Let's all just pause and take a moment to exult that I'm done with one set of books! This is an accomplishment I will never fail to revel in no matter how many more I have to go! It's been a ride I wouldn't trade a word for!

PJOPJOPJOPJO

Alex, who had started all of this by picking up the first book she remembered fondly, took it from Magnus casually with a hopeful smile as she read, "We Say Good-Bye, Sort Of. That's just like you Percy. Gods forbid you commit to anything."

"I commit to important things," he promised with a casual kiss on his girlfriend's temple.

... they were the best two weeks of my life.

Alex couldn't help but read that with a tinge of confusion to her voice though. She had about as much clue to that idea of a solid length of time being happy as Percy had to a normal life. She liked it better when he was killing math teachers, at least that she could wrap her head around.

Of course, Annabeth would kill me if I said anything different,

"For just a moment I thought you were done holding people hostage at knife point Annabeth," Thalia said with, wagging a 'for shame' finger at her. "Let the poor boy go this instant!"

"I'm relieved, can't let her go getting soft now that she's in love," Jason snorted.

"A lesser person would hold you to saying that as some kind of blackmail Thals," Annabeth chuckled.

... Grover took over, sending them across the world to find unclaimed kids.

Jason felt a giddy sense of pride that his reaction all the way back at the beginning of this hearing how unorganized they were had been given its own resolution. Gods he wanted to shake Grover's hand and meet him so bad to see what his chart looked like covering all of this.

So far, the gods had kept their promise.

"For all of two weeks," Will nodded seriously. "Yeah, we were shocked too."

... I think she wants me to run for president next."

"And I'd vote for his hindquarters!" Nico snorted. "He'd do wonders for environmental issues."

"Given you and Thalia are the only one's here old enough to vote, I guess we'd just help put up campaign signs," Percy chuckled.

... adding an entire new wing of cabins just so they could have enough room.

Jason felt like getting up to high five Chiron. Of course Percy had been right, change was happening!

...Hermes cabin lot less crowded, unclaimed kids receiving signs.

"What a concept, all the kids having a bed and a whole foot of space for themselves," Nico said dryly.

"I hope you're not expecting a thank you card," Percy rolled his eyes.

...happened almost every night...almost all of them made it through.

'Almost all of them,' Magnus shook his head sadly he couldn't even feel real surprise and shock at how casually that was just put down.

... would turn everyone into a tree. Nobody but Grover would like that.

"Define, everyone?" Alex asked clinically, wondering if it would work on the cyclops, who were already nature spirit adjacents.

"Been there, done that, don't recommend," Thalia huffed.

... "You're still my best friend."

He grinned. "Except for Annabeth."

"That's different."

"Yeah," he agreed. "It sure is."

"I miss him," Percy needlessly told her. "We need the three amigos out in the world!"

"I have a feeling you'll get your wish soon," Annabeth promised, but with the kind of smile that at least made him hope it would be fifty fifty on the fun/ death scale.

..."Yes, and I got my palace destroyed in the process,

Percy sighed loudly, he just knew that was going to come up again!

...I suppose even the gods can learn new tricks."

"Yada yada old dogs," Magnus nodded.

"I'd leave at least half of them at the pound," Thalia smirked, causing Percy to laugh hard in agreement.

...have to release the little ones or the game wardens will be all over me." "Little ones?"

"Game warden?" Jason felt he was asking the far more important question.

"I'll bet it's Grover," Will smirked.

... send you some siblings next summer."

"Damn," Alex snorted, "your dad is ice cold for that joke."

"He had to have that side of him somewhere, the ocean isn't all dolphins and maytai," Annaebth shrugged without surprise. Percy was to busy sitting in nervous silence to answer.

...I still didn't know whether he was serious or not.

"He, wouldn't, have," but Jason sounded as confused and unsure as Percy did, and when this guy was on the same page as him, they were all in trouble.

