AN: Sorry, got burnt out by school and junk. Headaches, weather. I'm ready for Christmas. Are you?

I stared blankly at the whiteboard. This class didn't seem to want to end. I wanted to get home. Do some research on where to find the ingredients for breaking the curse and check to see if Sam Winchester had emailed me any new information on the ghost-mob. I wanted to see if I could find any sort of myths about meddlers. I also needed to work on homework, the safehouses, the stories of my mom's…

On second thought, maybe sitting in a classroom wasn't that bad.

"Cassie, that was the school bell. Class is over," Johnny mock-whispered.

I blinked and glanced around. "Oh."

"You and Nico still coming over for pizza before we go back to your place to work on that historic village model?"

I winced. "Yeah, thanks for reminding me. I totally spaced."

"No problem, besides, it's about time you saw how crazy my family is. Nico's seen some of it."

"How many siblings do you have again?"

"Two older, Juni, eight younger, so…eleven. Hopefully it stops there because my oldest brother is getting married and my youngest siblings is about seven months old." He shook his head, looking slightly exasperated.

"Yikes," was the only response I could give.

He nodded. "Yeah, my next younger sibling, Jamie, she's going to be coming here next semester. She was going to the public school, but she's not being challenged and she's having some serious issues with the other students. This place is a little more tailored, smaller classes."

"Right, and the others are?"

"Next is Lizzie, she's eleven. Then Maddie, who is eight and crazy. Megan is after her, she's four and a half, the half is very important, and she's quiet and mostly likes to read and color or sit with me while I do schoolwork. Lily is three, Max and May are two, and then Kaylee is the youngest and she likes to scream in the middle of the night."

I shook my head. "And then you have older siblings?"

"Kristina who is dating a jerk, and has become a jerk herself. And Drew, who just got hired into a group working on a cure for cancer," He said, looking tired.

"What does Kristina do?"

"She managed to land an assistant job to the editor of some magazine that Mom said will never enter our house."

I winced. "That's great."

"Oh yeah, are you sure you want to enter my house? My twin sister is still home too."

"Oh? How's that going?"

"She put a snake in my bed."

"A garter snake?"

"I wish."

I shuddered. "What kind?"

"It was just a corn snake, but any unfamiliar snake in a bed is just…not cool." He made a face. "I didn't even know she had a pet snake. Neither did mom."

I opened my locker. "Not cool. Anything I should know before I meet her?"

"She's gonna hate you because you're my friend."

I shrugged. "I'll survive. Nico tell you about our Thanksgiving break?"

"The reason why you guys came back late, yeah. They're real?"

"They're real," I confirmed. "Which just makes me feel crazier. Because…I don't even know why. Ever feel like you're walking on the edge of a knife and you're either about to fall to either side for face first onto the blade?"

"Um, wow, that's a little darker than I expected. Um, yeah I guess so. I mean, I kind of felt like that earlier this year. After you ended up in the hospital. Cassie, is something else going on?" He looked concerned.

I shrugged. "What isn't? Honestly, just be glad you aren't a part of any of the crazy things that I am. I just…sometimes I just feel like running away from it all. Finding a quiet place. A peaceful place." I closed my eyes. "Then I remember that I would be abandoning the people I care about, and I read a book instead."

"Sounds like you're burning out. Good thing it's the weekend? Your birthday is on Sunday."

I made a face before I could stop myself.

"Yeah, told me. What's up with your birthday, anyway? Don't you want to celebrate?"

I met his gaze and shook my head. "No, I really don't. I don't even want to celebrate Christmas."

His concern grew. "Why?"

"You have to ask?"

He dropped his gaze to the floor. "Your mom?"

"Yeah. I thought it would be okay, going into Thanksgiving. I thought I could do it, do something different and still be happy even though she wasn't there. Honestly, if it hadn't been for Travis, I probably would have ended up crying on Thanksgiving because I couldn't handle it. Then everything that happened after that, it's like I can't have anything good going on without trouble finding me. I just…I don't know how much more I can take." I closed my locker door, trying to calm myself.

"Nico know?"

"No," I said firmly. "He would think that he was the problem and he's not. He's amazing."

