Lifting the Veneer
Travis and Connor Stoll are very fortunate that Brianna sleepwalks, because it is at three in the morning when Katie runs after her half-sister when she notices the chocolate Easter bunnies smiling at her from the grass rooftop of their cabin and thank the gods they haven't melted yet, as that is the only thing that keeps Katie from murdering them on sight.
When she storms into their cabin, Travis and Connor double over laughing at the expression of pure, murderous rage on her face. Travis is still laughing when he asks, "Is there a problem, Gardner?"
"I can't believe you put chocolate bunnies on our roof!" She exclaims, fists balled up in anger.
"Now, calm down." Travis says lazily, unwrapping another chocolate bunny.
"You'll wake the children." Connor adds sarcastically, as if all the Hermes kids are all angels.
Katie flares. "Don't tell me to calm down!" She shoves Travis in the chest hard, causing him to stagger back into Connor.
They're still laughing as they untangle their gangly limbs, and she knows they're just doing it to annoy her, but it works. Her anger explodes inside her, and before she knows it, thick vines wrangle Travis and Connor, and send them sailing out the window. Still, they look unfazed when she emerges from the cabin, and more than ever, she would like to break their cool.
Travis nonchalantly brushes himself off, and says condescendingly, "Look, Gardner, you are clearly not in a right state of mind to handle things rationally."
Katie marches up to him and stands on her toes, trying to get up in his face. "Exactly what are you trying to say?" She demands.
Travis looks like he's trying not to laugh. "Uh, first of all, standing really close to me does not make you any less short—"
"I am not short!" (He is just freakishly tall, that's all.)
He smirks, "And, you're going to wake up camp with the sound of your screaming."
"You wouldn't want to get in trouble, would you?" Connor says with sarcastic sweetness.
Katie glares at him. "Oh don't you worry about me." She says darkly, and before they can say anything, she grabs their wrists and drags them along the dirt path towards her cabin.
"Ooh, scary." Connor says sarcastically, yanking his arm free. He stops abruptly when he nearly faceplants into an eight foot tall vine of poison ivy. The plant shakes its leaves and inches towards his face threateningly. "Okay!" Connor steps back. "I get it, Gardner, you're mad."
"I'm not mad, Stoll." Katie says sarcastically. "I'm livid." She stops them in front of her cabin. "You're going to pick up every single chocolate bunny off the roof."
"But that would be such a tragic waste of chocolate bunnies." Travis sighs dramatically.
Katie shrugs. "Give it to the Apollo cabin for target practice."
"You have a sick sense of humor." Connor says, and he has the audacity to look miffed. "Lee loves bunnies."
Katie points to the roof. "Take. Them. Down. Now." Each word sounds more threatening than the last, but to her utter frustration they both look at her like she's gone insane.
"We can't." Travis says brightly.
"Why?!" Katie demands.
He gives her a patronizing look, "In all your brilliance, Gardner, you didn't bring the ladder."
Katie raises her eyebrows and steps back. "Not good enough, Stoll." She flicks her arms forward and tree roots erupt from the ground, violently throwing the two onto the roof. When she lowers her arms the roots fall back into the earth.
"This is not cool." Travis mutters, and for the first time his veneer of calm arrogance is lifted.
Katie smiles. "Now, if I find a single chocolate bunny on that rooftop in the morning I will personally track you down, strangle you with briars, pour saltwater on you, and repeat until either I get bored or you cry."
They both stare at her like she's Happy Bunny turned serial killer.
Katie doubles over with laughter.
Picking Battles
Something inside Katie twinges painfully as she turns back to look one last time at the strawberry fields which she has helped cultivate over so many of her summers. She suddenly feels a rush of emotion she is unprepared for, and her regret weighs the heaviest—regret for every moment that she did not appreciate that Camp meant home and family.
An impatient voice snaps, "Come on, Gardner, we have a war to fight."
Travis Stoll grabs her wrist and pulls her onto the truck. Katie turns for one last, last look as the back door rolls down and the truck hurtles onto the road at speeds that vehicles carrying fourteen people should certainly not be allowed to.
Katie feels so overwhelmed she does not even yell at him for pulling her. She crosses her arms and quietly sits down on the metal floor of the truck, not looking at anyone. The other occupants of the truck include Katie's seven half-brothers and sisters, the Stolls, and five of their remaining siblings. (It would perhaps be fairer to say actual siblings, since most that deserted seem to bear no resemblance to the Hermes clan whatsoever, but Katie lacks the inclination to spare the Stolls any fairness.)
Besides, the Terrible Two are busy planning a looting expedition with their siblings, and it's enough to wipe clean any guilt she might feel about her judgments. She wishes they were with the other Hermes kids on the truck with the Hephaestus kids.
"Serendipity in New York City!" Someone pipes up. "Is that close to Manhattan?"
A burly kid, Parker Crowell—who really belongs more to Ares than Hermes— rolls his eyes. "Manhattan's in New York City."
"I can't believe we almost overlooked that!" There's some scribbling, and Katie sees that they have a map of New York the size of a full size bed spread across the truck floor. "I'm sure the mortals won't mind if we grab some dessert on our way to battle…"
Katie frowns at their flawed logic.
"They're freaking mortals, what are they going to do about it?" Parker scoffs.
