Over the past five months Lilia and Percy hung out a lot. They were both attending the same school and neither had many friends, other than team mates.
They found comfort in each other company during the term, and despite it only being a few months of knowing each other, it felt like they'd been friends for years.
Percy was doing well in school for the first time, and was close to finishing a whole year of school without too many problems.
That was until May. Percy stood at Lilia's locker waiting for her, as he did everyday, when a couple boys in his class came over smirking.
"Hey Jackson. Waiting for your girlfriend?" The boy at the front teased.
"She's not my girlfriend." Percy muttered trying to ignore them.
"Right, I forgot you're just hoping for something out of that bitch." He laughed to all his friends but Percy tensed up.
"Excuse me?" His voice was low as her glared daggers at the boys words.
"Hey man, I get it." He continued to taunt. "I mean I'd totally try and hit it if she-" the boy never finished his sentence, Percy had pinned him up against the locker, causing everyone in the corridor to tense.
"Don't fucking talk about her like that."
As soon as Lilia got into school she knew something was wrong, students were crowding the corridors and there was shouting at the far end. She rushed through the crowd and pushed her way to the front only to see Percy Jackson and some boy in his year fighting.
"What the fuck are you doing Percy?" Lilia yelled over the shouting students.
He turned her way and gave her a look of guilt, the boy took this as his chance and threw a punch at Percy, splitting his lip. Percy face turned on impact and his eyes thinned with anger, he turned back slamming his fist into the boys nose, with all his force, knocking him to the ground.
"MR JACKSON! THAT IS ENOUGH!" A teacher shouted running down the corridor and pulling the two boys apart.
"Both of you, my office, now!"
The teacher stormed off, shouting for everyone to get to class. Lilia grabbed Percy's wrist and dragged him hard.
"What were you thinking Perseus Jackson?" She hissed at him, she couldn't quite pinpoint the look in his eyes, it was somewhere between anger and sorrow.
"Listen to your bitch Percy." The boy whispered to him as he walked past, but Lilia heard.
Percy turned back to the boy, probably about to start the fight again but Lilia tugged him back.
"Percy. It's not worth it." She sighed.
"But he can't talk about you like that!" He hissed.
"Is that what the fight was about?" She asked.
He didn't reply, just looked down angrily. Lilia was used to people seeing her as some kind of prize to be won, at first it was hard but over the years she learnt to just deal with the fact some boys are just disgusting people.
"Thank you for having my back." She whispered, squeezing his arm comfortingly. He nodded before walking off to the teachers office.
They both knew it wouldn't end well for him, he was a 'troubled kid', and one mess up means big consequences.
➳
Later that day Lilia got an iris message from Percy telling her he'd been expelled, on the case of 'too many disruptive incidences'. So to Lilia's dismay she had to go through the last month and a half of the term alone.
They made plans to go to the movies with Annabeth after Percy's orientation for Goode high school.
Lilia had been back at camp for a couple days but she'd left some things at her dorm, so her and Annabeth's got dropped there before they met Percy.
"I think i might come back to camp full time." Lilia said looking through her clothes.
"I thought you wanted to prove yourself to Connor and Travis?" Connor and Travis had it in their heads that the children of Aphrodite knew nothing, despite the fact they were a lot dumber than Lilia was.
She sighed. "I need to keep training, if at some point camp is attacked, I'm not going to be able to defend myself by doing maths questions." As much as that was true, she really did find school hard, she could hardly understand any of it and sitting still for five hours a day is a lot harder than she remembered.
Annabeth nodded, she knew Lilia could never settle for stereotypes, she was ambitious. Annabeth liked that about her, but sometimes she took it too far.
"Which top?" Lilia's asked holding up a pink floral crop top and a Lacey blue tube top.
"That one." She said pointing at the blue one. "Percy will like it." She grinned.
"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked, but listened anyway, pulling the blue top on.
"I mean you guys totally like each other."
"Percy does not like me like that!" She blushed.
"I know you both. Within a week of knowing you Percy was willing to drop everything to comfort you. And you took on the weight on the sky so he wasn't alone." She said with a raised eyebrow.
"Whatever you say Annie." Lilia said pulling some black jeans on. But once she turned away she couldn't help the small smile that appeared on her face.
"Stop smiling lover girl." Annabeth said.
"How could you have possibly known that?" Lilia flung her arms up exasperated.
Once she was dressed the two girls checked themselves in the mirror. Annabeth's hair fell down around her face in ringlets, which was a change from her usual pony tail.
Lilia's hair was pulled back into two messy plaits, loose curls falling around her face.
They walked through the city, using the directions Percy had wrote on a little note for them, trying to find the school.
"I think we're lost." Lilia said.
"No we cant be, according to this it should be right around here."
"Are you forgetting Percy wrote this note?" Lilia said looking around and seeing no sign of a school.
They kept walking a bit further and came out onto a street. Percy came sprinting down the road, running right into Lilia.
She grasped his shoulder trying to keep him upright. "Hey! Watch where you're going bubble-brain!" She said making sure he didn't run into the road.
"You're out early." Annabeth laughed as Percy tried to regain his balance.
Lilia smiled at Percy happy to see him, she looked pretty, Percy thought. Her eyes were twinkling and her hair was glowing golden under the sun.
"I like your top." He smiled.
Before Annabeth got the chance to tease her on that, some girl came running from Percy's direction.
"Percy, wait up!" She shouted. Lilia's smile melted off her face as she stared at the pretty red haired girl before her. She turned towards the school, only just noticing the black smoke coming from the doors.
"What have you done now?" Annabeth's asked.
"And who's she?" Lilia said coldly.
"Oh right, Rachel, Lilia and Annabeth. Lilia and Annabeth, Rachel. Um she's a friend I guess." He muttered.
"Hi." Rachel said barely giving them a second thought, before turning her back to them. "Percy, you are in so much trouble. And you still owe me an explanation!"
Police sirens wailed.
"Percy," Annabeth said. "We should go."
"I want to know more about half-bloods," Rachel insisted. "And monsters. And this stuff about the gods." She grabbed his arm, whipped out a permanent marker, and wrote a phone number on his hand. "You're going to call me and explain, okay? You owe me that. Now get going." Lilia scoffed.
"But-"
"I'll make up some story," Rachel said. "I'll tell them it wasn't your fault. Just go!"
She ran back toward the school, leaving him in the street with Annabeth who was giving him an unimpressed look. Lilia had turned on her heels and began to walk away, no longer in a good mood.
"Hey!" Percy jogged after her. "There were these two empousai," he tried to explain. "They were cheerleaders, see, and they said camp was going to burn, and-"
"You told a mortal girl about half-bloods?" Lilia raised an eyebrow.
"She can see through the Mist. She saw the monsters before I did."
"So you told her the truth?" Annabeth asked.
"She recognized me from Hoover Dam, so-"
"Hold on," Lilia stopped walking and spun around. "you've met her before?" Lilia said accusingly.
"Um, last winter. But seriously, I barely know her."
"She's kind of cute." Lilia shrugged, clearly annoyed.
"I—I never thought about it."
"I'll deal with the school," he promised, anxious to change the subject. "Honest, it'll be fine."
Lilia wouldn't even look at him, Annabeth spared him a few disappointed glances.
"I guess our afternoon is off. We should get you out of here, now that the police will be searching for you." Behind them, smoke billowed up from Goode High School.
"Lilia's right," Annabeth said. "We have to get to Camp Half-Blood. Now."