Hi. I'm once again so sorry for how long this update took. Life has been crazy lately and I just haven't wanted to work on writing. I am super excited to finally have this chapter done for you guys though and I think the next few chapters will be really interesting. I'm excited to get working on those for you guys now that things have calmed down a little. Thank you all so much for your incredible patience and support. I WILL finish this story for you, I promise!

A quick disclaimer: I actually am not caught up with the ToA books. I read the first one when it came out a few years ago but haven't kept up with the series since. I've been writing this story from the start operating under the premise of including only PJO and HoO, so if there is anything in any of these chapters that doesn't line up with the canon for those books, that is why. I honestly have no idea what happens in that series except for the few things I've been spoiled about. I'm not sure if I'll eventually catch up with it or not, but none of that will be factored into this fanfic, just so you are all aware and to prevent any possible confusion.

That being said, I've been planing this chapter for a while and I'm really happy with how it all turned out. I'm excited to share it with you. Enjoy!


The hour-long drive to Camp Half-Blood from my parents' apartment was the longest of my life. We'd left immediately, my parents' concerned eyes on our backs and requests for an update as soon as possible shouted after us as we hurried for the door. We seemed to hit every red light in the city and got stuck behind every slow driver possible.

The ride was a largely silent one. I kept both hands on the wheel the whole way, knuckles white with my grip, while a million scenarios played out in my mind, each one worse than the last. I knew too well just how badly things could go on a quest, and the idea that the boys had been in so much danger, that they were hurt, threatened to drive me crazy.

After what seemed like an eternity, the base of Half-Blood Hill came into view. I maneuvered the car to a stop in the grass and met Annabeth's eyes before turning off the engine. She held my stare for a second but shook her head when I opened my mouth. "Let's just go," she whispered, breaking eye contact and moving to get out. Which was just as well—I had no idea what I'd been about to say anyway.

The eyes of nearby campers followed us as we approached the Big House; their expressions held varying degrees of curiosity and concern. Chiron waited for us on the porch, his bottom half compacted into his magical wheelchair. He nodded in greeting but said nothing. Maybe the blatant worry in Annabeth's expression, which I'm sure was mirrored in my own, said clearly how unconcerned we currently were with pleasantries. "This way," he said, turning for the door. He spoke as he led the way inside, navigating the familiar route to the camp infirmary. "I don't know how much the boys were able to tell you prior to leaving last week—"

"Not much," Annabeth put in.

He nodded. "I'm afraid that was the case for the rest of us here as well. Demeter issued the quest and she was exceptionally careful to keep things on a need to know basis. Unfortunately, this probably only contributed to what happened."

I clenched my jaw at his words. The gods never learned! "And what happened?" I asked.

Chiron stopped outside the infirmary doors and faced us. "There hasn't been time for any official debriefing yet, but from what we've gathered, Persephone disappeared several weeks ago. She'd been staying with her mother at the time and Demeter chose to keep knowledge of the situation as contained as she could until it could be determined what happened." He looked between us before continuing. "It turned out Persephone, goddess of fertility as well as springtime, was taken by the Titans Hyperion and Krios as part of a plot to rebirth Kronos to continue where he left off before you defeated him. The Titans managed to escape Tartarus and planned to force her to assist them."

"My gods," Annabeth murmured, wide-eyed, "They didn't succeed, did they?"

"Thankfully, no," the Centaur answered solemnly, "But unfortunately that's where the good news ends." A fist wrapped around my heart at his words. "The boys tracked down the Titans and were able to release the goddess, but they weren't able to escape before they were found." Chiron sighed before he went on, "The Titans attacked with full-force. Persephone was so weak from her weeks of imprisonment that she was unable to help much in defending them. Your boys were injured, Logan severely, and Sean, the third member of the quest, didn't survive."

Annabeth gasped quietly at this news. "Did the Titans get away?" I forced myself to ask. If the answer was yes, I honestly wasn't sure I wanted to know.

"Krios did," Chiron answered. "Mr. D has made the rest of the gods aware of the situation and I expect they're pursuing him even as we speak. Don't worry about that; they have it under control."

Honestly, it was that very fact that had me worried, but for the time being, there was nothing to be done. That wasn't why we'd come all the way out here in such a hurry and it was no longer Annabeth's or my responsibility to keep track of the gods' many problems. So I pushed that concern aside and nodded. I had bigger fish to fry at the moment.

