This chapter contains dialogue lifted directly from both "The Last Olympian" and "The Titan's Curse". Nothing major, but it should probably be acknowledged here. After all, I own neither book, and none of these characters, and I've borrowed Rick Riordan's writing purely for AU purposes. So if we're being honest here, I really get credit for nothing, huh?

Chapter 12: If You're Going to San Francisco

"We were captured!" Annabeth argued for about the zillionth time. "It's not like we ran away and hoped you wouldn't notice!"

"Sure, captured by Luke," said Thalia with a yawn. "Been there, done that."

"Oh, you have not!" Annabeth scowled. "Every time Luke's tried to capture you, he's captured me instead."

"So what you're saying is, I'm smart enough not to get captured in the first place."

Annabeth's face turned an alarming shade of purple, and I decided it was good Athena's kids just got brainpower instead of—say, just off the top of my head—lightning. Not that Thalia having lightning was great for general life expectancies, but it was currently a lot better for her life expectancy.

"Look," I said, rushing to intervene before this got violent, "we found out what happened to Beta. And we found a ton of new demigods. That's gotta count for something, right? Plus Blackjack. And Travis."

"Upside down in a tree," Annabeth muttered.

Connor smirked. "Now who pranks like an Aphrodite girl?"

"No, no, you're right. I already admitted it was uncalled for," said Travis with a matching smirk. "Using a rope snare shows all the finesse of, like, an Ares girl."

"Hey!" shouted Connor and Clarisse together before they realized they were agreeing. They hastily backed off, but it was toward their weapons, so it really wasn't reassuring.

Luckily, before it could escalate, Hazel came riding up on Arion. Octavian and Frank were still with her, but both of them leapt off the horse as soon as it came to a complete stop. Actually, "leapt" might have been too strong a word; if I hadn't known better, I'd have said Arion had bucked them off.

Baby men and slimy augers, I heard Arion whinny in disgust. Next time, the overgrown chicken can have them.

I winced as Blackjack's response hit my ears. Where did these guys even learn these words?

"Hey, everybody, this is Hazel," I said, gesturing to the new girl.

Everybody laughed.

"What?" I demanded.

"We all know Hazel," said Will. "She stays with us at Camp Alpha."

"I don't know her," pointed out Piper. I gave her a grateful look. She walked up to Arion and smiled, holding out her hand. "I'm Piper McLean. Nice to meet you."

"Yeah, and I'm Leo," said Leo, blowing off his still-smoking hands. "I throw fire, because my hotness simply can't be contained. In fact, some have said I'm too hot, but those people are just jealous. Or arson investigators. Which is a joke, mostly, so stop looking at me like that."

Hazel's mouth snapped closed, and she shook her head vigorously. "Uh, sorry. It wasn't that. You just...you look really familiar. I thought you were someone else."

"Ah," said Leo knowingly. "Brad Pitt. I get that a lot."

"Brad who?" asked Hazel.

Leo's jaw dropped. "You don't know Brad Pitt?"

"Hazel...isn't from around here," Nico explained cagily. As always, no elaboration.

"Hey, I'm cool with that," Leo said with a grin. "What I'm getting out of this is that she can't argue. For all she knows, I could totally be Brad Pitt."

"Believe me when I tell you, you are no Brad Pitt." Piper snorted, like she'd met the guy personally or something. Leo stuck his tongue out at her.

Frank stepped forward. "Uh, hi, everyone. I'm Frank. Son of Mars."

He still didn't sound happy about it. I wondered why he kept introducing himself that way if he hated it so much. It was like saying the word "Mars" left a bad taste in his mouth, but his therapist had told him he'd better get used to it.

"And you all know Octavian," said Annabeth. She managed to put more disdain into the word "Octavian" than Frank could ever hope to achieve.

"Right, the guy who murders innocent teddy bears," said Rachel brightly. "I've heard all about you!"

Octavian looked over and sized her up. "Why do you have a mortal girl traveling with you?"

"You're mortal too, buddy. In fact, given how long you demigods tend to live, I'd say you're even more mortal than I am," Rachel informed him.

