CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX:
SOMETIMES

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"SO... WHAT EXACTLY ARE we looking for?"

It was safe to say Annais and Hazel weren't off to a great start. For a while, they wandered around in pensive silence, their eyes straining to make out shapes in the strips of darkness. Deep down in the Earth with the only way out far behind (above) them, