Here I am again. With another chapter, as usual. I don't really know what to say, not many people actually read this anyways. So the story is now in between the Lightning Thief and the Sea of Monsters, I decided I would do a chapter in between for some reason.

As usual, it's in Ben's POV.

After our quest's end, everything was, well, kind of boring. Cassandra and I, unsure really of whether or not we were going to go home. Summer wasn't over yet, and while it, kind of felt like we'd only been sent here to fulfill the gods' quest, this place was a home away from home, and it was barely mid-June.

Cassandra had sent a letter, last week. To Mom. Or Amanda. Mom? I wasn't really sure, now that I'd learned she wasn't even my true mother, but she'd raised me and Cass as her own children and we'd been…for her. Which sounded wrong, because we were people, not a pair of earrings. But today, Mom's answer had arrived in the mail, according to Chiron. We were going down to the Big House for it now, Cassandra pulling my arm as she flew down.

"Come on, Ben! Don't you want to see what Mom said?" I stop and stay rooted to the ground despite Cassandra's insistent pulls on my arm. "Ben!" I don't move though, refusing to bend.

"No, I don't, actually." She stares, at a loss for words. "Aren't you afraid that she'll act…weird, now that she knows that we know about Artemis? That we aren't actually her children?" Cassandra reels back as if she's been slapped in the face, and I know that it hadn't truly sunken in that Artemis was our mother. Amanda Snow had been…well, a foster. Her hand, unconsciously, went up to the yellow bangs she'd dyed to match Mom's blond hair, but I continue. Cassandra's silver eyes meet mine, betrayed.

"Ben, it's not that easy." I looked at her, raising an eyebrow, and she glared. "Benjamin Snow!"

"Cass, I know that it's, well, impossible. But you heard Artemis, you saw the sign above our heads. We, well, we aren't really hers. Why didn't you accept it, when you look at Mom, with blond hair and freckles, and then us, with freaky silver eyes and auburn hair? And how there was never a Dad in the picture if we questioned her? You haven't. You probably already forgave Artemis for giving up the only two children she'll ever have. I can't. I can't forgive Mom for what she did, and I definitely don't agree with Artemis." There was a rumble of thunder, Zeus, and a golden deer edged out from the forest, and its eyes locked with mine. A sign.

"See! Artemis is watching us. I bet she always has." Cassandra argued, but she still looked betrayed by what I'd said. "I'm going to go and read what my mother has said to me, but you can remain parentless, an orphan, all by yourself." Her words stung as well, but I couldn't blame her after what I'd said in turn to her. Cassandra probably had all rights to be angry.

"Cassandra-"

"Save it for whoever wants to listen to your woes."

"Cass."

She didn't turn around.

I followed her, because, like her, I was actually curious to find out what Mom had to say even if I wasn't quite ready to forgive her. When I got there, Cassandra was reading Mom's letter.

Ben, Cassie,

I know you're probably angry. Ben, I know you aren't too happy with me right now, you aren't willing to forgive me just yet. I'm sorry. Cassandra, please don't be too hard on your brother. Or yourself. You did everything you could to stop her from going, and I'll advise you that it's actually not very bad. You have a community there, and everything. A whole group of people who…who understand you. Leaving it, for me, wasn't a mistake, but not going would've been. It helped me a lot and I'd support your decision. Ben, I want you to realize that while Artemis and I could've been more honest, we did what we could to save everyone. Had the Olympians known that Artemis, the virgin goddess, had had not one but two children, you two would've been silenced in your cradle. Zeus, Artemis's father, would've blasted me to ashes with lightning, as punishment. Artemis would've been shamed. I know that when you visited the Council on the Solstice, they still stared, but it was better that Artemis was accepting of you and you were heroes. Both of us did the best we could. I know it may not have been enough, but it was what we could do.

Both of you are probably wondering about Camp now, whether I'm just going to drop you here and never come back. Ben is, at least. I want you to at least stay here for the summer. It's up to you whether one or both of you decided to stay year-round or leave for the school year. I know you've both had school troubles, and so I won't be disappointed if you decide to stay. This is your birthright, after all. I hear that you have caused a bit of trouble across the States with some young people named Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase, and a satyr named Grover Underwood. I'm proud of you.

Ben, I know you probably won't be willing to forgive me but write me a letter. Just yourself. Cassie already has. If you choose to stay, I wish you luck. Don't die on the lava wall, or in archery, and don't let the Hermes cabin pick your pocket.

Your mother

Cassandra closed it up after she finished reading about a minute after I had, I had a feeling she was still very angry at me from earlier, and she sat carefully away from me and took out another piece of paper with only her name marked on it, which made me wonder a little. But Cass ignored me and read her letter and by the time she finished there was a little smile tugging on her lips and she was looking at…a brochure? We were barely twelve, college wasn't here yet. It said something about Artemis, though, and my heart plummets, and, traitorously, leaps, because that's my mother and even though she abandoned me she's still my mother and I want her to pay attention to me even though I'm male and she's never going to give a damn about me but she can care for Cass.

And I leave, and, I watch Annabeth fuss over Percy as he steps out of the hospital wing but her eyes are betrayed because Luke. And they walk down to Thalia's tree, and Chiron hands me a camp bead. Thalia's tree is sort of a legend around camp, Annabeth and Luke knew Thalia Grace personally. She died defending them as they got to Camp Half-Blood, and her father, Zeus, turned her into a pine tree to prolong her life as she was dying. She'd been a camp bead a few years ago, the year Annabeth arrived, five years, maybe? She was one of the oldest campers, now that Luke had gone. If he was gone. Nobody was really sure, but Percy Jackson had told us Luke had lured him into the woods and gotten a poisonous scorpion to sting him, and the wound was still healing. He'd definitely scar.

Annabeth led him to the twisted tree, and she knelt down and brushed away a few pine needles. I could see (I wasn't too far away) a camp bead in her hand, a spare one. I walked closer as Annabeth dug a small hole into it, where she revealed a cache with five other beads in it, from all the years Thalia's pine tree had protected Camp Half-Blood. They were dirty, and she cleaned them up with water, tenderly, brushing dirt and soil off, before putting the six bead and sealing it up.

"Bye, Perce." We didn't hug, but we were sort of friends. "Annabeth." She hugged me, which surprised me. Both Percy and Annabeth were leaving this year- Annabeth was trying to mend things with her father in New York, and so she was leaving camp for the first time in a few years since trying the same thing a few years ago.

Cassandra and I were staying. Cassandra had been a little tight-lipped with me for a while now, ever since she'd gotten that letter from Mom and the brochure. I knew she was considering something, but she hadn't done anything about it for a little while.

But for now, we were staying at Camp Half-Blood. Luke was still out there. We'd defend Camp. Maybe Percy and Annabeth would come back next summer, and we'd do something. But for now, we were home.