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thewidowsghost · 4 months

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Seeing the Beauty (Piper McLean x Fem!Jackson!Reader) - Chapter 15

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The mountainside is on fire. Smoke billows hundreds of feet in the air. (Y/n) spots a helicopter – maybe firefighters or reporters – coming towards them.

All around them is carnage. The Earthborn had melted into piles of clay, leaving behind only their rock missiles and some nasty bits of loincloth, but (Y/n) figures they would reform soon enough. Construction equipment lies in ruins and the ground is scarred and blackened.

Coach Hedge starts to move. He sits up with a groan and rubs his head. His canary yellow pants are now the color of Dijon mustard mixed with mud.

He blinks and looks around him at the battle scene. “Did I do this?”

Before Jason can reply, Hedge picks up his club and gets shakily to his feet. “Yeah, you wanted some hoof? I gave you some hoof, cupcakes! Who’s the goat, huh?”

He does a little dance, kicking rocks and making what are probably rude satyr gestures at the piles of clay.

Leo cracks a smile, and Jason can’t help it — he starts to laugh. It probably sounds a little hysterical, but it’s such a relief to be alive, he doesn’t care.

Then a man stands up across the clearing. Tristan McLean staggers forward. His eyes are hollow, shell-shocked, like someone who’d just walked through a nuclear wasteland. “Piper?” he calls. His voice cracks. “Pipes, what — what is —” He can’t complete the thought. Piper runs over to him and hugs him tightly but he almost doesn’t seem to know her.

(Y/n) had felt a similar way — that morning at the Grand Canyon, when she woke with no memory. But Mr. McLean has the opposite problem. He has too many memories, too much trauma his mind just can’t handle. He is coming apart.

“We need to get him out of here,” Jason says, as though reading (Y/n)’s mind.

“Yeah, but how?” Leo says. “He’s in no shape to walk.”

Jason glances up at the helicopter, which is now circling directly overhead. “Can you make us a bullhorn or something?” he asks Leo. “Piper has some talking to do.”

. . .

Borrowing the helicopter is easy. Getting her dad on board is not.

Piper needs only a few words through Leo’s improvised bullhorn to convince the pilot to land on the mountain. The Park Service copter is big enough for medical evacuations or search and rescue, and when Piper tells the very nice ranger pilot lady that it would be a great idea to fly them to the Oakland Airport, she readily agreed.

“No,” her dad mutters, as they pick him up off the ground. “Piper, what — there were monsters — there were monsters —”

She needs (Y/n)’s help to hold him, while Coach Hedge gathers their supplies. Fortunately Hedge had put his pants and shoes back on, so Piper doesn’t have to explain the goat legs.

It breaks Piper’s heart to see her dad like this — pushed beyond the breaking point, crying like a little boy. She doesn’t know what the giant had done to him exactly, how the monsters had shattered his spirit, but she doesn’t think she can stand to find out.

“It’ll be okay, Dad,” she says, making her voice as soothing as possible. She doesn’t want to charmspeak her own father, but it seems like the only way. “These people are my friends. We’re going to help you. You’re safe now.”

He blinks, and looks up at helicopter rotors. “Blades. They had a machine with so many blades. They had six arms . . .”

When they get him to the bay doors, the pilot comes over to help. “What’s wrong with him?” she asks.

“Smoke inhalation,” Jason suggests. “Or heat exhaustion.”

“We should get him to a hospital,” the pilot says.

“It’s okay,” Piper replies. “The airport is good.”

“Yeah, the airport is good,” the pilot agrees immediately. Then she frowns, as if uncertain why she’d changed her mind. “Isn’t he Tristan McLean, the movie star?”

“No,” Piper says. “He only looks like him. Forget it.”

“Yes,” the pilot replies. “Only looks like him. I —” She blinks, confused. “I forgot what I was saying. Let’s get going."

Jason raises his eyebrows at Piper, obviously impressed, but Piper feels miserable. She doesn't want to twist people’s minds, convince them of things they didn’t believe. It feels so bossy, so wrong — like something Drew would do back at camp, or Medea in her evil department store. And how will it help my father? She can’t convince him he would be okay, or that nothing had happened. His trauma is just too deep.

Finally they get him on board, and the helicopter takes off. The pilot keeps getting questions over her radio, asking her where she is going, but she ignores them. They veer away from the burning mountain and head towards the Berkeley Hills.

“Piper.” Her dad grasps her hand and holds on like he was afraid he’d fall. “It’s you? They told me—they told me you would die. They said . . . horrible things would happen.”

“It’s me, Dad.” It takes all her willpower not to cry. She has to be strong for him. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“They were monsters,” he says. “Real monsters. Earth spirits, right out of Grandpa Tom’s stories — and the Earth Mother was angry with me. And the giant, Tsul’kalu, breathing fire —” He focuses on Piper again, his eyes like broken glass, reflecting a crazy kind of light. “They said you were a demigod, Your mother was . . ."

“Aphrodite,” Piper says. “Goddess of love.”

“I – I –” he takes a shaky breath, then seems to forget how to exhale.

Piper’s friends are careful not to watch. Leo fiddles with a lug nut from his tool belt. Jason gazes at the valley below – the roads backing up as mortals stop their cars and gawk at the burning mountain. (Y/n) is drinking a bottle of water – Smart thing for a Poesidon kid to do, Piper thinks – and studying the nicks in Tsunami’s blade. Geeson chews the stub of his carnation, and for once, the satyr doesn’t look in the mood to yell or boast.

Traistan McLean isn’t supposed to be seen like this. He’s a star – confident, stylish, suave, and always in control. That was the image he’d always projected. Piper had seen the image falter before, but this is different. Now it’s broken, gone.

“I didn’t know about Mom,” Piper tells him. “Not until you were taken. When we found out where you were, we came right away. My friends helped me. No one will hurt you again.”

Her dad can’t stop shivering. “You’re heroes – you and your friends. I can’t believe it. You’re a real hero, not like me. Not playing a part. I’m so proud of you, Pipes.” But the words are muttered listlessly, in a semi-trance.

He gazes down on the valley, and his grip on Piper’s hand goes slack. “Your mother never told me.”

“She thought it was for the best.” It sounds lame, even to Piper, and no amount of charmspeak can change that. But she doesn’t tell her dad what Aphrodite had really worried about: If he has to spend the rest of his life with those memories , knowing that gods and spirits walk the earth, it will shatter him.

Piper feels inside the pocket of her jacket. The vial is still there, warm to her touch. How can I erase his memories? Dad finally knows who I am. He’s proud of me, and I’m his hero, not the other way around. He’d never send me away, now. They shared a secret. How can I go back to the way things were?

She holds his hand, speaking to him about small things — her time at the Wilderness School, her cabin at Camp Half-Blood. She tells him how Coach Hedge ate carnations and got knocked on his butt on Mount Diablo, how Leo had tamed a dragon, how much of a good swordfighter and battle strategist (Y/n) was, and how Jason had made wolves back down by talking in Latin. Her friends smile reluctantly as she recounts their adventures. Her dad seems to relax as she talks, but he doesn’t smile. Piper isn’t even sure he heard her.

As they pass over the hills into the East Bay, Jason tenses. He leans so far out the doorway (Y/n) is afraid he’d fall, and she reaches out to grab the back of his collared shirt.

He points. “What is that?”

Piper looks down, but she doesn’t see anything interesting — just hills, woods, houses, little roads snaking through the canyons. A highway cuts through a tunnel in the hills, connecting the East Bay with the inland towns.

“Where?” Piper asks.

“That road,” he replies. “The one that goes through the hills.”

Piper picks up the com helmet the pilot had given her and relays the question over the radio. The answer isn’t very exciting.

