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Chapter Text

Percy

If Percy had a dollar for every time someone had told him that he needed to learn to stop talking, he’d probably be able to afford to get him and his mother out of this hellhole and away from the bastard that she called a ‘husband’.

At twelve years old, Percy Jackson had had more than his fair share of impulsive moments. Like that time that he just had to see if a revolutionary war cannon still worked. Or when he just had to see what that lever at the aquarium did. 

The point is, he wasn’t known for thinking things through too much. At least, when there wasn’t someone around to keep him from jumping off of the rails.  Percy should have seen it coming. He should have stopped talking. But ‘ should have ’ is pretty much out the window when a walrus of a man that is more than twice your age, and five times your size, hurls his fist at you.  

Looking back on it, Percy couldn’t really tell you how the fight started. He kind of remembers Gabe whining about there being no food prepared for him while Sally was at work. 

“What is she even good for?” He’d muttered to one of his ugly poker buddies. 

Percy had bit his tongue, trying to focus on anything other than the urge to kick the man in a place that would make him crumple within seconds. But they just kept talking . Kept slandering his mother, and there is only a certain amount that somebody can dig their fingernails into their palms before everything just bubbles up. 

That’s how Percy found himself backed against a wall as his stepfather tried to use him as a punching bag. 

Again.

He saw the fist come at him, and then it was like everything slowed down. Percy  took in every detail. The purple in Gabe’s face. The whooshing of the ceiling fan. The sound of his heart beating throughout his entire body.

And then, it passed, and time went back to normal. 

It was with a whoosh that Percy felt a burning sensation on his left eye, and he crumpled to the ground. 

“That should teach you to run your mouth.” Gabe grumbled, rubbing his knuckles, and sending a smirk to his poker buddies. 

Looking back on it,  Percy probably should have just limped off like a wounded dog, hid his sure-to-be-black eye before his mom got home, and enjoyed the rest of his winter break. 

But he was tired. So. Tired . 

Between Mr. Brunner giving him that sad look when he got a less than stellar grade on his most recent test, and Mrs. Dodds keeping him after school the whole week for getting into a fight he didn’t even start, and not being able to see his mother or Grover all day…

Percy just didn’t feel like walking away. 

“Who’s gonna teach you to stop talking?” Percy asks, shakily raising himself to his feet. 

He watched Gabe’s small eyes narrow dangerously, as he turned to face him again. He saw Eddie, the building’s super, wince. The two other guys at the poker table cat-called Gabe. 

“Why, you little-“ The man stalks forward, raising his hand again. 

Percy didn’t know what came over him. But, when Gabe’s fist started hurtling towards him, everything slowed down again. 

This time, he decided to use  it to his advantage.

Percy ducked down, right before Gabe’s fist connected to his face. The telltale sound of skin hitting a wall, and Gabe’s cursing went to Percy’s ears. For good measure, the boy kicked his stepfather as hard as he could, right in his shin. 

Percy rolled away, just as Gabe fell to the floor in a heap. He just narrowly avoided being crushed by a tuskless walrus. 

“You little bastard!” Gabe yells at the ceiling. 

Percy didn’t stay there for long. He runs to his bedroom, still smelling of cigars and day old beers, and grabs his backpack. It was still filled with the clothes he brought back from Yancey, and some money that he had gotten from selling candy out of his dorm room. 

Thankfully, Gabe hadn’t sniffed it out when Percy had first arrived. 

Percy rushes out of his room, heading straight for the front door. 

Two of Gabe’s  friends that Percy couldn’t bother to remember the names of, were trying, and failing, to pull Gabe up off the floor. 

“Listen here, don’t you ever think of coming back!” Gabe yells, though it was far less intimidating when he was on the ground like a beached whale, frantically pointing his arm at Percy. 

“Believe me, I won’t.” Percy promises. And then he walks out. The sound of the door slamming behind him vibrates throughout his whole being. 

It isn’t until he’s outside in the bitter cold that everything hits him. Straight in his gut, just like one of Gabe’s punches. 

He left. He’d made his decision. And he wasn’t going to go back. 

Percy tightens his grip on his backpack, before running as fast as he could away from the apartment, and into the vast landscape that was New York City. 

Piper

He’d promised that they would spend the holidays together. He promised that they would be at grandpa Tom’s cabin in Oklahoma. 

“It will be just us.” Her father had told her. 

Except, now, it was four days before Christmas, and they were in New York because of a last minute role that he ‘ just couldn’t turn down ’. 

Piper had heard that line enough times for it to lose all meaning. 

She currently walks the streets, her hands buried in the pockets of her big, white coat. Piper should have been with her father’s assistant while he was out filming.

However, not even a woman paid to watch Piper seemed to care all that much about her.

It hadn’t been too difficult for her to leave the hotel room they’d been staying in. Jane had been at her computer, typing away. Piper had told her that she was going to get a soda from the vending machine down the hall. 

The woman didn’t even notice the backpack that Piper had slung over her shoulder, or the fact that she was decked out in a big, puffy coat and snow boots. 

Piper looks down at her feet, her one foot hitting the concrete a bit harder than was absolutely necessary.

It’s not like Piper needed to be the center of the universe . She was actually happiest when she wasn’t noticed. 

But, the fact that her father had given her more attention a few months ago, when she had gotten kicked out of school, than he has in the last three years… It stung. 

Piper’s dad had a habit of pushing her to the side in preference to his work. She tried to understand. She really did. But it was difficult when every plan they had was pushed to the side because Tristan McLean was needed for a brand new movie. 

Piper stops walking, turning on her heel to look back at the hotel that she had just walked away from. She crosses her arms over her chest, worrying at her bottom lip.

It would be so easy to just go back. Walk through the doors, and pretend like the thought of leaving never occurred to her. 

But Piper is tired of feeling second place. 

And, to be honest, Piper doesn’t feel like continuously getting kicked out of  different schools in hopes of her father making time for her. 

Piper shakes her head, taking a deep breath, and taking another step away from the hotel. Maybe this was the only way. 

Piper shivers, ducking her hands into the sleeves of her coat. She can see her breath plume in front of her face. If it wasn’t for the cold hitting her eyes, Piper was sure she would feel the hot sting of tears. 

She wasn’t exactly paying attention when she felt someone walk straight into her. 

“Oof!” She hisses, moving sideways with the force of the collision. 

“Sorry!” The melodic chime of a woman’s voice calls, already moving on. Piper sighs, staring at the back of the person’s head. 

The young girl just shakes her head, smoothing out her long, dark hair. “It’s alright.” She waves the woman off. 

For a split second, the figure turns her head around, and Piper catches a glimpse of dark, brown skin and obsidian black eyes. Piper could’ve sworn she saw the shadow of a smirk on the person’s face, before the woman turned around again.

“I hate New York.” Piper whispers under her breath, rubbing her hands together to generate heat. 

She steals one last look at the bright lights of the hotel before it is out of sight forever.This was the way. This is what she needed to do. 

She holds that thought close to her heart as she walks further into the alien world of New York City. 

Hazel

Hazel tiptoes down the stairs, the ends of her nightgown tickling her shins. 

The stairs gently creaked with her weight. She bites her lip, nervously looking around to make sure she hadn’t attracted the attention of an unwanted presence. 

Maybe the newly minted 9 year old girl was being a little paranoid, but was it really paranoia if you had genuine reasons for your fears?

Ever since Hazel had arrived at the house, nothing had seemed normal. Though, to be fair she didn’t remember much up until six months ago, so maybe Hazel wasn’t the best judge of what was or wasn’t considered normal. 

The first thing that Hazel can truly remember clearly was  bumping into a tall man who turned out to be a policeman. He had taken her to the station, asking a few questions. 

She couldn’t answer much. Her name was Hazel Levesque,  she was 8 years old, and her birthday was December 17th. 

Every other detail of her life  kind of hung in the air like mist. You could  see it, but it wasn’t something you could physically grab. 

The rest of her time with the officers was a whirlwind, but before Hazel knew it, she found herself living with Mrs. Henderson. 

That’s what she called her foster mother. Not mom. Or mother. Not even the old woman’s first name (Henrietta). 

She was old. So old that Hazel was sure she should be taking care of great grandchildren. Not a little girl that was looking for a new home. 

Mrs. Henderson needed big glasses that made her eyes look far too big for her head. Her gray hairs were starting to form their own gray hairs. She constantly called Hazel by the name Hannah. 

She was old and forgetful, but pretty much tame. The only thing Hazel hated about living there were the cats. 

Mrs. Henderson had been married. A long time ago. But her husband died, and Mrs. Henderson had no children of her own. 

So, she imprinted her love onto another type of creature. 

Cats. Lots and lots of cats. Young and old. Persian, Tabby, Calico, it didn’t matter. Mrs. Henderson tended to replace her deceased cats with two more kittens. You could just never get rid of them. 

It wasn’t that Hazel hated the cats. It was that the cats despised Hazel. 

Every time she went near them, they would arch their backs and hiss like she was the devil incarnate. 

Mrs. Henderson didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong. She would pet the animals, and coo about how soft and sweet they were. 

It didn’t change the fact that Hazel would wake up with scratches along her arms and legs, and lamp lit eyes glaring at her in the dark. 

Now, she stood on the stairs, holding her breath to make sure they didn’t hear her. 

The downstairs smells like kitty litter and wet fur, even when it wasn’t even raining outside. She didn’t know why, nor did she want to know. 

Hazel’s pink slippers slid a little on the wood of the floor. She bites her lip as she regains her balance, smoothing out the wrinkles in her matching nightgown. 

At almost 10 at night, the house was completely still. 

Mrs. Henderson usually went to bed at around 7, and the cats went to bed not long after her. 

Hazel would have been in bed, if it weren’t for the incredible thirst that had woken her up. 

She wanted nothing more than a cool glass of water. And to, preferably, get that water without being attacked by a bunch of felines. 

Hazel tiptoes to the cabinets, stretching as much as she could, and just barely reaching the bottom left of the storage unit. 

The wooden door of the cabinet creaks as it swings open. Hazel holds her breath, looking around to see if the noise had grabbed any unwanted attention. 

She lets out a breath of relief, and wraps her small hand around a cold glass. 

And then she hears a low, long, meow. 

She gasps, turning around, only to see a black blur heading straight towards her. 

Hazel drops the glass, just as the sharp sting of claws dig their way into her exposed ankle. 

Glass litters the floor, but the attacker just digs deeper into her skin. “Aah!” She screams, feeling tears sting her eyes. 

And then another blur comes at her. Auburn this time. 

They leap straight at Hazel’s arm, running their claws over her dark hand. 

She lets out another scream, shaking her limbs to get rid of the animals. The crunch of glass under her slippered foot causes a bubble of anxiety to rise in her chest. 

“Off!” She shrieks. “Off!” 

The auburn cat goes flying, and the black one hisses as she bangs her ankle against the nearest chair. 

Hazel looks around, her dark curls falling into her eyes. She was free, but the cats were regrouping, and there were more. So many more. 

Hazel did the only thing she could think of. She grabs the handle to the back door, and swings it open. A rush of cold air hits her face, but she runs out anyway. 

She hears the telltale patter of paws, and looks back to see the animals crowding at the door. 

The looks on their faces say, “Don’t come back. ” 

When Mrs. Henderson woke up the next morning, she’d see the glass. She would worry for her cats. But she probably wouldn’t miss the little girl that had lived with her the past few months. Hazel realizes that. 

She runs down the streets of New York, her slippers slapping against the pavement. 

And on that 21st of December, as three different children all make the separate decision to leave their respective houses, they all see the beginnings of snow fall from the sky. 

Something that they didn’t know was that this was just the beginning of the storm to come.

Chapter Text

Percy

Percy shivers, the cold feeling of metal sinking through his thin sweatshirt. 

Last night, Percy had finally fought back against his stepdad, and ran away. An hour later, the first flakes of what would soon turn into a blizzard, fell from the sky. 

Just his luck.

Percy had hid under an awning for a good hour after that, keeping his hands tucked underneath his armpits in an effort to stave off frostbite. Then, a homeless man waving a plastic bag like a weapon yelled at him for stealing his spot. So, Percy had decided to go back to the streets, shaking his head every few minutes to remove snow from his hair. 

It was when the first strike of lightning illuminated the dark sky that he saw it; A large, industrial warehouse, sticking out against the stark white snow like a gift from God. It was dark, and lonely looking. And, upon further inspection, he discovered that no one had bothered to lock it up. 

The inside was bare, just concrete floors, and a large, cavernous ceiling. But the roof was solid, and the walls did their best to keep out the whistling wind. Emphasis on ‘did their best’.

Percy had decided it wasn’t the worst place to stay for a day or two. Or twelve.

Currently, Percy was in a state of restless sleep. His eyes are closed, and his breathing is even, and he certainly doesn’t feel conscious. But, he also isn’t fully pulled under the blanket of sleep, and his body aches with exhaustion. 

Percy moves his head from shoulder to shoulder, trying to get in a more comfortable position, but refusing to open his eyes in order to maintain the illusion of sleep. 

That is, until a ruckus sounds from the other side of the warehouse, so loud that Percy can’t pretend that he imagined it.

His body tenses up, and his eyes fly open in alarm. “What was that?” He whispers out loud, turning to look at Bob, the large piece of wood that he had found behind a stack of boxes. 

Bob was about the same size and weight of a baseball bat, but with jagged edges, and no discernable place to hold it. More than one slice of wood had probably become some poor guy’s splinter. However, it was the only company Percy had, and he intended to use Bob for all he was worth.

Speaking of worth , Percy thinks, wrapping both of his hands around Bob, and pulling the makeshift weapon into his lap.

Percy holds his breath, counting to ten. His eyes dart around, waiting for someone to come out of the shadows wielding a machete like Jason Voorhees. However, more than a dozen counts of ten pass, and nothing happens. 

‘It’s probably just your mind playing tricks on you.’ His brain chirps.

Percy nods, letting his shoulders relax for a second, pressing himself closer to the walls, and subconsciously deeper into the shadows. 

He waits for a few moments, praying that his mind really was just playing tricks on him. Percy was just about to try and fall back into a state of unconsciousness when the unmistakable pitter-patter of footsteps rings throughout the cavernous building.

Percy rolls to his feet, getting into a crouching position, and swallowing hard. 

What if some creep was coming to get him? 

Or worse; What if Gabe had decided to get revenge?

Percy bit his lip, trying to not make any sound. Truth be told, if the intruder came any closer, they would probably be able to see his silhouette through the shadows; However, he refused to make things easier for them.

The steps get louder, until Percy can just make out the faint outline of someone standing just beyond the orange light shining in through the high windows. 

Percy stands at his full height, holding Bob like a baseball bat. He steps forward,the tips of his shoes brushing the edge of the light, knowing that, no matter what, he didn’t want to be backed up against a wall. 

Just in case. 

The stranger moved closer to him. They looked small, smaller than Percy, at least, and he wasn’t exactly a giant to begin with.. 

“Who are you?” The person asks, and Percy feels his shoulders relax at the high pitched, youthful, valley-girl-esque voice. 

Just as Percy was about to lower Bob, the person came into the light, and a glimmer of metal caught his eye. 

Standing a short distance from him was a girl that looked only a little younger than him. She had long, dark brown hair, and dark eyes that reflected the orange lamplight. She wore an expensive looking white winter coat, and white-washed blue jeans. 

Upon further inspection, Percy realized what the metal he’d seen was. In her right hand was a long, bronze, sharp-looking knife. She didn’t exactly hold it with confidence, but the look in her eye left no doubt in his mind that she would stab him if he crossed her. 

“What the hell?” He shrieks, lifting Bob back into full position. 

Piper

Piper sat in the empty alley, staring in disbelief at the weapon resting in her hand. 

It was a triangular blade attached to a bronze hilt. The metal was growing cold from the bitter weather, and it was turning Piper’s unclothed fingers numb. 

She didn’t know where the weapon came from. 

All that Piper knew was that when she had opened up her backpack to search for gloves, her hand had closed in on something far colder and more solid than what she had wanted. 

Piper had been roaming through different alleys for the past day or so. As it snowed, she’d kept herself moving in between different awnings and sidestreets, making sure to never stay in one place for too long.

Piper didn’t want to be found. 

Even if people didn’t know that Tristan McLean’s daughter was missing, Piper knew better than to trust anyone that she didn’t know. Her father may not have been around much, but he had at least taught her the basics; Stranger danger, treat others the way you want to be treated, etc.

Another cold gust of wind cut through her coat like a-- wait for it-- knife, and Piper shivers. 

“Why is it so cold?” She asks aloud, despite the fact that nobody can hear her. Piper buries the lower half of her mouth under the collar of her jacket, her hood wrapping around her numb ears. 

Flurries of snow sprinkled down, sticking to her eyelashes, and wetting her under eyes. That was all it could be. Piper was quite certain that any tears that exited her eyes would come out as icicles. 

It is when Piper starts to lose feeling in her legs that she shakily stands up. A large exhale of breath comes out of her lungs when her ears make out a distinct sound,  other than the general hustle and bustle of the city. 

“Hey, kid!” A voice that sent shivers down her spine hisses from somewhere behind her. “What are you doing out here in the cold? Are you all alone?”

Piper turns her head to see a big, beefy man strutting down the alley, wearing a trench coat. Everything about him screamed ‘BAD’. 

Which, maybe wasn’t the most descriptive word, but Piper was in panic mode. She didn’t have time to be poetic. 

“Um… no, I’m not…” She says slowly, gripping her knife harder in the claw that her hand was now frozen in. “I’m waiting for my… dad…”

Piper starts backing away. 

“Now… where are you going-“ He starts asking, his voice growing deeper. 

Piper doesn’t stay to hear the ending of that sentence. 

She runs as fast as she can, her long hair spilling out from her hood. Piper was breathing hard, her throat burning, and teeth freezing with the cold air. 

Piper sharply turns a corner, and runs down a strangely deserted street. She thinks she can hear footsteps coming after her, but the rush of wind ringing in her ears blocks out all other distinctive noise.

Piper makes another turn, and skids to a stop as she sees a big, dark, empty looking building. 

Piper looks over her shoulder one last time, seeing the shadow of the big man. Without further need for convincing, she wrenches open the door, and enters the deserted warehouse. 

She winces at the loud echo of the door clanging shut, pressing her back against the door, breathing rapidly. She hears the muffled pounding of feet outside, but nobody threatens to come inside. 

Piper lets out a deep breath of relief.

She looks around the building that she had entered, taking in her surroundings. It was cavernous and filled with shadows. Every step she took seemed to echo throughout the building. 

Piper grips her knife tighter, her head swiveling from side to side. She didn’t like being in the dark. Not because she feared ghosts or monsters. No, Piper feared things so much worse than mythical beings hiding in the dark.

Piper stops, and takes in a sharp breath as she hears something further hidden in the shadows. Something that sounded suspiciously like a person speaking.

Turn around , she tells herself. That would be the smart and rational thing to do. 

Well, technically, the smart and rational thing would have been to never have run away in the first place, and talk to her father like the mature young woman he always said she was becoming. Yet, she ran away anyway.

Maybe that was the reason she continues walking into the unknown. There was something that stopped her from going back.  

So, Piper tightens her grip on her knife, and steps forward. 

A sliver of light cuts through the darkness, and the closer Piper moves to it, the more she can see the faint outline of someone just beyond. From what she could see, they didn’t look too tall, but they were definitely holding something that was big and solid looking.

“Who are you?” she asks, praying that her voice sounded braver than she thought it did. 

And then, Piper takes the leap, and steps into the light. 

She squinted at the brightness, trying to get a better look at the figure in front of her. Piper can just make out a person slightly taller than she was, holding a large stick.

“What the hell?” From the voice, she assumes that it is a boy in his early teens. “Why do you have a knife?” 

Piper narrows her eyes. For some reason, her mind decided to antagonize the boy with the large stick.  “Why do you have a piece of wood?”

“To defend myself against your knife!”

“Oh, come on!” She exclaims, jabbing her free hand forward. Instead of moving backwards, he actually walks further into the light. “You know that you would be able to hit me with that before I could stab you!”

“No I don't!” He protests. “Who thinks like that?” 

“Somebody who is scared of being whacked to death!” 

He slowly lowers his stick. “Is the knife all that you have?”

“Why should I tell you?” Piper questions, crossing her arms over her chest, though being careful to keep the flat of the blade on her arm, rather than the sharp side.

When he takes a step further into the orange light, she finally has a good view of his appearance. He was a young looking boy, not much taller than her with dark hair, and green eyes. He was only wearing a hoodie, which could not have been good for him in weather like this. She could tell by the glint in his eye that he was appraising her in the same way she was doing to him.

“I’m Percy.” He says slowly. A peace offering.

She bites her lip, eyeing him suspiciously, before admitting, “Piper.”

Neither take another step. It is eerily silent in the dark warehouse. 

And then, thunder makes the whole building rumble, and a flash of lightning illuminates the world for a split second before recasting everything in shadow. 

Percy, if that is his real name, drops his wood plank in surprise. “Damn weather.” He hisses. 

Piper wasn’t listening to him, her attention captured by something else she had heard. A thump from somewhere within the warehouse. 

“What was that?” She questions, holding her knife out at an invisible foe. 

“You mean the storm?” She could tell just from the tone of his voice that he was giving her a look that said, ‘seriously?’

Piper shakes her head. “No, not that! I swear I heard something else!”

“Maybe it was just a rat.” Percy responds, slowly taking a step towards her, his hands stuffed in his pocket. 

“‘Just’!” Piper shrieks, a shudder going down her spine. “That doesn’t freak you out?”

His head tilted to the left. “You’re not a New Yorker, are you?”

“What gave me away?”

“You mean besides the valley girl impression?” 

Piper shoots him a sarcastic smile, her eyes attempting to adjust to the shadows. 

She sees nothing.

“I was probably just hearing things.” Piper admits slowly, crossing over to the metal wall, a foot away from Percy’s space.

“What are you doing?” 

Piper shrugs. “Getting comfortable. If you haven’t realized, there’s a storm, and I don’t feel like being outside in that.”

“You’re staying here?” He asks, taking a step back.

“Do you have a problem with that?” She questions, folding her arms, and raising a challenging eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you owned the warehouse.”

He grumbles under his breath, before returning to his side of the wall. “Just… stay on your side.” 

“Won’t be a problem.” Piper replies, burying her face further into the warmth of her jacket.

Even when the boy’s snores echo throughout the cavernous chamber, it was a long time before Piper lets sleep claim her.

Hazel

After Hazel had run away from Mrs. Henderson’s house, she’d gotten lost. 

Mrs. Henderson very rarely took her outside, and when she did, the cats were always there. Waiting for her to leave their territory. 

So, Hazel had run through the winding streets in nothing but a nightgown and damp slippers, snow falling down on her, and no destination in mind. 

Luckily, she’d found her way to a big, abandoned looking building. It looked stable enough, and she was so tired.

That’s how Hazel found herself in the warehouse: cold, hungry, her back sore from lying on wooden crates for the past day. 

Don’t get her wrong, it was much preferable to being outside, but a part of her wished that she had at least had the forethought to put on a jacket before running away.

Hazel had been lying there alone for what felt like eternity, (but was probably only a few hours) when the creak of the door let her know that someone had entered the warehouse. 

She hid in the loft, behind some crates, and watched the newcomer, with his warm looking hoodie, and brightly colored packet of candy. 

When it looked like he had fallen asleep, it took all of Hazel’s self restraint from stopping her from looking through the backpack he had brought with him. 

Thankfully she had, because not long after he had first closed his eyes, they had opened again. Then, he would repeat the action. Again, and again, and again. 

Hazel was starting to get worried by the time she heard the boy start talking to what she was quite sure was a large plank of wood. 

Then, entered the presence of someone else. Another girl. 

The girl and the boy immediately entered an argument, and, because of the echo, Hazel heard a decent amount of their conversation. 

Including their names; Percy and Piper.

At least, it sounded like they had said, Percy and Piper. For all she knew, they could have said Charlie and Paige. 

Hazel had watched them, peering over one of her crates. 

Unfortunately, when a startling rumble of  thunder had seemed to make the whole building shake, Hazel had fallen off. Fortunately, she hadn’t gotten hurt in the fall. Unfortunately, she had to hold her breath on the cold concrete as the girl had heard her. 

Hazel was dangerously close to being caught, and the logical part of her brain told her to wait in the loft until they fell asleep, and try to find her way back to Mrs. Henderson’s house. 

But the part of her that was dying of thirst and hunger was louder at the moment, and when she was certain that both of her neighbors were sound asleep, Hazel had scampered down the ladder, and taken a closer look at the two. 

The boy had a dark complexion, messy black hair, and was wearing a blue sweatshirt. She could make out the beginnings of a bruise over one of his eyes. 

Then, because she was hungry, and had no self restraint, she looked through his bags. 

He had an old looking white t-shirt with stains and holes through the fabric. Hazel held  it to her chest in an effort to make some more warmth. She also found a small bag of skittles, and took those as well.

The girl was sleeping away from the windows, so it was hard to see her too clearly, but Hazel got the gist. She knew where the girl was sleeping, and she knew where her bag was. It was only a matter of gaining entry.

Hazel tiptoed to the pink backpack, and slowly unzippered it. She dragged the accessory into the light, and stared, wide-eyed and openmouthed, at the contents. 

Piper had quite a supply. Two water bottles. Three bags of chips. A few folded outfits. Hand sanitizer. And even breath mints.

If only Hazel had been this prepared when she ran out in a pair of fuzzy slippers and pajamas. 

She didn’t want to take too much, but she just couldn’t resist grabbing one of the bottles of water.

However, as soon as her hand closed around the life-saving liquid, another hand closed around her wrist.

Hazel looked up, and came face to face with the girl that she was stealing from. 

How the girl had snuck up on her, Hazel had no idea, but it had happened, and she was terrified. What if the police were called on her? What if she went to jail for grand-theft water bottle?

“Where did you come from?” The girl asks. She sounded almost worried. And she had a soothing sort of voice that almost compelled Hazel to spill her secrets.

But Hazel had also thought that Mrs. Henderson was a nice and sane old woman when they first met, and look at where she was now.

So, being the totally sane and rational person that she knew herself to be, Hazel headbutted the girl in the stomach. The girl gasps, and stumbles back, dropping something in her surprise. A metallic clang echoes throughout the whole room.

Hazel plucks the water bottle she was still holding from its sack, and then grabs what Piper had dropped. 

A knife.

“What’s happening?” She heard another, groggier voice ask. The boy.

Hazel grips the knife tighter, and wheels on the other kid, the knife gleaming menacingly in the lowlight.

She stares at both the girl and the boy, daring them to come forward. Terrified of what would happen if they did.

All remained silent, until-- 

“Why does everyone I meet today pull a knife on me?”

Percy

“Why does everyone I meet today pull a knife on me?” 

Maybe not the smartest, or most relevant question, but he made a good point! 

Getting a knife pulled on you once? Maybe. It’s New York. It happens! 

But twice? In one day? Two different girls, the same knife? Come on !

Speaking of which, when were their two girls? He only remembered one. And judging by the look on Piper’s face, she was just as confused about the new arrival as he was. 

“Step back!” The little girl says. Her voice was squeaky and unsteady, but her knife hand remained firm. 

Percy didn’t want to comply, but at the same time, he didn’t feel like being stabbed by a child either, so he took a step back. 

Piper glances over at him, before doing the same. 

“You don’t want to hurt us.” Piper says gently, putting her hands up in surrender. Percy just watched her with an eyebrow dubiously raised. 

The young girl doesn’t flinch. “I don’t want you to hurt me , even more.”

“The kid makes a point.” Percy comments. 

Piper turns to glare at him. 

“How old are you?” Piper asks, changing tactics. 

Percy had no idea which tactics she was using, but he was a little curious to see how it would  turn out. 

The little girl purses her lips. “Nine.” She finally admits. 

“You’re really young to be out here all by yourself.”

“So are you.” The little one fires back. 

This time, Percy decides to keep his mouth sealed shut. 

Piper slowly takes one step towards the girl. “What’s your name?”

The little girl hesitates, before saying softly, “Hazel.”

“I’m Piper, and this is Percy.” Piper gestures to him.

Hazel nods. “I- I thought that was what you said earlier.” 

”Earlier?” Percy speaks up. “How long have you been here?”

“A day.” Hazel answers. “I came in last night.”

“But… I was here all day.” Percy whispers. “You’ve been hiding that long? And--” He tilts his head as something else in her hand catches his attention. “Is that my shirt?”

Hazel shrugs sheepishly. “I’m quiet.”

Piper takes one more step towards Hazel. “Are you just thirsty?”

“I didn’t bring anything with me when I left.” Hazel says, pinching at the dirty, pink fabric of her nightgown, and holding up Percy’s tattered white t-shirt that he usually wore as pajamas.. “I have nothing.”

Piper nods. “You can keep the water.” And then she rifles through her backpack, and takes out a small bundle. “Take these socks.”

Hazel, her eyes wide, stares at the offered clothes. 

“You can have them.” Piper assures. “But, I would like my knife back.”

The younger girl worried at her bottom lip, before handing the weapon back to Piper. They exchange gifts, and then Hazel jumps back a few paces, and sips from her water bottle. 

“Thank you.” Hazel whispers. 

“Yeah..” Percy says slowly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “And you can keep the shirt too. Just… try not to murder me in my sleep.” Percy points at both girls. 

Hazel raises an eyebrow at him, and slowly moves back into the shadows. “No promises.” She giggles, and then disappears into the night. 

And that is how Percy and Piper met Hazel. 

And, gods help them, if only they had known that this was just the start of their journey to come.

Chapter Text

Piper

Last night was… odd. 

Having a small child hold a knife to you in the middle of the night was an experience that Piper never thought that she’d have to endure back in California. 

Still, she was determined to not go running back to her dad. Or, more accurately, the assistant that he had placed in charge of the search for her. 

Currently, Piper sat with her back to the freezing, metal walls. Her neck was stiff from sleeping upright. The early morning sunlight filtered through the tall, small windows, leaving her cold and unfulfilled.

She hadn’t been murdered during the night, so that was helpful. Of course, the fact that not being killed in her sleep was the highlight of Piper’s week should be a clear  indicator of her current state of mind. 

Piper groans, stretching her arms out into the cold, crisp morning air, sending away the numbness that had settled in her limbs during the night. She turns her head to the other side, hearing a satisfying crack.

Piper rises to her feet, feeling the blood rush through her legs. She sighs, leaning down, partly in an attempt to stretch, and partly to futilely wipe remnants of white dust off of her jeans. .

Piper settles into a crouching position, reaching for her backpack, her brown hair curtaining her face. She pulls out a strawberry pop tart from the bag, and lets out a satisfied sigh as she takes her first bite.

It was only half way through her morning treat, that Piper realized something about the room was different than when she had gone to sleep. 

After whipping her head from side to side, Piper realizes that she is all alone. 

The boy from the other night, Percy, had apparently disappeared. 

Piper reaches her full height, inspecting the spot where he had been last night. The only thing left to indicate someone else’s presence was a long, wooden board leaning against the wall on an angle. 

“Hey!” A voice chimes, and Piper practically jumps out of her skin at the sudden noise. She spins around, looking for any signs of an intruder. “Up here!”

Piper tilts her head skyward, her eyes landing on a small figure standing on the second story loft. 

“Piper, right?” Hazel asks, standing on top of a big stack of crates. Her hair was matted, and she was rubbing at a spot of dirt on her nose. “Your friend left this morning.”

“Oh.” Piper says softly, nodding. “Right. Thanks.”

Hazel just nods. “Just thought you should know.”

“Yeah…” Piper murmurs, suddenly wondering how much Hazel has been seeing. “But, he’s not my…” she trails off once she realizes that Hazel had already disappeared. “Friend…”

Piper nods, looking around the barren warehouse. 

Bitingher lip, Piper wanders to the main entrance of the warehouse. Her cold fingers brush the metal door, sending a tingle up her arm. 

Should she really risk leaving?

Wandering out into the cold and snowy outdoors, where creeps and weirdos and angry assistants were more than likely lurking. 

Shaking her head, Piper backs away from the unknown, and utterly dangerous object that remained a simple door. 

She slowly walks across the open floor of the warehouse, the tap of her sneakers echoing throughout the building. Piper reaches into her pocket, and pulls out the Pop Tart wrapper, with one frosted pastry still tucked inside. An idea comes to life in her head, and before she could stop herself, she yells into the almost entirely vacant building. 

“Hazel!”

No response. 

“Um, I was just wondering if you were hungry?” 

Once more, no response. 

She holds out the Pop Tart. “I have some extra! I promise it’s not poisoned.”

Suddenly feeling ridiculous, Piper slowly starts to put the Pop Tart back in her pocket. And then, the loud noise of someone running catches her attention. 

Hazel appears on the upper landing, leaning over the ledge ever so slightly, to look at Piper. “What is it?” She asks hesitantly.

“A Pop Tart.” Piper replies, suddenly wishing that her peace offering wasn’t so lame. “It’s strawberry flavored.”

Hazel hesitantly walks to the ladder, dropping down near silently. “I’ve never had one before.” 

“Well, they’re pretty good.” Piper murmurs, giving a slight, close lipped smile. 

Hazel practically floats towards Piper, her messy curls swinging behind her. They stand in front of each other, the top of Hazel’s head just barely reaching Piper’s chin. Slowly, the younger girl reaches out a tentative hand, before grabbing the microwavable pastry.

Piper watches, wide eyed, as the tiny girl devours half of the Pop Tart in practically two bites. “You like it?” She asks humorously.

Hazel bites her lip, swallowing thickly. “Thank you.” She breaths.

“No problem.” Piper replies, taking in the thin, dirty nightgown that Hazel was wearing underneath Percy’s old t-shirt. “Um… is that warm enough?”

Hazel simply shrugs. “I guess.” She finishes up the rest of her Pop Tart, before looking back towards the loft. “I should probably--”

Piper holds up her hands, suddenly desperate to not lose her only means of socialization. “Wait! Um…” Her backpack catches her eye. “Do you… want…” She takes a deep breath. “I have some extra clothes if you want…”

Hazel looks up at Piper, her eyes incredibly wide. She looks like she’s about to say no, before she gives a definite nod, and takes one step closer. “Um… if that’s okay?”

Hazel

If Hazel had to guess, she would say that it has probably been around two days since she’d run away from Mrs. Henderson. It was hard to count time in the dusty warehouse, but two seemed like an appropriate number.

She shivers, rubbing her palms over her knees.

Piper had, in fact, given her some extra clothes. Black pants that were bunched up at her ankles, socks, and a light, cream colored cardigan. Under the sweater, she was still wearing Percy’s ratty t-shirt, luckily discarding her soggy night gown and slippers.

Piper had actually been uncommonly nice, given the fact that Hazel had stolen and proceeded to pull a knife on her last night.

After giving Hazel the new clothes, Piper had then sat Hazel down, and picked knots and leaves out of Hazel’s messy curls. 

“I don’t know how I feel about turning my back on someone that can so easily kill me.” Hazel had joked, as Piper’s fingers had brushed through her hair.

The older girl had paused. “Do you want me to stop?”

Hazel had shaken her head, and leaned it back towards Piper’s gentle hands. “No.”

