I'm getting this out in a semi-reasonable amount of time! Aren't you proud of me? ;) Thanks a bunch to all of you who are still reading and reviewing and favoriting and following and caring about this story!

Oh, and to the Guest who asked about War and Memories, I promise I didn't abandon that story! I actually updated that recently, so go check that out! (Everyone else, if you love Reyna, you can check out War and Memories too. :)

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO/HoO. That honor belongs to Rick Riordan.

Part XV

Within a few minutes, everyone had gathered on deck alongside Annabeth and Percy, curiosity temporarily overriding their anxiety over Leo.

"You're finally going to tell us where you went for nearly a day?" Jason asked, raising his eyebrows. "It's about time."

Percy grinned. "Trust me. It's worth the wait."

Annabeth frowned. "Speaking of that, why did you wait? If you found something important, why didn't you tell us as soon as you got back?"

Percy hesitated, and Annabeth saw a flash of something like pain appear behind his eyes. Then, just as quickly, it was gone . . . But Annabeth knew her boyfriend too well to wonder if she had imagined it. Percy wasn't telling her everything.

Now wasn't the time to push him to spill, though, so she just listened as he said, "You were in the middle of talking to Reyna when I got here. I didn't want to interrupt that. Then you guys were obviously anxious to get to work on the ship, so I figured I should just keep my mouth shut."

"Come on," Jason said, "that's a lame excuse."

"Well, it's the only one you're going to get, so stop asking," Percy said sharply. Then, when everyone looked at him in shock, he immediately flashed a smile so wide and white that the others (besides Annabeth, of course) seemed to believe it. "I mean really, guys. There's nothing else to tell. Now do you want to interrogate me, or do you want to find out where I've been?"

Nico raised his eyebrows. "What do you think?"

"All right then. I'll be back in a minute."

Before anyone could protest, Percy hopped over the side of the boat and was gone.

True to his word, Percy returned in less than sixty seconds . . . with something bronze clutched in his hand.

Annabeth frowned. "Percy, what's all that?"

"Some of what I found," Percy said, grinning sincerely this time. He turned to Frank and Hazel. "We thought there was a huge stash of gold in Alaska . . . but that was loose change compared to what's sitting at the bottom of the ocean about a mile away."

When the two empousae and the dracaena came to find Leo, his imagination had run so wild that he didn't think about the fact that no monsters as normal as empousae lived in the Mansion of Night. Therefore, it was a perfectly natural reaction to jump up and back away slowly, scrabbling against the ground for some rock to use as a weapon.

"What are you doing?" the first empousa demanded.

"G-get away," he stammered, pointing at them with the small stone he'd found. "J-just l-l-leave me al-l-lone."

"He'sss completely losssst hisssss mind," the dracaena hissed in astonishment.

"Exactly like our mistress had hoped," one empousa said in satisfaction. "He'll probably do anything to get out of here now."

"Unless he's too crazy to know what getting out of here even means," the other whispered gloomily.

The first empousa glared at her and stepped forward. In correlation, Leo took a step back. His dark eyes were sprawling, with a cracked light she recognized from some victims in the Fields of Punishment. "Calm yourself, godspawn," she said. "Gaea sent us to retrieve you."

"But you're a monster."

She rolled her eyes. "Just like the rest of my mistress's army. Are you so far gone you can't even remember that much?"

"W-what . . ." Leo closed his eyes, gulped, and made a visible effort to grasp onto sanity before opening his eyes again. They still looked pretty wild, though. "Why is she getting me? I thought she wanted to torture me until I gave up my friends."

The empousa raised her eyebrows. "Well? Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Going to give up your friends."

"Of course not!" Leo frowned, that disturbing look still etched onto his face. "What could I even tell her that she doesn't already know?"

"Oh, sssso much, godssssspawn," the dracaena drawled. "Your friendssss' fatal flawssss, the weaknessessss in the machinessss you've built, the planssss you and the ressst of the ssseven made for Greece, the plansss you made with Reyna Concessssi, any predictionsss you might have about their future actionssss . . ."

"That's crazier than I am," Leo protested. "We didn't plan far enough ahead to think about Greece before I left, my plans with Reyna only went as far as getting her out of here, demigods are all too unpredictable for me to guess what they're up to now, there's no way in Hades—or below it—that I'd tell you my friends' fatal flaws (assuming that I know them), and"—he flashed a grin that was only half-sane—"the machines I build don't have weaknesses."

