Disclaimer: I am not Uncle Rick and I do not own the rights to these characters. I just ship them immensely.

A/N: Happy Halloween! / For those of you who don't want to Google the chapter's name and what it means: "status quo ante" (noun): the state of affairs that existed previously. ;)

Thalia pulled her carry on luggage free from its compartment with a grunt, handing it to Zoë while she grabbed hers next.

"Let's get out if here as quickly as we can before it gets too crowded," Zoë grumbled. Having just been rudely awoken from her nap by a young child kicking her seat, the last thing Zoë wanted was to be at the airport any longer than she had to be. Quite frankly, Thalia couldn't agree more. She couldn't wait to take a nice long bath in her new apartment. Then she frowned. She hadn't had any time to move in yet, so she was still going to have to crash at her dad's.

One long hour later, they hailed a cab that would take them to Zoë's place first.

"Earth to Thalia," Zoë said shortly after they'd arrived. "Thinking about Luke again, I see. It's a shame you let him go the way you did. But ya know, there's always that saying: If you love something set it free, and if it flies after you, it's yours. Or something like that." She smirked and Thalia just rolled her eyes.

"What were you saying before that?"

"Sure you don't want to stay a bit longer?" Zoë asked as Thalia prepared to leave to get a cab to her dad's apartment.

"That's alright, I've got to start packing things for my new place. But I'll have to solicit your help to buy some new furniture later this week," Thalia grinned. They said their farewells and when Thalia got home, she unpacked quickly and started a load of laundry before soaking in the tub. Her father wasn't home, so she figured he was working with a client out of town. An hour and half later she was too exhausted. She changed into pajamas and passed out not even five minutes later in her own bed.

The next morning, after a restless night of sleep and after getting ready for work, Thalia had spare time to pack her belongings so that in the evening she could take them to her new apartment. When she got to work, Zoë solicited her help in presenting not just their boss, but their boss's boss, with their findings for making a realistic set. Not for the first time, Thalia forced herself to stop thinking about Luke as she began her attempt to adjust back to her work routine in the city. She had always disliked vacations. They were too distracting, and hard to get over when it was finished and when the work had to begin again. Not unlike relationships, the pessimistic part of her recanted.

"Reyna? Did you have a moment to talk with us now?" Zoë asked, knocking on the doorframe of their boss's private office. Reyna Ramírez-Arellano, the chief director of Amphitheatre Production Design, the company which both Thalia and Zoë worked for, was a kind woman who knew how to get things done while still showing compassion for her staff. Thalia could remember her early days of interning for Reyna, and fondly reminisced about her "climb up the ladder."

Now, she didn't see much of Reyna, because as the business had grown, Reyna had hired other managers to help out. One of those managers was Octavian, Thalia and Zoë's current supervisor who had cleared their trip in the first place. Thalia wasn't too fond of the guy-he was generally very brash and uptight-but there was nothing she could do except put up with him until she (hopefully) got a promotion.

"Sure, come on in, ladies." Reyna sat behind her desk with her fingers crossed. She was dressed pristinely in a pale, almost white, gold-colored blazer, accented with royal purple, her favorite color. Among the trinkets that Thalia had never seen Reyna's office deprived of, she was fond of a small silver and gold paperweight of two greyhound figurines. It was usually used to hold down important reminders, or rested just to the left of Reyna's computer monitor.

Zoë went inside first, opening her laptop to show Reyna the mock-ups she'd already started. Thalia followed her in, and began to explain what these mock-ups meant and what supplies they would need. Zoë also gave Reyna a cost estimate of the project.

"Well, you two certainly had a productive trip, hmm?" Reyna said.

"Very," Zoë said, with a sly wink in Thalia's direction that the chief director conveniently didn't see. Thalia narrowed her eyes playfully at her colleague.

"I'll show these to Octavian and have him start putting in orders for equipment. You'll be meeting with him for any further developments. Nice work, ladies. I expect we'll be ahead of schedule with both of you in the field," Reyna told them. She returned Zoë's laptop and dismissed them from the office.

"That turned out well. We're going to be very busy for the next few weeks," Thalia said. Zoë gave her an mm-hmm and a smile before she departed to her own office.

If she admitted it to herself, even if she wasn't about to admit it to anybody else, Thalia was only relieved for the heavy workload to come to keep her mind off of distractions.

-x-

"Thalia? Oh, good, you're here."

Thalia suppressed a groan when she recognized the owner of the voice. Octavian. There was a knock on the top of her desk, and she finished the email she had been typing out before looking up.

"Wanted to run these ideas by you real fast. Just a few design changes to cut some costs on money," Octavian continued. He pressed a few papers down onto her desk space. He may have been obnoxious about it, but Octavian's plans were smart in the economical sense. They spent about an hour discussing the changes before they were satisfied, and Octavian departed.

After lunch, Thalia began working in one of the larger studio rooms that housed several of the larger props that they worked on, the ones that weren't already at the theater where the play would be performed. She spent a few hours painting before she returned to her father's apartment to get the few boxes of her belongings and finally place them in her new apartment. When she got there, she put the boxes on the mattress and frame that was currently passing as the bed in her new bedroom. Just as she was straightening her paint-stained shirt, the doorbell rang. She rushed to answer it, not knowing who to expect. "Piper! What are you doing here?"

"Well, Jason told me you got a new place, and I'm here to help you get it turned into a home," Piper said with a grin on her face.

Thalia laughed. "Then come on in. I was just about to make coffee, and then we'll use my laptop to start ordering." She closed the door behind Piper, grabbed her kitchen box from the bedroom, and put it on the bare counter. Piper removed two mugs while Thalia plugged in the coffee pot and added the ingredients.

Ten minutes later they were in Thalia's room, sitting on her bed. "Not even a couch in the living room. This place is forcing you to start from the bottom up!" Piper was complaining with a laugh. They were making a list for each room of specific items that they needed, both immediate and less so. By six, they were exhausting the third piece of notebook paper where the list was scrawled.

"I'm going to call in a pizza, if you wanted to stay a bit longer," Thalia offered.

"That sounds great. Jason can pick me up around eight. We're going to see a movie," Piper beamed.

"How's my kid brother doing with all of that army prep stuff?" Thalia asked, reaching for her phone and dialing a local pizza delivery that she liked.

"It's an adjustment, but you Graces aren't quitters, and I can tell he enjoys it despite the hard work and time away from me," Piper said approvingly.

"Good. I'm happy for him," Thalia said. She put the phone to her ear and wrote another item on the list. What she didn't see was Piper's smile that turned into a worrisome frown, and the sudden glistening in her eyes. "Yeah, happy," the young girl murmured to herself.

[To be continued!]

Please follow and review! This is my first published fic, so I'd love some feedback! Critiques are welcome, rudeness is not.

A/N 2: I finally figured out a name for the design place Thalia and Zoë work for, and who runs it haha. I think it's fitting that Reyna would be the director (aka...praetor? No?) of the design company.