When You're Gone

Secrets

"I can't believe it." Will pounded the table. Normally, he wouldn't act like this, but this was an exception. "What did they do to Percy?"

Nico flinched. "They did nothing," he said. "In fact, the question is: What did we do to Percy? When I visited them last month, Percy was badly wounded by our weapons. They're holding us to blame."

He's obviously hiding something, Jason observed. When he first met Nico, his first impression of him was: This kid has too many secrets. And now it proved that theory once again.

"Why us?" Clarisse demanded. "What weapons? Is it because of the Hecate cabin pranking them? I heard they've been punished by Chiron for that last month. On the bright side, they get along great with the pegasi."

Jason didn't ask for the full story, either. All he heard was some weapon from Camp Half-Blood was aimed to fire when detected any Celestial Bronze. That's all.

But then the weapon was set after the Giant War . . .

He shuddered. Annabeth's and Leo's fingerprints. Greek technology. No, he couldn't doubt them.

His fatal flaw isn't loyalty, but he could tell where his heart belonged. He belonged to Camp Half-Blood.

"It's not," Annabeth analyzed. "Reyna had said, I need not to explain. I know Reyna enough to know that she isn't the rash type. Something must've happened before this."

All eyes were on Jason.

He cleared his throat. "Well -" Then he realized he didn't know when to start. Maybe when Percy had that near-case of food-coloring poisoning because of the blue food? Possibly.

Jason is a fighter. Not a talker. No, that's Annabeth and Piper's job. Unfortunately, they had no idea what was going on.

"When I got to Camp Jupiter," he started cautiously, "I saw Percy in a coma."

Collective gasps echoed through the room. Annabeth's was the loudest. Jason tried to ignore the hurtful look in her eyes, but her stormy gray eyes seemed to possess a darker shade of gray.

"So they assaulted him!" Clarisse suggested. "And they framed it on us. They must've brainwashed him. They planned this all along!"

"No, no, Clarisse, let Jason finish." Nico glanced at Jason, his expression said, Dude, tell us the truth or I'll throw you into Tartarus. "What happened next?"

Jason's mind went blank. He'd been a praetor, but not when a roomful of hastily armed Greeks staring at him, demanding for an explanation of Percy.

He would never admit it - but he is jealous of Percy. Was he offered immortality? No. Did he jump into hell for his girlfriend? Heck no. Had he defied an immortal's orders to save her? No, and he doubted that would happen, in the near future, anyway.

Percy would do anything for Annabeth before - but now they're apart. It's not Percy's fault, anyway, it's his fatal flaw.

He stayed in the lines. He thought before he said. He was a perfect Roman soldier, but a true Greek at heart.

He. Hated. Being. Restricted.

He decided. If he couldn't be a Roman, he'll be a Greek. Reyna had once said, There were some rogue Roman demigods who had tried to go into the Greek way.

Now he was part of them.

He wanted to break free of his chains.

"I stayed with him for a while . . ." Jason continued steadily. "The doctors said that he was sure to die, but being the stubborn Persassy he is, he held on. But when he woke up . . . he didn't act like a Greek anymore. He was more Roman. Even more Roman than me."

"Dude!" Leo looked up from his newly improved Valdezinator. It was meant to be a recreation of the one he gifted to Apollo, but he made some more improvements with more time and thought. Last time he only had seconds and let his hands do the work. "You're, like, so Roman-y. How could Percy beat ya? You're losing your touch!"

"Leo," Piper said kindly enough not to kill him, "shut up."

Leo shut up.

Will turned to Nico. "Do you know what happened?"

Nico twisted his silver skull ring. He's nervous.

"Someone left me a tip," he confessed. "That the tattoo mark on your forearm? That's a symbol of your godly parent claiming you - in a way. But Percy had already been claimed at Camp Half-Blood. So there's two manifestations of Percy, Greek, and Roman. When Percy was, um, assaulted, he was in his Greek side. His Roman side took over and he's alive as a Roman. That was why his mood swings changed more often when you, Annabeth, Leo and Piper found him at Camp Jupiter." He paused, shuddering like he was reliving a nightmare. "Especially after . . . after Tartarus."

The temperature in the room dropped below freezing point. No one spoke a word.

In this room, there were two people who had walked through hell - Annabeth and Nico. Annabeth shivered. Her eyes lost focus. Piper comforted her. Will wrapped his arms around his goth/emo boyfriend.

Chiron spoke up for the first time: "I see . . . now, you should all prepare for the worst . . . if there's anything that could be worse than this civil war."

* * *

Rachel needed a chill-pill.

"How could I have been so stupid?" she scolded herself. "Why didn't I foresee that? It's my fault!"

"Rachel, calm down!" Meg - daughter of Demeter - pleaded. "You're making me dizzy."

Jason scratched his head. Meg was a powerful daughter of Demeter, but he didn't know that a daughter of the farming goddess can be so carnivorous. Apparently, Apollo was cast down to be a mortal, and fated to be Meg's servant. Well, that fiasco ended, Python defeated, Nero dead, and Apollo back to an ignorant god.

Jason took a bite of his cracker. The blank canvas on Rachel's cave walls had been repainted by Rachel not too long ago. There were pictures of Lester and Meg fighting together and random lines.

The fall of the sun, the final verse.

Happiness approaches.

To storm or fire the world must fall.

The path of misery shall she sing.

That was all just random shit.

"Delphi isn't retaken, is it?" Rachel ran her hands through her frizzy hair. "Gods, what's going on?"

Jason coughed. "That's . . . what I've been trying to ask you."

Meg threw her cracker crumb at Apollo's portrait. "Don't push her, man. So, we're really at war?"

"Hm, last I checked." Jason rolled his eyes. "Maybe yes, you ignorant daughter of Demeter. How are you still slim from all that meat? Is - is that another hot dog?"

Meg inhaled her hot dog. "Yes." She wiped her mouth. "Yes it is."

Rachel scowled at her canvas. "Work, you stupid prophetic power!"

And yes! It's Meg McCaffery from Trials of Apollo! She's just so amazhang. All those mortals, don't understand a dam thing.

Me: //Rolls eyes\\

Me: Oh hey! If you're reading this, hello fellow demgod! I'm a daughter of Calliope! Vote if you get it!