Disclaimer: If you know the character from the books, then I don't own him/her. (example: Percy, Nico, Annabeth, etc)

But if you don't know the character, I own him/her. (example: Taralynn)

Anyhow, enjoy! ;)

Being a child of Hermes after the war isn't the easiest thing in the world. Almost nobody at camp will trust you. Only a select few, Chiron, Percy, Annabeth, and maybe Nico, depending on if he's in a good mood, and some others will trust you. It's been what, a year since Luke's final stand on Olympus? I envy my younger brothers and sisters that have come here since then. They don't have to live with the scars that Luke left behind. We all trusted him. We all loved him. He was the older brother that you just can't stay mad at, no matter how many times he tosses you into the lake while you're asleep. Luke and I were rather close, like one of those overly protective older brother who trying to keep his wild child little sister in line type relationships. Percy and Annabeth both say that Luke sacrificed himself to kill Kronos. That's cool and all, but it still makes me mad that he let all of that happen. Maybe it's better that Luke killed himself, cause Zues knows that if I got a hold of him after all of that, he'd wish that Kronos had vaporized him. I try not to stay in the cabin and mope about it, but sometimes, the depression feeling is over bearing. This was one of those moments. I was sitting on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Travis came in a used my bunk as an armrest.

"Hey, kid," he said, mimicking Luke, "Whatcha doing in here being all depressing? That's Nico's job," he told me. I rolled over to face him, my brown hair falling in my eyes. I had very short hair, because of a certain brother and a pack of gum. My blue eyes looked into his.

"What else is there to do? It's way too hot outside," I complained. He patted my head.

"Thank you for that acute observation, oh master of the obvious," he told me. I smiled at him. He looked me over. "No wonder you're sweltering, you're in jeans!" he shouted. I shrugged.

"I like jeans," I told him. He mussed my hair.

"Kid, you're too stubborn for your own good," he said, "C'mon, change into some shorts, get your lucky socks on, we're going to go and attempt to beat Percy with swords," he told me.

"Attempt? Trav, are you loosing confidence?" I asked him, giving him my best surprised look. He rolled his eyes and left me alone to change. I slid into shorts and put my lucky mismatched socks on. My socks were the camp's comic relief. I had dozens of odd socks that I "find" in the camp's laundry. And I never where the same two twice. If I where the one that I stole from Clarrise and the one I stole from Annabeth, I will never wear those two together ever again. Today, I had a penguin sock and a sock with hippocampi. I went outside, the sunshine burning into my arms and legs. I squinted, trying to get a good look at the camp. The Aphrodites were all out in chairs, tanning. The Apollo kids were sprawled out, feverishly writing into journals. Percy and Annabeth were playing volleyball against some of Nike's children. It was a lost cause in most people's opinions, but Annabeth was telling Percy what to do, and he was athletically performing everything almost perfectly. The way his muscles rippled through his sweat soaked shirt made nearly every girl's heart skip about a dozen beats. Travis came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder.

"C'mon, quit drooling, you know he's taken," he teased. I reached up and slapped him. He recoiled and walked with me up to Percy and Annabeth who, despite Annabeth's expert strategic efforts, were loosing, by a lot. "Percy, Annabeth, I leave you two alone for ten minutes to get my baby sister and you attempt to beat Jordyn?" Travis asked, "I thought that we were going to go and beat the tar out of eachother with swords, but obviously we aren't," he said, putting emphasis on obviously. He turned to me, "C'mon, sister dear, I will escort you back to the cabin, where we can both sulk because Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase ditched us to play an impossible game of volleyball with the children of victory," he said dramatically. Annabeth started laughing and Percy wiped the sweat off his forehead. The Nike siblings were laughing and told them to go ahead, playing against them was a lost cause. Annabeth took Percy's hand and drug him toward the arena. I couldn't help but feel jealous, but in my defense, nearly ever girl in camp wanted him. I knew I was staring and Travis smacked my head, bringing me out of my Percy induced trance. "You're fourteen, he's sixteen. He has a girlfriend, you have many secret admirers, GET OVER IT!" he told me.

