Percy gives her a hug before he sneaks away, and Julie does her best to absorb as much of the anxiety rolling off of him as she can. He relaxes a little into the embrace, so she feels accomplished. His departure seems to have put Nico at ease about Bianca's situation. Julie's not sure what the reason for that is, but she's happy for her new friend all the same.
She and Nico spend the next week getting him acclimated to camp. He seems to be getting along well with the other members of the Hermes cabin (which doesn't make Julie jealous at all), and they even discover that he has a talent for sword fighting. Julie tells him that Percy helps teach lessons sometimes and will be impressed, and Nico glows with pride for the rest of the day. He does take a swipe from a blade while sparring against one of the Ares kids, but Michael and Will are able to patch him up no problem.
She brings him to the archery range the next day to show him her above average shooting skills, and he kicks her butt at that too. Julie's laughing too hard at the very shocked expression on his face to be upset, though. He seems genuinely surprised at his own talents every time they find something he's good at. It's endearing. Julie's careful about suggesting who his godly parent could be. Nico doesn't remember either of his parents' faces, let alone if one of them had magic powers, so he could belong to any of the cabins, really. They both agree they probably aren't siblings, though, so Cabin 10 seems to be out of the running.
By day three, Connor and Travis are making kissy noises every time they spot Juliette and Nico together. Julie lets it rolls off her back. Her mom's the goddess of love. She's constantly making love matches of other people in her background thoughts, so she can't be mad when it's her being teased. It bothers Nico, though (Julie tries not to be offended), so she throws her shoes at the Stolls to get them to stop whenever they're in range. Oftentimes, the older boys refuse to give them back, and she's stuck walking around in her socks all day. Nico always gives her a little of his dessert when this happens.
Day four, Nico and Julie have a sleepover. It isn't intentional. The two of them get caught up playing (or, losing at, in Julie's case) Mythomagic well into the night in the Big House and miss the curfew bell. Instead of getting angry at them, Chiron brings Nico a pillow and blanket and tells him to sleep on the sofa in the den rather than braving the cleaning harpies outside. Julie sneaks down from her room half an hour after Chiron goes to sleep and ends up painting Nico's nails ocean blue while he tells her about a card game tournament he won in the Lotus Casino. They both fall asleep on the purple leopard print rug. Julie still thinks it's ugly, but she has to admit it's fairly comfortable. They do end up with stable duty for sleeping in the same room, though.
By the end of the week, Juliette is on top of the world. She doesn't remember ever having a friend like Nico - someone who just hangs out with her. Not because of guilt, like Silena. Not out of some well-meaning sense of responsibility, like Percy. Nico talks to her because he wants to, and he actually seems interested in the things she has to say. So, she says a lot. She opens up about what's going on with her and her siblings, and Nico tells her his feelings on Bianca and the Hunters. Julie tells him about her curse, and Nico tells her about his foggy memories. Juliette's happy. Life is good.
Until it isn't.
The quest group returns bloody, exhausted, and looking quite a bit ticked off. But, Percy and Annabeth are side by side, their fingertips brushing as they walk, and Juliette sobs in relief as she tackles the blonde into a hug outside the infirmary.
"Thank gods!" She cries. Annabeth smells like sweat, blood, and nectar, but Julie can feel her heartbeat in her chest and sense the lingering adrenaline in her pores. She's alive. When the older girl hugs Julie back, there's a pulse thrumming in Annabeth's wrist and warm breath laughing against her hair.
They hug for a long time. Juliette vaguely registers Percy's voice growing more distant as he leads Nico towards the dining pavilion, but she's too happy to pay attention to what they're saying. She and Annabeth break the hug after a while and grin at each other. Naturally, her Aphrodite brain zeroes in on one thing.
"What'd you do to your hair?!" She exclaims.
Thalia snorts behind Annabeth. "Got a souvenir from being a badass. She and Percy held the sky while we fought Atlas. Annabeth was under there almost an entire day."
"It wasn't that long." Annabeth scrunches her nose and twirls the silver streak in her bangs.