"I told you our Oracle was mortal," Annabeth said. "This is our Oracle. Rachel, meet Octavian. Octavian, meet Rachel."

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare, at your service!" Rachel offered her hand, then realized how dirty is was, wiped it on her paint-splattered jeans, and re-offered it. Octavian took it gingerly.

"She's...very mortal," he commented.

"She's standing right in front of you," Rachel returned. "What, you think mortals don't have ears? We're a lot like you. Fingers, toes, eyes, nose—"

"Mouth?" added Octavian.

"Ego," retorted Rachel.

"Yes, I don't know why we didn't do this months ago," said Thalia dryly. "Isn't there some prophecy about the two of you getting along?"

"No," they chorused.

"Well, write one!"

"That's not how it works," Octavian complained.

"Some people have no respect for the craft," Rachel huffed.

"That's me. No respect," agreed Thalia. "You're all a bunch of fakers, as far as I'm concerned. I've seen better acts in Vegas."

Octavian gaped at her, but Rachel just shrugged. "Fine. If you don't want to know the mysteries of the universe, we'll take our human Magic 8 ball act elsewhere. Come on, Octavian. Let's go see if we can unravel this prophecy. Or at least uncover some lottery numbers."

She led him away. Thalia called after them, "You're not going to hold this against me for all eternity or anything, are you?"

"Signs are hazy; ask again later!" Rachel called back.

Connor turned to Travis. "Do you think they can actually find lottery numbers?"

"I don't know," said Travis, frowning. "They never mentioned it before."

Connor scratched his chin. "They'd have to see which lottery too; it won't do us any good to have the Powerball numbers, only to find out they saw Mega Millions."

Travis nodded. "Or what if they don't pay attention to which number is the bonus number? Order matters! Do you think they know that?"

The brothers looked at each other, then immediately took off after Octavian and Rachel, arguing about fair percentages for "consulting fees."

"They are so in group G," Thalia said.

"Is that code for something?" I whispered to Annabeth. "Group Greedy Gamblers or whatever?"

Annabeth stifled a smile, but I still saw it. Score another one for Percy. "No, it just means group three."

"Wouldn't that be group C, not G?"

"Gamma, Seaweed Brain. Alpha, beta, gamma."

"That sounds like a frat house."

"Or the first three letters of the Greek alphabet."

"Bet you more people know them from frat houses."

"Even Connor and Travis wouldn't take that bet."

"Hey," I said, suddenly realizing what having a group three meant, "why are they in a group of their own? Do we all have groups?"

"You do now," Thalia announced. "I'm splitting us up."

"Didn't we suggest that, like, ages ago? And someone decided to keep us a full team?" I asked pointedly.

"That was before someone else brought three new demigods," Thalia said. "You guys might not have noticed while you were busy running away—"

"Being captured!" Annabeth and I yelled together.

"—But we're already attracting a billion monsters. Three more demigods is only going to make that worse, plus the four other Alpha campers, if they ever find us. I'm a little concerned we haven't seen them. Not to mention someone has to go convince Reyna to fight with us. So if someone else finds Pollux and Lou Ellen and their group, someone else has to go to San Francisco and scout it out, maybe get some help there if we can."

"Three groups?" I asked, ticking them off on my fingers. "One to find Reyna, one to find Pollux, one to scout?"

Thalia nodded. "We'll keep the main force heading toward Mount Tam. A couple smaller groups will split off to round up the rest of our prospective forces."

"Sounds good," said Jason. "I'll head the team going for Reyna—"

"Sorry, little bro," interrupted Thalia. "That's my assignment."

Jason pursed his lips. "That doesn't make sense. I know Reyna. And, no offense, she doesn't like you much."

"No offense taken. But you know the terrain around the Bay Area way better than I do, and Reyna is a girl."

"I'm not convinced," murmured Frank. "Have you seen her fight?"

"What's her being a girl got to do with anything?" asked Jason, confused.

Piper and Thalia shared a look.

"There are some things girls take...personally, Jason," Thalia said finally. "Now, I'm not saying it's your fault or anything, but—"

"What'd I do?" he demanded. "I didn't do anything! And anyway, if she's mad at me, why hasn't she said anything?"

