After Pop died, the camp became my home.

The soldiers took care of me, made sure I could defend myself. Sometimes, I like to think they saw the war I had seen in my eyes, and that was why they taught me. They knew I had already been to hell and back.

For the next few years of my life, that was all I knew. I had become the mascot of the camp.

They had become more like parents to me than my adoptive parents had been, and I think they knew that too. I had learned to start opening up, to smile more.

After a few years of bonding and trust-building, I had finally started laughing at their jokes and making some of my own. I had become a child again. I had finally let go of my fear that everyone I touched would be hurt by me, and decided to just live.

It was a few years into my time at the camp, the soldiers had sent me into the city to get some things. Mostly cigarettes. They would have asked for alcohol too, I could tell they wanted to, but the prohibition was still in full effect.

I had gotten the cigarettes after a short conversation with the store owner. After years of going somewhere every week, seeing the same person, and being forced to talk during checkout, you at least get to know their name. He had come to realize that; no, I would not be stealing any of the cigarettes for myself, and that yes, the nearby camp had, in fact, sent a child to get their smokes for them.

As I left I had heard noises coming from the alleyway nearby.

When I had turned to see what it was, and I remember this quite clearly, there were two kids standing there, one was about my size and was standing over a small boy who was holding a baseball bat. I would've been afraid for the other boy, but the smaller one didn't have an ounce of muscle on his body.

When he went to swing the bat, he seemed like he could barely lift it.

Me, being the idiot I was, decided to step in.

After a very educational lecture about how bullying was not nice, and just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't still kick your ass to the moon, the bully ran away.

The boy had reacted just as I assumed he would, but not for the reason I assumed he would.

When he told me he didn't need my help, it hadn't been because I was a girl and girls shouldn't fight. It had been because he had it handled, he totally could've beat that guy, and my personal favorite, he was doing just fine in that fight.

That was when I had informed him that, no, he hadn't. In fact, you hadn't even been tied. He would have beat you to a pulp.

That was how we had become great friends.

At some point, I had introduced him to my pseudo-family and he had been a little freaked out by all the giant army guys scowling at him. They had been protective ever since Pop had died.

Not soon after that was when Steve found out my parents weren't in the picture anymore. It seemed to be another thing we had in common. Orphans.

After a few more years we moved into an apartment together. We had both agreed we would never date, and that was the end of the story. Especially since I still could feel the pain of Annabeth's death.

I seems cruel that I would remember her name and feel the pain of her death, but nothing else.

It was all fine until the war.