Chapter 17:

I don't know how long I was in the lake. I was there thinking. Why would I want to go out? Why couldn't I just stay here and live away from the world. Another thing that was bothering me was Sarah. We had such a nice talk and she made me feel better about not remembering. But doing it felt somehow as a betrayal. I kept picturing gray eyes when I talked, some sad gray eyes. Why did I have such a hard time remembering her? What could it be that was keeping her memory so far from my mind. I sighed and looked up. I saw a pair of heads looking down at me. They want to you go up lord. A fish told me. I thanked him but said I wasn't ready. They knew I saw them and didn't go up. I was trying to decide against staying there when I felt a change in the water. I look up and find myself face to face with Hazel.

I immediately touch her arm so that she is part of the air bubble. She doesn't notices and still tries to pull me up. "You can breathe you know?" I saw. As if on cue she gasps in need of more air. She looks around and notices the bubble. To my bad luck she also realized that she could talk. Lucky me. "What's wrong? Common we have to go. We don't have enough time left and Bobby wants to tell you about some plan. And everyone is really worried that you won't come out. So just be a man and go up." I was seriously thinking of letting her out of the bubble but let that thought go. I knew she was right, I had to talk to Bobby and we had to go soon. I sighed and commanded the bubble to push us upward. As soon as we were out everyone stopped talking. They were almost all sitting in a semicircle around Grover. He seemed to be telling them something, probably about me.

I got close to them and sat down besides Grover. Hazel sat on the floor. I knew no one was going to talk so I had to. "Bobby, what's the plan?" I said while I turned to face him. When he talked he seemed lost in thought. He was also watching me with something that looked like respect. What in the Hades is going on? I thought and I noticed that the sleeping brothers where not here. "Well I thought of everything. We have to save Bessie and stop the giant who is waking. So I sent Sarah and Stan to go and try to stop the giant from waking. They probably won't make it go to sleep but at least make the process slower. The rest of us will go save Bessie. We will go in two groups, the first one you, Hazel and me. Hazel insisted that she had to protect you. The second group Kit, Lauren and Grover. Our group will go first and look for Bessie. The other group is there just in case there is a trap or we are captured or something. If we do get capture the empathy link you have with Grover should be able to tell them we need their help. We will leave right now. They will stay a couple of miles away of the canyon. Everyone agrees with this plan?" in that last part he turns to look at everyone. They all nod in agreement and with that we are gone.

While flying Blackjack starts to talk to Rose about what good food comes from nature. He gets disappointed when he learns donuts, pizza and fries are not really natural. Since that gets me close to Grover I took my chance to apologize. "Grover, I am really sorry I have been kind of avoiding you. I am really busy with everything and I feel scared of my past life. I feel like if I get too close to you I will miss back home but at the same time you could bring back miseries I may have had in the past. I know I shouldn't have done that. I have to face my past but I wasn't sure if I was ready for it." Grover smiled sympathetically at me. "It's fine," he said. "I would have probably done the same thing. Besides we are best friends, I knew you would talk to me when you were ready." I felt really relieved when I heard him say that. Just then I noticed Lauren telling something to Hazel. Then she gasps and turns to look at me with somewhat scared eyes. I turn to Grover. "What where you talking about when I was in the lake?"

I literally saw him gulp, movie type. I could see he got nervous. I stared at him and he spilled the soup. "I told them about the quests we have gone to. As soon as the brothers left they asked me stuff about you. I am not really sure if you want to know everything because of your memory loss." he had a guilty look. "I am not mad, but why are they looking at me that way?" I said and he sighed. He tried to explain to me without saying anything at the same time. "Well you have done a lot of things in your quests. Things not even their Jason has done. And you have done something no one has ever done. You rejected the offer…" he trailed off. He had been lost in thought but he stopped in time. My doubt was killing me of course but there was nothing I could do. I didn't want to ask. I sigh and say, "Grover if we succeed today please tell me everything. Especially of that girl. Annabeth. I know her name but I remember absolutely nothing about her. I don't know what it means but it is probably something important." He nodded. After that we talked about different things.

