AN: Well, well. Look what Mrs. O'Leary dragged in! Another chapter. As you can probably see from this chapter, the chronological gap is widening between each update- I never intended for this story to be some kind of bridge between TLO and TLH. Anyhow, I own nothing, not even the Argo I.

Camp Life, Chapter Four

Conspiracies/Acceptable Lovin'

As is his custom, Jesse wakes early- certainly earlier than Travis and Connor, sleeping in the bunks next to him; they won't be up till noon unless Annabeth marches in and tosses them out of the bunks-

Even as the though crosses his mind, Jesse winces and hugs himself a bit.

It's not fair.

He sighs and reaches for the little ipod Amanda got him for his birthday. It's a little square barely bigger than his thumb; apparently small enough that his demigod aura won't fuck it up to much. He slides the earbuds in and allows a little grin cross his face as Ella Fitzgerald's voice croons softly, calming, him as usual. He reminds himself yet again to make sure The Deadly Duo never discover how much he loves thirties jazz, or he'd never hear the end of it.

"Georgia on my mind . . . " He half murmurs, half sings to himself, then grins again. A child of Apollo he's not.

Before he leaves the cabin, he stops and looks back, then silently slips back to his bunk and grabs his blanket, then departs.

He finds her sitting on the edge of the pavilion, feet dangling, staring off to the west. Her hair is ratty and tangled and there are purpleish bags under her eyes. She's wearing a sweater, but Jesse still can't understand how she's not an icicle.

He pulls the blanket from around his shoulders and wraps it around hers. She looks up, but Jesse isn't sure those stormy grey eyes even register he's there.

But when he sits down awkwardly beside her, unsure what to do, or say, she says, "Thanks, Jes," in a rusty, ill-used voice.

And his heart warms a little.

"You're welcome," he murmurs back.

They sit for a moment in silence, then Jesse suddenly slips one of his earbuds into her ears. She starts for a second, then she listens, and her lips curve in a slight smile.

"Didn't take you for a Billie Holiday person," she whispers, and he shrugs.

Another moment of comfortable silence passes.

The sun rises all the way over the ridge, shining weakly and offering no warmth.

"I can't wait to go get him back," Jesse says suddenly, his hand slipping down to the hilt of his sword- Cutter, he reminds himself; Steven says special weapons should always have names- without thinking.

Annabeth looks at him in surprise, the smiles again.

"Yeah," she says. "Me too."

"Sup."

"Hey."

Rachel plops down next to Castor, looking tired and just sort of miserable.

He sighs.

"Look," he says, squeezing her shoulder, "I know it's sort of your job to make gloomy predictions and everything, but cheer up! We know what we have to do now. And he's not just gone for no reason, he's with these Roman dudes or whatever. I'm sure he's fine."

Castor feels that same fire in his gut that he did at the Council meeting yesterday, and in the lobby of the Empire State building seven months ago, when Percy and Will told him that Pollux was dead, and the satyr next to him- Brian, he remembers somehow- said the enemy was coming, and it was over.

Castor hated that feeling then, but he loves it now, and he knows that soon they will close with the enemy- whether these Romans, or probably the giants Jason and Piper and Leo mentioned. Either way, it's time for action.

Rachel shrugs. "Yeah, you're right, I suppose," she admits. "It's just- well, you get to go fight and make a difference and do heroic shit on that new kids flying freaking boat. I get to stay back here and twiddle my thumbs and wait to get possessed every now and then."

Castor winces. She sort of has a point.

"And to make it worse," she adds, anger in her tone, "this stupid no more boys thing- I just need some stress relief, Y' know? And painting with my eyes closed doesn't work anymore, and your crazy homicidal weapons guy wouldn't give me something to blow stuff up with- says I wasn't on the list, whatever the hell that means- anyways, I just want something to do! Like Will Solace, for example."

Castor stares at his Rice Krispies, panicking slightly. This is totally unfamiliar territory.

"Er," he ventures, "if, ah, well, you can't, um, do . . . stuff . . . with guys, um- perhaps you should try girls?"

Rachel stares at him, her spoon full of oatmeal halfway to her open mouth.

After a moment, she closes her mouth, puts the spoon down, and pats him on the cheek. "I don't think it really works like that, Cas," she says, sounding like she's trying desperately not to burst out laughing, "but thanks anyway." Chortling, she grabs her bowl and heads over to the Demeter table, kissing him on the cheek and muttering, "Boys," under her breath.

Castor sighs.

"Nice one," says his sister Lydia cheerfully, sitting next to him, munching on french toast.

"Thanks."

"She thinks it doesn't work like that?" says Phoebus Apollo, puzzled, looking down at Camp Half Blood. "Why wouldn't it work like that?"

Artemis rolls her eyes in disgust.

"So."

"So, Romans."

"That's what I heard."

"Sounds like bullshit," says Kara.

Jesse shakes his head. "No, it's true. I heard it from Annabeth herself this morning."

The Group is sitting in the center of a clearing in the Forest.

They had come together over the past six months under the harsh (if mostly fair) eyes of their mentors, Clarisse, Steven, and to a lesser extent Percy, Annabeth, Butch, Drew, and a few others.

