Echo woke up the next day, knowing she would need to put on a brave face for her sisters. Lead the march to school. It would be better than sitting around and waiting for some sort of good news that wasn't likely to come. She helped Travis make breakfast, allowing him to comfort her a little, and giving her a small update.

It wasn't until she got to school that she remembered that it was career day today. All of the kids at school had a parent with them. Except her.

She found her locker and dumped her extra textbooks.

"Hey, how are you doing?" Gareth appeared at her shoulder. A couple of his classmates were waiting a few feet away.

She shrugged, "I'll be better when he is. It's just a good thing Travis was visiting when it happened. If I had had to watch my sisters alone, I would have freaked out. Even if it had just been for a couple minutes."

He nodded, "I'll come after school, try to help distract Mom said she would be taking some food over to your house for dinner."

She gave him a half-hug, noticing that his friends rolled their eyes or smirked. "Thanks, Gar, I'll see you later."

"I'll walk you to class," He said.

She shook her head, "It's fine. You stay with your friends. I've got this." She walked away from him, ignoring the sad look he gave her, but catching the sharp one he gave his classmates.

She reached homeroom and went to her desk, ignoring the looks of the other students and parents as she sat and got her notebook out.

Her teacher, Miss Madden, came over, "Echo, is your father coming?"

Echo looked up and shrugged, "I don't know. It's not likely. My brother is in the hospital, he was having seizures."

She nodded, understanding filling her eyes, "Alright, let me know if you need to leave."

"Thanks, Miss Madden." Echo loved her homeroom teacher. She was a kind woman, and a good teacher. She never bat an eye when she had met Echo's fathers at the parent-teacher conferences.

"Hey, blonde wad, where's your father? Too disappointed that he had a daughter instead of a gay son?" Ross Twitmeyer sneered.

His father looked away.

Echo just rolled her eyes, "Oh,please, you're more gay than both of my fathers combined, you Twit." She responded, then felt her own eyes widen. She never deigned his insults with a response. But to do it while surrounded by parents, classmates, and her teacher, and loud enough for everyone to hear…

There were some responses from some of the other guys in our class, the usual "Buuuurrrrnnn" and "oooh".

"You little bitch!" Ross lunged at her.

She reacted without thinking, grabbing her textbook and using it as a shield so that he flew face first into it and fell to the ground.

Then the classroom erupted into chaos.

Echo stared in horror as Ross bled on the floor, his nose visibly broken, dazed.

Ms. Madden didn't seem to know how to react, but Mr. Twitmeyer was yelling and insisting that I get sent to the principal's office.

Finally, Ms. Madden managed to restore order, saying she was not going to send me to the principals office for defending myself, but that should would send Ross if he didn't learn to keep his mouth shut and stop bullying other students. This made her Echo's favorite teacher.

And put a target on Echo's back.

By the time lunch period hit, she was pretty sure Ross had half of the students behind him to get back at her.

At lunch, Ross kept looking over at her and snickering with his friends while the parents remained noticing.

It wasn't until she went back to her locker that she realized why. It was seriously vandalized. Obscene words written in permanent marker, and sticky notes calling her names, saying she should die. That she was dead meat. That nobody liked her. Asked if she was going to cry. Called her family names. Said that they hoped her family died so that the world would be cleansed.

She stood, staring at it it.

"What the hell is that?" A voice said beside her.

She jumped, and looked up at her Papa, who had a death glare on as he looked at the locker. She looked back at it, "Somebody thought it would bug me."

Papa fiercely took her hand and pulled her toward the Principal's office. He was waved through, and he told Echo to wait with the secretary. He was yelling now.

Then he was leading the principal to Echo's locker with her trailing behind.

Gareth was at it, looking furious, he met Echo's gaze, "Who?"

The Principal took it in, glancing over the locker, then taking a picture and looking at Echo for a response as well.

She didn't want to answer, knowing it would mean being completely outcast, "I don't have any proof." She said, trying to be logical.

The principal's gaze softened, "You know who's behind it, though?"

Echo nodded, "Ross Twitmeyer. He insulted me earlier, and I snapped. Then accidentally broke his nose with my textbook when he lunged at me."

"We'll keep an eye on this, if he does anything else, you tell your teacher or me. Okay?" The Principal said.

Echo nodded again, gaze on the floor.

He said something more to her Papa, then left.

Gareth was ripping the papers off of my locker.

"It's fine, Gareth. I'll get it after school. You should get to your own class."

He glared at the papers on the floor, "It's not fine." He ranted a bit in Spanish.

Papa just patted his shoulder, "Go, Gareth. You can help us later." He gently propelled Echo toward her classroom.

Gareth nodded, then fixed a look on Echo, "You better not let el gilipollas push you around."

"Why do I get the distinct feeling that those were words your mother would wash your mouth out with soap for?" Echo responded, leading Papa into her classroom.

Papa followed her silently, nodding firmly at Ms. Madden before taking the seat beside Echo's desk.

Ross sneered at her.

She rolled her eyes and tried to pay attention as one of the mothers talked about being a secretary. It was dull. Very dull.

