A/N: This will be fun…

Right now I'm singing a song that a kid on Glee sang when his bird died and I can't stop laughing just because of what I'm writing.

"Lalala singing about dead bird… TEEHEEHEE… dead birds… HAHA light of darkness if that makes any sense… BAHAHAHA…"

What I am about to do pains me greatly, and yet somehow, it's hilarious… whatever. Once again, you owe me, Dogger.

Nina POV

When I caught up to Katy the next morning, she was trying to catch up to Gina, who was humming to herself and strutting along as if she owned the world, dark sunglasses covering her eyes.

"Hi Katy, how's it going?" I asked, trying desperately to win her approval back, at least. At least make Katy like me again.

Katy didn't smile like she usually did. "Hi, Nina. Hey, Gina, wait up, will you?"

Gina turned around and grimaced when she noticed me and Katy.

Katy jogged to catch up, and once she did, Gina started walking again.

"Hey, Gina, I'm looking for Jack. He was totally freaking out last night about something – do you know where he is?"

Gina snapped her gum. "Nope."

Katy looked surprised. "Can you check?"

Ah, yes, the empathy link.

"Uh, no," Gina said, seeming kind of nervous.

"Well why not?" Katy stopped walking and put her hands on her hips, looking irritated.

"Well, I haven't seen him since this morning."

"And what happened?" Katy badgered.

"I dumped him."

Holy crap.

If Katy had been drinking anything, she would've spit it out all over her shirt by now. "You what?"

"Did I stutter?"

"WHY?"

"Because Adrianna's right. We were much more fun as lovesick puppies."

"Aw, Gina, you know she didn't mean any of the stuff she's been saying lately…"

"Well whether she meant it or not, she was right." She faked a smile. "Don't worry. We're both fine. Trust me."

"If he goes back to Rose, does Anthony get his twenty bucks back from Myrtle and Maia?"

Gina had obviously not considered this possibility. She took a deep breath and spoke slowly, as if Katy didn't quite have a grip on the English language yet. "He… can… do… what… ever… he… wants. Understand, Kate?"

"I wasn't asking about Jack. Does Anthony get his money back or not?"

"That's up to him, I guess."

"Okay, well what if he starts dating Poppy or Adrianna? Then what?"

Katy was playing the jealousy game quite skillfully.

Gina didn't answer, so Katy tried to answer her own question. "Well if he goes back to Rose, Myrtle and Maia owe Anthony his money plus the money from the bet, so he'd get forty bucks. If he and Poppy or Adrianna get together, then I'd think Myrtle and Maia just give him back his twenty bucks as if nothing ever happened, because technically nobody won."

"What about Aiko's money?" Gina snapped, getting tired of Katy's little game.

"It was Anthony who paid." Katy smiled. Then her smile faded. "Gina, what if I decide to start dating him?"

Gina looked alarmed. "You wouldn't."

Katy narrowed her eyes.

"Please leave me alone," Gina begged. "Can I just go to my cabin that's not mine and go back to being the bitchy Rhea wannabe?"

"You're not the bitchy Rhea wannabe anymore," Katy said quietly. "You're back to the happy, powerful half-blood who loves her best friend more than anything in the world."

"Yes, I am, and I'm happier that way, so just leave me alone," the daughter of Demeter said desperately.

Katy half-smiled. "Well, I don't know. I'm kind of worried for Jack. Who's gonna be there to smack him when he messes up?"

Gina started walking again, faster this time. Katy didn't follow.

Nick POV

"That's amazing," Adrianna sang, delighted. "That's ."

Jack glared at her.

"It's positively gleeful!"

"Adrianna, just stop," Gina groaned.

"I didn't ask you to stand up for me," Jack snapped, turning to her.

"You don't need to. I've been your protection for ten years," she snapped right back.

"You know, when I broke up with my first boyfriend, we were friends for a year after that," Trina said in an attempt to be helpful.

"I think the circumstances are a little different here, Trina," Brigit whispered.