"Can we see the boys?" Annabeth asked now. Chiron nodded and moved his chair aside, allowing us access. I pushed the infirmary door open and together we made our way inside.

The infirmary looked almost exactly as it had during my own days as a camper. Beds lined the walls on each side, interspaced between several windows whose open curtains allowed fading sunlight into the room. A few beds near the front were occupied by orange-clad half-bloods with what looked like minor injuries: a cut forehead, a burned leg, and an ankle in the middle of being bandaged by another camper. I didn't pay them much attention though as soon as a familiar figure stood up from the foot of a bed at the other end of the room and hurried for us. We moved as one toward Nicholas as he rushed forward and wrapped an arm around each of us. His right wrist bore a cast that dug not unwelcomingly into my back as he held tight and cried onto Annabeth's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said through the tears, his words muffled in the fabric of her shirt, "It's my fault. I'm s-sorry."

"Shh," Annabeth crooned, "Nicky, shh, it's okay. You're alright."

He shook his head against her and, for the first time, pulled back to look at us. He bore a fading black eye and a fat lip, which trembled slightly as he whispered, "It's my fault."

"What's your fault?" I asked quietly, conscious of the eyes on us.

He looked between us before his gaze settled on me and he answered, "Logan."

At the sound of our other son's name, Annabeth and I looked up as one to the spot Nicky had come from, to the occupied bed at the end of the room and the still, dark-haired teenager in it. Nicky, clearly sensing our concern, stepped aside and followed us over to where his brother lay unconscious.

His hair was a mess and the purple beneath his eyes suggested he hadn't gotten much sleep over the past few days, but from what I could see of Logan, he seemed largely unscathed. Annabeth reached forward and laid a hand against his cheek. She turned worried eyes on me, fear emanating from every inch of her. I held her gaze for a second before looking at Nicky with the intention of asking him what had happened when a voice sounded from behind us. "He hasn't woken up yet." We turned to find a girl of maybe seventeen with blonde hair and blue eyes—a daughter of Apollo—standing several feet back and watching us with regret. "Sorry," she added, "I didn't mean to intrude."

"What's wrong with him?" Annabeth asked, pulling her hand back and turning to face the girl.

She took a deep breath before answering. "He took a sword through his abdomen. He was lucky in that his major organs were spared, but… there was damage to his spine." My breath caught against my will at that.

"How bad?" Annabeth asked in a whisper.

"It's still too early to tell, really," the camper explained. "It's probably going to take a few weeks for the inflammation to go down. After that, it depends exactly where in his spine the sword hit and how deep, but he might walk again."

"Might?" I demanded.

The Apollo camper, calm as ever, simply nodded. "I'm sorry."

"Oh my gods," Annabeth breathed, turning back to Logan as tears finally broke free and traced their way down her cheeks. I looked down at our oldest son and grabbed his hand, blinking hard and trying hard to force down the lump in my throat.

I glanced over at Nicky, standing to the side of the bed and staring helplessly down at his brother, tears still silently falling. I let out a breath and moved toward him. "Come here," I said, moving to hug him. He allowed it and returned the gesture after a few seconds. I felt Annabeth's eyes on us. "Hey," I said, pulling back to meet his eyes. He kept his glued to the floor. "Look at me," I told him. He did. "This is not your fault," I said, enunciating each word. He opened his mouth to object but I went on before he could. "Listen. It doesn't matter what happened. It's not your fault. Okay?"

He slowly glanced down again and was quiet for several seconds. I waited. Finally he mumbled, "But it was supposed to be me."

"What was supposed to be you?" Annabeth asked, coming around the bed to stand next to me.

"There," he said, his voice breaking, "In the bed, hurt. Not able to walk. It should be me."

"Don't say that, Nicky!" she admonished him.

"It's true!" he cried, looking up and between us now, gray eyes blazing with conviction and guilt, "He was aiming for me. I was the one he wanted!" A glance at me. "Because I look s-so much like you. Logan…" Nicky glanced away again. "He jumped in front." He struggled to talk around the sobs escaping him now. "He g-got skewered p-protecting me. It's m-my fault!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said, grabbing his upper arms, "Who was aiming for you?"