The Stolls both glare at him—at least they have the decency to be polite to the victims of their thievery—but don't say anything. Parker doesn't say anything else either, but that's not quite good enough for Katie. Her eyes are steely. She is disgusted by what they're saying, and she knows that she's probably overreacting because she's stressed and terrified (neither of which she will admit) and she should really be doing meditative yoga instead, but she gets up anyways.
Katie marches right up to Parker, shoving the Stolls aside, and puts her hands on her hips. "So naturally that gives you the right to disrespect their property and victimize them, right?" Her voice is scathingly sarcastic.
Parker eyes her up and down, and smirks. "Yeah." He shrugs, as if it's no big deal. "Got a problem with that?"
Katie fixes him with a murderous glare. "I absolutely have a problem with you acting like a barbaric villain no better than the ones we're about to fight so I suggest—"
In her rampant anger Katie doesn't notice that Parker is standing now, until he backs her against the wall of the truck. He is not much taller than Katie, actually, but he acts as if he towers over her. "Hey, just relax." He says patronizingly.
Just as fast, Travis is standing next to her. "Parker, back off."
Katie snaps, "I don't need your help, Stoll. You're not any better than him. We're fighting a war and you're making plans to steal. We haven't even made it onto the freaking battlefield and you already plan to pilfer it!"
He rolls his eyes. "Save it, Gardner. Maybe later you can lecture some dracenae to death. As I recall, it's the only way you can take down anyone."
"And you think you're better, Stoll?" She puts spiteful emphasis on his name, "You'd probably have to steal some courage before pulling yourself onto the battlefield."
"What would you know about courage, Gardner?" He scoffs. "You've never been on the front line of any battles and you haven't fought for anything in your fucking privileged life."
Katie glares at him. "You don't know anything about my life, so don't make assumptions."
He glares back. "And you don't know anything about mine, so don't make judgments."
There is a long moment of silence. It stretches on as the truck hurtles down the road.
Such Pride
To his credit, Will did try not to laugh, but clearly not very hard, for at the moment he and Lee are both laughing. "What happened?" He asks, looking very much amused.
"The Stolls." Katie says venomously.
"Mm, gotta hand it to them. How'd they do it?" Lee asks, examining the dock at the edge of the canoe lake, where a corner is frozen stiff as an iceberg, with Katie smack in the center.
Katie purses her lips. "One of the naiads did it for a kiss. She just pushed me into the water and made it freeze." Granted, it was specified that if Katie started turning blue, the naiad should let her go, but Katie is not in a forgiving mood. Especially not after hearing the naiad go off and on about how cute Travis Stoll is. (This naiad clearly has too many bubbles in her brain because as far as Katie is concerned, he is no prize. Now, Lee on the other hand…)
Will shakes his head. "He should know better. Naiads are stalkers."
Lee snickers. "This kid would know. He was dumb enough to compliment one and she followed him around for days."
"I didn't know!" Will protests.
Lee gives Katie a look and she laughs, because she's thinking the same thing. He looks around and calls out, "Yo, Percy!"
Katie figures she's lucky that Percy's already outside and that he's nice, but then she sees that he's talking to the Stolls. They grin at her as they walk over with Percy and she thinks she might just die of embarrassment—here she is, stuck in this stupid iceberg right where they want her to be, and her legs are so numb she'll probably fall on her face when she gets out.
"Hey. What's up?" Percy only notices when the Stolls start cracking up. "Woah, Katie!" He looks surprised for a moment, then laughs. "How?"
Katie crosses her arms, except she can't because she's frozen in an iceberg. "Ask them." She glares murderously in their direction.
They stop laughing for just long enough to acknowledge her. "Okay, in my defense," Connor starts, "Travis kissed the naiad."
"Well in my defense, she thinks I'm Connor."
"WHAT?!"
Travis laughs. "And I also told her that if you started exhibiting signs of hypothermia she should let you go. But I guess you're not blue enough."
Katie is seething with anger. "I am FREEZING. Get. Me. Out."
Percy stops laughing, "Dude, Travis, that is not cool. Hypothermia kills."
"Aw, but Gardner's so hot-headed that it wouldn't be for a while." Travis smirks at her.
"TRAVIS FREAKING STOLL! I am going to murder you the second I get out of this stupid ice!" Katie fumes.
For the millionth time that day she feels her face burn with such intense hatred for him that she's certain her anger should have blasted the whole canoe lake into a desiccated crater, but apparently things don't work that way. She fixes her livid stare at Percy, and luckily he doesn't know her well enough to disregard it.
He stares hard at the ice for a moment, then the ice cracks open and melts around her. Katie's legs are too numb to tread water and she almost sinks underwater completely, but she grabs onto the edge of the dock.
"Need a hand?" Travis extends his hand.
Katie knows she should just take it because at this point her pride is as cracked and melted as the ice, and besides, he's never going to let this go anyways. But his eyes smirk and she cannot help but loathe the fact that she needs him. Katie swallows hard. "Yeah."
She grasps his hand, but holds onto the edge of the dock with her free hand and yanks Travis' arm down as hard as she can. He falls in and pulls her down into the water with him, but when she resurfaces she's laughing.
(Travis doesn't do much laughing for the next week and a half, though, because the naiad attaches herself to him like a lovesick puppy—which doesn't go well with his girlfriend—and doesn't leave until Clarisse pulverizes him during Capture the Flag, which completely freaks her out.)
