I confess, I started this chapter thinking it'd be a filler, but it amounted to more than I thought. It also hints at what I am planning for a very end. Let me know if you like, love, or hate.

I WOULD STILL LOVE SUGGESTIONS ON HOW THEY COULD ALL GET TO CALIFORNIA!

It's late and I need to get up early so no replies, sorry. But someone, I forget who, asked if they could ask me about a story idea they had. I would be honored to help in any way. WHoever you are, you can PM me if you'd like.

NEW ALL TIME LOW SONG CAME OUT! 'Somewhere in neverland' Helped inspire this chapter. It's so cute. NEW ALBUM OUT OCTOBER NINTH!

BTW, this is a reminder I will not be updating tomorrow and Tuesday in preparation for and reading of THE MARK OF ATHENA!

Song: Somewhere in Neverland by All Time Low

Disclaimer: If I was Rick Riordan, I would know how Mark of Athena ends and begins...and what happens in the middle. ;)

READ ON!

Very soon we were standing alone. While Lena wasn't shaking, I could tell she was afraid. Very afraid. Perhaps her stillness signified that she was even MORE afraid than when she was shaking.

"It'll be okay, Lena."

"I think we've been down this path before," she snapped.

I sighed. I grabbed her hand, intertwining our fingers, leading her to a wall of the arena. I then sat down, pulling her with me. She sat down, a faraway look in her eyes.

"My mom was really smart, you know?" She said quietly and numbly. "Like, she ALWAYS knew what to do, or at least, she was good at faking it." She put her thumb between her teeth. A habit of hers when she was lost in thought, drowning in that pretty head of hers. "I don't know how she did it. I'm clueless. But that's not exactly uncommon, for me. I've spent my entire life failing to imitate my parents."

"Why try to imitate them?"

She shrugged. "They seemed to have the right idea. Bravery. Loyalty. Intelligence. They knew what to fight for and they fought for it, to their death even. I've not a clue what I should be fighting for. I just know my parents would fight for Olympus."

I had no clue how to respond. Lena just leaned back and closed her eyes, letting the wind blow her hair back and the sun shine on her face. She remained still, an accomplishment for an ADHD demigod.

"I want out." She said eventually, keeping her eyes closed. "I don't to be here, I don't want to fight for the same people I'm fighting against. I want to be insignificantly normal. Someone not even worth glancing at. I want to be a nobody. But that's not going to happen."

I leaned back and stared straight forward. "You're right, it's not." I said, trying to keep my voice even.

"I don't know what to do," she confessed.

I knew what this discussion was costing her. Pride mostly. "I see two options," I told her. "You can fight for Olympus, or you can not."

"Is that an option?" She asked as she opened her eyes, rolling her head to look at me. Lena's eyes were slits, but that's how they got when she was thinking.

I shrugged. "Yeah. It always is. Your parents never chose to, or rather, chose not to, but as I said, you're not your parents."

Her eyebrows scrunched together as she turned her head to look straight forward. I saw gears turning. "What would we do?"

My heart skipped at her casual use of 'we'. I don't even think she noticed it, but it made me silently ecstatic. She wasn't pushing me out anymore, or at least, not as much. She seemed to have accepted, if not embraced, the fact that my presence was an inevitability. I'm not sure she was even aware of the transition.

"We would leave." I said, honestly thinking it through. "Go far, far away."

"They'd find us." She said plainly. "The gods, I mean."

"Not if we went where they can't reach us. A land beyond their power." She looked back at me, her eyes squinted as if she was trying to read my mind. "Alaska." I finished.

I swear I saw her lips turn up slightly as she rolled her head back and closed her eyes, basking in this moment of peace. "The land beyond the gods. How I never thought of going there...I don't know."

She paused. She looked amazing right now, no, that was an understatement. She looked calm and at peace. She looked happy and content, as if no bother had troubled her.I couldn't quite say she looked like any other girl, because that wasn't true.

She may wish to be insignificant, but she will never be. Even if she was mortal, I can't imagine Lena without this...aura about her. She demanded your attention and your respect. She had this posture and this way of thinking and talking that let you know some of what was on her mind, but she would never reveal all of it, which annoyed the heck out me.

Yet, she also made it clear she did not think of herself as above anyone. She thought of herself as the lowest of the low, yet strived to reach the top, but she would push no man down in order to do so. She wanted out of the fire without putting anyone in it. If anyone tried to help her she would move away, afraid they would be burned as well. She might not be the first to take someone else's heat, but she'll be damned if anyone takes her own heat.

"You know, people always talk shit about Alaska. It's isolated. It's deserted, mostly. It's cold. I actually kind of like the cold."

Oddly, I felt like that last statement was referring to more than just her taste in weather.

She opened her eyes. Determination had set in.

"After this is over, I'm going there. Alaska." The way she said it, she made it sound like a paradise.

For her, with it's lack of gods, it probably was.

She smiled dreamily. "The land beyond the gods." It grew. "What a beautiful phrase."

"You're honestly going to go?" I asked.

She turned on me, anger flaring in her eyes. "Yes, and I'm going with or without you."

For a moment, I feared she was serious, but then the resolve in her eyes cracked and faded. She was scared again. Scared I wouldn't go with her. Scared I would make her miss her paradise.

I smiled. "I've always like winter, you know?"

