Visiting the Camps

For a few moments, all was peaceful. The waves lapped against the soft sand. The morning sunlight cast gentle sparkles off the turquoise water. As I took it all in, a force tackled me from behind and pinned me against the ground.

"What the?"

Before I could register any more, Annabeth locked her lips with mine and slipped her tongue into my mouth. A gentle moan passed between us. Which of us did it, I wasn't sure. All I knew was my girlfriend looked radiant with the morning light glowing against her golden skin.

She pulled away. "You better hurry up with Piper," she said. "Otherwise, I'm going to cancel our little agreement."

I grinned. "Getting antsy?"

"Shut up." A smile crept onto her lips. " I've been waiting months to get this close with you."

"Fair enough."

We stood and I looked to the horizon. "So how exactly are we supposed to get off of the island?"

She quirked an eyebrow shook her head. "I thought you would have figured that out by now. We hitch a ride."

With that she gave out a whistle like she was hailing a cab. A streak appeared in the distance. Within seconds, it grew bigger until the surface of the water exploded to reveal my old friend, Rainbow, the hippocampus.

"Hey, buddy. Long time, no see."

He whinnied in response, happy to see me again, and the feeling was mutual.

"Can you take us to Camp Half-Blood?"

He knickered, as if saying "Duh. That's why I'm here." He lowered himself and allowed us to climb onto his back and took off like the world's largest living jet ski.

Almost no time passed before the outline of Half-Blood Hill appeared in the distance. All along the campgrounds, demigods bustled to and fro in an effort to repair the recent battle's damage. Among the mix, both orange and purple shirts dotted the grounds. The sound of Chiron's beating hooves echoed across the valley.

We pulled up to the coast and were greeted with the centaur in question.

"Hello, dear Annabeth. And Percy—"his eyes welled up as her pulled me in for a hug "—Welcome back. Though I imagine this is only temporary."

"I'm afraid so, Chiron," Annabeth said wistfully. "We have to get the belongings of everyone back on… Galínios."

Chiron chuckled. "Do not fret dear. Whatever you need us to get, we can do so quickly. And I know that this was not how you intended to go. Things will definitely be different without everyone here."

Annabeth took her turn with the tears. She tackled Chiron in a hug with watery eyes. "I'm so sorry, Chiron. I wish it wasn't this way."

I sympathized with her. Since age seven, she looked to Chiron as a father; since age twelve, I looked to him as one as well.

"There has to be a way around this, right? Some way to get rid of this whole harem thing?"

He turned to me with a solemn expression "I'm afraid not. The laws written for it are so simple and so set in stone that they have never been outmaneuvered."

"Maybe. But even stone has to bend to the will of the sea." That sounded a lot better in my head, but I wished I could back up that statement.

He smiled. "Perhaps. But it is not this day. You said you were here to pick up some items. I could collect them for you. Then you could take an opportunity to say hello and goodbye to the campers. Percy, Grover is currently in the camp and he has been practically dying to see you. The same can be said for Mrs. O'Leary."

My heart dropped at the thought of seeing my favorite hellhound again. The same with seeing Grover.

Annabeth looked over the list, tore it in half, and handed a piece to the centaur. "We'll split it. Cover the work in half the time." Chiron seemed to like her thinking.

"Very well. Let us get underway." He galloped off towards the cabins.

Annabeth scanned over the list. "Well, looks like we're starting at the Aphrodite cabin. Let's get to it."

I groaned at the thought of going to that dollhouse but followed her nonetheless.

As I remembered, the Aphrodite cabin was a Barbie doll's wet dream. From the frilly curtains to the pastel nightmares they called bed coverings, everything screamed "We're fancy!" If only the children of Aphrodite realized how wrong they were.

"This place is literally strangling me with perfume," I complained.

"I know," Annabeth choked. "But the quicker we get everyone's things, the quicker we get out of here."

She didn't need to tell me twice. Within seconds I located Piper's bed and found all of the pictures she was talking about. With a little digging around in her dresser, I found her necklace as well. It was a simple suede necklace with silver sewn into the stitching with a turquoise stone dangling from the middle. Yep, definitely Piper's style.

We put the items into a leather pouch, gathered some of Piper's clothes and moved on to the next person: Drew. Her clothes wasn't a problem. Putting together her makeup kit and jewelry? Absolute nightmare material.. Nearly fifty pounds of accessories found themselves packed away in a duffel bag. Annabeth held up a frilly black piece of cloth with a wary expression and glanced towards me.

"This is what she rushed over this morning and wrote down. I'm guessing she already has plans for you."

I shuddered at the thought. "How about no? I'll just put her off until the curse takes effect."

She laughed. "I would totally agree with that, but she'll beg for it long before then."

I sighed in reluctant agreement.

When we finished with the Aphrodite cabin, we gathered the rest of the items on the list. Among the items included some pictures and gardening tools for Katie, Annabeth's laptop and almost half of the Athena cabin's library. From my cabin, we grabbed some sand dollars, my minotaur horn, my wristwatch that Tyson made me, and a scrapbook of photos I put together over the years. On top of all that was a massive collection of clothes. Lugging the massive load around could not be good for Rainbow's back.

