Okay, before we begin, a quick note.

This chapter almost didn't happen today. Why? Earthquake. For those blissfully unaware, the city I study in was hit today/yesterday by three consecutive earthquakes in a span of an hour, of 5.5, 5.1 and 3.4 Richter scale magnitude. Lucky me, I left the city and returned to my hometown (which is miles away) the day prior, so I avoided the mess, but the move and subsequent fretting and being glued to Internet, chat groups and TV left very little time to write. However, I did promise I'd stick to my schedule, so I'm here, uploading at the dead of the night, because I'm a writer, and I know how elated I feel when my favorite authors put out good work despite their situations.

Now, on the more light-hearted side, I realized I haven't once talked in Annabeth's POV! "You're family, aren't you?" has an excuse of being nearly entirely written in Hades' POV, but to make a fallacy like this here... well, I do suppose I didn't have a good idea of how would Annabeth interact with a fellow girl. No offense to our Uncle Rick, but Annabeth literally had no connection with any girl shown, only told about by Thalia and Annabeth in their monologue retrospection, and some small inroads made with Reyna. So, I'm correcting this oversight on both Rick's and my side, and delivering you an entire chapter's worth of Annabeth Chase!

Thank you for all the positive reviews (all of them warmed my heart), but there were a few questions raised.

Petra Arcadia: You know, I had thought about crossposting to AO3, but most of the fandom is here, and this is the site I started fanficcing on... I'll definitely think of uploading things on Archive as well! Also, Anna Karenina opinion... I may or may have not thought this about he book when I first read it lol (then again I was a precocious fifteen year old then... re-reading it at age seventeen definitely gave me a new perspective)

Guest: I won't be removing AN just yet - it'll create a mess with posting reviews for registered users :( It had happened before, and I don't want you guys to lose your ability to review. After I'm done with HoSA, I'm definitely removing it, but not until then.

Cloud Dreamer 313: Hey, I love my cliffies ;)

RGAfl: I will be writing in certain flashbacks, but demigods are still the ones with the quest, so I kinda need to give them priority ;D But fret not, you will hear more about Hermes' and Sephie's love story!

Now... let's move on, Annabeth wants to talk! Fair warning, this is the part where 'significant deviation from canon' tag I kept talking about comes into play...


Annabeth had to give it to Romans: they knew how to build. Like, properly build, not just put things together, add pretty ending touches and call it a day. No, she wasn't shading intentionally, she was just making an observation.

"Do you like our city?" Reyna, daughter of Bellona and one of the Camp Jupiter's praetors asked her with a little smile as she purposefully directed her to the temple of Ares – Mars, Annabeth corrected herself with a grimace as she recalled the difference between the Greeks and Romans in their view of the gods.

Her own mother was almost unrecognizable in her fury and misery, and not for the first time Annabeth wished she hadn't met her. She supposed things could've always gone worse: only being given a quest to find Athena Parthenon and not being outright disowned like Athena – or was it Minerva? - had threatened her with was definitely a positive part, which said a lot.

"Oh, yes, I do," Annabeth said, studying the decorations and noting for the seemingly pointless friezes cleverly hid spikes and other defensive fortifications - fitting for a god of homeland and warfare Mars had become. "I helped with reconstruction of Olympus after the Titan War, and all new ideas are welcome."

"Really?" Reyna hummed, glancing at her automaton dogs Aurum and Argentum – gifts from the lord of the blacksmiths for Lady Bellona himself, if the legends were to be believed, and capable of discerning truth and lies according to Jason. Annabeth would be insulted by the implication, but it wasn't like her story was very believable, even for a demigod standard. "Well then, I will show you all the best places in New Rome for an architect to marvel over."

"Please," Annabeth grinned at the prospect – it was getting a little too stuffy and awkward with everyone staring at each other, and Annabeth wasn't above avoiding the problems if it kept things peaceful after all; the fact she had learned the hard way back when she was thirteen. "I need more ideas."

"Of course," Reyna ushered her towards the gardens with the lush greenery and pretty fountains. "You know, this is something a child of Minerva would be, if they even existed – an architect, an artist."

