Hello! This story was writen for something called PERCY JACKSON SHIP WEEK! Basically it's one ship being glorified for every week until The Mark of Athena comes out. So I thought it'd be cool to write a story for each week. The order goes as such:

august 6 august 13: Grover and Juniper.

august 13 august 20: Clarisse and Chris.

august 20 august 27: Silena and Charles.

september 3 september 10: Thalia and Luke.

september 10 september 17: Hazel and Frank.

september 17 september 24: Piper and Jason / Reyna and Jason (optional) (- Notice how Jason gets to have two girls whereas everyone else is in a specific relationship. I just can't get over that :P)

september 24 october 1: Percy and Annabeth.

So here you have this piece even if Chris/Clarisse is totally new turf to me. But I do like this piece, so we'll see how that goes! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Me no own PJO.

The Worst Days

Percy Jackson Ship Week #2

"So," Chris asked Connor. "What are we doing now?"

"Our next activity is…" Connor blanked. "Yo, Travis, what's our next activity?"

"Sword fighting," Travis said.

"Yeah, sword fighting. With… Athena?" Connor asked.

"No, Ares." Travis said.

Chris' blood froze. Ares…

He swallowed but went around with the Hermes campers. They'd taken him in after he'd run off to join Luke. They'd been glad when Mr D had healed him. Heck, they liked him. And he liked them too. He owed these guys, too (which the Stolls would use against him anytime now). So he didn't complain or make excuses.

The Ares kids were already there, stretching, doing push-ups to warm up their muscles, all in muscle shirts and tank tops with black tape outlining their muscles and Nike shoes. They were all looking pretty intense.

His eyes landed on Clarisse. He didn't mean to. They just did. Treacherous pupils and disloyal irises...

Hers were brown and hard; the kind of eyes that tell you that that person wasn't to be messed with on the best of days. Her hair was brown and it fell around her face in no particular style or order. She was tall, only inches shorter than he was, and her long limbs were only muscle, like an Olympian athlete.

She only looked at him for a second, before turning around, pulling her hair out of her face.

"'Morning Brutes," Travis said. "Let's get crack a-lacking."

Of course the only warm-up that the Hermes cabin did was 'Head and shoulders knees and toes' and then shamelessly giving each other piggy-back rides around the arena.

Then there was the actual sword fighting class that Clarisse taught when Percy wasn't around camp. Clarisse liked to cover both sword fighting and spear lore classes.

After that, the Hermes cabin goofed off while the Ares camper packed up like the military to go do some other badass heavy-weaponry thing.

Clarisse paused by Chris for a second.

"Chris?" She asked.

He turned around from where he was pulling Poppy's shoe off as Shoelace and Josh pinned her to the ground.

"Can I talk to you?" She said.

Chris acknowledged this: she was sucking a lot of her pride in to ask this of him. In public. While using his first name. And not holding any weaponry.

"I'm kind-of busy." Chris said.

Usually Clarisse fought harder, but she just turned around and left the arena.

Chris felt bad and starred for a second.

He should've said yes. He should've just kissed her in the arena. She would've killed him for it, but it would've given her a pretty good idea of everything going through his mind. He should've asked her to talk in the first place. He should have, he should have, he should have…

Then Poppy dislodged her foot, kicked him in the stomach and squealed, knocking Chris out of his thoughts.

He remembered his time in the cursed maze. He remembered begging Luke not to make him go. He remembered Luke growing more impatient for every 'let me think about it one more day' he requested for- which he used to try to think of amazing excuses or ways to escape the Princess Andromeda. He remembered Luke finally losing patience and making his guards throw him in through the entrance under the Golden Gate Bridge.

He remembered the horrible monsters that he tried to forget; things that didn't come to the surface for a freaking good reason. He remembered the twists and turns of the Labyrinth. The uncertainty and the fear. The feeling of his stomach sinking every time he filled it; because his rations got lower and lower, and the surface got further and further…

But the most painful thing, the one thing he wasn't safe from, was that Mr D had let him remember what it had been like when he was a caged animal in his mind. Maybe as a punishment, maybe as a scar that only he would see to let him know that he survived.

He remembered her holding him in the basement. He remembered calling her Mary- Mary, Mary-how insulting for her not to be recognised! He remembered screaming and begging and squealing and whining and moaning and hallucinating the stupidest things that made him do things that were… alright, he'd say it; downright embarrassing. Downright embarrassing in front of a girl. In front of Clarisse- not just any girl.

She was so strong. He was so… well, now he was. Now he was strong, or at least he was on the outside. Not like her, of course. But he was so vulnerable and easy to break inside.

And it was embarrassing to have someone know that. It was so embarrassing to have someone see the worst days of your life, even if they mattered the world to you. Nobody wanted to look weak. And he just had.

At supper, he, of course, fooled around with the children of Hermes. He wasn't bitter about being at this table anymore, so he was all for enjoying it and hopping from conversation to conversation, and stretching over people to grab food, and standing up to check out just how many of those Travis had up his nose…

He sat back down, laughing and cheering because Travis had had four forks up his left nostril, when he spotted the Ares cabin. Arm wrestling, telling exaggerated tales of their latest kill (human or monster- he knew not), daring each other to do this and that… but Clarisse wasn't doing any of that. She was looking at him with a look he couldn't exactly pinpoint to anything associated with Clarisse. He met her eyes and she looked away, head high.

It hurt Chris a little. Not that he had an excuse.

After the camp fire, she must be pretty pissed off with him because she cornered him. Her spear was strapped to her back, so Chris decided to hear her out.

"What gives?" She said.

"Excuse me?" Chris said.

