So here's the next chapter and thanks to everyone who's been reading! I need more reviews though! I can't tell what you guys think of it if you won't tell me anything! So tell me what you think, give constructive criticism, give unconstructive criticism, anything that you think will help me write the story better. Thanks! XD

Diclaimer-I don't own the Percy Jackson franchise or Rick Riordan.

Nico's POV

There is no worse punishment at camp than washing the dishes with the harpies.

They scream at you if you miss a drop of anything, and they smell worse than death-trust me, I'd know. Not to mention that we were scrubbing plates with lava. It's torture, torture worse than being trapped in Hades for an eternity.

"I can't believe they sold us out like that. Aren't women supposed to be nice when they're happy?" Grover was still fuming over how the girls had gotten away with it, since they were technically the instigators in this weird situation.

"Well, we did chase them down, tie them up, and then tickle them half to death. I think they have a pretty good reason." As I spoke I couldn't help but snicker at Percy, not even paying attention and still over the moon about Annabeth. They'd been together for going on three years, and he was still in that puppy-love stage.

"Percy, hate to kill your mood, but you've been washing the same plate for about fifteen minutes. Stop thinking, just scrub and we can be out of here faster." He didn't respond, so I kicked him in the back of the knee.

He buckled with an exaggerated 'oomph!' and nearly landed face first into the tub of plates and lava. Sputtering in a mixture of pain and surprise, he turned around and punched me in the arm.

"You-gods, you could have killed me!"

"No I couldn't of, you're indestructible."

Grover was laughing his furry legs off, and I had to laugh along with him. He hobbled over to Percy and clapped him on the shoulder. "It's alright, man. We'd get some Apollo kids to fix your pretty face!" With that he bolted, barely missing Percy's punch, and dropped his gloves in the bin by the door. "See ya', suckers! I'm going to hang out with Juniper before curfew. Have fun!"

"What?"

"How's he leaving?"

"Look at his tub! It's empty!"

"That lucky bastard, he was done!"

We grumbled for twenty more minutes as we washed, trying to figure out how he had finished so quickly. Even though I had almost burned his face off, Percy was on my side once Grover abandoned us to the harpies and the dishes. By the time we were done, I had some burns on my thighs where Percy had forgotten that I wasn't quite as invincible as he was and thrown a handful of lava at me. I swore to get him back somehow, when I could figure out where his Achilles spot was and then poke him in it.

We were just passing his cabin and he was about to leave for the night when he suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders and looked at me in a way that made me wonder if he was going to kill me.

"About Mira?"

I sighed. This again. Just because the gorgeous new girl, who's somehow the daughter of The Fates and so we don't know what she can do, chose to sleep with me-uh, I mean in my cabin-Percy and Grover have been trying to give me advice and pep-talks. So maybe I had no experience with girls. So maybe our little stunt with the tickling today was the farthest I've ever gone. Somaybe I blushed like crazy whenever even a pseudo-attractive girl looked at me. So maybe I was only fifteen and she was sixteen and she was certainly more experienced then me in all sense of the word.

So maybe I needed help.

But it's not like I was going to admit that.

"Percy, listen to me." I grabbed him by the shoulders too, and we stood like that while we talked, which was probably the weirdest thing I've ever done. "I will be fine. She's just a girl. It's one night, and then she's gone. I'm really not expecting anything to come from it."

"One can always hope though, right?" Damn. Did he know what I was thinking?

"Well…Yeah, one can always hope."

He slapped my face and walked into his cabin.

"What was that for?"

"Good luck!"

I really hate him sometimes.

I trailed the row of cabins, not really paying attention to the different cabins, just walking along, thinking my own thoughts. I didn't realize the Stolls were trying to get my attention until they threw a tiny golden ball at me.

"Wha-?"

Snickering at my confusion, Connor asked me if they could borrow a skeleton for…something.

"For what?"

He and his brother just looked at each other evilly. "Oh, nothing."

Realizing they weren't going to give in until I gave them what they wanted, I summoned up a skeleton and told it to do whatever the Stolls wanted until they told him (her?) to disappear.

"We owe you, Nico!"

"Yeah, whatever." I really wasn't that close with Travis and Connor, but they seemed like pretty cool guys, on the odd occasion.

Wandering into my cabin, it took me a moment to process what I was seeing. Mira was already inside, which for some reason I wasn't expecting, and she was reaching for something on a top bunk. (I really don't understand why they have so many bunks in there. It's not like I had fifteen secret siblings hidden in my closet.) She was wearing this big, old t-shirt, and what appeared to be a pair of really tiny, hot pink shorts. It took me about two more seconds to realize that they were lacy, low cut, and shaped like a bikini bottom.

Oh dear gods.

She turned and noticed me at the same time I was trying to back quietly out of the room.

"Oh, hi Nico!" She gave me a grin, then she must have realized the same thing I did, and her face fell at fifty thousand miles an hour.

"Oh, fuck." Her face turned bright red as she spoke, and tried to pull the shirt down.

"Uhm, I'll just-I, uh-well-I gotta go!"

And with that beautifully intelligent sentence, I ran for Percy's cabin.

Midway there, I stopped. He would berate me forever, reminding me of how I said everything would be fine, and it was just a simple mistake, right? I had to go back. So I took a deep breath, pretended not to notice the eyes in the windows of the Hermes's cabin, and walked back to the steps of my cabin. No doubt my freak out would be the talk of the camp by the next morning.

Steeling myself, I opened the door very, very slowly to find her now fully dressed, a pair of baggy sweatpants covering…well, everything I'd just seen.

She was still trying to get whatever was on the top of the bunk when I came in, but as soon as she saw me up she stopped and looked at me with the most nervous expression I'd ever seen on someone other than myself.

"I'm really sorry about that I swear to the gods I wasn't trying to be provocative or anything like that I was just spacing out and I would never ever do something this idiotic on the first day I've known somebody cuz normally I do all the idiotic things after I've known them for a while and-"

I cut her off by putting a finger to my lips. She had been talking at the speed of light and I could barely understand what she was saying, but I guessed it was an apology from the way she was wringing her hands and looking up at me with eyes wider than twin shields. Actually, she was looking at me kind of funny, as if-

Oh. I'd just been watching her for a good ten seconds without saying anything, which was probably kind of creepy.

"So, ah, what are you looking for up there, anyway?"

"Oh I was going through this kit that Annabeth and her siblings put together for me when the knife got stuck on something else. I kept pulling on it, but I pulled to hard and it flew up there." She bit her lip, and glared at the offending bunk. "Why are the bunks so tall, anyway? And why aren't there any ladders?"

I laughed at her a little bit, then walked over with only a little hesitation and looked around for the knife. "Well, they're tall because I'm tall, and there're no ladders because I'm the only one who lives here." I yanked the knife out of where it had embedded itself sideways in the headboard of the bunk, and handed it to her.

I attempted to smile at her, and I guess it worked a little bit, because she smiled back. Just then I realized that she actually wasn't that short, and she probably could have climbed onto the top of the bunk to get her own knife. At the time, I only thought it was weird.

"So, where should I be sleeping? I mean, I know there's an excess of bunks, but I don't want to accidentally take one that'd be wrong…"

"Oh, uhm, any where's fine. Mine's just that one, in the middleish area, so just…anywhere."

She smiled at me a little shyly, then picked up her stuff and plopped it on the bed right across from mine.

"Do you know where I can get real sheets from? 'Cuz this sleeping bag is…different." I laughed at the face she made, and laughed more when she glared at me.

"Talk to one of the kids in the Hermes's cabin. Actually, talk specifically to the Stolls. They can get you just about anything. If they ask for payment, say it's repaying a favor from me."

She smiled at me, and slid into her sleeping bag. "Night, Nico." I guess hadn't realized how late it was.

I was still standing when she closed her eyes and seemed to fall immediately asleep. "Goodnight, Mira."

She woke the next morning with a whimpered scream. It moaned through her lips like the bloody breath of the wounded, and it scared the Styx out of me. She sounded like she was dying, as if someone had cut off her vocal chords and stabbed her, leaving her silent and bloody. I stumbled over to her, still half-asleep, and touched her shoulder.

"Mir-"

I wasn't able to finish, because then she had her hands around on my shoulders and was shaking me, eyes wide open, shining with a devilish glint in the moonlight that entered through the windows.

"Why did you let them hurt me? Why didn't you stop them? You could have stopped them! You could have stopped them!" Her voice was rough, horrible, sandpaper being scratched along the walls of a tomb, and she wouldn't stop shaking me.

Then her eyes pooled with tears and her voice became weak, the voice of a child who has lost a favorite toy. "Why did you leave me, Da-" At this her voice gave out, and she blinked a few times, eyes losing their tears and their bloodthirsty roundness to confusion and morning doubt.

"Nico? What…what happened?"

I tried to give her a comforting smile, and spoke with my softest voice. "Well…you started this odd sort of screaming, and then you grabbed me and accused me of letting them hurt you, and then leaving you."

"Oh." Her eyes were downcast, suddenly, vibrantly silent of emotions "Oh, I'm sorry. I just have these…nightmares sometimes. I'm sorry for waking you."

"It's almost time to get up, anyway. Do you…do you maybe want to talk about it?"

"No." It was a word like a blade, and it cut me in the same way. "Oh, Nico, I'm sorry. Don't look like that; I can't stand to see those pretty little eyes of yours so down. Like, I said, I just get nightmares."

It sounded like a lot more than just nightmares to me, but I was more focused on the middle sentence then the last.

Pretty eyes? Did she mean that?

I guess she realized what she said, too, because she suddenly got out of her sleeping bag with a flush in her cheeks. "Well, I need to get dressed so..."

"Right. Uhm, I'll leave."

She smiled at me as I grabbed my clothes, unsuccessfully trying to hide the pale blue boxers with the pink hearts in the mess of black.

They was a gift from Demeter. Please don't ask.

I ran all the way to Percy's cabin, where he was still asleep.

"Wake up, Seaweed Brain!"

"…Annabeth…?"

"No. Nico. Now unless you want some serious ass-whooping, get up, get dressed, and come with me to breakfast."

He was dressed in record time.

By the time we got there, Mira was already sitting at my table, alone, chewing contentedly on the end of a straw.

"Looks like someone's waiting for you." Percy smirked and shoved me gently towards the half empty table.

"Hey!" She laughed at my falsely peppy voice, and invited me to sit.

I noticed that she had half a bowl full of Cheerio's and a glass of milk, and that there was no milk in the Cheerio's. I was about to ask her about it when Chrion stood up to make an announcement.

I looked around in amazement, noticing for the first time that everyone was there. Apparently we had slept late. We probably would have missed breakfast if Mira hadn't had her nightmare.

"As you all know, Mira is out newest camp member, and we don't have a cabin for her. As there is no more room in the central area, we will need to build one in a different place. Does anyone have any ideas?"

In my head I was thinking that she could just stay with me for the rest of her life, and I guess I got a little carried away, because soon Mira was poking me with the end of her spoon, looking concerned.

"Earth to Nico…what were you thinking about so intensely?" She was laughing at me, I could tell, but there was no way I could tell her what had just been going through my mind. She would probably smite me with her mystical Fate powers or something.

"Uh…nothing. What did Chiron say?"

"Oh, just that Juniper found this hidden clearing that's really hard to get to while she was with Grover," The look on her face was enough to remind me of my recent daydreams and I knew my cheeks were on fire. "And she's letting us build my cabin in it. And Chiron said something about how every cabin is going to add something of their own to it, since The Fates symbolize everyone, and so The Fates' cabin should be a culmination of all the cabins working together."

We talked for a while, and then it was time to start our classes for the day.

"What are you doing?" I noticed that Mira seemed to be following me.

"Oh, I've decided that whoever's cabin I stayed in the previous night is the one I'll stick with for that whole day. So you're stuck with me until tonight!"

She trotted off to the arena, where we would be sparring, and I could only think about how much I would miss her when she was gone.

Remember To Review! XD