A/N Feels and drama ahead.

Thalia P.O.V

Only a couple of weeks after my first archery competition of the summer, I was back in Montauk for another one. This time, I was staying with the Castellans.
Luke set up an archery but in the backyard so I could practice. None of that "sharing first place" shit, I was going to beat Zoë Nightshade's prissy ass this time.
I put on a white polo shirt and slacks along with a printed necktie and scarf around my head and went into the yard to practice.

"Morning Thales," Luke called to me from the patio.
"You're awake early," I answered.
"I had a hard time sleeping."
Looking at Luke, this was obvious. His face was nearly white and his eyes looked dark and sunken. He paced anxiously back and forth across the blue flagstones of the patio. On one of the wrought iron deck tables was a pile of cards and letters.
"The mail came. Each of us got a postcard from Annabeth. Apparently, she's in Quebec."
"Yeah, I know. She went there with Percy Jackson."
Luke let out a scandalized gasp.
"Do her parents know that she's traveling alone with him?"
"Don't be such an old lady, Luke. She's not a little girl anymore, let her have some fun."
The two of us had known Annabeth known since she was seven and Luke tended to still think of her as a seven-year-old. He continued being shocked that she went off on a romantic getaway with her lover.
"I'm going to tell Mr. and Mrs. Chase what she's up to..."
"Don't you dare! She and I will never forgive you if you do."
I gave him the glare that I perfected over the years, the one that always put the fear of God in people.
"Alright, you win. I won't tattle. But I can't believe Annabeth would do something like that. She was always a good girl."
That was something I'd never understand about men. They liked to keep a clear distinction between the "good girls" they courted and married or coddled as little sisters and the "bad girls" they fooled around with on the side and looked down on. But real women were never so black or white.
A/N a song that would fit in this scene is "Good Girls" by 5oS

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One of the foot brought out a calling card on a silver tray.
"Excuse me, Master Luke," he said, "A young lady dropped by to visit. I told her that we weren't receiving this early in the morning, so she left her card."
"Thank you, Alabaster," Luke replied, daintily picking up the calling card which read Kelly M. Pouzzi, "I'll call her in a little bit."
"Who was that?" I asked him.
"The daughter of some friends of my parents."
Luke said this in a nonchalant tone and shrugged it off as something unimportant.
"What could she want?"
"I haven't the faintest idea."
Luke slumped down into one of the patio chairs and folded his arms behind his head. I sat in the chair next to him and reached for a carton of cigarettes and a book of matches.
"What's this girl's name?"
"Kelly...why do you care?"
I put a cigarette in my mouth and lit it.
"I don't know," I shrugged, trying to act like I didn't care.
Why did it bother me that he was calling other girls? I couldn't help but think that this Kelly girl had something to do with why Luke looked like hell and why he was in such a bad mood.
"Luke," I began, "You said you weren't able to sleep last night, are you feeling alright?"
"I'm fine, Thalia. What's with all these questions?"
"God damn it, Luke! I'm concerned about you. You've looked like a ghost all summer and you've not been acting like yourself."
"And how haven't I been acting myself?"
"For one thing, you're acting like an ass-hole..."
Luke slapped me across the face. I responded by giving him a good jab with my right hook.
"I'm sorry, Thales," he said, clutching his nose.
"Damn right, you are," I replied.
He sat back down in his chair. I had never seen a man look more broken than he did at that moment; I thought he was going to start crying.
"I'm sick and I'm scared."
"What are you sick with? TB? Cancer?"
"It's more mental than physical. That's all I can say."
It was one of New York's worst kept secrets that his mother was not right in the head. I've often noticed that they had a similar temperament: mercurial; shifting from high spirited and vivacious to sluggish and melancholy, from sweet and gentle to angry and violent at a moment's notice. Perhaps she'd passed down whatever was wrong with her to her son.
Before I could say another more, Luke finished the conversation with "I better call Kelly back" and went inside.
My first objective was to find out who the hell this Kelly was.
A/N A song that reminds me of Luke and Thalia is "How to Save a Life" by The Fray.