"Y'know, Luke was a whole lot better with the over protective brotherly advice, you make me want to punch you," I told him. He smiled and we followed Percy and Annabeth. We put our armor on, which in this heat was like a suicide attempt. We both walked out and paired off, me with Annabeth and Travis with Percy. Annabeth looked at me and drew her knife. I drew my sword and we sidestepped until I finally made the first move. I swung my sword toward her head, she dodged and jabbed her knife toward my stomach. I side stepped and she was caught off balance, stumbling and hitting the ground. Percy and Travis looked over. Percy stopped fighting to help her up.

"You okay?" he asked, "It's not like you to loose your balance," he told her. She nodded, looking embarassed. She got back on her feet and squared off with me again. Again, I swung and nearly took her head off. Her eyes looked distant and I could tell that she wasn't really paying attention to what she was doing. Percy seemed to be watching her more than Travis, because Travis was landing some hard hits on Percy. He didn't have to worry, being immortal and all. I stopped swinging my sword and Annabeth didn't even notice. She continued staring off into space, occassionally jabbing her knife toward me.

"Annabeth, hey! Camp to Annabeth! Come in, Annabeth!" I shouted at her. She seemed to come out of her trance and looked at me.

"Huh? What?" she asked.

"You are spacing out," I told her.

"Oh, I just have a lot on my mind," she said.

"What could possibly be consuming your mind?" I asked her.

"All the building and plans and stuff that I'm doing, I should really be working on that," she said, taking her armor off, "See you all later," she told them, walking out of the arena. Percy and Travis stopped fighting. Percy said good-bye to Travis and me and took off after her. Travis looked at me and I shrugged.

"You ever get the feeling they're hiding something from us?" I asked.

"All the time, kid, all the time," Travis replied. Connor came in and looked at us.

"Tara, Trav, get yourselves cleaned up, dinnertime," he told us. We took our armor off and went back to the cabin and put some non-sweat soaked clothing on. The rest of the kids in our cabin were sitting on their beds, fanning themselves with books and papers. Connor and Travis led us out toward the mess hall, me walking directly behind them. We sat down and listened to Mr. D ramble on about camp events. We then got our plates and took them to the fire. We scraped part of our food in, sending our offerings to our Olympian parent. We all sat down, talking and laughing with eachother. In my opinion, the Hermes table is the best place to be. Seriously, we all have the best sense of humor. Travis and Connor sat at the head of the table, telling joke after joke, making the entire table, and surrounding areas, burst out in laughter. We played Texas Hold 'Em, using our deserts as chips. I won with a Royal Straight. And I lucked out, it was Saturday, and the harpies gave us all the extra desserts so they could clean the fridge out. I had more ice cream sandwiches than skin cells and don't get me started on the amount of lollipops that were now in my possesion. Travis and Connor were giving me their best puppy dog looks, silently begging for some sugar. Soon, we got up and started heading toward the ampitheater. Some of the Aphrodite boys were looking at me. Connor and Travis shot them looks and continued walking on either side of me. We got there and sat down. Will, head of the cabin, announced that tonight we wouldn't be out there long, maybe half an hour, if we were lucky. They sang our usual camp songs along with a Beatles song or two. We were dismissed and I started walking back to the cabin, when Travis and Connor came up and took my arms.

"Hey, kid," Travis said, "Have we got a surprise for you,"

"We want you to go to the cabin and put your bathing suit on," Connor told me.

"And meet us back on the dock," Travis finished, disappearing into the cabin. I followed, utterly bewildered, but I did as I was told and put my bathing suit on. I tossed a tshirt on and walked out to the dock. They were waiting there with a blindfold. "C'mere, kid, we can't let you know where we're going," they told me. I let them blindfold me, and they led me toward the beach. About a quarter mile away, I could hear music and singing. They took off my blindfold and I saw every camper who was over the age of fourteen singing and dancing on the beach. The Apollo kids had set up a stereo system which was blasting music at them. Aphrodite's children were taking turns dancing with everyone. Everyone was having a good time. I looked at Travis and Connor.

