HAZEL
Hazel didn't know how long she stood outside of Percy's cabin. It could have been minutes; it felt like hours. The ship rocked under the waves; the waters underneath them changed as they crossed into the Atlantic Ocean. Percy would be able to sense the change. He had done so a million times since she had met him. He called it a Son of Poseidon thing.
The thought of Percy made Hazel's throat close up; she cleared it like she merely had a frog in it. Her breath came out in a sniff, and tears fell from her eyes and dropped onto the wood of the hallway floor.
The tears shook her back into reality and she set a hand to the door like it was something sad that had emerged from the wood, cold and lonely. She pressed her forehead to it with a sigh.
A hand touched her shoulder and spun her around, half in a battle stance that she couldn't help because they had fought for so long.
It could have been anyone, Jason, Piper, Coach Hedge, though the touch felt human –
Frank stood there, hand on her shoulder. His arms were stained a deep purple like he had dropped them in a vat of dye. Some sort of herbal concoction Hedge insisted on smearing on all of their dragon burns. The Satyr claimed that it would heal them faster than Ambrosia. It was actually helping, but it smelled like wet, wild donkey.
Hazel's movement shook another tear lose on her face. There was an moment where she didn't move, pretended that it didn't happen. But then Frank did something he'd never done before. He reached up and wiped the tears off her face.
"They're asleep," Hazel said by way of an answer to a question that neither one of them had asked. "Where's Leo?"
Frank paused in his touch like he was taking a breath. He seemed to be gauging exactly what she meant. "He's down in the engine room."
Hazel heard the hurt in Frank's voice. She hadn't meant to put it there. She realized something on this whole journey. She loved Leo, yes. He was the connection to her first real love, her Sammy. It had brought them closer together. But the way she felt for Frank, it was different.
"He," Frank suddenly looked lumbering, like he was trying to turn into an elephant, but couldn't remember how to. He found a sudden fascination in the ground, like a pile of golden drachma had appeared at his feet. "He said he didn't want to be bothered because he was working on something."
The hurt in Frank's voice amplified; but after his stutter Hazel knew why it was really there. She knew why Leo was down there in the engine room, and so did Frank.
Oh Frank.
Hazel's heart ached for both Frank and Leo.
"She was really pretty," Hazel's words raised Frank's head up to her. "Your mom. You look a lot like her-"
Frank looked like he wanted the floor to turn back into trees and swallow him. "Yours too."
The ache tore at her gut from seeing the ghost of her mother again; who had come back up from the Underworld with the others. She had sacrificed herself to save her; and this time she wasn't going to ever come back.
Hazel muttered a Creole word that she had forgotten what it really meant, she just knew it meant hurt.
She turned, and in a move worthy of Annabeth Chase, she grabbed Frank into a hug. "Thank you."
Frank hugged her back, his arms stunk so bad from smeared purple goo, but she didn't care. She only cared that he was there. They still had so much to do, they had lost so much. Winning was supposed to feel better than this.
Maybe tomorrow it would. When it didn't hurt so much.
Hazel reached up and kissed Frank again, longer than she had ever done before. When she pulled away she saw he had been crying. And this time she wiped off his face.
"We should uh," Frank cleared his throat, and took such a messy swipe at his eyes that Hazel knew he was trying to compose himself. "We should probably go and see if there are anything else we can fix on the ship. It took a big hit from the storm."
"Yeah okay," Hazel agreed. She took one last glance at the closed doorway of Percy's cabin, and whispered a silent prayer to her dad. I know you don't like to help the living; but make an exception.
She held out a hand to Frank, and felt his slide into hers. They walked down the hallway until they reached a winding set of ascending spiral steps that led up to the deck of the Argos.
They both emerged on deck into a bright afternoon sunlight that had broken through the clouds like Coach Hedge had shouted at them to do so. The air was warm with salt, and the waves stayed calm below. Festus clicked and hummed, like he enjoyed the change from not fighting and keeping them from being shot out of the air by monsters.
Leo wasn't at the helm; and Festus ran on an auto pilot mode. The entire ship was Leo's baby his absence made Hazel feel like the ship was sailing sideways. Coach Hedge sat on the east end of the ship, leaning against the wooden rails. A travel sewing kit was opened on his lap , pins were in his mouth, and he worked what look like a vine threaded through a needle over a crack in his wooden breast plate. He muttered and bleated a lot, like sewing wasn't a skill he had mastered.
"Zhang," Hedge raised his head at the sound of their footfalls on the planks. "Lévesque." He stood up and a red pincushion and a set of teeny tiny orange handled scissors rolled off of his lap. "Where have you two been?" He looked at them in accusation. "Do I need to go get the cowbells from stables?"
"We were taking care of Percy and Annabeth," Frank said it almost like a dare.
