Disclaimer : I do not own Percy Jackson. Unfortunately.

Chapter 5 : Percy Tries to Change Fate

I walked to my cohort, trying to ignore the looks coming my way, ranging from sympathetic (Gwen) to downright evil (Octavian). Falling onto my unmade bed, I sighed. Of course I had to mess everything up. Now Percy would probably be annoying me for information on his life and Hera… I shuddered at the thought. I was dead. I pretty much ruined the Queen Goddess' plan. I wouldn't be surprised if by tomorrow cows would follow me around. (Although we were traveling by water so that was a relief) Rolling around, I noticed someone staring at me.

"Ahhh!" I scooted back frantically before noticing that it was Hazel.

She leaned back frowning. "Do I look that hideous?"

"No, no it's just… I'm just really out of it right now." I sat up. "Are you going to pack?"

"No, I'll do that after lunch." She sat down next to me. "I'm nervous too, I mean this is something different that we're going up against." She stopped and gave me a curious look. "By the way, what did Reyna want?"

"Interrogations, warnings, being on Octavian's bad side, no biggie." My voice sounded a bit shaky.

Hazel laughed. "A normal day then?"

"Pretty much."

Frank came into the barracks and relaxed when he saw Hazel. "I was looking for you! Come on, let's go to lunch."

Hazel joined him and looked back at me. "You're not coming?"

"Nah, I'm good. Not that hungry. I'll just be in here packing."

They left, chatting and laughing and I turned back to my bed, searching for useful things to bring on this quest. I racked my brain. What's supposed to happen? The only thing I remembered was gorgon's blood and Phineas and beef jerky, which wasn't that helpful. Also, we would have to meet Frank's grandma, something I was not looking forward to. With my luck, she would probably look at me once and throw me out of the house.

I buried my face in my pillow. This was hopeless. After staying like that for a few minutes, I finally got up and threw some random things in my backpack. The only thing I made sure to pack was my bow and quiver, which I filled with arrows. After that, I lay down and waited for the rest of the group to show up.

Percy stomped in, looking down. "Hey Robbie. Reyna noticed you were missing. She gave us a good luck speech and Octavian gave a pretty crappy prediction and all that good stuff." He took a pair of jeans and tossed it into his backpack. "All in all, you didn't miss anything."

He held his tattered orange t-shirt delicately, looking wistfully at it. Then he shoved it in my face. "So this is Camp Half Blood's shirt?"

"Yes…" I didn't know where he was going with this.

"You have one too?"

"Yeah."

"And you know what's going to happen in the future." It wasn't a question.

I nodded. I could already tell where this was going.

"So you know what's going to happen on this quest."

"I'm not going to tell you anything, if that's what you're getting at."

Percy pouted. "Why not? We can finish the quest faster, help Camp Jupiter faster, and basically do everything faster! What's wrong with that?"

"By changing one thing, you could change the whole quest and everything would change and we would fail the quest. I don't think you want that."

"At least tell me one thing." He pleaded. "Come on, one important thing."

I racked my brain. "Um, over the river and through the woods, Canadians, um, starch."

Percy looked thoroughly confused. "What?"

I dashed out of the barracks yelling, "It's important!"

Frank and Hazel were waiting outside. "Finally! What took you so long?" Frank hefted his pack.

"Talking about the quest." I moved far away from Percy who had just come out. "SO what do we do?"

I heard Percy mutter, "Like you need to ask" and I gave him a look to which he responded with the most frightening glare I had ever seen, and I had been on the receiving end of Nico DiAngelo's glares many times. I lowered my head to the ground.

Frank led us to Terminus, who checked our IDs and gave us directions and then we were off.

Going to the docks was easy, although I was still pretty anxious, gripping my backpack tightly every time I heard a sound. As the shadows grew longer, we finally made it to the docks and Percy eagerly scanned the row of ships. "Which one do you think is ours?"

Frank pointed. "That one?"

Percy's eyes followed his finger and immediately his face drooped. I couldn't blame him. The tarp looked pretty small and when we saw the boat I was not impressed. I wasn't sure if that "boat" could take us all the way to Alaska with its dingy surface and old crusted appearance. When I went in, the boat was no better with trash everywhere. There wasn't much stuff, just some benches and a cooler. The only thing it did have a lot of was water, wetting my shoes and totally not making me feel any better about this quest.

Hazel looked disgusted. "This is a mistake. This can't be…"

Percy concentrated and the water left the ship and went straight into the sea, of course not without splashing me a little bit too. I did not know Percy Jackson would be this petty. He started cleaning the ship with his mind, which I thought was pretty uncool. I mean come on, it wasn't even water he was manipulating, it was steel! I got that it was technically part of the ship and whatever but not cool. When the boat was clean, Percy turned to Hazel and Frank. "Hop in."

