After she'd covered herself and eaten, Hermes began her training. Sitting down on the couch, he placed her world atlas on the table. It was a large book she'd kept from high school - most people threw out their school books but Thea hated to throw away any type of book.

"Move the book across the table using only air."

Thea stared at him. "You're supposed to teach me how."

"I am teaching you. Once you move the book, we'll move onto the next step." With that, Hermes settled in and started watching her recorded episodes of Community.

Annoyed, Thea decided she wouldn't sink so low as to ask for his help. She would figure this out herself. Sitting on the opposite end of the couch, she fixed her eyes on the book, unsure of how to begin. She tried to picture it moving in her mind, or wind bursting from her fingertips like the flames had, but the book didn't budge.

After staring at it for two hours with no change, she felt her resolve caving. She had no idea what she was doing. Sighing in defeat, she looked over to Hermes who was engrossed in the 'paintball' episode.

"Hermes?"

"Hm?"

She hesitated, hating herself for having to ask. "Will you please help me?"

"Got to figure it out for yourself, Peaches."

Thea bit the inside of her cheek and kept silent. She wondered if she really did have to figure this out for herself, or if he was just doing this to annoy her. Her instincts screamed it was the latter.

Standing up, she grabbed the book and headed for her balcony. Hermes didn't look up from the TV. "Where are you going?"

"Outside, I can't concentrate in here."

Walking out, she pulled the door shut behind her, quietening the noise of the paintball war happening on her TV screen. Sitting at her small table, she placed the book down and resumed staring.

The afternoon slowly passed and the sun began to fade, but still the damn book wouldn't budge. The sight of the map on the front cover was beginning to taunt her. Tears of frustration formed and she rubbed them away. She had thought being outside might help but it made no difference.

Vaguely, she heard the door slide open and heard Hermes call her name. When she didn't respond he crouched beside her. "How's it going?"

She didn't answer, wishing he would go away. Now there was two objects on her balcony taunting her. She heard a sigh and jumped as fingers touched her chin, turning her to face taunter number two.

"What?"

His face was gentle, unnerving her. "Close your eyes, Thea."

Too tired to argue, she did as she was told.

"Feel the air around you right now. Feel it against your skin."

She felt the cool breeze brush her arms, moving softly through her hair. The sound as it passed by her ears was soothing.

"Do you feel it?"

She nodded.

"Now try to imagine recreating that feeling in your mind. It's a light feeling so don't try push it too hard."

Feeling the air around her, she tried bending it to her will and shaping it . She flowed with it and in her mind, felt a small ball began to form.

Hermes fingers still rested on her chin. "Once you've done that, move it towards the book."

Thea held out her left hand, unsure why, and released the ball of air. She opened her eyes in time to see the atlas fall off the table and fly into the brick wall.

Shocked, she laughed. She'd moved the book. Unable to contain her smile, she tried doing it again. After a few moments, the cover fell open and the pages started flying as a gust of wind encircled the balcony.

Hermes smirked and released her chin. "See? It's easy. Practice manipulating it for a few days and then we'll move onto the next step: flying."

"I can fly?"

"Of course. With my tutelage you may be even better than Lissandre."

At the mention of Lissandre's name, Thea's smile faded. He seemed determined to make this hard for her and it was that woman's fault.

"Sorry you needed to help me," Thea said shortly as Hermes moved to open the door. "I'll try harder next time."

Hermes paused and Thea waited for the barbed insult.

"Why are you suddenly so determined to do this?"

The question threw her. "What do you mean?"

"You've adapted to all this pretty quickly for someone who wouldn't believe me a few days ago. Why the change of heart?"

Thea thought about it for a moment because she wasn't sure herself. After a moment though, she knew why. "It's because of Shae."

"Shae?"

"Yeah. I feel like it's my fault she's dead, and I need to do this to try and avenge her somehow. My conscience won't let me rest if I don't."

The look on Hermes face worried her again. It was soft and understanding. Not comfortable with that type of emotion on his face, she quickly added, "I also want to master this so I can throw you off my balcony."

The softness disappeared and he grinned. "You're light years away from taking me on, Peaches."

"We'll see," she muttered, "and stop calling me Peaches!"

"How can I stop when I know how much it annoys you?" he teased.

He pulled the door open and stepped inside. "Keep practising. I'm going back to finish Community. I'm nearly at my favourite episode."

The door shut behind him and Thea stared at the glass. How could he have a favourite episode?

*                             *                             *                             *

After spending four days with Hermes, Thea was ready to kill him.

Hermes had said it wasn't possible to kill a God but she was willing to try. She couldn't get a moment to herself. Everywhere she went, Hermes was right behind her, his reasoning being that Titans might be following her and she could be in danger.

She could understand that, but there were certain boundaries he continued to cross and she was nearing her limits of patience. They were breached on their third day of living together when he followed her into a lingerie shop.

"I can handle this myself!" she had snapped, shoving him back out the door.

"As a guy, I can help you pick out the ones Josh will like!"

She had slammed the door as he shouted, "Lace! Guys love the lacy ones!"

Fortunately, Matt had given her the week off to recover so she didn't have to work and worry about Hermes interfering in that part of her life too. Matt had demanded she have paid leave but Thea refused, happy to just have a week off of unpaid leave.

Matt then went behind her back and gave her leave with half pay, obviously thinking that wasn't as bad.

She really had to remind Matt how much she loved him.

Her date with Josh loomed closer, and on the day before she began to worry.

