¹Mσɳ Aɱσɳ Cαɾα I ᴘᴇʀᴄʏ ᴊᴀᴄᴋꜱᴏɴ

3. Hello to new friends!

♡ Thalia and Percy were walking together, Asteria trailing behind them to give them some privacy.

"You've already got Ares on your bad side," Thalia reminded him as they trudged towards the cabins. "You need another immortal enemy?"

She was right. In Percy's first summer as a camper, he got in a fight with Ares, and now he and all his children wanted to kill him.

"Sorry," he said. "I couldn't help it. It's just so unfair."

"Percy, everything is unfair," Thalia muttered as she stopped. "Sometimes I wish..."

She didn't finish, but her tone was so sad he felt sorry for her.

"We'll get Annabeth back," he promised. "I just don't know how yet."

"First, I found out that Luke is lost," she said. "Now Annabeth -"

"Don't think like that."

'"You're right." She straightened up. "We'll find a way."

Over at the basketball court, a few of the Hunters were shooting hoops. One of them was arguing with a guy from the Ares cabin. The Ares kid had his hand on his sword, and the Hunter girl looked like she was going to exchange her basketball for a bow and arrow any second.

"I'll break that up," Thalia said. "You two circulate round the cabins. Tell everybody about capture the flag tomorrow."

"All right. You should be team captain."

"No, no," she said. "You've been at camp longer. You do it."

"We can, uh... co-captain or something."

She looked about as comfortable with that as he felt, but she nodded.

As she headed for the court, he said, "Hey, Thalia."

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry about what happened at Westover. I should've waited for you guys."

"'S okay, Percy. I probably would've done the same thing." She shifted from foot to foot, like she was trying to decide whether or not to say more. "You know, you asked about my mom, and I kinda snapped at you. It's just... I went back to find her after seven years, and I found out she died in LA. She, um... she was a heavy drinker, and apparently she was out driving late one night about two years ago, and..." Thalia blinked hard.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well. It's... it's not like we were ever close. I ran away when I was ten. The best two years of my life were when I was running around with Luke and Annabeth. But still -"

"That's why you had trouble with the sun van."

She gave me a wary look. "What do you mean?"

"The way you stiffened up. You must've been thinking about your mom, not wanting to get behind the wheel."

Asteria sighed in exasperation next to him. Thalia's expression was dangerously close to Zeus's, the one time he saw him get angry - like any minute, her eyes would shoot a million volts.

"Yeah," she muttered. "Yeah, that must've been it."

She trudged off towards the court, Percy and Asteria, watching as she walked away to where the Ares camper and the Hunter were trying to kill each other with a sword and a basketball. They both turned and made their way around the cabins, telling everyone about the game tomorrow.

"Ah, I remember that." Asteria spoke suddenly, Percy looked at her confused. "The fight with Ares. He would not shut up about how some puny, fish looking demigod, son of Lord Poseidon, managed to draw blood from him." She looked Percy up and down again and started walking again. He jogged to catch up with her.