A/N:Well, for those of you that follow my Avatar/PJO crossover, you already know that I live again. Once again, sorry for the late update, had a lot of stuff on my plate.

Now, I know I said that this chapter was going to be the beginning of Part 3...but I really felt the need for an interlude. The good news is that the interlude should be about 3~4 chapters, 2.5 of which are already written, so the next few should be fairly quick updates. I do have a reason for the interlude, which you'll see later.


Interlude

Chapter 8.1: Personal Consequences

Cyndi stared wistfully out the window, wishing for something that just wasn't going to happen. It was finally starting to get cold in Phoenix, not that it ever got truly "cold" except for that freak ice storm a few months ago, and even that mercury drop only lasted a few hours. By now back in Iowa, snow would have been covering the sidewalks for at least a week. She loved snow; it always made everything so beautifully pristine and white, like frosting on a cake. That wasn't even counting the other upsides. Snow meant snow days, and snow days meant snowball fights, and snowball fights meant Jack. Since the move, their playtime had become limited to the two weeks of Christmas Break when they'd go back to visit her grandparents in Iowa. She was far from happy with the arrangement, but at least the anticipation of the trip each year made life in Phoenix bearable. This was why she'd been devastated last week when her mother had announced that they would not be making the Iowa trip this year. Nothing had been the same since The Accident…

She ruthlessly put thoughts of the incident and its fallout out of her mind and turned back to her homework. Maybe Romeo and Juliet would help take her mind off her own problems—through pure schadenfreude if nothing else.

Fifteen minutes later found her staring at a half-written essay on the unfairness of Juliet's situation from the learned perspective of a twelve-year-old. She was quite satisfied with much of it; the comparisons of the vacant Juliet with Bella had felt incredibly satisfying to write. She couldn't understand her classmates' obsession with those books. She hated useless heroines, an opinion she knew all of her English teachers were very familiar with and she was usually able to get a good bit of mileage out of it in her writing. Unfortunately in this case, the momentum of the rant had only carried her halfway to her goal and now she was stuck. "Okay," she said quietly to herself, "Now what?"

The rhetorical question was answered by a rap on her window. She jumped and spun towards the sudden noise, reaching for the Louisville Slugger she kept under her desk. She relaxed immediately, however, upon seeing the unexpected and welcome figure hovering outside of her window, waving energetically.

"Jack!" She exclaimed happily as she rushed to let the winter spirit in. "What are you doing in Phoenix?" she asked, wrapping the boy in a bone-crushing hug.

When no response was forthcoming, she barreled on through with her monologue as only a 12-year-old girl was able, "I thought I wasn't gonna get to see you this year 'cause Mom cancelled the Iowa trip 'cause of the money. I wasn't gonna be able to tell you about Justin's new girlfriend or that I started babysitting or how much Junior High sucks—especially English 'cause the books they have us read are majorly depressing—or ANYTHING!" When she finally stopped for breath, she noticed that Jack was looking at her with an amused expression, but there was something about it that gave her pause. Jack was almost always smiling in some way, but there was a darkness behind the smile this time…a darkness she couldn't quite place. Not only that, but the usually-boisterous and frequently-loquacious Winter Spirit hadn't made a single sound since he'd entered her room.

Jack noticed her sudden scrutiny and began to shift uncomfortably. "Jack…what's wrong? I've never seen you like this before." He looked away and pursed his lips as if trying to think of how to respond.

"Why haven't you said anything?" she finally asked with more than a hint of trepidation.

He looked up into her eyes with a calm sadness and made a cutoff gesture with his hand in front of his throat.

"What? Your voice is gone?" He nodded "Why? What happened? How could it have happened?"

A sadly bemused half-smile graced his face and he shrugged; an inexpertly-executed gesture to indicate he had no idea.

Cyndi, however, had been dealing with an angsty teenage brother for a few years now, and an injured one for a few months and wasn't fooled for a second. "Bull. You know exactly what happened. Tell me."

