Note: Back with this week's chap! For anyone who actually wondered, Gabe mumbled something along the lines of "She's just like her..." or "Abby..." so kudos to The-only-real-annabeth-chase for guessing that right. Let's rock!

A HUNTING WE WILL GO

"We are gathered here today to celebrate another glorious Monday. Wipe those miserable expressions off your faces; this isn't exactly a joy ride for me either. And so starts another long, drawn-out week..."

Annabeth listened a bit distractedly to Mr. Dionysus' weekly blurb of sarcasm. The sardonic principal droned on as she craned her head around, trying to spot Percy in the mass of students that had gathered in the auditorium. He promised that he'd go to school after the weekend but...

"...we have some visitors. Those of you who've had the misfortune – ahem—privilege of attending CHB for more than three years now might remember them. Please extend a warm welcome to the students from Huntington Girl's Academy."

She tore her eyes away from the crowd, her attention fluttering back to the stage. Annabeth watched the Hunters, as CHB denizens endearingly called them, parade onto the stage. They stood in a ramrod straight line; all dressed in the same crisp white blouses, pleated black skirts, and shimmering silver ties. Huntington's crest was supersized on the projector and splayed out proudly behind them; its bow and arrow cradled perfectly by a crescent moon.

"They will be using the lockers across from the archery club's storage room," Mr. D announced, waving a stubby hand in their general direction. "I hope everyone gets along fabulously with them. Now, thank the gods, assembly is over. Go to break and let the teachers leave first."

Annabeth let herself get carried along by the steady flow of people, deciding to go look for Percy now since the Hunters were going to be too busy with settling in for her to bother them.

"Hey Annabeth!"

Well most of the Hunters were too busy with settling in for her to bother them.

"Aren't you supposed to be with the others?" Annabeth asked, turning to face her long time best friend. Electric blue eyes laughed back at her under spiky black locks.

Thalia groaned at her friend and shook her head in mock exasperation. "Geez Annabeth, always such a stickler for the rules. Aren't you glad I'm risking major trouble to see you?"

Annabeth grinned and threw her arms around her friend. "Of course I am."

"Hey," the Hunter started, giving her friend a funny look. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Annabeth replied quickly.

"Are you su—"

"Thalia!"

"Geez," Thalia groaned, breaking up the short reunion. "That's Zoe, our Head Girl. I didn't think she'd notice me gone so soon."

"Thalia Grace!"

She flinched at the sound of her last name. "Bye Annabeth, I'll definitely see you around."

They shared another fleeting hug before Thalia ran off, weaving through the chattering crowd. Annabeth wished she could be as carefree as her friend seemed. Last weekend's ordeal still weighed heavily on her mind. Half of her wanted to report everything she'd seen to somebody. The other half was telling her to wait and trust Sally's decision to keep mum. And a minuscule voice inside her, which she'd squished into a far corner in her mind, was still completely freaked out by the whole thing.

Lost in her thoughts, Annabeth found that her feet had taken her down the familiar halls that lead to her locker. Her eyes immediately caught on something tacked up to it: a sea-green post it.

Everything's fine

Please try and forget about what happened

Forget? That featherbrained idiot wanted her to forget?

"Annabeth?" Malcom asked from his locker a few steps away. "You're looking a bit...murderous."

Malcolm instantly regretted having opened his mouth as Annabeth turned her barely restrained exasperation to him. "Murderous you say?"

An audible gulp sounded from him. Malcolm's mouth felt unusually dry all of a sudden. "This wouldn't have anything to do with Percy would it? He looked pretty messed up this morning."

"You mean you've seen him?" Annabeth asked, suppressing her volatile feelings. It wasn't all just irritation to Percy's avoidance. The stupid part of her that was still in shock over last week's incident was now going into overdrive. If he'd just talk to her about all this then maybe they could do something about it and be more proactive. "Where'd he go?"

"I don't know," Malcom answered. He gathered his things and shut his locker, glancing at a wall clock. "His locker would be a good place to look though. Class starts in like five minutes."

