are either of you hungry? It's a little early for dinner…"

Neither of us were.

"If you're going to your room," my mom said before we left, "I want that mess in the living room cleaned up first."

I nodded my head grudgingly, so Annabeth and I shuffled back into the living room to tidy up.

As we were folding a blanket, Annabeth shook her head at me, smiling. "I really am sorry, Percy. I didn't mean to, ah…push you."

I snorted, which turned quickly to laughter. "Don't apologize. I deserved it."

She started laughing, too, because we both knew that she hadn't pushed me. "Damn right, you deserved it."

Annabeth rarely cursed, so that just made her comment even more hilarious. Both of our faces were red, but it was too funny to resist. Her eyes shone mischievously.

We put blankets back in the tiny linen closet, and the covers that belonged on the bed in the guest bedroom were neatly made. All of the chairs and brooms were put back, and the furniture was returned to their original positions. When all of that was done, we took another cookie each and decided to spend the rest of the day in the guest bedroom.

I lingered in the kitchen only a second longer to grab the radio (with the idea to sneak it off into the guest bedroom and play something half-tolerable), but Mom caught me before I could follow Annabeth to the room.

"Percy, hon," she started.

I recognized that tone she only used when she was about to tell me something important, something that I may not necessarily want to hear.

"Oh, don't look so afraid of me. This is important." Mom began fidgeting with her wedding ring with her thumb, the way she did when something was really weighing on her mind. "I can…I can tell that you and Annabeth are more serious than you were b—"

"Really, Mom?" I couldn't help but roll my eyes at her. "This again?"

"I'm not going to yell at you, Percy." She shook her head. "I just want you to be careful, that's all. Know what you're getting into. Remember what I told you when you came home from camp?"

"Yes," I said impatiently.

"Just remember that, dear. And also remember I'm in the room next to you."

"Mom, we're not going to do anything like that. Seriously."

"I sure hope not." My mom patted my cheek and smiled lovingly at me. "Now go. I'm done lecturing you. Let me know when you guys get hungry, okay?"

I was happy to escape the kitchen and close the bedroom door behind me.

Annabeth was waiting cross-legged on the bed, resting her chin on her hand. "Your mom?" she guessed.

"Yup."

"Telling you to be a good boy?"

"Pretty much."

I shook my head and walked over to the dresser to set the radio down. Styx was still playing, so I took the CD out and put on some better music. After turning back around, I found Annabeth looking at me with a slight pucker to her brows. Wordlessly, she held out her arms for me in the adorable way she'd only ever done that week. How much she'd kill me if I told anyone at camp about that side of her?

When I went over to her and sat on the edge of the bed, she wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face in my hair. It was an unexpected display of affection, but I let myself enjoy it as long as it lasted.

"I am sorry for hurting you, Percy," Annabeth said quietly, and she used a finger to touch the spot where we knew my Achilles spot was. It buzzed with electricity. "For a second I thought I'd…"

"Killed me?" It was hard not letting out a little chuckle when I drew away to flick her head affectionately. What a way to die, I thought. Sure, it would definitely suck, but there wasn't any reason for her to worry about me. My thoughts drew to last year, the war, when on some miracle I'd managed to escape death when a certain someone dove between a poisoned dagger and the small of my back.

As if reading my mind, Annabeth reached up to touch the spot on her shoulder where the dagger had hit her. Her eyes did that thing that they did often: glaze over and lock onto a point in the far distance. It seemed as though she was thinking a million different things at once, frozen in the present but sucked deep into her subconscience.

I stretched onto my back on the bed to wait her trance out.

A few minutes passed.

"Percy," Annabeth said after a few minutes, snapping so suddenly back into reality it made me jump. She twisted her body around and leaned forwards to me, propping herself on hand that was flat on my abdomen. Her expression was still a little vague, but wondering as though she'd just gotten an amazing idea.

My eyes went from her hand on my stomach to her face. "Yes?"

"I want you to come over tomorrow."

I blinked and wondered if she meant it. We'd just spent pretty much an entire summer together…

Annabeth smirked at my look and rolled her silver eyes up to the ceiling. "You can stay for dinner or something."

"Um…sure?"

"But I know my family was planning a trip to some water park and won't be back until six. So we'll have the place to ourselves until then."

It was difficult deciphering her face and her words together. If she meant what I thought she meant—

"Do you think your mom would mind you 'staying for dinner'?" The quotation marks around the last bit of her sentence were so obvious; she made it perfectly clear her ideas.

My mouth bobbed open and closed idiotically. Sure, the idea had sort of been in my mind but I hadn't, like, actually considered it might…that she'd want…and tomorrow. Maybe she didn't mean it like that. Maybe—

"Do you always have to get that look on your face every time I ask you a question?" Sighing, Annabeth laid down as well, crossing her arms under her chin on my torso. Blond curls tumbled down either side of me. "It'd be hilarious if I wasn't serious."

