Haha, you guys are going to hate me. Although, really, you'd think you'd all be less eager to get to Athens, considering that means they'll be facing Gaea and the lines from the prophecy will come into play...anything could happen, you know. Just a warning.

So...more plot twists. But it's important, and I've been planning on doing this since the beginning, actually...so, deal with it. There's humor, and happiness, and cute fluff, and even if there isn't going to be a heck of a lot of action for a bit, at least in the Argo chapters, y'all will get everything else you love so much in writing. No complaints.

My compromise was going to be that I'd just write all of these chapters and then publish them all in one huge update, but we're not at 3000 reviews, and I don't have them all written yet...

Okay, so no doubt you're getting mad at me by now because you still have no clue what all is happening in this chapter. That's cool, that's cool. Totally understandable. So I'll wrap it up.

Thank you, reviewers-I really will never be able to say that enough. And I mean it, I really do. You guys are great.

Featherflower: My sister was diagnosed seven years ago, and she's thirteen now, so when she was six. She also has rheumatoid arthritis in her fingers and toes-I just think that's mean, considering how young she is. But she gets along with it pretty well...the arthritis, at least. Actually, she had to stay two nights in the hospital just this week-Monday, after I updated, I had to help my mom and sister get her to the hospital. She'd gone into DKA-and I'm not going to explain what that is, because it's complicated and takes forever. It was bad, though, and my mom was really upset and afraid she might lose her youngest daughter. She's okay, now, though-don't worry. She's home, and seems to be back to normal. She just needs to take better care of herself.

phoenixfyre14: You shouldn't have watched it. It's terrible. Even from people who aren't members of the fandom and haven't read the books-hey, there's this youtube video you should watch. The girl that made it is pretty popular among fangirls, but that's not the point-okay, it kind of is. Her youtube name is cassjaytuck, and the video I'm thinking of is called WE HATE THE SEA OF MONSTERS MOVIE. And, yes, it is in all caps. But it's funny, and you get to hear about how awful the movie is from a mortal's POV, so it's worth watching. I own both of the movies, actually, on Blu-ray, even, and watch them constantly...the last time I watched the second one, I actually threw a pillow at the TV...I don't know why I torture myself, but it's like I can't stop watching them...

Leona Valdez (guest): 17? That's flipping awesome. I wish I could get that many people together...it's funny though, seventeen is about the size of my entire classes.

tacos (guest): Message me during the night...geesh. Smart-aleck. :) Like me. No, PM stands for Private Message. And you do that, I'd love to know more.

Annabeth (guest): Writer's block is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It's a block that writer's get...meaning that they basically can't write anything because they don't know what to put next. It's an evil thing that I really don't like, and it's literally like someone dropped a brick wall in the middle of my writing. Very rude.

PiperAnnabeth (guest): Hey...you should read my other fanfic...it's called Twelve Ways to Die...*evil manic grin* And yes, you should bring tissues when you read it...as for this one, I can't tell you yet.

reynarara16: I've got plans for them, I promise...*wiggles eyebrows* You're gonna love 'em. Oh, and if you want, you can PM me-I'll gladly help you with your fanfic if you want me to.

And here we are...Enjoy!

Chapter LXXXIX

Jason

Things should be perfect when Jason wakes up-a gorgeous girl laying next to him, the sun shining through the window-but his first feelings when he wakes up are closer to dismay and embarassment.

Leo's standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, smirking at him.

"Leo!" Jason exclaims, jolting upright. "What are you doing?"

Leo raises his eyebrow. "You're one to talk, Jase. Looks like you had fun last night, huh?"

Blood rushes to Jason's face-he can feel his cheeks turning tomato red. "It wasn't like that!" He protests.

"Uh-huh." Leo says, rolling his eyes. "You keep telling yourself that."

Next to Jason, Piper opens her eyes to see what's going on and groans at the sight of Leo standing in the doorway. "Go away, Leo."

