AN: Here's the beginning of part 3. I won't have as much time to write now that school's starting again. I'm taking classes outside of the US so my schedule is a lot different too. It's all going to be very hectic. Another thing. There is a lot of Big Three cousin fluff in this chapter. More than usual.

Chapter 1: Where Life Led

The next morning Percy, Magnus and Carter were woken up by Sadie pounding on their door. Percy groaned and flipped over. Annabeth had kept him up later studying. Magnus sat up with his long hair in a long tangled mess looking around surprised. Carter got up when he heard his sister's voice.

"Let me in! I need some new clothes, these khakis were so uncomfortable to sleep in. And I'm assuming you want something else to wear today too."

Carter sighed and open the door only to have Sadie barge in and shove some clothes into his hands. She looked him up and down then at the closet. "I'm really hoping you have something better for me for today."

Carter looked down at the clothes in his own hands with the bright colors, rips, buttons and punk logos. He opened his closet and gave her some of his own clothes. This time much the same as before.

"No!" Sadie yelled.

Percy sat up. "Okay, I guess I'm not getting anymore sleep."

Sadie turned red looking at the shirtless boy with his messy hair. She stuttered for a few seconds as she tried to apologize. Carter laughed as Percy looked extremely uncomfortable and Magnus rolled his eyes. "Is it at least breakfast soon?"

"I think Jaz and Piper already went. I saw your friends, Sam and Alex leave their room too."

"So if you could leave our room that would be great," Carter said in an annoyed voice. "We need to get dressed."

"Fine," Sadie said leaving and slamming the door. Percy considered walking out and asking her to wait so he could come with her to get Annabeth but then he had a different idea.

"Hey Magnus," he called as he reached for some clothes.

Magnus looked over from where his hair was now brushed and his mouth was full of toothbrush and toothpaste. "Yeah?"

"Do me a favor and tell Annabeth that I'm gonna be a bit late to breakfast? I have to talk to some people quickly."

Magnus looked confused but nodded. Then all three boys finished getting ready for the day and left the room together. It would have been the picture of three awesome boys, chilling and laughing together. Except the fact Magnus and Percy were laughing at Carter in Sadie's one-direction shirt, ripped jeans, combat boots and accessories.

They stopped in the main room where Magnus and Carter left to walk with Grover, Jason and Frank who Percy promised to chill with later. He continued to open the black door to see Walt in a black muscle tee wrapping a new toilet paper turban around his head. He turned and saw Percy. "This is cruel man. Anubis isn't liking it at all. He's only amused because Sadie is."

"I can imagine," Percy nodded. "I can tell you that I didn't come up with it though. So hopefully I won't be the subject of a revenge plot."

Walt chuckled. "No, you're cool man."

That's when the door opened again and Nico walked in. He looked at Walt with his eyebrows raised and frowned. "I still don't think that's funny."

"I just told Percy that."

Nico turned noticing Percy for the first time then. He gave his older cousin a questioning glance. Then he looked at Walt. "You two doing something?"

"No," Percy said quickly. "I was looking for you. We kind of need to talk."

Nico paled a little more than usual. He sat on his bed and pulled his aviator jacket on closer twisting his skull ring. He looked at a figurine on his nightstand then at Percy and nodded. "We do."

Walt looked between them. "Well, I'm done here. Um… I'll see you two later."

He headed out the door leaving Percy and Nico alone. Percy took a seat where Walt had just been on the bed and looked at Nico across from him then the figurine on the nightstand. "How do I even say this? Dam, this is hard."

"It's okay Percy," Nico said. "I get it."

Percy laughed with tears in his eyes and no mirth in the sound. He looked at Nico with some strange emotion in his eyes. "Oh gods Nico. You've changed a lot."

Nico looked at Percy and twisted his ring again. Then he looked up dropping his walls and barriers letting the corner of his mouth twist. "I guess I have."

"I don't know if I could have handled it like you did. You, Thalia and Hazel all had it much harder than Jason and I. We were the lucky ones. We had people who took care of us, trained us, protected us and everything. I at least had a little of a childhood."

"I wouldn't say that."

Percy and Nico turned to see two people standing by the door. Thalia had spoken and Annabeth was right next to her looking between Percy and Nico with concern. They both walked in, Annabeth sitting next to Percy and Thalia plopping herself next to Nico.

"Magnus told me you weren't coming and we noticed Nico was missing too. Jason and Reyna were about to start a manhunt before Hazel reminded them you could take care of yourself. We told them we'd find you and Percy," Annabeth said looking between them.

Percy sighed. "Yeah. I was going to talk to Thalia next. I think this certain quest might be the hardest for all three of us. Even more than the Titan war at points."

"You're right," Thalia agreed. "Which is why you shouldn't have said that thing about not having it as hard as us."

Percy made a protesting noise but was quieted quickly by Annabeth's stormy glare. She got up seeing he wouldn't argue and looked between the three cousins. "I'll leave you to talk now. But no fighting. Grover's already told me I'm going to have to be careful about that today."

Percy and Thalia exchanged glances then looked at Annabeth together. "Sorry!"

Annabeth waved her hand and walked out leaving them alone. Percy looked at the two cousins across from him. "So…"

"So?" Thalia repeated.