Ah yes, the differences again. Annabeth bit her lip to not say anything in defense of her mother. They had already gone over how was she even possible – not that Octavian believed her, but he had to cave under Sephie's and Reyna combined death glares – and hearing she would only be valued for her imagination in the fields of art rankled.

She was a daughter of a war goddess, the thinker of plans and strategist of Olympus, not an artisan: she chose architecture because she liked it, not because it was expected of her for being Athena's daughter. Her siblings and she were free to pursue whatever caught their fancy and occupied their minds because it was their wish, and for the umpteenth time she wished Romans were a bit more flexible when it came to the demigods' roles in the Camp.

She would die if she was only relegated to being an artist; she had already heard how certain children chafed under the strain of their birth legacy, and it boiled her blood. So what if one child of Neptune caused an earthquake; how did it become Sephie's fault? If one child of Pluto had caused World War II, what logic would lay the blame on Hazel's, Nico's and Bianca's shoulders?

Blood did not make a family, as Luke had proven her.

"I see," Annabeth said after a few seconds. "Do I offend you?"

"No, not at all," Reyna shook her head and sat at the marble bench that was entirely overshadowed by the grapevines. "We did meet after all, and I'd never underestimate anyone who managed to trick Circe."

They met?

Annabeth's mind short-circuited for a moment before the eyes and the accent clicked in. Circe's island attendant who had followed her around!

"Wait, that was you?" Annabeth took a good look of the other girl. She could see the resemblance, and granted she had also looked way different after Circe had her all decked in makeup, jewelry and fancy clothes, so she could explain to herself why she didn't recognize Reyna.

Next time, she vowed to herself, I'll look at everyone closely to avoid this type of situation.

This is just embarrassing.

"It's alright," Reyna shrugged and patted the seat next to herself. "We were both very young back then. I only remembered you because you claimed to be daughter of Athena, and we've seen a fair share of sons and daughters of Athena there."

"You did?" Annabeth sat down, curiosity truly and well piqued. "Could you tell me about it?"

"Only if you have a story in return for me," Reyna's lips thinned, and Annabeth tensed. "Tell me about Luke Castellan."

"What?"

Annabeth did not want to sound this rude, but Reyna's request took her off guard. How did she even know Luke's name? Had he been recruiting from Roman side as well during the war? Sephie had never talked about her time on Mount Othrys, but Annabeth was sure she would've at least told them about Romans' existence...

"Let's just say his name came up a few times from various sources, and I want to know the story," Reyna's eyes were narrow, and Annabeth cursed inwardly.

What had he done now? What should she say?

Should she say anything at all?

Or keep quiet?

"Luke is… a difficult subject for everyone," she hedged, thinking up a million ways and reasons for the question and how to avoid it. "I'd really have to know what you know and why you want to know -"

"No need," Reyna waved her hand dismissively, the eyes not losing their dangerous look. "You've already told me enough. It'd explain Sephie's reaction and why he didn't react."

"He?" Annabeth asked, but before Reyna could answer, a loud shouting came from down the street, at the same place where they'd left Greek envoy and Roman welcoming party.

What in the Tartarus is going on right now?


"What do you mean, you lost her?"

Annabeth was having a real hard time controlling her own anger after everything that had been said in the last half an hour, and Leo cowered before it, eyes shifting away and hands working overtime on one of his toys. Octavian, on the other hands, locked her eyes with her in a show of defiance, and Annabeth just let herself stare at him some more, calling in all her raw anger she could recall from the Second Titanomachy, until he also dropped his gaze.

"Annabeth, they're not at fault," Jason tried to intercede, but Annabeth was not having of it; nailing son of Jupiter with a burning glare as well, she repeated her question.

"What. Do. You. Mean. You. Lost. Her."

"She was there one moment," Leo mumbled, scratching the back of his head, "and then gone the next. I swear, I only turned away for one second to show Teddy Bear-guy the controls for the Argo II."

