Percy's POV

I spent the rest of the breakfast time stuffing my face with bacon and sausages and contemplating the meaning behind the new abilities I finally had time to comprehend from the night before. What did it all mean? Hopefully Annabeth would know.

After breakfast, I found her waiting for me on the front porch of my cabin. "Annabeth!" I called to her as I hurried to my cabin. She smiled at me as I approached.

Panting slightly, which was bizarre because last night I was sprinting but I felt fine, I said, "Should we do this inside?"

My girlfriend rolled her eyes. "Unless you want to terrify the new campers with the sight of all that scars you've acquired over the years, I would say yes."

Inside, I tried to warn Annabeth about what she may see. "I haven't really seen it myself, because it's on my back and all," I lied, not letting her know that I snuck out last night to basically stalk her in her sleep, "so I don't exactly know what you'll see. But Will said it looked bad this morning," I said, which was another lie, "so try not to freak or anything, okay? I don't want you blaming yourself or something because I jumped in front of the wolf like the Seaweed Brain you always say I am. It's my fault, Annabeth, so don't even think that you could've stopped me. Just try to keep an open mind?"

I would've kept rambling, but I was silenced when she smacked my upper arm. "This isn't the first battle scar I've seen, Percy. We are demigods after all. Besides, you're definitely a Seaweed Brain if you thought I'd be able to stop you from doing something stupid but extremely selfless."

I smiled at her, a bit bashfully, knowing she was completely right. Like usual. Taking a deep breath, I turned around to show Annabeth my back.

I waited for a gasp, anything to show that she was shocked by the scarred flesh. I heard nothing. "Annabeth?" I asked, when I couldn't bear her silence any longer.

"Percy," she said, her voice coming out at a whisper. "There's nothing here."

"What?" I craned my neck around to see her pale face better. "Of course there's a scar there, Annabeth! You know as well as I do what happened that night. You probably know better than I do, actually!"

I felt her soft fingers trace my back, starting at my shoulder blade where I knew the scar was and ending at the small of my back, the same route the scar ran. "I don't see anything new or different, Percy! It's just... Skin."

"That-that's impossible," I stuttered, beginning to grow frantic. "Stop messing around, Annabeth."

"Percy," she said, her voice sounding strained. "I swear on the Styx that I don't see a scar there from that werewolf!"

The only sound we could hear was the rumbling thunder above. I let out a breath. "But I know I saw the scar last night! Will saw it this morning! How can it be gone like that?"

"Wait, last night?"

I cursed in my head, knowing I slipped up. "Annabeth..."

"What's going on, Percy?" She demanded.

Still not daring to face her, I looked down at the watch Tyson made for me. "Shit, I'm late! I have to get to the Apollo cabin. I promised I'd let Will do some tests on me after breakfast, and I'm already late. I have to go, Annabeth!"

I grabbed my shirt, threw it on, and was halfway to the door when Annabeth grabbed my wrist.

"Oh no you don't! We need to talk about this."

"Annabeth," I whined, tugging on my arm encased by her slender hand, "I have to see Will!"

"Didn't you offer that I could go with you?"

We walked to the Apollo cabin in silence. I was too afraid to speak, knowing that next to me, Annabeth was silently brooding over everything I had said. If I could've said anything to defuse the bomb that I knew was going to go off, I would've tried. I was better off not digging myself deeper into a hole, though. Annabeth could detect a little white lie as long as it conflicted with
even a single word already spoken.

"Percy!" Will greeted when we stepped into the cabin. "I thought you weren't coming!" He paused, and smiled at Annabeth. "Nice to see you again, Annabeth."

She didn't bother to smile back. "Can we hurry this along? Percy and I need to have a talk." The way she glared at me when she said my name made me gulp.

I think Will could feel it too. He looked between the daughter of wisdom and me with wide eyes, before nodding violently. "Of course! I don't want to get in the way of whatever you guys need to do." We made eye contact, and he flashed me a sign of sympathy. "Please follow me!"

We followed him outside to the back of the Apollo cabin, where there was a physical therapy section set up for the worst of the healable injuries. "We're going to test a few different things right now. I'm going to test your eye sight, endurance, and other things. Then tonight, we'll do these same tests again."

