Chapter 65

(Authors note: This was my favorite chapter to write, hope you enjoy)

Frank

"From this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now-a-bed shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,.. so wake up guys! Breakfast is nearly ready!" Neville shouted, waking us all up. It took a moment for me to realize I was neither in New Rome nor Half Blood, nor the Leodis at Hogwarts, but in one of several Amazon emergency tents linked together. Neville was in the kitchen area a couple of tents away cooking a classic English breakfast and the aroma of the food waifted throughout.

Both the bachelor and bachelorette parties had began around noon in Vegas, this location suggested by both Piper and Rachel, but we had not stayed. We soon found out that legal age was 21 to do anything there, so at Harry and Ron's suggestion we apparated in several leaps back to the door at New Rome and via Hogwarts went to London. The girls probably found out the same thing pretty fast, but I am not sure what happened to them. With Rachel and Piper among them they probably just went shopping though, that was the consensus among the guys, especially since they had survival bags that were full of dollars. Once in London it was evening, but we had time to grab fish and chips from a chip shop, washing it down with a pint of ale, and along the way finding out we all had a taste for British fish, chips, and ale. Then it was on to a professional quidditch match where we were treated like royalty once the witches and wizards in attendance began recognizing us.

The adoration of the masses was genuine and the captains of the teams came by our stand before the match started and introduced ourselves. Harry was offered the honor of releasing the quaffle, bludgers and golden snitch, but deferred the honor to his friend Percy Jackson "who recently suffered a career ending injury while defending Hogwarts." At least that is the story that ran in the Daily Prophet the next morning, and none of us disputed it.

Okay, so at the match the ale continued to flow, and afterwards at a witches pub where we never paid for a drink. By the time we were ready to knock off none of us wanted to go to Hogwarts, Jupiter or Half Blood for fear of running into professors, instructors, centurians, legionnaires, half bloods, or, most fearful of all, girl friends and fiancees that might object to us tossing a few with the groom the day before rehearsal. Fortunately we all had our survival bags and Ron knew where a campsite was at some place called "The Forest of Dean." We set up a random number of the tents, four or five I think, and had enough room to play football inside. Then we cast protection and concealment charms around it so we wouldn't have to fight monsters in a stupor all night, then sat by the fireplace (yeah when you add that many tents several of the stoves come together into a fireplace and the interior becomes a rustic mountain lodge, which was nice) and talked until the wee hours of the morning. Will passed out aspirin and Gatorade to ward off hangovers and we all crashed. It was one of those days that really brought us together as a group of guys, and everyone of us was anxious to repeat it. Maybe next time some salmon fishing in the North West; with the gods as my witnesses I didn't know when, but soon we would do it again.

Hazel

"With the gods as my witnesses I swear if I live I will never drink again!" someone, Hermione I think, shouted.

"Oh gods I feel... oh fu... bleeeech!" Rachel said before throwing up. You would think she would have the throwing up thing down by now.

"Whats going on here?" Will asked calmly.

"Oh, good, you got the patronus." I replied, almost ready to vomit myself. My head was pounding and my stomach churned; I felt warm and cold at the same time and shook all over. It was awful.

"Yeah, I was camped out with Nico and the guys when it arrived. I snuck off without waking everyone I think. Whats wrong, what happened?"

"Have you ever heard of Long Island Tea?" Piper groaned from the bed beside me.

"Yeah, thats like five kinds of liqueur and enough soda to make it look like tea. Oh gods, how many did you have?"

"You mean there's not any tea in it?" Piper said as she fell back on the bed groaning.

"Where did you find a bar?"

"Bars. We went to several. I tried to get them to stop Will, but they wouldn't listen to me. I told them I'm the quest leader, but they said they didn't have to listen to me ...'cause I was drunk." I laughed, still feeling it from earlier in the night.

"Where? We tried to get in a couple in Vegas and they turned us away, fake id and all. We ended up drinking ale in London."

"Well" Piper said, "You're not a girl with big boobs in a tight sweater and school girl uniform. Behold the power of Aphrodite!" she shouted with her fist raised and several of us cheered before groaning as the stabbing pains hit our heads and the taste of hyena poop filled our mouths.

"Uh.. I see. Okay, give everyone a shot glass of this, drink some Gatorade and then get some rest. Your patronus said it was an emergency?" Will asked as he handed me the unicorn draught.

"Oh, I didn't send one. You got Flipper, not Ursa!" I giggled, then remembered why Annabeth had sent for him."Oh Will, its terrible, you better come with me." I said, then got a giggle fit about Will coming with me and him being gay so that wasn't going to happen, even I knew what that meant and Frank and I, well maybe someday but not yet anyway... Oh. Sometimes I can be funny just to myself.