"How? The harpies!" I shouted. They laughed.

"Tara, Tara, Tara, Chiron grants us one beach party a year, and that is today, calm down, as long as we're back by three in the morning, the harpies won't eat us," they told me. Sam from Athena's cabin, who also was Connor's girlfriend, came up and put her arm around his shoulder.

"Hey, babe, why don't you come dance with me?" she asked. Connor said good bye to us and went off with Sam. Travis' girlfriend, Becky from Apollo's cabin, came up and offered to take him swimming. He took off his shirt and left it with me. I rolled my eyes and ditched his shirt and took mine off. I walked toward the food table and got something to drink. The kitchen's mystical magical drink cups were there, so I got mine and it filled with grape soda. I took a sip and stood there, not really sure what to do. I saw very few lonely souls, but one caught my eye, Nico Di Angelo. He smiled and waved for me to come over. I wove my way through the dancing couples and went to stand by him.

"Hey," he said. I said Hey back. "Whatcha doing?" he asked.

"Standing here with you," I replied. He rolled his eyes, but continued to stare at me. "What are you looking at?" I asked, blushing.

"It's just that, you in a swim suit, and," he rambled on, "You look like, wow."

"You expected me to show up in jeans and a tshirt, didn't you?" I asked.

"Everyone did," Nico replied, laughing. "Hottest freaking day of the year and you go outside in jeans, are you that challenged?" he asked. I smacked his head.

"Haha, very funny," I told him.

"I remember when you had long hair, prettiest brown hair I had ever seen," he complimented, before looking embarassed, "But your short hair is cool too," he stammered. I smacked him again before looking him over. He had on swim trunks and a black tshirt. His black hair was nearly touching his chin but with a jerk of his neck, I could see his eyes, which were just as brown as the richest chocolate. I had never realized it, but Nico might actually be hotter than Percy. Maybe it was the fact that Percy was older that made the girls swoon. Or maybe it was the fact that Percy had saved us from certain doom. Not that I care, but Nico was a definent possibility. He looked into my blue eyes and I felt myself melting into his gorgeous brown eyes. "Do, do you want to go sit by the water?" he asked. I nodded. He walked beside me, occasionally stopping to make sure that no one was watching. After the third stop I turned to him.

"Why do you keep seeing if anyone is watching us?" I asked him. He looked at me and shrugged.

"Most kids don't like being around me, I wanted to make sure that nobody would make fun of you for being near me," he explained. I raised an eyebrow.

"You're afraid of what Connor and Travis would do to you if they caught you with me," I said. He smiled and even when he was nervous, that smile could have melted anybody's cold heart. He nodded. "Don't worry, I think they'd rather have me with you than one of Aphrodite's boys," I told him. He shrugged. Finally we reached the shore and we sat down. The tides just barely reached our toes, tickling them. I started to involuntarily laugh. Nico looked at me, a bewildered smile on his face.

"What's so funny? Are you ticklish?" he asked.

"Very," I replied.

"So if I do this," he said, jabbing a finger into my side. I squeaked and tried to get away. He laughed, poking my neck. I squeaked again. He laughed harder, "You're just like my sister, except her ears were ticklish," he told me, tickling my ear. I spazzed and fell over. "Wow, I thought only my sister could have ticklish ears," he said.

"Yeah, I get that from my mom, nearly anything touching her made her laugh," I said.

"Wow, just, wow," he replied, "Did your mom look anything like you?" he asked.

"I get my dad's eyebrows and smile, but I have my mom's brown hair," I told him, "Some people say that I get my curly hair from her too, or it was curly when I was little, now it's straight-ish," I finished.

"Is she still alive?" he asked.

"Kind of, she's paralyzed from her shoulders down, I go see her for Chirstmas and about one week during the summer, she was in a car crash about a year before Luke left, that's when I started staying all year," I explained, "She lives with my grandpa, and he doesn't realy like me,"

"What's not to like?" Nico asked. I laughed.