Thalia and Piper shared another look. This one felt a lot like a how-hopeless-can-boys-get? look.

"She's a girl," Thalia repeated. When it was obvious Jason still didn't get it, she sighed. "Look, I just think she'll react better to me coming and begging for her help. She'll like that. She won't be able to resist me groveling in front of her. Okay? Nothing to do with you."

Jason opened his mouth to keep arguing, but Piper put her hand on his arm, and then he seemed better with it.

Thalia clapped her hands. "So, I head for Reyna on foot. I'll take Octavian with me; you can all thank me later. I'll take Clarisse too. She's been at Beta long enough to know how they'll think. I'll send Will and Beckendorf with Tweedledum and Tweedledumber back there to look for the other Alpha campers by pegasus. Then they can circle back around and pick us up."

"Shouldn't you be on pegasus too?" I asked.

Thalia glared at me. "No. We'll have better cover on the ground."

"But Reyna could be really far away—"

"I said no, Jackson," Thalia growled. "It's my call. The ground is safer."

I didn't see how that possibly made sense; Thalia was the one who could control the air spirits. If anything, her group should be traveling by pegasus, then swinging back around to pick up the others. But Annabeth shook her head slightly at me, telling me to let it go.

"You know, it would probably make sense to split Travis and Connor between the two groups," Annabeth suggested. "They are sons of the god of travelers. It's why they're here in the first place."

"Yeah, and then I get to worry about keeping Clarisse from killing one of them. Thanks, but no thanks. They stay in a group far, far away from us. Besides, if anyone can keep the two of them in line, it's Beckendorf."

"Sure, but what if you run into Luke? You'll want another son of Hermes," argued Annabeth. "You're more likely to see him or his forces if you're traveling by land."

Thalia considered it reluctantly. "Maybe."

"Rachel should probably go with Will," said Annabeth, calculating. "We don't want Octavian and Rachel together, but we also don't want Rachel in a position to fight. It makes sense to keep her with Will anyway. He'll stick close to her, and if she suddenly starts spouting new prophecy, he'll recognize it right away."

Thalia nodded. "I agree. We've already trashed the traditional three-demigods-on-a-quest rule. Might as well toss in a mortal as well. That leaves the rest of you to continue toward Tam."

"I could go with you," Annabeth offered. "Appeal to Reyna, one half-battle goddess to another."

"No," said Thalia emphatically.

"Then I could stick with Rachel—"

"No."

Annabeth frowned. "You can't just say 'no.'"

"We need you in San Francisco. We might need a place to rest and refuel—"

"Then Jason can find us a place!" Annabeth snapped. "He knows San Francisco better than I do!"

"I don't need someone who knows San Francisco," said Thalia patiently. "I need someone who knows someone in San Francisco."

Annabeth frowned harder. "Try the Yellow Pages."

Thalia closed her eyes. "Annabeth..."

"No," she said with finality. "As a last resort. Not before."

"Fine," Thalia said, massaging her temples. "We don't have time to argue. I know you'll do the right thing."

That was the last straw for Annabeth. She shot one last venomous look at Thalia, then turned on her heel and marched away.

The rest of us watched her go.

"Uh, was it something you said?" asked Leo.

"She'll come around," said Thalia, completely unconvincingly. "So, we're all clear on our assignments?"

We nodded. I glanced back at where Annabeth had gone, but she'd disappeared. Probably literally.

"Good. Break camp. We leave as soon as possible."

Annabeth reappeared just as we were preparing the pegasi. She came up to me without a word, but I didn't have time to spare her more than a passing thought. I was mediating yet another argument between Arion and Blackjack.

"Please," I begged them. "Beckendorf's group needs four pegasi to get everyone back to us. That leaves three pegasi, plus the two of you. And we have nine of us who need transportation."

One of you has a serious case of death smell, boss, Blackjack pointed out.

"Yes," I said patiently.

And one of you is a baby man! Arion whinnied.

"You've mentioned that before," I said, trying to stay patient.

