Hello internet.
(A/N SPOILERS, btw)
Hard to believe it, but I actually started this story before HoH came out, and now it's all over (cue happy sobbing).
Since I'm stubborn and I love this story, I will be forging ahead as normal, and as much as the Nico/Will paring makes my little heart sing, I will be saving that loveliness for another story, another day. This story will finish as I intended it to and it will lead to the sequel and the second sequel I'm half done writing already and I'm sorry if I've missing things that Riordan put in the last two books, but I'm on a runaway train of thought and I'm not stopping now.
IMPORTANT: I'll do my best to just not mention what happened in the last two books in these stories, and you all can just assume that everything that happened in those books happened in this story too, except when I specifically say something different happened. And I'm going to be saying that a lot of different things happened.
But generally, they went to Rome, they went to Athens, shit went down, it's was all epic and awesome. Just assume that happened here, even if in my first two or three chapters I might've said something that contradicts it. From this point on, IF I contradict myself (I'll try not to, but if I do), just assume everything after this chapter is more right than everything I said before this chapter.
Good?
Good.
Enjoy!
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Jimmy ran as fast as he could up the stairs of Archstone, all the way to the twelfth floor because he was too hyped up to wait for the elevator. He had grass in his dirty blonde hair, and his jeans were torn up at the knees and scraped red, his hands and feet and entire being coated in a layer of dusty dirt.
Who did he run to? Not Miranda, though he desperately wanted to, she wasn't supposed to know yet. Then again, who else knew and just hadn't said anything like he wasn't supposed to say anything!? Did Miranda know? She had to know, she always knew! But… what if she didn't know? What if he messed it up? Oh he was not going to be the one to screw this up with his big mouth! But, what happened if he went to Miranda? All he wanted to do was tell Miranda…
He pushed open the door from the stairwell into the right floor, lurching out into the hallway and spinning around twice, unsure. Miranda, or not Miranda? Should he just hide in his room until this was all over? Should he go try and work with his slingshot on the roof by the greenhouses—no, Miranda would probably be up there with her flowers, with Katie and Susan and—
His eyes landed on the Jackson apartment door.
"Jimmy!" Annabeth shouted in alarm as he bowled through the door and spun around to shut it tight behind him, panting as he leaned against it. Of course he wasn't surprise to see Annabeth here—she lived here essentially, everyone knew it— but he was a bit startled to see her right inside the door.
"Do you know!?" He squeaked in desperation.
Thank her clever wit, because she only looked confused for half a second before her grey eyes softened and she smiled knowingly. "Did you have a good day?" She chuckled lightly.
"Yes!" Jimmy cried out, relieved because there was no way he would've ever been able to keep all the things he knew now inside without telling someone. "My mom played kickball in the park with a bunch of mortals and me! She was my age and she was awesome!"
"Goddess of youth, it makes sense." Annabeth smiled, reaching up and giving an amused look at him as she pulled strands of grass from his hair pointedly.
"It was so much fun, we totally creamed these kids from fiftieth street— hey! We should start a kickball team here! We could play like we do in capture the flag only there's be no monsters and we'd never lose with you and Percy and Stephanie and Becki and Miranda-!"
"Slow down," Annabeth smiled, putting restraining hands on the practically vibrating boy's shoulders. "Take a breath there, kay? And that sounds like fun, I'm sure Percy would love to play." She smiled knowingly, raising her voice just a tad at the end.
"Play? Play what?" The son of Poseidon's voice echoed from farther in the apartment.
"Kickball!" Jimmy forgot Annabeth's command to calm and started bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet again. Percy's poked his head from around the living room's doorway.
"Kickball? I'm in." He grinned wickedly. He got a calculating look on his face. "Now how do we get Lou Ellen to play? I don't think I've seen her out of her room all week."
Annabeth gave him a wild look.
"And that is my cue to leave—you… planning things. There is no safe distance zone." She made a show of shuddering, and her boyfriend came into the hallway fully to cross his arms at her and form a mild glare. "Don't give me that," She grinned, turning and shifting her back higher on her shoulder.
"What? Where're you going? Don't you wanna play?" Jimmy pouted up at her.
She blinked in surprise, glancing between Percy's suddenly knowing smirk and the son of Hebe's perfect puppy dog eyes.
She shook her head sharply. Jimmy was Nico's age for crying out loud, not six years old like he sometimes tricked everyone into thinking. Not on purpose of course, since Hebe seemed to have passed down ever "innocence" gene she possessed to her son.
"Can't," She forced herself to say, absent mindedly picking more pieces of grass from his blonde hair and trying to ignore the incredibly effective puppy-dog pout on his youthful face. "I've got a date at the library—aka the only two hours of perfect silence I get a week with this madness we live in. Maybe another day."
