I found that the best place to clear my head was in the sword training arena. With no one to bother me, it was a good break from teaching all of the new young demigods who looked up to me like I was some great hero.

(Well, maybe I am-but I wouldn't dare let it go to my head, seeing as Annabeth would have my hide if I did.)

I like to think of myself as a pretty chill guy, not prone to anxiety or anything. Despite this, I couldn't help the stress of teaching kids-so much like me as a child-to fight.

Or the nightmares of Luke going full Kronos and obliterating them all, monsters flooding an unprepared world, or Annabeth succumbing to the poison meant for me...

My problems were enough to make a guy a little tense, okay?

Because of this, I'd developed an effective routine for whenever life was pressing against me too tightly-wake up and head straight to the training area.

What? I never said it was complicated, just that it worked.

Today was little different, and when I strode into the combat tent, I could practically feel the tension melting from my muscles. Go figure, a place full of sharp, metal weapons made me feel almost at peace.

The whole place had been magically resized recently to accommodate the newest half-bloods entering the camp, which made it more like an epic mini colosseum, fitted with the best demigod weaponry available. I enjoyed the calm stillness for a moment, a nice dichotomy from the roaring breakfast tables. Rolling my shoulders, I got started by choosing a straw dummy-one that oddly resembled Clarisse-and picked out a wooden practice sword that one of the Hephaestus kids had made me; meant to be weighted just like Riptide.

I began my warm up by slashing through a basic form before moving on to some simple sequences that Thalia had taught me. They involved a lot of dashing around and close hits that my longer reach usually accounted for, but I found the exercises interesting to feel out. The conflict of the hunter's style and standard Grecian hack and slash was refreshing. (Don't tell Annabeth, but ever since the war ended I've been doing actual research on swordplay. Maybe she's been rubbing off on me. Really though-it's hard to try and teach someone when they ask you what exactly you did and all you can do is stutter and say that it was just instinctual.)

I shifted to my own style after a while and faked sideways, catching the dummy under its wooden ribs. I let out a laugh, almost eradicating it right then, but stopped to resist my embarrassed urge to see if anyone was close enough to have heard me. My laugh had sounded somewhere between loony and insane. Calming, I shrugged my shoulders once more, shifted into a comfortable stance, and continued.

I kept attacking the dummy until one last slice left the straw strewn across the clearing, dusty filaments filtering through the air.

Satisfied, I set up another dummy and sneezed when a cloud of scarecrow guts demanded entry into my lungs.

"Bless you," a polite voice said, accompanied by muffled footsteps.

Startled, I spun around with my sword ready, always on full alert since the war, even after so much peace.

What I found wasn't a monster. Quite the opposite actually-the new arrival was none other than my girlfriend, Annabeth, who grinned at my imagined peril.

"Did I spook you, kelp head?" she jested, one hand on her hip with the other holding onto her beloved laptop.

My mouth went dry from embarrassment and, well, seeing her. (Only Annabeth could make the standard of a camp half-blood T-shirt and jeans look so good.) I lowered my sword, dawning on the fact that the simple wood would be useless against a monster.

(I mentioned that I was really stressed, didn't I?)

"Oh, hey Wise Girl, what's up?" I greeted as casually as possible, trying to calm my racing pulse-a reaction that was definitely from training and being subsequently scared.

Right.

"Not much," she stated, "just searching for a quiet place to work on the designs for Olympus. It's getting harder to find a calm corner with all these new arrivals."

I nodded in agreement, although I was one to talk (or motion I guess) since at the end of the day I got to return to an empty cabin. Lonely as it was at times, it certainly had its perks over being asked a million questions about Greek mythology that even I barely cared to remember and understand.

"Do you want to stay here? Nothing's scheduled for a while. I could leave so you can have some peace," I offered, taking advantage of the breather.

(I know-I'm such a good boyfriend-no need to remind me.)

Annabeth waved her hand dismissively and sat down in the bleacher-esque seating. "I don't mind. I know you like to use training as stress relief."

I smiled thankfully as she settled herself and began working on her laptop.

Did I mention that Annabeth is a pretty amazing girlfriend, too?

With that, I went back to training, trying to keep my mind off of the fact that I had an audience-albeit a small one. But I mean, come on, it's Annabeth. Do you know how many ways she knows how to kill someone?

I inhaled silently to center myself and got back to training, tracking through a few choreographed escapes. Everything was going fine, but I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. I kept looking back at Annabeth every few seconds to see if she was judging my fighting. However, every time she was steadfastly typing away at her computer. Once, as I felt a tingling in the back of my neck, I checked and she caught me and raised a questioning eyebrow.

Blushing and determined to ignore her, I began a new drill that included a combat roll. Thinking through the moves, (I know-controlling my impulsiveness, how impressive!) I preformed the move, ending with my sword at the throat of the dummy. Doing it a couple more times, I whirled around and added my own finishing motif. By the end of it I was breathing hard and a drop of sweat irritated my eye, prompting me to wipe my face with the towel that I'd brought.

"You're not doing that right," Annabeth blurted out, causing me to turn, panting from exertion.

"What do you-what do you mean?" I huffed, leaning on my sword, dropping the towel onto the ground. I was pretty sure that I'd done the move correctly. (And if she was talking about the towel-how else was I supposed to use it?)

"Here," she said, climbing down the seating and placing her laptop down at the bottom, "I'll show you."

