Hello!

So when I said 1-2 weeks for an update, I actually meant 1-2 fortnights, apparently. I hit the biggest wall halfway through, but I am excited to have it ready for you finally. It's mostly setup for the next couple chapters but it was still fun to write.

Thank you everyone for all the amazing feedback last chapter! It was so cool to see so many are still invested in this story.

Hope you enjoy!


Nicky's arrow landed just inside the middle ring of the practice target, almost a perfect mirror image to the one embedded in its opposite side, deposited there courtesy of Hannah a moment before.

He sighed. "This is stupid."

Hannah notched another arrow and let go. It flew even wider than the last, landing solidly in the center of the outer ring. Nicky opened his mouth to say something, but she, her hazel eyes hard, whipped a knife out of nowhere and threw it hard. It landed solidly in the center of the target, a perfect bullseye.

I tried to hide my smile as if I wasn't watching their efforts closely as I finished trimming the bushes interspersed along the side of the house, which Annabeth had been griping about in passing for the better part of a week now. They had been a contribution from the Demeter cabin years ago now, planted when the house had first been built. Apparently they'd had hopes for a much grander garden but someone with enough sense to know neither I nor Annabeth had much of a green thumb nor the interest to maintain such a thing, had opted for an easier route. And for the most part they were low maintenance. Maybe it was because they'd been planted by children of the goddess of the harvest, but for a while, we'd really done nothing at all with them and they'd been perfectly fine. I had no idea what kind of plants they were, but they sprouted these little pink buds in the spring, which was nice I guess, and I really didn't have a problem with them being there. In recent years, as they grew bigger, they'd required annual trimming since they were tall enough now that the top shoots reached the windows along the house's lower levels and banged against the panes when the wind blew. This annoyed my wife, and since the Demeter kids weren't exactly making the trip regularly to maintain them, the responsibility usually fell to me.

Annabeth was out currently, having taken Carly to get new shoes for camp in just a few days, and since I was such a wonderful husband who, despite popular belief, did pay attention some of the time, I'd decided to take care of them and surprise her.

School had ended the day before and the kids would be leaving for the start of the summer session at camp in just a few days. Logan was home, finishing his PT session with Madison down in the basement. Hopefully they hadn't killed each other yet.

The kids' frustrations continued as I stepped back now, still smirking a bit, to assess my work. It was funny because Hannah, as a daughter of Ceres, Demeter's Roman form, wasn't necessarily expected to be much of a warrior, as Ceres herself really wasn't. And, sure, Nick's best friend didn't have any notable powers or remarkable strength per say, but she more than made up for it with drive and stubbornness. She held her own easily among the half-bloods of other gods, Roman and Greek alike. Also, the stunt with the knife was something I could imagine Annabeth doing as a kid, if she'd not been as good at archery as she was at what seemed like everything else growing up, so I found it all the more amusing.

"Dad!" Nicky called out as I walked past them to return the hedge shears to the shed, "What are we doing wrong?"

I stopped and looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "You're asking the wrong person, champ. I've never been good at archery." He sighed in exasperation.

Hannah pursed her lips and shook her head. "Who uses a bow and arrow in real life anyway?" she demanded, annoyed.

"I do," a voice spoke up from behind us. I turned to see Madison and Logan, side by side on the back porch, apparently having been watching as well. "And so do a lot of my siblings."

Hannah looked at her, considering. "But isn't that inconvenient? It's so big and awkward. Isn't it, like, impractical to carry around?"

"Not necessarily," the daughter of Apollo replied easily. "The Hephaestus cabin designed bows that fold up a few years back. They're no wider than a sword and can be sheathed like one for transport. And I don't know about you," she added, "But if the option is between taking down a monster from a distance and fighting up close and personal, I'll take the first one any day. Keep them as far away from me as possible."

"What happens when you don't have the option?" Nicky asked. "Bows are pretty useless in close quarters."

Madison smirked and, seemingly out of nowhere, she produced a wicked-looking Celestial Bronze knife, almost as long as her forearm. "That's what this is for." Hannah grinned in clear approval. "Just because I don't prefer it doesn't mean I can't fight in close quarters."

"Fair enough," Nicky conceded with a laugh.

