She's been swimming in blood and rain for seven days.

Hearing Caligula's call is like plunging into icewater instead. She comes back to her body so quickly that her mind spins, and the first thing she does is roll onto her stomach to throw up.

What comes out of her is black. Blood? Who knows. It tastes rotten and foul.

Juliette's arms and legs are trembling. She can barely hold herself up enough to spit up onto the floor without falling into it. She's fevered. Dangerously so. She can hear Will's voice in her head reminding her the dangers of just high body temperature.

Chills run down her spine. Juliette wipes her mouth on her arm and looks up.

Lightning.

Her voice comes out without her permission. She can't help the embarrassing whine, sob that escapes her as she looks at him.

"Jason?"

It's been six months. He's only twenty feet away.

Jason is the only thing in this room that is shining. He's sweaty, dirty, bloodied, and his eye is turning purple. There's a slice across his nose and several scattered over his upper arms and chest. He's in some preppy school outfit - dress pants, dress shoes, and a white button down pushed up to his elbows. In another time, Juliette would likely tease him for the getup. She'd tell him that he looks like an armed and dangerous bank clerk. A hot one.

But he's taller. He's broader. His blue eyes are warm, healthy, angry, concerned. Jason looks strong. His arms look strong. His hands look strong.

Strong enough to take her away from here. Juliette feels tears pour down her cheeks. She tries to reach him, but her body collapses only inches from where she started.

She doesn't have any words, but Jason doesn't need them. His gaze hardens at the sight of her desperation, and he kneels.

Not to Caligula behind her.

To Juliette.

To her height, sprawled on the floor of the throne room, just as she's woken up countless times in the past week.

"I'm here, Rosa. You're not alone anymore."

Not alone.

She's been alone for so long.

Even when she had Lityerses, she was alone.

She's wanted Jason.

She's missed Jason so much.

Gods, she-"I love you," She chokes.

Jason smiles at her. It's forced. There are tears in his eyes. But the sight of it makes feeling start to come back to the tips of her fingers and toes. A feeling other than pain.

"I love you too. You sit tight, okay, baby? You're going to be just fine."

"Actually, I think I am the one in charge here," comes Caligula's voice.

The sound of it returns the fire to Julie's skin. She cries out, hunching back down, and watches, stomach turning, as the veins in her wrists change color. Stemming from the cuffs on her arms, her blood beneath her skin, once violet, turns to black and then to gold.

It burns brightly. Julie digs her forehead into the tiles of the mural floor. Just over the visage of Caligula's depiction of her mother.

"What are you doing to her?!"

Is that Meg shouting?

Julie can't focus enough to tell. She's doing all she can not to scream at the smell of her own flesh cooking underneath her skin.

"Oh dear, it looks like she might be broken. That's a shame."

"Stop!" "That's enough!"

"Juliette, darling, these demigods are annoying me. Remove them, would you? I'd like to wait for Apollo in peace."

The order sears through her.

Julie waits for the red fog, terrified.

It doesn't come. Her vision stays clear. But her body still moves.

Against her wishes, Juliette rises to her feet, feeling the familiar prickle of scales emerging on her cheeks and chest. Through the curtain of her tangled hair, Julie can see Meg's wary expression. She's taken a step back, her grip on her weapons uncertain. Jason is still on one knee. He looks unsurprised. Just sad and frustrated.

Julie's dizzy. She's in pain. But she manages to turn her head towards the emperor, dressed in his sailor outfit and smirking like a crazed off-brand Popeye, and lets out one last scathing insult before her transformation takes over.

"That's a stupid fucking hat."

Julie becomes a wyvern. Her wyvern lunges forward to attack.

But Jason laughs. If Jason is laughing, the world can still spin.

Jason and Juliette have sparred before.

All in good fun, of course, and usually to the same end. Every melee and swordfight they have tends to end up with Jason victorious and Juliette looking a little too pleased with his position on top of her to have been really trying her hardest. Aerial combat, Jason has never won. If they're sparring in the sky, Juliette will be thoroughly stomping him and then looking a little too pleased about the minor injuries Leo teases him about all week.

Most of the time, though, Jason and Juliette have fought side by side. It's impossible to face what they've been through together and not learn each other's strengths and weaknesses. He can say the same for any of the Seven. Jason knows the kind of breath she takes before she spits venom. He knows how hard her wings will beat before she swipes with her claws.

He's sure she knows the same about him. But Caligula doesn't. Jason uses that advantage now to keep them both alive.

