Disclaimer: I am not, and will never be, Rick Riordan. Sadly, this means I don't own Percy Jackson.

Warnings: PTSD symptoms, swearing, mild unreliable narrator (Annabeth believes she understands what is going on with her and Clarisse and Silena. She does not).


"The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides, and in its depths it has its pearls too."

-Vincent Van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh


From her spot in the captain's cabin of the CSS Birmingham, Annabeth Chase was not impressed.

"Please tell me you didn't leave Valdez unsupervised. I thought we learned that lesson."

On the other side of the Iris Message, Percy Jackson rolled his eyes. Behind him, Annabeth could see an unmade bed and the shimmering abalone walls of Cabin Three. "Have a little faith, Annabeth. I got Beckendorf to sit on him. They're in the forges with some newcomers—he was muttering about bad habits and smelting."

"Hmm." It was as good a distraction as anything else where Leo Valdez was concerned, Annabeth supposed. In the three weeks since Percy had chosen to just about physically drag the twelve-year-old son of Hephaestus into camp, things hadn't gone well. To put it nicely.

Three times. He had tried to run away three times. It wasn't like Annabeth had no experience with runaways—gods, she had been one herself, once—or that demigods never came to camp with any kind of reluctance. But it was one thing for someone to be traumatized and homesick; it was a whole other thing to be slipperier than a child of Hermes stealing cattle.

The day Annabeth had visited the Jacksons to meet Leo Valdez, she'd had to wait half an hour while Hazel yanked an entire block's worth of plumbing out of place to save Valdez from the return of the hellhounds hunting him—in the next neighborhood over.

If he hadn't been in quiet, ashen shock at having been found by Hazel, Annabeth would've been inclined to press his vague story about 'running' and initial panicked ramblings that Percy's mom had relayed to Annabeth, from when she had first met Valdez.

But she'd let it go. She knew what the unmoored feeling of homelessness and blind terror of being hunted and learned patience for every mirage of safety to finish crumbling—everything falling away, when no one cared about you, or wanted you, not really—all felt like, tangled together and scraping against your ribcage.

It was easy to wind up with anything hunting you, that way. Much harder to talk about it, especially to people you knew would never get it. Six years on, Annabeth had still barely said five words about Halcyon Green, Cyclopes, or Thalia's transformation to anyone. She figured that had been it.

And here they were.

But Annabeth had half a suspicion that the only reason he was still there at all was Camp Half-Blood's first, truest mandate—that he would learn how to fight monsters.

"He'll be fine, Annabeth. He just needs time," Percy said; awfully confident for someone who put Clarisse in the infirmary because he panicked over Valdez 'just needing time'.

Annabeth wasn't sure who missed Capture The Flag more: her or Clarisse. At least during Capture The Flag, she could strategically station Percy by the river and make him someone else's problem for a few hours, and Clarisse could bring along her siblings to where they could beat up on each other in peace and quiet.

"Prissy, if you don't go on offense already, I swear to Dad, I will rip your spine out!"

No such relief in autumn sparring. When Percy visited Bianca and Nico on the weekend, he joined the dozen year-rounders at sparring practice, as fresh blood. And that meant, inevitably—

Percy ducked yet another swipe of Lamer II, leaning back with such lazy ease as the electric spear sliced through the air, that Annabeth narrowed her eyes. Was he—was he enjoying this?

Clarisse thrust forward with a shriek of frustration; Percy avoided any contact with a practiced roll to the side, landing on one knee and barely breathing hard.

Annabeth had offered back in September to spar and work out consistent, believable limits, if they were going to be doing this for a while; she had drawn up charts for progress. He'd taken her up on it, perfectly earnest as they worked through typed notes Annabeth had taken off of her head counseling predecessor on teaching campers swordfighting.

Typed out, because like most of Cabin Seven—as the oldest joke in history went—Nestor's scrawl may as well be in Greek, and—well.

Luke had always complained he couldn't understand the shorthand Athena's children had devised if his life depended on it. His neat, blocky writing covered the margins, on this recent arrival's progress or that year-rounder's breakthrough with a new skill, personal notes to himself everywhere—August had lost their aunt and needed gentle handling, Keisha had self-confidence issues and needed encouragement more than criticism.

He had cared so much about his students, and for what? Death, betrayal?

Annabeth shook herself. Anyway.

He was gone now. She was here.

Since then, Percy Jackson had clearly decided that plausible deniability wasn't worth perfecting his defensive moves against an increasingly pissed-off Clarisse. Or something.

Clarisse twirled Lamer II in the air, shifting back to base form for another attack as Percy swung Riptide in a lazy arc with one hand. Annabeth gave herself another four minutes before she could reasonably begin to yell at him to stop acting like a toddler and fight back.

That was when Sherman Yang, son of Ares and a first-time year-rounder, sprinted into the arena and in her direction. She perked up. A distraction from the failed comedy routine in front of her, thank the—

"Annabeth!" he huffed out as he skidded to a stop. "Leo is gone. Beckendorf says his room is emptied out and hasn't been seen since the top of the hour."

If she had a desk, Annabeth would've banged her head against it. "Shit. Any sign where?"

"Crossed the creek. The way the forest is arranged now, Juniper says he's headed for the Ant Hill."

A dull metal clang sounded behind Sherman. Annabeth cursed out Valdez's hygiene, his entire lineage, and any theoretical livestock he kept in Greek. Myrmekes. Everything that lived in the forest, and he had to make a beeline for murderous fire ants the size of German Shepherds.

"No you don't, punk!"

At Percy's answering groan, Annabeth craned her head to see Clarisse had finally made contact; she was grinning down at Percy through the X formed by sword and spear. "Sherman and Annabeth can find Valdez. I'm going to kick your ass, fair and square."

