Secretes No One Can Hide

Three

Percy felt like there was this big hole in his chest and he had to keep looking down to make sure it wasn't really true. He hadn't emotionally come to terms with what Annabeth had told him, it felt very unreal and it made his skin crawl with thoughts about the future.

Not his future. But the kids future. And Annabeths. Percy would be 19 by the end of this year, and that didn't make him feel any older. So he wasn't going to think about it. Not until him and Anmabeth could sit down and talk about it with out him ruining the plumbing.

"Good morning, Percy." Chiron said to him at breakfast that morning, he had almost forgotten to respond, he was to busy staring into his fruit loops thinking about the night before.

Chiron watched him skeptically the rest of breakfast, which didn't ease his worries any less. Annabeth hadn't ever shown up to eat, and Percy managed to work up the courage to ask her brother Malcom why.

"I dunno Percy, she was still asleep when I left." He shrugged walking next to him as they headed to the lava rock wall.

After two failed attempts at trying to climb the wall Percy gave up, he was just to distracted. Chiron even made a comment about it but Percy came up with an inelegant response like  "Um yeah." Or something like that.

Annabeth had wondered out by that time, looking pale but normal other then that. She had archery now, so Percy followed her down to the range.

"Care if I join in?" Percy asked her coming up behind.

"Only if you can hit the target." She said her voice weakly teasing as an arrow soared and hit the red middle ring. Annabeth was improving at archery, unlike Percy who would never get any better then he was.

"Well can't promise you that but I do promise to scare a few pigeons and maybe piss off some wood nymphs." He said giving her a grin, a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

"Alright Seaweed Brain. Don't kill anyone." She said handing him her bow.

Luckily Percy only missed once and left that arrow buried in the dirt and not in a tree. Nymphs did not like arrows in their trees.

"Are you okay?" Percy asked his voice slightly quieter then before as he went to shoot a another arrow, hitting the outside ring.

"Fine." Annabeth said her chin up farther then normal, she looked like she was convincing herself.

"Oh good." He'd take that.

The two of them stuck together for the rest of the day, but didn't talk much, he held her hand whenever he got the chance thinking that might make up for his lack of ability to form words. He tried to bring up New Rome again but Annabeth just shook her head and said they would talk about it later. He asked if she had any cool ideas for a building to make and she launched into full Architect mode, most of what she said went over his head but he didn't mind, things felt normal again.

Or normal until that night.

"What exactly did your mother say to you?" Percy found himself asking late that night, the glow of the moon the only source of light in his cabin. Annabeth was laying away from him curled in his blankets while Percy stared up at the celling praying to the gods he could say the right things.

"Just that she was disappointed in me. And that I should of known better. No doubt she is going to complain to Poseidon now."

Percy paled. He hadn't thought about that. "Oh..." he trailed off cursing. "My dad. Great. An my mom? What am I gonna tell her?" He asked, mostly to himself.

"You don't have to tell them anything, just let them find out on their own." Annabeth said her voice muffled in the blanket.

Percy glanced over at her, her blonde hair had silver streaks in it from the moonlight. He put his hands up behind his head and sighed.

"So that's your grand plan?" He assumed. "Seems like that's gonna go over just grandly."

The sarcasm in his voice was enough to make Annabeth turn and glare at him. "You got a better idea?"

He hesitated. "No."

"Then shut up and go to sleep."

There was silence for a moment. "Where were you this morning? At breakfast I mean."

Annabeth groaned realizing Percy wasn't sleeping any time soon, she rolled over and sank her head into the pillow next to him.

"Puking my guts out in the bathroom." She said looking at him like it was all his fault.

"Oh right." He said stupidly, he'd forgotten that was a symptom. "I didn't realize you'd been doing that lately."

"I haven't," she said coming a bit closer to him then. "It's only been going on the past two weeks or so, but this morning it got really bad."

Percy thought for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "I'm sorry Annabeth, I really am."

She sighed as if she had been waiting for him to say that, she sat up and leaned over the top of him. "Don't think you get all the blame for this. It was my fault too." She whispered before leaning down to kiss him.

Their lips touched and Percy felt better then he had in the last  24 hours. He felt his shoulders relax into the mattress, and the tension left his body.

"One day at a time then?" Percy asked as she pulled away after a moment.

"One day at a time," she agreed.