( CHAPTER FOUR )
There's One (1) Major Plot Point In This

THIS DAY WAS ACTUALLY GOING TO GET WORSE. Of course at this point in time Charlie had no idea.

"Are we there yet," Charlie wined when they hit another bump. "Ugh."

Charlie looked up seated cross legged on the chariot head resting against the side. Annabeth and Butch were in the front of the chariot, Butch handling the pegasi while Annabeth made sure they didn't get lost. Leo, Piper, and the annoying guy Jason stood in the back. The three new demigods seemed to each have a different reaction to everything that had just gone down. Piper didn't seem like she was losing her mind, she looked almost dreadful to Charlie's surprise.

Jason looked calm and collected after just defeating two storm spirits and recreating a scene from superman. He still had a look of uncertainty on his face, like he knew he didn't belong with them. Charlie didn't really disagree with him, there was something about him that didn't sit right with her. People just don't appear out of nowhere with no memories and then just continue on their life without anything strange.

Leo was being annoying, but it brightened Charlie's mood.

"This is so cool!" He spit a pegasus feather out of his mouth. "Where are we going? Charlie said something about a camp?"

"A safe place," Annabeth said. "The only safe place for kids like us. Camp Half-Blood."

"Half-Blood?" Piper was immediately on guard. "Is that some kind of bad joke?"

"She means we're demigods," Jason said. "Half god, half mortal."

"Hey," Charlie got out in a horsed voice. "Look who paid attention."

Annabeth shook her head. "But, yes, demigods. My mom is Athena goddess of wisdom. Charlie's father is Apollo mostly known as the god of the sun-"

"And light, healing, music, poetry, archery, reason, prophecy," Charlie grumbled a little. "Indecisive bastard."

Ignoring Charlie's remark Annabeth continued. "And Butch here is the son of Iris, the rainbow goddess."

Leo seemed to find that amusing. "Your mom is a rainbow goddess?"

"Got a problem with that?" Butch said.

Charlie snickered. "Never gets old. Wait 'till you hear about the ponies."

Leo grinned at her, but Butch shot him a look. "No, no. Rainbows. Very macho."

"Butch is our best equestrian," Annabeth said. "He gets along great with the pegasi."

"Rainbows, ponies," Leo muttered sharing a smile with Charlie.

"I'm gonna toss you two off this chariot," Butch warned.

Charlie laughed lightly. "Sorry, Butch."

"Demigods," Piper said. "You mean you think you're ... you think we're—"

Piper didn't get to finish when lightning flashed. The chariot shuddered, and Jason yelled, "Left wheel's on fire!"

Charlie muttered something as she with some effort pulled herself up looking at the burning wheel.

"Great," she started looking at the storm spirits. "It got worse."

The wind roared. Charlie glanced behind them and saw dark shapes forming in the clouds, more storm spirits spiraling toward the chariot—except these looked more like horses than angels and Charlie didn't like them any better. Piper started to say, "Why are they—"

"Anemoi come in different shapes," Annabeth said. "Sometimes human, sometimes stallions, depending on how chaotic they are-"

"More like how annoying they are!" Charlie yelled out.

Annabeth went on, "Hold on. This is going to get rough." She glanced at Charlie. "How much of the pain is just you being dramatic."

Charlie's shoulders sagged. "About three quarters of it."

Butch grinned before he flicked the reigns. "Told you!"

The pegasi put on a burst of speed, and the chariot blurred. Her vision went black for a moment, and when it came back to normal, they were in a totally different place. A cold gray ocean stretched out to the left. Snow-covered fields, roads, and forests spread to the right. Directly below them was a green valley, like an island of springtime, rimmed with snowy hills on three sides and water to the north. You could see a cluster of buildings like ancient Greek temples, a big blue mansion, ball courts, a lake, and a climbing wall that seemed to be on fire. Camp-Halfblood.

She would've honestly enjoyed the view if their wheels hadn't come off and the chariot dropped out the sky.

