"Can you pass the butter, Thals?" Percy asked, his forehead scrunched in concentration as he examined the pristine cookbook.

Thalia, who was lounging on the couch, being as unhelpful as possible waved a hand in dismissal.

"Annabeth, can you pass Percy the butter?" my lazy best friend asked.

I rolled my eyes. "Of course, Thalia. My life mission is to obey your every command."

"Thanks."

Percy and I shared a look of exasperation, but both of us were smiling. His beautiful eyes were soft, examining my face and the small smile gracing my lips that was so rare recently.

When we both woke up, we blatantly ignored my prior meltdown and pretended that nothing had happened.

Still, tension and unanswered questions lay thick in the air between us. It was this way between me and everyone right now. Some normalcy would be greatly appreciated, but this was a problem without any permanent solution. Except possibly a lifetime spent in jail.

Still, there was one temporary solution to any problem. Pancakes. Percy insisted that making them blue was a necessity, so we called Thalia and told her to bring blue food colouring.

She complied as soon as she realised that pancakes were involved.

"Hey, Percy, I say that only people who help make the pancakes get to eat them."

"Who cares what you say?" Thalia smirked.

Percy raised his hand tentatively. "Me?"

"Why would you care?!"

He smiled sheepishly. "Then there's more for me."

I laughed at Thalia's gasp of betrayal. She immediately jumped up from the couch, though, at the prospect of missing out. "What can I do to be a helpful member of this pancake eating team?"

"I dunno," Percy said. "Maybe get that butter?"

Thalia groaned like we were sending her on a quest to cross Middle Earth and save the world. She opened the fridge door and began rummaging through the fully stocked shelves for butter.

"Annabeth, where the hell is this stuff?" she asked, sounding absolutely disgusted at the manual labour she was being forced into.

"Not a clue," I said, while measuring the flour. "Tessa does the groceries."

Thalia made a noise of complaint the back of her throat. "That's not exactly helpful, is it?"

"Achieving my goal in life then."

Thalia snorted, a sound that was somewhere between I-hate-life and Annabeth-is-hilarious. "Nope, because I'm more pissed off at your sister's awful fridge organisation skills."

Speaking of my sister, I hadn't seen her all day. Her bed was empty when Percy and I trudged downstairs, bleary-eyed but happy. I couldn't ignore the twinge of guilt that accompanied the thought of her, when I was hanging out with her boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend.

"Hey, Annabeth? Why do you need flour and sugar? They're basically the same. Why couldn't you just add sugar and no flour?" Percy seemed genuinely curious.

"You're so cute when you're dumb," I cooed, slipping into the old Annabeth Chase without thinking. The warm rush that came with the shift in personality was a relief that my very being craved. I ignored the part of me that said I should go sulk in a cupboard or something in some form of self-loathing.

Percy scowled. "That was a perfectly valid question."

Thalia snorted from inside the fridge. "Okay, Perce."

"I feel like you two are ganging up on me," he complained.

"Us?" I asked, innocently. "No, never."

"You so are!" he insisted.

I squinted and held up my pointer finger and thumb a few inches apart. "Maybe a little?"

Percy smirked mischievously and I barely had time to notice his hand reaching into the bag of flour before he had a full handful ready to throw.

"Now," I said, backing away from Percy and holding up my hands in protection. "You don't want to do that."

Percy tapped his chin with his spare hand. "Now," he said, repeating me. "I think I do."

"No, you don't actually." Just. One. More. Step. I backed to the side of the kitchen with the measuring cup full of flour, separate to the bag that we'd bought it in. "Because I think you'll lose against my obvious superiority."

In one fluid motion, I pick up the pink measuring cup and threw it deftly at his head. The flour, not the cup, just to clarify.

Percy gasped as a cloud of flour flew at his face. As soon as he recovered from the shock he stuck his tongue out. "Ugh, gross. I ate some of that, Anna. We really need to replace that stuff with sugar." Then, still covered in flour, he smiled. "Your turn."

He cleared the floor between us in a few strides and opened his flour-filled hand above my head.

I squeezed my eyes shut and flour tumbled down my hair and face, the power getting stuck in my blond curls.

"Ugh, you're the worst," I complained, dragging my hands through my hair to dislodge the white powder. "You're cleaning all this up, you know?"

"As I recall, you started it. You threw it first," Percy said, cheerfully.

"You definitely started it."

"Let's agree to disagree. We can both clean it up," he murmured. It was then that I noticed how close we were standing.

He'd had to step close to throw flour on the top of my head, which left him standing directly in front of me, his body mere inches away from brushing mine. My heart stopped in my chest before beginning to beat erratically, fluttering with nerves.

"I guess that works," I whispered, my traitorous eyes dropping to examine his lips. How often had I wished that I could kiss him? Even when he was Tessa's and my sister was his, I'd dreamt about tracing his perfect lips with the tip of my fingers, then replacing that finger with my own lips.

Percy's breath hitched when he saw my gaze drop and his eyes also lowered. He pressed slightly closer to me, his body brushing mine.

Every coherent thought vanished from my head. Except for one, one that persisted, nagged at the corners of my mind.

"What are you doing?" I murmured, barely aware of what I was saying.

"I don't know," he whispered back.

His head lowered, almost as if he was about to kiss me. But he couldn't, I couldn't. It wasn't fair. Not to me, not to him and not to Tessa.

I knew this. But with Percy so close to me, my brain was denying all logical thoughts. Could I not allow myself this one moment?

This was all before a cascade of flour fell upon our heads and Percy and I rapidly stepped back like the other was on fire.

Thalia was wearing a smug, satisfied smirk. "I think I win."

A/N: Thalia, you suck.

Anyway, it was only the other day that I realised that this story has existed for over a year! I mean, it feels like I update every week, but when I look at the PUBLISHED dates, I update literally three months apart. Oh my God, I am actually the worst. It irritates me so much when other authors do that so I'm going to try to update more often so I'm not one of those people.

This story is set to be 30-45 chapters, so we're not quite halfway. My goal is to have this story finished by New Years Eve. Perhaps I'll update the last chapter on New Years.

Anyway, I hope you're enjoying depressed Annabeth's journey.

Please note that not this entire story will be depressing! I'm hoping to have some form of resolution between Annabeth and her guilt that allows us to see the kickass girl we've all grown to love.

If you're looking for the heroes we all love, go check out Let's Meet Percabeth, which is my one-shot book!

You can find me on Instagram @neverleavethelibrary!

-Kyla