General Ineloquence
Katie's knees tremble as she leaves Mount Olympus, but she marches her siblings to the elevator and sends them down with Percy and Annabeth in the first group. She stays behind, and notices that all the counselors have sent the younger kids down first, presumably so they can stress about the situation together without worrying anyone. There's a lot of nervous shuffling and nail-biting.
Michael clears his throat. "I just want to say that—" He stops abruptly when Silena begins crying silently. "That I, uh, would really hate to lose anyone." His voice fades towards the end, and he looks embarrassed. For a son of the god of poetry Michael is horribly ineloquent, but Katie understands and gives him a small smile that she hopes conveys what she wants to say.
The regret weighs heavier and now seeps into her lungs, making it hard to breathe. She's known every single person standing here for half her life, and there is no telling whether any of them will make it out whole.
Travis is standing on her left, looking at Silena with dark eyes. She shoves her pride aside and, even though he's standing right next to her, inches closer to Travis. "I'm sorry, for what I said earlier." She whispers softly, a bit self conscious of breaking the terrible silence in the air.
She's not sure if he heard.
The light above the elevator turns green and Silena chokes down another sob. "Wait!" She flings herself forward and looks at all of them in turn. "I'm sorry." She says, her voice broken, and beautiful eyes still streaming tears. "I just… I love you guys, I really do, and I… I'm so sorry that..." Silena's voice breaks off.
Katie is surprised when Travis reaches out to put his arm around her and Silena throws her arms around him in a tight embrace. She grabs Michael by the arm and draws him in; he pulls Will in, who takes Katie, and suddenly they are all wrapped up in a group hug and everything feels so surreal as Katie's tears fall onto Travis' sleeve.
Breaking Point
Katie is already having a divinely terrible day when she opens her dresser drawer and lets out a horrible scream.
A large black and red tarantula is sitting on top of a pile of sports bras. Screaming, Katie stumbles back across the floor and hits her head hard on the ladder of her bunk bed. Blinking stars from her eyes and still screaming, she runs out the door and slams her cabin door shut. "Ohmygods, oh mygods…" She whimpers, crying against the wooden door.
"It's fake, Gardner." Travis and Connor lean against the side of the cabin, Travis tossing and catching the plastic creature in his hand.
Katie's hand grasps uselessly at the door as her body goes slack and she falls to her knees. "Why would you do that?" She whispers, her shoulders shaking.
"Uh…" Travis stares at her, completely taken aback. "We didn't think… I mean it wasn't supposed to—"
"What did you expect?!" Katie shrieks at him. "You put it there to scare me! Are you happy now?!" She puts her face in her hands.
"It's just a spider." Connor says defensively. "It wasn't even real. What's the big deal?"
Katie glares at him, her face tear-streaked and her eyes red. "I'm terrified of spiders, okay? Do you find that funny?"
"We didn't know." Travis says hastily. "Look, Gardner, we wouldn't have if we knew."
"I don't want to hear it, Stoll. Just go."
So he does just that. (It doesn't make her feel any better.)
Fought Bravely
The Plaza Hotel is too lovely of a place for such a depressing scene.
Curled up in a large chair twelve-year-old Brad is about to cry himself to sleep because his twin sister Brianna is dead. Riley is lying on the bed, Austin trying everything he can to take away her pain for the next few minutes before she dies too. Austin should really be using his energy on those who can be helped, but Katie begs him in tears. Somewhere out on the battlefield, Eric's body is buried beneath a collapsed nine story building that wiped out a column of enemy demigods.
Somehow they are supposed to keep it together and do it all again tomorrow.
Katie allows herself eight minutes to collapse against the wall in the corner and cry. She wants nothing more than to melt into the carpet and disappear, cease to face the tragedies of war, but her siblings are in various states of injury and grief, and she is their leader, so she stands up, and with great effort, begins to put everything in order. She goes around the room again to make sure everyone's injuries are taken care of, tries to muster some encouraging words, and manages not to cry as she gives everyone hugs.
She grabs the largest pad of hotel stationary and tears off a few pages, writes down the names of all seven of her siblings that came, plus her name, and then their state of health. She cannot bear to write down dead, so she writes fought bravely for Eric, Riley, and Brianna. Then, she adds on the names of all the other campers that came, under the heading of their cabin, and is about to tell Miranda to run it to all the counselors then give it to Percy as a head count, when there is a knock and Will and Travis come in.
They both look terrible. Will looks feverish and pale, his features scrunched into a pained expression. Travis has such an uncharacteristically stoic coldness to his features that he looks like a statue.
"We're out of ambrosia and nectar, but Travis got medical supplies. Does anyone need help?" Will asks.
"Medically, no." Katie manages to say.
"How are you holding up?" Will looks concerned, and Katie she feels horrible for making him worry about her when he looks worse.
"I'd say barely, but that would be so unfair to the others." Katie tastes something salty in her mouth and realizes she is about to cry again. She takes him outside into the hall, Travis following, and tells Miranda to get her if anything goes wrong; she can't let the others see her break down, but Will always understands her. Katie hands him the list.
"What is that?" Travis asks.
"Brad and Eric are… gone. And Riley won't make it." Katie folds her arms and looks down. The lovely pattern on the carpet is blurred from her tears.