"Hardly a proper greeting for your best friend, Beauty Queen." Leo complains. "A 'good morning' would be better."

Piper sits up and glares at him, her kaleidoscope eyes flashing with irritation.

Jason sighs inwardly-she's so cute when she's mad.

"Leo, if you don't get out in ten seconds, I'm going to kill you." She threatens.

"As you wish, Your Majesty." Leo mocks, bowing to her theatrically.

Piper throws a pillow at him, and he quickly dodges, making his way out into the hall, laughing the entire time.

"Idiot." Piper insults him under her breath. "I'm going to kill him later."

Leo sticks his head back in the doorway. "I heard that. Oh, and by the way, there's a meeting in the mess hall in five minutes. I suggest you put on a shirt before you come, Superman-as much as Piper likes seeing you shirtless, I don't think everyone else feels the same way."

This time Jason throws the pillow, managing a direct hit to the back of Leo's head before he's out the door.

"He finds way too much entertainment in teasing us." Piper comments, staring after him.

Jason kicks the sheets back and stands up, hunting around until he finds a relatively clean shirt crumpled on the floor. He snatches it up and slips it over his head, turning back to Piper as he does so.

"Yeah, well, we're his best friends. And teasing is his way of showing friendship." He tells her.

"Yeah..." She says absentmindedly, staring off into space, slowly rubbing her arm as if cold.

Jason walks over, leaning down to her, and grabs her hand.

"Come on, Pipes." He says softly. "Time for breakfast."

He kisses her on the forehead and then straightens up again, leading her to the mess hall by her hand. She doesn't bother to change-they're both in pajama pants, although she's wearing a tank top and he's wearing a t-shirt.

As they get close to the mess hall, Leo sticks his head out of the doorway and grins when he spots them coming. "Hurry up, lingering lovebirds, you're the last ones here."

"You said the meeting was in five minutes." Piper points out. "It's only been two or three, at the most."

"Doesn't change the fact that you're the ones we're waiting on." Leo replies stubbornly before ducking back into the room.

Jason's scar prickles as he grins faintly, shaking his head at Leo's antics.

"We better hurry, Pipes." He tells her. "We don't want him to burn down the ship in excitement."

Piper laughs, and they're both smiling when they walk into the mess hall, where everyone else is already seated and waiting.

Percy grins broadly when he sees them, and leans back with his hands behind his head. "Nice of you to join us, lovebirds. Tell me, Superman, did you have fun last night?"

Jason feels his face turn red again, and Piper blushes too. Neither of them answer.

Percy shakes his head in mock disapproval. "What would Coach Hedge say, you two?"

"Uh-huh." Jason says doubtfully, finally finding his voice. "And where did you sleep last night, Percy?"

Percy's smile grows even wider, if that's possible, and he puts one arm around Annabeth's shoulders. "With my beautiful girlfriend, of course. Where else?"

"I think his point is that you can't really criticize him for doing the same thing you do every night, Percy." Annabeth explains without looking up from the table-she has a few papers in front of her that she's studying. Maps, maybe?

Jason takes his seat on the other side of the blonde girl and puts his own arm around Piper when she sits down next to him. "So, what's going on? What's the meeting about?"

"Well, Superman," Percy starts, "It has come to my attention that everyone is a little...tense."

Leo snorts. "You think?"

"Yeah, well, it's understandable." Annabeth comments, still not looking up from her papers. "We are on our way to defeat an all-powerful Primordial from destroying the world."

"Exactly." Percy agrees. "Which we can't really do if everyone's so on edge."

"Why not? If we're on edge, it makes it harder for us to be surprised." Jason argues.

"True." Percy concedes. "But that's not the only reason, anyway." He turns to his girlfriend. "Annabeth?"

She finally looks up from her papers, slowly setting them down. She takes a sip of her coffee and then looks around at everyone. "Last night, while we were waiting for the others to get back, I had a visit from a goddess."