"Oh, ok." Jimmy relented, forgetting the pout and smiling brilliantly. "Promise?"
"Promise," Annabeth sighed, realizing the guilt had all been in her head. Damn Hebe, she cursed in her head. The innocence almost hurt; he was worse than Percy.
"Hey! We should go get ice cream before we start! They'll put any candy you want on top for Halloween!"
Annabeth turned and looked at her seventeen year old boyfriend, mentally scratching her last thought out.
She sighed and turned for the door again, ruffling Jimmy's hair as she passed. "You two have fun—Jimmy, don't let Percy break anyone or overdose on the candy."
"Yes ma'am!" He said determinedly, straightening up.
"Oi!"
Annabeth laughed as she shut the door on Percy's shout and Jimmy's laughter.
000
…Four months ago…
000
Cold air rushed over the deck of the Argo II as it shot at maximum speed through the night. They were above the clouds, and the boat looked right at home, sailing and cutting through the clouds like they were the waves of the sea.
The sea…
Jason flinched.
He wouldn't say he was overly attached to Percy exactly, seeing as he'd only just met the guy in the grand scheme of things, but the son of Poseidon still felt like his brother in a way, being fellow Elder Three kids and all. And they had tried to kill each other while possessed by ghosts that one time. They were pretty simple guys: attempted murder was like an extreme bonding exercise in some morbid way. So, strange as it was, the guy was sort of like his brother.
His brother, who was now stuck in the lowest part of hell while Jason himself sailed free, miles above the entombing earth.
He quickly directed his thoughts away from his lost friends.
The moon shone down and illuminated the clouds until they glowed silver, the deck bathed in an eerie blue light. Perfect visibility incase of a monster attack. As they made their way to Greece, the attacks were happening four or five times an hour.
"Incoming." Leo croaked. The frazzled-looking Hispanic boy hadn't slept or talked much since they left Rome yesterday, his eyes glued to the sky in front of him and the complicated controls to steer the Argo II. Jason was starting to wonder if he'd used his powers to weld his hands to the steering consoles. In any case, after they'd decided they needed to go to Greece with their half-a-plan, he'd thrown himself into his work, finishing repairs on his ship in three hours flat against all odds (and really, Jason thought, what was physically possible), and they set off. Apart from occasionally warning people about oncoming threats from the radar on his controls, he hardly made a sound.
Jason frowned worriedly at their captain, but put it aside for later. He drew his sword and braced for the attack. It was odd, fighting these creatures he'd never seen or heard of before in this strange and foreign-feeling sky, while also trying to kill them quietly so as not to wake anyone else below deck. It was odd how things had changed in such a short time, how fighting off monsters alone was a nightly duty, not a big event that required help anymore.
As usual, creatures he had no name for shot out of the sky and hit the deck hard. Jason sliced through two of them before he could even see it properly, ducked out of the way of a third, before doing clipping that and a fourth one into golden dust. He was so preoccupied with his own thoughts, he only barely registered that they looked vaguely like iguanas or something.
"Leo," He called, turning his attention to the helmsman. The exhausted boy's eyes looked like they were being held open with sparks of electricity running through his veins, not of his own will. "You should get some rest. I'm sure I can steer if we're just going straight for the night and you put all the complicated stuff on autopilot." He stood next to him and gently tried to pry his hands from the wii remote and keyboard but he was surprisingly firm in resisting.
"No, I'm good." He clipped back, flashing a grin that was a haunting mockery of what it used to be.
"Come on dude, you're gonna collapse any second, and we need everyone at the top of their game when we get there." He didn't look convinced, turning his eyes back to the sky ahead. "Don't make me get Piper up here." He threatened and the shorter boy chuckled.
"Beauty Queen wouldn't do that." But he didn't sound so sure.
"Just… sit on the deck, lean up against the mast or something and if there's a threat, you'll be right here to take the helm anyway, and you'll get off your feet." Leo didn't have a response to that argument. Jason figured with the attack a minute ago, we had a solid twenty more before the next, and even that little bit of time to get Leo off his feet might do him some good.
Leo hesitated before giving a long suffering sigh. His thin fingers flew across the controls— pushing things, pulling levers, spinning CDs, opening tabs, shaking remotes— before resting the wii remote in Jason's outstretched hand and explaining the simple motions of how to go up, down, left, and right. Even those things took a ridiculous amount of concentration and a few demonstrations to get right, and still, Jason really hoped he wouldn't need to do anything because that was way too complex to figure out at two in the morning.
"If this dips below twenty seven, readjust this lever to go down and turn this knob three clicks to the left," He explained, pointing to what looked like a giant thermometer, an old fashioned microwave knob, and a bright green lever from what seemed to be an old board game stuck to the side of one of the vast control panels.
"Make it a little more complicated, will ya?" Jason muttered and Leo smiled, this time with some actual emotion.