We were all sitting down for breakfast, which, surprisingly, a couple of the half-titans had prepared.

"So you can't cook," Senka had said flatly. Reed stared at us as if we were from another planet. Even Bunny, who was almost thirty-three and definitely should've known how to make at least popcorn by then, shook her head.

"Senka and Reed are surprisingly good cooks for how scary they are," Adrianna said, nibbling on one of Gina's pieces of bacon. Neither Jack nor Gina had eaten anything, and even Katy seemed to have lost a little bit of her appetite.

We were all pretty shocked when Jack and Gina had made a point to sit several seats apart from each other, and when Katy explained what Gina had told her, we'd stared at her as if she had three heads.

Unfortunately, something about the seating arrangements had placed Nina and Anthony across from each other, and they were completely oblivious to us and shooting daggers at each other. Metaphorically, of course. For now.

Nina POV

Anthony, of course, caught me after breakfast. "Hey, Nina, I really am sorry I said I hated you."

I didn't turn around, and kept walking. "You're only saying that because Rose told you to."

"Nuh uh. Rose is a moron. No one listens to her."

I grinned. "She's kind of bossy."

"Tell me about it."

I paused and turned around to look at him. I was silent awhile before I said, "So you really think I'm pretty?"

"Oh gods, please don't tell me you remembered that."

"Oh come on, Anthony, no girl forgets it when a guy calls her pretty."

He blushed and opened his mouth to reply, but, as it always happens, someone walked up and interrupted our conversation. That someone, this time, was Bunny.

For once, her interruption wasn't cheerful or funny or anything. Her blue eyes were haunted and even more dead-looking than usual, and her face was a mask of barely concealed horror.

"Anthony… you have to see this."

xxx

"Shut up, Dad. Just go away," Ker snarled.

"You left Ker to keep him company?" Katy said, staring at the man standing just outside the entrance to Camp Half-Titan. He had black hair, and the same dark, scary eyes as Ker.

"Call it bonding," Bunny groaned.

"You want bonding?" Ker shouted at her. "I'll give you bonding like you never imagined!"

"Keres, calm down already," her father said, rolling his eyes.

"Don't you use my full name! Only my mom uses my full name!"

"Your mother calls you by your middle name, doesn't she?"

"Yeah. Maria."

Bunny snorted. "Sorry, keep going, keep going."

Ker turned to glare at her. "I have an aunt named Maria. I'm named after her, not some freak chick that died most of a century ago."

"I'm confused," I whispered to Anthony.

"That's Hades, Ker's dad," he replied quietly. "He won't hurt you, I don't think. She and her dad… well, Ker doesn't like her dad."

"What's wrong with the name Maria?"

He shrugged.

Gina frowned. "Um – Maria di Angelo, right, Jack?"

That was obviously just an excuse to interact with him, but Jack didn't pick up on it.

He nodded. "Nico's mom. Nico di Angelo was Hades's son."

"If your stupid Fury had gotten Nico and Bianca out of that stupid casino a few years earlier, they'd both still be here!" Ker snapped. "Bianca would've been the prophecy kid. She should've been."

"That was a shot," Anthony murmured to himself. "She's brave, that girl."

Suddenly, a glassy screen appeared between Bunny and Hades. To my surprise, it showed a very disheveled Sunshine with a cat struggling in her arms.

"Your cat…," she managed to gasp out, "is a menace."

Ker grinned. "Hi, Pluto, baby! Are you being mean to Sunshine?"

There was dead silence.

"What?" Ker protested. "My mom got me a cat to make up for moving us to The Dead City of Dead People Who Like to Keep You Up at Night."

"Um, Ker...," Anthony said quietly.

Bunny suddenly burst out laughing, and Adrianna was quick to follow. Even Katy cracked a grin.

"Ker, honey." Penelope put an arm around her friend. "You do know… what Pluto is, right?"

"Yeah, he's the cat from The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe. Remember reading that, Nick?"