"Leonard is telling the truth," Octavian's face twisted into a grimace as he spoke. "She had come onboard to see if she could sense anything off about the ship, turned around the corner and disappeared into the shadows."

"Disappeared… into the shadows," Annabeth repeated, mildly but still feeling furious. "She's no child of Hades – sorry, Pluto - to be able to shadow-travel."

"What about my brother?" Hazel Levesque, one of new friends Sephie had made (of course she'd befriend a child of Big Three, Annabeth though cynically – Sephie and Thalia became super close in matter of months, and Nico and Bianca all but hung off her sleeves at the beginning) said, wringing her hands. "He could take her through shadows."

"It is a possibility," Annabeth allowed it. "Lord Hades – Pluto – does like her a lot, and Nico has been a glorified messenger boy for him recently."

"Like her?" Reyna crossed her arms. "As in..."

"Tartarus no," Annabeth shook her head, feeling slightly nauseous at the thought. She had been on Nico's birthday in the Underworld, and nothing in their interactions lead her to that conclusion. "One, Lady Persephone would've raised hell, and two, she's very much taken."

"Don't I know it," Jason groaned, hand going for the throat. "Lord Mer-Her-Mercury," he settled finally on the name with a pained look on his face, "made things very clear last year."

The Roman side looked pretty taken aback at the implication; Octavian in particular gaped like a fish, which made Annabeth's day a little better. Curiously, Hazel and Frank were not surprised at all: they either got Sephie to talk or she freely gave them the information. While Annabeth would like to believe it was the first option, it was far more likely Sephie just spilled her guts at some point – she loved gushing about Hermes and their dates, Annabeth recalled with a pained grimace.

She had to have heard the story about their first coffee date at least a half dozen times by now, and chances were she'll hear it a half dozen times more by the end of the year.

Damn Sephie and her oversharing when she was excited.

"Yes, well, the point is, she and her uncle are on pretty good terms," Annabeth returned the conversation to its start. "However, she never leaves anywhere with immortals or demigods without leaving a note behind."

Half of the reason Camp Half-Blood freaked out as much as they did when she disappeared was the lack of any notes and evidence of any kind, and knowing on how many hit lists she was on. Thalia, Nico, Grover and Annabeth had all ganged up on her after the Titan War and forced a promise out of her to leave notes whenever she left for any kind of outing with Hermes or a demigod, just so that they could track her last known contact in the case she disappeared.

"Wait, there's a note!" Piper yelped, the only one who had dared to skirt around Annabeth to check out the corner Octavian had pointed out as the last place he had seen Sephie at. "It says: Gone to see Uncle H. C took me. Check on A. See you soon, love you ton. J."

Annabeth let the breath whoosh out of her lungs. Sephie was fine, left of her own volition, and will return soon – all the key phrases and shortenings were used. Though, who was C, and why did they take her instead of Nico? Why did she direct them to check on Nico?

"She's okay?" Frank, who had been silent for the most part, spoke up.

"Yeah," Annabeth nodded, and at seeing everyone's confounded expressions, explained the code. "If she used initials for everyone and her own surname, it means she left voluntarily, with someone she trusted enough to bring her from one location to other. Plus, she used 'see you soon, love you ton' - that in on itself says she expects to be back soon, and that we should not worry about her. Uncle H is Lord Hades, obviously, and A is Nico, for Nico Di Angelo."

"We should check on my brother?" Hazel blinked.

"Who is this C?" Octavian demanded at the same time.

"I… I don't know," Annabeth was just as lost as everyone else on the identity of C. "She never used that shortening before."

There was no one who could've taken Sephie, unless Hades fathered another child secretly or a child of another Underworld deity like Thanatos showed up.

However, there was someone Sephie knew whose surname started with C…

"And Luke Castellan?" Piper voiced Annabeth's thoughts.

"He's dead," Jason instantly pointed out the flaw in the logic.

"What if Lord Pluto sent him?" Frank was definitely warming up to the idea, as did most of the people around her, Annabeth noticed. The only skeptic remained Hazel – not unexpected, seeing who her father was.