"You know, me going to California was entirely to stop this from happening!" Jason shouts in exasperation, dodging his girlfriend's razor sharp talons as the two of them soar up to the high ceiling of the throne room. "I'm gonna be on my toes forever with you, aren't I?"

Juliette hisses at him, crimson eyes tracking Jason's weaving flight pattern across the room.

"HEY, SNAKE FACE!" Meg shouts from below. "DOWN HERE!"

The gleam of her waving Imperial Gold blades must catch Juliette's eye. She turns her head towards Meg long enough for Jason to smack her downwards with a gust of wind.

Juliette's monstrous form collides with the mural floor. The tiles shatter and spray the room with deadly shards of porcelain. Jason dodges them. Meg deflects them with her blades. Juliette screeches in pain when they wedge themselves between her scales.

Caligula yawns.

"What is taking Apollo so long? I have plans later."

Meg leaps away as Juliette's snake-like head strikes at her. Jason sweeps the kid up into the air just in time for his girlfriend's talons to leave deep gouges in the floor where she'd just been standing.

"What do we do?!" Meg shouts in his ear.

Jason worries at his scar and looks down at where Juliette is standing again, shaking rubble off of her wings and turning to find them.

He hates this. He really hates this. But he isn't sure how else to handle it.

"We need to knock her human again," decides Jason. "She's too dangerous transformed. Once she's human, I know I can beat her."

"Beat her?!"

"You know what I mean!"

"This is so messed up!"

"Just don't get hit, and try to distract her," Jason instructs. "I'll figure out the rest."

Meg doesn't look thrilled, but she nods. Jason drops her back onto her feet and flies up by the stairs again.

He hates to agree with Caligula, but Apollo and Piper need to get down here. Jason has an idea, but it's a bad one. A terrible one. And even if it works, they still have to figure out how to get Juliette out of here.

Jason watches the girls battle down below, Meg leaping between Juliette's strikes and swipes. He tries to push away the image of her from moments ago. How she was just laying there, bloody, weak, pale. She's never been pale. Not in the year and a half he's known her. Not in the random, scattered memories of their childhood. Seeing her skin so close to cadaverous has shaken Jason to his core.

But he doesn't have time to be disturbed. Right now, he needs to decide how to save her.

Jason puts his fingers to his lips and whistles. Juliette looks up from her fight with Meg. So does Caligula, eyebrow raised in lazy interest, still lounged on his gold plush throne.

"Hey, beautiful!" He calls to her. "Let's go for a fly!"

Jason's plan works for a little while. Fly Juliette through the herd of venti still circling the fleet of yachts. Unfortunately, said plan wasn't exactly foolproof, and Jason was the one who eliminated their mistress. None of them are particularly happy to see him. It's only a matter of time before one gets a lucky shot and Jason's flight becomes a fall. He needs to wrap this up.

Jason's buying time for Apollo and Piper to show. He thinks, based on the music floating from three yachts down, that they're getting close.

"It's been a while since we had a night out!" Jason calls back to Juliette, zipping overtop the roof of the yacht and dodging a ventus' blast. "Not the reunion date that I had planned, but we're making it work, right?!"

She roars at him. Jason laughs breathlessly and dodges a spew of acid.

Man. The guys at his school were worried about their girlfriends texting other dudes. Jason's trying not to let his melt him with phlegm.

Gods, he is so in love with this girl.

A flash of white down below draws Jason's attention. The silver glow of Juliette's Stygian Ice bow is leaping off the gangway of the ship beside Caligula's main vessel.

Apollo. Another figure leaps behind him. Piper.

Jason nods to himself and swerves upwards, directing Juliette up and away from the ship into the open sky. His stomach feels gross about what he's going to do, but he isn't sure what other option there is. Jason needs to get her home.

"I'm sorry about this, Rosa!"

Jason bursts through a cloud.

It solidifies behind him.

The sound of Juliette's wyvern colliding with a wall of air is, strangely enough, a familiar one. Just like her face-plant into Terminus, the sky ripples for a moment. She seems to hover in place. Then her scales melt away, and a human teenage girl begins to fall out of the sky.

Jason lets out a heavy, relieved breath and kicks off another cloud to fly down and catch her.

It's been six months. Six months since he touched her.

He can't help it.

When her weight lands in his arms, right side up like they're hugging, he's glad that Apollo and Piper are busy. And that Meg is inside. Because Jason ends up floating there for a minute, holding the girl that he loves and crying like a child.