"You won't need to do anything unless we're in strong tail winds that are effecting the angling, or a monster attack knocks something out of alignment. Even then, I'll be right here. You'll do fine!" Despite his reluctance to leave, he seemed cheered by the concept of trying to explain his master creation to someone. Jason had to admit, it definitely was something to be proud of. Perhaps he could ask him for a full run-down on how to fly the ship tomorrow, maybe that would brighten his semi-comatose mourning attitude. The Leo he knew should not be so quiet and serious, so maybe a good dose of mechanical talk would help him snap out of it.
He almost let himself think that maybe Annabeth should be the one to talk with him, but he shut those thoughts down before they could even properly form.
She is gone, he is gone, they're both gone, so shut up brain! He scolded himself.
If Leo noticed him flinch, he said nothing.
Jason was pleased with his own brilliance when, not two minutes after settling against the mast facing off the port side, Leo was fast asleep, snoring delicately in the night wind. He knew the mechanic would beat himself up in the morning that he let his guard down, but Jason didn't care right then, all his friends needed the sleep, Leo in particular.
The only lucky thing to have happened in… well, months really, was that from that point until around eight in the morning, there were only eleven monster attacks instead of the thirty or so they usually expected. Jason watched the radar like a hawk, using his powers to momentarily abandon the ship and meet the monsters in the air about a hundred yards away so Leo didn't have to wake up once.
The sunlight finally woke the mechanic though. Well, that and coach Hedge announcing his presence loudly as he came up from below deck.
"Wah- wait…" Leo sat up and rubbed his eyes, wiping a bit of drool away trying to get his barings. Piper—bless her—was right behind Coach Hedge with a cup of coffee and chocolate croissant from the mess hall. It was apparently meant for Jason, but he shot her a glance and nodded at Leo. She spotted him, her eyebrows going up in surprise, and changed her route with an understanding glance at Jason.
"I thought you'd be out cold in your bed," She said, crouching in from of the dazed boy and handing over the food. He seemed shocked at everything that was happening.
"I fell asleep," He said, surprised. "I, uh… there were no attacks?" He asked Jason over his shoulder.
"Not too many." Jason smirked knowingly. "You slept right through them." He teased lightly and Leo's cheeks flushed until smoke started coming from his dark curls.
"You needed that sleep though," Piper comforted him, placing a hand on his shoulder before releasing him quickly at the heat.
"Sorry…" He muttered, taking a bite of the croissant and eyeing the coffee. "You guys really want to give me coffee?" He raised a skeptical eyebrow. True, there'd been a time that giving an ADHD demigod coffee was just plain bad news (especially because Leo seemed more hyper-active than your average demigod) but Leo needed the boost to get back to his old self.
"We're not going to be landing anywhere today, are we?" Piper asked, and Leo shook his head. "Then we can put up with you on caffeine so long as we're on deck and don't have to actually, you know, focus and do things on the ground." She meant to be teasing him, but her words left them feeling all a bit colder at the prospect of what they'd be doing very soon, once they were on the ground.
Speaking of that…
"Is Nico awake?" Jason asked, but Piper shook her head. Nico had collapsed not long after they'd taken off, Hazel assuring them it was simply exhaustion, nothing to worry about so long as he rested for a bit. He hadn't woken up yet, and Jason was getting antsy.
He supposed it made sense, after all, Nico had been technically dead for the past week, only to wake up and be thrown in the middle of their crazy-ass quest and watch his cousin and cousin's girlfriend fall into a part of hell that only he knew what was down there. Physically exhausted, emotionally shattered, and scared as hell, and he was supposed to lead them all to Greece to fight their way into Tartarus.
Oh, this was an excellent plan.
Apparently, he was one of the few that thought that way though. Frank seemed to almost mirror his feelings, but after Hazel's assurance he would be ok, the son of Mars seemed to have warmed to the idea. It's not that Jason didn't trust Nico (though there was a part of him that felt that way too) but he didn't believe the Son of Hades had enough left in him to fight. He'd seen the look in the boy's eyes after being released from that jar, the way he talked about Tartarus, the way he seemed to be broken inside. It was sad, and Jason felt true sympathy, but he didn't want to place his life in the hands of someone so obviously destroyed inside. Just as he knew he would not take control if he was so comprised, except… they really didn't have a choice this time.
And it wasn't just the brokenness : apparently, he knew nothing of the kid. Not since finding out he was Greek and that Percy was the one to bring him and his sister to Camp Half Blood before running away. He got the general outline of Nico's past, but there were large chunks missing when he was at neither camp, and it made Jason nervous. He wanted to get to know Nico before following him blindly into a battle they would all most likely die in, but Nico wasn't the sort of kid you just got to know. He was the sort of kid you respected and stayed the hell out of their way and let them do as they damn pleased—as Camp Jupiter had been doing for their supposed "ambassador of Pluto" for months now.