Behind his sword, raised in sloppy form to protect his face, Percy's face did something complicated. He backed away, dropping his sword and turning away from the fight. Clarisse advanced, instinct acting on perceived blood in the water.

"Oh, for fuck's—" Percy cut off. He brought his sword up in a blur. Clarisse pivoted and swung.

Annabeth winced.

Valdez had been fine. Absolutely unrepentant, but fine. The bandages had come off the day before she, Annabeth, and Silena had left for the Sea of Monsters. Percy had her on the ground in less than a minute before tearing off for the Ant Hill, moving in a practiced blur that left Sherman gaping and Clarisse gasping; Annabeth still wasn't sure whether Clarisse wanted to go back and kidnap Percy for the quest or to smother him with the Golden Fleece when they returned for cracking half her ribs.

And the new spear. Clarisse had been real steamed about having to break in Lamer III.

Children of Ares were funny like that. Beat one of them up, and you'd earn their respect more quickly in a day than being kind to them for a year. Their ire, too, but that was a bit of an inevitable.

Leo had a knack for earning it, Annabeth had observed. Sherman and Clarisse had taken turns tearing him a new one after Annabeth and Percy had pulled Leo out of the myrmekes' nest. Even Chiron hadn't been too pleased, and Annabeth had caught Beckendorf and Leo in a quiet, heated conversation after—the former exasperated and pleading, the latter with a stubborn, sardonic smirk on his face.

Everyone was some degree of angry with him. Everyone except Hazel and Percy. They just insisted that Leo—who didn't even remember them, was just a scared child who would grow up to be Leo-Valdez-Two-Steps-To-The-Left for them—needed time.

"Time," Annabeth repeated, "Time for what, Percy?"

It was the heart of all of their problems these days, she thought bitterly. The conventional wisdom was to embrace it; time healed all wounds, all of their problems were transient in the face of eternity, and so on. She didn't agree.

"Time for him to run again? To pretend that nothing's wrong?"

Nothing was ever gone. Not really. Kronos in Luke and Thalia in a tree and the ring around Annabeth's neck and Hazel Levesque of New Rome and Percy Jackson who had first held a sword six months ago and six years ago were all proof of that. Ghosts.

"We're not pretending, we're convincing him to trust us again, for gods' sakes, Annabeth—"

And each time, Annabeth just kept— clinging. Sobbing into her pillow and yelling as everything changed anyway.

"It's different this time. This isn't again ," she said, halting. Percy was unreadable. "This is his first time. So you just need to stop running from it—"

"Running?" Percy sputtered, "I'm doing the opposite of running right here, I'm doing what Chiron and Hazel and you all told me to do, I'm staying put—"

"Yeah, and I don't think this prophecy ignored you so that you could babysit, Seaweed Brain," she snapped, "Something's wrong. We know something's changed, you know something is weird, so stop pretending that he'll inevitably wake up and be your best friend Leo and it'll be fine. I know you're smart, so shake the saltwater out of your skull, stop plotting to follow me here, and figure it out!"

She broke off with a sharp, heaving breath. Gods, they really sucked at this. The last time she'd gotten this frustrated, she had been visiting her dad—though that had been a very. . .different situation.

Percy sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I wasn't. Planning to follow you, that is. I did mean it, Annab—you think I'm smart?"

"I—yes?" she said, her voice turning higher to make that more of a question than she had intended. Her cheeks began to heat. "You're terrible at subtle things, but you've. . .done good. Outside of Kronos. I don't think you'd have made it as far as you did if you weren't, even if you were with—other me."

"Kronos is most of the last couple months," he pointed out, ignoring her second statement.

"I'm trying to give you a compliment here, Kelp Head," Annabeth said with a roll of her eyes, "Just take it."

"If you insist," he said agreeably, "How's the ship handling, Captain Chase? Crew still loyal enough and dead enough for you?"

"Clarisse has kept them up to standard," Annabeth answered, fighting down the threat of a curling smile. She didn't bother to correct him that, as the one Ares had gifted the ship, Clarisse was technically in command. "She thinks we could pass Scylla and Charybdis tomorrow, if we keep up our pace."

She darted an eye to a notebook resting innocently on her coat, beneath her knife. Notes from research at the Big House, picking over Percy's brain, and The Odyssey. If all went well, they would be down some zombies in twenty-four hours, but relatively safe within the Sea of Monsters.

"Great, that's great. And, uh," Percy ran a hand through his hair, glancing away from the Iris Message and back again. "How's the ship's captain?"

Annabeth eyed him. Percy stared back, steadily and looking at— her. She hoped. Not a ghost.

"Managing," she decided. "I'm managing."

It wasn't like she had any other choice. Clarisse and Silena couldn't know, and Percy and Hazel had enough of their own problems to fill the Underworld. Not quite how she envisioned leading her first quest, but she could do it without him. It would be fine.

Percy was silent for a moment, and Annabeth was prepared to snap at him to leave it , but he only nodded and kept going. "I know you guys have encountered some trouble on the way down. Anything notable?"

"If I never get attacked by harpies on a boat again, it'll be too soon." They had all gotten a good workout one afternoon outside Miami. "Silena is a pretty good crackshot when she puts her mind to it, did you know?"

"I had an idea, yeah," Percy said with a brief chuckle, "No sign of the child of Sparta or Team Baby Eaters yet?"

"No, nothing." Annabeth didn't mention how Clarisse and Silena had shared wary glances and their own private discussion, their first day onboard, the first, most obvious interpretation clearly at the front of their minds: That a child of Sparta would be a child of Ares. "That's probably going to change pretty quickly once we're past Scylla and Charybdis, though."

"And if things go south—"

"I have the lifeboats stocked," Annabeth confirmed, "They're motorized, and Beckendorf showed us how to do basic repair stuff. It's plenty to make it to the Fleece and make a quick getaway, if we have to."

Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that. If Odysseus could manage it in ancient times, Annabeth could manage it with a steamboat.

"Be careful. You may be girls, but you won't have godly vitamins to fix things if one of you gets hamsterified," Percy warned, "And. . .say hi to Reyna, for me and Hazel? If you can?"

"Soon as we don't get killed by sea monsters," Annabeth confirmed. He'd been determined to persuade Annabeth to rescue the sisters he had counted as friends, and Hazel had been equally stubborn on the count of repaying an apparent debt she owed Hylla Ramírez-Arellano.

As far as Annabeth was concerned, all she had needed to hear was "future leader of Rome's legion and Queen of the Amazons". If they were going to defeat Kronos and Gaea, they needed all the help they could get.

"It sounds like you're a captain with a plan, then. And. . .I know I'm not your first choice for confiding in. But—no, hear me out," Percy said quickly. Annabeth glared and mentally gave him twenty seconds before she shut off the call. "I know I'm not. I just want to say, talking to Clarisse and Silena about your top-secret plans won't, like, destroy the spacetime continuum or something."

"If you're suggesting—"

"I'm not suggesting anything, except I'm not the only one with a lot of shitty things to deal with. You've been. . .amazing, but I worry. About you," Percy tacked on hurriedly, "No one, even if they're half-god, should be drinking that much coffee black."

"If I drink much less, it'll just knock me out at this point," Annabeth grumbled, "Healers said I'm doing just fine and I'm getting a perfectly healthy amount of sleep for a thirteen-year-old."

"The healers would say the sky is bright yellow if you glared at them hard enough in the morning," Percy snorted, "You're a monster before that second cup kicks in."

He said it like—like it was a revelation. Present tense. No sadness crossed his eyes as he stared at a ghost. Just kept looking at her with an insufferable sideways smirk as he mocked her increased dependence on caffeine since July. Since before—

"Just. . .talk to Silena, okay? Or Clarisse, if you don't feel like going in for Silena's touchy-feely empathy stuff," Percy asked, his eyes going soft in a way that left the area between Annabeth's shoulder blades itchy. She didn't feel the urge to run, though. Improvement, she guessed, over when he seemed to see his dead girlfriend every time she had the nerve to exist.

"That's called therapy and being well-adjusted, Jackson," she said, shelving that particular thought. "Something you haven't had experience in since about the first time a monster left your brain shakier than the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Ridge."

It certainly put her above Valdez in regards to handling things normally .

"In case you haven't noticed, my schedule's a little tricky to navigate right now," she said, treading some line between friendly sarcasm and something more biting, "Should I talk about my childhood trauma before the morning near-death experience or afternoon near-death experience?"

"I got some of my best counseling during near-death experiences, actually," Percy said with a shrug. "Take the peace of mind where you can get it, Annabeth, trust me. You never know when it's all going to turn to sand beneath your feet."

Annabeth didn't dignify that with a response. Mostly because she couldn't think of a response that didn't start with ridiculous things like How are you real, and Why am I considering taking advice from you, and I forgot that you're eighteen, how can I forget you're so much older than I am?

"Talk about your grand plans for this quest, then," he said, "The prophecy said wisdom, love, and war, not Wise Girl and her two armed friends. Somewhere in-between upstaging Odysseus and trying not to get turned into harpy food, think about it, all right?"

He was so open. Open and— worried for her and offering advice, like Annabeth didn't know for a fact that he was still having nightmares every night that he lied about to Hazel and his mother and didn't jump every time someone came up too quietly behind him. And he said he wanted her to confide in someone.

She made some mangled motion with her head and shoulders, half-caught between shaking and nodding. ". . .Yeah. Yeah, I'll think about it. When do Hazel and Grover leave again?"

Percy studied her for another minute, the space between his eyebrows wrinkled. "Tomorrow, actually. Hazel thinks it shouldn't take them more than a day to make it if they're careful, but she doesn't know how much time will pass outside the Labyrinth, so it might be more."

"Good. Hopefully we don't see anything similar." Sure, the Lotus-Eaters hung out in Vegas these days, and Percy had given her plenty of notes on Circe and the Sirens—now there was something interesting—while she had gone through The Odyssey with a fine-toothed comb. She'd half-contemplated checking The Aeneid, but anything new was godly manipulations and war and the tragedy of Dido and the birth of Rome, all overlaid on top of its Greek epic predecessors.

Appropriate. For another day. Another quest. "In the meantime, try and. . .don't cuff Valdez to a chair for answers, but work on it, all right? No running."

Percy let out a huff, but didn't argue with her. "Aye, aye, Captain Chase. Good luck, and don't steer yourselves into a whirlpool."

He gave her a lazy two-fingered salute, and Annabeth swiped through the message to end it before he could see her embarrassing, pleased grin. Captain Chase. It had a nice ring to it, for her first time leading a quest.

She would succeed. They would get past the twin monsters and find the Ramírez-Arellano sisters and the Fleece and then they would face this child of Sparta.

And anything else that was left behind by time.


"It could work," Clarisse insisted, "What if she doesn't take the bait? They're ghostly zombies, not living meat, and the cannons won't aim that high if she decides to pick us up."

Annabeth grit her teeth. "Charybdis will swallow us whole. She's a whirlpool, not a proper monster we can blow up. All it'll do is leave us floating in wreckage, if we're lucky."

It wasn't like it had happened in another timeline where Clarisse had tried it, or anything.

"And if Scylla decides to pick us up, we'll be left helpless while she rips the boat apart and eats us one by one!"

Annabeth glanced ahead before she said something she would regret.