Later I was truly glad I hadn't said all that aloud.

We went into the next room as Will looked around at the marble floors and columns supporting the frescoed ceiling. "Ya know, we guys are using our tents and they are more like a log cabin inside."

"Oh, well, Reyna's came with an upgrade." I giggled, then nearly threw up for some reason. Will had to help me there for a second.

"Did you take the draught?"

"No! I just handed it... oh shoot! Let me... oh, I'm going to throw up..." I said just as Will replied "Here, I brought two, drink this, fast. No more throwing up."

He handed me the bottle and I poured a lid full quickly. The lid was a silver cup and one measure of it was the dosage,,, but you don't need to know all that. Anyway, in a few seconds I felt a rush of goodness all over and I tickled inside.

"Thanks!"

"No worries. Now, uh, the emergency?"

"Emer... oh Will, its horrible what happened. We were at this bar where guys danced on the stage wearing tuxedos... well for a while they did, then they took those... you won't tell Frank will you?"

"Our little secret" He grinned.

"You're such a good friend!" I said and hugged him. I'm not sure why, but at that moment I felt nothing but love for my Will. Probably the medication. Or the alcohol. Or both.

"So Hazel, emergency?"

"Oh yes,,,, I'm sorry, its just for a minute I, you, uh, you reminded me of Frank. Is Frank okay?" I asked in a panic.

"He's fine, no worries. He's with the guys camping in England. Now, what's the emergency?"

"Right, well, anyway, these guys were dancing, well, stripping, there wasn't much dancing to it I guess and Ginny and Hermione... they're kind of,, well don't tell anyone but we were drinking. Just a little."

"Ya don't say?" He asked with a smile.

"Oh I do! I do say! I told them to slow down but they wouldn't listen to me, even though I'm the quest leader..."

"Because you were drunk?"

"Exactly! And, well some of us weren't the best behaved. Ginny and Hermione were casting engorgeo spells on some of the dancers, and Luna was shouting for them to shake their nargles, well it was really funny at first and we were all laughing and cutting up. And this bouncer came over and told us we had to leave."

"Oh lord, Ginny, Luna and Hermione fought a bouncer?"

"What? No! They were very peaceful and timid."

"That's good. Even they might cause a problem fighting mortals now days, I remember when" was all he got out before I interrupted.

"No, Annabeth and Reyna did. Kicked his ass too. Then the others showed up, there was like nine of them, and a couple of dancers as well, but... well they had swelling issues I don't think they were there to fight. But anyway... where was I?"

"Nine more bouncers. And they beat up Annabeth and Reyna? Geez, Percy and Neville are going to go on a rampage."

"What? No, Annabeth stomped them, well, Reyna took out a couple, and Piper said something that made the dancers leave, I think they wanted to be alone."

"So what's the emergency? Someone hurt in the fight?"

"No, after that we heard police sirens so we just apparated out here in the desert. Well, the thing is, Annabeth wasn't quite ready, she wanted to stay and fight the cops too, she was singing something about it was her bachelorette party and she'd fight cops if she wanted to. She was wearing this sash that said bachelorette on it and had a little tiara, so cute, anyway, so"

"So the cops hit her?"

"What? No! Listen! You're not listening! We apparated. Here. Only Annabeth, she wasn't ready and when we landed she fell face first onto a rock. Its a mess Will." I said as we went through the doorway and found Annabeth crying on Reyna's shoulder.

"There there baby girl, Will is here now, its going to be alright." Reyna whispered as she hugged Annabeth tight. Reyna's top was covered now with Annabeth's blood and it was clear she had bled a lot.

"He'll never marry me Reyna, he'll take one look at me and throw me out. You, you should marry him instead, or Rachel, just, make him happy he deserves... oh gods why did I have to... It was Dionysus! He always hated Percy and me. He won't even call Percy by his real name. He cursed me to get drunk and fall down... and I let him! I'm so stupid! Now... oh gods! I'm so ugly!" she cried.

"Now now, we've been over that. Mr. D isn't allowed to curse anyone, this was just an accident, you and Percy are getting married, no one is taking your place and we have Will here, he's going to get you all fixed up."

"Jennifer's not allowed to, maybe Will can't either I'm going to be ugly forever!" she wailed.

"Honey, its going to be fine. This time tomorrow you'll be laughing about it, won't she Will?

"Sure sure, lets take a look at what happened" Will said, his voice filled with kindness as he knelt down beside the bed and Annabeth turned, her hair and face covered with dried blood, her nose and mouth seeping bright red ooze, her nose clearly broken, blue and pointed towards one side of her face, leaking blood every where and with two black eyes dripping tears through runny mascara. Finally, half of a front tooth was missing and her skin, usually clear and flawless was covered with scratches, bruises and scrapes.