Annabeth and Butch tried to maintain control. The pegasi labored to hold the chariot in a flight pattern, but they seemed exhausted from their burst of speed, and bearing the chariot and the weight of six people was just too much.

"The lake!" Annabeth yelled. "Aim for the lake!"

They neared the lake at an alarming rate and Charlie's hands clasped onto the side of the chariot for her dear life. People wonder why she's scared of heights. Honestly, maybe always falling to her death might give a pretty clear explanation. Oh, yeah. You thought this was the first time something like this had happened to her? You are gravely mistaken. She did her prayers, threw in some insults and vague threats, and begged that no one would play a cheesy song at her funeral. She faintly remembered learning something about hitting water from a great height hurts as much as hitting concrete.

And then—BOOM.

For the record. Charlie had a high pain tolerance, most of her whining was just to be dramatic and annoying. She was also secretly hoping if she whined enough no one would trust her with a quest. But she smashing onto the water, with already two broken ribs? Yeah, that hurt.

She felt the the cold water surround her, air leaving her lungs, her back hurting. An excruciating pain in her chest. Her eyes opened slowly to see a face leaning above her. A naiad. Th naiads weren't her biggest fans, but they also weren't really keen on the idea of Charlie dying in their beautiful lake. Her eyes closed again as all air had left her lungs, she felt hands touch her shoulders pulling her upwards. She felt the ground underneath her, the sun shinning on her face.

With that everything went black.

When her eyes opened again she was in the Apollo cabin and the sun was going down. Charlie struggled the get herself up, her head felt like it was floating while her body felt like it was falling down a never ending height. She moved her body slightly to feel she no longer felt pain shoot trough her, the pressure on her lungs also seemed to be gone. Breathing was going fine again. The headache? The headache was very much still there.

Her eyes scanned the cabin. She'd been put in her own bed. The bottom bunk in the right corner of the back of the cabin. The window close to her bunk had been opened and a mirror had been strategically placed to let sunlight fall on her. She muttered a curse as she swung her feet over the side of the bed. Scanning the cabin for someone she didn't spot anyone immediately.

Then a head popped down from the top bunk.

"You're awake."

Charlie's fist shot forward, the person dodging the hit by a centimeter. "What the hell, Austin!"

She glared at the person in front of her, her younger brother, Austin Lake. Austin jumped down from the top bunk a saxophone in his hands. Austin was, of course, taller than Charlie even though he was two years younger than her. His cornrows shaped like a double helix, and he wore his usual black blazer the orange half blood shirt clashing with his look of an eighteenth century men stepping from the deck of a whaling vessel.

He put down his saxophone on another bed before turning his head to the door. "Charlie's up!"

Almost immediately three people tumbled inside, each with a very different look on their face.

The first was Will, who seemed to be trying to glare, but failed miserable as a smile stretched across his face. He had his usual surfer aesthetic going on, a simple pair of shorts and a flannel thrown over his camp shirt. He even wore those flip flops Charlie had ones tried to throw into the Lava from the climbing wall. She didn't succeed. He had bandages rapped around his arms and was carrying some medicines most likely restocking the cabin's medicine cabinet.

The second, Kayla Knowles, her little sister looked positively pissed off. Her fists were clenched, her face was turning red, and she was scowling on a whole new level Charlie had ever seen. Kayla was one of the best archers Charlie had ever seen, and also one of the best teachers in camp. She never missed a shot, so if she chose to aim for Charlie, she was going to get Charlie. Her short ginger hair had green dye at the bottom, which kind of made her look like a carrot, something Charlie was too afraid to point out. She wore dark green cargo pants, her camp shirt tucked into it, bow slung across her shoulder one arrow in her hand. Charlie quickly prayed not to get stabbed with it.

The last person was Miles Sawyer, Charlie's favorite (don't tell the rest). He was a short boy, but still three inches taller than Charlie, he always wore a set of headphones, unbeknownst to most listening to classical music. His usual jersey was thrown over a gray hoodie, black jeans, and some gray sneakers. As always Miles looked pretty calm about the whole ordeal, Miles tended to be one of the more laid back Apollo children, and one of the only who weren't as eccentric as Charlie and Austin. Charlie appreciated someone more laid back ones in a while.

Will ran up to her quickly reaching for her arm, Charlie spotted a bandage rapped around it.

Charlie frowned as she saw a new scar on her arm as Will removed the bandages. "Huh."

"Huh!" Kayla yelled from her place at behind Will. "You didn't even notice?!" Kayla scoffed pointing her arrow at Charlie. "Of course you didn't you broke three, not one, not even two. Three of your ribs."

"Three?" Charlie echoed. "Really?"

If possible Kayla's face got even more red, and if it hadn't been for Austin swinging his arms around her middle she would've immediately jumped on Charlie then and there.

"Unbelievable," she declared throwing her hands in the air Austin stopping her from charging. "It's like taking care of a toddler with behavior issues and scissors."

"I'm sure," Will started jumping in between Kayla's path to Charlie, "she didn't mean to. Right, Charlie?" He threw her a look. Charlie eagerly nodded her head, and Will let out a deep breath turning to Kayla. He put his hands on her shoulder. "See?"

"Oh, great, she's not even self-aware." Kayla pulled herself out of Austin's grip. "Yeah, that makes the worrying and the concern all better. Oh, look at that it's just gone, poof. Like, I dunno, non-broken ribs! Oh, or like a lung that didn't almost-"

"Hey, Kayla don't you have like, archery class to teach or something," Miles' calm voice spoke.

Kayla's steely glare skipped from Charlie to Miles. He lay lazily on the bed next to Charlie's playing with the keys of Austin's saxophone. He looked disinterested in Kayla's glare though. Although Miles neutral face made it look like he was constantly having the Wikipedia page for rope read aloud to him so that wasn't much of a surprise.

Kayla narrowed her eyes at Miles before she met eyes with Will who shrugged. "I mean, he's right."

A huff came out out of her mouth and she crossed her arms eyes skidding over Charlie before landing on the door. "Fine." She threateningly pointed the arrow in Charlie's direction. "This isn't over yet."

With that she stomped out of the cabin.

After a while Austin lazily lifted his hand grabbing his saxophone out of Mile's hands just before he could try to play it. "I have to go to, Katie paid me some good money to teach her som verses, and I want some new shoes." As he turned to walk away he waved his saxophone in Charlie's direction. "Don't die, Kayla will kill you."

Miles scrolled trough his music playlist. "Then there were three."

Will let out a light laugh, before ruining the mood by saying, "Miles you're on Charlie duty."

Miles lazily lifted up his thumb.

Charlie on the other hand shot upwards. "Wait, what?" Charlie's eyes looked between her two brothers, emphasize, younger brothers. "First of all I'm the oldest-"

Miles shot a rubber band across the room. "Meh, debatable."

"I said oldest not wisest," Charlie clarified before moving, "second of all, what is this 'Charlie duty' is it because I'm autistic, because if so I'll-"

"No!" Will yelled. "No, no. That's not the reason." Will's brows furrowed. "When has that ever been a reason?"

"Look I've been traveling around America okay, people are mean." Charlie crossed her arms annoyed. "Also my mom said I couldn't punch everyone that used autistic as an insult. Ridiculous."

"Aye," Miles agreed.

"See even the pirate agrees."

A pillow was thrown at her.

"It's just to be sure okay, you need to take it slow for now get outside and get some sunlight." Will placed the mirror back to it's original place.

"What am I a plant?" Charlie spat.

