ATTENTION: THIS IS THE THIRD CHAPTER POSTED TODAY, GO BACK AND READ CHAPTERS 4 AND 5 IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY.

Thank you, that is all. :)

Coming home was full of stilted conversation on where he and Thalia would be sleeping. Percy was ready to collapse into the guest bedroom's bed, and Thalia was welcome to join him or not. When suggested, Sally looked a bit wary, and the look on her face said it all. Thalia's "Yuck," preceded his "Ew!" by a heartbeat.

"She's like my sister," Percy added. "That's just…"

"Yuck," Thalia repeated, wrinkling her nose.

"Mom, you didn't think twice about Annabeth and I sleeping in close quarters on quests, but Thalia and I—"

"But Annabeth—"

"You're right, she wouldn't do anything impulsive when she had time to think about it, but let's talk about life-or-death situations. Specifically, running from a newly awakened Titan Lord in the middle of a volcano," Percy retorted. "The phrase 'don't die, Seaweed Brain,' has a lot of meaning for me."

Thalia spluttered out a laugh. "Of course she said that right after she kissed you. Oh, Annabeth."

"I almost got killed because I was sitting there and trying to remember my own name," Percy said, laughing a little.

Sally buried her head in her hands, laughing. "Okay, shoo, you two. You've convinced me."

When Percy got up the next day, he could tell that Thalia had been talking with his mom about him. She was a lot more at ease with him, and seemed a little startled when he helped out in the kitchen.

"You can cook, Kelpy?"

"I live with Mom," he said, pressing a kiss to the woman's forehead as he passed. "Of course I know how to cook. I knew the theory and the bare basics of it now, but as the war went on, a lot of demigods got adopted by her, and then she was cooking for half the Camp. Everyone brought a couple of dollars each time to help pay for the ingredients, we saved up to be able to buy a sturdier table with expansion capabilities and benches rather than chairs, and air mattresses were stored all over the house. Trust me, those who weren't setting up the table for the thirty or forty-odd people and didn't have a habit of exploding things or setting things on fire were helping Mom cook."

Percy Jr. was nodding. "We've already had something like that."

Percy Sr. cocked his head. "Oh! I remember that. I invited Clarisse just to see her face."

"It was hilarious," Percy Jr. agreed. "Didn't actually expect her to come, though."

Percy Sr. shrugged. "She's pretty cool when she isn't trying to kill you. Or at least run you through with her spear. Or even just give you a swirly."

Percy Jr. burst out laughing.

"Swirly?" Thalia questioned. "When did that happen?"

"First day conscious," Percy Jr. said. "Annabeth was showing me around, Clarisse found the 'new guy' and was going to give me their initiation to the Camp."

"It didn't work very well," Percy Sr. noted.

"I ended up exploding all the toilets and dousing everyone but myself with water and sewage," Percy Jr. said.

"Annabeth's face was torn between grossed out, impressed, and confused," Percy Sr. said.

"This was before any of us knew my parentage, so she was trying to figure out who my parent was. I think she was denying it, personally," Percy Jr. added.

"She wasn't denying it by the time we got to Capture the Flag," Percy Sr. said, snorting. "That cold shoulder was even colder than 'you drool in your sleep'."

Both Thalia and Sally laughed at that.

"You two are giving me whiplash," Thalia said.

"Sorry," they said simultaneously.

Sally almost snorted water up her nose.

"That doesn't help!" Thalia protested, laughing a bit.

"Did you want to spar?" Percy asked later, a little after lunch.

"Where? This doesn't have enough room and Camp is over a hundred miles away."

"There's an abandoned gym a little ways from here where I tend to spar when Mom kicks me out of the house to practice somewhere else where I can break someone else's stuff," Percy said, grinning a bit.

Thalia snorted. "Let me get changed."

Percy told his Mom where they were going, and they were off. Thalia jumped about a foot and levelled a knife at the throat of someone who emerged from the gloom. "Relax, Thals," Percy said, pushing her arm down. "Local gang. We're not staying, just practicing. You are welcome to watch."

"No they aren't!" Thalia protested.

"Watch, appreciate, and be silent," Percy said levelly, ignoring Thalia in favor of the other teen.

"Deal," the teen said. His voice was gravelly from smoking.

"Percy!" Thalia growled, elbowing him.

"Not negotiable, Thalia." He toed off his shoes.

"They're just going to watch—"

"Thals, there are girls here too," Percy said, amused. "Now really, are we sparring or not?"

With a glance around, she took a deep breath and nodded.

They shifted into fighting stances.

"No weapons, no other abilities," Percy laid out. "Trickery and fighting dirty is to be expected. No matches or wins, this is to let you get adjusted. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

She launched herself at him, feet fully leaving the ground with all her weight behind a punch. Percy caught her and swung her around, letting her go on the other side. Thalia rolled as she hit the ground, coming up standing and approaching him again in quick, short steps, bouncing back and forth in a zig-zag pattern. A punch was thrown, followed by a lightning-fast high kick that almost clipped his jaw. She danced around him, poking at his defenses and seeing where he was weak. Thalia surprised him by getting in close, throwing elbow jabs—there was a furious exchange of blows in close quarters, blocked and hit, splitting Percy's lip and bruising the side of Thalia's neck, before he regained the upper hand. They were close enough that he could feel her shift backwards, and he stuck out a foot and tripped her.