All up and down her arms, there are bruises. Needle marks. Veins that seem to be confused as to whether they want to be purple, black, or yellow. Her lips are dry and painted on the inside with a sticky looking black tar. Her hair is still long, still beautiful, but matted down her back, and the thin, pink dress that she's wearing is so torn and burnt that Jason wants to swaddle her into every jacket and blanket and pair of sweats that he owns so she'll be comfortable.

His chest is being stomped on. She doesn't smell like coconut. Or mountain laurels. She smells like blood and death and sweat. Jason holds her unconscious form tightly to his chest and buries his face into her shoulder, trembling. He watches his tears run down her moonlit skin.

She's so pale.

She's so pale.

Gods, she's going to be so frustrated by that. None of her makeup is going to match anymore.

He makes himself laugh with that thought. Or she does, he supposes. In what he's sure to be a show of very reliable sanity, Jason's hysteria becomes a mashup of sobbing, laughing, and rocking his 6'0" tall girlfriend in his arms like the world's most dangerous infant. Jason doesn't even care what he looks like.

He found her.

"Excuse me, lovebirds!"

The shout makes Jason's stomach drop. He looks up from Juliette's shoulder.

Her eyes are open. Red. Staring at him blankly. The cuffs on her biceps are alight once again.

Caligula's voice rings out once more from below, shattering the peaceful sky.

"Why don't the two of you come down and join the conversation?"

Apollo does not know what to do.

Jason lands next to him, Juliette cradled in his arms, and he suppresses a shudder. The girl's eyes are glowing red in the darkness of the evening. She is staring blankly forward, as still as a statue.

Meg struggles in Caligula's grasp. Piper is unconscious at the emperor's feet, jaw clearly broken and lip busted from the force of his backhand. There are pandai on all sides of them, and Apollo does not know what to do. He doesn't know how to get away. How to get these friends of his...these children...how to get them home.

"So, you really did it," Caligula notes, glaring at Jason. "You managed to murder my science officer."

Apollo looks to his companion in surprise. He feels his heart jolt at the blank, unapologetic expression on him.

He looks quite a bit like their father, doesn't he?

"She got what was coming to her," Jason says lowly.

The emperor's eyes narrow. This is the first that his smile has dropped all evening. He seems frustrated by Medea's loss. Apollo wonders just what Jason might have stopped by eliminating the witch.

He wonders how much he owes this boy, this hero beside him. Likely more than Apollo's sorry self could ever hope to repay.

He feels very small next to Jason.

To be fair, though, who would not feel small when the boy next to you is twice your height and cradling a rescued damsel?

Caligula's focus is on Juliette now as well. He reaches a hand out to her, knife still pressed to Meg's throat, and crooks a finger.

"Juliette, come."

A blinding red light. A smell like cooking meat.

No movement.

Apollo glances to the side. In Jason's arms, Juliette's face is strained. But she has not moved. Her hands are clutching the fabric of Jason's button down. Apollo watches the boy's hold on her tighten, and his heart aches at the gentleness of the kiss that Jason drops onto the top of Juliette's head.

"I've got you, Rosa. Stay here with me."

A flicker. A flash of green.

Apollo's breath catches.

Could it be...?

The red fades from Juliette's eyes. Her cuffs go dim. Her head falls to Jason's shoulder, and Caligula's face drops.

That was impossible. Apollo doesn't know what just happened. He's in no position to question it, though.

"Release Meg," Apollo demands.

Caligula outright laughs. "No? I have you all cornered. Why would I just let go of a hostage?"

Well, he's got Apollo there.

"Incitatus."

The horse looks over, shaking his mane like it's irritating him, falling in his eyes. "Whatchu want, Cal?"

Caligula nods to Piper. "Take that one to the dungeons. Bring me a vial from Medea's stores."

"A'ight."

Jason steps towards Piper at the same time the horse does. It makes the beast snort. "Kid, am I gonna need to knock the blonde right off ya?"

Heart hammering, Apollo watches Jason glance frantically between Meg's snarling form in Caligula's grasp and Piper's shallowly breathing body splayed out on the deck. He looks conflicted. His hold on Juliette looks desperate. Once again, Apollo feels so very small compared to this wonderful, courageous boy.

This brother of his. If Apollo is even worthy enough to call them so.

It's a gamble, but he goes for it. Before any of the pandai or Incitatus can make another move, Apollo reaches back and snags an arrow from his quiver.

