Title: Following Like Thunder

Rating: T (paranoia)

Type: Fanfiction/One Shot

Characters: Piper McLean, Annabeth Chase, Jason Grace, Leo Valdez...

Disclaimer: All characters are owned by (c) Rick Riordan.

[A/N- There was an error with this article which I lack the skill and ability in which it gets cut off.

If you want to read the full version,
its in the comments.
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Piper


I WALK ALONG THE BROKEN ROAD.
Literally.
And, somewhat metaphorically.
The Argo II was just beginning it’s construction.
Leo had been pleased with it’s progress so far- even if there was just a scrap of metal so far.
Or, at least, that’s what I thought whenever I look at it.
I seriously can’t see how a scrap of metal can look like what Leo describes as his new “masterpiece.”
Most of the other campers have been working for about two weeks, and most are already pretty ticked off at Leo and his new obsession about building.
I am one of those ticked people.
Jason won’t really talk to me anymore.
I’ve been cornering him after hours to hopefully just get a word from him, but he always slips from my fingers like a....flying boy.
Yeah, bad metaphor.
I finger my twisted braids.
“Piper!” Leo calls.
I sigh exasperated.
I walk into the workshop to see Leo tangled up in the wires from the ceiling.
He’s hanging about six feet above the ground.
“How in the world did you get up there?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care! Just get me down!”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Beauty Queen-!”
“You just made the situation worse.” I reply, heading out of the workshop with Leo yelling after me.
“GET BACK HERE!”
“Lalalalalalalala.” I say, covering my ears. “I can’t hear you.”
“ENOUGH OF THIS! JUST GET ME DOWN!”
“I’m sorry, can you say that again? I think I hear someone calling.”
“PIPER MCLEAN YOU LITTLE-”
I wandered around camp for a while, past the stables, and the cabins, and the campfire.
I sigh. I should probably go get Leo down, or he’ll never forgive me. Then again, he will probably forget the whole thing by tomorrow morning.
“Hey.” Jason greets me.
I jump. I didn’t hear him come.
“Sup.” I say.
Gods, that sounded so lame.
“I don’t know.” he answers. “A lot of things really.”
“I’m sorry for avoiding you.” he suddenly says, quickly.
“It’s okay. But Jason,” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Were friends. You trust me and Leo with everything.”
“Some things are better left off not being said.”
I shrug. Some things are.
“You gonna come for dinner?” Jason asks.
“Uh-huh. Sure.” I say.
Had it already gotten that late?
We walk to the mess hall together.
I see my siblings off to the side, closely watching for any romance action.
These children need jobs. Or lives.
I glare at them, wishing I had a glare like Clarisse which was enough to steer off most campers.
Except maybe Jason or Annabeth.
Leo is a poor excuse. One time I think he almost peed himself.
Or maybe he really did.
I just stayed clear of Clarisse in general- I really couldn’t find an excuse to go looking for her for no good reason unless I wanted to get dumped alone in the forest at night.
With all it’s secrets and who knows what.
I shudder at the thought.
My siblings keep giggling and goofing off as they watch me and Jason.
Jason clears his throat loudly.
I motion them to go, but they just hide in the trees and hide out of sight.
Jason is so oblivious.
He starts walking toward me, and I shrink back.
Not here.
Not in front of all my siblings!
“Piper I-”
“Gotta go!” I say, running off.
What made me chicken out?
“You wanted to go check on Leo.” I convince myself.
I find myself back at the workshop.
Leo is still hanging from the ceiling like an idiot.
His arms are crossed, and he looks pretty ticked off at me.
“Hey look! The big meanie came back. Gonna make fun of me some more, or help me.”
I roll my eyes and uneasily drag over a wooden ladder so I can hopefully untangle him from all the wires.
“Would you bother telling me HOW exactly you got up here?” I ask as I begin, with difficulty to separate Leo from the mass of tangled wires.
