Chapter 4

LEO

Leo looked down and surveyed his work. After two months full of tinkering and all-nighters, his biggest project yet was almost finished. Almost. It had been hard to try and concentrate on remaking the raft while there were always younger campers running around his bunker, or one of his brothers or sisters constantly coming to either check on him or ask for advice on something they were working on. It had taken him a long time to decide whether or not to rebuild the raft or just patch the end, but he'd decided on using some of the wood that was in the campfire in the pavilion, and repaired the entire raft. It had taken him a whole three weeks to decide on what type of wire he was going to infuse into the wood as a GPS system, and he was now only a few days away from heading out to find his Calypso.

Leo glanced over at the pile of unfinished swords, spears and shields lying on a nearby table. Piper had come about five weeks ago to talk to him about mass-producing weapons for the upcoming war, and she'd checked in on him for the first three weeks, but had given up when training the warriors of Camp Half-Blood and Jupiter. Leo chuckled. He'd known that Reyna would never join forces with Piper, so, when even Frank and Hazel hadn't been able to sway her, he'd stepped in and gave the ethical view of everything: the whole thing about how nobody on earth would ever forgive, much less accept her, if she didn't put her pride behind her and serve her people. Leo had been pretty proud of himself when she'd agreed to join forces with the Greeks, and knew that they now actually stood a chance against Donovan. But when Piper had come asking, no, telling him to make weapons for her, and put off the most important thing in his life, Project O, well, he wasn't very happy. He'd had about twenty-three all-nighters, and was worse for the wear. He was constantly hearing things, and had no idea if they were real or in his head. His lack of sleep led into lack of eating, but still he went on. He knew that he had to help his camp; he couldn't just abandon them without any weapons to an army of monsters, and, as much as he hated to admit it, Calypso had waited hundreds of years for one of the young men who'd once come to her island to come back, and she could afford to wait another couple of weeks.

He had gone to work hard on making weapons, but it was harder than he'd expected. He'd had a couple of his Hephaestus siblings to help him, and he'd figured out how to make molds of shields and spear heads, but making the swords was proved to be a big problem. All of them had to be made by hand, for if you didn't have a good blade, there wasn't much you could do in battle. Making a sword blade took about three hours, at least; Leo had to temper each one perfectly, and you couldn't rush perfection. On top of all that, Piper wanted him to make daggers and arrows as well. He sighed. Beauty Queen could make him do anything, especially if he was exhausted and didn't understand what she was asking him to do until after he said yes.

The young man glanced at his watch, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. When his tired eyes finally focused, he saw that it was close to three in the morning. Still time enough to work on the weapons some more. He didn't dare work on the swords when he was so tired, but the shields he could do, since they were already cut, and only needed to be plated with Celestial Bronze. He moved over to the table, and bent over to pick up one of the plain wooden shields that leaned against it. When he stood up, he was looking into the deep brown eyes of a twelve-year-old girl. He started, and blinked rapidly; he could never be quite sure he wasn't hallucinating. He wished the girl would move or speak or something: she just looked like a statue.

"Um…hi?"

"Hello."

If Leo hadn't heard her voice, he never would've guessed that she was alive. She was stock still, and her face was partially shrouded by her dark gray hoodie. There was no sign of joy or happiness in her eyes, but they flashed when Leo smiled at her.

"You're Mischelle, right? I don't think I've officially met you yet. I've been in this bunker working on stuff since before you got here, I think. I'm Leo."

"I know. Everyone knows who you are, especially in my cabin."

"What cabin are you in again?"

"Hephaestus…your cabin. You're my big brother."

"Wow. I didn't know that. How do you like Camp so far?"

"It's fine," she said. "It's different than anything I've ever gone through. I found out that I was a demigod sometime last year, when I met up with this group of other demigods. They were Roman, I think. I stayed with them for a little while, but didn't really like the way they were run, so I told them I was leaving, and they pointed me in this direction. It took me a while to get here; I had some trouble with the law: it is hard to be a twelve-year-old girl trying to make your way alone though New York with no good excuse. But, yeah, I've liked it. It's fun to train with the other kids, but I have a feeling that nobody really likes me. I guess I'm kind of a loner.