"Fine," Percy slumped. "This quest isn't going to be fun. I lost ninety five percent of my control when Annabeth fell. She's what grounds me and my emotions are going to be insane this whole time on this quest. Lots of things are revealed about you Thalia, you'll have to realize you're seeing Luke and Artemis and Zoe sometimes hurt."

"And Nico, gods…. Everyone is going to see what you were like before. What happened to Bianca. All of it. They're going to see what happened between you and me. And I'm just sorry I did nothing. That I didn't understand. That I didn't help. That I wasn't there."

"Don't apologize," Nico said. "I needed to go through that. At least part of that. Yes, I'd like Bianca to still be here. But everything else brought me here. I'm with Will now. And I'll say it. I'm happy."

Percy's grin was one of the widest Nico had ever seen. "Good. You deserve it. More than anyone. Thalia, are you going to be fine?"

"Sure. By now half the people now about my fear of heights. They definitely know about my mom from Jason. The other stuff I've already dealt with. I'm moving on from it. It's you and Nico who are going to be getting the pity parties."

Both boys pulled disgusted faces. Nico looked at Percy who looked at him. "Thalia distracts them and you shadow travel us out of there?"

"As long as you get me some McDonalds when we get back to the real world from wherever we are," Nico agreed. "And we let Will know."

"Annabeth too. Or she'll kill us."

"Death by Annabeth isn't the way I want to leave this world," Nico agreed.

"Look at you two," Thalia cooed jokingly. "My little cute cousins all grown up with their blonde dates and planning escapes. Aww!"

"Technically we're both older than you now," Percy pointed out. "Especially Grandpa Corpse breath over there."

Nico blushed grumbling, "Shut up."

Thalia cackled. "No! He's right. You're like in you're 80s or 90s now!"

"And you're supposed to be like 23," Nico pointed out. "Your younger brother is almost two years older than you now and I'm your age."

Thalia glared at him and Nico glared back. Percy fell back laughing. "I'm the only one who's his actual age here."

"You were at the Lotus Hotel too," Nico reminded him. "So, no. You're not."

"For a week at most," Percy whined. "And if you had aged normally we probably never would have met."

"That is weird," Thalia agreed. "Annabeth would probably say something about an alternate universe existing where that happened."

"And one where he was in the Lotus Hotel but you never became a tree," Percy nodded.

"I'd have been with you at camp then," Thalia said slowly with a snicker.

"You're getting way too into this," Nico rolled his eyes.

"Because it's fun!" Percy prodded him. "C'mon. Imagine if my mom had actually dropped me off at Camp when I was five instead of marrying Gabe. I'd have been like the Jason of Camp Half Blood."

"You'd have been there even before Annabeth then," Thalia said. "If I was there and not a tree we could have grown up together."

"If you were a tree," Percy continued for her. "Annabeth and I probably would have driven everyone at Camp insane with fighting for a good nine or so years of fighting before we realized we liked each other."

Thalia laughed and Nico smirked before sighing. "Fine. I'll join it. In some universe there's a world where Thalia ran away with Jason instead of him going with Hera."

"Sounds like a good world," Thalia told him.

"I'm not done. In that world they ran away and ran into Luke, just like here after two or so years. Jason and Thalia were already training together and escaping monsters. Luke helped them fight more. Which is how they found Annabeth. So Jason and Annabeth grow up like this cute, blonde pair of serious, intimidating siblings."

"Then you meet up with Grover again when Thalia is twelve and he leads you into Manhattan where again Annabeth runs into Percy while getting ice cream. But Jason is with her and so Grover sees all three of them and you ask Sally to take Percy along."

"That actually sounds awesome," Percy grinned. "I knew you still had some of that ten year old imagination left."

"Still not finished," Nico protested ignoring the last comment. "So then because you have three kids of the big three and two other demigods more monsters come. You fight them off better because you have Percy and Jason who are powerful little kids but Thalia still makes her stand at Half Blood Hill."

"Nico," Thalia complained. "I thought this was a happy story."

"It is," he said. "Because then when Percy, Grover and Annabeth go get the lightning bolt and pass by the Lotus Hotel somehow Bianca and I get out. Dad has Alecto ask Percy to take us with him when they retrieve the helmet."

"So we go live at Camp with Jason, Annabeth and Percy. And a year later even though Luke has betrayed us we get the fleece and bring Thalia back. That quest is led by Jason like the original Argonauts."

"Then somehow Hazel escapes with some other souls when we go on that quest for the sword of Hades and Persephone was being insane," Percy added catching on.

"But by then I've already joined the hunters after being driven crazy stopping you Annabeth, Jason, Nico and Bianca from arguing all the time. So then I'm not part of the prophecy either," Thalia smirked.

"That still leaves it to Percy. Because when Bianca left the Casino she was only a little over twelve. Percy turned twelve a month after his first quest," Nico agreed.

"But we'd still be together. Though Bianca might join the hunters with Thalia later on. And we'd have all been together all along," Percy finished with his hands thrown out wide taking a bow.

"I'd actually kind of like to see if a universe like that existed," Thalia admitted.

"Maybe," Nico said standing up. "But now we have our own universe and we need to get some food before the growling of Percy's stomach gets any louder. And so we can get this pity part of a quest over with."