"What do you mean you...poisoned everyone?" Percy asks her slowly. "Did you kill them?"

Julie doesn't love how cautious he's being with her. But she also doesn't have time right now to fix it. She just waves her hands impatiently and gestures at the door again. "It's a long story."

"You keep saying that," Percy scowls.

"Well, it is," Julie insists. Why is he even down here, anyway? This is so not the time for all this. "Just, can you do it or not?"

Percy is getting more and more frustrated with her. She can feel the stink of it in the water now encasing her. His impatience makes her impatient. She crosses her arms stubbornly as he throws his hands in the air.

"I have no idea what I'm even calling him for! Why would he answer?"

She rolls her eyes and starts tugging on the magical trident she stole from Triton's coughing form on her way in. It's bent like a tire iron now. She sure hopes he has extras. "Never mind. Just stand back, okay?"

Percy does not stand back. "I mean, he didn't bother answering when I called him during the last war! Or when I was some memory-less jackass running New Rome into the ground!"

"Or better yet," Julie continues, fully done with this conversation by now. "You can just go home, and I'll explain it to you later. I don't need your help."

The betrayal Percy throws at her, jaw going slack, finally hurts. Regret stabs at Julie's gut, and she sighs. Jason is hovering awkwardly a few feet away while the siblings bicker, recovering from the insane amount of power he used up over the last hour. Juliette has no idea why Percy's sudden appearance is pissing her off so much. She's just tired, and this was a curveball she wasn't expecting to get smacked in the face with today.

She's not ready to deal with reunions yet. Julie isn't Jules just yet. Right now, she's a feral wolf desperate to get what she needs. She doesn't have the time to fall apart. And if Percy comes any closer to her, she knows that she will.

"Look, Percy," She starts again, trying to make him understand. "I know how this must look, but trust me. This isn't something you want to get involved in."

He narrows his eyes. "You're making decisions for me now?"

"Oh, my gods. Stop being so dramatic."

"Dramatic?!"

Maybe that wasn't the right thing to say.

Really not the right thing.

Juliette yelps. The bubble around her has zipped away from the door, skidding her feet across the tiles of the hallway until she's facing Percy fully, now at a regular distance for conversation rather than far enough away that they need to shout. He looks livid.

Julie has the Curse of Achilles. She just fought her way, unarmed, through the entire path to the Underworld and into the Palace of Hades. She just used powers she definitely didn't have two weeks ago to make it past an ancient sea god and invaded yet another Olympian suburban residence. But she still ends up shrinking into her t-shirt when Percy levels her with a parental death glare which Sally Jackson would be applauding.

"You don't get to just disappear for months and then call me dramatic for wanting to know why!" He shouts at her.

Julie flinches from the volume. She doesn't think Percy's ever raised his voice at her before, and it's making her want to cry. And pissing her off. She feels hysteria trickling into the base of her stomach.

"You just vanished!" He continues. "I went back to camp thinking I was picking you up for the next week of school, and you weren't there! And then I find out everyone has been lying to me about where you were for months? What the fuck was I supposed to think, Jules?!"

Biting back tears, Juliette snaps in return. "Um, Pot? Kettle? Are you kidding me?!"

He flinches this time too. "Why do you think I've been so worried?! After what I fought through trying to get to New Rome on my own? But the Hera thing was different, and you know it."

"Oh, of course it was!" Julie laughs bitterly, voice high and quivering. "Because it was you, right? Strongest demigod alive!"

"Because I didn't choose to leave you behind!" He rebuts. "You think, if I'd had the chance, I wouldn't have come running right to you for help?!" Percy sounds like he's going to cry now too. His face looks like it was painted into Starry Night in the lighting of these corals, and for some reason that makes it hurt more. "I tell you everything, Juliette! Everything! And I thought you told me everything too."

He steps back then. He shakes his head at her, eyes empty but shining, and Julie wants to beg him to step forward again. He's mad at her now.

Of course he is.

He's right. And she would be angry too.

Julie really has been quite the fuck up this year, hasn't she.

She looks down. Her shoes - Jason's shoes - soaked in a bit of seawater during that altercation. Her toes feel mushy.

Gross. She squishes them instead of allowing the tears to fall.

She has no idea where she could start here. What does Percy even want to know?

