(I accidently mixed up the order between 95 and 96, so 96 is the last chapter I posted and I replaced 95 with what it was supposed to be. Go back and read number 95 [if you want] which should be called Present.)

97. Strawberry

Neither of them were a big fan.

They would never admit it to their friends but... Leo and Reyna really couldn't be bothered with the whole thing.

"I know they're supposed to be great but..."

"They didn't really stand out as anything special to me," Reyna muses, munching on jellybeans. "But the others-"

"- they love them, I know."

"So how do we hide that we don't really like them?"

Leo shrugs his shoulder. "Maybe if we tried just one more-"

"No," Reyna turns over in their bed to face him. "Really. Those two were enough for me."

"If we don't tell them then you know they'll be around constantly. Hazel and Nico especially really love them." He says, snagging a candy.

Reyna frowns. "It's not a big deal." She finally decides. "If it comes up with them then we'll just tell them we didn't like them and that's that. It'll be done with."

"Rey-"

"It's not a big deal." Reyna says, sounding as if she was trying to convince herself as well. "I mean... we can't help it, really."

Leo steals another jellybean and swallows before nodding finally. "Alright then."

oooOOOooo

Of course it comes up the next day when they're at the Jackson's apartment.

"Who's up for some Beatles music?" Percy asks them all rather excitedly. "We just bought a record of theirs and have been waiting until you guys came to listen to it."

There's a chorus of enthusiastic agreements and Leo looks pointedly at Reyna and Reyna looks pointedly at Leo until Leo eventually backs down and ventures quietly, "Em, why don't we try listening to something else?"

Things go quiet in the room and Leo gulps, meeting Reyna's eyes. She nods encouragingly and he tries again.

"Well it's just... Reyna and I listened to some of their songs last night and we... didn't really like them?" The last few words come out meekly, almost questioning, and Reyna shrinks back slightly from the looks thrown at her by her friends.

"They're alright, of course," Reyna hastens to add, sitting straight again because dammit, she was praetor of New Rome for over 10 years and in college, she was not scared of her friends.

(Who looked as if Leo had helped her kill all of their mothers and siblings. At once. In front of their faces. While laughing.)

"We were just hoping to listen to something else?" She finishes.

"Something... else?" Piper asks hesitantly. "Not the Beatles?"

"Well- I- we..." Leo looks to her for help.

"You don't like the Beatles?" Frank asks incredulously.

"It's not that we don't like them," Leo says quickly, "it's just..."

"We'd rather not listen to them?" Reyna finishes. "Ever again?"

Her words are met with stunned silence.

"Well," Annabeth says, "that- that's fine, we won't- we don't have to listen to them now."

Stunned faces look to her now and she shrugs.

"Thanks guys," Leo says. "We just didn't-"

"Can I ask why?" Jason leans forward. "Why you didn't like them, I mean."

"Well..." Leo looks to her. "They just aren't-"

"They sing about strawberry fields, for Gods' sakes!" Reyna says. "It just wasn't a good song."

"Well," Will said cheerily after a moment of silence. "Who's up for some Rihanna, then?"