Percy loved his little brother in Tyson, but a small, secret part of him had also kind of enjoyed the idea his mom was special. That it was Sally Jackson herself that had made Poseidon break his oath and sort of regret him being born until he proved otherwise.

...besides, no way could other half-blood siblings have been out there all this time, still alive and awaiting to be discovered. They were supposed to be extra monsterlicious or something. Right?!

...leaving a fishing pole lying in the sand.

"Did you keep it?" Alex asked casually.

"It was probably cursed," Percy said like that was an answer.

"And?" Alex spluttered in disappointment. Percy gave her a tragic look that he felt spoke all he needed to about enticing such ideas.

She turned grumpily away and muttered some more curses, though Percy wasn't quite sure if he meant the artifact kind or the cussing him out kind. He had a feeling Alex could manage both equally well at any rate.

...when I was twelve, how I'd felt so at home. That at least hadn't changed.

It was one of those things Percy hoped never did. His love of the color blue, how much he loved going fast on his pets, how much he looked forward coming to camp every year. He expected his feelings for Annabeth to change and reform, he accepted he'd keep feeling like a freak in his own head around all these different people who saw him as something special, but it felt good to fall back on simple things too.

... Chiron still trotted in front of the fire with a slight limp.

"Errr, Percy, he's always had that limp," Annabeth told him kindly.

"What? No he hasn't," Percy frowned. "I'd notice that."

"Yeah, sorry Perce," Will agreed. "It's not super obvious, but it's there. He got it from that Hercules incident."

Percy looked at them dumbfounded and was pretty sure they were pulling his leg...but he also still couldn't prove there wasn't some secret play they put on every year he'd never heard of so he was kind of at a loss.

...No one else seemed to notice Hestia, but maybe she preferred that.

"Yeah, I think Hestia is my spirit goddess," Magnus grinned.

"We can throw you in the fire?" Alex asked with mild excitement.

"You're going to save the world by being handed a jar?" Percy asked blankly.

"Screw both of you," Magnus chuckled.

...arrangements to stay the year with us....harpies will eat any stragglers... hate to end the summer on a sour note!"

"Do we taste sour?" Nico asked, unimpressed.

"Don't say it like that," Will whined. "Chiron doesn't join in them eating us!"

"Well I'm so sorry I didn't get the correct interpretation out of that death threat," Nico rolled his eyes. He'd left this night, it had been the last thing he heard Chiron say. It had been a pretty memorable last stance.

...the first time in my life I'd ever done two years at the same school.

"In the sea of your life, that is a particularly depressing statement my friend," Jason said with a strange feeling of not being able to relate to Percy on that one. It was nice, he supposed, not to have a deep rooted parallel lodged in him about such a sad thing to hear, but somehow made Percy's life even more tragic than his own blank one for a moment.

"Yeah, yeah, news flash at ten, traffic or whatever," Percy shrugged, but it was still a good feeling. To smile and hope that they were just on winter break and he'd be able to actually continue this trend. The world wouldn't end because he'd accomplished something, it was all he'd wanted once upon a time.

... Annabeth hugged Rachel. Funny, they got along fine these days.

"Very, very strange, yes," Alex said in a posh, scholarly voice. "Next he'll sit around and ponder the existence of bread or something."

"Well documented history of something all human civilizations create," Annabeth helpfully said to his blank look.

"Ah, thanks," he said.

...The Pythagorean theorem shall be problem two. . . Gods, that would be embarrassing."

"I think that would make her the most popular girl there though," Thalia grinned. "Teachers would never understand how the kids keep cheating, she wouldn't charge anyone for free answers to the test, just works out for everyone really."

"Don't get me started on how our education system is trash," Annabeth said with a sharp look at the book like Rachel was in front of her to debate this with on whether that would be of any help.

... "you two be good to each other." Go figure, but she looked at me like I was some kind of troublemaker.

"You can't say anything Percy, you called yourself a trouble maker first," Thalia grinned.

"It was shocking I tell you, I'd never been labeled as such before," Percy insisted wide eyed, causing them all to laugh lightly again.

