A/N: Oh sweet heavenly Christmas have I been busy as hell the past few days. Sorry about the wait! Student teaching is kicking my buttinski. I hope you enjoy this new chapter and I hope I can get the next one out at a slightly quicker pace. Warning for dissociation and general parental angst.

ANNABETH

They get home from bowling that night a little later than intended, and none of them are up for doing anything other than collapsing.

Well, except for Reyna that is.

"Come on," she whines, pouting at the foot of Piper's bed. "I'm on a victory high. Aren't I supposed to get senselessly banged by my doting – by someone?" Reyna asks, and the pout on her face is enough to make Annabeth cringe.

"Guys," Annabeth says quietly, "I'm in the room…"

"Go hang out with Percy."

"He's probably busy," she says, shrugging, "I – I don't want to bother him.."

"Take a nap?" suggests Piper from where she's half falling off of the bed.

"Oh, sure," says Annabeth, "because you two aren't loud enough to wake up the entire building."

"We can stop," says Reyna, "I mean –"

"Oh, sure," grumbles Piper. "End it before the fun part."

"Is that necessary?" Annabeth knows it's snapping. She knows it's a little too much. But she's sick of that, sick of something. She forces her eyes shut. There's something wrong and she's mad about it.

"Is everything okay, Annabeth?" Piper asks her, and it's so abrupt it startles Annabeth.

She starts curling in on herself despite the fact that she's trying not to do so. She shrugs, and tries not to react. "I'm fine," she says.

"No, you're not," says Reyna, and Annabeth can't look away before Reyna's caught her eyes and starts studying her face. "You were really…On edge earlier today. During bowling. Did you, like, not want to go?"

Annabeth shrugs. "Just – I'm tired, okay?"

Reyna and Piper exchange a look that Annabeth's pretty sure they didn't plan for her to see.

"If you say so," says Piper. "Do you want to –"

"I think I'm going to go talk to Percy," Annabeth interrupts. "Wake him up, if I need to."

"You can talk to –"

"No," says Annabeth, "you – you guys are busy. I'll go." Annabeth scrambles on the table for her ID, her phone, and her copy of The Silver Chair she's been re-reading and tries not to feel like she's running out of her own home.

Her head's spinning – she can't figure out why, she doesn't know why, and she doesn't really want to know why. There's a knot in her chest and she can't breathe right.

Her eyes blur out a little bit and then she realizes that time's passed. She's not sure how much, but she's somewhere in the middle of campus and she's not sure where.

She looks into her hands – ID, phone, and book are still there – but there's something else there too.

"Percy?" she says, and she looks up from the hand she's holding into Percy's eyes. "How did I – how did we…?"

Percy studies her face. "You were sitting on a bench in the middle of the dorm, right outside the first floor. When I stepped out to go to the bathroom I noticed you sitting there. And all you said was 'I'm not okay,' and we went for a walk."

Annabeth stops short and closes her eyes, and slowly, very slowly, it's coming back to her. "I was – something was wrong in my head or something. Like, I think I was – my head was…I started off all fuzzy brain and then I came to your door, and we walked all over campus. And now it's – how late is it?"

Percy's eyes still haven't left her face, but he tears them away to check the time on his phone. "It's three thirty."

"We've been out here for an hour?!" Annabeth exclaims.

"Well, sort of," says Percy. "We've been wandering for a while. At one point we ended up halfway into the Math building before you did a u-turn and headed back onto the quad."

Annabeth drops her head into her hand and feels embarrassment well like bile up into her chest. "God, you must think I'm a freaking lunatic."

"I don't," he says. "I just think you're…Going through some stuff. And that's okay, because with what you've been through, I'd get it if you were always going through some stuff."

She moves her hand slowly and looks back up at him. "Well that's better than I was expecting."

"Typically not what I hear from people," says Percy with a smirk. "Except for you, of course."

"Oh, shut up," Annabeth replies, but she finds herself smiling a little bit and finding herself getting back into her right mind.

Percy holds his hand out again. "Do you need ice cream or a book or something? That's what usually helped my mom when things were rough with Gabe. She'd spend hours in a library or something, just hanging out. You know. Getting away from it all."

Annabeth doesn't respond, but she just takes Percy's hand and squeezes. "Thanks," she says. "That hasn't happened…Well, I haven't done that in a long time. Just – zoned out like that."

"It's called dissociation, sometimes," he mutters, and it's so quiet she barely hears him.

"What?" Annabeth asks.

"Dissociation," he repeats. "I – I mean, it used to happen to me when I was really little. When Gabe – my step father, he…I'd just go into a different place in my head."

Annabeth nods. She doesn't want to press for more, but she wants to know. Hell, it's like she needs to know.

