Volleyball Court, Camp Half Blood, Long Island, New York (Annabeth is getting a little worried about Thalia)

Thalia was having another super secret meeting with Chiron and Mr D. This wasn't unusual normally, but this was the second day in a row. Usually there was maybe two or three a week, but this was weird. Annabeth was getting kinda worried, Thalia had completely missed their planning session for Capture the Flag for Athena (including Thalia and Percy obviously) and Apollo vs everyone else. Thalia actually had to swear Annabeth not to tell anyone that she would be on Annabeth's team. She said she wanted to surprise the other campers with her skills, so the 'planning' was just going to be the two of them.

Annabeth could kinda understand how overwhelming things were for Thalia, but she hoped joining in a camp activity with everyone would help. The daughter of Athena had been living in Camp for half her life, but Thalia was only brought back from being a tree a week ago. She knew that everything was probably confusing for the daughter of Zeus, but sometimes she thought that Thalia would be much better if she had someone to open up to. Annabeth was tired of pretending she didn't know exactly who that was, but she hoped eventually Thalia would want to talk to her instead of half-stopping in the middle of talking when the other girl realised Annabeth wasn't Luke.

Sighing Annabeth stood up and began walking to the Big House. She was watching an intense volleyball game with her brothers, but had given up when Thalia still wasn't out of her meeting when she said she would be. Annabeth got to the door but turned around maybe 3 times to head back to the court incase Mr D was in a bad mood or something. Each time she berated herself for being so scared, Mr D wouldn't do anything too bad, probably, but each time, she chickened out.

She was and the court and turning around for her fourth attempt when she saw Thalia storm out of the Big House. That made Annabeth pause mid-step, Thalia didn't even turn to look at the volleyball court where they said they'd meet, but was heading straight to the cabins for some reason.

Whatever Thalia did in the meetings with the Camp directors she usually stayed quiet about. Sometimes Annabeth could get her to show some cool skill or trick Chiron taught her, but after some meetings she looked kinda lost and wouldn't say anything about it. Annabeth guessed that was when Mr D said something nasty to her. Chiron was pretty good at keeping all the campers spirits up, but Mr D could be really cruel if you didn't know how to handle him. The daughter of Athena just hoped Chiron had stopped Mr D before he got too … Mr D-ish today.

Usually after 'meetings' like that, Thalia and Annabeth would go together and practice sword fighting or even ride pegasi especially if Thalia was annoyed about something Mr D said. But as soon as she stormed out of the Big House, Thalia went straight to cabin 1, completely blanking Annabeth's shouts. It was super weird.

Thalia hated being in cabin 1, everybody in camp had probably heard her rants about it, Annabeth couldn't figure out why she would go there willingly except to sleep. Sure the other campers were annoying sometimes but even when it got super overwhelming for her, Thalia would go to her (or sometimes Grover) and they would hang out. Her parent's cabin wasn't a safe space like it was for Annabeth.

Going to Cabin 1 like that meant there was a big problem with a capital P. B. Whatever. Annabeth frowned, she really hated dyslexia sometimes.

Annabeth waved a few of her brothers away as she headed to the cabins, they wanted her to take sides on which idea was much as she wanted to listen, some of their ideas sounded super cool about putting something like that in the cabin, something was clearly happening with Thalia that she needed to help her. Thalia was basically family.

Family came before any projects, no matter how cool they sounded.

Walking away from the court, Annabeth hurried to Cabin 1, the door had shut but Annabeth decided to just go in - Thalia was obviously upset or had a problem, and Annabeth knew that while she wasn't Luke, she could at least try to talk to Thalia.

Knocking on the great bronze door, Annabeth pushed one open and walked in. Thalia was curled up in a small alcove shaking.

"Thalia?!"

Annabeth went straight over to the other girl, sitting beside her and putting her arm around Thalia's shoulders. The other girl immediately hugged Annabeth, letting out (shallow/gasping) breaths as she tried to stop herself crying.

She was doing that creepy silent thing she sometimes did. Annabeth was kinda glad though, it gave her time to think. She couldn't get her brain working at first - Thalia had always been a larger than life figure to her, seeing her actually cry shocked Annabeth, even though she knew it shouldn't.

After a while, Thalia seemed to get hold of herself, sighed and and pushed Annabeth away so both girls were facing each other.

Annabeth could hardly see the dried tear tracks were barely visible before the daughter of Zeus angrily scrubbed them away, but leaned into Annabeth.

The daughter of Zeus took a massive sigh, and just before Annabeth thought she was going to do that silent thing again, she spoke.

"Do you remember anything I told you about my mom?" Thalia mumbled, not exactly looking Annabeth in the eye. Annabeth had always seen Thalia as strong, she was a camp legend, but half-bloods were humans too, Annabeth had no idea how old Thalia was, but she didn't look around 18 like Luke. But Annabeth knew that thinking about that never led to anything good.

Annabeth shook her head. Well she was only 7 and family discussions really weren't a thing with the three of them, really, but when Thalia sighed again Annabeth felt guilty. Maybe she did talk about her mom but seven-year old Annabeth was too self-absorbed to remember it? Sometimes Annabeth wanted to really shout at 7 year old version of herself, she had made so many mistakes and messed up so many things, and now had forgot what Thalia had said about her mom!