“She says it’s Highway 24,” Piper reports. “That’s the Caldecott Tunnel. Why?”

Jason stares intently at the tunnel entrance, but he says nothing. It disappears from view as they fly over downtown Oakland, but Jason still stares into the distance, his expression almost as unsettled as Piper’s dad’s.

“Monsters,” her dad sats, a tear tracing his cheek. “I live in a world of monsters.”

. . .

Air traffic control doesn't want to let an unscheduled helicopter land at the Oakland Airport – until Piper gets on the radio, that is.

They all unload on the tarmac, and everyone looks at Piper.

“What now?” (Y/n) asks Piper gently.

Piper feels slightly uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to be in charge, but for her dad’s sake, she has to appear confident. She has no plan. She’d just remembered that he’d flown into Oakland, which means his private plane would still be here. But today is the solstice. They have to save Hera. They have no idea where to go or even if they were too late. And how can I leave Dad in this condition?

“First think,” Piper says. “I – I have to get my dad home. I’m sorry, guys.”

Leo’s and Jason’s faces fall, but (Y/n)’s expression settles into an empathetic one – as though she understood exactly the problem that was raging in Piper’s head.

“Oh,” Leo says. “I mean, absolutely. He needs you right now. We can take it from here.

“Pipes, no,” Tristan McLean had been sitting in the hospital doorway, a blanket around his shoulders. But he stumbles to his feet. “You have a mission. A quest. I can’t –”

“I’ll take care of him,” interrupts Coach Hedge.

Piper stares at him. The satyr is the last person she’d expected to offer. “You?” she asks.

“I’m a protector,” Gleeson says. “That’s my job, not fighting.”

He sounds a little crestfallen, and Piper realizes maybe she shouldn’t have recounted how he got knocked unconscious in the last battle. In his own way, maybe the satyr is as sensitive as her dad.

Then Hedge straightens, and set his jaw. “Of course, I’m good at fighting, too.” He glares at them all, daring them to argue.

“Yes,” Jason says.

“Absolutely,” (Y/n) grins.

“Terrifying,” Leo agrees.

The coach grunts . “But I’m a protector, and I can do this. You dad’s right, Piper. You need to carry on with the quest.”

“But . . .” Piper’s eyes sting, as if she were back in the forest fire. “Dad . . .”

He holds out his arms, and she hugs him. He feels frail. He is trembling so much, it scares her.

“Let’s give them a minute,” Jason says, and they take the pilot a few yards down the tarmac.

“I can’t believe it,” her dad says. “I failed you.”

“No, Dad!”

“The things they did, Piper, the visions they showed me . . .”

“Dad, listen.” She takes out the vial from her pocket. “Aphrodite gave me this, for you. It takes away your recent memories. It’ll make it like none of this ever happened.”

He gazes at her, as if translating her words from a foreign language. “But you’re a hero. I would forget that?”

“Yes,” Piper whispers. She forces an assuring tone into her voice. “Yes, you would. It’ll be like—like before.”

He closed his eyes and took a shaky breath. “I love you, Piper. I always have. I — I sent you away because I didn’t want you exposed to my life. Not the way I grew up — the poverty, the hopelessness. Not the Hollywood insanity either. I thought — I thought I was protecting you.” He manages a brittle laugh. “As if your life without me was better, or safer.”

Piper takes his hand. She’d heard him talk about protecting her before, but she’d never believed it. She’d always thought he was just rationalizing. Her dad seems so confident and easygoing, like his life is a joyride. How can he claim she needs protecting from that?

Finally Piper understands he’d been acting for her benefit, trying not to show how scared and insecure he was. He really had been trying to protect her. And now his ability to cope has been destroyed.

She offers him the vial. “Take it. Maybe someday we’ll be ready to talk about this again. When you’re ready.”

“When I’m ready,” he mutters. “You make it sound like — like I’m the one growing up. I’m supposed to be the parent.” He takes the vial. His eyes glimmer with a small desperate hope. “I love you, Pipes.”

“Love you, too, Dad.”

He drinks the pink liquid. His eyes roll up into his head, and he slumps forward. Piper catches him, and her friends run up to help.

“Got him,” Hedge says. The satyr stumbles, but he is strong enough to hold Tristan McLean upright. “I already asked our ranger friend to call up his plane. It’s on the way now. Home address?”

Piper is about to tell her. Then a thought occurs to her; she checks her dad’s pocket, and his BlackBerry is still there. It seems bizarre to Piper that he’d still have something so normal after everything he’d gone through, but she guesses Enceladus hadn’t seen any reason to take it.

“Everything’s on here,” Piper says. “Address, his chauffeur’s number. Just watch out for Jane.”

Hedge’s eyes light up, like he sensed a possible fight. “Who’s Jane?”

By the time Piper explains, her dad’s sleek white Gulf-stream had taxied next to the helicopter.

Hedge and the flight attendant get Piper’s dad on board. Then Hedge comes down one last time to say his good-byes. He gives Piper a hug and glares at Jason, (Y/n), and Leo. “You cupcakes take care of this girl, you hear? Or I’m gonna make you do push-ups.”

“Absolutely, Coach,” (Y/n) smiles, her eyes crinkling with smile lines.

“You got it,” Leo says, a smile tugging at his mouth.

“No push-ups,” Jason promises.

Piper gives the old satyr one more hug. “Thank you, Gleeson. Take care of him, please."

“I got this, McLean,” he assures her. “They got root beer and veggie enchiladas on this flight, and one hundred percent linen napkins — yum! I could get used to this.”

(Y/n) steps forward, pulling the Coach to the side for a moment. “I’ll talk to Grover, for you, okay?” she says.

The Coach smiles slightly, clapping her on the shoulder. “You’re a good kid, Jackson.” Trotting up the stairs, the Coach loses one shoe, and his hoof is visible for just a second. The flight attendant’s eyes widen, but she looks away and pretends nothing is wrong. Piper figures she’d probably seen stranger things, working for Tristan McLean.

When the plane is heading down the runway, Piper starts to cry. She’d been holding it in too long and she just can’t anymore. Before she knows it, (Y/n) is hugging her, and Leo stands uncomfortably nearby, pulling Kleenex out of his tool belt.

“Your dad’s in good hands,” (Y/n) murmurs. “You did amazing.”

Piper sobs into (Y/n)’s shirt. She allows herself to be held for six deep breaths, inhaling (Y/n)’s natural ocean scent. And then seven. PIper decides she can’t indulge herself anymore. Her friends need her. The helicopter pilot is already looking uncomfortable, like she is starting to wonder why she’d flown them here.

“Thank you, guys,” Piper says. “I —” She wants to tell them how much they mean to her. They’d sacrificed everything, maybe even their quest, to help her. She can’t repay them, can’t even put her gratitude into words. But her friends’ expressions tell her they understand.

Then, right next to Jason, the air begins to shimmer. At first Piper thinks it’s heat off the tarmac, or maybe gas fumes from the helicopter, but she’d seen something like this before in Medea’s fountain. It’s an Iris message. An image appears in the air — a dark-haired girl in silver winter camouflage, holding a bow.

Jason stumbles back in surprise. “Thalia!”

“Thank the gods,” says the Hunter. The scene behind her is hard to make out, but Piper hears yelling, metal clashing on metal, and explosions. “We’ve found her,” Thalia says. “Where are you?”

“Oakland,” he replies. “Where are you?”

“The Wolf House! Oakland is good; you’re not too far. We’re holding off the giant’s minions, but we can’t hold them forever. Get here before sunset, or it’s all over.”

“Then it’s not too late?” Piper cries. Hope surges through her, but Thalia’s expression quickly dampens it.

“Not yet,” Thalia says. “But Jason — it’s worse than I realized. Porphyrion is rising. Hurry.”

