𝐔𝐍𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐍, p. jackson. 𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴!

||*. 012 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩

Getting train tickets was a hassle to say the least.

It's not easy for someone to just blindly sell four unaccompanied minors pieces of paper that will send them halfway across the US, but, you can't deny Annabeths negotiation techniques.

While her and Grover were busy with that debacle, Gwen and Percy sat on a bench nearby the ticket booth in complete silence. The young girl had her knees to her chest, looking down at the ground. And Percy was sitting right by her, very clearly staring at her. The lack of talking eating him from the inside out.

"I can feel you staring." Gwen interjected his thoughts, her voice was muffled by the fabric of her jeans that her chin was resting on.

She was still extremely embarrassed from her little incident earlier. After telling Percy and everyone else repeatedly she was fine, she clearly wasn't. She felt stupid for not being able to handle this quest, she felt weak, and the most detrimental part, everyone knew it.

Percy quickly looked away, pointing his head to the sky to counteract her comment. But he gave up trying to hide it. "Sorry," His voice cracked a little.

He was very clearly still worried about her, but chose to say nothing about it. Percy had grown to understand Gwen was more fragile than she let on to be, and he tried his best to respect that. When Gwen had passed out back at Medusas lair, he had completely freaked out, he was scared in a new way he had never felt before. And he didn't really get what that meant.

"Thanks for... helping me, back there. You know..." Gwen said awkwardly.

"Yeah of course. I mean, yeah.. no problem." Percy coughed and waited a beat before talking again. "Speaking of back there, what did Medusa mean by... what she said, about your dad?" He said curiously.

"I dunno know, monsters just tend to say random things. Doesn't mean they mean anything." Gwen stated with a roll of her eyes.

"Oh," Percy said, getting the feeling she didn't want to talk anymore, silence washing over them.

"... I should've signed my name." Gwen said in a small voice.

"What?" The boy asked, very confused.

She clarified, "On the box, to Olympus. I should've signed my name."

"Weren't you the one who told me the Gods would see it as impertinence?"

"Yes."

"Then, what made you change your mind?" He leaned just a little closer to Gwen.

The girl turned her head to face him, staring right into his eyes now, not trying to avoid them like usual.

"You." She answered back.

"We got the tickets!" Grover appeared next to them smiling and pointing to Annabeths hand that held up four passes for each of them.

There is nothing comfortable about sleeping on a train.

Especially when you have to sleep on the floor of your cabin because there isn't enough bunks to accommodate four. And, especially when you have to share that floor space with another person. For Gwen, that other person was Percy Jackson himself.