PERCY

It's not everyday that you get to watch your gay cousin, who used to have a massive crush on you, talk to his boyfriend about taking a three-year quest. If it hadn't been such a tense subject, I think I might have laughed. I had offered my support and gladly would have stood next to Nico while he told Will about the quest, but he just gave me a hug, which was still kind of weird even after a year, and jogged over to where Will was reprimanding one of his siblings for cursing their friend to speak in rhyme. Even though I had planned on sending Annabeth an IM I decided to wait to see how Will took the news. I didn't want to eavesdrop, but c'mon, Nico is my cousin. I'm just looking out for him.

Will had led Nico to the edge of the forest and they were sitting with their backs to a large rock. I snuck around and attempted to climb a tree so I could see and hear them. Once I was satisfied that I wouldn't give away my position by falling I tried to listen quietly.

"...she appeared right behind Chiron and told us herself that she needed us to take this quest."

Will gave a low whistle, "She actually showed up herself? Man, if Lou Ellen finds out she's going to have a cow." Lou Ellen would have a cow. She was one fiery daughter of Hecate that's for sure. You definitely didn't want to be on her bad side.

"Well I think Hecate is going to come when Chiron announces why most of his senior campers are leaving for the next three years."

"Gotcha. Well get back to the quest. What exactly is going on?" Nico sighed, "Well, basically Hecate wants us to befriend a good wizard and unite a school against an evil wizard. This wizard, Harry Potter, he's turning 15 this year. He'll be in his fifth year at Hogwarts, that's the name of the school, and Hecate wants us to be there to become his friends. So in order for all of us to blend, Hecate is giving us magic and she's taking everyone out of their bodies now, and making us all fifteen. Well, those of us who aren't fifteen now. And, don't tell anyone I told you, but Chiron and Hecate think Percy will likely be the one of us who becomes Harry's friend first. Apparently they're a lot alike." Well, there goes that secret, I thought. But then giving it a moment longer to register, Will Solace kept the fact that he was gay a secret from everyone in camp for years. After he and Nico became friends and it started looking like they might feel something towards each other besides friendship, he didn't do or say anything that would be a complete giveaway until Nico was ready to step out of the closet and let everyone know exactly who he was. If anyone could keep a secret, it would be Will and Nico.

"Whoa. That's probably not even all of the details, but it's still a lot to take in. Well, are you going to ask me the question you've been dying to ask me ever since you got back from school?"

Nico slugged Will lightly and asked, "I have thought about this for the last several hours. How could I even begin to form this question? Asking you to give up three years of your life isn't something I would do lightly. I've lost so many people because of who I am. I even let myself become closed off to the rest of the world because I didn't think I could let anyone in ever again. Losing them would just hurt too much. But then, in the middle of the eighth worst day of the worst year of my life, you came running in with all black clothes and war paint up to your brilliantly blonde hair. You unceremoniously shoved your way past all of the walls surrounding my heart and pulled me, literally, out of the shadows. If I thought that there wasn't a chance I'd be in enough danger to not make it home, I don't think I would have asked. But the way Chiron and Hecate described this guy, I just don't know. And if it's not too much to ask of someone I've only really known for the last year, Sunshine, will you consider taking this quest with me?"

Will and Nico both had tears streaming down their faces. I even got a little choked up by Nico's speech. After he'd collected himself enough to talk Will pulled Nico into a hug,

"Death Breath, if you thought for even a moment that my answer would be anything but yes, we seriously need to spend more time together." Nico laughed into Will's shoulder,

"Well, you're the head counselor of your cabin, you have a lot of younger siblings that need you, I just didn't think it'd be fair to ask." Will let go of Nico and placed the younger boy's head on his shoulder intertwining their fingers and placed a kiss into Nico's hair. If I hadn't been trying to be so stealthy, I might have burst into tears. Looking at my cousin willingly touching another human being, a human being who was the complete opposite of everything Nico had ever known, was almost too much. I decided that I better leave before I fell out of the tree I was perched in. Will would be joining the quest and Nico would be able to focus on the task at hand.