"What are you doing?" Clarisse said. "I keep trying to talk to you, meanwhile you're running every time I take a step in your general direction. What's that for? What's that about? You can't just- just kiss me," she blushed fiercely, "Disappear from camp, show up in Arizona half insane a year later, be back at camp like normal, and avoid me."

He'd kissed Clarisse because he'd figured that he had no reason not to. He was going to run away in the middle of the night, she was pretty and fierce and he'd had a crush on her forever, and they'd been alone cleaning up the stables as their counsellor responsibilities (Connor and Travis had been shrubs that day), so why not?

"Yeah I… I guess that wasn't cool."

"You guess?" Clarisse growled at him. For the first time she was scaring him.

"Okay, it wasn't. I mean, it's not."

"No," Clarisse said. "It royally sucks. And if you weren't you, I'd punch your face in."

"I thought you'd punch my face in anyways," Chris said.

"No, because then you can't talk. Why?" Clarisse asked. "Why the Hades do you do it?"

"Because…" Chris couldn't say anything. He couldn't tell her. He couldn't draw her eyes to the most fragile and weak and stupid and ridiculous part of him. He was already ashamed enough as it was.

Her shoulders slack. "Oh. I get it. Fine then. It's not like I'm not used to it."

"What now?" Chris asked.

"I know I'm not a princess or a supermodel or whatever else is classically beautiful. I just didn't think that I was repulsive enough to even push you away. I didn't think you were stupid enough to care that I was strong and that I could beat up people twice my size. But fine. I've dealt with it once; I'll deal with it again. You're just like the others."

This kind of rang a bell in Chris' head and a strong voice announced over an Intercom: HOLLY STYX, HOLLY STYX REACT! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

"No! No, no, no, what's that supposed to mean? Don't talk that way, you're beautiful! You're perfect!" Chris said.

Clarisse didn't look convinced.

"You aren't acting like it." Clarisse said. "Don't mess with me."

She pushed away and Chris was scared. . Clarisse's life was like a highway; she didn't often look back over her shoulder, and she rarely took steps back. He was scared that when she walked off she walked off was good.

Nothing like fear can make someone swallow their pride.

"I've been avoiding you because I'm ashamed." He blurted out really fast.

Clarisse turned around.

"Was that supposed to be English or pig-Latin?" She asked.

He took a deep breath and repeated: "I've been avoiding you because I'm ashamed."

Clarisse obviously didn't get it, and Chris sighed.

"I know that you're the one who took care of me when I was losing it. You've seen me do some pretty embarrassing stuff. You've seen me and I'm really pitiful. You've seen me during my worst days and…"

Clarisse smacked him on the side of the head, but because he was still conscient he knew that it wasn't done meanly.

"Idiot," she said. "Uncontested, thick-headed idiot," she said.

"What do you mean?" Chris asked.

"Your worst days were my worst days." Clarisse said. "Do you really think I've done anything harder than watch you panic and hallucinate and completely lose it without being able to do anything?"

Clarisse lowered her eyes.

"I'm sure that if you searched your memory you'd see it."

He did.

He looked through his head and raked his memory for the parts where he knew that Clarisse was there, but he couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that she was real and that he should talk to her and that that probably meant the snakes slithering over his bare legs or pins growing out of the ground and piercing his clothes and skin weren't real.

He remembered her kneeling over him, trying to hold his hand but not knowing if he'd let her and if it'd hurt him or if she could.

"Chris, gods of Olympus, calm down. You're safe."

"String," he babbled. "String and- and Mary it's horrible and- the snakes, the, the…"

"There are no snakes and there is no string," Clarisse said. "I'm not Mary. I'm Clarisse."

"Mary! MARY!" He yelled desperately.

Clarisse turned her head to the side and wiped her eyes with her wrist. Was she..? "Chris, please, you've got to hold on. No snakes, no string, Mary isn't real. I'm real; the Big House is real, focus on me." Her voice sounded on the brink of cracking.

Then there was the kind of cracking noise usually associated to seeing a newly-appeared immortal ten seconds later, and Clarisse looked right. She stumbled to her feet.

"Dad-" she stuttered.

"You wimp," Ares said. The god took a step towards Clarisse and his daughter backed up. "Pick yourself off the ground. Peel yourself off the ceiling. Get yourself together. Are you crying over this boy?"

"No, no," she said. "No way, I-"

"You stop it," Ares said. "No excuses. Now get yourself together and calm down or I will force a change in counsellorship for my cabin. I don't need my cabin represented by a wimp."

"I am not a wimp," Clarisse choked out.

The god glared and Clarisse flinched. "Understood?"

Clarisse swallowed hard and nodded. Her eyes were still watery but she nodded, and the god left.

Chris looked at her.

"Oh," he said.

Clarisse lowered her head. "It's hard being a tough girl- that's not what the whole world wants you to be and people think you're a beast and they can't see your accomplishments past that- not your talents, not your victories... You get judged a lot. Sometimes you get bullied into being a bully. But I'm not completely strong either." She said.

"Me neither," Chris said. "Obviously, of course… But that's not why I like you."

"It's not?" Clarisse asked, her head going up.

"No. You're a lot more than that. You… you just don't know it, and nobody else knows it." Chris said.

"You still like me?" Clarisse said.

"Yeah," Chris said. "Of course. Do you still like me?"

"Yeah," Clarisse said.

For a second they just stared at each other.

"Then we won't have a problem," Chris said.

"Not anymore," Clarisse said.

"Come on. I'll walk you back to your cabin," Chris said. He held out his hand and after a second she took it.

That's when Chris realised that he had the best days coming straight at him.