There is not a single thing that has happened to her since she last saw him that she would want him to know about. Not if she wants him to look at her like a human. Like his sister. And not like the caged circus animal that the emperors and...the gods...have turned her into.

She glances to her side. There's no ghostly blue light beside her. She spots it at the end of the hallway, as far away as it could be while still being in sight. He must have wanted to give them privacy. With how loudly they were just shouting at each other, though, he would have needed to plug his ears and hum the National Anthem.

The thought makes her sob. That's exactly something that he would do. She wonders if he's still doing it.

"Jason's dead."

She watches Percy freeze in the corner of her eye. She pushes through.

"I got captured by the emperors that Apollo is fighting," Julies explains, eyes on her gross, squishy toes. "They hurt me. And they messed with my powers. So Apollo, Meg, Piper, and Jason came to save me."

Percy might not even be breathing. He's entirely still. So, his voice, dark and trembling, startles her when he prompts, "And?"

Julie closes her eyes.

She can feel the wind on her face, cold, biting, accompanied by rain so heavy she can barely breathe around it, drowning while above water. The hair on her arms is on end, and lightning is cracking through the sky.

She can feel Meg and Apollo clinging to her, restraining her. Her wounds are bleeding. Tempest is cold beneath her, and she can feel his grief.

The ventus' cries drown out her own when it happens. When that spear disappears once again into his back. When his blood lands on Caligula's forearms, and the emperor turns to smile at her.

When they leave him behind to die in the rain.

"He never got off that boat," She breathes.

It's all she can manage.

Percy still hasn't moved.

Juliette has been pretty much by herself for the last...gods...how long has it even been? She hasn't talked to anyone. Not really. Not like she talks with Percy.

She doesn't have time to fall apart, but she wants to. She just wants to give up and fall apart into Percy right now. He's always been able to glue her back together. But she doesn't know if the pieces of her will be big enough to fix this time. So, she wipes her tears from her cheeks and glares at the fucking invincible doors to Poseidon's throne room.

"He died rescuing me, and I have to fix that," She explains. "And Hades said that I need Poseidon's blessing to pull it off."

Percy doesn't say anything.

No 'So you thought poisoning his subjects was the answer?' or 'Did you try knocking?' She doesn't feel anything out of the typical from his direction. Grief. Shock. Anger. She expected all of those. She did just tell him one of his friends is dead. Someone he'd saved the world with.

It takes a few moments of silence for her to gather the nerve to look him back in the face. Percy's eyes are locked on her, but they're blank. Like he spaced out on the freckles across her nose. He sees her looking. He finally blinks.

His voice is hollow. Dangerously empty. "He died on a boat?"

Juliette pushes her eyebrows together. Her memories are carrying her back to things she doesn't want to see. Back to medical gurneys and too-thin, torn pink dresses. To keg-sized vases of her blood. She nods at his question.

That's when Percy drops his eyes from her face. He snaps them to the doors she's been brawling with for twenty minutes. And he crosses the hallway to them in three long strides.

Percy reaches forward to grab ahold of the handles of the doors. In one smooth motion, he tears them both clean off their hinges and tosses them into the nearest wall. They clang and clatter down to the floor, waves of sound crashing through the water.

The impact makes Julie yelp and cover her mouth in surprise. A chunk of the marble wall spiderwebs with fissures. Jason's glow flits immediately back to her side, and Percy turns back to look at her.

He holds out his hand, palm up, and wiggles his fingers. "Come on."

Julie glances at Jason. He's staring at Percy like he's seeing him for the first time. It twists a lump in her chest that Julie has to swallow down.

She doesn't continue explaining anything more, because Percy doesn't ask. She asked him for help, and he's gotten out the demigod superglue. Julie feels the first real smile she's had in weeks tug at the corners of her mouth as she lays her palm in his and lets her big brother lead her in to meet the Lord of the Sea.


"Nervous?"

Jason jumps. He tries to pass it off as a stretch last second, rocking back to roll out his shoulders. The satisfied grin on Percy's face says he probably isn't very convincing.

So, Jason forces a scoff and rolls his eyes. "Why would I be nervous?"

