A few minutes after Percy and Annabeth left, Tracy and her two followers walked through the door. Everyone sat up in anticipation as Silena glared at them.

"I know I'm gorgeous, but why is everyone staring at me?" Tracy asked.

Silena put as much hostility as she could into her voice. "You girls are in so much trouble."

Percy's POV

I stood in front of the Apollo cabin, not knowing if I was supposed to feel relieved or angry.

I was relieved because I knew that the girl who'd been chasing me around for the past two days wasn't the real Annabeth, and there might be a cure for her… condition. I was angry because Will Solace was my friend and he let this happen.

So when Will opened the door, I wanted to punch him in the face.

But I didn't. I had to remind myself that this really wasn't his fault. He was blackmailed or something, right? This was all Tracy.

"Hey, man," I said. "I kind of have a problem."

He took one look at Annabeth—who was clinging to my arm and stroking my ear—and immediately nodded like he understood. "So that's who Tracy used the potion on, huh? I'm sorry, bro. Follow me."

I stumbled inside, dragging Annabeth along with me. She started singing a song about pegasi and owls coming to peace. I wanted to stuff cotton in my ears. Will sighed.

"I just want to make it clear that this whole love potion thing wasn't my idea," he stated.

I nodded. "Yeah, the Aphrodite girls already explained everything to me," I said.

"I'm really sorry. Tracy got the potion from me, but I didn't know she was going to use it on Annabeth. I shouldn't have given it to her, but she threatened me with…" he shuddered. "Just… sorry."

"It's alright, man," I said. "Do you have some kind of reverse potion or something?"

"The potion takes a few weeks to wear off, but you're in luck. I've been really worried for the past few days, so I started researching cures. It required a whole bunch of weird stuff, like lizard tails, drakon eyeball juice, and kool-aid, but I finally got all the ingredients."

Will led me to a shelf that had a whole bunch of vials filled with dangerous-looking potions. "Here it is." He reached for the top shelf and grabbed a vial filled with the most disgusting liquid I've ever seen in my life.

"As soon as she drinks it, she won't remember anything that happened when she was… you know. The only problem is, since the effects of the love potion Annabeth took are still extremely strong, the scent of this potion automatically repels her. That's why she just ran and hid under my bed."

Sure enough, Annabeth was squeezing herself under Will's bunk, rebuking the potion with very colorful sentences.

"You can't make me drink that!" she yelled. "I refuse!"

I sighed. "Annabeth—"

"NO!"

I looked to Will for help. He raised his hands innocently. "I can't make her do anything, Percy. You have to find a way to convince her."

"Uh…" I scratched my head. "Hey, Annabeth… if you come out of there, I'll let you… keep my pillow?"

Annabeth peeked her head out from under the bed. "Your pillow?"

"Yeah. The one I sleep with every night. You can have it."

Her eyes gleamed. "Really?"

"Um… yeah."

She thought about it. Then she frowned. "No. This is a trap."

"I'll also let you have one of my t-shirts. And you can keep my bed sheets. You can have anything you want."

She crawled out from under the bed and slowly made her way towards me. "I don't know…"

She just needed one more push. "Annabeth, if you truly love me, you'll drink the potion. For me."

Annabeth looked horrified. "But Percy, my darling, you know you're the love of my life!

"I don't believe you," I said, holding out the potion. "Just drink it, Annabeth. If you really care about me."

She stared at me for a long time while I pleaded with my eyes. Finally, she took the potion from my hands and popped the cap off. "I love you Percy! Here's your proof!" She put the vial to her lips and gulped it down. The liquid looked so disgusting, I started feeling kind of sick. I didn't know how she was drinking that.

She put the vial down and stared at me for a long time. I started to think the potion hadn't worked. I looked over at Will and began to speak, but suddenly Annabeth collapsed. She groaned and held her stomach.

"Ugh. I don't feel good. So dizzy." She looked up at me. "Why are we in the Apollo cabin?"