"I doubt my father would use someone's soul like that," Hazel said the exact thing that had been on Annabeth's mind when she considered Luke. "The risk of the soul running away is too great, and Lord Letum is already busy enough."

Le- ah, yes, Thanatos.

"Besides, Luke had said he was shooting for Isles of Blessed, meaning he would be in line for rebirth," Annabeth revealed to everyone. This little detail only Thalia, Annabeth and Sephie knew up until now, and it was a pretty solid guarantee none of them would ever see him again, not even Thalia, due to Lethe's work. "That'd be a second reason for him not to leave Underworld."

"Actually, you'd be wrong for once, Annie."

A hauntingly familiar male voice spoke into Annabeth's ear, and she couldn't help but screech and jump away.

"LUKE?!"

"Hey, Annie," Luke grinned boyishly at her, Sephie waving to her from where she was holding onto Luke's shoulder.

He hadn't changed at all from the last time Annabeth had seen him in Camp half-Blood at nineteen years old: the thick scar, wavy blonde hair that was dancing the tightrope divide between an unholy disaster and artfully messy, camp necklace, shirt and khakis, even his old sword he had used before getting Backbiter.

He was also pale as… well, as a ghost.

"Hey, Anna," Sephie bowed her head. "Sorry for disappearing on you, but Uncle really needed me."

"We found your message," Piper waved the paper, talking over Annabeth's shoulder and letting Annabeth gather her wits.

"Didn't you say - ?"

"Situation changed," Luke shrugged as Sephie walked away to talk and made her apologies with everyone else, leaving Annabeth alone with Luke. "I'll go for a dip in Lethe, just not right now."

"You're not… you reached Elysium?" Annabeth couldn't help but worry, tugging on the strand of her blonde hair.

"Streamlined, like everyone else who died that day," Luke said with a smile. "Hades didn't want to clog the lines, so only those who did something dishonorable in battle, like stabbed their enemy or comrade in the back, got judged properly by the judges."

Annabeth sighed, heart feeling a lot lighter.

"Speaking of which, I have to go back," Luke grimaced as he checked the time on his watch. "It's currently nighttime in Underworld, and I have a night shift not even urgent delivery for Hades can get me out of – Perseus is a right tightass, doesn't accept any excuses."

Before Annabeth could say anything, Luke flipped a coin he had hidden in his sleeve, and disappeared.


Somewhere between Sephie getting back and Luke disappearing, someone had said something to offend someone (Annabeth had long since lost the thread of who said what, particularly with Leo's rambling and Jason's inserts every ten seconds), but in the end it didn't really matter.

What mattered was the fact everyone who had come onboard Argo II were imprisoned at the moment, and had no way of getting out.

"Could you just shut up?" she hissed at Jason, who grew as red as a tomato and instantly stopped talking. "We need a plan of getting out."

"The bars are designed to be unbreakable," Jason instantly told them, looking a little sheepish. "And the only key should be with Reyna."

"What about blasting our way out?" Leo suggested, pinching the hem of his camp shirt. "I mean, I could probably rig up an explosive with the materials here - "

"No explosives!" Piper barked before Annabeth had to do so, and whacked son of Hephaestus over the head. "Do you want to kill us in the collapse of the building?"

"Well, if you place the explosive at just the right place and have just enough power, you could theoretically create an explosion - "

"You don't have the materials for such explosion here," Annabeth nipped the idea completely in the bud, staring Leo down. "I know what explosive you're talking about, and you can't exactly control its radius, plus it'll take too long to make it."

"True," Leo sulked, letting go of the idea but still looking eager to contribute. "What if I use my fire to melt the bars? It should work!"

"I don't know," Jason shrugged at the questioning looks. "I don't think they ever tested it against Hephaestus' children's fire."

"I say we try it!" Leo jumped up, but before he could approach the bars to try melting them, a clanking noise echoed from just outside their line of sight. Annabeth and Jason also rose up, while Piper only got partway up, half-crouching and hand on the base of her throat – a little projecting trick Annabeth remembered Silena teaching her siblings.