"Ker, do you remember the mythology nerd from our English class that year?" he said hesitantly.

Ker nodded. "Victoria, right?"

"Well, do you remember what Victoria said about Pluto?"

"Um, that… oh, that Poe had chosen that name because… damn it all."

Nick and Penelope nodded.

Anthony chuckled.

"Any suggestions for new names?" Ker groaned.

"Anthony," Anthony said immediately.

I rolled my eyes.

Sunshine finally turned and saw Hades. She blinked, and when she finally realized who he was, she nearly dropped poor Pluto.

"Hi, Dad," she said quietly.

He grinned. I noticed that he had a great smile, considering he probably didn't smile much, him being a god of death and resented by the world and being married to a homicidal woman who hated him and all.

"Hi, Sunshine," he said. "How are you?"

"My mom's dead," she replied simply. I winced, and felt Anthony cringe beside me.

Hades's face fell. "I know."

"Why couldn't you help her?"

"I don't control who lives and who dies, Sunshine. I'm sorry."

"You could let her go," she pleaded. "I know you can do that."

"I can't make exceptions to the rules, Sunshine."

Sunshine's eyes spat fire. "You mean you can, but you won't."

Ker spoke again, without taking her eyes off her father. "Yes, Sunshine. That's what he means."

Sunshine's face immediately disappeared, and Hades was left staring at an apologetic Bunny.

"You know it's not your fault, Hades. She's young and doesn't understand it."

It bugged me that she put Sunshine across as a child. Yeah, she was twelve, but she'd also lived on the streets with me for two years. A child? Yeah, maybe. But childish, young, naïve? Not on your life.

"She does look like her sister, doesn't she?" the god of death said, still staring at the space where his younger daughter had been.

"Yeah, she does," Bunny agreed quietly. There was a moment's pause before she said, "Oh, Hades, tell the kids why you're here."

Well, it was about time.

The god of death grimaced. "I have bad news. Some of the titans' children have overrun the Underworld. They're headed for Tartarus, and you all know what that means."

Instant uproar. Jack was so shocked that he took Gina's hand, who smiled. Blue sparks shot out of Bellatrix's fingertips, and Ker and Penelope appeared at Nick's side like a couple of bodyguards. Mostly everyone else was glaring at me. Anthony, however, gave me a weakly encouraging smile.

Aiko didn't like that. "Anthony!" Her tone seemed angry, but it was mostly covered by the strained, pleading quality in her voice.

Anthony turned to her with genuine innocence "What?"
To my shock (and pretty much everyone else's, too), Aiko burst into tears. I could feel confusion radiating from her brother, but his face softened and he went to hug his little sister.

"I don't get why you've always been taking her side lately," she sobbed into his chest. (Aiko didn't have the kind of height advantage that Anthony and I had.) "You tell me Trevor was saying they wanted to free Kronos, and the first thing out of your mouth is that Nina didn't do it. Nina didn't do this. Nina didn't do that. That's all I ever hear. Ever."

Anthony didn't reply. Instead, he just stroked her hair while she cried out a lifetime of unused tears, and I watched them, feeling guilty and out of place.

Nick POV

"I'm worried about her," Katy said, biting her lip. She, Adrianna, and I were slowly walking back to the Kronos cabin.

I stared at Aiko's form up ahead, with Anthony's arm around her and her shoulders slumped.

"Yeah," I agreed. "It's really unusual for her to break down like that."

"She's got a point, though." Adrianna shoved her hands in her pockets.

"Huge point." I nodded.

"Bunny told me her time in the Theia cabin is taking its toll on her. She's hearing too much psycho weirdo gossip from Ankita."

"You know what's funny," Katy mused, "is that if he actually does love Nina, Aiko's got ten bucks coming to her." I was startled. No one had said anything about love, but hey, Katy was a daughter of Aphrodite and she could be a drama queen sometimes.

"Oh, not another bet," I groaned. Adrianna grinned deviously.