"Good lord! How many rocks did you hit?" Will asked, aghast at her condition.

"Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Annabeth wailed so loud they could hear her in the next county.

"Will!" Both Reyna and I shouted

"Okay, calm down, sorry, I just never expected... anyway, lets get you fixed up. First drink this" he said handing her the bottle of unicorn draught.

"How much?" She whimpered.

Will took the bottle and swished the liquid around to weigh it.

"All of it." He replied. "Now honey, I wish I could say this won't hurt a bit, but I honestly don't know. Episkey!" Will said as he pointed his wand at Annabeth's nose, causing it to jump back into alignment with a sickening crunch and making the swelling go instantly down.

"Ow! Shit! That... does it look okay?" Annabeth asked, turning her head side to side so all of us could see.

"You're well on your way back to beautiful girl." Will smiled. "Now open up!"

As Annabeth smiled, showing her broken tooth, the black eyes began to vanish and the scratches and scapes healed from the unicorn draught. Will aimed his wand at the broken tooth, said 'episkey' again and the tooth miraculously healed. For a couple of minutes he sang a healing song, very low and soft, touching her face as he did, and as he did the rest of the scratches and bruises disappeared.

"Okay, my work here is done." Will announced with a smile. In truth were it not for the blood everywhere we would have never been able to tell Annabeth had been injured. She jumped up and threw her arms around him, then promptly passed out and began to fall to the floor. Will held her and gently placed her back on the bed.

"I love you Percy. I love you so much" she mumbled.

"Percy loves you too." Will whispered, then turned to me. "In a few hours she's going to wake up either feeling fine or feeling as bad as ever. Let me know which. I'm going back to sleep."

"Okay, so send a patronus?"

"No, I'm sleeping here, I'll take the king sized in Reyna's room."

"That's my bed!" Reyna cried.

"We can share. Your virtue is safe with me... oh wait, Artemis says its too late for that in your case anyway. Whatever, you're not my type girl!" He laughed as he went to bed.

"Hazel, lets give him a few minutes to fall asleep. Two can play at that game." Reyna grinned. I know it was the drinking that made her, well, us, do it. But I really should have been more grown up at that time. Of course, three Long Island Teas is a reasonable excuse for moderate acts of immaturity.

Annabeth

Considering how drunk I had gotten, the number of mortal bouncers I had fought and how banged up I had gotten when we apparated I felt pretty good when I woke. Excellent in fact. I felt Percy's arm around me and my head slowly lifting and falling. His scent was warm and fresh, but not like the sea as usual. I was about to mention that when I realized several other things were wrong too. Percy isn't that tall, and his arms are that long, and why were rose petals falling from the ceiling? ... wait a sec...

"WILL! Aieeeegahhhh! What are you doing in my bed?"

"Wha.. Annabeth, What the fuck?" Why are you dressed like,,, what the fuck, why are, why is everyone.."

While we both screaming I looked around to see all the girls in bed with us, with Will being the centerpiece to a Turkish harem made up of half bloods and magicians. Oh, and Will was wearing silk pj's while we all had different styles of lingerie, mine being a translucent lace corset ensemble that pushed my girls to the sky and left nothing to the imagination.

"Piper! I'm going to kill you!" I shouted as I struggled to cover myself, and I meant it, this was some sort of cruel joke she had played.

"What? What did I... oh my." Piper said as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Her outfit was even more revealing than mine and she hurried to wrap a sheet around her. "Will, don't you dare look!"

"Why would I loo.." Will said just as Ginny screamed.

"Why am I naked?!"

Just then Reyna and Hazel entered the room fully dressed in casual street clothes. "Good news! We got a hold of them and the guys are taking us to lunch, they will be here any second. Why aren't you dressed?" Hazel asked.

With this announcement pandemonium broke out. Piper and I raced to the shower, but I was a little quicker. Fortunately for her there were several others open. There I found my clothes from last night, cleaned and pressed, all the blood gone, with a note reminding me to always listen to my quest leader. I decided right then that upon returning from my honeymoon, Hazel would die a slow painful death. Reyna too, I just know she helped. The guys arrived while most of us were still in the shower. In my case, well it takes a while to wash dried clots of blood from your hair. Will may have healed my injuries in the night, but the blood was still everywhere. Once clean I brushed my hair out as best I could, then tied it back into a pony tail and got dressed. I went to the common area and found Hazel and Reyna telling the guys about the night before and Percy waiting with a sly smirk on his face.

Ugh. I had a lot of explaining to do. I hate explaining.