"Alwaysssss cracking jokesssss, even when it'd be wisssser to be sssseriousssssssss."

"No one ever said I was wise, snake-lady."

"Should we still get him out?" the second empousa mumbled to the first. "His spirit doesn't seem particularly broken."

"It's a facade," the first one responded, just as quietly. "See the way his eyes are darting from side to side? He's terrified."

"Are you both stunned by my breathtaking looks?" Leo asked loudly. "Arguing over who most deserves me? Because I can save you both a lot of trouble. I'm not interested in monster girls with donkey legs."

"You are an imbecccccccile," the dracaena said, "and your quipsssssss are not fooling usssssssss. Will you help Gaea, or not?"

"Why is that even still in question? No matter what you, or Gaea, or this mansion, or anyone does to me, I'm not going to do a thing that could put my friends in jeopardy."

"Very well," the first empousa said, offering up a smile that bared her fangs. "Then I guess we'll just have to let you enjoy the mansion's amenities a bit longer."

Leo's heart rate spiked before he could help himself. He took in a sharp breath, and then another and another, until he was breathing so rapidly he couldn't tell if he was inhaling or exhaling. His pupils dilated even more than they already were in the near-darkness, and he unconsciously gripped his rock so hard it broke the skin. "D-don't leave me down here," he gasped, hating himself for letting the plea escape.

"See?" the first empousa said. "He's not as unaffected as he'd like us to believe. No one can see the Mansion of Night and walk away the same."

"That's . . . that's what you think," Leo muttered between breaths. "I'm . . . fine."

"You're having a panic attack," she said with satisfaction, "just because I suggested leaving you down here. You're not fine."

"Doesn't . . . doesn't matter. I . . . I'm not b-betraying . . . my . . . f-friends."

"Maybe not today," she announced, "but you're inching closer with every minute you spend here in Tartarus. And Gaea has many more methods of torture to test out on you." She turned to the others. "Let's take him out of here. This place is creepy."

At the news, Leo's breathing started to calm. If he could get out of here, surely nothing Gaea thought of next could be more awful . . . But then Leo remembered the River Cocytus. He had thought that was as bad as it got . . . and then he'd ended up here, in a place with things worse than his nightmares and a river that called him a murderer (and that may or may not actually exist). And just like that, Leo started hyperventilating all over again.

"A store of weapons bigger than the one in Alaska?" Frank asked incredulously. "How does something like that even exist?"

Percy shrugged. "These are the Ancient Lands," he said. "There's all sorts of craziness around here. As far as I can tell, an ancient Greek ship sank and left behind a bunch of stuff. And it's not all weapons, either," he added. "I found armor, tools, raw materials . . . It must have been a trade ship bringing supplies to Greek demigods because most of the objects are Celestial bronze." He smiled. "You were worried about finding enough metal to repair the ship, right, Annabeth? Well, I think I solved your problem."

Annabeth shook her head in amazement. "It will certainly help, Percy. But there's something I still don't understand. How did finding this ship take you fifteen hours?"

His eyes widened momentarily, and then Percy quickly shrugged again to hide his anxiety. Annabeth frowned. "Well, you know, at first I didn't know what I was looking at when I saw the mast of the ship," Percy began hurriedly. "I had to get rid of a layer of sand before the rest of it was exposed. Then, of course, I had to explore it before I could come back and tell you what I'd found. I didn't want to waste everyone's time on a wild goose chase."

"I still don't think that would take fifteen hou—"

Percy shot her a look that clearly said, Ask me later, and Annabeth shut her mouth. As long as he planned on giving her an explanation at some point, she didn't need to question him in front of everyone else. "Trust me, Wise Girl," he said. "It took fifteen hours. But it paid off, right?"

"I suppose."

"Percy, how are you going to get all that gold and bronze out of the sea?" Hazel asked. Percy looked grateful for the subject change

"The same way we did in Alaska," he grinned.

"After Alaska, you complained about my 'fishy breath' for the whole ride back to camp!" Frank protested.

"I know!" Percy replied. "And now I can do it all over again. We're going to have a blast."

Frank sighed, but couldn't completely hide his smile. Percy tended to have that effect on people.

"So, Annabeth, will you tell Nyssa about my discovery before they leave with a truckload of unnecessary supplies?" Percy asked.