She stood in the middle of her bedroom, her entire wardrobe scattered on the floor around her after she grew frustrated and threw everything out when she couldn't find something appropriate to wear. She wanted to look nice but her clothes were too boring and shabby.

Crouching down, she started sorting them into 'yes' and 'no' piles when she saw some black material. A lump formed in her throat  as she pulled out a short black dress Shae had made her buy three weeks ago.

It had been on sale and fit her perfectly. Thea hadn't thought she would ever wear it, but Shae's words sounded in her ears, "You have to wear that on your first date with hottie Detective! Once he sees your legs in that dress he'll be begging you to go to his pants party!"

The words had horrified and thrilled her at the same time. Placing the dress on a hanger, she hung it on the back of her door ready for tomorrow night, knowing Shae would be pleased.

Stepping out into the lounge, her breath caught at finding a shirtless Hermes standing in her kitchen. Ignoring the fluttering in her stomach, she walked past him to the fridge. "Been running again?"

He nodded. "Got stopped three times today."

Thea rolled her eyes.

Hermes told her he found the idea of running novel, and chose to do it to see how many women tried to get his phone number, even though he didn't have one.

"Have you always been a player?" Thea took a sip of water and tried hard not to stare at his chest.

"No, I think Apollo's behaviour is finally starting to rub off on me."

"That's not a good thing," she murmured, watching his abdomen tighten with each breath.

"No, I guess not. How'd your practice go today?"

"Good. I lifted the couch this afternoon."

Her ability was improving with each day. She could now lift objects and make them float in the air with ease. It was surprising how quickly it became second nature to her. As if she was moving another appendage of her body, the air now flowed and did as she asked without a second thought.

Hermes nodded. "Good, I think we can start with flying tomorrow -"

"No, not tomorrow. I have to get ready for my date."

His eyebrows raised. "It takes you a whole day to get ready?"

"Well mostly...I want to make sure I'm prepared."

"And you need a whole day?"

"Oh, shut up!" She slammed the fridge door shut. "I can have one day off."

"We need to hurry and reach Poseidon." Hermes grabbed some corn chips from her pantry and started preparing nachos. "He's been busy since Tartarus was broken open."

"Why?"

"They broke through the ocean floor near Crete to open Tartarus and he has to deal with Nyx, trying to close it from her end. She's not the most pleasant Goddess you'll ever meet, let's just say that. He's told me he can spare some time to help you but we won't have long."

"Can't he just come to me?" Thea asked, turning the oven on.

"No, he's the God of the Sea, Thea. He's one of the busiest Gods of Olympus. Poseidon doesn't come to you, you go to him."

"Right, I guess I need to talk to Matt about taking more leave..."

Hermes looked at as if she'd said something funny. "What?"

"Nothing. You just continue to surprise me, that's all."

Thea wasn't sure what to take away from that comment so she chose to ignore it, and went to sit on the couch.

Hermes went and showered while the nachos cooked and came back, taking the nachos out of the oven and bringing them over. Thea was relieved he was fully clothed.

Today he was watching Breaking Bad. Hermes was making his way through all her TV shows like a man obsessed. He'd already picked out the next show to watch as they only had a few episodes to go before they were up to date.

The nachos put Thea into a food coma and she struggled to stay awake. She didn't want to go to sleep. Shae continued to haunt her dreams and her sleep over the last few nights had been poor. No matter what she did, Shae was always waiting for her.  

The TV switched off and Thea started from her doze.

Hermes watched her from the other end of the couch. "Go to bed, Thea."

"No, I'm good. I can stay up a bit longer."

"She's bothering you, isn't she?"

"Who?"

"Your friend, the one that died. How bad are the nightmares?"

Thea sighed, too tired to deny it. "They're bad. I can't get this one thing out of my head, it keeps plaguing me."

"Her eyes."

Thea nodded. "How did you -"

"I saw the look on your face the other morning when we were watching Criminal Minds. I hadn't actually seen that episode but I wasn't going to make you sit through it."

Thea was stunned. He'd turned it off because he knew it had upset her. It was actually kind of sweet.

"Have you tried thinking of something else when you drift off to sleep?" Hermes asked.

"I try, but nothing seems to erase it. The memory is burned too vividly in my mind."

"So you need something more vivid to replace it?"

"I guess that might work -"

She was cut off as Hermes leaned across the couch and pressed his lips against hers. She froze, eyes open as he moved his mouth gently against hers. His tongue trailed along her lower lip, sending a bolt of heat shooting through her core as he released her.

He smirked at her stunned expression. "There. Now there's something more vivid floating through your brain."

Hermes pulled her off the couch and took her to her room. Pushing her inside, he said goodnight and went back out to the lounge room, shutting the door behind him.

After another minute of standing in shock, her brain finally caught up with what he'd done and she gasped, hand flying to her mouth.

How could he use her like that? He knew she was going on a date tomorrow night. Now she wouldn't be able to sleep from the guilt.

Lying on her bed, her fingers still touched her lips as she tried to convince herself that the warm feeling in her stomach was a reaction to the nachos they'd had for dinner, and that her lips were only tingling because she hadn't been kissed in so long.

While trying to convince herself that it meant nothing, she drifted off to sleep and didn't dream once, sleeping until morning with no visits from Shae.

_________________________________________________________

A/N: What did you all think? A big thank you to everyone for supporting this story ^_^ you guys are amazing! The song on the side is what I was listening to when I wrote this chapter. It made me think that don't you like a sexy Greek God better when their naked? We'll get there, I could only handle shirtless with this chapter otherwise my brain would have melted! ;-)