Notes: I've been familiar with these characters for long enough that they almost got posted as a separate fic (there are more stories involving them noted down somewhere), before I realized that doing so would likely end up with yet another random oneshot which will likely never be updated ever. So it's part of this increasingly erratic collection. I beg the forgiveness of everyone who continues to be confused by this universe.

This was written for the Nine Muses Competition on the Percy Jackson Fanfiction Challenges forum. Thank you Rrit, for coming up with a challenge that promped me to blow the dust off these characters. I hope you enjoy the story, if nothing else. :)

Warnings: My narrator doesn't really care about watching her language.

Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit.

4.

confidante

The month before the Battle of New York, I took some time off from Camp to go live in the real world. Once I had gotten back home to LA, I raided my platonic soulmate's room, had my usual mild anxiety attack because of all the pink (she's a cheerleader who believes in embracing cliches), and proceeded to listen to her talk about her cheer routines, her teachers from hell, her really excruciating homework assignments and her (sortof sometimes on-and-off) boyfriend and how much she wished we would patch things up.

"You two have so many things in common," she told me.

I blinked at her, because I wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about. Couldn't be the fact that we went to different schools. Probably nothing about extracurriculars, given how I was a drama student and Caberon was a football jock. Couldn't be our very cohesive temperaments, given that after meeting him he'd declared me "flighty and irresponsible" and I'd similarly told him the stick up his ass could have be used to leverage the planet out of the solar system.

There were probably two people on the planet more unlike each other than me and her (sortof sometimes on-and-off) boyfriend, but I didn't know any of them personally.

"I don't get it," I said.

"Every summer," she started, and I could just hear the metaphorical thunder rolling ominously in the background.

"Fee," I whined, "Not this again. I told you-"

"Yeah yeah. Important summer camp. Extracurriculars. Blah blah blah," Fiona waved a hand absently, "Which is exactly what he tells me before he vanishes every summer into what I presume is military camp. That would actually make sense for Marcus, but I don't get why you can't call me once in a while. It's drama camp. What's wrong with having cellphones in drama camp?"

Believe me, I wish I could have told her that camp didn't allow cellphones because we were being trained to fight monsters and monsters were very attuned to our voices being broadcast over the wireless. But as much as I love Fiona, open minded and accepting of weird things that go bump in the night she is not. If I'd started any conversation with "hey, the greek gods are real and one of them is my absentee Dad," she would have knocked me out and proceeded to assault me with scientific information about how incredibly mythical myths were.

I also knew her well enough to suspect that I she might on some level convince me of it too. Fiona can be very single-minded. As evidenced by the fact that she keeps trying to get me to "connect" with her sometimes-boyfriend despite multiple assurances from both of us that we did not care for the other person at all.

"Are you sure you guys don't go to the same camp?" Fiona asked.

"I go to camp in New York, he goes to San Francisco," I reminded her. "We have been through this already."

"Is it just the east-slash-westcoast versions of the same camp?" Fiona asked, "The same exclusive camp I can never seem to get into?"

"Like you would want to. You have enough things to do over the summer in LA," I told her, "And you trying to set up me and Caberon is getting old. Hasn't he gone on one of his three minute lectures about the sanctity of voluntary friendship already? Did I misjudge the length of that stick up his ass?"

Fiona shot me a disdainful look. Which meant that she had, in fact, been on the receiving end of one of Caberon's lectures.

"The one thing we agree on is that we are never going to agree with each other ever," I told her. "We are never going to be spending time with each other except under pain of death. Just let it go, Fee."

The combined assault from two fronts usually at odds with each other was too much even for Fiona, because she threw up her hands and sighed. In the meantime, I leaned back and delighted in the company of the person I loved the most in the world, secure in the knowledge that I would never have to pay for it by hanging out with that asshole.

Two years later, I found myself hanging out with that asshole.

In my defense, I was right. The only reason I would hang out with Alexander Marcus Caberon was if the alternative was someone threatening my life, and Mercedes Cinna was by popular opinion a lot scarier than about half of the world's monsters. While it's possible we felt that way because of her love for paperwork (paperwork and dyslexic Greeks did not mix well), but given that the majority of Romans were also terrified of her, probably not. This mutual terror was one of the reasons why I was hanging out with Caberon in a shady alley at three am.

The other reason being that no right thinking demigod (or godly grandchild) not a descendant of Ares would face a monster alone when backup was available, however reluctant and/or grumpy said backup was. Caberon might have his issues (and believe me he had a lot of them), but he was a decent fighter. I was perfectly happy to shoot arrows into vulnerable monster body parts while he distracted them; it was really more my thing than close quarters battling.