Will threw her a disappointing look. "You need to get your vitamin D levels back up, Charlie. You know your powers don't come out of thin air, you might be one of the most powerful child of Apollo since Asclepius, but even he had limits. You know that when you use your light powers you need more vitamin D to keep yourself healthy. The only reason you broke three ribs was because your bones were too weak." Will pulled out a new bandage to rap around her arm. "You can't never go outside and then think you can get away with pulling stunts like that without consequences. You're stubborn, we know, but we worry about you too."

Will put the bandage safely around her arm again. Charlie's eyes glanced at the picture on taped to her bed, taken about three years ago when she first entered the Apollo cabin. Two of those faces she'd never see again. Lee Fletcher, and Michael Yew, both head counselors, both death. Charlie cursed herself out in French, she should've knows her siblings worried she would be next. Whatever curse may lay on the Hephaestus cabin, her cabin seemed to be dealing with it's own equally gruesome one.

"I get it," Charlie muttered. "I just- I'm sorry."

"Then let Miles hang around with you for the day," Will stated standing up. "Chiron asked me to restock and reorganize the medical cabinets in the Big House. After that I promised to check up on Jake, so I'm filled up for the day." He narrowed his eyes lip quirking up a bit. "So no near-death experiences for the day."

"When have I ever had a near-death experience in camp?" Charlie blinked, and then snorted. "Never mind, stupid question."

With that the argument closed up and Miles helped Charlie up to go take a walk outside. Their walk was quickly halted after five steps though and they decided to plop down on the bench near the hearth. For a while Miles and Charlie just chatted about their past few months apart. As it turned out Miles had gotten a new music player, and his mom, Joy Sawyer a sweet little woman with a Southern accent, had taken him to an orchestra in New York. Charlie talked about her boring three weeks of school before her mother had taken her with her for family business.

"Are you ever going to get in debt about family business," Miles whined plucking grass from her seat on the ground.

Charlie lay on her back on the bank looking up at the sky with a smirk. "Think Winchesters without the angel." Miles threw her a narrowed look. "Fine, fine. It's mostly just cleaning up after monsters and gods. You know helping mortals that were attacked, covering up things gods did, breaking some people out of mental hospitals, and my favorite, hunting down Hellhound nests, you know the usual."

"And that's all you do," Miles prompted.

"Pretty much."

"Okay, but how does that even work," Miles finished perplexed. "I mean do you just tell gods what to do, sounds stupid. I mean sure you would, but like I imagine your family being you know, smarter."

Charlie snorted. "Look, little brother. Not that I wouldn't love to, but you want me to explain how my entire family works? It took my mom an entire week to get me trough everything." Charlie put a hand behind her head with a sigh. "And I only keep busy with the Greeks-" Shit. "For Reckless Demigods as my mom calls it, something about comprising or whatever." Nice safe.

"Smart," Miles muttered. "I still don't get it though, isn't your family like mortal?"

"Well," Charlie started, "if we ignore my case, we usually get taught everything from a young age, fighting, Mist bending, and you know courses on everything mythical. That's like the bare minimum, from there on out it depends on your parents, and your own choices. One of my uncles keeps busy with artifacts, the real ones, keep them safe from less than desirable hands, retrieving them, if needed get rid of them. His daughters, my cousins, one of them is planning to take over from him, the other one really enjoys witchcraft, she keeps busy with those things." Charlie sat up swinging her legs and planting her feet on the ground. "My mom does mostly hunting down wild monsters, and helping mortals who witnessed things. From time to time she deals with the gods, but that usually something all of us have to do."

Miles narrowed his eyes. "Dodging the question."

Charlie let out a heavy sigh. "When you turn eighteen, you get this trials. You can't talk about it so I don't really know how it goes, but there's a series of tests you have to go trough. When you pass them you get gifted heightened abilities, the basics of speed, strength, and senses, from there on out based on your results, abilities may differ, you could have faster speed, and better sight if you score high on hunting down monsters, or you may get other abilities. From there on out you-" Charlie paused, staring harshly at the landscape in front of her. "Do your job."

"Cool," Miles muttered, his eyes caught Charlie's steel look. "I'm guessing you're not a fan of the job."

