Chapter 6 - Thessaloniki
published: Wednesday, 9 January 2019

Jason dreamt that he was having a Roman feast dinner with the Fifth Cohort.

"Really brought us to glory," Dakota declared, beaming from ear to ear. His goblet was filled with Kool-Aid, his favourite drink, which stained his lips with telltale marks of red.

Gwen nudged Jason in the side. "The first one of us to make praetor."

Jason blushed at the compliments. "Really, guys, I did what any good Roman would've done."

"You're being modest," Dakota insisted. "You led us to victory at Mount Tamalpais; you're the reason that the Titan stronghold crumbled!"

"Reyna was amazing too," Jason argued.

"Yes, of course, but she isn't a Fifth Cohort centurion," Dakota pointed out. "She didn't start out in the lousiest group of us all."

Jason slung an arm across Dakota's shoulders. "I don't care what people say about us. You guys are the best cohort I could ask for."

"To Jason!" Bobby cheered.

"To Jason!" the Fifth Cohort echoed.

Jason had never felt happier. He swelled with pride, and happiness, and belonging. His friends–no, his family, surrounded him.

Jason raised his goblet, obliging to the cheers, and took a sip. When he removed the goblet from his lips, a cold shiver ran down Jason's spine.

He'd spilt the drink all over his fingers. Red ran between his fingers and across his hands like an endless waterfall. 

"Guys, I need a napkin—"

Jason looked up and saw Dakota lying on a ruined feast table, a sword sticking grotesquely out of his gut. Blood ran out of the corner of his mouth and his eyes were glassy.

Jason stumbled off his chair, the scraping sound deafening in the silent hall.

The entire Fifth Cohort lay dead, bodies sprawled across the now empty table, smashed plates and glass shards scattered about.

Gwen, with an arrow impaled in her windpipe, and countless of Jason's friends fallen. Dead.

"No," Jason stared at his red-stained hands in horror. His mutters turned into cries. "No!"

Everywhere he turned, bodies lay still.

Reyna's crumpled figure on the carpet, her blood staining the fur. Her praetor's cloak lying in a torn pile.

The scene flashed again, and now, Camp Half-Blood lay burning and smouldering. Flames ravaged the hills and the greenery had all been reduced to ashes or shrivelled plants.

Bodies littered Half-Blood Hill; the bodies of his friends. Chiron, Frank, Hazel, Annabeth. Names ran through Jason's mind as he backed up, refusing to believe the sight before his eyes.

"No!" Jason shouted. His voice echoed across the empty valley.

Jason tripped over something behind him, and he fell to the ground. Leo's body lay completely still, and Percy's limp figure was scrunched up next to him.

Jason frantically scrambled to stand up, he backed away from the dead bodies, deliriously shaking his head. "No, no, no," he murmured.

"Jason," a soothing voice called to him.

Jason turned desperately.

Piper was under a tree, kneeling down and staring at the ground.

"Pipes," Jason nearly sobbed. He rushed to her and sank to his knees in front of her.

She slowly brought her head up to him, and Jason fell back in horror.

A spear ran through her chest, straight through where her heart was.

Her hand shot out, lightning fast, and gripped his wrist in a flash. Jason writhed in her hold, but he couldn't wrench himself out of her grasp.

"You could've done more," Piper choked. "You could've saved me."

"I tried," Jason cried. "I'm sorry. Piper, I'm sorry! I'll find you! I'll save you!"

Piper stared at him. "It's too late, Jason."

She released him, and Jason staggered to his feet.

He turned on the spot, trying to escape from this madness. Everywhere he looked, dead friends lay. Blood, weapons, war.

Jason felt his head spinning, and he stumbled and fell backwards. 

As he braced himself for impact, Jason woke up in his bed with a jolt.

His breaths came out in rapid pants, and his hair stuck to his temple. Beads of perspiration lined his forehead and the back of his neck.

Jason buried his face in his hands.

His heart hammered against his ribcage, and he couldn't breathe. Jason desperately grabbed at his sheets, anything to help him. He felt so lost, so trapped...

Jason forced himself to calm down. He didn't know how long it took; it could have been seconds, minutes, or hours. Eventually, his breaths slowed to a slow but shaky pace.

Jason sank into pillows with a shuddering sigh.

He was alone in his cabin. No dead bodies, no burning Half-Blood Hill.

Now that he had gotten himself to calm down, Jason regained his senses. He'd had this dream a billion times before.

