I held on to the trash bag for dear life as flying debri raced towards me.

Since we burnt down the archery shed, it was Annabeth and I's scared oath and duty to redo the entire structure.

And to avoid being expelled

The first thing was to clean up the mess. And boy...there was a loottt of it.

"Are you going to lend me a hand?!" Annabeth screamed, trying to pull down a part of the shed that wasn't burnt to a crisp.

I rolled my eyes and assisted her. Luckily the school was kind enough to give us  CHB shirts, some helmets, and gloves. So we don't die.

We'd spent the better part of the after-school day just cleaning up the mess. To make things worse, it drizzled during the second period so everything is a wet soggy mess. Ugh.

Chiron said we were allowed to skip classes as long as we still performed well on tests and submitted our homework on time and stuff.

He also assigned me a private tutor who......drumroll please......was none other than Annabeth.

You should've seen her face when he called us into his office to inform us that. Her jaw literally dropped. Another win.

Once we were done clearing most of the wood off the ground, she explained her plan to me, about how she wanted to rebuild it. Not gonna lie, it was impressive.

For as long as I've known Annabeth, all she ever wanted to be was an architect. Just like her mother, Athena.

Speaking of whom, I really should meet. It's been a while. She wasn't really the biggest fan of mine because I'd gotten her brand new white couches completely soaked and muddied the first time we met.
But still, she knew how much Annabeth meant to me and we managed to put aside our differences for her.

"So...actual work starts in a monthish?" I asked, trying to pay attention.

She nodded, "yeah, we need to make a strong foundation first. That was the problem with the archery shed. Weak foundation," she explained.

"We also need to get all new archery stuff in the budget Chiron gave us."

"Yeah I got that covered," she replied, "Leo's father kindly agreed to sponsor that."

That was nice of him.

"We actually have some usable pieces of wood here. Maybe Leo can make them into something," she said randomly.

And then it was back to work

We spent the next couple of hours practically silent, other than the occasional "Hey you missed a spot!" or "No you idiot! You're doing it wrong!" (But that was mostly just Annabeth)

After completing the process of cleaning up the grounds so they could be run on by humans again, we set our sights towards tearing down the roof of the archery shed and working our way down from there.

Since the roof was mostly connected to the shed by nails, Annabeth thought it'd be a good idea to loosen the nails and then just slide the roof off of the structure. It was already quite weak so it should be an easy task.

And she made me do it, even kindly procuring me a ladder.

I laid the ladder against one side of the archery shed as I slowly climbed up, my tool belt slapping the tools against my torso. I held onto the edge of the roof with a hand and slowly started to pry off the connecting nails.

"Hey! I'm going to go drink a sip of water!" Annabeth yelled out from below. Without waiting for a response, she sprinted off into the main campus, discarding her gloves and helmet onto the grounds as she did.

Maybe I was too busy watching her disappear into the building, maybe I was stupid, maybe the ladder sucked, or maybe I moved too much to the side because I slowly felt my world tilt left.

With a yelp, I grabbed the side of the roof and hung on for dear life as the ladder hit the ground below me. The stupid structure wobbled dangerously as I dragged myself onto it, splintering my forearms.

Well....shit.

I was stuck on top of this stupid archery shed that would collapse if I even moved an inch. I could probably jump off it...but that would cause the shitty thing to fall on top of me!

Dear Gods, if you can hear me...I hat-

"What the hell are you doing up there?!" Annabeth yelled, standing a safe distance away. She did not look happy.

"Ummmmmmm," Two options: embarrass myself with the truth.....or I'm possessed by a demon who flew me up here.

I didn't have time to decide as her eyes turned to the ladder that lay happily on the ground, sunbathing like a little piece of shi-

You know, the last thing I expected was Annabeth to laugh hysterically. And laugh so hard that her knees buckled and tears rolled down her eyes.

She retrieved her gloves and hat, still laughing as she approached the shed.

"You stuck up there, seaweed brain?" she asked in a mocking voice, her eyes shone with amusement.

I tried moving a bit, but the shed just creaked and moved provocatively. And that just caused Annabeth to burst out laughing again.

"Say the magic woooordd," she grinned in the middle of huffing for air.

"Please," I begged, giving her my best puppy dog eyes.

She shook her head, her smile now turning somewhat like the Cheshire cat, "That's not enough."

I huffed, looking at her in shock. She couldn't be serious, I might break my whole body and this thing could collapse any second.

"Annabeth," I begged harder, "Oh kind, fair and scary Annabeth! Will you please please pleeaaseeee save me before I fall to my death?''

She shrugged, and with a smile still plastered to her face, she propped the ladder up so I could get down.

And let me tell ya, getting down was no walk in the park.

I hugged the ground when I returned to it.

"Come on," Annabeth said,her eyes narrowing as she noticed my bleeding forearms, "To Bob the doc."

"Careful Annabeth," I grinned, "It almost sounds like you care"

"Chiron will be mad if you get an infection on my watch," she retorted as she paused to inspect the wound herself. She took my arm, carefully analyzing every splinter, scab, and drop of blood.

That's when it hit me

"Annabeth?'' I fought to keep the grin off my face, as adrenaline burst through every part of my body. The pain was nonexistent for a moment as I asked her, "What was that you called me when I was stuck on the roof."

"huh?" she asked, taking her eyes off my wound. Her eyes widened and her cheeks turned bright pink and she suddenly released my arm.

"Shut up. It was an accident, let's go," she quickly began walking away.

"Really?" I couldn't keep the smirk off my face anymore, "Cause I swear you called me seaweed brain."

"Shut up," she murmured, ducking her head.

"Anything you say, wise girl." My heart grinned with me.

And even though her face was turned away from mine and practically scurrying off the field, I swear I saw her smile.

————————————————————————-

The nicknames have entered the chat
I repeat, the nicknames have entered the chat!

Yes, that was the purpose of this entire chapter. I have no regrets.

And this chappy is dedicated to Changing-the-World and Med729  who literally forced me into posting this a week early
Ah,well, I still adore them! ❤️😈

You guys must be feeling pretty proud of yourselves 😂

(I didn't spell check it yet, so that's your price to pay MMWAHAHAHA)

Any suggestions?

Stay tuned!!
—- S