Charlie huffed. "Like I said, ignoring my case. Demigods, they don't work well in my family, conflicts with our job and our parents you know. We're supposed to be this balance of peace, this unbiased judge. Kind of hard when you've got the pick on one of them.

Charlie lifted up her hands glancing at her palms for a second. A memory flashed before her eyes, but she pushed it back down promptly slamming her palms on her jeans.

"There's only been two demigods, the first demigod in my family, my great-something, I don't know, died a day before she turned eighteen. Since then the only demigod we've had in our family was one of my uncles, grandad had another affair, family drama keeps me alive sometimes. He also died a day before turning eighteen. My mom tells me that's why she tried keeping me out of this, demigod lives and guardians life, they don't mix."

Silence.

"Sucks," Miles muttered.

"Yeah."

The conversation ended, Miles tried to safe their chat talking about his mother's new girlfriend, some engineer from Mississippi with a lisp. She seemed really nice, and Miles noted she baked brownies for him every time she came by so she was growing on him. Charlie's interests didn't last though, she wanted it to, but her already terrible mood for the day had been completely drained and she grasped for a bit of positivity like one tries to grab soap after it falls into the bathtub. Miles seemed to catch onto it fast though and with a sigh he picked up his music payer and tapped once before slumping back against the front of the bench with a sigh.

Charlie, as cynical, selfish, and terrible as she may be, did care greatly for her younger siblings. Seeing them upset was perhaps one of the only things nowadays that could truly make her ache with guilt that didn't stem from her own doing. She wanted to say something. She desperately tried to come up for anything that could get her brother's mood back up, but in the end she let out a frustrated sigh, abruptly standing up.

Miles glanced at Charlie in confusion. "Charlie, where-"

"Walk," she answered. "Alone. It's just," she waved her hands around her head vaguely. "Busy."

Miles nodded his head, he must've caught onto the fact Charlie's day had been too busy for her to handle. No matter how loud, and annoying Charlie was still autistic, and from time to time alone time was just a must have thing. "Don't die. I'll see you at dinner."

Charlie let out a noise of agreement and strutted of.

She walked aimlessly around camp for a few hours, at one point she'd ran into the Stoll brothers. Travis and Conner, her old prankster buddies, after everything that had gone down months ago Charlie was barely at camp anymore so planning some genius plan to put tin foil on everything in the Big House wasn't really an option. They'd caught her on to their new plan to illegally sell outside items to campers, she'd gladly put her money on the business. At one point she'd stopped by the Hecate cabin for personal business subtly shoving some money to Lou Ellen, a daughter of Hecate with neon colored hair, before quickly continuing her walk.

The only interaction she had after that was getting a volleyball slammed against the back of her head, after that, surprisingly, no one bothered her as she plopped down on a bench near the strawberry fields.

Charlie had a love-hate relationship with alone time, at one point alone time was a need for her, without it she probably would be out cold every night. Alone time, for Charlie, was really boring though. She liked being around her friends, and even though there were only three that didn't tire her out with socializing, it was still so frustrating sometimes. With a huff she opened her eyes from her pretend nap and scanned her surroundings. No one around. Perfect.

She glanced behind her another time to be sure before she pulled out a small book she smuggled outside the cabin with her. She lifted her legs and sat cross legged on the bench as she opened the worn out copy of Macbeth. Her eyes scanned around one more time before her eyes promptly flew down and started reading. By now, Charlie could probably tell the entire play of Macbeth with ease, although Hamlet stayed her favorite. Charlie tried to keep her love for Shakespeare as low as possible if asked though she would recite her favorite sonnets without hesitation, but she still found the less people that knew it the better.

Why Shakespeare of all things? Charlie never knew, every since she'd been little she'd been obsessed about three things Shakespeare, space, and electricity, looking back on it, she wasn't born to be straight. Moving on.

