I DON'T OWN PERCY J AND THE OLYMPIANS

AN: so i guess you guys loved the zombie ending :) lol. so i want to give a shout out thank you to a couple reviewers. WILDSIXX, Lexie Daughter of Athena, and Rebecky2277 your reviews and messages really help so this chapter is dedicated to you three.

Zombie POV

JK you guys didn't want that type of story.

Annabeth POV

After taking a quick shower she stood in front of the bathroom mirror wrapped in one of her mother's favorite owl patterned towels, combing the tangles out of her wet hair, she couldn't help but think that Percy was just down the hall in the other bathroom, possibly naked.

Or if he wasn't by now, he had been a few minutes ago. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and glared at her own reflection. "Get your mind off Percy naked," she told her steamy image in an angry whisper. "Seriously. You should get help, Annabeth Chase."

And that struck her as funny, for some reason. The idea that she needed counseling over Percy Jackson. She laughed. And then she pulled herself together and pinned her still wet hair into a knot at the back of her head.

A few minutes later, they were out in the kitchen again, deciding what to take with them when they left. (AN: BECAUSE YOU KNOW THERE IS A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE GOING ON OUT THERE JK) She didn't tell him so, but he looked sexy even in overalls. He'd used the razor she'd given him and his dark stubble was gone, his hair still wet, but minus the dried mud from the flood.

Before they left, they filled a couple of gallon-sized plastic containers with water. She stuffed a backpack with a few personal items. Her mom had a key to Annabeth's house in town and she took that, since her was lost somewhere in her mud-filled car. She also grabbed a lease and a plastic container of food for Frank. She would have grabbed her dad's first aid kit, but Percy said he had one in his truck.

"You want to wade out to your car?" Percy asked her. "See if maybe we can find your purse or your keys?"

It was way out there in the middle of that muddy field. And it didn't look promising to her. "We just got dry boots," she reminded him. "Let it go."

Percy didn't argue. She figured he was probably anxious to get to the Double J.

They locked up the house again and headed for his truck, which waited at the top of the road where he'd left it. Frank hopped in the back and they climbed in the cab.

His cell was stuck in one of the cup holders. He tried it. "Still no signal."

Annabeth hooked her seat belt. He started the engine, pulled a U-turn and off they went.

It took them over an hour to get to the Double J. the roads were washed out in several places and they had to find a way around the trouble spots. There was soggy, broken stuff strewn randomly wherever the water had risen not to mention swamped, abandoned vehicles. Annabeth tried to take heart that they were all only things.

Percy played the radio for news. Roads and bridges were out everywhere. Any number of small towns on the western side of the state had sustained serious damage. A third of the state had been designated a disaster area and there were constant warnings about staying off the roads as much as possible, about exercising caution of flooded buildings, about the danger of snakes and the hazards of rats and steering clear of downed power lines.

At the Double J, all the buildings were above the waterline and undamaged, but there would still be one heck of a cleanup to deal with. The hands who'd been taking care of the place were there and safe. Annabeth told them how to get into her parents' house to get fresh water for the next day or so, until they could disinfect the wells. They said they would check the stock for her as soon as they'd dealt with the animals on the Double J.

Once Percy seemed satisfied that the hands had things under control, he said, "we should get going, go on into town."

She caught his arm before they got in the cab.

He stopped and turned to look at her. "Yeah?" His skin was so warm under her hand. Smooth flesh, hard muscles beneath. She felt suddenly shy with him and jerked her hand away. He frowned. "what's wrong?"

"I, well, I was just thinking that I'll bet you really want to go back up the mountain to check on things at your place. You could just drop me off when we get to the next street and I can hitch a ride in."

He stuck his fists into the front pockets of her dad's overalls and tipped his head to the side. "what the hell, Annabeth? I'm not leaving you alone on the street."

His words warmed her, but still she really did need to stop taking advantage of his kindness to her.

Kindness.