To the north of them, on their left, was an island of sheer dark cliffs, over a hundred feet tall. Within it was the cave that housed the nymph Scylla. To the south—an arrow's shot, as the myths went—was an apparent stationary hurricane. They were close enough that Annabeth could see the sea roiling and lightning flashing through the dark clouds. Charybdis.

Neither were more than five minutes away. Annabeth was going to have to talk fast.

"I could charmspeak Scylla to let us down, if we get close enough," Silena offered, her lovely brown eyes wide and worried. "It's not my favorite thing, but it's better than being monster food. It would have to be right in her face, though."

"It's a backup plan," Annabeth decided, turning back to Clarisse, who had a thunderous expression to match the storm in the distance. "Clarisse, Charybdis is a black hole that's been feeding for centuries. We would need a hundred times the amount of firepower we've got on this ship to make a dent, let alone destroy her."

Silena grimaced. "I don't think relying on charmspeak to avoid getting eaten is necessarily the best alternative, Annabeth."

"We're not going to get eaten, we're going to hide below decks," Annabeth retorted, "I don't think anyone's going to mourn the loss of a couple zombie Confederates. We'll go full speed ahead, and by the time Scylla runs out of undead meat, we'll be long gone."

"And you're sure it'll work?" Silena pressed. Annabeth chanced a look at the path ahead of them; Scylla's island was looking awfully tall as they drew closer, and she could begin to hear the roar of Charybdis.

They needed to get ready now.

"I'm willing to take my chances like Odysseus did," she said confidently, going back through what Percy had told her. "I know that if we try to fight Charybdis, we're going to get sucked in and the engine will explode, and then we'll be exponentially more screwed."

"You know, huh?" Clarisse asked, dubious, with her arms crossed. "I bet you do."

"I do," Annabeth promised, looking up to meet her gaze. "Clarisse, I'm positive."

After a moment of silence, save for the continued watery roar and crash of Charybdis, the commander approached the three of them, his rotten body flickering with green light and smoke.

"My ladies?" he asked blithely, like he was pressing them for an order of food, and not for orders to save their continued existence, "The course heading?"

"Beauregard?" Clarisse asked, not looking away from Annabeth, who broke the staring contest to glare at Silena; the daughter of Aphrodite was unfazed.

"She believes it. And I think she's right. We'll stand a better chance trying to survive Scylla than fighting Charybdis."

Annabeth would've been comforted by Silena's support, if she wasn't relying on whatever ability Aphrodite gifted her to read Annabeth. Clarisse, for her part, looked like she had just smelled something foul, but gestured from Annabeth to the dead Confederate.

"Give the order, Captain," she said, her tone harsh, "It's your quest, after all."

The dead soldier captain jerkily turned to Annabeth, his ghostly beard whipping in the ocean wind. Annabeth tipped her chin up, and willed her nerves to evaporate. Her quest, her plan. And it was a good plan. Better precedent than one in the erased past.

"Set course past Scylla, maximum speed the whole way," Annabeth ordered. "Keep a dozen of the men above deck. Clarisse, Annabeth, and I will be in my room."

The dead officer didn't say anything, just continued to stare at her for another unnerving moment with that glowing green, hungry stare, before beginning to hiss orders to the other zombie soldiers. Annabeth bit down on the urge to shudder, recalling Ares' words when he had handed the ship over to Clarisse.

"As defeated soldiers, sweetheart, they're under your command until your quest is complete, when they might finally gain peace. As Confederates, they're old cowards, too. At this point, they'll destroy and kill anyone in order to be released from my service. Anyone."

The words echoed in her head as Annabeth closed the door behind her. Silena and Clarisse were already inside, helping each other out of their armor in case they were all suddenly forced to swim. With the focus away from her, Annabeth indulged herself in one full-body shudder.

Gods, this had better work. And she hated dealing with the undead Confederates.

The ship began to hum around them as the engine was stretched to the limits, the iron plates heating until the air in the tiny metal room was thick and humid. Annabeth checked the straps of her knife holster and to make sure her Yankees cap was secure against her chest. Silena placed herself on the bed, bow and sword across her lap, while Clarisse stalked the room like a caged lioness.

"For the record, if we die, I'm staging a mutiny," she grumbled.

Annabeth raised an eyebrow. "If we die, the job of captain will be open anyway."

The ship shuddered around them, the metal giving a high whine as the lights flickered. Annabeth gripped one of the wall supports, all of it vibrating beneath her fingertips, and began to count the seconds for deep breaths. In Greek.

At fifteen, the ship went sideways, throwing Annabeth against the corner. At twenty-three, the screaming started.

Annabeth didn't even know zombies could scream. It was a horrible, broken noise, like fingernails on chalkboards, cut off by a bloodthirsty feminine roar. Scylla.

Boom. The ship rocked to one side. She shifted one hand to hold her knife, and the other to cling to her Yankees cap against her chest like a pair of security blankets. The screaming started again.

The ship went up and down, leaving a brief sensation of weightlessness as it was pulled and pushed. At one violent crash, Silena went flying into Clarisse with a groan. Annabeth pressed an arm against her stomach; she wondered if she should start praying to her mother.

Boom. The CSS Birmingham shuddered, the metal panels warping in the heat and against the water, but the roar of the engine remained steady, and moving forward. Another roar. Scylla, triumphant.

They kept moving forward. The ship kept moving back and forth, the furniture screeching against the floor, until it was all they could do to not be tossed around like rag dolls. At one particularly violent fit that left Annabeth half-plastered against the ceiling, she wondered wildly if they would be flipped over completely by Scylla's hunger, left to flail like an unfortunate bug.

And still, the boat didn't stop.

"Keep going, keep going," Clarisse chanted under her breath, from her place in the middle of the room, holding onto the nailed-down desk for dear life. "Keep going, you pieces of shit."

Next to her, Silena had her head between her legs and one arm around Clarisse, and Annabeth was beginning to feel like she had the right idea. Her stomach was threatening violent rebellion.