With her headphones on her ears, the buzzing sound of outside noise dimmed down, and hands playing skimming over the pages as her eyes skimmed between the text and notes in ancient Greek Charlie's tense shoulders finally loosened and until she heard the sound of people gathering, and saw the glowing of a fire nearby signaling the time for dinner she promptly shut the book putting it back in her makeshift pocket on the inside of her jacket where she'd simply cut the fabric open to make place for items. Yeah, sounds shady, don't think too much about it.

Dinner was a blast. Lie.

Charlie sat at the table with her siblings, as Chiron welcomes Leo and Jason, Charlie's green eyes scanned the dining pavilion in confusion for Piper. She'd never admit it out loud, but she'd really liked the girl, which wasn't common for Charlie. Annabeth was quick to come to her rescue though, stopping by the table to whisper in Charlie's ear about how Hera had contacted Piper via Rachel, which of course had prompted the blonde to let out a loud, annoyed "What?!" almost falling backwards.

Annabeth disappeared before Charlie could ask anymore questions though, which might've been for the best. Jason sat at the Hermes table looking a little uncomfortable. Charlie made solid eye contact with the Stoll brothers and glanced between them and Jason with a solid message: 'Be nice to him'. They nodded solemnly as if they'd been honorable knights assigned a life threatening quest by the king of their country before returning to their food.

Charlie spotted Leo at the Hephaestus table, he frowned glancing up eyes meeting Charlie. For a second a grin spread across his face, Charlie thought her passing out must've scared him a bit. She gave him a quick wave before turning back to arguing with Austin about the pronunciation of GIF.

"You gave him quite a scare," Will spoke up faintly glancing from Leo to Charlie. "Both him, and the other two, the blonde guy Jason, and the girl-"

Will frowned fishing for the name before Charlie finished. "Piper." As if she'd just grown two heads her siblings all looked at her in confusion. "What?"

"Nothing," Austin started from in front of her. "It's just, no offense, but your really bad with names most of the time."

Charlie pulled a face. "I'm not that bad."

Kayla snorted before pointing at a guy sitting at the Demeter table, some tall lanky guy with thick rimmed glasses Charlie had brought to camp a few weeks ago. "What's that guy's name?"

Charlie blinked. "Darin."

"Derek," Kayla corrected from next to Austin.

"I got the first letter right," Charlie argued crossing her arms.

Wes, another one of Charlie's brothers with bright purple colored hair, turning 14 in two weeks, who had spend his day at the Aphrodite cabin and who made it his business to know everything going around camp spoke up, "Okay, what about that girl?"

He pointed to a girl Charlie had made out with a few months ago. She frowned. "Debra."

"Robin," her siblings said in unison.

Charlie made a sound before slumping in her seat. "Point?"

"Charlie you couldn't name half of these people," Austin said waving around his fork. "Unless they're your sibling or friend, you forget their name five seconds after meeting them. Remember when Miles got here, it took you a week to get his name right-"

"In my defense, the Veronica Sawyer thing was an intended joke."

Next to her Miles shoved a fry in his mouth. "A bad one."

"We just can't believe you're making friend," Wes commented gleefully.

Kayla let out a pretended gasp of surprise. "Friends! It's a miracle!"

Charlie grumbled. "They're not my friends."

"Yeah," Wes started smirking, "I mean you're obviously making heart eyes at the Theo guy-"

"Leo," Charlie corrected before slamming her hands down on table. "And I'm not."

Wes hummed unimpressed. "Sure, what do you think Austin?"

Austin popped another berry in his mouth. "Definitely heart eyes."

Wes turned to Kayla at his other side, "Kayla?"

"Scary old Charlie's got a crush," she noted smirking hitting a high note on crush. "How cute!"

"Will?"

Charlie looked hopeful, but Will answered, "I mean, Leo was pretty worried about you, he kept asking questions about you when I showed him around camp." Will looked up to Charlie and smirked before turning back to his salad. "You're blushing."

"Damnit!" Charlie yelled frustrated.