After Piper had done her best to make Hazel look like a decent human being, Hazel hadn’t run back to her dusty loft. The two girls had barely spoken in over an hour. If they weren’t using the body heat of the other to stay warm, then you might think that they had forgotten each other completely.

Hazel looks over at Piper, contemplating. Should she try to make conversation? Hazel couldn’t remember the last time she had spoken to someone her age, in a normal setting. Let alone while she was a runaway locked in a cold warehouse with another runaway. 

That would just be weird. Right?

“Um,” Piper’s voice cuts off Hazel’s reverie. 

No, this would not be weird , argued the getting-bigger-by-the-second voice in her head that craved human interaction.

“Why did you run away?”

Nope, weird, definitely weird. Her decency broke in, before immediately being quieted by the human interaction voice. 

“Cats.” Hazel finally decides to say.

Piper blinks, as if she had misheard. “Cats?”

“Yeah, cats.” Unconsciously, Hazel rubs at her ankles, where the cat scratches are hidden beneath her new pants.

“What about cats?”

Hazel clears her throat. “My… my foster mom had- well, she had a lot of cats.”

“Oh.” Piper says softly, her voice catching in her throat. “Um, do you not like cats? Are you allergic?”

“Not really.” Hazel replies, pulling her knees to her chest. “I think they’re allergic to me, though.”

Piper lets out a soft laugh, as if she thought that Hazel was joking. She stops when she realizes that she wasn’t.

Silence overtakes them again, and Hazel wonders if that tiny bit of human interaction was really worth the awkwardness in the air.

The light coming through the windows is starting to fade, sending flares of orange and purple over the cement floor as dusk prepares to make its debut. Cold rushes down Hazel’s spine. Now that the faint sunlight streaming through the windows was dwindling, the chill air was soaking through her meager layers of clothing. 

A loud noise echoed throughout the warehouse, and Hazel jumped up as she saw one of the wide double doors opening up. She sees Piper get to her feet as well, and has a sneaking suspicion that the knife is hidden up the sleeve of Piper’s winter jacket.

The new figure enters the building, loudly slamming the door shut behind them. They walk closer to the pair of girls, a heavenly scent coming from his direction. 

Piper steps forward, half in front of Hazel. When the figure comes closer, Hazel sees the gleam of her knife in Piper’s hand.

“Don’t come any closer!” Piper says, and Hazel is almost impressed with how steady her voice remains.

The figure stops and, to Hazel’s surprise, lets out a long suffering groan. “Come on! Again? Didn’t we go through this yesterday? Twice!”

Piper lowers her knife hand, squinting into the shadows where the stranger remains. “Percy?”

“Yeah.” Percy replies, walking into the orange light streaming in through the windows. 

“I thought you left.” Hazel speaks up, watching Percy as he takes a seat against the metal wall on Hazel’s other side. “You got up really early this morning.”

“I…” Percy hesitates. “I had to do something.” He doesn’t say anything more, simply rifles through the savory smelling bag that he had walked in with. 

Percy pulls out something wonderful smelling, circular, and wrapped in yellow paper into the cool dusk air. 

“What’s that?” Hazel asks before she can stop herself, subconsciously leaning closer to the boy. 

Percy shrugs. “Big Mac.” 

“‘Big Mac?” Hazel asks, testing the words out on her tongue. She had never heard of it before, and it sounded weird as she said it. 

“Yeah!” This time, it is Piper who speaks up. “From McDonalds.”

Hazel twists her face. “McDonalds…”

“The restaurant?” Percy asks, his eyebrows rising to his hairline. 

“Never heard of it.”

Piper hums. “Well, that’s healthy for you.” 

“You’ve never been to McDonalds.” Percy repeats as if the idea had never occurred to him. 

And then, to her surprise, Percy rips his sandwich in half, and hands it over to Hazel. “What’s this for?”

Percy shrugs. “You know… experience.”

He then turns to Piper, “Do you want some?”

Piper shakes her head. “Um, no. I don’t eat meat.” 

“Can you really afford to be picky when you’re hungry and broke?” Percy asks in between taking a bite of his sandwich.

Hazel is dimly aware of Piper responding to him, and a small war erupting between her two companions. All that she is focusing on is the brilliant flavors on her tongue, and the warmth in her stomach from eating something hot for the first time in days. 

“This is so good.” She murmurs, not even caring that her mouth is still filled with food. 

“See!” Percy exclaims, also chewing a bite of his burger, and sends a victorious glare towards Piper. Piper, who Hazel had not realized until this moment, was taking bites from a large, red container filled with fries. 

“It’s still not healthy.” Piper replies, though that doesn’t stop her from popping another fry into her mouth.

Ten minutes later, the three of them had finished picking at Percy’s dinner. 

Percy was taking a drink from a large cup that she assumed was filled with soda of some kind, judging by the dark liquid she could see through the clear straw. His face was illuminated in the orange light, displaying his messy, dark hair, and bruised face.

Hazel is barely aware that she is speaking, before she asks, “What happened to your eye?”

Percy choked on his drink. “Huh?” 

“Your eye.” Piper picks up the conversation, pointing to Percy’s face. 

“It’s all purple and swollen.” Hazel agrees. “What happened to it?”

“Oh.” Percy murmurs, the word sounding dull. “Um, I fell.” 

“You fell?” Piper asks dubiously, arching an eyebrow. “Only on your eye?” 

Percy shrugs. “Yeah.” Silence reigned supreme for a moment, before Percy spoke up again. “Well, I’m going to sleep.” 

Hazel took that as an indication that the conversation was over. 

Piper sends one last glance over at Percy, who’s heavy breathing seemed a bit too exaggerated to be real, before closing her own eyes. 

Hazel stares at the two kids on either side of her. She doesn’t move to go back to her loft. She doesn’t move farther away from either of them.

No, instead she presses her knees to her chest, and curls into a ball on the cold floor. Sleep would be far from her that night, but, as she heard Piper’s soft grumblings and Percy’s movements, at least she knew she wouldn’t be alone in her hardships.

Chapter Text

Percy

Percy walks down the streets of New York, the warmth of his pizza box bleeding into his cold hands. 

It had been about a week since he’d ran away from the apartment, and, honestly, Percy thinks that things could be going much worse for him. 

First off, he’d managed to get a ‘job’. Yes, the air quotes were intentional for legal purposes.

His first day after meeting Hazel and Piper, Percy found a tiny pizza shop called Sal’s. The owner, Sal, was a middle aged Italian man that could usually be found kneading dough behind the front counter. 

Percy had approached him, asking if he could get a job as a dishwasher. Sal had, reasonably, been a little cautious at first. Even if Percy didn’t look like the 12 year old he was, he had been dirty and grungy looking. The exact kind of kid you wouldn’t want anywhere near your family friendly business.

However, Sal had been desperate for extra help, and so Percy had been given a chance. 

And, not to toot his own horn or anything, but the only thing that Percy knew for certain he was really good at, was dishwashing. 

Washing dishes had always been Percy’s favorite chore. 

Percy always felt better by the sink, always felt more energized and happy. When he was younger, he used to pretend that he could control the warm suds with some innate power, rather than his mother twirling her hands in the water to create the illusion. Even when the magic of being young had faded, Percy always washed dishes when he needed to get away from Gabe for a while (lord knows Gabe never stepped foot in a kitchen).

Thankfully, Sal had agreed about Percy’s abilities, and Percy had immediately been offered a ‘job’. 

Percy went to Sal’s from opening to closing, washing dishes, before getting a cut of the waiters’ tips and twenty bucks a day. Sure, Percy had to stay in the back and not be seen by anyone. And, yes, he was lying to his ‘boss’ by saying that he was homeschooled and his mother knew exactly where he was at all times. 

But, after he worked at least a three hour shift, he was able to bring home a free meal, and that was worth it. 

Or, at least, that’s what Percy has to tell himself as the harsh winds cut through his jacket like a knife as he walks out of the shop and back to the warehouse. 

New York was never particularly enjoyable in the Winter, but the recent weather was a whole other level of uncomfortable. It was as if the universe was trying to punish him for leaving his mom.

The heat from the pizza box was all that was keeping Percy from freezing until he reached the metal door to the warehouse. 

Percy hesitates from opening it for a moment, before pressing his fist against the door. One long, three fast, two long. 

It was a combination that Percy had come up with after becoming a little fed up with having a knife held to him every time he opened the door. Piper and Hazel had immediately grasped onto the knock when he’d introduced it to them, and had created an answering rhythm.

As has become usual in the last few days, Percy only has to wait a minute or two before three long knocks come from the other side of the door.

A far too loud squeak comes from the door as one of the girls pushes it open on the other side. 

“Thanks.” Percy breaths, ducking into the warehouse, which is only slightly less cold than being totally outdoors. 

“No problem.” Hazel replies, jumping away from the door as soon as she slides it shut. He’d noticed that she did that alot; jumped. Despite the fact that she was probably tired, hungry, and dirty, she always had this jumpy energy about her that made Percy’s adhd act up.

Piper is pacing in between the wooden support beams, her arms wrapped around herself. Probably in an attempt to create more warmth. “What’s that smell?”

“You.” Percy replies without missing a beat, wrinkling his nose at her as if he had smelled something particularly horrid in her general direction. Though, really, it wasn’t all for play because it had been a week since either of the girls had showered. Percy, at least, managed to take a sink bath in Sal’s bathroom before his shift every day.

Piper just rolls her eyes at Percy. “I was talking about pizza.” 

“Well, then why bother asking the question if you already knew the answer?” 

This was how Percy and Piper talked. On the rare occasions that they did, at least. Piper would ask a simple question that didn’t allow for much conversation, and Percy would poke and prod at her with his own sarcastic remarks until they’d had more than one syllable dialogue. 

He couldn’t necessarily prove it, but he thinks that she enjoyed it as much as he did. At least, Percy was pretty sure that the gleam in her eyes was one of humor, and not attempted murder.

Hazel skips over to them, her thin face lighting up. “You brought pizza?”

Percy can’t help but smile down at the little girl. She was the reason he did this. Why he went through his entire shift without eating, so that he could use his free meal to bring back to them.

Really, it had just been curiosity when he had brought a pizza back to the warehouse after the McDonald’s incident. It was hard to work at a pizza place without ever actually trying the pizza.

So, he had put an order in, and brought it back to the warehouse to try it. 

Of course, it had been the hungry look on Hazel’s face, and the poorly hidden curiosity on Piper’s that had convinced him to always bring food back. 

“I got half pineapple.” Percy tells them, sitting down on the floor and opening the box to them.

“ Pineapple ?” Piper asks him, her eyes narrowed in disbelief.

Percy shrugs at her. “Well, I couldn’t get my other favorite pizza topping that starts with ‘p’.” Pepperoni is left unspoken, but Piper seems to understand, because she rolls her eyes at him all the same.

“I’ve never tried pineapple on pizza.” Hazel tells them, which really isn’t surprising seeing as she had apparently never even had pizza until Percy had brought it for them. 

“You should.” Percy tells her, grabbing a slice for himself.

“Don’t.” Piper advises at the same time, grabbing a slice of cheese.

Hazel looks between the two, uncertainty on her face, before she reaches down and grabs a pineapple slice.

“Great choice.” Percy says around a mouthful of food.

“Terrible choice.” Piper once more says at the same time, though much clearer as she isn’t speaking with her mouth full. 

Hazel hesitantly takes a bite, chewing slowly with her eyes closed.

“Well?” Percy asks her, once she finishes swallowing. 

Hazel bites her bottom lip, looking towards Piper. “It’s good.”

“Boo.” Piper mock chants, taking another bite of her pineapple-less slice.

Hazel hesitates, as if she isn’t sure if she should laugh or not, so Percy decides to do it for her. 

“You’re just a sore loser.” He tells Piper. 

She shrugs. “Please, you’d have to actually lose to be bad at it.”

Percy turns to Hazel, saying in a stage whisper, “ See ?”

“Whatever.” Piper rolls her eyes. “Do you have any water?”

Percy winces. “That’s what I forgot.” 

He sees both of the girls’ faces fall, before taking out a large fountain cup filled with water, and three straws. “I really should have brought this out earlier.”

“You suck.” Piper tells him, reaching for the cup and a straw.

“Now is that anyway to speak to your provider?” Percy asks, though immediately regrets it because it sounds far too similar to something that Gabe would say.

Piper, however, doesn’t seem to mind, and simply sticks her tongue out at him.

It was moments like these that he was beginning to enjoy more and more.

Piper was much more closed off than Hazel was. 

Hazel usually woke up with him when he had to get ready for work, and they had talks. Nothing really serious, though he did have a feeling that she would understand his home situation if he were ever to tell her, if the way her face darkened when she spoke of her foster mom was anything to go by.

Piper had been much more difficult to get a conversation out of, and it was even harder when the lights were on, and her eyes always seemed to linger on the fading bruise over his eye socket. 

A particularly strong gust of wind rattles the warehouse, and the three occupants shiver.

Hazel moves behind the box, directly in between Piper and Percy. There had been a reasonable gap between the two before, but now that Hazel had settled into it, the three of them were nearly shoulder to shoulder.

“It’s cold.” Hazel says, taking another bite of her meal.

“Yup.” Piper replies, leaning her head sideways until it nearly rested on Hazel’s small shoulder.

Sometimes, an ache starts to form in Percy’s chest. A deep longing to see his mother again, even though he knows he can’t go back to the apartment, lest one of them face Gabe’s wrath. Then, an even worse feeling, that his mother would be taking the full brunt of Gabe’s fists without him there. 

All Percy has to do is see the way Hazel’s eyes light up whenever she sees pizza, or Piper’s shivers as they all huddle together to remember why he kept coming back.

It was cold, late, the warehouse was dingy, and the two girls could definitely use a good bath… 

But as the three of them sat together, it felt oddly peaceful.

Chapter Text

Piper

Piper shivers as she rinses her hands in the frigid water that poured from the hose connected to the warehouse. Hazel quickly follows, thoroughly scrubbing her hands with sanitizer before sticking them under the hose as well. 

Hazel and Piper had discovered the alley behind the warehouse during one of their boring days of doing nothing. It was gross, smelly, and loud, just like the rest of New York City. However, the alley housed a running hose and a (Piper still shudders at the word) port-a-potty. 

It is hard to count the days since Piper ran away. 

The only way that she knew Christmas had passed was because Percy hadn’t left the building until noon, and had bought two big mac meals for the three of them in celebration. 

The only way they knew New Years had passed was because the two of them had ended up comforting Hazel when the loud noises of the obnoxious party goers had caused her to curl up in a ball.

It may have been two weeks. It could have been a month. None of them were truly certain. Not even Percy, who left the warehouse on a regular basis, could give them a straight answer about which weekday it was.

“Come on,” Piper sighs as she turns off the hose, her head swiveling from side to side, making sure that their cover was safe. “We should probably head back inside.” 

Hazel nods, wiping her wet hands on her pant legs. “Good idea.”

Piper gently shoves Hazel forward, making sure that the younger girl enters the building before she does. 

“So…” Piper asks as she gently closes the back door behind her. “What do you want to do today? Nothing? Or… a whole lot of nothing?” 

Hazel presses her lips together, as if deep in thought. “How about a whole lot of nothing? We haven’t done that since Tuesday.”

Piper can’t help the little snort that escapes her, stretching her arms until a satisfying pop echoes throughout the building. She rolls her neck, wrinkling her nose as her overly long hair falls over her face. 

“Do you want to help me braid my hair?” Piper asks, running her fingers through her knotty, brown mane. 

Hazel blinks at her owlishly, her eyes, somehow, looking bigger than usual. “Huh?”

“Do you want to help me braid my hair?” Piper repeats, grunting as she pulls at a huge knot in the back of her head. You would think that a girl with so much free time would take better care of herself, but there was only so much she could do with no cleaning products, and barely any running water. 

“Um…” Red colors Hazel’s cheeks, and she swallows thickly. “Okay…” 

“Great!” Piper exclaims, her eyes immediately catching on a crate in the loft. “Come on!” 

The ladder to the second story of the warehouse is rickety and tinged with orange rust. Every time Piper moves up a rung, she worries that the entire ladder will collapse underneath her. It is made even worse, because Piper also has to shoulder her bag

Piper gasps when she is finally on solid ground again, rubbing her grubby feeling hands on the thighs of her pants. 

“You alright?” Hazel asks, pulling herself up next to Piper.

“I don’t enjoy--”

“Heights?” Hazel guesses.

“No, I’m fine with heights as long as I have something solid to hold on to. I don’t enjoy the possibility that I might fall.” Piper tilts her head at Hazel. “Why? Are you afraid of heights?”

Hazel hums under her breath. “No. I mean, I don’t really enjoy being off of the ground floor, but I’m not exactly afraid of heights.” 

“Do you want to go to the first floor?” Piper asks, suddenly wishing that she had asked Hazel before dragging her to the loft. She had a tendency to be pushy, which, according to a bratty girl named Tiffany at her old school, is why all of her friends had to be imaginary. 

Hazel, however, just shakes her head, curls bouncing with the movement. “Nah, it’s almost nice to be back up here. But,” At this, her cheeks tinge pink again. “If you happen to see a full bottle of soda-- don’t drink it.”

Piper can’t help but let out a soft laugh, lifting herself onto a big crate that is half her height. “Understood.” 

Piper digs her hairbrush from out of her backpack, gripping a fistful of frizzy knots in her hand, and starting the arduous process of brushing. 

A weight settles on the crate, and Piper turns her head to see Hazel sitting on her knees, watching Piper with fascination, her hands rubbing together in earnest. 

“Here,” Piper says, holding out the brush to the younger girl. “Why don’t you try?” 

Hazel takes the neon pink hairbrush, regarding it like Piper had just handed her a weapon. “Are you sure?”  

“Yeah.” Piper replies, facing forward again, leaning her head back to give Hazel better access.

“I don’t-- I don’t want to hurt you.” Hazel says softly.

“You won’t.” Piper promises.

“How do you know?”

“Because I trust you.” The words are unexpected, even to Piper as they fall from her own lips, but she is startled to realize that that doesn’t make them any less true. 

Here she was, turning her back to a child that had literally threatened Piper with a knife once, and she felt completely safe. 

‘I trust you’ must have been the magic words, because Hazel began vigorously brushing out the tangles in Piper’s hair. 

Piper may have been lying a bit when she had told Hazel that it wouldn’t hurt, though it really wasn’t Hazel’s fault. Her hair had always been a sensitive area for Piper. She had lost count of the amount of times that she had been driven to a teary mess as her dad or one of his assistants had tried taming her tresses. 

So, no, it didn’t feel great as Hazel took out knot after knot. But, then again, Piper can’t complain since she was the one that didn’t take care of her hair in the first place. 

Eventually the brush starts going in easier. Less hair is being pulled with each stroke, and Hazel is gently running her fingers through Piper’s now soft mane. 

“All done.” Hazel declares, setting the brush down besides Piper. 

“Thanks.” Piper says softly, reaching up to touch her rather oily hair. Oh well, one problem at a time. 

The sun shining through the windows was brighter than it had been in recent weeks, Piper notes as she snaps the hair tie wrapped around her wrist, and starts parting her hair into three strands. 

“Hey, Ha-” Piper began to ask Hazel if she wanted to help with the braiding process too, but before she could, Hazel held out one small hand, her eyebrows furrowed. 

“Shh.” Hazel hisses, her eyes darting around. 

Piper lowers her voice. “Are you okay?”

Hazel mimics Piper’s tone. “I heard something.” 

Piper blinks, feeling her heart begin to race. “Are you sure? Maybe it was just a rat.” Piper aches for the days when a rat seemed like the worst thing that could be sneaking around the shadows.

Hazel shakes her head, curls flopping. “No, it wasn’t a rat. I’m--” 

CRRREEEAAAK!

Whatever Hazel was going to say gets cut off by the unmistakable sound of the warehouse door opening. 

Piper grabs Hazel, one arm wrapped around the girl’s thin shoulders, the other hand firmly placed over her mouth to make sure she makes no noise. Hazel’s hand presses against Piper’s lips as well, interlocking the two like some odd pretzel.

There were two intruders. One was walking, though awkwardly. Every time he took a step forward, she heard a sound, like an amplified version of a pen clicking. The other one was not walking. Instead, he was rolling forward on a chair, though his pace remained no less urgent. 

“Are you sure that he was here, Grover?” One of them asks. The voice was deep with a faint accent that Piper can’t quite place. 

“I think so.” The other one, possibly Grover, responds, his voice softer and more high pitched than the other. He almost sounded like a teenager.

“You think so?” The older one repeats.

The younger one sniffs loudly. “It’s-- it’s hard to tell? I don’t know… I can smell old spice deodorant and skittles… but every time I try to get a more accurate location, this other scent gets in the way, almost as if it's masking him.”

Hazel’s eyes flick up to Piper’s, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Piper doesn’t move a muscle.

“What other scent?”

“It’s… it’s hard to describe. Like dirt and stone and lavender honey all rolled into one.”

The deeper voice says, “The Kindly One.” It doesn’t sound like a question.

The younger one whimpers. “I can’t believe this is happening again. It’s always sixth grade…” 

“Grover,” The older man lets out a deep sigh. “This isn’t your fault. Neither of us were aware that he would run away.” 

“But it was my job to protect him!” Piper winces as “Grover’s” high-pitched wail. “I can’t lose another one. Especially--” He hiccups. “Especially not Percy.” 

Both Piper and Hazel freeze in their hiding spot. 

The older man sighs deeply. “Well, then we should continue searching, Grover. Gods know what will happen to the boy if the Kindly One finds him first.” 

Piper doesn’t dare breathe until the warehouse door closes behind the two intruders. 

The two girls disentangle from each other, neither one daring to speak.

Hazel wraps her arms around herself, and Piper feels terrible as she realizes that the little girl is shaking almost violently, a fearful grimace fixed onto her face.

“Are you okay?” Piper asks softly, holding her hands out to Hazel in a placating gesture, as if talking to a spooked animal.

“I’m fine.” Hazel replies, though her words sound dull. She looks up at Piper, her bright brown eyes wide and pleading. “Who were those guys? Why were they looking for Percy?”

Piper opens her mouth to answer, but immediately closes it again, words, for once, failing her. “I have no idea, Hazel. I really don’t.”

Percy certainly had a lot of explaining to do.

Chapter Text

Percy

Percy burrows further into his coat as he walks towards the warehouse. He has a cold box of pizza in one hand, the condensation dripping down the sides of his large soda cup freezing the other hand.

He was late. He knew that. And he didn’t have a good excuse. At least, not an excuse that he would be able to give to Piper and Hazel. 

Percy does the special knock on the warehouse door. He waits for what feels like about a minute, before the door is opened, a frazzled looking Hazel on the other side. 

“You’re here.” She says, but the way that she says it gives him an odd feeling in his stomach. It reminded him of the way his mom used to look at him whenever she knew that Gabe was angry at him for something.

“Yeah,” Percy replies, stepping past her, and shuddering at being out of the open cold. “And I brought Sicilian.” Hazel had shown a preference for that type of pizza when Percy had brought it home one day after Christmas, and since it was so filling, he had taken to ordering one most nights before leaving work.

“That sounds great.” Hazel says softly, grabbing the box and cup out of his hands. She looks at a shadowy figure huddled near the edge of the wall. “Doesn’t that sound great, Piper?” 

Piper doesn’t respond, simply rises to her full height, illuminated by the orange lamplight streaming through the window, and fixes a glare on Percy. 

“Where were you?” 

Percy furrows his eyebrows at her cold tone. Still, he decides to deflect from her questioning with a joke. “The same place I am every day, Pinkie.” 

Piper narrows her eyes, clearly not liking that answer. Still, she doesn’t push him for more information. 

Not yet, anyway. 

Piper crosses her arms over her chest and informs him, “Two guys came into the warehouse today.”

Percy’s heart leapt into his throat. He stares at Piper for a long moment, and then looks at Hazel. The youngest girl gives him a small nod, confirming what Piper had just said. 

“Wh- wh- are- you-” Percy articulates, head whipping around to look at both Piper and Hazel, his mind scrambling to find the right combination of words. Finally, he manages to cobble together, “Are you guys alright?” 

“We’re fine.” She says, her reflective eyes narrowed, voice brittle. “They didn’t see us. We were hiding in the loft.” 

Percy takes a deep breath, though his shoulders remain stiff. If his brain were functioning properly, Percy would notice that there was something… wrong in the way that Piper was speaking to him and looking at him.

“That’s good.” Percy says slowly, his head still ringing due to the fact that Piper and Hazel were almost found . They could have been seen . And he wasn’t there . “Do you know what they want? Do you think that they might come back?” That’s just what they needed, their abandoned warehouse to become a little less abandoned. 

“Yeah,” Piper says, and she places herself directly between him and Hazel, and there is absolutely no mistaking the angry gleam in her eyes as she does so. “They were looking for you .”

Percy takes a step back, as if he was slapped. “Wh- what do you--” Percy takes a deep breath, tries to regather his thoughts. “They were looking for me ?” His gaze flicks to Hazel over Piper’s shoulder, and she, once more, nods in confirmation. 

Percy’s eyebrows furrow, “Why would anyone be looking for--” Percy stops talking, as his brain conjures up an image of Gabe and one of his stupid poker buddies (he’s imagining Eddie the super, because he can’t really remember what the other two look like) standing in the warehouse. Of course, that thought is ridiculous, because Gabe would never leave the house, much less to look for him . Even if he was looking for revenge.

Then, his stupid, overactive imagination switches Gabe and Eddie out for the bright, amorphous blob that he’d always imagined as his father, and quickly banishes that thought from his mind before it could take root. 

“Percy!” Thankfully, the shrillness of Piper’s voice snaps him out of his imagination, reminding him to come back to reality. 

“Right, sorry…” Percy mutters, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Where do you go every day? Why did you have a black eye when you showed up? Where are you getting this money that you always seem to have? And why are strange men coming here, searching for you?” 

Logically, Percy knows that these are actually pretty good questions (he, too, would really like to know the answer to that last one). However, Percy could hear the underlying judgment in her tone, and if there was one thing that Percy really hated, was being blamed for things that he didn’t do. 

“What exactly are you accusing me of, Piper?” He keeps his shoulders squared, chin jutting up. 

Piper responds in kind, refusing to back down. “Are you involved in something dangerous?”

“What? Like, the mob?” Percy’s voice starts to raise. 

“Of course not.” Hazel jumps in.

“Maybe.” Piper’s voice rises too, clearly not wanting to be outdone. 

“ Piper .” Hazel chastises, though her voice is small compared to the other two. 

Piper continues on, as if she hadn’t heard Hazel. “We don’t really know each other! How am I supposed to know what it is that you do with your day? You never tell us anything about where it is you came from.” 

“Neither do you!” Percy volleys back.

“ I don’t have random men coming in here looking for me! What if they had found me and Hazel? What would have happened?” 

Percy fights the feelings of guilt crawling up his throat. He would never forgive himself if something bad had happened to them when he was gone. So, instead of dealing with these feelings, he turns to anger instead. “People like you are all the same.” 

“ Percy !” Hazel’s voice has taken on a higher pitch, but Percy and Piper are so involved in their tete a tete, both ignore her. 

“What kind of person is that ?” Piper’s voice is low and dangerous. 

Percy had never thought of himself as ‘mean’, but he’d often been told that he had an uncanny ability to press people’s buttons. His talent could make even the most self-restrained person crack. Usually, he had someone around to reign him in before he made a bad situation worse, like his mom at home or Grover at school. 

Now, however, Percy had no such restraint as he returned Piper’s glare. 

“A rich girl slumming it up with us lower life forms. Feeling superior to us, and just waiting until you can go back to your life of-- of--” Oh, great, now he’s running out of words.

Piper takes a step back, clearly not expecting that answer. “What do you--”

Percy huffs in frustration, though whether that frustration is with himself, or with her, isn’t clear. “Piper McLean,” Piper winces at the use of her full name. “Goes missing for a few weeks. Goes back home, and probably gets a generous allowance from her rich dad.”

Piper grinds her teeth together. “You don’t know anything about me, or my family!” 

“Neither do you!” Percy replies, then backtracks. “I mean, about me, or mine, not about your-- y’know what, you know what I was trying to say!”

Percy’s ramblings are punctuated by the loud, heavy sound of the warehouse door falling shut. 

Percy and Piper’s heads whip around to stare at the door, their hearts beating in sync as they expect to see a shadowy figure staring at them. However, nobody is there.

Piper takes one cautious step forward, her hand going to her knife. “Hello?” No response. No figure lurking by the door. “I don’t get it, who opened the door?” 

“Piper,” Percy’s voice sounds ragged, and not just because of their fight. “Where did Hazel go?” 

“What do you mean, she’s right--” Piper whirls around, only to see that Hazel is no longer standing right behind her. “Wh- she was right here!” 

Once more, both of their eyes trail to the door of the warehouse. 

“Oh, god, no.” Piper whispers, and both of them run to the door, wrenching it open. Piper looks both ways down the empty street, and screams into the cold night air, “Hazel!”

Chapter Text

Hazel

Hazel shivers in the cold, winter air, pulling the sweater she was wearing closer around her. Her slippers-- the same ones that she had worn when she ran out of Mrs. Henderson’s house all those weeks ago-- squished against the moist ground with every step. Maybe one day, Hazel will run away in actual shoes, not dirty, old pieces of cloth imitating bunnies.

She doesn’t quite remember leaving the warehouse. 

Hazel remembers the loud, raised voices of her friends. The actual contents of their fight were now eluding her. There was just so much noise. Then, she’d blacked out. Next thing she knows, she’s already several streets away from the warehouse, her lungs burning from exerting herself. 

Hazel has no idea where she is. 

The buildings all look relatively the same, tall, and dark. The people aren’t much different from the buildings, but at least none of them are batting an eyelash at a little girl in oversized clothes and dirty slippers walking alone at night. 

Hazel doesn’t know how to get back home.

Maybe she doesn’t even want to go back.

Why would they fight like that? So loudly. So angrily . 

The three of them had been getting along so well the last few weeks. Shared dinners, jokes, huddling for warmth-- okay, maybe that last one wasn’t normal, but the only experience Hazel had was Mrs. Henderson and her demon cats, so sue her if she was enjoying it!

Great, now her head hurts. 

Hazel presses a hand to the center of her forehead trying to alleviate the ache forming in her brain. 

Piper might rub soothing circles into her back in an effort to calm her down. Percy would start telling bad jokes until she forgot all about what was bothering her. Then they would both ply her with food, Percy subtly giving her some of his own share because he thought she was too thin.

Hazel’s heart aches. She doesn’t know how long she’s been gone. It could have been hours, it could have been only a few minutes. No matter how long it was, Hazel’s heart yearned for her family.

Family.

Was that what they were? 

Maybe? 

Again, experience wasn’t exactly on her side. 

It didn’t matter anymore. Because Hazel messed up. She’d run away. She’d run away from her family. That’s all she ever does. Run when people need her. 

Run.

Run.

“Run, Hazel, run!” 

She’s running as fast as she possibly can, her little legs covering as much ground as possible.

Her shoes are crunching through the snow, wind and the unmistakable sound of rocks being thrown into water whistling through her ears. She couldn’t see much. Just an endless white landscape, and a dark shadow in the distance. She needed to run to it. She had to get to it. She just had to keep--

She ran into something hard. Hazel blinks out of her stupor, noticing that it was not snow that's falling around her, but colorful papers. And there was no mysterious shape coming towards her, just a frazzled looking woman staring down at the little girl that had run straight into her. 

“I-I- I’m sorry.” Hazel whispers, looking down at the paper covering the ground, suddenly finding it very hard to breathe. She needed to get out of here. She needed to run. 

“Run, Hazel! Run!” 

The woman just tilts her head to the side, and crouches down to Hazel’s eye level. She places a hand on Hazel’s shoulder, gentle, so as not to frighten her more, but firmly enough that Hazel can’t bolt. 

“Are you okay?” The woman looks around. “Where’re your parents?” 

“Dead.” Hazel says before she could even think about it. 

“What?” The woman asks. She looks around the street, at every face that passes them by without a second glance. “What are you doing out here?” 

“I-- I ran away from my family.” Hazel stutters out, her hands shaking in the older woman’s. “I need to get back.”

“Shh,” The woman’s voice is so soothing, her warm hand moving to gently rub Hazel’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I can help you find your family.”

“You can?” Hazel’s voice sounds so small, so unnatural. 

“Yes.” The woman speaks so assuredly, Hazel finds herself believing her, staring deeply into her blue-green eyes. “First, I need you to tell me your name.” 

Hazel swallows thickly, finally taking air into her lungs for what felt like the first time in forever. “Hazel. My name is Hazel.” 

The woman gives her a small, sad smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Hazel. My name is Sally.”

Chapter Text

Piper

“Hazel!” Piper whisper-yells, squinting through the darkness of the alley to try and see her small friend. “Hazel, are you out here?” 

The only response that she gets is the titters from the cockroaches and rats inhabiting every inch of the city. 

“Piper.” A voice says from behind her. 

“Ahh!” Piper whirls around, fists up to defend herself from an attacker. However, she breathes a sigh of relief as she recognizes Percy. “Oh, thank god, it’s you.” She looks around, a brief flare of hope rising and immediately crashing within her chest. “You didn’t find her.”

Percy shakes his head, glumly. “No. I went down two blocks in every direction, and I saw no trace of her. Which is crazy, by the way, because I don’t think she was even wearing shoes.” 

“She wasn’t. She was wearing those ratty old slippers that she showed up here in.” Piper blinks several times, realizing that she had allowed herself to be focused on the wrong details at such a critical time. She takes a deep breath, continuing, “I looked in the loft, just in case she was actually hiding the whole time. Then I looked through both the alleys, and may I just tell you that there were a lot of weird things hiding, but none of them were Hazel.” 

Percy groans, running a hand down his face. “What are we going to do? I guess I could go out again, go farther this time?” 

Piper shivers, looking up at the black, starless sky. “No. You can’t do that.”

Percy blinks at her, as if not quite understanding the words that she was saying. “What do you mean?” 

Piper presses her eyes shut, hating what she was about to say. “Percy, it’s late. Going out on the streets, by yourself, at this time of night is not safe.” 

“Which is why we need to go out there and find Hazel!” 

“And how are you going out there and being kidnapped or murdered or something, helping Hazel?” 

Percy huffs. “Then come with me, you’re always looking for excuses to wave your freaky knife around.”

“And what if Hazel comes back on her own, and neither of us are here to welcome her? Either because we’re still out, or we’ve been murdered ?” 

“What is with you and being murdered?” 

“We’re in New York, how are you not worried about being murdered?” 

Percy takes a step back, his shoulders tight. “So, what? You want us to give up? Just let her out there to get hurt?”

“Of course I don’t want that!” Piper cries. “But, I think that right now, our best bet is waiting for her to come back on her own. At least until it’s light out, then we can start searching again.” 

Percy huffs. “Right, because nobody murders children in broad daylight.” 

“Percy!” Piper hisses. 

Percy looks at the door to the warehouse, a bone in his jaw twitching. He steps closer to her, but Piper stands her ground. “Fine. I’ll wait. But the minute the sky starts to lighten, I’m looking again.” 

“If she hasn’t come back already.” Piper reminds him.

Percy sighs. “Right.” 

Piper stands in the alley for a moment, wincing when the alley door bangs shut behind Percy. 