Will pulls her into his arms and she holds onto him tightly. He lays his forehead on the top of her head and she knows he's crying too. "Michael's missing. Cameron, Annie, Finn, Rachel… I don't even know… I just can't believe Michael's gone."
"Oh gods, no…" Hearing this makes Katie's head spin so fast that her head starts to hurt. She's known Michael since she came to camp.
"That puts me in charge." Will sounds absolutely terrified; it's bad enough for Katie, being held responsible for life and death, having to be stronger than the others, but it's far worse—she can only imagine—inheriting this position in the middle of all this war and tragedy. "I don't even know how… just… this is a huge mess."
Katie almost laughs dryly, humorlessly, but it turns into a choked sob. "Yeah, a fucking mess." Katie never curses, but it's only another sign that they are completely falling apart. She presses her face into Will's shoulder and they stand there in the middle of the hallway holding onto each other and trying to hold it together.
It is several long moments later when she hears the sound of pen scratching against paper that Katie realizes Travis is completing the list for his cabin. Katie opens her eyes and watches as he pushes the papers to the side and sits on the floor with his head in his hands, his body trembling.
Katie looks at the list.
Hermes
Travis Stoll: ok
Connor Stoll: ok
Dane Oliver: critical
Courtney Small: fought bravely
Sarah Lawson: critical
Blake Cordell: fought bravely
Parker Crowell: ok
Stephanie Watts: ok
Tanner Schafer: fought bravely
Jessica Park: ok
Maya Roane: fought bravely
Levi Schulze: fought bravely
"Oh gods." Katie finds herself on her knees next to Travis, staring at the paper in between them. "I am so sorry." She has never felt like such a selfish and terrible person before in her life, because no matter what Travis has done to her he does not deserve this, to sit alone with this grief—his two best friends are dead and in critical condition—while Katie and Will ignore him to comfort each other. She puts her hand on his arm and squeezes it lightly. He grimaces.
Will breathes in sharply. "Travis, what is that?"
"Nothing." He says dully.
Katie looks down and sees that there is blood on her hand. She starts to yank off his shirt and sees that Travis' shoulder and upper right arm are haphazardly bandaged with a scarf. "What are you—" Travis pulls back and his shirt, which she realizes is already slashed in the back, tears in half. Katie pulls the tattered shirt off entirely. The scarf, once light blue silk, looks exactly like the one Silena wore earlier, but is now completely stained dark red. "It's nothing!" He protests as Katie unties the scarf and tosses it to the side.
The sight of his wound makes Katie physically hurt. Four parallel marks—like from a claw—extend from the back of his shoulder, over the tip of his collarbone, to his upper arm, an inch deep in most places. His arm is bleeding and bone shows through in his shoulder.
"Travis!" Will rummages through the bag of supplies that was tossed on the floor. "This is not nothing! You should have told someone!"
"It's nothing compared to what other people—"
Will interrupts, "I can't believe you didn't tell me about this when I had you steal medical supplies! Can you roll your shoulder?"
"Yeah, it was fine when I fought that emp—"
"You kept fighting with that?" Katie says in a shaky voice; she and Will both look at him appalled.
"I'm fine!" Travis rolls his shoulder just as Will asked, to prove it, and Katie lets out a strangled scream when she sees the open movement of bloodied bone and muscle where there should be skin.
"Scale of one to ten, how badly did that hurt?"
Travis rolls his eyes. "Really?"
"It is standard medical procedure to ask the patient to quantify his pain in order to determine—"
Katie cuts him off. "Stoll!"
"Okay! Uh, three."
"Liar." Will stares at Travis like he's crazy. "Your clavicle is fractured, your deltoid and trapezius are pierced, and there's claw marks on your—"
"Yeah, I don't know what that means, I'm fi—" Travis suddenly grits his teeth and swears as Will pours the alcohol onto his wound.
"I can see your freaking bones! You are not fine!" Katie says shrilly; her stomach shriveling at the thought of pouring alcohol onto a wound like that. "You should have said something when we still had ambrosia—what if your arm gets infected?!"
"What do you care, Gardner?" He snaps.
Katie all but shrieks, "Are there not enough people dead or dying for you to do the smart thing for once?"
She is sorry the minute the she hears what she says.
The words dead and dying hit her like a pile of bricks falling into her chest and before she even remembers that he is the one who has lost the most so far, she feels her throat burn at the thought of Brianna and Riley and Eric. Her head is spinning and her heart feels like it's smashing to bits inside her chest and she wishes for that desperate embrace that was not two minutes ago.
Gods, what is wrong with me?
She shakes swirls of blood from her vision and apologizes before she can come back to her senses and realize that is the third time not only today, but ever, she has said the words I'm sorry to him.
Thirteen Now
Katie stalks across the pavilion, dripping from head to toe in purple paint, cursing Travis and Connor. "Ugh! Those self-centered, jelly-brained, ego-maniacal—"
"Katie?" Silena laughs lightly, as she runs up to her. "What happened?"
"Travis and Connor." Katie grumbles, pushing paint-soaked hair out of her face. Purple paint streaks her face. "Once I wash this off, I'm going to kill them. I swear, this time I'm not even kidding, I'm going to strangle them with ivy in their sleep."
Silena takes her hand and leads her out the pavilion. "Trust me, you're not the only one who's ever wanted to throttle them. They used to terrorize me."
"They're perfectly nice to you now!"
