Part II: The Fall

"Here too it's masquerade, I find / As everywhere, the dance of mind / I grasped a lovely masked procession / And caught things from a horror show… / I'd gladly settle for a false impression / If it would last a little longer though"

-Johan Wolfgang von Goethe

"I didn't care who kissed you first as long as I kissed you last."

-Rachel Vail, If We Kiss

Annabeth IV

Annabeth groaned as she saw who was approaching her. She could tell just by their matching red sneakers who they were, and she was honestly not that prepared to deal with yet another crazy drama at camp.

"Dude!" Both Conner and Travis Stoll ran up to her, their curly brown heads bouncing in the air like overexcited small dogs. "I don't even know how, but it finally worked! WE SUCCESSFULLY ORDERED PIZZA!" Annabeth immediately felt dread in her stomach as she looked down at the hands of the Stolls, which were currently filled with gooey, cheesy, almost plastic-looking classic New York pizza.

"Come on," she told them, putting one hand on each of their backs and spinning them around to face Half Blood Hill. "Time for you two to explain yourselves, or at least to help that poor man get home without being mentally scarred for life."

"Dude, see here's the weird thing," Travis Stoll started, "like I was totally telling Connor that you were totally going to be super mad when you found out, and Conner was like yeah Annabeth's going to blow her rocket when she finds out, so we should totally go see her face when she does, and that guy recognized your name. Dude, I think he knows you!" Annabeth was not pleased to hear that.

"Come on," Conner Stoll gestured towards the circle of cabins. "He's probably still sitting on the steps of our cabin, 'cause there's like no way we can pay him, Hades, we didn't even think he was coming. After the first few tries, it's mostly been just for fun, to see the pizza place's reactions when their delivery guys tell them this place doesn't exist, but this dude, I'm telling you, he's super weird."

Sure enough, a guy was sitting on the front porch of the Hermes cabin. For a second, Annabeth stopped dead in her tracks; he was sitting exactly the way Luke used to… but it could not be... could it? It was not. As she approached, she noticed that the guy had darker skin than Luke; it was closer to the color of red clay. His hair was blonde, but it had obviously been bleached that way, and it didn't exactly look amazing. Sure enough, he held in his right hand a red messenger bag that read in white lettering: "Carlo's Pizza: If You Don't Love It, We Don't Love You." He was sitting in a manner much too carefree for someone who was looking over towards kids racing lava on a climbing wall. Annabeth was immediately suspicious.

"What are you doing here?"

"Annabeth?" he asked. She recognized his voice. "I'm delivering pizza, what are you doing here? Are you a demigod too?"

The daughter of Athena turned to glare at the Stolls. "Could you give us a minute?" She asked them, her voice practically seeping with annoyance. They scampered off, their tails between their legs.

"Call me Jeff," the very lost pizza delivery guy told her, putting forward one of his red-clay hands for her to shake.

Annabeth still had her hood up to protect her from the blizzard, but once she entered the camp's boundary, there was no reason to keep it up, since the only snow in camp was on the ground. She stood face to face with Jeff on the splintered wooden steps of the Hermes cabin, examining their reflection in the slightly tinted windows. Annabeth pulled her hood down, letting her golden curls spill out into the freezing winter air.

"Whoa!" Jeff exclaimed. "You're a girl?" She gave him a glare. "Umm," He started rubbing his neck with his left hand, "You are a girl, right?"

Annabeth smiled back politely, slightly confused as to whether or not she should be offended by his question. "Yeah," she said. "I'm a girl."

Jeff immediately started blushing, a dark pink spreading across his face. "Not that you look like a boy or anything… I mean, of course you don't. You're totally not boy-like, unless you were a really girly boy, but of course you're not. You're too pretty to be a boy! How could I not see that?"

This time, Annabeth's smile was real. A pink flush reached her cheeks as the really lost pizza delivery guy continued rambling on.

"So you think I'm pretty?" She smirked, enjoying the attention. Jeff's pink cheeks turned red, and Annabeth suddenly felt ten times more confident than she had when she had arrived at camp. "Come on, I'll take you to Chiron and we'll see how on Earth you were able to enter camp." They started walking towards the Big House, and then Annabeth decided to stop and turn back around to Jeff. "Just for clarification… how much did the Stolls tell you?"

