This is my first fanfiction, well actually it's the first thing that I have ever written really. I really hope you enjoy reading it and I would love to hear any reviews, critiques or comments you have so I know how I can work better to improve my writing.

The story will be split between Percy's and Annabeth's point of views throughout.

Enjoy reading.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters.

Chapter One

Percy really didn't want to be out that night. He was exhausted after a long shift at the aquarium. It was school holiday time and due to the appalling weather they'd been experiencing lately many parents had opted to drag their bored children to the city Sea Life Centre. All day he'd been inundated with question upon question from hyper primary school kids, over excited to be released from their bedroom cells, like caged animals being released by those crazed animal rights people. Don't get him wrong, Percy loved kids, his best friend Grover always said he was great with them due to him having the cognitive ability of a nine year old, but if Percy was asked one more time if "He'd found Nemo yet," he would scream.

Sometimes he felt like doing a Nemo and disappearing on an adventure. Sure, who wouldn't want to swim off into the open ocean, not knowing what you would discover on your way? Although come to think about it, Nemo ended up in a fish tank in that crazy dentist's office. Maybe Percy didn't want that after all, he'd never liked being caged up.

Right, what was he thinking about? Ahhh, stupid ADHD! He sometimes hated the way his mind would go off on some tangent like this.

So yeah, Percy didn't want to be out tonight. He'd much prefer to be at home watching a film (finding Nemo maybe? It had been ages since he had seen that and who couldn't resist those freaky seagulls. Him him!) and eat a take away pizza with a bottle of beer, or two. He wouldn't even share it with those seagulls, no matter how much they whined.

Ok Jackson, get a grip, he thought to himself. You are obviously sleep derived and spending way too much time with sea life. He tried to bring his mind back to his present surroundings but it was always so difficult when he was this tired. His ADHD mind seemed to go into over drive the more he tried to focus when he was tired. Sometimes it was best just to give in entirely. Like the great Dory always said, "Just keep swimming!"

"Yay, Perce! Glad you made it!"

Percy was suddenly pulled away from his musings by a fiery red haired, who had chosen that moment to tackle him in an insanely tight bear hug. Where did she get the strength?

It was always an experience to be hugged by Rachel Dare. She was so much shorter and willowy than he, that it was like being cuddled by an agile, ginger kitten.A kitten that wore trademark designer jeans covered in marker pen doodles and would undoubtedly have some form of paint splattered across her T-shirt and smudged onto her cheek.

Stepping back slightly to look at his friend properly, Percy noticed that tonight's paint colour was an emerald green that matched her mischievous eyes. Smiling at himself for knowing his friend so well, Percy used his shirt sleeve to wipe a smear of paint off her forehead.

With her pale alabaster skin smattered with tiny glitter like freckles, bright green eyes and curly red hair, Rachel was pretty. She always reminded Percy of a woodland fairy when he gazed at her. I wonder what she would look like with wings, Percy thought to himself. Shut up brain! First fish and seagulls, now he was focused on fairies. Gods, he was in desperate need for a drink, if only for the focusing effects of beer after a long day.

"I'm glad you decided to venture out," Rachel said again, flashing him a brilliant white smile (made so perfect through thousands of dollars' worth of orthodontic treatment). She wrapped an arm around his waist a gestured towards the crowded bar.

"Yeah, you said already," Percy replied, returning her smile. He was more than willing to be dragged towards the bar, ooh, did they do blue beer?

"I know but I thought you were going to bail on me, Jackson. Grover hinted that you might," she returned as she ordered a vodka tonic for herself and a beer for Percy (sadly ordinary in colour and not blue).

"So where are Grover and Juniper anyways?" Percy asked taking a sip of the ice cold beverage, "I thought they'd be here by now seeing as Grover knocked off work a couple of hours before me. The lucky tree hugger that he is!"

Rachel took a while to respond, taking a long sip of her drink before saying lightly, "Oh, didn't he tell you? They can't make it now, something about Juniper being so sick that she's actually turning green. You know Grover, he wouldn't want to leave her in that situation."