The downside to this new forced alliance was that we had to spend a lot of time together. Marcus (the sneeringly using only the last name thing had started to feel fake ever since he took a claw to the gut for me) vastly preferred staking out known monster haunts and killing them before they could corner us unexpectedly in our day to day life. After he vividly described that one time he and Fiona were attacked when out on a date, I stopped calling him suicidal and agreed with him. There were still very few things we agreed on, but making sure Fiona stayed safe was one of them.

Marcus had been panicking ever since it happened ("They run in gangs! What if they decide to eat Fee because I killed one of them?!") and we'd been hunting down the pack for a month now. The other two demigods in the area were not exactly the battle-ready kind (neither Psyche nor Cloacina were known for their battle capabilities), but they had been helping us with gathering information.

Which was why we were here, slathered in mud and staking out a manhole cover waiting for the last two giants to come out. There were parts of me which were pointing out that this could count as ritual genocide but hey- they did try to eat us first so fair's fair.

"I'm bored," I said. "Staking out is boring."

Only a few months ago, Marcus would have gritted his teeth and visibly counted to ten at that. Continued proximity to my ADHD had mellowed him out to settling for ignoring me altogether. I had to appreciate his strategy- it was calculated for both minimum energy expenditure on his part and maximum annoyance on mine. Just because we had settled into a sort of fire-forged friendship, didn't mean that we stopped driving each other nuts.

"Estelle, have you talked to Fiona lately?"

What was this, non-sequitur night? Or was he desperately trying to distract me before I could break into a chorus of Dancing Through Life?

"Of course I've talked to her. We live literally next door to each other," I replied, blindsided. "Why would you ask me about that? Did you two break up again? Because I draw the line at playing cupid."

Wait for it…

"Stop that!" Marcus is really predictable sometimes

"He's not my god, he's yours." I pointed out.

He glared at me, then visibly pulled himself back together. Which was interesting. He didn't usually try to be patient when I was deliberately provoking.

"Fiona," he repeated slowly (also through gritted teeth; good to know my efforts weren't completely wasted) "She's been acting really weird lately."

"Are we talking about the same three black belts, obsessed with pink, honor math student who barely scraps by anywhere else, cheerleader since middle school here? Because I'm not sure if normal even applies to Fee."

"She's just- she's been really weird lately," he said, "She's been quiet."

Wait what? That wasn't right.

"Yeah," Marcus hadn't looked this nervous when a screaming giant was running at him, "She asked me how my day was, asked me how we were getting along, and then she just shut down."

This might seem like an overreaction, but my heartbeat sped up. Fiona hasn't been described as "quiet" by anyone in all the seventeen years I've known her.

"Maybe she was just having an off day?" I suggested.

"An off month, maybe. It's been going on for a while now. You sure you haven't noticed anything?"

"No. If anything, she's been ridiculously perky… wait. That's weird too, isn't it?"

Marcus only had time to shoot me an exasperated look before the manhole cover flew up and we were facing two giants. All the talking after that was us yelling instructions at each other, and potential death helped me forget about Fiona till I saw her the next day.

"You know, I can't tell if I see less of you when you are not at camp," Fee announced, opening my curtains.

I squinted at the sunlight. Normally I'm all about waking up with the dawn, but I figured being bruised all over was a reasonable excuse to huddle into my blankets.

"You know you get sick when you oversleep," she pulled the covers off me, "Up, now."

I didn't even try to argue, because I know better and I can be taught. I just watched Fiona bustle about cleaning up random parts of my room (unlike me, she cannot be taught to let go of hopeless cases) with Marcus and his paranoia whispering into my ear. But her movements were forced, less fluid than usual, and her face was set in grim lines.

Fiona did look tired. It was worrying.

"Hey," I sat up, "Are you okay?"

"Oh? Yeah."

"Are you sure? Because I was talking to Marcus yesterday and he said-" I stopped there, because I could physically see the point where she shut down, shoulders slumping and eyes closing.

Sometimes, there are things you notice about a person only when it's not there. Marcus actually being hesitant yesterday was strange enough, but this defeated droop of Fiona's body was far more startling. All my life, she's been the antithesis of defeat; and Marcus was right- it was scary.

"Fee, did Marcus do something wrong?" I asked, "Because I swear to you, he didn't mean it. That guy is crazy about you, and any idiotic bumbling he does is the product of a system so rigid that it shoves a stick up everyone's ass. I swear to you, if you go up to him and tell him that he's pissing you off, he'll fall over himself trying to apologize for it even if he doesn't know what he's apologizing for." (Which, incidentally, was something I would write a report to witness. Yes, I want to see it that much.)

