Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.

So, it's been a while...I have no excuses, but at least I'm updating! For this chapter, a little Percy Jackson blurb. This is one I could run with for multiple chapters, so we'll see what the reviews say.

As usual, read, enjoy, and please review. Your comments are excellent motivation!

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" The sharply-worded question cut through the otherwise stagnant air, the words curling about the tall young man like a whip and halting him in his tracks as he attempted to creep by unnoticed.

"Um…" His vocabulary failed him as his mind stalled. Peering about the gloomy wood, he searched for his interrogator as he groped for an answer to her questions.

"Well?"

If he could see the source of the disembodied voice, he was all but certain that she (he thought it was a woman, at least) would be tapping her foot and leveling him with an impatient glare. Dark eyes passed over the nearby scattering of trees, narrowing in triumph as they focused on a feminine form lurking behind a majestic old oak. "If you come out I'll answer you," he called. He glanced down at the naked blade in his hand and hurriedly sheathed it; he wasn't certain what the Mist disguised his sword as, but he was certain that whatever it was wouldn't be all too inviting to the unwary mortal.

Hesitantly, the blurred body moved through the haze, solidifying into the form of a woman just a few years younger than he. "Who are you?" she repeated, looking at him through narrowed eyes, her searching gaze piercing him like a Spartan spear. "And what is that?!" She jerked her head toward his sword, gaping at the weapon with unabashed awe.

Not knowing what it was she was being shown, Paton shrugged. "What does it look like?" he asked.

"It looks like a broadsword," she said, approaching him as one would approach a skittish animal. Quirking an eyebrow, she swept an appraising look up and down his frame. "Why are you wearing Greek armour?"

"How do you know it's Greek?" The words were out of his mouth before he had time to consider the potential ramifications of the assertion. She should not have been able to see through the Mist in the first place, and he should not have confirmed her observation once he knew she could.

Raising her eyebrows, the woman gave his ensemble an appraising glance. "I would be a poor excuse of a history student if I couldn't recognize a solid set of Greek armour and weaponry," she said mildly.

"…but you're a mortal!" Paton blurted, blushing furiously as she turned that blazing look on him once more.

"As opposed to…?" The question hung at the end of her sentence, dangling between them like a particularly large worm on a hook.

"Erm…" Paton floundered, trying to determine the best course of action. Open mouth, insert foot; that was him in a nutshell. "Well, a demi-god," he finally said, giving a defeated mental shrug and desperately hoping this wouldn't backfire on him.

Her eyebrows shot skyward. "Oh, come off it!" she exclaimed. "You really expect me to believe that?" When his expression didn't change, her incredulous glare slid slowly to a thoughtful frown. "You're serious," she stated, giving him a look that managed to be even more probing than any previous.

Mutely, he nodded. This was not a turn his quest should have taken; he had planned to be in and out of this little town, slaying the beast and so on and then returning to camp immediately after. But, no, he had decided to take a detour instead (but really, the allure of ten thousand year old ruins were far too tempting for his history-infatuated mind to resist), and now look where he was—stuck in a foggy forest with a quizzical, infuriating, rather attractive (not that he was looking, of course) woman who it just so happened was clear-sighted enough to see through the Mist.

Biting her lip in thought, she peered at him for a long moment, as if debating the authenticity of his claim. "I may be completely mad," she finally said, "but I believe you. It certainly explains the bizarre things I've seen over the years."

His interest was piqued. "What sort of things?"

She laughed, and it was the most glorious sound in the world. "Certainly stranger things than you," she teased, smiling. "There was a chimera at the zoo one day—I say was, because some gentleman appeared not long after and slayed it or whatnot—and I did see a trireme sail by one day at the harbor, and various sorts of artifacts and impossible things over the years." She pursed her lips and tilted her head. "I always assumed there was something more than humans, but…" Something clicked into place for her and she jerked with the force of the thought. "Hang on; you said you're a demi -god, yes? So does that mean…" She trailed off, overwhelmed.

"That the gods themselves are real?" Paton finished her sentence, resigned to this mess he had gotten himself into. "Yes. As are the myths and creatures and heroes."

"Fascinating." Words failed Julia for once, and she suddenly felt defenseless, felt raw and revealed to this young man who was so much more, who was part of a world that had fascinated her since childhood and had lived adventures the likes of which she could never conceive. Eventually curiosity overcame her stupefaction, and she ventured a step or two nearer. "Are there many of you?"

Paton's teeth flashed in a grin, taking years of premature worry from his face. The few moments he had spent in Julia's company left him with no doubt that she would flood him with questions once she overcame her initial timidity—and she certainly did not disappoint. "Oh, enough," he said vaguely, waving a hand in the air. "Any time one of the gods has a fling with a human, we're the result."