Johnny nodded slowly. "Okay, so, can I ask why you're telling me? Aside from the fact that I'm your friend, and I am concerned about you. Because I don't think you've told anybody about this. Which is funny, because you have two, technically three brothers, a boyfriend, some other friends that you're tight with that I've never met, even an adopted grandfather and father figure. But you're telling me?"

I swallowed hard.

He took a deep breath and let it out. "Come on, let's get outside." He took my hand and led me out into fresh air, over to one of the gardens on the grounds.

Thankfully it was abandoned.

"Alright," He said and sat us on a bench. "What's going on?"

I took a deep breath, staring at one of the wilting hostas. "I think a war is coming, and I don't know how to stop it. I thought I had done enough, but I didn't. I wake up and I just want to go back to sleep. I feel like every world that I'm a part of is looking at me and expecting me to do the impossible and I don't know what it is. They want me to help lead Camp Halfblood. I'm being pulled deeper into the Celtic world and on top of both of those having a claim on my life, now something new, something I don't understand is in it. Something I can't even talk about. It's a part of all of them, but separate and it's cool. Really, it's something I'd never imagine possible. But…I can't even really remember the purpose behind it. She said I would remember when the time was right. Why can't I remember now? And then there's Malcolm. When I'm with him, I feel happy. I feel safe. But we're so far from each other and I feel like…maybe I rushed into something. I mean, I tried to be careful and not rush into anything, but what if I did? I mean, what's the point of even dating when we're this young?" I had hopped up and was pacing.

Johnny got up and pulled me into a firm hug. He didn't say anything.

"I don't want to be strong, I don't want to do schoolwork, or act my age, I just want to scream at the world that I want my mom…I want to go back to the way things were. I can't handle it. I can't handle what the future holds and I want to just hide under the blankets until it goes away. I don't want to celebrate my birthday, I don't want to celebrate Christmas. Please don't make me." I was crying now.

"I won't." He whispered, gently rubbing my back.

"I'm sorry," I said, trying to calm down.

"Shh, it's okay."

"Please don't tell Travis or Nico," I said, pulling away.

He shook his head. "I won't." He gently wiped a tear from my face. "You said you're considered the guardian of secrets at your camp? Well, even the guardian of secrets needs someone to tell their secrets to. However, you might have wanted to tell Nico that you don't want to celebrate your birthday."

I wiped my eyes. "Why?"

He gave a nervous smile. "It was supposed to be a surprise. I mean, we were going to tell you on the way over, but…mostly a surprise."

"I hate surprises," I said, rubbing my temples. "All of our friends are gathering at my house, aren't they?"

"Surprise?"

"That's why we're going to your house first, so that they can set up the birthday party?"

"Yeah, we were going to get there and find out that my parents decided to forego pizza, Nico was going to suggest we just head back to your house for pizza after you guys met the rest of my family and I changed out of this since I got spaghetti sauce on it, then we were going to go back and tell you once we got to the house that we had gotten all of your friends here. Somehow. Even your friends from the camps."

I stared at him. "I'm going to kill you both."

"Yeah, we deserve it."

I gave a sort of whining groan, and dropped back onto the bench. "I don't want to go."

"I know that now," He said, his voice sympathetic. "If it helps, we were going to do crappy Karaoke, dancing, pizza, ice cream and cake, more dancing and then watch a movie like Guardians of the Galaxy two. And there are presents."

"Why? Why are there presents?"

He shrugged. "We forgot to say no presents."

I shook my head. "I can't do this, Johnny. I can't. I cannot go to that party."

"Yes, you can. I've got your back and we both know Nico would feel awful if this bombed."

I glared at him. "You had to pull that one out."

"You needed motivation. Don't worry, I'll make sure to take him off your hands tomorrow so you can have the day to yourself to do nothing. I don't want you doing anything productive. Okay? I want you to do things that make you happy. Like read, or binge-watch shows and play computer games. You're already almost done with homework and we can work on our model town some other time. It's not due until right before break anyway." He helped me to my feet.

I sighed. "Can you drive Nico to your place? I'm going to need some extra time to look normal."

"Sure thing," He said. "I'll go find him now. You have the directions?"

I nodded. "I'll see you there."