AN: Hello. This is brought to you by Empty Thoughts's obsession with Coldplay.

Disclaimer: Don't own PJO.

"Hey, Thalia. You up?"

"No," she says and turns to her side. A rough chuckle is heard, and some shuffling occurs. He's sitting next to her. "What do you want?"

He chuckles again. "You're supposed to be asleep."

"So?" she retorts. There's no way she can fall asleep now; too much to worry about.

"Don't worry. Nothing's gonna happen while I'm on guard duty." Thalia turns to the other side. Blue eyes she knows so well shine through the dark.

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of," she mutters as she closes her eyes.

"What do you mean by that?" Thalia's eyes shoot open because, first of all, it's the first time he's ever been confused, and second of all, and he wasn't even supposed to hear that.

She stares at him and insists, "It's nothing, Luke."

"It's obviously something, June-Bug. Tell me what's wrong." Thalia wrapps the torn up blanket around herself tighter. Their make-shift fireplace is dying down to a nearly silent crackle, and the only thing she could hear other than Luke was the ominous wind rustling through trees.

She takes a deep breath before saying, "I don't want something to happen to you— to us." She hopes he didn't notice her slip up.

"Hey," he said softly, "nothing's gonna happen. We're fine. We're almost there, and we're gonna be alright." Luke wraps an arm around Thalia, and she's suddenly a lot warmer.

"Are you sure?" she asks, cautious.

He gives her a small smile as well as a side-hug. "Positive." Thalia takes the moment to rest her head against his shoulder; Luke didn't even flinch at her behavior.

"If a monster decides to attack us right now, I call dibs on killing it first," she says with ease. Luke places his forehead against her hair and laughs, holding her even closer. Thalia feels her cheeks warm up, and she's really thankful for the darkness or else Luke would've seen the extremely embarrassing blush on her face.

A comforting silence fills the air. Luke whispers, "You should go to sleep now."

"You should shut up and enjoy the moment." Thalia whispers back.

Luke shuts; an annoyed Thalia is almost as bad as a really pissy one. The comforting silence comes back, and Thalia is just about to fall asleep. Her eyelids are so heavy that it isn't even funny. She's seriously tired. So tired, in fact, she didn't notice the small, curly-haired girl tugging at her blanket.

"Thalia. Luke." she murmurs, rubbing her sleepy eyes with her fist. Thalia's close to kicking her; it's a reflex.

In her seemingly endless vortex of being half-asleep and half-awake, Thalia slurs, "Annabeth, shh. I'm trying to sleep." The tugging stops until Thalia notices that her blanket isn't even on her anymore. She blinks a couple of times and stares at Annabeth. "Did you just take my blanket—"

"Luke fell asleep." Annabeth says, her mildly bright gray eyes gazing up at Thalia. Thalia turns her head. Luke somehow managed to doze off during his shift. Lovely.

"I knew he couldn't stay up," she mutters, wary of the drool threatening to fall of his chin and onto her hair. Thalia casts her attention back to Annabeth. "Thanks for telling me."

Annabeth nods. "A monster's going to attack us soon."

Frowning, Thalia asks, "What makes you think that?"

"It's been days, Thals. We're bound to be attacked soon." Annabeth says in a tone that seemed way too wise for her age.

"We could be lucky and not get attacked, you know?" Thalia wraps Luke's arms around herself, trying to warm up.

Annabeth gives her a look. "Demigods aren't very lucky."

"Aren't you a smarty pants." Thalia replies, eyes narrowing.

The seven year-old nods. "Of course I am. I'm stating facts."

Thalia opens her mouth to say something, but a sudden rustling in the bushes interrupts her. Annabeth's eyes widen, and she rushes to Thalia's side.

Placing her finger against her lips, Thalia instructs her to be quiet. The rustling intensifies and a growling is heard.

Luke takes this as a moment to wake up. "Wha— " Thalia covers his mouth and cupps her ear, indicating that he should listen. He nods and scrunches his eyebrows together, concentrating.

Another growl. Annabeth presses herself against Thalia's side and whimpers.

"Stay here, Annie. Luke and I'll take care of it." Annabeth clutches the torn up blanket and nodded.

"We can never get a break, can we?" Luke grumbles, resisting a yawn.

Thalia shakes her head. "We can never escape them." Annabeth has the blanket wrapped around her, Luke has his knife, and Thalia has Aegis.

The rustling increases, and the group waits. In what seemed like forever, a hellhound shoot out of the bush, and charges towards the group with a ferocity they hadn't seen before. Luke charges toward it as well, and before Thalia could say how big of an idiot he is for doing that, it's gone, and Luke sputters.

"I got dust in my mouth. Gross." He smacks his lips and wipes his tongue. "Back to sleep. In the morning, we'll start walking again. We're almost at—"

A deep growl interrupts him. Luke's breath hitches along with Thalia's, and a chorus of barks make them shiver. It isn't just one hellhound though, they realize, there is a pack. A pack that's ready to burst out from behind the trees and make them their late night snack.

"Guys," Luke says warily, "don't freak out on me now, but we may need to run." Thalia instantly grabs Annabeth's hand.

"I told you so," Annabeth chimes in. "We were bound to get attacked."

Luke gives her a strange look. "What do you mean 'I told you so'—"

The rustling intensifies and they hear twigs snap. No, not twigs, trees. Actual trees. Growls and grunts and roars fill the air as Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth run for their lives; loud thumps trail behind them, and they pray to the gods that they couldn't catch up.

AN: And there we go. Hope you guys liked it.

Thuke and Hellhounds.

~Taffeh

Edit: Soon to be rewritten with more... pizzazz so to speak.