Alex

I missed this dork way too much.

We headed back to this place that he had like restored here at camp called Bunker 9 and he showed me around and showed me what he's been making and he's still a dork. And I still love it.

Probably more than I should. But that's okay. He was being really sweet with me, and I wasn't sure what to think.

Because that might be normal for him. But I also doubt that it was.

"What?" Leo asked me, catching me stating. "Do I have oil on my face or something?"

"No!" I insisted. "You're just a dork still."

"Whatever." He tried to play it off like he was a real cool guy and fell over because he tried leaning on air.

This is what I mean. He's a dork. A bit of an airhead. But a dork.

"Little bit of an airhead, too, apparently." I remarked as I helped him up. "It's okay. Percy is, too. He calls himself stupid more than he probably should, too. But oh well. Either way, you're still a dork."

Leo

We were called down to campfire, and there was a shrine set up at the campfire. For a demigod, I imagine. But not one I recognized.

His name was Luke Castellan. And as Annabeth was talking with Clarisse, she was just about in tears when she saw all of this. Talking with Clarisse and Percy.

"What..." The daughter of Athena asked as we arrived at the campfire, I joined my friends with my friend. Percy, Clarisse, and Annabeth were right behind us. "What is this?"

"He never had an official funeral," Percy explained to his ex-girlfriend. He's sweet to everyone, I swear. "And Clarisse and I figured with you and Thalia here. Grover, everyone that kind of knew him, that'd we'd throw together a little shrine and what not for campers to look at and put stuff down for Luke, for the next few days."

"Seriously?" Annabeth asked.

"Well, it's not like anyone talks about him." Clarisse reasoned. "No one talks about anyone that died. We thought we could slowly set up shrines one by one. But as you're only here for the weekend before you go home for the holidays and what not, it only seemed right to start with Luke and just work backwards. Plus, it's sort of important to at least some of us that people are remembered and what not."

Annabeth cried for half of campfire, and Thalia just supported her. Thalia seems like a really good big sister. Especially when it comes to Annabeth. How that happened, I'm not sure I want to know.

"Who was Luke?" I asked Jason, confused.

Jason shrugged.

"Beats me." He told me. "I can't read that from here, I've never heard of the guy. Ask Percy. He probably knows. He set it up."

Alex managed to get Percy's attention for me, and the son of Poseidon looked over at all of us.

"Yeah?" Percy asked.

"Who was Luke?" I asked. "I probably wasn't paying attention when you told me."

"No, we just never said anything." Percy assured me. "He um... He was the leader before I was. He left Camp after my first summer and made some choices, not exactly good ones, and he died the summer before you guys showed up. He was really close to Annabeth and Thalia and he just never got anything more than a burial after he died. So yeah. There's more on the poster, too. About when he showed up and stuff."

"So you knew him?" Alex asked, as if all of us were normal and hasn't watched at least somebody die.

"Yeah!" Percy confirmed. "He was my mentor my first year here. An amazing swordsman, I could never catch up to him."

"And he's dead?" Alex went on.

"Yeah," Percy repeated. "I mean, he's not the only person that died. There was a lot of people that died."

That put the fear of God's in him for sure.

"What?"

"Oh, yeah!" The son of Poseidon went on, as if that was a normal teenage things. "I mean, the reason you train is because of monsters. They will come after you. I've killed many monsters because it's kill or be killed, you know? Bianca died, Rachel almost died, I saw Pan die. Castor, Zoë Nightshade, Lee Fletcher, Daedalus, Charles Beckendorf, Silena Beauregard, Michael Yew, Ethan Nakamura, Luke Castellan, Bob, Bryce, Octovain, Kinzie, Phoebe, Naomi, Celyn, Leo technically should be dead, but he..."

"I'm stubborn." I explained. "And have my ways. Point is, people die. You just kind of learn to move on. Hopefully nobody dies this year."

"Were not that lucky here." Percy promised me.

Jason

While on the topic of death, Piper nudged me to bring it up. I never as the guts to around Thalia.

"No," I told her, because I know if she's not dead, I'll sound stupid and needy. "I doubt he even knows."

"Hm?" But Percy is a trained leader, and hears everything.

"Nothing." I assured the son of Poseidon and he nodded his head, not believing me one bit.

Leo knows of my worries, too. He was like the first person here who I told. Because his mom is for sure dead.

I considered telling Percy but I... I don't know. He seems really desensitized to the whole idea of death.

I don't know why I think that, but I always have. I've watched him in battle. He has no problem with death.

It makes it feel like he'll make fun of me for wanting to know. Because, either way, I don't know her. I mean, I don't even know her name.

"No, seriously," Leo pushed me to tell somebody else about this. And they're the only two here at camp, aside Reyna, that knows about this entire thing. "Ask him about it. I feel like everyone tells Percy everything. He just has that nature. I mean, I told him like my entire life story a week after we all met. Yours is the only one he hasn't heard, aside probably Nico."

"No, Nico's probably told him," Piper pointed out. "I mean, how long as Nico been here? Does anyone know? Because there must've been a reason they didn't get along at first.

I thought about that, because Nico once told me about his first time about camp. Or, he didn't tell me. It was that during the Eros incident and I saw something from a long time ago.