"Of course," she said. "Now you better get started if you guys want to make any progress before dark." They went to the railing, but Annabeth grabbed Percy's arm before he could jump off the side. "After you do get back," she murmured, "you are going to tell me about what really happened, aren't you?"

"Obviously," he said with a quick grin. "It's not like I could hide anything from you, Wise Girl."

Satisfied, Annabeth let him go, and Percy climbed off the side of the warship for the third time in a day. Then Annabeth turned and went to go Iris-message Nyssa. She figured it was about time the daughter of Hephaestus heard some good news after the night and morning she'd had.

"It's great that Percy found that ship, isn't it?" Nyssa told Reyna as they ate lunch while pouring over their plan of action. "It'd be pretty hard to scrounge up all the necessary materials without it. Gods know it was hard enough to build the Argo II the first time."

"Maybe the ship is Nemesis's way of balancing out all the Styx luck we've had recently," Reyna said bitterly. "Gods know we deserve that and more."

"Gods know we aren't going to get anything else."

"Gods know they probably expect us to be grateful."

"Gods know I'm not in a very grateful mood."

"Gods know that if they don't shape up soon, I may have to take my gratitude and smack them across their faces with it. That might bring them to their senses."

Nyssa raised her eyebrows. "Reyna Concessi showing disrespect to the gods?"

She shrugged. "What can I say? I'm not in a very Roman mood today."

"The perfect praetor is rebelling against her strict upbringing?"

"The perfect praetor is using thoughts of violence to try to feel less like Styx," Reyna muttered. "And it's not working."

"Reyna, it's not your faul—"

"I know that!" she snapped. "That doesn't stop me from feeling like Styx, though! Leo is in Tartarus! How can you be so freaking calm about that?"

Nyssa hesitated, and then sighed. "I'm calm about Leo because I'm worried as Hades about something else," she admitted. "Reyna, there are going to be four hundred demigods on that plane. What if—what if I do screw up, and we crash in the ocean, and—?"

"Oh my gods," Reyna said. "You're the one part of the plan that I'm not worried about. You have the knowledge and skill to be a pilot, and you said yourself that Leo once did something similar."

"Yeah," Nyssa frowned, "but he's a fire-user and one of the seven and—"

"Your younger brother," Reyna interrupted, "with far less experience being a demigod than you have. If he can do it, so can you."

"Thanks, Reyna," Nyssa said after a long pause. "I think I needed to hear that."

"No problem," Reyna said. "I'm a praetor. Encouragement is in the job description."

She turned back to the plans, trying to focus, but her thoughts insisted on spinning in a pointless circle revolving around her worry over Leo. He was being tortured because he was too good to betray his friends. Reyna wished that she could offer him some encouragement. He needed it more than anyone.

Percy, Frank, and Hazel ended up returning about half an hour after dark, just before Annabeth would have started worrying, but even so, they'd only recovered half of the supplies down there. Between shifting their cargo from the makeshift raft they'd pulled together hastily and listening to Frank describe the ship with wide eyes (making it sound almost like a treasure trove), they didn't get around to dinner until about nine. Afterward, Annabeth practically dragged Percy out of the dining hall and into her room, and then shut her door. At this point, she didn't care if there was a repeat of the stables incident. She just needed to get to the bottom of this mess with her boyfriend.

"So what happened?" she demanded, not bothering to lead into the subject. "What in Hades took you so long to come back after Frank and you went looking for supplies?"

Percy looked at her in confusion. "Supplies?"

Annabeth frowned. "That's what Piper said you went off to do . . ."

"Oh." Percy sighed and dropped into Annabeth's desk chair. "You might want to sit down too, Annabeth. It's a long explanation."

She frowned deeper but did as he asked.

"Okay," he started. "Okay. The first thing you need to know is that I didn't go off to look for supplies. I jumped into the ocean because I lost my temper and didn't want to be around everyone."

"Lost your temper?" Annabeth repeated. "What do you mean? Did someone—"

"No, I wasn't mad at anyone on the ship," he said quickly. "Well, except for myself. Also at Gaea. At the fact that Leo and Reyna were in danger and I thought almost all of my friends were going to die and I couldn't do a thing about it and . . . You know. The usual."

Annabeth sighed. "Oh, Seaweed Brain, that was stupid of you. The rest of us were just as powerless as you, and we didn't walk off in frustration, did we?"

