Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians

This fic would not have existed without the encouragement of Stereden, who has also done a podfic of it, which can be found in its AO3 crosspost /works/57201739 or on my tumblr tsarisfanfiction!

The chariot was crowded by Apollo kids the moment it touched down, and Lee didn't know if his siblings were just that eager to see him and Michael arrive safely, or if they were intentionally making a wall between him and the rest of the campers, but he couldn't say he minded, either way.

Chris pulled him to his feet and helped him stumble out, into the waiting hands of his siblings, who almost all seemed eager to latch onto him again. Kayla stayed separate, glaring daggers at Clarisse as the daughter of Ares once again picked up Michael and carried him out.

"Where's the infirmary?" she demanded, and excited chatter in Lee's ears faded into a shocked disbelief as his siblings realised exactly who she was carrying. A collective bristle made it obvious that it wasn't popular, but Clarisse made no move to acknowledge the cabin's opinion on who was carrying their head counsellor.

"This way!" Tris chirped, the only one that didn't seem to care, and he tugged on Lee's arm, making it clear that he expected Lee to go, too. Given Will was out of sight, there was only one place that particular little brother would be, so Lee went willingly, and Clarisse followed on right behind.

Nathan was the first occupant Lee spotted as they walked into the room that had clearly been set aside for medical treatment. While the population of the city weren't all asleep where they'd stood, it was clearly a lounge area for the residents. There were still a few dozing mortals, but they were all clustered in one corner, either as a group or because the demigods had moved them over there so they could take over the rest of the space for the war effort.

Lee suspected the latter.

His blond brother was still unconscious, and Robyn was sat on a chair next to the couch they'd laid Nathan on, looking tired. Lee didn't blame her.

Will was curled up in another chair, pale and ashen and eyelids drooping. He looked absolutely exhausted, and like he should've fallen asleep ages ago, but as Chris had mentioned, he was stubbornly refusing to.

It was to Will that Lee went first, kneeling on the floor in front of his little brother and pulling him into a hug. Will blinked blearily, taking a few moments to register him, before wrapping his arms around him tightly in return, burying his face into Lee's shoulder. Like Tris, he'd had a growth spurt since Lee had last been at camp, but he was still comfortably shorter than Lee.

Lee didn't have anything to say to Will, not right then when his little brother was barely awake. It was easier to just hold him in silence, feeling Will shaking in his arms and a tell-tale dampening in the fabric by his shoulder. Will wasn't even fourteen yet, far too young for war.

All of them were too young for war, Lee included.

It wasn't long before he felt Will go slack, and ran his fingers through messy blond waves a few times as the arms around him slowly slipped down, falling victim to gravity. The chair probably wasn't the best place for Will to sleep, but Lee didn't trust himself to carry any of his siblings, not with weakened wrists and ankles that were starting to demand a rest. It was easier to ease Will back into the chair, putting a cushion between his shoulder and his head to try and stop him getting a crick in his neck, before pulling away again.

Clarisse had put Michael down on a couch under Robyn's direction, he saw as he turned back around, his younger sister clearly still not happy with Clarisse but not willing to risk Michael's health with another argument. The daughter of Ares had situated herself on the other side of the room, afterwards – not a retreat, because Clarisse didn't do retreats, but a concession that continuing whatever the argument was between her and Lee's siblings wouldn't help the war. Instead, she appeared to have tracked down Annabeth, and was having a hushed debate with her.

Lee wasn't quite sure if it was a debate or an argument, especially when he heard Manhattan and army. Either way, he didn't want to get involved with that. When they worked together, Clarisse and Annabeth were quite the force to be reckoned with. When they argued… Lee wasn't technically responsible for either of them, and knew when to pick his battles. On a good day, he might try to mediate, but today was not a good day.

Well, it was a good day compared to the past year, but it still wasn't a good enough day to deal with two headstrong teenage girls getting into an argument with each other, especially when they weren't actually related to him, technically. Not in a way that anyone counted.

He turned his attention to the rest of his siblings, instead. Most of them had found themselves a corner to curl up in, finally letting themselves rest and recharge. Tris had been pulled into the bundle, which Lee was glad to see. He didn't mind Tris clinging to him – he actually preferred it, a lot of the time, because that meant Tris was there and safe – but seeing the rest of their cabin doing everything in their power to help him reminded him why he loved his siblings so much.