“But where is the Wolf House?” he pleads.

“Our last trip,” Thalia says, her image starting to flicker. “The park. Jack London. Remember?”

This makes no sense to Piper, and (Y/n) comments “Jason, I love your sister like a sister, but she could’ve made more sense.”

Jason, however, looks like he’d been shot. He totters, his face pale, and the Iris message disappears.

“Bro, you all right?” Leo asks. “You know where she is?”

“Nfes,” Jason says. “Sonoma Valley. Not far. Not by air.”

Piper turns to the ranger pilot, who’d been watching all this with an increasingly puzzled expression.

“Ma’am,” Piper says with her best smile. “You don’t mind helping us one more time, do you?”

“I don’t mind,” the pilot agrees.

“We can’t take a mortal into battle,” Jason says. “It’s too dangerous.” He turns to Leo. “Do you think you could fly this thing?”

“Um . . .” Leo’s expression doesn’t reassure Piper, but then (Y/n) speaks.

“I can.”

Jason, Piper, and Leo look at her, bewildered and (Y/n) shrugs.

“Rachel’s dad had a helicopter,” (Y/n) explains, though that wasn’t much of an explanation.

Piper smiles at the ranger again. “You don’t have a problem with an under-aged unlicensed kid borrowing your copter, do you? We’ll return it.”

“I –” The pilot nearly chokes on the words, but she gets them out: “I don’t have a problem with that.”

(Y/n) grins. “Hop in.”

. . .

The sun is going down as they fly north over the Richmond Bridge, and (Y/n) can’t believe the day had gone so quickly. Nothing like raging ADHD and a good fight to the death to make time fly, she thinks.

Piloting the chopper, she goes back and forth between confidence and panic. If she doesn’t think about it, (Y/n) finds herself automatically flipping the right switches, checking the altimeter, easing back on the stick, and flying straight. If she allowed herself to think about what she's doing, her brain keeps telling her that Jason’s dad would strike them out of the sky.

“Going okay?” Piper asks from the copilot’s seat. Piper sounds more nervous than she is, so (Y/n) puts on a brace face.

“Great,” (Y/n) replies.

“What’s the Wolf House?” Leo asks, he and Jason kneeling side by side in between (Y/n) and Piper’s seats.

“An abandoned mansion in the Sonoma Valley. A demigod built it – Jack London,” Jason replies.

Leo can’t seem to place the name. “He an actor?”

“A writer, I think,” (Y/n) replies and Piper hums in agreement.

“Adventure stuff, right? Call of the Wild? White Fang?”

“Yeah,” Jason says. “He was a son of Mercury — I mean, Hermes. He was an adventurer, traveled the world. He was even a hobo for a while. Then he made a fortune writing. He bought a big ranch in the country and decided to build this huge mansion — the Wolf House.”

“Named that ’cause he wrote about wolves?” Leo guesses.

“Partially,” Jason replies. “But the site, and the reason he wrote about wolves — he was dropping hints about his personal experience. There’re a lot of holes in his life story — how he was born, who his dad was, why he wandered around so much — stuff you can only explain if you know he was a demigod.”

The bay slips behind them, and the helicopter continues north. Ahead of them, yellow hills rolled out as far as (Y/n) can see.

“So Jack London went to Camp Half-Blood,” Leo guesses.

“No,” Jason frowns. “No, he didn’t.”

“Bro, you’re freaking me out with the mysterious talk. Are you remembering your past or not?”

“Pieces,” Jason says. “Only pieces. None of it good. The Wolf House is on sacred ground. It’s where London started his journey as a child — where he found out he was a demigod. That’s why he returned there. He thought he could live there, claim that land, but it wasn’t meant for him. The Wolf House was cursed. It burned in a fire a week before he and his wife were supposed to move in. A few years later, London died, and his ashes were buried on the site.”

“So,” Piper says, “how do you know all this?”

A shadow crosses Jason’s face. Probably just a cloud, but (Y/n) can swear the shape looked like an eagle.

“I started my journey there too,” Jason replies. “It’s a powerful place for demigods, a dangerous place. If Gaea can claim it, use its power to entomb Hera on the solstice and raise Porphyrion — that might be enough to awaken the earth goddess fully.”

(Y/n) kept her hand on the joystick, guiding the chopper at full speed — racing towards the north. He can see some weather ahead — a spot of darkness like a cloudbank or a storm, right where they are going.

Then the helicopter shudders. Metal creaks, and (Y/n) can almost imagine the tapping was Morse code: Not the end. Not the end.

She levels out the chopper, and the creaking stops. She’s just hearing things.

“I think we’re about thirty minutes out,” (Y/n) tells her friends. “If you want to get some rest, now’s a good time.”

. . .

Jason straps himself in the back of the helicopter and passes out almost immediately, but Piper and Leo stay wide-awake with (Y/n).

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Leo says, “Your dad’ll be fine, you know. Nobody’s gonna mess with him with that crazy goat around.

Piper glances over, and Leo is struck by how much she’d changed. Not just physically either. Her presence was stronger. She seemed more . . . here. At Wilderness School, she’d spent the semester trying to to be seen, hiding out in the back row of the classroom, the back of the bus, the corner of the lunchroom as far as possible from the loud kids. Now she would be impossible to miss. It doesn’t matter what she is wearing – you’d have to look at her.

“My dad,” she says thoughtfully. “Yeah, I know. I was thinking about Jason. I’m worried.”

Leo nods. The closer they get to the bank of dark clouds, the more Leo worries too. “He’s starting to remember. That’s got to make him a little edgy.”

“But what if . . . what if he’s a different person?” Piper says.

Leo had been having similar thoughts. If the Mist could affect their memories, could Jason’s whole personality be an illusion, too? If their friend isn’t their friend, and they are heading into a cursed mansion – a dangerous place for demigods – what would happen if Jason’s full memory comes back in the middle of a battle?

(Y/n) glances back at the sleeping Son of Zeus. “After all we’ve been through? I can’t see it. We’re a team. Jason can handle it.”

“How are you doing?” Piper asks, and Leo and Piper look at her.

“Okay,” (Y/n) replies truthfully. “Memories sort of coming back, though there are still some big gaps.” (Y/n) goes to say something else, but then they hit the storm clouds.

At first, (Y/n) thinks rocks are pelting the windshield. Then she realizes it’s sleet. Frost builds up around the edges of the glass, and slushy waves of ice blot out her view.

“An ice storm?” Piper shouts over the engine and the wind. “Is it supposed to be this cold in Sonoma?”

(Y/n) isn’t sure, but something about this storm seems conscious, malevolent – like it’s intentionally slamming them.

Jason wakes quickly. He crawls forward, grabbing Leo’s shoulder and one of the seats for balance. “We’ve got to be getting close.”

(Y/n) is too busy wrestling with the stick to reply. Suddenly, it isn’t so easy to drive the chopper – it’s movements turning sluggish and jerky. THe whole machine shudders in the icy wind. The helicopter probably hadn’t been prepped for cold-weather flying. The controls refuse to respond, and they start to lose altitude.

Below them, the ground is a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill looms in front of them and (Y/n) yanks the stick, just clearing the treetops.

“There!” Jason shouts.

A small valley opens up before them, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. Leo aims the helicopter straight for it. All around them are flashes of light that reminds (Y/n) of the tracer fire at Midas’s compound. Trees crackle and explode at the edge of the clearing, and a black and purple figure streaks in front of the windshield.

“Out!” (Y/n) orders. They leap from the helicopter and barely clear the rotors before a massive BOOM shake the ground, knocking (Y/n) off her feet and splattering ice all over her.

She gets up shakily and sees the completely flattened Bell 412 smoldering with purple flames.

Then the creature lands in front of her, its green eyes narrowed with hostility. The black dragon’s mouth opens and begins to glow. (Y/n) closes her eyes and raises her hand, turning her head away.

The dragon closes his mouth, and he tilts his head. Then he presses his head to (Y/n)’s hand. (Y/n) opens her eyes, and meets the dragon’s softened green gaze. He makes a sound like a cat purring, and he opens his mouth again, showing his toothless mouth.

“Toothless,” (Y/n) murmurs, scratching underneath the dragon’s chin.

“Jason! (Y/n)!” a girl’s voice calls.

Thalia appears from the fog, her parka caked with snow. Her bow is in her hand, and her quiver is almost empty. She runs towards them, but makes it only a few steps before a six-armed ogre – one of the Earthborn – bursts from the storm behind her, a raised club in each hand.

“Look out!” Leo yells, and Toothless lets out a rumble. The four demigods rush to help, but Thalia has it covered. She launches into a flip, notching an arrow as she pivots like gymnast and lands in a kneeling position. The ogre gets a silver arrow right between the eyes and melts into a pile of clay.

Thalia stands and retrieves, but the point had snapped off. “That was my last one.” She kicks the pile of clay resentfully. “Stupid ogre.” Then she sees the dragon looming over the demigods and draws a silver dagger.

“Wait!” (Y/n) says as Toothless rumbles again. “Toothless, meet Thalia. Thalia, meet Toothless.”

“You tamed a Night Fury?” Thaila looks impressed, and then she hugs Jason and (Y/n), and nods to Piper. “Just in time. My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion, but we’ll be overrun any minute.”

“By Earthborn?” Jason asks.

“And wolves — Lycaon’s minions.” Thalia blows a fleck of ice off her nose. “Also storm spirits —”

“But we gave them to Aeolus!” Piper protests.

“Who tried to kill us,” Leo reminds her. “Maybe he’s helping Gaea again.”

“I don’t know,” Thalia says. “But the monsters keep re-forming almost as fast as we can kill them. We took the Wolf House with no problem: surprised the guards and sent them straight to Tartarus. But then this freak snowstorm blew in. Wave after wave of monsters started attacking. Now we’re surrounded. I don’t know who or what is leading the assault, but I think they planned this. It was a trap to kill anyone who tried to rescue Hera.”

“Where is she?” Jason asked.

“Inside,” Thalia says. “We tried to free her, but we can’t figure out how to break the cage. It’s only a few minutes until the sun goes down. Hera thinks that’s the moment when Porphyrion will be reborn. Plus, most monsters are stronger at night. If we don’t free Hera soon —” She doesn’t need to finish the thought.

Leo, Jason, (Y/n) and Piper follow Thalia into the ruined mansion, Toothless trotting along behind.

Jason steps over the threshold and immediately collapses, falling back onto the Night Fury.

“Hey!” Leo exclaims. “None of that, man. What’s wrong?”

“This place . . .” Jason shakes his head. “Sorry . . . It came rushing back to me.”

“So you have been here,” Piper says.

“We both have,” Thalia replies. Her expression is grim, like she’s reliving someone’s death. “This is where my mom took us when Jason was a child. She left him here, told me he was dead. He just disappeared.”

“She gave me to the wolves,” Jason murmurs. “At Hera’s insistence. She gave me to Lupa.”

“That part I didn’t know.” Thalia frowns. “Who is Lupa?”

An explosion shakes the building. Just outside, a blue mushroom cloud billows up, raining snowflakes and ice like a nuclear blast made of cold instead of heat.

“Maybe this isn’t the time for questions,” Leo suggests. “Show us the goddess.”

Once inside, Jason seems to get his bearings. The house is built in a giant U, and Jason leads them between the two wings to an outside courtyard with an empty reflecting pool. At the bottom of the pool, just as Jason had described from his dream, two spires of rock and root tendrils had cracked through the foundation.

One of the spires is much bigger — a solid dark mass about twenty feet high, and to (Y/n) it looks like a stone body bag. Underneath the mass of fused tendrils she can make out the shape of a head, wide shoulders, a massive chest and arms, like the creature is stuck waist deep in the earth. No, not stuck — rising.

On the opposite end of the pool, the other spire is smaller and more loosely woven. Each tendril is as thick as a telephone pole, with so little space between them that Leo doubts he could’ve gotten his arm through. Still, he can see inside. And in the center of the cage stands Tia Callida.

She looks exactly like Leo remembers: dark hair covered with a shawl, the black dress of a widow, a wrinkled face with glinting, scary eyes.

She doesn’t glow or radiate any sort of power. She looks like a regular mortal woman, his good old psychotic babysitter.

(Y/n) drops into the pool and approaches the cage. “Hera, you in a little bit of trouble?”

Hera crosses her arms and sighs in exasperation. “Don’t you dare talk to me that way, Jackson. Get me out of here!”

“My brother soloed Ares, maybe I should whoop your ass, too,” (Y/n) replies.

Thalia steps next to him and looks at the cage with distaste — or maybe she is looking at the goddess. “We tried everything we could think of, but maybe my heart wasn’t in it. If it was up to me, I’d just leave her in there.”

“Ohh, Thalia Grace,” the goddess says. “When I get out of here, you’ll be sorry you were ever born.”

“Save it!” Thalia snaps. “You’ve been nothing but a curse to every child of Zeus for ages. \bu sent a bunch of intestinally challenged cows after my friend Annabeth —”

“She was disrespectful!”

“Youu dropped a statue on my legs.”

“It was an accident!”

“Bullshit!” (Y/n) replies.

“And you took my brother!” Thalia’s voice cracks with emotion. “Here — on this spot. You ruined our lives. We should leave you to Gaea!”

“Hey,” Jason intervenes. “Thalia — Sis — I know. But this isn’t the time. You should help your Hunters.”

Thalia clenches her jaw. “Fine. For you, Jason. But if you ask me, she isn’t worth it.” Thalia turns, leaps out of the pool, and storms from the building.

Leo turns to Hera with grudging respect. “Intestinally challenged cows?”

“Focus on the cage, Leo,” she grumbles. “And Jason — you are wiser than your sister. I chose my champion well.”

“I’m not your champion, lady,” Jason says. “I’m only helping you because you stole my memories and you're better than the alternative. Speaking of which, what’s going on with that?” He nods to the other spire that looks like the king-size granite body bag. Was (Y/n) imagining it, or had it grown taller since they’d gotten here?

“That, Jason,” Hera says, “is the king of the giants being reborn.”

“Gross,” Piper comments.

“Indeed,” Hera agrees. “Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaea needed a great deal of power to raise him again — my power. For weeks I’ve grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form.”

“So you’re like a heat lamp,” Leo guesses.

“Or fertilizer,” (Y/n) grins.

The goddess glares at them. “Joke all you wish,” Hera says in a clipped tone. “But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant will awake. He will offer me a choice: marry him, or be consumed by the earth. And I cannot marry him. We will all be destroyed. And as we die, Gaea will awaken.”

Leo frowns at the giant’s spire. “Can’t we blow it up or something?”

“Without me, you do not have the power,” Hera says. “You might as well try to destroy a mountain.”

“Done that once today,” Jason replies.

“Just hurry up and let me out!” Hera demands.

Jason scratches his head. “Leo, can you do it?”

“I don’t know.” Leo tries not to panic. “Besides, if she’s a goddess, why hasn’t she busted herself out?”

Hera paces furiously around her cage, cursing in Ancient Greek. “Use your brain, Leo Valdez. I picked you because you’re intelligent. Once trapped, a god’s power is useless. Your own father trapped me once in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg — beg him for my freedom and apologize for throwing him off Olympus.”

“Sounds fair,” Leo says.

Hera movies him the godly stink-eye. “I’ve watched you since you were a child, son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me at this moment. If anyone can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you.”

