As soon as Leo dropped us off at the planet with my lion, Percy and I were awkwardly walking next to each other. It was so awkward to see Percy after so long and to have him not know who I was. I kept glancing over at him, noticing some small details about him that changed while he was in space. He had small scars on his face that weren't there when he was back at Garrison. Sure, Percy had gotten into fights, but they never left him this scarred. He had grown more muscular, which honestly made Percy a little scarier. I'd always thought he was scary, but he was just lanky and awkwardly tall, not to mention that he had those startling sea green eyes that seemed to glow when Percy got angry enough. Now, Percy had this deadpan stare like a wolf and he looked more comfortable with his size, like each movement he made was deliberate instead of the clumsiness I was used to.

After a while, I grabbed Percy's arm and forced him to stop. "Percy..."

"What?" Percy asked.

"I need to tell you something." I said quickly, not meeting his eyes.

"Why? What's going on?" Percy asked cautiously.

"Okay, before I do this, promise me you won't freak out." I said, gripping the baggy sweatshirt I was wearing.

"Okay... I promise."

Without hesitating, even though I was shaking inside, I pulled my sweatshirt off, careful to not also grab the light green tank top I was wearing underneath, to reveal what I was trying to hide: my obvious female looking body. Percy's eyes widened when he saw me. "You're a girl!?"

"There's more." I said, taking a deep breath. I was visibly shaking, and Percy could clearly see that, as I pulled off my brown wig and shook out my blonde hair, grabbing the pony tail holder from my pocket and attempting to put my hair up.

Percy's jaw dropped. "ANNABETH!?"

"Um... hey Seaweed Brain..." I said awkwardly.

"You aren't joking me right now, right?" Percy asked to make sure. "Like... you're actually in front of my right now."

"Yeah."

Percy didn't move for a minute, either too confused on what was going on or angry at me, I couldn't tell which, but then his face broke off into a goofy grin as he ran towards me and grabbed my waist, lifting me up and spinning me around in a circle. "Oh my God... I've freaking missed you Wise Girl!"

Once he put me down, we hugged for a couple minutes, but then we seperated and he had a confused look on his face. "Why were you cross dressing?"

"It's a long story..." I said, scratching the back of my head and laughing nervously.

"We got time." Percy said, smiling. "I won't tell anyone, promise."

"I was angry that you got to go on that mission instead of me." I started off. "Dad chose you over me, despite the fact that we had the same qualifications, because I was a girl and you were a guy."

"So that's why you yelled at me before I left." Percy said, putting some of the pieces together. I picked up my stuff and we kept walking towards where we thought the lion was. "You were angry that I was chosen over his own daughter."

"And I regretted yelling at you every day afterwards." I said, looking at my feet. "After you left, things went downhill."

"How?"

"You know how Grover had walking problems?" I asked.

"Oh no..." Percy saw how this was going.

"The electroneurons became too weak to be transmitted to his legs, so one day in the middle of training, he collapsed. He's been in the hospital ever since. Around that time is when I met Reyna. We were both lonely, so we decided to form a support group to deal with you guys being gone. It was just the two of us, but still. It helped for a while. Six months later, I was visiting Grover in the hospital when the two of us saw the news that said you, Jason, Magnus, and my father were dead due to pilot error. For the first couple minutes, Grover and I just sat there, unsure of what to do. He was the first one to cry, and then it was me. Then, Reyna and I were talking the next time we saw each other, and we came up with a plan. The next week, Reyna was distracting Thunderson and getting him away from his office while I snuck in and hacked into his computer and accessed the files about the Kerberos mission. He caught me, and the two of us got suspended on the spot."

"You jeopardized your career for me?" Percy asked, confused on why I risked everything for him.

"Percy, I never even wanted to be a pilot. I wanted to be an architect, build monuments to withstand the test of time, not fly in a cockpit." I said, smirking a little. "I'll leave stuff like that to you."

"Annabeth..."

"Anyway, that summer, Reyna and I came up with a plan. I remotely hacked into the Garrison's servers and enlisted as a made up guy named Olly Holt to be a spy at Garrison and figure out what else they lied about. Got added to Leo, Frank, and Nico's team as a comms officer, and you know the rest." I summed up.

"Why Olly?" Percy asked.

"I was gonna use Owl, which is Magnus's nickname for me, but Reyna said that sounded too suspicious, so I used Olly. If you slow down while saying it, it sounds like Owl."

"What did I expect from someone as clever as you?" Percy asked, laughing. "This is one of the reasons I love you."

"You... love me?" I asked, feeling my face becoming red.

"Yeah..." Percy said nervously, scratching the back of his head and looking away from me as if he regretted saying it. "I mean... I think I realized I love you while we were kidnapped. Jason and I were talking about what we were fighting for to get back to, and the first thing I thought of was you. Obviously, I didn't say it out loud, but yeah. I, Percy Jackson, aka Seaweed Brain, am in love with you, Annabeth Chase, aka Wise Girl."