Kayla, apparently predictably, had curled herself up on the floor by Michael's couch, and despite clearly being as tired as the rest of them was attempting to keep some sort of guard, although her eyelids were drooping and Lee suspected it wouldn't be long before she crashed out, like the others.

Outside of his own siblings, there were scattered bodies from other cabins laying around, too, with bandages and other signs of injury. Just because Kronos had gone for Williamsburg Bridge clearly didn't mean he hadn't also sent his army on a multi-headed attack, hitting all of the cabins. Lee hoped no-one had died.

Some of them were awake, and looking at him. Lee was trying to ignore that, because acknowledging it meant having to interact, and he was not ready for that.

Unfortunately, not everyone had the same thought process, and just because he could avoid the injured by not going near them didn't mean he could avoid the still-mobile campers.

The Stolls walked in, bickering good-naturedly with each other the way they always seemed to do. In their arms were piles of bandages and painkillers, clearly liberated from the nearest pharmacies. Lee doubted they'd paid for them, but payment was probably the least of their worries right then.

They could sort that out later, once the war was over.

The two sons of Hermes looked around, clearly taking in the increase in bodies in the room since they'd left on their foraging mission, and from the way their eyes settled on the sleeping Will, Lee was pretty sure he knew who had sent them out to get supplies. Will was young, but he was already good at organising triage.

Then they spotted Lee, and froze in tandem, supplies spilling from their arms to the ground. They didn't seem to care, even when Robyn groaned and swore at them from her seat, reluctantly dragging herself out of it to rescue them before they became unusable.

It was Travis who stepped forwards first, squinting at Lee like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

"When did you rise from the dead?" he demanded, stalking around Lee at a distance. Lee felt a little like he was being stalked by a prowling lion, and did not like the feeling.

"I never died," Lee said, and both brothers snorted.

"Clearly," Travis drawled. "But that then begs the question – where have you been?"

They were glaring at him, both of them, and Lee got the sinking feeling that neither of them were going to take any explanation he had for them kindly. They weren't even acknowledging Chris, who was in their line of sight as well, or Clarisse, but it was less ignorance and more a deliberate action. They'd never really got on with Clarisse, but they used to get on with Chris, before he left.

Apparently, they hadn't forgiven him even though he'd returned to camp.

"It's a long story," Lee hedged, as the pair of them circled closer.

"Oi, assholes!" Robyn interrupted, popping up between Lee and the Stolls with her arms full of the discarded medical supplies. "No bothering the injured. Thanks for the supplies, now get out of my infirmary."

Lee appreciated her efforts, he really did, but the Stolls didn't look like they were going to give in so easily, and Robyn really needed her own rest.

"It's okay," he said, nudging her out of the way. "I'll talk to them. You get some rest."

Staying in the infirmary was only going to make it worse, because his siblings were going to keep interrupting, and the more of them that got woken up, the worse it was going to get. He gestured to the door with his head.

"Head counsellor meeting?" he suggested, because he knew he was tired and needed the rest – and yes, was technically injured and in need of at least a dose of ambrosia, and possibly something more for the soles of his feet – but there was no point leaving the confrontation hanging over him.

At least if it was a head counsellor meeting, he would only have to tell it once more, then he could go and rest and not have to think about it again – wishful thinking, he knew, but he clung to it anyway.

They eyed him suspiciously, but the words seemed to have caught the attention of both Annabeth and Clarisse, interrupting their argument.

"I agree," the daughter of Athena said, even though she still looked a bit pale from whatever had happened to her on the bridge that Will had been so desperately recruited for. "I want answers, too."

"Who's representing cabin seven?" Connor asked, and that hurt a little. "It's not Michael. Who's next? Will?"

"Wake Will at your peril," Robyn growled. "Lee is-"

"Lee hasn't been head counsellor for over a year," Travis overrode her. "He doesn't count."

Robyn didn't like that at all, bristling into a scowl. Lee caught her shoulder and shook his head; it wasn't worth the fight. It would also be nice to have another sibling in there with him, even if it couldn't be Michael. Her scowl didn't relent any, but when she shrugged his grip off, it was in surrender. "I'll wake Joy," she said, and stalked over to their sister to do exactly that.

