Week 3, Day 1

Harley's POV

I sat in the back of Chiron's car, fiddling with some pieces of metal, bored out of my mind. It'd been a LONG flight back from California and I just wanted to go home to my cabin and my siblings at this point. Don't gt me wrong, I loved visiting my relatives up in Camp Jupiter, but it wasn't home in the way Camp Half-blood was.

Chiron's car was pretty new. All of us in the Hephaestus cabin had teamed up to build it for him for his last birthday, so he could drive even while in centaur form. Seeing his face when we presented it to him, the way his face crinkled and he choked up a bit… well it's fun to make stuff. It's even MORE fun to make stuff with my family. But seeing people's faces when I give them something I helped make - that's the best feeling of all.

Chiron cleared his throat. "So Harley, it's been an eventful past few weeks. There's something you should know before we arrive."

Uh oh. That didn't sound good.

Obviously it had been eventful lately, with fighting off the Emperors and the aftermath. I hoped everything had been okay…

"What is it?" I asked. "Is everyone okay?"

Chiron hesitated. "Well everyone is now. "

I frowned. So they weren't before?

Chiron continued. "Apollo died during the final battle."

"WHAT?!"

Apollo died? I hadn't known him all that well, but I'd WANTED to get to know him better.

Chiron winced. "Please no shouting! He's fine now. Meg - you remember Meg right? - she became a goddess and resurrected him. He's a god again now, but the resurrection had some side effects. He was resurrected as an infant with no memories. He's been gradually growing up and regaining them, but he's still missing a lot. He's at Camp Half-Blood now."

I blinked, then shrugged. No stranger than my big brother coming back from the dead, or Apollo turning mortal in the first place. Life was weird.

"I'm guessing he doesn't remember me then?" I asked.

"Probably not," Chiron replied. "He recognizes his children - though he hasn't realized that they ARE his children, he just seems to know that they're family - Artemis, Meg, and his mother, Leto. Oh, and myself, vaguely. He's been regaining his memories pretty quickly as he grows - he's roughly the physical equivalent of a three-year-old, he's been growing at the rate of a year per a week."

So he'd be a LOT younger than me huh? Cool! I'd always been the baby of the camp, it'd be nice to have someone younger around, even if it was only for a little while.

Ooh, maybe I could be like an older brother! I'd always wanted to be an older brother, but no one younger had come to camp yet.

I sat back and enjoyed the rest of the ride, eager to see my friend again.

As soon as I arrived back at camp I ran over to the Apollo cabin.

I skidded to a stop at the entrance and knocked on the door. Every Camper learned early on to knock if they didn't belong to that cabin. If the cabin's inhabitants didn't want them in there… well… let's just say that they had ways of making their feelings known.

After a moment the door opened.

Austin blinked. "Harley? I'd forgotten you were coming back so soon. What are you doing here?"

"Chiron told me about Apollo and I wanted to see him! Is he here?"

Austin's face broke into a smile. "Yeah. He had a rough time yesterday, but I have a feeling you'll be able to cheer him up."

A rough time? I hoped nothing bad had happened.

"Apollo!" Austin called, looking over his shoulder. "There's someone here to see you!"

I heard sounds of someone scrambling upright. Moments later a small boy appeared in the doorway.

Like Chiron said, he looked about three-years-old, with curly blond hair and sky-blue eyes. He looked almost angelic.

Which immediately got my mind whirring. You can get away with SO many pranks if no one suspects you'd be the perpetrator.

Then he looked up at me and my train of thinking stopped.

Apollo looked miserable.

He shied away a minute after meeting my eyes, shrinking back as if to make himself look as small and unthreatening as possible. Which wasn't hard, three-year-olds aren't known for their intimidation.

"Hey, Apollo," I asked gently. "Do you remember me?"

He shook his head.

He bit his lip, looking anxious. "Did I scare you too?"

Huh?

Where did that come from?