"Shut up, Beth, you're cool." Thalia retorts.
Juliette can't stop smiling. "I have no idea what that means, but I also think that you're cool." She says to Annabeth, who turns a bit pink at the praise.
Annabeth addresses Thalia. "So, when are you leaving to meet back up with the Hunters?" She asks.
Thalia hums thoughtfully. "Probably now, honestly. I just wanted to make sure you, Grover, and the Little Mermaid over there got home safely. I should hit the road. Y'know, monsters to hunt, prissy immortals to boss around."
"You're leaving?" Juliette asks in confusion. "But, you just-" Her sentence ends in a choke as a searing pain rips down Julie's spine.
White hot agony spiderwebs across the plane of her back. Julie cries out. Her knees buckle beneath her and her shins make contact with the dirt ground below her. There's shouting all around her and a hand presses an urgent touch into her shoulder that causes the pain to burn bone-deep. The ground begins to shake, and Juliette screams.
She's transformed before. It's never pleasant, but it's also never felt like getting every cell in her body struck by lightning at the same time. Scales tear their way out of the skin on Julie's cheeks. A green tint drips over her vision like a translucent coat of paint. The sparkly nail polish on her fingers and toes cracks and crumbles as her appendages stretch themselves unnaturally long. The webbing between her fingers becomes so thin it feels it'll snap before growing to form a massive set of leathery green wings.
Pain is exploding in every nerve in her body. It's accompanied by an overwhelming thrum of power. Luke's voice nags at her consciousness as she feels her newly grown fangs pierce through her bottom lip. "Pain is Power," he used to say. She's certainly in pain. But, she's never been overwhelmed by her powers like this before. She's terrified. Vaguely, she gets the sense that that negative emotion isn't helping to slow down whatever is happening to her right now.
Her vision starts going black from the pain when her jaw dislocates. She can feel her tongue splitting down the middle, forking like a serpent's as her head hits the ground. Her vision tunnels. Voices are shouting around her, but the hand on her shoulder has disappeared. Of course it has. Who would want to touch her like this.
Her last sight before she passes out is Thalia's electric blue eyes riddled with horror and confusion.
That thrum of power hasn't left when Juliette wakes up, human again, in the infirmary. When her eyes adjust to the sunlight streaming through the privacy curtains, she spots Percy snoring in a chair at her bedside. He looks like Lee got ahold of him for healing, but he's dirty still. Julie thinks there are faint tear tracks in the layer of dirt on his cheeks.
She's about to wake him up when movement in the corner of her eye catches her attention. She startles and whips around, expecting to see Michael or Lee strolling up to her with a clipboard and a stern expression. Instead, her gaze connects with that same brilliant blue.
Not Thalia. It's the soldier boy. In his PJs. Lurking in the corner.
For a moment, they both just look at each other. Finally, Julie blinks and finds her voice.
"Hello," She greets awkwardly.
The boy opens and closes his mouth several times. He seems to be lost for words for a bit until he regains some composure. "Hello." He says back.
They blink at each other again. Julie purses her lips at the tenseness of the atmosphere. She clears her throat quietly.
"How, um...How are you here?" She asks.
He blinks. "Oh, I don't think I am. I think I'm dreaming."
"I see. Yeah, I was last time too."
"That makes sense."
"Does it?"
"Well...you know. Demigod stuff, right?"
"I guess."
The awkward silence is back. Julie studies the boy during the pause. The way he speaks is formal and clipped, like he's reciting a speech he's practiced a hundred times. His back is straight, and his chin is lifted. He's wearing a crisp purple t-shirt that has yellow letters on it, but Julie feels herself getting dizzy if she focuses on them too long. Even the pajama pants he's wearing are pressed and without wrinkles. If it weren't for the completely awful cowlick making his blonde hair stand up almost 90 degrees to his head, he'd look like a thirteen year old ken doll. In the stiff plastic way, not the perfectly symmetrical, beautiful...ehem, what was she talking about? Oh, right.
"Is your friend okay?" Julie asks. The boy tilts his head in confusion for a moment before lighting up a bit in recognition.
