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.

Hi! It's been a while. To make up for it, this is the longest chapter of the whole thing, inspired by "This Love".

Takes place a few months after Chapter 7, "Salt In The Wound"


Things were bad. They all knew it.

On the one hand, Chris was a lot better. Silena could see the change in him clearly, even though he'd spent most of the summer in the infirmary, and the change it was bringing about in Clarisse. She'd been as surprised as anyone when the Ares girl had approached her about her feelings for Chris, but it was nice to see something that vulnerable in Clarisse, a vulnerability that reminded Silena of herself sometimes.

She liked to think that she and Charlie were going well. Her heart sped up every time he came near her and she loved kissing him. He always smelled like smoke and sweat due to him spending a lot of time in the forge, but she didn't mind. Before they had started dating, she had spent a lot of her free time with him, so that wasn't as different, but now she was more content to just be near him, especially if they were holding hands or cuddling. No one believed her about Charles Beckendorf being a huge cuddler, but it didn't matter. When she was done with her duties for the day, she would sit on the workbench behind him in the forge, working on homework. It was nice. She liked to think her parents had been like this once, just together, but she wasn't sure if Aphrodite thought the way she did about love.

Not that she was in love with Charlie. It was way too early to even think about that, right? Four months into a relationship between two teenagers? And, more importantly, when one was expected to perform Aphrodite's Rite of Passage? And, even more importantly, in a war they were on the losing side of?

Perhaps the Rite of Passage wasn't a big deal, but the war definitely was. It was only December, just about six months since the Battle of the Labyrinth, and Luke- or Kronos, whoever he was now- wasn't giving them a break. He kept demanding more and more information from her, but she held her ground. She had always had a stake in the war, but somehow, the fact that Charlie was on the front lines meant more now. Maybe it was because they were dating, but she had had a major crush on him for a while before they got together. Maybe it was because now, even in the most private and intimate of moments, she could see all of the emotions he held for her reflected in his eyes, and knew her eyes looked the same. Somehow, it made everything more real for her, the fact that he cared for her in that way, a way she'd craved to be cared for since she was a little girl. If everything worked out the way she wanted it, she and Charlie would be together for the rest of their lives, no matter how long that was. Honestly, maybe that was why she held her ground the way she did. She needed him to always look at her that way, and if she gave too much to Luke, no matter how threatened she was, he might stop. In her opinion, of course, Luke had gone way too far too many times, sometimes with her help. When she was younger, she gave him more than she would ever dream of these days. But she'd grown up. She'd found her people.

And Luke was not one of them.

She needed an out, but the only one she could think of would be to get caught in the crossfire, and she couldn't do that. Charlie, Clarisse, all her friends, her siblings, and everyone else at camp needed her. She could pull a Snape and try and double cross her double cross, but she wasn't smart enough for that. She was completely, utterly, stuck. It made her cry sometimes, but it's not like she could talk to anyone about it. How many people could relate to spying for a man you hated?

Well, Chris could.

When she'd found out about Chris, she'd been shocked. She hadn't realized Luke had two spies in Camp Half-Blood, but Chris didn't have the seniority she had. She hadn't felt like she could breathe when he was there, and when he left, she'd been relieved. He hadn't known she was the spy, but she was sure Luke had told him it was someone on the War Council. It's the other reason she'd helped Clarisse, perhaps the more selfish one, because Chris deserved to be happy after the hell Luke had put him through. Not that Chris knew that she knew the half of it.

God, this whole thing was messing with her head. She really needed out.

Now that she and Charlie were dating, she'd been invited to Christmas with his adopted dad. She had never actually met the man, but he had a big heart if he was willing to adopt Charlie after his mom had died. It was just a whole new stressor to add on, but she couldn't tell Charlie that. He was excited to go, especially since Chicago was supposedly beautiful in the winter, and she couldn't take that away from him. She could shove everything down for the four days they would be there and hope no one would notice.

They decided against flying, even though Zeus had a lot bigger fish to fry than a son of Hephaestus and daughter of Aphrodite in his domain, and Chiron said they could take the Camp Half-Blood car. The drive was almost thirteen hours, so they were splitting it out over two days and stopping about halfway through, somewhere pretty south of Cleveland, according to the map. It was nice, just her and Charlie. She'd volunteered to drive the first leg, even though it was longer becauses it was mostly just highway stuff, and she lost herself in the road and the music and Charlie's voice. It was a long drive, for sure, and they took more breaks then they probably needed to to pee and lazily make out in the backseat, but they eventually made it to the hotel. The front desk clerk eyed them oddly as they checked in, but soon they were alone in the hotel room in sweatpants and Camp Half-Blood t-shirts. They cuddled together in the bed, Silena using Charlie as a human pillow, with her head on his sternum and her legs in between his, as The Princess Bride played on the TV.

"I didn't know this was considered a Christmas movie," he remarked, and she laughed, burying herself deeper in his embrace.

"It always is at my house. Dad hates traditional Christmas movies. Instead it was Love Actually, which technically counts, and The Princess Bride and Titanic. For him, Christmas wasn't a time for Santa and Rudolph, you know? It was about love and family," she replied. "Though he had a soft spot for Elf."

"Oh my God, my mom had the biggest crush on James Caan; Elf was always the top of her holiday viewing list," Charlie replied.

"James Caan? Really?"