We met back up with Chiron in the center of the cabin area. He stretched his shoulder while panting. "I had forgotten how much miss Dare loved her art supplies. Her cave was just full of it."

I laughed at the premise of a several thousand year old centaur struggling to carry some easels, but tried my best to hide it. With everything piled up in the middle of camp, I contacted Hermes via Iris message and asked him to have our hoard shipped to the island. Fifty drachmas later, he agreed.

With our newfound free time, Annabeth and I split ways to greet some old friends. As I moved towards the training arena, an unexpected arrival intercepted my path.

"Didn't think I'd see you so soon."

"Jason," I grumbled.

A violent tremble of my hand later, and Jason found himself knocked to the ground with fifty gallons of lake water. He coughed and spluttered, but made no effort to fight back. When he gathered his bearings, he stood.

"I guess I deserved that."

Among other things…

"Why'd you do it?" I snapped. "What possessed you to cheat on her?"

He looked to the ground. "Look, I know I messed up."

I crossed my arms, waiting for a real answer.

"My memories came back bit by bit. Among them, I remembered dating Gwen while in the Fifth Cohort. When I saw her again after so long, things… happened…"

I scoffed. "Doesn't make your case any better."

"I know… I know. I should have broken up with Piper beforehand." He made efforts to clean off his glasses. "Speaking of, you'll have to sleep with her at some point, right?"

Ha! She already asked to be the first!

"Yeah," I looked away. "At some point."

An awkward silence passed.

"Make sure she enjoys it… And—" he glanced towards the lake "— could you relay my apologies?"

I cocked an eyebrow. "No offense, but the last thing she needs is to be conflicted any further. You're the last person she wants to hear from now."

His head dropped. "Yeah. Figured as much. Well, I've got to go help out. I'm sure you've got other things to do as well. So… see you around."

"A word of warning." I grinned. "If you see Annabeth, run. She's not as forgiving as I am."

After the awkward reunion, I returned to my original path. In the arena, I found myself greeted with my gargantuan megadog, Mrs. O'Leary. She charged me down and barked loud enough for the camp to shake, which was only slightly less intimidating than a runaway freight train. For who knows how many times, I wished my powers extended to doggy saliva. For a solid ten minutes, she drowned me in a slobbery bath. After managing to get her off of me, I grabbed a nearby shield and threw it across the arena. She chased down the twenty pound frisbee and caught it within seconds.

"She sure has missed you," a familiar voice said behind my back.

I turned around to see my best friend for the past six plus years, Grover. I didn't even give him a chance to react. I just charged him down and crushed him in a bear hug.

"Yeah. It's great to see you too man. The ribs, dude! Don't break my horns!"

I pulled back. "It's been too long, G-Man! How've you been?"

"Aside from battling the Roman legion, then siding with them to battle Mama Earth? Pretty good actually. Just dull without the son of Poseidon to cause trouble. Soon, I'm gonna be headed to California to discuss all of the droughts and fires with the Council of Cloven Elders."

We caught up and joked around for a while but the afternoon sun kept me in check of the time. "Hey, how are things between you and Juniper? Still going strong?"

He snorted. "Of course. Though she's gotten feisty with the other nymphs now that I'm pretty well known as the Lord of the Wild. There are plenty who want to put that title to the test." I laughed at the idea of him getting chased by nature spirits, since normally satyrs do the chasing. "As a matter of fact, I was gonna go see her after we finished catching up."

I replied. "Well on that note, I have to get going too. I have to get to another camp to pick up some stuff from the opposite side of the country, and be back before dinner."

He laughed. "Always rushing, huh Perce? Alright well see you around, Twice Savior of Olympus."

"See you around, Lord of the Wild. I don't want to see any satyr babies running around yet, all right?"

"Glad you have so much faith in me." He trotted off to go see his girlfriend as I gave Mrs. O'Leary one last hug so I could go find mine.

It didn't take too long to find my Wise Girl. She seemed to be locked in an argument with Malcom, her recent replacement as counselor. By the look on his face, I would argue being made counselor of the Athena cabin wasn't doing him any favors. I decided to steer clear of the argument, lest I wanted to become a grease mark on the field.

"Having a hard time adjusting?"

I jumped at the voice and whirled around to see Hestia sitting calmly by the hearth. She appeared quite a bit older than most of the time, late twenties I would guess. Regardless of her age, her eyes always carried an eternally warm fire.

"Yeah," I said. "I wish this was just a bad dream I could wake up from."

Hestia pursed her lips. "I do not know what drove my brothers to press this upon you, Perseus. All I can tell you is that perhaps it was simply meant to be."

I looked down at my feet. "So I was meant to betray Annabeth?"

"Do not look at it like that," she said, "Think of this as creating your own home. That is where you have truly shined, Perseus. You have created homes wherever you go. Now you must learn to lead another."

I shook my head. "But I didn't have to sleep with anyone before. Now I don't even get a choice in the matter."

She sighed. "I know. Even in my opinion, this wasn't fair for you or your friends. If I had my way, this would not be the case. Unfortunately, not even Zeus will listen to his eldest sister."