Incredible, she'd been so busy judging him as a heartless, undisciplined sex maniac for all these years, she'd never had a clue what a softy he really was. She shook her head. "Oh, come on now. We grew up here. We both know I'll be perfectly safe."

"We don't know what's going on since last night, and I don't want you wandering around alone."

"Percy, I would hardly wander. And I know everyone in town, so I won't by any stretch of the imagination be alone."

"I'm coming with you. I want to be with you when you check on yours house." He said the words in a cautious tone. They both knew where her house was: directly in the path of the water. She was already resigned to the fact that it had to be flooded and was hoping that at least some of her clothing and furniture might be salvageable.

"Honestly, I can handle it. I was pretty shell-shocked yesterday, I know. But I'm over that. I'm ready to face whatever comes. You don't have to worry about me."

He was scowling now. "Why are you trying to get rid of me?"

She fell back a step. "I'm not. I just thought. . ."

He caught her arm with his calloused hand. It felt so good, his touch. And his grip was so strong. "What?" he demanded. "You thought what?"

She looked up at him, at his swirling sea green eyes and those lips that seemed like they were made for kissing a woman and she wondered what he would do if she kissed him. The idea made her feel both embarrassed and giddy. She almost giggled.

"Annabeth," he demanded. "What is going on with you all of a sudden?"

Now she was thinking about earlier that morning. About waking up with her hand where it shouldn't have been about how he'd been turned on.

Get real, Annabeth. Just because he became aroused didn't mean he was dying to have sex with her in particular. It was simple biology, and she needed to remember that.

And if he wanted to keep on being kind to her, well, maybe she'd just let him. Maybe she'd just go right on taking advantage of Percy Jackson and enjoying every minute of it. "Nothing is 'going on' with me. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't taking advantage of you."

"You're not."

"So. . . you don't mind going into town, then?"

"It's not about minding. It's what I planned to do. People will need help. They'd need every able bodied man."

"And woman," she reminded him.

"Right." He had the good sense to agree.

She pressed her lips together to keep from grinning up at him like some addled fool and said, "Well, fair enough, then. I was just, um, checking."

He seemed to realize suddenly that he was gripping her arm and let go. "Checking." Now he looked suspicious.

She put on her most innocent expression. "uh-huh. Nothing wrong with checking, making sure you're okay with what's going on."

"if I'm not okay, you'll know it."

"Well, then, I'll stop checking."

"Good, can we go now?"

She had that silly urge to grin again. Must be the stress of all she'd been through since yesterday. Yeah. Right. That must be it.

The trip into town was as booby trapped with obstacles as the ride to the Double J had been. There was the smell of smoke in the air. It wasn't just from wood fires in stoves and fireplaces. They heard the sirens, saw the smoke in the distance. On the south side of town, some homes had caught fire. Annabeth prayed her house wasn't one of them and then she put her house out of her mind and prayed that no lives were endangered by the fires.

Other travelers were on the road by then, most of whom they recognized. Everyone seemed to have somewhere important to go. People waved and honked, but nobody pulled over to talk about what they'd been through or exchange information about the disaster. Percy had the radio on. All the way there, they listened to advice on how to deal with the aftermath of the Great Independence Day Flood.

When they finally got to Hills Street on the southeastern edge of town, they had to circle around and take other roads farther east and then work their way back in. it was nothing but mud, pools of water, swamped, abandoned vehicles and way to much debris south of the creek. The buildings they saw before they turned east were still standing, but bore the telltale signs of water damage within.

The water level was way down from flood stage and the bridge appeared intact. Percy pulled the pickup to the shoulder before they crossed it. They both got out to take a look, to make sure that crossing would be safe. Frank jumped out to follow them.

But then a couple of pickups came rolling across from the town side. Behind the wheel of the second truck was a rancher the both recognized, Apollo Creed. Apollo owned a nice little spread at the southwestern edge of the valley and raised some of the best cows in the entire state.