They’ve been sitting side by side-- their backs pressed against the cold, metal walls-- for maybe half an hour before Piper breaks the uncomfortable silence.

“How do you know who my dad is?” She asks softly, not even daring to look in Percy’s direction. The two of them had said a lot during their argument, but Percy’s jab about her dad had been replaying in her mind along with the slam of the door that had announced Hazel’s exit. 

Percy lets out a long breath, and she imagines the fog exiting his mouth in the cold air. “I pass three different electronics stores on my way to work. Your story has been running on a loop for at least the last week.” 

“A week.” She repeats blankly. “You never said anything.”

“Neither did you.” 

“Touche.” Piper hums. “Still though, it had to be hard. I’m sure they’re offering a reward or something.” 

“Oh, yeah.” Percy replies. “About $10,000 last time I saw.”

Piper worries on her bottom lip. “And you never felt tempted to turn me in?”

She hears Percy snort. “Couldn’t even if I wanted to.” She finally turns to look at him, seeing a small, lopsided grin on his face. “Don’t have a phone.”

“Ah…” Piper hums. Then, she remembers something that Percy had said. “You have a job?”

“Yeah, I’m a dishwasher at a pizza place.” 

“Sal’s.” Piper recalls the name plastered on the boxes that she has stacked in a corner of the warehouse until she can find a proper recycling bin for them. 

“ That is where I go everyday, for your information.” Percy says, and she feels a sense of shame at the pointedness of his words. “And that’s where I get the money for food and hand sanitizer and shit.”  

Piper shakes away her guilt before it settles down on her. “That still doesn’t explain why those guys came looking for you.” She insists. “You know that there was something off about it, why else would you have looked so upset when I told you?” She pauses, taking in the way Percy is starting to duck his head further into his sweatshirt like a turtle into his shell. “Why did you run away?”

“Why did you ?” He fires back. “Why is it fair that I’m the only one offering up information here?  Explain to me why a rich girl like you is slumming it in an abandoned warehouse with two runaways that don’t have anywhere else left to go.” 

Piper inhales deeply, preparing to fight back, then quickly deflates. She wraps her arms around herself, keeping her eyes on the ground in front of her. “I got kicked out of my school.” 

Percy snorts. “Is that it?” 

Piper glares at him. “It’s a big deal to me .” 

Percy ducks his head, at least having the decency to appear somewhat apologetic. 

“I mean, it’s not like I was particularly attached to my school, or any of the people there, and I’m gonna be switching to middle school next year anyways--” Piper groans, realizing that she was going on a tangent. “The point is, I got in trouble, and for the first time, in I don’t even know how long, my dad actually paid attention to me. He didn’t pawn me off on his assistant, he was actually there. And then, he found me a new school to go to after the holidays… and now  I’m invisible again.” 

Percy is quiet for a moment, before asking, “What did they expel you for?” 

Piper blinks, taken aback from the question. “I went to the bathroom without asking.” Piper pauses again. “And a teacher grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me back to the classroom. So, I may have… kicked the teacher to make her let go of me.”

Percy hums. “Sounds like she had it coming.” Piper huffs out a laugh. “Last year, I got expelled from my fifth school because of an accident on a field trip involving a Revolutionary War cannon and a school bus.” 

Piper snorts, her hand going up to cover her mouth. “Oh, my gosh.” 

They fall into another silence, before Percy takes a deep breath, and admits, “I… got into a fight with my stepdad. That’s why I ran away.” 

“A fight.” Piper repeats, turning her head to face him. “You mean, like…” Without her consent, her eyes flick to the faded bruise over his eye. 

A bone in Percy’s jaw twitches, but he doesn’t respond. That is enough of an answer for Piper.

“I really don’t know who it was that came in here. I’m sorry that they almost found you guys.” Percy tells her, and he sounds genuine. “I really don’t know who would be looking for me.”

Piper opens her mouth, a question formed on the tip of her tongue, but promptly shuts it before she can ruin the semi-peaceful atmosphere that they created. 

Percy speaks again, picking up the lull in conversation. “Do you really think that Hazel is going to come back?”

“No.” Piper sighs, because she knows that he’ll see through anything but her honest answer. “But I hope she will. And as long as I have hope…” She trails off. “I started that sentence without knowing how I was going to end it, but you get the point.” 

A particularly strong gust of wind manages to bypass the strong walls of the warehouse. Piper shudders, and she feels a new warmth as Percy huddles closer to her. 

“I guess we’re just gonna have to keep hoping, then.”

Hazel

Sally’s hands are surprisingly warm. 

Hazel has both of her tiny ones clasped around Sally’s, trying to capture as much warmth into her frigid extremities as possible. She finds herself rubbing at the deep lines and hard calluses of the older woman’s hand as they walk. 

Hazel shivers, rubbing Sally’s hand in an effort to generate more heat. She doesn’t know how Sally isn’t freezing to death, wearing only a blue dress under her coat as she is. 

Logically, Hazel knew that talking to strangers (and letting them lead you by the hand down a darkened street) was not a good idea. 

However, there’s just something about Sally that Hazel can’t help but inexplicably trust. 

Famous last words .

“Does any of this look familiar, sweetie?” Sally asks, drawing Hazel out of her thoughts. 

Again.

Hazel swallows thickly, taking her hands out of Sally’s, and hiding them within the sleeves of her too-big sweatshirt. She looks around, seeing nothing but unfamiliar buildings. No sign of the warehouse. 

“No.” Hazel sighs, dejectedly. 

“It’s okay,” Sally tells her, gently squeezing Hazel’s shoulder. “We’ll keep looking.” 

Hazel’s eyes fall onto Sally’s olive skinned hand, her eyes tracing the tan line on her ring finger. 

“Thank you for helping me.” Hazel says, glancing up at Sally through her lashes. Then, just because she can’t help herself, she adds, “But, excuse me for asking, why are you helping me?” 

Sally lets out a small laugh, but Hazel can tell that it’s slightly forced. “I don’t know. I guess… if my son was missing and trying to get home, I would hope that there would be someone out there willing to help him out. If you put positive energy out in the world, one day it will come back around.” 

“Is that really true?” Hazel asks, curiously, tilting her head to the side. 

Sally shrugs, her face clouding up for a moment. “I’ve gotta hope that it is.”

Hazel swings her arms from side to side, trying to think of something to say to ease the tension. “What’s your son like?” 

“Oh, he’s great. He’s funny, and smart, though he doesn’t quite believe me when I tell him that.” Her voice is starting to grow sadder the longer she talks. “He’s my whole world. I miss him so much, I haven’t seen P--”

Hazel stops listening, freezing in her tracks. 

There it was, standing tall against the dark sky, surrounded by a Five Below and an abandoned coffee shop. Their warehouse. 

Sally stops as well, seemingly just now realizing that Hazel was no longer following her. “Hazel, are you alright? Do you see something familiar?” 

“I just--” Hazel stops herself from finishing her sentence, anxiety suddenly filling her chest as something occurs to her. If she tells Sally that her ‘house’ was an old, abandoned warehouse, that would likely not go over well. Especially if Hazel found the other two run-aways inside. So, instead of telling the truth, Hazel flings out her arm, pointing at a random store-front across the street from the warehouse. “I think that I recognize that store. My… guardians take me to it all the time.” 

Sally looks at where Hazel is pointing. “The adult video store?” 

“Uh-huh!” Hazel agrees, nodding so hard that her curls bounce around wildly. She had no idea just what made the store adult, but whatever threw Sally off of her trail. “Which means that we’re on the right track!” 

“I guess.” Sally replies, peering at her closely. 

“Follow me, I know where to go now!” Hazel jumps up and down, before running across the street, into the alley separating the video store and a run-down apartment building. 

“Hazel, wait!” Sally calls after her, rushing to keep up. 

Hazel takes a left at a fork in the alley way, ducking behind a dumpster so that Sally won’t be able to hear or see her. 

“Hazel!” She hears the woman hiss, attempting to hold her breath. 

The sound of footsteps grows nearer. “Hazel!” Sally is right outside the alley that Hazel is hiding in. “Hazel! Where are you?” Hazel waits in bated breath, before hearing the sound of Sally’s footsteps start up again, moving farther away from her hiding space. 

Taking her chance, Hazel darts away from the dumpster, to the end of the alley, making a left. At the end of the alley, she finds herself standing beside the adult video store, staring directly at the warehouse.

Home, sweet home. 

Percy

Percy startles awake when he hears a knock at the front door. 

One long. Three fast. Two long. 

“Piper!” Percy gasps awake, gripping Piper’s bicep. 

“I hear it!” Piper hisses back, already crawling to her feet. 

Percy struggles to get up, his legs feeling heavy, and one of his feet definitely still asleep. 

By the time Percy manages to finally stand up, Piper is already whipping the door open, and dragging a small figure into her arms. 

“Hazel!” She cries, her voice echoing across the semi-abandoned warehouse. 

The one word manages to send a shockwave through Percy’s body, effectively waking all of him up, and causing him to run to the two younger girls. 

“Hi.” Hazel squeaks into Piper’s shoulder, her arms hanging at her sides as Piper squeezes her tight. 

“Hazel!” Percy shouts, skidding to a stop. 

Piper reluctantly releases Hazel, putting her at an arm’s distance. “We missed you so much.” 

Hazel looks down at her shoes-- well, slippers. “I… I’m so sorry for leaving. I got scared, and I ran before I could--” 

Percy drags Hazel into his own tight embrace, stopping whatever she was going to say. “It’s okay. We forgive you.”

Hazel moves her hands to Percy’s chest, and gently pushes him away. “Really?” 

“Really.” Piper replies, wrapping her arms around Hazel from behind. “We’re just glad that you're back. And we’re so sorry for scaring you away.” 

“You’re not angry at me?” Hazel asks, her voice small. 

“No, we’re not angry at you.” Piper answers. 

Hazel looks between the two of them. “Are you two still angry at each other ?” 

Percy and Piper share a look. “No.” Percy replies for the two of them. “We made up, don’t worry.” 

“So you won’t fight again?” 

Again, the two of them share a long look. “We can’t promise that we won’t fight again.” Piper says, slowly. Which, considering the two of them and their tempers, is probably a safe answer. “But we will try not to let our arguments get too loud, or involve you.” 

Hazel smiles softly. “I missed you guys, too.” 

The three of them share no more words, Piper and Percy simply drag Hazel back into a tight hug, allowing the stress of the evening to evaporate through the warm embrace.

Chapter Text

Piper

Piper mists herself with cheap, marshmallow scented body spray, not sure if the sickly sweet scent of perfume was better or worse than her own, natural body odor. 

She hadn’t showered in… she doesn’t even know how long, living mostly off of the deodorants and body mist that Percy had bought for her and Hazel at Five and Below . 

Piper was all alone in the warehouse. Percy had been forced by his boss to take a day off-- something about child labor laws-- and didn’t have to go to work that day, so he had decided to take Hazel for a walk in order to stretch her legs out. 

Piper and Hazel were about the same size shoe-wise (Sadly, for Piper, Hazel’s feet were a tad bit bigger), so Piper had been willing to give her shoes away so that the younger girl was able to get some fresh air and sunlight. 

Piper was too nervous to leave the warehouse. According to Percy, her picture was still being plastered all over the city, and the reward for her safe return home was getting higher and higher as the weeks went by. 

Piper shakes her head to rid herself of the thoughts that are plaguing her. She leans down to her backpack, placing the bottle of marshmallow body spray back into the bag. 

“Well, hello there, honey.” An unknown voice draws from behind. Piper’s heart jumps into her throat, as she slowly turns around and comes face to face with an older woman that she had never seen before. 

She was probably in her mid-to-late fifties, thick gray hair pinned to the top of her head, a heavily lined face that attested to years of experience, and she was wearing a black leather jacket over a terrible, plaid sweater and pencil skirt. Piper hadn’t heard her come in, which means that she had probably slipped in through the back alley door, which made much less noise than the main door did. 

“Um,” Piper manages to stammer out, her mouth suddenly very dry. Unconsciously, her eyes darted down to her backpack where she had stupidly decided to leave her knife.

The woman gives a smile that was probably meant to be sweet, but came across altogether alarming. “My name is Mrs. Dodds.” 

“Uh…” Piper replies eloquently. The manners that had been ingrained in her from a young age suggested that she share her own name, but the primitive part of Piper’s brain that felt as if she were being cornered by a predator, would not allow her to make more than a squeak. 

The woman takes Piper’s silence as an invitation to keep speaking. “I am a math teacher, and I’m a part of a team, searching for one of my students who went missing in December.” Briefly, her sharp, beady eyes flick over the interior of the warehouse. “I managed to track him down here. Have you seen him?” 

Later on, Piper will realize that the fact that Mrs. Dodds wasn’t at all concerned by the obvious run-away child standing in front of her was weird . Especially if she was, as she claimed to be, a good samaritan and teacher. 

Now, however Piper is much more concerned with getting rid of the woman as fast as possible to worry about the oddities of her character. 

“I don’t know.” Piper mutters, taking a step back from the woman. “What’s his name?” 

The woman tilts her head to the side, considering her. “Perseus Jackson?”  

Piper feels the breath catch in her chest, but refuses to allow that to show on her face. It can’t be. “Who?” 

“Perseus Jackson. Goes by Percy .” 

Piper shakes her head, trying to keep the worry from showing on her face. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. This… Percy that you’re looking for isn’t here. You should look somewhere else.” 

The woman blinks, as if in a daze, then turns around, as if prepared to leave, and Piper breathes a small sigh of relief. Then Mrs. Dodds stops, shakes her head, and faces Piper again, her eyes glinting with something akin to interest. “Oh, I see.” She steps closer to Piper, seriously invading the girl’s personal space, and then sniffs the air around her. 

Piper jumps back, her hands outstretched. “Have you ever heard of something called personal space?”

The woman doesn’t answer, her head tilted to the side. “I must admit, half-blood you are quite powerful compared to your brethren. You have done quite an excellent job at concealing your scent.” 

Piper grits her teeth together. “What did you just call me?” 

Once more, the woman does not respond. “I know that you know where Perseus Jackson is. Honey, trust me, you don’t want to go down with this boy.” The woman says, her voice sweet like poison. “If you give him up now, I’m sure that my master will be lenient with your punishment.” 

“Are you sure there isn’t a man with a big butterfly net that’s looking for you?”

“I don’t know what the boy has told you, but he is not to be trusted.” 

Piper grits her teeth, and glares at the woman. Percy was her friend. She had learned to trust him, and she would not turn her back on him again. 

Piper decides to enunciate every word as she looks at the woman unflinchingly. “I. Don’t. Know. What. You. Are. Talking. About.” 

The woman lets a small smile curve up her lips. “Fine. But just remember, you made your choice, little half-blood.”

Typically, that comment would cause Piper’s hackles to rise, and flood her with anger. Before either of those reactions could happen, though, the woman began to… change. 

No, ‘change’ wasn’t quite the right word, because that would imply that she had looked different before. It felt like Piper was the one who had changed, no longer seeing this person as a woman, but the ethereal being that she was. 

She was like a monster straight out of one of those picture books that her father used to read to her. Large, leathery bat-like wings sprouted out of her back. Spiky, brown fur appeared all over her body. Sharp claws glint in the faint light coming from the high windows. 

“I will enjoy playing with you.” The woman takes a step closer, though she seemed in no hurry to catch Piper. “I so very rarely get to torture a living soul.” 

Piper looks at her backpack, lying in between her and the monster, and she does something stupid. She runs. 

Her body collides hard with the concrete floor, her left arm stinging from the impact. Piper reaches out with her right arm for her backpack. 

She hears the whoosh of the bat wings, and suddenly the monster is kneeling on her legs, pinning her to the ground, attempting to flip Piper onto her back. 

Piper rifles through her backpack with her right hand, her left clawing at the ground to stop the woman from pulling her away from her bag. 

With a sharp jolt, the monster has her flipped to her back, Piper’s head banging against the concrete floor with a sickening thud. 

“You are a fighter, aren’t you?” The monster asks. “Now, let me ask you again?” Piper attempts to move her right arm, glaring up at the woman. “Where is Perseus Jackson?” 

“Go to hell.” Piper spits out, thrusting her fist towards the monster’s abdomen. 

The being’s eyes widen, and for a split second, she and Piper both look down at the bronze knife that Piper had managed to plunge into the monster’s gut. 

Then the being dissolves. Once a physical, solid being, now a pile of golden sand that falls on and around Piper, like glitter. 

Piper turns her head to the side, and spits. She so wishes that she had known to close her mouth beforehand. 

By the time Percy and Hazel return, Piper can pretend that it was all just a dream. 

A monster with bat wings didn’t attack her. Piper didn’t stab the monster with the weird knife that she had somehow come in the possession of. It was all just a terrible dream.

And she could almost believe that. 

If it wasn’t for the golden sand that she couldn’t quite get off of the cold, concrete floor. 

Hazel and Percy send both her, and the dust questioning glances for the rest of the day.

Chapter Text

Hazel

There’s a storm raging outside. 

Though, that’s not exactly news considering how insane the weather has been since Christmas. 

It’s that awkward time of day when it can either be considered late at night, or early in the morning. 

Hazel has been falling in and out of sleep since she had curled in between Percy and Piper earlier. The two of them were much deeper sleepers than she was, and the flashes of lighting and echoing rumble of thunder was hard for her to ignore. 

It’s around the third time that she has managed to nod off when a new sound interrupts her slumber, and she throws her eyelids wide open. 

There was a banging against the warehouse doors that was different from the constant pitter patter of rain fall, breaking the rhythm. 

It’s nothing. Hazel tries to convince herself. Just your imagination. I’m sure it’s fi-- 

“I know that you’re in there!” A muffled voice shouts from the other side of the door. “Let me in!” 

Her heart jumps into her throat.

Hazel straightens up, grabbing Piper’s bicep with one hand, and Percy’s with the other, and shaking them both. “Wake up!” She hisses. 

“Come on!” The person yells again. “It’s really cold out here!” 

Piper rouses first, her hand immediately going to the knife at her waist as she regains consciousness. Piper had been acting weird for the last few days, and had taken to sleeping with her knife underneath her for a reason that Hazel and Percy were not privy to.

“Open the door, it’s an emergency!” The voice calls out again, which causes Piper to bolt upright much in the same way that Hazel had just done. 

“What the heck?” Piper hisses, crawling into a crouch. “Who is that?” 

“I don’t know.” Hazel whispers back, now using both of her hands to roughly shake Percy awake. 

He comes around slowly, his eyes droopy, clearly too tired to pick up on the anxiety of the two girls. “What’s up?” 

Piper is quickly zipping up her backpack, tossing the bag over her shoulder. “We have to get out of here.” 

This causes Percy to blink rapidly at the two of them, almost as if he thought he may have still been dreaming. “Come again?” 

“Someone is outside.” Hazel informs him, sending a curious glance over at Piper who appears to be way too prepared for this unlikely event. 

Just as she says that, the voice yells again, “Perseus Jackson, I swear to the gods that if you don’t let me into this building right now, I’m going to start yelling out all of the embarrassing things that I know about you! And there are a lot!” 

Hazel whips her head to look at Percy,  who is staring at the door in confusion. 

“What the fu--” He stops himself, as his briefly glances at Hazel. “Are you sure I’m not still dreaming?” 

Piper huffs. “No, you’re definitely still awake. Which is why we have to get out of here before whoever or whatever is out there comes in and attacks us.” 

“Whatever attacks…” Hazel repeats blankly, staring at Piper. “What do you mean?” 

“I--” Piper starts to say, before her eyes widen when she realizes that Percy is no longer sitting on the floor, but halfway towards the door. “Percy!” She chastises as loudly as she can without alerting the presence on the other side of the door. “What are you doing?” 

“I know that voice.” Percy replies, pulling at the door. 

Hazel feels compelled to ask, “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” 

Percy doesn’t answer, he simply starts opening the warehouse door. Out of the corner of her eye, Hazel notices Piper gripping her knife, getting into a defensive pose. 

“I know your middle name! That’s right! Perseus Ari--” 

A strong gust of wind and a spattering of rain falls into the room as soon as the door is open. A boy is standing in the doorway, soaking and wet and shivering, his arms wrapped around himself. 

“Grover!” Percy exclaims. Even though he seemed adamant that he knew who was on the other side of the door, clearly even he was surprised that he had been right. 

“Percy!” Grover lets out a high-pitched, odd, nervous sound, similar to a laugh but not quite. It tickled Hazel's brain, as if she had heard that sound before, but couldn’t quite place where. The new boy rushes into the warehouse, gripping Percy’s clothed forearms with his shaking hands. “I finally found you!” 

“You’ve been… looking for me?” Percy asks, pulling himself away from Grover to close the door behind him. 

Grover lets out the weird sound again. “Of course I have. We all have. I’m just so lucky that I found you before the others could. We still have a chance.” 

Percy backs away, eyeing Grover nervously. “A chance for what?” 

“A chance to get you to safety.” 

Piper clears her throat, not letting go of her knife. “Percy, would you mind introducing us to your--” She hesitates for a moment, before settling on, “ Friend .” 

Grover stares at the two girls, looking as if he hadn’t realized before then that he and Percy weren’t alone. 

“Percy,” Grover asks softly, his eyes wide and terrified. “Who are these people?” 

Percy pushes Grover further into the warehouse, until the two boys are standing only a few feet away from the two girls, right at the edge of the sliver of orange streetlight that always falls in through the windows at night. They’re standing far enough away so as to not spook anyone involved with proximity, and not close enough for Piper to readily attack with her knife. 

“Piper, Hazel, this is Grover, a friend from school. Grover, this is Piper and Hazel. I met them after…” He hesitates, clearly not sure how to finish that sentence, but the intended ending is clear. 

“The three of you…” Grover murmurs, his voice faint, and skin growing pale in the low light. “Ran away… and met…” 

“Basically.” Hazel replies, narrowing her eyes as the new boy steps closer and sniffs the air. 

“Oh, gods.” Grover groans. “The two of you stink.” 

“Grover!” Percy interjects.

Piper huffs. “You try living on the streets. There aren't exactly many public restrooms with a shower.”

“Oh, no.” Grover whimpers, his head falling into his hands, and starts pacing in the glow of the light. “Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Not again. It can’t be happening again.” 

“Grover?” Percy asks cautiously. “What are you talking about? What can’t be happening again?” 

Hazel is tracking Grover’s movements, watching him as he paces. His fingers were clawing through his curls. His fuzz-covered chin was trembling. His feet were clomping on the ground-- his feet were-- his… feet. 

Hazel’s brain freezes. “Oh, my--” 

Piper glances at Hazel. “Haze? What’s wrong?” 

“What are the chances ?” Grover’s voice has turned high pitched, and he lets out that sound again. 

Hazel’s eyes squeeze shut as she finally recognizes the sound. A bleat. As if from a-- 

“The chances of wha--” Piper starts to ask, but she stops herself mid sentence. Her eyes have darted down, and Hazel knows that she has finally seen it too. “What. The. Heck.” 

Percy reaches forward and grabs Grover by the shoulders, stopping him in his tracks. “Grover, you need to calm down. What is happening?” 

“ Percy !” Piper hisses. Both boys turn to face her. She darts her eyes downward. “Look at his legs.” 

Percy’s eyebrows furrow, staring at her in confusion. “His legs? What--” 

“Percy, just do it.” Hazel insists. 

Both girls see when the truth of Percy’s friend is revealed to him. 

“Grover…” Percy says slowly. “Where are your pants?”

Grover blushes, looking down at his legs. His goat legs. He had goat legs. No matter how many times that sentence was said, it still didn’t make any sense. 

“Okay, look.” Grover says. “We have a lot to talk about.” He takes a deep breath, regaining what little composure he still had. “But the truth is, we don’t have much time.” 

“Why not?” Piper asks, her knife hand still extended. 

“Because…” Grover sighs. “You’re being tracked. And it’s only a matter of time before all of us are found.”

Chapter Text

Piper

Piper was talking to a half-goat half-human. What were they called again? Satyrs! That’s right. Piper was talking to a satyr . 

And here she thought the demon bat lady from a week ago had broken her brain. 

“Who are you?” Percy asks, walking around Grover to stand in between Hazel and Piper. 

Grover shrugs, helplessly. “I’m still Grover. I’m still the same guy you knew at school.” 

“The guy I knew at school didn’t have… donkey legs!” 

“Goat!” Three sets of voices chime at once, Grover’s offended, Piper and Hazel’s sounding just as confused as he was feeling. 

“Whatever!” 

Grover opens his mouth to say something, before quickly closing it and shaking his head. “You know what, we don’t have time for this right now, we have to go before we’re found.” 

“Found by what?” Hazel asks, her voice tinted in morbid curiosity. 

Grover whips his head in her direction, as if he had forgotten that the youngest girl had been standing there. Which wasn't entirely crazy, as more than once Piper could have sworn that she had lost Hazel amongst the shadows of the warehouse. 

Grover hesitates, nervously flickering between the three kids. Then, he closes his eyes and takes the metaphorical plunge. “Monsters.” 

Silence stretches for what feels like forever. 

“Excuse me?” Hazel asks, taking a step back from the satyr. 

Grover fiddles with his hands. “Again, so much to explain, but not nearly enough time. In short, monsters are real, and they more or less devote their lives to hunting down other kids like you.” 

Percy narrows his eyes. “What do you mean ‘like us?’” 

“Again, I can’t really explain right now. But, I promise that if you let me get you to safety, then I’ll explain everything. Or, at least, someone will. There might be a video involved.” 

“A vid--”

“Um…” Piper interrupts, what was sure to be another circular conversation between the two boys. “Would one of these monsters by any chance… be a giant, leathery, winged creature going by the name of Mrs. Dodds?” 

Grover’s face pales at the mention of the name. “How do you know that?” 

“Mrs. Dodds?” Percy’s voice makes an embarrassing squeaking sound. “From Pre-Algebra?” 

Grover faces Piper. “Um--” He hesitates, his eyes narrowed. 

“Piper.” She supplies. 

“Piper.” Grover breathes out, giving her a thankful nod. “How do you know about Mrs. Dodds?” 

Piper flushes, as the eyes of Grover, Percy, and Hazel all fall onto her. “She… may have… shown up here a few days ago.” 

“ What ?” Percy hisses. 

Piper shrugs helplessly. “She came in, asking about Percy, and talking about her master, and she called me a ‘half-blood’, then she transformed into a big bat, and I stabbed her with my knife--” 

“Your knife.” Grover repeats, glancing at the aforementioned dagger for probably the first time. He blinks at it, apparently confused-- which is a tad bit cathartic to Piper, she must say. 

“Piper, why didn’t you tell us?” Hazel asks, walking behind Percy to get to the older girl, and gently grabbing onto Piper’s bicep. 

“I don’t know. I thought I was hallucinating or something! I figured if I told you, you would decide to send me to a mental ward or back home or something. And when the dust disappeared, I really believed that I just made it all up!” 

Percy blinks at her several times. “Dus-- Pipes, did you vaporize my Pre-Algebra teacher?”  

“Mrs. Dodds...” Grover starts to pace agitatedly. “She was a Kindly One . I knew there was something off about her! And apparently, she managed to find you.” Grover groans, tightly gripping his hair. “Oh! This must be how the Mi-- monster managed to find you. He tracked her scent here.” 

Piper wrinkles her nose. “Why do you keep talking about scent ?” 

“Because that’s how they find you.” Grover replies. “When you’re out in the open like this, unprotected, they can track your scent and get you. Just like Mrs. Dodds.” 

Hazel blinks rapidly. “So… you’re saying we’re being tracked by more than one monster that’s willing to kill us because we smell?” 

Grover shrugs. “More or less.” 

Hazel swallows thickly, holding herself closer to Piper’s side. 

Piper squeezes Hazel’s hand. This was crazy. This was so freaking insane, Piper was almost certain that she must’ve died and this was some sort of weird dream that her failing brain must’ve come up with while deprived of oxygen. 

Still, the feeling of Hazel wrapped around her arm was real. The weeks that she had spent building bonds with these kids, that had certainly been real too. 

And if there was a chance that Grover was telling the truth, and more blood-thirsty Bat Women were coming to kill them, she would do whatever it took to make sure that they weren’t caught in their talons. 

Piper shares a look with Percy, and she knows that they’re both thinking the same thing.

“Grover,” Percy says softly. “You said that you could get us to safety.”

Grover breaths a deep sigh of relief. “Yeah, come with me. I’ve got the car right outside.” 

Percy blinks, as if unable to believe what it is that he’s seeing. “Is that my step dad's car?” 

The four of them are standing outside in the pouring rain, an old model Chevy parked in front of them. 

Piper and Hazel both turn to look at Percy with questions in their eyes. Hazel, because she had never heard Percy mention anything about his home life before. Piper because the one thing Percy had ever told her about his step-dad was… not good. 

“Yeah.” Grover answers, climbing into the front seat. “I stopped by your mom’s apartment on my way here. Told her I had a lead, but something was chasing me, so she gave me the keys.” 

“And Gabe let her?” Percy asks, opening the passenger side door and helping Hazel climb into the backseat. 

Grover hesitates, his hand wrapped around the key in the ignition. “Not exactly.”

This causes Percy to whip his head around to face Grover, while Piper climbs into the seat next to Hazel. “What do you mean ‘not exactly’? What happened? Did he try to hurt her?”

“No, no, no!” Grover exclaims, looking over his shoulder. “Look, Percy, it's a long story that we don’t have time to get into. Your mom is fine, but we won’t be if we stick around, so I need you to get into the car now .”

“C’mon, Perce!” Piper yells, from the backseat, waving him into the car. “Listen to the satyr!” 

“I have a name, you know.” 

“So do I, and do you remember it?” 

“Uh--” 

Percy blocks out the rest of their conversation, crawling into the passenger seat. 

“Remember to buckle up.” Grover tells him, pulling the car into drive. 

Piper mockingly salutes. "Whatever you say, mom."

“Grover,” Percy looks over at his old friend. “You can drive, right?” 

Grover hesitates. “Legally? No. Well? No. Technically . Kind of.” 

He pushes his hoof down on the gas, sending the car forward in a burst of speed, causing the three additional passengers to fly forward with the acceleration. 

“Are we really letting a teenager drive us to--” Piper stops herself. “Where are we going?” 

“First of all, I’m in my twenties.” 

Percy asks, “What?” 

“And we’re going to Long Island.” 

They’ve been driving for an hour, and the speedometer hasn’t gone under sixty miles per hour in that entire time. 

In New York, at night in a heavy downpour would’ve been scary all on its own. 

With the way Grover drove, though? Absolutely freaking horrifying.

Every now and then, one of three of them would open their mouths to question their driver, but then they would hit a small pebble and the car would go flying and nothing would be said. 

Even Percy would rather hold onto the grab handles than risk taking Grover’s concentration off of the road. 

Piper kept an eye on Hazel. Even in the low light, she could tell that the little girl’s face was turning green. 

“Hey, Grover!” Piper calls out over the noise of the pounding rain, gently rubbing in between Hazel’s shoulder blades. “How much longer ‘til we get wherever we’re going?” 

“Not long!” Grover promises, “Maybe, like, ten more min--” 

The rest of Grover’s words get drowned out by a loud, bellow in the distance. 

“Oh, gods, not now .” Grover huffs, giving everyone a heart attack by glancing over his shoulder for a second. 

“What was that?” Percy asks. 

“Not something that we want to catch us.” Grover huffs, pressing his hoof even farther down on the gas pedal. 

Grover made a hard left onto a back road, which caused Hazel’s face to turn an ungodly shade of green, and press her fist to her lips. 

“Hazel,” Piper says softly. “Please, I am begging you. If you throw up on me, our relationship will never be the same.” 

Hazel just gives her a thumbs up with her free hand, turning to face the window again. 

Another bellow, closer this time, is heard over the storm. 

Piper looks at the dark road behind them, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that was making that sound. 

Suddenly, Grover swerves the car, sending Hazel and Piper bumping into one another in the back seat. 

“Ow!” Piper grouses. 

“What was that?” Percy asks. 

Piper tilts her head, not having seen whatever it was that Percy had. “What was what?” 

“ That ,” Grover huffs, “Was what we are trying to avoid.” 

Piper turns around again, and manages to catch a glimpse of a large, shadowy figure running after them, but it’s too far away to make out too many details. 

“Well, it’s gaining.” Piper tells him. 

“We’re so close.” Grover mutters, as if he couldn’t hear her. “We’re almost there.” 

Then, the car exploded. 

There was so much color, and then no color at all. An ear deafening boom that made all other sounds obsolete. Piper thinks she may have blacked out for a moment, because one moment she’s dying , and the next, her cheek is pressed against the back of Grover’s headrest and her heart is thumping erratically. 

There’s a hole blown in the roof, mud pressing in all around the car from the ditch that they have found themselves. 

I don’t think Percy’s step-dad is getting his car back. Piper thinks distantly, looking over at Hazel. 

“Is everyone okay?” Percy grunts, doing his best to turn his head to face the back through the constraint of his seatbelt. 

“Oh, god.” Piper groans, turning her head towards her window. 

“What’s wrong?” She hears Percy’s breathless question. 

Piper wrinkles her nose. “Hazel’s throwing up.” 

Hazel replies to this by gagging some more. 

“Eh, it’s not like we can give this thing back to Gabe anyway.” Percy mutters, reaching over to unbuckle his seatbelt. He looks to his left, and shouts, “Grover!” 

“Grover?” Piper asks, her heart-rate picking up. “Is he okay?” 

She sees Percy shake Grover, and hears a soft, barely perceptible groan of, “Food.” 

Percy breathes out a sigh of relief. “He’s unconscious.” Percy begins unbuckling Grover as well. He looks over his shoulder at Piper, “We have to get out of--” He stops mid sentence, his eyes widening. “Who is--” 

Piper follows his eyes, and feels her heart start to constrict in her chest. 

Lumbering on the shoulder of the road was a large man. He was broad and muscular, and wearing no clothing besides a pair of underwear . Through the mud-stained glass and the possible concussion that she was nursing, Piper could’ve sworn that he was wearing an elaborate prosthetics piece.

“We have to get out of here.” Hazel’s hoarse voice breaks through the panicked haze clouding Piper’s thoughts. 

Percy pushes open his door, rain immediately falling into the car. “Okay, I’ll grab Grover. Pipes, I need you to make sure you and Hazel get out safely.” 

“Tree.” She hears Grover murmur, as Percy pulls the satyr out of the car with him. “Tree!” 

Piper is quick to push the passenger seat forward as soon as Percy and Grover are out of the car, gesturing for Hazel to leave next. 

“Here,” Piper hears Hazel tell Percy as she begins to crawl out of the car herself. “I can help you with Grover.” 

“Where are we supposed to go?” Piper asks, doing her best to run to her friends with the slippery ground. 

“Tree!” Grover yells louder than before. 

“I think he wants us to go to that tree.” Hazel replies, gesturing to a large pine tree perched atop a narrow hill. 

“ Why ?” Piper asks. 

“I dunno, Piper.” Percy grunts. “Why is my best friend half barn yard animal? At this point we shouldn’t question it!” 

Piper was leading the three of them through the wet, waist-high grass that covered the base of the hill. 

She looked behind her to look at the thing that was chasing them. Just as she’d first suspected, he was made up of pure muscle, and wearing nothing but his tighty-whities. However, it was only from this closer distance that Piper could notice that the thing on his head was not actually a prosthetic. It was his head. A huge, black bull head resting atop a man’s shoulders. 