Julia shook her head. "It's just too much," she murmured. "A whole other world, existing on the fringe of this one, simultaneously there but not." Suddenly she blinked and blushed, looking abashed. "It just occurred to me that I haven't introduced myself," she said, properly embarrassed that her sense of propriety and etiquette had simply waltzed away. "Julia Ingledew, double major in ancient history and anthropology."

Paton chuckled, for their lack of an introduction had just occurred to him as well. "Paton Yewbeam," he replied, extending his hands and taking one of hers in his warm grip. "Son of Athena." Laughing again at her incredulous stare, he released her hand and raised an awkward hand to the back of his neck, looking again like the lost young man that he was. "Of course, there are some strange characters on my dad's side of the family as well, so I have a bit more 'weirdness' in me than most, so to speak."

"Athena's your mother?" Julia asked. "Truly?"

"Truly."

"Goddess of wisdom and war, and…you're wandering around the outskirts of town dressed like someone in the midst of a reenactment of the Iliad."

Back straightening into a defensive posture, Paton glared at her. "Well, you aren't supposed to be able to see that!" he retorted. "There's this thing called the Mist, keeps most mortals from noticing anything going on, but apparently you can see through it."

"Huh. Useful talent, that," Julia remarked, looking pensive.

"Dangerous," Paton stressed, stepping toward her. "If you can see us, then we take notice of you—and there are far more beings who want to harm you than help you in our world."

He was deadly serious now, and Julia flinched at the certainty laced into his words. "I've done well enough so far," she demurred.

Shaking his head, he gripped one of her shoulders and peered down into her face (how had it taken her this long to notice how tall he was?). "Before now you haven't spoken to one of us, haven't made your observations known. Now…" he trailed off, worry easing its way across his chiseled features.

"I think I'll be fine, thank you," she announced, shrugging out of his grasp and meeting his sable gaze defiantly. "I'm not some damsel in distress, you know." Bravado shone in her honeyed eyes, and the sun chose that moment to send a lone tendril of golden light coiling down through the forest canopy to cut through the gloom and bathe her in a radiant glow.

Paton thought he had never seen a more beautiful sight. "No, you most certainly are not," he agreed, smiling. "But, even the strongest individual can meet their match if they aren't careful." He looked so despairingly wounded as he spoke that Julia sensed there was a story behind his words, a raw, red loss lurking in his background that constantly chafed at him. Stooping, he took both of her shoulders in a gentle grip and met her eyes in a fierce glance. "Promise me you'll be careful, Julia," he said. "Promise me if you see anything, anyone that doesn't belong in your happy human reality that you'll just turn the other way, that you'll let it pass unnoticed. There is enough blood on my hands as it is; I don't want to add yours to it."

Julia trembled as he spoke, both from his proximity as well as from his actual words. Her day had started so simply—just a solo expedition to investigate the local ruins—so how had she ended up here, questions that had been haunting her for years finally answered and a young man with old eyes telling her to ignore every trace of her gift (and it was a gift, this sight, because the things she saw, they were marvelous and impossible and everything she dreamed about). "How can I walk away from this?" she asked, risking a glance into his fathomless eyes (look too long and she would fall, she knew she would, spiraling downward into the limitless cosmos of his gaze, never to return). "I've spent twenty years of my life wondering if I was a freak, terrified that I was seeing things that didn't exist and unwilling to let go of them because they showed me everything that has ever fascinated me. Now you show up here and I learn it's all real, it's all true, and you expect me to just let it all go." She shook her head. "I can't do it. Dangerous or no, this is a part of me."

Looking down at her, chestnut hair cascading around her face, eyes bright with passion and defiance and so many more things he didn't want to let himself think about, Paton felt the stirrings of frustration emerge. She was dead set on this course, but she didn't know, could not possibly comprehend the danger she was in. "Julia," he said, "it's not just about the monsters and artifacts and such; there are so many enemies of the gods, so many foes of Olympus, and to have someone with your power in their grasp…that would be bad." Studying her face as he was, he saw her body tense and her eyes widen as she jerked upright in his grasp.

"Paton, duck!" she commanded.

Trained as he was for combat, he obeyed without thinking, his body obeying the tone of her voice long before his mind had a chance to catch up.

Moving like lightning, Julia grasped the hilt of his sword and tugged it from its scabbard, jerking it loose and lunging forward to stab the monstrous spider that had descended from the forest canopy, suspended behind Paton on a long, luminescent strand of silk. The blade slid through the beast's head like a knife through butter, penetrating straight through to the brain and puncturing several great eyes along the way. With a heaving shudder, the arachnid fell from its sinuous web and thudded to the ground, a trickle of gore oozing from the wound.

"Juila—what?" Paton jumped to his feet, pivoting to gape at the spider. His frantic gaze jumped between the twitching monster and the woman beside him, catching up with this rapid turn of events.