As I left the forest, I started thinking about my own romantic relationship. Annabeth and I will have our third year anniversary this August. It's really hard to even believe. I'm going to be twenty years old this August. I was repeating my junior year of high school, because thanks to Hera I missed out on it the first time around, and I was going to be taking online classes all summer to get my GED by this fall so I could go to college instead of being the only twenty year old in high school. But now that there's a three year long quest I have to take, getting all my summer classes completed before July would be even more important.

But even more important than that was the fact that it would be really weird if Annabeth, who would be seen as a fifteen year old girl, was walking around with an engagement ring on her left hand. I'd been planning for months on how to propose to her. I'd even talked a little with Piper about all of it. The Fates just had to bring us into all of this wizard crap. I mean, how in Hades are any of us supposed to move on with our lives if we were sent off on dangerous quests every other year? I wanted to ask the only woman I've ever loved, besides my mother, the most important question I could ever ask her. I wanted Annabeth, my Wise Girl, to be my wife. But I would either have to put that on hold for the next three years, or I would have to be engaged for three years before I could do anything about it. I finally reached my cabin and walked over to the fountain. I pulled out a drachma and uttered the words,

"Oh, Fleecy, do me a solid. Show me Annabeth Chase in San Francisco." The fountain shimmered and finally gave me an image of Annabeth's house. Apparently she was watching TV with her brothers. When I called her name she jumped a little and then smiled.

"Hey, Seaweed Brain. How was the rest of the school day?" Like I really wanted to talk about school.

"It went fine. I ended up being late for Paul's class but he didn't give me too much trouble. How was your flight?" She gave me a tired smile,

"The flight was really long. I was getting ready to go take a nap." Then she looked at her brothers who weren't paying any mind to the random head floating in their living room. When she turned back to me she had a worried look on her face.

"I haven't told my dad about the quest yet. I wanted to sit down with them as soon as I got here, but I just couldn't. My step-mom was so nice to me and was fussing over me a little like your mom does sometimes. I just didn't have the heart to tell them. I have to leave tomorrow after lunch and I still don't know what I'm going to say." She'd started tearing up and I wished more than anything I could have been there with her.

"Annabeth, it's going to be ok. Just talk to them and tell them the truth. Give them the drachmas Chiron gave you and let them know you'll get back to them about how often they can call. It'll be hard, but I know we can get through all of this together. And hey, my mom and Paul decided that they were going to move to Scotland with us. If you need her, she'll be there." She gave him a quizzical look after she'd blinked away her tears,

"Sally and Paul are coming to Scotland? Why?"

I sighed, "Well, my mom said that if it wasn't a normal quest then she could do whatever she damn well pleased. She seemed very determined to be there for us if we needed her. I know that I'll definitely take advantage of having my mom on a quest like this. Who knows if we'll actually get a chance to see her, but just knowing that she's there will be a big help." Annabeth nodded, but I could tell she wasn't going to have an easy time talking to her parents about this.

"Hey, Wise Girl," she looked up at me, "If you need me, just Iris Message me and I'll help explain as best I can from over here." She gave me a small smile,

"Percy, I," she paused as if she didn't know what to say. This was Annabeth, she always had some sort of plan. "I'm glad I have you. I don't know if I'd even be alive without you. I..."

''I love you too, Wise Girl. And as for being alive, I would have made the same choice." She smiled and gave me a wave.

"I love you Percy." I waved back as she cut off the connection. Gods, it was going to be a long three years.

STILL PERCY

Knock, knock, knock.

"Percy! You in there?" As much as I wanted to stay in my bed, I knew I needed to get up. It was nearing dinnertime and I'd already been asleep for like an hour.

"I'm decent!" Slowly the creaking front door to my cabin opened to reveal Grover had been the one who was looking for me.

"Hey Perce, I was wondering if you'd tell me what's going on." He came into the room and sat on Tyson's bed across from me.

"I don't need to know everything, but the Hecate campers swear that their mom was here." He gave me that look he gets when he knows I'm hiding something. He was the first friend I had when I came to camp, and he was the first best friend I'd ever had. I told him everything.