"Oh, Reyna. Yes, she's fine. I got her to C-up-it-er. Thanks to you." He says, a strange distortion interrupting him in the middle. He smiles at her then, and Juliette's chest seizes. She must be less recovered from yesterday than she thought.
Speaking of which, "Did I watch you turn into a dinosaur a few hours ago?" He asks nervously. Julie feels vaguely insulted.
"Dinosaur?!"
"You had big teeth and scales."
"It was a wyvern."
"A wyvern? You mean a vipera."
Julie gapes at him in outrage. "I-You're correcting me on my own transformation?"
The boy turns a bit pink. "Oh! You're right, I guess you'd know. I'm sorry. Wyvern." He amends earnestly, apparently horrified at the idea he'd been impolite. The notion is so ridiculous, Juliette has to snort and cover her eyes in confused amazement. A thought occurs to her.
"Wait, does that mean you've been watching me sleep?"
"Um..." Before the boy gets the chance to respond, the curtains on Julie's right fly open and Lee Fletcher waltzes into the cubicle.
"Oh, good, you're awake. That means Jackson can stop stinking up my infirmary." He quips with a sigh, slapping his clipboard onto the bed beside Percy's sleeping face. Percy yelps, snapping awake.
"Wasnn' me!" He slurs fearfully.
Julie rolls her eyes and glances over to where the boy is standing to introduce him, but that corner of the cubicle is now empty. Before she gets the chance to mull that over, Lee snatches up her arm to take her vitals.
"Well, your pulse and blood pressure seem good. Much better than last night, anyway. How are you feeling?" Lee asks.
Julie tears her eyes from the empty corner. "Fine. Really good actually. I feel...stronger?" She smiles. This does not seem to put Lee at ease. If anything, he looks a bit uncomfortable.
"Right. Well, I see no reason to keep you here. Will's gonna bring you some food, and once you eat that, you can leave." Lee instructs before patting her on the arm and exiting with a swish of blue scrubs.
Julie looks back at Percy, who's being uncharacteristically quiet. He's still wearing the clothes he left in a week ago, and Julie notices the same grey streak as Annabeth's is sweeping through the front of his shaggy black hair. His eyes are lowered and locked onto a small hole in the sheets of Juliette's cot. Percy's expression is unreadable, but most certainly in the "upset" genre if the waves of guilt and sadness brushing her skin are anything to go by. He clears his throat.
"Bianca died on the quest." He says stiffly.
Julie's blood freezes. Her stomach swoops and drops out of her body.
"Zoë too." He adds. "I couldn't save them." His voice cracks on that statement, like it's an admission of guilt. Juliette doesn't know what to do. She tries to convince her limbs to unfreeze. "I promised Nico I'd try to keep her safe. But, I didn't. Now, she's dead, and he's Hermes knows where all alone. And I did all of this - we lost all of these people just to get to Olympus and have the gods vote on whether Thalia and I deserve to live." He laughs bitterly. "And the thing is, I'm not even sure that I really do. At least not any more than Bianca and Zoë did. Why do I get to be here, and they don't? Why is it always me?"
Juliette breaks through the barrier of shock and leans forward suddenly to wrap her arms around him. Percy's head lands heavily on her shoulder, and he falls apart, sobs wracking through him like rough waves on the hull of a barge. One that's over stocked and sinking rapidly under the extra weight. She squeezes him as tightly as she can and pulls his grief into herself. The buzzing of power becomes uncomfortable - like an electric charge burning beneath her skin - but she keeps it up, draining as much as she can from him. It's nothing compared to what Percy must be feeling. Or, oh gods, Nico.
"Where is Nico?" She asks quietly. Percy stiffens in her arms.
"When I told him," He pauses and pulls back to look at her intensely. He seems to debate something for a moment, and then his eyes close off and he shakes his head. "He got angry and ran away. Chiron has people out looking for him, but he was really upset. I don't think he's coming back." He flinches when he says it, like the guilt he's feeling is causing him physical pain. Julie's tongue feels like it's made of stone in her mouth. It takes all of her strength to mutter a response.