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Percy P.O.V

Annabeth had made reservations at a restaurant called Aux Anciens Canadiens which was just down the street from Chateau Frontenac. The restaurant was housed inside a charming white old world style building with a red roof and window and door frames.

We were shown to a table by the window and a waiter brought us glasses of water and a basket filled with bread, a dish of butter and a dish of chicken pâté.

The original reservation had been for four but Annabeth had to call at the last minute to change the number to two because Piper was sick and Jason stayed at the hotel to take care of her. Though I felt bad that they had to miss this dinner, I couldn't say no to a romantic dinner with Annabeth.
I couldn't take my eyes off of her. She wore a pale pink chiffon evening dress with rosy blush and lipstick and a silver necklace shaped like an owl.

Because the menu was in French, Annabeth had to translate it for me. She ordered pea soup for our appetizer along with a meat terrine which I was told had been made from pheasant and elk.

As the waiter brought over a bottle of white wine, I saw a familiar figure clad in a slinky black evening dress walk into the dining room.

"Percy," Annabeth said, dabbing the remains of her pea soup with a piece of bread, "Didn't we see her at the cathedral today?"
God damn it, I groaned, Can't we get rid of that bitch."
Khione handed her sable fur wrap to the maître d'hôtel who hung it up on a hook. It was a balmy evening and I wondered how she could possibly need a fur wrap. But Khione seemed to bring a cold front along with her wherever she went.

A spectacular golden necklace shone and glittered on her cleavage and attracted the attention and envy of every woman in the room.

"Yeah," I replied, "What a coincidence."
I spread what was left of the fluffy, whipped butter across the last piece of bread along with some chicken pâté: a grayish brown paste topped with buttery yellow fat. On top of the bread, I put the final slice of terrine to make a sort of sandwich.
The food at Aux Anciens Canadiens was delicious but I had a hard time enjoying myself. I increasingly felt the noose that Titan and his frosty whore had thrown around our necks tighten. Can't a man enjoy a nice dinner with his girl in peace? Why couldn't they just leave us alone? No, Titan had to go and be a spiteful bastard.
Annabeth filled my glass with white wine.
"Have you decided what you're going to have for the main course?" she asked.
"No," I answered, "Can you help me translate the menu?"
I settled on the ragoût de boulettes à la grand-mère, meatballs in gravy.

A/N this is what I had to eat when I had dinner at Aux Anciens Canadiens while I was in Québec.

Annabeth ordered the fricassé de suprême de poulet et légumes sur pâte feuilletée, a chicken and vegetable fricassé served on a puffed pastry.

"So, Seaweed Brain," She said, taking a sip of her wine, "What do you think of Quebec?"
"It's beautiful," I answered, "And I like being able to drink in public without worrying about the cops."
"So do I."
"We should order a couple glasses of beer. Canada's famous for beer."
"I've never drunk beer before. I've only ever had wine and cocktails."
"Then we should definitely order some beer."
When the waiter returned, Annabeth ordered two glasses of a type of barleywine ale that the waiter recommended to go with our desserts: a slice of maple syrup tart for me and a maple crême brûlée for Annabeth.

The maple syrup here in Canada was better than anything we have back in the states; I made sure to buy a bunch of bottles to bring back with me. I looked forward to drowning Ma's famous blue pancakes in it.
"How do you like your beer?" I asked Annabeth.
"I love it," She replied, taking a long sip from her glass.
Luckily our dinner went off without an incident from Khione, who cast a look at us from time to time as if to say "I'm watching you, Jackson, always watching."