I'm a team player, boss, but even I got limits.

"You have something against baby men too?" I asked.

'Course not. I'm not prejudiced!

"Except against death?"

Well, that's just good sense.

"Arion doesn't seem to mind Hazel," said Annabeth, breaking into the argument despite not being able to hear half of it. "Maybe he could carry Nico too?"

"Hey, yeah, good thinking. Arion, how about it? Hazel and her brother?"

I can do that. I'm not a scaredy-horse, Arion whinnied smugly, which I wouldn't have thought possible a few hours ago.

No, just stupid, you son of a wheat field, said Blackjack without missing a beat.

"How is that even an insult?" I wondered out loud. "Never mind. Don't explain. No, Blackjack, I said don't explain! Especially since that's really more of a rant than an explanation—look, I don't care who gave birth to who, okay? Pegasus was the son of a Gorgon, you know, so I don't think anyone has any high ground here!"

Annabeth cleared her throat, and I looked up to see the rest of the group staring at me. My face flooded as I realized I'd been shouting at horses.

You don't need high ground when you have wings, Blackjack couldn't resist adding.

Or the ability to outrun the sun, Arion threw in.

"Forget it," I grunted. "Just...just get ready to go. Hazel, you and Nico are going to take Arion."

I couldn't tell if Nico was relieved he wouldn't be on a pegasus or apprehensive that he was going to be on a freakishly fast horse. He didn't complain, though.

"The rest of the pegasi have their instructions," I assured Beckendorf. "They know what to do."

"No sweat," he said, waving it away. "I've ridden pegasi a ton of times before. My girlfriend is really good with them. When we go on dates—"

I decided I didn't need any more information than that. "Okay, then! I think we're set."

"Easy for you to say," said Connor grouchily. He and Travis had played a game of rock, parchment, shears, and Connor had lost. Naturally Travis had cheated, but so had Connor; Travis had cheated better, so Connor was stuck in Clarisse's group. Privately (very privately) I thought this was probably good. Clarisse was still ticked at Travis for his "Ares girl" comment earlier, so Connor was marginally safer with her. Assuming Clarisse could tell which of them was which, of course.

Thalia rounded up her group, and the rest of us saddled up—or we would have, had the pegasi or Arion allowed a saddle. I jumped on Blackjack, then stretched a hand down to pull Annabeth up after me.

"Good luck!" Thalia called to everyone as she prodded Connor in the back with her spear. He made a face, but he grudgingly took off in the direction the Beta campers had last seen Reyna. Beckendorf's group took to the skies after them, flying high enough to sweep the trees for signs of the formerly imprisoned Alpha campers.

The rest of us milled around for a second. Finally, Jason turned to me.

"So what's the plan?"

"You're asking me?" I asked, shocked.

"Well, no," he admitted. "I was asking Annabeth. But you could answer too."

I fumed silently as Annabeth's face stretched into a grin. She was behind me, so I couldn't see it, but man could I feel it.

"Let's just follow Thalia's orders," said Nico, sounding bored. "Go to San Francisco, find some bad guys to attack, probably die in horrible and extra depressing ways."

I wished the kid would lighten up a little. "You never know. We've made it this far, haven't we?"

He stared at me blandly. "Yes. That's what will make it extra depressing."

"I meant we'll get through this too," I said, scowling. "It was supposed to be inspirational."

Another grin tugged at Annabeth's lips. "You thought reminding us of all the times we've had to cheat death so far would inspire us to, what? Race into battle and hope that famous demigod luck continues to hold?"

"How many times can you cheat death, anyway?" asked Frank nervously. "Because I hear with great power comes a really short life..."

"Cheating death?" asked Leo. "I think I saw that movie. It didn't end well. Or start well. Come to think of it, the middle part wasn't that great either."

"How would you know?" teased Jason. "Word on the street is you had your head buried in a pillow the whole time."

Leo looked scandalized. "Piper! I buried my head in confidence."

"Sorry," Piper said, not particularly apologetically.

I dropped my head into my hands. "Oh, yeah, this is going great." I raised my voice. "I'm taking off now. To go to San Francisco and maybe save the world or something."