"How?" Piper asks. "We were all right there with you on deck. We didn't notice anything strange."

"Actually..." Hazel starts, shifting uncomfortably. "I thought I felt something weird. A disturbance in the...fabric, I guess you could call it-in the Mist that makes up the atmosphere. But I figured I was imagining things, since everything looked perfectly normal."

Annabeth blinks in surprise at Hazel's admission, but doesn't otherwise acknowledge the abnormality of it. "Well, you weren't imagining it. I think Eris manipulated the Mist, very much like you do, so that she could talk to me, and me alone. I don't know why, exactly, but she didn't seem all that interested in the rest of you. No offense."

"Eris?" Jason asks, straightening. He knows that story-the golden apple, which led to the feud that eventually caused the Trojan War.
Annabeth nods. "Eris, the goddess of strife and discord. She's the one that indirectly caused the Trojan War-and, apparently, almost every war since, including the Civil War."

"How could she have started the Civil War?" Jason asks, confused. "I thought she would have been imprisoned for starting the Trojan War."

"She was exiled, actually." Annabeth corrects. "But you can't completely limit a god's power. That much is clear from past experiences-Kronos was still conscious when he was in a hundred pieces, and Hera could still send visions and dreams when she was trapped in that cage."

Jason nods thoughtfully. "I guess that makes some sense. What did she want? Did she say?"

"She was warning me, actually." Annabeth says, her eyes far away as she remembers it. "Apparently, the gods are going to let her test us-nothing life-threatening, but they want to know that we can work together and won't be broken up by petty feuds."

Jason's eyes involuntarily glance at Percy, but he quickly forces his gaze back to Annabeth-that feud is over with. Done. Percy is a good guy, and Jason knows that.

"Which brings us to the other reason for this meeting." Percy concludes. "We need to be able to relax, not only to relieve tension, but because otherwise it's going to be impossible to get to know each other better. And that's what we need to do-because as much as we've done together, we really don't know too much about each other."

Jason opens his mouth to protest that-but Percy's right. They really don't know much about each other-at least not so that they're all working as one team. They're not all close friends. He doesn't really know much about Frank and Hazel, and neither does Piper. And all that they know about Percy was heard from other people.

"So," Percy says, slapping his hands on the table, "Today, we are going to take a break."

"What do you mean?" Hazel asks. "We can't stop; we'll never make it to Athens in time."

"Actually, Leo has informed me that we're only a few hours away from Athens, if we go full speed." Percy replies. "We've been making good progress, and since we left Pylos last night and met up with Roseus, not a single monster has slowed us down. They haven't made it past Roseus.

"Annabeth and I were up early this morning," Percy continues. There's no reason to ask him why they were up early-everyone already knows. "And we talked about this for a while. We both think it's important to do this-everyone needs to relax. It's like the night before an audition, or an interview-if you're really tense and nervous, chances are you'll mess up majorly. You have to relax to be able to do your best."

"When did you get so philosophical, Percy?" Leo asks, grinning.

"I hang out with Annabeth too much." Percy replies, returning the grin. "She's rubbing off on me."

Jason barely hears them. He's too busy thinking. "We can't stay in one place for too long, though-it gives the monsters too much of a chance to catch up and attack."

Percy shakes his head. "Annabeth and I discussed that too. Roseus can keep a lot of the monsters away-and I think there's something I can do, too, so we shouldn't have to worry about any monster attacks interrupting us."

"I think we should try it." Frank says, speaking for the first time, his voice slow, deep, rational-like a reassuring giant. Although from Jason's experience, giants aren't all that reassuring. "We still have nine days until August first. And if Athens is only a few hours away, like Percy says, then we can take a day off. We need it-especially if we're going to be tested on how we work as a team sometime soon. That's a test I'd rather not fail."

Jason has to admit that Frank makes a good point. But no matter how he views it, it feels wrong to be taking a day off in the middle of a war. Like taking a vacation when the world is ending.