"When he'd hit me," says Percy, "I'd kind of just…Fade out. Think about…" Percy chuckles and his head drops a little to his chest. When it rises again, he shakes a little hair out of his eyes and there's a little smile on his lips. "I'd pretend my father was some powerful god. Someone who could swoop out from nowhere and save me and my mom. Some sort of superhero. When I was eight I pretended to be Robin. I wanted Batman to come and save me and my mom or something."

Somehow, the only think Annabeth can think to say is, "Robin wasn't Batman's biological son, though."

"He seemed like a dad enough to me," Percy says with a shrug. "Superhero rich badass who took care of people? That was anything an eight year old poor kid from New York could want, right?"

Annabeth searches his face for an idea of what to do, and settles for wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "How did I find you?" she murmurs into his shoulder.

"Grover," Percy says into her hair. "Blame him."

Annabeth laughs. "Guess I have to."

REYNA

Annabeth comes back with a smile and looks better than she has in a while. Reyna and Piper don't ask what happened – it's not important.

But the rest of the weekend flies by, followed by an uncharacteristically mellow weel, and by the time it's Thursday, she's ready for a break.

She plans on going home for the weekend. She's not particularly fond of going home, but she feels like it might be time to get there. Though it can be stressful – her mom had told her she had planned a grad school interview at her law firm, despite Reyna's response that she's not really into being a lawyer. Her mom still micromanages when Reyna's eighteen.

But she wants to see Hylla's kids, and Hylla's boyfriend.

And, yeah, maybe her mom and dad too.

But it'll be weird to be away from Piper. Really weird. And knowing it's weird makes it feel even weirder.

Reyna left for the weekend at the very end of September – a quick visit, since she's only an hour and a half away – but she hasn't missed them as much as she expected. It's hard for them to drive down and visit, and it's even harder for her to find transportation up there. It's a miserable drive, too. It's long and it's boring and grey, and the lack of trees is startlingly…brown.

"You're going home tomorrow night?" squeaks Piper. "Oh, crap."

"What's wrong?" Reyna asks. "I've been here for all this time and now you're finally thinking you'll miss me?" She turns and presses a kiss to Piper's nose. "Aw, how cute."

Piper, however, smacks Reyna in the face. "I won't miss you," she grumbles, "I just don't have backup when my dad comes to visit. Annabeth said she'd come if I needed her, but I'm not sure it'll work with how she deals with strangers.

"You're dad's visiting?" Reyna asks. "What time?"

"Tomorrow for dinner," Piper replies, looking a little bit like she'd rather be talking about anything else.

"I'm here for dinner," says Reyna. "I mean, I can be. My mom's not getting here until seven because she's got work until 5:30, but I can come to dinner."

"You want to meet my dad?!" Piper exclaims. "Are you high?"

"No," says Reyna, feeling a little awkward, "I'm just – what, do you not want me to meet him?"

"No!" Piper frowns. "Wait, yes. Oh, hell, I don't know. We're just going to the dining hall before he has to go back to the airport."

"Airport?"

Piper rolls her eyes and flops onto the pillow, her head bouncing a little bit. Reyna finds herself inexorably brought back to the night before when Piper was moving similarly on the bed due to Reyna's delightfully sinful actions. "He's got a twelve hour layover in whatever airport is nearest. I didn't care to ask. He called to ask if he could come up for visit before he heads off to Dubai or Kiev or wherever he's going to for his next movie set."

"Kiev and Dubai aren't even on the same continent," Reyna replies. She gets an eye roll in response.

"Whatever," says Piper. "Just – dinner. Tomorrow night. 5:00 is when we're planning it, if you don't have class."

Reyna shakes her head. "Nah, I don't have class," she says. "My last class ends around 11."

"I already knew that," Piper replies, and it's so automatic it startles the two of them.

There's an awkward pause.

Piper's the one to break it. "Why are you going home now when break is in two weeks?"

"Because my parents are going on a five day vacation for that week," she grumbles. "Thanksgiving on the Sea or whatever the hell they called it. I'm staying with Hylla and her husband for those days, babysitting the tiny lightning bolts of evil that are their children."

"I thought you liked them," Piper says with a frown.

"Oh, I do," says Reyna, "but they don't acknowledge my authority when my sister leaves. I become a jungle gym."

"I thought I was the only one who gets to climb all over you," says Piper, and the look in her eye tells Reyna that something's about to happen.

"Oh, come on," says Reyna, "we're not segueing like that, are we?"

"Shh," says Piper, "just come over here."

Reyna's still laughing as Piper draws her closer for a kiss, deep and slow and lazy, and so much like Piper that Reyna just melts into it. It's a boring Thursday night – too cold for browsing outside for a party and they're too young to go to a bar – so they take their time with each other, dragging out every touch and drag and whine to its deepest.

Piper's got Reyna's wrists pinned to the bed, pink lips kissing down her body so slowly that each touch leaves a line of fire against her skin.