"It takes time with them." Silena says. "Gods, I was like thirteen, too, right when I was most insecure and I had this volatile temper and they just loved to set me off. There was one time I was trying to impress Lee—yeah, I had this huge crush on him; he was already cute then—and I hadn't realized that they put capsaicin in the lip gloss I was wearing and my lips swelled up. It was horrible, I cried all day and wouldn't look at anyone for weeks."
"That's terrible!" Katie can't imagine Travis and Connor doing that to Silena now. They prank the Aphrodite cabin all the time, but are nice enough to Silena personally, and always back her up in arguments and fights.
"They didn't know I was allergic." Silena shrugs and swings open the door to the bathroom. "At the time I thought I'd never get over it, but you know, I was thirteen then—you're thirteen now, so you get it, everything just kinda sucks. But you know, things are never as bad as they seem. My lips went back to normal size and I even went out with Lee for a while. I couldn't really keep up with him, though, he's the kind of guy who always has to be busy." She smiles, like it's a fond memory.
Katie crosses her arms and stalks into the bathroom.
"You want to know what really made me change my mind about them?" Silena asks, taking a wet paper towel and wiping the purple paint off Katie's face.
"What?" Katie mumbles, squeezing the paint out of her hair, into the sink.
Silena tosses the paper towel in the trash and grips the edge of the porcelain sink. "You know Mark, from Ares?" Katie makes a face. He's an eighteen-year-old guy, a few hundred pounds of muscle, who laughs at broken limbs. "He hit me once."
"What?"
"I was fourteen, and we got into an argument because he made fun of one of my brothers for being gay. I told him that he wasn't much of a man himself if he gathered his courage by belittling others. He said I had a lot of nerve telling him about courage, and then he hit me so hard he knocked me over. Travis and Connor saw and they got really mad. They actually stood up to him and told him that wasn't cool." Silena looks at Katie. "Mark was sixteen, and Travis was only twelve. I think Connor was eleven, and Mark was as big as he is now—his arm was thicker than Connor's whole body."
Katie crosses her arms and walks over to the shower, turns on the water.
Silena sighs. "Travis and Connor are like my little brothers. They annoy me, and they do stupid things, but they're harmless, and they do the right thing when it matters. You'll see - I'm sure."
Katie pretends not to hear that over the roar of the water.
Across Fine Lines
Katie wakes up at 6 am with a horrible headache from crying, but she can't go back to sleep.
When she looks at herself in the bathroom mirror she is horrified. Her hair is a ratty mess, her eyes red and swollen, and her eyes are wild. Most everyone looks about the same, but Katie hops into the shower anyways, and turns the water to ice cold. The water numbs her body and runs so cold that her skin starts to turn red and hurt, which is perfect, because she won't feel any tears on her face if she cries.
She scrubs her clothes with soap, washes them out in the shower, and uses a few hairdryers to dry them off. She is numb, scrubbed pink, and slightly damp when she checks in with Percy in the penthouse suite down the hall.
He thanks her for managing to be level-headed and organized enough to come up with the list. Katie glances at the completed list, which stretches from front to back on three pages, and is relieved to see that there were no casualties for the Hephaestus and Athena cabins, but when she turns to the last page she sees that four from Aphrodite and more from Apollo are dead.
"I hate this list." Katie murmurs, the paper slipping from her numb fingers onto the floor.
Katie does not stay to hear Percy's thoughts on that; she's sure he calculated the number of people that have died too.
As she heads towards the elevator, thinking she should go to the restaurant on the first floor, and that everyone else is probably still sleeping, she is still too distracted by the list to notice the Stolls leaving the neighboring suite and promptly crashes into Travis. Her forehead hits his shoulder and she blinks stars for a moment.
Connor raises an eyebrow at her, but doesn't say anything. Travis grimaces slightly and Katie wonders if she looks that bad, before she realizes she just ran into his injured shoulder.
"How's your shoulder?" She asks. She probably should have just apologized, but that makes the score Travis: 4, Katie: 0, for the number of times they made the other look stupid in the last eighteen hours.
Connor frowns. "Did something happen to your shoulder?"
"No, I'm fine." Travis says, ignoring the looks he gets from Katie and Connor.
Then he does something that, for a second, makes her forget everything she ever knew about him. He gives her a small, sad smile. She almost misses it too (Connor sure does), because it's gone in the blink of an eye. But she knows it was there because it is just the we are going to be okay sign that they need.
He's halfway down the hall before Katie realizes she'd held her breath. He's heading towards the elevator, wearing faded jeans and a red t-shirt. In her mind, he's still too tall and too thin, but she concedes that his shoulders are broader, and there is a tenseness to his body that only comes from taut musculature.
Connor's voice disrupts her, "What happened?"
"Hm?" Katie turns to look at Connor, for once without anger; he's looking at her strangely, though not because she isn't angry.
"Did something happen?" Neither of them address that the mere fact they are having a conversation without yelling is proof that the world is crumbling.
"He's fine." Katie says. Because she thinks she knows why he lied.
Irrevocably
As a personal rule, Katie dislikes gossip, but the Aphrodite girls do it for sport. If it were up to her, she would be back in her cabin cranking up the air conditioning, or hanging out with Will, but Miranda jumps right into the lake, leaving her shoes and clothes in a pile at Katie's feet.