“But it’s not a machine. It’s like Gaea thrust her hand out of the ground and . . .” Leo feels dizzy. The line of their prophecy comes back to him: The forge and dove shall break the cage.“Hold on. I do have an idea. Piper, I’m going to need your help. And we’re going to need time.”

The air turns brittle with cold. The temperature drop so fast, Leo’s lips crack and his breath changes to mist. Frost coats the walls of the Wolf House. Venti rush in — but instead of winged men, these are shaped like horses, with dark storm-cloud bodies and manes that crackle with lightning. Some have silver arrows sticking out of their flanks. Behind them came red-eyed wolves and the six-armed Earthborn.

Piper draws her dagger. Jason grabs an ice-covered plank off the pool floor. (Y/n) summons Tsunami; Leo reaches into his tool belt, but he is so shaken up, all he produces is a tin of breath mints. He shoves them back in, hoping nobody had noticed, and draws a hammer instead.

One of the wolves pads forward. It is dragging a human-size statue by the leg. At the edge of the pool, the wolf opens its maw and drops the statue for them to see — an ice sculpture of a girl, an archer with short spiky hair and a surprised look on her face.

“Thalia!” Jason rushes forward, but Piper and Leo pull him back. The ground around Thalia’s statue was already webbed with ice. Leo fears if Jason touched her, he might freeze too.

“Who did this?” Jason yells. His body crackled with electricity. “I’ll kill you myself!”

From somewhere behind the monsters, Leo hears a girl’s laughter, clear and cold. She steps out of the mist in her snowy white dress, a silver crown atop her long black hair. She regards them with those deep brown eyes Leo had thought were so beautiful in Quebec.

Word Count: 6200 words

#piper mclean x jackson reader #piper mclean x female reader #piper mclean x fem reader #lesbian piper mclean #piper mclean x reader #lesbian piper #percy jackson x sister reader #percy jackson x reader

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thewidowsghost · 4 months

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Seeing the Beauty (Piper McLean x Fem!Jackson!Reader) - Chapter 15

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

The mountainside is on fire. Smoke billows hundreds of feet in the air. (Y/n) spots a helicopter – maybe firefighters or reporters – coming towards them.

Coach Hedge starts to move. He sits up with a groan and rubs his head. His canary yellow pants are now the color of Dijon mustard mixed with mud.

He blinks and looks around him at the battle scene. "Did I do this?"

Before Jason can reply, Hedge picks up his club and gets shakily to his feet. "Yeah, you wanted some hoof? I gave you some hoof, cupcakes! Who's the goat, huh?"

He does a little dance, kicking rocks and making what are probably rude satyr gestures at the piles of clay.

Leo cracks a smile, and Jason can't help it — he starts to laugh. It probably sounds a little hysterical, but it's such a relief to be alive, he doesn't care.

Then a man stands up across the clearing. Tristan McLean staggers forward. His eyes are hollow, shell-shocked, like someone who'd just walked through a nuclear wasteland. "Piper?" he calls. His voice cracks. "Pipes, what — what is —" He can't complete the thought. Piper runs over to him and hugs him tightly but he almost doesn't seem to know her.

"We need to get him out of here," Jason says, as though reading (Y/n)'s mind.

"Yeah, but how?" Leo says. "He's in no shape to walk."

Jason glances up at the helicopter, which is now circling directly overhead. "Can you make us a bullhorn or something?" he asks Leo. "Piper has some talking to do."

. . .

Borrowing the helicopter is easy. Getting her dad on board is not.

Piper needs only a few words through Leo's improvised bullhorn to convince the pilot to land on the mountain. The Park Service copter is big enough for medical evacuations or search and rescue, and when Piper tells the very nice ranger pilot lady that it would be a great idea to fly them to the Oakland Airport, she readily agreed.

"No," her dad mutters, as they pick him up off the ground. "Piper, what — there were monsters — there were monsters —"

She needs (Y/n)'s help to hold him, while Coach Hedge gathers their supplies. Fortunately Hedge had put his pants and shoes back on, so Piper doesn't have to explain the goat legs.

It breaks Piper's heart to see her dad like this — pushed beyond the breaking point, crying like a little boy. She doesn't know what the giant had done to him exactly, how the monsters had shattered his spirit, but she doesn't think she can stand to find out.

"It'll be okay, Dad," she says, making her voice as soothing as possible. She doesn't want to charmspeak her own father, but it seems like the only way. "These people are my friends. We're going to help you. You're safe now."

He blinks, and looks up at helicopter rotors. "Blades. They had a machine with so many blades. They had six arms . . ."

When they get him to the bay doors, the pilot comes over to help. "What's wrong with him?" she asks.

"Smoke inhalation," Jason suggests. "Or heat exhaustion."

"We should get him to a hospital," the pilot says.

"It's okay," Piper replies. "The airport is good."

"Yeah, the airport is good," the pilot agrees immediately. Then she frowns, as if uncertain why she'd changed her mind. "Isn't he Tristan McLean, the movie star?"

"No," Piper says. "He only looks like him. Forget it."

"Yes," the pilot replies. "Only looks like him. I —" She blinks, confused. "I forgot what I was saying. Let's get going."

Jason raises his eyebrows at Piper, obviously impressed, but Piper feels miserable. She doesn't want to twist people's minds, convince them of things they didn't believe. It feels so bossy, so wrong — like something Drew would do back at camp, or Medea in her evil department store. And how will it help my father? She can't convince him he would be okay, or that nothing had happened. His trauma is just too deep.

"Piper." Her dad grasps her hand and holds on like he was afraid he'd fall. "It's you? They told me—they told me you would die. They said . . . horrible things would happen."

"It's me, Dad." It takes all her willpower not to cry. She has to be strong for him. "Everything's going to be okay."

"They were monsters," he says. "Real monsters. Earth spirits, right out of Grandpa Tom's stories — and the Earth Mother was angry with me. And the giant, Tsul'kalu, breathing fire —" He focuses on Piper again, his eyes like broken glass, reflecting a crazy kind of light. "They said you were a demigod, Your mother was . . ."

"Aphrodite," Piper says. "Goddess of love."

"I – I –" he takes a shaky breath, then seems to forget how to exhale.

Piper's friends are careful not to watch. Leo fiddles with a lug nut from his tool belt. Jason gazes at the valley below – the roads backing up as mortals stop their cars and gawk at the burning mountain. (Y/n) is drinking a bottle of water – Smart thing for a Poseidon kid to do, Piper thinks – and studying the nicks in Tsunami's blade. Gleeson chews the stub of his carnation, and for once, the satyr doesn't look in the mood to yell or boast.

Traistan McLean isn't supposed to be seen like this. He's a star – confident, stylish, suave, and always in control. That was the image he'd always projected. Piper had seen the image falter before, but this is different. Now it's broken, gone.

"I didn't know about Mom," Piper tells him. "Not until you were taken. When we found out where you were, we came right away. My friends helped me. No one will hurt you again."

Her dad can't stop shivering. "You're heroes – you and your friends. I can't believe it. You're a real hero, not like me. Not playing a part. I'm so proud of you, Pipes." But the words are muttered listlessly, in a semi-trance.

He gazes down on the valley, and his grip on Piper's hand goes slack. "Your mother never told me."

"She thought it was for the best." It sounds lame, even to Piper, and no amount of charmspeak can change that. But she doesn't tell her dad what Aphrodite had really worried about: If he has to spend the rest of his life with those memories , knowing that gods and spirits walk the earth, it will shatter him.

Piper feels inside the pocket of her jacket. The vial is still there, warm to her touch. How can I erase his memories? Dad finally knows who I am. He's proud of me, and I'm his hero, not the other way around. He'd never send me away, now. They shared a secret. How can I go back to the way things were?

