Thorn In My Side

Yellow Tulip

- sunshine in your smile -
a few weeks later :)

It wasn't that hard to make her smile, Katie knew that. It wasn't hard to make her laugh either.

She stood at the top of half-blood hill, next to Piper waiting for the camp van to appear and Annabeth to get out.

When she finally arrived Katie walked down the hill and hugged her friend. "Hey, how are you holding up?"

Annabeth shrugged, "Good enough. Any word?"

Katie bit her lip and shook her head. "No, sorry."

Annabeth looked beyond tired, her hair in a messy bun, normal curls replaced with tangled frizz. She hugged Piper and then the three of them made their way back to camp.

The moment the other campers saw Annabeth, she was there she was swarmed with questions. Campers asking things left and right. The daughter of Athena just stood there and addressed the crowd, "I'll let everyone know what's going on at the campfire tonight." She said, "For now I'd like it if we could have a head councillor meeting in the big house."

Annabeth stood at the front of the room, "Alright, first things first, I still haven't found any leads." Her jaw tightened. "And that's my entire report." She sighed, "But we will find him."

"Annabeth," Lou Ellen spoke up, "We may have found him."

Annabeth's head shot up so fast Katie was afraid it might fall off. "What?"

"Jessie said they saw someone... sledding down the burkly hills. They said that there were voices cursing him, saying they couldn't touch him, his skin was like iron."

For the first time in months, Annabeth began to smile. She breathed a sigh of relief, the tension of all the months of worry seemed to wash away. "That's, great news."

"But how do we know it's definitely him?" Clarisse demanded, "I mean... I want to believe it but doesn't it seem strange? The ship is almost done, we're almost ready to sail and thats when he appears."

"He is the only hero we know of who has 'skin like iron'." Connor pointed out.

"Plus," Travis said, leaning forward, "Only Percy Jackson would go sledding in the summer."

Katie laughed, "He has a point."

"True enough." Annabeth said wistfully.

"The burkley hills, so we were right, Juno is sending him to camp jupiter." Jason said.

Annabeth nodded, "We have his location now, Tyson is the closest, we can try to contact him later. For now, we need to focus on getting there, Valdez how long should that take?"

Leo squirmed in his seat, "I still have to finish the ship, so maybe like four days?"

"I thought you were ready."

Leo squirmed under Annabeth's harsh gaze, "We've had setbacks, might be able to get it done tomorrow night, we can set sail the next morning and we'll reach camp jupiter that afternoon."

Annabeth nodded, "Its a plan. I guess I'll tell everyone at the campfire tonight."

Nods all around, then people started to leave. Trailing out a few at a time until it was only Katie. She had been on her way out when she had noticed a yellow flower, a tulip, in the corner of the ping pong table. She scooped it up, wondering how anyone had left it without being seen and why they had.