A/N: the Annabeth-Calypso confrontation! Long awaited and I hope to hell I didn't screw it up for you guys! HOPE YOU LIKE IT!

Shy

CHAPTER FORTY
- PART 3 -

The first time Annabeth Chase actually spoke to Calypso, it was because of an emergency.

The emergency, however, didn't really happen to either one of them. It happened because the Oracle seemed to have lost its damn mind and was taking it out on Rachel.

Calypso caught Rachel seconds before her face slammed into the dirt and gently lay her down on her back, her heart pounding with panic. "Rachel? Rachel, talk to me, what's happening?" she demanded, carefully pulling the bright red curls away from her friend's face.

"What's going on?" Miranda's voice was riddled with suspicion and nerves as she approached and for the first time, Calypso realised Rachel's collapse was drawing attention from every person in the fields.

"She just fainted." She replied, unsure of how to proceed. "I-I don't know what's wrong with her."

Miranda paused before she knelt beside the girls, studying Rachel's pallid complexion with a furrowed brow. "She could just be overheated." She proposed, warily.

"When is it ever that simple?" a new voice interjected and the sound of it made Calypso's spine straighten in response. She glanced over her shoulder although she already knew who stood over her. Annabeth Chase cut imposing figure normally but doubly so when her friend had spontaneously fallen unconscious without an explanation. "What happened to her?"

"Janice, I said go get help." Laura snapped, exasperated at the young dirt-clad girl at Annabeth's side.

"I did!" the girl insisted, looking up to Annabeth like she had the answer for everything.

Calypso gritted her teeth and turned back to Rachel's prone form, forcing herself to calm. This isn't about you, it's about Rachel. Just handle it.

"What. Happened?" Annabeth stressed, her voice pinched with nerves.

"She was complaining about headaches this morning and then she collapsed." Calypso told her in a soft voice, her fingers neatly sweeping the red curls away from her neck and checking Rachel's pulse. It fluttered against her fingertips and even though Calypso knew the oracle wouldn't allow any harm to befall her host, worry seemed to flood through her brain.

Annabeth's gaze narrowed in on Calypso at the words and she frowned. "Headaches?" she echoed. "Rachel doesn't get headaches."

She felt like snapping that Rachel apparently didn't toss and turn in her sleep and walk about in the middle of the night either but one quick glance at the campers crowding around them and she held her tongue. Rachel wouldn't appreciate her secrets being splattered around the camp for anyone to hear.

The blonde demigod seemed to sense she was holding something back though she didn't say anything. "Help me pick her up." She ordered, stooping to loop Rachel's limp arm around her neck and gesturing for Calypso to take the other.

The ex-goddess did so, trying hard not to acknowledge the suddenly distrustful glances she was receiving and the hint of suspicion dawning on people's faces. She knew what they were thinking: Had the Titan girl injured their Oracle? Is this some kind of attack? Should they be on guard?

With Rachel hanging limp between them, Annabeth and Calypso moved slowly up the path towards camp. "We'll take her to Chiron." She said, firmly. "Someone had better go prepare him."

Laura nodded and tugged on Gareth's shirt for him to follow her as the pair darted away from the fields ahead of them, leaving the rest of the Demeter children under Miranda's watch.

Once they were a little further away from the crowd, Calypso hitched Rachel's arm further around her shoulders. "Shouldn't we try the Apollo children?" Calypso said, the dead weight of her friend heavy between them. Her nose wrinkled at the thought and she decided she didn't like that phrase. Rachel wasn't dead. She was injured, unconscious. But she wasn't dead.

Annabeth shook her head, glancing over to the ex-goddess. "She's not sick. She hasn't been since she took on the Oracle, it keeps her healthy. If she fainted, it's not because of illness."

Her frustration caught the better of her at the words. "If she fainted?" Calypso bit out, moving up the slight incline. "Believe me, Annabeth Chase, if I wanted to hurt Rachel, there would be far better opportunities."

Like when she takes steals all the hot water in the mornings or forces me out of the Cave to go 'make friends'. Then, I could cheerfully strangle her.

Annabeth seemed to pause a little for a moment, running her eyes over the former goddess speculatively. "That doesn't make me trust you all that much you know." She pointed out as they neared the courtyard.

The idea that she could've harmed Rachel was laughable: the Oracle's host was the first true friend she'd made in millennia. The very insinuation grated on the inside of her chest, where her worry was pulsing to the beat of her heart. "You damn demigods are so paranoid it's a wonder you trust anyone at all." She snapped, ignoring the looks of panic she was receiving from the passing demigods, all of whom paused at the sight. Part of her wondered if they were only holding back because Annabeth was beside her.