Madison resheathed the knife into a holder in a hidden pocket on her pant leg and straightened. "Do you want some help?" she asked the younger kids, nodding toward the practice target. "Logan and I are done for the day."

"Oh," Nicky looked at Hannah next to him, then back, "Uh, I dunno, don't you need to get back to camp?"

She shrugged. "I have a few minutes."

"Oh," he repeated, "Okay. Sure." Hannah nodded beside him.

Madison grinned, then looked at Logan sitting beside her. "You're coming," she told him, booking no argument as she stepped behind his chair and started toward the yard.

"What?"

"It's good upper body work for you," she informed him.

"But I'm not–careful!" he protested as they reached the three stairs separating the deck from the yard and Madison navigated them with definitely less care than she could have. It was a bumpy ride and Logan was too busy trying to keep from tumbling out to object further. I decided it was maybe a good thing he couldn't see her smirk.

As it was, he turned around and glared at her when they reached the bottom. "I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure Chiron will be unhappy if you kill me when you're supposed to be rehabilitating me."

Madison shrugged, a smile still playing at the edges of her lips as she worked to wheel him through the uneven grass toward where Nicky and Hannah stood, after retrieving their arrows, watching them. "I don't know. I have a good amount of sway with him."

Logan rolled his eyes but snorted.

"So your grip is the problem," Madison explained easily when they had joined the younger teenagers in front of the target, "You have to be looser." She reached out and adjusted Hannah's hold on the wood. "If you hold it like this, it won't kick back when you release the arrow and it will fly true to your aim."

Hannah tested the new grip and hesitantly attempted another shot. The arrow landed inside the inner circle, just slightly to the right of the bullseye. A stark improvement. "Oh wow!" she exclaimed, her smile wide. Madison's answering smile was proud.

Nicky's attempt went better than his earlier ones, but he still missed the inner circle pretty consistently. My genes ran true in him. But he was a good sport all the same and when Hannah hit a perfect bullseye, it was hard to say who of the two of them was more excited.

I still held the hedge shears, not having made it to the shed yet. I stopped watching the kids' progress now and left to deposit them back on the hook where they belonged. I glanced around the shed once I did. It probably contained about as many weapons as it did yard tools. With all the kids at camp now and the numerous half-bloods who are always stopping by over the years, they just tended to add up. Every once in a while we gathered up the ones we didn't need and brought them back to Half-Blood Hill for the campers to make use of, but that hadn't happened in a while and the ones we got rid of seemed to replace themselves in no time at all. There was another bow in here though, a little worse for wear but definitely still usable. I grabbed it, dusting it off, before taking it with me back to where the kids were.

Madison grinned widely when she saw what I held. I crossed the short distance to them and held the bow out to her. "This might be more useful to you than it will collecting dust in there."

"Thank you, Mr. Jackson," she replied, taking it from me and immediately holding it out to Logan, looking expectant.

He took it, resigned, but rolled his eyes. "Yeah, thanks, Dad."

"Anytime," I promised, chuckling as I turned for the house now.

Logan spoke again then, clearly addressing Madison once more, "I don't know if you know this, Maddie, but Jacksons don't do archery."

"Well maybe it's time that changed," Madison – Maddie? – countered easily. "Take a shot."

I chuckled again as I moved out of earshot now, mounting the stairs and sliding open the back door. Ollie, who'd been snoozing on his dog bed in the corner, came over and greeted me as I entered. I scratched behind his ears a few times before moving to the kitchen sink to make a rainbow.

The mist from the IM was rapidly dissipating when the sound of the front door opening sounded and Carly's excited chatter could be heard. Ollie took off toward them, and a minute later, Annabeth and our youngest appeared in the hallway.

Annabeth's eyes narrowed as she noted the last of the mist. And yes, with how commonplace Leo's monster proof cell phones had become in recent years, Iris Messaging was used much less. But the camp activities director was old school. Before she could say anything though, Carly charged forward, a shopping bag gripped in one hand. "Dad! Guess what, we found purple ones!"

I smiled. "That's great, Peanut!"

Her mom rounded the corner then and I kissed her cheek as she stopped beside me. "Who were you talking to?" she asked.

