Annabeth sat through the entire conversation about Percy's new powers without comment, which she thought was a pretty big accomplishment.
So what that he had new powers? So what that he was even more powerful than he was before? He was on their side. Shouldn't they want him to be more powerful?
Still she sat there, not saying a word. As long as they didn't decide to try and capture or hurt him in any way she would be fine.
Finally, to her relief, the meeting ended with Chiron saying that they would wait for the gods.
By the time they got out, it was mid afternoon, and Percy and Xavier were no where to be found.
Annabeth felt bad. She hadn't realized it, but Xavier had been slightly excluded. The only people he ever really hung out with were Percy and some of the Apollo kids.
She looked up from her thinking to see Percy sitting on the beach.
"Hey, Seaweed Brain. You okay?". She sat down next to him in the sand.
He seemed to be thinking, as he didn't seem to notice her at first.
He just stared out at the waves.
Annabeth has just resigned herself to the fact that he wasn't going to answer when he suddenly spoke, "Do you ever think about Tartarus?".
The question caught her by surprise, and she shifted uncomfortably in the sand.
He turned to look at her, then. His green eyes seemed clouded and distracted, like he was still deep in thought.
"Yeah. Yeah, I do".
She stared out at the water, memories from that time clouding her mind.
She leaned into him, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and they just sat, staring out at the water, each lost in their own thoughts.
A couple of hours later, their peacefulness was interrupted by somebody behind them clearing their throat.
"Umm… What are you guys doing?".
They had shifted until Annabeth's head was in Percy's lap and his hand was running through her hair. They were still sitting together in the sand and watching the waves.
Percy turned to see Leo standing behind them.
"You know that everybody's looking for you guys, right?".
Percy smiled gently and looked down at Annabeth who had fallen asleep in his lap.
"Wake up, wise girl".
She groaned and her eyes opened slightly.
"It's time to wake up. We're needed for something".
She huffed as she sat up and tried to fix her hair, and Percy stayed sitting, just looking at her with love in his eyes.
"Awww! I knew you were a softie, Percy!", Leo said from behind them.
Percy turned around to glare at him, just catching the next words that Leo said under his breath.
"Apparently only with her".
Once Annabeth was ready, they walked together to Percy's cabin. He was the only one besides Nico who didn't have any siblings to share his cabin with. And nobody wanted to go into Nico's cabin.
As soon as they walked back into the main area of camp everybody was crowding around them.
"Where were you guys?".
"Where do you think they were?", Jason said with a smirk in Percy's direction.
Percy blushed red and Piper slapped him, "Jason!". Then she leaned in close to Annabeth, "Did you?".
"Oh my gods! Guys stop!", Annabeth cried, covering her face with her hands.
Percy's face looked like a tomato, and it started to spread down his neck and to his ears.
"What are you guys saying to poor Percy? This is the most I've ever seen him blush". Xavier came up to the group from the woods.
They quieted for a moment, looking at each other, before bursting out laughing again.
"Percy won't tell us where he and Annabeth have been for the past few hours".
Xavier looked over at him, "Is that so? Did you guys check all the closets?", Xavier gave him the eyebrows.
At that Percy sputtered and everybody broke out into another round of laughter.
"Can we just go please?", Annabeth asked, taking her red face out of her hands.
"Not before you tell us where you guys were".
They all looked at them expectantly, even Nico showed mild interest, pushing himself off the wall and walking over to the group.
"We were just talking on the beach for a while", Percy said, moving forward towards the door of his cabin.
"Uh huh. Talking. Right".
"Shut up, Leo".
Everybody walked into the cabin and sat everywhere. The cabin was only meant for two people since it was only ever he and Tyson, so most people were on the floor.
"So… What's the plan?", everybody was still smiling and laughing, and they all turned to Annabeth for the answer.
"Well we'd get there much faster if we took an airplane, but since we have Seaweed Brain here, we can't, so the next best thing is taking the train", everybody groaned. A train ride from New York to California would take at least three days, and with demigod ADHD, that would be torture.
Annabeth held up a hand, and everybody stopped grumbling and looked at her again. "Moving on, when we arrive in San Fransisco, we'll have to walk over to Camp Jupiter. Does everybody remember where it is?".