He pulled to a stop. "Annabeth, Percy, I see you're both in one piece and still breathing. Could be worse, eh? I'm headin' back to my place. We still got a house, but we lost a barn and some sheds. Haven't started counting steers yet. I just stopped in at Hermes's to try and get a few supplies to tide us over." Hermes's General Store was a town landmark. The store sold everything from basic foodstuffs to farm supplies, hardware and clothing. "shelves are already looking' pretty bar in there."

Percy asked, "How bad is it?"

"in town? Power's out and so are all the phones. North of the creek is okay, from what I heard. No flooding, the water supply unaffected. South, is not looking so good. Commercial Street Bridge is washed out. There's damage to the Main Street Bridge. People are bypassing it. We still got this bridge though." He pointed a thumb back over his shoulder. "I guess we had some luck." It was pretty much what she and Percy had thought it would be, but somehow, to hear Apollo confirm their suspicions mad it all the more horribly real. " and then there's what happened to Zeus. Zeus, Ezekiel Freeman, was the mayor.

"What?" Annabeth demanded.

"Tree fell on the old SUV of his. So happened he was in the SUV at the time."

Annabeth respected Mayor Zeus. He was a born leader, a real booster of education and had planned and promoted several school related fund raisings events. "Was he hurt?"

"the tree fell on the hood. Not a scratch on him." Apollo resettled his hat on his head and Annabeth felt relief. But then Apollo added, "must have scared the shit right of him. He had a heart attack."

Annabeth put her hand over her mouth. "Oh, no. . ."

"oh, yeah. It was over real quick for Mayor Zeus."

"over?" Annabeth's hear sank. "You mean he's. . .?"

Apollo nodded. An SUV and another pickup came across the bridge. The occupants waved as they drove by. Apollo said somberly, "They took him to Hades's house. Hades pronounced him DOA." Hades, Hector Gomez, was a doctor that ran the town clinic. "Clinic's flooded, in case you were wondering."

Annabeth and Percy exchanged grim glances. They weren't surprised. The clinic was south of Main. "Hades and a couple of his neighbors waded in there and saved what equipment and supplies they could first thing this morning. Luckily, hades had a lot of his medical stuff stored on the second floor and the water didn't make it that high. He's set up an emergency clinic at his house, for now."

"They got the volunteer fire guys out on search and resuce?" Percy asked

Apollo shrugged. "can't say. I haven't heard of anybody dead, hurt too bad or stranded except for Mayor Zues, but I did hear that some count trucks brought in salvage and rescue equipment and sandbags yesterday before the levee broke. This morning, the town council put together an emergency crew to patch up the places where the water got through. So that's taken care of for now. And you can just have a look at the creek. Water level's back to normal range."

Percy gave a humorless chuckle. "yeah, one good thing about breaks in the levee. They tend to bring the water level way down."

"That they do," Apollo concurred. "plus, there's no rain in the forecast for at least the next week. So we're unlikely to have a repeat of what happened yesterday oh, and the town council called a meeting at noon in the town hall to talk cleanup and such. Wish I could be there, but I got way too much cleanup of my own out at my place and I need to get after it. Bought the bleach I needed, at least. I can disinfect my well." Apollo tipped his hat.

"you stay safe and take it slow on the road, Apollo." Percy said.

"Will do." The rancher rolled on by.

Percy put his arm around her, "You're looking kind of stricken, Annabeth"

She leaned into him, because she could. She needed someone to lean on at that moment. And Percy was so solid. So warm. So very much alive. "I'd been letting myself hope that at least no one had died and I really liked Mayor Zeus."

"I hear you. The mayor was a good man and this town could sure use him right about now." He pulled her a little closer in the shelter of his arm and turned them both back to the pickup, Frank at their heels. The dog jumped in back again and they got in the cab.

As they drove across the bridge, Annabeth tried not to dread what might be waiting for them on the other side.

AN: Hey so please don't get mad at me people but writing is soooooo boring i really want someone to adopt this story whoever does can do whatever they want with this story so idk how many more chapters i am going to write in my head i thought this was going to be like a thirty forty chapter story the only thing i really like about writing is reading reviews and responding to them.