As they pass over the hills into the East Bay, Jason tenses. He leans so far out the doorway (Y/n) is afraid he'd fall, and she reaches out to grab the back of his collared shirt.

He points. "What is that?"

Piper looks down, but she doesn't see anything interesting — just hills, woods, houses, little roads snaking through the canyons. A highway cuts through a tunnel in the hills, connecting the East Bay with the inland towns.

"Where?" Piper asks.

"That road," he replies. "The one that goes through the hills."

Piper picks up the com helmet the pilot had given her and relays the question over the radio. The answer isn't very exciting.

"She says it's Highway 24," Piper reports. "That's the Caldecott Tunnel. Why?"

"Monsters," her dad murmurs, a tear tracing his cheek. "I live in a world of monsters."

. . .

Air traffic control doesn't want to let an unscheduled helicopter land at the Oakland Airport – until Piper gets on the radio, that is.

They all unload on the tarmac, and everyone looks at Piper.

"What now?" (Y/n) asks Piper gently.

Piper feels slightly uncomfortable. She doesn't want to be in charge, but for her dad's sake, she has to appear confident. She has no plan. She'd just remembered that he'd flown into Oakland, which means his private plane would still be here. But today is the solstice. They have to save Hera. They have no idea where to go or even if they were too late. And how can I leave Dad in this condition?

"First think," Piper says. "I – I have to get my dad home. I'm sorry, guys."

Leo's and Jason's faces fall, but (Y/n)'s expression settles into an empathetic one – as though she understood exactly the problem that was raging in Piper's head.

"Oh," Leo says. "I mean, absolutely. He needs you right now. We can take it from here.

"Pipes, no," Tristan McLean had been sitting in the hospital doorway, a blanket around his shoulders. But he stumbles to his feet. "You have a mission. A quest. I can't –"

"I'll take care of him," interrupts Coach Hedge.

Piper stares at him. The satyr is the last person she'd expected to offer. "You?" she asks.

"I'm a protector," Gleeson says. "That's my job, not fighting."

He sounds a little crestfallen, and Piper realizes maybe she shouldn't have recounted how he got knocked unconscious in the last battle. In his own way, maybe the satyr is as sensitive as her dad.

Then Hedge straightens, and set his jaw. "Of course, I'm good at fighting, too." He glares at them all, daring them to argue.

"Yes," Jason says.

"Absolutely," (Y/n) grins.

"Terrifying," Leo agrees.

The coach grunts . "But I'm a protector, and I can do this. You dad's right, Piper. You need to carry on with the quest."

"But . . ." Piper's eyes sting, as if she were back in the forest fire. "Dad . . ."

He holds out his arms, and she hugs him. He feels frail. He is trembling so much, it scares her.

"Let's give them a minute," Jason says, and they take the pilot a few yards down the tarmac.

"I can't believe it," her dad says. "I failed you."

"No, Dad!"

"The things they did, Piper, the visions they showed me . . ."

"Dad, listen." She takes out the vial from her pocket. "Aphrodite gave me this, for you. It takes away your recent memories. It'll make it like none of this ever happened."

He gazes at her, as if translating her words from a foreign language. "But you're a hero. I would forget that?"

"Yes," Piper whispers. She forces an assuring tone into her voice. "Yes, you would. It'll be like—like before."

He closed his eyes and took a shaky breath. "I love you, Piper. I always have. I — I sent you away because I didn't want you exposed to my life. Not the way I grew up — the poverty, the hopelessness. Not the Hollywood insanity either. I thought — I thought I was protecting you." He manages a brittle laugh. "As if your life without me was better, or safer."

Piper takes his hand. She'd heard him talk about protecting her before, but she'd never believed it. She'd always thought he was just rationalizing. Her dad seems so confident and easygoing, like his life is a joyride. How can he claim she needs protecting from that?

Finally Piper understands he'd been acting for her benefit, trying not to show how scared and insecure he was. He really had been trying to protect her. And now his ability to cope has been destroyed.

She offers him the vial. "Take it. Maybe someday we'll be ready to talk about this again. When you're ready."

"When I'm ready," he mutters. "You make it sound like — like I'm the one growing up. I'm supposed to be the parent." He takes the vial. His eyes glimmer with a small desperate hope. "I love you, Pipes."

"Love you, too, Dad."

He drinks the pink liquid. His eyes roll up into his head, and he slumps forward. Piper catches him, and her friends run up to help.

"Got him," Hedge says. The satyr stumbles, but he is strong enough to hold Tristan McLean upright. "I already asked our ranger friend to call up his plane. It's on the way now. Home address?"

Piper is about to tell her. Then a thought occurs to her; she checks her dad's pocket, and his BlackBerry is still there. It seems bizarre to Piper that he'd still have something so normal after everything he'd gone through, but she guesses Enceladus hadn't seen any reason to take it.

"Everything's on here," Piper says. "Address, his chauffeur's number. Just watch out for Jane."

Hedge's eyes light up, like he sensed a possible fight. "Who's Jane?"

By the time Piper explains, her dad's sleek white Gulf-stream had taxied next to the helicopter.

Hedge and the flight attendant get Piper's dad on board. Then Hedge comes down one last time to say his good-byes. He gives Piper a hug and glares at Jason, (Y/n), and Leo. "You cupcakes take care of this girl, you hear? Or I'm gonna make you do push-ups."

"Absolutely, Coach," (Y/n) smiles, her eyes crinkling with smile lines.

"You got it," Leo says, a smile tugging at his mouth.

"No push-ups," Jason promises.

Piper gives the old satyr one more hug. "Thank you, Gleeson. Take care of him, please."

"I got this, McLean," he assures her. "They got root beer and veggie enchiladas on this flight, and one hundred percent linen napkins — yum! I could get used to this."

(Y/n) steps forward, pulling the Coach to the side for a moment. "I'll talk to Grover, for you, okay?" she says.

The Coach smiles slightly, clapping her on the shoulder. "You're a good kid, Jackson." Trotting up the stairs, the Coach loses one shoe, and his hoof is visible for just a second. The flight attendant's eyes widen, but she looks away and pretends nothing is wrong. Piper figures she'd probably seen stranger things, working for Tristan McLean.

When the plane is heading down the runway, Piper starts to cry. She'd been holding it in too long and she just can't anymore. Before she knows it, (Y/n) is hugging her, and Leo stands uncomfortably nearby, pulling Kleenex out of his tool belt.

"Your dad's in good hands," (Y/n) murmurs. "You did amazing."

Piper sobs into (Y/n)'s shirt. She allows herself to be held for six deep breaths, inhaling (Y/n)'s natural sea-salt scent. And then seven. Piper decides she can't indulge herself anymore. Her friends need her. The helicopter pilot is already looking uncomfortable, like she is starting to wonder why she'd flown them here.

"Thank you, guys," Piper says. "I —" She wants to tell them how much they mean to her. They'd sacrificed everything, maybe even their quest, to help her. She can't repay them, can't even put her gratitude into words. But her friends' expressions tell her they understand.

Then, right next to Jason, the air begins to shimmer. At first Piper thinks it's heat off the tarmac, or maybe gas fumes from the helicopter, but she'd seen something like this before in Medea's fountain. It's an Iris message. An image appears in the air — a dark-haired girl in silver winter camouflage, holding a bow.

Jason stumbles back in surprise. "Thalia!"

"Thank the gods," says the Hunter. The scene behind her is hard to make out, but Piper hears yelling, metal clashing on metal, and explosions. "We've found her," Thalia says. "Where are you?"

"Oakland," he replies. "Where are you?"

"The Wolf House! Oakland is good; you're not too far. We're holding off the giant's minions, but we can't hold them forever. Get here before sunset, or it's all over."