"What about Rachel?" I asked, staring at me feet.

"What about her?"

"You two were dating back on Earth. Thought you'd be ecstatic to get back to her."

"Actually... we broke up before I left."

"Why?"

"Rachel realized she had a crush on this girl in her class, so she broke it off with me."

I looked at Percy, trying to search his expression, and I burst out laughing. Percy's head snapped over at me, his wolf stare aimed at me, a confused and hurt expression on his face, but for some reason it made him look cuter to me. "Why are you laughing?"

"I'm sorry, it's just that... your first girlfriend turned out to be gay? Did you turn her or something?"

"Oh yeah, laugh it up." Percy said, grabbing my hand. "Seriously though, Annabeth, I love you."

We stopped walking when we came across a canoe with a lion head attached. I put my stuff back down on the ground and took a deep breath. Then, I grabbed Percy's shirt collar and pulled him down to kiss him. As I did that, Percy wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me up slightly, getting me to his level which wasn't hard since I was just a couple inches shorter than him. Once we let go, we were both breathing short breaths, kind of confused on what just happened. "That... was just... an experiment."

"Yeah, totally." Percy said uneasily. "And uh... if I say that I want to continue this experiment at a later date?"

"I would have to agree." I said, smiling a little. "Just... don't tell anyone."

"Don't tell anyone about what?"

"Us. Me." I said, taking a deep breath. "I want to tell everyone the truth in my own time. Please?"

"Okay." Percy said as a sloth walked over to us and pushed the canoe into river next to us. "Guess that's our ride?"

"I guess so." I said, smiling a little as I picked up my stuff and getting into the canoe, Percy sitting on the opposite end.

Once the boat got into the river, different animals started coming out of their various areas and looking at us as the sloth steered our canoe towards where the lion was. Small horse like creatures started swimming against the boat. "Percy, look!"

Percy laughed at my excitement. "Yeah. I think they're hippocampi. My dad used to read me stories about them. Never thought that they were, you know, real."

"Well, this whole experience has taught us to not look at books based on their covers." I said, laughing.

After petting and playing with the hippocampi for a while, I looked over at Percy. "Do you really think we can do this?"

"Do what?"

"Defend the universe and all that crap. I mean... what if we fail. What if the lion doesn't want me as it's Paladin. What if-"

"Annabeth..."

"I know, I'm overthinking things again, but they're serious concerns."

"I know." Percy put his hand on top of mine and smiled kindly, his smile upturned a little to make it look like a smirk. "But we'll be fine. Sure, everything up to this point was a random set of occurrences, but it had to happen. We got this Annabeth."

"What if... what if my dad and Magnus are dead?" I asked. "What if we were too late to save them? I know my dad and I never had the best relationship, but I-"

"Still care about him." Percy finished. "I feel the same way about my brother and sister."

"I didn't know you had siblings." I said.

"I never told you?"

"No!"

"Well... the more you know. My little brother's name is Tyson."

"Like the chicken brand?"

Percy laughed. "Exactly! Anyway, last time I saw Tyson, he was twelve. When we were younger, I was seven and Tyson was three, we got into a really bad car accident. And when I say really bad, I mean really bad. Like, some car rammed us really hard and made our car flip over. I wound up with a broken wrist and a fractured leg, and my mom had a broken ribcage. It could've been worse for us if the airbags didn't deploy. Tyson and... and my dad got it the worst."

In all the time I've known Percy, he's never even mentioned his father. Percy just kept talking, somehow not being able cry or shake. I guess that's what years of mourning does to you: makes you numb to the pain, like you've lived through it so many times your body forgot how to react. "Tyson... he was real little, but in the car wreck a piece of metal cut into his head and cut part of the eye stem. He's now partly blind because it could never grow back properly. And my dad... the airbag didn't deploy in time and my dad's head hit the front dashboard. He died on impact. So... when I was real little, I hated Tyson. Blamed him for my dad's death even though, deep down, I knew Tyson wasn't the cause. I was just angry and pissed off. Tyson's a smart kid. He quickly figured out that I held the car crash against him, and he confronted me about it. We made up, and now he's my best friend in the family. Twoish years ago, Mom fell in love with my old English teacher, Paul Blowfis. They got married, and the day I left for Kerberos, Mom told me she was pregnant with my little sister. Said that she was gonna be named Estelle after my grandmother but that her middle name would be Andromeda."

"Like the Andromeda in that Perseus myth?" I asked.

"Yeah. My dad... he told my mom that he wanted me to be named after a Greek hero so that I knew that the possibilities were endless and that I could be the hero of my own story. Said he wanted to name me Theseus since his name was Poseidon. Mom quickly vetoed that because bad things happen to Theseus in the myth. Eventually they decided to make my full name Perseus because he was one of the few Greek heroes who had a happy ending. Guess my mom wanted his good luck to rub off on me."

"At least they didn't name you Heracles."

"Who?"

"You know him better by his Roman name: Hercules. He had all sorta of bad mojo."

Percy laughed a little. "You're right. Anyway, Mom said that Estelle's middle name was going to be Andromeda so she would know that her big brother was going to save her, no matter what. Guess we all know how that turned out."

I put my hand on Percy's knee. "We'll get back to Earth and you will meet Estelle. I promise."

Percy smiled again. "This is one of the things I love about you Annabeth. You always have a way of looking to the bright side, even when the situation is dark and bleak. We'll find Magnus and your father. I promise."

The canoe skidded to a halt as Percy and I climbed outside of it. We waved goodbye to the sloth as I looked at the giant temple in front of me, covered completely in vines. I saw a small opening at the top of the temple.

"Go get your lion." Percy said, smiling. "I'll be right here."

"Okay." I quickly climbed up the temple, the sides of the temple glowing green as my hands touched it. When I got to the top, the entire inside glowed green. "Looks like I'm jumping in."

I looked over at Percy, who was staring out at the water and concentration on the water as I jumped in, the lion's mouth open and closing shut. "That was easier than I thought..."

I was hoping Athena's daughter would be my next Paladin.

"Okay... who said that?" I asked out loud.

Use your brain Annabeth.

"This must be what Leo felt like when Orange talked to him... so you're the green lion?"

Ding ding ding! We should probably get the blue lion now though... you know, before the Galra get it.

"Right... can you guide us to it?"

Obviously. Blue and I... we're connected. It's hard to explain it, but when King Atlas tried to build the lions, the crystal he used to power us split in two. Blue and I are connected-

"Because you two are powered by the same crystal!" I said, getting into the driver's seat and the area around me powered up. "It all makes sense! If you had half of the crystal, it's obvious that you would know the exact location of where the other half is!"

Yeah! Get Blue's new Paladin in here so we can go!

"Working on it!" I said, pushing the power thruster all the way up as Green bursted through the vines covering it and I gently flew towards Percy, landing quickly and opening up the bay door.

Percy ran into the cockpit, his smile stretching across his face. "That took way quicker than I thought."

"Let's go get your lion."

"Calypso only gave us a vague area on the planet."

"Remember how Piper said that our lions were connected?"

"Yeah but what does that-"

"When our lions were being built, the crystal that was being used to power them split in two. Green and Blue are connected because they share the same power source."

"And that means...?" Percy asked as Green broke the atmosphere.

I rolled my eyes. "It means that my lion can track down your lion from miles away, and vice versa."

It's no wonder you're attracted to this guy. You two are just like me and Blue: two halves of the same brain. You're the analytical side, and Percy is the derpy side.

I laughed. Percy gave me a strange look. "What are you laughing at?"

"You don't want to know." I said as we approached a solid blue planet. "This planet Green?"

I hope Percy knows how to swim.

I glanced over at Percy, who was looking for a spot to put my stuff down. "Why?"

This is a water planet. No solid land in sight. Blue is underwater.

We broke through the new planet's atmosphere and I let Green guide me towards Percy's lion. "So how do we help him?"

Well, he can't breathe underwater, can he?

"How am I supposed to know that?"

We provide an air pocket. I fly down and we protect Percy underwater, just in case.

"So what's the plan? All I can see is water as far as the eyes can see." Percy asked.

"I don't suppose you can breathe underwater?" I said, letting Green fly by herself for a bit and turning towards Percy. "I mean, you are part Atlantean, so is that a possibility?"

"I have no idea. All I know is due to the experiments the Galra did on me."

"You mean they didn't even try waterboarding you or something?"

"Nope."

"Oh boy..." I said, sighing. "Green and I will take you as far as we can go, but you'll have to do the rest."

"Got it." Percy said as Green plunged into the water and started going towards where she felt the crystal's presence.

"Just... please don't die for real." I said, sighing.

"I promise I won't." Percy smiled as we came to a small cave opening, only big enough for a human.

This is as far as we can go.

"This is it." I said, smiling at Percy. "Good luck Seaweed Brain."

"Thanks." Percy said, walking out of the cockpit and into the loading dock where Green opened her mouth and let Percy swim into the hole. Green flew back up the the surface and emptied the water from the loading dock when a giant blue figure splashed water on us.

I opened up a communication frequency. "Percy... that you?"

Good news: I can breathe underwater. Bad news: the lion was being guarded by a kraken, so I may have angered it once I got inside of Blue. Percy's voice crackled in the speakers.

"Back to... wherever that first planet was..."

I got this.

I laughed at my lion, happy that she knew the way around the galaxy, as we broke through the atmosphere, our two lions zooming past each other as we went back to what was probably going to be our new home for a while.