She closed her eyes, and switched to times tables at the third attack of screaming and bout of futile cannonfire—too low, too low, Scylla is higher, just keep moving—working her way through scares, clinging to the solid rhythm of mathematics, Clarisse's insults and urges to the crew above to keep going, somehow a comforting thread in the mess of background noise.

Finally, right as Annabeth had finished working out two hundred and forty two squared—fifty-eight thousand, five hundred and sixty four—she realized that a green-looking Silena was in front of her, tapping Annabeth's white-knuckled grip on the wall supports with a wane smile.

"Annabeth," she said, "You can let go."

A precise knock sounded at the door, and Clarisse moved to open it. Annabeth pulled her fingers off the metal, one by one, feeling as if her hands were made of hay, brittle and liable to falling apart.

She tried to unclench to inspect her palms, inhaling sharply at the burst of pain; they were bright red and blistering from the hot metal.

Silena winced. "I'll get the nectar. Those look nasty."

"Great." The floor was looking more unstable than usual. Some distant, rational part of Annabeth registered dizziness and lightheadedness. Adrenaline crash. Near-death experience. Typical.

"Absolutely no counseling to be found," she muttered, "Liar."

". . .Annabeth?"

Deep breaths, Chase. It would pass. It always did. She rolled her shoulders back. "Nothing. Can you help me fix my hands?"

"Of course."

Annabeth couldn't track down Hylla and Reyna if she could barely hold her knife, after all.

Burns fixed, they joined Clarisse above deck; there were fewer zombies then Annabeth remembered. As she took in a deep breath of the salty air, admiring the brightening blue sky with Charybdis behind them and emerald waters of the Sea of Monsters, she couldn't find it in herself to mourn them.

The zombie Confederate captain approached her, his ghostly uniform and green stare the same as ever. "We are past, ma'am. Nine men gone."

More than Odysseus, but Annabeth would take it.

"Looks like you were right, Owl Head," Clarisse admitted from the other side of Annabeth, looking out at the horizon with a frown and furrowed brow. "I got a look at Charybdis before we went down. We never would've made it. Had a diameter of half a mile, at least."

Her nausea passing, Annabeth found the energy to throw her a smug look. "Well, you know. Athena always has a—"

"If you finish that stupid saying, I'll commit mutiny anyway. Your quest, your rules. And it worked. Done."

"Just doing my best as captain," Annabeth said lightly, feeling a bit uneasy. She wasn't, technically; Clarisse had been given the ship by her father. And Ares wasn't exactly—encouraging to Clarisse, or the rest of his kids, when they got quests. Especially when they got quests. Especially when Athena's children were involved.

Clarisse grunted, still staring out at the water. "Gods preserve us. But. . .us destroying Charybdis would've been a pretty big deal, right?"

They needed to bring their dad glory, after all.

"Trying to do it would've been insane," Silena pointed out, wincing as she pulled her hair out of its braid, frizzy and tangled. "That monster was huge, and. . .well, it's never been done for a reason. And Annabeth had a plan she was sure of."

She whipped out some kind of hair product to spray on it that made Annabeth's nose itch. "I'll commit mutiny over what the plan did to my hair, though. My ends are destroyed."

"We're alive, aren't we?" Annabeth said irritably, "You can get a haircut when we get home."

"Not before we get the Fleece first," Clarisse said, "What direction now, Captain?"

Not for the first time, Annabeth wondered just what it was costing Clarisse to keep deferring to Annabeth. How much faith the daughter of Ares had in Annabeth to do it, no matter how grudgingly.

"Er. . ." Annabeth looked out past the Birmingham ; safely past Scylla, they had cut their speed by more than half to allow the engine to recover and bring the heat down. Their horizon was already far from boring, as they moved along.

"There. See that island?"

"Yeah—is that a fighter jet? Flying in the Sea of Monsters?"

This was the part of the quest, frankly, that could most easily go wrong—even including the fact that they would have to confront a Cyclops for the Golden Fleece and the prophecy. They were predictable—Annabeth had an idea of how it could go, courtesy of Odysseus and Percy Jackson.

Circe? Annabeth gave into her more irrational impulses and prayed to her mother for luck.


As they pulled into a pier meant for ships built about a century and a half younger than the CSS Birmingham, the surviving zombie crew grew increasingly restive.

"I don't like it," the captain growled to Annabeth, "It reeks. It's cursed."

Out of context, Annabeth considered, the glowing undead Confederate soldier calling the tropical beach, picturesque mountainscape, and marble white buildings cursed would've been just rich.

"It's a good thing I don't expect you to actually touch it, then," she said tartly, "Wait here while the three of us explore, and be ready for—sudden departure."

In context, it was an understatement.

"You expect things to go wrong?" Silena asked, as she strapped her greaves on.

"I think she expects someone to try and kill us," Clarisse supplied, spear on her back. "Any place this pretty? Especially in the Sea of Monsters? It's hiding something."

"Oh, I don't know," Silena said, with a shy smile, "I wouldn't mind risking it somewhere like this with you or Charlie."

Clarisse, normally as graceful as a panther, tripped over her own feet. Annabeth watched with interest as she sputtered, red as a tomato, "Well—that's—great. Great. Are you sure about this, Chase?"

"The Sea of Monsters will shift locations around, same as the forest at camp. I'm not sure who lives here, but we don't want to accidentally miss the Fleece by accident," Annabeth lied, with only a twinge of guilt. Clarisse didn't look convinced at this, but didn't say anything else—and Annabeth could think of a few reasons why.

Most of them prominently featured the god of war and the potential for glory in trouble.

