Hey, gang :) So this chapter right here was the reason for my mini-break. I hated the way it was originally going, so I had to scrap it and re-write it, then I didn't like that either so I just planned the whole thing extensively in my head and re-did this section of my outline. Then I was finally able to come up with this version, which I like much better than its predecessors. It accomplishes what I wanted it to accomplish and sheds just the right light on all the involved characters. I'm much happier now, and glad I took the time to work it out.

Anyway, thanks as always for reading and extra to those of you who reviewed! Enjoy this slightly longer and more dramatic update!

XVII
PIPER

When Larry said things were getting ugly, he wasn't kidding.

Piper heard Jason and Octavian before she saw them. She couldn't make out what they were saying, but both their voices were clearly audible before she, Larry, and Gwen turned a corner and they came into sight, standing a few yards apart just a little ways north of the Big House with a small group of mostly-Roman onlookers watching warily. Octavian was staring coldly at Jason, his lip curled in a harsh sneer. He held a knife in one hand and a slashed stuffed hippopotamus in the other, white fluff piled on the ground at his feet. His body was deathly, threateningly still. Jason was staring back just as adamantly, his hands balled into fists and shaking at his sides like he was resisting the urge to start throwing punches.

"You dare insult the auguries?" Octavian was saying, his voice dangerously low. "I came to you as an act of respect. I could have spread the word and called for action myself. And perhaps I should have, if you insist on being so stubbornly—"

"Respect?" Jason shot back with a slightly hysterical laugh. "Yeah, right! The only one you respect is yourself. You're not fooling me, you know. You think this'll make you look good, that's all it is. What, you want to try to discredit me in the process? I bet that's why you came to me. And that's why I said to forget it! We're not putting more lives in danger to suit your selfish—"

"So what do you intend to do instead, nothing? Sit here and twiddle your thumbs until Erebos comes to finish us off? That's a fantastic plan, o wise leader." Octavian rolled his eyes with exaggerated sarcasm. "And while you're busy being a disgrace to the name of Camp Jupiter, I'll just follow along and refrain from voicing ideas that might be good for us!" He raised his hippo above his head and shook it meaningfully in the air, dropping bits of fluff from the gash in its belly. "We may not get another chance like this! How can you stand there and say we shouldn't take it?"

As Jason opened his mouth to retort, Piper took a step forward and cut him off. "What is going on here?" she demanded firmly, staring hard at each of the boys in turn. They blinked and glanced her way, compelled by the power in her voice.

Jason met Piper's eyes for a brief second before averting his gaze, looking frustrated, so Octavian answered stiffly, "This is a matter for Jason and I to decide. It doesn't concern you. Clear off."

Jason's eyes seemed to flash. "Don't talk to her like that. In case you haven't noticed, you're kind of making a scene. She's just trying to help."

"I'm making—" Octavian repeated angrily, before forcing his mouth closed and straightening with a hard glare at Jason. "There wouldn't be a 'scene' if you just listened to reason. Are you a Roman or aren't you? I expected you to jump at this chance to make up for your mistakes. If it was known that you authorized the assault that brought an end to this war, then certainly—"

"This has nothing to do with me!" Jason argued, shaking his head and taking a step toward Octavian. "I told you, I'm not putting people in danger because you want a chance at glory—"

"You aren't listening!" Octavian asserted, fists tightening around the objects in his hands. He too stepped forward and shook the hippo in Jason's face, sending stuffing flying in all directions so that Jason blinked and leaned backward. "I saw it!"

"In what? Stuffing?" Jason's eyes were wide, almost crazy. It scared Piper to see him that way as he grabbed the stuffed hippo from Octavian's hand and threw it on the ground. "Do you realize how ridiculous you look? I bet you just made the whole thing up to suit whatever ridiculous plot you've got to take over the Legion!"

Looking offended, Octavian lowered his arm and said darkly, "These Greeks have poisoned you against the Roman ways. The old Jason Grace would never have let so many of his own people die when New Rome was taken. But because of your weakness, we suffered a loss greater than ever before. And now the time comes to make up for it, and instead you choose to sulk around and ignore your duty as praetor! You are no longer fit to be leader!"

