A/N: This is my very first story. I hope you like it. I dedicate it to ArabellaVioletGray and Shadow Mistress-of death. They convinced me to write a story.

Disclaimer: If I owned PJO, Katie and Travis would be a couple.

The Meaning of Flowers

"Katie."

"Katie."

Wait a second, was it just her imagination or were the voices getting louder.

"Katie! Wake up!"

She opened her eyes and groaned, "I'm awake."

When Katie looked into the eyes of her siblings, she couldn't help but feel something was wrong. It was one of those gut feelings. She hated those. Katie looked at her sister slash best friend for the answer.

"Those idiots pranked us!" Leah screamed with anger. Her eyes were filled to the brim with furious tears. Leah always cried when she was upset or in this case enraged.

Katie began to survey the damage done by those stupid Stoll brothers, but nothing seemed to be wrong. Every bed was made, everyone's clothes were put away, the cabin was squeaky clean. Well, there was some dirt on the ground, but what do you expect? They were children of Demeter for the gods' sake.

"What did they do this time?" Katie questioned. She was infuriated that the Stoll brothers had once again pranked her cabin and confused because she could not find anything out of place. She once again looked at Leah for the answer to her question. She didn't answer her this time. It was her little sister who spoke.

"Why don't you go outside and look?" Kendal spoke seethingly. Katie had never seen her sweet sister so menacing. It was really quite frightening.

Katie quickly slipped on some shoes and headed outside to see what had been done to the exterior of the cabin. She quietly gasped at the horrid sight. The Stoll brothers had replaced all of their thriving flowers with fake ones. She just knew those idiots hadn't replanted the flowers. That meant the flowers that had been living were now dead. There was something odd about the fake flowers though. Then it hit her like a ton of bricks. They were all gardenias. Katie began blushing a bright red. She really hoped Travis and Connor didn't know the meaning of gardenias.

Katie just sighed and went back into her cabin, only to once again meet her angry siblings. She couldn't help but notice that they were staring at her pointedly.

"Well?" Leah exclaimed.

"Well, what?" Katie asked with confusion prominent in her voice.

"What are you going to do about the Stoll brothers? You can't let this prank slide. You continue to push their juvenile pranks aside, but they have gone too far this time. You will confront them about this and fix it." Leah said with a lot of authority in her tone.

"I do not push their pranks aside. I try to say something about the stupid pranks, but they don't take me seriously!" exclaimed Katie. She was getting a little angry at Leah because Leah was kind of implying that she was a pushover.

"You have got to be kidding me," Leah rolled her green eyes, "Do I need to remind you who you are? You are Katie Gardner, daughter of Demeter, and killer of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of monsters. You even fought against Kronos's army. I think you can stand up to two idiotic sons of Hermes." Thunder began rumbling in the distance. "Sorry, Lord Hermes," Leah mumbled.

When Leah finished her pep talk, Katie's anger melted away and was replaced by pure confidence. "You know what, you are completely right! I will not let those Stoll brothers push me around any longer," she finished determinedly.

"Okay, well it's time for breakfast and I'm hungry. I don't want to garden on an empty stomach," Kendal patted her little stomach. Everyone laughed at the tiny girl but began to follow after her to the Demeter table. Leah was very quiet on their way to breakfast. Katie decided she was probably just thinking about something.

After Katie gave her sacrifice to her mother, she noticed Leah was looking at her with a thoughtful expression.

"What's up?" Katie asked her.

"I was trying to remember what the meaning of a gardenia is," replied Leah.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I thought it was too coincidental that all of the flowers were gardenias, so I was thinking that maybe the gardenia has a special meaning. I know you have that book about flower meanings, but it wasn't on the bookshelf."

"Is that so?" She didn't need to reply, Katie had a feeling she knew where that book was.

"Yeah, I think it's a little fishy if you ask me," they both laughed at Leah's seriousness. "Katie?"

"Hm?"

"What does a gardenia mean? Don't tell me you don't know because I know you do."

There was a long pause as Katie contemplated whether lying to her best friend was a good idea. She sighed. "It means I love you in secret."

"Whoa, that means..."

"I know," Katie snapped.

Leah just grinned mischievously at the glaring Katie. She glanced at the Hermes table to see the Stoll brothers talking to each other. She couldn't hear them, and she definitely wasn't good at reading lips. Leah didn't need to worry about those things though because Travis stood up from his table. When he got up, she noticed that he had a white flower in the pocket of his cargo shorts. It was a fake gardenia! Then he picked up a book off the table and said, "I'm going to the beach, Connor. I'll see you later."