"What do you mean? Why would you scare me?"

He looked away again, screwing up his face, seeming to gather his courage. At last he spoke.

"Yesterday I tried to make friends with a satyr. And I thought I had! But then I told him my name and he ran off terrified. He told me later about something horrible I did to another satyr, something so bad little satyrs are told about it as a warning to not offend gods. He said he'd like to try being my friend but he was just too scared right then, that he kept hearing the screams of the satyr I killed. I didn't like that I'd scared him. I don't WANNA be scary."

Ooooh. Right. Gods did some nasty things sometimes. I didn't know what Apollo had done exactly, but it wouldn't surprise me if he'd done some bad stuff. Killing a satyr was bad enough though.

But I didn't believe Apollo would do anything like that now, and probably not for a long time. I'd been afraid and miserable before, believing I was responsible for some other people's misfortune.

Apollo had helped me then. Now it was my turn.

"Hey Apollo, would you like to hear about how we became friends? I think it might help."

Apollo sniffled a little, but looked more puzzled than miserable now. He nodded.

"One of my older brothers, Leo, had gone missing six months ago. Well, actually, he'd died and been catapulted into another dimension technically, but you'd given him the info and an ingredient he needed for the Physician's Cure, so he was fine, he just hadn't made it home yet. Do you remember him?"

Apollo closed his eyes and scrunched up his face. It was adorable. "I… think so? Is he short with pointy ears and does he tell a lot of bad jokes?"

I beamed. "That's him!"

"Why am I picturing him dancing around like an insane ballerina while in only his boxers?"

I blinked. "Uhhh…"

I shook myself. "ANYWAY, Leo'd gone missing, and I'd been working on a homing beacon to help him find his way back. It hadn't worked yet, obviously. But I wasn't gonna give up. Not on Leo. But in the meantime, I was getting discouraged, so Chiron let me set up a three-legged race through the Labyrinth, filled with some of my deadly traps! Well, I joked about them being deadly, but I didn't MEAN it. I didn't mean for anything bad to happen, but then…"

I took a deep breath. This part was hard to talk about.

Austin leaned forwards and put a hand on my shoulder, giving me a comforting smile. "It's fine. It wasn't your fault, no one ever blamed you for it. It was Nero's fault, and Nero's alone."

I gave him a tiny smile back. "Thanks."

"Austin and Kayla both went missing during the race. I thought it was my fault. I walked over to apologize to you, crying, afraid for them, and afraid of what you'd do to me because they'd gone missing because of me. Do you know what you did?"

Apollo shook his head, wide-eyed.

"You told me it was alright, and asked to see my beacon, the one I'd built for Leo. I was afraid you might smash it in retaliation, sort of a 'I can't find my family, so you can't find yours' thing. But you didn't. Instead you took it gently and fiddled with the settings, changing the frequency to one that Festus - Leo's metal dragon, they went missing together - could hear better, in the hopes that it'd bring him back. And you told me something I've never forgotten. I asked you whether Festus would hear it now, and you said,"

"I don't know. Just as you could not have known what the Labyrinth would do today. But that doesn't mean we should stop trying. Never stop inventing, son of Hepheastus."

I blinked away tears as I recounted Apollo's words.

"What you said then meant a LOT to me. You could've blamed me. I blamed me. But you didn't. You comforted me, told me it wasn't my fault, told me not to give up, and not to let it stop me from doing what I loved."

"So yeah, maybe I was a little scared of you before. But I'm not now. Because you saw a scared kid and decided to comfort him instead of yell at him. You helped bring back his sibling. You were kind, and gentle, and great, and I love being your friend."

Apollo teared up and launched himself forwards, hugging me for all he was worth. I hugged him back.

I didn't care about whatever he'd done a long time ago in the past. This Apollo was my friend, and I was gonna look after him.

…He's gonna be older than you again in two months, my mind whispered.

Shut up me, we're having a moment here.