With the engine powered down, the current pulled them in, and Annabeth was able to get a better look around, seeing other docked vehicles that made an American Civil War-era steamboat look positively mundane: a U.S. Navy submarine, a parked helicopter labeled as belonging to a regional TV channel from Florida, a bright red tugboat, a white cruise ship—and a three-mast sailing ship that must've belonged to the pirates Percy mentioned.

They disembarked, and at the end of the pier, a waiting black-haired girl, about Silena or Clarisse's age and dressed in a sharp blue business suit with a clipboard, gave them a dazzling smile. "Welcome to the island! How can I be of service to you?"

Clarisse and Annabeth shared dubious looks, hands on their respective weapons. Silena gracefully moved between the two of them, matching the girl's charm. "Hello there! It's so lovely to meet you. My friends and I were wondering if you could explain to us exactly where we've found ourselves? A storm left us a bit lost, see."

"First time at the spa, then?" The girl nodded, making a note on her clipboard. "This place is owned by C.C., our magical patron, and offers a plethora of treatments. She'll want to speak to each of you three personally before the party, of course."

Annabeth tensed and Clarisse shifted her feet. Silena's grin didn't lose a watt of brightness. "That's great. But what is it that you actually do here? We wouldn't want to commit to anything we don't want—not when you doubtless offer other options that would be perfect for us. And I don't think that I caught your name? I'm Silena."

The attendant inclined her head. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Silena. You can call me Hylla."

Hylla.

Annabeth jerked upright, studying the girl more closely, realizing she had the dark brown skin, black eyes, and proud chin that Percy had described in the future Queen of the Amazons.

"And to answer your questions, C.C. ensures that we offer complete makeovers for men into their truest selves, and every lady any transformation she could possibly desire."

"What are your haircare options?" Silena inquired, and Hylla's eyes gleamed. What followed next could've manifested just as easily as a sparring match, Annabeth figured; volleying back and forth of hair treatment options, products, and timely complaints from Silena about what the saltwater had done to her hair, with coos of sympathy from Hylla, as the four girls walked along the pier.

Meanwhile, Annabeth studied the other two dozen attendants milling about, ushering others—ranging from mortals to demigods to nymphs and maybe even minor gods, she figured—to and from their transportation of choice. Mostly from. They all ranged in age and looks, and Annabeth tried to, as discreetly as possible, look for one who could pass for an even younger version of Hylla.

As they strolled along, Clarisse leaned down to Annabeth and whispered, "There are no men."

Di Immortales. "And?"

She thought they'd have more time; Clarisse stared at Annabeth like they had switched divine parents. "All of the employees are girls. She keeps babbling about how magical it is here, and no one's leaving ."

"—and you'll meet our other guests soon, of course," Hylla continued, oblivious to Clarisse and Annabeth's quick exchange. "Two gentlemen are getting complete makeovers now with C.C., while Ventura is finishing with an herbal treatment. Now, I'm going to let each of these lovely ladies take your friends to begin base treatment, while you and I— my lady!"

A gorgeous woman, dressed in a silky black dress, her hair braided with gold, descended the wide carved mountain steps in front of them. She moved with a liquid grace Annabeth could only dream of, her emerald eyes almost glowing as her gaze alighted upon them.

Circe. It had to be. Annabeth tensed, her right hand drifting to her knife.

"Hylla, darling," she greeted, with an aristocratic tilt of the head, "I've left Miss Paradizo in some capable hands. I was told you had several new demigod guests, and—oh. Oh, my. Who are you?"

This was directed towards Annabeth. She gulped. "Nobody, ma'am. We're passing through."

Circe clucked her tongue. " Nobody is nobody if they have the threads of time warping around them like that. Allow me to introduce myself. I am a sorceress."

Annabeth briefly closed her eyes. Of course. Of course. Percy Jackson. Time travel that rewrote the universe. It would leave a magical mark, wouldn't it, when she spent so much time with him.

"Circe," Silena breathed, "C.C. You're the witch Circe."

Maybe it was unfair to blame him in this moment, as Annabeth was caught without a plan beyond praying they didn't catch Circe's attention until it was too late—much good that had done them—but when they were all possibly about to be transformed into small furry rodents, she figured she was allowed a moment of irrationality. Gods damn it.

"Oh, very good, Silena. Most take much longer than that to figure it out. But then, children of Aphrodite are so often perceptive," Circe added, thoughtful, "Very useful in magic, you know."

Annabeth tried to go back through what Percy had told her, anything about how Odysseus had escaped from Circe's clutches, anything that wouldn't require a spontaneous appearance from Hermes to save their skins.

"How—How do you know who we are?" Silena stuttered, thrown off her guard for once.

Circe had mentioned other demigods. The name Ventura rang a small bell in Annabeth's brain. Maybe they could ally to get out of here, if worse came to worst.

Circe's placid smile didn't budge. "My dear, I have been practicing magic for millennia. I should think I know how to identify demigods by—"

A sudden crash and crack echoing from atop the mountain cut Circe off. Annabeth looked up in time to see shards of glass flying out from a white building standing on the summit, flashing in the sunlight as they fell against the rocks.

"What—" Circe gasped, something other than professional calm crossing her face for the first time, raising two fingers to her temple, before dropping them again, sighing in disgust. "Demigods. You can never leave well enough alone, can you? Hylla, girls, attend. I must have a discussion with our guests."

Clarisse and Silena didn't waste time, backing away, then sprinting back to the CSS Birmingham; Annabeth darted forward, grabbing the back of Hylla's jacket just in time, as Circe stalked forward, her other attendants falling in line.

"Annabeth, what are you doing?" Silena yelled from the top deck of the ship, as Hylla jerked out of Annabeth's grip, whirling around and looking to be more confused than angry.

"Who do you think—"

"Hylla—Hylla, listen to me," Annabeth cut her off, breathless. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears; she couldn't fail now. "I have no time to explain. You need to take Reyna and get out of here."