Percy continues to grin, approaching to rest his elbows against the edge of the Argo beside him. The guy has been practically skipping everywhere ever since Leo announced that they were giving the engines a break to cool down. The idea of them landing the ship on the Atlantic for a while to sail it normally has put the son of Poseidon in a fantastic mood. Jason, however, is not feeling so hot.

He's obviously not nervous, though. Maybe he's coming down with something.

There's a battlecry from somewhere behind them quickly followed by a thud of impact and a groan. Jason purses his lips and turns back to the outside wall of the training room.

"Jules and 'beth are sparring," Percy explains with a snicker. "They made me leave the room 'cause I kept laughing every time Jules got her ass handed to her."

A grin tugs at the corner of Jason's mouth like there's a mini-fishing rod reeling it upwards. He fights it down with diligence, but Percy's grin is wider, so he must have noticed that too. The guy turns around backwards to rest both elbows on the railing and look up at the fluffy summer clouds.

"I hate flying," He sighs.

Jason blinks. He crosses his arms atop the railing and squints at his (uninvited) companion for explanation.

Percy shakes his head, grin swiftly being swapped for an irritated scowl. "Mr. Lightning Bolts has a lot of fun looking for creative chances to blast me out of the sky. I try not to give him any more than I have to. This-" He waves around at their still-airborne battleship. "Has been weird."

Jason nods in understanding. He'd be the last to argue that his dad would enjoy playing Pin-the-Bolt-on-the-Forbidden-Child. It's a strange thought though, that Percy would hate flying so much. Flying has always felt like freedom to Jason. In the last few months, he thinks he's heard about twenty different explanations of who he's supposed to be. At least when Jason flies, he's definitely doing what he was meant to. And if he isn't, he's too high above anyone who could tell him otherwise for their words to matter.

But, then again, as his gaze flits back down to the approaching beaches of South Carolina, Jason can't stop the shiver that runs down his spine.

"Not in Kansas anymore, huh?" Percy interrupts his thoughts. Jason looks over, and the guy is back to grinning. Smirking, actually. Sharktoothed and wiggling his eyebrows up and down. "Not feeling so tough?"

This friggen-

"I wouldn't recommend asking for a rematch," continues Percy wickedly. "But I also wouldn't worry."

Jason has to restrain himself from punching the dude and his stupid smirking face right over the banister. He flexes his biceps and glares at him instead. "Why's that?" He challenges.

The chuckle Percy releases is way more confident and amused than Jason is comfortable with. It makes his neck hairs stand on edge. But he ends up just turning away from Jason and waving back at him dismissively as he heads back into the training room he'd emerged from.

"Mi casa is your casa," Percy shrugs, his slight New York accent butchering the phrase. "I'll keep you nice and safe, kiddo."

The promise is condescending and spoken through a swiftly closing gym door. Jason nearly blasts the aforementioned door with lightning just out of principal (and the embarrassment swelling up in his chest that he'd like to throw in somebody's - Percy's - face right now). When he looks back at the ocean, expansive, deep, stretching on farther than Jason can even sense with the skies, he doesn't feel any less threatened or anxious or...beckoned.

But he hears another shout from Juliette in the gym that's followed up by Percy's raucous laughter, and that pulls his focus from the cold depths that seem to whisper to him. Jason grins himself, finally, and reaches for the door to the gym as well.

As obnoxious as Percy is, Jason knows he must have the reputation he does for a reason. It was said through quite a bit of taunting and sarcasm, but the sentiment is still there. Percy's serious. If he's on this ship, the ocean is on their side. Jason's shoulders feel a little less tense when he disappears into the training room as well.

Thanatos sighs, observing the boy from his place in the shadows. Sons of Three should know better than to invade their uncles' territories. No demigod, no matter how powerful, can rewrite the Fates' design.


"POSEIDON!"

Percy's roar ricochets off the cavernous throne room walls. Julie almost gasps at the brash approach. Then she remembers that she only made it this far from unintentionally letting out a burst of power that gassed the entire population of Atlantis temporarily out of their city.

Her brother's hand is rough and trembling around hers, but not in fear. He is angry.

Percy takes a deep breath again and continues to bellow. "GET! DOWN! HERE! OR I SWEAR TO OLYMPUS, I WILL START BREAKING SHIT!"

Julie glances at the gold and bronze doors now crumpled on the floor like used tissues.