Hazel watched the angered annoyance fall off of the old goat's face like the scissors and pin cushion had from his lap. He walked over to them, his hooves clicked on the deck. "Are they any better today?"
It had two days since they had rescued Annabeth and Percy from Greece. They were both still in rough shape; only having bouts of consciousness and lucidity. Even with all the nectar and ambrosia Piper and Hazel had given them, their wounds were almost healing at a mortal rate.
And the nightmares – Hedge heard the screams. They all had. Hazel had seen the Fields of Punishment down in the Underworld – but she had never heard anything like what she heard from her friends. Sometimes it was Annabeth screaming for Percy to not die. Sometimes it was Percy screaming for something to stop attacking her. Sometimes it was both of them.
Those times were the worst; it sounded like someone trying to rip the wings off a dragon fly. Hazel's arms were bruised from the times she tried to calm their thrashing.
They had all agreed to tend to them in their own bunks instead of the sick bay, because the familiarity of their stuff might give them some comfort. Which it did, for the first five minutes. But then Annabeth woke up screaming.
The only thing Hazel and the others found that eased those horrible sounds was physical contact. Jason had moved Annabeth into Percy's room the night before when it got so bad that Annabeth's screaming had permeated up to the deck of the ship. And Percy's chased hers, calling out: "Noo!" like he could hear her. When Jason set her in Percy's bunk, it was like a million sleeping draughts. Because they both stopped screaming, like they couldn't bear to be separated, even when they weren't awake.
"They were more awake," Hazel responded evenly about the situation for the first time in days. "They're both still weak, but-"
"Good," Hedge bleated cutting her off. He adapted an errant stray parental kind of look, before it vanished. "But as soon as Chase is better, it's back to her own bunk." His attempt at humor seemed to fall flat even for him. He picked up the red cushion and brandished the little scissors at them. "I need someone to scrub this deck. I won't have my ship looking like anything but perfection for our victorious grand arrival back to Long Island!"
Hazel and Frank didn't object or try to correct him. They grabbed a pair of stray mops, that, for some reason, sat against the mast. ("I was practicing battle form," Hedge explained as he went back to his sewing.) Hazel filled a bucket with Pompeii Lava Strength Floor Cleaner and they set to work mopping at the planks that hissed a little bit under the molten cleaning product.
Hazel attacked the chore like it was a battle mission. She had been down in Percy's little cabin, smelling blood, and infection, and saw him so still for so long that any excuse to distract herself from it was welcomed.
She and Frank scrubbed the entire deck, from rail to rail. The mop heads were made of asbestos, but Hazel had no fresh water to dilute the extra strength lava in the bucket, so the mop started to smoke by the time she reached the bow of the ship.
She abandoned the mopping after that, not wanting the flames to get too close to the small charred piece of wood in the pocket of her jeans. There were burned already flecked holes in the denim already. They had run out of the asbestos cleaning aprons they were supposed to wear when using this product.
Someone threw a bucket of ocean water onto the mop and steam rose like a cloud into the air.
Leo stood on the other side of the steam, "Sorry, I thought you could use a hand, and I needed to send an Iris Message. We should be in range now."
The sarcasm was Leo; but his voice sounded rough, like it been overused. His eyes were red, almost bloodshot. His shirt and jeans looked and smelled slept in.
Hazel was overcome with an emotion like a coin sliding sideways down her throat. She lunged forward and hugged Leo.
Leo's arms hung about like he didn't know what to do. But she felt him hug her back.
"Your mom was really brave Leo," Hazel pulled back from Leo.
"Yeah," Leo smiled like she had seen him in their shared vision of Sammy on the porch of his Texas home. Something half stunned, half sad. "She was. Yours too." His eyes moved up to Frank, who Hazel saw watching them. Not in jealousy. Just watching. "And yours too."
The stunned look on Leo's face increased when Frank suddenly hugged him. Not a fist bump, bro hug. But a real kind of hug, with both arms.
Leo's arms hung in the air for a moment again like kite strings caught in a tree. But then Hazel watched as he hugged Frank back, a real kind too.
Leo pulled back after a few seconds. "Uh, thanks man." He punched Frank in the shoulder. "I know how you feel about fire; but the steam from the burning mop is gone so-"
"Yeah sure," Frank agreed. But, backed way away and pulled Hazel with him.
Leo didn't look upset, because he knew Hazel literally had Frank's life in her hands. Leo set the dirty mop head on actual fire then quickly doused it with the remaining ocean water from the bucket he had brought.
A cloud of steam shot into the air like the contrail from a space shuttle. A small, thin rainbow arched over the steam from the bright sunlight."Fingers crossed guys." Leo reached into his pocket and pulled out a golden drachma. "Oh Fleecy, do me a solid." He tossed the coin into the steam and it vanished. "Show me Chiron, Camp Half Blood, Long Island."