Annabeth seemed to take the criticism in her stride as they continued. "With good reason." She replied instead. "But I meant if she collapsed, it's probably because of the Oracle."

Calypso cursed her stupid tongue while her cheeks pinkened. "Oh. Right." She muttered, pointedly refusing to make eye contact. What in all of Hades is the matter with you, stupid girl? She ranted inside her head. Rachel's unconscious and you're picking fights with one of the camp leaders. Fabulous timing.

They reached the Big House in little time- Calypso's lingering goddess strength matched Annabeth's and they carried the drooping Oracle inside where Chiron awaited, his tail flicking behind him. "What happened to her?" he demanded as they let her rest on a small cot tucked into one of the side rooms.

Calypso took a deep breath before replying but she disliked being on Dionysus' home turf and it showed. "She's been having headaches all morning." She explained while Annabeth tucked Rachel's limbs onto the cot with her. "And she hasn't been sleeping."

Chiron nodded, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Anything else?"

"She was sleep walking last night." She added in a lower tone. She wasn't entirely certain Rachel wanted that little detail spread around but she was hardly available to make the decision and she trusted Chiron. "She said the Oracle spirit might be feeling restless."

At her words, Chiron and Annabeth exchanged pointed looks. "Another prophecy maybe?" Annabeth murmured, apprehensively. Chiron's tail flicked anxiously in response, betraying his calm expression.

"Has this happened before?" Calypso asked, her fingers itching to help. But her herbs and supplies were all the way back at the cave and besides, she didn't want to poke the Oracle with her unsteady magic. Clairvoyant, all powerful spirits did not typically react well to being probed.

"Not to this extent." Chiron confirmed, his rough features troubled. "But…"

Annabeth cut in, her voice tense. "The last time she was like this was when Hera was trying to speak through her. And before that it was after she announced the Prophecy of the Seven. If she's collapsed, the next prophecy might be even worse."

"We don't know that." Chiron chided.

"We're both thinking it." Annabeth retorted evenly.

While they spoke, Calypso neared the cot, watching as Rachel's eyes flickered beneath her closed lids. She looked like she was dreaming but her lids had taken on a bizarre green tinge like light shining through the thin skin. Curiosity filled her as she gently pushed the skin above her left eye up…just a little…

Beneath the lids, Rachel's irises were glowing and rolling around in the socket.

She reared back, startled but the moment she did, Rachel's illuminated eyes snapped open on their own and she heaved a croaky breath which barely sounded human. "Rachel?" Annabeth questioned, warily, her hand wandering to the sword at her side.

Rachel didn't respond and Calypso eyed her cautiously. "…Oracle?"

That seemed to garner a reaction- her lips moved but the whisper sounded more like crinkling leaves than a voice. Calypso leaned her ear toward her, straining to hear. "Paper…?" she breathed, like the word itself was a strain.

"She's asking for paper." Calypso relayed to Annabeth and Chiron, who trotted back into his office on the other side of the hall to find some. She turned back to the girl lying pale on the bed, breathing hard. "Rachel, can you hear me?"

The Oracle turned her head ever so slightly but her eyes stayed still and fixed on the ceiling. "She is…safe. There is…" she trailed off, unable to finish.

Annabeth took a seat beside Calypso, her expression curious but guarded. "Oracle, is there another prophecy coming?"

Rachel's mouth moved like she wanted to speak but her face tensed up and her teeth locked before she could, as if something was pinning her jaw shut. "What in Hades is going on?" Calypso murmured. "I've never seen an Oracle behave like this."

Chiron reappeared then, several sheets of paper in hand and a fine tipped pen in the other. He handed both to the Oracle slightly, whose hands trembled when she touched them. Without looking, her pale, dexterous fingers began to draw in fluid, fine lines, images rising out of the paper within minutes.

But they weren't the lucid, clear scenes Calypso had seen decorating the Oracle Cave. These were more like flashes: bare feet with pointed claws mid-leap, outstretched hands, a sword swinging through the air, a trio of coiled snakes, an enormous fin exploding from the sea. Between them were tiny water droplets that seemed so clear Calypso felt she could swipe them right off the page. The images blended in on one another like the vision was coming in glimpses rather than scenes.