He nodded in response, "Pretty much everything." Annabeth cursed the mischievous brothers.

"Chiron's not going to be happy about that…" she muttered to herself, grabbing Jeff's wrist and continuing on to the Big House.

He was in there for quite a while. For a few terrifying minutes, Annabeth considered the possibility that Chiron had murdered him for knowing about demigods. Yet, he had not done it with Rachel. She slightly wished that was the policy. Not for poor Jeff's sake, of course, but, you know, things just might be a little less complicated if—

She heard the door to the Big House creak open. Jeff came out, thankfully not murdered. He had a look of confusion on his face that she recognized, and as he sauntered out of the old house, Annabeth felt a sudden sense of nostalgia. She would have to talk to him eventually about recognizing him.

"So what are you?" Jeff asked upon emerging from the Big House onto its porch. "A daughter of Aphrodite or something?" Annabeth blushed, shocked at his compliment; she had never been compared to one of the gorgeous daughters of the goddess of love and beauty before.

"No, I'm a child of Athena. Sorry to disappoint you."

"You sure?" The really lost pizza delivery guy asked, looking her up and down. "Because you're definitely hot enough to be one."

"You don't mean that," she responded with a smirk, wanting to give him a small nudge with her shoulder like she would do with Percy, but for some reason her mind told her no, that would be wrong.

They continued away from the Big House and towards the canoe lake, as Jeff responded. "Well, I mean, I may be biased since we did go to the Snowflake Dance together in 8th grade." The daughter of Athena laughed in response, remembering how geeky and awkward he had been. She had barely recognized him when she had first seen him sitting on the steps of the Hermes cabin. It was only when he had said her name, in the exact same way that he had said it in 8th grade, that she had finally matched his name with his face.

Annabeth hadn't wanted to go to the 8th grade winter dance; she'd wanted to stay in her room and study for finals, but her school friends (who were really all two-faced and fake) had coerced her to go with Kevin Jefferson, who had asked her so nicely. Why he now went by an abbreviation of his last name, she had no idea.

They walked for a bit, before stopping at the canoe lake. She did not know why she stopped there, but it had always given her a sense of calm, and right now she needed to be calm if she was going to face an old classmate actually being a demigod. She had to admit, she could not even begin to comprehend how she had not noticed it while they'd been going to class together.

Jeff was actually pretty attractive, Annabeth noted, although the gaggle of girls hiding behind the trees near them really should have been enough to tip her off about that fact. She was still raging from Drew's actions to Silena and the fact that her and Percy had been out together on what had looked like a date up until the wee hours of the night. She had been experiencing enough jealousy for the past year than she was almost able to handle, and this just felt like a fatal blow. Didn't he know how much they hated each other? Ugh, he was so oblivious sometimes. Her eye caught on her reflection in the lake; blond curls and smoky grey eyes standing next to the still-very-lost, and very confused slightly attractive pizza delivery guy, and something clicked inside her head.

She had heard one of the more prone-to-gossip sons of Aphrodite talking about how Drew had been forced by her father to hang out with none other than Rachel Dare for the day. Gossip was an effective tool to make people, specifically Percy Jackson, jealous, and it was the tool that Annabeth Chase intended to take full advantage of today. She was done with always being the one on the receiving end of jealousy: She had been jealous of Luke and Thalia, of Luke and Silena, of Percy and Rachel, of Percy and Calypso, and now of Percy and Drew. When did it get to be his turn?

Something suddenly came into Annabeth's mind. It was a devious plan alright, and probably harmless, but it gave her confidence to even think about doing something like that. It wasn't a crime to flirt a little, was it? Most of the daughters of Aphrodite did it all the time, and they usually never got a bad reputation for it. Anyway, it wasn't like her and Jeff were complete strangers; they had gone to the 7th grade winter dance together, after all, and he had been her first slow dance. Maybe if she continued the escapade for long enough word would begin to reach Percy…

Things went smoothly for the first few hours, as awkward small talk slowly turned to flirty banter. Annabeth made sure that her wit was quick and her body language practically oozing hormones. However, things started to get surprising after the nightly campfire sing-along.