I then went to talk to Hazel and Bobby. I hadn't talked to Lauren or Kit because they were always lovey-dovey together so I preferred to stay away. But I would have preferred to talk to them because they were new to all of this. They probably didn't fully understand why what I did was so important. "Hazel why did you hate me so much when I came?" I don't know why I asked that. She looked me in the eye when she answered me. "Well I felt something was wrong. Then I figured out you were Greek." She practically spitted when she said Greek but kept going. "Us Romans know that the Greeks where weak that's why the gods went to Rome. We don't like Greeks. It's good no one else knew or you would have died in the camp. Bobby helped me figure out about another camp. I didn't kill you because my dad told me I had to take care of you. So I also prevented Bobby and Reyna from telling everyone. Reyna knew you were the answer to know where Jason is. Bobby is a son of Minerva. He probably thought of something really complicated to convince him not to kill you or tell on you. And everyone else doesn't know about the rivalry. If the camp knew there was a Greek camp they would want to attack it."

She explained this and I just didn't understand it. Why would they hate Greeks? Maybe jealous because we were better or something. Suddenly I started questioning if the sleeping brothers where Roman or Greek. I guess we would have to find out later. I suddenly got exhausted and told them I was going to take a nap. They didn't look like they could sleep on a flying horse but I could. So I did. In my dream I was on Blackjack and besides us were Mia and Sarah. She smiled when she saw me and started descending. I followed her until she landed on a meadow. She got down and lay down on the grass. She motioned for me to lay besides her. I didn't hesitate to lay down an inch apart from her. I felt calm and I knew I was dreaming. "Hey Perce, I was taking a nap on Mia and had a sudden urge to talk to you. Sorry I sent the dream shadows to make you sleep. I just wanted to talk to someone about a dream I was having and it got me really scared. I had a dream of a girl. Well she was a girl at the beginning but then became a man, at the end she was like a girl our age. She was talking to what seemed like a sleeping woman made of dirt. She was telling umm, it I guess, how to look like. They said they had to kill the animal and if the dirt ones son didn't get there but noon it had to kill it and eat it and a bunch of stuff.

The dirt one said that it had to stop you from saving it. That without you they would fail to save the animal and stop the giant. You have to be careful Percy. I don't know what either of them is but they want you out of the way. You have to be really careful I can't lose my only friend." She sobbed at the end and then she was trembling. I closed the inch that was separating us and placed my arm around her. I started saying nonsense to make her laugh and make her stop worrying. I would obviously have to be careful, it was me they wanted to stop and that wasn't really good news. Suddenly I knew what would make her feel better. "Do me a favor," I said "come with me to look for a lake." I stood up and offered my hand to her. We walked for a small while because I could sense where water was. She looked down at the lake and looked nervous. "I know we are sleeping and we can be wherever we want but we can't do anything we want. We could still drown and that would wake us up. I don't know how to swim." I laughed and she gave me a half angry half ashamed look. "Take my hand, I won't let you drown."

She looked at me weirdly but came with me. She knew I would make her go in if she didn't. She grabbed my hand and looked down at her reflection. She didn't want to go in the water so I jumped in and dragged her down with me. She screamed and closed her eyes. She was still screaming when we were underwater she thought we were still falling. I shook her shoulder and spoke with a soothing tone. "Hey, it's okay. Open your eyes and please stop screaming." We were still holding hands because if we didn't have contact the air bubble would disappear. She opened her eyes and looked at the fish around her. I commanded the bubble to go down the river and take us to a sea. When we were there Sarah was still wide eyed. She looked so happy and so beautiful. I didn't realize I had been staring until she turned to look at me and turned red. Suddenly she yelped and jumped to me. She had her arms around me and was muttering something. It sounded like we are going to die. I turned around and saw a white shark staring at us. "Go away." I said to it and to every other fish that was around. They swam again. Sarah was looking at the empty space where the shark had been. Then she looked up and met my eyes. She still had her arms around me and I had placed my arms around her so our faces where centimeters apart.

I stared deeply into her eyes. I had just met her and I felt weird. The same feeling that I am about to stab someone on the back was coming over me. I was thinking about it when I was pulled back. Sarah was kissing me. I started kissing her back. We started making out heavily. I don't know how long we where that way when I awoke.