Her fingers just managed to fill in the last image – the leafy stem of some kind of shimmering fruit – when Rachel gasped and her eyes suddenly lost their glow, fading back to her regular self in an instant. She coughed and spluttered, pushing the pen and paper away from her.

"Rach?" Annabeth said, questioningly.

"…Yeah?"

Relieved smiles spread across both girls' faces. "Hey, welcome back to the land of the living. How you feeling?" Annabeth asked, helping her sit up.

The heiress was panting as she looked around, bewildered by the change in scenery. "Annabeth? Calypso…? We were in the fields…where- what happened?" she muttered, wincing.

"I think the Oracle kind of hi-jacked you." Annabeth replied, wryly but Calypso could see genuine worry in the line of her shoulders and the furrow of her brows. "You should probably talk to her about that."

"I'll get right on it as soon as my heart stops doing the cha-cha." Rachel coughed back, weakly.

"You should rest now, Miss Dare." Chiron said, the paper clutched in his hands. His eyes scanned it intently. "The Oracle obviously strained itself to bring this vision forward."

"Strained me more like it." Rachel muttered, testily. "She's not usually like that. We have an agreement."

"Well, she seems to have changed the rules." Calypso murmured as she tried to catch a glimpse of the page Chiron was examining.

He caught her looking and coughed abruptly, tucking the paper away immediately. "If you don't mind, I'd like to speak with Rachel by herself." It was phrased a request but the tone was dismissive. With one last confirmation that she was feeling okay, Calypso and Annabeth reluctantly exited the room, the door shutting with a click behind them.

In the hallway of the Big House, the quiet suddenly reminded Calypso of exactly who was standing beside. This was a girl she'd cursed, a girl who had suffered because of her. Standing next to her filled Calypso with churning mix of anger and remorse, of deep seated regret and self-justification that seemed to rub her skin raw and pink from the inside out. The daughter of Athena didn't seem to be paying much attention to her however. Annabeth was biting her lip, her face contorted into an expression of intense speculation. She seemed distracted but the moment Calypso tried to slip away, her pale eyes flitted towards the former goddess.

"You said she was sleep-walking?" she broke the silence in a blunt tone.

She's just a demigod. Calypso told herself internally. "She was." The next words paused at the very tip of her tongue, unsure of whether she wanted to spit them out or swallow them down.

She should've known the demigod would sense her hesitance. "What is it?"

With a deep breath, Calypso forced her tone to be steady although this single girl filled her with more anxiety and confusing feelings than the whole camp combined. How strange mortal sensation was- she could feel her heart pounding in the tips of her toes and her blush spread down her abdomen like a wildfire. "Her eyes weren't glowing when she was walking. And she was carrying her sketch pad." she said, slowly.

"So?" Annabeth frowned.

"Rachel said she couldn't find her pad this morning." Calypso explained her suspicions. "But I don't think it was the Oracle who hid it."

Realisation lit up her face and Annabeth nodded, conceding to the logic. "But why would Rachelhide it in her sleep?"

Calypso glanced back towards the door which was now closed to her and shivered at the memory of the Oracle's husky voice and the scratch of pen on paper. "Maybe she drew something she didn't want to see."

There was a long silence stretched between them that she was loathe to break but the blonde daughter of Athena didn't seem to have the same problem. When Annabeth turned to her, shoulders back and head held high, her piercing expression was neither unfriendly nor welcoming. But it set Calypso's teeth on edge. "I know what you did to Percy. And I know you know what you did to me."

The statement was delivered so calmly and bluntly, it might as well have been a punch in the gut, knocking the wind right out of her lungs. "Y-you do?" the question escaped her mouth with all of the dread she'd been carrying in the pit of her stomach and she cringed at how feeble she sounded.

"Percy told me about your conversation." The blonde demigod added, like it was an afterthought.

Calypso's eyes shut briefly, wondering how she could possibly be surprised. "I expected he would." She murmured.

When she opened her eyes again, a strange acceptance swept over her. She wasn't stupid; she saw how revered Annabeth was at camp. No matter how kind or genuine she was with the others, if she chose to tell everyone about the curse and the arai, any chance Calypso had of finding a place there would vanish. Her fate at camp rested firmly in Annabeth's unreadable gaze and steady pulse but the realisation didn't terrify her. Annabeth could choose to spread the information around or keep it to herself or do any number of things. But in the end, it was a decision that was out of her hands and there was nothing more she could really do. Except atone.