"Hey, we can't all be as ruggedly handsome as yours truly," he said, kissing her temple. She laughed and smiled, breathing in his aftershave. It didn't quite smell right without the sweat and smoke that accompanied him in the forge, but the heart beat pounding in her ears was his, and his alone.

They finally fell asleep sometime after midnight, his arms wrapped tightly around her. She sighed and closed her eyes tightly shut, wondering if maybe, in a few years, this would be her life: Waking up next to Charlie every morning, prepared to take on the day.

That implied a lot, though. That they both survived. That he didn't hate her after he found out- because she was sure, eventually, he would find out. She hadn't brought the bracelet, had angrily told Luke- well, Kronos now, she supposed, but it was so much easier to think of him as Luke- to go fuck himself and that she would have nothing to report for the next week. He'd taken it surprisingly well, no threats or anything, which only meant he expected a motherload she couldn't give when they returned.

She shifted in his arms, tangling her legs in with his and listening to his heartbeat. It was calming, and she focused on that rather than the other things. Right now, she and Charlie were happy, and together. That was all that mattered.


They arrived at his dad's place late the next afternoon. Her hair, irritatingly, had changed color overnight from black to a bright red, and her once hazel eyes were their natural blue again, but it meant her wardrobe did not compliment her the way it was supposed to. Charlie had laughed and reminded her that she was still the most beautiful girl he had ever met, and she'd smiled, letting him kiss her forehead.

Mr. Holland, though he insisted she call him Jonathan, was nice, and reminded her a lot of her own dad. He clearly loved having Charlie there, and Charlie loved being there. He'd only left New York a couple times in his life since arriving at Camp, and it was clear he was really making an effort with Jonathan. They got along really well.

Jonathan knew some of their situation. He knew Charlie wasn't normal, and that was why he spent all year at Camp, and he seemed to know something about smell, since he'd apologized for how smelly he'd made the apartment but he wasn't sure how strong it needed to be to mask their scent. Silena had laughed, since it honestly didn't bother her and it didn't bother Charlie, either, but she knew it meant a lot to him that Jonathan had gone to these lengths for him. Growing up, she had had two run ins with monsters before being sent to Camp, one of which was with a satyr there to help her after her father, able to see through the Mist, had called for one after the first monster incident. Chicago was a much bigger city, though, than Summerville, so it was probably for the best.

Jonathan did a good job of blending three people's worth of Christmas traditions across their four days together. They watched her dad's non-Christmas movies alongside Charlie's more traditional ones, went ice skating and sledding and made peppermint chocolate chip pancakes, Jonathan's invention that she knew she would dream of for weeks to come.

Their last day with Jonathan is the day after Christmas, in which they feast on leftovers from the big meal they'd shared with Jonathan and his extended family the day before, and Charlie tried to teach her how to make his mom's gingerbread cookies completely from memory and then they accidentally cooked them too long and burned them enough that there was some smoke and the alarm went off. They'd managed get the smoke out through the window, and they'd started laughing hysterically and kissed each other deeply, until Jonathan coughed and it broke them apart. She was kind of sad to leave, but was missing her family at camp, so it felt right.

Even if it meant she'd have to face Luke again.


She stood next to Thalia's Pine, looking down Half-Blood Hill. She was tired from the drive, could barely keep her eyes open, and her sword was heavy in her hand. The army was charging towards her, and she could hear people screaming at her to do something, but she was so tired. She made her way forward just as something large charged at her and she flung her sword out. It was blocked quickly.

"How could you!" they yelled at her, and she looked up. Drew was standing in front of her, and she pulled her sword back.

"You betrayed us!" Now it was Annabeth, who wasn't done fighting, and Silena had only seconds to block her.

"I'm sorry!" she yelled, and Percy laughed in her face, yelling, "Sorry doesn't fix it, Silena!" He stabbed at her and she rolled, falling down the hill.

"I can't believe I ever loved you," Charlie said. She was spread out on the grass, her sword sticking up in the air, and she looked up. He was staring down at her, pure hatred in his eyes.

"Charlie, I can explain!" she yelled, but he was walking closer to her, unsheathing the dagger on his toolbelt. "Charlie!" she yelled again, but he didn't stop until he was in front of her, dagger pointed at her. "CHARLIE!"

"Silena!"

She bolted up, breathing heavily and trying to see through her tears. Charlie had his hands on either side of her face, wiping at her tears with his thumbs.

"I'm here, I'm here," he said, and he quickly pressed his lips to hers.

"Charlie," she whispered, still panting, and reached out and grabbed his hand.

"You're okay; it was just a dream," he said. She nodded, trying to get her breathing back under control. When she had, she looked at him, right in his eyes full of concern. Concern, note hate. Not yet.

"Charlie," she said again, her voice breaking. "In my dream, you-"

"Hey, nothing bad is going to happen to me," he said. She didn't have the heart to tell him that wasn't her dream, so she just nodded.

"I just don't want you to hate me," she said, quietly.

"I could never hate you, Silena," he replied, and he pressed his forehead to hers. "There's nothing that you could do that could make me hate you."

She wasn't sure if she believed him. After all, how could he expect her to be the spy?

Instead, she kissed him, desperately, just needing the reassurance that he was there and he cared for her. They laid back down in the bed, his arms securely around her. She closed her eyes, and prayed to her mother that somehow, Charlie was right, and not even this could make him hate her.


A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Reviews are great motivators, so feel free to let me know what you thought!