Chapter Title: Back To Camp (And Kayla)

(A/N: In case you are wondering how long it's going to be before this two finally confess their feelings to each other, the 8th Chapter after this one is when it will happen. Just to give you a general sense of how many more chapters of slow burning you're gonna have to endure. There will be an interlude and a Kayla POV as well before then, just as a heads up. But yeah, we are getting close.)

Winter Solstice
Camp Half Blood

We got back to camp a couple weeks later, just in time for the winter solstice. Clarisse's mother drove me, Chris, and Clarisse the whole way back, which was incredibly sweet of her. We somehow encountered no monsters the whole way back either, which was very nice.

But still underneath it all, was the knowledge that camp wasn't safe.. not unless we somehow managed to destroy the labyrinth. How we would do it.. was beyond the thinking capabilities of me, Clarisse, and Chris, much to me and Clarisse's annoyance. This was just shitty honestly, I thought to myself. Here we are having to put our own siblings on edge again because Luke knows where a stinking entrance to the labyrinth inside Camp Half Blood is and we had no clue where it was or how to destroy the labyrinth to prevent the invasion.

It fucking sucked so god damn much on ice, believe me. It really, really did and I hated it. The fact that I still missed Kayla - and it had grown worse in those two weeks - did not help at all, not a bit. I don't know why, but I just wanted to take her away from all of this, take her to maybe another dimension, where she could live in happiness, safety, and peace with her hero. I mean, it would be a hell of a lot better than having to worry about her constantly in this shitty excuse of present circumstances.

Yeah, I know. Being a demigod is rough as shit. Percy probably told you that a lot already, hasn't he?

Moving on.

We thanked Clarisse's mother for driving us all the way to camp, and then jogged up Half Blood Hill. As we reached the crest, someone was there waiting for us. My heart skipped a beat.

It was Kayla.

I swear to you, I don't know why I was more happy than I thought I was going to be to see her. But I was.

The moment she saw me, she put on the biggest smile she could ever put on and just ran towards me. I ran towards her as well.

"Colton!"

"Kayla!"

We met just inside the barrier and hugged each other. The look of happiness on her face made me so full of joy. If she was happy, then I was as well. She was wearing her camp clothes, evidently having arrived back some time prior to me.

As for me, in a white t-shirt underneath a dark green sweatshirt with the words 'Gettysburg National Military Park' on it with a light gray coat on top of that, as well as in dark blue form-fitting sweatpants with long socks and my usual dark red and gray tennis shoes, I looked like someone ready for temperatures just above snow temps, which to be fair, the temperature was just around that range.

None of that mattered, because I was back in the place where it always felt warm, both in the air and in spirit. I did have to take the coat and the sweatshirt after a while due to sweating a lot, but Kayla and I didn't need to say much to describe how each of us felt.

We both missed each other, and that's all we needed to let the other know.

Eventually, I spoke. "Kay.." I spoke, using the nickname I gave her after she kissed me on the cheek. "You're just as beautiful as the day you left camp all those months ago."

She blushed and looked away, taking a bit to come up with a response. "I..I..I'm glad you think so.." she replied. "So what have you and Clarisse been up to?"

She definitely shouldn't have brought that up, but the instance she said it, the bad thoughts about the whole labyrinth came rushing back into my head. Luke's out there, searching for the string so he can get through that hidden entrance that we don't know about.

She must have noticed my expression had changed to a sour, worried look because her next words carried worry in them. "Something bad happen?" she asked me. I didn't want to cause a panic, so I just simply told her, "Luke's not done yet. Not by a long shot."

She gasped, and nodded, understanding it apparently. But she then returned to her happy look and said, "As long as I have you here with me, I'm ready for whatever that coward Luke can throw at us and camp."

She looked very confident in saying so, a far cry from the scared girl that I had helped through the dark days of Tantalus during the summer. She had come a long way, and it made me smile.

"I feel the same way.." I said, looking around at camp. "It's good to be back."

- — - — - — - — -

Before we continue on, I just want to make something clear. The Hunters Of Artemis seem to have a strange kind of relationship with me. Anytime they are in camp since I got my Whitworth rifle, somehow I'm the only guy other than perhaps Mr. D and Chiron (sometimes, it's Beckendorf or Luke or Lee as well) that they even give the light of day in talking to. It just felt weird, and I had no clue why they even felt like talking to me at all.

Then again, I was the only guy in camp - and an Ares kid at that - who hunted monsters in a similar manner to them, the only difference being that with the barrier, I was free to take as many shots as I wanted and they couldn't do a thing, unless they maybe came through the aforementioned labyrinth entrance. But other than that, anytime a monster poked its head out on the clear field of fire that was the southeastern to eastern to partially northeastern slope of Half Blood Hill in daylight hours, they could do little to prevent themselves from getting picked off by the guy with a Civil War era sniper rifle waiting up in the trees to add another monster to his grim death toll.

Speaking of that, for those of you who like numbers, before Kayla came along.. since I am a year round camper, the amount of confirmed kills I had taken at camp prior to then was about 50, since Clarisse was keeping track. Since she had come along, by now, I was just under 800 confirmed kills, only a handful of those kills being taken with a sword in those early days. The rest were all with the Whitworth rifle.

But anyways, why did I have to stop and talk about the strange relationship I have with Artemis' hunters? It just so happened that a couple hours after me, Clarisse, and Chris had arrived back at camp, other people arrived.