But that had to change now, and Jason suspected it might be a little hard for him to adjust to.
What he didn't understand was why Leo and Piper had no trouble trusting the guy. Hazel too, because him being her brother was a pathetic excuse at this point. She'd told them she hadn't known he was Greek, that she didn't know where he spent his time other than he was "traveling", that she hadn't known all the things Jason was dying to figure out about the youngest boy on board. She knew no more than he did, but simply because he saved her from Asphodel and he was her brother, that made it all ok. Her adamant trust had convinced Frank, but Leo and Piper were another story.
Leo never doubted the Son of Hades, and Piper—though initially distrustful as well—warmed up to him pretty quick apparently on her own. It baffled him.
"Hazel says he's getting stronger though," Piper interrupted his thoughts. "She expects he might wake up today or this evening. She says he does better at night."
"Well that's good, 'cause we won't know exactly where we're going much longer. The general direction of Greece won't do us much good the closer we get." Leo said, stuffing the rest of the croissant into his mouth and taking a gulp of the coffee. "Blah, coffee tastes weird." He crinkled his nose with his mouth still full.
"That's because you have half a chocolate croissant in your mouth." Piper rolled her eyes at his less-than-stellar-manners.
"No, I'm pretty sure it'd still taste like feet." Leo frowned into his cup, swallowing his food and carefully taking another sip. "Yep, definitely a close relation to feet."
"And you know what feet taste like…?" Piper stood, smirking down at him.
"I'd rather not get into it, ya know?" Leo stood as well, brushing himself off and stretching. He certainly did look better after the food and some rest.
"You're impossible." Piper smiled, walking away and back below deck.
"This is boring." Coach Hedge grumbled. "Cooped up on this blasted ship-!"
"Oi! No trash talking the ship!" Leo called to him where he stood grumbling his complaints.
Coach frowned and was about to shout back when Jason interrupted. "Coach, could you check on the statue of Athena? It's vital to our quest, we need to be sure it's in perfect condition, in case we get attacked or something…" Jason widened his eyes at the satyr, who looked forever pleased to be in such an important role.
"Right! I'll bash the brains in of anyone who tries to touch it!" He grabbed his baseball bat and darted off below deck, nearly plowing Piper over as she returned, this time with Frank by her side.
Jason beamed as she approached him with another croissant and a glass of milk instead of coffee.
"Thanks," He pecked her on the cheek in thanks and she wrapped her arms around his waist as he took a bite, simply hanging onto him as they watched the sun rise higher in the sky off to the left of their bow of the ship, the clouds still thick and stretching in every direction like they were sailing on a ocean of cotton balls.
"Ugh, no PDA or food over the controls! Get!" Leo shooed them away, taking the controls and flipping, twisting, shaking, turning, fiddling with everything to get it off autopilot.
"You seem to be better," Piper noticed the mechanics renewed vigor.
"Sleep," Jason smirked down at her. "It's an amazing thing."
"I slept too long," Leo muttered. "I should've-"
"Slept." Jason interrupted. "I don't care what you think a cookie did, you deserved some rest and a break, and I don't want to hear it!" He raised his voice sternly as Leo looked about ready to argue. Again, they all felt cold in the warm morning air.
Leo had explained about the cookie, and despite Hazel and Frank looking like they'd personally killed Percy and Annabeth, no one blamed Leo for doing what he did. They couldn't even know for sure that's what did it, but they all had a sinking suspicion that it was.
At the mention of the cookie, Leo's eyes blazed. Not with real fire, but an inner fire Jason couldn't place. It looked like hurt, sadness, guilt, pain, but most of all anger. Not the 'you-annoy-me' angry, the full out 'I-will-incinerate-something-in-the-next-five-minutes-if-you-don't-shut-up' kind of rage. That confused him as well. Leo just wasn't the angry type. He was the goofy, flippant mechanic, the comic relief, he just didn't do angry.
And just like that, it was gone, and Leo looked more tired than ever.
"Is Hazel with Nico?" Piper asked Frank to distract from their current tense silence. Of course Hazel was with Nico, she was never anywhere else, but she was trying to break the tension. Frank looked confused for a few seconds before catching onto what she was doing.
"Uh, yeah. He woke up a few times last night, but not for long. She says he'll be up and active tomorrow."
No one really knew what to say, so they let all conversation drop.
And that's the way the day went: caught between trying in vain to act like everything was normal and being stuck in awkward, tense silences as they thought of their futures and the past week's events. They wandered around, practicing with each other, waiting for monsters to attack, or sitting and doing nothing but get trapped in their own thoughts. Really, it felt like they were all just waiting for Nico to wake up and tell them in more detail what they should expect.
At the same time, everyone was dreading it.