"G-Man, you can't let on you know anything. I want to tell you all of it, but I just can't. You get that, right?" He nodded. "It's gonna sound crazy, but it's not as bad as trying to explain the dam snack bar to Annabeth." We both laughed at that. I let out a sigh and began to try and explain this whole mess.

"Chiron woke the Seven and Nico up at 4 o'clock this morning. He said that he needed to tell us something. So we all get up to the Big House and he tells us that a friend of his asked for help. He goes on to tell us this story about a new group of mortals that have power over magic. Not just the Mist, but like all magic. These people live all over the world and are descendants from this group of mortals that Hecate blessed like forever ago. These mortals used to worship Hecate and thank her for the gift she'd given them, but after a few millennia she stopped hearing their prayers all together. They'd forgotten her. Gods and goddesses don't like that. So she curses one of these descendants and says that one day, an heir of his will become the greatest dark wizard ever. But then she tacks on that a descendant of his archrival will be the one to finally destroy this heir. The cursed descendant has risen, and the chosen one is still in school. Chiron's friend is the principal of the school and wants us to go help the guy fulfill his destiny. Hecate must feel bad for dooming all the children of her blessed mortals because she was here. She officially opened the quest and we all decided to go. The two biggest things that this quest requires are reliving puberty and leaving home for three years.

It actually supremely sucks now that I've thought about it. I mean, I'm going to be twenty this year. Annabeth's birthday is coming up and I was planning on proposing. And instead of all that, we're going to England to help save a world we didn't even know about 12 hours ago."

Grover took everything in stride, but reacted most to the word vomit I'd managed to spew at the end. "You were gonna propose to Annabeth? Like getting married and having a wedding with a best man kind of propose?" I had to laugh. Of course my best friend decides to focus on the one thing that can't happen now.

"Yea, buddy. I was gonna ask Annabeth to marry me on her birthday." All of a sudden there was a strangled cry coming from the part of my cabin where the fountain was. I turned and saw my half-brother, on the godly side, Tyson trying to dry his tears in a large handkerchief.

"Brother! I wanted to tell you that I was on my way to see you but friend Grover was talking. I heard your story about the magic goddess and how you will marry Annabeth. Do not hate me for listening! I'm sorry brother!" He resumed his crying and it took me a minute to calm him down. Even Grover, my Cyclops brother's favorite Satyr (yea, it's a long story), couldn't get him to stop crying.

"Tyson!" He looked up at me with his big round eye and gave a sheepish smile.

"I am sorry brother."

"Tyson, buddy, it's all good. I'm not mad that you overheard. But you have to know that you can't say anything to anyone about all this. You have to keep it all a secret. Can you do that?" Tyson had hurriedly stopped his crying and wiped his eye and gave me a proud look and smiled.

"Brother Percy trusts me to keep his secret. I will tell no one." He gave me a firm nod and I returned it. I wanted to say more but the dinner horn blew.

"Tyson, when are you coming? Are you coming today?" Tyson had a thoughtful look as he tried to remember.

"I will be at camp after all the eating is done. Maybe you could save me some food, brother?"

I smiled and said I would. Then I swiped my hand through the mist and cut the connection. Grover turned to me with a worried expression and asked the question I really hoped he wouldn't.

"Are you sure Tyson won't spill the beans?" No matter how much Grover loved Tyson, I knew that the animal instinct he had always shouted for the death of my brother.

"Tyson won't tell a soul. Ella probably already knows and Rachel will learn it from her, but I don't think we have anyone else to worry about. Let's get some dinner and we can talk more about it later, okay?" He didn't look satisfied but gave a nod anyway. As we walked through the camp to the pavilion, he pulled out an old soda can and began to chew away at it.

If there was one thing that I really liked about how camp had changed after the Second Giant War, it was the fact that Chiron and Apollo stopped enforcing the table rule. Instead of eating with our siblings at our house table, we could now choose who we wanted to share mealtime with. Generally I sat with Jason, Piper, Nico, Annabeth, Will, Lou Ellen, Lacy, Mitchel, Cecil, Katie, Connor, Travis, and maybe a few others. Tonight though, I almost wished I could sit at my house table and use the silence as personal-Percy-thinking-time. Tomorrow night, after Annabeth gets home, the ten who had accepted the quest would be transformed into magic wielding fifteen year olds.

