Yes! Finished standardized testing! Oh and hello! How you all doin? Good I hope! Anyways, nothing really new. Poll is still up, for limited time only! I own nothing but you should definitely enjoy this chapter. :)

Pat's POV (repeat. Nothing new!)

And yet, here I am still. Not one word otherwise. But that's alright. She can't be expected to pay attention to everyone else's feelings. Not her, the leader.

I know that she plans to leave. But I know, from what I've picked up, that everyone else that's left needs her. Especially Percy. Now that I met him, he feels like the older brother i never had. And I'm going to do anything to help him.

Even if it means standing up to my best friend and eventually hurting her inside. But I'll do it. Because not only the leader has to make hard choices.

Ill do do anything to stop Anne from leaving. Anything.

Anne's POV

I'm positive that my plan is top secret. No one knows about it except me. Artemis, the goddess herself, doesn't even know it, let alone someone like Pat. I mean, Pat is like a sister to me, but she's just... Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Besides, even if she did know, what's she going to do? Karaoke sing me to death? Crush me? Okay, that wasn't that nice. But it was true.

Sometimes, the truth hurts. But lies can hurt even more.

Percy's POV

I was so lost in my anger towards my brothers that I almost stepped on someone trying to sleep on the ground. I didn't even notice that people were handing out blankets and pillows, or that I had both in my hands. I must've grabbed them while in my daze.

Following suit of the person I almost crushed, I laid down on the ground. Then I curled up into a ball with the pillow under my head, and threw the blanket over my body. It was an orange quilt, but I felt like I needed a heavy blanket. So far from the entrance to the hole, but also so far from the warm city, it was very cold. The orange blanket was perfect.

Almost by by their own accord, my eyes slid over to the right and looked at Thalia. She had a pale pastel pink miniature thin blanket, the size of a young child's blanket or maybe even a baby's. It barely covered her calfs, let alone her legs or torso. Under her head was a teddy bear. Obviously, the had run out of pillows, and gazing around i saw why. Some people with injuries or young children made beds for their wounded limb or child. One man had a broken leg, and used several pillows to make a cushion to rest the leg upon. A woman had two children, and each had a bed made from many pillows.

Instead of stealing a pillow from them, Thalia accepted a Beanie Baby teddy bear as her pillow.

I looked at my large pillow, practically a chair cushion, and my oversized orange quilt. Against my better judgement, my body shuffled over to Thalia.

When i I reached her she was asleep. Not wanting to wake her up for something as useless as this, I gently lifted her head, and slid the cushion under her head halfway. The other half was for me. I took the out from under there, and placed it in Thalia's arms. Immediately her arms wound around the small plush creature, as if cuddling him. Then, j took my orange quilt and tucked half of it around Thalia. I took up the other half. With my back pressed against hers, I slipped into the realms to Hypnos.

Thalia's POV

When I woke up a few hours after falling asleep, I noticed a few different things. One, I wasn't cold. Two, my head wasn't sore from sleeping on a tiny teddy bear. Three, there was something warm pressed against my back.

Shifting slightly, just enough to see around me, but still able to pass it off as a movement in my sleep, I took a good look at my blanket. It used to be pink and worn out, less than half the size of the quilt I was now wrapped in. The quilt was orange, warm, and perfect for keeping out the cold air around me.

I mi lifted up a hand to feel the teddy bear pillow, and instead grabbed something that felt a lot more like a couch cushion than a teddy bear. I raised my other hand to find the bear, but found him clutched in that hand like I was a small child. I stared at the bear for a moment, then put my hands back where they used to be by my sides.

Who did this? Why did they do it? Where are they now? And what is that warm presence at my back?

Taking care to not hit the person (I decided it was a person, from the way it felt against me) and trying not to startle them so I could catch a glimpse of them, I wiggled my way around. I ended up on my back, and j could easily tilt my head to see them. I saw a mop of black hair, spread out on the other half of the couch cushion. They were wrapped in the other half of the orange quilt, the same one I woke up in.

Cautiously, I sat up a bit to get a better look. A tanned complexion. A face i knew well. Percy.

My my breath escaping through my lips, I collasped back down onto the ground, as though it were a bed. Percy, the changed man, helped me. After I made fun of him, with my sarcasm and rude comments and sneers. Yet, out of the goodness of his heart, he helped me.

What does that mean? That I'm a cruel person, or something else. I think I know what it means. It means that-

"Attentiom! Everyone, pack up your blankets and pillows! We're going to climb!" An Aztec shouted, startling me from my train of thought. Darn it. What was I going to say?

Oh well. I stood up quickly, not touching Percy. I felt too guilty and awkward to do anything. Why did he do that?