So this idea strolled into my head who-knows-how-long-ago when I missed Travis and Katie, and I finally got a chance to write it down because it's a SNOWDAY and I was allowed to stay home (what a concept, eh?). I hope you liked it- and it contains spoilers for The Lost Hero, but not Son of Neptune. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. But I'm working on it. Really hard.
"Travis, perfect," Chiron said. Chiron was nice, but usually when adults thought seeing him was 'perfect' some bad things were going to happen to him. So it was in suspicious manner that he turned around to look into the kitchen. Chiron was sitting at the table with a girl Travis' age, with thick brown hair and bright green eyes that seemed brighter than anything else. She looked shy and easy to traumatise, her hands tucked under her thighs and leaning onto herself in shyness. Plus she was pretty...
"Why are you holding ham?" Chiron asked the same way he would ask about the weather.
"No reason," Travis said. "I like the smell."
"I'll pretend I believe it," Chiron said. "Regardless, this is Katie Gardner. I have to discipline Connor-" He got caught with the roast beef, Travis thought, "-So would you be kind enough to show her camp?"
"Sure," Travis said. "You know how I love the newbies!"
The girl, Katie, did not look reassured.
"And if you'd be kind enough to leave the ham here…" Chiron said.
Travis froze for a second trying to find an excuse to keep the ham. 'Emotional attachment' would not cut it, so he put it down.
"Thank you. Off you two go, now." Chiron said.
The girl walked up and shouldered Travis. She was wearing jeans that had been torn on her way here, and a t-shirt. She had a heavy farmer's tan on her arms, and a splash of freckles on her nose that Travis could see from close up.
"I'm Travis Stoll, son of Hermes." He said.
"Katie Gardner," she told him.
"Come on," he said. "I'll show you the places you should stay out of for the summer, but you can't tell anybody."
"Umm… I don't know, could you just show me the places I'd need to know?" Katie asked.
"Oh, newbies you're all so naïve… These are the places you need to know. To stay out of. Trust me, we've got big plans for them."
"That doesn't sound so legal," Katie said as Travis held the door for her.
"It is," Travis said, "In Turkey, Puerto Rico, several villages in France, Istanbul, and Ancient Sparta. We checked."
Katie stopped walking which gave Travis a chance to look at her some more. Her face looked worried and shocked. He noticed she smelled like flowers. Like wildflowers; his Mom always had some in the house before he'd gotten to camp. He smelled like ham.
"We're in the United States," Katie said.
"We checked that too," Travis said. "Come on, I'll show you where not to be on July 5th at 3:44 PM."
It was the first day since Camp had ended, and everyone sat in the mess hall, as the echo that came with everybody leaving returned for another year.
Travis' cabin was never empty, because to start, Connor stalked him, and it was also the Hermes cabin, which you could find in the dictionary next to people. But still, the echo made every conversation sound awkward. Usually you couldn't hear yourself thinking during meals.
"You know what," Travis said standing up. Everybody turned to look at him.
"We're acting like someone died. Nobody died. Right? Right! So we should totally do something fun and mindless because summer never ends here!" Travis said.
The people there cheered and for a second it sounded happy and sprung up, and they all headed to the beach, because that was fun and mindless.
Jumping off the dock in a 'who can do the biggest cannonball' contest, trying to drown the sibling who had the better bunk; it was all fun and games for Travis and the rest of Camp Half-Blood.
When Connor's head emerged from the water and Travis determined that drowning him wasn't going to work, he headed out. So was Katie, her arms covered by seaweed.
"Hi, Gardner. Who did that to you? What kind of flowers should I send him?" Travis asked.
Katie shot him a look.
"Sherman from Ares," she said. "I just need to pick them off."
"Here, let me help. Gods- he got you good, didn't he?" Travis said, unwinding it from her brown braids.
"Shut up, Stoll." She said, removing a long strip from the back of her shirt, and picking them off her arms.
Then Travis noticed something. She didn't smell like she'd just got out of a lake; not like lake muck, seaweed, or sushi. She smelled like wildflowers.
Chris winked and everyone at the Hermes table sprung up like the tops of champagne bottles.
"FOODFIGHT!" They all yelled.
And the spaghetti started flying.
The plan was perfect. Light Connor's pants on fire and send him running across camp to distract Chiron; Mr D was never at meals on time during the Winter… The coast was clear! So damn clear!