"Why tonight?" I asked, confused. "Wouldn't it be too dark to do any outdoor tests?"

Neither he nor Annabeth answered me.

"Percy, go stand on that line on the grass," Will said, pointing to a spray painted white line amidst the green of the grass. Once I had positioned myself there, he told me to read some letters painted on the back of the Apollo cabin wall.

"Is this like one of those eye tests that they used to give in school?" I asked, noting how the letters were arranged in a suspiciously similar order.

"Nobody gets anything past you, huh, Percy?"

"... Was that sarcasm?"

"Just read the letters," Will demanded, sighing in exasperation. I complied, listing off each of the Greek letters I could easily read. Once we got to the bottom half of the wall, however, I couldn't read them anymore from that distance away.

Will, who was writing my responses down on a clipboard, nodded when I said I was done. "Good, that's the normal halfblood average. Now, Percy, turn around and I want you to run from where you are to that orange line," he pointed to an orange line spray painted on the grass about seventy yards away, "and then run back. Can you do that?"

"Sure, why not?"

I waited for the countdown, and then sprinted from the white line to the orange line, and then back to the white line. Once I was done, I bent over with my hands on my knees, panting for breath. "Good?"

Will nodded. "Yep. You're right about average time for a male demigod of your age group to run that."

"Great!" I grinned, still gasping out each word. "Am I done?"

"One more," Will cautioned, "but it's pretty easy. All you have to do is listen."

"For what?"

"You'll know when you hear it." With that slightly ominous statement, Will disappeared into his cabin. Annabeth and I stood there in silence for a moment, waiting to hear whatever it was that I was supposed to hear. But Will came back out a minute later, asking me if I heard anything.

"No!" I exclaimed. "I think whatever it was is broken. We couldn't hear anything."

"For once, that idiot is telling the truth," Annabeth said, her arms crossed as she glared at me.

I didn't have it in me to protest. "What was I supposed to hear anyways?"

Will fidgeted anxiously. "I'll tell you after the tests tonight." He turned to my girlfriend. "Can you come back with him?"

She nodded, not wasting her words on answering. I knew she would need them when we talked later.

"You guys can go now," Will said. "Be back by nine tonight though!"

Annabeth walked with me to my cabin, still not saying anything. Her silence was beginning to unnerve me, but I figured that was what she wanted. Daughter of the goddess of battle strategy, and all that.

As soon as I closed the door to my cabin, however, her silence ended. "What aren't you telling me?" She interrogated.

I swallowed thickly before answering. "Annabeth, just calm down. I'll explain everything!"

"Oh yeah?" She challenged. "Then why didn't you tell me when we were here an hour ago?"

Cursing internally, I thought up an answer. "I didn't want to put too much on you at once."

"That's a crap excuse, and you know it, Perseus Jackson!"

Oh shit, she brought out my full name. I felt like a little boy about to be scolded by his mother for doing something he knows he shouldn't have done.

"Ok, fine! Fine, you got me!" I surrendered, throwing my hands up. "I didn't want you to be worried about me, or think I'm a creep! Or both!"

She glared at me for a moment, crossing her arms. "Explain," she ordered.

As quickly as I could, I told Annabeth about everything that happened last night. I glossed over the fact that I watched her sleep for a moment, because that's just plain stalker-ish, and I enjoy having a smart, beautiful girlfriend named Annabeth Chase that doesn't believe me to be a creeper. Every other detail, however, I relayed to her.

Once I finished, I waited impatiently for her response. Mentally praying to every god I knew that she wouldn't hate me for everything, I watched the emotions flittering through her eyes. Being the Kelp Head I am accused of being, I couldn't tell what she was feeling.

Finally, she spoke. "You're such a Seaweed Brain."

I let a smile split my face in two. "So you forgive me?"

She sighed, trying to hide the grin I knew was on her face. "Yes, I forgive you. I can't stay angry at you when you're just so... You."

I pulled her in for a kiss, wondering what I would do without her in my life. "I love you, Wise Girl."

She smiled against me. "Love you too, Seaweed Brain."

Notes

Don't forget, here's the link to the story on fanfiction.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12462425/1/Silent-Running
That has way more chapters than this one, currently. Thank you! :)