"Besides, I was only burying my head to avoid looking at how awful the movie was—"

"Liar, liar, pants on fire!"

"Again? Aw, man, I thought I'd finally gotten that under control..."

I raised my voice again. "Anyone who wants to join me is welcome!"

"Not literally, Leo! It's an expression!"

"Not for some of us, it isn't!"

Annabeth smirked and leaned in to suggest, "Why don't we take off and see what happens?"

I sighed. "Yeah. At this point, I'm not even sure I care who follows. Blackjack, take us out. Far enough ahead of Piper and Leo that I can't hear them argue, if you can."

No problem, boss. You can help me practice my standup.

"That's not exactly—"

Welcome, mares and stallions! Great to see you all made it out to the pasture tonight. Do we have any demigods in the audience? Oh, great, I think I see one! And what's your name?

It took me a second to realize he honestly expected a response. Out loud. I closed my eyes and tried not to imagine Annabeth adding "certifiably insane" to her list of reasons I might be better off dead. "Uh, it's Percy."

Percy? Man, as if you demigods didn't have enough problems. I mean, I love demigods, don't get me wrong, but have you ever noticed how they're always getting attacked by horrible monsters? Really terrible, terrible monsters, who want to rip out their hearts, or crush their lungs, or bash in their heads?

"We get the point."

Or drive them insane? Or kill them with venom? Or...

I rubbed my temples and tried to pretend I didn't hear the other pegasi howling in agreement.

We came up on San Francisco a couple hours after sunset. We could see it long before we got there, though; the place was lit up like Times Square on New Year's Eve. All except one very obvious stretch of land just north of the main city.

"I'll give you everything I own if you tell me that isn't where we have to go," I murmured to Annabeth.

She considered it. "Does it have to be the truth?"

"Try me. I'm gullible."

Annabeth chuckled, but then she got quiet. "I'm sorry you got dragged into this," she said at last. "We were just supposed to get you safely out of camp."

"Hey, I'm out of camp. No one's attacking. Looks like mission accomplished to me!" I joked.

She punched my shoulder. "You're flying directly into the worst danger on the planet."

"Well, yeah, but I'm pretty sure I chose to do that," I said. "Although now that I think about it..."

Another punch to the shoulder, harder this time. I tried not to flinch. "You still have time to run away, you know."

"Nah," I said with a shrug. "It's only fair. I got left out of most of this whole 'battling evil' thing for sixteen years. Time to sub in some new players. I don't suppose I could convince you to take a seat on the bench for a couple days?"

I said it jokingly, but inwardly I wondered. The prophecy had said "birth the hero's eternal doom." We'd all agreed it was singular. But Rachel had spoken the prophecy aloud; she could have said "birth the heroes' eternal doom." Would we have caught the difference? How could we be sure? Did it make sense to risk all of us when we could just risk me? If my fate was already sealed, putting anyone else in this battle was basically throwing away other demigod lives. For no reason.

"Not a chance, Seaweed Brain," said Annabeth, pulling me back to the task at hand. "I'm seeing this one through. I've been preparing for this my whole life."

And I find that kind of sad, I wanted to say, but I knew she wouldn't appreciate it. Besides, every one of us had been preparing for this our entire lives. Some of us just hadn't known it at the time.

"You remember the other day?" she asked, and though she was behind me, I somehow knew she wasn't looking at me. "I mean, when I asked you about making an impossible choice?"

"Not just for yourself," I recalled, nodding. "And I ruined the moment with a badly-timed but still totally awesome joke."

"It was pretty lame," she countered. I could hear the smirk in her voice.

"You laughed."

"I've led a very sheltered life."

It was my turn to laugh. "What, you don't get Comedy Central at camp?"

"Depends on whether the Stolls are feeling generous," she said. "Most of the time they keep their pirated cable tuned to the Game Show Network. Unless Pranked or Punk'd is on. Or the World Series of Poker."

"That...doesn't surprise me somehow."

