My eyes flutter open to see the ceiling in Rachel's living room.

Music is still playing softly, and I can tell it is Incubus, not your typical Incubus song either but that weird trippy song 'Aqueous Transmission' where he's floating down a river. I'm reminded of a conversation Nico di Angelo and I have been having for months now about a possible way to defeat Kronos.

A very dangerous, likely suicidal, but totally possible way.

I feel some weight from my chest down to my legs, and when I look down I see Rachel's head breathing softly onto my bare chest. She is lying on top of me with a blanket over us. If any of our parents saw us, I'm thinking no explanation would save us from the groundings of a lifetime. Although with Poseidon you never know, he's just as likely to high five me over this the minute my mom turned her back.

"Rachel?" I say softly.

Nothing.

I reach up with my right hand since my left arm is pinned between her and the back of the couch. I gently nudge her shoulder and say her name again. She murmurs lightly before starting to stir, raising her head ever so slowly and rubbing her eyes. She looks at me groggily pushing some stray red hairs out of eyesight, but a small smile appears on her face as she meets my eyes.

"Hey you," she whispers.

"Hey," I answer back, also in a whisper.

"How are you feeling?" she asks, examining my once destroyed chest, by running her hand over it. Goosebumps follow in its wake.

"Tired, and a bit embarrassed…" I start before realizing this answer might make her kind of self-conscious, for you know, laying on top of me.

I don't think it worked, as she is now looking around nervously in our current position, doing anything she can to keep from locking eyes again.

"Sorry about…um…crashing on top of you. Your body temperature was dropping and I wanted to make sure I could hear your heartbeat. Not that I'm any kind of doctor but…" and she stops talking, probably worried that she is babbling.

I start to sit up, careful not to inadvertently throw her off. She remains on my lap.

"Hey," I start, putting a hand on her cheek to get her to look at me again, "you're kidding me right? You save my life after I bleed all over your living room and you are the one apologizing?"

"I just…I just kind of freaked out. You're the first person that ever proved to me I wasn't imagining these horrible things I'd been seeing my whole life. I can't really stomach the idea of losing you. You're my only real friend…"

"That's not true, Grover and Tyson think you're awesome," I counter, which is totally true.

"Annabeth? Not so much…" she says with a timid smile.

"I think she's just mad that you stole her thunder during the whole labyrinth quest. She'll get over it," I grasp. It's the only explanation I've been able to put together over the last few months beyond Annabeth's natural suspicion against mortals.

"That's…that's not why she doesn't like me, Percy," Rachel says with total certainty.

I pause.

"Then what? What reason could she possibly have?"

She doesn't answer right away. I wonder how she can be so sure, or if she's just imagining things in between her and Annabeth that just aren't there. But if anything, she doesn't look like she's so much unsure of the answer as she is unsure of whether to tell me.

"Percy…I…I wish I could tell you why, but I'd be violating the 'girl code', and even if Annabeth will never stop hating my guts…"

"It's cool. It's…it's totally cool," I cut her off. The last time I tried cornering a girl into a straight answer, and got one, it nearly destroyed our friendship.

Technically, I'm not even sure it isn't destroyed. But I want to see how and if we get past the great prophecy before we officially declare it one way or the other.

"So why did you come over, Percy? I mean, I like having you over and hanging out. But normally you call ahead, and don't manage to get into a near death brawl on the way here," she asks, and I welcome anything that will kill the awkward silence.

Except this question.

I start to blush as I look guiltily towards my jacket, only slightly damp from the blood and water that got on it, but still wearable since it is black.

I reach over and pull out 'the reason' from my jacket pocket.

I present her with a new, cheap but durable, blue plastic hairbrush.

"Oh Percy…" she says, sounding flattered and pitying all at the same .

"Yeah, I know, all that work for nothing," I chuckle while looking over at the coffee table where her other replacement hairbrush that she was using when I first got here now sits.

"And the worst part is…I have a drawer full of them in my bathroom. I break or lose these things all the time," she says, a timid smile emerging on her face.

"Story of my life, but at least you'll have plenty of ammunition if Kronos ever tries to run you down again," I reply.

She pauses, continuing to smile at the absurd gift I nearly lost my life to deliver to her.

"I love it," she says, and without much warning she moved in to kiss me on the cheek, but I accidentally moved my head to say something back like 'You're welcome' or 'Next time I'll bring a pizza'.

And our lips touched.

I hastily closed my eyes, thinking it's the polite thing to do, but after a second or two she pulls back.

"Oh…um…" she begins to stammer. And if I thought the lull in the conversation earlier was awkward, this is something around a thousand times worse.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean…I mean I'm not sorry about that because it was nice…it's just I know you weren't trying to um…I mean I wasn't assuming you were…" and I finally shut up because I'm just going in circles.

Rachel, meanwhile, doesn't look sorry or unsure about anything really. She puts her hand on my cheek and locks eyes with me.

"Don't ever apologize for that, Percy Jackson. Ever." she says with a firmness I have never seen from her before. I can feel her thumb trace over my cheek. Her lips are trembling though, betraying whatever confidence she's attempting to show.

