"Percy, I'm begging you, please don't do this," Annabeth was close to tears and kept wiping at her eyes to keep him in sight.

"I have to, I won't let this be the best of me!" His hands tightened along his weapon with more confidence than he really should have.

"It's not worthy it Percy, just this one time, let it go-"

"Not a chance," he growled.

He released the arrow.

The wind somehow caught it and Annabeth's hair all in one massive gust, it dangled from her golden locks as she yelped in pain.

"I'm going to kill you," she groaned, her streaming eyes trying desperately to blink away every obscurity of grass, hair and yet more wind. "Why would you do this to me!"

"I thought I could reverse my luck," he sighed as he tried to gently begin untangling the mess. "If I can't get it right without the wind, maybe it would work better with all this extra craziness. It's usually how my life works."

"I'm going to get Chiron to ban you from archery practice, so help me," she tried to hold back a whimper of pain as she held the roots of her hair, still wincing every few moments as Percy tried his best to gently unknot the fletching.

Another dreamless night for them all somehow hadn't made the pancakes they ate for breakfast taste better. Now they were just, milling around uneasily, waiting.

Jason hated it. He was also the one most firmly in the waiting party, despite Annabeth and Percy eyeing the book bag and the ground beneath their feet with more anxiety by the hour.

His time at Camp had been strange so far and he was claiming to an adjustment period before going back to those things which they were willingly giving him, even if they knew he was full of it. Everything here felt so...gods it was so frustrating he couldn't even put it into words.

Having heard of the place for days, he'd thought he'd be fully prepared, but seeing it all in action rather than having it described was making his brain feel like someone had put it in backwards. Watching the others collect their food and scrape it into the fire as silent offerings had never sounded strange, but then he just stood awkwardly to the side with no feeling, no impulse to do the same in practice. Like watching strangers perform a tradition he had no part in, speaking his tongue but no words he felt. Even just seeing them collect their food and go the table just looked very, average?

The chore schedule was on a rotation for all the cabins, but with the influx of so many new cabins over the summer, and not every one of them even having kids year round, it was in a constant state of work to keep it fair and being rotated on promises and bribes from the rest of the kids to make sure the toilet paper got changed and the trash was taken out and all the little things that made this place livable every day while Jason had studied it in a desperate attempt of a kid looking for his name on a schedule to give him some clue where to go before Percy had tried to explain the mess to him.

The official training and mandatory classes were on a much smoother pattern, an honored itinerary from way back when the place was established. The new cabins had been seamlessly split among all of the various color coded sections that had once all been Hermes into equal parts. At least those he could follow without too much stress, even if he kept getting turned around at the lava wall and found himself walking into the arena in the middle of star-throwing class somehow twice in the span of fifteen minutes one time!

Annabeth had taken Jason and Percy to talk to Clovis, but the explanation their memories hadn't been wiped, but taken, was somehow more disturbing than if they'd just been shoved in the Lethe. It was so, deliberate. Hera, or Juno, or possibly the two acting as one in this case holding their minds hostage had only been interceded by...something else. Someone else.

He tried to seek out Leo from time to time, but he was surprisingly hard to find. When checking in on his siblings, they shrugged and kept saying they were surprised he kept coming back from the woods alive as often as he snuck in there.

When Jason finally tracked him down and formally offered him to come read with them once the rest of their friends came back, Leo had looked at him like he was completely nuts. He'd said he'd think about it. That hadn't been remotely encouraging.

Okay, it had been really disappointing. Jason kept having to remind himself very firmly it was for the better this way if Leo decided he wanted to be friends without the fake memories.

If Nico didn't get back soon, they weren't going to be patient enough to wait much longer. Christmas had come and gone, dinner at Sally's had been the feast she promised. Paul and Percy had a long, semi serious conversation about a basketball team and something involving a charity...and still nothing. Jason had eaten thirds of everything and somehow knew this was the best feast he'd ever attended, and possibly the only one where he didn't feel like an ornament. He was just another friend of Percy's at the table, sitting across from a mortal with kind eyes and a ready smile.