...attend boarding school in the city so she could be close to Olympus.

"Guess that living in Cali. thing didn't stick?" Magnus asked, one part nervous for her, one part hopeful she'd just finally decided where she wanted her home to be.

"Not so much," Annabeth agreed, but the sad smile didn't linger as she turned back to the book casually. She'd keep in contact with her dad as long as he wanted to. She'd even offer to say hi to her step mom if she wanted to stop and chat on the phone. She'd come around for holidays or birthdays even. It just wasn't a necessity to her. She finally had her question answered of her place in his life.

... about building something permanent...—we were off to a good start.

"Well the bones of your relationship are at least well set in good sediment," Nico tried to say that in a complimentary way, but Percy just got another 'over my head' look and Nico shrunk in his seat rather than admit he'd spent hours in a museum once looking up niche facts of where dinosaur fossils were usually discovered.

..."You've been thinking about Rachel's prophecy?... Because I know you."

Annabeth gave a mock, tragic sigh. "Am I already that predictable?"

"I don't mind a little calm and steady see-thoroughness right now," Percy promised. He could see that feeling hadn't faded at all with time too. She hadn't stopped studying Jason with those intense gray eyes every time she was sure he wasn't looking. A lesser guy would have been jealous. Percy was secure enough to know better it wasn't that blonde hair and blue eyes holding her attention after quoting that prophecy.

.... "Okay, so I have. Seven half-bloods ... so many new faces next summer."

"Those poor suckers have no clue what they're in for," Magnus said with experience.

"I'm still trying to hold out hope it won't involve us," Percy groaned.

"Well then, don't give the jar to Magnus," Alex reminded with an impish grin.

Annabeth chuckled along quietly, her eyes still darting between Jason, her cousin, and Alex. To much of what Artimes had said made sense with her dreams.

... all that stuff about the world falling in storm or fire."

"You don't get a choice about the world ending that time," Jason agreed sadly. "You pick your poison and you like it."

"Bet I can find a loophole where one of the poison's tastes like blue-raspberry at least," Percy offered half-heartedly.

She pursed her lips. "And foes at the Doors of Death.

"Which is a particularly strange line," Nico nodded. "The Doors of Death are always moving, they're set in no spot, in Tartarus! No half-bloods would survive down there to bare arms against each other long enough."

"Not a theory I'd like to start beta-testing," Annabeth reluctantly agreed, though it was a soothing feeling for a moment to have a niche expert on at least one line at minimum.

... I don't like it. I thought, well, maybe we'd get some peace for a change."

"What on earth gave you that strange thought?" Thalia asked her in concern.

"My recent visit to the delusional land of Olympus where everything was sunshine and rainbows by design," Annabeth sighed.

...For once, I didn't look back.

Alex smiled as she closed the book to finally indicate she was done, this one was done. It was a strange feeling of relief and accomplishment when it had nothing to do with her in particular, just one that always came with finishing a new story. Having someone else's life given a tangible place in her world was usually such a fleeting thing.

Percy jumped up and did a lap around the room, arms up in a delirious victory. He would have been shouting like a loon at the top of his lungs if he wasn't worried about drawing the cranky Titan back.

The others couldn't blame him in the slightest, letting him work off his energy as they waited for Jason to stretch and offer, "don't worry, I can wait one more day to deal with the next stretch of my mess. We can all hit bed for the night."

"Thank you," Annabeth said politely, though she and Thalia exchanged almost disappointed looks. They almost didn't want that. They'd known everything of their past, but there was a hunger in them to get a look at the other side of a gods face and see just what Jason had gotten up to.

Alex, Will, and Nico were already walking off however, talking about death auras and color theory in a disturbing crisscross conversation, and Percy was starting to slow his frantic run and rubbing his stomach, so they weren't going to argue the point tonight and let it go to take a breath at minimum.

Magnus lingered on the couch where he'd been sitting by Alex, head tipped back and staring at the ceiling with a forlorn expression.