"Oh this feels so good." Miranda sighs contentedly and lets her body float in the cool water. "What are you waiting for, Katie?"
"We were just discussing people that need to get together, like, now." Ellie says. "Like, Stacy, you and Lee Fletcher."
The brunette sighs. "I wish. But he has that mortal girlfriend." She makes a face. "Just because she can sing and runs track for Stanford and analyzes esoteric poetry and made an Olympic trial cut for archery doesn't quite put her on the same plane as us." She moves to flip her hair, then apparently realizes its clipped up so that she doesn't get it wet.
"Jonathan Gold and K—"
"Don't even think about it!" Drew interrupts. "I've got my sights set on Jonathan." She smiles as if she's already got him. "That boy is perfect. I mean did you see him the other day, playing basketball with his shirt off? I swear if he asked me to die, I'd just stop breathing altogether and curl up at his feet."
Katie makes a mental note of telling Jonathan to ask Drew if she could do just that.
"Ooohkay." Miranda says slowly, sharing a look with Katie.
Silena laughs, as if Drew is just being cute. "What about Ken Morgan and Karen Fitzpatrick?"
"Don't they hate each other?" Katie asked.
"Yes, but it's a hatred with potential."
Katie looks at her blankly. "For what?"
"Love." Stacy says matter-of-factly.
"Oh, love-hate relationships are so cute!" Silena smiles and sighs.
Katie rolls her eyes. "They don't work. That's implied in the hate part. As in, you love to hate them."
Silena shakes her head. "It's more like you hate to love them. Hate-love relationships don't just happen. It takes a very specific kind of hate, a set in very particular circumstances, with very specific characteristics of both people, and a long time, usually. I mean usually you start out sort of interested in each other, then for whatever unforgiveable reason you turn to complete contempt, and for as long as you remember you just hate each other, then as you're both growing and changing you start to catch yourself actually liking or respecting something about him and you hate him more for that, and that's when you fall into denial and the two of you become irrevocably connected."
Katie stares at Silena. "That's crazy." Everything she says seems to make logical sense, but at the same time she doesn't understand it at all.
Silena looks at her curiously and Katie can tell that in her mind she's sifting through Katie's relationship with everyone and trying to pinpoint one specific person. "You know what usually happens when you deny these things?"
"You get over it." Katie says bluntly.
"No," Silena says gently. "You end up with a lot of relationships that end up failing because everyone else starts to see what you can't."
She leaves it at that, but Katie feels like Silena's plucked something out of her mind, analyzed it, and then decided not to tell Katie what she's made of it. Katie tries to brush that thought out of her mind, but she can't help but think that Silena is much smarter than she lets others think she is.
Believe Again
Katie wishes she had worked out more back at camp, because by the fourth dracanae, she's winded.
All around them, the sound of fighting rages on. The entire block where the Empire State Building is located has become a battlefront, and defending even half of one face is proving to be more than they can handle. The army of dracanae arrived so suddenly Katie barely had time to throw everyone into a triangular formation before everything became a whir of claws, blades, and vines.
Katie can't process what's really going on, because even with ADHD she's pretty focused on the melee of spears and scaly limbs flying at her. No matter where she turns or how many dracanae she manages to vaporize, another one seems to always step into place, and Katie's sure they can't keep this up, but she can't afford to split her concentration to come up with a plan.
One of the spears grazes her face, and nearly loses her balance trying to avoid getting her eye poked out. The dracaena smiles horribly. This one is much larger than the others, and she figures its their leader. "Foolish girl."
Katie doesn't reply as she stabs the dracaena next to it and ducks to avoid being speared in the chest.
"Kronosssss will win." The dracaena hisses.
Katie cringes at the words, but she can't reach this one with the other four in the way and she doesn't have the energy to say anything, so she vaporizes the two on its left.
The dracaena makes a horrible hissing sound that might be laughter. "Kronosssss will pave the path to Mount Othrysssss with demigod bonessss."
The thought of that puts a chill in Katie's spine, and knows that if she lets this dracaena keep talking she's going to get shaken up and start making mistakes. Katie thrusts her arm forward and suddenly vines erupt through the cracks in the concrete and latch onto the dracanae. She concentrates her energy and wills the vines to tighten. Within a few seconds, the five dracanae have turned to dust. Almost immediately, she is surrounded by another five, and she wishes she hadn't wasted so much energy summoning the vines. It's a good thing the dracanae aren't very good fighters, because there are so many.
Just when Katie gets down to the last three, one of her sisters cries out, and she loses her concentration. A spear rips open her calf. She manages to stab the dracaena that did it, but she crumbles to the ground anyways, her leg searing in pain. A heavy net falls over her. The two dracanae hiss triumphantly and circle her, with spears angled.
Katie tries to muster the energy to summon vines or thorns or something, but she doesn't have it, and tangled up in the net, she can't move fast enough to use her knife.
"We will feassst on demigodsss tonight." One of the dracanae says, with a terrible reptilian smile.
Katie tries to throw off the net. Both dracanae laugh, and the horrible, sibilant sound seems to crawl along the inside of her skull.
Then, it suddenly stops.
The dracanae are frozen still, looks of triumph suspended in their features. Katie stares with disbelief as the wind slowly erodes them into dust. She turns around when she hears the confused voices of her siblings and sees that all of the dracanae have evaporated. Her brothers and sisters are all banged up and bruised, a few of them have nasty gashes, but they are very much alive, and Katie is so relieved and gratified to see this that it snaps her back to her senses.
