When Worlds Collide~

Chapter 7 (pt 2)

A/N The video above is "Better" by the Gardiner Sisters. They're the best! Check out their channel on YouTube, and you can get their songs on iTunes, Spotify, Loudr and Amazon. It's probably on more, but I don't know, I haven't checked it all out. But take the time to watch this - they're goddesses. Please.
It hasn't got anything to do with the story, I just thought they were awesome. Sorry.
Can you stop throwing things already?

Annabeth•

"Where the hell are we supposed to look next?" I hissed. "We've looked in all the places he could've gone!"

Rachel sighed tiredly, not glancing up from her maps. "Annabeth, for all we know, he could be moving around frequently. There's no guarantee that we keep missing him by that much." She held up two fingers, about two centimeters apart.

I slumped forward onto my desk, scattering maps and half finished diagrams. "I don't even know why he's gone. Did the gods kidnap him again? Are the monsters getting more organized? If we knew, we could narrow it down a bit."

"I don't know, Annabeth." Grover wiped his mouth before continuing. "If a few monsters happened to try and kidnap him, he definitely wouldn't have gone down without a fight. And don't you think he would have made some noise? This is Percy we're talking about, remember."

"Percy's cabin is way across the field, Grover," Rachel pointed out. "And the Poseidon cabin's walls are thick. If Percy was out cold when they took him, well..."

"Thanks, Rachel," I said, grabbing my water bottle, "That makes me feel a whole lot better. I'm going to get a drink," I added, walking out the door.

Nico di Angelo looked up from the fountain as I neared. He was probably taking a break from teaching the younger campers some swordplay.

"Hey, Nico." I smiled halfheartedly.
"Hi. How's the search?"
"Absolutely fantastic. So far, we've managed to envision all the worst-case scenarios possible and tirelessly complained about how we can't find a trace of him. Actually, I was doing most of the complaining."

Nico nodded, moving aside and letting me fill up my bottle.
"How's your search going?" I asked.

I haven't got much, just some information on the places he's not at."

I waited.

Nico sighed. "Fine. He's not in the Underworld, and I hear the monsters are behaving more or less in the norm in Tartarus. Which isn't saying much, but there you go. He's not at the Lotus Hotel in Vegas, I spent hours combing that shit."
After a moment passed, he added, "He might not even be in the country. It would be difficult, but not impossible."

Water was spilling over the rim of my bottle, but I paid it no attention as I turned fully towards Nico.
"Wait, what?"

"You know what I said," Nico replied tersely. "He might be in a different country. Just because the gods are here in America doesn't mean there's no monsters or minor gods in other countries. Look at the Prophecy of Seven, for example. And even if he went there of his own free will, he's a son of Poseidon. It's possible, to say the least."

"How long have you been sitting on this?" I asked, shutting off the water and screwing the cap on my bottle.

"Ever since the search started going sour. I didn't really want to put more stress on you guys - looking through America is bad enough, right - so I waited until we ran out of ideas to tell you."

I slumped against a pillar and slid down until I was sitting on the ground.
"I'm slipping," I said, hugging my knees. "I should have thought about this."

"Don't beat yourself up about it, Annabeth. You're still one of the only people who can find him. Is Grover's empathy link still working?"

Trying to change the subject, huh.

"There's no reason it shouldn't be," I began, "but it's like we can't get a clear read on it - like it's got interference."
I continued, gradually becoming heartened by new information.
"That probably means he's behind some magical border, maybe like at camp - except our camp border didn't hinder the link. The reason Grover couldn't use the link was that Percy was 'sleeping,' right? So if Percy's in the same situation now, we can't really depend on him to help us find him, unless he wakes up, I guess. In that case..." I trailed off, glancing at Nico. "Sorry, I got a little carried away."

"Don't be." He gave a small, rare smile. "I'm glad you're back on track. Let's just hope this leads somewhere."

"Yeah." I stood and picked up my now full drink bottle. "I'd better get going now. Thanks for the idea - it's small, but it might make a huge difference."

•••

"Annabeth, you need to eat."

"Funny that it's you telling me that," I huffed angrily. What was it with people? Percy could be in trouble right now.

Nico didn't move from the doorway.
"Percy needs you to be strong to be able to find him. Eat." When I still didn't move, he added, "Hazel and Frank are here as well."

I shall neither confirm nor deny any claims that I sprinted all the way to the dining pavilion.

•-•-|-•-•

Harry•

Hagrid and Percy seemed to get along well. Percy was animatedly describing his dog back home, wherever that was. And who names their dog ''Mrs O'Leary'' anyway?

"She wasn't my dog at first, but her owner, uh, died and I guess I took over looking after her." Percy laughed ruefully. "Not that I had much of a choice."
"How?" I asked.

"She wouldn't leave me alone. Like ever. She'd try to follow me to the bathroom and everything."

"Woulda made cleanin' up slightly difficult, eh?" Hagrid grinned.
"I'd have been glad to have an excuse not to do cleaning," sighed Ron, his mouth full of rock cake.

"If you didn't do your share of cleaning back home, BAM, dish duty. Trust me, that's something you don't want to do." Percy smiled halfheartedly, the warm-and-happy look going out of his eyes for a moment. I guess babysitting me was that bad, huh?

"What's so bad about dishes?" Hermione held up a hand. "Hold up. I know it'll be sort of tiring, but is it really that bad?"

"Oh yeah. People never scrape off their plates properly, so you get the food brushing against your hand the whole time. And the water just becomes this gross soup mix of melted ice cream, ketchup, mashed potatoes, oil, bits of chewed up-"

"Have mercy!" I mock screamed, holding my hands over my ears.

"That is the most revolting thing you've told me so far, Percy, and that's saying a lot."
"Be prepared for a whole lot worse, Granger." Percy smiled like a shark - all teeth and gums.

Hagrid emptied his tankard with a satisfied sigh and stood up, grabbing Fang's collar again. "Well, you four, it's gettin' late now so yeh'd better get up ter the castle now, eh?"

I glanced regretfully down at my wristwatch. Unfortunately, it had stopped working after I swam down to the bottom of the lake in the Triwizard Tournament. I don't know whether it was the water or the pressure that killed it. I still wore it out of sentiment.

"Harry, you bloody slowpoke! We're going now!"

I grunted and grabbed a piece of cake before meandering outside, dragging my feet just to spite Ron.

"You just had to, didn't you?"
"This is Harry we're talking about, Hermione, of course he bloody had to," Ron said, waving goodbye to Hagrid. "Oh, Harry, can I have that bit of cake?"

"Like hell I'd give it to you," I scoffed.
A moment passed, Ron staring dolefully at me (Christ, that was not a good look for him).

The look of pure joy on Ron's face when I broke off a piece of cake was crushed beautifully as I popped it in my mouth.
After a moment, I grimaced and swallowed.

"I was about to say something about how good it was. Not anymore."
"So chuck it here."

The remainder of our walk back to the castle was punctuated by the sounds of Ron chewing.
("You're right, it is disgusting."
"I'm always right.")