She snatched the sword from my hand before I could hardly blink and rolled smoothly across the floor, finishing with a perfectly accurate lunge to the practice dummy's head, her blonde curls framing her face like a fierce lion's mane.

I cocked my head in confusion. Did I really not do that right?

Sometimes I wonder if Annabeth is just messing with me to keep me on my toes.

But I suppose that it couldn't be all bad if I got to keep this view of her-

"Did you see what you did wrong?" she inquired, staring me down with those alluring gray eyes.

"Huh?" I responded intelligently, totally sidetracked by that adorable spray of freckles across her nose.

Annabeth sighed and shook her head in annoyance and walked back over to me and slipped the sword back into my hand. Where her fingers grazed my hand, my skin lit on fire.

"Tuck your head properly. It's a matter of life and death," she said seriously, completely blind to my rampant thoughts.

"Right. Right," I agreed, attempting to keep myself from staring at where her sleeve had ridden up, exposing her shoulder.

Forcing myself to focus, which is easier said then done when you're ADHD and your girlfriend is more than just a little pretty, I took a stance and did the move again, tucking my head like Annabeth had done. Coming out of it, I drove my sword upward, using my momentum to almost sever the prop in half vertically.

Confident in my execution, I spun around with a crooked smile-

Only for Annabeth to march up to me and kiss me.

Surprised, but totally willing, I kissed her back, hardly noticing the way the air smelled like hay in lieu of the way lemon scent wreathed around her. I kissed her for a few moments-or it could've been a few minutes, I kind of lost track of time-and pulled back to breathe and think.

Her actions suddenly caught up with me, and flustered and blushing, I stuttered, "Was that for, uh, getting it right?"

She snorted and leaned her head against my chest, her hands curling against my lower back. "Sometimes I don't understand how you can simultaneously be so dense and oblivious while also being so stupidly attractive. Do you know how hard it is to focus while you're just smirking at everything you do?"

I blinked. "Oh," I said hollowly before her words sunk in and I laughed, my blush spreading to my ears, "Oh, wow."

"Don't let that go to your head, Percy. I don't know what your small village of brain cells would do with that information," she warned, tracing circles on my back, dangerously (why did that always feel so good when she did it?) close to my only weak point.

"I won't," I promised, grinning, about to lean in for another kiss when a jarringly loud voice cut across the clearing.

"What are you two lovebirds doing in here-alone?"

Annabeth and I turned and were greeted with none other than Clarisse. She was in full combat gear and was trying to keep a straight face, but a sly smile was working its way across her smug mouth.

"You two have got some serious nerve, sitting out in the open after you were put on probation," she added, smirking.

Annabeth's whole face flushed red at the reminder of the incident. Said incident was the time that Chiron and about ten brand new campers had stumbled upon us kissing behind the Zeus cabin. I'd never seen him so irritated and amused at the same time. The kids, who were being given a tour, on the other hand, thought the moment was gold and gave us more than a few catcalls. Chiron, red as Mr. D's face after a few drinks, took us aside and told us that the two most respected leaders at camp couldn't be seen, ahem, in such intimate relations in public. Thus, he'd put us on a sort of probation (cough-time out-cough) that prohibited us from making out in public.

Annabeth removed her hands from my waist and stuck them deep into her pockets.

"We weren't doing anything-in fact, we were just leaving. Right, Percy?" Annabeth stressed. Before I could respond, my girlfriend was already moving, grabbing me by the wrist and picking up her laptop from the sideline.

"Wait, Clarisse!" I called as I nearly tripped while trying to keep up with Annabeth's quick clip, "You won't mention this to Chiron, will you?"

She cracked a grin at me and hefted a spear from the rack of weapons. "So long as I have the arena to myself, everything should be just fine."

Relieved, I turned my focus to not losing my footing as Annabeth burst out of the training area, making a beeline to the Athena cabin.

Back in the open air, I felt like my flushed face could breathe again and I tugged on Annabeth's hand to get her to slow down. Following my lead, she cut her pace and filed in next to me, still making our destination her cabin. She glanced around, searching for any tattle-tales before her shoulders relaxed, deeming us safe from any repercussions.

I smirked as we walked, laughing internally at Annabeth's continuity of pleasing Chiron.

"Maybe next time you want to work we should go to the Poseidon cabin, so, ya know, no one can bother us," I teased, interlacing our fingers as we approached the Athena cabin.

Annabeth let out a cute little nervous laugh. "Uh, no thanks, seaweed brain. It's distracting enough knowing I can kiss you whenever I want now. I think it's best if I keep us and work separate so that I don't get too distracted."

I had to ignore the thrill that shot down my spine at that as we paused in front of her cabin.

One a short (sadly) goodbye kiss later, Annabeth went inside the threshold, leaving me to stand outside with what was surely a dopey look on my face.

After a few heady moments, I shook my head lightly to clear it and smiled as I made my way back to my own cabin, wondering if I'd ever work up the nerve to admit to her just how much she distracted me.

.-.-.-.

AN: Yo! Hope you liked this little story. I've been sitting on this whole distraction business for a while and I'm happy with how it turned out. Kinda cliché, I guess but ehhh, everyone needs more Annabeth freaking out because Percy is attractive while also being her boyfriend. Reviews and thoughts are appreciated as always.

Love you all!

-Pinklily8