She cuts the net off and presses her cardigan against her leg until it stops bleeding. She stands up cautiously. There is a strange pressure in the air; she's strongly suspicious that this is just the calm before the storm, and any minute something is horrible is going to appear on the street before them.
"What just happened?" Miranda asks, her hand clutching her dagger so tightly her fingers are white.
"I don't know." Katie limps over to where her siblings are. "Everyone okay?"
"You're not." Miranda frowns at the gash on her leg.
Katie waves it off. "I'm fine."
Miranda starts to say something, but her eyes suddenly brighten. "Ohmygods!" The words rush out in an excited jumble and her face suddenly lights up. She squeezes Katie's arm so tightly it turns numb.
"What?" Katie turns around as a dark blue BMW convertible races right onto the sidewalk, almost running over Brad, and screeches to a halt. Along one side of the car #WIN is spray-painted on in neon green. Music is blasting so loudly the whole car vibrates.
"Dude, I told you that I should've driven." Travis says to his brother, getting out of the car.
Connor scoffs and turns off the engine. "No way, I found it!"
"Hold on a sec. How could you spray paint a BMW?!" Brad exclaims, as if this is the most pressing matter at hand.
Travis grins, "Because we freaking won!"
It takes a long moment for that to sink in, as Katie's head rushes with thoughts, questions, emotions, all spinning in her head so fast that her whole body tingles. Then, all of a sudden, everything is brighter and she is lighter—she could fly, she could cry because that is how happy she is, and she does both; she doesn't even think about it, she jumps and flings her arms around the nearest person, her eyes misty, and screams gleefully at the same time as the others.
"Ohmygods, I can't believe it!" Katie doesn't really let go of Travis, but her arms slide down from around his neck so that instead of half choking him she's squeezing his hands. She doesn't even care that it's Travis Stoll, just cares that everyone's going to be okay because there is something to hold onto, something to believe in again.
So Definitively
Katie sits at the corner of the Hermes table and stares at her cereal, watching it turn soggy in the milk.
"Hey, it's Gardner, right?"
She looks up as two identical looking boys sit down next to and across from her with plates stacked full with food. She wonders dimly how that much food will fit down their skinny frames. "Sorry, I don't remember your—"
"Stoll." The one across from her says. "I'm Connor, that's Travis."
As far as she can see, she'll never be able to tell them apart. "You're twins?"
"Nope. But I think we're genetically identical." Travis says, as if that makes sense. Then again, nothing's really making sense when yesterday your dad takes you on a flight across the country to some mysterious camp on which your flight attendant turns into a serpentine monster. "Kinda cool, huh?"
"I guess." Katie rolls a strawberry across her plate with her fork.
"So you don't look like an Hermes kid." Connor says, tilting his head and looking at her. "And you don't have Athena's eyes. Or Hephaestus' hands."
"You're definitely not Ares." Travis continues. Katie sighs and stabs the strawberry; she doesn't need anyone telling her she doesn't quite belong here. Travis bumps her shoulder playfully. "That's a compliment, by the way."
Wary as she is, Katie smiles. Travis grins at her, and it's the first casually friendly gesture she's gotten since she got here. She decides to ask him the question that's been bothering her since she got here. "What if I don't belong with anyone?" She asks quietly.
Travis looks at her earnestly for a moment, as if trying to see through her. His eyes capture hers, and she feels her heart drop to her stomach, because they are a startling dark blue. She studies him methodically, trying not to let him see how nervous that made her. He looks about the same age as her, about eleven. His face is thin, and he has a strong set jaw, which doesn't seem to belong with his playful smile and glimmering eyes.
Travis leans forward and he touches the dangly earrings she's wearing—silver roses with dangling leaves. "You definitely belong here." He says with a smile.
Katie can't quite tear her gaze away from him. Something about him is very captivating; he's deeper than he seems. "How do you know?" She touches her earrings, wondering what they say about her exactly, and why it so definitively means something to Travis.
A voice startles her from her thoughts. Luke, standing by her at the end of the table with a wary smile, "Guys, give it back to her."
Connor looks offended. "You think we'd steal from the new girl? Come on, Luke, we're better than that." He and Travis smile innocently at Luke, who raises an eyebrow skeptically.
Katie checks her pockets, but doesn't seem to be missing anything. "I don't think anything's missing."
But a few days later, when she moves into the Demeter cabin, she realizes she's lost the contents of her wallet.
State of Change
The last day of summer is always a flurry of last minute packing, story re-telling, and avidly avoided goodbyes. This summer is no different; right after breakfast the year's bead is presented, there's some sniffles and cheering, then everyone rushes back to their cabins to throw everything into bursting suitcases, and flings themselves onto Half-Blood Hill before the harpies swoop in.
"I'm going to miss you guys so much!" Katie holds her arms out and gathers the Demeter cabin in a group hug.
They stumble through their goodbyes, promising to write and to visit each other, then are picked up by their parents, or board the van with Argus. Katie smiles to herself, and shielding her eyes against the sun, looks over to where the Hermes cabin is saying their goodbyes. Parker, having gotten a pink streak in his hair courtesy of Connor, is trying to beat him up, but Connor is too fast for him and Parker runs into a tree trying to get a hold of him. Travis is saying goodbye to Clara.