Fingertips brush everywhere all over each other and then nails dig in when Piper's lips drag over Reyna's center. It feels like the night could last forever, and endless crescendo for both of them.

Of course, that's when Annabeth walks into the door and chucks her backpack in the chair, chattering from the second she gets into the room.

"I am halfway to punching that desk attendant in the face the next time he's – whoa you guys are naked." In the split second between when she verbalizes it and she processes it, her face goes from annoyed to horrified and she tears her eyes away. "Oh, shit, I'll – BYE." She bolts out of the room without anything but the clothes on her back.

"That was awkward," Reyna comments.

"Shut up and let me finish with you," says Piper, "we'll talk about it later.

They don't actually talk about it later, because Annabeth comes back and says, very pointedly, "Hello, friends who I have seen for the first time today and not earlier around six."

Reyna is willing to let it go and avoid all consequences.

Piper, on the other hand, makes kissy faces at Reyna until Annabeth chucks a pillow at the two of them, so poorly aimed that it nails Reyna in the shoulder.

"I hate both of you," says Annabeth, echoing the day they went bowling, but there's less tension there than before and it's nice to see her relaxed again

A little less than twenty-four hours later, relaxed is the last thing Reyna's feeling, let alone thinking about.

She realizes: she doesn't know who Tristan McLean thinks Reyna is. Is she the girlfriend? Is she the friend? Is she the roommate? But then who would Annabeth be? And where the hell is Annabeth? Wasn't she supposed to be here? Or did she cancel and Piper just forgot to tell her? Or was Piper's comment the day before just a joke? What's going on?

Reyna's freaking out.

"Are you losing your shit?" Piper asks. "Dude, you've got that look on your face. What's wrong? He's not your dad."

"Yeah," says Reyna. "But he's your dad. And that's worse than him being my dad."

"Huh?"

"My dad spends his life nodding politely and gets paid for it," Reyna replies. "Your dad's a movie star who is coming here freaking incognito in a freaking disguise and I'm meeting him."

"Ugh," says Piper with an eye roll, "are you starstruck or something? I should have known."

"It's not that!" Reyna exclaims. "It's – " But she's totally not going into that conversation. She's not asking Piper if they're dating today of all days. No way in hell.

"He's here," says Piper, and there's not much emotion behind it other than nerves, but it's very different from Reyna's.

"Piper!" exclaims Tristan McLean. "It's wonderful to see you." He wraps her into a tight hug, and in that moment Reyna realizes just how tiny Piper is. She's halfway swallowed by Tristan's big arms.

"Hi, Pops," Piper replies, patting her pinned arms on his side. "How've you been?"

"Wonderful, wonderful," he replies. He takes her shoulders and studies her. "You look good," he says analytically. "Have you started working out?"

Reyna can't help but snort, and, unfortunately, that gets his attention. He looks at Reyna and then smiles. "You must be Reyna," he says, and it's clear his voice would be thunderous if he didn't need to be incognito. "Piper's told me so much about you."

As he wraps her in the most unexpected hug in history, Reyna raises an eyebrow at Piper over Tristan's shoulder. Piper looks a little embarrassed. It makes Reyna kind of happy, in a stupid sort of way.

"H-hi, Mr. McLean."

"Call me Tristan, Reyna."

Reyna blinks in confusion before she realizes what's happening. "Hi, Tristan."

"It's wonderful to finally meet you," says Tristan. Reyna notes that he says wonderful too much, and seriously considers banishing it from her vocabulary so it can be his word. She doesn't really want to use it anymore, kind of because it sounds a little too sugary for her taste now. "Shall we eat?"

"We can try," says Piper, "but it's not the greatest food."

"Oh, come on," says Tristan, "can't be worse than when I was at the Academy."

"You were in the military?" Reyna asks.

Tristan waves his hand. "Military school, and then a short time deployed. Parents got sick of me whining around the house about wanting to be an actor so they threw me into a school where they would work it out of me. Or something. I'm still not sure on what that meant, as it obviously didn't happen. But I was deployed for six months and then I came back." His eyes flick over to Piper. "And met Pipes' mom."

"Can we not talk about her?" says Piper. "It always makes shit depressing."

"You make shit depressing," laughs Reyna.

"Do not!" Piper counters. "I'm a goddamned ray of sunshine."

"Sure you are," say Reyna and Tristan at the same time. Piper looks between the two of them in horror.

"Oh, no," she says. "Oh, no. You're becoming friends! This isn't fair!"

It continues to be not fair through all of dinner, until it's 6:30 and Reyna has to go before dinner. It was a surprisingly fun time – Tristan kept pretending to steal cookies and candy from the dessert bar despite the thirty or so time Piper said, "It's not that funny, Dad, the place is an all you can eat!" But she says it with a smile and there's an ease with Piper and her father that Reyna wasn't expecting, from everything Piper had said.