Its nose quivered, its eyes blinked, its ears ruffled. 

Piper stops in her tracks as her brain slowly comes to terms with this, watching the bull-man crouched beside their car and sniffing around. 

“Piper?” She distantly hears Percy ask. “What’s wrong?” 

Piper’s eyes briefly flicker over to Percy, who has also turned to look at the monster. 

“That’s the Minotaur.” 

It was like everything after that happened in slow motion. Percy opened his mouth, and the Minotaur’s eyes darted up to look at them. 

And then he was charging. 

Piper remembered a conversation with her grandfather once, when he’d taken her to a rodeo. 

Tom had pointed at the bucking bull and told her, “ That is one nasty piece of work .”

Piper had watched as some of the rodeo hands had dived out of the way as the bull had charged towards them. “ Why are they doing that ?”  

“ The bull can’t change directions. It’s easier to duck.”

Piper grabbed Hazel by the shoulder, and threw her, along with Grover, to the left, directing Percy, “Jump right!” 

Piper threw herself to the right as well.  

The Minotaur ran by them. 

“We can’t outrun him.” Percy whispers to Piper. 

“We can avoid him.” Piper promises. “Bulls have bad eyesight. We just jump out of the way when he comes close. Let’s separate for now,” She glances at Hazel attempting to drag Grover to safety. “Try to keep his attention off of Hazel..” 

The bull lets out a bellow, and Piper and Percy use that time to run away from each other, attempting to make their way up the hill. 

Piper is only a few feet away from Hazel, and watches as the bull-man gets ready to charge at her. 

Here goes nothing. 

Unfortunately, Piper realizes too late that she had mis-calculated the direction that the Minotaur was running in. He wasn’t going towards her, he was running towards Hazel. 

Hazel, who had just skidded to her knees in the mud, now at least a foot away from the still unconscious Grover.  

“Hazel!” Piper screams, running with all of her might, and pushing Hazel out of the way. Which lands her right in the Minotaur’s hand.

She feels all of the life being squeezed out of her, her eyes watering as she stares into the dark eyes of the Minotaur. 

Piper gasps out what might very well be her last breath, as gold shimmers in the corners of her vision, before completely enveloping her. 

And then everything goes dark.

Chapter Text

Percy

“Piper!” Percy hears someone scream, only to realize a moment later when his throat suddenly feels raw, that it had been him. 

Hazel is laying flat on her back in the wet grass and mud beside Grover, small whimpers escaping her lips as she stares blankly at the place where Piper had previously been. 

Percy watches in fear as the Minotaur lumbers closer to Grover and Hazel, probably preparing to disintegrate the two of them into gold, just like Piper. 

That thought is enough to turn his fear into fury. 

Piper was here one moment, and then gone the next, and he wasn’t going to let the thing responsible for that go on to hurt his other friends. 

Not without a fight.

The Minotaur hunches over Hazel and sniffs, before stumbling back. Apparently, Hazel didn’t smell good enough for him to dissolve. 

Well, that was as good an opening as Percy was ever going to get. 

He unzipped his hoodie, sending a silent “ thank you ” to a deity he wasn’t sure he believed in for his jacket to be a bright red color. 

Running through the wet grass, until he was a safe distance away from his friends, but directly parallel to the Minotaur, Percy waved his jacket around. "Hey! Hey, stupid!” He was screaming almost as loud as he had upon seeing Piper vanish, trying to grab the attention of the bull-man even over the whistle of wind and pounding of rain. “Ground beef!"

If the goal was to make the monster even angrier than he’d previously been, Percy had definitely succeeded. 

The bull-man let out an almighty roar, and began to charge at Percy. 

Which is when Percy realized that he’d gone into this course of action without having thought of a plan beforehand. 

Story of my life. 

He can’t jump to the side, because the Minotaur has both of his hands out, prepared for that exact plan. 

But I could jump in a different direction…

He at least had a plan now. A stupid plan, but it was better than no plan. 

Time seems to slow down, just like the night when he finally hit back and ran away. The big, beefy bull head is about to charge into his middle when Percy jumps up. 

The soles of his sneakers clip the Minotaur’s head, and he uses it to boost himself upwards, before twisting mid-air and wrapping himself around the creature’s neck. 

Don’t ask him how he did it, because he won’t be able to tell you. Percy is far from the most athletic kid in his class, typically lacking the endurance to run a mile, let alone have the muscles to do low-key Spiderman shit. 

The Minotaur continued running forward, his bare feet slipping and sliding through the mud, until his head slammed into the trunk of a tree all the way at the base of the hill. 

Percy holds on for dear life, his vision going blurry from the impact, and the way that the Minotaur was shaking him around. 

Then, both he and the Minotaur hear a faint groan coming from the shadows. 

“Food!” 

Percy can vaguely hear Hazel, now sitting up again, trying to shush him, but it was no use. The Minotaur had already circled around and was preparing to charge. 

Percy catches a glimpse of Hazel in the moonlight, her eyes wide and terrified looking. He sees Grover, still knocked out, bruises blooming on his face from the car crash. Images of Piper bathed in golden light flash through his mind. Of the Minotaur squeezing the life out of her. 

Anger floods his body, surging through him like liquid fire, clouding the very few rational thoughts that existed in his head. 

Which is why Percy grabs ahold of one of the Minotaur’s horns, and yanks . 

The bull-man lets out a gasp of surprise, his muscles tensing. 

Snap!

And then, Percy finds himself flung to the ground with a bloody Minotaur horn in his hand, and a lopsided, very angry, Minotaur preparing to charge at him.  

Acting faster than he had time to process, Percy rolled to one side and came up kneeling. 

The Minotaur stumbles forward, his own broken horn lodged into his rib cage. He screamed in pain, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate. 

He didn’t go like Piper, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind.

“Percy!” Hazel breaths out, staring at him with wide eyes. 

Percy scrambles to his feet, rushing to her and Grover’s sides. “How is he?” 

“Barely conscious.” Hazel replies softly. 

Percy nods. “Come on, I’ll grab one side, you grab the other. We’ll get there faster if we work together.” 

“Right.” Hazel mumbles, beginning to drag Grover to his feet (so to speak) again. It was probably a much easier feat with two people rather than one, smaller person. 

They make the climb up to the pine tree, slowly. Hazel’s feet, which Percy has only just now realized amidst all of the chaos, were only clad in socks, kept getting stuck in the mud. Grover kept mumbling for food. And Percy’s energy was fading fast. 

Still, they make it to the crest of the hill, and look down at a valley, specifically at a blue house not far from where they stand, where lights glowed from within. 

“Someone’s home.” He tells him companions, though he isn’t sure how lucid either of them are right now. “Come on, it’s not that far.” 

Going down hill is much easier than going up, and before Percy knows it-- thought it could have more to do with the exhaustion and possible brain damage-- he is collapsing on the porch of the blue house, Grover tucked into his side, staring up at a ceiling fan. 

His eyes are growing heavy. 

“Percy?” He hears a voice call him, as if from a great distance. Hazel appears in his vision, looking down at him, worried. “Percy, are you okay?” 

He hears the click of a door being opened, and two more faces appear in front of him, Hazel tightly gripping his shoulders, cowering at the new faces. 

“I told you!” A new voice says, one belonging to a pretty girl with princess curls. “He’s the one. He must be.” 

Another face, bearded and familiar. “Not now, Annabeth. Quick. Let’s get them inside.”

Hazel

She’s sitting in a dimly lit room, the same spot she’s been in for at least an hour. Her chair is pulled in between the beds that Grover and Percy lay on, her hand lying atop Percy’s chest. 

The man in the wheelchair and the girl had ushered her into the house, and brought her into this little infirmary room. 

Hazel had been reluctant to follow them, but the fact that the girl had immediately grabbed Percy and started dragging him into the house had been enough reason for her to follow. 

Speaking of the girl, she walked back into the room, carrying a bundle in her arms, with a plastic bag slung over her shoulder. She was pretty, with ringlet curls bleached blonde falling around her shoulders, and was wrapped in an oversized James Madison University sweatshirt. 

“Hi,” She says, and offers what she clearly meant to be a reassuring smile, but came off as more of an awkward grimace. “I got you some things.” 

Hazel doesn’t say anything. 

The girl seems to take this as a go ahead to keep talking, lifting the bundle in her arms as she does so. “Um, here’s a change of clothes. Chiron keeps a lot of old camper’s clothing for the new ones that don’t have anything. I’m not sure how they’ll fit, but I did my best.” 

Hazel looks down at the shirt that she’s currently wearing. It’s covered in sweat, vomit, mud, and-- oh, look! Some of Grover’s blood. 

“Thank you.” She says softly, but does not open her arms to take the bundle from the other girl. 

The girl nods, and places the bundle on the foot of Percy’s bed. Then she shows off her plastic bag. “Chiron also keeps some extra toiletries around here. I got you a loofah, a toothbrush, they keep soap and toothpaste stocked in the bathroom, but it’s not great, and I thought that you would want some of the good stuff.” She places the bag next to the clothing on Percy’s bed. 

“Is that your nice way of saying that I smell?” Hazel feels compelled to ask. 

The girl narrows her eyes at Hazel, but chooses not to answer. Instead, she points over her shoulder at the other door in the room. “That’s the bathroom. There’s towels in there already.” And with that, the girl turns on her heel and exits the infirmary. 

Hazel hesitates, before getting to her feet, and grabbing the things that had been brought to her. 

She may not completely trust this place, but the idea of a shower has never been more enticing. 

Hazel breaths in the warm spray coming from the showerhead, wanting to delay her departure from the stall as much as possible. 

However, the mud and dirt were scrubbed off of her long ago, and the bottoms of her feet were starting to itch from how pruny they were getting, so Hazel makes the hard decision to shut off the water. 

She feels more refreshed than she ever has before, brushing her teeth, and for the first time months putting on fresh clothes. They even still smell of laundry detergent. 

Oh, how she missed the smell of Tide . 

Hazel steps out of the bathroom, her bare feet padding across the hardwood floors. Her heart jumps into her throat at the sight of the girl and the man in the wheelchair waiting for her, the girl sitting in her vacated chair besides Percy and peering at him closely. 

The man notices her first, clearing his throat to grab the attention of the girl. 

“You look better.” The man says gently, giving her a much more reassuring smile than the girl had managed to give her earlier. In a way, it just makes Hazel feel more anxious.

“I haven’t had a proper shower since December.” Hazel mumbles, looking at the strangers with wide, cautious eyes. 

The man’s smile flickers for a moment, so quick that if you weren’t looking closely, you would have missed it. “Where are my manners? My name is Chiron.” He gestures to the girl, whose attention is only partially on the conversation at hand, intently looking over at Percy every few minutes. “This is Annabeth.” 

Hazel worries at her bottom lip, hesitantly replying, “I’m Hazel.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, Hazel.” Chiron tells her, wheeling closer to her. “We realize that you have had a long night, and we don’t mean to keep you any longer than needed, but we would like to ask you some questions.” 

“Questions about what?” Hazel leans back against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest in an effort for extra protection. 

“We wanted to know some more of what happened when the three of you came here.” 

“Four.” 

Annabeth whips her head around to focus her sole attention on Hazel for the first time. “What was that?” 

“There were four of us. Me, Percy, Grover, and Piper.”

Chiron swallows thickly. “Where is Piper?” 

“The Mino--”

“Don’t say his name.” Chiron quickly interrupts. 

“Okay… the bull-man made her disappear in a golden light.”

Annabeth curls in on herself, fiddling with her hands in her lap. 

“And… what happened to the…” Chiron hesitates. “‘Bull-man?’”

“Percy stabbed him with his own horn. He turned into dust.” 

Annabeth and Chiron share a look at that. 

All three of their attention is taken over as Grover groans in his sleep, probably something about food. 

Chiron clears his throat. “It is getting late. We’ll talk to you some more tomorrow. Right now, you should get some rest.” He gestures to the third bed, all the way on the right besides Grover’s. “You can sleep there tonight.”

Annabeth gets to her feet, a leopard print blanket in her hands. “I… brought you a blanket.”

“Thanks...” Hazel grabs the blanket, staring down at Percy.

“Well, we’ll let you get some rest. Good night, Hazel.” Chiron tells her, wheeling out of the room.

Annabeth follows him, but hesitates in the doorway, looking over at Hazel. “I-- I’m really sorry about your friend. I-- I know how hard it is to lose someone that you were close to. ” And with that, the other girl walks out of the infirmary, shutting the door behind her. 

Hazel goes back to sitting besides Percy, gripping his hand, one of the things that Annabeth had said niggling at her brain. 

She shakes her head, curling up with the leopard print blanket, whispering to herself, “Piper isn’t dead, though.” 

Chapter Text

Percy

Percy didn’t know how long he’d been sleeping. 

He had the occasional memory of a pretty girl spoon-feeding him pizza flavored pudding, and barn-yard animals trying to kill him for food or something. But, he couldn’t tell which part was a dream and which part was reality. 

(Perhaps it was a sad life he lived when a pretty girl asking him confusing questions was on the same par of unbelievable as talking animals.)

When Percy did officially wake up, though, he knew it. 

He was lying on a porch chair, his legs elevated, looking out at a beautiful meadow. A gentle breeze blew in the unmistakable scent of strawberries. When Percy looked to his right he saw a glass of what looked like apple juice, decorated fancily for him. 

However, his mouth was dry, his teeth ached, and lifting his arms felt equivalent to lifting a two-ton boulder. And that was before he’d even managed to wrap his hand around the glass. 

“Careful,” A familiar voice murmurs, and Percy nearly drops his glass in surprise. 

He looks up to find Grover-- and he must really be out of it to have not noticed Grover earlier-- leaning against the porch railing, bags under his eyes, a shoe box cradled in his arms. 

He was wearing jeans, sneakers, and an orange t-shirt. No goat legs in sight. 

“Hazel’s gonna be upset she missed you waking up. She was just here, helped me and Annabeth carry you out here, then she went to talk to Chiron.” Grover rambles, running his hands over the shoe box agitatedly. 

A nervous habit that Percy remembered from school. 

“Hazel…” Percy repeats, looking around for the young girl, despite the fact that Grover had just said she wasn’t here. 

He desperately wanted Grover to mention Piper. Because, then, it would’ve just been a dream. A terrible, horrible dream. Grover wasn’t a goat-boy, and Piper didn’t dissolve, and he had just had a bad fever that left him with vivid nightmares about bull men and--

“I’m glad we got a moment alone, though.” Grover continues, stepping towards Percy, and holding the shoe box out to him. “You saved my life. I... Well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."

Grover places the shoebox in Percy’s lap, and as soon as he opens it, he wishes that he hadn’t. A curved bull’s horn is in the box, the jagged edges covered in dried blood.

“The Minotaur.” Percy whispers, not being able to take his eyes away from the horn. 

“Um, Percy, that isn’t a good--” 

"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" Percy demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull." 

Grover shifts uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"

“Piper.” He sighs, feeling a wave of guilt start to crash all around him. “Is she really ..."

Grover looked down at his feet-- hooves, his bottom lip starting to tremble. “I’m so sorry, Percy. I’m the worst satyr in the world! I should’ve been able to save her! I shouldn’t have let this happen to her, or--” He stops himself, looking back at Percy. 

“It wasn’t your fault.” Percy tells him. And it was the truth, if anyone was to blame, it was Percy. He had promised himself that he would keep the girls safe, and now here they were-- Piper dissolved into nothingness and Hazel-- “Where’s Hazel?” Percy asks before Grover can say anything else. 

“She’s okay, she’s safe!” Grover rushes forward, pushing Percy to stay in his seat, as Percy was attempting to stand up and look for the younger girl. “Don’t strain yourself.” He looks down at the glass. “Here, you should drink.” 

Percy hesitantly takes a long sip, but recoils at the taste. He had been expecting apple juice, but instead it tasted like cookies. His mom’s famous, blue, chocolate chip cookies. Straight out of the oven, melting in his mouth. 

After the first hesitant sip, Percy found himself chugging the entire thing down until the entire cup was empty, and there were only a few ice cubes left at the bottom. 

“What did it taste like?” Grover asks, wistfully. 

If Percy thought that it was impossible to feel more guilty, he would’ve been proven wrong. “Sorry. I should’ve let you taste.” 

His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."

“Chocolate chip cookies.” Percy sighs, the ever-present ache of missing his mother growing more prominent. “My mom’s. Homemade.” 

Grover tilts his head, he opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. He resembles a fish as he tries to come up with the right words to say. Finally, he settles on, “And how do you feel?” 

Percy allows a small smirk to come across his face. “"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards." He references their old school bully. 

"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff."

Percy blinks, confused. "What do you mean?"

Grover took the empty glass from him gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting, and--" He hesitates. “We should really get you showered up before you see everybody.”

After Percy was adequately cleaned up and in a new, fresh outfit, the two boys walked around the porch, Percy holding on to the Minotaur shoe box for dear life, Grover keeping a protective arm on his bicep the entire time as if afraid that he was going to fall. 

Even though Percy had managed to shower by himself without falling. Mostly 

When they got to the opposite end of the farmhouse, Percy stared in awe at the valley around them. Miles of ocean glittered in the sun, as did the white, marble columns of ancient Greek-style buildings spread across the valley. Kids and satyrs, all dressed in orange camp shirts like Grover, were dotted across the green hills. Percy even saw some of them riding horses-- some of whom he could’ve sworn had wings. 

At the end of the porch, a card table was set up, and three people were crowded around it, lost in a game. The pretty, blonde haired girl that Percy remembered feeding him popcorn flavored pudding was leaning against the railing opposite them. 

One of the men looked like a cherub in a trailer park, with watery eyes, and a chubby face, hair glinting purple in the sunlight, and wearing a Hawaiian shirt. The other guy at the table was sitting in a wheelchair, his back to Percy and Grover.

What stopped Percy in his tracks, however, was the fact that he recognized the girl sitting at the card table, facing him.

"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know--” 

“Hazel!” 

Hazel looks up from her cards, and her eyes widen when she sees him. “Percy!” She squeals, running from behind the table to launch herself at Percy. 

He almost falls with the ferocity that she hugs him. Hazel had always been affectionate, initiating hugs, and cuddling close to Piper and Percy in the night for warmth. However, she had never hugged him this tightly before. He wonders what she had gone through to bring this sort of affection from her. 

“Hazel.” Percy breaths, holding her out at arm’s length. “You’re okay.” 

Actually, she was better than okay from what he could see. Hazel’s face was clear of dirt, her hair was well kept, and she was wearing clean clothes that fit her-- an orange shirt just like everyone else, his red hoodie, now free of mud from the night of the Minotaur, and a pair of blue jeans. 

“Of course I’m okay.” Hazel tells him, giving him a bright smile that makes the weight on his chest lessen significantly. “Chiron, Annabeth, and Grover have been showing me the ropes.” She then leans forward, and whispers, “And Mr. D is so much fun to beat at cards.” 

“I heard that!” The man in the leopard print shirt-- Mr. D-- shouts from the card table. “And you’re not that good!” 

“To be fair, she’s won the last three hands.” A familiar voice says, and Percy’s eyes are drawn to the final man at the card table, still sitting with his back to him. 

“Beginner’s luck.” Mr. D grumbles. 

Percy tilts his head to the side, recognizing the tweed jacket and the thinning hair, along with that voice-- “Mr. Brunner?” 

“Hello, Percy,” Mr. Brunner greets, turning his chair around. “Would you like to join us for a round of Pinochle?” 

Mr. Brunner gestures to the final seat next to him, and Hazel tugs Percy along to the card table. 

As we got closer, Mr. D looked up at Percy with blood-shot eyes and grumbled, "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to CampHalf-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."

“Uh, thanks.” Percy replied, happy to be sitting as far away from Mr. D as possible. 

“Annabeth?” Mr. Brunner calls, and the blonde girl comes to the table, facing Chiron, but her eyes continuously darting to Percy. “This young lady helped nurse you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now." 

Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."

She was around Percy’s age, with dark, umber colored skin, and brown eyes. Her hair was in tight, coils of curls, and blonde, though definitely not naturally. She had a calculating, almost scary look in her eyes, which made Percy gulp, because her attention was almost entirely focused on him.

Mr. Brunner hesitates, looking over at Hazel “And why don’t you take Hazel and show her around camp?” 

Hazel furrows her eyebrows in confusion. “Grover gave me a tour yesterday.” 

The man in the leopard print shirt glares at Grover, who swallows thickly at having the attention on him. 

Chiron presses his lips together. “Well, why don’t you go anyway. I’m sure that there is always something new to see.” 

Hazel opens her mouth to protest, “But--”

“Come on, Hazel.” Annabeth grabs the smaller girl by the hand, and drags her to her feet. Annabeth’s eyes darted over to Percy once more, and then at the minotaur horn, and then back to Percy.  When she opened her mouth, Percy did not expect the next words that came out to be, “You drool in your sleep.”

Then, she drags Hazel away from the porch, her curls flying behind her. 

“If you wanted me to leave so that you wouldn’t lose again, you could’ve just said so!” Hazel yells at the men, before wrenching herself free from Annabeth’s grip and walking besides the other girl. 

"So," Percy said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?". 

"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex—Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."

Hazel

Hazel and Annabeth are walking through the campgrounds, Hazel furiously tapping the  fingers of her right against her thigh. 

They were headed to cabin eleven-- Hermes cabin, Hazel recalled. 

Grover had shown her around camp yesterday, and had made sure to pay special attention to cabin eleven, in order to get her ‘bunk’ set up. 

‘Bunk’ was in quotes, because the only spot available to her in the cabin was a sleeping bag on the floor, and a space next to her that she had already claimed for Percy. At Grover’s suggestion, Hazel hadn’t kept the bag of clothes and toiletries lying around the cabin, and had instead kept them safely in Percy’s hospital room. 

Of course, now that he was awake, she would probably have to move it now. 

“I already have Percy’s ‘bunk’ set up.” Hazel tells Annabeht. 

“I figured.” Annabeth replies, still walking towards the cabin. 

“Then why are we here ?” Hazel asks, desperate already to turn back. She had so much that she wanted to say to Percy. So many things that she wanted to talk to him about. About the things that Chiron had told her, about how nice Annabeth had been, about how twitchy Grover was, and about Piper. 

She knew that he would listen to what she had to say about their missing friend, even if the others just sent her pitying looks whenever she brought it up. 

Annabeth wrings her hands together, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “How about I show you one of my favorite places at camp?” 

Annabeth leads the two of them to a non-descript shed that she remembers Grover briefly gesturing to during their tour the previous day. She turns the shed handles, and throws open the doors in a grand fashion that does not match the dimly lit, cluttered, cob-web filled interior. 

“Chiron is going to want to get you started on training ASAP now that Percy is awake.” Annabeth tells her, looking around the room in what can only be described as excitement. “So, it’s best that we get you set up with a weapon.”

“Wow…” Hazel whispers under her breath, staring at the wide array of weapons. Swords, knives, spears, bows and arrows, guns and bullets. All in varying tones of copper. 

Annabeth nods. “I know. We have weapons of every kind, anywhere from ancient Greece to a month ago when we got our latest shipment of new swords. Some kids are gifted weapons from their godly parents, but the other ones that aren’t claimed as early on come here.” 

Hazel is drawn to a row of swords hanging on the wall, tracing the sharp lines of each blade. 

“Sword fighting is a required activity, so you’re going to need a sword. We usually reserve these,” She points to a line of dinged up swords in front of her, “For practice. But your main weapon can be anything you want.” Annabeth hesitates. “Though, I wouldn’t recommend guns.” 

Hazel lightly runs her finger over the spine of a sword that was about half her height.  “What kind of sword is this?” 

“That’s a spatha.” Annabeth relays, promptly. “It’s a type of broadsword. In Ancient Rome it was used on horseback because of its long reach. This one is about a year old, on the shorter end of the height range. Unused, because it’s too tall for most of the new kids.” 

Hazel looks over her shoulder at the older girl. “You seem to know a lot about this.” 

“I’ve spent the last five years cataloging every weapon in here. I can tell you anything you want to know about anything in here that piques your interest.” Annabeth spoke with unbridled pride as she gestured around her at the weapon options. 

“That won’t be necessary.” Hazel decides, stepping onto her tiptoes. 

“It really isn’t a bother.” Annabeth insists. 

“I figured,” Hazel grunts, grabbing the hilt of the spatha , and pulling it from its place on the wall. “But, I think this is what I want.” 

Annabeth raises an eyebrow, taking in the bulky, tall sword, next to the small, young girl that was holding it. “Really?” 

“Yeah,” Hazel says proudly, jutting her chin out, and slinging her new sword over her shoulder. “Got a problem with that.” 

The older girl just peers closely at Hazel, before cracking a smile. A genuine smile, not her awkward, platitude filled ones from that first, horrible night. “Nope. No problem at all. Just let me help you find a scabbard for that.” 

The cabin was much as Hazel remembered, filled to the brim with kids, all staring Percy down as they stood in the doorway. 

"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."

Percy tripped on his way through the doorway, earning snickers from some of the campers. Hazel glared at them, though that didn’t seem to intimidate them any. 

Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven.

"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.

"Undetermined."

The entire cabin groaned. 

Hazel leans in closer to Percy. “Don’t feel bad, they did the same thing to me yesterday.” 

An older camper, the one that Hazel recognized as Luke, stepped forward, "Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. I believe your friend claimed that spot on the floor for you, right over there."

“This is Luke,” Annabeth announces, smiling at Luke in the bright way that Hazel had smiled at Percy earlier. “He’ll be your counselor for now.” 

“For now?” Percy asks.

"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would.  Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."

Percy hesitates, looking at the spot, clenching the Minotaur horn in his hands. He looks hesitant to put the horn down, just like Hazel hadn’t wanted to leave her bag in here unattended. 

"How long will I be here?" Percy asks.

"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."

"How long will that take?"

The campers all laughed.

Annabeth grimaces. "Come on," she grabs Percy’s wrist "I'll show you the volleyball court."

"I've already seen it." Percy tells her. 

"Come on." She began to drag him outside, and Hazel trailed behind, sending one last glare at the kids. When they were at the door, Annabeth turned to face Hazel, apologetic. “Actually, Hazel, Percy and I have some things that we need to discuss privately.” 

“Oh,” Hazel murmurs, disappointment crashing down on her. “I guess that I’ll just stay here, then.” 

Annabeth nods. “I think that Hermes has arts and crafts soon, just follow them. I’ll see you at dinner. Promise.” 

When Percy returned to the cabin later, Hazel had made three dream catchers, and he--if the stories were true-- was ‘Supreme Lord of the Bathroom’. 

“Percy!” Hazel calls to him, gesturing him over to her sleeping bag. “Sit!” She hesitates, “Unless you’re wet.” 

Percy groans. “You heard about that?” 

“ Everyone has heard about it.” 

Percy looks down at the sleeping bag and toiletries that were now in his space. “Where did this come from?”

“Luke grabbed them for you.” Hazel explains. She didn’t mention that he had told her that he’d stolen the toiletries. 

Percy nods, taking a seat next to her, looking defeated. 

“How are you doing?” 

Percy hesitates. “You won’t believe what they’ve told me.” 

“You mean about the gods and demigods?” Hazel asks him. 

Percy startles. “They told you too?” 

Hazel nods. “Yeah. They showed me the orientation film.”

“The what?” 

“Doesn’t matter. But, it was pretty hard to argue with it.” 

Percy shakes his head. “And you really believe them? That gods exist? And that we’re their children?” 

“I don’t know, Percy. I wouldn’t have thought that goat or bull men, or pegasi existed either, and yet here we are. And it isn’t like I have many memories about my parents in the first place. One of them being a god or goddess doesn’t seem all that crazy.” 

Percy shakes his head. “After all that’s happened, I wouldn’t have thought that this would be the first conversation that we’ve had.” 

Hazel shrugs. “It is what it is.” She grabs his hand. “At least we’re together. And we can figure out what to do about Piper together.” 

Percy winces. “Yeah, about that.” He sighs. “Hazel, I’m so sorry about Piper.”

“Percy, it isn’t your fault.”

“Yes it is.” He insists. “I promised myself that I would protect you two, and I couldn’t do that.” 

“Percy, I was the reason that Piper ran in front of the bull-man in the first place.” She sighs, deeply, guilt threatening to overcome her. “But that doesn’t matter right now.”

“You’re right.” Percy sighs. “It won’t change anything.” 

“Exactly.” Hazel agrees. “We can still find her and bring her here.” 

Percy blinks at her. “What do you mean? Piper, she-- she--”

Hazel shakes her head. “She was kidnapped.” Hazel takes a deep breath. “I know what everybody thinks. But Piper isn’t dead. I know she isn’t. And we can still find her.”

Chapter Text

Hazel

Thursday afternoon was the first day of sword fighting, which Hazel had been looking forward to the most.

The many activities that her and Percy had tried since he’d woken up had been a mixed bag. 

Percy was-- how to put this delicately?-- terrible at archery. He pulled the bow back and almost shot some of the surrounding campers. Hazel wasn’t bad , she just had very little interest in participating. 

Neither of them had done very good at wrestling, both being smaller, younger, and less strong than their opponents. Percy, especially, had been paired against the head counselor of Ares cabin whom she’d heard he had doused in toilet water. He’d hit the mat within seconds. 

The only thing that Percy had seemed to excel at was canoeing, and that was Hazel’s least favorite activity. 

Her motion sickness, the rocking of the boat, and the timing of it being right after lunch did not go together well, and the naiads had not appreciated Hazel’s problem when she’d thrown up over the side of the boat. 

Hazel had been looking forward to sword practice since she’d gotten her spatha on Tuesday. Ananbeth’s praise of Luke’s skills had just made her even more excited to get started. 

Both Percy and Hazel seemed to do well with the practice movements, stabbing and slashing at straw-filled dummies. 

Percy seemed to have a much harder time with his swords than Hazel did. Her spatha , while heavy and half her height, fit well in her hands, and she moved rather well with it to Luke’s evident surprise. 

“Y’know, most girls your size prefer smaller blades.” He had told her. 

Hazel shrugged. “I like my sword. It works for me.” 

Luke gives her an appraising look. “I can see that.” 

Then, he’d told everyone to partner up, and grabbed Percy as his. “Ethan!” He calls out to another camper. “Partner up with Hazel!” 

The boy that Luke calls out is about Percy’s age, and groans at Luke. “Why do I have to fight with the newb?” 

“Cause you’re almost as new as she is, E!” Another camper yells back. “You’ll be evenly matched!” 

“Evenly matched?” Ethan looks offended at the mere thought. “She’s a little girl !” 

Hazel bristles at that statement. “ She can also hear every word that you’re saying.” She reminds him, twirling around her spatha . “Come on, let’s practice.” 

Ethan rolls his eyes. “Fine. But don’t expect me to go easy on you.” 

“Same here.” 

“Hah!” Ethan scoffs. “Good one.” At this point, Luke and Percy had already started to spar, and Percy was very clearly at a disadvantage. Ethan gestures at the two. “If you’re anything like your friend over there, I’m not gonna have a problem here.” 

Hazel glares at him, grinding her teeth together. “Alright, time to put your mouth where your money is.” 

Ethan rolls his eyes. “That’s not how that goes.” Then, he runs at her. 

Hazel puts her spatha up, blocking his slash with the flat of her blade. Ethan, being taller and stronger than her, manages to knock her to the ground. 

“It’s sad that the girl that died must’ve been the best fighter of the three of you.” Ethan taunts. 

Hazel feels anger fill her chest at the cavalier way that he tosses around the mention of Piper. Even though he thinks she’s dead . 

Hazel rolls to her feet, holding her sword out defensively. Ethan runs at her again, but this time, Hazel ducks, and he sails past her-- just like the Minotaur had done that night. 

When Ethan is behind her, she throws her sword out and hits the back of his legs with the flat of her blade. The older boy stumbles forward from the hit. 

Ethan turns around, holding his sword out. His eyes are blazing red in anger. Just like that damned bull bearing over her before Piper pushed her out of the way--

When Ethan runs at her again, Hazel bends her knees, and runs at him head first, hitting him straight in the sternum until he falls onto his back, gasping for breath. 

“Don’t talk about Piper.” Hazel hisses, skipping back, waiting for him to make his next move. 

Hazel holds her sword across from her, putting the flat of her blade out in front of her, and pushes him backwards. 

Ethan swings his sword, and Hazel deflects it with a swing of hers. She jabs at him, he jumps back. Then, with a quick swish of her own sword, Hazel slashes him across the stomach, the fabric of his t-shirt tearing from the blade. 

“Ouch!” Ethan hisses, touching where she’d nicked him. 

“What were you saying about not going easy on me?” Hazel lets a smirk crawl across her face. 

Ethan is about to run at her again, when Luke calls out, “Okay, break time!” 

“Hey, Nakamura, how does it feel to be beaten up by a little girl?” A camper calls out as they all swarm the water coolers. 

“Shut up!” Nakamura hisses. 

“I’m not a little girl!” Hazel yells at the same time. She sidles up to Percy, who has just poured ice water over his head for some reason that she cannot fathom. 

“How’d you do?” Percy asks, looking far more energized than she would’ve expected.

“Better than you.” Hazel replies, gulping down her own water. “You took a real beating from what I could see.” 

Percy shrugs, though his face is clouded over at the reminder of what had just transpired between him and Luke. 

"Okay, everybody circle up!" Luke ordered. "If Percy doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo."

Hazel glowers at the smiles fighting their way onto many faces of the Hermes campers. 

Luke went on to describe the movement, stepping away from an opponent’s sword, and attacking their arm. 

“Nobody laugh at Percy, now.” Luke orders. “This is a difficult move. I’ve had it used against me before.” 

He demonstrates the move in slow time, and Percy ends up dropping his sword from the attack. 

"Now in real time," he said, after Percy had retrieved his weapon. "We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?"

To Hazel, and everyone else’s surprise, Percy did not do as poorly as he had before. In fact, he was actually doing pretty good. 

Hazel watches with a sick fascination as Percy does well, and Luke transforms from a teacher into a wild-eyed competitor. It was like he was a completely different person as he was fighting with Percy, and she didn’t like the look of him. 

Hazel notices that Percy is starting to slow down, and she watches with fascination as he attempts the move that Luke had shown off. And succeeds.

The other campers were silent.

Hazel looks around them, and claps. “Whoo!” She makes sure to send a glare at Ethan as she cheers. 

Percy lowers his sword in embarrassment. "Um, sorry."

For a moment, Luke was too stunned to speak.

"Sorry?" His scarred face broke into a grin. A grin that looked manic and wild, and sent a weird feeling through Hazel’s gut. "By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!"

The second time, Percy stood no chance against the older camper. His sword falls from his hands immediately. 

After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, "Beginner's luck?"

Luke wiped the sweat off his brow. He apprised Percy with new interest, that Hazel did not like one bit. "Maybe," he said. "But I wonder what Percy could do with a balanced sword..."

Hazel, Annabeth, and Percy are sitting next to each other at the campfire that night. Hazel is sitting in between Annabeth and Percy. 

Currently, she is admiring Annabeth’s new braids. On her other side, Percy is munching on marshmallows. 

“How did you do it?” Hazel asks. 

Annabeth looks a little embarrassed to admit it. “One of the kids from Aphrodite cabin helps me out.”

“That’s nice of her.” Hazel comments. 

Annabeth shrugs. “Yeah.” She clears her throat, evidently ready to change the subject. “I heard that you did really well in sword fighting today.” 

Hazel blushes, partly from embarrassment, partly from pride. “It was nothing.” 

“ Nothing ?” Annabeth raises her eyebrows. “Hazel, you took down a boy years older than you, who has been training longer, on your first try.”

“I disarmed Luke.” Percy suddenly points out, puffing out his chest-- a habit that Hazel has noticed he does whenever Annabeth is around. 

Annabeth gives him an unimpressed look, before focusing her sole attention on Hazel. “Look, you’re younger than most of the campers here, and it’s a real boys club most of the time. They’re all going to do their best to underestimate you. It’s your job to prove yourself.” 

Hazel raises her eyebrows. “That sounds like a lot of work.” 

“It is.” Annabeth agrees. She was Percy’s age, but she was also head counselor, and Hazel had heard enough to know that Annabeth was one of the most well respected fighters around. “But I think you have what it takes. And I can't wait to have you on my team during capture the flag, tomrrow.”

Chapter Text

Percy

Percy, Grover, and Hazel were sitting on the pier over the lake after climbing up the lava rock wall. 

Grover was little the worse for wear, his mountain goat genes allowing him to prance up the wall with ease. 

Hazel had done pretty well too, despite her size making it harder for her to reach all of the rungs-- not to mention her fear of heights as a factor. However, Hazel made it out with her hair only the slightest bit frizzier. 

Percy, meanwhile, had holes throughout his shirt, and all of the hair on his forearms singed off. He was lying on his back on the wooden pier, the pads of his feet barely skimming the water of the lake. 

Percy kept looking over at Grover every few moments, opening his mouth, before thinking better of it and closing it again. Finally he takes a deep breath, and finally says what he was getting the nerve to say the last several minutes. “How’d your conversation with Mr. D go?” 

Hazel quirks an eyebrow at the two, clearly unaware of what they were talking about. 

Grover’s face pales. "Fine," he said. "Just great." 

"So your career's still on track?" Percy asks, finally sitting up. 

He glanced between Percy and Hazel nervously. "Chiron t-told you I want a searcher's license?"

“No.” Hazel responds, looking over at Percy with a question in her eyes. 

Percy shakes his head. "He just said you had big plans, you know ... and that you needed credit for completing a keeper's assignment. So did you get it?"

Grover looks down at the water, where Naiads were weaving baskets underneath the waves. He was making sure not to glance at either of them as he spoke, "Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn't failed or succeeded with you yet,” He waves over at Percy, to make sure that Hazel knew he wasn’t talking about her. “So our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he'd consider the job complete."

“What’s a quest?” Hazel asks, swinging her legs over the side of the pier. 

Percy speaks up for Grover. “They’re from the old stories. Gods would send heroes out to do things for them, retrieve objects or kill monsters. Or something.” 

Grover nods, glumly. “Exactly.” 

Hazel shrugs. “Well, that’s good, then. You still have a chance.” Percy nods in agreement. 

"Blaa-ha-ha! He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest... and even if you did, why would you want me along?"

"Of course I'd want you along!"

"Basket-weaving ... Must be nice to have a useful skill."

Percy puts a hand on Grover’s shoulder. “You have lots of useful skills, Grover.” 

Grover huffs. “Like what?” 

“You can drive.” Hazel says. Grover lets out an unamused snort.

Percy adds, “You can jump to the top of the rock wall like nobody’s business.” 

Grover rolls his eyes. “Any satyr can do that.” 

“But can any satyr scarf down ten enchiladas within three minutes?” 

The more that Percy tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, the more miserable Grover looked. 

Eventually, they started talking about canoeing and swordplay, then Percy and Hazel debated the pros and cons of the different gods that they could be claimed by with Grover. 

Finally, Percy asked him about the four empty cabins.

"Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis," Grover said, looking over at Hazel, who was still relatively new to the lore of the gods as he explained, "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't have one, she'd be mad."

Percy nods. "Yeah, okay. But the other three, the ones at the end. Are those the Big Three?"

Grover tensed. He kept looking down at the water as he continued to talk. "No. One of them, number two, is Hera's," he said. "That's another honorary thing.” Again, he looked over at Hazel. “She's the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn't go around having affairs with mortals. That's her husband's job. When we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos."

"Zeus, Poseidon, Hades." Percy informed, looking over at Hazel. 

"Right. After the great battle with the Titans, they took over the world from their dad and drew lots to decide who got what."

Hazel tilts her head to the side. “Their dad?” 

“The Titan, Kronos.” Percy tells her, watching the way Grover flinches at the name of the long-dead Titan. “Zeus got the sky, Poseidon the sea, Hades the Underworld."

"Uh-huh." Grover nods.

"But Hades doesn't have a cabin here."

"No. He doesn't have a throne on Olympus, either. He sort of does his own thing down in the Underworld. If he did have a cabin here ..." Grover shuddered. "Well, it wouldn't be pleasant. Let's leave it at that."

Hazel wrinkles her nose. “Why not?”

“Hades is the god of the Underworld.” Grover says, as if that explains everything. “Really creepy, not pleasant.” 

“That doesn’t mean his kids would be the same.” Hazel says. 

Grover shrugs. “I guess not, though nobody knows since it’s been decades since a child of Hades has been claimed. But the last ones--” He shakes his head. 

Percy clears his throat, getting back to the subject at hand. "But Zeus and Poseidon—they both had, like, a bazillion kids in the myths. Why are their cabins empty?"

"About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn't sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other. The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx."

Thunder boomed.

Percy said, "That's the most serious oath you can make."

Grover nodded.

Hazel furrows her eyebrows. “What happened in World War II?” 

Grover and Percy share a look. Percy puts a hand on Hazel’s arm. “That’s a story for another time.” Then, he looks back at Grover. "And the brothers kept their word—no kids?"

Grover's face darkened. "Seventeen years ago, Zeus fell off the wagon. There was this TV starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo—he just couldn't help himself. When their child was born, a little girl named Thalia .. . well, the River Styx is serious about promises. Zeus himself got off easy because he's immortal, but he brought a terrible fate on his daughter."

Percy’s mouth drops open. "But that isn't fair! It wasn't the little girl's fault!"

Grover hesitated. "Percy, children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods. They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Hades found out about the girl, he wasn't too happy about Zeus breaking his oath. Hades let the worst monsters out of Tartarus to torment Thalia. A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she'd befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill."

He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree they’d carried him by the other night. "All three Kindly Ones were after them, along with a horde of hellhounds. They were about to be overrun when Thalia told her satyr to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters. She was wounded and tired, and she didn't want to live like a hunted animal. The satyr didn't want to leave her, but he couldn't change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Thalia made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill. As she died, Zeus took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That's why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill."

Hazel swallows thickly. “She came with two other half-bloods?” 

Percy knows what she’s thinking. Three half-bloods on the hill. One of them didn’t make it. History repeating itself. 

Percy remembered what Hazel had told him the other day. How she didn’t believe that Piper was dead. Percy wanted so badly to believe her. But, even so-- 

“Grover, have heroes really gone on quests to the Underworld?"

Hazel and Grover both look at him, questioningly. 

"Sometimes," he said. "Orpheus. Hercules. Houdini."

"And have they ever returned somebody from the dead?"

"No. Never. Orpheus came close…” He stops, looking between Hazel and Percy with furrowed eyebrows, a question in his gaze.  “Percy, you're not seriously thinking—"

"No," Percy lied, not able to shake the thought from his brain. "I was just wondering. So... a satyr is always assigned to guard a demigod?"

Grover still looked wary, as if Percy hadn’t totally tricked him. Still, he answered him anyway. "Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes. If we find one with a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Chiron. He tries to keep an eye on them, since they could cause really huge problems."

"And you found me. Chiron said you thought I might be something special."

Not for the first time during this conversation, Grover looked like he would rather do anything other than talk more. "I didn't... Oh, listen, don't think like that. If you were—you know—you'd never ever be allowed a quest, and I'd never get my license. You're probably a child of Hermes. Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge. Don't worry, okay?"

Percy and Hazel look at eachother. They were about as convinced as Grover was about the words he spoke.

Hazel

Capture the flag was a rowdy affair. A conch horn blared, campers yelled and jeered, banging their swords against their shields-- filling the air with the terrible sound of metal on metal. 

She was weighed down by her overly large shield. Her breast-plate and blue-plumaged helmet was about two sizes too big for her. 

Hazel hated pretty much everything about it, and she wasn’t even stationed near Percy. 

Annabeth had stationed him on ‘Border Patrol’. Hazel didn’t really know what that meant, but she didn’t like the sad look that crossed his face as he was left all by his lonesome near the creek that acted as boundary line.

Hazel, meanwhile, was on guard duty. 

She didn’t want to question Annabeth, but it seemed risky to use one of the two guards they were allowed to have to be a newcomer that had only one sword fighting class under her belt, and could easily be trampled by any member of Ares cabin. For goodness sakes, Hazel couldn’t even reach the flag from where they hung it up. 

“Don’t worry, Hazel.” Annabeth tells her. “You’ll do great.” 

“Yeah,” Luke agrees, giving her a smile that stretches his scar in an almost evil way. “If we do our jobs right, you won’t even have to face anybody else.” 

Right , Hazel thinks, But the rest of you aren’t going to get sole blame if we lose our flag. 

“What’d you do to get stuck on guard duty your first time?” The other guard, some kid from Apollo cabin, asks her. 

Hazel shrugs. “I have no idea.” She looks him over. “How many times have you played?” 

The guy shrugs. “Every Friday since I got here, which is about six months.” He hesitates. “How many is that?” 

“I don’t know.” Hazel admits. “I’ve never really been good with math. Or time. It all just kind of blends together for me.” 

The guy laughs. “Just wait until you’ve been at camp a little longer. Time doesn’t get any easier to track.” 

“What’s your name?” Hazel asks him. 

“Lee. And you’re… Hazel, right? The one that came with the kid that fought the Minotaur?” 

Of course that’s all she was to people. ‘The one that came with the kid that fought the Minotaur’ “Yeah.” 

“Is it true that he stabbed the Minotaur with his own horn?” Lee asks her. 

Before Hazel has to answer, the sound of yelling campers close by makes them both tense up. They wait with bated breath for several minutes, but as nobody appears, they slowly start to calm down. 

“They must’ve got slowed down by some of the others.” Lee sighs. 

“Maybe.” Hazel mumbles, her eyes still darting around the clearing for any signs of red amongst the green foliage. 

Eventually, though, high alert faded into boredom. 

“Is it always this slow paced?” Hazel asks. 

Lee throws his head back. “It depends on what team you’re on. Who you’re fighting. With guard duty, the slower it is for us, usually the better off your team is doing. Annabeth’s pretty good at coming up with plans.” He hesitates. “Still, it’s unlike Clarisse to not be charging headfirst into the action. I wonder what Annabeth did to distract her.” 

“Clarisse… She’s the head counselor of Ares cabin?” Hazel asks, remembering the story Percy had told her about what had happened in the bathroom his first day at camp. 

“Uh huh.” Lee narrows his eyes, looking around. 

What feels like hours, but is probably only about twenty minutes later, they hear the sound of cheers coming from the distance. Then, the blare of Chiron’s conch horn. 

Lee looks up at their flag. “Well, unless we seriously missed something, it sounds like our team just won.” 

Hazel follows Lee back to the creek where they’d left Percy, only to find the rest of the camp running to the spot as well. Luke is being hoisted around on the shoulders of some of their teammates, and several red-plumed campers are grumbling at their defeat. 

Hazel locates Annabeth and Percy, the former pulling the latter out of the stream to stand on dry ground.

Hazel stepped forward, about to join her friends, when a loud howl broke through the sounds of celebration from her cabinmates. 

The clearing quieted, Chiron yelled something in a language that Hazel couldn’t understand, but she didn’t have long to worry about it as she saw what had howled.Standing on the rocks was a huge dog-like creature with glowing, red eyes and sharp, dagger-like fangs. 

Annabeth yelled, “Percy, run!” 

The hound lept over Annabeth and ran straight into Percy, knocking him down. Its claws ripped through his armor right before dozens of campers-- including Lee-- let loose arrows and shot them straight through its neck. 

The monster turned into a cloud of dust, and Hazel ran through the creek bed to kneel beside Percy on the ground. 

“Percy!” She gasps, lightly placing her hands down on his armored chest. 

A shadow falls over them, Chiron. 

"Di immortales!" Annabeth says. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't ... they're not supposed to ..."

"Someone summoned it," Chiron said. "Someone inside the camp."

Hazel is shaking her head, trying to undo Percy’s breastplate, which is hard with the blood-slickened straps. 

Distantly, Hazel notices Luke walking up to them, and she hears someone yell out, "It's all Percy's fault! Percy summoned it!"

“ Shut up !” Hazel screams at whoever it was that had said that-- she really didn’t care at the moment, she was too busy trying to get a look at his wounds. 

"You're wounded," Annabeth tells him, kneeling beside Hazel. "Quick, Percy, get in the water."

"I'm okay." Percy mumbles, his speech slurred, probably from blood loss. 

"No, you're not," Hazel hisses. She can feel it. He’s slipping from her. He needs medical attention. 

Annabeth places a gentle hand on Hazel’s shoulder. “Hazel, I need you to step aside.” Hazel opens her mouth to protest, but Annabeth continues, “It’s okay, I know how to help him." When Hazel relents, and steps aside, Annabeth looks up at the centaur. “Chiron, watch this."

Annabeth grips Percy under the arms, and drags him into the creek. Through the corners of her eyes, Hazel notices the rest of the camp circling around them, curious as to what stunt Annabeth was pulling. 

And then, it appeared. 

A gleaming, green trident hovering over Percy’s head. Hazel’s mouth dropped open. Some people gasp. 

"Look, I—I don't know why," Percy was stammering, apparently not even noticing the hologram. "I'm sorry...."

"Percy," Annabeth said, pointing. "Um ..." Annabeth swallows, her eyes following Percy as he looks up at the trident. "Your father, this is really not good."

Before Hazel could ask her what she meant by that, Chiron’s voice cuts through all the others. "It is determined."

Hazel notices several campers start to kneel. Annabeth gently nudges her in the side, and pulls her into a kneel of her own. 

"My father?" Percy asks, sounding as confused as Hazel felt. 

"Poseidon," said Chiron. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God."

Chapter Text

Percy

Chiron moved Percy into Poseidon Cabin the morning after capture the flag. Percy managed to carry all of his meager belongings, despite the fact that Hazel had followed him along to help him move in. 

The rest of the night after his Claiming had been uncomfortable and tense. Other than Hazel, the rest of the campers had steered clear of him-- parting like the red sea as he’d stepped out of the stream. The few other campers that slept on the floor had even moved their sleeping bags far away from him as if he had a catching illness.

The rest of camp wasn’t much better. The only campers that were willing to talk to him was Luke, Hazel, and Annabeth-- though, even she made it well known that she was only doing it reluctantly. Not even Clarisse and her friends from cabin five kept a distance from him. 

Cabin eleven wasn’t willing to do any activities with him,-- especially sword fighting-- so Luke would meet him for one-on-one sword fighting lessons. 

Hazel was with Percy every step of the way. She would ditch her cabinmates to spend every activity with him, as well as down time. 

It occurred to him after he was moved out of Hermes Cabin that this would be the first time in months that he and Hazel would be separated overnight. He didn’t need to worry, though, because that first night, Hazel had snuck into his cabin and claimed one of the unused bunks. He didn’t know how she did it, but Hazel somehow managed to sneak through the shadows to his cabin every night-- undetected by the harpies. She would be gone by the time he woke up in the morning-- in order to make Luke’s early morning roll call-- but it still brightened his mood somewhat to know that she had been there. 

They still couldn’t eat dinner together, but he could tell from the faces she made at him throughout every meal that she was as miserable at her overcrowded table as he was at his empty table. 

One of the worst things had happened the night prior, when Hazel had brought in a newspaper left out in front of his door, opened up to a specific newspaper article that made him equal parts fearful and angry. 

MISSING BOY HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR FREAK CAR ACCIDENT

BY EILEEN SMYTHE

Twelve year old Percy Jackson is still missing after two months. His mother's badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered February 13th on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken.

Sources say that Percy had returned to his mother’s, Sally Jackson’s, home and coerced her to give him control of the car with a friend of his. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing boy or anyone else. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.

Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabe Ugliano, claims that his stepson, Percy Jackson, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past. Ms. Jackson herself is not open to comments at this time. 

Police would not say whether son Percy is a suspect in the car accident, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Percy Jackson. Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.

The phone number was circled in black marker.

“Percy?” Hazel asked, looking over at him from her bunk, causing him to jump. She’d been quiet the entire time that he’d read-- which was probably close to an hour considering how often he had to read and reread certain sentences-- and he’d almost forgotten that she was there. “Are you okay?” 

Percy nodded, swallowing thickly, and crumpling the piece of paper. He crossed to the light switch, and turns it off. 

“Lights out.” He announced, not able to hide the misery in his tone. 

That morning, Percy had woken up from a terrible nightmare by the sound of someone knocking at his door. 

It was morning, though still dark out, thunder echoing across the valley-- just like in his dream. It was late enough in the day that Hazel had already left, leaving behind only a mussed pile of blankets. 

“Come in?” Percy calls out to whoever is on the other side of the door. 

Grover trotted in, not even bothering to question the sound of Hazel’s crash, that he had no doubt heard. "Mr. D wants to see you."

"Why?"

"He wants to kill... I mean, I'd better let him tell you."

Hazel

When Hazel and the other members of Hermes cabin exited the Arts and Crafts building, rain was pouring down from the heavens. 

It was light-- clearly about to stop after a long (if the sound of the raindrops against the wooden siding of the building they were in was anything to go by) downpour. 

The entire group of campers are staring at the rain with a sick kind of fascination. Hazel remembered the camp orientation video that Grover had shown her when she first showed up at camp. The video had talked about the camp’s weather barrier, and, true to its word, Hazel hadn’t seen a drop of rain in the weeks that she’s been at camp. 

Luke is looking up at the sky. Hazel can’t see his face because of how tall he is, but she is sure that it is matching the confused expression on the other campers’ faces. “It never rains here.” He huffs, wiping some rain from his face. “Zeus must’ve crossed the barrier to let the rain in.” 

“Gee,” A kid named Connor mumbles sarcastically. “I wonder why.” He looks directly at Hazel as he says this. 

The younger girl bristles. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Luke steps between them, directing his words towards Hazel. “Don’t listen to him, he’s just being an idiot.” 

Travis, Connor’s full-brother, looks back at Luke. “It doesn’t take an idiot to see that everything was going fine around here until Poseidon’s kid showed up at camp.” 

‘And his friend’ , was the words that Travis left unspoken. 

Hazel glowers at the brothers. “Shut up, Stoll. Nobody asked you.” 

“All of you, calm down.” Luke directs. “Just get back to our cabin, and get out of the rain. I’m going to talk to Chiron and Mr. D about this.” 

All of the campers groan at the prospect of being stuck in their cramped cabin for the unforeseeable future, but trudge back to Cabin Eleven anyway, while Luke jogs to the Big House.

Hazel notices Percy and Annabeth walking across the lawn separating the cabins. They were walking close by, but not together . Clearly going to different destinations, but from the same location. Either way, Percy’s chest was puffed out in the way it usually was when he was around Annabeth. 

Breaking away from the group, Hazel instead jogs to catch up with Percy as he heads towards his own cabin. Maybe she could convince him to join her for the Apollo Cabin’s sword fighting session that would be happening soon. 

“Perce!” Hazel calls out, grabbing onto Percy’s bicep as she comes closer to him. “Annabeth, hi!” 

“Hi, Hazel.” Annabeth says, curtly, giving Percy a long look. “Pack quickly. I’ll meet you at your cabin when I’m ready.” And with that, she spins on her heel and runs the rest of the way to her cabin. 

Hazel blinks, taken aback by Annabeth’s standoffish demeanor, and words. “Pack?” She looks up at Percy. “Pack for what?” 

Percy sighs, guiding her to his own cabin. “Hazel, I have to go.” 

“Go? Go where?” Hazel questions, furrowing her eyebrows as Percy continues to pull her, even as her feet are still at the news. 

Percy is silent for a long moment. It isn’t until they are in the doorway of Poseidon Cabin that Percy looks her in the eye, and says, “I was assigned a quest.” 

Hazel blinks at him, even as Percy turns away from her to enter his room. “A quest? But-- I thought-- Grover said that that wouldn’t happen. Why are they sending you ?” 

“First of all, that stings.” Percy says, lightly. “Second of all, I have to retrieve a lightning bolt from the Underworld to prevent a war between the gods.” 

Hazel’s eyebrows furrow. “Come again?” 

Percy explains the situation to her in more detail, as he starts stuffing his meager selection of clothing into his backpack. 

By the end of it, Hazel feels even more confused than before, and is staring at her friend with desperation in her eyes. “If you have to go… I’ll come with you, then.”

Percy shakes his head. “Chiron said I can only bring two people with me. And I already invited Annabeth and Grover.” 

“I could help you!” Hazel insists. 

Percy sighs, facing her fully for the first time since he told her about the quest. “ You need to stay here. Keep training and be safe.” 

Hazel huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “It doesn’t sound like anyone is safe right now.” She gestures with her head outside the cabin. “Y’know. With the war and everything.” 

“Hazel, everything is going to turn out alright.” Percy doesn’t sound entirely convinced by what he’s saying. He hesitates, takes a deep breath. “We’re going to the Underworld.” 

“You mentioned that.” 

Percy nods. “Right. And, when I come back. I’m bringing Piper with me.” 

Hazel blinks at him. “Piper? But--” She hesitates. “Why would Piper be in the Underworld?” 

Percy hesitates, conflict in his eyes. “Look, Hazel, I know that you told me that Piper is still alive--” 

“Because she is .” Hazel says, just as sure as she was that night in the hospital wing. 

Percy nods. “Right. But, if Chiron is right, and Hades was the one that has been behind everything that has happened, maybe--” 

Hazel catches up with Percy’s train of thought. “You think he took Piper?” Hazel asks, breathlessly. 

Percy shrugs. “Maybe. Either way, I’m not coming back unless I bring Piper with me.”

Hazel’s lip quivers. “But… then I won’t have either of you.” 

Percy sighs, and then, pulls her into a hug-- startling the young girl. It was often Hazel that initiated physical affection between the two of them. It caused her chest to constrict around her heart painfully. 

“It’s going to be alright.” He promises. “I’ll be back. And so will Piper.” 

Hazel nods, pressing her nose into the fabric of Percy’s camp shirt. “You better.” 

Someone knocks on the door to the cabin, and the two of them pull apart to see Annabeth Chase standing awkwardly in the doorway, a bag slung over her shoulder. 

“Er--” She lets out a strong huff of breath, her voice growing stronger. “Are you ready? We need to prepare.” 

Percy nods, squeezing Hazel’s shoulder one more time, before talking to Annabeth. “Yeah. Let’s go.” 

Percy sidesteps Annabeth on his way out the door, and before the girl can follow him, Hazel grips her forearm. 

“Annabeth,” Hazel says, looking up at the taller girl. “I need you to make sure he’s okay.” 

Annabeth blinks at Hazel several times. “Of course. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” She quickly adds, “Because the one given the quest has to return the object.”

Hazel nods slowly, still not used to the world of gods or their many rules. “Okay. And, remember, please be safe.” Then, she reaches out and wraps her arms around Annabeth in a hug.

Annabeth’s arms are at her side, before she slowly reaches one arm out to pat Hazel’s back. “We’ll try.”

Chapter Text

Percy

Percy couldn’t believe that it had only been four days since the beginning of the quest with how much had happened since they’d started. 

A blown up bus, a dinner served to him by Medusa, and his best friend translating words spoken by a fluffy, pink poodle. And that had been within the first eighteen hours. 

By the second day the newspapers were claiming that he was apparently wanted by the authorities, and Gabe was offering a reward for his capture. 

Not to mention the weird dreams Percy kept having of a cruel voice echoing out of a pit, asking for his help. He had been so freaked out by his dream one day while on the Amtrak that he’d even told Annabeth about it for help. 

"That doesn't sound like Hades.” She’d informed him. “He always appears on a black throne, and he never laughs."

"He offered Piper in trade. Who else could do that?"

Annabeth’s lips had pursed into a thin line. "I guess ... if he meant, 'Help me rise from the Underworld.' If he wants war with the Olympians. But why ask you to bring him the master bolt if he already has it?"

Percy hadn’t known how to answer that, as he’d been hoping that Annabeth had all of the answers as usual.

"Percy, you can't barter with Hades. You know that, right? He's deceitful, heartless, and greedy. I don't care if his Kindly Ones weren't as aggressive this time—"

" This time?" He had asked . "You mean you've run into them before?"

Her hand crept up to her necklace. She fingered a glazed white bead painted with the image of a pine tree, one of her clay end-of-summer tokens. "Let's just say I've got no love for the Lord of the Dead. You can't be tempted to make a deal for your friend."

Percy grinds his teeth together. “What would you do if you had the chance to save someone that you cared about?” 

Annabeth’s hand clenched around the bead even tighter. She was gritting her teeth together as she mulls over his words. “Why do you care so much about this girl? Why are you so determined to save her?” 

Percy blinks, surprised. “Because she’s my friend. I was supposed to take care of her, and I couldn’t. It’s my fault that she’s gone, and I’m going to save her.”

Annabeth shakes her head. “Sometimes when someone is taken from you, they don’t come back, Percy. You can’t save everybody.” 

“I refuse to believe that.” 

He wished he could talk to Hazel, like he’d been able to speak to Luke the other day. Tell Hazel that she was write, and share what Ares had told him the previous day:

"You owe me one more thing," Percy had reminded Ares in front of the ‘ Kindness Internationa l’ truck. "You promised me information about Piper."

" You sure you can handle the news? " Ares had asked as he kick-started his motorcycle. "She's not dead.”

"What do you mean?"

"I mean she was taken away from the Minotaur before she could die. She was turned into a shower of gold, right? That's metamorphosis. Not death. She's being kept."

"Kept.” Percy repeated. “Why?"

"You need to study war, punk. Hostages. You take somebody to control somebody else."

In the truck, Percy talked to Annabeth and Grover about his conversation with Luke in the gas station, when he finally got the full story about Thalia, daughter of Zeus. 

Luke and Annabeth had been the two demigods that traveled with Thalia, and Grover was the satyr that had come to rescue them. 

“That’s why you said ‘it was happening again’ when you found Hazel, Piper, and I.” Percy recalls how upset Grover had been that night in the warehouse. “Because of Thalia.” 

"I was supposed to escort Thalia to camp," Grover said, sniffling. "Only Thalia. I had strict orders from Chiron: don't do anything that would slow down the rescue. We knew Hades was after her, see, but I couldn't just leave Luke and Annabeth by themselves. I thought ... I thought I could lead all three of them to safety. It was my fault the Kindly Ones caught up with us. I froze. I got scared on the way back to camp and took some wrong turns. If I'd just been a little quicker..." His lip quivered. “She had to sacrifice herself because of me… just like Piper. 

"Stop it," Annabeth said. "No one blames you. Thalia didn't blame you either."

“Same with Piper.” Percy chimes in.

“At least we still have a chance to save Piper.” Grover’s voice sounded miserable in the dim light of the van, "Thalia… her death was my fault. The Council of Cloven Elders said so."

When Grover had somehow managed to fall asleep between the tears, the thumping of the truck, and the low growls of the caged animals, it was just Annabeth and Percy. She was twirling the beads of her camp necklace with her thumb and forefinger, her eyes fixated on something far away that he couldn’t see. 

"That pine-tree bead," Percy noted. "Is that from your first year?"

Annabeth looked down at her necklace. She hadn't realized what she was doing.

"Yeah," she said. "Every August, the counselors pick the most important event of the summer, and they paint it on that year's beads. I've got Thalia's pine tree, a Greek trireme on fire, a centaur in a prom dress—now that was a weird summer...."

"And the college ring, where did you get that?"

"That's none of your—" She stopped herself. "It was my father’s."

​​"You don't have to tell me." 

"No ... it's okay." She took a shaky breath. "My dad sent it to me folded up in a letter, two summers ago. The ring was, like, his main keepsake from Athena. He wouldn't have gotten through his doctoral program at Harvard without her.... That's a long story. Anyway, he said he wanted me to have it. He apologized for being a jerk, said he loved me and missed me. He wanted me to come home and live with him."

"That doesn't sound so bad." His voice was wistful, remembering his own mother who he hadn’t seen in so long. 

"Yeah, well... the problem was, I believed him. I tried to go home for that school year, but my stepmom was the same as ever. She didn't want her kids put in danger by living with a freak. Monsters attacked. We argued. Monsters attacked. We argued. I didn't even make it through winter break. I called Chiron and came right back to Camp Half-Blood."

“Me and my step-dad fought a lot.” Percy says, glancing at her through the corner of his eyes. “I came back from winter break this year, and we got into it. That was why I ended up running away. I always wondered why my mom put up with him… and then Grover told me that she stayed with him to mask my scent. I hope now that I’m gone, she doesn’t have to be around him anymore…” Percy trails off, the ever present pang of missing his mom running through his chest.

“That was not the case with my dad and stepmom.” Annabeth grumbles, bitterly. “He’s never cared about me.” 

Percy turned to face her. "You think you'll ever try living with your dad again?" 

She wouldn't meet his eyes. "Please. I'm not into self-inflicted pain."

"You shouldn't give up," Percy told her. "You should write him a letter or something."

"Thanks for the advice," Annabeth said coldly, "but my father's made his choice about who he wants to live with."

They sat in a slightly tense silence for several moments, before Percy decided to ask a question that had been plaguing the back of his mind. "So if the gods fight," he’d started , "will things line up the way they did with the Trojan War? Will it be Athena versus Poseidon?"

Annabeth put her head against the backpack Ares had given them, and closed her eyes. "I don't know what my mom will do. I just know I'll fight next to you."

Percy blinked, surprised by this. "Why?"

"Because you're my friend, Seaweed Brain. Any more stupid questions?"

Now, they were in Las Vegas (after releasing a zebra, an antelope, and a lion out on the streets), standing in front of the Lotus Hotel and Casino. The clientele was stagnant, with no one going in or out, but the doors were open, spilling out air-conditioning that smelled like lotus blossoms. 

The doorman smiled at them. "Hey, kids. You look tired. You want to come in and sit down?"

Chapter Text

Hazel

It’s been almost four months since Percy, Annabeth, and Grover left on their quest. It’s been four months since anyone has spoken to Percy, Annabeth, or Grover. 

Mr. D had been ready to pronounce the trio dead after the third week without any contact. It was Chiron who had decreed that they would wait until after the quest deadline before making any decisions. 

They did, after all, have a lot of time to complete their quest, and time might’ve gotten away from them. 

That had been about three months ago, and there were only two more days until Summer solstice-- the deadline for the quest. 

Hazel was quite certain that she was the only one that still believed them to be alive. 

“There must be some way to contact them.” Hazel had brought up the subject to Luke after Hermes’ sword fighting one day. “I’ve heard that there is a magical way to contact someone, if you would just tell me how--” 

Luke had shaken his head, slinging his sword over his shoulder as he walked back to the cabin. “We can’t interfere with another camper’s quest.” Luke had told her. “It’s not fair, and it’s dangerous. What if we end up messaging them in the middle of a fight? They lose their concentration for one second, and it could prove fatal.” 

“No one has heard from them in months !” Hazel argued. “ Most people think they’re already dead, can’t we just find out if it’s true or not?” 

Luke shrugs. “We can only communicate with them if they call first. It’s not my rule, Hazel. I’m sorry.” 

Hazel, fuming, spent most of her time ignoring Luke after that. 

Hazel learned pretty quickly that there were so many campers within Hermes cabin that as long as you were in attendance for morning and nightly roll calls, and dinner, you could really do whatever you wanted the rest of the time. 

Hazel used this gift by attending pretty much every sword fighting class that she could-- taking her stress out on unsuspecting straw dummies and campers that misjudged her for her size and relative newness. 

Her fellow campers thought that she was odd to give up training with Luke, but Hazel thought that their awe of the older camper was just as weird, so they called it even. 

When she wasn’t practicing her sword fighting, Hazel was in the Arts and Crafts cabin, perfecting Percy’s burial shroud. 

Since Percy was the only member of his cabin, Ares cabin had volunteered to make his shroud, before Hazel had the chance to. 

Hazel knew that Percy wasn’t dead. She knew it in her bones, just as she knew that Piper was still out there somewhere. 

However, she would not let him be claimed dead with the shroud they’d made him. 

‘Loser’ would not be the way that Percy was remembered. 

Clarisse, from Ares cabin, came up behind her shoulder, looking down at Hazel’s painting on the blue dyed sheet. “That’s a lot of effort for something that’s just going to get burned.”

Hazel huffs, not allowing her concentration to wane as she thickens the white lines of the trident. 

Clarisse sits in the chair beside Hazel, and leers at her. “I’ve heard that you’ve been asking around about Iris Messages.” 

“Maybe.” Hazel shrugs. “What about it?” 

Clarisse leans closer, her voice hushed, her breath fanning over Hazel in an unpleasant way. “I can help you.” 

Hazel and Clarisse walk to a secluded part of the woods, Hazel keeping one hand on the hilt of her spatha the entire time, just in case. She’d heard enough about the gruff counselor to be wary. 

Clarisse reaches into one of the pockets of her camouflage cargo pants. Hazel tenses, ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. 

“Here we are,” Clarisse huffs, showing off a large crystal. “Here,” She thrusts the crystal into Hazel’s hand. “Hold this up to the sunlight.” 

Hazel does as instructed, and watches as a brilliant rainbow reflects through the crystal, and slices through the humid air. 

Clarisse pulls something out of another one of her pockets, and places a large, golden coin into Hazel’s free hand. "You need to throw the drachma into the rainbow, say ‘ Oh Iris, goddess of the Rainbow, please accept my offering ’, and then the name of the person that you’re trying to contact."

Hazel narrows her eyes at the older girl. “Why are you helping me?”

“Because if you’re right, and those dorks are still out there, there’s a chance you’ll interrupt them in the middle of a monster fight.” Her grin turns wicked. “And I do not want to miss Prissy being skewered.” 

Intentions aside, Hazel throws the drachma into the rainbow with Clarisse standing over her shoulder. Hazel recounts the words that Clarisse told her to say, and follows it up with, “Percy Jackson.” 

She waits for one, long stretch of time that makes her heart stutter in her chest, before a static image forms in the rainbow.

“Percy!” Hazel exclaims, leaning forward. 

Percy’s face is blinking at Hazel.  “Hey…” He says slowly. His eyes are narrowed as he looks at her, a question in his eyes. “ You… ”

Hazel doesn’t even have time to question Percy’s odd behavior, too engrossed with the image before her. His hair is messy, just as she remembered. However the collar of an unfamiliar flannel shirt he’s wearing is wrinkled, and peaking out from under a white sheet. He’s leaning back against a pile of pillows a similar color as the comforter.

Clarisse asks the question that Hazel has on the tip of her tongue. “Where the Hades are you, Jackson?”