Instead, Fiona looked at me and burst into tears.

After I ran around the room doing my impersonation of an overwrought Marcus for a while, I managed to calm down enough to stop panicking and hand Fee tissues until the crying blew over.

"What happened?" I kept asking, and she kept shaking her head and tearing up again in reply. It got so bad that I went out of the room for a while and called one of Marcus' cronies from my non-Fee neighbor's phone. Screw the possibility of attracting monsters, this was a lot more scary.

"Hey Chad," I said when someone answered, "Hand it over to Marcus, will you?"

Some shuffling and static later, Marcus hissed a very annoyed "What?" into my ear.

"Fiona is crying in my room," I told him. "Haul your ass over here."

Marcus cursed in what I assumed was Latin (I had no idea what it meant, but it sounded pretty harsh) and hung up, and I returned to my room to see that Fee had mopped up all her tears and was now staring sadly into the mirror.

"I spent a whole minute on that mascara," she gave me a watery smile, "Now it's all ruined."

"I have more," I said promptly. Fee had pointedly given me a giant makeup kit for my last birthday (she actually gave me two gifts, becasue she knew I was never going to use that one), and most of it was untouched.

"That's nice. Thank you," she blew out a breath, "Okay, here goes."

Oh god, I was going to get a confession? Couldn't she wait till Marcus got here wasn't all of this his fault? Oh gods I hoped it was all his fault.

"I'm going to break up with Marcus."

This is not actually as much of a monumental statement as you may think. Fiona and Marcus break up once every couple of months and spend a few days insulting each other before making up (and out) and getting back together. It's one of their couple traditions, like Mitch Griffin and Kristen Geller's yearly enactment of the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene.

But the way she said it this time sounded too raw.

"For real?" I asked, bewildered.

"For real," she tried to smile at me, but it came out a little watery. "I can't keep doing this. I can't keep coming between you two. It's not fair to any of us."

I stared at her. Then my legs gave out from beneath me and I collapsed to the floor. (It was deliberate. We Apollo kids have a flair for the dramatic that's only exceeded by Zeus kids or Hades kids.) That actually explained a lot. Marcus and I had been spending a lot of time together, what with hunting down monsters and planning to hunt down monsters. Fee, who only saw that we were suddenly spending a lot of time with each other and making evasive answers when she questioned us about spending time with each other, would be justified in thinking that we were falling in love and painfully keeping away from each other (because there is no way, in this universe or the next, that she does not know how much both of us love her- we are more obvious about it than Percy Jackson with Annabeth Chase) because of her. So of course she would step down and let us go at each other, which was one of the reasons why we loved her so.

A horrifying prospect.

I should have reassured her immediately that a romantic entanglement with Marcus was at the absolute top of things I never wanted to do in this life time. I should have told her that the only reason we could stand each other's company was because we knew how much the other person meant to her. That's what a true friend would have done.

I am sorry to say that I was not a true friend. My first reaction to this (after the toppling) was "Oh my gods are you going to tell this to Marcus I think there will be actual steam coming out of his ears please we need to record you telling him this oh my gods." After which I started laughing uncontrollably.

"Estelle," Fee started, sounding exasperated; but was interrupted by Marcus barging in uninvited and looking wildly around the room, still wearing his football shoulderpads. The sight of that just made me break out in a fresh set of giggles.

"Fee," Marcus said, practically dancing on his toes, "You were crying? What's wrong? What do I do?"

The guy was whipped. The sheer idea of him being into anyone else was ridiculous, so I started giggling again. Marcus took the time off from his worry to shoot me an exasperated look startlingly similar to the one Fee wore.

"I'm breaking up with you." Fiona said.

"What, already? We just got back together last week," he sounded really bewildered.

"No, Marcus," she said, staring at the floor, "For real this time. I can- I can tell you and Estelle want to be together. It's all right."

There was a moment of silence as he digested this, and while steam did not actually come out of his ears, I could tell it was close.

"What?" his voice was pitched higher than usual, "You think I- You think I am in love with her? That's why you've been so distant all this time? Now you're breaking up with me because you think I want to date Estelle?"

"Marcus," Fee started in a matter-of-fact tone-

"She drives me crazy," Marcus ranted, "I either want to shake her or gag her at any given point of time. I only put up with her because you like her, and that means there must be something about her that's okay-"

"Hey!"

Marcus ignored me. "I don't want to date her I want to date you!"

