When you're a half-blood, a good night's sleep is hard to come by.  At least, it is for me.  Maybe it comes with the whole "being-Poseidon's-son" thing: Able to control water, unable to sleep soundly.

See, I always end up having crazy dreams, and they nearly always end up being true, being
visions of what's happening somewhere else in the world.  Most of the time my dreams help me see when my friends are in trouble, or help me see what my enemies are up to.  That's why most of the time I don't mind them.

But one night I had the worst dream yet.

I was inside what looked like the Athena cabin.  Yeah, it was definitely the Athena kid's cabin.  I could tell from the various desks and work spaces throughout the room, the maps and the 3D models scattered across the desks, and the fact that all the beds were pushed up against the walls.  There was no other cabin that would be so conspicuously thirsting for knowledge.  But I was all alone and it felt kind of awkward to be alone in someone else's cabin, especially Annabeth's.

"Hello?" I looked around, "Is anyone here?" It didn't occur to me that in my dreams I'm usually invisible and un-hearable, but I guess at the time I didn't realize it was a dream.

It was the middle of the night, but no one was in their beds, which was the weirdest part.  The whole cabin looked deserted, like everyone had just gotten up and left.  A lot of the sheets on the beds were downturned, and there were still a few half-empty glasses of water on a side table.

Apparently, my dream-self knew where to go, because I felt myself making my way into one of the other rooms, and I somehow knew it was Annabeth's room.  There were bronze owls hanging from the ceiling but other than that everything was white and seemed to glow in the moonlight that was pouring in through a large window on the right wall.  Annabeth's bunk was right under the window, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that she was sleeping soundly.  

It might have been creepy—no, it was definitely creepy—but I was content to just stand there and watch her sleep.  I slumped against the wall and stuffed my hands in my pockets and smiled.  I vaguely noticed that out of all the dreams I'd ever had, this one was one of the only ones where I had any sort of control over my body.

Normally, Annabeth always had a very intimidating look on her face.  She was nice most of the time, but she still had a don't-mess-with-me aura.  Not as scary as, say, Clarisse, but Annabeth was still a tough girl.  Now, though, she looked so peaceful.  I thought it was a pretty big accomplishment that she managed to look good while sleeping.  I was pretty sure that I and the rest of the population looked awful while sleeping.

I was getting ready to leave when I heard a tap on the window.  Annabeth woke up immediately (she had always been a light sleeper, for practical quest-related reasons), and I scooted forward to see what was happening.  Someone was outside the window, but I couldn't tell who it was.  From the shadow's shape, though, I could tell it was a boy, probably older than me.  Annabeth must've known him because she opened up the window and let him inside.  He sat on her bed next to her and for a few minutes they just sat in silence, not even looking at each other.

I'm not going to lie, I was seriously considering jumping out and punching the guy in the face and then giving Annabeth a good, stern talking to.  Who was she to be having strange guys in her cabin in the middle of the night?!  I huffed to myself.  Maybe this was that 'jealous' thing again.  But still!

Annabeth broke the silence and my concentration, "How did you get into camp?" She finally turned to the boy sitting next to her.

There was a smile in his voice, "I'm a half-blood aren't I?  I have my ways."

His voice sounded familiar, too familiar.  It took me a second to place it, but when I did I exploded in anger, "Luke!" This time I really did jump forward and made a move to grab Luke by the neck, "What're you doing here?!" But my hand just went right through him and I cursed under my breath.  I had forgotten it was all a dream.

Annabeth didn't seem to mind that she was sitting next to a traitor, which just made me angrier.  I clenched my fists and waited for her to reply to him, yell at him, tell him to leave, anything but just sit there.

"What do you want?" She asked quietly, keeping her eyes trained on the bed spread that she was clenching with white knuckles.

"Same thing I always want." Luke said, "I want you to leave Camp Half-Blood and join me."

Annabeth's whole body stiffened and her response was immediate, "You know I can't do that.  I won't, never."

"Yeah, that's right!" I said, not caring that they couldn't hear me.  But then I thought about what Luke had said: Same thing I always want.  Did that mean that he had been here to talk to her before?  
That made me angrier than the fact that he had the hubris to ask Annabeth to join him in the first place.

But Luke didn't look perturbed, "You can, actually.  But for some reason you seemed too attached to your dumb friends and your ridiculous mother to leave." He said everything casually, which contradicted his harsh words.