Annabeth sunk down uneasily beside him and asked, "thinking about Hearth?"

He nodded, an uncomfortable position for his neck for sure at the awkward angle as he didn't look around. "I feel like such trash, he's my friend, and here Percy just went and made sure the world was safe for all of his, and I waved mine goodby on the word a Titan wouldn't just chuck him off the planet by accident."

"Percy isn't perfect," Annabeth corrected with a fond smile. "I know you know I once jumped on the back of a manticore, and he beat himself up over it too."

Magnus finally turned to face her, waving his hand around in the water to show how much that comparison didn't work.

"I know," she agreed. "Just, I know you're going to beat yourself up, but try to leave some skin unbruised too. If Hearth left of his own accord, I can't see him blaming you."

Magnus sighed and nodded in agreement. He wanted to believe that, at any rate.

Annabeth watched, seeing him now studying the empty seat with a faraway look in his eyes she knew all to well, the lost expression of not knowing what to do about a situation wasn't just for his friend.

"You like her," Annabeth said astutely, tucking her legs underneath her and studying him, "I could tell that after being here half a day. Have you said anything to Alex?"

Magnus bit his lip and wasn't sure how to say it.

"Is it because you're only attracted to her, half the time?" She kept fishing.

"No, no," Magnus quickly corrected. "I, find her just as intriguing on her he days. I mean, I've never been attracted to a guy before, but it's not, I mean, I like Alex, no matter what gender she or he is."

"So what's the problem?" Annabeth repeated, pure sympathy in her tone.

He clasped his hands and tapped his fingers against his chin, there was no nice way to say it. "Not sure what's going to happen when we get back. I'm still, I'm not sure if you're camp, well, up there-"

His cousin's eyes filled with regret, she leaned forward in her seat, feet spilling back onto the floor to support her weight as she automatically went in to hug him, before she hesitated and leaned right back. He smiled at her in relief and forced himself to relax, not even realizing he'd tensed up until she'd sat back in her seat, but still leaning on the edge.

"You're homeless." She said it as a statement, not a question. He didn't bother to deny it. What would be the point when she'd find out the second they got out of here? Her face flooded with the one thing that didn't send him running away though. Understanding. "Magnus, I am so sorry about that, if I'd known-"

"How could you," he brushed off any responsibility on her part. "As bad as things apparently are between your dad, if he even knows, you've had your own troubles going on-"

"I asked about you though," Annabeth insisted, she was twisting her hands up in her lap and he smiled to imagine her Yankees cap there. "When he told me about Aunt Natalie, that first summer I'd seen him in so long, I cried all night. He said he tried to find you but the system had no record of you, and my step-mom was just in the kitchen the whole time making her kids lunch like nothing was wrong, well, it didn't set a good precedent for that summer. I just thought, I don't know, you were living with Uncle Randolph, safe, I was still fighting with them so much-"

"I don't blame you," he insisted to her guilt ridden face.

"I should have looked for you," she insisted too. "You could have been at camp with us all along."

"I don't know about that," he frowned and looked up at the ceiling again, then reluctantly, the door. "That's why I'm, well it doesn't help I'm a tongue tied idiot around her, but I don't know what's going to happen when we get back. The last thing I should be worried about is a crush when, well I have no clue about my parentage and," he trailed off with his face burning red and his own hands gripping painfully tight to each other.

Annabeth bumped their knees together as she leaned forward without being forceful about it, her tone dead serious. "Chiron will not turn you four away. You'll have somewhere safe to be Magnus." Then she looked over her shoulder, and back to him with a promising smile. "I can tell you really have feelings for Alex, and you shouldn't wait on something like that."

He was blushing again even as he answered, "it's not like it's just me. Alex is, so confident, about everything! I still think she's just been messing with me! If she did like me, I think she'd say something about it, she's so bold." He was smiling by the end, he could hear to his own ears how gently he spoke of her and couldn't even find the blush to be embarrassed about it anymore, even as Annabeth's smile increased.