So when Reyna says goodbye for the third time as Tristan crams cookies into her arms to "steal," it's a little hurting in her heart to say goodbye.

PIPER

Piper is exasperated.

Reyna's been gone since Friday night, and she's made it all the way to Saturday morning before getting exhausted. She's just horny, that's all. She hasn't gotten laid in too long, and it's too close to finals for her to go an entire weekend without a good twenty minutes screaming in bed.

She doesn't miss Reyna. She misses sex.

Percy and Annabeth, however, don't agree. Percy offered to come over and quiz them on their exams, since all of his exams are multiple choice and therefore he's decided to study at the last minute (Annabeth keeps forcing him to at least look at his flashcards every half hour.)

After the third time Piper grumbles about how much she hates everything with one leg up on her bed and the other one twisted underneath her in a way that probably should hurt but really doesn't, Annabeth chucks a pillow at her.

"Hey!" Piper exclaims from underneath her pillow. She picks it up and chucks it back at Annabeth. Percy snags it out of the air and snuggles up with it out of nowhere. Piper probably will never get used to how weird he is. "Stop throwing things at me. That's not nice."

"Stop whining because you miss your honey bear shnookums," replies Annabeth, her face buried in notecards. "It's not fun."

Piper sits up, her leg still propped up on her bed. "Excuse me," says Reyna. "I'm cranky because I haven't gotten laid in a million years."

"Oh, shut up and just admit that you're majorly, totally, butt-crazy in love with Reyna!" exclaims Percy from the foot of Annabeth's bed, where he's reading through a history book now. It's not even from his class – it's Annabeth's.

"Did you just quote Clueless?!" exclaims Piper. "Dude, you totally just won some more points on the awesome meter." Piper leans over to give him a high five, but he stays right where he is.

"Oh no you don't," says Percy. "Annabeth, did you see her dodge the question?"

"I heard her dodge the question," Annabeth replies. "Piper, I think you dodged the question. Do you think you dodged the question?"

"Dodge doesn't sound like a word anymore," grumbles Piper.

"Still dodging," Annabeth sing-songs.

"You two are so not allowed to talk," Piper growls. "You guys are all stupid and coupley and happy. You're all blinded but love and crap. It's not okay."

"Well why don't you just let yourself get all love blinded and everything?" Percy asks. "It's easier than just being all sullen and growly all of the time. Well, I'm assuming. I've never been particularly growly or sullen."

Piper chucks herself back into her bed that she clonks her head back onto the back wall. "Oh, fuck, that hurt," she whines. "Why does everything suck today?!"

"You're just whiny because Reyna went home for the weekend. Don't be so dramatic," says Annabeth. "Ooh, I found a source that will work for that dumb paper!"

"She left for the weekend too close to finals," says Piper, throwing herself onto her bed. "I have studying to do and I don't want to do it, and I need stress release and I'm so not getting it."

"I totally feel you there," says Percy as Annabeth says, "Too much information."

Annabeth turns to Percy. "Excuse me," she begins, "I'm pretty sure I allowed you a good two hours of stress release last night."

"Allowed me my ass," Percy replies, sliding a highlighter across the page, "that was your favorite thing and you know it."

"Never said I didn't," Annabeth says under her breath, but the way she slides closer to Percy and he, as if unconsciously, drapes his arm across her shoulders gives Piper something strange in her stomach.

Piper doesn't want to think about what it means.

"You guy are gross," Piper says, "what, do you want me to call Reyna over here the second she gets on campus and start smooching with her in front of you?"

Annabeth shrugs. "If it makes the two of you confront what's going on in your little sordid romance of yours, then sure. Just get it done."

"Get what done?"

"Confront your feelings," says Percy, flourishing his hands in the air, "discuss the truth of your emotions, make things all lovey dovey and then get naked. So I can win the –"

Annabeth elbows him in the stomach, but Piper can't avoid the action.

"Can win the what?" she asks, curious at first. But curiosity fades into annoyance as Annabeth and Percy avoid her eyes. "Can win the what?!" she snaps.

"There might be a bet."

"Percy!" snarls Annabeth. "Shut it!"

"A bet?" Piper asks. "Between who?"

"Me, Percy, Leo, Nico and Jason."

"Technically those last three jumped in late," says Annabeth. "It started as a joke between me and Percy.

"What's the bet?"

Annabeth throws her head back and laughs. "Look, Pipes," she says, "if I win, I'll tell you what the bet was about, okay?"

Piper frowns as hard as she can. "I feel like that statement should worry me or something."

"It should," says Percy. "It really, should. You should probably go to Reyna for a comforting smooch."

Percy, instead, gets a less comforting pillow to the head.