At first nothing happened. Hazel had never sent an Iris Message. She watched Percy attempt to do it once; but it hadn't worked. She didn't know if Iris Messages had call waiting, or if the Goddess had been affected by the split personality disorder like the other Olympians.
When nothing continued to happen, Leo swept the air like it would give a better signal. "Come on, come on!"
A face emerged from the steam and Leo jumped back.
It was Iris, but not like Hazel had seen before. She wasn't wearing a tye dyed hippie Mumu or yellow tinted sunglasses. Instead she was in a long Greek Style white robe, her long hair French braided down her back. Bronze guards were on her arms, leather thongs on her hands, a quiver of arrows strapped to her back. A Celestial bronze knife that looked like Annabeth's was gripped in her hand.
She looked fierce and growled like she had been woken up from a nap. "I'm sorry, your call cannot be completed at this time. Please try your call again later."
"What happened to Fleecy?" was Leo's first question.
Iris was indeed the massager goddess, but she had outsourced much of her day to day message responsibilities to a cloud nymph named Fleecy so she could in turn run her emporium of granola and love crystals.
"That's not a valid command," Iris said like she was some prerecorded prompt. "Please try again-"
"This is important!" Leo shouted to the Goddess. "I need to talk to Chiron! Tell him it's Leo!-"
Iris turned and stuck her head almost through her message. "Look kid, I don't care if you're Hercules! I'm kinda in the middle of something!"
There was the sound of an explosion behind her and her background was enveloped in a wall of fire. Iris turned to it and shot and arrow from her bow with a battle cry. Something screamed and fell behind her. "Whatever little girlfriend you want to IM, or whatever order you want to place at my Emporium. I don't have time-"
"It's about Gaea!" Leo shouted.
Iris turned to him, her face stunned. "What about her?"
"She's gone, we defeated her!" Leo yelled in a rush.
"Very funny!" Iris hacked at something with her knife off the message. There was a scream and a flash of purple. When Iris came back into the full image of the message her knife was bloody. "Somebody named Leo single handily defeated the most evil Titan of the World. Try again-"
"Stop it!" Hazel saw that the purple thing that had fallen was a Roman demigod. It looked like Dakota, his mouth stained red from Kool Aid. His arm bled from a gash that glowed bright green.
Which only meant one thing: the Romans had arrived Camp Half Blood, and it hadn't been a diplomatic meeting.
Iris whipped her head to Hazel, like she wanted to attack her through her own message.
"It's true!" Hazel saw more flames rise behind the Goddess, and hared the cry of Dakota's wounded Calvary Eagle as it pulled up to avoid the fire. "We're the Seven of the Prophecy! We closed the Doors of Death in the House of Hades! Please, listen to us! You don't have to fight. Please! Let us talk to Chiron!"
"I remember you girl," Iris glared at her."Wasted my perfectly good gluten free snack cake products on those Cyclops! Didn't even know what an Iris Message was! I most certainly will not let you speak with Chiron! I only trust a Greek to talk to Chiron!"
"I'm Greek!" Leo shouted. "Son of Hephaestus!"
"You're consorting with that one!" Iris pointed the tip of her blade at Hazel like she was worse than a pile of garbage. Hazel resisted the urge to punch the Goddess of the Rainbows in the face. "Chiron will only talk to a true, honest, demigod! Let me speak to Percy Jackson, and I will patch the connection through."
"Percy's hurt, he can't talk!" Hazel yelled, silently adding 'you rainbow hugging waste of a message' under her breath. "We saved him and Annabeth Chase from Tartarus. They helped us seal her in the House of Hades. Put us through to Chiron!" Hazel shouted the last part with a wave of hot anger.
Her camp was attacking Camp Half Blood, campers were being slaughtered. The Goddess needed to get over her issues.
Iris looked at Hazel like she had just rethought her policy on her usage of her gluten free snack products as weapons. But then the Goddesses' eyes widened at the sight of Nico coming up behind Hazel with Jason and Piper.
Apparently the image of three Greek half bloods was enough to sway her. Though technically, Jason was Roman, Iris didn't seem to care. "If this is some kind of prank call; I'm revoking all of your data and roaming plans!"
"Fine!" Hazel snapped, not knowing what half of that meant. "Now show us Chiron!"
Iris waved angrily like she was waving away bugs. The image of a Centaur with a thick curly hair and an equally thick beard replaced the Rainbow Goddess. He wore a celestial bonze breast plate and carried an enormous bow made of cypress wood.
There was a roar of noise behind him like a raging battle. Arrows flew over his head like birds. The Roman Calvary eagle cried out in the background.
Chiron stared past Hazel, and Frank. looking over her shoulder at Nico.
