Prophesied Powder, PJO

3.2

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Chapter 23
Operation Save Annabeth

Volume 3: The Titan's Curse

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A day into Pallas' trip to Washington, Warren had an early morning meeting with someone at some museum. When he returned, the group had breakfast and took a tour around the United States Capitol building. Their guide and Warren continuously bombarded Pallas with fun facts about practically everything, while Pat locked arms with him and sipped down another iced coffee.

"Did you know—" Warren would start, and Pallas would try to appear as interested as possible. Each time, Pallas reminded Warren that no, he did not know, and Warren only got more excited to explain everything.

Pat could not live off coffee forever, and eventually, he got hungry. There was a burger restaurant on a busy road close to the Smithsonian, and as Warren, Pallas, and Pat ate their food, Warren continued to tell the boys about his field of interest.

"I think I'd like to be like my dad," Pat told Pallas when Warren went to the bathroom. He was flattening his burger with his hand, crushing the bread down, but he was not looking at it. "Like, a teacher or something. My school keeps trying to get us to think about colleges or jobs or shit like that," Pat's brows were furrowed underneath his glasses, "It's weird."

Pallas tried to picture Pat as a teacher. He could not see Pat surrounded by eight-year-olds in a brightly colored classroom, but maybe in an old university like Warren. Pallas hummed and shrugged, "You could do it. History?"

"Maybe," Pat said, "I don't know. School's just hard. Wish I didn't go like you."

They finished their meal and started back down the busy sidewalks of D.C., Pat latched on to Pallas' arm and dragging him ahead. It was freezing, Pat continuously complained, though it was not as if Pallas felt it at all. Warren made sure to stay ahead of them to keep Pat from getting swept into the crowd.

"So—" Pat was in the middle of explaining the tale of Athena creating the olive tree to his father. Warren seemed genuinely interested—history nerds, Pallas supposed—but Pallas knew most Greek stories, so he was half-listening and half-looking around at his surrounding. He wished he had been listening more, because he could have braced himself when Pat was rammed into at full speed.

Pallas, Pat, and whoever hit Pat all fell on the hard concrete. People on the sidewalk thankfully moved out of the way—Pallas was hardly in the mood to be stepped on.

Warren was on the ground in an instant, grabbing Pat's walking stick and one of his arms, "Shit—I mean, crap," He looked visibly stressed.

"What the fuck, man?!" Pat did not correct himself like his father, kicking his legs to free them from being trapped beneath Pallas and the other person.

Pallas turned, and his eyes went wide.

"Pat..." He started.

Percy was staring at him with equally wide eyes; he seemed as shocked to see the pair of boys as Pallas was to see him. Percy had knocked into Pat hard enough for his hat to fall off—Annabeth's Yankees hat. He grabbed it quickly.