"Ha!" Wes said triumphantly.

"I hate all of you!" Charlie complained turning to Miles. "Miles help me out here."

Miles frowned looking ridiculed. "You're still wearing his jacket, what do you want me to do?"

"His jacket," Wes said looking like he'd just won the lottery. "It got better!"

Her siblings started laughing as Charlie slammed her head against the table. Charlie was about to launch across the table to punch her brother, but Will cleared his troat trying to tone down his laughter. "Okay, okay, I think you got her annoyed enough for the day Wes."

Wes looked disappointed, but went back to eating nonetheless. As her siblings slowly finished their dinner and went back to the cabin Charlie stayed behind stabbing her fries trying to get her thoughts together about Jason and Piper's interaction with Hera. Usually when Hera was involved it meant bad news for not only Charlie, but everyone else as well. The goddess didn't have demigod children to annoy with quests so she always opts for the second option and decides to bother every last half-blood with her troubles. Charlie tended to be right in the middle of those troubles every time and she was so tired of it.

It wouldn't surprise her if Hera had something to do with her waking up in a bus without any memories, it would actually explain everything that had happened so far. Maybe she should visit Piper in the Big House after finishing eating? If she could ask her what Hera'd done to her, she might get the answers she wanted, but it was also the equivalent of jumping in the middle of the trouble Hera was causing. Charlie thought she should just finish of her dinner and go back to-

"In place of stabbing your fries I'd gladly eat them for you."

The corner of Charlie's mouth twitched as she put down her fork glancing up at the boy that had plopped himself before her. "I'm sure you would." She pushed her board a little forward. "Here, I'm not that hungry anyway."

Leo picked up a half destroyed fry and popped it into his mouth. His eyes scanned her over and Charlie saw a spark of concern in them.

"I'm fine now," Charlie commented. She put her arms on the table resting her head on one of her hands. "Sorry for the scare."

Leo let out a light laugh. "Piper thought you were dead for a second. The blonde girl had to calm her down."

"Annabeth," Charlie told him, she frowned lightly. "I-Uh, sorry, I guess, my whole light powers thing has some nasty side effects if I don't get enough vitamin D."

"Yeah, the guy Will, your brother right? He told me something about that," Leo answered picking up another fry, he pointed it towards Charlie with a slight grin. "He also said he wasn't surprised? You go around breaking your ribs often or something?"

Charlie snickered. "Occasionally," she started, "have to keep up my reputation of local idiot don't I?"

Partly true. Mostly Charlie was always too stubborn to admit her powers were gifted to her by her father, and in a try for rebellion she'd not only refused to use a bow, a common symbol for the god, or spend more time in the sun than necceray. Granted she knew she was being stupid, she couldn't go around using her powers, but then not take care of herself out of spite. She didn't really care anymore though. If her stupidity and stubbornness got her killed than so be it, as a demigod, and especially with a past like hers, Charlie never expected to reach the age of fourteen. Let alone make it to the day before eighteen only to die because the gods couldn't deal with someone so powerful.

Her and Leo talked for a while. She'd passed his jacket back to him and as a thank you Charlie'd shared some stories from camp and told him some more about his siblings. Leo told her some stories about the Wilderness school and the shenanigans him and Piper tended to get up to. He faintly tried to brush over losing his eyebrows once, but Charlie's insisting and admitting about the time she herself almost lost her foot in a fight with a squirrel got him to tell one of the most hilarious chain of events she'd heard in a while. Quickly afterwards Charlie tried to one up him launching into the tale about the chain of events that led to her being banned from Norway for a year and having a restraining order with one of the princes.

Leo asked about coach Hedge after their mini arm wrestling match, Charlie explained satyrs would look for demigods and keep them save from monsters until they were ready to go to camp.

"That's why I was there," Charlie explained. By now her and Leo had moved to sit next to each other on the table their feet propped onto the seats. "I was around the area, Grover, another satyr, asked me to help Hedge get you and Piper to camp tonight. Hedge was pretty sure a monster was on your tail, and Grover figured I'd be the best pick."

