Disclaimer:

I do not own the PJO characters

"Thanks for stealing my pillow last night," Nico whined as we sat side-by-side on Coral's bed watching Damian who was now sleeping peacefully and hopefully dreamlessly.

"Well thanks to your boy-, husband, he's going to be okay," I said, gesturing to the sleeping boy.

Nico blushed as I said husband. "Well, uh, I wanted to give this to you earlier after your party, but things kind of… happened." He handed me a black box with a ribbon around it. I pulled off the ribbon and opened the box. I was taken aback when I opened it. It was Stygian.

"B-but you can't give this to me, you love this sword," I said, clearly shocked.

"Nah, I got an upgrade when you, uh… disappeared. I had it cleaned up for you. I thought it would be a great fit with your half good half bad thing."

"Thank you," I said as I hugged him, he seemed stiff at first but eventually he loosened up and relaxed. "When Damian's feeling better can we continue our training? Our last training session was kind of… disturbed."

"Yeah sure."

After Nico left a bunch of people, one by one, came into my cabin to see how Damian was doing, one of whom was unfortunately my mother.

"Hello child," she said as she appeared in the corner of the cabin, petting Eliza. She startled me since I didn't know she was going to be there.

"Hello mother," I said coldly.

"Don't be angry at me for what happened to the boy, it was my husband's decision, not mine."

"But you could have helped," I may have raised my voice a little too loudly because she gave me a stone cold glare, I just glared back.

"Am I interrupting something?" We both turned to look at who had just walked in, it was Leo.

"No you are not, son of Hephaestus, I was just leaving." And with that Hera vanished. I knew she'd be back.

"So," I said, turning to Leo, "What do you need?"

"Well first things first I came to say hi to my bro." And yes, Damian was still sleeping when Leo turned to him, waved and said "hi bro." Then he turned to me. "But that isn't the only reason I came here. Calypso and I were going to take a trip in a few weeks to camp Jupiter, we just really miss everyone."

"And how does that have anything to do with me?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah, we were wondering if you would like to come along."

"Really!" I said excitedly.

"Yeah, I mean you haven't seen Annabeth since, you know. And a lot has changed, well not a lot but yeah."

"Wait, I'll only go if I can bring Damian and Coral."

"Yeah sure, no problem, we're not bringing festus because Calypso says 'he's too much to take care of'. I'm like, he's a metal dragon! Why wouldn't you want to bring him? Anyway we're taking a train, Cal wants to see nature and all that."

"Okay, well when do we leave?" I asked.

"Two weeks. Anyways, I gotta get back to the forges I just wanted to let you know, see ya later."

"Wait! One more thing," I said, I picked up Stygian, "could you make this, uh… more compact?"

"Woah, is that Nico's sword?"

"It used to be Nico's sword, he gave it to me," I smiled.

"Uh sure," Leo said as he took the black box from my hands.

Soon after Leo left with my new sword, Damian began to stir.

I leaned over top of him as he opened his eyes. "Hey sleepy head," I smiled.

He weakly smiled back at me. "Hey," He croaked. "H-how long was I out?"

"Hmm," I checked Jamie's old alarm clock, "almost twenty-four hours."

"What?" Damian said as he tried to get up.

"Yeah, dinner is in-, wait no, it passed half an hour ago," I frowned at the clock, "how did I miss dinner?" I asked myself.

Damian went to lift himself up out of the bed when I pushed him back down. "No you have to stay in bed, you're not to complete health yet."

"I think I'll be fine," he suggested.

"Okay fine, go ahead, but if you fall I'm not going to catch you," I warned.

Just as I thought, as soon as he got up, he started to fall over. I quickly stuck out my hand, catching him before he was able to hit the ground.

"I thought you said you weren't going to catch me," he said.

"I lied." I gently lifted him back up and placed him on the bed. My stomach took that quiet moment to make a really loud growling noise.

"You should probably go get something to eat," Damian suggested.

"Yeah probably, I'll see if I can find you some soup while I'm at it."

"Good, I'm starving."

"Are you sure you'll be okay," I said as I was about to walk out the curtained doorway.

"Yeah I'll be fine."

Once I had grabbed myself some leftover food from dinner, I went through the stored canned food to see if they had soup. Sure enough they did, but only chicken and star soup, I guessed it was for the younger kids.

Once I had heated the soup up, I headed back to my cabin. Once I walked in, I headed over to Damian who was still laying in the bed.

"I tried to get up," he said, "but I just got too dizzy."

"Well here, I found some star soup for you." I handed him the soup.

"Thanks,'' he said as he tried to sit up. He failed. I set my plate down and grabbed the pillow off my bed. I then lifted his head and shoulders up and placed the pillow underneath, helping him sit up a little more. I gave him a light kiss on the forehead before grabbing my plate and sitting at Damian's feet.

A few minutes into eating, we got an unwelcome visitor.

"I see the boy is awake," Hera said as she walked over to us.

"Will you stop calling him 'the boy'," I snapped.

"Well that is all he is to me child, just a boy."

"What is up with you lately," I said, "you've been really mean."

"I am only mean out of love for my children."

"Yeah so throwing Damian's dad off of Olympus is love," I said as I rolled my eyes.

Hera ignored my response and kept talking. "I've come here to give you a quest-,"

"No," I said.

"You didn't even hear what I had to offer."

"I don't need to, the answer is no. Whatever you have to offer means less to me than my life."

"You are so stubborn, just like your grandfather."

"I'm stubborn? The first quest I went on Coral almost died and my curse almost killed my friends. The second quest I went on I lost five years of my life. No more quests."

"Five years is not that long."

"Maybe for an Immortal it isn't, but I missed my little sister growing up, my best friend died. I am not taking any more risks like that, I am never going on a quest again."

"You can not escape what you are destined to do. Your destiny is written in stone."

"Then I shall smash that stone!" I yelled, "I'm not going to risk my life for you Immortals anymore!"

Thanks for raiding! AN: sorry for leaving off at such a weird spot but I didn't know where to stop. Stay safe!

-Lou Ellen and my mysterious friend