He ran his hand through his hair as his initial surprise at her bluff call made way for helpless frustration. She could tell he was trying to figure out how to tell her, but was limited by the very thing he was trying to explain.

"Sorry, I was being stupid. It's probably a lot harder to explain it than you can without your voice." She received a sad nod in response. "Hmm…how about…you can read and write, right?"

The boy held up a finger and thumb about an inch apart and sheepishly braced himself for her expected onslaught.

"Only a little bit?" she asked in a deadpan "You told me you've been around for over 300 years and you're only barely LITERATE?" She might have hated English and writing, but she was an avid reader and the idea was a bit of an affront to her sensibilities.

A guilty smile quirked the boy's lips and he began to straighten from his defensive position as he saw her relax.

"Ok…ok…we'll just have to think of something else, then."

"Who's 'we'?" came the unexpected voice of Justin from the hallway. "Cyndi, I hope you're not voicechatting with your friends when you're supposed to be doing homework just 'cause Mom and Dad are out. They did ask me to watch—" His teasing monologue was broken off when he reached her door and saw the Winter Spirit flashing an ingratiating and sheepish grin at him with a hand upraised in greeting.

The grin quickly melted to worry, panic and a tinge of horror as Jack processed the full extent of the other boy. The teen stood—barely—heavily leaning on cane-like European-style crutches, his right leg in a heavy-duty walking-cast. He also looked thinner and less fit than before, but the worst part of it all was the cold glare the darker boy was giving the pale Guardian.

"You." He bit out with venom, and Jack's face did the impossible and paled even more, his face approaching the hue of his hair. "What are you doing here?" Guilt, pain and horror built in Jack's pale blue eyes as he processed the injuries and Justin's monologue continued. "You're the entire reason for this, you bastard. I saw you just before that truck hit us. I SAW YOU!" Justin was livid, angry tears streaming down his face, and Jack's silence only angered him more. "SAY SOMETHING YOU BASTARD!"

Cyndi couldn't keep quiet any longer. "The ice storm was you, Jack? Why? Mom and Justin almost died in that crash. Why'd you do it?"

The young Guardian stood staring at the two siblings, eyes bleak and body shaking like a cornered animal.

"Get out." Said Justin quietly, voice rising slowly in an angry crescendo. "Didn't you hear me? You're not welcome here. Just GET THE FUCK OUT!"

Jack shot out the window, crystalline tears streaming behind him in his wake.


A/N: Can ya tell I really hate the NID? Yeah...look what they made me make Jack do...um...sure, let's go with that...

Review Responses Time!

Effugure: Hrmm...um...well, damn. I guess it's good to know what the original source material was. I've got to get around to reading those books now. So I'm gonna call artistic license and actual history and stick with my feelings on Bunny. (Translation: I'm not going to go back and fix it 'cause I like my headcanon...at least until I read them myself and come up with a way to reconcile.)

K4RLY3: Yeah...I know it barely ever snows at all in BA, but Jack was still not in the best mental state, and he was also partially trying to force himself to go back to the vicinity where the whole mess started. Besides, BA is totally due for a snow day, and if it's like the other places I've lived that aren't used to snow, it wouldn't even take that much of it to cause one.

peppymint: While I admit, your question made me go "ooooh," I'm not actually planning on playing with Pitch in this story, except in maybe one chapter. Then, again, my plans often change, considering my original idea for this fic was just Part 3...which I haven't even gotten to yet and has gone through a massive metamorphosis since its inception.

Rahar Moonfire: Heh, yeah, he needs that. The voice thing is one of my unexpected developments on writing the story. I got the idea 'cause I was watching the Firefly episode "Safe" with the little girl Ruby, whose voice had been "scared away." I do actually have a plan for him to get it back, but it has now become a pivotal plot device.

That's all for now, Tzapporah signing off!