"You do that a lot?" Leo asked. "You know get demigods to camp."

"Ones in a while," Charlie answered popping an M&M in her mouth. "Gotta be honest though I've never gotten along so well with them as I have with you and Piper."

Leo grinned. "Surprised we were this awesome."

She laughed playing with the fabric of her camp shirt. "When you laughed at my electricity pun I knew nothing would ever be the same." A bubble of laughter rang trough the air. Charlie continued, "Usually someone from camp calls me up to do it if they know I'm close by. My mom and I travel a lot now, family business stuff." Leo raised an eyebrow, but Charlie quickly shook her head. "I'll tell you another time, I feel like you're tolerance of crazy stuff has been tested enough today. I'll tell you all about the Winchesters of the mystical world tomorrow or something."

Leo grinned. "Count me intrigued."

Charlie let out a laugh, leaning back so her back lay on the table looking up at the canopy above the dinning pavilion, flowers in full bloom even with the winter weather just outside of camp borders. "It's a story alright. My part in it is short though, only started doing it a few months ago."

Leo frowned for a second. "Nyssa told me about you going missing a few months ago too, does that have anything to do with-"

Leo fell silent at Charlie's blank stare. The blonde looked past the canopy for a second a flash of red before her eyes before shaking her head shooting forwards back in sitting position. "Long story," she grunted. "'S not a good one either. Wouldn't recommend it."

Leo nodded his head, he seemed to respect Charlie's closed of attitude to the question as he didn't ask any further questions.

Missing. Technically it wasn't the right word for it. Charlie knew Annabeth and Chiron had tried their best to create the narrative of Charlie being missing, but anyone who spend more than five minutes thinking about it would realize the details of the story didn't add up. In reality Charlie had plain and simple just run away, in shame of her acts in the war, she'd gone into hiding hoping to get all her thoughts and guilt together on her own. After two weeks she'd returned home. She never talked about those two weeks of hiding, no one pushed it out of her and she was thankful. The war had taken a bigger toll her and her mental health than she'd imagined. The revelation of her survival rate only going to her day before turning eighteen, the manipulation she'd gone trough, the things she'd done, all of it just made her want to go. Two weeks away from monsters, gods, family business, prophecies, just a little while of peace.

Charlie could feel it though, the peace was slowly disappearing over the months. Jason's arrival, the storm spirits, her odd feeling, hera's so called disappearance, all of it separately? Perhaps there was some hope. All of it at the same time? If for lack of a better expression the events on the skywalk had been the calm before the storm. Something big was brewing, and Charlie knew she was going to be part of it. Villain or hero, whatever she was now, it didn't matter. Someone like her would never just be able to wait out something like this until the end.

Luckily denial was one of her best gifts.

"Campfire's starting," Charlie noted as she looked behind her seeing campers moving towards the amphitheater. "You should go it's pretty fun, helps gets spirit up a lot."

Leo frowned lightly. "You're not coming."

Charlie turned around on her butt and jumped from the table feet landing on the ground. "Usually I either go to half of it, but it's been a long day, not really in the mood to sing cheesy camp songs."

Leo looked a little disappointed. "Right."

Charlie noticed his change of mood and thought for a second.

"Hey, here's a deal," Charlie started sticking out her hand, "you keep me out of any world saving business and I'll stay for the entire night. If you fail, you owe me fifty bucks."

Leo's grin widened clasping Charlie's hand. "Deal."

He still owned her the money.

❛ author's note ❜

Miles is a new fave tbh, I've got his entire background all typed out, his mom's life down to detail, and non of you will ever know any of it because it doesn't matter for the plot, but let me tell a grade a boy, 10/10. Kind of rushed the end because it's been three weeks, and I'm really sorry, work with school, lack of inspiration, it's been a lot ya'll.