AN: Well. Another oneshot. I'm trying to collect ideas together for new beginnings, but don't worry. The next chapter will be up soon. This one's in Percy's POV, and it's sort of him almost giving up. It's during the summer of the quest into the labyrinth. You'll see what happens.

By the way...really off-topic, but have you ever looked at the lyrics of Keep Holding On by Avril Lavigne? It completely matches up with Percy and Annabeth. - haha, just thought I'd mention it...

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Comfort from Friends

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It had been a long day.

See, the summer was just wrong. All wrong. It was supposed to be happy, because I was with all my friends, right?

Wrong.

Kronos was alive and well, assuming he'd gotten out of his predicament with the rocks piled on top of him. Annabeth was going out of her way to avoid me. Luke was…well…Luke was gone. There was probably nothing I could do to help him – not that I wanted to, with the things he'd done to Annabeth. And if that wasn't enough, the sea titans were rising, putting my dad in a tough situation. And there was nothing I could do about any of it.

It seemed like Tyson was the only real friend I had around…Grover was busy restoring nature and Annabeth was, of course, avoiding me.

The whole world was just in a huge, downward spiral. And naturally, it all had to be about me. Oh joy.

Stupid prophecies.

Naturally, that all wasn't enough. I had had one of the worst nightmares yet last night. When you're running through an endless tunnel with Kronos chasing and laughing at you, you get pretty shaken up.

Yep. It'd been a long day.

So to find a little bit of peace, I found myself wandering through the woods. I know, dangerous, right? I guess. But I knew how to fight monsters, and in the miserable weather that Mr. D had let in, I was pretty sure they would stay nice and warm hiding in their caves. I guess Mr. D was in a pretty bad mood too. He had a habit of letting rainstorms come into camp if he was.

Anyway. It didn't improve my attitude. I guess my dad's gift didn't cover keeping me dry from rain, because I was sopping wet.

I was really surprised when I found I had wandered over to Zeus's fist. I blinked as I looked at the pile of rocks sitting before me. This had been happening a lot. I kept finding myself walking over here, and just sitting down and thinking. It hurt, especially when I thought of the campers who had died here. But I still came. Might as well not break the tradition now.

So I sat, about ten feet or so from the rocks in the little field circling Zeus's fist. I didn't mind the wet grass, I was already wet anyway. I stared at the ground in front of me, and sometimes, if I stared long enough, I could imagine blood and monster dust dripping from the contrasting green blades of grass. I could see Castor fall, bleeding. Chiron bellowing in pain, and then his collapse. I quickly closed my eyes in pain. Every day, thoughts of the bad things that I'd seen in my life ran through my head. People had died because of Kronos. And more would still follow in the quickly approaching battle.

I'd given up hope.

Why should we hope to win when Kronos's army completely outnumbered us? Even the gods were worried, even when all Zeus had to do was snap his fingers and a thunderstorm would start. So why should we hope? By now, I had come to the horrible realization – people were going to die, and a lot of those people were my loved ones.

I was interrupted in my thoughts by a noise. I froze, and curled my fingers around riptide so when the culprit stepped forth, I opened riptide and held my sword and inch in front of…Juniper?

She looked really flustered. "Hey! I told you, us trees don't like swords! Put it away, right now!" Juniper's sharp green eyes glared at me. I sheepishly capped riptide, and looked at her.

"Hey Juniper. What's up?" The leaves draping her body were dripping wet, and her hair was wet too.

She sighed. "Nothing much. Though I miss Grover." Her shoulders slumped in sadness.

I patted her back. "Don't worry," I comforted her, at least the best I could when I was in misery too. "He'll be fine."

She straightened, and smiled. "Yes, he will. He knows how to stay safe." She studied the ground for a moment, and then looked up at me. "The real question is, are you okay?"

I almost rolled my eyes. Did I look okay? Of course not. "Oh, I'm fine."

"Oh really?"Juniper had a look in her eyes - a look that scared me, and probably scared thousands of other teens around the world. It was the look of a lecturing mother. "So why were you just sitting here in self-misery just minutes ago?"

"Um…"

"Exactly. And all this summer, you've been the same way."

"I guess it's all the pressure." I waved my arms in the air as I tried to explain. "The prophecy. All my mistakes….."

"Annabeth?" she prompted.

"Well, yeah. You've noticed it too? She's barely said two words to me this summer, and I have no idea why." I stared at the pile of rocks in front of me. An annoying drip of water slid down my nose, and I wiped it away.

Juniper smiled. "As brave and strong as Annabeth is-" my mind conjured up an image of the gray streaks in her golden-colored hair. "She's still human. And humans, especially girls, have a kind of fragileness to them. Your friendship will get better soon, don't worry about it. But enough about her. What about you? I can tell you've lost hope, and I'm guessing others have noticed too."

I looked down. "Yes."

The dryad sighed. "Be like a tree."

My head shot up and I stared at her. "Say what?"

Juniper rolled her eyes. "I said, be like a tree. We start out as a seedling, so weak that a simple deer can kill us by trampling over us. But then you grow, bigger and bigger until you're so big and strong that there are very few things that can defeat you."