By the time Chiron came back (according to Chris: 7, 48 minutes later) there was food in every square inch of the place, everyone was either down, getting up, or laughing their butts off, and the food fight ranked on a '7' on the Stoll scale. It would've been a perfect 10 if all of camp would have been there… He'd have to remember that Mexican-Italian Food Night was the best time for a food fight. Maybe write it on a bunk for future generations...
Mr D forcing them into cleaning up wasn't as awesome, but Travis was still giddy and all hyped up about the food fight. Too bad Mr D had deemed cleaning up 'completely in silence'.
"I can't believe you did this," Katie whispered to him.
"I can, it was awesome!" Travis whispered back. "What are you doing here,though? Only cabin 11 and 5 had to stay and clean up."
Katie's cheeks became as red as the tomato sauce on her shoulder. "I couldn't throw you guys under the bus; everyone threw something."
"How very sweet of you." Travis said.
"Yeah well, don't you start taking advantage of the fact that I have a conscience." Katie said, straightening up and walking off to where someone hiding under a table had sculpted with guacamole and spaghetti.
Suddenly Travis realised that it still smelt of tomato sauce, melted cheese, spicy peppers, chicken, beef, noodles and everything else that'd been on the table. But it stopped smelling like wildflowers when Katie walked away.
Katie was curled up with a little girl, about six years old, in the Hotel they'd picked out as Titan War HQ when he got back from Dylan's Candy Bar rai- supply run. She was a demigod that hadn't been affected by Morpheus' spell, and that Katie already knew from babysitting once a week, to give the kid's dad a break. The girl was scared and pale and still. Katie looked tired too, her chinn resting on the little girl's head, her hands brushing blond curls back, and her eyes glassy.
Travis walked up to her.
"Hey, Katie, do you want to, umm, go take a shower, grab a bite or something? I'll watch… Her…" He said gesturing to the little girl.
Katie looked up at him.
"Oh. Okay. How responsible of you," Katie said.
"I have my moments," Travis said, smiling the cocky smile that made her laugh. She didn't laugh. Nobody laughed.
She scooped up the little girl.
"Her name's Maisie Manson, daughter of Demeter, so take care of her. Call her Marigold if she's feeling down, and if she's hungry make sure you give her something without any milk in it because she's lactose intolerant, and I don't have any of her pills." Katie instructed. "She doesn't know about demigods yet, so don't explain too rashly. If she's bored and the ADHD kicks in, she likes colouring; she won't like being inside but do not let her leave this hotel…"
"Katie," Travis interrupted. "Don't worry. I can handle a kid for an hour or so."
"Sorry, I'm just worried. Everyone's going down one way or another…" Travis wanted to hug her, but she'd punch him and he needed his sword arm. Plus she was holding a kid, and she'd called him responsible and nice. This wasn't something Travis wanted to blow up.
She leaned closer and put her in Travis' arms. For a second, the smell of blood and dirt, sweat and city smog, hospital sterilisation Styx and monsters gave place to wildflowers as the little girl passed into his arms.
Party in cabin 12- what- summer event! It was a 14A event. Not because anything traumatising or scarring for young minds happened (usually) but because people thirteen and under were just pains.
A couple of people were taking jello or soda shots, and there was a game of truth or dare in another corner. Mostly people danced.
"Hey," someone told Travis. He spun around and saw Katie.
"Oh hey Gardner. Fancy seeing you here and not with the precious small children of cabin four."
Katie's nose crinkled.
"I'm allowed to have a life other than being a responsible counsellor."
"You say it like I'm not," Travis said. "How hurtful and biased. Who's the mature one now?" He stuck out his tongue. She rolled her eyes but Katie Gardner could not hide her smiles. Some part of Travis thought thank the gods for that.
"You are such a…" She couldn't find the right word, so she let her sentence hang.
"Say it Katie? What am I?"
"The question is, what aren't you?"
"Oh- touché. Touché, touché, touché." Travis said. There were a lot more people than you'd think possible to fit in Cabin 12- but it could hold Camp's whole population when the Dionysus kids decided it was time for a good party.
"Kates!" Someone yelled. She spun around to see Miranda who looked like she needed help really badly.
"Oh- April must've gotten dumped at the party. Oh- curse you Brendon…"
"Son of Ares?" Travis asked.
"Never associate with them. I mean, daughters of Ares too... I knew this was... I'm sorry, I've got to go."
"Sibling romance drama?" Travis asked. "How do you know about all that anyways? Do you know everything about everyone who needs taking care of?"
Katie smiled a bit. "Shoot me now."
"Nah; that would be unfortunate," Travis said. And it'd stop smelling like freaking wildflowers.