Will grabbed some ambrosia from the counter and handed it to Annabeth. "You wanted some of this," he explained. "Your stomach started hurting a while ago."

Annabeth chewed on the ambrosia and nodded like all of this made sense.

"So, Annabeth," Will said. "Are you and Percy… official?"

She looked up, blushing. "What? What makes you think that?"

"Nothing, I was just wondering." Will grinned at me. "She's back."

"Hey, what time is it?" Annabeth looked at her watch. "Ugh, we're late. Dinner started like twenty minutes ago. Now we're probably gonna be on kitchen duty."

Kitchen duty didn't bother me at all at the moment. I was just glad to have Annabeth back. "How are you feeling?" I asked as I helped her up. We started walking to the door.

"Better. Thanks for the ambrosia, Will," she said.

"Yeah, no problem," he called, shutting the door behind us.

"What are you smiling about?" Annabeth asked as we left the cabin, heading towards the pavilion.

I hadn't realized I'd been smiling. It was just really strange—only minutes ago, Annabeth had been clinging to my arm, serenading me with Taylor Swift love songs.

"Nothing," I said. "I've just had a weird day."

I walked with Annabeth to the infirmary while the rest of the campers were in the amphitheater. Annabeth had been right—for being late we were rewarded with kitchen duty. She'd burned her arm with the lava they make us use to wash the dishes. It had barely touched her skin before I'd doused it with water, but it had still burned her pretty bad.

"Does it hurt a lot?" I asked.

Annabeth flexed her arm. "Not as much as it would have if you hadn't used your awesome H2O skills." She grinned at me. "Thanks, hero."

I shrugged, blushing. "Not really heroic."

Annabeth nudged me. "My injury would have been a whole lot worse if you hadn't helped; therefore, I count it as heroic."

I decided not to argue with her. She was known to be pretty stubborn.

It was a peaceful night. There was a full moon, which made the Long Island Sound waves pretty big. The weather was perfect. It felt good to be walking alone with Annabeth—no one else tagging along. We rarely got time to ourselves.

I was thinking about my mom and Paul Blofis, her new husband, and how I hadn't talked to them in a while, when Annabeth tripped over a rock and fell on the grass. I heard a sickening snap.

"Man!" she shouted.

"Wow," I said. "This is not your day, is it?"

"My ankle!" she groaned.

I kneeled down next to her. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know, I—twisted it. It might be broken." She cursed loudly.

"Well, at least we're already going to the infirmary." I helped her up. "Can you walk?" I took her hand and she limped forward, wincing. She tripped again, and I caught her before she could face-plant the ground.

She started laughing as I set her down, and I had to join in.

"Oh my gods, today's sucked," she said, struggling to get up again.

"Annabeth, you can't walk." I looked at her. "I can carry you."

She snorted. "Percy—"

"This is serious," I said, holding back a smile. I helped her up and stood in front of her. "I challenge you to a piggy-back ride."

She punched my shoulder. "You're a dork." But, after a few seconds of reluctance, she finally gave in. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I hooked my hands under her knees.

Finally, we reached our destination. I set her down carefully, keeping my hands on her waist to steady her. Then… well, it was just the two of us in the dim moonlight, and our arms were wrapped around each other. As soon as we locked eyes, I felt compelled to lean down and kiss her. So I did.

We'd kissed twice before. Once on Mount St. Helens, and once a few nights ago when the Aphrodite girls set us up. But it was our first real kiss. I wasn't about to fight weird dog things in a volcano, and Annabeth wasn't under the influence of Apollo's/Aphrodite's love drugs. It was a conscious decision by the both of us, and it was perfect.

Then someone cleared their throat.

Annabeth and I quickly broke away from each other. I didn't know whose face was redder—mine, Annabeth's, or Will Solace's.

"Uh, sorry," Will stammered. "I was just leaving."

"No, no—uh, we came because Annabeth needs healing," I said quickly.

Will looked at us awkwardly.

"I burned my arm with lava," Annabeth explained. "And I think I broke my ankle. I tripped."