Percy blinks again, several times, as if he hadn’t even been aware of the other girl in the image until she spoke. “I-- I’m-- We--” His voice is growing stronger, his face scrunched in focus. “ We stopped by the Lotus Casino for a few days.” 

Hazel reels back at the name, something tickling her brain. She shakes her head to get rid of the feeling. “‘A few days’? Percy, you don’t exactly have much longer to complete your quest.” 

Percy’s eyebrows furrow, a glazed look over his face. “My… my… quest?”

Clarisse and Hazel share a look. “For the lightning bolt.” Hazel prompts. 

“The… the lightning bolt… right…” Percy sits up, running a hand through his hair. “We needed to get the lightning bolt to stop a war… between the gods…” His eyes widened, as if he was just taking in all of this information for the first time. “But then we stopped at the casino…” 

“Jackson, when did you get there?” Clarisse asks between clenched teeth. 

“February 24th.” Percy repeats, promptly. 

Hazel blinks at him several times. “Percy, you’ve been in a casino this whole time?” 

“What do you mean this whole time? It’s only been--” 

“Almost four months.” 

“No.” Percy mumbles, shaking his head. “We-- we’ve only been here a couple of days--” 

Clarisse scoffs. “You dumbass, you walked right into a trap! And it wasn’t even a dangerous one!” With that, she storms away in a huff. 

Huh, Hazel thinks. She really did just come here to see Percy get maimed. 

Percy, meanwhile, was still running his fingers through his hair on the other side of the mist. “Hazel, what day is it?”

“June 19th.” 

“Gods!” Percy groans. “The solstice is in two days.” 

“I know.” Hazel replies. “Which is why I decided to call you.” 

Percy blinks at her. “I’ve been gone for four months, you didn’t think that I was dead?” 

“Of course not.” Hazel tells him. “I knew you weren’t dead. Just like I know Piper is still alive.” 

“Piper…” Percy slaps his forehead. “Oh, my gods. I completely forgot. I forgot about the quest. I forgot about Piper, who is being held hostage by Hades, by the way. I forgot about you… I even forgot my own name.”

“You need to get out of there. Now.” Hazel tells him. 

Percy shakes his head. “I have to grab Annabeth and Grover. I don’t even know where they are right now.”

Hazel worries on her bottom lip. “Okay, look, you need to find them, and then you need to leave as soon as possible. And when you do, I need you to call me back. I don’t care how long it takes. If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow morning, I’m calling back.” 

Percy smiles at her. “Thanks. For everything.” 

“No, problem.” Hazel gives him a tightlipped smile. “Now, go. Get out of there.” 

When Percy’s misty image dissipates, Hazel lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Percy was safe. Piper was going to be safe.

Still, Hazel felt her chest constrict as she rolled the words ‘Lotus Casino’ over her tongue. She meets the rest of the Hermes campers at their table for dinner, the neon image of a lotus flower imprinted on the back of her eyelids. 

Chapter Text

Percy

It’s four thirty in the morning on the Santa Monica beach by the time Percy is able to call Hazel back. 

It had been midnight when Percy and Annabeth had dragged Grover out of the casino, and gotten into the first cab they’d found. A four hour drive to Santa Monica, a brief conversation with a Nereid , and three pearls in his pocket. 

That was what had occurred before Percy asked Annabeth to help him send an Iris Message to Hazel using the early morning sunrise and ocean spray. 

Hazel is bright eyed and bushy tailed, despite the fact that it was seven in New York, a morning person if Percy ever saw one. 

“Thank the gods.” Hazel exclaims underneath her breath as soon as she sees him. “I was getting worried. I was planning on calling you soon.” 

“So, why didn’t you?” Annabeth asks. 

Hazel looks around. “Well, I was planning on waiting until after breakfast. At least then the rest of the camp would be up.” 

Grover nods. “Makes sense.” 

“I’m glad that you guys got out of the casino.” Hazel sighs. She looks at something off to the side, and grimaces. “I’m getting some dirty looks from the other campers. But, thank you for calling back. Good luck on the rest of your quest, ‘kay?” 

“”Kay.” Percy smiles at her. “Thanks, Hazel.” 

After her image disappeared, the three friends turned their backs to the sea, ready to finally journey into the Underworld.

Their entire quest led them to this moment. Chopping off the head of a murderous mattress salesman, training Cerberus the three headed dog, almost being dragged into a literal pit straight to hell. It had all been so that they could go to Hades and retrieve the Master Bolt. 

And he hadn’t taken it .

Even worse, the person that had taken it had stowed it away in a backpack that he’d given Percy, and it had been there for-- what had Hazel said?-- almost four months . 

"Lord Hades, wait," Percy said. "This is all a mistake."

"A mistake?" Hades roared. His army of skeletons and Furies stir around him. "There is no mistake, I know why you have come—I know the real reason you brought the bolt. You came to bargain for her."

Hades released a ball of gold fire from his palm. It exploded on the steps in front of the three of them, and there was Piper. Muddied, wet, frozen in a shower of gold, just as she was at the moment when the Minotaur began to squeeze her to death.

Percy’s arm reached out to her without his consent, the light burning his fingertips like a fire. 

"Yes," Hades said with satisfaction. "I took her. I knew, Percy Jackson, that you would come to bargain with me eventually. Return my helm, and perhaps I will let her go. She is not dead, you know. Not yet. But if you displease me, that will change."

Percy considered his options. He still had the pearls that his father had gifted him. If he could grab them, maybe he could somehow escape with Piper-- 

"Ah, the pearls," Hades said, and Percy’s eyes widened. "Yes, my brother and his little tricks. Bring them forth, Percy Jackson."

Percy does as instructed without conscious thought. 

"Only three," Hades says with no small amount of satisfaction. "What a shame. You do realize each only protects a single person. Try to take your girlfriend , then, little godling. And which of your friends will you leave behind to spend eternity with me? Go on. Choose. Or give me the backpack and accept my terms."

"We were tricked," Percy told Annabeth and Grover through clenched teeth. "Set up."

"Yes, but why?" Annabeth asked. "And the voice in the pit—"

"I don't know yet," Percy huffs. "But I intend to ask."

"Decide, boy!" Hades yelled.

"Percy." Grover put his hand on Percy’s shoulder. "You can't give him the bolt,"

"I know that."

"Leave me here," he said. "Use the third pearl on Piper."

Percy immediately shakes his head. "No!"

"Percy, I was supposed to protect Piper. It’s my fault that she was taken. I should be the one to take her spot. It's the best way." Grover argues. “Besides, I'm a satyr, we don't have souls like humans do. He can torture me until I die, but he won't get me forever. I'll just be reincarnated as a flower or something.”

"No." Annabeth drew her bronze knife. "You two go on. Grover, you have to protect Percy. You have to get your searcher's license and start your quest for Pan. Get the girl out of here. I'll cover you. I plan to go down fighting." Ananbeth’s lips are curved into a thin line, as if she’d already accepted her grim fate. 

"No way," Grover said. "I'm staying behind."

"Think again, goat boy," Annabeth huffs, one arm extended as if to stop Grover from running away.

"Stop it, both of you!" Percy’s voice was strangled. 

He remembered what he’d told Annabeth on the train. She had asked, “Why are you so determined to save her?”, and he’d replied, “Because she’s my friend.”

And it was still true. Piper was his friend. But so were Annabeth and Grover. The three of them had been through so much, and here they were, both attempting to sacrifice their life for his sake. 

He couldn’t let that happen. He knew what he had to do. 

"I know what to do," Percy said. "Take these." He hands them both a pearl. 

Annabeth said, "But, Percy ..."

He faced Piper. He wanted to be the one to stay behind. Sacrifice himself for her. But he remembered what Hazel had told him when he said he wouldn’t return without Piper. “But… then I won’t have either of you.” 

“I’ll be back. And so will Piper.” He’d promised her. 

"I'm sorry," Percy told Piper, as if she could hear him. "I'll find a way to bring you back."

And the only way for that to happen was to make sure that everybody got what they needed. Zeus would get his lightning bolt back, and Hades would get his helm. 

The smug look on Hades's face faded. He said, "Godling ... ?"

"I'll find your helm, Uncle," Percy told him. "I'll return it, and when I do, I expect you to return her . And remember Charon's pay raise. And it wouldn't hurt to play with Cerberus once in a while. He likes red rubber balls."

"Percy Jackson, you will not—"

Percy shouted, "Now, guys!" They smashed the pearls at their feet.

Piper

Piper gasps for air, stumbling forward, grabbing hold to the trunk of a nearby tree for support. 

She looks around, desperately. “Hazel? Percy?” Out of habit, Piper grabs for her knife, and breathes a sigh of relief when she finds it exactly where she left it, stuffed in the waistband of her jeans. 

The last thing Piper remembers was being grabbed by the Minotaur, rain falling into her eyes, mud coating the cuffs of her jeans and falling into her shoes. Then, she’d been blinded by a flash of golden light. Now she is here. And things were… different. 

First off, it was now, somehow, morning, and definitely not raining. Sunlight shone down on the top of the hill where she was standing, waves of heat visibly rising from the ground. She’s both soaked-- from the rain and mud-- and hot-- from the mixture of heat and her Winter layers. 

Most notably, Piper was completely and utterly alone. No Hazel. No Percy. No unconscious Grover. No Minotaur. 

She looks down at the valley below, squinting through the harsh light of day to get a better view of what lies past the hill. There is a big, blue house set up next to what looked like a soccer field. Closer to the base of the hill was a semicircle of small cabins. Everywhere Piper looked, dark shapes were dotted around, moving about. 

People. That seemed like a promising place to start.

Piper makes her way, stumbling, down the hill, aimed at the closest group of dark figures crowded outside the nearest cabin. When she reaches the grass at the base of the hill, she digs her heels into the ground to halt her momentum. 

Her left hand reaches for her knife out of habit, while she waves her right hand over her head to grab the group’s attention. “Hey! Over here! I need help!” 

She starts walking closer to them, slowly, carefully. The closer she gets to the group, the more details that Piper can start to make out. They all appear to be kids, both younger and older than Piper, each of them wearing a terrible, orange t-shirt. 

“Hi!” She yells out to the kids, the ones in front eyeing her grubby, dirty state wearily. “I-- I’m not sure how I got here.” Piper says truthfully. “Do you know where--” 

` “Piper!” Suddenly, a member of the group, hidden behind her taller peers, rushes out of the group, towards Piper. 

She appears to be slightly taller than Piper remembers, cleaner than she’d ever seen. Her curls are pulled into a sleek ponytail, she’s wearing the same orange shirt as the others, and a pair of jeans that seem to be her actual size. And yet, there is no mistaking Hazel as she runs into Piper’s arms, not caring at all about the fact that the other girl is muddy or wet or alarmingly confused by all that is happening. 

“Pipes, you’re back. I knew it! I knew you weren’t dead!” Hazel is murmuring into Piper’s shoulder, rubbing her cheek against the damp material of her Winter coat. “Percy said he would bring you back, and he did !” 

“Percy?” Piper repeats, looking around. 

“Yeah!” Hazel’s face falls minutely. She also looks around, as if expecting Percy to materialize out of thin air, worrying on her lower lip. “He isn’t back yet.” 

“Hazel,” Piper whispers, grabbing Hazel’s face in between her hands. “You’re okay.” 

“Of course I’m okay.” Hazel says in a ‘duh’ sort of tone. “The surprising thing is that you’re okay.” 

A few kids from Hazel’s group wander over to them, looking at Piper as if she were an oddity. 

“Yo, Hazel, this is your friend that got snatched by the Minotaur?” A sandy haired boy asks. 

“I guess you were right when you said she wasn’t dead.” His identical twin states. 

Piper blinks several times, her brain moving too slow to follow this conversation. Why did people keep thinking that I was dead? Where is Percy? Why do I see two of those boys?

She’s so caught in her thoughts that she blanks out for a few seconds. When she returns to reality, more kids are surrounding them, and Hazel is talking to her very fast, one of her hands in Piper’s, the other nervously picking at the hem of her orange t-shirt. “I’ll take you to Chiron, we can get you cleaned up, show you the orientation video. I can probably move the sleeping bag next to me over to make room--” 

Hazel yelps, and lets go of Piper’s hand as a bright, pink light envelopes Piper. The older girl flinches, recent memories making her wary of light of any color. Thankfully, when her vision is clear, the scene before her is mostly the same. Except.. Hazel and the other kids are now gaping at her. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Piper asks, self-consciously wrapping her arms around herself, her hands gripping her bare forearms. Wait… hadn’t she been wearing her winter jacket?

Piper looks down at herself to find that she had… changed. A pristine white tank top and denim shorts replaced her dirty, wet coat and jeans. Her converse were still on her feet, but they were now clean-- as clean as the day that Piper had taken them out of the box-- and dry. Her fingernails were cleared of dirt, her hair was pulled back into a braid. She can even smell the faint whiff of roses wafting from her skin, so unlike the sickly sweet marshmallow scent she’d been perfuming herself with for months. 

“What the hell is happening?” Piper breaths, looking at Hazel with wide eyes. 

“Holy, crap!” One of the sandy-haired boys yells out. “I think that might be a record for fastest claim!” 

Piper leans closer to Hazel. “What are these people talking about?” 

Hazel bites her lip, grabbing Piper’s hand. “Yeah… we really need to show you that orientation film.”

Chapter Text

Hazel

Hazel had to keep a certain distance between herself and Piper for the time being, lest she allow a headache to form behind her eyes. 

Piper still smells heavily of vanilla and roses, from Aphrodite’s Blessing, and a nearly noxious mixture of different perfumes from her first night in her new cabin settling over her like a cloud. 

Of course, Piper hadn’t even spent a full night in her cabin. 

After meeting Chiron and watching the orientation film, Piper had been introduced to her siblings in Cabin 10. 

Hazel wasn’t quite sure how they had gotten along with one another after the initial introductions, giving them some space at Chiron’s instructions. However, by lights out, Piper had snuck out of her bunk to find Hazel, who had snuck out as well.  

The two had ended up breaking into Percy’s cabin for the night, Hazel waking Piper up early the next morning so they wouldn’t be caught out of bed. 

It was almost like the three of them were together again. In spirit, anyway. 

Hazel had tried asking Piper about her time in the Underworld, trying to figure out if she remembered having seen Percy, but Piper seemed pretty clueless about any of it. 

As far as the older girl was concerned, she had been in the Minotaur’s grasp, and the next thing she knew, she was at the top of Half-Blood Hill. 

Currently, Piper and Hazel are walking with the Aphrodite cabin to Arts & Crafts. Hazel was hoping to show Piper the shroud that she had been making for Percy, gripping Piper’s left forearm with her right hand as they walked.

“It’s blueish gray, and I painted a golden trident on it.” Hazel explains, talking with her hands. 

Piper nods, slowly.“So, what exactly do burial shrouds do ?” 

“When a camper dies, we burn the shroud to memorialize them. If there’s a body to be recovered, they get burned together.”

Piper swallows thickly. “What about when Percy comes back?” 

“Then he gets to burn it!” Hazel answers, brightly.  “Anyways, I was hoping you could add some details of your own to it.” 

“I mean, I can. But, just to warn you, I’m not super artistic.”

As they walk by, Hazel glances over at the Big House-- a habit that she had formed in the months since Percy left on his quest-- and stops in her tracks. 

“Woah!” Piper exclaims, confused by the sudden stop in her tracks. “What’s wrong?” 

Hazel grips Piper’s chin, and makes her face the Big House, where three familiar figures are standing on the porch. 

Piper narrows her eyes. “Is that--” 

“Annabeth and Grover are back!” Hazel breathes out, before breaking into a run. 

She hears Piper chasing after her. “Wait for me!” 

Hazel is light, and quick on her feet, quickly eating away at the distance between her and the Big House. 

“You’re back!” Hazel screeches, skipping up the stairs, and crashing straight into a bewildered Annabeth. 

“Hazel?” Annabeth lets out a very un-Annabeth-like squeak. 

“You did it!” She exclaims, wrapping her arms around Annabeth. Annabeth awkwardly pats Hazel’s back, as the younger girl pulls away from her. “Grover!” 

“Hey,” Grover seems just as surprised as Annabeth is when Hazel hugs him as well. “You seem happy.” 

“I am.” Hazel tells him, pulling back, her eyes roaming the porch for the third member of the quest. “Hey, wheres--”

“Hazel,” Piper says in between heavy breaths, her hands placed on her knees. “You need to give me a break. I haven’t run in four months.” 

Grover’s eyes widened at seeing the new girl. “Piper!” 

Piper nods in acknowledgement. “Grover. How’re you--” 

Grover bursts into tears as he walks past Hazel and Annabeth to grip Piper’s forearms. “I’m so sorry!” 

“Woah!” Piper exclaims, surprised by the sudden mood swing of the satyr. “Why are you sorry?” 

“You got ta-ta-taken on m-my watch !” Grover wails. “I- I should’ve been there to he-he-help you! And I couldn’t!” 

“Dude, we were in a car accident .” Piper reminds him. “You banged your head on the steering wheel. I don’t blame you for being hurt .” 

“B-bu-bu--” 

Piper punctuates each word to make sure that he understands her unequivocally. “No ‘buts’. I. Do. Not . Blame you.” 

Chiron, who had been by himself off in his wheelchair form, largely silent during this reunion, clears his throat. “Come here, Grover.” Grover nods slowly, clomping over to Chiron. “Pull yourself together, son.” 

“Okay.” Grover sniffles. 

This just leaves the three girls alone. Annabeth’s eyes rake over Piper, her eyes narrowed as she takes in the younger girl. “So, you’re Piper.” Her voice sounds slightly strained. 

“Yup.” Piper pops the ‘p’ of the word. “And you’re Annabeth. It’s nice to meet you. Hazel has told me a lot about you.” 

Annabeth gives a tightlipped smile which doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Same here.” 

Grover has finally managed to take hold of his emotions, and looks at Piper. He says in an only slightly watery voice,  “Percy is going to be so happy to see you safe and sound.” 

Hazel clears her throat, cocking her head to the side. She finally decides to ask the question that has been on her mind since she found only Grover and Annabeth standing on the Big House porch. “Where is Percy?”

Percy

Percy wrings his hands together, steeling his nerves, before pressing the buzzer number for his mom’s apartment. 

Percy could fight the freaking god of war without a second thought, but he needed a moment in order to face his mom again. 

He knows that he should probably go straight to Camp Half-Blood. Let his friends know that a war between the Gods wasn’t going to happen, and he hadn’t been incinerated by Zeus. Maybe check to see if Hades had upheld his side of their bargain. 

But, this moment was a long time in the making. He’d been gone for over six months without any form of direct contact. The only way that his mom had any idea what he was doing was through the Newspapers documenting his ‘terrorist activities’. 

Percy hears a crackle from the buzzer, and his knees go weak at the sound of his mother’s voice after so long. 

“Leave me the fuck alone or I’m calling the cops!” 

He lets out only a small, weak, “Huh?” 

His mom pauses for a long moment, before she timidly asks, “Who is this?” 

Percy clears his throat. “Mama,” A name that he hadn’t called her in years, but seemed right for this occasion. “It’s me. It’s Percy.” 

The second that door to the apartment opens, Percy is taken into a bone crushing hug. “Oh, Percy!” Sally breathes, her face pressed into his shoulder. “Oh, my baby boy!” 

Usually, Percy would feel embarrassed by this display of affection from his mom, especially since they were still visible to any neighbor that might’ve been peeking through their peephole. However, it’s been far too long since he’s seen his mother,-- around the time he’d gone to Yancy last fall-- let alone been held by her like this. 

“I missed you.” He whispers, holding her tightly. 

Sally pulls away, just enough to look at him, and hold his face in between her hands. “Oh, look at you.” She blinks back what looks like tears. “Come inside, come inside. We have a lot to talk about.”

The house is cleaner than Percy has ever remembered it being. The poker table usually taking over the entire room is gone, and as are the old, smelly men that usually occupy it. There is no trash littering the ground, or empty dishes that used to contain food. The smell of cigars is still present, but it’s been tapered off, as if someone has spent a large amount of time trying to rid it of the environment. 

In summation, it looked as if every trace of Smelly Gabe having lived in this apartment had been scrubbed clean. 

Sally leads him over to the couch, smelling heavily of fabric cleaner, and holds his hands. Neither Jackson was willing to let the other one go quite yet. 

“When Grover came by, and said that he located you, I’d hoped that you were safe.” Sally tells him, raising one of her hands, and running it through his hair. “But, then I heard about the car accident, and I didn’t hear anything until the newspapers came out--” 

Percy hangs his head. “I should’ve called you when I got to camp. It’s just… things got so insane. First, Piper was kidnapped, and then I had to go on a quest, and save her--” 

Sally cocks her head to the side. “Whose Piper?” 

Percy hesitates, considering the best way to explain everything that had occurred since he ran away what felt like forever ago. 

“When I ran away, I found this abandoned, old warehouse to stay in. While I was there, I met two other girls who had left their homes, too; Piper and Hazel.” He hesitates. “They’re like me.” 

Sally peers closely at him. “You mean that they’re demigods?” 

Percy nods. “Yeah. When Grover found us, he took the three of us to camp. But the Mino--” 

“Percy.” Sally interrupts him, looking around, as if afraid that the monster would jump out of the hall closet. “Don’t say the name.” 

“Right. Names have power.” It is so odd, being able to talk about this new world with his mother, so openly, despite the fact that that was one of the many things they still had to talk about. “Anyway, he followed us, and Piper was brought to the Underworld. So, I took Grover and this girl named Annabeth on a quest to the Underworld to rescue her.” It was a vast understatement of all that had transpired, but he didn’t want to send his mother into shock right after getting her back. 

“It sounds like you really care about her.” 

“I do.” Percy says, truthfully. “I care about them both.” He hesitates, not sure if he should share this next part. “I think that I might’ve come home after a few days, except I couldn’t leave them alone.”  

Sally takes a deep breath. “So, I suppose I don’t have to tell you about your father.” She lets out a soft laugh. “I wish I’d known that when I spent the last twelve years preparing the best way to tell you that--” 

“My father was the god of the sea.” 

“Yeah.”

Percy swallows. “I met him, you know. Like, an hour ago.” 

Sally’s eyes fill with a thousand possible questions. Finally, she settles on, “How did it go?” 

Percy admits, “I’m still trying to figure it out.”

Sally has a small, bitter smile on her lips. “Poseidon has that effect on people.”

A long, heavy silence follows this. 

“Grover told me the truth.” Percy tells her. “About why you married Gabe. His smell .” He means for that to be a joke, but it falls kind of flat given the current situation. “I’m glad that… once I was gone… you didn’t have to deal with him anymore.” 

Sally shakes her head. “Percy, I only ever did what I did, because I thought that it would be protecting you.” She wipes at her eyes. “It just didn’t occur to me until too late that I was still putting you into harm's way.” 

Percy shakes his head. “Mom, it’s not your fault.” 

“No, it is.” Sally insists. “I should’ve wisened up sooner. Realized that there was more to it than a few arguments when you were in the same house.” She peers closely at him. “He hurt you, didn’t he?” 

Percy looks down, not being able to meet her eyes. “I should’ve been able to handle it better.” 

Sally lets out a watery chuckle, but it is devoid of amusement. “You must get that from me. I said the same thing every single day. But, once you were gone, I had to face the fact that the most important thing in my life was gone, and it was partially because I let him into our lives.”

Percy shakes his head, repeating, “It’s not your fault, mom.”

Sally presses her lips together. Percy could tell by the look in her eyes that he was far from convincing her, but she seemed to decide against further arguments. “Tell me about these friends of yours.” 

Percy hesitates, a little dizzy from the change of conversation, but clinging to the distraction like a lifeline. “Well, Hazel is pretty young. Like, 9.”

Sally’s eyes widened. “And she ran away from home?”

Percy nods. “She said that her foster mom was pretty old, and forgetful. And she had a bunch of cats that kept attacking her.”

“That’s terrible.” 

“She’s at camp now, so she’s at least safe.” Percy can’t help the feeling of guilt that creeps up when he thinks about how long she had been at camp by herself. ”Hazel gets really bad motion sickness, and she hates loud noises. But, she’s really funny, and sweet.” He remembers the nights at the warehouse where Hazel would snuggle against him and Piper, bridging the gap between them. “And, you wouldn’t tell by looking at her, but she has a bit of a temper.

“Piper, she’s kind of closed off, sarcastic, and a bit spoiled. We were going hungry, and she refused to eat some of the food because she’s a vegetarian .” He exaggerates the word, to show off his disgust. “We didn’t really get along at first. But, she’s really caring, especially for Hazel, and she’s definitely smarter than I am.” Percy doesn’t tell his mom about Piper’s dad, or why she ran away. That had been a private conversation between them, and he didn’t want to break her trust. 

It’s odd to think that the three of them have been apart longer than they’ve been together, and yet, Percy can’t wait to see the two of them again. He felt responsible for them, and he would bet that the two of them felt just as responsible for him. It was a bond he didn’t quite understand himself, let alone explain to his mom. 

Maybe, though, she does understand. Sally’s eyes appear glassy, even as she smiles at him. “I would really like to meet them.” 

“I would like that too.” 

Another silence, though lighter, more comfortable than before. 

It was then that Percy remembered what Poseidon had told him: “When you return home, Percy, you must make an important choice. You will find a package waiting in your room.”

Percy opens up the door to his bedroom, only able to take in the fact that it is cleaned, and looked completely prepared for his return, when a ruckus from the street grabs his attention. 

“SALLY!” A voice yells from outside. Sally and Percy both rush to the window, and look down to see Gabe standing in the street, yelling up at them. “LET ME IN, SALLY! IT’S MY HOUSE, TOO!” 

Percy looks up at his mom. “Has he been doing this often?” 

Sally sighs. “Off and on since I changed the locks. He was gone during the whole, ‘my stepson is a criminal mastermind’ thing, but then I sent the divorce papers…” 

“IS THAT PUNK UP THERE! LEMME AT ‘EM!” A nearby cop rushes over, and grabs Gabe by the arm, pulling him away from the building, all the while Gabe keeps shouting, “FIRST YOU TAKE MY CAR, THEN YOU TAKE MY APARTMENT! I WON’T LET THIS STAND! I’LL BE BACK!” 

Sally huffs, “I was the one that paid for both of them.” 

Percy shakes his head. “I wish there was some way I could stop him from bothering you, Mom.” 

Sally shakes her head. “That is not your job, Percy. I made the mistake of not telling you that before.” 

That’s when his eye lands on his still open bedroom door, a brown, cardboard box visible on top of his bed. He was quite positive that it hadn’t been there before.  

Percy rushes to the bedroom, and picks up the box, seeing his familiar handwriting addressing it to the gods. However, now his mother’s apartment number and the words, ‘Return to Sender’ were also scrawled on the top. The box is heavy and warm. 

Percy knows exactly what is inside, and he knows exactly what it needs to be used for.  “Mom, do you want Gabe gone?”

Sally raises both of her eyebrows. “How can he be any more gone than he already is?” 

“I mean, do you want him to never be able to come after you again?” Gabe may be old and stupid, but Percy knew that a man with a one track mind would never stop. And there wouldn’t always be someone around to protect his mom outside the building, or on the way home from work. 

“Of course I do, Percy. But you can't do this for me. You can't solve my problems."

"I can do it," He tells her, because it would be so easy. He would do it, protecting his mom from Gabe, and keep the blood off her hands. But she was right. It wasn’t his decision to make. "One look inside this box, and he'll never bother you again."

She glanced at the package, and seemed to understand immediately. Of course she did, she had been the one to teach him the story of the woman whose head now rested in his hands.  "No, Percy," she said. "You can't ."

"Poseidon called you a queen," He tells her. "He said he hadn't met a woman like you in a thousand years."

Her cheeks flushed. "Percy—"

"You deserve better than this, Mom. You should go to college, get your degree. You can write your novel, meet a nice guy maybe, live in a nice house. And you deserve to do that free from worrying about Smelly Gabe for the rest of your life. Let me get rid of him."

She smiles, sadly. "You sound so much like your father. He offered to stop the tide for me once. He offered to build me a palace at the bottom of the sea. He thought he could solve all my problems with a wave of his hand."

"What's wrong with that?"

Her eyes peered straight through to his soul, like they always had, and probably always would. "I think you know, Percy. I think you're enough like me to understand. If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself. I can't let a god take care of me ... or my son. I have to find the courage on my own. Being without you reminded me of that."

Percy wants to fight. He wants to insist that he can do this, and take care of his mother, like he’d always tried to do. 

Instead, he hands her the box. “Mom, there’s a way to get him off your back. It’s up to you if you want to use it.” He hesitates, glancing at the front door. “I have to go.” 

“No .” Sally whispers, grabbing him by the forearms. “You can’t leave.” 

“Not forever.” Percy promises. “But, I have to go back to camp.” Sally shakes her head, sadly. “I have to tell everyone that I didn’t die, and I have to check on Piper and Hazel.” 

“I always knew that the day that you found out about your father would be the day that I lost a part of you. I was selfish for keeping it from you for so long.” 

Percy shakes his head. “Mom, you aren’t losing me. I promise. I’ll make sure to call you when I get back to camp, and we’ll stay in touch the rest of the summer.” He glances down at the package. “And you make sure to let me know what happens.” 

Percy doesn’t have to clarify what he’s referring to. They both understand. 

“I love you.” Sally whispers, pressing a kiss to his forehead. 

“I love you too.” Percy tells her, before turning away, and walking out the same door that he had run out of so many months ago. 

Except, this time, it isn’t a goodbye.

Chapter Text

Piper

In the span of less than a day, Piper found out that Greek gods were real, the mother that she had never known (and always secretly resented) was the goddess of love ,  and she had missed four months of her life kidnapped by another one of those gods . 

All things considered, Piper thinks that she was handling things relatively well. 

She’s spent a lot of the last day catching up with Hazel, and worrying about Percy-- who had apparently risked his life to stop some war between the gods, and save her from the Underworld (If she stops focusing on either of them, Piper will then start thinking about how it’s now been about six months since she ran away, and guilt will start eating away at her.).

It had been about two hours since Hazel and her had ditched the Aphrodite kids (her siblings , gods that would never not sound weird) in favor of meeting with the newly returned Annabeth and Grover. 

Chiron had suggested that they all get back to their regularly scheduled activities. 

Piper and Hazel had taken seats on the porch and refused to move. 

He didn’t argue. 

Hazel was in the middle of a game of cards with Dionysus (yes that Dionysus), Grover,  and Chiron, which she seemed to be winning at. How a nine year old girl could beat two immortal beings in a game of cards, don’t ask her, but as long as Hazel wasn’t being smited, she wouldn’t ask any questions. 

Annabeth was sitting, straight backed in her chair. However, if the way she was incessantly tapping her foot on the ground was any indication, she was far from patiently waiting. 

Piper wasn’t sure what to make of the other girl. On one hand, Hazel had spoken highly of her, and Piper had a deep-seated urge to have Annabeth like her. But the glare that was fixed on Piper by Annabeth made that goal seem impossible.

Needing something to occupy her mind, Piper grabs her knife out of its sheath. 

After watching the orientation video yesterday, Hazel had outfitted her with a leather waist scabbard, which Piper had wasted no time in sheathing her knife in. 

Hazel had then briefly explained to her that only weapons made of a certain metal could be used to kill monsters. 

Since Piper had managed to kill the Fury that used to teach Percy math with her knife, she assumed that it would be safe to use. 

Annabeth’s eyes narrow, if possible, even further at the sight of the knife. She leans close to Piper, thoroughly invading the younger girl’s personal space, to the point where Piper can smell the mintiness of Annabeth’s breath. “Where did you find that?” 

Piper hesitates, not entirely sure how she feels about the closeness of the other girl. “Um, my backpack.” She replies, eloquently.

Annabeth does not appear amused by this. “Did you get that from the Weapons’ Shed? It hasn’t been in inventory for months.” 

Piper moves as far back in her chair as she could, trying to put as much space between her and Annabeth as possible. Something about their close proximity was making her skin prickle uncomfortably.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I told you, I got it from my backpack.” She tilts her head, curiously. “Why? Do you recognize my knife?” 

Annabeth grimaces. “It’s a dagger . A parazonium to be more accurate.” 

“Is there a difference?” 

One of Annabeth’s eyes twitched. “Daggers are longer, and they typically have a triangular blade. But, that isn’t the point!” She points at the dagger in Piper’s hand. “That dagger used to belong to Helen of Troy. It’s called Katoptris , which means ‘looking glass’. Probably because that’s all Helen ever used it for.”

Piper looks down at her dagger. “You think that this blade that I randomly found in my backpack once belonged to the Helen of Troy?” 

“I know it is.” Annabeth declares. “I’ve spent a long time cataloging every weapon in our inventory, and recognizing them. That is Katoptris .” 

Piper glances down at the bronze blade, catching her reflection in the metal-- not for the first time, though often accidentally, as she had often avoided looking at herself, especially after so many weeks of not showering. 

For a moment, though, she swears that the image shifts. She is no longer looking at herself, but at a boy running down the slope of a giant hill. 

Piper’s head snaps up, her eyes darting towards Half-Blood Hill (a name she still found weird, but that's besides the point), which marked the entrance to camp.

Annabeth looks at the younger girl questioningly. “What are you--”

Piper jumps to her feet as she sees a figure racing down the hill, just like she’d seen in her knife, and screams out, “He’s here!” 

Hazel gets out of her chair so fast, that it falls backwards onto the deck. She doesn’t look at her questioningly like Grover, or ask if she’s sure like Annabeth. Instead, Hazel runs towards Piper, grabs her arm and starts dragging her away from the porch. 

“That counts as forfeiting!” Dionysus yells after Hazel, as Annabeth and Grover start running after the two girls. 

The small figure on the hill becomes bigger as the four campers tear up the distance between their missing link.

“Percy!” Annabeth and Grover are the first ones to reach him, Piper trailing behind because she isn’t the most athletic girl in the world. Hazel was right beside her, but Piper was quite certain that was a choice she made to make sure Piper wasn’t alone rather than a true testament of her abilities. 

Annabeth grabs Percy, as if about to shake him, only to surprise both Percy and Piper alike by pulling him into a hug. It is over as quickly as it begins, and by the time Piper makes it to the small group, she can only hear Annabeth mutter, “I’m glad you’re alive.”

“So am I.” Percy replies, puffing his chest out a bit, as if unconsciously attempting to prove to everyone around him that his lungs are still working. 

Grover wraps him in a hug next, letting out long bleats as he attempts to get out the words, “I was… so… worried about… you!”

Percy gently pats Grover’s back. “It’s alright, big guy. I’m okay.” 

“I’m guessing you returned the Master Bolt.” It’s phrased as a statement, not a question. Piper got the feeling that Annabeth didn’t often have to ask questions. 

“Yeah,” Percy says, his eyes finally falling on Piper and Hazel, who are only holding themselves back because of the fact that Grover was still wrapped around Percy like a human shield. “No war between the gods incoming.” 

“‘War between the gods.’” Piper repeats. “I feel like I missed a lot when I was busy being kidnapped.”

Percy’s attention snaps solely on her, and his face breaks into a grin. “Piper!” He gently places his hands on Grover’s shoulders to push the still blubbering satyr away.  

Annabeth clears her throat, shifting on her feet from side to side. If Piper hadn’t spent the better part of two hours under the girl’s intimidating glare, she would think that Annabeth felt uncomfortable. 