Nicky took a deep breath and after a few seconds answered, "Hyperion." A single tear escaped his eye and followed the track down his check as he stared at the writing on my T-shirt. "Logan jumped in f-front and pushed me away. He… he took the hit himself." He took a shaky breath.

I swallowed around the lump suddenly forming in my throat once more, fighting against an onslaught of emotions at this news. I forced myself to take a breath, pulling him to me. "That doesn't make this your fault." Nicky's body shook as he cried, holding tightly to me. I hugged him through it and met Annabeth's eyes as she stroked our son's unruly hair. They were bright with tears.

Half a minute passed before Nicky pulled away and reached for his mother, hugging her too. When they stepped apart, Annabeth held his gaze, brushing a stray tear from his red face. "Do you want to tell us what happened?" she asked him gently.

After a pause, Nicky swallowed hard and lapsed into the story, glossing over most of the details but still giving us more information than Chiron had. "The Titans have been trying to find ways to get back into power ever since you beat them in the Titan War. Hyperion and Krios reformed and made it back to the mortal world, I guess, a year or so ago. They kept hoping some of their siblings would escape too, but I guess they got tired of waiting. They kidnapped Persephone a few weeks before Demeter gave us the quest because they hoped she'd be able to help them somehow eventually allow Kronos to come back. It took us a few days to find them and we ran into a couple monsters that slowed us down but we eventually tracked them to New Orleans. They were hiding out in a warehouse there until they could regroup and grow strong enough to actually mount an attack against the gods.

"Persephone was chained up inside. We snuck in and freed her, but she'd been resisting the Titans the whole time and she was super weak." He paused for a second, his eyes faraway in the memory. "We got caught on the way out. T-they came out of nowhere. Sean…" He swallowed hard, shaking his head. "Krios killed him before anyone could do anything, c-cut him almost in half..." A shaky breath. "Persephone was really weak but she ran at Krios anyway and started fighting with him. She yelled at us to run, but there wasn't a way out. Hyperion wanted Logan and me." He looked between us momentarily before studying the floor again. "Because of you guys."

I risked a glance beside me at Annabeth now. She looked murderous. In that moment, I wouldn't have been at all surprised if she'd gone after the Titans herself—right then and there. I would have helped her.

Nicky continued on, the words flooding out now like a dam had broken inside him. "H-he went on about how much he hated you." A glance at me. "How you'd be the first person he killed once their plan worked." He met my eyes now; his own filled with tears and horror. "He was… going to kill me first because I look just like you. He said it would be almost as good as if it was you. H-he swung his sword so f-fast… there wasn't t-time to do anything. But Logan, he-he was faster somehow. He j-jumped in f-front of the s-sword…"

The poor kid was openly sobbing again. Annabeth moved toward him again. "Honey, you don't have to—"

"I'm o-okay," he insisted around a ragged breath. "You have to know."

"We will eventually, Nicky. Take a break. Logan won't—"

"Not him."

She narrowed her eyes slightly in confusion. "What?"

He shook his head stubbornly. "It's not…" He stopped and took a deep breath. Tears still ran down his face but he was able to speak more clearly now. "Just listen. After Logan… fell, I was screaming and crying and everything. The Titans were laughing. Hyperion, he… he kicked Logan aside and went for me again, but a spear came out of nowhere and blocked the strike."

I blinked. "Someone saved you?"

Nicky met our gazes openly now, his tears having slowed with the momentum of this part of his account. He nodded. "Iapetus."

I froze. "What?"

"The Titan. Iapetus," he repeated. And even with everything going on, with my eldest son lying unconscious and paralyzed just feet from me, his words had my heart settling in my stomach. I glanced at Annabeth for confirmation, but her equally startled expression convinced me that I'd heard correctly.

Nicky went on, unfazed. "Hyperion and Krios had been trying to recruit others to their cause, sending messages out and stuff. Before we got caught, we heard them talking about how their brothers—Iapetus and Koios?—hadn't reformed yet, so I guess it must have been pretty recent that Iapetus did." He paused momentarily before going on. "He must have heard me yelling or something and he came. He blocked Hyperion's sword and started fighting him and yelling for us to go…" Tears were welling in his eyes again but he met my gaze firmly and told me, "He wasn't going to win that fight, I could tell. Hyperion was better than him. He said to tell you he remembered everything and he liked being Bob better. He said thank you for telling the stars hello."