"Any advice on how I should handle this? You know, sleeping with everyone?"

She smiled wryly. "You are asking the wrong goddess for that one. I can only tell you this to help. It's not what happens in the bedroom that will determine your success of leading this new family. It is how they view you that will decide whether you shall live happily."

With that, she vanished in a column of red flames.

Annabeth finished her argument with her brother and made her way back to the hearth.

"Everything alright with Malcolm?"

"Fine," she snapped. I gave her "the look" and she crumbled. "He was upset about this whole arrangement. Despite what you may think, keeping track of the Athena cabin is hard work. We're stubborn, and we never stop working even when we should."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah, well that stubbornness has saved our lives more than once, Wise Girl." I kissed her and rubbed her shoulder.

"Percy don't." She pouted. "Resisting you is hard enough as it is."

I grinned. "Am I just too much demigod for you to handle?"

She punched my shoulder, her face doing a perfect impression of a tomato. "I'm going to pop that over inflated ego soon."

I laughed. "Come on. We have another camp to get to."

With that, we went back to Rainbow, who stubbornly refused to give one of the Ares kids a ride. Did I mention that Rainbow was my favorite hippocampus? When he saw us, he cantered over to Annabeth and I and lowered his head for us to climb on.

I gave his mane a pat and fed him some sugar cubes originally meant for Blackjack. With that, Rainbow departed, slapping sand into the face of the Ares camper and took off to Long Island Sound.

Rainbow whinnied a warning for us to hang on (which Annabeth and I did religiously) and submerged himself underwater. Only a few seconds passed and we re-emerged in a completely different body of water. I recognized it as the Little Tiber.

Camp Jupiter's fortifications were more or less still intact after Polybotes' invasion attempt. The camp though, was completely empty. I imagined the Romans would be hard at work once they finished undoing the damage inflicted by Octavian's invasion on the opposite end of the country.

We pulled up to the shore, where we were greeted by the ever watchful annoying armless statue, Tiberinus.

"Well, if it isn't the traitor and miss Rule Flouter. Do tell me why I shouldn't have you blasted on the spot."

"Well, for one because we're immortal now. Two, we and the Romans have come to peace with one another. Oh, and three, I'm here to collect some stuff for your last praetor."

With the way he turned his head, I imagined him crossing his missing arms. "Miss Arellano is a traitor as well. She holds no authority here."

Annabeth stepped in. "In that case, would you be kind enough to gather these items and bring them to us, since she can't come here to gather them for herself? The same with Hazel."

She showed him the list. Tiberinus scoffed. "Of course I can. You stay right here."

He then closed his eyes and started concentrating. Within seconds, a flash appeared at our feet. Once it dissipated, a small pile of bags lay at the base of the statue with two briefcases underneath them. Clothes, I would assume.

"Off you go now. And be careful with miss Levesque's items. They are bad luck." With that he flashed and was gone.

Not anymore.

Unlike our first round, there was very little to pick up so Annabeth and I grabbed a bungee cord from her pouch (where did she keep these things?) and strapped them to Rainbow, who was none too pleased about becoming a cargo horse. We saddled up once again.

Right as we were about to take off, Annabeth wrapped her arms around my waist and rubbed my inner thigh. I nearly jumped off Rainbow, but she held me in place.

"Not fun when someone else does the teasing, is it?"

I groaned out her name, which resulted in a laugh from her. "You may want to make sure our luggage doesn't get wet."

I groaned. She was right, of course. I willed everything on board the USS Rainbow to stay dry, but had to concentrate to do so. Annabeth was not making that easy as she rubbed my leg and nipped my neck.

We submerged and re-emerged at our lovely little island prison and pulled up to the shore. The sun was still fairly high, all things considered. Then again, the instant travel methods and OCD statue weren't planned for, so I guess we made good time. We unstrapped Rainbow from his burden and gave him some more sugar to thank him. He gave us one last appreciative winnie as he took off, just a streak of water in the sunset.

With that, we hauled the luggage back inside. In the foyer, we found the massive pile of items from Camp Half-Blood. A tag on one of the bags read "Arrival Time: 2 minutes ago."

Most of the girls funneled out of the various hallways, all coming back from whatever activities they were up to. Only Piper, the Hunters, Calypso, and Katie didn't show up to get their stuff. It occurred to me that we never did get Calypso's stuff from Ogygia or the Hunters' gear from their camp. It would probably serve everyone's best interest if we fixed that, and soon. The rest came in frantically looking for their most valued possessions, thank us, and hurried off to their rooms. I grabbed Piper's leather pouch, and turned to Annabeth. She smirked and nodded. With that, I grabbed Piper's luggage and hauled it down the corridor.

A/N - Talk about a busy trip. Oh, well. Now that he's back, what exactly will happen between Percy and Piper? Read on to find out. As always, leave a review. This is Ronin signing off.

Edits made: General fixes overall. This time, the Romans were helping the repairs on Camp Half-Blood. Thus, we were given another moment with Jason. Will we see him again in the future? Maybe, maybe not...