DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of either the characters or songs!

A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviews, favorites, and follows! They all make me so happy; you have no idea!


"I think it's a good idea!"

"No," Mr. D repeated, rubbing his temples. Silena was trying to hide her snicker from across the table, but Charlie clearly noticed, since he turned and glared at her.

"If Annabeth was here-"

"If any of the Athena cabin was here, they would have already shot down this idea without you summoning us to a counselor meeting and wasting our time," Mr. D retorted. "But they all love their precious learning too much, apparently, to stay during the school year. Even Annabelle."

"Nyssa's entire family has experience working with cars, and we always fix the vans if something happens, and even then we still check them routinely and change the oil and everything."

"Look, I know I agreed to bring them in, but why do you even need a car?" Katie asked Beckendorf. "The store has basically everything you could possibly need."

"Sometimes we need parts and Argus can't take us because he's delivering strawberries or something," Charlie said. "And none of us are licenced to drive a van."

"You need to be licenced to drive a van?" Clarisse asked, and Charles nodded.

"So we should have a car here."

"It'd be good for dates, too," Lee said thoughtfully, and everyone stared at him.

"I'm a daughter of the love goddess, and even I think you just blew it for us," Silena told him, and he shrugged.

"None of you guys have needed Argus drive you into the city for a date, have you?" Lee asked, shaking his head. "It's awful. It's so, so awful."

To Silena's amazement, Argus nodded in agreement. She raised an eyebrow and saw Castor beside her do the same. Charlie, meanwhile, looked like he'd just won the lottery and turned his attention back to Mr. D and Chiron.

"So, we can get a car?"

Chiron gave a sigh that sounded like one of resignation, then looked down the table at Argus, who said everything he wanted to with his eyes, and then Chiron turned to Mr. D next to him.

"They make some good points," Chiron said with a slight shrug.

"Well, I did run this by Annabeth last week," Charles said with a grin, and Silena rolled her eyes. "She thinks it's a good idea, in case you couldn't tell."

Mr. D groaned.

"Fine! You can get a car. And since it was Bracken's idea, he can pick the damn thing out."

"Yes!" Charles said, throwing his hands up in the air.


"What're you doing here?" Charlie asked, stopping in front of his cabin door when he found Silena sitting in front of it. She looked up at him, grinning, and jumped to her feet.

"I came to help you pick out the car."

"Why?"

"Because if this is the car that Camp Half-Blood is going to be stuck with, it needs to be functional and look nice. That's where I come in."

"Is it now? And why are you out here alone, exactly?"

"Landon was the only one in there, but he said I shouldn't have to wait too long for you, and since Lee was making the rounds on inspection, I figured it was best if I just stayed outside."

"Smart. Come on in," he said, leading her into the cabin. Landon was sprawled out on the floor, frowning at a set of blueprints. "You okay, Lando?"

"Yeah, just looking at this," Landon replied. "You two do whatever it is you do," he continued with a dismissive wave of his hand. She shared a look with Charlie before Landon looked up at them in alarm. "It's nothing romantic, is it?"

"No!" she and Charlie said at the same time, and she could already feel the heat rising to her cheeks.

"Okay. Just double checking." He returned his attention to the blueprints and Charlie turned her, smiling, before looking back at Landon.

"No one else is here, right?"

"Nope, just us, but they'll probably be coming back soon to clean up before dinner," he said, and Charles nodded and started climbing up to his bunk.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"We're going to the private room. C'mon."

"Should I be allowing this?" Landon called up to him, and she saw Charlie roll his eyes before replying, "Yes. If you're quiet enough and we're loud enough, you might be able to hear the entire conversation."

"Good to know," Silena laughed, and she followed Charlie up to his bunk and waited for him to do… whatever it is he was going to do. He pressed a button and his and Jake's bunk flew backwards.

"By the gods!" she shouted, and Charles laughed as the bunk opened up into the secret room.

"Welcome, to the best kept secret of the Hephaestus cabin," he announced as he started climbing down. "Everyone knows it exists, but only the counselor and second-in-command know how exactly to access it, and I'm technically the only one allowed in it. And Chiron stresses that I'm supposed to apply normal cabin rules here, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"I thought your best kept secret was your second floor," she replied. She waited until he was on the ground and heading towards a lounge area before she climbed down from the bunk herself.