Everybody around the circle except for Percy and Xavier nodded their heads.
During the two years when they were looking for Percy after the war, they had made several trips over to Camp Jupiter to get their help in the search, and everybody in the crew had been at least twice.
"Once we pick up Frank and Hazel, we'll travel south to Los Angeles and use the entrance there to get to the Underworld. Nico, we'll need you to talk to your dad. Once we're down there, we're going to need a way to get out. He can speak to Thanatos for us and have him wait for us with the Doors of Death. This way, we won't have any problems like last time".
She locked eyes with Percy, and everybody knew that she was talking about when Percy had sacrificed himself to close the doors of death.
He nodded and gave her a small smile.
"Once we get into Tartarus is where I'm not completely sure. When we were down there we didn't go into the Unruled".
"I did", everybody stared at Percy, waiting for him to explain.
"It was one of my... punishments. I'd rather not talk about it. But I've been there".
The others stared at him, and he did a good job of hiding his feelings. He still had a shadow of a grin on his face, and if you didn't look at them for too long his eyes still seemed to sparkle like they used to.
But memories flashed behind his eyes every time he blinked, and he knew that Annabeth and Xavier could see straight through him.
"It's dark, pitch black, you can't even see your hand in front of your face. And there are monsters down there that I had never even seen before. I never made it to the source..."
He stopped and absent-mindedly rubbed at an area on his side near his rib cage.
"Never mind. I can get us there, and maybe halfway through the Unruled, but that's as far as I've gone".
Annabeth nodded and squeezed his hand gently, and he squeezed back.
It was hard for him to share that. It was hard for him to talk about anything having to do with Tartarus. Anytime he did, the images and memories just got worse. He could tell he was going to have bad nightmares that night.
"We'll just figure it out as we go along. When have our plans ever worked anyways?", Jason said, filling the silence that had fallen on the group.
Percy offered a smile, and at that moment the conch shell sounded for dinner.
The group started to get up to leave, but Piper stopped them.
"Hey guys, I was just thinking that maybe we could look into my dagger before we leave?".
Everybody stopped leaving and turned back to face her.
"You still have Katoptris?", Percy asked.
"Well, yeah. We used it a lot when we were looking for you, but it never showed anything, so I've just left it in my cabin".
"That's a good idea, Piper", Annabeth said, and she smiled.
"What's so special about a dagger?", Xavier asked.
"It used to belong to Helen of Troy. It's not really for fighting, more for seeing little bits of the future. It was really helpful during the Giant War".
Percy scoffed, "Debatable".
Xavier threw him a questioning look, but before he could ask Piper was rushing everybody out the door.
"Come on. We're already late for dinner. We have to hurry up".
The group walked across the horseshoe of cabins until they reached Aphrodite.
Even though it was dinner time, voices could still be heard inside.
"Brace yourself", Percy quietly told Xavier with a smirk.
The door opened, and a cloud of perfume seemed to float out from the open door.
Inside, Drew was standing over a new camper while she scrubbed the floor.
"What's going on here?", Piper asked as she walked through the door.
The majority of the group was still outside, as Piper had stopped right in the doorway, blocking it.
"Wh-What are you doing here?", Drew stammered.
"I could ask you the same thing", Piper glared at her.
If looks could kill, Drew would be a smoking pile of ash on the floor.
Her gaze softened, though, as she looked down at the smaller girl on the floor.
"Hi. My name's Piper and I'm the head counselor for Aphrodite. What's your name?".
The girl seemed to be younger, around 10 years old, and she looked up at Piper with big brown eyes.
"My name's Kendall. I thought that Drew was the head counselor?".
"No, honey. She just likes to pretend. I'm the head counselor. Why don't you get up off the floor and run along to the dining pavilion for dinner?".
The girl happily nodded her head and did as Piper asked.
As soon as the girl had made her way though the group gathered at the door and had begun to skip down the path towards the dining pavilion, Piper turned to Drew with a murderous look.
"What is wrong with you?!".
Drew seemed to have gathered up her courage since earlier, and glared back at Piper with just as much intensity.