Over the course of the next three months we would have to prepare for our quest in England. Hecate said we'd be given the knowledge of spells we would need to pass as good students of magic. We would probably be practicing how to use this magic while we got used to being fifteen again. I just wanted a little me time to process it all. I don't like being alone all the time, but eventually a guy needs some quality time with himself, his thoughts and the bottom of the Long Island Sound.

Despite my desire to sort out all of this for myself, I went over to what used to be the Poseidon table and sat next to Will. There were already a few people sitting down. Jason and Nico seemed to be in deep conversation across the table from me, and Piper, who was sitting on the other side of Will. After a moment Nico and Jason stopped talking and looked at the rest of us.

"So," Nico started, "Are any of you happy about being fifteen again?" Will laughed good naturedly, but I don't think there was any true humor in his laugh.

"I for one am not." Everyone turned as Leo and Calypso joined the table. They joined Jason and Nico's side of the table. "I mean, sure, we'll all be having a blast from the past, but I just got my growth spurt! I can't go back to being smaller than everyone! I think it'll ruin me forever!" Calypso took his hand and addressed the group,

"Well, in bodily form I have only reached the age of seventeen this year so for me it will not be as difficult I think. I spent millennia in my fifteen year old body." No one really had any room to complain after that.

"I think getting to use magic might be fun. It's not going to be boring that's for sure." That was Will, the eternal sunshine in the midst of whatever darkness we could think up. From the conversations I've had with him though, he didn't always feel the way his face portrayed.

Jason added his opinion, "Yea, I guess it will. It will be neat to see what their magic can do. We're all used to demigod powers so I'm curious to see how the magic will differ."

Nico rolled his eyes at that. "I don't really think it's going to be that different. What we do is basically magic anyway." We were all avoiding the massive elephant in the room.

"Guys, why don't we just be honest. None of us are really excited about this quest. It's going to be three years before we see any of our friends again. Some of us are leaving behind our mortal parents, and it's going to be really tough. Beating around the bush isn't going to help us at all. We have to be on the same page, all of us. I wanted to go because I want to help Harry. He's just a kid and even if he's got friends and these Weasley people, he needs all the support he can get. I know that we were all forced into wars and battles because of our heritage, but he doesn't have the monster problem or the heroes-are-often-used-by-the-gods problem. He's an orphan who got the short end of the stick because some idiot tried to interpret a prophecy. I don't know how he grew up, I don't know if he has a real family. But what I do know is that we will be going to England in a few months, and we will be given an opportunity to become friends with him and give him our support. That is why we are going. If battles come, then battles come. We protect each other, and we protect Harry Potter." Piper finished her spiel and left the table with tears in her eyes.

She must have been using her Charmspeak at least a little, because I felt on the verge of tears myself.

"She's right you know, we can't focus on ourselves this time. It's got to be about Harry. We'll be together, and we'll be a force to be reckoned with." I didn't even realize I was talking until I noticed everyone looking at me.

Jason gave me a small smile and a nod of solidarity, and then he went to find Piper. Nico and Will were both nodding and Leo was comforting Calypso who was probably the most affected by Piper's speech. Well, schist.

We were in for a long three years. "Well, one thing we can be happy about is that my mom and Paul will be there if we need them. They decided yesterday that they would get a house up in Scotland so that they'd be close if we needed anything." Knowing that everyone loved my mom, who wouldn't love her, I thought that might help. Calypso gave me a smile and Leo seemed relieved that she wasn't crying anymore.

I was about to get up to get Tyson the food I promised, but Chiron interrupted me. "Percy, I have just heard from Hazel and Frank. They have arrived at the Laguardia airport. Would you be willing to go retrieve them?"

"Uh, sure. But could you get some food for Tyson? He's coming to visit and I promised I'd get him some food." Chiron gave me a nod and then turned to go back to the head table.

"Well, I gotta go get Hazel and Frank from the airport. I'll see you guys at the campfire." They waved good-bye and said they'd save me a seat.