"Ok thanks," she said, clicking her lock shut. She dug through her bag and hurried down the hall, calling back a quick, "See you around!"

That was the fastest Malcolm had ever seen her run.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"We have a Huntington girl joining this class," Mr. Mercue announced as the class was quieting down. "This is Thalia Grace."

"Nice to meet you all," Thalia greeted.

Mr. Mercue at the class over thick rimmed glasses and commented, "There are a few empty seats in the back. Take any one of them Thalia, we don't have a seating plan."

The teacher took attendance as Thalia thanked him and made her way to the back of the room. She was just plopping down onto her seat when a loud bang sounded.

"SORRY I'M LATE," panted the boy who'd almost slammed the door off its hinges in his attempt to get it open. With dishevelled hair and dark-circles under his eyes, he stood guiltily in front of the Science teacher's desk.

"Busy this morning Percy?" Mr. Mercue asked rhetorically. He waved the boy's jumbled excuses away and motioned for him to take a seat. "I'll let that slide today. But next time, please try to make a less intrusive entrance."

"Sorry," Percy mumbled, shuffling into a seat next to Thalia. He dumped his backpack onto the table and sat heavily onto his chair, not noticing the new face in the class.

"Hey Percy," a dirty blonde called from two seats over. "Annabeth was looking for you."

"Yeah I know," Percy replied.

"So have you seen her yet today?" Blondie asked.

The color drained out of Percy's face as he answered. "No."

Mr. Mercue started talking about organic chemistry and Blondie didn't reply for a while. As soon as the teacher turned his back the conversation started up again. "Dude, Annabeth's going to kill you if you keep avoiding her."

"I'm not avoiding her Malcolm," Percy objected.

Malcolm stared at his classmate, gauging whether or not he should really get into an argument like this. Deciding against it, he shrugged and faced the front of the room. "Just try not to piss her off any more. She's pretty messed up about whatever happened."

"It's not like I'm doing it on purpose," Percy muttered.

Malcolm didn't seem to hear it, but Thalia did. In fact, she'd overheard the entire exchange. And from what she'd heard, this Percy person was someone who was harassing Annabeth...

"Thalia?" Mr. Mercue called, snapping her out of her character assessment. "Do you know what kind of organic compound this is?"

"It's an alcohol," she replied studiously. Thank God Huntington was slightly ahead in the Sciences. It meant that she could slack off a bit while she was at CHB.

Mr. Mercue nodded and turned back to the board. "That's correct. We know this because of the isolated OH group."

"Oh," Percy breathed noting her for the first time. Confusion etched his face as he took in her uniform. "You're one of those Huntington girls."

No shit Sherlock, Thalia thought to herself. "Yeah."

Percy was a bit put back by her terseness, but got over it quickly. He'd had worse than the cold shoulder treatment. Choosing to leave her be, Percy focused on Mr. Mercue and tried to take in the lesson. There was already Annabeth to worry about; he didn't need another irritable girl to deal with.

Ugh Annabeth, she was NOT going to be happy about the note he left her. She'd probably gone to his locker and beaten it into a pulp in frustration. Percy had managed to avoid the blonde this morning, but after Science he had English with her. Damn, how was he supposed to persuade her to just drop the issue?

"Ok everyone," Mr. Mercue started as he wrote out instructions on the board. "We're going to be doing a few worksheets. Get into groups of two and work your way through the package I'm handing out."

Percy looked around and saw that everyone had paired up already. Of course, the magical clique rule of CHB left him hanging. That left him with the Huntington girl. He turned to her as Mr. Mercue passed around the worksheets and held a reluctant hand out. "Hi, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Percy."

"Thalia," came her clipped reply. She ran a black nail-polished hand through her spiky short cropped hair and stood abruptly. "Well I guess we should get started."

They flipped through their papers in awkward silence. Percy couldn't figure out why Thalia was so...unfriendly. Given, he did look like crap right now because of all the drama that had happened over the weekend and all of the stress that came with cleaning up after it; it didn't seem like enough to make someone act like that.