"Oh, there's nothing wrong with me", Drew replied, flicking her hair over her shoulder with one perfectly manicure hand.
"Why are you here, McLean?", her expression changed from angry to bored, and she busied herself by cleaning her nails.
"I have to prepare for my quest. I came to grab my dagger".
Piper was fuming. This girl somehow managed to get on every one of Piper's nerves. She couldn't be around her for longer than five minutes before getting the urge to strangle her.
At the word quest Drew scoffed. "Yeah right. Like you would ever get a quest again"
Piper was seriously considering stabbing her with Katoptris when the rest of her friends finally managed to get inside.
"I think I'm actually going to suffocate and die in here", Leo said, pinching his nose.
"Aw man, some of my feathers are pink now!". Xavier said, spinning around so his wings were no longer stuck in make up that had been left open.
Percy resisted the urge to bust out laughing as Xavier tried to get the stuff out.
Thankfully, Jason was actually paying attention and went to stand by Piper, discreetly taking the knife out of her hand.
Drew's eyes widened as she looked up and saw almost the entire crew from the Argo II gathered in her cabin.
"I think you should go now. This isn't for people outside of the quest to see", Jason said.
Piper smiled to herself at the subtle insult that he had just thrown back at her.
She seemed to lose all of her courage at the sight of them all gathered together, and walked towards the door without a fight.
Once she had left and the door had been closed behind her, they all gathered on Piper's bunk and crowded around Katoptris.
At first, it didn't do anything but gleam under the light.
"Umm… Remind of what's supposed to be happening again?", Xavier looked around at the others who were still staring intently at the dagger, all silently praying for it to show them something.
Then the shining metal shimmered and disappeared, replaced by an image of almost complete darkness. Only faint silhouettes could be seen, but Piper knew without a doubt that the group of people that they were looking at was them.
The image shimmered and changed again, now depicting a swirling ball of pure black energy that was held on a sort of pedestal. A large hulking figure was rising behind it. The creature was about the size of a titan, but it was much more muscular, and held a double-edged sword that glowed with power.
They realised that the large ball of energy was inside of a cavern, when the large monster moved to the entrance of it, blocking out all of the already minimal light.
The dagger faded back to its original gleaming bronze colour, and the group sat back to look at one another.
"That was definitely the source of Tartarus' power", Percy said.
"Agreed".
"Great. So on top of it literally being in the middle of the worst part of Tartarus, there is also a giant monster guarding it with a magical glowing sword. What could go wrong?", Leo said, beginning to pull little tools and machinery parts out of his belt.
Jason sighed. "Come on guys. Let's just go to dinner. I'm done talking about the plan, we've been over it at least a thousand times". He got up and walked towards the door of the cabin, "You guys coming?".
Percy muttered under his breath, "Jason being impulsive. Now I really know that things have changed".
Annabeth heard and snorted, drawing a few curious looks from the others.
They made their way over to the dining pavilion, as they entered, his friends all made their way over to their own tables, leaving Percy and Xavier alone again, staring at the groups of demigods. Again.
Percy was about to suggest that they take their food down to the beach again when the sound of a table scraping against the floor interrupted his thoughts. It was so loud that all conversation immediately stopped and looked towards the center of the room where Jason was moving the Poseidon and Zeus tables together.
Going over to help, Percy and Jason finally go the two tables side by side, forming a rather large square table in the middle of the room.
"I just thought that since we're each only children and Xavier doesn't have a table then we could just form one large one", Jason looked up from the table to see Xavier's reaction.
He smiled. A smile so bright it rivalled Apollo's. (but don't tell him I said that)
"Thank you".
Jason nodded and walked away to go get food.
Percy looked over and raised an eyebrow at the ridiculous smile that was still plastered on his friend's face.
"What's the matter with you? You look like your face is going to split in half", he joked.
The rest of the night was filled with just that. Jokes, laughter, and genuine smiles that hadn't been seen in forever. Percy recounted stories of his old life at Camp Half-Blood before Tartarus, and Jason tried his best to explain about Camp Jupiter. And Xavier joked right along with them, for the first time in his entire life, he felt completely at peace.
Xavier had never had a true family, before. But he imagined that this is what it felt like.