~ ☼ ~

My world was spinning. Even though I'd said in the basement of Red Square that I was willing to take the risks... even though I'd acknowledged on the 59th Street Bridge that Riley was always n my side... I didn't want her to know. I didn't want camp to know. All I could see was word getting out. They'd call us weirdos, even though we weren't really siblings. We'd both lose the one home we'd ever really loved. And our best friend would never see us the same way.

I hardly acknowledged Alec killing Sisyphus again - hardly acknowledged him calling out to Malcolm, bringing him to us so we could all go northwards together. All I saw was Riley, staring at me. Hurt; disgusted. Heartbroken. Exactly as I had worried.

"Come on," Malcolm said, as him and Alec came running up. "We have to go."

Riley was the first to go, running after him instantly. Leaving Alec and I there to deal with what he'd done. His powers must have something to do with adrenaline or something. I didn't know whether to be mad at him or not. He'd be left on the outside, too.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "I didn't know what else to do."

I turned towards him, and as much as I hated to say it, I felt more relaxed now. A weight had been lifted off of me. At least we'd be together in this, if I didn't mess it up.

I turned towards him, and since we had a moment, hugged him.

He immediately hugged me back, though he was slightly awkward about it, shifting his arms every 5 seconds like he was scared to keep them in one place. And even as he did, I got a sense I'd never got with Lucas. Not just romance, but safety. Friendship.

Except once I pulled away, that feeling was gone. Replaced by anxiety.

"I meant what I said," Alec said, quietly. "In the basement."

"So did I."

"I'm so sorry for kissing you after the party and then leaving," he added, sounding like he was in pain. "And for exposing us to Riley. I just - I swear I can't - I can't live with both sides of me. I just hold everything inside and then it all just comes out at once."

I knew it. I did the same thing.

He took my hand, then, even though I still wasn't looking at him. They were still warm from the fight - and I tried to focus on that. That kissing me was enough to make his powers work. That he'd risked his longest friendship to save Malcolm's life.

I didn't know if it was foolish or selfless.

"Runaway," He said. "Look at me."

Finally, I did, but I couldn't face him for longer than a second. It made me too nervous. Too bashful.

"Come on," I said. "We have to catch up with them."

I was still making the same mistakes, even now.

~ ☼ ~

We caught up with Malcolm and Riley after a few minutes of jogging. Alec talked about our theory about Sisyphus with Malcolm; he confirmed Hemmings had run away. He asked Alec about his powers, seeming more intrigued in how they worked than the fact that they had a titanous source. Riley said nothing. Her eyes were on the ground.

Alec and I were still holding hands, but Malcolm didn't notice and Riley said nothing about that, either.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to her. "I'm so sorry."

She said nothing. She just shut her mouth, which up to that point had been parted in a constant state of bewilderment.

"It-" I shook my head. "I know it's so gross, and-"

"You think I care about that?" Riley asked, turning towards me, looking disgusted. "You think- Gods. You're impossible."

"What?" I asked, shocked. "How could you not care about that. It's gross."

"You're not related," she hissed. "You're related less than Percy and Annabeth are, and everybody loves them."

"Well, they're not even together," I snapped.

Riley scoffed. "So? They're gonna be together. Everybody knows that."

"That's Percy and Annabeth," I said. "They're flawless. nobody at Camp, even Clarisse, would get on them about anything ever."

"Well that's arbitrary," Riley said, her voice hard. "There's no reason they should be allowed to be together, or Silena and Charlie - whose parents are married - or anybody else, and you and Alec can't."

"We thought we were siblings. We were siblings."

"For two years."

"Two years is long enough," I said. "It's enough for us to develop feelings. If we can't deny them, then we can't deny what environment they came from."

Riley looked at me like I was literally insane. Then her eyes drifted past me, to Alec and Malcolm on the other side of me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I realized that they'd stopped talking.

Slowly, I turned to look.