"Marcus, you spent three nights in a row away from your house," Fiona said, "So did Estelle. You come back at about the same time in the mornings, and then you sleep till noon. I'm not blind. I can see the signs."

The look on Marcus' face was priceless, and I started giggling again.

"We had to do something together! It's- it's camp stuff, and I never- WOULD YOU STOP LAUGHING?!"

I stopped laughing. I had a feeling he would physically strangle me if I didn't, but the giggles just kept bursting out in me. And that was really weird because my heart had started pounding and my breathing had become shallowed. It wasn't a situation meant for laughing no, but-

There are not many things I know much about, but one of the things I do know something about is how much horror and humor are entwined. In your darkest moments, when you see something unfolding in front of you and it's horrifying enough to make you break down, your brain puts up humor as a defense mechanism. You laugh because the alternative is not something you can face.

"I don't think you'd cheat on me," Fee said, "But even if you did-"

I think it was the little hitch at the "even if you did" that did it. Fiona, my mortal friend more poised than Juno and more logical than Athena, visibly trying to convince herself to ignore all the signs, because for the first time in her life she would rather be deluded than face the truth.

"I wouldn't do that to you," I said. My voice sounded small, and raw.

She smiled at me. It was a little wobbly, but there was all the love we had for each other in it. I wanted to answer again, to deny everything, but my throat closed up.

"I love you both," she said, "And I can't keep living like this. I need to let this go. I need to realize that both of you will have something I never will, and I need to learn to be happy about that."

"But we don't have feelings for each other!" Marcus wailed.

"You have been talking to her for two months, and you already know things about her that I don't," Fiona told him. "You share secrets with each other. Estelle actually pays attention to you- do you know how rare that is?"

"She doesn't." Marcus said flatly.

"Yes she does," Fee said, "I know her. I know the signs."

"Even of that was true, it doesn't mean we have any romantic interest in each other," Marcus pointed out, "Fee, you're jumping into conclusions."

"Can you tell me what the two of you were doing yesterday? All of it? Without omitting anything? Truthfully?"

There was actually a point there where I thought he would break down and say "my grandfather was Mars and Estelle's dad is Apollo and we smell delicious to various walking nightmares so we do the whole superhero thing", but years of conditioning to not let the mundanes know anything stopped his mouth mid opening.

"That's what I thought," she tilted her head and kissed him on the cheek, and I could see tears well up in her eyes, "I love you, and I can't do this to any of us. I need to stop this before it becomes irreparable."

Fiona blinked away her tears, absently ruffled my hair, and walked out of the room.

Marcus sat down heavily on the bed and we both stared at the door for a while.

"Uh, Mar-" I started.

"I don't want to talk to you."

Okay, that was understandable but impractical. I might usually be the last person to consider practicality (I had Fee and Marcus to do that for me, thanks), but these were desperate circumstances. In fact, me considering practicality was probably what made it a desperate circumstance.

"We have to tell her," I said. "I'll go make a powerpoint- I've had this drawing of Zeus laughing evilly that I've been dying to use."

"What's the point?" Marcus said hollowly, putting his head on his knees, "If she knows I'm monster bait, she would dump me in a hot second. I have a reduced life expectancy. Any future kids of ours would be a pain to protect. And can you imagine her being part of New Rome? She'd go crazy in a week and start talking about things like political elitism and how there's an entire society designed to make her feel like she's nothing but a walking uterus."

"What? Why would you think she'd do that?"

"It makes sense," Marcus said, "She's just so… practical."

I decided to ignore how Marcus said "practical" in the tone of reverence generally used by male characters in media to refer to attributes like "has giant boobs" (it was way too disturbing) and focused on the important things instead.

"You didn't tell her you were a demigod while she was dumping you because you were afraid she would dump you?"

Marcus scowled at me, "It's not that simple, all right? It's one thing if she's dumping me because of some imaginary relationship I have with you, it's another if she'd dumping me because of perfectly understandable reasons. I just- I just need to convince her that you and I are never going to see each other ever again and Mercedes Cinna can go rot in the underworld and it'll all go back to normal."

"Nope. Won't work," I shook my head, "She'd just sadly shove us back together and act like the benevolent love martyr. She'd never abandon you because your life is in danger either. If anything, I'd warn the monsters to watch out. She has a mean left hook. Once Fee gets an idea into her head, it stays there. Why do you think I never told her about all the Greek God stuff? She's not good at dealing with things that aren't normal."

There was a pause, after which Marcus said slowly, "Estelle, she puts up with you."