Just to hold it directly over his heart.

"Let my friends go!" Apollo shouts. Everyone freezes and looks to him.

Caligula rolls his eyes. "Once again, why would I-"

"Let them go - all of them - or I'll kill myself."

His knees tremble as he says it. But he says it.

Oh, no thou shalt not!

Shut up, stupid arrow!

Hark! Thou shutest up, rather!

Caligula looks bewildered. Doubtful. Like he's sure Apollo is bluffing.

Apollo is not bluffing. He sort of wishes that he was, but he's really ready to do it. He can already feel the point of the Arrow of Dodona digging into the top layer of his flabby chest.

He is just as surprised as you are, Dear Reader. And that is really saying something, because you are likely as surprised as Caligula's possy of guards.

That surprise is the only reason that Jason's blitz attack works.

It all happens in a flash of light. A blink of an eye.

Juliette is in Jason's arms. He's standing between Incitatus and Piper.

Then Juliette is fifty feet in the air as Jason Grace explodes.

Apollo has seen storms. His uncle is the Stormbringer, his father is the Lord of the Sky, and Apollo was quite the prankster growing up. He has seen storms. He has been the center of storms.

He still feels awed at the show of Jason Grace's raw power.

Children of the Three Kings are figures of legend - even the demigods. But Jason Grace was in Physics class this morning. He sat in the passenger seat on the ride here because he has yet to get his driver's license. He carries around a picture of a pretty girl in his Superman wallet.

And he is in the process of sinking Caligula's flagship while wearing his high school uniform.

Suddenly, Apollo finds himself questioning if he should be more concerned about his son dating a child of Hades.

Nearly pinned down by the winds that are raging all around, Apollo grips the floor of the deck, army crawling towards where Piper is still lying. She's waking up. Her face is twitching. Apollo's chest nearly crumbles to dust from relief.

He looks for Juliette. She's up above, encased in a pocket of calm night air. Just floating like Sleeping Beauty. Tranquil.

Apollo is jealous.

He hears a short scream and whips around. There's a ravine cleaved through the center of the ship. The other half of the yacht is starting to bow downwards, the angle becoming steeper by the second as the boat tries to tear itself apart.

Jason is on the other side of the ravine. He has his sword jammed into a crook in the wreckage for leverage as he grips Meg's wrist to keep her from falling into the spiraling water. Caligula is only yards away from them, rising to his feet. He reaches out a hand, and an Imperial Gold spear zips into his palm.

Jason looks over their way, teeth gritted.

"APOLLO! CATCH!"

What?

Oh!

OH!

Meg screams in surprise again, and Apollo frantically scrambles to the edge of the ravine just in time to catch her around the wrists. Her weight nearly pulls his weak, flabby, useless mortal body overboard with her. If it weren't for Piper jumping to their aid, supporting Apollo around the waist, he and Meg would both be taking a swim.

They pull her onto the deck safely, and Apollo turns back for Jason.

He was hoping that the boy would jump next. Or fly.

But his back is turned to them.

"Go!"

Juliette's body floats down to their reach. Apollo watches Piper rush forward and pop the air pocket like a bubble, enveloping her unconcsious younger sister into her arms, broken jaw still hanging slack and now failing to muffle her sobs of relief. Meg is crying as well. That sight disturbs Apollo almost as much as the sight of Jason's gladius in his scarred hand on the other side of this ravine.

"Take her, and go!"

Apollo doesn't understand.

"Piper?"

The small voice makes the pounding in his heart even more frantic. He turns to the girls.

Juliette is awake. Her hair is whipping in the wind. Her open eyes are green.

No, red.

Green.

Red.

Gold.

She looks like she has a terrible headache and is very confused why both of her sisters are clutching her arms and crying. Apollo should be relieved that she is okay. That she is awake and lucid.

In reality, he just feels an even heavier weight sink into his gut.

"GET OUT OF HERE!" Jason roars, turning to them impatiently. "GET HER AWAY! NOW!"

Away from Caligula. Before she can be enchanted again.

"Jason...?" Juliette mumbles, dazed. It's barely loud enough for Apollo to hear over the rushing of the wind, and yet it nearly blows out his eardrums.

"You're one of those New Rome brats, aren't you?" Caligula sneers, twirling his spear. "You called yourself praetor?"

Jason raises his gladius. "Maybe I was once," He responds. "Right now, I'm just a soldier."

Zeus hopes that his stupid son has learnt his lesson.