Her pleasure was visible, if she noticed, she didn't care. That had been happening more frequently, when it was just the two of us. Around me, she was beginning to not care about what she said or what she did. There were still some walls up, some guarded secrets, but the walls would fall soon and the secrets would be revealed. Hopefully, to only me.

"Alaska." Lena said dreamily, again, as she closed her eyes and leaned into me. "The land beyond the gods. A frozen paradise filled with isolation."

"And enough monsters that life won't get boring."

She snorted as she opened her eyes and playfully shoved me. "Yeah, we wouldn't want that, would we?"

"That is a ridiculous notion."

She turned on me, a sudden playfulness had emerged. Almost flirtation, but I don't think either of us knew enough to make that distinction.

"I don't know," she said. "Boring normalcy might be a welcome change."

I laughed a little and moved a little closer to Lena. "You and normalcy couldn't be alone in a room together for five minutes before you would try to strangle it."

Lena laughed her beautiful laugh. It was higher pitched than you'd imagine, but not so high that it was irritating. There isn't a sound I could compare it to. Church bells pale in comparison, if you ask me. "Okay, maybe that might be true." Lena admitted.

"If you had your shotgun, you wouldn't last three minutes."

She smiled slyly. "Are you saying I have a violence problem?" She asked sarcastically.

"I'm saying you have no problem with your violence, which is a problem for everyone else." I responded honestly.

She laughed again and I couldn't keep the smile at bay. Then there was a gun at my chest. "Were you talking about this shotgun?"

I looked her in the eyes, noticing that she had moved closer to hold the gun directly against me. "That very one." I said quietly.

Even she seemed to sense the change in mood. She stayed like that for a moment, her eyes squinting in thought again, calculating every outcome. Slowly, she moved closer. It was clear she felt awkward and unsure. She paused directly in front of me, so my eyes had to cross a little to see her. She looked at me, seeming to look for encouragement. I wasn't sure what I did, but it must have been enough for her, because she closed both her eyes and the gap.

My eyes closed as well as Lena's soft lips touched mine. She was cautious and unsure, but I didn't mind. This was new to me as well, I was just slightly quicker to embrace the fact that I'd just catch on eventually, or maybe never. I didn't really care either way.

Lena was sitting in front of me though, so she had to kind of lean in to reach me, which complicated things. In a moment of thoughtlessness, I pulled her closer, and she obliged, but what ended up happening was that one leg ended up on either side of me. In cruder terms, she was straddling me.

I felt Lena pause as she registered this. I didn't mind, so I kissed her, letting her know my opinion on the subject.

Lena seemed happy about that, at least, she pressed herself closer to me. I had to keep myself from moaning in pleasure as I, once again, realized how well her smaller body fit into mine.

In actuality, Lena wasn't that small, she was actually a little taller than average. But I was very tall, basketball player tall, and more broad, while she was lithe. Complete opposites in pretty much every definition, but, like our hair color, we had some similarities. Some were far less obvious than the hair color.

Lena moved the hand that had previously been gripping onto my shirt, and wrapped it around my neck, pulling herself up so that she could put her other hand in my shorter hair. I had one hand on the back of her neck and the other on the back of her head. Lena had to arch her back a little to be able to reach me with the force she desired.

Unfortunately, it was Lena who pulled away, even if it was only a few inches. We rested our heads together. My eyes were closed, but I don't know if hers were. She stayed sitting in my lap, and kept her legs on either side of me. Our breathing was heavy and synchronized.

I leaned in and kissed her softly. She didn't seem to mind. "So, Alaska?" I asked when I pulled away.

"If you're up for it." She said. There it was again. Her acceptance of my presence. If I was up for it, she would go. As in, if I wouldn't go, she might not either.

"I'm up for an adventure, especially after this is done."

We sat there for a while.

"I love you, Lena." I whispered, my eyes still closed.

A pause. "I know." She said, sounding pained. I knew she loved me, in ways she had told me. Ways I don't think she was aware of, but those walls were preventing her from consciously returning the sentiment in words.

I was saddened, not because I doubted that Lena loved me in return, but because I knew she wanted to say it and her own pain was keeping her from doing so.

Another pause. "Alexa will need help organizing a way west." She didn't move. "I should probably go help her." She still didn't move. A smile crept onto my face.

"You don't want to leave, do you?"

She sighed. "Camp? Yes, I would very much like to leave. Leave this...spot here with...with you?" I swear I could HEAR her blushing. "Not, uh, not so much." She stuttered quietly.

I smiled and kissed her again. "We'll have plenty of time for this in Alaska."

"You'll seriously go to Alaska with me?"

I opened my eyes and saw Lena's scrunched eyes, as if she didn't understand the idea of me following her. I began mindlessly playing with Lena's hair, curling it around my fingers. "Why is that idea so hard to grasp."

Her eyes opened a little, letting out some vulnerability. "People don't tend to stay around me very long."

"Now, is this because they don't want to, or you don't want them to?"

A little wider. "It's because they tend to die if they do."

My eyes shot from where I had been playing with her hair to her eyes, filled with pain and guilt. "And you blame yourself?"

She paused, taking deep breaths. "Yes," she admittedly almost silently.

"And you include your parents death in this?"

Another pause. Another quiet admission. "Yes."

I stroked her face and she leaned in, closing her eyes.

"Lena," I told her, "your parent's aren't dead because you're living. You're living because you're parent's died to protect you. There is a big difference. Do you understand?"

She opened her eyes a sliver.

"I think I'm beginning to."