Mayday, Mayday!

007. Collision of Past & Present

  Percy awoke to the sound of knocking, and in lesser part the house of cards collapsing on the cabin floor. He opened his eyes, trying to decipher the source of the noise. Aella-Mae continued to snore peacefully.

  Knock. Knock. Knock-knock-knock.

  He hauled himself out of bed and rubbed his eyes in an attempt to wake up. "Hey," Percy said groggily, opening the door.

  Annabeth stood there, a grey cap over her blonde hair. She'd cut it since the . . . three, four, five-ish months since they last met? Percy couldn't remember the date. All he knew was that he'd never seen her with a bob before. 

  "Hi," she replied. "Can I come in? I'm assuming Chiron told you the news about Cabin 1."

  "Yeah." He stepped to the side to let her in. "Mind the cards."

  "Gods, were you trying to do card tricks?"

  Percy rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, "we were building a house of cards. It—"

  "Who's we? Tyson came back?" She looked around, eyes landing on the mess of red hair on the lower bunk, the rest of the figure covered by a blanket. "Rachel? I didn't know you'd . . ." Annabeth's voice trailed off.

  Percy quickly corrected her. "Oh, oh, not Rachel."

  The redhead rolled around, trying to discern who the blobs in her sphere of vision were. Without any concern for how she'd appear, she yawned and waved in the general direction of the people. "Morning, sunshines." Aella-Mae swung her feet out of bed, running a hand through her hair. Smiling at the girl, she said, "I don't think we've met yet."

  Annabeth only raised an eyebrow. "I don't think so either. Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena. And you are?"

  "Aella-Mae Wang."

  If Annabeth was waiting for something else, it never came. Percy filled in for her, "she's a Zeus kid. Jupiter, actually. We go to college together."

  "Wouldn't that make her around, well, Jason's age?" Annabeth responded, her voice faltering slightly at the mention.

  "She had a Thalia-thing, where we all thought she was dead and she actually wasn't."

  "Yeah, I died for three years," Aella-Mae said, all cheery. "Can we go get some breakfast? Give me a minute, I need to change." She stepped carefully around them. "Oh, are those the cards?"

  Percy looked at her quizzically.

  "Y'know, five bucks. A deal's a deal, fisher boy. Just give it to me later, actually," Aella-Mae hummed to herself as she walked away, leaving the two alone.

  Annabeth caught his eye. "So, well, college. How's New Rome?"

  "Pretty good. Hazel and Frank came as well." He caught a flicker of excitement in her eyes, but it vanished again under that stony look.

  She nodded. "That's . . . great. How'd you meet her?"

  He knew her — well, had known her — well enough to hear her unspoken thoughts. "She came out of the ground one day, we had war games, she knocked me out, she apologized, we became friends."

  "I thought you said you were college friends," Annabeth's tone wasn't quite accusatory, but it wasn't exactly warm, either.

  "Yeah, well, she's a freshman. I'm a freshman too. College friends."