"Is he insane?" Jason whispers, wide eyed as Percy kicks one of the crumpled doors and sends it smashing into the mural of his father behind the throne.

Juliette laughs nervously. "You didn't see how I got to Hades' Palace, did you?"

Jason turns to her in alarm as Percy begins counting down from five.

"FIVE!"

"Are we about to start the next Great War?"

"FOUR!"

Julie chews on her lip, glancing at the hand tying her to the enraged teenaged typhoon that Percy has become. Should she be deescalating?

"THEE!"

She was very much not expecting to be the calm one in this situation.

"TWO-!"

There's a blinding light, and Juliette barely remembers to shield her eyes from it in time. She slaps her free hand over her face as Jason gasps in surprise. Percy's grip on her tightens, and she hopes he remembered to do the same.

Can ghosts view a god's true form? When the light fades, Julie peeks out hesitantly between her fingers. Jason's hands are over his eyes. She's both relieved and disappointed. Guess they'll never know.

"What in Rhea's name do you think you are doing?"

Juliette's heart freezes in her chest.

Every ounce of water surrounding her begins to hum. Since she's under the ocean, there's a lot of it. There's water above and below her, to her left, right, in front of and behind her. There's water in the shield Percy built around her, which no longer sings with the electric blue aura her brother is always surrounded by. Its energy has been hijacked by something deeper. Darker. By a power more ancient than even the creature Julie was chased here by.

She feels as small and insignificant as she did the first time she ever faced Gaea and her giants. The only difference is that, while she once only stood on the earth as she stared down its patron, now...

There is water in her veins. Between her lips and tongue. Coating the whites of her eyes, which, in the face of sheer, unyielding, terrible power, will not move.

Juliette is frozen, yet, somehow, Percy Jackson stands firm.

"Oh, wow!" He marvels, voice sopping with bitterness. "You actually showed for once! What do you know!"

"Percy." Poseidon's voice is like a building, towering tsunami.

"So, all this time, all I had to do was knock the teeth out of a portrait or two of you, huh?" Percy scoffs. "Forget getting my teeth bashed in by my drunk old fuck of a stepdad. No, that wasn't worth your time."

"Percy-"

"Or how about my mom? Didn't feel like saving her from working three jobs just to come home and get slapped into walls? No, as long as she raised you a good little soldier, you couldn't give a shit what happened to her."

"Percy!"

The shout makes him finally stop talking. He jumps in a flash of fright so quick that Julie might not have noticed it if not for the way Percy suddenly jerks her hand closer. The motion tugs Julie to stand beside him, and she instinctively looks up at the very angry god sat in his throne.

The Poseidon she met at Sally's was goofy and conceited. The Poseidon she met at the Acropolis was battle hardened, but caring.

The cold, calculated, violent way he's looking at his son makes Juliette realize that this - twenty feet tall and gripping a three pronged weapon of death between white knuckles - is not Poseidon.

They are standing at the alter of Neptune.

"Oh, gods..." Jason breathes.

And Juliette can't help but agree. Any words of protest or plea that she dove down here with are gone from memory. Her knees are shaking, and claustrophobia is settling into the depths of her chest. She raises a hand to guard her mortal point without even realizing it as Neptune leans forward in his seat and winds his hands together with a frown.

"I will give you one opportunity to apologize for your behavior," He offers, his words a chilling undertow. "Take it."

Juliette is having a hard time breathing. Neptune's presence is overwhelming, and it makes the metal fused to her biceps sing in obedience. Juliette squeezes Percy's hand, pushing down the pain, and ends up leaning her forehead into his arm in an attempt to block out the searing of the metal on her unbreakable skin.

"Rosa?"

The cool breeze Jason wafts over her brings some relief, but it also diverts Percy's attention to her on his arm. The sight of her distress must wrestle him out of his defiant streak. He glances at her, softens, and then glares back up at his father with decidedly less heat behind his seagreen eyes.

"If I apologize, will you help me?"

Neptune just narrows his matching pair and waits without answer.

Good enough, Percy must decide. He sighs, winds the arm Julie is clinging to around her shoulders instead, and looks irritably to the wall he smashed the doors against earlier.

"I'm sorry, okay?" Percy grumbles. "That was..." Rude? Untrue? Disrespectful? He sighs. "Dramatic."