I saw more than felt my body jerk as I straightened, feeling very overwhelmed. It was all too much. I felt a tear escape my left eye and begin to fall as I crossed unsteadily to a nearby chair and sat down before I fell down. I felt a hand on my shoulder—likely Annabeth's, but I couldn't make my brain focus enough to acknowledge it.

Bob. Iapetus, but Bob. He had saved Nicky. After all these years, he'd reformed. He remembered everything; our time with him, every lie I'd told him, all the things he'd done. He remembered and he'd saved our son anyway. He chose to be Bob. He'd somehow escaped Tartarus and, for the second time now, willingly chose to die again for me, for my family. And he'd told me thank you. Gods of Olympus…

After several long seconds, I lifted my head from my hands and found Annabeth crouched before me, tears in her own awe-filled gaze. "Are you okay?" she asked softly.

I took a breath and nodded, aware that I was completely breaking down right now for my son to see but unable to do much about it. "It's just…" I trailed off, unsure how to even sum up what it all was. Many of my worst fears had come true today; and this completely unexpected news, this reconciliation of the regret that had plagued me for years, the ramifications of the fatal flaw I lived with and through every day, it was huge. The relief was such a foreign emotion to everything else I'd felt since Chiron's IM had appeared in my parents' living room.

Annabeth placed a hand over mine. "I know."

I held her gaze for another moment before looking up. Nicky still stood beside Logan's bed, paying us very little mind or maybe just acting very successfully. But the deep remorse in his gaze as he stared down at his injured brother was enough to push that last thought quickly aside. I recognized that look, I'd seen it in the mirror tons of times throughout my life, and in that moment, I wasn't entirely sure I was the only one flawed with extreme loyalty.

I noticed, for the first time, that the Apollo camper had left at some point and had closed a curtain shut around us, separating us from the rest of the Infirmary. I wasn't sure how much the room's other occupants could still hear, but for the moment I didn't care. The privacy was a blessing.

Annabeth straightened but remained beside me as she asked Nicky what happened next. He lifted his eyes from Logan and answered, "Persephone. She got away from Krios and ran to us while Hyperion was busy. As soon as she touched us we vanished. She brought us here. She was in really bad shape by the time she did though. Mr. D took her to Olympus with him. But she saved us. Her and Bob."

"Thank gods," Annabeth murmured in the brief quiet that followed.

"Chiron said Krios got away," I recalled, standing up on now steadier feet and addressing Nicky, "He didn't say anything about Hyperion. Do you know what happened with him?"

He shook his head. "I don't think Bob would have beat him. I hope he did anyway. But once we got here, everyone was worried about Logan and making sure he was okay, and I didn't really ask about any of that. I'm sor—"

"No, don't be sorry," I interrupted, "You didn't do anything wrong, you hear me? Not in any of this."

Staring down, Nicky just nodded. Annabeth moved forward before I could. She kissed his head and held him for a while. "Carly's still with Molly," he piped up after a silence. "I don't know how much she knows. I told—"

"She's okay," Annabeth assured him. "Let her stay away for now." He grew silent again. She let him go and pointed out, "You look exhausted. When's the last time you slept?" He shrugged halfheartedly in answer. "Go to bed," she told him gently. Before he got the chance to protest, she added, "Take one of the beds in here. It's not busy."

Nicky stared at his mother for several seconds before sighing and moving to obey. Pushing the privacy curtain open slightly, he crossed to the empty bed beside Logan's and curled up on it. He cast one last worried look at his brother before closing his eyes. He was asleep in seconds.

Annabeth and I watched the two of them sleep in silence for a minute or two before she turned and leaned into my chest, wrapping her arms around me. We held each other tightly for a long time, not crying or speaking, just watching the boys and taking comfort in the closeness of the other. So much had happened. My nightmares had come to life today. Our kids were hurt and traumatized. Our oldest child would likely never walk again. More sacrifices had been made for our benefit than I ever could have imagined. But at least the boys were back, they were home. And things had to go up from here.


I was a little unsure of how to approach this whole subject because I really wanted some closure with the whole Bob situation but I didn't just want him to show up or anything. I think this was a good compromise and a very "Bob" thing to do. I hope you liked it and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading and for putting up with the long wait! The new semester is starting soon but I am going to do my best to be better about posting, I swear I am!