"So you still can get defeated," I pointed out helpfully.

She let out an exasperated sigh. "Yes. But that's not the point. The point is that something so small can become so big. Just like you can become. You think you're very small. But you could become such a big part of this war…you already have, anyway."

I think she was going to go on, but then she cocked her head and leapt up. "Someone's coming..." she hissed. And then she ran away, just like that. So much for being a big, strong tree. As I took out riptide, I wondered if having people sneak up on you would become a routine thing. But I relaxed when I saw Annabeth cautiously coming towards me. Well, I sort of relaxed, at least. Not really.

"Hey," she called out. "I thought I saw you coming in this direction…"

"Yeah. So why did you decide to follow me for once?" I regretted saying it as soon as it came from my mouth.

A flame of anger appeared in her eyes. "You want me to leave? Fine." She started to stomp off, but I jumped up stopped her by grabbing her arm. She turned towards me, her wet hair framing her face.

"No! I didn't mean it…sorry."

"Wow. Seaweed brain actually said sorry for once…"

I wanted to defend myself, but then ignored the prick she'd aimed at me. I walked over to my previous spot and sat down. Annabeth plopped down beside me, her wet shirt kind of pressing against her body. I felt a faint blush go over my face and I turned my head.

We stayed silent for a little while, then Annabeth said, "You okay?"

"What do you mean?" I looked at her in the eyes. She seemed completely oblivious about her shirt problem.

A concerned flicker went across her eyes. "You've seemed really distant this summer. Everybody has, actually. But you most of all."

"Well, why do you think I'm like that?"

She sighed. "I guess it's obvious. Kronos, the prophecy, the battle…"

I sighed. You know how yawns seem to be contagious? Well, I think sighs are too. "Right again, Wise Girl."

"We're all worried, Percy. Not just you."

I stared at riptide, turning it over in my hands. "A lot of people have died, Annabeth. And a lot of them, I knew. Every day, I wonder, who's next? I'd probably die if it was you…." I realized my mistake, and added hurriedly: "Or Grover, Tyson, and Thalia." That annoying red blush covered my face again, and I looked away. "We only defeated Kronos last time out of luck. If Daedalus and Briares hadn't come in time…" I didn't finish. "We're not going to win, Annabeth. Kronos is just too strong."

Annabeth put a comforting arm around me. "You've grown, Percy," she said softly.

I sighed, ignoring the tingles that had engulfed me after she put an arm around me. "It feels like I've grown forty years."

She put on a sad smile. "Just because we were licked before we started doesn't mean we shouldn't try to win."

"That's pretty smart, Wise Girl."

She grinned sheepishly. With her wet hair dripping in clumps around her makeup-less face, with drops of water on her eyelashes, she was one of the most beautiful girls I'd ever seen. Not like I'd ever say this to anyone – Aphrodite would probably incinerate me – but compared with Aphrodite, Annabeth was more beautiful. Aphrodite had the best makeup, the best features, the best everything. But Annabeth was just naturally beautiful, she looked fine the way she was, and she didn't try to change that. She waved a hand in front of my face. "Percy…Percy…are you even listening to me?"

"..Wha? Oh. Sorry."

She rolled her eyes. "What I said was that it was a quote from a book. But still. If we never try, we'll never win."

We sat there for awhile, listening to the pitter-patter of the rain with Annabeth's arm around me in comfort. Annabeth was the one who finally broke the silence. "It'll all be okay, Percy."

"I hope so." I stared at the place Castor died.

She stood up and offered me a hand. "It's almost time for dinner. We'd better go before someone misses us."

I took her hand and let her pull me up, and we started to walk back. She wrapped her arm around me again –she must've still thought I was miserable or something. Under normal circumstances I'd be uncomfortable and at a loss for words…but now felt different, I guess.

Whatever the case, I was glad she was there.

As we got closer to the dining pavilion, Annabeth noticed a couple of dryads at the tree line. They were pointing at us, whispering together and grinning. Annabeth snatched her arm from around me, and put it back by her side, and as I looked closer, a red blush covered her face. We uncomfortably walked the rest of the way for dinner, but luckily it hadn't started yet. We parted ways and went to our assigned tables.

After a moment or two, I sneaked a look at the Athena table and caught Annabeth staring at me, but she quickly turned away. I turned away too, once I heard a: "PEERRCCYY!" in a big, huge, cyclops-like voice.

I turned around to see Tyson running towards me. "Hey bro!" I smiled as Tyson sat next to me and excitedly start talking about all the things he'd taught Beckendorf today, and we started dinner.

AN: Hope you liked it. Sorry about any mistakes, I took care of the ones I saw, but there might be more.

And by the way…why did I get so few reviews for the last chapter of New Beginnings? Reviewing really helps me figure out if my writing is actually good or not, and if I get really few reviews and lots of hits, it makes me think I'm doing really bad. Seriously, it takes what…30 seconds to review? I review most stories I read, it makes me wonder why other people don't.

Anyway. Enough of my little rant. REVIEWS PLEASE!