Jason yelled in anger and reached out to shove Octavian, but Piper could see the thin, bright bolts of electricity sparking to life down his arms as he moved. She stepped forward and called, "Wait!" but she was too slow. Jason slammed his hands against Octavian's shoulders and a loud crack split the air as the augur was thrown backward, landing thirty feet away and rolling another ten across the ground.

Piper threw her hands over her mouth as many voices around her gasped in shock. Jason seemed to freeze like he'd been encased in ice, his eyes wide and suddenly devoid of fury. Smoke rising from his clothes, Octavian pushed himself up on his hands and grimaced. With difficulty, he climbed to his feet, and as he stumbled unsteadily Piper saw a pair of charred holes in his T-shirt.

For a long minute, no one spoke. Piper didn't know what to say. She could tell by the look on Jason's face that the attack had been an accident. His mouth was moving silently as though he wanted to speak but couldn't make the words come out. Should she yell at him? Should she take his side? Was there even a right side to take?

"You said… you would protect… Camp Jupiter," Octavian said in a low, breathless voice. His hands, no longer gripping his knife and hippo, were shaking at his sides. He looked nauseous, like any second he would either pass out or throw up. His eyes rose to meet Jason's, and Piper felt a jolt of surprise when she saw genuine betrayal on the centurion's face. "But look at you now."

Jason seemed to tense, his mouth once again opening soundlessly and his eyebrows knitting tightly together. Octavian shook his head and took two steps backward, then yelled sharply and staggered to one knee. This time, two people—Larry and a Roman girl Piper didn't recognize, possibly the other First Cohort centurion—rushed to his side, carefully gripping his arms and pulling him back to his feet. Larry shot Jason a stunned sort of look, like he still couldn't believe what had just happened, before he and the girl led Octavian away toward the infirmary. Jason watched them go, a lost sort of look on his face.

"Jason," Piper said, doing her best to keep her voice firm and calm. She clenched her hands into fists to keep them from shaking and tried to ignore the uncomfortable murmurs and glances around her. "Please, listen to—"

She broke off as he spun around and she found herself staring at his back. For a few seconds he stood there silently, and then he hunched his shoulders and he walked away.

Piper watched him go, part of her wanting to go after him. But the scene she'd just witnessed made her uneasy, and proved even more that Jason was slipping farther and farther from her understanding. She remembered Leo's message, his advice that she should try and get through to Jason. But the fact of the matter was that she had no idea how to do that. And going in blindly would probably only make things worse.

So she turned away, averting her eyes from his back and letting him slip from her mind. It was cowardly, but she wasn't able to face him. Not now. Instead, her gaze slid up toward the infirmary, where Octavian was headed. She knew there was no hope of Jason's hearing her right now, but perhaps there was someone else who still could. So with that in mind, she pushed her way through the small crowd of whisperers and stalked purposefully toward the medical tent.

All of the minor injuries from the battle the previous night had been treated, leaving only those who needed more long-term attention in the infirmary. Activity was relatively low, so Piper was able to spot Octavian almost immediately—he had removed his burned T-shirt and was leaning back against the pillow of the third bed on the right, wincing as a Roman healer spread a strangely luminous, silvery salve over the ugly burns on his shoulders.

Piper lingered by the doorway while she waited for the healer to finish. Her eyes traveled around the room, passing over the occupied beds and their visitors. She hadn't been out in the battle, but judging by the aftermath, it hadn't been pretty. A number of people had been poisoned by a mess of creatures called basilisks, and though Will Solace and his cabin-mates had been able to develop an antidote, it wasn't exactly fast-acting, as many of those afflicted were still moaning in their infirmary beds while their skin faded from sickly gray back to its normal hue. Aside from those poisoned, serious injuries were mercifully few, leaving only three new people bedridden. A girl Piper didn't know by name but who she thought might have been from the Dionysus cabin was occupying the second to last bed on the left, surrounded by a small gaggle of friends while she recovered from a nasty head injury. A teenage boy a few years older than Piper whom she recognized as Larry's fellow Second Cohort centurion (and whose name she was pretty sure was Pete) was lying across and two beds up from the Dionysus girl, his right leg having been so badly crushed beneath an overturned car that word was he wouldn't ever walk on it again. The third bed on the left—across the tent from Octavian—held one of the head counselors of the Hermes cabin, Travis Stoll, who was in a sort of coma after a vicious attack from a chimera. He had yet to wake since being brought in the previous night, and some of the healers evidently weren't sure yet whether or not he ever would. The Demeter head counselor, Katie, was seated by Travis's bedside, her hands gripping one of his like a lifeline and her face ghostly pale. Piper felt a lump form in her throat as an image rose unbidden behind her eyes, of her and Jason in place of Katie and Travis. What would she do if one or both of them was hurt before they were able to make up?