"Oh," Will said. "Okay. Come on inside."

I helped Annabeth into the infirmary. Her face was still a little pink.

"Did you guys have fun out there?" someone asked.

I turned to see Tracy—the Aphrodite love potion girl—smiling wickedly.

Annabeth and I both blushed and didn't say anything. I was starting to get uncomfortable because I really didn't trust Tracy—after all, she did turn Annabeth into… well… let's not talk about it.

I remembered that Annabeth didn't know about her previous "situation." I had to remind myself to watch my words so that I wouldn't say anything to make Annabeth suspicious.

Tracy just started chatting with us cheerfully, as if nothing had happened in the last two days. "See, I came here because I had a bruise on my face. My dumb, jealous sister, like, threw a hair brush at me! So, I mean, who can live with such a blemish on her beautiful features? Not me."

Annabeth and I looked at each other and tried not to smile.

"So when I got here," Tracy continued, "that cute Will Solace guy healed my bruise and everything, and then I heard people laughing outside. So I looked out the window and saw you guys. The cutest couple like, ever. And I thought there wasn't enough chemistry between you two, so I added a little spark to your relationship."

Yeah, and the first 'spark' you tried to add worked out so well, didn't it? I thought.

Tracy grinned at us. "You're welcome."

I coughed.

"Tell me you didn't love it," Tracy said.

"Uh, thanks Tracy," Annabeth said. "But I'd rather it be real next time."

"Oh, it was real. Percy wanted to kiss you anyway. I just intensified it."

I blushed again.

Will Solace walked into the room with a few bandages and different bottles of medicine. He wrapped up Annabeth's ankle and her burn. He sang a hymn to Apollo and used his healing magic while Annabeth drank nectar and ate a little bit of ambrosia.

Her injuries healed pretty quickly, and soon enough, Annabeth was back to normal.

"Thanks, Will," Annabeth said. "See you later."

She hopped off the bed and took my hand. We started towards the door.

"Have fun, you guys," Tracy said as she winked.

We walked out of the infirmary quickly, before Tracy could pull anything else. I heard her giggling hysterically, and I was anxious to put a lot of distance between us and that infirmary.

"We need to stay away from those Aphrodite girls," Annabeth muttered as she pulled me along.

I couldn't help smiling. "You don't even know."

( ̲̅:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅[̲̅ ̲̅]̲̅:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅)

Hello, fellow Percabeth shippers!

Super long author's note begins right… now.

Realllyyy sorry for taking forever to update this story. I just had this huge thing of writer's block, until one day I started forcing myself to finish writing this chapter. And then the writing began to flow again!

Sorry that I kind of switched between first and third person points of view. I hope no one got offended.

I didn't want to write Percy's POV in third person because… well, it's kind of weird, but to me it always seems like Percy is OOC when it's third person. Even when Rick Riordan wrote Percy's POV in the Son of Neptune, it still just didn't seem like Percy anymore. There wasn't any inner sarcasm in his thoughts. Or maybe I'm just weird.

THE MARK OF ATHENA CAME OUT! Unfortunately, I'm not going to read it until I'm done with the Mortal Instruments series. (That series is soooo good!) That way, I'll read the Mark of Athena at around March/April and I won't have to wait as long for the House of Hades. Please don't spoil anything for me! Just don't say annyyything, pleeeease lol. I hate spoilers so much.

Round of applause for my very first completed story! Yeah mama.

Leave a review—or a "comment," as this site now calls it—in the enormous box below, and tell me what you thought of the chapter! Or the story in general.
Thank you guys so much for staying with me all this time! It was only five chapters, but the writing took up a span of a year and two months….once again, sorry. D:

If you want more from me, be sure to check out my profile page. I have a new story up called The River Lethe that I'm really excited about, and there are plenty more stories to come.
Be sure to review and PM me because I love you guys so muchooooo!
Xoxoxoxoooooo foreverrrrrrr,
-xxx- ilGyhs