"Then it's not too late?" Piper cries. Hope surges through her, but Thalia's expression quickly dampens it.

"Not yet," Thalia says. "But Jason — it's worse than I realized. Porphyrion is rising. Hurry."

"But where is the Wolf House?" he pleads.

"Our last trip," Thalia says, her image starting to flicker. "The park. Jack London. Remember?"

This makes no sense to Piper, and (Y/n) comments "Jason, I love your sister like a sister, but she could've made more sense."

Jason, however, looks like he'd been shot. He totters, his face pale, and the Iris message disappears.

"Bro, you all right?" Leo asks. "You know where she is?"

"Yes," Jason says. "Sonoma Valley. Not far. Not by air."

Piper turns to the ranger pilot, who'd been watching all this with an increasingly puzzled expression.

"Ma'am," Piper says with her best smile. "You don't mind helping us one more time, do you?"

"I don't mind," the pilot agrees.

"We can't take a mortal into battle," Jason says. "It's too dangerous." He turns to Leo. "Do you think you could fly this thing?"

"Um . . ." Leo's expression doesn't reassure Piper, but then (Y/n) speaks.

"I can."

Jason, Piper, and Leo look at her, bewildered and (Y/n) shrugs.

"Rachel's dad had a helicopter," (Y/n) explains, though that wasn't much of an explanation.

Piper smiles at the ranger again. "You don't have a problem with an under-aged unlicensed kid borrowing your copter, do you? We'll return it."

"I –" The pilot nearly chokes on the words, but she gets them out: "I don't have a problem with that."

(Y/n) grins. "Hop in."

. . .

The sun is going down as they fly north over the Richmond Bridge, and (Y/n) can't believe the day had gone so quickly. Nothing like raging ADHD and a good fight to the death to make time fly, she thinks.

Piloting the chopper, she goes back and forth between confidence and panic. If she doesn't think about it, (Y/n) finds herself automatically flipping the right switches, checking the altimeter, easing back on the stick, and flying straight. If she allowed herself to think about what she's doing, her brain keeps telling her that Jason's dad would strike them out of the sky.

"Going okay?" Piper asks from the copilot's seat. Piper sounds more nervous than she is, so (Y/n) puts on a brace face.

"Great," (Y/n) replies.

"What's the Wolf House?" Leo asks, he and Jason kneeling side by side in between (Y/n) and Piper's seats.

"An abandoned mansion in the Sonoma Valley. A demigod built it – Jack London," Jason replies.

Leo can't seem to place the name. "He an actor?"

"A writer, I think," (Y/n) replies and Piper hums in agreement.

"Adventure stuff, right? Call of the Wild? White Fang?"

"Yeah," Jason says. "He was a son of Mercury — I mean, Hermes. He was an adventurer, traveled the world. He was even a hobo for a while. Then he made a fortune writing. He bought a big ranch in the country and decided to build this huge mansion — the Wolf House."

"Named that 'cause he wrote about wolves?" Leo guesses.

"Partially," Jason replies. "But the site, and the reason he wrote about wolves — he was dropping hints about his personal experience. There're a lot of holes in his life story — how he was born, who his dad was, why he wandered around so much — stuff you can only explain if you know he was a demigod."

The bay slips behind them, and the helicopter continues north. Ahead of them, yellow hills rolled out as far as (Y/n) can see.

"So Jack London went to Camp Half-Blood," Leo guesses.

"No," Jason frowns. "No, he didn't."

"Bro, you're freaking me out with the mysterious talk. Are you remembering your past or not?"

"Pieces," Jason says. "Only pieces. None of it good. The Wolf House is on sacred ground. It's where London started his journey as a child — where he found out he was a demigod. That's why he returned there. He thought he could live there, claim that land, but it wasn't meant for him. The Wolf House was cursed. It burned in a fire a week before he and his wife were supposed to move in. A few years later, London died, and his ashes were buried on the site."

"So," Piper says, "how do you know all this?"

A shadow crosses Jason's face. Probably just a cloud, but (Y/n) can swear the shape looked like an eagle.

"I started my journey there too," Jason replies. "It's a powerful place for demigods, a dangerous place. If Gaea can claim it, use its power to entomb Hera on the solstice and raise Porphyrion — that might be enough to awaken the earth goddess fully."

Then the helicopter shudders. Metal creaks, and (Y/n) can almost imagine the tapping was Morse code: Not the end. Not the end.

She levels out the chopper, and the creaking stops. She's just hearing things.

"I think we're about thirty minutes out," (Y/n) tells her friends. "If you want to get some rest, now's a good time."

. . .

Jason straps himself in the back of the helicopter and passes out almost immediately, but Piper and Leo stay wide-awake with (Y/n).

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Leo says, "Your dad'll be fine, you know. Nobody's gonna mess with him with that crazy goat around.

Piper glances over, and Leo is struck by how much she'd changed. Not just physically either. Her presence was stronger. She seemed more . . . here. At Wilderness School, she'd spent the semester trying to to be seen, hiding out in the back row of the classroom, the back of the bus, the corner of the lunchroom as far as possible from the loud kids. Now she would be impossible to miss. It doesn't matter what she is wearing – you'd have to look at her.

"My dad," she says thoughtfully. "Yeah, I know. I was thinking about Jason. I'm worried."

Leo nods. The closer they get to the bank of dark clouds, the more Leo worries too. "He's starting to remember. That's got to make him a little edgy."

"But what if . . . what if he's a different person?" Piper says.

Leo had been having similar thoughts. If the Mist could affect their memories, could Jason's whole personality be an illusion, too? If their friend isn't their friend, and they are heading into a cursed mansion – a dangerous place for demigods – what would happen if Jason's full memory comes back in the middle of a battle?

(Y/n) glances back at the sleeping Son of Zeus. "After all we've been through? I can't see it. We're a team. Jason can handle it."

"How are you doing?" Piper asks, and Leo and Piper look at her.

"Okay," (Y/n) replies truthfully. "Memories sort of coming back, though there are still some big gaps." (Y/n) goes to say something else, but then they hit the storm clouds.

At first, (Y/n) thinks rocks are pelting the windshield. Then she realizes it's sleet. Frost builds up around the edges of the glass, and slushy waves of ice blot out her view.

"An ice storm?" Piper shouts over the engine and the wind. "Is it supposed to be this cold in Sonoma?"

(Y/n) isn't sure, but something about this storm seems conscious, malevolent – like it's intentionally slamming them.

Jason wakes quickly. He crawls forward, grabbing Leo's shoulder and one of the seats for balance. "We've got to be getting close."

(Y/n) is too busy wrestling with the stick to reply. Suddenly, it isn't so easy to drive the chopper – it's movements turning sluggish and jerky. The whole machine shudders in the icy wind. The helicopter probably hadn't been prepped for cold-weather flying. The controls refuse to respond, and they start to lose altitude.

Below them, the ground is a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill looms in front of them and (Y/n) yanks the stick, just clearing the treetops.

"There!" Jason shouts.

A small valley opens up before them, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. Leo aims the helicopter straight for it. All around them are flashes of light that reminds (Y/n) of the tracer fire at Midas's compound. Trees crackle and explode at the edge of the clearing, and a black and purple figure streaks in front of the windshield.

"Out!" (Y/n) orders. They leap from the helicopter and barely clear the rotors before a massive BOOM shake the ground, knocking (Y/n) off her feet and splattering ice all over her.

She gets up shakily and sees the completely flattened Bell 412 smoldering with purple flames.

Then the creature lands in front of her, its green eyes narrowed with hostility. The black dragon's mouth opens and begins to glow. (Y/n) closes her eyes and raises her hand, turning her head away.