Still, I remained silent, absentmindedly fiddling with a strand of her hair.

"I'm not forcing you into anything, Perce. I really would like if you had dinner with us, though. We could play Monopoly in Snuggies if you'd like."

I lifted my head to peer down my chest at her. "…Monopoly in Snuggies? Honestly, Annabeth?"

"Well, you don't seem comfortable with anything else."

"I think dinner's fine, Annabeth. Let's just see what tomorrow's like and I'll think about it."

There was another long moment of quiet, but it was contemplative instead of awkward. Annabeth had her eyes closed and small fingers curled on my stomach.

Gods, she was beautiful.

Sometimes I thought whether or not it was bad for us doing what we had been. I mean, it wasn't like there was anything really wrong with sleeping in the same bed with someone of the opposite sex who was unrelated with you. That in itself wasn't terrible, but the private moments we shared—like right then, with her curled up on my stomach. And the times I slept in just a pair of boxers and we woke wrapped around each other under the covers.

Seventeen was young. We weren't children, but the bridge to where those things were acceptable hadn't been crossed yet. Some part way deep down inside of me still felt an obligation to my childhood that had lasted only a few short years. All those principles almost every kid grows up learning, whether from parents or movies or books. Things like don't be intimate unless married.

I just didn't know.

Aphrodite made me question that last one.

I loved Annabeth to the ends of Olympus and back, but does the fact that we were 17 and unmarried change anything at all? Could the goddess who believed in love so much have been wrong? She was the goddess of love, and not the goddess of morals. Would it be wrong, even if we were following the guidance of a goddess? Even though I plan on being with Annabeth my entire life?

No, I decided. It would be wrong if we'd just met each other and didn't love each other. Maybe I wasn't the smartest person in the world, but I knew that I really only wanted to spend the rest of my life with one person. And if I planned on staying with her forever, would it matter?

Reluctantly, I pulled myself away from thoughts that had turned quite nice, and opened my eyes to look back down at Annabeth. She looked almost like she was asleep, with her lips barely parted and eyes closed. I could feel her breathing slowly against me. It was impossible resisting the urge to stretch my hand over and trace the curve of her cheekbone with a fingertip.

Annabeth's eyes fluttered open at my touch. "…Do you think we should eat dinner before getting too comfortable?"

Though I really wasn't hungry and really didn't want to get up from where we were, I agreed unwillingly and let her crawl off of me.

In the kitchen, we scrounged around and ate some leftovers at the table. Annabeth remained unusually silent, but not in the bad way. Every now and again our eyes would meet and she'd grin at me, and I'd smile back. Things were exactly how I wanted them.

When dinner was done, we tucked our chairs in and turned out the kitchen light. Though it wasn't really that late out, the rainstorm hid what light outside would have provided, so it was fairly dark. Every now and then, the house would shudder from wind and rain pummeling the walls.

Annabeth and I left the spooky kitchen to duck back into the guest bedroom. The radio had changed to a slower song I didn't recognize, and since the light felt too unnatural and piercing, we turned that off as well. Soon, it was just me and Annabeth standing there in the near-dark, music playing softly in the background.

The moment I was building up to was going to be amazing in my head, but when I reached for her hand, Annabeth didn't notice and wandered away to the window. Okay, fine, then.

Instead, I went to lay down on the bed.

For a second, Annabeth stood there staring out the window. Then she glanced back at me as though she just noticed I'd left her side. A sweet expression crossed her face and she came to lay down, too.

Outside, the storm raged on, and I'd lost track of time. What was it, six? Seven? Being our last day together, the hours sped by unusually fast. It was probably too early to go to sleep, but the evening happened quicker than I had wanted. One moment I was fixing breakfast for myself and Annabeth, and now I was stretched out on the bed with her, watching in the dimness of the storm as her chest rose and fell slowly.

She had her arms folded behind her head and her face was tilted up towards the ceiling, but eyes closed. The gray hoodie I'd lent her had ridden up so I could see the curve of her abdomen between two hipbones. Her skin there was a creamier color, not quite as tanned as the rest of her body but free of scars and calluses as well, making it look softer than baby's skin. (I'd argue that I didn't stare at her than often, but hey. I did.)

I let my eyes slowly slide back up to her face to find that she was looking at me. Normally she'd make some sarcastic remark or try to be a smart-aleck or something. That time she was just looking at me through her eyelashes with the corners of her mouth turned upwards, which made my cheeks turn a little pink, but oh well.

The radio played on, as did the rainstorm. Even though it wasn't anywhere near bedtime, Annabeth scooted closer and rested her head on my chest, shutting her eyes again. Just like that, we spent our last night curled up together until we both drifted off.