Alec looked like he was repressing anger - he knew he couldn't exactly be mad at us for talking loudly when he'd been the person to expose us in the first place - but Malcolm - Malcolm was flabbergasted. He took a step aside from Alec. Separating three of us from him.

"You guys are..." he started. "A couple?"

Neither of us spoke at first. Then Alec put on a confident face and said, "Yep. As of today, we are. Do you have a problem with that?"

He was daring him. And I almost thought, after Riley and I's argument, after the last few times that my social worries had turned out to be for nothing, that he'd laugh and say, "Of course not!"

But he didn't. He swallowed.

Then said, "Um. I'm gonna go IM Annabeth and see where she needs me to be."

It was a plain, brutal rejection. It made all three of us stop in our tracks.

Embarrassment flooded my entire body. I wanted to turn around hide, or run after him and plead for his forgiveness. If he really did IM Annabeth, if he told her - Lacey would know. Lacey and Liz and the Aphrodite Cabin and the Stolls. And word might even get to Will and Lucky before Alec and I could tell them ourselves.

none of us knew what to say. it was a slap in the face to what Riley had been saying. And it was embarrassing enough to make me forget what exactly she had been saying - to ignore that she was defending Alec and I. All I knew now was that I was disgusting. Just like I thought I'd been.

We had to get to the Plaza.

~ ☼ ~

We walked in silence to the Plaza. Alec kept starting sentences, to placate me or ask Riley how she felt, but he never finished them. I appreciated that he was trying to be the mature, courageous one here. But even he had to kneel in deference to such a tall wall blocking our way.

Horror crept up on me as we walked. When I say that, I don't just mean horror in a horror movie sense, like I was afraid we might die. Abject, disturbing horror. The kind that crept up on you when you saw gore or realized a dreadful implication. The truth, stripped bare, and somehow, enticing you still.

I swear I could hear people screaming in the distance. I probably could.

~ ☼ ~

Finally, when we reached the border of Central Park, the street upon which the Plaza sat, it became clear that Hyperion had been defeated a long time ago. And no doubt, his face hung in the kids who'd battled him's memories. A face they'd see when they next saw Alec.

The sun was rising. I didn't know how the night had gone by so quickly. Maybe Apollo was bending the rules of the day a little bit. Maybe he was still out there, looking for Alec for some bizarre reason, and the sun was getting messed up because of it. As dawn hit the buildings, making them glow softly with the colors of a rose, the horror came to a peak.

There was nothing left for us to do.

Hemmings had left me. Alec and I had been exposed. The sickle had been returned and Hyperion had been defeated. Percy and Annabeth would take care of Kronos that evening, since every major battle seemed to happen only at night, and we'd go back to Camp. A half-empty camp that may never be Alec and I's home again.

I nearly just turned and ran right then.

But then, on the breeze, I swear I heard something. Someone crying.

Alec heard it too. So did Riley. She froze, pricking her ears.

It was clearly crying. It was coming from inside the park, and it sounded feminine and familiar. I winced, wondering if it was one of the dryads. I looked down at my hands, thinking of Demeter's blessing. I could at least help with this.

Riley and Alec followed me as I wandered towards the park.

The closer I got, the more the crying sounded definitely supernatural. It was for sure not a half blood, and if it was a dryad, it was a dryad of water lilies or Queen Anne's Lace - someone light and dainty and twinkling.

Then, I stopped right before a bench, realizing who it was.

Even if I hadn't seen the source of it sitting with her knees tucked underneath her, her dress all around her like rays of starlight, I'd know who it was. It was no dryad. It was the lightest female spirit of all. And despite it all, at the sight of her, I felt an immense relief.

"Theia," Alec murmured.

Immediately, the titan-ness stopped, whipping her head around.

"You," she breathed. "Oh, suns and moons. You."

She looked ragged, dark spaces under her eyes and her hair bedraggled around her face. But this did not look the way it looked on humans. On her, it just made it clear just how non-human she was. Just how unnaturally bright her eyes were.

She climbed to her feet, nearly tripping over her dress in the process, and ran towards us.