“Not really, no.”
I untangle one wire, and drop it to the floor.
Slowly, I figure where each wire is and slowly unwind it.
There was a LOT of wires.
I probably missed dinner, but then again I didn’t want to go back to the pavilion.
Finally I saw a wire I couldn’t find the end to.
“Leo, where exactly does this go?”
He struggles to look.
“I can’t see.”
“I think it leads to your- eewww!”
He blushes in the dark light.
“Can you try to move? Maybe you’ll just-”
“I can’t.”
“That’s helpful.” I say sarcastically.
Slowly, there are only a few wires left.
Leo is still tied up from head to toe, but at least now he can wiggle his fingers.
Not much of an accomplishment.
“Leo, there is no way I’ll get through all these wires.”
He looked down.
“Well you can’t expect me to hang here all night!”
“I think you’ll hang just right.”
“No poetry please! It reminds me too much of prophecies.”
I tried not to giggle.
“That’s all you complain about?”
“Just get me down.”
I removed about ten more wires, but there was still plenty to go.
And it was getting late.
“Can’t I just go ask Annabeth for help?”
“No! Then you’ll totally just forget the moment you see Jason.”
I hit his leg, the closest thing to me.
“Leo!”
“Owwwwww....” he protested.
“Shut up so I can concentrate!” I snap. “It’s your fault that you got yourself into this mess anyways!”
I backtrack. “Why am I helping you anyways?”
“Because I’m your friend and your a nice person?”
“I’m not thinking some nice thoughts right now.”
“Violent!”
“Yes I am.”
I get through another couple wires.
My fingers begin to feel sore, and my stomach grumbles from the lack of food.
I become irritated very fast after that, snapping at every single one of Leo’s comments.
“Ugh!” I yell. “I can’t do this!”
“Yes you can.” Leo says, being supportive.
My anger comes out at last.
I take out my knife and it slices easily through all the wires.
The only problem is Leo goes crashing down from the ceiling.
He moans from below me.
“Leo! Are you all-AHH!!!”
I misplace my foot and step upon nothing.
Fortunately, I get a soft landing.
The only soft landing I get is on top of Leo.
Unfortunately, the ladder falls on top of me.
“Ow.” he mutters.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Thanks by the way.”
“Can you get up?” he asks.
“There’s a one hundred pound ladder on top of me. Not really.”
He groans. “Now were both stuck.”
“Maybe if I try to shove it off--” I say, and attempt to move the ladder.
It’s stuck against the wall.
I curse.
“I can’t move this stupid ladder!”
He just struggles to move.
“Oww..your hurting my ribs.”
“I’m sorry, would you like me to move?”
“Yes. That would be very nice.”
“Well then your out of luck. I’M STUCK!”
“Yeah, I kind of realized that.”
We sit in silence.
Leo is squirming.
“Can’t move...”
“Neither can I! Deal with it!”
He sighs. “Are you sure you just can’t roll off of me?”
“Don’t you think I would have tried that already?”
“Just checking.”
I’m still on top of Leo.
Finally, I kick the ladder. It begins to budge.
After about another ten million kicks later, and about a billion more nudges from Leo below me, we managed to get it far enough off me that I can almost get up.
We are almost free.
Suddenly I hear footsteps.
“Shh!” I say. “Someone’s coming.”
We both stop moving.
The ladder groans and falls off.
Perfect timing as usual, Jason is opening the door.
“-no I already checked there. Check the woods again-”
He sees me and Leo.
I wedge the ladder off my foot blushing furiously and leap to my feet.
“Jason, it’s not what you think-”
“I know that I do think.” he says harshly, and turns away marching off angrily.
I help Leo up, and he is also looking confused and blushing.
“That was just really awkward.”
I nod. “But it was an accident.”
“We shall never speak of this again.”
“Agreed.”
I turn towards the door and Leo follows me.
“Um..No need to be a stalker Leo.”
“Hey, this was my fault too. I need to apologized for being stuck...in the ceiling?”
“That’s not exactly apologizing.”
“Do you want to explain this alone or not?” he says glaring through me. “‘Cuz if not it’s all yours.”
