My reasons for not updating... 1) I had a huge writer's block. 2) The parts of this story were scattered in a ton of places: my iPod, my email, a document on the computer, and numerous notebooks. 3)...

You guys are gonna kill me for being this lucky...

Last week I was in Greece. I'm not kidding! We stayed at the AVA hotel and had an awesome view of the Acropolis and of Olympian Zeus's Temple. The Acropolis was amazing! While we were there, my dad kept cracking some jokes that just made you want to do a face-palm. Like, "Look at that ancient crane over there. And those trash cans! How old are they?"

Anywho, thank you, BurningStorm, for being an awesome CCer! And the hundredth review prize goes to...PJO-HoOLuver! Thanks for moving me on!

Off topic again, but for Christmas, I got the DH pt. 2 soundtrack and the GoF soundtrack (Harry Potter), other songs, and the book Witch & Wizard: The Fire. What about you guys?

X Rachel/Reyna

-Rachel-

"Reyna, let me ask you again why, exactly, we should trust these graecuses?" Octavian asked, which to Rachel seemed obviously like a last resort.

"Because we trust Percy and Jason as praetors."

"But Percy himself is a graecus, and he's not praetor anymore. Plus, they have to rely on a mortal to present them with prophecies!"

Rachel, who'd been listening in on this conversation while leading them towards camp boundaries, instantly spun around, infuriated. "You don't even know what I've done! I navigated the labyrinth and nailed Kronos in the eye with a blue plastic hairbrush. What have you done? Murder stuffed animals? You also bribe people into supporting you. I wouldn't be talking if I were you. So shut the Styx up."

"You...disgrace! We should have attacked when they first stepped off the ship!"

Clarisse took obvious offense to this. She glared even more harshly at Octavian, who flinched. "I swear, if you dare insult us again-"

"What are YOU guys doing here?" a voice interrupted. Percy was coming up the hill towards them.

"We will explain it soon enough," Rachel assured him. "Annabeth, Hazel, and Piper already know about this."

"Uh, yeah, okay. Come on, I guess."

Reyna started forward, but to her surprise an invisible barrier stopped her from entering. Looking around, she found that he other Romans had the same problem.

"Wha-? Oh. Percy, you'll need to let them in," Rachel told him.

"If they can't get in because they're Roman, then how were Jason and the others able to get in?"

"Jason was on a Greek chariot and once he was in our camp, he was able to come and go as he pleased. The rest were on a Greek ship, our turf."

"Hm. In that case, I, Perseus Jackson," he, like usual, flinched at his full name, "allow Praetor Reyna and her companions from Camp Jupiter to enter Camp Half-Blood. Come on, this way."

(This paragraph was a slight POV slip-up. Reyna POV.) Reyna marveled at everything around her as they were heading to a large four-story house with a wraparound porch. There were volleyball courts with some fourteen- to eighteen-year-olds playing against fauns. Fauns! A collection of twenty little bizarre cabins were set around an area with greenery and statues in the shape of a Greek Omega. A sparring arena was set off to the side, as well as a Greek amphitheater. There was also a canoeing lake, woods, an archery range, forges, and a beach.

(Rachel again.) Upon reaching the big house, Rachel turned around and began sorting everyone into groups, save Reyna and Percy. Then she instructed her companions to show them around camp and bring them back in fifteen minutes. She also asked Percy to bring the cabin leaders, Hazel, Frank, and Jason in the same amount of time.

It was just Reyna and her now. "Let's go see how Travis and Leo are doing, yes?"

"Sure," Reyna replied. She was probably suspicious of the smirk Rachel was wearing.

Everything was oddly quiet when they reached the door to the basement. Knowing exactly what was coming, and expecting that Reyna would follow her lead, Rachel opened the door and ducked into a squat immediately. Reyna, unsuspecting, earned herself a salsa balloon in the face.

Rachel stood up and peered into the room. Leo and Travis, in a silent fit of hysterics, were next to a bucket filled with salsa balloons in the now-clean basement. Turning around, she saw Reyna standing VERY still. The daughter of Bellona raised a hand and slowly, deliberately, wiped the dip off one eye, then the other. Her lids snapped open and her eyes searched the room behind Rachel. When her stony gaze rested on the duo, she didn't roll her eyes like most people did. Instead, she joined Rachel in the doorway and made eye contact with both of them. Mainly Leo, though.

"Valdez," she said, her voice as icy as her calm and steady stare.

The boys stopped laughing immediately. "Xena! How wonderful of you to join us! If we'd known it was you, we would have... Let's just say it was meant for Rachel."