She was studiously ignoring the dried tear tracks on Thalia's cheeks. If her mom got her that emotional, how bad a friend was Annabeth that she didn't remember when Thalia talked about it?

"Well she liked to drink, and Mr D is the god of wine." Thalia spat the word like a curse, bringing Annabeth out of her own thoughts. Thalia viciously scrubbed her face and sighed again.

"Every single time I talk to Mr D it's like I gotta walk on eggshells. I slip up and shout or whatever, Mr D just has to look at me, and I freeze. The Hellhounds and Furies were easier to face than Mr D. I look at him and I can't stop thinking of my mom and -"

Thalia cut herself off with a choked sob, and began viciously scrubbing at her face again. Annabeth knew nobody liked being told they were crying, so she carried on ignoring it.

"You could speak to Chirion" Annabeth tried to start, really she was furious that Mr D would do that, but she was cut off before she could say any more.

"Oh Gods no!" Thalia looked like she had never heard a more ridiculous idea. "I can't tell Chiron every time I argue with Mr D I'm a second away from crying like a stupid baby. And you can't tell him either! Anyway it's just my mom, nothing important."

"What!?" Annabeth knew Mr D was cruel, but this was like in a different league! Of course Chiron needed to know, like now.

"I don't want Mr D to think he's winning. It's like when he calls us stupid names, I'm not gonna let him know it affects me like that, I'm not just another demigod for him to crush. Anyway I'll get over it."

"But you-"

"Annie, leave it alone!" Thalia sounded super annoyed at the idea, so Annabeth dropped it. But she promised herself she'd discreetly mention it to Chiron later.

"Can you at least tell me what the meeting was about? What was Mr D doing?" Annabeth tried to keep her voice level so she didn't sound like an interrogator (according to Percy she usually did when she got 'really into' questions), but it was hard.

"It's something I was arguing with Chiron about, do you remember when we left Richmond?"

"Yeah, one of your dad's messengers helped us, I think his name was Harry?" Annabeth thought for a moment. "I always thought that was a weird name for a minor god, but if he was a half-blood like us, I guess it makes sens - Oh is he one of your brothers, like from years ago?" Annabeth wondered eagerly.

She always wondered what it would be like to have an immortal sibling. Athena had half-blood kids without, well that, but she didn't grant them immortality. Not one. But maybe Thalia found out that he'd been ordered to not contact her again. Which sucked.

"No, no, he, umm." Thalia paused, looked at Annabeth and shook her head.

"Chirion promised me to keep it secret, its might help in the future, and anyway with the amount of half-bloods Kronos has he thinks there's probably a spy in the camp."

Oh. Yeah that made sense, Annabeth guessed. Even if she was kinda annoyed that Thalia wasn't telling her anything, she could understand why. She couldn't reveal a secret she didn't know. Maybe Harry was keeping an eye on the camp, or spying on Kronos?

Thalia was doing that weird silent thing again, so Annabeth decided to move on before it became awkward.

"Well, have you thought about Capture the Flag? We'll make a great team" Annabeth couldn't help the grin on her face.

At this Thalia sadly shook her head.

"Sorry, I can't go, there's something Mr D needs to help me with."

"You're gonna ask Mr D for help when he made you-" Annabeth gestured to Thalia's face, nobody in Camp liked being told they cried.

"It's a condition he gave, only Mr D can help me with this thing." Thalia growled, which made Annabeth more relieved. Angry Thalia was something she was used to, a crying Thalia was kinda scary, like seeing a parent cry.

"Go to Chiron!" Annabeth insisted. Mr D was taking things too far, making Thalia cry, then forcing her to accept his 'help' for some super important thing. Annabeth knew that this was just wrong, Chiron needed to know!

"No Annabeth, I'm not going to Chiron. Besides he already knows and agrees that this thing needs Mr D."

"The thing that will be on the same time as Capture the Flag, so it will only be you and Mr D alone?" Annabeth questioned, trying to see if she got it right. It sounded super suspicious.

"Yeah. Don't worry, it's fine, it-" Thalia paused here, and her eyes went to the door. Annabeth was confused for a second before she realised, Thalia was checking nobody else was listening at the window or near the door.

In barely a whisper Thalia said.

"Harry's going to be there!"

Annabeth could hear how excited she sounded. She realised that that was probably why it was all arranged for when the rest of the Camp would be at capture the flag, there was no chance a spy could still be around.

"What's he-" Annabeth barely got a word out before Thalia was shushing her.

"You can't say anything about it, it's super important, we don't know if the spy has bugs planted around or like nymphs or whatever reporting to Kronos." With how worried Thalia sounded, Annabeth nodded without saying another word.

That explained a lot about the meetings then, maybe the gods were taking this much more seriously than she (and some of her siblings) originally thought. Well of course they would be, she worriedly thought.

But that still meant capture the flag would be much more difficult - Apollo and Ares were gonna be difficult to beat, especially without Thalia's experience.