The dragon closes his mouth, and he tilts his head. Then he presses his head to (Y/n)'s hand. (Y/n) opens her eyes, and meets the dragon's softened green gaze. He makes a sound like a cat purring, and he opens his mouth again, showing his toothless mouth.

"Toothless," (Y/n) murmurs, scratching underneath the dragon's chin.

"Jason! (Y/n)!" a girl's voice calls.

"Look out!" Leo yells, and Toothless lets out a rumble. The four demigods rush to help, but Thalia has it covered. She launches into a flip, notching an arrow as she pivots like gymnast and lands in a kneeling position. The ogre gets a silver arrow right between the eyes and melts into a pile of clay.

Thalia stands and retrieves, but the point had snapped off. "That was my last one." She kicks the pile of clay resentfully. "Stupid ogre." Then she sees the dragon looming over the demigods and draws a silver dagger.

"Wait!" (Y/n) says as Toothless rumbles again. "Toothless, meet Thalia. Thalia, meet Toothless."

"You tamed a Night Fury?" Thaila looks impressed, and then she hugs Jason and (Y/n), and nods to Piper. "Just in time. My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion, but we'll be overrun any minute."

"By Earthborn?" Jason asks.

"And wolves — Lycaon's minions." Thalia blows a fleck of ice off her nose. "Also storm spirits —"

"But we gave them to Aeolus!" Piper protests.

"Who tried to kill us," Leo reminds her. "Maybe he's helping Gaea again."

"I don't know," Thalia says. "But the monsters keep re-forming almost as fast as we can kill them. We took the Wolf House with no problem: surprised the guards and sent them straight to Tartarus. But then this freak snowstorm blew in. Wave after wave of monsters started attacking. Now we're surrounded. I don't know who or what is leading the assault, but I think they planned this. It was a trap to kill anyone who tried to rescue Hera."

"Where is she?" Jason asked.

"Inside," Thalia says. "We tried to free her, but we can't figure out how to break the cage. It's only a few minutes until the sun goes down. Hera thinks that's the moment when Porphyrion will be reborn. Plus, most monsters are stronger at night. If we don't free Hera soon —" She doesn't need to finish the thought.

Leo, Jason, (Y/n) and Piper follow Thalia into the ruined mansion, Toothless trotting along behind.

Jason steps over the threshold and immediately collapses, falling back onto the Night Fury.

"Hey!" Leo exclaims. "None of that, man. What's wrong?"

"This place . . ." Jason shakes his head. "Sorry . . . It came rushing back to me."

"So you have been here," Piper says.

"We both have," Thalia replies. Her expression is grim, like she's reliving someone's death. "This is where my mom took us when Jason was a child. She left him here, told me he was dead. He just disappeared."

"She gave me to the wolves," Jason murmurs. "At Hera's insistence. She gave me to Lupa."

"That part I didn't know." Thalia frowns. "Who is Lupa?"

An explosion shakes the building. Just outside, a blue mushroom cloud billows up, raining snowflakes and ice like a nuclear blast made of cold instead of heat.

"Maybe this isn't the time for questions," Leo suggests. "Show us the goddess."

On the opposite end of the pool, the other spire is smaller and more loosely woven. Each tendril is as thick as a telephone pole, with so little space between them that Leo doubts he could've gotten his arm through. Still, he can see inside. And in the center of the cage stands Tia Callida.

She looks exactly like Leo remembers: dark hair covered with a shawl, the black dress of a widow, a wrinkled face with glinting, scary eyes.

She doesn't glow or radiate any sort of power. She looks like a regular mortal woman, his good old psychotic babysitter.

(Y/n) drops into the pool and approaches the cage. "Hera, you in a little bit of trouble?"

Hera crosses her arms and sighs in exasperation. "Don't you dare talk to me that way, Jackson! Get me out of here!"

"My brother soloed Ares, maybe I should whoop your ass, too," (Y/n) replies.

Thalia steps next to her and looks at the cage with distaste — or maybe she is looking at the goddess. "We tried everything we could think of, but maybe my heart wasn't in it. If it was up to me, I'd just leave her in there."

"Oh, Thalia Grace," the goddess says. "When I get out of here, you'll be sorry you were ever born."

"Save it!" Thalia snaps. "You've been nothing but a curse to every child of Zeus for ages. \bu sent a bunch of intestinally challenged cows after my friend Annabeth —"

"She was disrespectful!"

"You dropped a statue on my legs."

"It was an accident!"

"Bullshit!" (Y/n) replies.

"And you took my brother!" Thalia's voice cracks with emotion. "Here — on this spot. You ruined our lives. We should leave you to Gaea!"

"Hey," Jason intervenes. "Thalia — Sis — I know. But this isn't the time. You should help your Hunters."

Thalia clenches her jaw. "Fine. For you, Jason. But if you ask me, she isn't worth it." Thalia turns, leaps out of the pool, and storms from the building.

Leo turns to Hera with grudging respect. "Intestinally challenged cows?"

"Focus on the cage, Leo," she grumbles. "And Jason — you are wiser than your sister. I chose my champion well."

"I'm not your champion, lady," Jason says. "I'm only helping you because you stole my memories and you're better than the alternative. Speaking of which, what's going on with that?" He nods to the other spire that looks like the king-size granite body bag. Was (Y/n) imagining it, or had it grown taller since they'd gotten here?

"That, Jason," Hera says, "is the king of the giants being reborn."

"Gross," Piper comments.

"Indeed," Hera agrees. "Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaea needed a great deal of power to raise him again — my power. For weeks I've grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form."

"So you're like a heat lamp," Leo guesses.

"Or fertilizer," (Y/n) grins.

The goddess glares at them. "Joke all you wish," Hera says in a clipped tone. "But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant will awake. He will offer me a choice: marry him, or be consumed by the earth. And I cannot marry him. We will all be destroyed. And as we die, Gaea will awaken."

Leo frowns at the giant's spire. "Can't we blow it up or something?"

"Without me, you do not have the power," Hera says. "You might as well try to destroy a mountain."

"Done that once today," Jason replies.

"Just hurry up and let me out!" Hera demands.

Jason scratches his head. "Leo, can you do it?"

"I don't know." Leo tries not to panic. "Besides, if she's a goddess, why hasn't she busted herself out?"

Hera paces furiously around her cage, cursing in Ancient Greek. "Use your brain, Leo Valdez. I picked you because you're intelligent. Once trapped, a god's power is useless. Your own father trapped me once in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg — beg him for my freedom and apologize for throwing him off Olympus."

"Sounds fair," Leo says.

Hera movies him the godly stink-eye. "I've watched you since you were a child, son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me at this moment. If anyone can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you."

"But it's not a machine. It's like Gaea thrust her hand out of the ground and . . ." Leo feels dizzy. The line of their prophecy comes back to him: The forge and dove shall break the cage."Hold on. I do have an idea. Piper, I'm going to need your help. And we're going to need time."

The air turns brittle with cold. The temperature drop so fast, Leo's lips crack and his breath changes to mist. Frost coats the walls of the Wolf House. Venti rush in — but instead of winged men, these are shaped like horses, with dark storm-cloud bodies and manes that crackle with lightning. Some have silver arrows sticking out of their flanks. Behind them came red-eyed wolves and the six-armed Earthborn.

"Thalia!" Jason rushes forward, but Piper and Leo pull him back. The ground around Thalia's statue was already webbed with ice. Leo fears if Jason touched her, he might freeze too.

"Who did this?" Jason yells. His body crackled with electricity. "I'll kill you myself!"

From somewhere behind the monsters, Leo hears a girl's laughter, clear and cold. She steps out of the mist in her snowy white dress, a silver crown atop her long black hair. She regards them with those deep brown eyes Leo had thought were so beautiful in Quebec.

Word Count: 6200 words

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