She still spoke candidly, but there was a hint of worry for the first time. "Maybe, well, she has feelings for somebody else up there right now."

Magnus's heart plummeted, he hadn't thought of that.

"Maybe there's, other things going on in her circumstances," Annabeth relentlessly went on, "but Magnus, you'll regret it if you don't at least ask. Trust me."

He did trust her. He didn't envy the two living through the end of the world before finding peace in each other. He didn't want total destruction to get up the courage to say something to Alex and wondered what other obstacles between near constant death by monster and kidnapping's might circumvent them giving each other a chance.

Magnus knew the moment Percy must have walked back in the room by watching her face light up, shifting around in her seat as if her first reaction were to go to him. She stopped herself and smiled back at him.

He nodded to be left alone, so Annabeth just gave him a promising smile as she stretched and stood up, going over to Percy and putting her hand in his like it was the most natural thing in the world as they discussed what they wanted for dinner with Thalia.

His mind was so preoccupied trying to figure out what exactly he was going to say to Alex on the way to her door, he had no clue how long he was standing in front of it only to see it was open. Wrapping his knuckles sharply on it anyways and very cautiously easing his head around, he called out for her with no answer.

It was as bland as everybody else's, if he hadn't subconsciously noted which one she'd come out of yesterday he'd never have guessed who's it could be, but there was also something so uniquely Alex about it he was sure he wasn't wrong. The smell of wet clay lingered in the air, there was a sewing kit resting beside the pillow, and a plate of Hershey's Kisses on top of the fridge, all unwrapped and arranged in a nonlinear way.

His first impulse was to swipe them into his mouth and book it, but this was Alex's room, and he'd never stolen from someone he wasn't pretty convinced didn't deserve it, so he instead opened up the door below.

Instead of food, what he found was a bowl. A beautiful work of pottery with intricate, almost 3D looking designs all along the side of a caterpillar weaving itself into a cocoon and coming out, only for its wings to beat for all of one image and begin withering in the very next to turn to dust, a telling story all the way until he spun it back around to start.

The kind of thing he would have scoffed and been disgusted at the price of, only someone living the lap of luxury could afford in a window. His hands felt grubby holding it.

He swiftly set it on her bed before the worst could happen and bumped into the fridge door, closing it to hide the evidence he'd found such a thing while the chocolate all moved around on the plate.

Then his mind seized in a panic, wanting to put it back before she found he'd saw it, and he had to grab something else out to prove he hadn't of course! But what- his eyes darted to the chocolate, and he frantically slammed and yanked the door too quickly, the universe glitched as it delivered so fast, but a bag of Kisses fell onto his shoe. He ripped the bag open and hastily shoved one in as he kicked the door back shut, feeling the strange crinkling sensation on his tongue and realizing he'd forgotten to unwrap it-

"Magnus?"

He choked, his hands fumbled, and for some reason his brain screamed at him to hide the evidence. The rich chocolate fell to the floor, scattering to every corner as the half-unwrapped one sat on his tongue as he whirled around to see her dark brown and amber eyes were glittering at him from across the room as she sauntered over. She stopped right in front of him, eyeing his lips clinically.

Magnus swallowed and knew he should open his mouth, say something, like why he was invading Alex's privacy and something else very important, he was sure he'd come in here to say something but really couldn't remember right now as Alex leaned in.

Alex planted a hand firmly on his shoulder and kissed him.

It was not gentle, but neither was the way Magnus's knees literally gave out on him and he fell back against the wall, his hands had pulled Alex's shirt with him, so that Alex was fully pressed into him and her lips were still a tantalizing breath apart.

She braced her other hand against the wall right by his head, he felt her shift her weight and his eyes snapped open as he began to apologize and let go only to see her nose to nose with him and smiling, not leaning back an inch. "I'm homeless," he blurted out, and gods he was the most idiotic person on earth as he licked his lips. He was surprised he wasn't choking on that wrapper and probably dying and hallucinations all this.