A dull thump came soon after the clanking sound, and then a clinking and footsteps came over, revealing Hazel's sweat-shining dark-skinned forehead. She was carrying a set of keys, had no shoes on and had a shallow cut on her cheek as if she had gotten in a fistfight.

She likely did, to get to them, Annabeth realized.

"Hazel!" Leo whisper-shouted, waving to her. "Came to get awesome Leo McShizzle Valdez out?"

"I've come to get you all out," Hazel spoke quietly as she picked out on key and tried it, finding that it didn't fit and chose another. "Sephie and Reyna are under fire in Senate, and Frank's freshly off probatio – I was the only one who could get you out without people immediately stopping me when I tried getting inside."

"They still tried to," Annabeth said, touching her own cheek to tell the other girl she had an injury there. Hazel frowned, went over the weeping wound with her finger, and continued fiddling with the keys.

"Not too bad," she finally declared after seeing the amount of blood on her fingertips, and whooped as she finally managed to locate the right key. "Come on, we don't have a lot of time to get out."

"What about Reyna and Sephie and everyone else?" Jason asked as he helped Piper stand up completely and climbed up last, giving Leo and Piper both a leg up before flying himself out.

"Sephie will catch up with us, she said so," Hazel murmured as she tiptoed around the knocked out guards, leading them through the dark corridors. "Reyna will have to stay, and Frank is coming too."

"Senate had made a decision?" Jason sounded alarmed, and Annabeth's spine stiffened.

"It will, any minute," Hazel confirmed in a dark tone. "That's why we need to get out now."

"Uh, some explanation, or context, or anything?" Leo butted in, saving Annabeth's breath from asking the same question.

"Senate never manages to make decisions swiftly," Jason explained as they hurried down the passageway, blindly trusting Hazel to lead them. "They love arguing, it's what they live for – everything needs to be rehashed and then re-rehashed before making a decision. The only time they arrive at quick decision is when they acknowledge there's a war ahead, and if we don't get out before they open the temple of Janus, we'll be screwed."

Annabeth went through her mental library of Roman-oriented knowledge. Janus was Roman-only god, even if he was also recognized by Greeks later on; the god of beginnings and endings, the two-faced god of choices and doorways, some mortal authors speculated he was an aspect of Saturn, kinder and ore forgiving version of Kronos. However, he wasn't just a god of choices: he guarded doorways, and according to Virgil's Aeneid, opening the doors of Janus' temple -

Annabeth shivered as she connected the dots and wished she could chain-curse out loud without any repercussions.

According to Virgil's Aeneid, opening the doors of Janus' temple would signal the start of the war. Juno – Hera, whatever, she was still the cow bitch – had done it in Aeneid, as she tried to wipe out Aeneas and forever erase all traces of Troy's bloodline by siccing Latin tribe and their allies on Trojans.

Yes, if they don't get out soon, they'll be screwed – death would actually be by far the kindest thing that'd happen to them.

"Sephie's staying behind even with knowing this?" Annabeth voiced her own misgivings, spying a small dot of light that indicated the end of the passageway.

"She was raised on the shield, meaning she has the legion behind her, so politicians can't do much," Hazel told them as they hurried to the end of the passageway, where Argo II was floating above them in all its glory and being relatively unguarded. "We, on the other hand, don't have that protection. She'll be fine."

"If you say so."

Annabeth hated trusting people she didn't know well. It was a flaw of hers, that hubris – if she knew and trusted someone, it meant they were good at their job, and if she didn't know them, she couldn't trust them – but so far she hadn't erred a single time. Leaving allegiances aside, Luke, Thalia and Sephie all doubled down on their promises of what they were capable of and more than delivered in the past. Hazel was an unknown, and Annabeth struggled to trust her on her word.

However, she did survive a quest with Sephie, that did count in Annabeth's books. For now though, she had to focus on her own quest, one step at the time.

Step one: get everyone safe and alive out of Camp Jupiter.

Step two: get a prophecy for the quest Athena gave her.

Step three: blast Gaea to kingdom come.

Step four: relax, for once in her life.