The story starts to earn it's T-rating in this chapter. Thou hath been warned.

I really hate Senate meetings.

I thought war councils at Camp Half-Blood were bad enough, and those had nachos and hot chocolate. The Roman senate building had marble benches to sit in and hundreds of purple-y (is everything at the frigging camp purple?) ghosts glaring at me. I was squeezed in between Piper and Annabeth. Reyna and Percy were sitting in fancy chairs at the front of the room, with Octavian hovering nearby like a serial killer. Percy kept shifting in his seat and making faces at Annabeth and I, who were snickering at the purple (of course) bed sheet he had tangled around him. Reyna, on the other hand, had one arm laid across each armrest, and calmly stared out at the building's occupants. I couldn't help but notice that she avoided the spot where Jason and Piper sat a bit closer than necessary. My eyes glazed over as they had the same argument they had been having the past three days. Who should go on the quest? Reyna, Jason, Octavian? Were the Greeks trustworthy? Thank the gods we hadn't brought the Stolls along. After three hours, I felt Annabeth slap my arm. I slowly got to my feet, wincing as I discovered my butt had fallen asleep. Unsure of what to do, I trailed after Annabeth as she climbed the three steps to the dais Percy's chair was on. He was attempting to stand up, but kept stepping on the inside of the bed sheet and falling back down. Reyna stood ramrod straight and made no move to help, though she did look somewhat amused. Annabeth rolled her eyes and yanked Percy up, then ripped the bed sheet off his shoulders. He heaved a sigh of relief.

"I love you Annabeth," he smiled, leaning backwards and cracking his back. Annabeth wrinkled her nose at the noise.

"Ugh, those meetings give me a headache!" Percy complained. Reyna smirked.

"Must be the sausages." She strode out, her sheet billowing behind her. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but I could have sworn I saw her wink at me.

OooooOooooO

I couldn't fall asleep that night. I rolled over onto my stomach and squinted at my awesome-sauce clock. 11:14. Lovely. And Jason is going to wake me up at some gods-awful hour tomorrow morning, too. My life just sucks sometimes. I decided to head out to that tree where Reyna and I made that playlist last night. And no, I was not hoping to see her again! But the grass there was very nice. As I finished climbing the hill and wiping sweat from my upper lip, I spotted a shadow leaning against the tree. Guess I was seeing Reyna tonight.

"Hi," I called out, hoping not to startle her. I saw the dark braid swing slightly right, the only indication she heard me. I panted myself a foot away from he, with my legs straight in front of me and my hands splayed across the soft grass behind me. Reyna, in contrast, had her knees pulled up to her chest and had wrapped her arms around her legs. The white earbuds glowed slightly, being the brightest thing on the hill. She must have saw me staring, because she removed one from her ear and dangled it near my face.

"Listen if you want," she sighed, shaking the earbud. I snatched it and stuffed it into my ear.

'Why you wanna

Show up in a

Old t-shirt that I love…'

"Hmm. What song?" I asked.

"Why You Wanna by Jana Kramer. Her album is being released soon," Reyna replied, still staring straight ahead. I shifted right so I could see what her eyes were fixated on. There was glimmering water and the outline of a dock in the distance.

"Whatcha looking at?" I asked. Reyna sucked in a sharp breath, possibly annoyed with my constant questions.

"Camp Jupiter's marina," she said shortly.

"And… why are you looking there?" I raised my eyebrows. Finally, Rena turned her head to me and rested her cheek on the bark of the tree.

"I was just thinking…" she trailed off.

"About…?" I prompted her.

"The morning I arrived here. My older sister was with me. We had managed to overtake the pirates on the ship we had been prisoners on. Of course, we had no clue how to sail. But the wind just blew us here. It was meant to be, I think. Or I used to," she bit her lip. Somehow, I knew she wasn't just talking about being at this camp.

"So, you had an older sister?" I said, asking the safer question.

"Yes. She is queen of the Amazon warriors now."

"Prestigious," I nodded. Then, a new thought occurred to me.

"What was being on a pirate ship like? Cause I saw Pirates of the Caribbean, and swabbing the deck looked like hard work," I blurted out. The lines of Reyna's face tightened, and she looked away again.

"When you have two teenage girls on a ship of pirates kept prisoner for 200 years… there are worse things then cleaning, Leo." Reyna squinted a little. If I didn't know better, I would have thought tough-as-nails-praetor Reyna was about to cry.

"Umm… I can't think of many things worse than cleaning," I said, remembering the endless sweeping and scrubbing to get the Argo II to pass Annabeth's inspection.

"Can you?" Reyna whispered. For about ten seconds we sat there in silence, me mulling over her words.

'Out of all of the places,

yeah you had to come walking in here

and sit down…'

I heard her take a deep breath, then she took the earphone out of my ear. She stood, and without looking own said, "I best be going to bed. You would do well to sleep too, Leo." For a few minutes, I thought over our conversation, wondering what got her upset. I thought I might have been tactful for once.

Teenage girls… worse than cleaning…going to bed…

Oh my holy gods. What Reyna had been implying hit me.

She had been prisoner on a pirate ship, and she had been raped.

Well, any dreams of me being a therapist are fucked. I pounded a fist onto what had once been soft grass, but now just felt like metal spikes.

Word count before A/N:

Author's Note: Quick update! And you know, Riordan skates over it, but you know what realistically would have happened on that ship.