Training every day (and that meant every day, even if you were injured or sick, Steven had an inhumane penchant for showing up in people's cabins with a cat o' nine tails and making them get up) had forged a tight bond, and now that Chiron considered them able to fend for themselves without oversight, they were patrolling the borders just as much as the members of the Forty.

Danny (short for Dannielle, which you referred to her as when you were tired of breathing), daughter of Ares, chewed a granola bar, a thoughtful look on her face. Her other hand was idly tracing patterns on the short spear she kept propped against her shoulder.

"I bet," she began, "this has something to do with why those new kids won't say anything about what happened on their quest the last week. And why the Senior Councilors are running around like chickens with their heads cut off."

Nyssa nods fervently. "Leo-my new brother, you know- he's got this-" she hesitates. Giving out cabin secrets wasn't strictly forbidden, but it was generally frowned upon (Jesse had found this out the hard way when he casually told Clovis from Hypnos cabin that Hermes cabin secretly had a tunnel system leading out into the forest, and a few other places. The next day an irate Travis and Connor attempted to string Jesse up the side of the cabin by his underwear, which would have succeeded if Katie Gardner hadn't threatened to murder them with a chainsaw if they actually put him up there). "Leo has . . . a warehouse. Like, in the forest. Sort of a war bunker, really. Filled with the most amazing stuff, it's great, you know, but . . . It's fucking weird. He's been here for like two days, total."

"And has anyone noticed that Jason fellow's arm?" says Vinnie, Amanda's half brother and Kara's twin, quietly.

Everyone looks at him curiously.

"He's got a tattoo. It says SPQR- Senate Populesque Romanus- the motto of the Ancient Roman Empire. That can't be a coincidence."

His words echo around the clearing. Everyone exchanges uncomfortable looks.

"So you're saying-" Amanda hesitates, "You're saying he is a Roman?"

Vinnie nods gravely.

The Group mull this over.

"We need a plan."

Everyone looks at Jesse.

"We need to find out what's going on, and what we can do to help Annabeth get Percy back."

The Group exchange glances, then finally Kara puts her hand in the center. Vinnie's is behind it by a second. Amanda and Danny follow, then Nyssa and finally a determined Jesse.

"Let's go kick some ass!"

Gardner Peck slips his wire-rimmed glasses off and polishes them absentmindedly, wishing he was somewhere else. Anywhere away from this evil harridan and her glaring companion.

"I'm not sure I understand," he says wearily. "You want what, exactly?"

Amanda frowns at him. "Don't give me that, Gard, you know exactly what I want. I don't need lip from Dionysus's secretary. Tell me about the kid you had in here. Grace."

The son of Asclepius riffles through some records on the desk in front of him, then looks up, an expression of faux helpfulness on his face. "Grace, Thalia?"

"What? No! Who in hell is that? I mean the guy Jason!"

"Oh, I see. There's no need to swear at me, you know. Or yell. Mr D. does that enough."

Gardner examines the files for several moments, humming occasionally. Amanda and Jesse glare some more.

Finally he looks up.

"I'm sorry!" he says brightly. "Those records are sealed."

He blinks. He could have sworn there wasn't a baseball bat with nasty-looking barbs sticking out of it a few inches from his face a second ago.

"Sealed by who?" Amanda hisses.

"Ah, I believe you mean 'whom'."

A curved sword appears in the general vicinity of his midsection.

"No," says Amanda, "I'm pretty sure I meant 'who'. So tell me. Now."

Gardner smirks and points to the name in red on the top of the file with Jason Grace's name on it.

His aggressors stare at it for a moment.

"Hera," says Amanda, sounding worried.

Gard's smile widens. "That's correct. Now don't you have sword swinging or some other knuckle-dragging activity to undertake?"

Amanda actually snarls at him as she removes her weapon and stalks out, her worried friend trailing her like a lost puppy.

"I can't believe him," growls Amanda as they hurry through the corridor of the third floor of the Big House (Where they aren't supposed to be. Jesse heard that the last person who went for a self-guided tour of the Big House was fed to Seymour the bodiless leopard). "Of all the insufferable twits-"

"Brooks."

They both turn in surprise.

Gardner Peck, stands in the doorway of his office, cleaning his glasses again, looking tired.

"If you want to help Percy Jackson, you need to talk to Valdez. He's the one this whole show is depending on."

He disappears back through the door.

"Gard!"

He sticks his head back out.

"Thanks."

Gardner nods grimly and shuts the door quietly.

Castor is running aimlessly around the track when Will Solace shows up.

Running has always helped him relax; or it did, when Pollux would see him running out here and join him wordlessly. He misses that. So it's kind of been a while since he did this, but he's pleased to note he can still run just as hard and fast as a few months ago. It's probably, he muses darkly, those forced marches with Steven Rust firing crossbow bolts at their feet every time he thinks they're slowing down, or whenever he's bored. But it's been almost an hour of him jogging around the arena by himself- he thinks Rust and his sidekick Drew Tilly, formerly the Head Bitch In Charge of Aphrodite Cabin, are leading the rookies on an expedition out into the woods- so it's quiet, which is weird for the arena, and so he's glad when Will comes up and keeps pace with him silently.