There was new venom in Annabeth's voice, "My mother is a great woman.  And Percy, Grover, and Tyson care a whole lot more about me than you do.  You only care about me because you think that I could help you advance Kronos' army."  I felt a swell of pride in my chest.

"If you wanted, Percy could come with us." Luke said, his voice particularly soft, uncharacteristically so, "He could be very useful as well."

For a moment, Annabeth looked like she was seriously considering his offer, which surprised me so much that all I could do was stammer to myself.

"Even if you turned everyone to your side," Annabeth replied, her voice quavering, "I would never join you and Kronos."

This deflated Luke rather quickly.  He scowled and stood up, exhaling sharply.  "Fine, then." He sounded like a spoiled kid who hadn't gotten what he wanted, "You can just stay here with your corrupt family and your idiotic 'friends' and when I succeed you'll be begging to join me.  My destiny will be fulfilled… even without you." Now he sounded almost hurt.  With that, he boosted himself up and out of the window.  A gust of wind swept through the room and the bronze owls swayed.

I wondered why Annabeth hadn't even tried to get Luke to reconsider and leave Kronos' army, but when I looked down at her she looked so shell-shocked that I knew it was probably taking everything in her not to burst out into tears.

But when I reached out to comfort her, my dream ended.


When I felt myself wake up, I immediately jumped out of bed and ran out of the cabin, sprinting towards the Athena cabin.  If my dream had been true, and Luke really had just been inside her cabin, then Annabeth really didn't need to be alone right now.  She needed anything but to be alone.

When I reached the Athena cabin it looked exactly the same as in my dream.  The whole cabin was empty and abandoned.  I walked slowly towards the room where Annabeth's bunk was.  She was sitting quietly on her bed, looking exactly the same as when I had seen her in my dream.  The only difference was that now she was actually crying.

She saw me and hastily wiped the tears away, "Percy, wh-what are you—" she stood up but I cut her off by reaching out and wrapping my arms around her.  I didn't say anything and neither did she.  I felt her hands grip the front of my shirt.

I wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do, but I really couldn't think of anything else.  When I'm sad and my mom hugs me, it always makes me feel better.  But that didn't stop my face from going red and my vision getting fuzzy as I felt Annabeth pull herself closer to me.

I'm not sure how long we stayed like that.  It felt like years, but as soon as she pulled away, I knew that it had only been a minute or so.

She looked just as red-faced as me, "Just wondering, but, why are you here in my cabin in the middle of the night?"

I didn't want to tell her, so I changed the subject, "Wh-Where are all the other Athena kids?"

"… They're out on a night training exercise in the forest.  I hurt my wrist during archery today so I couldn't go." She put a hand on her hip, "Now answer my question."

I guess there was no avoiding it.  I sat down on her bunk, hoping that Luke really hadn't just been sitting there.  Annabeth took a seat next to me and I told her about my dream, at least most of it.  I left out the fact that it had made me so angry, and that Luke had offered to try and turn me to Kronos' side.  She looked stone-cold when I told her, and all her tears had dried.  I wasn't sure what to expect when I finished.

But Annabeth just burst out into raucous laughter.  She was laughing so hard that she had to clutch her side, "I-I'm sorry," She giggled, "But the fact that you had a dream about me is just priceless."

I knew she was faking it but I didn't say anything about it, "But what about…"

She was smiling, "Percy, I am a girl.  And sometimes girls just need to cry."

I didn't believe her, but I figured that didn't matter.  She looked like she was feeling better and that was all that really mattered to me, as long as I had the strength to put my anger and jealousy aside.
But now things were getting awkward.  I didn't even want to think about all the assumptions
someone could come to if they came in and saw the two of us sitting on her bed.  Alone.

"How long will the other kids be gone?"

Annabeth shrugged, "Until sometime tomorrow afternoon."

There was a beat of silence, "… Do you want me to stay with you?  You know, just for the rest of the night." I have no idea what possessed me to make that offer, but I just didn't want Annabeth to be alone.

She blushed, and I was probably blushing too, "I-I, um, what… well…" she stammered out a few words, but I already knew what her answer was.  I pulled a pillow and a blanket off a nearby bunk and made myself comfortable on the floor next to her bunk.

"You'd better not sleep-talk." She warned me.

I smiled, "Good night Annabeth."

"… Good night Percy."