For some reason Rachel quickly turned away after speaking, not willing to look Percy in the eye. She fiddled with the cocktail stirrer in her glass, fizzing the drink up until a tiny tornado of tonic formed in the centre. Percy looked at her curiously, trying to decipher her behaviour. For others it may not have seemed weird, but Rachel was one of Percy's best friends and he knew her better than he knew himself. She was normally so confident and loud, never scared to voice an opinion, even if (or when, which was the most likely of outcome) it caused offence. Her loudness often verged on annoyance if Percy was being perfectly honest, although he'd never admit that to anyone else for fear of being shouted down by an even more irate Rachel Elizabeth Dare.

Come to think about it, Juniper's mysterious illness had come on pretty quickly. Percy had only spoken to Grover an hour ago when he'd finally clocked out of work and his curly haired friend hadn't mentioned a thing.

Grover had been excited about this evening for weeks now. Being an avid fan of life music – although not being very musical himself – unless piercing people's eardrums with his atrocious reed pipes counted – he never passed on a chance to listen to local bands. Tonight's headlining band was rumoured to be amazing. They'd made quite a name for themselves on the local music scene, with talks of secret recording deals being broached. Grover had been enthusing about them for months and been disappointed when every one of their gigs had clashed with one of his eco rallies. This was the first gig since he'd discovered their EP six months ago that he could attend and nothing short of a nuclear holocaust would prevent him from attending.

Man, he must love Juniper immensely to stay at home with her tonight.

"Grover must be seriously bummed to miss out on tonight," Percy mused, turning towards Rachel, "What an inconvenience for Juniper to get ill tonight. What's up with her anyways?"

Rachel seemed to be even more interested in her glass, the tornado inside was building up its ferocity and Percy was half expecting to see the Wicked Witch of the West and Auntie Em's farmhouse to go spinning through it.

"Oh, food poisoning. She ate some funny calamari at lunch and she's been puking her guts out all afternoon apparently." Something in Rachel's tone was off but Percy was too distracted by what she had said to pay close attention.

Calamari! It made him sick just thinking about it. Percy hated the idea of eating fish, he never touched it himself and always avoided the fresh fish counter at the supermarket. It was just too sad to see his little friends lying in their beds of ice. How could he ever eat a fish when he spent his days in the aquarium with fish of every colour and size glaring at him with those bulging puppy dog eyes? He was a firm believer that fish were indeed friends, not food (oh how right you were Bruce!). The thought of eating anything from the sea repulsed Percy, he wouldn't even order crispy shredded seaweed from his local Chinese, even though he was certain it wasn't real seaweed. Just the name seaweed was enough to make him blanch.

How could Juniper bring herself to eat those cute little baby squids, little tentacled devils that never hurt a fly, well until they'd made his friend's girlfriend violently sick that is. Serves her right too, Percy thought bitterly. That's karma for you, the sea will always claim its victims. Calamari indeed. She wasn't even Greek, why would she eat such a thing?

Hang on a minute... Something had just sparked in Percy's seaweed clogged brain.

"Juniper's a vegetarian, both her and Grover are," Percy said to Rachel, "Don't you remember the argument we had at that Mexican restaurant last week over what's better, chicken or cheese enchiladas?" – For the record it's got to be chicken – "Neither of them would touch meat and fish is definitely classified as meat to them."

Grover and Juniper were real vegetarians, not those so called fair weather vegetarians who would preach about the evils of killing baby sheep and pigs but would happily chow down on a fish because oily fish was just so healthy. Grover hated those people, he was always banging on about how hypercritical it was because all nature's creatures were important. So killing and eating a fish was no different from shooting an African Elephant for a light snack.

"Oh, um, yeah," Rachel shifted uncomfortably, "I think it was vegan calamari."

Vegan calamari? What's that when it's at home? Was it a vegan substitute for calamari made out of some sort of plant pulp, or actual little squid that were vegan themselves? Percy smiled slightly as he imagined tiny little hemp shirt clad squid that preached the virtues of a plant based diet.

"But anyway, it doesn't matter. They're not coming now. It's just you and me tonight, Jackson," Rachel continued, finally looking up at him and flashing one of her trade mark Dare smiles.