"Great!" Rachel jumped in before the exchange could become a full-fledged fight. "Leo, Travis, if you're done you can go back to your regular activities, but meet at the theatre in fifteen minutes." The two boys shuffled past the two girls, mischievous smiles seemingly super-glued onto their faces.

-Reyna-

"Well?" Rachel asked, turning to her.

"Well what? Reyna inquired, trying as best she could not to seem undignified by the events which had just occurred.

"Don't you want to get cleaned up? And get a tour of camp if we can squeeze it in?"

"Of-Of course." Reyna was taken aback. In the legion, you did stuff like that on your own time. Not as standard protocol. In the legion, if you got a face full of salsa, you would just wipe away as much as you could then try to get through the day without too much humility, then rush back to your barrack and hope you were the first one there so you could get enough bathroom time to wash up. Unless you were praetor. Then you could just go to your house and cleanse yourself any time you liked.

Rachel led the way ip tow flights of stairs and gestured to the second floor bathroom. "I'lll be right back. I just remembered that I have to ask Chiron something." Then she left Reyna to was up.

It didn't take too long. When in Rome, you have more to do than pore over your looks, so you learn to do personal needs with quickened efficiency. After a minute or two of standing around, Reyna began to get restless. Not even passing satisfied her. Reyna registered her surroundings then, and spotted an open door across the hallway. You shouldn't go snooping around, Reyna reprimanded herself. As she took the two steps required to cross the wood floor she attempted to hold herself back, not wanting to invade someone's privacy, to no avail. Reyna glanced at the interior of the room, which happened to be an office.

The wall at the opposite end of the office was adorned with t-shirts, all with "Party Ponies" and a year printed on them. Some had that never-worn-before look while others were ripped into shreds, looking more like unusually colored, grated cheese than an article of clothing. A desk strewn with papers, a computer, printer, and phone dominated the right side of the room. But the left wall with the window and the wall containing the doorway there were numerous pictures of what seemed to be ex-campers. Or, she thought they were ex-campers until she saw the most recent photograph taped to the wall – a black haired boy with an arm around a blond girl with curly hair and grey eyes. Percy and Annabeth. There was a cluster of photos surrounding them, also. Goofy pictures for each cabin, a blond boy who looked to be around sixteen, a faun – no, satyr – wearing a Rasta cap standing next to a nymph, and a girl – roughly sixteen – with uneven black hair and electric blue eyes which were extremely familiar to Reyna.

"That's Thalia. I've known her for about ten years and she turned out to be Jason's sister," said a voice from behind her. It was the same f-satyr as the one in the photograph just without the cap on. "Sorry, I'm Grover. You must be Reyna. Great to meet you."

"Jason's s-sister? He'd always though he had a sister, but…" I never thought he could have one. The words died in her mouth. Instead of showing weakness, she asked, "What's her story? How come she came here instead of Camp Jupiter like Jason did?"

"Well, when Zeus came to her mom the first time he was, well – Zeus. Then when Zeus came again he was in Jupiter form. So Thalia was a Greek demigod and Jason was Roman. When their mom took them on a picnic to Sonoma, Thalia left Jason with her for a moment, and when she came back, he was gone. Nowhere to be found. So she ran away, met Luke," Grover gestured to the blond boy, "son of Hermes, who was twelve then. They'd both been on the run for a while when they met Annabeth, who was seven in Virginia and had also run away from home. They went around together, fighting monsters. Then I got the assignment to bring Thalia – and only Thalia – back to camp, no matter what. But I took Annabeth and Luke along as well. We got slowed down on the way to camp, and when we got to the top of that hill," he pointed out the window at the hill with the pine tree, "a bunch of monsters caught up with us. Thalia told me to get Luke and Annabeth into camp while she fought off the monsters. But the monsters started to kill her. When she was about to die, Zeus took pity on her and turned her into that pine tree."

"So Jason's related to a tree?"

"Was. Four years ago we acquired the Golden Fleece when the tree was poisoned. If Thalia's tree had died, then so would the barriers. The night after we got it, Annabeth was guarding it, and it worked a bit too well and brought Thalia back to life. Half a year later from that, when she should have been turning twenty or something, but was turning sixteen for some reason related to being a tree, she passed the Great Prophecy onto Percy by becoming a hunter of Artemis – immortal."

"Now there's a confusing story," Reyna muttered, hiding her shock. Jason had one messed up family story.

"Sure is." He glanced at a clock over the doorway Reyna hadn't noticed before. "Come on. You're going to be late for your meeting.