"How do you know my sister's name? How do you know I have a sister? " Hylla demanded, raising a threatening hand, flickering blue flame at her fingertips. "Who are you?"

"I'm a daughter of Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Trust me, you and your sister are needed by the world, not a sorceress turning men into hamsters for her entertainment." It wasn't supposed to go like this. Annabeth had meant to get Hylla alone, gaining her trust away from Circe. She was supposed to have time. "Come with us, I'll explain everything."

"Absolutely not!" Hylla hissed, "My sister and I are safe here. She has protection from Lady Circe, and is going nowhere near whatever madness you think needs us."

Annabeth could hear yelling now, the distinctive shouting of battle, echoing down from the mountain, in front of her; behind her, the distinctive hum of the Birmingham 's engine roared to life, accompanied by Clarisse's hollering.

"Annabeth! Leave her! This ship isn't built to withstand witches trying to kill us!"

"Please," Annabeth begged, "Just come with us. I can explain, but you'll be better off."

"Can you promise Reyna will be safe? Can you promise that she and I will gain more power than what the greatest sorceress in history grants us in her teachings?" Hylla asked, as cold and imperious as any monarch.

"I. . .I—" Any attempt at lying failed her now, caught in her throat. "You'll do great things out there."

"Annabeth!"

Hylla shook her head. "You can't."

"No," Annabeth whispered—truthfully, in defeat. "But please."

"I need my sister safe, Annabeth. And I will gain greatness of my own choosing, not in what a strange Greek promises me."

Annabeth had promised Percy and Hazel. The threads of time that Circe had mentioned earlier, warping around Annabeth Chase—they were a web, she thought wildly, tangling her and choking her until she barely knew the right way up anymore.

"Annabeth!"

This wasn't how it was meant to go.

"Go," Hylla told her, her tone warming by a tenth of a fraction. "While you still can. Before someone makes you."

Behind her, bright green flames burst into existence. Circe stepped out of them, flanked by four other girls—one of them dressed in a red dress, watching everything around her with the same keen dark eyes as Hylla.

Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano. Daughter of Bellona, and future praetor of the Twelfth Legion.

And she was going to have to leave her here?

"Hylla, with me," Circe commanded. Hylla stepped back, putting a protective arm around Reyna's shoulders while glaring at Annabeth: a warning. The sorceress turned to Annabeth. "As for you—"

"They are leaving, mistress," Hylla said smoothly, "They have little interest in our services, and we should avoid more potential destruction to the spa in inter-guest spats."

"Annabeth!"

People were leaving now, Annabeth noticed distantly. Men dressed in ragged coats, smoking pistols ran to the three-masted ship—Blackbeard and his men, she assumed—and she could see the cannons shifting from where she stood, as they were prepared for use for the first time in centuries.

Besides them was the white cruise ship from earlier; she had a better view of it now; what she saw made her go cold.

A terrified woman in chains.

("So they carved her onto the ship, all while you were named Perseus—"

"Don't remind me.")

"Annabeth!" Silena shrieked again, "Annabeth, it's Luke!"

The Princess Andromeda. They were here. Luke—Kronos— Luke was potentially here—

A hand wrapped itself around her shoulder; Annabeth nearly stabbed the owner before Silena issued a panicked, "Stop."

Her arm locked up mid-swing. Annabeth's hand shook around her knife—from rage at her own helplessness or Silena's charmspeak, she couldn't tell.

"We're going," Silena said firmly, before raising her voice to Circe. "Let us go in peace, before your spa burns to the ground."

"Or you'll attempt to wield your charmspeak against us, I imagine." Circe was smirking, an insufferable thing that Annabeth wanted dearly to stab, if it wouldn't get her turned into a shrew. "Well. If you insist. But insolent children like you would make lovely chipmunks."

"A generous offer," Annabeth grit out, watching the pirate ship. The man behind the wheel, his beard braided, gave her a nod, before turning to roar orders at his men for a full broadside. "For someone who's about to have their island become pirate target practice."

The distinctive explosive sound of cannonfire, followed by the crash of rock as it hit one building, then another, then three more, made for great timing. For once.

Circe looked up and went white. "No. Not them! She released them? They were the worst!"

She turned around, beginning to wave her hands at the ship in motions rapidly copied by her attendants, Hylla and Reyna included, creating ten-foot serpents of golden flame that reached for the pirate ship. Past them, Annabeth could see the distinctive glint of bronze armor and Celestial Bronze weaponry moving the mountain. Titan Army demigods, and she'd bet money they were equally pissed as the pirates.

"Okay, now we're going, Annabeth."

Annabeth's legs began to move without her permission. Silena sprinted down the pier, one hand holding onto Annabeth's shirt the whole way as cannonfire kept time. Clarisse was waiting for them, switching between a thunderous glare at Circe's island past them, and a look leveled in Annabeth's direction that she couldn't interpret.

As Annabeth climbed back onboard, the zombie Confederates wasted no time; the second their feet hit the deck, the Birmingham moved out, approaching full speed in less than a minute as it fled Circe's island.

"You do that again," she snarled, whirling on the daughter of Aphrodite, "And I'll put my knife through somewhere much more vital than your shoulder."

"You were about to face down Circe with a knife?" Clarisse scoffed, "Between her, the pirates, and gods-damned monsters, Silena saved your life from trying to play savior, punk. It wasn't pretty, but we got out."

"I'm sorry, Annabeth. Really," Silena said, her face full of so much shame that Annabeth felt ready to explode. "I panicked. Circe is too powerful for us."

They didn't understand. It wasn't ego. It was much, much worse than ego. It was—gods, they didn't know. They couldn't know. But they had still—

Annabeth let out an inarticulate noise of rage, before jogging to the back of the ship to check on the island.