She sprawled on the floor, quickly recovering and somersaulting backwards to come up in a crouch. They circled each other, both breathing deeply and grinning at the adrenaline, and Percy listed off the things that he could see: "You're bigger than you're used to, and it impedes your reaction time. You're still getting used to your new center of gravity and it shows in some of your blows, especially the ones that you throw your body behind. You're also stiff. Have you been stretching?"

Thalia nodded. "It's not anywhere near as bad as it was. It hurt for me to move at first. Every step was a chore. I couldn't even sit down for the first few hours."

"Stretching, gymnastics, sparring," Percy said. They were still circling each other.

"Gymnastics?"

"Keeps you limber and helps build up different muscles depending on the routine. You've got the right build for it. Your muscles have atrophied a bit, not anywhere near what I would expect, but still there," he explained. "It's also something that you can do in the house."

Thalia nodded.

"Do you want to stop and stretch or keep going?"

"Stretch," Thalia immediately said, flopping on the floor.

"Where's most of your problems?" Percy asked. "Arms, legs, or back?"

"Back and legs," she admitted.

"Roll your head forward, as far as you can. It should stretch out your neck and back muscles. Hold that for as long as you want. When I started, I did it to a count of ten."

"What do you do now?"

"Twenty or thirty, depending on how sore I am."

She was silent for a moment, before looking up. "Why do you stretch? That's kind of…well…"

Percy snorted. "Girly? Stretching is the only thing that lets me beat Annabeth sometimes."

Thalia thought about that. "Fair enough."

"You done with that position?" Percy asked.

She nodded shortly.

"Get up," he instructed. "Plant your feet two or three feet apart. Keep your head bowed and carefully lean forward until you encounter resistance or pain. Normally, I just let my weight stretch myself out, but with your stiffness I don't want you doing something that could potentially sprain or strain something, especially not in your back. If you can't hold it for ten seconds, then ease up."

He walked her through her stretches and a couple of his own, which took almost a full forty five minutes.

"I'm going to ache so bad tomorrow," she groaned as Percy helped her up.

"We'll work on it," Percy promised. "Stiffness, center of gravity, reaction time. In that order."

"Why?" Thalia asked as they left the gym. "You barely know me, and I just came out of a seven-year-long coma. What drew you to me?"

Percy was quiet for a moment. "I don't…really know, honestly. I already know that I wanted to get to know you better. I remember when Artemis offered you a way out of the prophecy through her immortality, that I was a little disappointed. You had this whole man-hating thing going after you learned about Luke poisoning you, and thirteen-year-old me was probably not helping."

Thalia laughed a little.

"I've always thought of you as a cousin or sister, though I got to shock Dad when I implied that we could be a couple, and that was fun," Percy said, grinning. Thalia punched him, but she was smiling too. "But now I'm training twelve-year-old mini-me, and Annabeth…is almost painful to watch." Thalia's smile faded as she nodded. "In the Styx, you have to anchor yourself to your mortal side. The Styx only works on demigods, I think, so if a mortal somehow found out how to get in and out of the Underworld and decided to go take a refreshing dip in the Styx, they'd be burned to death. Even if they had their mother's blessing. But anyway, the anchor is always a person, the most important person in their lives."

"Your Mom or Annabeth?" Thalia asked softly.

"Annabeth," Percy admitted. "Mom was close, though. But even before the Styx, I'd always had someone to anchor myself to. Annabeth was attached to mini-me, and I was a stranger to Mom. Clarisse would probably laugh at me, Nico is a hyperactive fanboy of a ten year old—" Thalia burst out laughing, and Percy grinned wryly before continuing, "and Chiron has many more loyalties than to me. That left you, basically."

"I'm someone to…support. To support and support you in return."

Percy nodded. "Fatal flaw is loyalty. I tend to attach myself to a few people and go crazy when I don't have them within phone call distance."

She shook her head. "And when I wasn't there?"

"I was either unconscious or scaring people to death with massive shows of power," Percy said dryly. "I thought Chiron was going to faint when I raised my hands and the creek erupted."

Thalia laughed. "I can't imagine Chiron fainting. How would he? I mean, he can't fall over backwards, so does he fall to the side or do his legs buckle and then he face plants into the ground or what?"

He buried his head in his hands and laughed helplessly. "Oh, gods," he groaned. "Thalia, why do you think stuff like that? That's just weird!"

"So says the Supreme Lord of the Bathroom," she said, poking his ribs.

Percy snorted with laughter as he entered the apartment. "Go take a bath. Put some salts in it, they're under the sink. No one uses them but Mom, so don't worry about boy cooties."

She shoved him into the wall, groaning as Percy laughed his head off at her reaction. Sally stood in the doorway to the kitchen with an eyebrow raised at the two of them.

"She okay?"

Percy made a so-so motion with his hand. "She was a tree for seven years. She's stiff, sore, adjusting to her new center of balance, and bigger than she's used to."

His mom winced. "Ouch." She stepped forward to hug him and then recoiled. "Go take a shower! You stink!"

Percy leaned forward and stole a kiss on her cheek before dancing away as she snapped her towel threateningly, both of them laughing.

In other news, I got a new laptop, regained access to this site, and realized that I'd continued to update ao3 stories and forgot about this site.

Whoops.

Love you guys, thank you for being so patient.

-Ruby

P.S.: Come find me on tumblr and scream about basically anything with me! (a)rubythecrimsonwriter