"Silena isn't here right now," Annabeth said suddenly, as if only just remembering. "We should wait-"

"Drew can stand in, if she hasn't broken a nail or suffered some other terrible injury," Clarisse snarled, saving Lee from having to react to that . "This isn't that fucking important." She strode towards the door, putting her hand on Lee's shoulder to guide him out as she did so. He let her, glad to know that he at least had one friend still amongst the other head counsellors. Joy caught up quickly, blinking sleep out of her eyes, and bracketed him on the other side as Travis barged past them to lead them into another, smaller room. Connor split off, presumably to call in the others.

The room Travis showed them to was fancy, a private room for high class functions. It hadn't been in use when the city had fallen asleep, leaving it devoid of sleeping mortals, but there was a small bar at one end, and Travis didn't waste any time grabbing himself a glass and pouring himself a drink of coke, full sugar and all.

He offered one to Annabeth, who declined, and another to Joy, who accepted. Neither Clarisse nor Lee were offered anything.

One by one, the other head counsellors, or most senior conscious campers, filed in. Most of them were familiar, even if it hurt to only see one blond head of hair and violet eyes, when there had always been two of them before. Katie had a bandage wrapped around her head, dried blood flaking off from her skin. Lee hoped it was just a scratch, and not a concussion. She didn't look concussed at a glance. Drew, as always, looked like she had inspected the world and found it wanting, standing with crossed arms and scowling at the entire room, although her eyes widened when they landed on Lee.

Jake was next to appear, and he looked sooty but mostly uninjured. Seeing him was still a stab to the gut, because Lee hadn't let himself think about who would've replaced Beckendorf, but of course it would've been Jake. He looked a little hollow, and Lee didn't dare guess if that was because of Beckendorf's death, or if he'd lost more siblings in the first night of fighting.

Percy was last to barrel in, from wherever he had been, immediately slipping into the seat next to Annabeth like a fish reeled in on a line. Thalia entered with him, looking exactly the same as Lee remembered her from about a year and a half ago, except for the new silver circlet in her hair, and flanked Annabeth on the other side.

She also eyed Lee consideringly, and Lee wondered how much the Hunters knew that the campers might not.

In total, there were eleven demigods there, aside from him, and only two of them had heard the full story – or as much as Lee could bring himself to tell. He didn't know what Kronos had said to Percy about him, hadn't been listening when he'd had a little brother to save instead. Annabeth hadn't liked how easily she'd thought Michael had trusted him, not knowing that Michael had tested him.

No-one else had known he was back at all, and all of them were looking at Lee.

Travis broke the silence. "Well, you called this," he said, waving his glass of coke around almost carelessly. If he hadn't already chugged half of it, the drink probably would've been at risk of spilling with the movement. "So, explain. Where have you been, Lee? If it's really you at all."

"It's him," Joy and Clarisse immediately said, his sister using her voice as well as exaggerated and frustrated movements to sign as well, while Clarisse simply snapped the words out.

"Michael did some sort of test when he arrived," Annabeth did say, although she sounded begrudging. "I don't know what he tested, but he seemed convinced, too."

"Kronos called him Lee," Percy said, and Lee had really, really hoped Percy wasn't going to bring up the titan, but of course he had. Unfortunately, the son of Poseidon wasn't done, fixing Lee with his deep, sea-green eyes, and continuing. "It sounded like you've been with him."

That got a reaction, several demigods rushing to their feet, weapons leaping into their hands.

Joy jumped up, too, moving to stand in front of Lee. Clarisse stayed where she was, leaning back in a chair nonchalantly and not making a single movement for her spear, which she'd propped up against the arm of her seat. Thalia also stayed still, watching him with her bright eyes.

Lee sighed. Their reactions made sense, even if he hated them. Of course Kronos would sow just enough doubt in Percy to make Lee's return awkward, and possibly rejected entirely. He expected nothing less from the titan, even if he hated it.

He nudged Joy aside, appreciating her defence but knowing that he needed to make his own case if he was going to get anywhere.

"Not by choice," he said. "I know it doesn't look good for me. I get that. But I promise, it really wasn't by choice."

He didn't like showing his injured wrists, but they were pretty solid evidence that he hadn't been in Kronos' company willingly, so he held both up, offering them to the others to look at and hoping it was enough.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari