Blood Of The Hero

Chapter 7

It took a while, but eventually Annabeth calmed down enough to stop screaming in my ear.

If I thought we had any sort of a positive relationship before, that was all definetly gone. When I tried to explain my reasoning, I'm pretty sure that only made it worse.

So here we were, on some train to Las Vegas that Grover managed to get us on last minute, and she still refused to talk to me. Which was especially awkward when we were on a dual-seat aisle, with our satyr friend deciding to sit behind us so we would be forced to interact.

I think we were somewhere in Missouri or Iowa or some place else irrelevant when I'd had enough of watching cornfields pass by and decided to spark up a conversation.

I nudged the stubborn blonde on her side, and I could feel her acknowledge me but she didn't turn around.

"What, Seaweed Brain?" She muttered, her head resting on her fist. "If you need to go to the toilet, I swear on my mother I'm not getting up."

I sighed. "Nah, I don't need it. Not yet at least." I paused.

"Just wanted to say sorry."

She snapped her head around to me, unbelieving and a little shocked. She muttered. "Didn't expect that. What for?"

"Huh?"

"What exactly are you sorry for? Because you've done a lot of shit so far."

"All of it." I crossed my arms and kept eye contact.

She looked into my eyes, I think trying to see if I was joking or lying or something, but after a couple of seconds of verifying my sincerity, she nodded curtly and pursed her lips.

"Fine. I accept. Just please don't do anything else stupid, specifically anything related to Olympus. It's a wonder we have been smitten by the gods yet." She shook her head in disbelief, before letting her eyes dart away from me to outside the window, and I waited there stupidly, expecting.

A minute or two later, and she noticed me looking at her anticipatingly, and gave me back a weird look in return.

"What? Is there something wrong with your eye?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Just waiting for my apology."

She snorted, like actually snorted. "For what? Being rational?"

I didn't let her arrogance faze me, the past couple of days made me grow resistant to it, and I calmly replied.

"Well, you almost got us killed by Medusa, for a start."

She shook her head indignantly, but before she could get any words out, I stopped her.

"Look. If we're gonna do this quest, we're gonna set some ground rules. I can recognise I'm impulsive, I'll try to do it less. But you, you have got to be less arrogant, Annabeth. We all almost died because you got your ego hurt. It'll probably happen again it you keep doing this." I looked at her deep in her eyes, and I could see her hard exterior break down a little more with each word.

Annabeth sighed, and there was a silence between us for a couple of seconds. She looked down at her hands before looking up at my face again, and nodding.

"I'm sorry." She seemed genuine, none of her usual pride in her voice.

Even though I was waiting for it, I was still surprised she actually apologised, if I'm being honest, I was expecting another argument. She continued.

"I know I can be stuck up sometimes. But I just desperately want this quest to go well. I've waited all my life for this."

She took a deep breath, ready to continue and I let her. It was nice to be able to talk so vulnerably.