"He's gone?" She asks softly. Percy's heart seems to break even further at the tone of her voice. The charge under her skin starts to burn. She grips his arms harder and strengthens the connection.
"Yeah," He confirms. Julie lets the sadness in her grow until her skin feels like it'll peel off. Then, she releases Percy and leans back before scales start popping up to reveal her distress.
"Okay." She replies softly. She feels stupid for the anger and heartache growing in her chest. Nico's life changed completely yesterday. The closest person she has to family is sitting beside her bawling his eyes out for two girls he watched die in front of him. Nico was nice to her for less than a week. It's ridiculous for Julie to be acting like this situation is even a little bit about her. But, still, she's so tired of being alone. She'd thought, for once, maybe she'd made a friend.
She shakes her head and swallows those thoughts down. She's a Heartbreak Child. It's about time she gets used to the facets of life that come with that. "Do you know what happened? I mean, with me?" She asks instead.
Percy pauses and wrings his hands. "Yeah. After Nico, uh...left, Annabeth said you collapsed and went beast-mode. But, she said it was weird. Like, you were in a lot of pain. From what I hear, you transformed and then went a bit crazy. You started snapping at anyone who got close. It took Mr. D to calm you down magically long enough to knock you out and get you to turn back." He explains.
Juliette exhales, running a hand through her tangled orange hair. "I just felt this wave. It was too much to control. I guess now I know it was probably from whatever Nico and you were feeling when you told him."
Percy winces. "Sorry. I wish I'd known that could happen."
She shrugs in response. Will enters from behind the curtain a moment later, a breakfast tray clutched in his hands, and he instructs Percy to take a shower and rest in his own cabin while Juliette eats. Percy complies, offering her a shaky smile and a squeeze of her hand on his way out. The place where their skin makes contact burns for several minutes after as another wave of sadness churns her stomach. Pushing away her nausea, Juliette shovels down the fruit and pancakes Will had brought her so she can make her getaway.
For once, she's ready to be alone for a while.
The day before Percy and Annabeth are set to go home, Juliette is hiding in the woods. Okay, hang on. She isn't hiding. She just doesn't feel like being around people right now, so she went somewhere people aren't.
Okay, she's hiding.
In her defense, the last few days have been rough. It seems that her horrifying mid-camp monster transformation filled with agonized screams and acidic purple blood was in fact noticed by most of the camp. Go figure. So, everybody left around the cabins for the holidays has been either avoiding her or outright stating their disgust at her being around (the Ares cabin is honest, at least). Percy and Annabeth have been trying to shut down the muttering when they catch it, but it's become pretty constant, and they can't be around her all the time. Julie's two brothers that have hung around for Christmas sit on the opposite end of the table from her at meals like they're a couple of extras in Mean Girls.
So, sue her if she needs a break sometimes. Especially when the only two people in camp still willing to speak to her are about to go back to their loving families. See, she's not bitter at all.
Some rustling in the leaves behind her makes Julie jump, and she turns to see those very people breaking through the tree line of her clearing. Annabeth steps through gracefully, holding back a branch, which smacks Percy across the nose when she releases it. He squawks indignantly, and Annabeth pretends not to notice.
"Hey, Julie. Juniper said we might find you here." She greets kindly. Julie hums in what she hopes is convincing surprise.
"Oh, hey. Just been," She pauses to think up an excuse. She decides to gesture at the sketchbook in her lap. "Sketching. Lots of nice plants out here." She offers weakly. Annabeth doesn't look convinced, but doesn't comment either. She and Percy drop onto the rock beside Juliette.
"We're gonna head out in the next hour or so. I was worried we wouldn't find you in time." Percy says. His voice sounds nervous, but Julie can't feel any urgent negativity radiating, so she ignores it.
"Yeah, that would've been bad." She snips in a clipped tone. Annabeth frowns at her, and Julie remembers herself. She clears her throat and forces a smile onto her face. "Wouldn't want you guys to get away without saying goodbye! I won't see you again until June, right?" She chirps positively.