"Chiron. Had to let him know Madison would be back late." I nodded out at the group in the yard. She followed my gaze and her eyebrows lifted a bit.

"Never thought I'd see the day either of your sons willingly chose archery as an activity."

I laughed. "I think Nicky and Hannah were trying to work on it before camp. Logan wasn't really given a choice once Madison saw what they were doing." Annabeth smiled as well, a knowing look crossing her features.

"The hedges look nice, by the way," she put in casually. I looked over and grinned.

We watched through the glass as Logan, who appeared to be spending more time bickering with Madison than anything else, notched an arrow and in one smooth (and attitude-filled) motion, let it fly. It landed almost perfectly in the center of the target. He laid the bow in his lap and crossed his arms petulantly, brows raised in challenge at her now. Madison only looked between the target and her friend and grinned. Nicky rolled his eyes.

I supposed Logan had never actually said he was bad at archery. He just didn't like it. Not enough action in it. But then, in his current state, maybe it was a good solution to defending himself. If he was willing.

Carly, who'd watched them with us for maybe five seconds, piped up now. "Can I do it too?"

"I don't see why not," I reasoned.

"Put your new shoes in your room first," Annabeth put in quickly before she could charge outside.

Carly sighed but relented, "Okay." She took off upstairs about as fast as her legs could carry her.

A minute later, she was back and wasted no time in rushing out the back door to join the big kids. We followed after a moment later and sat down side by side on the back steps to watch, Annabeth texting intermittently with her assistant at the firm, Chloe, about the upcoming deadline for a project. Logan surrendered his bow to his sister easily and instructed her on how much tension to put on the string. It was the first time all three of our kids, plus a couple honorary mentions, had been actively involved in an activity together at the same time in a while. It was nice to see.

It was hard to say how much archery experience Carly had gotten during her first and only summer spent at camp, given the circumstances of her brothers' quest and the wrench that had inadvertently been thrown in all three kids' summers. But no one looked more surprised than Logan when her first shot hit more center in the bullseye than his had. Madison burst out laughing and high-fived her. The ten-year old stuck her tongue out at her oldest brother.

"Well," Annabeth put in from beside me, a smile on her lips, "At least she doesn't take after you in one area."


I wasn't sure what time it was that night, or maybe the next morning, when I was woken up. For a few seconds, I wasn't sure what had woken me either, but it became pretty clear pretty quickly when a small whimpering noise sounded from beside me and I glanced over, squinting in the dimness, and could just make out Annabeth's fitfully sleeping form. Her face was scrunched and, I could have sworn, tear tracks ran down her cheeks as she twitched and jerked, unconscious.

All half-bloods dealt with regular nightmares. Even those like us who were all but retired at this point. But there was something about taking part in two major humanity-saving wars, two Great Prophecies, a trip through the deepest pit of hell, fighting literally more monsters than I could count, and all the other not great things that had made up the better part of our respective forty years of life that made us more predisposed than most, even now, for dreams even worse than the usual. The years following the Giant War, following Tartarus, had been the worst. Annabeth and I had barely been able to make it through a single night without waking up in sheer terror as we'd relived the worst of the worst things we'd experienced over and over again. By now, those nightmares had become blessedly rare, but every once in a while they still found their way in, and I knew before I even moved to do anything that this was one such dream for her.

Bracing myself, I sat up and leaned over, shaking her gently. "Annabeth," I said, my voice soft but firm, "Annabeth. Wake up, baby."

The next few seconds happened quickly. Her eyes shot open and she was already moving. She swung her arm out defensively, but I was ready and caught her fist before it could connect. "Hey!" I whisper-yelled, conscious of the kids sleeping just down the hall, "Hey, hey, it's me, it's okay."

She let out a sharp breath and relaxed back onto her pillow, "Sorry," she muttered, allowing it as I pulled her close. She moved her head to rest now on my bare chest, her grip around my torso strong. I could feel her heart pounding through her shirt as she worked to calm it. We lay in silence for a few minutes. It was a familiar routine for us after the worst nightmares, a necessary process of collecting all the horrible images and packing them back into the box in the furthest possible corner of the mind before facing the world again.