Percy seems to understand what he's feeling, though, and soon addresses it. "I know taking a day off in the middle of all this seems wrong." He starts. "But we need this. And it won't work if everyone is constantly thinking about how we should be doing something else, like battling monsters or hunting giants. There isn't really much we can do to stop Gaea until August first, and getting to Athens early just increases the amount of time we'll be vulnerable to the army of monsters that's no doubt waiting for us there."

Jason wrestles with his thoughts-the strict Roman side of him doesn't want anything to do with this.

We have to keep going. A voice in the back of his head tells him in a commanding tone. The voice sounds suspiciously like Vitellius the Lares.

If we don't get to know each other, if we don't learn to work as one coherent whole instead of individual parts, this whole quest could be for nothing. His own voice argues back. This needs to happen.

Finally, after some struggling, he wins the argument-which makes sense, since he was arguing with himself. Although it really did sound more like he was arguing with Vitellius, like the ghost was in his head somehow-which is definitely a scary thought.

"I'm in." He tells Percy. "I'd like to get to know everyone better. It seems like the only logical step after embarking on a dangerous quest to save the world together."

"Great." Percy says enthusiastically, grinning. "Hazel?"

Hazel's brow is furrowed and her lips are pursed-her look whenever she's thinking hard about something. "It makes sense." She finally replies, rather reluctantly. "I just feel like we should be getting to Athens as fast as we can, not stopping to get to know each other better."

Annabeth smiles gently. "I know, Hazel, but this is important. And even if we stop today, all day, we'll probably still get to Athens early. We have nine days to get there, after all."

Hazel nods. "I guess, since it's important. And you're right, there are a few people I don't really know very well." Her eyes flicker, almost imperceptibly, to where Jason and Piper are sitting.

"Okay, then. Frank's already agreed, and Annabeth and I obviously do, and Leo said it was a good idea when I talked to him earlier, so-Piper? What do you say?" Percy asks.

"If Jason agrees, so do I." Piper answers. Jason smiles down at her, and she returns it.

Percy sits back in his chair. "It's settled then. Today is our vacation."

"All right." Annabeth says briskly, leaning forward. "This morning is yours. Everyone can do whatever they want. Then, at noon, we'll all meet for lunch, and afterward, Percy and I were thinking everyone could meet and spar together-that way we all learn each other's techniques so that we can work together better in a fight. There'll be a bit of time before that, though, for everyone to have a little more free time-maybe an hour or so? Then, tonight, we're all going to have a sleepover in the infirmary, and we'll be able to talk and there are a few games that we can play, too." She stops and looks around, surveying the table. "Does that sound okay to everyone?"

"That sounds great." Piper replies, and Jason murmurs agreement, echoing the replies from most of the others.

"Good." Annabeth replies. "Let's go, then-breakfast first, and then everyone can go do their own thing."

For a few minutes, there's silence as everyone gets their food, and then different conversations start up here and there. Jason and Piper don't talk much-they both mostly focus on their food, with only a few comments in between bites.

But Jason doesn't mind. It gives him time to think.

What should we do? He asks himself. I want to do something with Piper, obviously; we haven't had hardly any time to ourselves since we first set out from Camp Half-Blood. And I want it to be special-something she'll remember for a long time. But what is there on the ship that we could do that's even a little romantic?

The most common romantic thing on the ship seems to be going up on deck and watching the stars-but they can't exactly do that during the day, and they've already done that together.

I want it to be like a date. Jason decides. She deserves it. And it needs to be peaceful-she hasn't really gotten much peace, and she hasn't been sleeping well, either.

An idea suddenly comes to him, and he smiles broadly, immediately filled with anticipation. It's perfect-peaceful, and sweet, and romantic. Like a date they could have went on at Camp Half-Blood.

He eats slow, waiting for the others to start leaving before hurrying to finish his breakfast. He wants to make sure no one else is going up on deck-because they need it to themselves if this is going to work.