Percy musses his hair and leans forward to look around Annabeth at her. "Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I have an offer for you, but you definitely don't have to say yes if you don't want to. If you'd rather just stay here and train, I totally understand. I just thought you might like a change from camp for a while, so I thought I'd at least offer, and Mom says it's alright, so -"
"Seaweed Brain, ask your question."
"Right, right," He takes a deep breath and taps his feet rhythmically on the grass. "Mr. D thinks leaving camp for a bit might do you some good, so Chiron agreed to let you come home with me for the spring. If you want to. I do live in a pretty tiny apartment, so we'd probably get stuck in the same bedroom until summer, but my mom would definitely love you, and I thought maybe you'd like to try going to actual school and making friends that don't have crazy demigod baggage attached. Again, my mom's totally cool with it, and Chiron'll be sending money with you for stuff so-"
"Seaweed Brain, you're rambling again."
"Right, sorry. What do you think?" He finishes nervously. Julie looks at him with wide eyes. Huh?
"Seriously?" She asks in confusion.
He falters for a moment. "Yeah, of course. What do you mean, 'seriously?'"
"I mean," Julie scrunches her face in hesitance. "Aren't you worried about having me around your family?"
Percy looks bewildered. "What in the gods names are you talking about?" He asks. Julie blinks at him rapidly, extremely taken aback by this turn of events. Annabeth cuts in, placing a hand on Juliette's shoulder.
"Julie, we aren't afraid of you. You're a powerful demigod, yes. But, neither of us believe in that stupid 'curse' business. Any one of us could use our powers for good or evil, and as far as I've seen," Annabeth smiles at her earnestly. "Even when you've lost control, you have never hurt anyone at camp. That's more than either of us can claim."
Percy snorts. "Yeah, I tried to drown Thalia, like, less than two weeks ago." He says, not an ounce of shame to be heard. "Not permanently, of course. Just a little bitty drowning."
Annabeth rolls her eyes. "Yeah, sure. Pretty sure you got struck by lightning before you even got a chance."
"Hey, whose side are you on, Wise Girl?"
"The winning one, obviously." Annabeth winks at him, and he chokes, his face flushing red. She turns back to Juliette with a smirk on her lips. "The point is, your mom's an idiot, and you saved both of our lives last summer. You're our friend, Julie. We trust you."
Juliette doesn't cry often. But, she can't hold it in anymore. She bursts into tears and throws herself on top of the two older demigods, sobbing snot and tears into their camp shirts. They don't seem to mind. Percy laughs in relief.
"I'm gonna take that as a 'yes,' I guess? C'mon, let's go get you packed."
"-and she's definitely going to take you shopping, like, immediately. I know my mom loves me, but I'm 90% sure she'd love me more if I let her put me in sparkly outfits more often. Maybe you can fill that void for her instead and save me some bullying." Percy laughs as the two of them reach the road outside of camp.
Julie is practically buzzing with excitement, but also anxiety. It's been months since she arrived at Camp Halfblood, and she hasn't left for longer than an hour or two since. Now, she's hauling a duffel bag of her few possessions and a butt load of human money that she doesn't understand in preparation for being gone all spring. And yet, she has no urge to look back as they climb into the beat up strawberry van when Argus pulls up in front of them.
Percy grins over at her. "I've always wanted a sibling, y'know." He says, his tone a bit softer now that they're buckled into the sideways seats in the back of the van. "I mean, I have Tyson, and I love him, but he can't really go to football games with me or hang out at arcades on the weekends." Percy's eyes sparkle as he kicks at Julie's shin playfully. "This is gonna be great. I promise." His grin falters as those last words leave his mouth, so Julie offers him a bright smile. He matches it.
"You really think she'll like me?" She asks. If there's one thing she's learned about Percy, when he's in need of cheering up, talk about Sally Jackson.
Percy laughs. "She's gonna like you more than she likes me, just watch." He assures her.
Julie smiles and closes her eyes contentedly as the van rolls out of Delphi Farms and towards her brand new fresh start.