I laid a hand on her head and stroked her curls. I kissed the crown of her head. After another few seconds, she took a deep breath and straightened, her gaze falling on the nightstand behind me. I turned that way too. The alarm clock there read 4:13.

"You wanna talk about it?" I asked.

She met my eyes in the dark and held my gaze for a moment. Then she sighed, looking down. "No, not really." She studied the blankets tangled between us for another quiet few seconds and then sighed again before kicking them off and moving toward the edge of the bed.

"Where are you going?"

"For a run."

"It's at least two hours until dawn, babe."

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly going back to sleep."

I studied her in the dark for a second. I didn't need her to elaborate to know she'd dreamt of Tartarus. That was the only kind of nightmare bad enough to not only rob her of sleep, even now, but to still warrant needing to do something to take her mind off it. And it would do no good to argue.

"I'll go with you," I informed her, moving now myself.

Her eyes cut to me. "You don't have to."

"I know."

"It's 4am."

"I know." She sighed, rolling her eyes. But even with the shadows still haunting them, it was good-natured. I reached out and brushed her hand with mine. "Let me keep you company," I said softly. After nightmares like that, being alone was the last thing I wanted.

She took a breath and nodded. I saw the gratitude in her eyes before she turned for the closet, presumably for more appropriate running clothes than the old T-shirt and checkered pajama shorts she currently wore.

I got up and moved to follow, replacing my pajama pants with some well-worn basketball shorts. More awake now, an idea formed in my head and I looked over at her as she pulled a tank top out of a drawer.

She caught my look and turned. "What?"

"You know what else we could do," I said lightly. She waited, and I went on, "How many practice dummies did we destroy after nightmares during that first summer back?"

We found that sharing a bed at night, having that physical contact, had helped keep the worst of the nightmares at bay after Tartarus, but camp had rules about non-siblings sharing cabins and even a trip through hell apparently didn't give us immunity from them. We'd still tried during the worst of them, but more often than not, one or both of us had wound up in the arena after particularly bad nightmares, taking out our feelings on practice dummy after practice dummy.

"A lot," she allowed, her eyes holding my gaze still with that lingering darkness in them. "But I don't exactly have one of those now."

"You've got me," I informed her, grinning a little now despite myself. Still looking at me, Annabeth raised an eyebrow. "I'm better," I continued, "I'll give you way more of a challenge."

The shadows in her eyes seemed to lighten minutely as she studied me. Her voice was a little lighter when she spoke next. "I don't know, the Hephaestus guys designed some pretty sophisticated ones last year."

I blinked. "Did you just compare me to a robot?"

"You're on, Seaweed Brain," she said, almost smiling now, "Prove me wrong."

We snuck downstairs and out to the backyard without being discovered. Ollie, sprawled out across the foot of a sleeping Carly's bed, had looked up as we passed by her cracked bedroom door, but apparently couldn't be bothered to investigate further because he laid his head back down before we'd even fully passed by.

The backyard was fairly large and the wooden fence that surrounded it had been warded when the house was built, so it kept our neighbors from seeing or hearing anything they shouldn't. Which was good, since, among the many other unusual activities that had taken place out here over the years, the sound of clanging metal blades surely wouldn't go unnoticed by anyone awake in these predawn hours. The back deck lights lit the space enough for us to make out the details of one another as we stopped and stood a few feet apart from each other, gazes locked. Then, as one, we began to move.

We started off slow, getting the feel of one another's moves in the wet grass and low light, but even though sparring had become a rarity for us in recent years, it didn't take long at all before we were going hard. And we'd never exactly pulled punches with each other. We didn't bother with armor or even shoes as we sparred, sword on dagger, just like old times. I slashed and stabbed and blocked, lunging forward and then darting back out of the way of Annabeth's blade. No one held the offense for too long, but we knew each other's tricks and after so long, we were more than evenly matched.

Even so, each of us got in a few moves below the other's radar. It was part of the fun. "You're getting slow in your old age, my dear," I taunted, sidestepping her most recent onslaught and following up with a feint, then another strike of my own.

"I've had three babies!" she protested, dancing easily out of the way. She didn't hesitate a second before taking back the offensive. With each strike, I watched the shadows leave her eyes a little more. I tried not to smile.