She noticed that Papa wasn't listening, his gaze flicking around the room as his knee bounced. He then grew still, eyes narrowing as he seemed to focus on the board. He leaned over to her, "When did you become top student in your class?" He barely breathed.

She quickly counted, then wrote three weeks on her notebook.

He stared for a moment, deciphering, then nodded sharply, squeezing her hand briefly and then going back to being distracted.

Finally the secretary finished her monotone description of being a secretary and sat back down with her daughter.

"Mr. Solace, would you like to go next."

Papa took a moment to realized that she was talking to him, "Oh, um, sure." He grabbed his backpack and went down. "Um, hi, I'm Echo's father—"

There were snorts and whispers.

His gaze locked onto someone, "Nico Solace. I work as an illustrator for the popular teen series by Cassandra Dellaro, Breckenridge Burning. Most of my work is done from home, after reading scenes and descriptions of what they want, and then sending preliminary sketches so that they can choose what they want. Then I finish the pictures, either by cleaning it up and adding details, or by adding color." He was pulling out some of the illustrations he had done and the books he had done illustrations for. "I also recently began doing the artwork for a series called "The Sinking Ships Club" as they prepare to re-release the first couple of books and a fourth book in the series."

Someone had gasped in recognition when he said that last series. And most of her classmates knew Cassie's series and were devoted fans. She knew for a fact that at least seven of them were writing fan fiction base on the Breckenridge Burning books.

He talked for a good half hour and then Ms. Madden opened the floor for questions.

"Who did you and your gay boyfriend steal from to have kids?" One of the guys in the back asked, inciting snickers.

Echo glared at her desk, her hands forming fists.

Papa was quiet, "Echo is my husband's daughter, and my adopted daughter. Which is hardly the topic at you have a problem with that, talk to your parents." He looked un-fazed, his gaze shifting to Echo.

Echo met it and then dropped her gaze back to her notebook.

One of the girls asked him how he got the job as illustrator of Cassie's books.

"I went to summer camp with her. She's one of my better friends. When her first book was being published, she asked me to do the artwork for it." He explained, "I've been her illustrator ever since."

One of the boys coughed out an insult.

Echo wished the day would be over, already. They had to sit through four more parents talking about their jobs.

As soon as the bell rang, dismissing them from class, she grabbed her stuff and hopped up, "Let's go, Papa."

He looked a little surprised and followed her out the door and into the hallway, to her locker.

Gareth was already there, tearing more of the notes and such off, while one of his friends watched.

Papa grabbed her arm, "Hey, are you okay?"

"I just want to go home, Papa." She glanced up at his face, seeing how exhausted he was. She should be grateful that he came, especially since he spent the night at the hospital. "Do we know anything more about what's wrong with Declan?"

He closed his eyes, "What has Travis told you?"

"That he had a second seizure yesterday and had been unresponsive ever since." She pulled him out of the way as more students filled the halls.

He nodded slowly, "I'll tell you when we're in the car."

She nodded and went to her locker, "I think you got all the notes, Gareth."

Gareth glared at the words that were written on there in permanent marker, "I'll figure out how to remove this."

"The Principal said that he would have the Janitor clean it off. I'm going to ask Papa to take me to visit Declan. Can you walk the twins home?" She asked, taking his wrist to get his attention.

He stopped fidgeting, his gaze shifting to her. He nodded, "Of course."

"Thanks," She opened her locker and grabbed the last of her books out of it. "See you later."

He nodded, then walked away.

She went back to her Papa, following him out to the car. "I asked Gareth to walk the twins home. Said I'd ask to go visit Declan."

Papa kissed her temple, "Do you want to go?"

She was torn, "First tell me." She got into the passenger seat.

He went around and got in, but they just sat in the vehicle. "Well…all of this is continued side effects of his brain injury. They called it a traumatic brain injury. Apparently, there was scarring on his brain…and…they think something must have aggravated it, or something just finally gave way. I don't understand all of the technical speak, but…from what I gather, his seizures are called late post-traumatic seizures. If he wakes up, he could suffer from seizures for the rest of his life. And…" He took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling of the car. "They found tumors."

Echo stared at her Papa, tears filling up her eyes in horror and fear, "Are they…" She could barely breathe.

"We don't know. They need him to wake up before they can even consider testing them for cancer." He looked close to losing it.

"Papa?"

He looked over at her.

"You know how you always tell me that sometimes we need our friends?" She shifted in her seat, trying not to cry.

He nodded.

"Melina is over there, and I don't think you should drive." Echo squeaked out.

He nodded again, then dropped his face to his hand, starting to cry.

Echo got out and went over to the high-school, heading straight for Melina.

Mel saw her, and waited for her, "Hey, I heard about Declan. Is ever—"

"Mel, um, Dad's in the car and he's way too…" Echo tried to stay calm. "Do you think you could drive us home?"

She looked over at the parking lot and nodded, "Just let me tell my mom and I'll be over." She squeezed Echo's shoulder and jogged over to the van that her mom was waiting in with Nolan.

Nolan waved, looking concerned.

Annabeth looked over, nodding and saying something to her daughter.

Echo went back towards the car. There was no way she was going to camp this summer. She couldn't leave her family. Not now.

AN: Hope you weren't expecting happy news...