"What was that thing?" she gasped, turning away from the mutilated corpse with an ill-concealed shudder. She wasn't a fan of spiders even on a good day, and mythological spiders with eyes as large as baseballs were a bit beyond her realm of enjoyment.

"Giant arachnid," Paton said distractedly, sliding his sword from the body and eyeing the accumulated juices with distaste. He slid the blade back into its sheath with a quiet 'snick', and they both watched in silence as the massive hairy form faded away.

"Is it gone for good?" Julia asked, knowing the answer even as she spoke.

He shook his head. "Only temporary, I'm afraid." He ran a hand through his shaggy black hair. "You saved my life," he murmured.

"I…I suppose I did," Julia stammered, a blush tinting her cheeks. Opening her mouth to speak, Julia gasped as another tendril of web ballooned out from behind a nearby tree, festooning itself to her body and pinning her arms to her sides. "Paton!" she gasped, eyes growing wide with alarm. That was all she managed to get out before another strand of sickly green silk wrapped around her mouth, only just loose enough to allow some oxygen to pass through her nose.

Paton's eyes darkened and narrowed, his expression thunderous and laced with ill-suppressed fury. "Let her go," he commanded.

"Or what, son of Athena?" An oily voice issued from behind the tree, wafting on the wind to dance in the air around him. "You'll kiiiiill me?" The beast let out a grating laugh and moved from its hiding place in a whirl of legs, heaving its bulk out into the clearing. "One move from you, hero, and the woman dies."

Paton grimaced, hand flexing toward his sword. He took half a step forward, jerking to a halt as the hideous being raised a hideous claw and lightly tapped the side of Julia's face.

"Nuh-uh," it taunted, clicking its pincers maliciously as Julia winced at the touch. "Better watch your step!"

"What do you want me to do?" Paton asked numbly, ignoring Julia's glare that explicitly told him to forget about her and kill the monster already.

The spider cackled. "Step over here," it cooed. "My mother will be delighted to have one of Athena's most treasured sons in her possession."

"Of course," Paton spat, using the spider's distraction to shift a few feet closer to Julia. "Arachne." He saw Julia's eyes widen with comprehension (and he nodded because of course she would understand the reference) and in one fluid movement whipped out his sword and decapitated the spider. Its body disappeared before the head even hit the ground. Instantly, Paton was beside her, carefully sliding his blade through the thick webbing and freeing Julia from its constricting clutches.

She gasped as she was freed, inhaling a great gulp of air and staggering (and maybe her lack of balance was slightly exaggerated) back into Paton's chest. His arms wrapped snugly about her waist, securing her to him as she regained her footing.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his mouth right beside her ear.

Julia shivered (and it had nothing to do with her near-death experience) and nodded, smoothing shaking hands down her front and slowly extracting herself from his grasp. "You saved me," she murmured, echoing his earlier statement.

Paton moved about the clearing, inspecting it for any remaining arachnids. Determining that the danger had passed, he slid his sword into its sheath and turned to Julia with a bashful smile. "If I remember correctly, I'm simply returning the favor."

Julia blushed. "Yes, well…"

All too soon, the moment slipped away to be eclipsed once more by reality. "So, it seems you're a wanted man," Julia prompted, brushing ineffectively at the tendrils of web still clinging to her clothes.

Paton frowned. "So it would seem," he muttered. "My mother has many enemies, and I have many of my own as well. When they have common interests, well…" His mouth tightened. "And now they know about you."

The thought had occurred to Julia as well, but she refused to let him see how it worried her, hiding her fear behind a smile. "It will be alright," she said, reaching up to smooth his dark hair out of his face. Suddenly her mind caught up with her movements, and she blushed and dropped her hand, stepping back from the too-intimate moment.

He caught her hand as it fell, running his thumb over her palm in a soothing caress, the smooth movement belying the worry that danced in his eyes. "No, it won't," he said. "You are in danger now, Julia, and that can't be helped."

Biting her lip, Julia looked up at him. "What do I do?" she asked. "Paton, I'm afraid."

He inhaled, mind turning over multiple scenarios, until finally, "Come with me," he said. "I can get you somewhere safe, somewhere you can be protected from harm (and somewhere I can see you, his traitorousmind added)."

Julia met his determined gaze with wide eyes, weighing his words. "Walk away from my life?" she asked. "Just like that?"

He met her eyes sadly. "If you want to keep that life," he said.

"Will you be there?" she asked, suddenly sounding young and afraid. "Where we're going?"

Paton gave a gentle nod. "Yes. It's my home—the only place I've ever been able to call home, anyway. It's where I live when I'm not on a quest."

"Where is it?" Her eyes were bright, filled with apprehension and nervousness and a latent curiosity that she could never completely quash, as well as with a rapidly expanding trust in this strange alluring man who had just waltzed into her life.

Grasping her hand in his, Paton smiled. "It's called Camp Half Blood."