As soon as Apollo had woken up back at Camp Half-Blood, he knew something was going to go wrong. Maybe he was getting his powers back.

Or maybe it was the fact that the door to his cabin had been broken off its hinges in the middle of the night, silhouetting an angry girl in the moonlight.

"Where's Apollo?" she growled.

He crawled out of his bed and stood in front of her. "Right here."

In acknowledgement, she punched him in the face.

"I told you to check up on him, not get him killed!" The girl grabbed him by his shirt and dragged him outside, roughly shoving him into the dirt. "You killed him!"

Apollo stumbled to his feet, feeling the blood pouring from his nose. "You broke my nose!"

"And you killed my brother!" If the silver jacket and small circlet nestled in her hair wasn't a clue, the statements the girl had made had convinced Apollo that this was Thalia Grace. "You let him die!"

A shield sprung from her bracelet, a spear from a place at her belt, and a bolt of lightning struck the ground a mere foot away from her. It lit up her black hair and piercing blue eyes, fury burning bright in their depths. The image was seared into Apollo's retinas as campers sleepily poured out of the cabins to see what the commotion was.

"You killed my brother, Apollo, and you're going to pay for it!" Another bolt of lightning danced down the length of her spear, now pointed at him, and nearly burned his skin.

"Thalia! Stop!"

"Don't do it!"

"You're going to kill him!"

Three people were running towards her, one with a sword, one with a dagger, and one with flames dancing along his arms.

"He should be dead for what he did," Thalia answered darkly.

The sky split open again, three bolts of lightning hurtling towards her, stopping just before they hit the ground and weaving into a cage of sorts, sealing her and Apollo off from the others. The three demigods stopped short of the cage, illuminated by the light. Percy, Annabeth, and Leo had come to defend Apollo.

He didn't know why.

Thalia was right.

He was the reason Jason Grace was dead and he would rather have died than let Jason die for him.

"Killing him isn't going to bring Jason back, Thalia," Annabeth said, "it's just going to damn you in Hades. You won't be able to see him again."

"I don't plan on dying anytime soon, Annabeth," Thalia said. "And Jason isn't going to wait for me, he knows I serve Artemis. It could be hundreds of years before I die."

"Or you could die today, trying to kill a god. Do you really think your father is going to let you get away with that?" Percy stepped closer to the cage, a ball of water floating behind him in case he had to stop Thalia forcefully.

"He didn't care when Apollo tried to kill himself, why would he care if I did?"

"Because if you kill him, you destroy any hope of getting Jason back," Leo said.

Thalia's glare faltered for a moment. "Jason can't come back."

"He can if Apollo talks to Hades or Thanatos." Leo edged closer to the cage. "If you kill him, he wont be able to plead his case to them. He feels guilty about it, Thalia, I saw it in his face the day I found out. So if you hurt Apollo, you're hurting your chances of seeing your brother again."

The lightning bars of the cage sizzled then died out, finally releasing their energy into the ground. Annabeth wrapped Thalia up in a hug while Will hurried over and helped Apollo up, checking him over to make sure he hadn't been hurt.

"I'm fine," Apollo murmured, shrugging off his son and turning to Thalia.

"You killed my brother," she choked out before collapsing to the ground in Annabeth's arms and sobbing.

Apollo knelt in front of her. "You have to know this: He did it to protect the rest of us. He knew it was either him or Piper that was going to die and didn't want to see her hurt. I know it doesn't make sense and it doesn't seem right, but if I could, I would have taken his place and died instead."

Thalia sobbed harder, untangling herself from Annabeth and twisting around to cling to Apollo, her tears soaking his pajama shirt.

He didn't mind in the least.

He owed it to Jason to do better.

"Promise me one thing. Whatever happens, when you get back to Olympus, when you're a god again, remember. Remember what it's like to be human."

He would keep his promise.

Apollo squeezed Thalia tighter.

"I will remember," he promised her.

I feel like this confrontation would have gotten a lot worse if no one stepped in to help Apollo, but I also felt that Apollo should be given a chance to talk to Thalia, though she obviously beat him to it.

Also, if you think the last chapter should be expanded, vote through the poll on my profile, or leave a review saying so!

Love,

The Duchess