Ever since the invicta attacked Camp Jupiter and slaughtered nearly everyone there, Jason had had this recurring nightmare almost every single night.

He would wake up in a cold sweat, unable to breathe and with an uncontrollable urge to start sobbing.

Jason was always alone in the confinement of his cabin, and no one ever heard him at night. Not even Piper knew about this.

He could never muster up the strength to tell her, especially since, in the nightmares, she was usually the one telling him that he could've done more. It differed. Piper, sometimes Dakota or Percy, even Annabeth and Leo. It never mattered.

The nightmares were different from demigod dreams, where messages were always told by some entity. From all his nightmares, the most Jason could figure out was that they were extremely real and never failed to send him into a downward spiral.

Every morning after a nightmare, Jason tried his best to be discreet about it, but he immediately went to see Piper. Just talking to her normally calmed him down, and he'd feel safe again until the night, where she wasn't there to protect him from the horrors of his nightmares.

Jason speculated telling her the first few times he got them, but he could never bring himself to tell her. She would think he was weak, not strong enough to handle a few little dreams. No, he couldn't do that.

And now, after five years, Jason feared that Piper might think he was hiding something from her.

He didn't have a choice but to keep it to himself. A secret that was eating him alive.

Jason hoped he hadn't woken up Frank or Leo; his cabin sat between both of theirs.

He sighed and pulled the duvet over himself.

Another night, another nightmare.

^^^^

Frank yawned sleepily as he trudged up the staircase. Jason must've knocked over something in his room in the middle of the night, because some commotion woke Frank up too.

And now, four hours later, it was 7a.m. and Frank was ready for his favourite meal of the day; breakfast.

As he was walking, Frank heard grunting coming from the training room. He figured it was early, and he had nothing better to do, so he started heading over to investigate.

The training room was like a mini gym Leo had integrated into the Argo II as part of his improved renovations and building plans.

It had dummies, practice swords, sparring areas, obstacle courses, and basically a mini training camp packed into one room. Leo even added some human inventions like a treadmill and some weights.

It was ironic, since Frank was pretty sure none of them were actually going to use it. For example, he was not big on exercise, and obstacle courses were pretty much his biggest nightmare.

Frank pushed the door open and he raised an eyebrow in surprise when he saw Annabeth inside, panting as she ran on the treadmill. She was wearing sports leggings and a t-shirt, which was different from the usual jean shorts and Camp Half-Blood shirt she wore.

Two of the training dummies were completely destroyed and hacked at, and there were some training swords lying around.

Frank peeked his head in. "Knock, knock?" 

Annabeth glanced behind at him and slowly came to a stop on the treadmill. "Hey, Frank." She has an enormous hardback book on the treadmill stand, and she had it opened to one of the centre pages. "I'm just multitasking. Get in some extra exercise while researching on some old myths."

"Which ones?" Frank asked with interest. He peered over her shoulder, and stupidly realised that everything was in Ancient Greek, a language he basically spoke nothing of.

Of course, Annabeth was dyslexic, why wouldn't she read books in Ancient Greek?

"Mostly on Pontus and Agatha, just so I'm prepared for anything," Annabeth explained. "We're dealing with some pretty old mythical stuff here, so I'm just checking up in case there are any other surprises."

Frank sat down on the bench. "Found anything interesting?"

Annabeth shrugged. "Sort of. The most useful thing I've found so far is that apparently, to get into Agatha, you have to take some kind of test."

Frank frowned. "A test? That doesn't sound good. The last time we had to go through a test to get in somewhere, it was the super deadly poison at the House of Hades."

Annabeth laughed. "I heard. How was the barley?"

Frank pulled a face. "Don't even go there." He glanced around the room and stood up. "Well, it looks like you're done. Want to go get some breakfast?"

Annabeth waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, don't worry, I'll come with you. But I'm not really hungry, so I'll probably just have a drink."

Frank nodded and they headed back to the lounge. 

The magical plates from Camp Half-Blood were life-savers. Frank could order any bacon, sausage or egg he wanted, and exactly how he wanted it. And the food was always up to expectations.

Annabeth just had some drink in one of the magical glasses. "Energy drink," she requested.

In the back of his mind, Frank was kind of concerned that the last time he saw her eat was a granola bar yesterday afternoon, but he figure that even if he brought it up, she wouldn't be too pleased, so Frank just ignored it.

"So, Frank," Annabeth said. "I'm usually pretty good at reading people, and I was just wondering, what's going on between you and Hazel?"