It looks like he's struggling to frame the words of something he wants to say, so Castor waits until after about five minutes when Will says, kind of timidly, "Dude . . . ?"

"What's up, man?"

"Uh . . . I've got a kind of, um, message. From my dad."

Castor slows, staring at his friend in disbelief.

"What, for me?"

"Yeah. It goes, um, well-"

They find Leo wandering aimlessly in the green around the cabins.

"Leo! Bro! We've been looking for you everywhere!" Nyssa calls, relieved. Jesse and Amanda run to catch up as she jogs up to him.

Leo looks up. "Hey guys," he says, sounding frustrated. "You know where I can find someone named Rust?"

Nyssa, Amanda and Jesse exchange glances.

"Er," says Jesse slowly, "Why exactly would you want to do that?"

Leo shrugged. "Everyone around here says he's the man to talk to if you want things that go boom."

"True," Nyssa says cautiously, "although generally it's you that goes boom-"

"He's not so bad," says Amanda fairly, "I think he's leading the rookie classes on the monster hunt . . ."

"Yeah, he likes you," Nyssa says bitterly. "You're his little warrior princess. I saw that thing he gave you for Christmas. What was that?"

"Oh . . . a double-action Colt Python revolver, chambered for the .357 Magnum. Modified for celestial bronze rounds," Amanda mutters. "No big deal."

Jesse rolls his eyes. "His penchant for destruction and mayhem aside, he is the one to talk to if you want things to explode. But listen- we want to talk to you."

Leo gives him a suspicious look. "Oh?"

The three members of the Group exchange looks.

"We want in."

Leo twitches. "In?" he says, his voice quavering with forced cheerfulness. "In on what? There's nothing to be in on. Nothing at all. Um, I hear they've got canoeing on that lovely lake over there," he adds pointing, "you could get in on that-"

The three look in the direction he's pointing, then Amanda reaches out and grabs Leo by the scruff of his neck as he attempts to slip away.

"Yeah," she says, "Nice try."

Castor climbs the last few steps to the Oracles mountainside cave, trembling as he does.

Why, he wonders, can't the Sun God deliver his own damn messages? (Thunder rumbles ominously in the distance) Why Castor? He should never have opened his mouth in the first place. Next time- if there is a next time, he thinks darkly, if Rachel doesn't kill him for this- he would remember.

The entrance to the Oracles' cave is perfectly circular, and instead of a door, there's a purple drape concealing the innards from on-lookers. Castor approaches the drape cautiously. It gives no sign of whether the rooms it hides are occupied or not.

"Um . . . Rachel?" he tries softly.

Nothing.

Quivering, he gently moves the drape aside and steps into a round, cheerful room with a small table, several couches, a plush-looking carpet, and a pretty chandelier hanging from the ceiling. But no Rachel.

As he takes a few more steps into the room, he hears on odd scuffling noise from down the hall.

"Rachel?" he asks with dread. Maybe it's monster attacking her, and he can save her, and she won't be so mad . . .

The sound stops for a second, the sound of something slamming echoes throughout the cave, and he can hear Rachel swearing at something- she pokes her head out of one of the doorways in the hall, her hair mussed.

"Castor? What are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

"Um, no, not exactly . . ." he answers, giving her rumpled clothes an odd look. It hadn't sounded like she'd been sleeping . . . Rachel shifts in the doorway, frowning at him, and he abruptly realizes there's someone else in the room with her- a pretty girl with blonde pigtails whom he is vaguely sure is named Lacy, a daughter of Aphrodite, sitting on Rachel's bed adjusting her dress, looking uncomfortable.

"Um, I'm sorry to, like, bother you guys, but . . . I kind of have a message . . ."

Why does Rachel have so many bruises on her neck?

Rachel stares. "A message? Spit it out, Cas. What's wrong?"

"It's-" he stops. Why are there lipstick marks on Lacy's thighs-

Oh. Oh, shit. Oh shit.

"I -Ah- I think you've already got it! Bye! I gotta go- uh- I gotta go polish my flip-flops!"

Castor runs like hell.

"Wow," says Amanda, turning in a circle. "This place ain't exactly the old tool shed out back."

"No," Leo agrees proudly. "It's kind of not."

He looks around. Jesse, Jason, Annabeth, Danny, Piper, Kara, Vinnie, Nyssa, Jake Mason, Amanda, and Gardner Peck watch him, waiting.

"Okay, guys. I know you want to go save this super-hero Aquaman guy, Percy, but we need to do it right. And that means building this," he sweeps a hand in the direction of the massive planning boards detailing the blueprints of the Argo II that Leo had finished last night. "Which will take time. And once we do that, we can get him back, grab any Romans who want to kick Giant ass, and skedaddle on over to Mount Olympus. The one in Greece. And save the world. Any questions?"

Annabeth raises her hand.

Leo points at her.

"When do we start?"

AN: And there you have it. Four chapters in two days. Aren't I amazing? Tell me who you like best- are my OC's believable? Do Annabeth and Leo and them sound right?