"I don't know," I told them. "But Nico's been here for a long time, and Percy's been here even longer. And Thalia has been here full time for longer. So."

"So that doesn't mean anything." My best friend pointed out to me. "Percy still might know something, Jason. I'm pretty sure he's closer to Thalia than he is Annabeth, it shows when they're both here. At least, I think it does. But it's your mom, not mine. I know what happened to mine."

And again, Percy is trained in what he does. He heard that entire conversation.

"So you're lying to me?" Percy questioned, which scared the shit out of me for some reason. "Leo is right, I know about everyone. Whether they know that or not, I know. About their families, at least. It's just that some people, like you, Leo, or Grover, that care to tell me. Trust me, I keep tabs on everyone's family. I have to. It's my job. Because when somebody dies, I have to tell the family."

"I'm not lying," I insisted, although I sort of was. But he doesn't have to realize that. "I just... Yeah. I was raised in Camp Jupiter. There aren't people that know that stuff. So like... You've met my mom?"

The son of Poseidon shook his head.

"I know who the parents are, I haven't met most of them." He clarified, which made it less creppier. Sort of. "I've met Annabeth's parents, Nico and Bianca's mom, Alex and Patrick's parents, Rachel's parents still don't like me, um... I think that's it. Aside that I just know who they all are and whether or not they're dead. I'm surprised you don't know. You realize you can look it up right?"

"It's not like my dad, though," Piper reasoned. "My dad's famous. There could be a million people with his mom's name."

"Seriously?"

Percy kind of looked at Piper, like it was weird that she would say such a thing. And it seemed reasonable that she would. If you look up her dad, you find him right away. But if you looked up Leo's mom, it's impossible. You have to type in death before you scroll ten pages to find her.

Yes, we've tried this before. We've googled a lot of people.

Percy is um... Not the angel everyone thinks he is. He's blown up school gyms. Wasn't charged. Teacher was at fault, apparently.

His school record is also a wreck.

"Dead serious." Piper told Percy. "If it takes ten pages and the word dead after her name for Leo's mom to come up, you won't find Jason's mom."

"So you have no idea who your mom is?"

I shook my head.

Percy

I tried telling them that Jason's mom was famous. But they wouldn't believe me.

So, knowing that Tristan McLean had worked with Beryl before she died, we went with when Pipe went home the next day. We were planning on going anyways. Fall break.

It was the seven, Nico, Rachel, and Reyna. So Thalia wasn't there. Neither was Annabeth.

I was last to be introduced to her dad, and he heard my name and stopped for a second before looking at me. As if he knew me.

I've never met Piper's dad.

"Are—" he started off. "You're a Jackson?"

"There's a lot of Jackson's out there." I assured him.

"Like Sally Jackson," Tristan remarked, which kind of scared me. "Jim and Laura are her parents, her uncle is Richard Jackson."

"What?" I questioned. "How do you...?"

"We went to school together," he explained to me. "She lived with us for a year after her uncle passed away. Mainly because she was dating my sister at the time, but she was amazing. We don't talk that much anymore. But she never told me she had a kid. Especially that much older than Piper."

I looked at him.

"How old do you think I am?"

He shrugged and thought about it.

"Around drinking age," he tells me as Nico starts to laugh because everyone thinks I'm over 21. "21, closer to 22 or 23. I don't think you're 25."

"Yeah, I'm not 25," I assured him. "I'm 18. Not that much older than your daughter."

It was dinner when we were all talking about this or that, and one of his movies came up. Frank asked about how they did something or another.

And I remembered that Beryl was in this movie. I've seen it before, I think Paul brought us to see it.

"Wasn't Beryl in that?" I asked Piper's dad. "I thought I saw something that everyone was mad that they killed her off at the worst part."

"Yeah," he recalled. "It was the last movie she did and the entire thing had to be redone because they had no choice after what happened. They had to kill her off. But yeah. She was a sweetheart. Had two kids. The oldest ran away when she was 12, the youngest was taken by his dad when.he was a baby. She wasn't the best mom out there, but I don't know. Thalia left and, as far as I know, hasn't tried coming home. She has to be twenty five. Jason must be 15 or 16. She willed the kids to me because she figured they'd never come home. Why do you ask about her?"

Piper caught on a little quicker than Jason did. She realised that I was asking about Jason's mom.

"I didn't know Beryl had kids." Piper pitched in. "What happened to her again?"

"Car crash," he told us. "She uh... It was Sally's wedding, as a matter of fact. She was getting married to Gabe, who went to high school with us. Beryl came with and this is where I met your mom, Piper. And Beryl got drunk as a lot of people did and we thought she called a taxi and she took my car and she smashed it into a bridge. We found out about an hour later and we joked that their marriage would be charged because of this and just... It was terrible. I got a new car and I sobered up afterwards. You were born a year later. She didn't die that day. But her health failed pretty quick and she continues to drink and five... No, six years ago, she was in another crash, head on with another car and everyone in both cars died. Sally couldn't go. She had a different funeral. Never told me who's."

"Gabe's." I told him. "Beryl and Gabe died a week apart from one another. Nobody showed up to it."

He gave me pity.

I told him Gabe's death was the best thing that ever happened to me.