The song had been about Artemis and Santa, to the tune of the Christmas carol, "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer." He had sat on her right side at the campfire, with Silena and Clarisse and Beckendorf on her left. She felt slightly uncomfortable every time their skin brushed, although it wasn't very often because pretty much everyone was wearing a light jacket of some kind. She brushed the feelings of discomfort away quickly though, remembering her mission. So Annabeth sang the stupid song and brushed hands with Jeff too many times for them all to have been an accident, and decided she really just wanted to get back to her cabin.

That did not happen, however, because Jeff had walked her back to her cabin on his way to the Hermes cabin; where he would be staying until he was claimed. They stopped at the door, and he started to joke, "You remember that party that Sarah threw at the end of the year?"

"Yeah…" Annabeth responded, treading carefully. She knew she had not gone to that party; she had gone to camp as soon as school had gotten out, but she had been invited, although she had respectfully declined, pretty sure at the time that Sarah was a monster.

"Well, there was this game there, some sort of kissing game, I forget which one it was, and I remember I just kept thinking that I wished you were there, because I knew that Joey, who was in charge of the game, would make sure I kissed you, but you never showed up."

"Sorry," Annabeth tried for a laugh, although the conversation was quickly going to places that she did not want it to go. "I was at camp." She gestured around, towards the cabins and the campfire, from where they had just come.

He laughed, probably not faking it, and responded "Yeah, I understand that now. I'm sure you'll understand when I do this then." He paused for a moment before leaning over and kissing her. She was not sure what she had expected. Still, was this some sort of weird payback for her not being at that party?

It wasn't a real kiss or anything, just a peck on the lips, but Annabeth was shocked, nonetheless. She had not really expected things to go this far, and she wasn't totally sure how to explain the situation to herself, much less Jeff or her cabinmates. Luckily, Jeff quickly walked away before Annabeth could do much more than process the fact that he'd just kissed her. She walked to her bunk, dazed, and ignoring the stink-eye that a few of her fellow cabinmates, who had just seen the kiss, were giving her. Jeff was probably lucky that Athena had not blasted him to smithereens. Perhaps the goddess enjoyed seeing her daughter take advantage of a boy.

She lay in her bunk that night and stared at the ceiling of the Athena cabin, lost in thought. He had tried to kiss her once before, she remembered, at the 8th grade winter dance. Usually, Annabeth tried to repress memories like this; ones that would either make her cringe or make her cry. Currently, even she was not sure which one of those this memory was, only that it was bad and should probably not be purposefully located in the cave of her subconscious where it had been hiding for years.

She had been wearing a green dress, she remembered that. It was a gift from her step-mother in San Francisco, who was trying to get Annabeth to come home for the Christmas vacation. She was supposed to wear the dress for her father's annual Christmas Party, where he would invite historians and aviation-enthusiasts from around the area, and present his children and his wife to them, along with his dream of one day re-enacting a battle from World War II. Instead, being the rebellious teenage girl she was, Annabeth had worn it to the winter dance. It was dark satin, with sleeves that went down to her elbows, and a white sash. She almost smirked remembering how she had tried to make sure someone, anyone, spilled soda or punch on that dress. Unfortunately, no one had.

Jeff had worn a grey blazer over a blue and white checked shirt and a bow-tie. Even now, she remembered him nervously stuttering something about how he had purposefully chosen grey because it matched her eyes. Even now, she remembered her so-called friends glancing over at the two of them and giggling. Even now, she remembered wishing her friends would choke on their punch, or at least spill some on their dresses. She may or may not have purposefully dumped soda on their heads later that night. He had asked her to dance to the song My Love by Justin Timberlake, and Annabeth remembered some rant she'd given to him about how stupid it was that guys had to ask girls to dances and how really all of that should change, and no she didn't mean that the student council should plan a Sadie Hawkins dance.

It really was amazing that the bumbling idiot of a boy that had asked her to dance a year ago had turned so suave and flirtatious. Annabeth wondered what had happened. What happened to the boy with glasses and a bow tie who tried so hard to get Annabeth to pay even a little attention to him the night of the 8th grade winter dance? What had happened to the boy who waited patiently on the bleachers of the gym as his date blew him off to go stab one of the student teachers with a celestial bronze blade and watch her explode into powder as he sat there and wondered if she'd ever come back from the bathroom? What could have possibly happened in the past two years to turn him into this?