"I just came out here because I couldn't sleep, and I've heard so much about this place from the other Hephaestus kids that I decided to check it out for myself. It's pretty cool. I heard you found it all by yourself?"

"Well," said Leo, smiling a little, "I had a little help from a metal dragon named Festus, but, yeah, I found it by myself. I'm the only one who can open it, anyway." When he saw the puzzled look on the younger girl's face, he explained farther. "I'm the only Hephaestus demigod in a long time to have a certain power, and that power," he said as he made a small flame appear in his hand, "Is what opens this bunker. This power is apparently extremely dangerous, but I haven't encountered anything that life threatening, except…well, that's a story for another time.

"But what can I do for you, Mischelle? Would you like me to show you around my bunker? I know it's late, but if you can't sleep, it might help you to move around a little. What do you say?"

"Actually," she said quietly. "I'd like to talk about all your adventures. It's cool for me to think that one of my siblings can be big and important. I feel like all the other cabins can act so much better than us, but we're all really special, and I think that you prove that. So…I would love to talk about how you grew up and everything. Do you mind talking about it?"

"Not at all, Mischelle," Leo said quietly. "We can talk about whatever you want."

For the next few hours, the two of them talked all about Leo's life; about his life before he knew he was a demigod, about all his adventures as part of the Seven, and even about Calypso and his newest project. Leo felt very proud to be able to tell his younger sister about his experiences, and he loved the way she laughed when he told her about the final step in Project O. It was 5:45 a.m. by the time Mischelle headed back to the Hephaestus Cabin, and Leo was glad to finally be able to get some sleep. He would be having a lot of work to do in the next few days.

PERCY

When he awoke for the second time, he was staring into the face of the most beautiful angel he'd ever dreamed of. Those beautiful gray eyes and her curly blonde hair…well, she looked almost like…Annabeth?

Percy started, but two strong hands on his shoulders held him down. The angel above him spoke, and it sounded a lot like his newly pregnant wife. "You're not going anywhere, Mr. Perseus Jackson." Percy gulped, and tried to smile, but the effort made his still-throbbing head hurt.

"What are you doing out here, Annie? You know better than to come roaming around a deserted island when you're pregnant. Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, Percy." She chuckled softly, shaking her head, "Here you are, looking like hell frozen over, and you ask me if I'm okay? Gosh, what is it with men?"

Percy laughed as well, but the movement sent a harsh, stabbing pain shoot up his spine. He gasped and painstakingly turned around so that she could see his back.

"Oh my word," she gasped.

"Does it look really bad?" he asked in a strained tone. "It feels like it's on fire."

Annabeth's eyes were clouded with worry. "It looks like you got attacked by a giant bird of some sort; there are deep claw marks all the way from your shoulders to your lower back. The cuts are clean, but they're pretty deep, and there's lots of blood. I don't know how on earth I'm gonna get you back to our beach."

"One step at a time, let's first see if you can even get me to stand."

Annabeth reached into Percy's left pocket, where he always kept a jackknife. "Annie…what are you…"

She slit a hole in her Camp Half-Blood t-shirt above her navel, and kept cutting around it, all the way around her body. She slit the tube of fabric down the middle, making it a long strip of cloth. Her baby bump now was out in the open evening air. "If we don't stop the bleeding, you'll probably bleed to death." She stated it matter-of-factly, as if she were quoting some Greek text book. Annabeth as Percy knew her had been replaced by a high-functioning, knowledge spurting, work-now-chat-later machine.

With the help of the jackknife, Annabeth removed the backside of Percy's shirt so she could easily see the wound. She dabbed off the top layer of dried blood and grime. Percy winced with every touch.

"Six slashes vertical to the spine, one old wound reopened, all evidence points to a bird of prey of some sort. Percy, I'm pretty sure what I'm about to do will hurt a lot." She cut off the cuff of her denim jeans, folded it up into a small square, and carefully put it into his mouth. "I don't want you grinding your teeth or biting off your tongue or anything, so bite this instead if you need. And whatever feeling overcomes you, stay conscious. In order to stop the bleeding, I'll have to put pressure on the wounds and then bind them."