So instead of panicking, she looked directly into those indecipherable eyes. "I apologised to Percy for what I did but he did not feel the first blow I made. So I feel as though it is only right that I apologise to you also, Annabeth Chase. What I did was cruel and I did not intend for you to feel the pain of it. I'm sorry."

The blonde heroine was quiet for such a long time that Calypso felt like fidgeting to escape the silence. Leo's bad habit, she deduced but she held strong, still like the statues of her family which filled this world's museums and galleries. She had weathered worse storms than this, Calypso tried to convince herself.

"I've been trying to figure you out, you know." The demigod finally said, leaning against the opposite wall with a pensive expression. "I mean, Piper and Rachel like you, the campers seem torn and Mr D despises you so it's been interesting."

"Has it now?" Calypso murmured, unsure of where the blonde was going.

"The point is, I kind of already know a lot about you." Annabeth explained. "I mean, I know the person who helped Percy and Leo and pissed Mr D off so badly he's actively trying to expel you from camp."

Calypso winced at the mention of Mr D. "In my defence, he's just being a sore loser." She said, frankly.

Annabeth chuckled and half-shrugged as if conceding to the point. "It's not necessarily a bad recommendation, you know."

Calypso let out a tiny bitter smirk, recalling the many whispers that stalked her at camp. "Not for everyone, it seems."

"Mr D should always be taken with a grain of salt." Annabeth openly advised. "You know, I was going to make you sweat it out for a little while."

"Sweat what out?" she replied, bewildered by the phrase.

The blonde kept her smile contained but the girl reminded her so much of Hazel. "I was going to let you suffer a little while longer." She clarified. "But to be honest, I think I forgave you a while ago, Calypso."

Calypso frowned, positively mystified by the words. "Are you certain about that? I know Percy hasn't entirely forgiven me." And I haven't completely forgiven him either.

The heroine rolled her eyes in the most human action Calypso had seen from her so far. "Contrary to popular belief, Seaweed Brain and I do not share a brain. Thank the gods for that. Besides, I have a- a unique perspective on how you feel. Felt, I mean. And I think you've suffered enough."

While her first instinct was to snarl that no one knew how she felt, the words turned to ash in her mouth when she realised the full implications of what she'd said. "I guess that's true." She replied slowly. "For what it's worth, I am so sorry you had to feel…that."

"You too." The words were short but there was a pointed look that accompanied them which spoke to the memories in her head. Here was perhaps the only person on the planet who could relate to Calypso's past and she was forgiving her. The bizarreness of the whole thing made her feel like she could've been dreaming, to be perfectly honest. The clenched bundle of anxiety and dread that turned to stone when she came near Annabeth seemed to dissolve in her stomach inch by inch.

Annabeth's tone lightened. "Anyway, I figured you're not the undercover agent type. The way you talk to Piper and the Hephaestus kids and Rachel? Well, I've seen spies before and frankly you're just too awkward to blend in."

A snort escaped her before she could contain it and Calypso immediately regretted it when Annabeth's eyebrows leapt upwards. "It's just- my father used to train me to eavesdrop and collect information for him when I was a little girl." She explained, cautious of jeopardizing the olive branch that was being extended. "He'd be horrified to hear that."

Annabeth waved her hand slightly. "Eh, we're all disappointments at some point or another." She said, freely and although Calypso sensed she hadn't gained the demigod's trust entirely, the hope that was suddenly lighting up in her heart was too bright for her to care too much.

"Some more so than others, I think." Calypso replied, lightly. The door over Annabeth's shoulder caught her eye and her worry about Rachel came flooding back into fill the gap left by dread.

The girl before her seemed to catch the direction of her thoughts. "If Rachel hid that sketch pad, not the Oracle, I want to know what was on it." Annabeth stated, pursing her lips slightly.

"I remember her holding it last night but I was only awake for a few minutes." Calypso replied, wracking her brain to remember where Rachel could've stashed it inside the Cave.

Annabeth seemed to mentally review her options and let out a discontented sigh. "I'll have to wait until she's rested. Chiron will probably be interrogating her about those drawings for a while anyway."

"I could try looking around the Oracle Cave if you'd like?" Calypso proposed, warily.

The blonde considered it for a moment but ultimately shook her head. "I can wait, I suppose there's no rush. There's no prophecy."

But the unspoken yet rang as clearly in their ears as if she'd said it allowed.

A/N: CA-LE-O! CA-LE-O!

I HEAR THE CALL AND WILL ANSWER IN THE NEXT CHAPTER MY FRIENDS, THANKYOU FOR READING!