That was not the part about that night that bugged her though, it was the fact that she had stood there and watched, helpless even with a celestial bronze blade in her hand, as Colton Yetzi had beat him up. You cannot fight mortal bullies with a dagger made to kill monsters. You can't stab girls in the back with celestial bronze as they stab you in the back with words. Even if you try with all your might, you cannot stop a bully with a weapon that cannot harm them. Annabeth had known that that night. She knew if she intervened, she might have made things worse for the both of them. Why did she still feel so guilty though? The girls had gotten what they deserved that night, despite the boys not quite getting their revenge. The girls who had convinced Annabeth to come had gotten soda in their curled hair, and the girls who had laughed as Kevin Jefferson was beat to pulp had small traces of superglue placed in their shampoo bottles. No one ever suspected sweet, honors student Annabeth Chase. Not even Kevin Jefferson. No one had realized what she had done to help him.

They'd never seen Ms. Kelley, the student teacher, after that night. In fact, everybody seemed to forget about her, except for Kevin, but he'd suffered mildly severe head trauma that night (to be specific, his skull had been rammed into the bleachers), so everyone just assumed for the rest of the semester that he just wasn't remembering things clearly, after all, his date's dress had been Kelley Green. Annabeth had not stuck around long enough at the end of the semester to find out how much he really remembered, or if he had seen that she'd held a bronze knife in her hand and watched him get beaten to a pulp, not even lifting a finger to help.

She tried to push the memories away as she attempted to fall asleep, tried to get them back into that deep, dark cave of her subconscious where they had been before. Yet, even as they retreated, Annabeth felt an extreme wave of guilt wash over her. She would have to ask him in the morning if he remembered the knife. No, she shouldn't do that, he'd probably like to remember that awful night just has much as she did.

Annabeth went to sleep that night and dreamed of green eyes as deep as the ocean. She dreamed of chocolate chip cookies and a spoon in a mug of coffee. As she pawed through her dreams the next morning, Annabeth was frankly shocked that the kiss had had little-to-no effect on her subconscious.

The second day that Jeff was at camp, he called her over and they talked for a while, but Annabeth's mind kept drifting back to the clear and solid fact that he'd kissed her the previous night. She had not had much experience with kissing before; just a few spin the bottle games and a few school parties, and… of course, there was Mount Saint Helens, and she was not totally sure how she felt about it. She did know, however, when she thought about it, she wanted more. She just wanted a real tongue-twisting, fingers-running-trough-hair kiss. She didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

Of course, her visions of kissing had turned her voice sultry and made her eyelashes fluttery, which did not go unnoticed by Jeff, who responded by moving closer into her personal space. They were in a slightly closed-off area; a clearing in the woods that had once been used for that annual game of red rover (that is, until the monsters that lived in the forest decided they wanted to join the game too), and Annabeth was positive no one was watching them, yet for some reason, she still felt like two dogs were fighting inside her stomach; one telling her to kiss him and one telling her to not. However, she did not have to make the choice, because he leaned over and pushed their lips together before she could even think about doing it herself.

He was good at kissing; that she couldn't deny. She wondered what had happened to geeky Kevin in the past year and a half to make him this… different. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he put his hands on her waist, pulling her close to him. It was nice, Annabeth decided, not as electric or passionate as she had imagined, but… nice. She ignored the part of her brain that told her that sparks should be flying and her mind should be mush. She ignored the visions of sea-deep green eyes and a laugh that almost broke her heart. Wasn't it wrong to think about someone else when… this was going on? What even was going on?

"Careful," she smirked as she pulled away, "you haven't been claimed yet, for all we know you could be my half-sibling, and I doubt my immortal mother would be happy about that."

He smiled a crooked smile at her. "That's a risk I'm willing to take. Besides, do I really look like I could be your brother?"

It was true; most of the children of Athena had blonde hair and grey eyes. They appeared on anyone, regardless of race or skin-tone, which made some pretty exquisite-looking Athena campers. One of her brothers had ebony skin with the hair and eye combination, and although he was a child of Athena, not Aphrodite, his interesting complexion made him attract quite a lot of people. Jeff, however, lacked the one thing all children of Athena had in common: the stormy grey eyes that crackled like a thunderstorm when they got upset. Things would be so much easier if he was her brother. I mean, sure, it would be extremely awkward at first, but it would explain why she felt so wrong every time she kissed him. Why she felt like maggots were eating the inside of her stomach every time he looked at her with his dark eyes.