Face against moss and hands grabbing tree roots on either side, he braced himself. The cloth from Annabeth's shirt covered him, sending shudders through his back. Then came Annabeth's hands, gentle at first, then ever so slightly adding pressure, until she was pushing on his back.

Percy screamed, gnawing at the denim. His eyes watered with boiling hot tears. Every muscle in his back burned. He tried to writhe in pain, writhe away from Annabeth's touch.

"Percy! Stop moving! If this doesn't work, my other option is less pleasant for the both of us."

He spat out the denim. "Just DO IT!"

He heard the click of the mini first aid kit opening. Then he heard a snip of thread and the clink of a sterile sewing needle. Gritting his teeth, it was obvious that it wasn't a shirt about to be mended.

Percy grimaced. Like that time you hit your head on the corner of the dining room table while attempting to skateboard around the house when you were seven. Only this time the stitches won't be done while you're numbed, and there won't be any lollipop at the end.

He braced himself.

A half hour passed before she was done, every cut stitched and covered with antibiotic cream and the strip from Annabeth's t-shirt. She helped Percy to his feet, and situated him on a rock.

"Annabeth…I'm grateful that you saved me, but I still wish you hadn't been so foolish as to come. Think of the baby!"

"I was, Percy! This entire time I've been thinking of our baby!"

Percy gave her a puzzled look.

"I don't want our child to grow up fatherless simply because I didn't go after you when you foolishly ventured alone! Had I not come, you'd still be dangling over the edge, slowly bleeding to death, until the vine snapped and you fell, and that'd be the end of you! Think, for once in your life, Seaweed Brain! We are alone on an island with practically no communication beside the laptop, and no companions besides each other and the wild animals. You die, I die. I can't deliver my own baby! I can't gather food for myself when I'm about to deliver! I don't even think I'd survive the grief if you died—could you if our places were swapped?"

The answer was an obvious no, but Percy said nothing.

"I'd rather the three of us die together then one or two of us having to forage for ourselves. Is that clear?"

Percy nodded, and, for the first time that day, he pulled her close and kissed her, releasing all his tension, pain, and anxiety of the day. Her whole body relaxed as she sat on his knees, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him back. He put his hand gently on her abdomen.

"HOLY!" He gasped. Annabeth stood up quickly. "I swear I just felt a kick! But…you can't be more than a month pregnant. I thought that wouldn't come until the second or third trimester…"

She shook her head. "No, it shouldn't. But I might already be in my second trimester. Time is tricky here." She looked down at her watch.

"If we leave now, we can get home before midnight." She helped him to his feet. They leaned on each other. "It's just like old times, back in Tartarus."

Hobbling forward, Percy shuddered. Tartarus—for three years those memories had haunted his dreams.

Then he realized. Those nightmares stopped as soon as they reached this forsaken island.

Perhaps because at least in Tartarus they had hope, a plan, a way out—just waiting to be reached. Here, there was no plan. There was no hope. There was no way out. Heck, they didn't even know where they were!

They continued through the deep jungle, not speaking, not stopping, as these thoughts filled his mind.

They were living a nightmare far worse than Tartarus had been.

"We're almost there. Please tell me we have ibuprofen at the hut?"

"Yep, we can thank Mom for that," she said, smiling as she said it. Her mom being a goddess and…not the normal or most ideal parental unit, she seemed happy to have Sally Jackson as a Mother-in-Law. And when Annabeth seemed happy, despite the dark situation, Percy found himself content.

The terrain changed from the harsh jungle floor to deep white sands. In a way, it was harder to muddle through, with deep pockets hard to see in the oncoming darkness. But it was familiar, and that made all the difference.

In ten minutes, they were at the hut. He stumbled through the front door, Annabeth closing the makeshift, bamboo door shut behind them. He toppled down on the bed, barely situated before pure pain and exhaustion overtook him and he succumbed to unconsciousness.