Leo leaves first, heading back down to the engine room (no surprise there). Annabeth and Percy actually follow him-they must be planning to help him with one of his projects.

Hazel and Frank leave soon after, disappearing down the hall, most likely to Hazel's room. Or maybe they're going to the stables.

Either way, it leaves the deck clear, and that means Jason's plan is a go.

As soon as everyone's gone, he strides over to the supply closet and grabs a blanket from the top shelf. Then he walks back to Piper where she's waiting by the doorway and grabs her hand, leading her up the stairs.

"What's the blanket for?" She asks, gesturing to it.

Jason grins. "You'll see." He says mysteriously.

When they reach the deck, he lets go of her hand just for a second to spread out the blanket on the floor.

"Now that Percy and Annabeth decided to spend some time somewhere other than here, I figure it's our turn for the deck." He sits down on the blanket and gestures for her to do the same, smiling happily at her. He pauses to just look at her, drinking her in-she's so beautiful, and she doesn't even know. When he finally looks away, he looks up, pointing at the white clouds floating across the sky. "How do you feel about cloud-watching?"

She smiles. "Sounds about as peaceful as you can get."

"Just what I was going for, then." Jason replies. "A nice, peaceful, monster-free morning, with just the two of us."

Piper leans forward and kisses him, turning his brain to mush. "It's perfect, Jason." She tells him softly.

They lay back on the blanket and stare up at the sky. Piper nestles her head against his shoulder, and he strokes the bare skin of her arm.

He watches her as she points up at various fluffy white clouds, gesturing wiht her hands as she animatedly describes why they look like what she thinks they do. Jason listens, occasionally saying "Mmmhmm." or "Yeah, I see it too," even though he barely looks up at the clouds once. Instead, he studies Piper-the way the sun makes her tan skin glow, how her kaleidoscope eyes are constantly swirling with different colors. The feather in her hair tickles his cheek, and he twirls her braids through his fingers.

"Piper," he says suddenly, interrupting her in the middle of the description of a cloud kitten. She gives him a questioning look, and he continues, his voice slow and drowsy from the warmth of the sun. "I love you."

She smiles, and her eyes turn sky blue. "I love you too, Jason."

"I love you more." He argues, still playing with her hair.

She smacks him playfully on his chest. "Not in a million years, Superman."

"In a million and one, then." He replies, looking deep into her eyes.

"Not gonna happen." She murmurs, moving closer to him. Her eyes move to his lips.

He kisses her, slow and sweet.

"Whatever you say, Beauty Queen." He says when he pulls back.

"Mmmm." She answers, kissing him again. "What were we talking about, again?"

"No idea." Jason whispers. She smiles and leans in close for another kiss. Then she pulls away and snuggles against him again, closing her eyes.

Jason rests his cheek on top of her head and closes his own eyes. Before he knows it, the warm sun, the gentle hum of the ship, and the feeling of Piper's body against his own has lulled him into a sweet, contented sleep.

Ahhhh...young love. How romantic...

Hey, guys, I think I've figured out why Rick loves torturing us...And this is going to make me sound maybe even eviler than him, so you can call me a troll or whatever else you want, but...I think I know the reason.

I love these characters, I really, really do, but writing about them like this has given me a whole new perspective...and every time I think about the power I wield because of my writing, there's this huge rush, like evil laugh, eyebrow-wiggle, slightly hysterical happy rush. And it makes me want to do the whole rub-hands-together-evilly thing whenever I think of how I could easily kill any of these characters off and you guys would totally flip out and be in revolt and I could just sit back in my rolly computer chair and smile...

So, yeah. I think I figured out why Rick likes torturing us so much.

Any-hoo-I love you, enjoy the happy fluff while you can (because it's all about to change), eat big bags of blue candy, and try your best to appeal to my better nature, because I HAVE THE POWER *evil witch's laugh echoes in the distance* !