"I guessed that, I am too," she nodded. Some of her hair had fallen out of the updo, curling back around her shoulders. They were so close, his golden strands were twining together with hers. "I'm a child of Loki."

Judging by her reserved tone, how she was still shifting her weight around, he probably should have had some revelation to that. Even he'd heard of that god. "The god of trickery? Thor's brother?" He was running his tongue over his lip still where they tingled and had never wanted someone to move away less. Maybe he had a chocolate allergy he'd never known of.

She gave him a joyless smile, the nails on his shoulder digging in just a bit, for all the world like she was still fixing to lean back but had yet to do so. "How those Greek kids speak of children of Hades, as outcasts, untrustworthy, that's how our kind will see me Magnus."

"You're not seeing anyone else are you?" He blurted, again. He wasn't touching her anywhere but where his fingers were still holding onto the edge of her odd shirt, the material crinkled like she'd wrapped herself in foil, just the tips of his fingers.

Her smile was very sad as she leaned in and kissed him again, fully capturing his lips. The world might have actually ended by the time she leaned back again, his protection had possibly evaporated into her he was left breathing so shallowly like all the oxygen had been deprived from him. "No," she finally answered in the gentlest voice Magnus had yet heard from her. Her eyes were closed as she stayed right where she was. "Give me time to tell you about Adrian." Her breath caught on the name. Then she opened her eyes, and finally pushed off him and took a step back.

There was chocolate smeared across her lips now and he found himself swallowing none left in his mouth.

"Okay," he promised, thinking Percy would have to come in here and pry him off this wall before he figured out how to move again. "I, um, you're gorgeous," he finally, stupidly, remembered what he'd wanted to come in here and tell her, and the compliment seemed very underwhelming now.

She laughed, that same crooked smile playing across her lips he didn't think he'd ever want to look away from. "And you're an adorable goof."

"I can work with that," he nodded so much he may or may not have broken his neck.

***

Percy finally held her tight that night.

"All coming back to you?" She couldn't even put a tease in her voice as she lovingly curled into his chest without hesitation and his arms just circled her tighter.

There was comfortable silence for a while. But they both knew. It was a pause of their earlier fight, and they were both testing the waters to see who would break it first.

Percy did, cutting right to the heart of it. He'd seen that look on her face and known what it was. "I got lost, and it wasn't your fault."

She said nothing, her nails digging tight into his back. He could feel the hitch in her voice as she fought back a sob.

"The day you can tell a god or goddess or Titan what to do with me is the day you get crowned Queen of Olympus, and Zeus is doing a shit job too, so, I actually like your odds better," he concluded with the contemplative simpleness she adored about him so much. He had a very black and white view of the world, one she didn't share but admired.

"I think what's killing me is, that Artemis had to help," she admitted. She could only admit this to him, since she was being honest here.

He nodded, because he understood that too. "I'm sure your mom would say good counsel isn't unwise?" He tried and failed to offer, knowing the answer. "Your mom might never have liked my help, but she can't claim to have never needed it. She has demigods to do her bidding too."

"Her counsel, perhaps, but I, I don't know Percy. I hate the idea, of not knowing what they have planned for you. Of what they'll ask you to do before this is all over."

"What they'll ask us to do," Percy reminded, she could hear the grin of his voice from the comfort of his beating heart in her ear. "Oceanus might be an idiot, but he made it pretty clear he didn't pull all of them in here by mistake. Now, you are a part of it, and we'll make the right call."

"I hope you're right," she murmured. Her mind was on Jason, and her cousin and Alex. Her mind was on those books, and how no god's gift came without a price. Her mind was on Artemis still, and what she'd ask of them too when they got out of here.

And that would only be the beginning.

PJOPJOPJO

Update for Lost Hero Posting; I'll have the first chapter up on Dec. 21st, it's to auspicious a date for that book not to use, haha. It will also be posted in a new set series called 'Where Do You Call Home.'