They did, looking admiringly at him. Well Frank looked admiringly at him. Hazel just looked sick. Percy looked angry all of a sudden. "Get off my ship."

Frank's eyes drew together. "What?"

Percy's eyes cleared up. "Nothing. Come on, let's go." And when he closed his eyes, the boat started moving north and we finally started our quest.

Hazel looked green but she still noticed Nereus yelling at Percy. "Who's that?"

"I don't know. I've been here before though." His mouth turned down in frustration. "I don't know."

We sat in silence for a few minutes, then Frank looked at Hazel and immediately gre concerned. "Are you OK?"

"I get seasick. I didn't know it would be this bad. Wow." She swayed on the bench.

Frank immediately started blurting out random things about ginger and I bit back a laugh. I couldn't believe they weren't together yet. It was pretty obvious, and I'm one of the most clueless people when it comes to love. Percy pointed at Mount Tam. "That's familiar. What happened there?"

"Big battle. It was the old Titan base." Frank answered.

Hazel continued. "Jason told me about it. Apparently he singlehandedly fought Krios himself and when the Romans destroyed the palace, Kronos's essence went along with it."

"That's…not right." Percy started pacing. "I don't think…"

And then Hazel collapsed.

Frank started shaking her, his voice growing more and more panicked. "Come on Hazel, wake up!" He looked up at us. "She's not waking up! We have to help her!"

Percy looked lost. "Hey, ask the Apollo kid."

Frank turned to me.

I had no idea how to heal someone. I got the archery genes, not the healing ones. But I knew what was wrong with her and I couldn't let Frank down. I knelt down beside her and made a big show of feeling her pulse and other slightly medical stuff. "She's fine. Nothing's wrong with her. I think it's the stress. Just let her rest."

Frank let out a big sigh of relief. "Thanks Robbie."

"No problem."

He continued. "You know, I really wanted to be a son of Apollo, with the archery and all." He looked forlorn.

"Hey, Mars is good too. I mean everybody respects you and all that."

Percy nodded along with me. "Yeah. Mars is one of the best parents you can have in Camp Jupiter. You got the avenger on your side."

We all started laughing at that. All the stress just got to us and we couldn't stop. Finally, Frank took a deep breath. "Where are we?"

Percy consulted his inner compass. "150 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Why?"

I stood up. That number seemed familiar… Frank nodded. "We should probably stop. Wait for Hazel to wake up."

"Yeah." Percy led the boat to a beach cliff. "You want to bring her out Frank?"

"Yeah I should probably do that."

Percy and I went off the ship and we stood, waiting for Frank to come out. I stepped back toward the ship. "I should help him."

Percy's voice stopped me. "You don't know anything about healing someone, don't you."

"No?"

"Then, why would you… Oh because you know."

"Percy…"

"I asked for important information and you give me a Thanksgiving song!"

"Also Canadians and starch." I added.

"Give me something else."

"All right. Chinese Canadian baby man and forklifts. Oh! And fuzzy bunny slippers with cheese. Actually no cheese. Some people don't like cheese." I smiled. This was getting fun.

Percy looked like he was about to break my nose. Fortunately, Frank came out of the boat and gently laid down Hazel. He looked at us and felt the tension from Percy. "Robbie, what did you do?"

"I gave him what he asked me for. It's not my fault if he doesn't understand it."

"That was not what I asked you for! I asked you for information!"

"And I gave you information."

"Fine. Something that's going to happen right now."

I thought hard. Oh yeah! "Hazel wakes up.'"

Percy face turned red. He raised his fist and I instinctively ducked when Hazel's groggy voice filled my ears. "Too much testosterone here guys. I'm drowning in it."

Percy looked at Hazel. "Do you need anything?"

"Does anyone have something to drink?" Her voice was hoarse.

Percy cursed under his breath. "I left the supplies in the ship. I'll go get them." He turned to the boat. "Frank, keep her safe. I don't trust this place."

Frank straightened his shoulders. "I'll do that."

Percy ran down. Frank looked down and quickly let go of Hazel's hand. "I want you to know… I…" Then he looked back at me. "Do you mind Robbie? This is kind of a personal conversation."

"Yeah, I'll just go with Percy then." I walked slowly so I could still hear them talking and Hazel choking up when Frank told her that he understood. It was sweet. I aslo heard Frank's tense voice.

"The wind's stopped."

I turned around and saw Hazel nod. Then I stained my ears to hear Frank say, "Then why is the grass still moving?"

Then I ran to Hazel, finally remembering why 150 miles seemed so important. Stupid evil Cupid babies. I was too late. I saw Hazel's shocked face as either Wheat or Sorghum dragged her into the field.