"I usually watched documentaries when I got a turn anyway," Annabeth confessed, in yet another turn of events that absolutely didn't surprise me. "Listening to narration and interviews goes a lot faster than reading a textbook when you're dyslexic. Luke used to say..."

She broke off abruptly, and I resisted the urge to turn around to look at her expression. I tried to keep it light-hearted. "Probably something about taking over the world someday, huh?"

It came out less like a joke and more like bitter sarcasm. I could cross "keeping things light-hearted" off my list of job skills.

Annabeth sighed. "He wasn't always like this. Seriously. I know you don't believe me, but he wasn't. He used to be—"

"The kind of guy who made you believe anything was possible," I said, reciting Thalia's line from the other day. Annabeth looked at me funny. "Until Thalia died."

"Even then," she insisted. "He was sad, and he was angry, but he was still Luke. He'd dye Chiron's mane pink or steal architecture books from the library for me, even though we could have just checked them out, because he said it was more fun that way. I knew he was only doing it to make me laugh, but it always worked. I couldn't stay mad at him."

"What changed?" I asked softly.

"I don't know." She sighed heavily. "We had a ritual, he and I. Five days a year—our three birthdays, the day I met them, and the day Thalia sacrificed herself for us—we would take a picnic lunch up to Thalia's tree. We'd sit there and tell stories like she was still with us. It was always fun. We'd reminisce about our days on the run, and Luke would tell her his latest pranks. I would talk about new things I'd learned. I thought it was our way of dealing with everything and moving on.

"I found out by accident one year that Luke always went an extra day, the day he and Thalia found each other. I heard him once, and he didn't talk to the tree like he did when I was with him. He talked to her like I guess they probably talked to each other when I wasn't around. Luke talked about how afraid he was and how much he wanted to hurt his dad. And then he cried a lot and yelled at Thalia for abandoning him. It was scary, Percy. It was a side of Luke he would never, ever have let me see if he'd known. I waited until he went back to camp, and when I finally followed him, he was his same old self. He joked around like he always did.

"But I started to notice things I hadn't before," she confessed. She didn't explain right away, though. She stopped, like she was carefully choosing the words for a story no one had ever heard before.

I wondered if she'd ever had anyone to tell the story to before now, and I guessed she probably hadn't. She didn't have that many close friends, and no way could she have told Thalia. In a weird sort of way, I felt honored she was telling me. I probably would have preferred a story about a guy she didn't have a crush on, but I couldn't afford to be picky.

"Things like what?" I asked when she didn't keep going.

I could feel her start fidgeting behind me. "Things like...like he'd have these moods. He'd be depressed, but he was good at covering it. Until I knew what to look for, I had no idea. He upped his training schedule; I thought it was a reaction to not being good enough to save Thalia, but now I think he just liked being able to slash things to pieces. He would disappear for hours at a time. He would say the weirdest stuff, and then immediately pretend he was kidding."

"And you didn't tell anyone?" I asked. "Shouldn't someone have known he was getting a little, y'know, unstable?"

"Look, you don't know Luke, okay?" she snapped. "He was fine! So what if he needed some time to himself every once in awhile? He had a tough life. I figured he'd earned it."

"You defended him," I realized. "You hid it, all the weird stuff he was doing. So Chiron and everybody else wouldn't know."

"You don't get it. He was fine," she insisted, choking a little. "It was never anything serious, just little things. I didn't want to get him in trouble."

It didn't take a world-class artist to connect these dots. "In case he got sent away, or he got mad at you for telling. You didn't want him to leave."

"I would have gone with him," she said miserably. "I wouldn't have hesitated. He was the only family I had, no matter how much I liked camp."

Another thought sparked in the back of my brain. "That decision you had to make. It was whether or not to go with him."

I felt her shift behind me. "Pretty much. He didn't ask me to go with him when he left, you know. If he had, I would have gone, no question. He'd just saved my life. But he didn't say anything until last year. He came to see me while I was at school. He looked scared, Percy. He told me Kronos was going to use him to take over the world. He said he wanted to run away, like the old days. He wanted me to come with him."

"But you didn't trust him."