Noticing Larry and the First Cohort girl duck out of the tent, Piper forcibly returned her attention to Octavian to see him alone at his bed, poking at the substance covering his chest and shoulders. With a short breath of conviction, she started toward him, trying to clear her face of any emotion. If she wanted to get to the bottom of what had happened and why, she couldn't start by antagonizing the augur, no matter how unpleasant she found him. She wasn't sure how successful she could be—after all, she and Octavian had never really talked one-on-one before. But she was there, and she had to try something. This fighting was doing no good for anyone.

When Octavian's eyes swept across her, he frowned momentarily before giving a rueful snort. "I hope Jason sent you to apologize for his behavior," he said.

Piper felt a swell of irritation but did her best to ignore it. He had a right, after all, to be a bit put-off, considering what Jason had just done (though she rather thought his bringing up the sinking of New Rome was a bit of a low blow). Up close, she could see the darkened burns on his skin beneath the gel-like cream, deepest near his collarbone and spreading like ugly, burgundy tendrils over his shoulders and down his chest. It wasn't pretty.

"No, but you're right," she replied. "He does need to apologize. He shouldn't have attacked you like that." Octavian lifted his shoulder and shot a look of agreement at the foot of the bed. When he didn't respond, she went on, "I just want to know what happened, why you and he were arguing. What did you see in the… you know, stuffing?"

His eyes narrowed, as though he wasn't sure whether she was serious or making fun of him. "An opportunity," he said shortly, still staring straight ahead and not looking at her. "Fortune is in our favor tonight. It would be cowardly not to take that chance."

"So… you wanted to lead an assault on Olympus?" Piper guessed with a frown, leaning back against the bed beside Octavian's and folding her arms. "What are you, crazy?"

"I'm Roman," he snapped. "I wouldn't expect you to understand. The military organization of Greek culture and tradition is far outstripped by their Roman successors. All this sitting around, 'gathering our strength'… It's driving me mad. I could have pulled this off. I know it."

Was it Piper's imagination, or had a tiny fraction of his angry certainty ebbed at the end of that explanation? "So you were willing to risk your life and the lives of others just to prove a point?" she said carefully, keeping her voice free of accusation and instead lacing it with concerned disbelief. "I know this war is rough, okay? I want it to end just as much as you do. But for that to happen, we have to work together. There's no Roman or Greek anymore, not now. We're one camp with one army—"

"That's the point!" Octavian interrupted, turning to glare at Piper. "We are one army—your army. At your camp. Following your rules. Everything I believe is disappearing!" She knew that by 'you' he was referring not to her specifically, but to the Greek demigods in general. Still, she blinked in mild alarm and searched his eyes to see if he was telling the truth—which, to her slight surprise, she concluded that he was. He seemed to realize what she was doing and his eyebrows drew together as he averted his gaze again, swallowing hard and staring at the tent wall opposite his bed. "Forget it," he said with finality. "Why don't you go convince our dear praetor to stop moping and start being useful? If he won't listen to me, then maybe, gods be good, he'll listen to you."

After a brief moment of indecision, Piper breathed out slowly, throwing magic into her voice, and said firmly, "I want you to listen to me. Please. You can't lie about everything all the time. Sometimes you need to let people see the truth. Why not start with me? Tell me what's really on your mind."

He blinked hazily and was quiet for a long minute. Piper wasn't sure if her charmspeak had worked properly at first, but then he tilted his head to the side and repeated, "I'm Roman." His eyebrows knitted like he wasn't sure why he was saying what he was, and the next time he opened his mouth no words came out.

"Yes…?" Piper prodded, worried that that was all she was going to get.