But even with that I see her eyes ping-ponging between my eyes and my lips.

"Rachel…I…" I really have no idea what to say or do here.

"Shh…it's okay Percy…let's just…" and she has no intention of finishing that thought with words as she closes her eyes…and the distance between us.

Just before our lips touch again a sudden flashback breaks like a wave against the sand as the words "Be careful, Seaweed Brain" echo through my brain. In the briefest of moments I go back to those precious seconds I was with Annabeth before blowing the roof off of Mt. St. Helens.

In almost the same moment Rachel's cell phone starts ringing on the coffee table. She winces in anguish, and gets off of me to pick up the call and starts pacing around the room.

The moment is gone.

I can't tell if I'm relieved or disappointed.

"Hi dad," she says after reading the caller ID. "Yeah, I remember about dinner tonight. I'll be ready when Darryl comes by to pick me up. Yes, I'll wear a dress. Okay…alright…bye," she says.

"Dinner with the fam?" I ask with a small laugh.

"And some of his business partners. This is how my dad multi-tasks, it takes care of work and daddy-daughter time all at once," she explains.

"You sound thrilled," I say, heavy on sarcasm.

"You know it, I'd drag you along on the idea that you owe me after today. And you still do owe me, but I think you've had your fill of vampires today," she answers, clearly referring to her dad's work buddies. I can't help but laugh.

Then there is a pause again as she looks down at her feet.

"Well how about we try this again sometime? And that time I won't show up in anything less than perfect condition?" I say getting up from the couch.

"It's a date," she replies…a smile returning to her face. "Now, we need to do something about…" and she starts gesturing towards my naked chest.

"Oh come on, I can't be the only half-naked guy walking around Manhattan this evening," I say, pretending to get all defensive.

"True, but the NYPD and/or the Port Authority might make a bigger deal about it since you are a minor," she counters.

She's got me there.

"You win…this time," I say squinting my eyes.

"All the time, hang back for a second while I steal one of my dad's shirts for you," and she runs off out of the room.

I look over at the coffee table at the sketch pad.

It's just sitting there begging me to look at it.

If she really didn't want me to see any of it, she would have hidden it or put it away.

Right?

I sit on the couch and hastily open the book.

I've barely laid eyes on the first drawing and I'm already…concerned.

She's basically sketched me walking near the church, and looking back towards the two empousai. Rachel has drawn them perfectly as I remembered the scene arm-in-arm, in their non-hideous hot girl form. One asian, one not, both smiling with deadly flirtatiousness.

I gave her none of these details.

The next sketch is of me in the confessional booth, talking with my dad. Another detail I did not give.

Then there is a sketch of the fight in the church, specifically me losing Riptide as I impaled the airborne Asian empousai. This is followed by a series of smaller sketches combined on one page of me getting pummeled by the other, finger slashed, and finger stabbed. Followed by her getting doused and evaporated with the holy water.

Page after page, all of them as if she was right there, but the drawings of when she was there are even more confusing. She's drawn the parts where she finds my dad at her front door with the bottle of whatever cured me, clearly not knowing that was why he dropped it off. Then one of me showing up at her door nearly doubled over in pain, while she brushed her hair.

One of her pouring the curative on me. One of us talking on the couch, one of us accidentally kissing, one of us almost kissing, one of her answering her phone and pacing around the room. All as they just had happened.

Is she playing some kind of joke? But that's impossible if you consider the pictures about the church and the empousai.

But the last page is the most confusing.

It's Rachel and me, at least I think it is. She looks…different…but it is definitely her, wearing a blouse over a swimsuit and her hair pulled back in a ponytail. We are in a car seat, the driver's seat specifically. She is straddling my hips and kissing me like there is no tomorrow. Her hands are holding my face, making sure I guess we do nothing but kiss. The one hand of mine that I can see is resting on her hip, and even though she is mounting me in a way that says it's okay, I'm sure I had to summon a lot of courage to take that leap.

On it's own, this would freak me out enough. Does Rachel really want me this way? I mean…we have a good time together, but I can't see how I'd be a good fit for her in the boyfriend sense. I mean I have a hard time seeing that with any girl, but her especially. She's into art, reading, and social causes. I'm into basketball, fart jokes, and Bronze Age warfare.

Annabeth and I at least have the last thing in common, but even then, it's hard to imagine she would want that kind of relationship from me either.

But what really gets me to start panicking as I look at this last picture is a small detail hanging from the steering wheel column.

It's a blowfish keychain, and I know who it belongs to. We're in Paul's car.

I start to think that this isn't what Rachel wants, necessarily.

This is something that is going to happen…in the future…and like everything else in the sketchbook, Rachel has merely drawn it into focus.

I hear her footsteps as she is making her way back towards the living room. I close the book and set it gently back onto the table, placing the empty bottle on top of it to make it look completely undisturbed.

She enters the room a moment later, a polo shirt in hand.

"I've got a shirt for you," she sing-songs.

And I've got a million questions, none of which I can ask without admitting I've invaded her privacy.

TBC