I was frozen to my feet. I couldn't move as she reached us and - and pulled us into a hug. Riley included.

"Children," she said. "My protege and my step-son. You're all I have left."

Oh my gods. I hadn't even thought about - about how she'd feel about Hyperion's defeat. That was her best friend, husband, and counterpart. The father of her children. When she'd picked me up in the East River, she'd spent half of the conversation just hyping him up.

I tried to back out of her arms, but she was holding too tightly. Alec's cheek was against my head, and Riley's back was to me, like she'd been trying to run away when Theia first grabbed her.

"I lost him," Theia whispered, her voice like spiders all over my body. "They killed him. If I see him again, it will be in the pits of Tartarus, the source of darkness where all light is snuffed out. I'll hardly recognize him. We will be alone."

Tears came to my eyes.

She pulled away, looking at me. Her pale hands were freezing on my arms. This was the first I'd actually seen her in real life rather than in a dream or astral projection or whatever. I couldn't believe how cold she was. She was the opposite of Hyperion in every way.

"Child," she said. "Please. Don't reject me again."

My horror began to slip away and turn into something more vague. Something more... more...

"I don't understand what you want from me," I said. "I never have."

"I want you to join us!" she exclaimed. The honesty in her voice, the desperation, shocked me. There was a part of me that had figured this might be an act, but now...

"I need you to join us," she continued. "That has always been my plan. You and Alexander both, my children - you could help us turn the tide."

The fact that she'd called him by his name made me stumble backwards.

"I can't-" I swallowed, my throat tight. "I can't join you. All you're going to do is cause more harm."

"So?!" Theia threw up her hands. "There will always be harm. At least, for once, you could be the one safe from it. I could protect everyone you love, child. I could protect your parents, your town-"

She suddenly switched to Alec, her voice high.

"Your grandparents," she said. "I could save them all."

She really did know everything about our lives. Except - she'd spun out when I told her at the source of it all was love. I didn't understand. I didn't understand what I'd been thinking then, and I didn't understand why she'd been so upset, if this was all for Hyperion and their love.

Riley's voice was quiet when she spoke for the first time.

"What did you do?"

"What?" Theia asked, seemingly genuinely confused by the question.

I felt bad for her, I realized. I felt bad for this woman, who'd been shoved into the pits of Tartarus, and for - for what? For the defense of Kronos? Someone who was just as bad as Zeus, who I fought blindly under, if only because it put me on the same side as my friends?

Would Kiera and Lucas be forced into Tartarus, too?

"What did you do?" Riley repeated. "You did something to the park. It was you."

I let out a breath. The leaves on the trees seemed to rustle in agreement, as if what was left of the Dryads were agreeing with her.

"What?" I asked. "What did you do?"

Theia's silvery lips parted in surprise. "How do you know about that?"

"Half-bloods know more than you titans and gods ever want to realize," Riley spat. "We have our ways."

Theia did not look mad at her sass. After all, she hardly got mad; she usually was able to stay calm and smarmy. This time, however, she was not smarmy, either. She was just confused.

"That has nothing to do with you," she said. "I was just trying to weaken them for the day of the battle, so that they could not fight back against my husband."

She hung her head, like she'd just remembered again that Hyperion was dead.

"It didn't work," she added. "I suppose that much is clear."

Riley said nothing, her mouth stuck in surprise.

As the sun got higher in the sky, the light gleamed on Theia's silver hair. It was now that she started to look human. I thought she'd reflect light differently, but she didn't. She just looked like a young woman who'd dyed her hair white.

"I once decided who and what has value," she said, after a moment. Her voice was low. "I removed their brilliance, their value, over time. Though I assume, to you, it appeared as a blight or a disease. Over time, it was not enough. I came back earlier to finish the job, but even then-"

That was when Riley had woken up - when Hemmings had saved her.

Did the dryads know I was Theia's wannabe protege when they'd chosen me to help them? Or was this all just one giant, it's a small world after all, coincidence?