Annabeth pondered this for a while in her cabin. Not really coming out for most of that day after the encounter with Jeff. She was not totally sure she wanted to face him. She was not totally sure she wanted to explain why she, in all truthfulness, was almost disgusted every time they kissed yet she constantly craved more. She was not totally sure if she truly even wanted to kiss anyone at all.

One of her cabin-mates burst through the mahogany doors of the Athena cabin at about 3:23 that day. Annabeth noted that it was Sophia, one of the girls who'd been giving her the stink-eye the night before. She nearly jumped out of her seat by the wall of bookshelves as the doors were slammed open. Sophia looked extremely troubled.

"I'm sorry, Annabeth. I'm so sorry. I-I was looking for Jeff, you know, the pizza guy that you kissed, and I-I saw him with this… this awful water spirit and… I'm so sorry." It took a moment for Annabeth to fully process what her half-sister was telling her.

The feelings that came when she finally did discover what she meant were a mix of betrayal and heartbreak on one side and relief and anger on the other. Of course, being the hot-headed girl that she was, however, Annabeth marched over to the same clearing in the woods that she'd kissed Jeff that morning and, indeed, found him arm-around-waist, tongue-on-tongue kissing one of the water nymphs who lived around camp. She could not remember if the nymph was a river nymph or a creek nymph or even a puddle nymph, however, because she was nearly blinded by anger.

"JUST WHAT IN HADES NAME DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING KEVIN JEFFERSON?" She yelled, as hard as her voice could bear. They immediately jumped apart, the water nymph landing on the hard ground and Jeff not even bothering to help her up, not even extending a hand.

"Look, Annabeth, sweetheart. Things change when you move. You can't really expect me to be with only one girl with a body like this. If you're going to get mad at someone, get mad at her," Jeff pointed to the water nymph he had just been kissing, who was blushing a shade of indigo and who was currently staring at the floor. "I mean, just look at that skirt; she was totally asking for it." Annabeth did look, the water nymph's skirt, which was most likely made out of water, only went down to her knees. She immediately felt disgusted; he was treating both of them like appliances to be used only for his pleasure, as if they did not exist when he was not around them.

The blonde didn't know what to say. How often had she been warned that something like this would happen? She felt tears at the corners of her eyes, and anger behind them, but she kept both inside of her, trying to think of something, anything to do or say. She was extremely broken on the inside, but no one could know that. She needed to be tough, strong Annabeth Chase who did not, under any circumstances, cry over a boy. Except for that one time when everybody thought he was dead. That was the exception. Everybody understood that exception… right?

Annabeth spat at him. "You make me sick." Deep inside, however, she felt an almost overwhelming amount of sadness. The first guy who actually seemed to like her like that had been just using her for who knows what reason. Adding this to what Luke had done, Annabeth felt like she may never be able to trust a guy again.

You are forgetting something. Her brain told her. There is still someone you trust. She pushed the thought out of her mind as her feet crunched on the frozen fallen leaves that littered the grounds of the camp and she headed towards her cabin. Hopefully it was deserted, maybe then she could finally cry. She had been fighting her emotions since the summer, knowing that they were at war now, and she needed to put on a brave face for the rest of the campers. She just needed someone to tell her it was okay to cry. Suddenly, the direction of her steps changed.

Annabeth walked slowly up to the wooden door, taking a deep breath to try and calm her nerves. Tears were still streaming down her face, and she did not bother trying to wipe them away, seeing as they just kept coming. She hesitated for a moment, before shakily knocking her knuckles against the door. She had to wait only a moment, although it seemed like an eternity before it was opened.

The cold winter air bristled around her as she waited there. She was shaking, she knew that, but not from the cold, possibly from sadness… or anger… or fear that she would be turned away as soon as the door opened. She twisted her fingers in her hands, full of anxiety and deep sadness. She almost jumped when the door was opened and a familiar voice called out to her.

"Annabeth?"

"I'm sorry. I-I just really need my best friend right now." She collapsed into Percy's arms and let her tears pour onto his shoulder.