Juliette laughs at that. She can't help it. She slaps a hand over her mouth in horror, but, when she looks up at Neptune worriedly, she swears she sees him fight down a smirk. The pain from her cuffs fades. That certainly wasn't a textbook apology, and Percy picked his choice of words carefully, but it seems to be good enough for the King of the Seas. Neptune nods at his son in acceptance and leans back against his bronze, seashelled throne.

"Now," He rumbles. "Why have you disrupted my day?"


Julie has faced too many gods in the last 48 hours, and she expects her Cribz tour of Olympus has only just begun.

The throne room of Atlantis looks almost identical to the throne room of Olympus. Or at least what Juliette remembers of it. She's only been there the one time.

The room is so large, she can't see the walls enclosing them. Around the circular platform, where the other Olympians' thrones sit in NYC, are statues of mermen in suits of full armor. The scale patterns of their twin tails look a little too lifelike for Julie to be comfortable walking closely past them. She's not convinced they weren't alive at some point.

At the far end of the dais are three towering thrones. A smaller one carved from rock and decorated with luminescent corals, serving as home to several brightly colored starfish.

A larger one forged from pure Celestial Bronze. Its design is more elegant and feminine. On the back of it are carvings- nine sea nymphs dancing on a beach.

The largest throne is Neptune's, and he's occupying it, so Julie doesn't get the chance to admire any cool artwork etched into that one. What she can see of it is braided gold and bronze. She's a little more focused on the man sitting in it and narrowing icy eyes at her dead boyfriend.

"No."

She bristles. Saw that coming.

Julie feels Percy start to step up beside her in support, but she waves him away. He got her the audience, and that's enough. She needs to make this pitch herself.

"Ah, come on," She reasons with the god. "It's not like you're using it."

"No."

"You won't even notice it's missing!" Julie insists. "I just need to borrow it for a couple days."

Neptune looks ready to roll his eyes and ripcurrent her all the way back to shore. She's sure he hasn't yet purely out of respect for his son, who's standing, confused but supportive, just behind her.

"You need a what?" Percy questions.

Julie turns to him to explain, but Neptune beats her to it. Her rolls his trident lazily between his fingers as he recounts what it is she's asking of him.

"Long ago, the Fates gifted an artifact to Olympus - a magical weaving shuttle capable of reconnecting the lifethread of one mortal after their tapestry has been completed. It would allow them to resume their weaving upon the wielder's request. To prevent the privilege from being used rashly, they split it into three pieces and entrusted one to myself and each of my brothers. Only with all three sections of the shuttle can the item be redeemed."

That was a much quicker explanation than Hades gave to them. Juliette exchanges eye contact with Jason, who brushes his hand through hers.

They can do this.

"Exactly," supports Julie. "And it's time to use it now."

Neptune does roll his eyes this time. Percy glances between the two of them as Juliette grits her teeth stubbornly and plants herself.

"What is the big deal, even?" She exclaims. "You guys have been sitting on these things for thousands of years at this point! It's not like any of you have plans for them."

The god shakes his head. "I will not waste such power on a son of Jupiter." He says the name with such distain that Jason winces beside her. "As far as I am concerned, the world is better off with one less of my brother's spawn flying around beginning issues."

"That is the pettiest thing I have ever heard," Julie growls, fear forgotten in favor of petulance. "You're gonna let an innocent kid die because you want to get back at Zeus?"

"The cretin is already dead," Neptune corrects with narrowed eyes. "And I offer no sympathies to a man who cannot speak for himself."

That comment brings her pause. She glances at Jason beside her, whose eyebrows are raised in surprise. He leans forward hesitantly, stepping ahead of her, and tilts his head upwards in respect.

Jason's voice is quiet and curious. "You can-?"

"See you?" scoffs Neptune. "I am an Olympian, you imbecile. You think Pluto's realm is beyond my senses?"

Jason, wisely, does not answer that question.

Julie catches Percy glancing at her in confusion. She steps back, allowing Jason to stand before Neptune himself, and takes her brother's hand again.

"What's...?"

She squeezes his hand and nods up at where his father and Jason are beginning the conversation anew. Percy eventually looks ahead as well.

"Lord Neptune," Jason greets. "Thank you for meeting with us."