Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Rick Riordan, Greco-Roman mythology, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Decided to introduce the idea of some stuff that was originally going to be saved until much later. Am I evil? Yes, I am. ;)

As always, hope y'all enjoy, and until next week,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~The Finding Home Saga~

~Finding Home~

~Chapter 13: We Spend Some Time Hitchhiking Pt. 1~

Now, I know what you're thinking: "μὰ θεους, Percy, you just slayed Medusa and you passed out? How lame is that?"

And. Well. It is pretty lame, I'll give you that. I even thought as much when I woke up what had to be hours later, laying on top of one of the picnic tables in the dining hall of the warehouse. It was really uncomfortable, because the picnic table was one of those pseudo-mesh metal ones, but it wasn't as uncomfortable as the dryness of my mouth. Or, you know, all of the aches that were bouncing around my body like it was a bounce house.

"Ow," I groaned as soon as I was coherent enough to speak, stating the obvious.

"Percy!" the voice of Katie suddenly gasped somewhere to the left of my head. "Μὰ θεους, you're awake!"

"That's debatable," I replied, before I sat up and rubbed at my eyes. The bright light coming into the warehouse made me cringe from how it assaulted my eyeballs. Obviously, it wasn't nighttime anymore. "How long have I been out?"

Katie hesitated, until I glared at her for a few moments through my squinted eyelids. Finally relenting, she said, "About twelve hours. It's eight o'clock in the morning right now. We were gonna leave here but, well..." She trailed off, a grin twitching at her lips, and added, "You're too heavy, Percy. Even for Silena and me combined."

I rolled my eyes. "Gee, thanks," I said, before I gave another look around the room. It was different, in the light. The statues were no longer as ominous as they had been, but still sad. Who knew how long each of them had been standing in the warehouse...or if the people inside them were still alive or had instead gone to the Underworld. Like, imagine being a statue for all eternity. Ugh. Gross. "Speaking of Silena, where is she?"

"Right over here, lover boy!" Silena exclaimed as she walked towards the dining area. She looked like she'd had a shower and had obviously found some makeup and new clothes, if the new t-shirt and shorts she was wearing were anything to go by. "Oh, I'm so happy to see that you're finally awake! I was so worried you wouldn't wake up!"

It was Katie's turn to roll her eyes now. "And I told you, this is just how powers with us children of the gods work," she retorted, then tilted her head curiously. "Obviously, you found some clothes and makeup at the gas station next door. What else did you find?"

Silena smiled breezily. "Some clothes for all of us," she corrected, "and some money. It's probably enough to bribe someone into letting us hitchhike with them to a bus station somewhere, and after that I can...make things go smoother, if I need to."

I frowned. "'Make things go smoother?' What does that mean?"

She winked at me. "You'll see what I mean. Now, get dressed!"

Without another word, she handed Katie and I two separate bags. At first, I was kind of dreading the idea of what clothes she could've found at the gas station, because I didn't know what kind of clothes a closed-down gas station could have and I was a little worried about her tastes. Silena was a daughter of Aphrodite, after all, and her suddenly chopper mood was nothing if not suspicious. But, I was pleasantly when I pulled out a pair of dark jeans and a black ABBA t-shirt from the bag, because both were to my tastes, even if the shirt was a little vintage.

"How'd you know I like ABBA?" I asked Silena, pulling off my camp t-shirt. It was torn and tattered and now also covered in green goo – the life-force of Medusa, ugh. At least this time no mini-godlings had sprung forth from her neck.

"Percy," Silena said sweetly, batting her eyes at me. "You're gay. Not that I want to stereotype you or anything, because that is wrong, but if there's one thing I've learned from Mitchell and Al – "

"Silena," Katie interjected warningly.

Silena paused long enough to wrinkle her nose and huff, and continued with, " – it's that ABBA is one of the greatest bands to ever exist, along with Queen and My Chemical Romance. Besides, who doesn't like them? A sociopath, that's who."

"So, Annabeth then," I surmised, desperate to change the subject before my face could get any redder.

Silena merely rolled her eyes at me in response but Katie did snicker, so I counted that as a win. Putting on the ABBA shirt, I smoothed out the creases in it and looked around the room expectantly. When I didn't find what I was looking for, I turned to face Katie expectantly. She was now standing behind the food counter, and giving me a very unamused expression, despite having just laughed at my joke, as if she already knew what I was thinking and was trying to decide on what would be the best way to punish me for it.

"Hey, about last night..."

Katie's unamused expression intensified. "What about it?"

"What happened to the head?" I asked. "I mean, I was pretty out of it – "

"Literally almost dead on your feet, more like it," she deadpanned.

" – I'm pretty sure that Med – her head didn't just disappear like the rest of her," I finished with a not-so-subtle glare. "So, where is it?"