"Yeah, so?"

"So why would she be fazed by weirdness?"

"But there's weird and then there's weird! I can let her think I'm crazy, but I can't let her think I'm crazy!"

Marcus gave me a long look, then told me to go start working on the stupid powerpoint already.

School was going to start in five days, and Fiona was so determined to avoid us that we weren't able to corner her till one of them had passed. We finally managed to ambush her in her apartment, and Marcus was carrying around his laptop just in case she bolted while our backs were turned.

"Please," he said as soon as he saw her. His hair was sticking out in all directions and he was looking harassed, "Ten minutes. Give us ten minutes."

Fiona sighed, but nodded. We wasted no time setting up the laptop and opening up the presentation, and I noticed Marcus' fingers were trembling a little. Mine weren't, but that's because archers needed steady hands and I'd settled for an irregular heartbeat instead.

"Estelle, why are you making me watch a powerpoint called The Greek Gods and their Roman Ripoffs?"

It was a testament to how tense Marcus was that he didn't even hiss at me about not changing the title.

"You'll see," I told her, and started the slideshow.

Fee's room was very quiet for a while, and I think both she and Marcus would have been perfectly happy to stay in what they call "blissful silence" for the rest of the day, but I really wasn't the type.

"Well?" I demanded.

"I am uh- very confused," Fee said, still staring at the screen.

"I know it sounds crazy," Marcus said, "I know. And I can see why you would think it's crazy if Estelle was the one telling you this, but so am I, okay? And it's true. All of it."

There was more silence. I was about to break it again when Fee straightened up and told us to get lost.

She kept the laptop. I think that was the only reason Marcus didn't immediately start moping.

"Apollo," she said, stalking uninvited into my room the next day.

"Daddy!" I exclaimed.

"Greek god of the sun, archery, music and healing," Fiona continued, "So why are your poems so bad?"

"See that's the thing. It turns out that Apollo is a terrible poet- his haikus are worse than mine. Who knew?"

And I babbled about the gods like I'd never babbled before while Fiona listened. Actually listened and didn't break into periodic eyerolls. Part of me still thought that this was just her badly wanting to be with Marcus and be my friend, and accepting an implausible story just to make thing make sense. But most of me didn't care.

We had her back, and we could work out the rest with time.

I'd transferred to Fee's school in my Junior year, so come the grand reopening I was not the newest person in school. I basked in the glow of this by watching all the little Freshmen walk in like they were being stalked by a Hydra.

It's good to be in a Senior.

"Why did you tell Fee I once ran away in panic from a Pegasus?" Marcus demanded, coming up behind me, "That is not true."

"Marcus, my fellow Senior!" I exclaimed happily, and ignored his accusation, "Look at all the sad little freshmen!"

"I have no idea how she puts up with you," he huffed at me. "Where's Fee?"

"Getting a fresh start on Cheerleading tryouts," I said. "Or something. Who can keep track of all her eleventy zillion extracurriculars-"

My voice came to a stop, and I stared.

"What now?" Marcus sounded irritated, "I swear to god, Estelle if you don't start making sense I will-"

He stopped talking too, and I could tell he'd caught sight of the average-tall, partly skinny kid in the goth t-shirt and aviator jacket. There are enough people in the combined Camps that we don't really know everyone by sight, but it's hard to not know Nico di Angelo. Because he's cute and he's badass and it's rumored that he periodically tells off his dad the King of the Underworld. Hard to forget that resume.

"But look on the bright side," I finally said, "If Fiona has one of her how can this be reality moments we can just ask him to animate a skeleton for proof. Hard to argue against the walking dead."

"I hate my life." Marcus stated glumly. "All I wanted was to graduate in happiness. That was pretty much all I wanted."

"We have a big three kid in school with us," I pointed out, "So that's not likely to happen."

"I KNOW!"

"Good morning, my darlings!" Fiona said, sneaking up behind us and putting an arm around each of our shoulders, "What's with the stupefied faces? What's she done to make you yell at her? Why did you say something to make him yell at you? Tell me."

Marcus and I glanced at each other.

"I'll fill her in," he declared. "You'll just go off on a tangent about how cute di Angelo and Will are together."

"But they are."

Marcus sighed, firmly slid his arms through Fiona's, and led her away to class, leaving me to find out that the Son of Hades, the Ghost King, scourge of all monsters and one-half of the second-most adorable pairing in the universe had no earthly idea how to work a locker combination.

This was undoubtedly going to be an interesting year.

End Notes: That was a little more than 4.8k words, so thank you very much if you've managed to sit through all of it.