“We’ll give you guys some space. Tell Chiron the good news and all.” She grips Grover by his forearm-- hard, judging by the way that Grover winces-- and drags him away. 

They’re only a few steps away before Hazel can no longer hold herself back, and rushes at Percy with the force of a small bullet. Or, perhaps a very big bullet, since Hazel was much bigger than any bullet that Piper had ever seen? She was never very good at creating metaphors. 

When Hazel pulls back from Percy, they both look expectantly at Piper. 

“Hey, Pipes.” Percy says, and though he’s still smiling, he looks hesitant as he steps closer to her. “It’s good to see you… y’know, moving.” 

He places a hand on her shoulder, gently, obviously remembering how little she encouraged touch. However, she decides to surprise him by pulling him into a full hug. With two arms and everything.

Piper isn’t like Hazel. She isn’t a big hugger, and she isn’t overly affectionate by nature. However, Percy just went on a quest to the Underworld to rescue her from the god of the dead, so she decides that this was a circumstance that warranted more than the standard one-armed hug.

“When did you return?” Percy asks.

“Yesterday.” Piper replies, her voice slightly muffled by his shoulder. 

She feels some sort of tension release from Percy, as he grips her just a little bit tighter. “He upheld his promise.” 

“Who?” Piper asks, blinking up at him as she pulls back. 

Percy hesitates, before shrugging. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you guys later.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Piper promises, smiling at Hazel as she steps between the two of them.

“I really missed you.” Hazel says, grabbing one of Percy’s hands, then one of Piper’s. “Both of you.”

“Ditto.” Percy gives her an indulgent smile. “Did I miss anything big around here?” Percy asks, his attention mostly on Hazel for this question, which makes sense since Piper has only been at camp for less than 24 hours. He has no reason to suspect--

“Piper got claimed!” Hazel reveals, with no little amount of amusement in her tone.

Percy blinks at the two girls. “ Already ?” 

Piper sends Hazel an unamused look.

“Who’s your mom?” He hesitates. “I am assuming it’s your mom, right? Otherwise, I have a lot of questions.”

She mumbles the name, knowing that not even Hazel, who is standing right beside her, could understand what she was saying. 

“What was that?” Percy asks, leaning closer. 

Piper wrinkles her nose, before repeating herself louder. “My mom is Aphrodite.”

Percy blinks at her. “Your mom is Aphrodite ?” He repeats.

Piper purses her lips. “Yes.” She bites out, refusing to make eye contact. 

Percy breaks into loud, raucous laughter. “What? No way ! You’re living in the Barbie Dreamhouse ?” 

“Shut up, Mermaid Man !” Piper hisses, shoving him in the shoulder, which has less to do with throwing him off balance than the fact that he’s still doubled over with laughter.

Hazel glances over at the Big House’s front porch, her smile dimming only slightly, before looking back at Piper and Percy. “We should head over, so you can give Chiron the whole story.”

“And then tell me and Hazel the rest of it.” Piper says pointedly. 

Percy rolls his eyes. “Sounds like a plan.”

Hazel starts walking towards the house, dragging Piper and Percy behind her by the hands that she is still holding. 

And, for the first time in too long, everything seems like it’s exactly where it’s supposed to be.

Chapter Text

Hazel

It’s been eight days since Percy returned to camp. One more day than that since Piper came back from the Underworld. And, the three of them had been more or less inseparable since then. 

The night that Percy came back, the camp had hosted the shroud burning for Annabeth and Percy. 

Both Hazel and the members of Ares’ cabin had brought their shrouds. Percy had chosen to burn the one that Clarisse gave him, telling Hazel that he would much rather keep hers for the day that he actually died, and wouldn’t have the chance to watch it turn to ash. 

Hazel had decided to take that as a compliment. As well as the many verbal compliments that Piper had been heaping on her for her work. 

The three of them had been more or less inseparable since Percy’s return. Apparently, being on a quest had made Percy even less enthusiastic to be in his cabin all by himself every night. So, Piper and Hazel still snuck out of their respective cabins to go to Percy’s after lights out. 

If anyone noticed their excursions, they were nice enough not to mention it to Mr. D, Chiron, or the harpies that patrolled at night. Which was nice, considering the fact that Hazel had heard that the harpies were allowed to eat any camper that was caught out of bed. 

It was during these nights, where it was nobody but the three of them, when Percy regaled the two girls with stories about his quest. During one night in particular, he was telling them about the prophecy that the Oracle had given him. 

“It told you that you would be betrayed by a friend?” Piper asks, lying on the top bunk bed over Percy’s, meaning that Hazel and Percy couldn’t see her face. 

Couldn’t see how she had reacted to the ‘you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end’ line of the prophecy. Something that Hazel could see from her vantage point was causing stress to Percy. 

Percy, who had clearly not been expecting that to be the part of the prophecy that Piper had focused on, if the way he jolts is any indication. “Um, yeah. But, I’m still here, and nobody has betrayed me.” 

“Did you worry that we would betray you?” Hazel asks him. It seemed easier to ask the question in the darkness, when she didn’t have to worry about looking at him as she asks, what should be, an obvious question. 

However, Percy doesn’t even hesitate in his answer. “No.”

“Why not?” Hazel can’t help but ask. She would never betray Percy or Piper, but the fact that Percy was warned that a friend would betray him, and that he hadn’t suspected two of his four friends, seemed suspicious. 

“I trust you guys.” Percy says, his voice is growing softer, as if he was being lulled into sleep, but his words hadn’t lost any of their conviction. “I wouldn’t betray you. You wouldn’t betray me.”

As if anything was ever that simple. But, as she falls asleep that night, with the deep breathing of Piper and Percy acting as her lullaby, Hazel thinks that maybe it could be that simple.

During the daytime, Hazel and Percy tagged along with the Aphrodite cabin during some of their activities-- such as sword fighting, arts & crafts (for Hazel), and Pegasus riding (for Percy)-- much to the displeasure of their rather stuck-up head counselor. Most of the time, though, the two of them would park themselves in the arena until mealtimes. 

Piper, much like most of her siblings (though don’t say that to her face), was not overly fond of learning how to use her weapon. However, she was proud to put on a show of the opposite for her siblings, and tickled pink to find out that she was ahead of most if not all of the other Aprhodite kids. 

Grover would occasionally join them, just like in the days before the quest. Though unlike that time, where Grover had once been weighed down by guilt and melancholy, now he was positively giddy. 

Because of the quest’s success, apparently ‘The Council’ had officially given him his ‘Watcher’s License’ and Grover was busy planning out his trip to search for the god, ‘Pan’. Hazel had no idea what most of those words meant, but nodded enthusiastically as he babbled all the same. 

It turned out that Grover and Piper got along swimmingly. They talked about the best vegetarian food available in the dining pavilion, commiserated over their friends’ love of weapons, and Piper opened up to him about the woods behind her grandfather’s cabin that she had spent hours mapping out in her mind as a child. 

The same could not exactly be said about Annabeth and Piper. 

Percy seemed to remain oblivious, but there was some sort of odd tension between the two girls that set Hazel’s teeth on edge. And that was unfortunate, for two reasons:

1) Hazel rather liked Annabeth, and 2) Annabeth was spending a lot more time with them since they returned. Like, A LOT. 

Sparring with Percy during sword-fighting, lounging under trees during free periods, sitting around the campfire. Annabeth was typically there, offering small talk to Hazel, sending a tiny, but sharp glares at Piper, and bumping Percy’s shoulder with hers.

On the Monday after Percy’s return, the four of them were walking down to the Dining Pavillion. Annabeth and Percy leading, with Hazel and Piper lagging a few feet behind. 

“ I’m pretty sure Annabeth hates me. ” Piper whispered to Hazel, moving her head closer so that the other two couldn’t hear her. Hazel wanted to argue, but it would be a half-hearted attempt at best because all of the evidence points otherwise. “ Why does she keep hanging around if she hates me so much? ” 

Hazel glanced over at Annabeth and Percy, him guffawing loudly at something she’d said, and even in profile, Hazel could make out the smug look on Annabeth’s face for making him laugh. 

“ Dunno .” Hazel deadpanned. “ Big mystery .” 

Though, by the way Piper pouts and lets out a small huff, Hazel isn’t certain that her friend caught her sarcasm.

That Tuesday, Percy had gotten a letter from his mom. The letter said that she had finally taken care of the problem that was her ex-husband thanks to his suggestion-- 

(“What does that mean?” Hazel had asked, reading over Percy’s shoulder.

Percy had shrugged, casually. “Probably got a… restraining order. I told her to do that before I left.”)

--and she would love to see him. And, if they wanted to, he could bring along some of his friends. 

The three of them had gotten permission from Chiron to leave camp on Friday, with the promise to return to camp before dinner. 

Hazel knew that it wasn’t often that Chiron allowed campers-- especially not novice campers such as them-- out into the mortal world. However, the fact that Percy had just stopped the third world war (which had Hazel going to Annabeth for an explanation, which the older girl had done with enthusiasm-- and charts. So many charts.) gave him a little bit of extra credit with the camp’s administration. As had Hazel ‘accidentally’ losing to Mr. D in pinochle, allowing him to win back all of her winnings.

The two girls were thrilled to meet Percy’s mom. 

When Percy had first arrived at camp, he had gotten permission from Chiron to use the camp phone to make a call. Piper and Hazel had sat beside him, as he called Sally Jackson, keeping her on speaker phone 

Mrs. Jackson had been relieved when her son had called her, letting her know that he had managed to get back to camp without further incident. And, when she learned that his friends, whom he had apparently told her about, were also on the call, she had enthusiastically greeted them too.

Hazel had thought that the woman sounded vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t quite place where she’d heard her before. Considering she felt that way about so many parts of her life before meeting Mrs. Henderson, Hazel decided not to give it too much thought. 

Currently, the three of them are piling out of the Camp Half-Blood van. Piper was telling Argus, the camp’s head of security and their chauffeur for the day, to meet them in the same place in three hours. Percy was making fun of her, by calling her ‘Rich Girl’, and Hazel poked his ear to get him to stop. 

The apartment building that Sally Jackson lived in was nondescript. Not nearly as tall as the building surrounding it, covered in well-worn brick-- several spots of which were covered in low-grade graffiti. 

“This is where you live?” Piper asks. 

Percy glares at her. “Not a word.” 

Hazel assumed he meant Piper getting back at him for all of the ‘Barbie Dreamhouse’ comments he made about the Aphrodite cabin-- which would serve him right, but also take up too much time-- so she decided to head off one of their arguments by speaking. “I like it.” She points at the graffiti. “It’s colorful.” 

“In more ways than one.” Piper mutters, glancing at one section of the street art filled with many such profanities that Hazel had only ever heard Percy mutter under his breath when he thought she couldn’t hear. Or was too busy to care if she did.

Percy rolls his eyes at them, gesturing for them to follow him. “Come on.” 

There’s only a few minutes between Percy hitting the buzzer, and the three of them standing in front of a door on one of the upper levels of the apartment building. 

“So…” Piper says slowly. “Are we going to knock, or--” 

‘Or’ was never spoken, as the apartment door is flung open, and a kind-looking woman is smiling at the three kids surrounding her. 

And what’s more? Hazel recognizes her. 

“Sally?” She squeaks, the name popping out of a distant memory, just as the woman had been a soothing presence during an otherwise terrifying night. 

“Hazel.” Sally replies, her blue-green eyes lightening as she looks at the young girl. “I’ve been wondering what happened to you.” 

“Mom!” Percy exclaims, looking between his mother and dear friend. “You two… know each other?” 

Hazel’s cheeks flush, and Sally smiles. 

“Why don’t the three of you come inside? We can talk over some chocolate chip cookies.” 

Hazel and Sally had explained how they’d met-- Hazel running into Sally after her shift, while the woman was putting up Missing posters for Percy, and Hazel darting away after Percy and Piper’s fight. 

Safe to say that not one of the kids had escaped the story without going warm from embarrassment, but the soft tinkle of Sally’s laugh and her non-judgmental eyes-- as well as her delicious cookies-- had caused the memories to go down smoother. 

Several hours, quite a few stories, and more cookies than both of those combined, Percy, Piper, and Hazel are sitting on the couch in the Jackson’s living room while Sally is grabbing drinks in the kitchen.

“Your mom is awesome.” Piper tells Percy, lightly rubbing her cookie filled belly. 

Percy nudges Piper with his shoulder, “We have to leave soon. You should ask her now.”  

Piper nods, hesitantly, grabbing a wrinkled sheet of paper from her back jean pocket. The time was now or never. 

Hazel kind of wishes that it was never, but she wouldn’t say that out loud. It wasn’t fair to her friend. 

Piper clears her throat. “Mrs. Jackson,” she clutches the wrinkled paper one more time in her hands, before walking over to Sally in the kitchen. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor…”

Chapter Text

Percy

The end is signalled by the sound of an urgent knock on the Jackson’s apartment door.

The noise seems to echo throughout the unnaturally silent house. Percy didn’t like the silence, but the noise is almost worse. Because they all know what it means.

Piper stares with wide eyes at Percy and Hazel, a blue chocolate chip cookie shoved halfway into her mouth. 

Sally rushes to the door, swinging it open to reveal a burly, bald man is standing there, his massive shoulders taking up the entire doorway. “Are you Ms. Jackson?” 

“Yes.” Sally answers. 

Percy furrows his eyebrows, looking from the man’s shiny head to Piper. 

“Is that your dad?” Hazel whispers so that only the three of them can hear. 

Piper shakes her head, swallowing down a mouthful of cookie. “No. That’s Jared.” 

Jared looks around the apartment, his gaze settling on the three children-- or, probably just Piper, thought it was hard to tell since he was wearing sunglasses inside --, before saying over his shoulder, “All clear, sir.” 

No sooner had the words come out, the big man was being pushed aside as another, shorter man replaced him in the doorway. 

“I’m sorry about him. You have no idea how many false calls we’ve gotten since we added the reward money.” 

From an intellectual standpoint, Percy totally understood how this man became such a famous actor, and managed to attract the goddess of love and beauty. He had big, soulful, brown eyes, thick wavy brown hair, and a taut, muscular build. If he was smiling, he would probably show off a row of straight, pristinely white teeth. Tristan McLean. Piper’s father. 

Piper rises to her feet, and the other two join her. 

Tristan gazes into the apartment, just as Jared had done, and there is no mistaking the way his eyes land straight on his daughter. 

Tristan swallows thickly. “May I please come in?” 

Sally Jackson just steps out of the way as answer, allowing both McLeans to run towards each other, and embrace. Percy places an arm around Hazel’s shoulder, knowing that she, too, feels the impending departure of their friend like a stab to the chest. 

They’d both been supportive when Piper had told them she needed to return to her father. Afterall, Percy had already reunited with his mother, and was planning on returning to her for the coming school year. And it had even been Percy’s idea to ask his mother to facilitate the meeting-- so that Piper would be in a place of comfort when she saw her father again. 

Still, they’d just gotten her back. And the fact remained that Piper’s time in New York had been a blip. A step away from her usual that had been extended due to unforeseen circumstances.

They’d been through so much together. And the second her father took her away, it might be the end. 

In the outside world, away from Percy’s dark thoughts, Piper and Tristan are talking in hushed, broken voices. He is clutching her to him, clearly too tight. But, if Piper (with her aversion to touch and affection) minds it, she doesn’t show it by holding him back. 

Percy, Hazel, Sally, and Jared, who had apparently entered the apartment and closed the door behind him at some point, watched the tearful reunion between father and daughter. 

Well, there were tears from Tristan’s side. Piper’s didn’t really leave her eyes. 

Finally, after what felt like an hour to Percy, but was probably just several minutes to people with normal time perception, Tristan and Piper pull apart. 

Tristan clears his throat, keeping one hand on Piper’s shoulder, as he turns to Sally. “Ms. Jackson, thank you so much for calling me.” 

Sally gives him a kind smile that causes the corners of her eyes to crinkle. “No problem. Us parents have to stick together. Especially those that are in our position.” 

During the phone call, apparently Sally had detailed the story Percy had given her. How Piper had run away and met Percy and Hazel, and how they had stuck together, until finally deciding to go back to their parents. Though, as far as Percy was aware, Tristan McLean hadn’t gotten the nitty-gritty, my-daughter-was-kidnapped-by-the-god-of-the-Underworld details. 

Tristan just nods at Sally, squeezing Piper’s shoulder as if needing reassurance that she was still there. “There was a reward--”

Sally holds up her hands, having been warned about this from Piper. “I didn’t do this for the money.”

“You gave me my daughter back. You have no idea what this means to me.” 

Sally smiles at him, wrapping an arm around Percy’s shoulders. “Believe me, I do.” 

Mr. McLean looks at her with big, pleading eyes.  “Please, let me repay you.” 

Sally remains unphased by this, looking at him with that steely-eyed determination that Percy had been on the other end of far too many times. “That isn’t necessary.” 

Before the two could argue any further, Jared (Percy still didn’t know who this man was, but was kind of just rolling with his presence), steps towards the McLeans, nodding his head towards an object in the corner of the room that he had clearly just noticed. He puts a hand out across Tristan getting too close to the object under the sheet. “What is that?” 

“Oh… that’s… a sculpture I made.” Sally says hesitantly, rubbing at her ring finger in a gesture that Percy identified as nervous. 

Jared and Tristan look at her expectantly. Clearly, that was not taken as the throwaway statement that Percy’s mother clearly meant for it to be. 

Sally winces, and slowly walks over to the silhouette, and pulls the sheet off. Percy tries so hard not to flinch at the image before him.

Disgruntled features carved out of marble. Three stray hairs combed over an otherwise hairless head. One hand scratching the small of his back, the other gripping a beer can. Disgusting. And, yet, a fitting way for the man to be remembered. 

Sally swallows, thickly. “I call it ‘The Poker Player.’” 

Tristan stares at the statue for a long, heart stopping moment. Finally, he says, “Can I buy this from you?” 

Sally blinks several times, in surprise. “Excuse me?”

“I collect art, and this is really good!” Tristan insists, though his praise is subjective since she had just returned his long lost daughter to him. “I would like to purchase it.” 

Sally’s eyes widened. “Oh! I don’t know… It isn’t… my best work…” 

Tristan appraises the statue for a long moment. He turns back to Sally. “I’ll give you seventy five for it.” 

Sally hesitates for a long moment, before she squares her shoulders, and nods at the man. “Alright. You’ve got yourself a deal.” 

Tristan offers her a big smile as he writes out the check. “Wonderful. I’ll have someone come by to pick it up from you within the week. Won’t we, Jared?” 

“Yes, sir.” The burly man gives a curt nod. 

Piper’s father gives Sally one last, big, charming smile. “Thank you again, Sally.” 

Tristan hands Sally the check, before grabbing Piper’s hand, and leaving the apartment. Piper looks over her shoulder at her friends before she leaves. Hazel and Percy offer Piper a wan smile, Hazel tightly gripping Percy’s hand with both of hers.

It’s only when they’re gone that Hazel burrows her face into Percy’s shoulder, her tiny shoulders lifting to her ears. 

Sally, meanwhile, is staring down at the check for a very long moment. “Holy crap.” She whispers to herself. 

“Mom, what’s wrong?” Percy asks her. 

Sally turns the check around to show off to Percy and Hazel. “He gave me seventy five thousand dollars.” 

Percy’s eyes are wide, but he manages to crack a small grin. “Wow. That might be the most money Gabe has ever made for this household.” 

Chapter Text

Piper

Piper fidgets as she and her dad enter a nice, fully furnished apartment several blocks away from Percy’s. 

The apartment was nice, modern. Floor to ceiling windows let in bright rays of sunlight, a sleek, leather sofa, everything bright and shiny. All of it makes Piper’s skin crawl. 

It wasn’t her dad’s fault. He’d told her in the car that he’d had to rent a place when his time in New York was extended (Which was his passive aggressive way of saying ‘because you ran away’), and this place came fully furnished. 

They hadn’t said much more on the way over. Jared had driven, and Piper had sat in the backseat with her dad as he drank her in. 

Now they were here, in this expensive place that reminded her of Los Angeles, and Piper just knew that she was in for a big talk. And, what was worse, in all of the hours that she’d had to prepare for it, Piper had no idea what she was going to say. 

She had a dream last night. 

Piper had been lying on a beach, the waves rolling in, the sea foam surrounding her body. She’d sat up, the smell of salt invaded her nostrils. 

Piper gets to her feet, the hem of her jeans in the water, yet no other part of her that had been submerged was wet. 

“Hello, my dear.” A melodic voice says, and Piper turns her head to see that she was not alone in the surf, as a beautiful woman is wading a few feet away.

Piper blinks at the woman. Warm, golden skin, pretty green eyes, golden, blonde hair, and a bright, white smile.  She seems familiar, like Piper has seen her before, but she can’t remember where. And, yet, she knows exactly who this is. 

“Mother.” 

“I hope that you are reacclimating well.” Her smile transforms into a scowl, and surf seems to rise with her ire. “I swear, next time I see Hades, I’m going to make him fall in love with another tree. Let Persephone deal with him, then.” 

“You cannot tell him the truth about me.” 

“The truth-- You mean--” Piper stares at Aphrodite. “He doesn’t know who you are?”

“He will not understand, Piper. It is better for him this way.” 

“That’s not your decision.” 

“No. It is yours. You, alone, must make the decision to break your father’s illusion of reality as he knows it, or exist in blissful ignorance as he is now.” 

Piper huffs. “Great. Our first meeting, and you’re already laying on the mom guilt.” 

Aphrodite peers closer at her. “Is it really our first meeting?” And, for a moment, her features change, her features going darker, her smile turning into a knowing smirk. 

Piper gasps, and her hand goes to her hip where her scabbard usually is. Remarkably, it, along with Katoptris, followed her into the dream. 

“You--” 

“Gods are not allowed to interfere with their children.” Aphrodite says, and the tone in her voice lets Piper know that she should not speak into existence the truth they both now know. “But I need you to be aware of the decisions you will be making tomorrow. Whether you want to or not.”  

“Why? Why me ?” Piper knows that she’s pouting, but she can’t help it. Of all the ways she’d once imagined meeting her mother over the years, in a dream concocted so that she knew to lie to her father was at the very bottom. “You’re a goddess. Can’t you just make him believe what you think he should?” 

Aphrodite smiles, and the sun seems to glow brighter. “You have power that you don’t even realize, Piper. And only you can continue the illusion.” 

“Piper?” She blinks back to reality, where her father is standing in front of her, and gesturing towards the sofa. She was clearly meant to sit. 

As Piper settles into the couch, she notices Jared standing by the front door, his hands folded together in front of him. Probably standing there in case Piper tries to make a run for it. He seems to be the only other person in the apartment. 

“Where’s Jane?” Piper asks, because it’s easier than talking about the ‘Big Things’. She and her dad tended to avoid the ‘Big Things’.

Tristan looks at her, incredulously. “I fired her.” 

Piper blinks, surprised. “Why?” Her father did not easily let go of his people. Jared, for instance,  had been around since before Piper had even been born. Jane, despite her icy demeanor and unpleasant disposition, had seemed like she’d be around forever. Certainly longer than Piper. 

“ Why ?” Tristan repeats, as if Piper was stupid for having asked. “Piper, you ran away under her watch. She didn’t even--” He stops himself, running a hand down his face. 

He didn’t need to finish the sentence, though. Piper knew that Jane wouldn’t notice her disappearance. It was why she had left when she did. 

Tristan looks at Piper, and then squats in front of her. “Piper, why did you leave?” 

Piper blinks rapidly, not wanting to let the tears leave her eyes. “I missed you.”

Tristan looks at her, disbelieving. Piper could practically hear the thought, ‘ If you missed me, why would you leave? ’. Instead, he says, “I’m right here.” 

Piper shakes her head. “ No . You weren’t. I mean, you were . After--” She stops, because saying the words ‘ I got kicked out of school ’ still felt shameful. And everyone already knows what she means by ‘after’ , so why speak it into the world. “But then, it was back to work, and I just… dad, I don’t want to have to get kicked out of school every time you spend time with me.” 

“But why didn’t you come back?” Tristan drags a hand down his face. “Piper, you’ve been gone for six months .” 

Piper blinks fast, trying to stop the shameful tears from leaving her eyes. “I’m sorry. Time-- it just got away from me.” It was a lame excuse, but what else was she supposed to say? ‘ I was kidnapped by the god of the Underworld up until a week ago?’

“It got away from you.” Tristan huffs out, but then looks squarely at Piper. “Alright. Alright. It doesn’t matter. You’re here now. We can talk more later. Everything will be better when we head back to LA. It-- it might take a while. Filming delayed for me, but I still have a contract to finish, but, I promise, as soon as that is done--” 

Piper’s eyes widened. Not out of shock, but because a thought occurs to her. She couldn’t tell her dad the truth about everything. But maybe… maybe she could make an allowance just this once. 

“Dad, I--” She hesitates, the words getting stuck in her throat. “I want to stay in the city. I-- I really like it here.” 

Truthfully, her opinion on the city hasn’t changed much since she’d run away. It was still dirty, loud, and dangerous. Even more dangerous than she’d thought it was back in December. 

No, the city hadn’t changed favorably in her mind. But she had definitely changed. And, what was more, the things that she cared about had changed. 

This -- this companionship she currently had with her dad might not last. Not in LA, not in New York. Tristan McLean was not known for keeping his promises. At least not with her. But New York had something that LA didn’t. 

New York held her friends. 

Tristan regards her for a long moment. “I… We can talk about it, Piper. For now, can we just settle down?”

Piper nods, the ache in her chest lightening minutely. “Yeah. We can do that.”

Chapter Text

Hazel

Today was the last day of the summer. And what an emotional summer it had turned out to be. 

Only a few days after Piper had returned to her dad, Grover had left to go on another quest. It was great that he had gotten his Searcher’s License, and they were all so proud of him. 

However, that didn’t stop Hazel, Annabeth, or Percy from getting emotional when they hugged him goodbye on the beach. Hazel could’ve even sworn that she heard Annabeth sniffle discreetly behind the sound of fireworks, or notice the way that her and Percy’s hands seemed to gravitate towards eachother as they lay side by side on the sand. 

The summer went on much as the last six months at camp had gone, except this time, Hazel wasn’t alone. 

She spent her days with Percy just like they’d done in February before the quest. They would climb the rock wall, and practice their sword fighting. Hazel would drag Percy to Arts & Crafts, and Percy would drag Hazel into a canoe, and they didn’t mind it because they had someone to share it with. 

Occasionally, they would meet up with Annabeth and Athena cabin. Annabeth would pull the two of them aside and teach them Ancient Greek (Percy was a lot better at learning it than Hazel was, but Chiron told her that she had a knack for Latin so it evened out). 

Sometimes, Hazel got the feeling like Percy was a million miles away. His eyes would glaze over, and his brows would furrow, and Hazel just knew that he was thinking about something that he didn’t want to voice aloud. 

Piper may not have been with them physically, but she was never far away. Before she’d gone back to her dad, Hazel had taught the other girl how to Iris Message, and Piper ended up calling them at least once a week if she had the chance. 

A week before August, Piper had called them with big news. 

“Guess what!” Piper had exclaimed, almost before the call had even started. 

“No.” Percy told her. 

Either Piper didn’t hear him, or she was in too good a mood to let him bring her down, because she powered through. “My dad enrolled me at a school in New York!” 

Not even Percy could summon enough sarcasm to appear unaffected by the news. “What?” 

“Yeah!” Piper was positively beaming, which was so not something that Hazel or Percy were used to from her. “He’s agreed to stay in the city for the rest of the year at least ! And, I’ve already started laying the foundation for him to let me come to camp next summer.” 

Hazel took a deep breath, finding her voice. “So… you’re not leaving?” 

“Nope.” Piper answered, popping the ‘p’. “I’m staying right here. Well, figuratively speaking. We are probably going to have to move somewhere else for the year.”

The summer passed by in a whirlwind, and suddenly, it had been the last night of the summer session. Which had also happened to have been Percy’s birthday. 

They ate dinner at separate tables like always. Hazel and Percy had each received their camp necklaces, marking one summer completed, while Annabeth had gotten her sixth bead. The bead adorning their leather strings was black with a turqouise trident painted on it (Annabeth had made endless fun of him for it, and Percy blushed profusely every time she lightly jabbed his bicep with her elbow). And at the bonfire, Hazel and Annabeth had lightly sung ‘ Happy Birthday ’ to Percy, which he had commemorated by blowing on his hot smore like birthday candles. 

It was now the last day of summer camp. According to Mr. D, all campers had to either stay at camp for the full year, or get eaten by the Harpies. Luckily, Hazel had a place to go. 

Percy was bouncing on the balls of his feet as he looked at Hazel. 

“Are you okay?” She asked, noting the way he couldn’t quite contain himself. “You’re starting to worry me.” 

Percy waved her off. “So…” He said slowly. “My mom sent you a letter.” 

Hazel perked up at the mention of Sally Jackson. She’d rather enjoyed the older woman, despite the fact that they’d only actually met three times. “Really?”

Percy nodded, still looking rather nervous, as he picked up a white envelope from his nightstand. “Sorry it didn’t go straight to you… she just thought it would be better if I was with you when you read it.” 

Hazel eyed the envelope. “Is it bad?”

“No!” Percy quickly said, then his eyebrows furrowed. “Well… I don’t think so.” He pushed the letter into her hands. “Just read it.” 

Dear Hazel, 

I hope that this letter reached you safely. 

I hope that I’m not overstepping, but Percy has told me that you don’t have a place to stay during the school year. I’m sure that camp has many wonderful amenities, and I know that you are probably comfortable there after so many months. 

However, Percy and I are moving into a new apartment, and we have an extra bedroom if you would like to stay with us during the summer. I know that we would both love to have you. 

Please think my offer through, and let me know what you decide. Either way, we both want the best for you. 

All my best, 

Sally 

Slowly, Hazel looked up at a nervous  Percy. “Is this serious?” 

Percy nodded. “Yeah. Me and mom have been talking. She’s already got a new apartment with three bedrooms, and it’s close to schools for both of us, and I guess she’s been talking to Chiron and their working on making her your official foster mom if that’s what you want, and you know Piper’s also staying in the city--”

Hazel cut him off by jumping to her feet, and wrapped Percy in a big hug. 

She had been trying so hard not to think about the fact that when the summer was over, she’d be left alone. Percy would be with his mom, and Piper would be with her dad, and Hazel would be stuck playing pinochle with Chiron and Mr. D. 

But now, that wasn’t true anymore, was it? She could be with both of her friends, and in a household with two people she genuinely liked and didn’t have an unhealthy obsession with cats. 

“I’d love to.”

So, now, Hazel was packing up her ‘bunk’ (which is what she referred to her square of floor in Hermes cabin as), along with only about a quarter of her cabin mates, and warning off any would-be thieves from her meager possessions. Hazel had learned that most kids in Hermes cabin stayed year long. Apparently, a lot of the unclaimed kids didn’t have family on the godly or the mortal side. 

At least Hazel had Percy, Piper, and now Sally. That was enough for now.

Hazel grabbed her stuff, waving goodbye to the general populace of Hermes cabin, and heading to Poseidon’s cabin. She didn’t bother waiting for Luke to return before leaving. 

Hazel still wasn’t happy with her head counselor. 

Admittedly, her grudge against him had been rather petty-- seeing as he was just trying to get her to follow the rules and not get anyone killed. However, ever since Percy had told her the story of talking to Luke while on the quest, Hazel’s anger had just risen again. 

Percy tried to remind her that he had been the one to call camp, not the other way around. But there was still something off about Luke that she couldn’t put her finger on, and Hazel had decided that the less time she spent with Luke, the better. 

When Hazel enters Poseidon cabin, she can’t help but roll her eyes when she notes that Percy had clearly left in the middle of packing. He had almost as few possessions as she did, and they were all scattered around the floor, somehow all missing the opening to his bag. 

Dropping her own bag by the door, Hazel steps out onto the porch of the cabin. The porch of Poseidon’s cabin had the strangest phenomenon; No matter the time of day, or which way the wind was blowing, you could smell the salty, sea air. 

Hazel may get terrible seasickness, but it was entirely due to the motion, not the smell of the ocean. 

Camp was quiet today, what with most campers packing they belongings, or saying their farewells to their friends. Hazel was just enjoying the calm. She isn’t even sure how long she sat on the porch steps, when she realizes that something is deeply wrong. 

It’s this feeling starting in the pit of her gut, as she stands up. Her eyes search the rows of cabins, even as she’s moving. Hazel has no idea where her feet are taking her, but she knows better than to question it. 

Before she realizes it, Hazel is running. Chasing this feeling in her gut, that is leading her to the main two cabins. Most importantly, the woods behind it. 

Distantly, she recognizes that Chiron is there, probably doing some last minute cabin check ups, just so that no kid is accidentally allowed to be eaten by Harpies. He’s talking to a boy. A counselor from one of the nearby cabins. 

However, none of that is what is taking up her attention. What Hazel is focusing on are the tree nymphs exiting the forest-- something that they almost never do. A pale, nearly blue humanoid in an orange camp shirt is held up between two of them. 

Percy . 

She can’t make out any of his familiar features, but she just knows. Just like she’d known that Piper wasn’t dead. She now knows that Percy almost is. 

People are yelling. It takes Hazel far too long to realize that she is one of them. 

Chiron is blowing the conch horn that is almost always on his person. Horse-person? 

Someone is gripping her by the forearms, and it takes Hazel far too long to realize that this person is actually holding her up as her legs started to give out. 

“Hazel,” The voice. The voice is Annabeth. It’s Annabeth that’s holding her up. She knows Annabeth. She likes Annabeth. Annabeth can’t make this better.

Chiron has Percy slung over his horseback, and his racing towards the

“He’s gonna be alright.” Annabeth is attempting to soothe her, but Hazel weakly shakes her head. She knows the truth. 

He’s dying. 

Chiron may not be a god in the traditional sense, but Hazel would be burning her dinner for the next several weeks in offering to him. 

It’s Chiron, Annabeth, Argus, and her by Percy’s bedside. Annabeth is holding up a glass of nectar to Percy, lightly dabbing his sweaty brow. Her face is impassive; If Hazel hadn’t seen the two of them interact for weeks and weeks beforehand, she would’ve thought that Annabeth was inconvenienced by being at Percy’s bedside again. The strain in her mouth, and the tension in her shoulders gives her away. 

After far too much time, but shorter than the eternal rest Hazel had feared he would take, Percy regained consciousness. His eyes immediately settled on Annabeth, and he offers her a lopsided smile. "Here we are again."

"You idiot," Annabeth says, affectionately. "You were green and turning gray when we found you--"

“Blue.” Hazel corrects, and Percy’s gaze settles on her for the first time. “You were blue. You were barely breathing.” 

Annabeth seems suddenly very interested in Percy’s bandaged hand. “If it weren’t for Chiron’s healing…”

"Now, now," Chiron spoke up "Percy's constitution deserves some of the credit." His tone does not match the words, though. He knows just how close to returning to Hades Percy had been. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Like my insides have been frozen, then microwaved."

"Apt, considering that was pit scorpion venom. Now you must tell me, if you can, exactly what happened."

Percy tells them the story, all the while taking sips from the glass of nectar that Annabeth was still holding up for him, as if worried that he would simply drop dead if she needed to set it down. 