"Hey, Katie! You're supposed to talk to Travis about the pranks," Leah said quickly. She didn't want Katie to lose her moment of opportunity, so she shoved her in the direction of the beach.

"Travis? I thought..."

"Just go!"

"Bu-bu-but…"

"Katie Gardner! Go yell at Travis for messing with our cabin."

"Fine!" she shouted. Then she started walking towards the beach because she was supposed to yell at Travis. The truth was she didn't really want to do that. She knew he would just smirk at her. When he smirked at her, she wanted to punch the living daylights out of him, but that just wasn't her style. She sighed softly and continued walking.

When Katie reached the beach, she started looking for that familiar curly-headed boy. She spotted him near the water's edge with her book by his side. She began walking towards him as he stood up. Their eyes locked and he smirked at Katie.

Then she snapped.

"YOU NEED TO STOP PRANKING MY CABIN! YOU STOLE THAT BOOK TOO! YOU THIEF! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU! TRAVIS, DO YOU HEAR ME! LEAVE MY CABIN ALONE! YOU THINK YOU'RE ALL HIGH AND MIGHTY AND CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! NEWSFLASH! YOU CAN'T! YOU ARE SO ANNOYING! I HATE YOU!" Katie's eyes widened as she said that. She hadn't meant to. It just slipped out. She stared at her shoes, waiting and hoping Travis would say something. She would never admit it, but she kind of liked Travis. He could be really annoying, but sometimes he was really sweet.

Travis was really surprised. He had never seen Katie so angry. She didn't even mention the gardenias. He had worked awfully hard on that plan or prank as she called it. He knew he shouldn't have listened to that stupid daughter of Aphrodite. Apparently, she didn't know anything about Katie. He sighed and mentally thought, "There's always Plan B."

He walked over to Katie and lifted her chin up, so he could see those beautiful brown eyes. Her eyes widened when he did this. When she looked up into his eyes, she felt her face grow very red.

"You know," Travis smiled mischievously, "hate is a very passionate emotion. Why don't you show me that passion?"

"Why don't you?" she whispered with a small smile on her face. His surprise only lasted for a second as he smashed his lips onto hers. Then one of his hands was on her waist pulling her closer and the other was cupping her cheek. He thought she tasted like dirt, but he didn't mind that. He felt her hands in his hair. The kiss felt so right. Then he pulled his lips away, but they were still so close to each other.

Katie could feel Travis's breath on her face as he smirked and said, "Was that enough passion for you?"

"Was that enough passion for you, Travis?" she grinned. He moaned in response and began kissing along her jaw. Then he pulled a real gardenia out of his pocket and tucked it behind her ear. She gawked at him.

"You didn't even mention the gardenias," Travis said sadly as his kisses trailed down Katie's neck.

"What?"

"The gardenias."

"Do you mean it?"

"Mean what?" Travis said staring into Katie's eyes.

"You know what gardenias mean. You took my book about flower meanings. Do you mean it? Do you love me in secret?" Katie inquired softly.

"I did," Katie's eyes grew large. "But it's not a secret anymore, is it?"

"Right," Katie smiled sweetly and kissed him on the cheek.

Then she stepped away from Travis and grew a flower. She grabbed his hand and placed the flower there.

"What's this?" he said as she handed him a white flower with yellow in the middle.

"It's a jonquil," she grinned.

"Does this have a special meaning too?"

"Why don't you look it up?" Katie handed him the book of flower meanings. He shook his head and laughed.

"Okay."

"Well, I have to go, Travis."

"But…"

Katie cut him off with a small kiss on the lips.

"I'll see you later."

Travis watched her as she walked away and shouted when she was almost out of earshot,"Does this mean you're my girlfriend?"

She blushed as his smirk became more pronounced and nodded. Then she laughed and walked away with a huge smile on her face. It was at that moment that Travis remembered the jonquil in his hand. He opened Katie's book and starting flipping the pages until he reached the J's. He spotted Jonquil right away.

Jonquil: affection returned.

He smiled a goofy smile and closed the book.

"Who would have thought that the meaning of flowers would bring Travis Stoll and Katie Gardner together? Well, she is a daughter of Demeter," he thought.

Please review and tell me how this story is. Thanks for reading. (:

-Noell isthedaughterofApollo