"No, not really. He'd kidnapped me before, to lure Thalia to my rescue. I figured this was another ploy to get her. Plus...well, a lot of things had changed since the old days."

"Like what?" I asked, curious.

"You," she said bluntly.

I snorted, trying to ignore the warm feeling warring with the butterflies in the pit of my stomach. "Yeah, right. I was keeping you from running away with the man of your dreams. Get real."

"Don't be ridiculous," she scoffed. The warm feeling vanished. "It wasn't you you. My mother was waiting to see what happened, and she wanted me close to take care of it. All I knew was there was another Big Three kid running around, and my mother thought he was dangerous."

"And you wanted to set things right for your mother," I said, unconsciously echoing Nico's assessment.

"I owed her a little. Anyway, Luke got mad and accused me of abandoning him just like Thalia had, and I tried to point out that he'd technically abandoned us first, but he wasn't really into logical reasoning by then. He said I might as well fight him right there, because it was the last chance I'd get."

"So what'd you do?"

"I laughed at him," she said simply. "I told him there was no way. Why would I fight him? He was better than I was. I could never hope to disable him, and I knew I couldn't kill him even after everything he'd done. So he just begged me again to think about running away, and I shut the drafting room door in his face.

"But I did think about it," Annabeth went on, "even though I literally slammed the door on him. I knew I had a decision: follow Luke, or follow my mother. If I went with Luke, I thought maybe I could talk some sense into him, but that would mean sealing my mother's fate with the gods—they would never let her live my actions down. If I followed my mother and Luke was telling the truth, I was dooming him. It was an impossible position. In the end, I picked my mother."

I hesitated, trying to find the right words. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you chose your mom," I said eventually. "Otherwise I'd probably never have met you."

"I'd also never have tried to kill you," she pointed out.

"Some things are worth a few murder attempts." I turned in time to catch her blush, visible even in the dark. I quickly turned back. "Uh, do you regret it?" I asked, changing the subject. "Choosing your mom, I mean. Is that why you're still trying to save Luke?"

"He chose his fate," she said, though I didn't think her heart was really in it.

"We might still be able to help him," I offered, but my heart wasn't in it either.

Annabeth was quiet for a minute. "I think," she said slowly, "if anyone is going to save Luke now, it has to be Luke."

I didn't see that happening, but I didn't see any point in arguing it either. "So where should we set down?" I asked instead. "Does it have to be right on the scary mountain where everybody wants to kill us?"

"No, Seaweed Brain. I think Golden Gate Park will do just fine." She pointed past my shoulder to a rectangular strip of land just off the coast. It wasn't brimming with streetlights, and it obviously had trees and grass and all the other nature you didn't see in a city. It reminded me of Central Park.

The fog was thick coming off the bay, so I doubt we even needed whatever Mist was left as we touched down. We picked a spot sheltered by trees, giving the pegasi a chance to stretch their wings as we all climbed down and shook out our arms and legs. Hazel, Nico, and Arion skidded to a stop beside us.

"There's someone coming," Hazel whispered urgently. "He's walking straight toward us, like he knows we're here."

"No way," I said firmly. "Not unless he's a god."

"Or another demigod, maybe from Beta," suggested Piper optimistically.

"Or another Titan, coming to slit our throats," suggested Nico, less optimistically.

A middle-aged man, athletic-looking with sandy-colored hair, stepped out of the shadows and greeted us with an awkward wave.

"Hello!" he called good-naturedly. He didn't seem bothered by all the weapons pointed at him, although his eyes did widen when he saw the pegasi. "Fascinating! How does the wingspan compensate for the weight of the horse's body, I wonder?"

I couldn't tell if he was waiting for a real response to that question, but I was fairly sure only one of us could possibly answer. I turned to Annabeth.

She sighed, somehow managing to look both shocked and resigned at the same time. "Hello, Dad."

A/N: And one chapter closer to the end! Just a couple more to go.

Once again, all mistakes in this chapter are mine. I fully own them, unless I can blame them on Rick Riordan for any reason.

Thanks again to everyone who has reviewed/favorited/alerted. It always means a lot to know you're reading and enjoying the story!