"Chiron-" Nico spoke the voice like he hadn't said the name in a long time. He sounded all of 12.
"Nico," The Centaur lowered his bow. "My boy, how are," Chiron swept his eyes over Jason, and Leo, then Piper. "Are you all safe?-"
"We're alive," Nico said, and the Centaur's eyes met his in a kind of understanding.
"Chiron," Jason stepped up to the Iris Message like it was a teleconference. "Are the Roman Campers –are they there?"
"They're at the boarders," Chiron turned to look over what looked like a field of strawberry fields. "So far our defenses have held up fairly well, only one has managed to break through. A scout with a particularly red stained mouth."
"Dakota," Hazel breathed. She had never really hung out with Dakota; they were in different Legions. Plus the whole Kool-Aid obsession thing kind of freaked her out. But still she –"He's not dead is he?"
"Some of Ares Cabin got to him, and Iris took him down with her bow." Chiron said it like he was exasperated. "She hasn't shot an arrow in a millennia, I don't know why in Hades- the boy is okay. He's being looked after by Apollo's cabin. I've given them orders not to keep him confined. He might be useful as a bargaining tool."
"He's not a tool!" Hazel shouted. The centaur looked at her with a cocked eyebrow. It was half impressed, half 'who are you?'
"This is the sister you went to retrieve?" Chiron's question was directed to Nico.
Hazel watched him nod, like Chiron was a particularly scary math teacher.
"I value the lives of all demigods, Roman or Greek, child," Chiron said through the Iris Message to her. "This camp has seen too much bloodshed already. I do not wish anymore."
Chiron we're almost there!" Jason shouted. "We'll be at camp in another day; you have to hold them off until we reach Long Island! We did it."
Chiron looked at Jason like he'd gone insane. "You did?-You mean?-"
"We shut the doors to House of Hades," Jason told him. "Gaea's gone, and she isn't rising again, not ever."
Chiron was a centaur, probably as old as time itself, but Hazel saw him stare at Jason in complete awe.
"Where is Percy? and Annabeth?"
"We got them out," Hazel said. She knew Chiron hadn't known they were in Tartarus. This was the first communication they had had with either of their camps since they started this quest. She quickly filled him in on what happened. Chiron's eyes went wider in shock, and what looked like deep rooted pain.
"Sir, you have to hold Camp Jupiter outside of your borders until we arrive! If Reyna manages to get inside she will not back down until your camp is destroyed!"
"I will do my best Daughter of Hades," Chiron promised her. "The Hunters of Artemis have blockaded our western border – I will confer with Thalia to expand the perimeter."
Behind Hazel, Jason paled at the mention of his sister's name. "We haven't seen the Hunters since the Wolf House. Is Tha- are they alright?"
"Your sister is fine, Jason." Chiron reassured. He looked over his shoulder. A blur of campers in orange shirts and battle gear raced past him. "We will do our best to hold off Camp Jupiter's Legions from our borders. But, I am sworn to protect this camp from invasion. If they break through, I will adhere to it." Chiron swept a hand through the air and the message ended.
Hazel felt like she had been dumped with a bucket of ice water and thrown to the bullies in her old school yard. Reyna was a warrior, she and the Camp Jupiter Legions would fight to the death. So would Chiron and the campers at Half Blood Hill. The two sides of demigods would destroy each other, and Gaea being buried back in the earth wouldn't matter.
It would still all end in blood.
"Leo!" Hazel turned around so fast she bumped into Leo who was right behind her. He twisted a finger in his ear from her shouted cry. "We need to put the ship in that hyper solar mode thing!"
"The ships too damaged from all the monster attacks and the storms," Leo told her." It won't handle another Hail Mary move."
"Then we have to fly!" Hazel returned so quickly it was like a firing bullet from revolver. "Frank can become a dragon, and Jason-"
"Annabeth and Percy are still too weak to be moved out of bed," Jason said.
Hazel shook with anger, not at them, not really. Jason placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hazel, if anyone can hold off Camp Jupiter, it's Chiron."
"If anyone else gets hurt!-"
"They won't," Jason promised. "I won't let them."
Before Hazel had met Jason she had heard stories about him. The famous Praetor who had almost single handedly won the war against Titans, Reyna's Second-In-Command. He was like a character from one of her old graphic comic books back in the 1940's, something not real, too perfect.
But now; she'd met him, she'd fought beside him. She saw the kid behind all the hype. Jason wasn't some fake cartoon character. He meant what he said.
"We'll be there in 23 hours, 6 minutes and 3 seconds, exactly." Leo said by way of reassurance. "Jason's right, Chiron's one butt kicking Centaur. He won't let anyone get hurt, even the 'enemy'."He air quoted "enemy."
Hazel didn't feel comforted. Not even when Leo offered her a reassuring smile and Frank put his arm around her.
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