Sons. Both of them.

"Sit down, Ma," Ares huffs, slouched back on the sofa. He lights another cigarette, speaking from the corner of his mouth. "Freakin' out ain't gonna do nothin'."

Zeus rolls his eyes as Hera continues to pace.

"This is wrong, Zeus!"

Because she wants the boy to live, or because-?

"He is mine!"

Yep. As he thought.

"I am doing nothing to cause this, Hera," Zeus sighs. "The boy did not have to get involved in this. This is Apollo's punishment."

"And he is in love with that Heartbreak!" spits his wife.

She points to the Iris projection on the far wall. Jason Grace is facing off with Caligula, gladius in hand, Apollo and the other demigods safely behind him on the other end of the ship. Like cowards. The halfblood that his wife is gesturing to looks like she is barely conscious - a fact that his Roman son appears very aware of.

Zeus shrugs. "Take it up with Aphrodite, then."

"This is not Aphrodite's doing! You know her distain for the girl-"

"Hera-"

"As you said, this is Apollo's punishment! Not my champion's!"

"You will not interfere with the quest-"

"Then, you should! He is your son! Your only demigod son-"

"I do not care."

Hera reels back like Zeus just struck her. He is considering it. "How could you not care?!"

Ares groans. Zeus rakes a hand down his face irritably.

Family. His wife's domain. It really can be inconvenient sometimes.

He looks around the room at his children.

Athena is standing close to the projection, pinching her chin and squinting at the Grace boy on the screen in thought.

Ares is smoking again. He's gone through three times the packs he normally does since Apollo began this excursion to mortality.

Hermes is frowning at the screen, seeming melancholy and lost in his own mind as he watches the scene.

Hephaestus is quiet. He has not spoken a word since Apollo entered Indianapolis.

And Artemis, like usual, is staring daggers at the projection her twin is shown on. Every time an attack is thrown Apollo's way, she reaches uselessly for her bow.

"I will not just stand by while-!"

Zeus' temper flares. He rises from the couch and steps his face close to Hera's.

"ENOUGH!"

She goes silent, but her brown eyes are still molten. She's furious. More than he's seen in a century, but great Olympus, she has not shut her mouth since the Grace boy's first appearance. Zeus is one more complaint away from zapping her right down to share mortality with his irritating middle child.

Curling his lip, Zeus points to the screen. "You will sit here and watch. You will not intervene. That is my command! Not if the boy prays to you."

He takes a step closer to her. She takes a step back.

"Not if he cries out your name."

A step.

"Not if he is being torn apart by wolves and you are his only salvation."

Hera's eyes are filled with angry tears. Zeus scoffs at the expression. The boy is his son. What purpose do her tears possibly serve?

"Jason Grace gave up Olympus' assistance when he involved himself in Apollo's trials. His fate is out of your hands. Do you understand me?"

She glares at him, fists clenched in the skirt of her dress. A disrespectful glower. A challenge.

Zeus rises to it happily. He snatches her upper arm and drives her backwards into the wall. Hera gasps at the aggression, and Zeus bares his teeth.

"Do you understand me?"

Hera's eyes twitch. A bit of fear glimmers in them. Good.

Slowly, her head bows forward to direct her frustrations towards the den floor.

"Yes, brother," She hisses, glaring at the tiles.

He rolls his eyes. Hera likes to use that title when she is angry with him. Zeus is just relieved that he might finally get some peace and fucking quiet.

When he turns around, all of his children are watching the scene.

Ares' cigarette is crushed in his fist. Hermes' hand is locked onto his brother's bicep in restraint.

Athena is staring apathetically. Artemis is digging her nails into her legs, likely in an attempt to not appear too disapproving.

Hephaestus surprises him. Hephaestus looks grief stricken.

Zeus brushes off their reactions. It is not like they have not witnessed him row with his wife before. Hera is a...trying woman. He hopes that his warning will sink into that thick skull of hers.

Jason Grace seemed very sure that he knew what was right for Olympus when he disrespected Zeus at the Acropolis. He made his bed. Zeus would like him to lie in it and decide for himself if Apollo is really quite so innocent.

Snatching his chalice out of Ganymede's hands, Zeus throws the nectar back, hoping for a bit of a buzz to drown out the sound of his wife's self pitying sighs. He flops back onto the couch and pulls his cupbearer down to sit on his lap.

Love. Please.

If that is what the boy decides to die for, then Zeus is glad to be low on demigod children for a while.