"Well, I didn't exactly walk off either," Percy said. When she glared at him, he relented. "And I know it was stupid—I even knew it at the time—but I just couldn't bring myself to care. It's pretty annoying to be called the Savior of Olympus, only to be too useless to save your own friends a year later."

Annabeth shook her head, but she couldn't be angry with her boyfriend. Percy had always felt obligated to help his friends, no matter what it took. That was one of the qualities Annabeth loved about him, and she couldn't be annoyed by it. After all, that personal loyalty was the reason she'd survived Tartarus. Still . . . "How does Frank fit in then? Don't tell me he threw a temper tantrum too."

Percy snorted. "Hardly. He was all responsible and came after me to make sure I didn't do anything even more stupid."

"Why didn't he stay with you then? Frank said you told him to leave because you 'saw something weird' and wanted to investigate. What's so weird about a ship's mast? Frank could have helped you dig it out and explore it, and then you could have been back sooner. . . ."

Annabeth trailed off when she saw the agonized look on her boyfriend's face. "Percy," she said softly, "what's wrong?"

He grimaced. "I didn't make Frank leave because I saw a ship's mast. I did that because I saw—I thought I saw—an army of underwater monsters, sent by Gaea to attack. I figured I could distract them, since Frank was in dolphin form. I could lure them away, make sure he escaped, and keep the army far away from the ship. I didn't tell Frank because I didn't want him to try to be selfless and help me. If I couldn't save everyone else, I thought I could at least protect him. The only problem was . . ." He stopped abruptly and pressed his lips together. Slowly, the truth dawned on Annabeth.

"The army wasn't real, was it?"

Percy shook his head. The agonized look was still etched into his features. "It took me hours to figure it out," he whispered. "Hours of swimming furiously, hoping to lose them, or at least get far enough away that they wouldn't be able to find the Argo II again. I didn't get it until I saw two telekines right next to each other with identical expressions on their faces . . . and swimming in the exact same way. As soon as I realized, the entire army vanished." He exhaled raggedly. "At that point, I spent longer underwater just to attempt to get my head screwed on straight again. I probably swam through an eighth of the entire sea, trying to distinguish what was real and what wasn't. It would have been more surprising if I didn't come across something useful in all that water. I was just fortunate that the something useful was close to the Argo II—and that the trade ship wasn't a hallucination too." He took a deep breath. "That's why I waited so long to tell you guys about it, you know. I was worried it was my imagination, conjuring up a ship full of supplies so I could have a halfway decent excuse for my disappearance." He closed his eyes. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I'm sorry I'm such a mess."

They sat in silence for a while, both frowning at the floor. After a while, Annabeth found the strength to break the silence with a shaky laugh. That snapped Percy's attention to her. "If it's any consolation," she said, "I'm still smothered by nightmares practically every night. Don't go around thinking you're so special. I'm as much of a mess as you."

"Gods, Annabeth." Immediately, Percy got up and went over to her, sitting on the bed beside her and wrapping her in a hug. Annabeth leaned her head on his shoulder and tried not to cry. "It's okay. We can be a mess together."

At that, Annabeth almost did cry, but she managed to restrain herself. "It's just so stupid, you know?" she said eventually. "There's so much to do . . . so much my brain should be worrying about . . . but instead, it just keeps replaying the freaking worst parts of Tartarus over and over again. What the Hades is wrong with it? With me?"

"Annabeth! There's nothing wrong with you!"

"How could you possibly know that?"

Percy shrugged. "All demigods have nightmares, Wise Girl—actually, all people have nightmares. It's completely normal. If anything, I'm the one that's screwed-up. I mean, I'm pretty sure not all people have recurring hallucinations."

"Percy, don't say that! There's nothing wrong with you!"

"Great!" he said cheerfully. "Then that means there's nothing wrong with either of us. I told you that you were all right."

Annabeth thought about his comment for a second, and then she snorted. "Wow, Percy," she said. "You really are a Seaweed Brain."

"I know that," he said, flashing her a grin, "since you love to remind me all the time. So does that mean everything's settled then?"

Annabeth bit her lip and looked at Percy worriedly. He may have been smiling, but she could tell he was still upset. The underwater hallucination had really shaken him up. "I'm not sure," she told him. "Are you certain that you're okay?"