At her words alarm bells started ringing in Percy's head. Things had begun to slot together. He looked closely at Rachel's appearance for the first time that evening. Underneath the doodles and paint Percy noticed that she was wearing smarter jeans than normal, they were tight fitting and hugged her slender curves more than usual. Her t-shirt, although plain, was made of a black slinky material that looked like real silk and she was wearing heals! Heals! Percy couldn't remember a time where he'd ever seen his friend in heals. Maybe she'd worn them at their high school prom, but that was a few years ago now and he'd not seen her in any since.

Peering closely at her porcelain face, Percy noticed the slight rouge on her cheekbones as well as the inly blackness of her eye lashes. Make up! Rachel Elizabeth Dare, heiress to Dare Enterprises, bohemian artist and childhood friend of Percy Jackson was wearing make up!

Percy was speechless. He stared at her open mouthed for what felt like hours. What was going on? Rachel never cared about her appearance, yes she always wore designer labels but that was mainly because she took great pride in modifying them with her doodles and paint splatters. So when Percy saw his friend in makeup and heals, combined with her sudden shyness, he was truly stumped!

Then it hit him like a high speed freight train. Feeling suddenly winded he was reminded of a conversation he'd had with Grover a few days ago when they'd met up for one of their post work drinks.

"She likes you man," Grover has said to him over his beer (organic ale for him, ever the conscientious eco warrior).

"Well yeah, I thought that was a given. We've been friends since we were fourteen. Surely even she wouldn't stick it out all this time if she hates me," Percy had replied, whilst adding blue food colouring to his own beer – seriously why had no one ever manufactured blue beer? It just tasted better.

"No, that's not what I meant. She likes you, likes you," Grover has insisted.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Percy asked, distracted by the blue liquid in front of him.

"It means she likes you in a non-platonic way. As in she thinks you're attractive in a way that a girl thinks a guy she wants to date is attractive."

Percy had just been taking his first sip of ice cold blue beer (seriously it was even better than blue cherry coke and that had been a firm favourite for years) before unceremoniously spitting it all over the bar at Grover's words.

"Wh...wh…what?" he's spluttered, spilling even more beer down his white work shirt, another shirt that had been ruined by blue food colouring. His boss was seriously starting to worry about him.

"She doesn't like me like that! We're just friends. That's it. Rachel only thinks of me like a brother," Percy explained, slight panic in his voice, "You and Juniper have spent too long in the company of trees if you believe that!"

With another shake of his head and further protestations that Rachel would never think of him like that, Percy and Grover ceased their conversation and returned to their drinks.

It had seemed so preposterous to Percy at the time. He and Rachel were just friends, more like bros really. Sure he'd had a slight crush on her when they were fourteen but every boy he knew had. He had been a teenage boy for gods' sakes and one of his best friends happened to be an attractive little red head. That had been years ago though, Percy has got over his little crush and really appreciated the relationship he currently had with Rachel. He had never even considered wanting anything more from the relationship and assumed she hadn't either. But that was until now.

Rachel was still peering at him with that bright smile, although Percy detected a slight timidness in her eyes. He cleared his throat and tugged at the hair at the back of his neck, a nervous habit of his.

"Um Rach…" he began.

At that moment the lights in the crowded club got dimmer as the band climbed up onto the still dark stage. Percy was distracted by the sudden change in atmosphere in the room. People stopped conversing with each other, instead they were turning their heads towards the stage in anticipation and Percy did too, relishing the excuse to postpone what was bound to be an uncomfortable conversation. At his side Rachel looked at him with ill-disguised longing for a brief second before turning her attention to the stage herself.

Percy watched as five people stood on stage organising their varied instruments. He was surprised to see that there were two female members in the band and they were not all men like he had assumed they'd be when Grover said it was a punk rock band. The stage was still too dimly lit to see the members clearly but he discerned one of the women to be tall and slender, whilst the other was small and pixie-ish. Was that a giant sitting himself comfortably behind the drum set? That guy was seriously huge!

"Evening ladies and gentlemen, let's give a huge Olympus Club welcome to tonight's headlining act, The Halfbloods!" a loud voice boomed above the sound of the crowd.

At that the whole venue erupted into loud cheers and even Percy in his confused and exhausted state began to feel the excitement.

With the sound of a heavy base line the stage was suddenly lit up by piercing bright spotlights and that's when Percy saw her.