Katie slowly and reluctantly reached down behind the counter and picked up a gigantic paper bag, putting it on the countertop. It didn't land hard, but still I could hear the squelching noise of something inside the bag that internally made me cringe. But then I snorted, as the realization of it hit me, especially when I saw how the bag was obviously from the store due to the green head with a bunch of snakes on it, as well as the words WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESSprinted in bold, yet equally green letters.

"You seriously put her head in a paper bag?"

Katie shrugged. "More like a bunch of plastic bags and then a paper bag, but yeah," she said. "Technically, it's your spoil of war or whatever, since you killed her. You could theoretically do whatever you want with it. We were just making sure none of us would be accidentally turned to stone."

I raised an eyebrow. "Anything I want with it?"

"...Yes," Katie admitted with a nod, though the way her face twisted said it all. "But, Percy – "

With a grin, I walked over and took the Medusa-head bag from her, and opened the door that was just behind the food counter and walked inside. As I'd kind of suspected, the room on the other side of the door was actually an office-industrial kitchen combo of the sorts, but I wasn't really interested in the industrial kitchen side of things (at least, not yet, because though I was hungry, I wanted to get what I was about to do finished with first). No, I was more interested in the office stuff, specifically the accounting book and several small boxes that I saw on Medusa's desk.

"Percy," Katie tried again, trailing after me.

I ignored her.

Grabbing one of the bigger boxes off of the floor, since the smaller ones obviously wouldn't do, I put it on an empty space on the desk and not-so-delicately shoved the bag containing Medusa's head inside it. Then, I grabbed one of the packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express (apparently even the gods had a shipping business, who knew?) and slapped it on the box once I had written:

The Gods

Mount Olympus

600th Floor, Empire State Building

New York, NY

With kind regards,

Percy Jackson

"Are you trying to get all of us killed, or just yourself?" Katie sighed as I grabbed a pouch and stapled it to the box.

"No, not really," I replied vaguely. I grabbed some of the drachmas on the desk and put them in the pouch.

As soon as I closed both the pouch with the stapler and the box with some tape, a sound like a cash register rang out through the air. The box floated off of the table and disappeared with a sudden pop!

"The gods are going to think that you're impertinent," Katie told me wearily and resigned, even though the box had already left the building, making her point moot.

I shrugged. "I am impertinent. Now, come on. We can at least make some breakfast before we head out to wherever Silena's planning on us going."

Around six hours later, the three of us were sitting on an Amtrak train, in one of its first class carriages that I hadn't even known existed. Well, then again I'd never been out of the state before, so there was probably a point to that. The train was set to go all of the way to Denver, which would give us plenty of shut-eye and time to freak out. Silena and Katie were doing the former, I was doing the latter.

It wasn't one of my finer moments. I mean, it wasn't like I wanted to be freaking out. But well, you see, after our breakfast of burgers and fries at Aunty Em's (which weren't nearly as good as they'd been the night before, probably due to freaky gorgon magic dulling or enhancing the senses), we had walked a little ways down the road when Silena had successfully made a semi-truck pull over. The guy that'd been driving the truck had been really hesitant about driving three hitchhiking teenagers to the nearest train station, even if it was only a few miles down the road, but the money Silena had offered him along with a saucy wink had made him pretty malleable.

That wasn't what weirded me out, though. No, what weirded me out was, when we got to the train station, Silena had basically commanded the people there to let us on board the incoming train, despite not having any money. Because while she'd asked them nicely to do it and all that, her voice had taken on a strange tone I'd never heard before. It'd had an edge I'd never thought anyone's voice could have. And it had affected the people there, had made them (both guys and girls) grin sloppily and look at her hazily while they'd done just exactly what she'd wanted them to do. Even Katie had seemed to be a little affected by it, but I hadn't been.

So there I was, sitting, staring out at the landscape passing by, trying to keep both my mind and my breathing calm and under control. I knew I shouldn't have been freaking out. In a world of gods and monsters, after all, what was the ability to make people do your bidding? Nothing, I told myself. It was nothing.

...And yet, I couldn't shake it from my brain. Because Silena was my friend, or so I was thinking she should be since she'd come on this quest with me. She was a good person, and so were her half-siblings at camp. But just because they were good, it didn't mean all children of Aphrodite who had the ability were. All it took was one person to twist the ability for their own gain. All it took was for somebody like Gabe to –

"You're overthinking it," Silena said quietly.

I blinked and turned to look at her. She and Katie were sitting side-by-side, with Katie taking the window seat. Katie's eyes were closed and her head was burrowed into her arms, but Silena was looking at me with a gentle smile on her face and a soft look in her kaleidoscope eyes. Obviously, she hadn't been as asleep as I'd thought.

"What am I overthinking?" I asked.

...Yeah, I was trying to play it dumb. Sue me, this wasn't a conversation I wanted to have with anyone.

Ever.

"What I did," Silena replied. "I'm sorry, I should've told you about it this morning. I forget sometimes that..." She trailed off, just at the same time my blood felt like it was going to turn to ice, and shook her head. "Again, I'm sorry. What I did – it's called charmspeak, Percy. It's something that only certain children of Aphrodite can do, like me or Drew. Neither of us like using it, though, as I'm sure you saw why. It's pure manipulation. At least, that's what I think, anyways. I'm sure my mom would disagree."

I blinked, and chose to focus on the implication rather than the obvious like she wanted me to. "You've met Aphrodite?"

Silena's smile faded slightly, but nevertheless she played along. "Twice. Once, when I was a kid. The gods aren't supposed to interact with their children, but...she didn't show up for me. She showed up for my dad, because she wanted him to paint another portrait of her. That's how they met, you see. She liked his paintings so much she wanted him to paint her, and when he did she gave him me as payment."

Wait, what? I thought. My stomach began to churn. Aphrodite had had Silena as payment for a painting to her dad? That...that was so fucked up. Maybe not as fucked up as Aphrodite leaving her to be abused in more ways than one by her stepparent, like Poseidon had done with me, but still. It made me wonder if all demigods had stories like ours.

"And the second time that you met her?" I asked.

Silena shrugged. "The last solstice. I'm technically not a year-rounder like Luke, Katie, and Annabeth, but I've been coming to camp since I was eight. Chiron thought it was only right for me to see Olympus. And before you ask, it was...nice, I guess? She's a little over the top, but I'm pretty sure all children of Aphrodite are like that, too, so I can't really complain. That would be hypocritical."

I nodded, not sure of what else to say. I mean, what did you say to that? "Oh, I'm sorry your mom only had you as payment for your dad's work, but at least you got to meet her? Oh, and at least she didn't let your stepdad r – "

Yeah, no.

Thinking it was one thing, but saying it was another. It was like asking to get smitten. Smote? Whatever.

Speaking of smitten, though, I frowned. "Wait. This...charmspeak thing. Is it supposed to affect everyone?"

Silena nodded. "Always, b – "

"So how come it didn't affect me?" I asked, cutting her off.

It was rude of me to do that, I know. But what she was saying didn't make sense. Because, as I told you, I wasn't effected.

Again, Silena shrugged. "Like I was going to say, I don't know," she said. "It affects everyone, except for other charmspeakers. But charmspeaking is something exclusive to children of Aphrodite, so obviously you don't have it. Unless..." She cocked her head.

I gazed at her curiously. "What?"

Silena tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. Slowly, a smile came to her face – no, not a smile. A smirk. "Do you like to sing, Percy?" she questioned me.

"No, not really. But what's that got to do with – " I stopped speaking as what she was suggesting hit me with the force of a freight train. "But they're not even children of Poseidon, Silena!"

"Neither's Mom, but she had to get the ability from somewhere, didn't she? And her mom's Thalassa, the sea personified. Well, technically water, but," here, Silena waved her hand. "Semantics. We'll have to test this out sometime, though. Not right now, but, sometime. I'm curious to know what kind of powers you have. There hasn't been a child of any of the Big Three, much less Poseidon, in so long..."

Yeah, not for sixty years if you don't count the daughter of Zeus that died, I snarked to myself.

...But, I had to admit, I was curious, too. I had this simmering rage in my chest towards my father, but I was curious about the powers he'd given to me. Being able to control water, maybe being able to talk to sharks – since there was this one weird field trip I'd had in the fourth grade when I'd hit the wrong lever at a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine Shark pool after I'd thought I'd been convinced by the sharks to do it – and now possibly some sort of singing ability. What came next, being able to talk to horses? Besides the pegasi, because I'd convinced myself they didn't count.

Before I could give anymore thought into the matter, Katie suddenly jerked awake. Her eyes snapped open as her head jolted away from her arms, hitting the window of the train with a solid thud. "Ow," she groaned miserably.

"Katie," Silena gasped. "Are you alright?"

She moved to place her hand on Katie's arm comfortingly, but Katie shook her head and pushed her hand away. "I'm fine," she grumbled, though of course she really wasn't. Her eyes darted towards the window wildly, then locked onto mine. "We're not in Denver yet, are we?"

"No, we've only been on the train for a couple of hours," I said, frowning as something awful twisted in my stomach. It was going to take us a couple of days to get to Denver by train, and Katie knew that. So she shouldn't have been asking if we were in Denver already, unless, "Katie, you didn't have a demigod dream, did you?"

Correction: being able to control water, maybe being able to talk to sharks, and now possibly some sort of singing ability were all powers I had as a child of Poseidon. As just a regular demigod, however, I also had an innate understanding of ancient Greek, battle instincts, and the ability to dream horribly terrifying clusterfucks of dreams that were actually true. Hence, "demigod dreams."

And so did Katie. She gave me a look as she rubbed at her head, confirming the response she gave a second later to my question, "I did, and I think it was from my mom. Maybe. I don't know. All I know is that, if it was from her, she's trying to warn us about something, and whatever it is, it's in Denver."

Word Count: 3,083

Next Chapter Title: I Meet The God Of Assholes