Insanity.

-Annabeth-

DISCLAIMER: RICK RIORDAN OWNS ALL CHARACTERS

I first started working with the mentally ill after my older brother, Malcolm, had been diagnosed with Agoraphobia, an anxiety disorder. After seeing how much the doctors and psychiatrists helped him, I decided that I wanted to help to. After studying for about 5 years at a university, I got my first job at a hospital in New York. I worked there, in the psychiatrics department, for 6 months before I quit. I guess, I quit because it wasn't …personal enough for me. I felt like it was just about getting the patients diagnosed and treated as fast as possible, which is not why I wanted to do this. I wanted to get the chance to work with the patients, help them and maybe even get them on track enough to lead a fairly normal life. That's how I came to work at Pacifia Grove, an institution for people with mental illnesses. When I first arrived there, the staff joked that staying at Pacifia was like sinking in quicksand: the longer you were there, the less chance you had getting out alive. There had been three murders, seventy-three assaults (around twenty of them died later in hospital from their injuries) and fifteen escapees. The craziest of the crazies came here they said, ranging from schizophrenics to drug addicts going through withdrawal to severe cases of OCD. I was willing to put my life on the line to help people because that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to help, to make a difference. And I wasn't going to let anyone stop that, no matter what.

I walked into the staff room at Pacifia Grove at about 9:15am, Monday 3rd September. The place smelled of stale coffee, and to be honest, it didn't look much better. The entire room was a horrible yellow colour that was obviously once nice. As I hung my bag and trench coat up on the rusting hooks on the wall, I felt everyone's eyes boring into my spine. I turned around and raised an eyebrow. None of them broke eye contact with me.

"Finally, someone hired a replacement for Beckendorf!" exclaimed a woman with long brown hair, breaking the slightly awkward staring contest.

"Reyna! Don't scare her off, she just got here. I'm sorry about her, she has foot in mouth syndrome." smirked a small, brown haired, Rasta cap wearing man "You must be Annabeth Chase."

"Yes, I am." I nodded

"Well, hi. I'm Grover Underwood"

I smiled and shook his hand. I had a proper look around the room now. There was about seven of them, all lounging on chairs that were centred around a small wooden coffee table.

They all smiled and introduced themselves

"Hey, sorry about that… I'm Reyna" said the woman from before

"Yo, I'm Dakota"

"I'm Gwen"

"Hi, I'm Hazel."

"Frank, nice to meet you"

"Hello, I'm Jason"

I nodded my head, trying to remember all the names. Behind me the door swung open, and a flustered looking man with a long scar down the side of his cheek walked in.

"Hey guys, sorry that took so long the printer stopped working… oh good, you're here already." He smiled at me

"Hi, I'm Annabeth." I said stretching over to shake his hand

"Luke." He said "So, I have everyone's patient schedules here, and I hope they suit everyone because you have to follow them to a tee. Ok?"

Everyone nodded as he started handing them out. As people got theirs, they each in turn did a sigh of relief. Luke handed me three pieces of paper, but everyone else had five. Why did they only give me three?

"Ummm… it says I only have three patients here…" I said

Jason turned and frowned at Luke.

"Why did you give her Percy? She's just new."

Who's Percy?

"Right, ok guys, get to work and remember if the patient is being difficult just smile nicely and press the button." Luke called, clearly ignoring Jason's question

Everyone sat their coffees down, and exited slowly towards the door. Jason came over to me, and placed his hand on my shoulder.

"Come on, I'll show you to your patients rooms. Can I see your schedules?" he inquired

I handed them to him, and he nodded his head slowly.

"Well… it could be worse. You have Piper, Percy and Silena. Piper and Silena are real sweet, but Percy can be a little… difficult. I had him last year." He explained

"Oh… why are they here?"

"Silena has a severe case of OCD, Piper's a kleptomaniac, and Percy has an undifferentiated subtype of Schizophrenia."

I nodded, understanding now why everyone was glad not to have Percy. An undifferentiated subtype meant that he got all symptoms from the different types of schizophrenia, which would make him unstable and you would never be able to guess what he would do next. He could be happy and smiling one second, then become extremely violent the next.

"I'll show you Silena first. She lives in room number 101. Her problem is that she has to have everything completely symmetrical, that's why she is in room 101."

He turned into a long white corridor, and carried on walking. I fell into an easy step beside him.

"So who are your patients?" I asked

"Leo Valdez, Rachel Dare, Travis Stoll, Connor Stoll, and Juniper Ash. Leo enjoys setting things on fire, Rachel gets a lot of hallucinations because she used to be addicted to crystal meth and the side effects haven't quite worn off yet, Travis and Connor are kleptomaniacs like Piper, and Juniper thinks she is a tree."

"A tree?" I frowned

"Well… a dryad, which is this Greek tree spirit thing. Other than that she is completely normal, but her parents insisted on sending her here, even though we have told them many times she doesn't need to be here. This place is for people who the government feel 'are unsafe to be allowed to socialise with the public', not Juniper, she acts perfectly normal. It's just a little… quirk she has." He sounded annoyed, like this was something he told Juniper's parents every year

I smiled at him. I decided I wanted to be friends with Jason, I liked how he defended the patients.

"Here we are room 101." He said happily

A/N: Hi :) this is just a new story I wanted to try out… sorry this chapter is quite boring but it had to be done… Next chapter you'll meet all of Annabeth's patients and maybe Jason's but I haven't decided yet… I'm making Jason Annabeth's friend in this cos tbh I'm fed up reading about Luke being her friend, so I made him the boss ;)

R&R plz and pm me if you have any questions

MockingScout, out.