"DUCK!" Travis said. Katie looked to her side and immediately threw herself to the ground, hitting it shoulder first to avoid the monsters' nasty dangling claws. Travis slingshot a celestial bronze pebble at the fury. It popped into confetti.
"Travis!" Katie called. Her shoulder was hurt, and she could barely hold onto a tree or anything as she fell down the hillside.
"Katie!" He called rushing towards her. She fell faster than he could run downhill without tripping and falling and making them both useless. There was some kind of brown muck at the bottom.
"No!" She said when she saw what she was falling into. She tried to grab onto a tree, but she was too late, and she was up to her knees in it.
"Aw, gross." Travis said.
"No Travis- not gross! The problem is that this is quicksand!"
"Oh," he said. "Oh gods- you're…" Her arm let her out and she sunk up to her waist.
"Umm… Don't move. Relax." He said.
"I know how to get out of quicksand." Katie said.
"Good, because I have no idea." Travis admitted. Katie shot him a look.
"We'll be staying in the area looking for Percy a while longer, so watch and learn just in case." Katie said. "You need to try and wiggle one leg at a time; it loosens the sand. And then lift up one knee, and use the quicksand as support to rest it there. And then do the same with the other…" Suddenly she screamed and got sucked down some more.
"Oh gosh!" She said. "That- that isn't supposed to- not this deep in! Usually you don't sink past your hips!"
"What do I do?" Travis panicked.
"I don't know," Katie said. "This isn't normal!"
"Give me your arm, I'll pull!"
"No! Never do that!" Katie warned.
"Well then what?" Travis asked. He thought for a second. Katie kept sinking. What was up with that- what was up with that? She said that it wasn't supposed to be much past the hips. That was way past her hips!
Think, he forced himself. Then it clicked.
"Hey, Katie…" He said.
"What?" She asked, trying to keep her arms way above the line.
"You know that tub of air Dad gave me?"
"Travis, this really isn't the moment to figure out how much it'd go for on ebay." Katie said.
"No, I mean… Do you think me could blow the quicksand away from you?" Travis asked.
"I don't know, it'd go all over the place; and this is obviously some kind of enhanced or magical quicksand created by an immor…" Katie just dropped to her shoulders. "Yes. Yes, I think we could do that. Do it now please."
Sure enough, the wind blew into the quicksand, it popped like one of those water balloons with salsa Chris made, and went all over the place- which Travis was excited to see the mist-explenation for.
But Katie was free.
"Oh gosh Travis- thank you!" She said throwing her arms around his neck. Travis grabbed a tree not to stumble back and patted her back reassuringly. Then he realised he was just as reassured when he saw her safe, and his arms tightened. He buried his face in her hair and froze, because something was very wrong.
He just busted her out of her quicksand, they'd been wandering around the woods for two days looking for Percy, the rest of her clothes were tattered and muddy, but guess what she –somehow, for some freakish reason- smelled like?
Jason was talking about Camp Jupiter- which was wow factor considering he was honour-bound to keep its secrets secret. Romans had no sense of fun, humour or adventure. But Jason was explaining to them about New Rome.
He should be listening. Even for the ADHD post child for 5 years straight since the Big House Bathroom B incident, it should be interesting. Or at least some juicy stuff to spread around Camp would pop up eventually.
But he wasn't listening. And do you know why? Because a certain very pretty flower-person-on-legs was being beyond distracting.
He heard Jason say something that sounded military, something Latin, and then all he thought was flowers.
And then he'd remember hugging Katie in the forest with the quicksand. Or when he'd given her the tour of Camp. Or when she'd chased him through Camp with a spear after he'd put Easter bunnies on the roof of her cabin. Or at the party in 12 last summer. And then he thought about Katie. And suddenly Jason's Latin and military stuff went in by one ear and out the other.
He rewired his attention towards Jason, who was now at ease enough with the Greeks to speak smoothly and confidently. But he heard 'Principia is incredibly important since it was in every Roman fort, even the Via Principia is named after it. The praetors consult there and…'
Flowers.
"Damn it Katie why do you have to smell like flowers all the freaking time!" Travis shouted jumping to his feet. Everyone turned around and eyed him oddly. A few people snickered, Butch horse-whistled, Lou Ellen was bitting back a smile...
"I mean… Continue with your flowers- Latin!" Travis said sitting down.
Katie leaned towards him.
"I'm distracting?" She whispered softly. He looked at her and he saw her smiling.
"Damn you." Travis said, shaking his head. "Damn you and your flowers."