Frank stared at his plate. "What? Me and Hazel? Nothing at all, why do you ask? I mean, not nothing, because, well, we're dating." He glanced at Annabeth's amused expression. "But you already knew that anyway."

"It's just that you guys haven't really talked in a while," Annabeth pointed out.

Frank sighed. "Yeah, you're right. I just didn't really want to broadcast it. Recently, I feel like I can't talk to her anymore. She's so distant, and she hardly ever speaks to me anymore. And I feel like this is all my fault, because it all started when a few weeks ago..."

Frank trailed off. He didn't know how to tell Annabeth this.

She gestured for him to continue.

Frank shifted in his seat nervously. "See, a few weeks ago, I was thinking about Camp Jupiter, and how demigods used to get together and start families. But now, that's all gone, and I was just thinking, how would Hazel and I start our future?" Frank paused. "Then I realised that I knew for sure that Hazel was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with."

Annabeth's expression broke into a smile. "Frank, that's amazing!"

He cringed. "Oh, don't congratulate me yet. Listen to the next part."

Annabeth frowned. "Okay?"

Frank sighed. "So I thought about that, and it kind of scared me. I got all flustered and stutter-y around her - like it was before we started dating. And I didn't want her to think I was being weird, so I kind of avoided her for a little bit there. Maybe she thought I was being distant? I don't know."

"But are you okay now?" Annabeth prompted.

Frank nodded vigorously. "Definitely. In fact," he shuffled his feet. "I realised that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Hazel so much that I decided to—"

"Land ahoy!" Leo crowed as he danced into the lounge.

Frank had a sudden urge to strangle Leo, the first time he'd had that urge since their first quest aboard the Argo II.

Propose.

The word was on the tip of his tongue.

"What?" Annabeth shot to her feet.

Frank was so angry at Leo for interrupting that it took him a second to process the information. "Wait, what?"

"Land!" Leo cheered again. "Thessaloniki! We're here, baby!"

"How did we get here so quickly?" Annabeth demanded, astounded. "I thought you said Thursday, tops! It's only Sunday, Leo!"

Leo threw his arms up in the air helplessly. "I honestly have no idea, Annabeth. The seas were calm, winds were in our favour, everything was amazing."

In his mind, Frank made a mental thank-you prayer to Poseidon. He had a small feeling that the sea god was helping them along to find his son.

We'll bring him home, Frank promised. At least, I'll try.

"Everybody up!" Leo hopped over to the bell and rang it a few times.

After a few minutes, Jason and Hazel stumbled upstairs, sill in their pyjamas and weapons out.

"Where's the emergency?" Jason growled when he saw Leo standing by the bell.

"Oops, was that the emergency bell?" Leo said. "Sorry, I meant to ring the 'wake up' bell."

Jason threw his sword up in the air and it turned back into a coin. He slipped it back into his pocket.

Hazel glared at Leo. "Don't ever wake me up again unless someone is dying or in danger of death. Clear?"

"Crystal," Leo laughed nervously.

When everyone was changed out of their pyjamas and any embarrassing penguin-themed clothes (it was definitely not Jason), Annabeth led the expedition off the ship.

They left their ship moored to the bay area and got off. Leo paid one of the mortal fishermen to board the ship and fish from it so that monsters wouldn't single it out as a demigod trireme.

Since Agatha's location in Thessaloniki was never exactly pinpointed in any maps, Annabeth's hunch was that they should seek help in the Temple of Aphrodite.

Apparently she thought that Aphrodite would help them find Piper.

Frank found it tough to believe, but sure enough, after a long trek in the hot sun to the temple, there was a rather obscene tapestry of Aphrodite, with her fingers pointing diagonally downwards.

Leo estimated her to be pointing at a certain floorboard near the wall. When Hazel knelt down, she said she'd sensed a whole series of confusing tunnels underneath.

"Should we just pry it up now?" Leo suggested, glancing around at the milling tourists. The last time they'd encountered tourists during a quest, they had been possessed by eidolons. And now they didn't have Piper to charmspeak any spirits away.

"It's too conspicuous," Annabeth whispered.

"I don't understand big words," Leo hissed back.

Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"Speak to me like you would speak to a five-year-old child," he insisted.

"We'll wait till nightfall," Annabeth told them. "Hide out in the toilets. When the place is closed, we can explore the tunnels and whatever's in them without mortals getting in the way."