He felt like a ghost watching this perfect happy family while he nibbled on the best honeyed ham of his life. He'd more than once considered going out to eat on the balcony and just watch through the glass, but that felt like a cliche he'd just get laughed at for.

Sleeping in the big house wasn't feeling any better. The occasional sounds of Chiron moving about or some Apollo kid showing up to the medical bay in the early hours to do inventory in there helped a lot same as it had when he'd slept under the ocean, but the feeling of misplacement never really left.

So he'd risked taking his first steps into Cabin One. It had been a waking nightmare.

The cold, the emptiness, the distant sounds of rolling thunder and every speck of light dancing off of lightning patterned into the columns and walls. It was a monolith to his current, empty feeling inside, and he backed out as quickly as possible to go find one of his friends.

They were always easy enough to track down, he'd memorized the schedules much to Percy's ever entertaining dumbstruck face. They were usually running around trying to do a few extra activities now to make up for their backlog later in a vain attempt to not fall behind. Percy's mutterings about the worst winter break ever when someone asked him for a book report later weren't unfounded, but he was never without a smile as he mucked out the pegasi's stalls and Annabeth was laying down fresh hay.

Thalia had arrived by the time Percy had swerved the bus back into its proper parking spot Boxing Day. The great army of silver camo gear had been efficiently cleaning out Artemis's cabin as they rushed up to the Big House to see her chatting with Chiron on the porch.

Iris messages still weren't working though. Percy had no way of getting a hold of Tyson or Grover, despite how much he was willing to get on Blackjack and just start scouring the country for them, Annabeth talked him out of it. Something of the speech about not enough donut shops in the country keeping Blackjack afloat must have gotten through.

Now, late evening still saw Jason sitting anxiously a top Cabin One to keep an eye out for Nico and Will coming back as the shadows grew longest, despite all of them reminding he wasn't likely to come popping out of the shadows of that place when the two made their way back from their archery class. It wasn't like it was their fault the rest of the kids had taken off running when Percy picked up the bow. It would be their own problem to attend the make-up meeting later.

Thalia's silver camo jacket made her stand out like a beacon of light as she leaned on the front porch of the Big House looking over the camp, patches of green hills or piles of snow wherever they were wanted; and more specifically, her eyes on the enormous tree at the top of the hill.

Annabeth came up beside her and put her arm through her sister's tightly wound grip. She smiled and relaxed a touch as she asked, "Percy?" He was currently climbing up beside Jason and tapping his pocket. She wondered vaguely what kind of curse would activate if he knocked a sheaf of roofing loose. They both knew he was offering another sword practice with him. They really needed Will back to referee those two soon or they'd need Nico and or ambrosia to end this unending battle.*

"I don't need him to tell me when you're not okay," she scoffed, resting her head on her shoulder.

They stood in silence for a long time, enough that Annabeth started shifting her weight with restless energy and the sun was starting to sink lower in the sky while Thalia hadn't moved a muscle, growing more still by the trickling light. The golden scales of Peleus's hide looked as if the tree were on fire from a distance.

"I used to blame myself for your death," Annabeth finally said, a catch in her voice. She didn't know how else to make Thalia start this conversation except cutting right to the heart. "If I hadn't been so small, so slow, if Luke hadn't carried me down here, he could have been back there helping you fight."

Thalia looked sharply down at her, a denial already on her tongue. Annabeth just smiled and pulled her head back, already nodding. "Those first months, I'd stand under those branches and cry, talk to you for hours and apologize. Luke figured out where I kept disappearing to, and he made sure I knew nobody could escape the furies once they had their target. That your sacrifice wasn't something to regret and resent, but something to be proud of."

She didn't speak, her face flushed red, but Annabeth could read the anger and betrayal still simmering under the surface of when he'd changed his mind about what that night meant.

