𝐅𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒 - jason grace

14. HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY, RIGHT?

MAIA WAS CURRENTLY not having a good time. She was fine. Really, she was. Sure, she got thrown across the ship, but she wasn't actually hurt. She got lucky, as funny as that is. So why was Cassie fussing over her when there were bigger things to worry about?

"Maia, I swear to all the gods... just take the fucking ambrosia." Cassie tried to shove the little square of godly food in her mouth again.

"Cassie, I'm fine. I swear! Look at me, I'm standing just fine."

"You literally flew, Maia. That's Jason's thing. Not yours." The daughter of Apollo said pointedly.

"Don't you have bigger things to worry about? Like, I don't know, our friends, who, you know, are currently missing?"

"Maia."

"Cassie."

The honey blonde girl glared for a second, but then, her expression changed. She had an idea.

"Piper!" She called out, grinning.

"That's not fair!" Maia's eyes widened. "You can't make your girlfriend charmspeak me! Hey!"

It's safe to say, by the time Jason and Percy had finished their third or fourth rounds searching for their friends, Cassie had managed to get Maia to eat the ambrosia.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥

By the time the sun rose, none of them had slept.

Percy had scoured the seafloor and found nothing. The Argo II was no longer in danger of sinking, though without Leo, they couldn't do full repairs.

Jason had been searching from up high for hours, and found nothing.

Piper and Annabeth sent a dream vision to Camp Half-Blood, warning Chiron of what had happened with the Romans at Fort Sumter. They went back and forth for a bit, filling each side in on what had happened.

When it finally came—three giant pink bubbles bursting at the surface off the starboard bow and ejecting Frank, Hazel, and Leo—Piper went a little crazy. She cried out with relief and dove straight into the water.

Cassie laughed at Piper's excitement to see their friends, and ran off to get some towels for everyone.

Once they got on board and changed into dry clothes, the crew all gathered on the quarterdeck for a celebratory breakfast—except for Coach Hedge, who grumbled that the atmosphere was getting too cuddly for his tastes and went below to hammer out some dents in the hull. While Leo fussed over his helm controls, Hazel and Frank related the story of the fish-centaurs and their training camp.

"Incredible," Jason said. "These are really good brownies."

"I know!" Maia said, "These are unreal."

"Is that really all you guys have to say?" Piper asked incredulously.

Jason looked surprised. "What? I heard the story. Fish-centaurs. Merpeople. Letter of intro to the Tiber River god. Got it. But these brownies—"

"I know," Frank said, his mouth full. "Try them with Esther's peach preserves."

"That," Hazel said, "is incredibly disgusting."

"Why would you even do that? You're ruining a perfectly good brownie." Maia added.

"Pass me the jar, man," Jason said.

Hazel and Maia exchanged a look of total exasperation.

Percy, for his part, wanted to hear every detail about the aquatic camp. He kept coming back to one point: "They didn't want to meet me?"