"He doesn't like me because my mom had me when she was fifteen. I'm the reason that a business deal fell through. She was supposed to marry a man whose father ran a business that was going to merge with my grandpa's, but when mom found out she was pregnant, the deal was called off, grandpa swears that he would have made millions because of that deal," I told him.

"Marriage to seal a deal, isn't that sort of," Nico started.

"Medievel? Ancient?" I suggested, "Yeah, but they were all old fashioned, except for mom, she didn't want anything to do with him, thats why she took the chance with Hermes. He was the most handsome man she had ever laid her eyes on, and when you're a teenager, you do some pretty crazy things to get out of doing something," I told him, "He came back about a year later, and told her about camp, and she sent me here the summer before the accident."

"My mom died back in the forties," Nico told me.

"And your dad locked you up in a casino until he needed you," I continued. He nodded.

"Yep and, as usual, I failed him," he said, a half smile on his face.

"Must suck, your dad being Lord Hades himself," I commented. He shrugged.

"It has some perks," he said, "I can say, 'I see dead people,' and be telling the truth." I laughed and the water lapped at our feet again. I wrapped my arms around my knees and watched the moon sit lazily on the horizon, some stars were just peaking out. "Y'know, I'd like to meet your mom someday," he told me. I looked at him.

"Why?" I asked. He shrugged.

"She seems pretty cool, plus, it seems that your grandpa might need some zombies," he told me.

"I doubt he would be able to see them," I replied.

"Don't make it worse for yourself," I told him. He laughed and put an arm around my waist, pressing me against him. "Your brothers have a reason to be overprotective," he said, "You in a tank top is enough to drive us all mad, let alone a bikini,"

"I know, I know, I'm gorgeous, try to contain yourself," I replied. He laughed with me. It had to be nearing midnight or even one in the morning. We decided to go back up to the party, see if the Apollo kids would take requests. But by the time we got up and started walking, we heard a small cry. We looked around and saw a little baby, who couldn't have been much older than a year or two. Nico and I walked toward him and we knelt down beside him. He blearily picked up his head and looked at us with big brown eyes. He had fuzzy black hair and tinged skin that looked similar to Nico's. He was laying down in the sand, and obviously had crawled there before falling over.

"How did he get here? This is still within the boundries," Nico said.

"Does it matter? Somebody is probably looking for him," I replied, picking him up. Nico helped me up and we started walking up the beach, seeing if we could find his parents. About a mile away, and well outside of the boundaries, Nico held his head.

"I don't think anyone is looking for him anymore," he said. I looked at him.

"You, you don't mean?" I asked. He looked at me and nodded. "Poor kid," I said, hugging him. The baby's eyes watered and he cried silently. "He got across the boarder once, do you think that means," I started.

"That he's a demigod, wouldn't surprise me," Nico replied and we turned around to start walking back to the camp, when a giant scorpion burst out of the trees. I reached for a sword, but I realized that I was only in a swimsuit. Nico reached for his knife, but he didn't have it either. We looked at eachother, both silently asking eachother what we were supposed to do. Pure instinct kicked in and we ran. The baby started bawling. He grabbed my hand. "Hold on," he shouted. We veered left and I knew that he was going to try to shadow travel with us. The shadows came and engulfed us. We stopped running, but the traveling was enough to tire us. We were dumped out on the front steps of the Big House. We were both breathing deepily and we looked at eachother and started laughing. The baby was sniffling and we opened the door to the Big House. Mr. D and Chiron were playing Pinocle with eachother. They looked up at the intrusion.

"Well, well, well, two teenagers in swim suits and an infant, I think this party was wilder than we expected," Mr. D said in a bored tone, turning back to his cards. Chiron seemed a tad more concerned.

"What exactly were you two doing?" he asked. Nico explained everything. "So, you found the infant and walked outside the boundaries, without weapons, and were attacked, shadow traveled here and here we are?" Chiron asked. I nodded. "Has he been claimed?" he asked. I shrugged.

"Probably, we just don't know about it," Nico replied. Chiron nodded.