She stays where she is, not wanting to intrude on their personal goodbyes. Squinting into the sunlight, she sees Clara smacking his arm and laughing as she chastises him for something he said. He catches her hand and puts it over his heart, pretending at being upset, but he's grinning and she just laughs even more.
Katie smiles to herself. Travis and Clara are interesting. Some summers they're intense, but most of the time they're barely more than friends. They seem to spend all their energy on monster fighting and war preparations and having a good time, rather than on cultivating a lasting romance. Katie wonders, now that the war is over, if things will change. It seems unlikely anything will ever be the same.
Behind her, a car honks at them, and she figures its Clara's family.
Clara puts her arms around his neck and he wraps his arms around her waist, then leans forward slowly until Clara pulls herself toward him and kisses him. It's short, but they smile brilliantly at each other and then she runs down the hill, her long blond hair flying, to where her family is loading her luggage into their car. She doesn't look back, and he doesn't watch.
Katie jogs up the hill in their direction, and calls out, "Stoll!"
They turn around. "Aren't you leaving, Gardner?" Connor asks.
"I don't start school for another few weeks, so I thought I'd stick around and help out with rebuilding Camp and stuff." Katie stops when she catches up to them and takes a deep breath. "I think I should apologize to you guys."
"Uh, really? That's a first." Connor says.
"Actually, it would be the fourth." Travis corrects with a smile. "But I think we're past counting apologies, Gardner."
"Can we also be past calling each other by our last names?" Katie smiles back. "It's kind of annoying when you're both Stoll."
Connor raises an eyebrow at Katie and Travis. "Am I missing something?"
"Things are changing." Katie says, "We can be better than this."
Connor shrugs. "Sure." He starts to walk back to Camp, and when Travis and Katie don't follow, turns to give them both a smirk that seems to say he knows what they think he doesn't.
Katie shakes he head. "You better not be thinking what he's implying."
Travis gives her a look of mock innocence, his eyes sparkling sarcastically, "I don't know what you're talking about, Kates."
"Kates?"
"That's what I used to call my cousin." He grins. "She hated it."
Katie makes a face. "My step-brother calls me that." She tries to think of a stupid nickname for him, but nothing plays off Travis except for trouble and she knows he'd like that too much.
"You don't like it, Katie Kate?" He smiles teasingly, like he already knows she hates that name.
Katie rolls her eyes. "I haven't been called that since I was five."
Travis gives her a wry look and she thinks for a second he's going to make that name stick. "Belles?"
Katie tilts her head and gives him a look like she's considering it—she does kind of like it… just a bit—but for all she knows he called his ex-girlfriend that. She scuffs the toe of her Converse in the dirt. "Is it short for something?"
"Katie-belle."
"Is that Katie B-E-L-L or B-E-L-L-E?" Thank the gods those are two easy words to spell.
"Does it matter?"
"Yes." Quite a bit, actually.
"Why?" He playfully shoves her shoulder.
"Because." She shoves right back. "You know what belle means, right?"
"You mean besides the ringing Christmas decorations?" He grins when Katie smacks his arm. "Doesn't it mean pretty in Italian?"
"French."
"Okay." Travis smirks. "So?"
Katie feels her face burn. "Well, um… it's just—I mean…" Her face is turning redder by the moment. She scuffs her toe into the dirt and doesn't look at him. "If it means pretty…"
Travis raises an eyebrow. His eyes are smirking and she can tell from the look on his face that she's going to be stuck as Katie-belle from now on. Though, to be honest, she doesn't mind.
"You know what?" Katie smiles at Travis. "I like it."
I hope you all enjoyed that :) I really should be resuscitating my abandoned stories, but after I read Mark of Athena (a little late, yes) I just got back into my PJO craze.
Please review and let me know what you think! I'm considering leaving this as a prequel to a full length Tratie story set during the summer of Mark of Athena. I'm also thinking of doing a story about all the tragic and hilarious events that Travis and Connor experience before coming to camp (which will actually explain where Travis gets the name Katie-belle (see, in my mind, I've got most of the characters' whole life stories planned out)).
Anyways, like it/love it/hate it, tell me :)
Some retrospective comments/rambles: I read Trials of Apollo which has zero mention of Katie and Travis' name printed like twice, and of course the one thing I picked up from it is that Travis left for college and there must be something great I can write about his last summer (aka, last chance for Tratie) and it made me nostalgic for the whole series. Was also disappointed to find that the name Alice had been used, because Clara was originally Alice, and I had an entire character thought up for her that somehow doesn't fit any other name quite as well. If new Alice had been in literally any other cabin except Hermes, I might have let it slide, but I don't want any confusion over this girlfriend having the same name as his sister. Also, Alice was supposed to be in the Apollo cabin, but then I realized that wouldn't work because I wanted her to be the same age as Travis, who is at least two years older than Will, but that would make Alice senior counselor and displace Will Solace, who is just too important to be re-written.
Moving on from my rant, I am currently drafting a story on Travis' last summer at CHB, featuring themes of moving forward, letting go, keeping hope, accepting loss, and finding courage, starring (more grown up versions of) Travis and Katie, with, of course, Miranda and Connor, and throwing in Clara and Will. It's presently titled "All We Know" but very highly subject to change.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this story, and anything you'd like to see moving forward.