He tells them how Luke had stolen the lightning bolt, manipulated Ares, attempted to kill Percy, and was working for the crazed Titan, Kronos. 

Chiron, Annabeth, and Argus all show their shock in varying degrees. 

Hazel can’t help but look steadily at Percy. “I told you something was off with him.” Maybe all this time with him and Piper had taught her to throw humor in the face of hard times. Maybe she needed to pick up the slack with Percy being bedridden and all. Maybe she really just did not know how to read the room. 

Whatever the case, it seemed to drag everyone out of their stupors. 

Annabeth’s expression had turned into something angry and sad. Well, sadder than it had previously been. “May the gods curse him....” She hisses, dabbing Percy’s now dry forehead. “He was never the same after his quest."

"This must be reported to Olympus," Chiron murmured. "I will go at once."

"Luke is out there right now," Percy struggled to sit up further. "I have to go after him."

Hazel lightly puts a hand on his chest, which pretty much halts all of his movements. “Percy, you can barely sit. You’re not going after anyone.” 

“The gods won’t even talk about Kronos.” Percy insists. “They aren’t going to do anything about Luke.” 

Chiron shakes his head. "Percy, I know this is hard. But you must not rush out for vengeance. You aren't ready."

"Chiron ... your prophecy from the Oracle ... it was about Kronos, wasn't it? Was I in it? And Annabeth?"

Hazel has no idea what Percy is talking about, but judging by the shifty eyes of both Annabeth and Chiron, she has a feeling that she is the only one. Well… Argus might also be confused. It was kind of hard to tell.

Finally, Chiron answered, "Percy, it isn't my place—"

"You've been ordered not to talk to me about it, haven't you?" 

Hazel does not like the look Chiron settles on Percy. As if healing him from the scorpion had just been preventing the inevitable. "You will be a great hero, child. I will do my best to prepare you. But if I'm right about the path ahead of you ..."

Thunder shook the skies. For a place that very rarely got rain, there sure was a lot of thunder. 

"All right!" Chiron shouted at someone invisible. "Fine!" He sighed in frustration. "The gods have their reasons, Percy. Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing."

“Then why are there so many prophecies?” Hazel asks. 

Chiron allows a small smile to grace his lips. “You must be careful. Kronos wants you to come unraveled. He wants your life disrupted, your thoughts clouded with fear and anger. Do not give him what he wants. Train patiently. Your time will come."

"Assuming I live that long."

Annabeth and Hazel look at each other across from his prone body, their matching expressions showing that neither of them appreciate that comment. 

Chiron places a hand on Percy’s ankle above the blankets. "You'll have to trust me, Percy. You will live. When I get back from Olympus, I hope to see the both of you before you leave." He nods at Hazel in greeting. “I'll be back as soon as I can. Argus will watch over you." 

Then, Chiron turns to Annabeth, and, for a moment, something akin to grief flashes over his face. "Oh, and, my dear ... whenever you're ready, they're here."

“Who’s here?” Percy asks. 

Annabeth fiddles with the empty Nectar glass in her hands, as Chiron exits the hospital wing. 

"What's wrong?" Percy asked her.

"Nothing."  Annabeth finally set the glass on the table. "I … just took your advice about something. You … um … need anything?" 

Hazel has more questions, but Percy seems know to let it rest, so Hazel follows his lead, even when he says, "Yeah. Help me up. I want to go outside."

"Percy, that isn't a good idea."

Hazel is waiting for him when Percy throws his legs out of the bed, wrapping both of her small arms around his torso. Percy is clearly reluctant to put his full weight on her, but he doesn’t have enough strength to hold his own. 

Annabeth shakes her head, quickly running to Percy’s other side, just as his legs give out from under him. “I told you…” 

“I’m fine.” Percy grits out. 

With the help of Annabeth and Hazel, Percy is able to step outside the hospital wing, Argus trailing after them. 

“When’s your mom coming?” Annabeth asks, after sitting Percy on a seat. 

Percy nods. “She’s coming by after work.” 

“Probably an hour at this point.” Hazel tells him. And what a time that was gonna be, having to explain to Sally why Percy didn’t have control of one of his hands. 

Annabeth leans her back against the porch railing. "I'm going home for the year, Percy."

Hazel furrows her brows, not entirely sure why Annabeth’s voice is so small. She knows that Annabeth has been at camp for years, but she doesn’t know why the prospect of her going home has Percy’s eyes going wide. 

"You mean, to your dad's?"

Annabeth points out towards Half-Blood Hill where Thalia’s pine tree is. Standing there, atop the hill is a family of four.

"I wrote him a letter when we got back," Annabeth said. "Just like you suggested. I told him ... I was sorry. I'd come home for the school year if he still wanted me. He wrote back immediately. We decided ... we'd give it another try."

"That took guts."

“Where does he live?” Hazel asks, even though this feels like a moment outside of her. 

“Virginia.” Annabeth gives her a small, sad smile. “But, I’ll always be an Iris-message away.” She turns to Percy. “Especially if you try to do anything stupid during the school year.” 

“Who me?” Percy asks, giving her a smile that looks more like a grimace due to the pain. 

"When I get back next summer, we'll hunt down Luke. We'll ask for a quest, but if we don't get approval, we'll sneak off and do it anyway. Agreed?"

"Sounds like a plan worthy of Athena." Percy tells her. 

Annabeth holds out her hand, and they shake. 

“And I’ll get to come this time?” Hazel asks, looking between the two older kids. 

Annabeth and Percy share a look that Hazel can read, but pretends not to understand. “We’ll see.” Percy responds. 

Annabeth gently claps a hand on Percy’s shoulder. “Take care, Seaweed Brain. Keep your eyes open."

"You too, Wise Girl."

Annabeth then turns to Hazel, and scoops her into a hug. “Take care, Hazel.”

“See you soon.” Hazel says into Annabeth’s shoulder, because she didn’t want to say ‘goodbye’. She has had to say too many ‘goodbye's' and never wants to say one that she doesn’t mean.

They watched Annabeth walk away, Hazel leaning against the porch railing, Percy still perched on his chair. 

He looks up at Hazel, though he doesn’t have to look up too much since, even sitting, Hazel isn’t that much taller than him. “You wanna walk me down to Cabin Three?” 

They still have another hour before Sally shows up to pick them up. Percy still has to pack his bag, which will probably be much more difficult with only one hand. They’re gonna have to tell Piper all that has happened, but she probably won’t be able to call them until they’re at the new apartment. Hazel’s new home. 

It’s a new chapter of her life. A ride that Hazel is, for once, not dreading to take.

Chapter Text

Percy

Percy woke up from his nightmare shivering, despite the heavy sheets covering him. He can still hear the storm raging around him, and the bellow of the monster. Sun is shining through his window, there are no shadows, except there is a humanoid figure standing on the fire escape--

“Morning!” Piper chirps, perched on the edge of his bed.

Percy lets out a half-scream, pulling his comforter closer to his chest, which causes Piper to slide to the floor-- the shadow in the window completely escapes his mind. 

“Ow.” She grouses. “Y’know, some people say ‘good morning!’”

“What are you doing in my room?” 

The Jackson’s apartment was located directly between Piper’s apartment and the school, so it wasn’t uncommon for Piper to stop by in the mornings (she said it was to hang out with her friends, but Percy was pretty sure she kept coming around because his mom always fed her breakfast).

“Sally told me to tell you that if you don’t get up soon, we’re going to be late.” 

Percy glares at her. “And you couldn’t say that through a closed door?” 

Piper shrugs, non-repenting. “This seemed like more fun.”

“Including the falling to the floor part?” 

Piper wrinkles her nose. “Unintended consequence.” 

Percy rolls his eyes at one of his best friends. 

Piper tugs at the bottom of his comforter, pulling it away from his hands. “Come on, get up! Your mom made waffles and eggs!” 

Percy grumbles, flopping onto his belly. 

“They’re blue.” Piper sing-songs enticingly. 

“Alright, fine, I’m up. Now get out of my room so I can get dressed.” 

It doesn’t take Percy long to dress in the clothes that he’d set out the night before. It takes him a little longer to stare at the pen form of Riptide for several minutes, and ward off evil with a gesture that Grover had once taught him. 

Of course, thinking of Grover just brought his mind back to his dream. 

Hazel is already eating when he enters the kitchen, while Sally teases her hair into twin poofs from behind.

“Morning.” Hazel greets after swallowing a bite of blue waffle. Hazel didn’t talk with her mouth full, a trait that Sally had been hoping would rub off on Percy and Piper. 

“Morning.” Percy sighs, flopping into his chair, and digging into the plate already made up for him at the table. 

“How’d you sleep?” Piper asks, because of course she knows the answer. She had seen him wake from his nightmare. And, of course, she asks around a crowd. Not in his quiet bedroom where nobody (i.e. Hazel or his mom) could hear and/or worry. 

The three of them have known each other for over a year, been through thick and thin and everything in between since finding each other in that warehouse. Percy thought of Piper and Hazel like the little sisters he never thought (hoped, honestly, back when his mom was married to Gabe) he’d have.

At this point, they knew each other pretty well, and Percy knew that Piper was only asking because she was concerned for him. And even though Percy could out-stubborn the best of him, he was no match for Piper when someone she loved was on the line. And now-a-days, Piper wasn’t as uncomfortable placing Percy in that category. 

Also, Percy was tired. He really hadn’t slept well last night. So, he chooses the path of least resistance-- knowing that he’d need that fight to get through the rest of the day. 

“I think Grover’s in trouble.” Percy admits, carefully watching the reactions of the women surrounding him. 

Piper leans forward, Hazel’s fork freezes half-way to her mouth, and Sally’s lips purse, while she focuses hard on Hazel’s hairdo. 

Percy recounts his dream; Grover, the storm, the bridal shop, and the horrible monster that was chasing the satyr. 

“I wouldn’t be too worried, dear,” Sally finally said. “Grover is a big satyr now. If there were a problem, I’m sure we would’ve heard from … from camp…”

“Grover’s not at camp, though.” Hazel’s eyes have gone big and wide, obviously worried about their friend just as much as Percy was. “He’s on his quest for Pan.” 

“Yeah, and isn’t it a thing that no satyr as ever returned from that quest?” Piper asks, with all of the delicacy of a bull in a china shop.

Sally and Percy both glower at Piper for her lack of discretion.

“Pipes,” Percy hisses, sending a nervous look at Hazel. 

Piper looks apologetic. “Sorry.” 

Hazel crosses her arms over her chest. “You don’t have to baby me, you know. I do know about death.”

“Kids,” Sally pleads, and all three of them look nervously at the older woman. None of them liked upsetting her, and they didn’t like hearing that sad tone in her voice. 

Sally was no longer doing Hazel’s hair, and instead standing behind the only unclaimed chair at the kitchen table. “Can we talk about something else?” Her eyes light up as if an idea had just occurred to her. “I’ll tell you what. This afternoon we’ll celebrate the end of school. I’ll take the three of you and Tyson to Rockefeller Center. We can go to that skateboard shop you all like, and have a nice dinner.”

Percy feels his heart stutter at the suggestion. His mom had already run her idea by him, and he was so excited by the prospect, he had to work very hard to keep his face impassive.

Percy didn’t expect Hazel to question this treat, considering how rarely they got any. 

However, she tilts her head curiously. “Aren’t we supposed to pack up for camp tonight?” 

Percy expects his mom to say something along the lines of, ‘we can do that too,’ or ‘packing shouldn’t take up a whole night’.

Instead, Sally averts her eyes, and twists her hands together. “Ah, right, about that … I got a message from Chiron last night.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” Piper mutters. 

Sally nods slightly. “Chiron… he thinks that it might not be safe for you to come to camp just yet. We might have to postpone.”

“Postpone?” Percy repeats, his voice rising in incredulity. “Mom, how could it not be safe? We’re half-bloods! It’s like the only safe place on earth for us!”

“Usually, dear. But with the problems they’re having—”

”What problems?” Hazel and Piper are both staring openly at Percy. They had never seen him talk over his mom before. It was probably even more concerning to them than whatever might be happening at camp.

“Percy … I’m very, very sorry. I was hoping to talk to you about it this afternoon. I can’t explain it all now. I’m not even sure Chiron can. Everything happened so suddenly.”

“What’s going on?” Hazel asks, looking every inch the lost child that she pretended not to be. 

Sally opens her mouth, as if about to answer, but just then, an alarm on her phone reveals the hour to her. 

Sally looked almost relieved. “Seven-thirty.” She turns to face Piper and Percy. “You two should go. Tyson will be waiting.”

Piper and Percy grab their backpacks, and respectively give goodbye side-hugs to Hazel and Sally. Hazel went to a public elementary school, and her day didn’t technically start until nine when Sally would walk her the five blocks to school. 

“That was intense.” Piper tells him once they’re safely out in the hall.

Percy’s eyebrows furrow. “What was?”

“That whole… argument thing you had with Sally.” 

“Really?” Percy quirks an eyebrow at her. “That was intense?”

Piper shrugs. “I don’t have a mom, it’s always weird to see others with theirs.” 

Percy rolls his eyes, and gently bumps his shoulder with hers. “Come on. We have one more day to get through.” 

“Thank gods for that.”

Hazel

There’s a tapping at the window in Hazel’s bedroom. 

She had just finished getting ready for school-- putting on her school clothes when they were no longer in danger of dripping syrup, placing things in her backpack, and hiding away her celestial bronze dagger (it was just dumb not to have one on hand as a demigod)-- when the noise started.

It wasn’t uncommon for pigeons to settle on the rickety fire escape, and after a few months, Hazel had stopped checking every time one of them pecked on her windows. And she would ignore it this time too, except she could see the shadow behind her curtains, and it looked a lot bigger than the average pigeon (though she couldn't exactly speak for demonic monster pigeons). 

Hazel grabs her spatha from her closet, which is where she had to hide it after Percy had taken out the china cabinet with a javelin and gotten weapons banned from the living areas. Slowly she inches towards the window, gripping her curtain, and flinging it aside.  

Of course, she was not at all prepared for what she found on the other side. 

“Annabeth?” Hazel squeaks, opening the window as much as she could-- which only amounted to about three inches. 

“Hazel!” Annabeth calls through the thick panes of glass. 

“What are you doing here… on the fire escape?” Hazel asks, putting her mouth close to the opening of the window to make sure that Annabeth could hear her well. She didn’t exactly have to lean down a lot. “Weren’t you in Virginia?”  

Actually, Annabeth looked like she’d been back to the Underworld. She was covered in a light layer of dart and scratches, her clothes a bit tattered. Her hair had grown out since the last time Hazel had seen her, black roots blending into her bleached locks. 

Annabeth sighs. “It’s… a long story.” 

“Do you want to come in? You’d have to go through the front door, and I have to go to school soon, but I’m sure Sally wouldn’t--” 

“No, that’s okay.” Annabeth quickly cuts her off. “I’m actually in a bit of a rush, and I need to find Percy.” 

Hazel tried not to feel too disappointed at that, but she doesn’t do a great job. It’s hard not to feel bad by being sidelined time and again. 

“He’s not here. They already went to school.” 

Annabeth’s face momentarily twitches at the word ‘they’, but otherwise her face remains impassive. “Right. I saw. I couldn’t catch them. Do you-- do you know where the school is?” 

“Meriwether.” Hazel says promptly. “It’s downtown.” She closes her eyes, imagining the subway systems that she actually had a pretty decent memory for. “It’s about 9 subway stops from here, going south.” 

Annabeth nods slowly. “Okay. Got it. Thanks.” 

“Do you need help?” 

Annabeth shakes her head, and gives Hazel a soft smile. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you later.” Annabeth’s eyes turn serious. “Stay safe.” 

Hazel gestures to her backpack. “Don’t worry. I’m always prepared.” 

Annabeth nods, then pulls her blue cap from her pocket. The last glimpse of her that Hazel has is of Annabeth placing her cap over her curls. 

A soft knock on Hazel’s door has her turning away from the window. 

“Hazel?” Sally’s voice comes through the wood. 

“Come in.” It had taken Hazel a while to get used to the boundaries placed in this house. Going from old Mrs. Henderson, who always walked in without announcing herself, to Cabin Eleven bursting through the rafters with campers, had made moving to the Jackson household a bit of a culture shock. 

“Is everything okay, dear?” Sally asks, poking her head into the room. 

Thinking about Percy’s dream about Grover, and Annabeth’s serious expression outside the window, Hazel sighs deeply. “I hope so.”

Chapter Text

Piper

Piper kind of hates everything about Meriwether Prep. 

It wasn’t anything particular about this school-- Piper hated pretty much everything about private schools and the types of kids that went there. 

However, this was the only option for her if she didn’t want to be held back a year. Due to the way the curriculum was created, Piper had both been able to complete their missing half of the previous school year, as well as staying on track with the rest of her class.

And, of course, this way, she and Percy went to school together, even if they weren’t in any of the same classes. Piper had been surprised to learn that school was miraculously easier when you had friends.

And Piper had friends. More friends than she’d ever had before (though, that wasn’t really saying much). A full three-- Percy, Hazel, and Tyson, whom she and Percy had met on the first day of class. 

So, yeah, all things considered, Meriwether really could have been worse.

Then again, today is the last day of school… and the entire student body is being evacuated from the building.

The fire alarm was going off-- Piper had to stop herself from covering her ears against the sound-- so it was either some really weird drill that not even the faculty was prepared for, or a real fire was going off. 

Either way, none of the students seemed to be taking it very seriously. They were all walking at moderate paces, and gabbing over the shrill alarms. It was annoying, but at least they were all too preoccupied with themselves to care or even notice the fact that Piper had grabbed her backpack against the teachers’ advice. 

A nearby group of students are talking loudly amongst each other. “I think some kid brought in explosives!” 

Piper rolls her eyes. What idiot would bring explosives to school? 

“Yeah,” Another kid says. “I heard they’re all holed up in the gym.”

Piper stops in her tracks. 

Percy and Tyson have gym this period. 

Any lingering hopes that Piper would be able to spend the rest of the school day lounging outside and not having to do much of anything evaporates. 

Piper turns on her heel, having to work against the general flow of the student body to get to her destination. Apparently, when people were worried that there were explosives in the gym, they typically tried to get kids to not walk past the gym. 

Go figures. 

The wooden, double doors were crowded by a lot of adults-- a few faculty members that Piper recognized, like the headmaster, the school’s security guard, and a few actual police officers. 

What did Percy get himself into ? 

All of the adults were banging against the doors, which remained closed, almost as if they were sealed shut. 

From inside the gym, Piper hears the muffled sounds of screams and… was that an explosion? 

“ Get away from the doors!” Piper hisses at them, and, miraculously, they listen. Each of the faculty members jump back, as if they hadn’t wanted to be that close to the mayhem in the first place, leaving an opening for Piper to look through. 

Several walls had seemingly collapsed-- one of which led to the outside--, the ground was littered in what looked like singed clothing and golden dust, and many kids were in states of shock around the perimeter of the room. And, standing in the midst of the chaos was-- to nobody’s surprise-- Percy, and besides him was--

“Annabeth?” Piper asks, before realizing that nobody that could hear her has any idea who Annabeth even was. All of the adults blink wearily at her. 

Piper pushes with all of her might, and nearly falls when the doors immediately budge under her weight. Okay, so maybe not as sealed shut as they looked. 

She staggers to her feet, and everyone-- even the random kids that Piper didn’t know-- look up at the intrusion. 

“Piper?” Percy asks. 

“Percy!” Piper answers. “Annabeth?” 

“Piper.” She wonders if Annabeth practices that glare in the mirror specifically for her. 

Annabeth shakes her head, obviously not entertained with their nonsense. “Meet me outside,” Annabeth told Percy, obviously ignoring Piper. “And him.” She pointed to Tyson, who Piper hadn’t even noticed up until this moment. He was sitting against one of the broken walls, and didn’t look particularly… lucid. Annabeth gives Tyson a dark look that not even Piper had ever been subjected to. “You’d better bring him.”

“What about me?” Piper asks. 

Annabeth ignores her, addressing Percy, and Percy only. “Hurry up.” And then, she tugs a Yankees cap onto her curls and disappears. 

“What just happened?” Piper asks Percy.

He stares at her. “You think I know?” 

It was at that moment that the adults finally shook off whatever weird funk they’d been in that convinced them that letting a sixth grader into a war zone was a good idea. 

Mr. Bonsai is the first one in the police officers that Piper had noticed earlier trailing behind him. 

“Percy Jackson? Piper McLean?” Mr. Bonsai asked, and Piper wonders what it is that she’d done that had earned that note of accusation in the man’s voice. “What … how …”

Tyson staggers to his feet. “Head hurts.” 

Piper considers helping him up, but just then, a boy that had apparently passed out from whatever excitement had just occurred, bolts upright into a seated position. “Percy did it, Mr. Bonsai! He set the whole building on fire. Coach Nunley will tell you! He saw it all!

Coach Nunley, a man that was probably as old as, if not older than Piper’s mother, looks up from a magazine that had apparently captured his attention so thoroughly that not even the explosions could faze him. “Eh? Yeah. Mm-hmm.”

Percy makes eye contact with Piper, and then inclines his head toward the gaping hole in the side of the building. Piper grabs Tyson by the arm, and drags him outside, knowing without looking that Percy was right behind her. 

Annabeth dragged the three of them into an alleyway near the school. It was, like pretty much all New York City alleys, dark, dirty, and smelly. If it weren’t for the cop cars and firetrucks milling about, definitely looking for them, Piper would have insisted on a change of venue. 

Piper has no idea what happened in the gym or even how Annabeth was here in the first place. The fact that the first thing Annabeth does once they’re all huddled together is point at Tyson and ask, “Where’d you find him?”, barely registers on her weird-meter.

“He’s our friend.” Percy says between clenched teeth, gesturing to Piper to indicate the ‘our’. 

Annabeth doesn’t even bristle at the reminder that Piper was there too-- which is either progress, or signs that the world was ending. “Is he homeless?”

Piper takes a step in front of Tyson, even if her full four feet, eleven inches barely covers Tyson’s chest. “ That’s rude.” Piper says, before Percy has the chance to speak up. She looks at Tyson over her shoulder. “Don’t feel bad, T. We’ve all been homeless at one point or another.” 

“Besides, you should ask him .” Percy adds. 

Annabeth looked surprised. “He can talk?”

“I talk.” Tyson gives her a small smile. “You are pretty.” He says in that innocent way that would make you believe he was nothing more than a young child. 

Annabeth, however, doesn’t seem to take it that way. Her nose wrinkles, and she steps away from him. “Ah! Gross!”

Piper gently pats Tyson’s arm as he pouts. “Don’t worry, big guy. She doesn’t like me, either.” 

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to make Tyson feel any better. If anything, his face falls further. 

Percy speaks up, his gaze on Tyson. “Tyson, your hands aren’t even burned.”

Piper blinks, owlishly. “Burned from what?” 

“Of course not,” Annabeth muttered, as if Piper hadn’t spoken. “I’m surprised the Laistrygonians had the guts to attack you with him around.”

“Laistry-what?” Piper asks, grabbing Tyson’s hand to stop him when he tried to pet Annabeth. “What the Hades happened in that gym?” 

“Monsters were in the gym.” Percy explains, though he looks as confused as Piper feels. “They tried to kill us by playing dodgeball.” 

“You sure they weren’t regular middle schoolers?” 

“The monsters in the gym were Laistrygonians .” Annabeth says slowly, like talking to a dimwitted child, looking very pointedly at Piper as she does so. “They’re a race of giant cannibals who live in the far north. Odysseus ran into them once, but I’ve never seen them as far south as New York before.”

Percy’s face is scrunched up. “Laistry—I can’t even say that. What would you call them in English?”

Annabeth contemplates this question. “Canadians,” she decided. “Now come on, we have to get out of here.”

“And go where?” Police sirens in the background punctuate Piper’s point (rather spectacularly in her opinion, too). 

Annabeth’s expression darkens. “Camp.” 

Unlike most demigods, Piper didn’t understand Ancient Greek. So, when Annabeth shouted, “Stêthi, ø hárma diabolês!”, Piper had no idea what to expect. Though, judging by the look of Percy’s face, it wasn’t going to lead to anything good.

Then, she threw the coin into the street. Like, literally, into the asphalt-- disappearing into a small pool of darkness. The pool starts to expand, blood-like liquid bubbles up from within. 

Tyson jumped back at the sight, causing the ground underneath Piper’s feet to shake. 

Then, a taxi cab-- seemingly made entirely out of gray smoke-- burst forth. The front passenger window rolls down, and an old woman with a shaggy mop of hair hiding her face sticks her head out. “Passage? Passage?” 

Annabeth opens the taxi’s back door, and gestures for them to get in. “Four for Camp Half Blood.” 

Tyson, with his long legs, is the first to reach the cab. 

“Ach!” the old woman screeched, pointing at Tyson. “We don’t take his kind!”

Piper blinks, confused by what she meant by ‘his kind’, but the thought disappears before she can fully grasp it, and by then, Annabeth has somehow convinced the woman to let Tyson in. 

Percy scoots in after Tyson, but immediately pokes his head back out. “There are only three seats.” 

“Only three seats.” The old woman agrees. 

Annabeth glares at her. “You couldn’t have mentioned that before ?” 

“It’s a taxi cab .” Piper takes the moment to savor someone else talking down to Annabeth. Ah, petty revenge. 

“Well, looks like Piper is just gonna have to go home.” Annabeth shrugs, not even pretending to look apologetic. 

“What ? After all that talking about how camp is in danger, I’m just supposed to walk away?” 

“Piper,” Percy offers, and she knows that she isn’t gonna like whatever he’s gonna say. “Go back to Hazel and mom. Tell them what happened.” 

“That is an option.” Piper agrees, offering him a plastic smile. “Here’s another one.” She jumps into the back, sprawled lengthwise across Percy and Tyson’s laps. She looks at Annabeth. “You gonna get in?” 

The older girl glares at her, but gets into the back of the cab. And Annabeth also doesn’t throw Piper’s feet off her lap, so Piper takes that as a win. 

“Long Island! Out-of-metro fare bonus! Ha!” One of the old women yells, and-- wait a minute. Piper does a double-take, just to make sure that she wasn’t seeing things. But, yep, there were a total of three heads peeking over the front bench seat, all with the same grey hair. 

A pre-recorded voice plays over a speaker. “Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I’m out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!”

“I don’t have a seatbelt.” Piper chirps.

“That makes two of us.” Percy mutters, though he does wrap his arms around her middle to keep her in place. 

Piper can’t see out the windows, so only the rocking of the car and the voices of the three women give her any direction-- and none of it is particularly promising. 

“Look out! Go left!”

“Well, if you’d give me the eye, Tempest, I could see that!”

Piper has never had a problem with motion. She could ride rollercoasters with the best of them. For god's sake, she had gotten out of their car crash last February without a scratch (minus the whole kidnapping thing, but that happened at least ten minutes later, so that didn’t really count). 

This drive? This was enough to put to test even her iron stomach. It’s a good thing that Hazel wasn’t here.

“Red light!” One of the women yells. 

“Brake!” Another screeches. 

After several gut-churning minutes, Percy finally asks the question that was at least in both his and Piper’s minds. “Excuse me, but …can you see?”

“No!”

“No!”

“Of course!”

And, no, the one that could see was not, in fact, the one that was driving.

Percy looks at Annabeth. “They’re blind?” 

“Not completely. They have an eye.”

“An--” Piper stops herself. “We’re in a cab being driven by the Fates from Hercules?” 

Apparently, the women weren’t so involved in their own world to miss that comment. 

“How dare you!” One of them yells. 

“Wretched cartoon.” Another one grumbles.

“We’ve had famous people in this cab!” One of the gray sisters exclaims. “Jason! You don’t see the movie mention that.”

Tyson looks down at Piper’s face, where it rests in his lap. “Not feeling good.”

“Oh, man,” Percy mutters. “Hang in there, big guy. Anybody got a garbage bag or something?”

“No. No. No need for a garbage bag.” Piper wildly shakes her head, then stops when she realizes that that will probably give her the opposite of what she wants. “Tyson, I need you to power through this, okay.” 

Meanwhile, Percy had gotten wrapped up in a conversation with Annabeth. 

“Hey,” Annabeth defends herself from a barb that Piper couldn’t hear, “Gray Sisters Taxi is the fastest way to camp.”

“Then why didn’t you take it from Virginia?” Percy asks. 

“That’s outside their service area. They only serve Greater New York and surrounding communities.”

“Yeah, Percy,” Piper deadpans. “Everyone knows that.” 

The Sray Sisters were fighting now. Fighting each other tooth and-- well, eye for there… tooth and eye. 

Piper was grateful that Percy had a grip on her, otherwise she definitely would’ve been flying around the cab like a pinball. And through all of this, she was still trying to coach Tyson out of his death cab induced nausea. 

After a particularly bad swerve where one of the sisters was yelling at the others to, “‘Ivit back! ‘Ivit back! ”, Percy announced to the car, “Uh, if anybody’s interested, we’re going to die!”

“Don’t worry. The Gray Sisters know what they’re doing. They’re really very wise.” Even Annabeth didn’t sound convinced by her own words, and she was digging her fingers into Piper's ankles, holding on like Piper was a lap bar on an amusement park ride. 

Though, apparently this was enough to drag the Gray Sisters away from their fight.

“Yes, wise!” One of them agrees. “We know things!”

“Every street in Manhattan!” Another one tells them, each of her words being punctuated by the sound of flesh hitting flesh. “The capital of Nepal!”

“The location you seek!” The last one exclaims. 

This statement was followed by the sound of slaps increasing and the other two sisters yelling,“Be quiet! Be quiet! He didn’t even ask yet!”

“What?” Percy asks. “What location? I’m not seeking any—”

“Nothing! You’re right, boy. It’s nothing!”

“Tell me.”

“No!” All three sisters yell. 

“The last time we told, it was horrible!” One yells. 

“Eye tossed in a lake!” Two agrees.

“Years to find it again! And speaking of that—give it back!” Three screams the last part at one of her sisters, evidently bored of conversing with the passengers.

“No!” 

“Eye! Gimme!” This was followed by the sound of a hard slap, and the telltale suctioning  sound of something being popped out. Piper’s stomach jumps into her throat as she feels something land on her stomach, the slime of it soaking through her shirt. 

“What was that?” She croaks, not daring to look down. 

“I can’t see!” All of the sister shriek. 

Percy shakes his head, looking down at whatever had landed on her. “Pipes, don’t look down.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Give me the eye!” This sounded like the one that was driving. 

“Give her the eye!” Annabeth and Piper yell at the same time. 

“I’m not picking that up!” Percy yells, just as a horrible grinding noise fills the cab. 

“Going to be sick!” Tyson warned.

“Nope!” Piper sits up, the eye sliding off of her belly and landing on her thighs. She could finally see that they were skidding against the guardrails on a bridge. The lightning bolt hitting their car was looking better and better.

“Annabeth,” Piper winces when Percy yells right next to her ears, “let Tyson use your backpack!”

“Are you crazy? Get the eye!” Annabeth asks. 

“You get the eye!” 

Piper shrieks, making sure to get back at Percy for yelling in her ear. “For the record, I am not getting the eye!” 

Percy wrinkles his nose, ripping off a piece of his t-shirt, and finally taking the eyeball off of Piper. She can still feel it, though. 

“Nice boy!” And Piper could clearly tell that it was the sister in the middle saying this. “Give it back!”

Percy, however, being a crazy person with no sense of mortal danger, holds the eyeball away from the sisters. “Not until you explain. What were you talking about, the location I seek?”

“No time!” The one by the window screamed. “Accelerating!”

“Percy,” Annabeth says through gritted teeth, “they can’t find our destination without the eye. We’ll just keep accelerating until we break into a million pieces.”

“First they have to tell me,” Percy said. “Or I’ll open the window and throw the eye into oncoming traffic.”

“Percy,” Piper hisses. “I swear to gods, if we die in this cab, I will murder you.” 

“I’m rolling down the window!” Percy announces to the cab, though anyone with eyes could tell that he made no move to do so. 

“Wait!” the Gray Sisters screamed. “30, 31, 75, 12!”

“What do you mean?” Percy asks. “That makes no sense!”

“30, 31, 75, 12!” The middle sister wailed. “That’s all we can tell you. Now give us the eye! Almost to camp!”

“Give them the eye!” Piper echoes. 

Finally, Percy tosses the eye towards the sister behind the wheel. Piper doesn’t dare look, but she does shiver at another sickening suctioning sound. “Woah!” 

Percy grips Piper, and she grips the back of the seat for leverage as the cab’s brakes squeal. The car spins several times, before stopping on the green landscape surrounding Half Blood Hill. 

Tyson burps. “Better now.” 

“All right,” Percy breathes, slowly lessening his death grip on Piper. “Now tell me what those numbers mean.”

“No time!” Annabeth threw Piper’s legs off her lap, and was already halfway out of the car. “We have to get out now.”

They call Hazel and Sally that night to fill them in on everything that has happened since they last saw each other-- and how was it that it had only been that morning since everything had happened? 

Tyson’s a cyclops. 

Chiron got fired. 

The pine tree at the crest of the hill-- which was apparently made out of Zeus’ dead daughter???-- was poisoned. 

Yet, Piper was still the most shocked by the holographic, green trident that had made its way above Tyson’s head. A claim, her siblings in Aphrodite had chittered, from the sea god himself.

Tyson was ecstatic about it, giggling about the fact that Percy was his brother. His enthusiasm was infectious-- if you weren’t Percy, who looked a mixture of embarrassed and furious since the claiming. 

They’re in Cabin Three-- Poseidon cabin-- Percy, Piper, and Tyson each claiming their own bunk. Because this was Tyson’s cabin

Neither Hazel, nor Sally seem particularly surprised to find out that Tyson is actually a Cyclops. 

(Hazel, much like Piper, seemed much more astonished to find out that Tyson was Percy’s half-brother than anything. If Sally was surprised by any of their news other than the fact that Percy and Piper had been taken to camp after cannibalistic Canadians blew up the gym, she didn’t say it.)

Hazel pouts. “Why can’t I go to camp?”

Piper and Percy share a look, both thinking along the same lines: They had to keep Hazel away. 

“Hazel, it's dangerous here.” 

“We weren’t supposed to be here.” Piper reminds her. “If I hadn’t interrupted Percy’s kidnapping, I wouldn’t even be here.”

Percy nods. “Plus, the activity director is some creepy guy.” 

“Who cooks kids.” Piper adds. Percy, Hazel, Sally, and Tyson all give her odd looks. “What? Am I the only one that read that story?” 

Sally sighs. “I wish that none of you were there. You should be safe .”

“We need to help.” Percy insists. “Camp… it’s our safe place. It’s our duty to keep it that way.” 

“Which is why I should be there.” Hazel looks around, as if searching for support-- even though she’s not going to get any. “I’ve been at camp longer than either of you.” 

“Lights out soon.” Piper lies, knowing that if the conversation keeps going, the three of them are just going to keep talking themselves in circles. 

Sally sighs, dejectedly. “Alright. We’ll get going.” 

Hazel glares, apparently seeing through Piper’s deception even with miles between them. “You better call again. If I don’t hear from you, I will call you and it will be when you’re scheduled to be in sword fighting or something.” 

Piper smiles at the threat. “Promise.”