"Yeah, it's Aiko and Rose backing Nina this time. Myrtle and Maia are all for Isolde, but honestly, I think Aiko and Rose have already won. There's no way Maia and Myrtle can recover from Anthony and Nina spending this much time together, and him still sympathizing with her."

"What does it matter who you think has already won?" Adrianna teased. "You should've seen your face at Olympus last year when you got up off the ground and Jack and Gina were sucking face."

There was silence for a while before Adrianna said suddenly, "Gods, why did she dump him?"

"My thoughts exactly," I agreed.

"I think she was tired of you, Adrianna," Katy snapped. I nodded.

Adrianna groaned. "I had a point!"

"You're awful," Katy said, fighting a smile.

"I have to make this right, don't I?"

"I don't think you'll need to," I assured her. "By the way they looked after Hades burst our happy little bubble, they'll be together again within twenty-four hours."

"Gina's stubborn," Adrianna said, biting her lip. "And Jack's too proud to go crawling back to her. I wish he would. It would drive her to the brink of insanity to see him desperate."

"I think she broke the empathy link, too," Katy burst out. It took a while for this to sink in. Gina and Jack had had that empathy link since they were seven or eight.

I turned around to look at the entrance to camp, where we'd come from. Most of us were walking back in groups of two or three chattering about Hades's bad news, but I couldn't find Nina.

"Is she still down at the entrance?" I asked, surprised. It had been ten or fifteen minutes since our group dispersed. We were walking slowly.

"Who?" Katy asked, confused.

"Nina."

"Oh. Yeah, probably."

Adrianna nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you remember how long she stayed in the Kronos cabin after Anthony said whatever he said to her." She turned to Katy. "Has he told you what he…" but she trailed off when Katy shook her head.

"It must've made her feel rotten, though," she said. "At dinner they looked like they wanted to leap onto the table and start killing each other." She frowned. "I'm not enjoying this as much as I should, being a daughter of Aphrodite and all."

"You're no ordinary daughter of Aphrodite." Adrianna rolled her eyes. "If you weren't so off-key all the time, and I didn't have a nose ring, I'd think that you were the daughter of Apollo and I was the daughter of Aphrodite."

"Oh, Adrianna, you know you're a daughter of Apollo to your core," I said. "You're a whiz at prophecies. You play three instruments."

"I hate them all," she snapped. "The flute is too cheerful for me, the guitar hurts my fingers, and the violin sounds like a dying moose. I want to play piano."

"Too cheerful for you?" Katy snorted. "Adrianna, maybe you're too cheerful for the flute."

"You can sing as well as Devon, if not better, and you shoot a bulls-eye ninety-nine percent of the time," I continued. "And what's wrong with your nose ring?"

Adrianna smiled. "I'm flattered, Nicky, but you know I already have my eyes on another boy. I'm very sorry to disappoint. And I don't know what's wrong with my nose ring, just that everyone stares at it."

"Yeah, because you're fifteen," Katy groaned. "You're lucky it didn't get infected, doing it yourself like that."

"Hey, I'm not the one who thought it was smart to soothe the affected area with a lemon."

Katy scowled and explained, "Well, we were watching The Parent Trap, the one with Lindsay Lohan, and in that they pierce one of the Lindsays' ears. Adrianna and I tried to imitate that with her nose. We had different ideas of what the fruit the Lindsays used was."

"So Katy walks in with a slice of lemon in her hand," Adrianna added. "And I thought she was trying to kill me. An interesting new form of torture."

"She climbed on top of her dresser and started screaming," Katy continued.

I laughed, and then there was silence for a while. A lot had gone down those past few days.

"And foes bear arms to Doors of Death," Adrianna finally said simply.

A/N: Is it just me or were these past couple chapters really long? If I scroll to the top of chapter 9, it's nearly a quarter of the way through the document. Holy crap, it's six pages.

Poor Jack and Gina. I mourn the loss of their brief but lovely relationship. God, what moron's idea was it for them to break up? Oh yeah. Mine. Heh.