"I don't know," Annabeth agreed. "I don't think there was an exact date I could mark on the calendar. I don't know when Kronos started whispering to him. I just wish you'd understand. You basically woke up from a nap and he was a totally different person, to you. To me, he was still the hero that was my everything for a long, long time Thalia. Between you and Percy constantly calling him the most evil being and acting like he and Kronos were one and the same, it hurts. Every time. I didn't know him like you did, as his equal, but you didn't know him like I did either, as my only family when you were gone."

Both Annabeth and Thalia had poured everything into Luke when she needed him most, and he'd taken it all in like a cup that would never fill. Her anger, her grief, her fear and exhaustion at everything the world had done to them in their short years on the streets. Luke had held her when she cried and made her laugh, he'd been her confidant and her first friend, best friend, and first love.

He'd been her first everything, and she'd thought she could get away with never crying over him?

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you for this," Annabeth said.

"You don't have to be," she said stiffly, but she didn't pull away. Something was shaking loose inside her, and it wasn't leaving room for much else.

"We're the same age now Thalia," Annabeth grinned, "you don't have to take care of me anymore. You don't have to protect me anymore. I want us to move on from this better for it."

Thalia coughed, and that was the start to the end. The feeling poured out of her and wouldn't stop, even as Annabeth pulled her close and she found her wet cheek and snotty nose pressed against her shoulder. "Me too," she promised, voice rough but meaning every crack. Being forced to relive every moment of Luke's betrayal with Percy had forced an understanding into her she'd never wanted. Luke hadn't been all good or all evil. He'd just been a person, who'd made bad choices, a path she could all too easily stumble upon if she didn't keep her toe in line and remind herself what she was capable of too. That styx-vow had saved her little brother's life from that giant, and some part of her hoped it would even have eased her father's paranoia that she didn't want to be Luke next.

The conch rang for dinner, and the two untangled themselves to head for the stairs. Annabeth vaguely regretted not being a Huntress for the first time as she kept wiping at her eyes but Thalia just cleared her throat and actually looked like nothing had happened.

Thalia had sat casually by her brother at the Zeus table and ignored the whispers as usual. Jason had come over to join her from Chiron's table and was stirring his stew, nearly blackened and sluggish with how much pepper he'd put in, and looking around. "Should I ask if you've done something to Drew, or do I not want to know the answer?"

"Haven't done a thing to her," she shrugged as she dumped half a container of salt in before stirring vigorously. "Girl can fight her own battle, if she has one to pick."

"Then I think we should have Chiron make a formal announcement or something so I'll stop getting, um, weird looks," Jason said.

Thalia rolled her eyes, she couldn't care less what crazy rumors people assumed about them both claiming to be children of Zeus at roughly the same age, but for his sake she agreed she'd ask Chiron to introduce them both tonight at their proper welcoming of the Huntress's.

Nico and Will finally showed up that night. Gods forbid the boy ever make a casual appearance in the middle of a sunny afternoon.

No, he had to wait until Jason was walking back up to the Big House to fall out from the shadows with Will and another girl in tow.

Jason barely startled, his hand had crept towards his coin on instinct before he dropped his fingers away and instead reached them out in excitement to pull his friends up.

Will gratefully took his hand and stretched, staring up at the dark moon with a look of mild disappointment.

Nico was helping someone up, who Jason had never met before. She had large, kind amber eyes and a puzzled smile underneath thick cinnamon hair, her skin was only a shade lighter than Nico's.

She was like him. Jason stood thunderstruck as he saw the plain purple t-shirt and jeans Nico had somehow acquired for her.

"Jason, I want you to meet Hazel." Nico said with one of those smiles that made him look like a pleased mad man. "I think you two are going to get along better than anyone else around here."

HOOPJOHOOPJOHOOPJO

That's it, for this. Reading chapters will continue in Where Do You Call Home Friday!

Have no fears, I've been building this up since they were all thrown off their regularly scheduled kidnappings, but the rest of the books are not going to be jumping the timeline, we're done with that. The next four books will be purely reading and mysteries of the future to all!

*This chapter turned into a beast all its own and so I will show them having a sword fighting practice as an opening new day scene in the far-off future, but know that I am very anxiously awaiting posting my vision of them trying to cheerfully hack each other to pieces!