He didn't hesitate. "No," he said honestly. "I'm not okay by a long shot. But," he added before Annabeth could interrupt, "are any of us really okay? Even the perfectly sane ones—Frank, Hazel, and the others—are dealing with the shock of having Leo in Tartarus and the fear that we're not going to fix this ship in time. A few hours ago, we were afraid all our friends back home were going to kill each other over a stupid misunderstanding. And let's not forget that Reyna's probably drowning in guilt right now, even though it's not her fault at all, and that in this moment Leo's probably going through more Styx than I could imagine. Even the gods aren't okay. It's just not an okay time right now, you know?"

He took a deep breath and continued. "But we can't worry about any of that. We don't have the time, energy, or emotional capacity to worry that much." Annabeth was surprised to hear Percy use a vocabulary rich enough to contain the phrase "emotional capacity", but she didn't comment on it. "We just have to focus on the one thing we have control over."

"Oh yeah?" she asked, finding her voice. "And what's that?"

"You're the smart one, Annabeth," he joked. "Think about it. If it's not an okay time right now, how can we use that to our advantage?"

Slowly, a smile spread across Annabeth's face. When he saw it, Percy's face lit up as well, and that was all Annabeth needed to see. "Well, we should pull a Nemesis and make sure everyone's luck is balanced," she said. "We need to make sure Gaea isn't okay either."

"Exactly," he smirked. "See? Your brain still works. I knew you were fine."

"I'm not so sure," she said. "Something's still wrong." Percy looked worried about her for a second, but then she returned Percy's smirk. "I mean, you thought of that before I did. My brain's obviously only working at half speed."

"Hey!" Percy protested to protect his ego, but she saw him relax. She knew what he was thinking. If she was up for teasing him, he figured she was probably all right, and that meant he wouldn't worry. That was the whole reason she'd made the joke in the first place.

Then again, she had made the joke, so who knew? Maybe she wasn't as ruined as she thought she was.

And if she was reasonably all right, then maybe Percy was too.

Four hundred demigods—a hundred packed into four strawberry service vans and the others riding giant eagles and pegasi—arrived at the JFK International Airport in New York at about six p.m. The air traffic was insane.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Malcolm asked Reyna as the demigods regrouped in hourly parking.

"Malcolm! You know it's the best plan—our only possible mode of transportation." (The Hecate Greek campers had enchanted three of the vans to follow the first, so Argus would be able to drive them all back to Long Island at once. The eagles and pegasi would follow the demigods overseas and meet them at the Argo II—there weren't enough of them to transport all four hundred demigods to Greece, but that didn't mean it wouldn't be useful to fight aboard them when they eventually faced off against Gaea and her army. Plus, the eagles would help carry supplies so they didn't have to load all of them into the airplanes. About thirty of the most skilled Roman eagle-riders were going to be in charge of leading the mismatched flock across the ocean. If the animals weren't so well-trained, Reyna never would have approved when a Third Cohort-er suggested it . . . but they were well-trained, so she figured they would be okay.)

"I know," Malcolm admitted, "but it's just . . . Don't you think it's wrong to just steal a massive airplane?"

"Afraid of doing something illegal, Malcolm?" Connor Stoll laughed, coming up behind the son of Athena. "Trust me, it's not that bad."

Reyna glared at him, and Connor quickly backed down. "It's not stealing," she explained patiently. "We'll pick a plane that came from Greece. When we land, Drew can charmspeak an explanation to someone, and they'll think there was a paperwork mix-up and the plane never left for some reason. It'll be fine."

"But the plan we steal is going to have a four-hundred-person capacity, at least," Malcolm persisted. "That's four hundred people whose flight is going to be mysteriously cancelled!"

"Should've brought up all these concerns before we left, Malcolm," Nyssa broke in, sliding out of the last van. "It's too late now."

"Besides, flights are cancelled all the time, especially in gigantic airports like this one," Drew added, suddenly appearing next to them. "People will be annoyed, sure, but they won't be suspicious. Don't worry so much."

"Drew," Reyna said in relief. "You found us. Ready to do this?"

Drew pushed her hair over her shoulder. "Worse-case scenario, we're accused of being amateur, idiotic, underage terrorists and get arrested and thrown in jail for the rest of our lives," she said. "Best-case scenario, we allow an unlicensed pilot to fly a massive passenger jet over open ocean for hours on end."

She ignored the glare Nyssa shot her. "Of course I'm ready to do this!" Drew finished sarcastically. "What could possibly go wrong?"