Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Heroes of Olympus

Two updates in one day? Lies and slander! I hope you guys enjoy this, because I wanted to make up for the lack of updates over the last little while, so this will help me feel better about neglecting my story for that little while.

I hope you all enjoy this!

Chapter 13 Branch 1

Percy's POV

I woke up again the next day and immediately began thinking about what had happened the day before.

I hadn't been able to stop thinking about what was going on with Annabeth the entire day after what had happened in the arena when I was practicing with Nico, and it distracted me from everything that was going on, and if I wasn't such a terrible shot, I would've accidently shot Nico while he was getting his arrows at archery.

I had gone to bed thinking about it and wondered if things would ever get better between Annabeth and I, even if it just meant that we could be friends again. I hated being alone, and as much as Nico was helping me, he was still my only friend. The rest of the Seven had still yet to say anything to me in person, just the notes that they had written me.

There wasn't anything I could do about it though, and the end of the summer was coming up in a few days, so there wasn't time anyway.

I went outside and to the pavilion like I did every day and sat next to Nico.

"So what today?" I asked him.

"I'm not sure." He replied, but he kept looking at me as if he was wondering something.

"Umm, Nico, what are you looking at?"

"Nothing, you just look like you're out of it today. Did you get any sleep?"

"I got enough sleep, I just have a lot on my mind."

"What is it?"

I hesitated, not sure what to say to him. "Do you think things will ever be normal again?"

"I'm not sure what you mean." He replied.

"I just- Do you think everyone will ever treat me normally again? Annabeth ignores me now most of the time, and I wish we could at least be friends again, we've been through a lot together. And the rest of the Seven, none of them have even said anything to me in person. I don't know why everyone is avoiding me now, and I just want people to treat me normally again."

"Percy, I know what you're going through, and I doubt everything will ever be the exact same again, but people will start treating you like a friend again sometime. I can't say how long it will take, but it will start to be normal again."

I didn't know what it was, something sounded off in Nico's voice. Was it… hurt?

"Are you alright Nico?"

"I'm fine, just answering your question." He replied.

I looked back down at the table that we were sitting at.

After I'd finished eating my breakfast we had decided to the ocean, because I hadn't been over there for a while and I thought it would be good to be in the ocean again.

When we got there I immediately dove into the ocean, feeling the water rush past me as I swam though it, enjoying the cool feeling of the water, the power it had behind it as it crashed down in waves.

After a couple minutes of swimming around underwater, I came up and looked back to the shore to see Nico sitting on the beach smirking at me, as if he was enjoying watching me act so childish.

"I can pull you in here too if you think the water is so funny." I called to him as I made some water go up the beach and stop just short of him.

He quickly moved up the beach a little ways (as if he could get away quick enough) and stopped again.

I shook my head and wondered why he hated the water so much.

After about an hour of swimming I figured I'd made Nico wait bored for long enough and walked out onto the beach with a small ball of water behind my back.

"It's about time you got out," He told me, "you were in there for over an hour while I waited."

I splashed the water in his face and said "I was hoping you would do something less boring than sit there, so that's your penance."

He looked a little annoyed as he shook his head, getting some of the water out of his hair and wiping it off of his face, but it went away quickly and we walked back towards the camp.

We spent the rest of the day doing various activities; sword fighting, climbing the rock wall with lava on it (I needed to get back in shape, so I needed a little extra challenge), archery because he insisted that I needed to practice it sometimes, and pegasus riding, which turned out to be a challenge because they didn't like Nico. After talking to them for a while, and giving them a fair amount of sugar cubes, they agreed to let Nico ride.

We were sitting the pavilion talking about random stuff passing the time until we figured we should rest.

"Alright, well it's probably time to 'sleep' so I'm going back to my cabin now." Nico told me.

"Alright, well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then Nico."

Nico walked off to his cabin while I sat at the table for a little longer, thinking about random little things that my ADHD decided were important.

When I finally decided that I should go to bed, I stood up and turned around and nearly ran into Annabeth.

"Oh! Sorry, I didn't mean to-" I stopped talking. Was she ok? Annabeth was awkwardly shifting her eyes from my face, to the ground, and back again.

"Are you ok Annabeth?"

"I'm ok Percy, it's just… I want to…" She stuttered, standing really close to me after I had nearly walked into her.

She looked back up at my eyes for a few seconds, then surprised me. A lot.

She stood on her tip-toes, grabbed the back of my head, and kissed me.

It only lasted a second, but when she broke away I just stood there, not sure what I should do.

She quickly turned around and walked to her cabin without saying anything. I opened my mouth to say something after her, but the words were jumbled on my tongue and I couldn't get anything to come out.

I walked to my cabin in a daze and laid down on my bed without even taking off my clothes off. I didn't know what I was supposed to think, and my emotions were all jumbled up again. Part of me wanted to go find her and hold her tight, and another part was yelling that she would just hurt me again.

I finally stopped the voices for a few seconds and drifted off to sleep.

That's it! I hope you guys enjoyed that little end scene, I figured it was about time for something like that to happen. I don't really have anything to say right now, except I'm leaving to visit my sister out of state this weekend so I don't know if I'll be able to update or not while I'm there, so I hope I can, but no promises. Well, please review and let me know what you thought of this chapter, and I hope to see all of you in the next chapter!