"I helped," I countered now, blocking her blow and swinging out in a wide arc. She ducked gracefully below it and tried to catch my leg with her own. I jumped over her sweep and met her blade once more as she straightened and struck out again with lightning-fast speed.

"They came out of my body," she protested, indignant. I grinned, partly because I knew it would annoy her. The action earned me an extra hard next blow. But her eyes lightened more, enough that I thought maybe she could actually get a little more rest before morning if she chose to.

It was hard to say how long we were out there. Sparring had always been one of those activities between us where the minutes melted away. It could have been ten minutes or an hour. Annabeth did eventually gain the upper hand. She struck out and stabbed again and again in quick succession, forcing me on the defense. I was holding my own though, at least until I hit a particularly slick patch of grass and lost my footing. I could have recovered if she hadn't been so quick to take advantage. But I was married to a master strategist, after all.

One second, I was upright before her, the next, I was lying flat on my back with a knee to my chest in the dewy grass, staring up into gorgeous gray eyes that blazed with triumph in the pre-dawn light. A smirk played at the corner of her mouth as she held a forearm against my throat, firmly but not painfully. "Who's old and slow now?" she asked sweetly from above me. She snatched Riptide from my grasp and tossed it a few feet away, leaving me unarmed as well as effectively pinned. I couldn't help the smile that crossed my own face now, staring up at her. She rolled her eyes, but her own grin widened. "You're not supposed to smile, Seaweed Brain, I just beat you."

"And I concede," I told her easily, spreading my arms at either side for emphasis. I wasn't mad about it. For one thing, I'd long-since given up getting upset at losing to her. For a long time, more of our matches had ended in draws than otherwise, assuming neither of us cheated, which did happen more often than not. But then, was it really cheating when it kept things interesting? We didn't spar regularly enough now to know for sure if those stats remained accurate, but we weren't exactly losing to anyone else either.

The last time we'd sparred though, I definitely won so there was that.

But this hadn't been about winning. Annabeth was smiling, and when it came to post-Tartarus scars, even so long after, that was all I cared about.

"Oh, you concede?" she asked, playful skepticism rich in her tone.

"I do," I replied easily, still smiling.

She raised an eyebrow, but leaned back, releasing her hold on my throat. "Who are you and what have you done with my husband, who will probably go to his grave with his competitive streak intact?"

"He's got ulterior motives right now," I said, lunging forward and bringing her with me as I rolled over until I was the one on top in the grass. She definitely could have stopped the move, but she allowed it.

"Now that I believe," she said, smirking up at me now, her curls fanned out from her hastily pulled-back ponytail.

Neither of us said anything more after that because I leaned forward and brought my mouth to hers. And for a moment, all was right in the world, which contained nothing but the two of us and the stars up above as she wrapped her arms around my neck and returned the gesture.

It was a very short moment, interrupted by the emphatic "Ugh!" that sounded from the direction of the deck behind us. We broke apart quickly and turned toward the sound to find all three of our children lined up beside one another, watching us with varying degrees of disgust written across their faces. Engrossed as I'd been, I had no idea when they'd gotten there.

Heaving a sigh, I rolled off Annabeth, who immediately got to her feet, brushing grass from her clothes with all the dignity of a goddess. "What are you three doing out of bed?" she demanded, pretty much as nonplussed as it was possible to be.

Logan, his sister leaning against the arm of his chair, raised an eyebrow. "We could probably ask you the same thing." Even in the poor lighting, I could see a sparkle of delight in his gray eyes.

Nicky spoke at almost the same time. "We heard you." He glanced sideways at his brother, continuing when he finished. "At first we were worried maybe there was a monster or something, but-"

"That was awesome!" Carly interrupted, straightening up from Logan's armrest and looking for all the world like she might ask us to do it again.

I studied the three of them for a moment, and then glanced at Annabeth beside me. The glint of amusement in her features now, potentially at my expense, was unmistakable. She started forward and the moment was lost. But I watched her for half a second, and when I saw nothing of the scars that had been so starkly present so recently, I fell in half a step behind her as she approached our expectant children.

I figured any hope we had of sleeping, or better yet, maybe not sleeping for the next few hours was gone now. Maybe we'd have better luck next time.


Thanks for reading!