Notes: This happened to me when I was hanging around the IHP forum, and is a short scene from the romantic-plot-mutated!HoO finale. And yes, I know the last thing the fandom needs is another badfic. It's coming down in a week or two, I promise. :)

And I continue to suck at titles, so snigger as much as you'd like at them.


The Heroes of Olympus Book Five: The Final Prophecy

(actually, no, that's not it)

HoO Book 5: Aphrodites' Symphony


The wind blew back Jasons' hair from his face, reveling his jawline smooth and sculpted and, to Piper, absolutely heartrending. He was alive! Piper gave a little gasp of joy and launched into a run that only ended when he clasped her into his arms. Her voice quavered, and her eyes swirled to kaleidoscope colors to settle into tear-blurred sparkling marbles.

"I," Pipers' voice cracked, her face pressed against his broad chest, "I thought I'd lost you."

Jason spoke, his voice deep, assured and comforting, "You haven't, baby. I'm here now."

Three feet away, Annabeth Chase sighed considered stabbing herself with her knife. What was left of her sanity was pointing out that this was really not the expected reaction to someone tripping over his own gladius. The entire scene was enough to make anyone rethink life, and it did not help that in addition to that, she had to deal with the other thing.

Frank, Hazel and Leo were gathered in a triangle. An isosceles triangle, to be precise. If the line Frank-Hazel was equal to line Leo-Hazel was x, the line Frank-Leo was 1.7x. And from the way they were glaring at each other, even that wasn't enough.

"I knew," Leo was saying, "From the moment I met you, Hazel. You were like the first girl I've really, actually liked."

"HA!" said Frank.

"Oh shut up, baby-face man!"

"Make me. Pyromaniac."

"Oooh. Tough guy."

"This is stupid," Frank glared at Leo, and turned to Hazel, "Please, Hazel. You- you know me. Please say something."

Hazel looked miserable and shook her head. Her hands were bunched into fists, and she looked upset, nervous and well...more upset.

"I'm so sorry," Hazel held on only for one more moment before breaking down into tears, "I don't know who to pick! I'm such a horrible person!"

Any passerby watching the triangle would have been surprised at the speed at which distances x changed into distances 4x (and increasing). Annabeth, however, was completely expecting it when the flying horse landed and attempted to kill the boys. Things like that had been happening a lot in her life lately.

The worst part? That wasn't even the worst of it. Even combined with the last one, it wasn't the worst of it.

Percy stared sappily at her and looked up from the sonnet he'd composed in her honor. She felt that familiar stirring in her which urged her to rush into his arms and start whispering sweet nothings into his ear. It was getting harder to ignore by the moment. It was harder to remember that giants were taking over the world as they knew it.

She didn't know who'd come up with this line of attack, but Hades, they were good. Why oh why couldn't people on her side be half as sneaky?

Percy smiled a Colgate smile at her and said, "Hey, wanna go make some babies?"

Annabeth sighed. This was going to be a long Apocalypse.


Sometime later, Gaia appeared in a cloud of dust, all prepared with her evil laugh.

"Insignificant mortals! You shall-"

"Hey. Hey, you. Go away, okay, evil babysitter? We're in the middle of something that actually matters here. Shoo."


End Notes: Heh, yeah. You can go ahead and scream at me now. XD