Of course, it included the goddess Artemis herself, Thalia Grace, Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, and Grover Underwood. Apparently, while me and Clarisse were off, a series of events had led to Artemis being captured and forced to hold up the sky to free up the Titan Atlas, only to saved by Percy and his questing crew. Two of her hunters had died in the quest, which was tragic.

So, in their grief, guess who a couple of the hunters that happened to know me better than the rest of them do once they found out? That's right, talk to me.

I was hanging out with Kayla on the porch of the Apollo Cabin, chatting about how things had been like we had done back in the summer, when Phoebe who was the best tracker and healer of the hunters as well as Hunter Kowalski who was frequently used by the hunters as a scout, came up looking teary-eyed and gloomy.

As much as the hunters tended to be distrusting of men, I apparently because of my alternative style of fighting and the fact that often I did things by myself was someone that they could at least talk to. I didn't mind honestly.. it may have been strange, but hey.. they wanted to use me as a conversation outlet, I didn't mind helping them that way at all. So yeah, I did feel sorry for them.

"Heard about Bianca and Zoe.." I said rather glumly to the two of them, as they took seats on chairs near me and Kayla. "..I'm so sorry for both of you all's loss."

"Thanks.." Hunter said, Phoebe remaining silent. "It's just hard to believe that thy lieutenant could be gone now."

"Life happens, that's how it works.." I said back, simply just watching the light snow falling to the ground. It wasn't like that cold inside camp, it was more or less mild but still snow fell inside camp.

I also felt a bit angry. This whole bullshit crusade of Luke's to destroy the gods had cost us a lot over this past year and a half. Zoe, Mary, Allen, Halford, almost Chris.. there was a lot of pain and suffering that Luke had caused us.

"Who votes once the stinking traitor is put down for good, we convince Artemis to maybe take you Hunters to the beach or something? Just you all.. because let's face it.. you all will probably deserve it.." I suggested, causing all three girls' faces to look at curiously. I stared straight ahead, across the clearing at my cabin, watching some of my siblings walk in and out of it.

"I'm not doing this to be perverted or anything.." I added on. "I just personally think you all should get some reward once this is all over with." I was being brutally honest with them here. Like, there were a lot of things all of us could do once this whole war business with Kronos and Luke was over. A lot more of us would probably not make it to that point, but it was honestly better to celebrate and remember the dead for their valiant sacrifice rather than letting ourselves be weighed down by the trauma and suffering.

"I mean.." Hunter said after a few moments of silence. "He does have a point, honestly. Personally, I wouldn't mind." Phoebe looks at her, I couldn't see what her expression was from where I was sitting.

"Are you nuts?" she asks Hunter.

"Like.. look.. I don't mind hunting monsters and what not. If I can enjoy myself on a private beach without having to fear for thy lives of you, me, and thy others, that would be great.." Hunter said back to her.

Kayla was blushing quite a bit at the thought for some reason, even though it wasn't intended for her.

Phoebe seemingly sounded like she was about to protest her fellow hunter some more, but caught herself. She was silent for a few moments, before she spoke again.

"Fair enough. I can accept thy logic.." she said.

I will admit. The idea of the Hunters Of Artemis sunbathing on a beach sounded hot, but I knew full well that saying so was going to get my ass pelted full of arrows. Plus, I simply wasn't much of a perverted person, having been blessed with Ares' sense of righteousness and duty to protect women. I mean, the man himself did kill one of Poseidon's sons in the past for attempting to rape of his daughters, so personally I found the fact that I was blessed with this part of my father to be very cool. At least I meant that compared to some of the other campers, I was the more level headed one compared to those who got immature and maybe horny in conversations like these.

So I just kept my mouth shut as Phoebe and Hunter both became onboard with the whole idea.

- — - — - — - — -

We lost another kid in the night of the Winter Solstice. Bianca's brother, Nico Di Angelo, who apparently was a son of Hades. I honestly wasn't much surprised that Hades seemed to have broken the pact. I mean.. the fact that Percy existed had left the rest of us wondering if kids of Hades existed out there.

Anyways, Nico ran off into the woods after not taking the news of his sister's death from Percy too well, and had apparently just vanished. It was, in short, another blow to our efforts. But we kept going as best we could.

After the cabin counselor meeting that night, where Clarisse shared what me and her had found in Arizona to the others, Clarisse gave my siblings the final confirmation of what we all knew was coming ever since I told everyone at camp back during the summer. War was coming.

The news of that an entrance to the camp through the labyrinth most likely existed unsurprisingly set everyone on edge over the next few days, even as Christmas came around. It took the holiday cheer out of the festivities, I could notice that for sure.

Kayla took it better than most of those our age or younger - Kayla had turned fourteen in October and my birthday was coming up in the middle of January - but you could still how worried everyone was.

Lee immediately gave Kayla over to me so she would be able to sleep better - which would have been fine had Clarisse not decided that Chris would sleep with her. So in the end, for the rest of the holiday season and into the new year, Chris and Clarisse slept in the queen sized bed while me and Kayla basically snuggled each other under the multiple blankets on top of the mattress on the floor, and to be honest, compared to during the summer, it felt so much better than then, to have her sleeping with me again.

I still had no clue why that was though. But for now, I at least had probably plenty time to figure it all out.

I hope I didn't jinx myself by having that thought.