Alrighty, well I didn't really like my last chapter, so this one is going to be extra long. I wasn't sure if s-t-o-r-ylover56 asked a question or if it was just a general statement, but I am going to answer it anyways.

At what point in the story did Annabeth start liking Percy?: I think first they had to get other their mutual dislike for each other, then after they really talked and spent time together Annabeth may have started having a teensy crush on Percy. After all, she started blushing like crazy on the love boat at Waterland.

I just wanted to go to my cabin and change out of my sopping wet clothes, but unfortunately I had training.

"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."

"Whatever." I just wanted to get out of there.

"It wasn't my fault."

"Pfft, yeah right". I raised my eyebrows at him questioningly.

"You need to talk to the Oracle," I said.

"Who?"

"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."

I saw Percy looking at the naiads in the canoe lake with a look of surprise on his face. "Don't encourage them, naiads are terrible flirts," I warned.

"Naiads," repeated Percy. "That's it I want to go home now."

"Don't you get it Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."

"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"

"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human." I can't believe I have to explain this to him again, you'd think twice would be enough already.

"Half-human and half-what?"

"I think you know" He'd better.

I nodded. "Your Father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."

Percy looked distressed. "That's crazy."

"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"

"But those are just-. But if all the kids here are half-gods-."

"Demigods," I corrected. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."

"Then who's your dad?" asked Percy.

My knuckles turned white from grasping the pier railing too hard. I wanted to say he was a gutless, daughter abandoning git. I opted for the kinder version. "My dad is a professor at West Point, I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."

"He's human," Percy said.

"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?"

"Who's your mom then?"

"Cabin six."

"Meaning…," he prompted.

I straightened with pride; in my mind my mom was the best goddess of them all. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."

"And my dad?" he asked as if I would know.

"Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."

"Except my mother. She knew."

"Maybe not Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities."

"My dad would have. He loved her," he said with certainty.

I shot Percy a cautious look. I didn't want to tarnish his image of his parents relationship, even if it wasn't true. "Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens."

"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"

I felt bad. I really didn't like telling him this; I didn't want to crush his hopes. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and the don't always… Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us."

Percy didn't talk for a minute. "So I'm stuck here," he said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"

"It depends, some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world for the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble- about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize their demigods. But very, very few are like that."

I honestly doubted that he wasn't a powerful force. I mean, not everyone can kill a Minotaur with their hands without any training and make plumbing bend to his will.

I then went on to explain how monsters couldn't get in here unless summoned for either practice fights or practical jokes. Percy had a hard time understanding the practical joke part.

"So… you're a year-rounder?" he asked.

I toyed with my leather camp necklace and told him I'd been here since I was seven and got a bead for every year I was here.

"Why did you come so young?"

"None of your business." Well it wasn't!

We continued to talk about quests were the only way you could leave camp and how none had been granted in a while. When I told him I'd been to Olympus he seemed pretty surprised. We talked about how something was wrong and how I was hoping we could work together to find whatever was missing. All of the sudden his stomach growled so I told him he could go on to dinner and I'd catch him later.

When he left I was working on my capture the flag strategy. Maybe if I let Luke get the flag he'd pay me more attention, it was worth a try. I would put Percy where the Ares campers could find him. This was going to be great, it was fool proof.

Whew! Done, that was long. I hoped you liked it.