The pirates were rapidly turning the clean white marble of the island into fire and smoke, an ugly red-and-black bruise against the pristine water, and she could see monsters pouring out from the Princess Andromeda, running out to meet the colorful magic of Circe and her acolytes.

"Have fun," Annabeth muttered, "With your protection."

Gods, Percy was going to kill her. She'd had one job here, and had fucked it up hard enough to be seen from orbit. If the Sea of Monsters could be seen from orbit.

Di Immortales, she should've insisted to Silena, even in the face of charmspeak. They should've stayed, no matter what was threatened, to get the sisters out.

"You okay, Chase?" Clarisse asked from behind her. Annabeth didn't turn around; she didn't need to see her recriminations reflected on Clarisse or Silena's faces. "Or, well. Dumb question. But I'm not apologizing for Silena hauling you out of the fire. You're still the brains on this mission, Captain."

"How are you holding up, Annabeth?" Silena asked, head tilted to the side as she came up on Annabeth's right, watching her warily.

Annabeth counted to ten before answering. In Latin.

"I'm fine," she lied, looking at the rapidly disappearing island, "It's just. . .I wish we could've saved some of them. There were other demigods there. If they're not killed—"

"They'll make their choices," Clarisse cut her off. "Same as us. That witch isn't exactly helpless, you know. She might blow them to Hades, or take her cult followers and teleport somewhere else, safe and sound. Would solve a couple of our problems, wouldn't it?"

Annabeth sighed. "I guess. But—"

"Luke may take in survivors. He always cared, same as us. No one out this far is helpless." Silena gave Annabeth a gentle bump on the shoulder. "Especially not people who almost stab their questmates."

Kronos, Annabeth bit back. It wasn't Luke anymore, it was Kronos. And Silena wasn't helpless, either. Wolf in snake's skin, more like.

"Sorry," Annabeth said instead, "Still on edge from earlier, I guess."

A more sensitive demigod would've let that rest for a moment, Annabeth figured. At least, it seemed that way from the way Silena grimaced at Clarisse's immediate follow-up.

"You've just been spending too much time with Jackson," Clarisse said, rolling her eyes, "Never thought I'd meet a twitchier demigod than one of Hermes's kids. And what was up with you and Hylla?"

Annabeth stared out at the distant island for a moment. Simple. She should keep it simple.

"Hylla, she. . .had a sister, and we talked, and I—I wanted to. . .help," Annabeth said lamely, before taking a deep breath. More lying. "No idea what I was thinking, honestly. I am sorry for it all going wrong."

That was the truth.

Silena gave a noncommittal hum, sharing a look with Clarisse. "It's fine, Annabeth. Just remember to keep your eyes on the prize. We're here to protect each other and get the Fleece."

On that, there was no disagreement. But to what end, Annabeth wondered? Sure, Silena might've been right, from her point of view, to rescue Annabeth by any means necessary, but what had they lost?

Annabeth threw up a quick, silent prayer to Athena—Minerva, rather. Begging her to look after Hylla and Reyna where she couldn't.

"Eyes on the prize," Clarisse agreed, "Stop trying to come up with side quests, Captain."

Captain Chase.

Gods, it had originally started out as a joke; Percy's way of being funny, and it had caught on quickly when the zombies summoned by Ares had demanded to know who the captain of the quest was, as Clarisse's form of—mocking respect, if Annabeth was forced to guess.

"Last thing I need is an embarrassing death because no one will tell me any idea what they're talking about," Clarisse continued, before turning to go back below deck. "See you two for dinner. Call me if a sea serpent tries to kill you two."

Annabeth frowned. Clarisse's choice of words made something in her mind itch, until she finally remembered—

"But do try to be subtler, Percy," Chiron warned, as Annabeth continued to pore over ancient maps. "There's only so many times the counselors will believe I have no idea what they're talking about."

Clarisse walked in a second later, and for a moment, Annabeth feared that they were done for.

But Clarisse—loud, confident Clarisse La Rue, who took no one's shit, would definitely have said something if she had heard something suspicious. She had trusted Annabeth this far, after all. She definitely had no qualms about challenging her authority on this quest.

"Right, Annabeth?" Silena asked, with the kind of insistent tones indicating this wasn't the first time she was asking Annabeth. "Eyes on the prize?"

Annabeth swallowed a whole host of responses, looking back at Circe's island and the black smoke on the horizon for one last time, before giving the daughter of Aphrodite a weak smile that felt fake even to Annabeth herself.

The prize. The Golden Fleece, heroes of a war that had never been. Understanding of those warped threads of time that Circe mentioned.

"Yeah, Silena. Eyes on the prize," Annabeth said, not even lying. "Believe me, I can't think of anything else."

Silena nodded, her lips quirking into a not-quite-smile. "Captain Chase, indeed."


A/N: I swear, we're easing up on the surprise appearances soon enough—though, I doubt Reyna and Hylla are much of a "surprise" rather than "sooner than expected". If HTTP saw the rerun part of things before everything got blown to hell, then this is the transition story while everything's in the air and everyone's trying to sort out where they stand. Sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically, sometimes—*stares at whatever the fuck Percy has going on right now*

Anyway, Frank will obviously show up with the accompanying baggage soon enough—Percy and Hazel are back next chapter, with all the fun that entails—and Jason/Piper are in the long-term pipeline. For now, we finish our initial re-assessment with Captain Chase here, for whom things will get both better (She gets better at questing in a post-time travel world!) and worse (She grows more traumatized :( ).

Also, if you are not reading my Kane Chronicles/PJO Magician!Percy AU, just know that the last year has tried to kill me, but I ain't dead yet. Solidarity with everyone else who has survived the last year trying to kill them.

Oh, and happy Pride from your local trans fanfic author. Got in before the end of the month!