A/N haha

I walked a tipsy Annabeth back to the hotel after we had paid the bill for our meal. She went to bed but I wasn't tired yet, so I decided to join Jason for a walk along Terrasse Dufferin, the boardwalk which runs down the side of Chateau Frontenac and overlooks Le Petit Champlain and the St. Lawrence River.
"How's Piper doing?" I asked him.
"She's much better," he answered, "We ordered room service and I read aloud to her until she fell asleep, which didn't take long."
Jason described the book he had read aloud to Piper: a collection of Quebecois folklore. Some of the stories had been about creatures such as the lupe-garou (a man who transforms into a wolf by the light of the full moon) and the feux-follets (balls of light seen in forests at night and believed to be evil spirits). Jason's favorite had been about La Corriveau, a woman who was hung for killing her husband with a hatchet. Her body was put on display inside a metal cage and legend has it that the skeleton of La Corriveau, still in its cage, attacks passers-by.
The night was balmy and humid. A clear, star-filled sky hung over the Saint Lawrence. Across the river, one could see the lights of Lévis. Jason and made several laps of the Terrasse Dufferin before deciding to return to the hotel. It was very late and we appeared to be the only people there. Walking towards the Escalier Frontenac, we saw something as terrifying as La Corriveau in her cage.
"Grace," Titan growled, "We meet at last."
"You finally have the guts to face me yourself now, huh?" Jason taunted.
"Fuck off, old man," I shouted at Titan, "You've got no thugs to do to your dirty work for you this time."
"Stay out of this, Jackson," Titan shouted at me, "It doesn't concern you."
"When you threaten and kill my friends, then it concerns me."
Jason walked up to Titan.
"He's right," Jason said to him. "You should fuck off. I'll go back to Piper and you go back to whatever slut you picked up tonight. Too bad you'll never what it's like to have a woman you don't have to pay for."
Titan grabbed Jason and strangled him. Jason had been standing by the wrought iron fence which ran along Terrasse Dufferin. When he noticed the Titan had him dangerously close to the edge of the upper city, Jason looked terrified.
I kicked myself for not bringing along a knife or a gun but still, I rushed in to help Jason. Getting over his vertigo, Jason kneed Titan in the crotch and tried to push him away. I pulled a struggling Titan off of Jason and he tackled me. In the struggle between us, I pinned Titan against the fence, holding him in the same position he had held Jason.
Titan gave as good as he got and I had a hard time holding him down. He growled like an animal and his eyes flashed wickedly.
This son of a bitch was the reason why Beckendorf was dead and his wife was left heartbroken and his baby would grow up without its father. He had tried to kill Jason and hunted us like animals the entire time we'd been in Quebec.
My hands wrapped around his throat. His face turned purple and slowly, he lost the ability to fight back. When his body went limp, I pushed it over the fence and it fell down into the lower city.
Jason looked shocked at what I had done.
"Let's go back to the hotel," I told him, "We'll make plans to leave tomorrow morning."

Annabeth was still awake when I got back to our room. She was sitting up in bed wearing a pair of Chinese pajamas and reading a book.

A glass of water and a bottle of aspirin tablets were on the nightstand.
"You're back," she said, "I've been waiting up for you."
"You didn't have to do that," I replied, sitting down on the bed beside her and leaning in to kiss her forehead, "What are you reading?"
"Lady Chatterley's Lover."
"What's a nice young lady like you doing reading smut like that?"
"Trying hard not to laugh. Really, it's a good thing that people are now more open about sex but D.H. Lawrence is a bit much at times."

A/N Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence is a notoriously scandalous novel from the 1920s about an aristocratic lady who starts a torrid affair with her gamekeeper. I've read it and yes it's a bit cringe at parts. Bad smut is some of the funniest stuff out there.

"Get some sleep, we'll have to get ready to leave tomorrow."
"Why? I thought we were staying until the end of the week... What happened, Seaweed Brain?"
I struggled to find the words to explain what had happened but slowly they came together. Annabeth turned pale and gasped. She threw her arms around me. Her long hair fell over my shoulders and her tears fell upon my cheek.

chaseandfray chestnutia bellaschneeb olxmpxs iheartshipper Katniss_annabeth12 Percy_Annabeth16