"I've always been Roman," he went on, his expression still vaguely confused. "Our rules, our customs, our organization, our fighting style—it's all I've ever known. And it's all I know now. But when we lost our city and so many of our members, it was… It's like we've lost what we are." He twisted his head slowly around so he was looking at something near Piper's left shoulder. "She beat us—that goddess, Nyx. She destroyed our order, our security. She left us to rely on you and the other Greeks—to subjugate ourselves to your way of life."

"No," Piper argued with a frown. "No, we aren't trying to turn you Greek or anything like that. We want you to stay the way you are, just to work together with us."

Unexpectedly, Octavian replied, "I know. You aren't our enemies, and it's not your fault. We really should be working together. But don't you get it? Staying here is affecting us—making it hard, if not impossible to carry on the way we were before New Rome sank into the sand. It's like you said—we're one army. And one army can't have two entirely different lifestyles. This camp is your home, not ours. In trying to assimilate, we're losing everything that made us different in the first place."

And then Piper understood. It wasn't as though the members of Camp Half-Blood were trying to undermine the Roman way of life—they'd given their new residents whatever space they could and more than the necessary freedom to go about their usual way. But that didn't mean it would be that easy. The Romans had lost so many of their own, and then been thrust into a place so different from their own home that they must have had no choice but to abandon many of their customs in an effort to join forces. It hadn't been easy, creating room for and welcoming the Romans, but Piper had never put enough thought into how much harder it had to be for them. 'Everything I believe is disappearing.' Octavian didn't hate the Greeks and didn't want to avoid collaboration—he only wanted to avoid losing himself and his own camp in the process.

"You didn't really see anything about good fortune tonight, did you?" she said with a twinge of understanding.

He shook his head. "No. Like I said, just sitting here is driving me mad. I wanted to do something…"

As his voice trailed off, Piper finished his sentence, "Roman," and he sighed in admission. She bit her lip, mind racing with possible responses. She thought of her talk with Gwen a while ago, how she'd somehow been able to see into the older girl's heart and know exactly what she needed to hear. With a quick prayer that this time she'd be able to pull it off again, she unfolded her arms and said, "Then do something Roman. Reyna appointed you to take her place while she's gone, didn't she? So do it. Be the leader that your camp needs right now. I know Jason still has it in him to do what needs to be done, but at the moment he can't handle so much responsibility on his own. He needs you. And the Legion needs you both."

"So, what," he said dryly, "we keep stumbling around the camp and wait for the gods to save us?"

"For now," Piper admitted. "But eventually, the time will come when we'll have to fight. And when it does, your camp will need you. So you'd better start earning their trust now while you can, and making sure they're ready before it's too late."

Piper could tell the effect of her charmspeak was wearing off. Octavian no longer looked vague or confused, and was now looking at her with an unreadable expression. His blue eyes seemed to study her face as though trying to decide if this was some kind of trick. But it wasn't—not really, and she trusted her expression to prove it. She genuinely wanted for him and Jason to be able to work together, to lead and protect what was left of Camp Jupiter. Now more than ever, they all needed to stand strong and together, or there would be no end to the Shadow War. Or at least—not one that Piper liked to imagine.

Before Octavian could respond, the Roman healer who'd spread the salve over his burns came hurrying toward them saying, "No visitors! I sent those other two away so you could rest! You've got to lie still for a few hours before I can bandage you up, otherwise the gel won't work!"

With one last look at Octavian, who had leaned back against his pillows and was staring straight ahead with a look somewhere between thoughtful and disgruntled, Piper allowed herself to be ushered away from his bed toward the entrance to the tent and back out into the darkness beyond.

It was kind of fun to imagine what was going on inside Octavian's head. He's kind of a bad guy in the book series, so I really wanted to redeem him somehow and get him to change a bit. We've got enough bad guys here, in my opinion, haha.

So how about a review for the holiday weekend? I just finished Chapter 24 yesterday (which is probably my favorite chapter so far this book, though 21's a contender) and started 25, so next update will definitely be on Tuesday. I like the next chapter, too - get to focus a bit on the Aphrodite kids' views and abilities. It was fun to write.

Thanks, everybody! Happy Easter, if you celebrate, and later days!

-oMM