When I looked at Riley, I saw what she was thinking. I could tell she was asking the same question. And the answer was clear. If the dryads had known, they would've known it was a titan hurting them rather than a disease. They couldn't have known it was her until that final moment she'd shown herself. Which meant they'd genuinely chosen me. And I happened to be caught between two worlds.

If it was anywhere in me, Demeter's blessing was thrumming in my veins.

The entire clearing was peachy-white, between the glass windows on the buildings all around us and the sun shining on the dew. But underneath it was green, day after dawn, the very green the sun existed to grow.

"You don't get to decide who and what has value," Alec said, after a moment. "You cannot make that choice."

Theia looked up at him, her eyes sad.

"You make me out to be cruel, but that is not what I mean," she said. "I show what's already there. Light and dark; beauty and ugliness. I merely blocked, temporarily, the brilliance in the plant life, so that the dryads and satyrs could not draw power from them. I cannot change what is already good and already set. That is not up to me."

Finally, she looked at me.

"That is why I chose you, Artemis," she said, sending a shiver down my spine. "That and your relation to Hyperion through Alexander, of course. I meant everything I said. You deserve better than what the world around you gives you. You are worth more than you think."

I took a step backwards, again.

It was what she'd been telling me this whole summer. And I believed her. But - I didn' t-

"I don't want anything but the world around me," I said, weak. "I want Camp Half-Blood."

It was what I'd meant when I'd told her at the heart of it all was love. She could offer me revenge a million times over, and I'd always say no. Even if Malcolm thought Alec and I were disgusting. Even if Riley thought I was insane. I wanted Camp. I wanted to have it all.

Theia looked up at me, her chin wavering. Her lips touched, soft and glossy. Then she said, "You're not going to change your mind, are you?"

"no."

Theia looked over at Alec, but by then her eyes had fluttered half shut, like she already knew what he was doing to say and was annoyed by it.

"And you'll only go where she goes," she said, sending a rocket of emotions up my spine. "Then I suppose that's it."

She didn't even give him a chance to argue, like it was just the obvious truth. She just reached out and touched his hand. Like she was trying to remember what Hyperion's light felt like before she saw him again in the dark.

Then she disappeared.

I didn't know how she'd done it. Maybe she'd stopped acknowledging her own brilliance. Either way, just like that, she was gone. A shimmer of light like a mirage, heat waves on a summer day, and then nothing. Birds slowly started to chirp; I swear I felt the trees sigh.

We all just stood there and said nothing.

After a moment, Riley said, neutrally, "How long have you two been a thing?"

Embarrassment flooded me once again. Luckily, Alec answered the question.

"I kissed her the night of the party," he said. "Then I acted like it never happened. Then, in the basement, we kissed again."

"And confessed our love," I said, quickly, under my breath.

Riley was silent for a moment. It wasn't until she stepped in front of me and forced me to lift my head that I saw she was irritated rather than upset.

"You let me be mad at you when it just happened?" she asked. "I thought - I thought you'd been keeping a secret relationship from me the whole summer!"

I scoffed while Alec looked bewildered.

"Gods, no!" I exclaimed.

"Well," Alec said, "I think if I hadn't acted on that impulse - we might've done that."

He was right.

Riley scowled.

"What do I have to do to make you realize I'm on your side?" Riley asked. "Why wouldn't you tell me?"

She... she wasn't disgusted. Right. She'd made that clear on the streets downtown. She just - she was just mad we hadn't told her. Hadn't trusted her.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm so sorry."

Riley watched me for a moment, thinking about it. Then she turned towards Alec.

Alec just looked back at her, lips trembling.

"You fall in love with someone you shouldn't be in love with," he said, weakly defending himself, "Then tell me how easy it is to be open about it."

I gasped as Riley did. They were two different gasps, but they were reacting to the same thing. Riley tried to keep her scowl up, but her lips began to tremble, too.

Then she grabbed us both and hugged us. It was a much warmer hug than Theia's.

~ ☼ ~

A/N: <3 <3 <3 <3 <3