I look down. “Fine. But I am NEVER helping to untangle you from ceiling wires EVER again.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
We walked down to the beach, knowing that’s where Jason would be there.
According to Annabeth, all the demigods with problems would go down to the beach for a while.
She said Percy went there a lot.
The moon cast it’s pale silloutte across the calm waters as the waves lapped the shores.
Jason was there tossing pebbles across the smooth surface of the lake.
He didn’t see us coming, but then Leo tripped over a stone and went “Ooof!”
Jason whirled around, and glared at me through empty eyes.
I could see jealousy and hurt behind his piercing blue orbs.
There was also anger.
A lot of anger.
“What do you want?” Jason asked, all friendliness I had known in his voice disappeared.
“We came to explain-” I started to say, but I was interrupted.
“You don’t have to.” Jason said, hurt in his voice.
“Dude, are you serious? Ever had something mildly embarrassing happen, and then everyone else makes their own conclusions and they call you a weirdo? Well, whatever happened there was a COMPLETE accident. And it’s my fault.” Leo said, pushing sand with his foot absentmindedly.
Jason studied him. “How?”
“Are you going to listen?” I asked.
“I will let you explain. No more than that.”
“Well, I was fooling around and got myself tangled up in the wires in the ceiling. So I was like hanging there forever, and then Piper came and left, and then she came back to help me down, and basically she cut me free, fell off the ladder, used me as a nice comfy pillow-”
I stomped on his foot. Leo is NOT a pillow.
“-ow!-and then the ladder in finale, landed on top of Piper. And that thing weighed like, A TON so then we couldn’t move. And finally, just before you arrived, we managed to finally remove te abnormally heavy ladder just as you showed up.”
Jason frowned. “Do you have any evidence?”
“Well, the ladder, the wires on the floor, and the wires that are cut still hanging from the ceiling. Hey! I could be a lawyer!”
I stomped on his foot again. Harder this time.
“Yeah, so I’m gonna go back to building, and go eat something. I’ve been stuck to the ceiling all day. I’m starving! I could eat a pegasus!”
“Leo, please. Really? A pegasus? And I’m a vegetarian.”
“Not you. Bye! Valdez has decided to LEAVE da building!”
He grinned and walked away, leaving me and Jason alone at the beach.
The moon was glowing across the shimmering water.
Jason looked up at me. “Is that true?”
“Except for the fact that Leo is comfy? Yes. He’s like landing on concrete. I would have preferred the floor any day.”
He cracked a smile.
“But Jason, you know Leo’s not that.....” I trailed off looking for the right word.
“Cool?” He suggested, a small grin on his face as if that amused him.
“And in Leo’s case, he;s not cool at all.” he finished.
I smiled too.
He was so close now- I could almost touch him.
“Piper I-”
“Jason. Just don’t.” I said, my heart closing up.
He frowned. “I was just going to tell you there’s a wire sticking out of your hair.”
I blushed as he picked it out and tossed it aside.
A nymph waved her fist angrily at him a distance away in the woods before she vanished.
He smiled, the scar on his lip curving like the moon above us.
I turned to walk away.
“Oh, and Piper,” he said.
I turned. “What?”
“You’ve also got one stuck to your back.”
I turned in a circle trying to see it.
“No there’s-” I stopped.
“-not.”
He was running across the beach laughing at me.
“Gullible!” he yelled at me grinning like he was having the best time goofing off.
I let out a laugh. “Get back here Grace!”
“Gotta catch me first!” he laughed, and burst into full speed towards the Big House.
In a way, it was kind of ironic.
I always thought I was perfect for him.
But now I realized it was more than that.
I was a part of him, no matter what happened in the Giant war.
He ran through the camp with me following close behind.
Lightning is always being followed.
I am thunder, forever trying to catch that ray of light.
I am am forever chasing him.
And in every lap, I am always behind him.
I am Thunder, always chasing after Lightning.