Thalia was confused. From what she'd heard, Percy had done...something or another to Annabeth, but here he was acting like Mr. Sort of Nice Guy. She decided to wait until Science ended before passing judgement onto him. He had roughly an hour to give her a reason not to hate his guts for whatever he did to Annabeth.

She read through the package and started scribbling answers on. A level hum of discussion filled the room, accented by pencil scratches and pen clicks. Percy was silent next to her for all of five minutes before letting out a sudden groan.

"Thalia, sorry but do you actually get any of this?" he asked, hapless and perplexed.

She leaned over and looked at whatever he was struggling on: the first question, on the first page. "How do you not get it?"

Percy slumped in his seat and set his pencil down. "I was gone for all of last week. A friend brought over all my missed work but she..."

"Hey Jackson," a brusque female voice called out. Thalia watched Percy's face contort with annoyance. "Do you need Annabeth to transfer in and help you through that?"

"Just mind your own business Clarisse," he said, raising his voice over the classroom noise.

"Clarisse," Mr. Mercue warned from behind his laptop. "Settle down or you're getting more work."

"Why would Annabeth help you?" Thalia asked, wondering if her friend was the one who'd brought Percy his things.

"She's my tutor," Percy stated, staring harder at his worksheet. Something clicked in his head and he turned to face Thalia. "Wait, do you know Annabeth?"

"She's a friend," she replied, staring hard at him. Maybe she could intimidate him into telling her what exactly his history was with Annabeth.

"Why exactly are the two of you staring at each other?" Mr. Mercue asked, suddenly in front of their desks.

"Just getting to know each other," Thalia replied.

"Um yeah," Percy added.

The teacher raised an eyebrow at them but seemed to disregard their weirdness. "Percy you're being pulled out of class."

"What? Why?" he asked, tension bleeding through him. Had Annabeth said anything?

"The guidance counsellor is calling you up for your appointment," Mr. Mercue informed him.

Percy's mind was racing. What would happen to him and his mom if the authorities found out about Gabe? "I didn't schedule an appointment."

"Well, you've got one now," Mr. Mercue said, eyeing Percy's piteously answer-free papers. "Get going, you wouldn't want to be late for something else today."

"See you Thalia," Percy said, packing his things away. He didn't wait to see if she'd reply. Anxiety saturated him. Why, why, why would Annabeth tell on them? This would ruin everything they'd suffered through for years. But despite the situation, despite the betrayal, why, why, why couldn't he stay mad at her?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Ah hello Percy," Chiron greeted. The guidance counsellor wheeled himself forward, using his wheelchair to keep the door open for the teen. "Come in, come in."

Percy walked in apprehensively. The kindly middle aged counsellor followed in soon after, closing his door gently behind him. The last time Percy had seen Chiron was when they'd talked about admissions. He was a nice enough guy but Percy had really hoped that he would never have to go into his office. CHB was supposed to give him a clean slate. No incidents, no scandals, nothing but a perfectly normal school life.

"Take a seat Percy," Chiron said, gesturing to one of two seats that were positioned in front of his desk. "We're waiting for one more person."

"Ok," Percy mumbled. He fidgeted fretfully in his seat, looking around the room for anything that seemed even remotely interesting. It was a bad habit of his he'd always had. "Um, Chiron, what exactly am I here for?"

"Just wait Percy, it'll be easier to do this once-," Chiron paused and looked towards the door. "It seems like he's here."

"Let me get it," Percy offered before Chiron could move. He stood and hopped a bit in between steps, anything to get rid of the excess nervous energy.

Percy opened the door to a complete stranger. The man in front of him was tall, probably over six feet tall, and tanned, like he spent all his time in the sun. He wore khaki pants, a navy blazer and a coconut tie. Percy looked the imposing man in the eye, since he only came up to the man's shoulder, and felt his eyes widen.

Sea-green met sea-green as a melancholy smile laced the man's countenance.

"Hello son, it's nice to meet you."

Note: Next chapter we get some angst, confrontations, cookies and FLUFF. Review please!