"Why don't you two take him to the Hermes cabin, just for tonight, until we figure out who his parent is," Chiron told me. Mr. D nodded, not really paying attention. Nico and I walked out and toward my cabin.

"So, what are we supposed to call him?" I asked Nico. He looked at me, confusion seeping into his expression.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"We don't know his name and we aren't just calling him, The Baby, what do you want to name him, temporarily," I said.

"Uh, how about, um," he replied.

"Jason?" I offered. He shook his head.

"You act as if you have a better idea, what do you suggest?" I asked.

"Taralynn, I don't think that we should rename him, considering he's probably going to be claimed sometime tomorrow," he said. I shrugged.

"Okay, if you insist, but I'm still calling him Jason until he's claimed," I replied.

"Stubborn much?" he asked, smiling. I nodded and Jason fell asleep in my arms. We finally got to my cabin. "I guess this is good bye," Nico said.

"Hang on, I'll just go put him in my bunk and be back out," I said. He shook his head.

"Tara, it's almost two thirty, there's no point," Nico insisted. I bit my lip. "Go on, I'll see you in the morning," he promised.

"Fine," I said and gave him a one arm hug. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders. "Good night," I said.

"Good night Tara, Jason," he said. He let us go and walked off. I went inside and walked to my bunk. I set Jason on it and changed into my regular clothes. A few of my younger sisters lifted their heads up and looked at me with glassy and foggy eyes.

"Taralynn, what are you doing up?" Amy asked.

"I woke up, it's okay, go back to sleep," I told her. She laid her head back down and closed her eyes. Jason slept through it all. I looked at my clock, which read 2:45. I still had enough time. I had to at least go and make sure Connor and Travis found their shirts. I went outside and ran toward the beach. Connor and Travis met me at about the halfway point.

"Taralynn, where had you been?" Travis shouted, using my full name.

"You ditched us and didn't tell us where you left our shirts!" Connor shouted.

"Yeah, Nico and I," I started.

"Nico? Nico Di Angelo? What were you doing with him!" they both shouted and before they gave me a chance to explain, they started dragging me toward the cabin, rambling on about how I could choose a much better guy from a cabin like Nike or Demeter, anybody but a son of Hades. They continued rambling, cutting me off every time I tried to speak. They shoved me through the door and took me straight to my bunk. "Now you get in your bunk and AHH! SLEEPING INFANT!" they shouted. Jason woke up and started crying.

"Smooth move, guys," I said, glaring at them, and then I picked Jason up. I started rocking him.

"Where," Travis started shouting. I glared at him again, "Where did you get him, I thought we told you that we draw the line at stealing babies," he whispered loudly.

"I didn't steal him, if you had let me explain, Nico and I were hanging out by the shore when we heard him, so we took him and went to look for his parents, but Nico sensed that someone nearby died, so we took him back here, and were attacked by a giant scorpion, and we were unarmed so Nico shadow traveled us to the Big House, and Chiron suggested that we keep Jason," I said, but Travis cut me off, again.

"Jason? You named him?" he asked.

"Temporarily!" I said back, and continued my story, "Chiron suggested that we keep Jason in our cabin until we figure out who his parent is, and here we are," I finished. They both looked at me, their expressions unreadable. "What?" I asked. Mischevious smiles cracked their faces.

"So, you're like Jason's mom, does that make Nico his dad?" Connor asked.

"Oh my Gods," I said. Travis pointed and nudged Connor's ribs.

"She's not denying it," he said.

"Tara and Nico, aww," Connor said and then his eyes got wide, "Hey, y'know how when two people are together, they smash their names together," he said.

"Like Bragelina?" Travis asked. Connor nodded.

"Y'know what Tara and Nico's name would be?" Connor asked, "TACO!" he shouted. Travis started laughing. I rolled my eyes.

"Go to bed, dorks," I told them, setting Jason back on my bunk.

"Okay, good night, kid," they both said, giving me a hug. I climbed up in my bunk with Jason and fell asleep.

Thank you for reading! :D *gives you a cookie*

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