"Okay, second best kept secret. We've got a lot in Cabin 9."

"We can't have secrets in Cabin 10. The truth always comes out, one way or another." She thought about the scythe charm bracelet hidden inside a compact in her makeup bag, the one place she could guarantee none of her siblings would go in without express permission from her, since she'd instituted that pad and tampon boxes were a free-for-all and had almost gotten found out last week.

She wasn't sure anymore if getting caught was the worst thing or the best thing that could happen to her.

"Maybe it's just a side effect of having only three girls in the entire cabin, two of whom are at school right now."

"That's sexist," Silena retorted sharply, "But probably true. So. What have we narrowed the car options down to?"

"You get right down to business, don't you?"

"'Course. Dinner's in less than half an hour."

"Should've known you would betray me for food." She grinned up at him and plopped down onto the couch, giving him no choice but to follow. He picked up a notebook off of the coffee table and flipped it to a page covered in his impeccably neat handwriting. "Chiron's been letting me use his computer, and this is what I've got so far."


"Milady," Charlie said, offering her his hand. She looked up at him, arching a painstakingly-perfected eyebrow at him. He held both of his hands up in defeat and let her step out of the car by herself. "You don't like chivalry, then, huh?"

"Don't tell Mother," she said with a wink. "So how come Chiron and Mr. D are letting us get first dibs on the car?"

They'd picked a rather nice looking, in her own professional opinion, a only slightly used silver 2006 Toyota Highlander, since Chiron had insisted on an SUV. It could fit at least seven of them legally, eight less legally if there was a very tiny person in the third row that didn't mind being flattened down if the police showed up. She'd made Chiron and Charlie take her when they went to pick it out and both she and Charlie were thoroughly convinced her mere presence had gotten the price down, which had pleased Mr. D immensely.

"Because we picked it, of course," Charlie replied. "And we get to enjoy an evening of dinner and a show, entirely on Mr. D. It'll be fantastic."

Silena laughed and let him lead her into the restaurant, though.

Dinner was amazing, and the show just as much, though she'd never seen Charlie as exasperated as she'd seen him during the opening number. They walked back to the car in silence, and then once they were back in it, she propped her feet up on the dashboard and sighed.

"Lena?" he asked quizzically as the car started.

"Do you really think life could work out that well for someone that… shallow?"

"You're one of the least shallow people I know."

"That's not the question I asked you," Silena said, looking over at him. He was focusing on the road and the tip of his tongue was stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated, and she gave a small smile and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"I think it depends on whether or not they work for it. And she worked for it."

"Sometimes I don't want to be a halfblood."

"'Sometimes?' Only sometimes?"

"Okay, a lot of the time. I get boxed in, ya know? One day I just want to leave camp and never come back."

Leave behind that stupid bracelet and the stupid Rite of Passage and all the stupid Aphrodite stereotypes. She just wanted to be free for a fucking second, be a normal teenager.

But she was never going to get that.

Charlie was quiet, his eyes still focused entirely on the road.

"Would I be with you?"

"It's just a dream, Charlie. A fantasy, really."

"Yeah, but would you leave me behind?"

"I don't know," she said, honestly, keeping her eyes as focused on the road as his. "It depends on whether or not you'd try to bring me back."

"I wouldn't. Not unless you were in danger."

"I'm a halfblood; I'm always in danger." She paused and lifted her head off of his shoulder. "Charlie?"

"Hmm?"

"What're you gonna do, when all of this is over?" He was quiet for a minute, and Silena was about to tell him to forget it, when he sighed.

"I'm gonna get my GED so I can go to college. I'm going to get married and I'm going to be a father, and I'm never going to stop being the best for them."

"You'll make a great father, Charlie."

"I think you'll be a pretty good mother. The way you interact with the younger kids at camp…"

"You, too."

Neither of them said anything about how unlikely it was Charlie would even make it to college, let alone they'd both become parents. They just sat in comfortable, denial-filled silence as they made their way back to camp. Silena knew, deep down, that they wouldn't be running away from their responsibilities anytime soon, but gods… it was a nice dream.


A/N: The next update should be September 14!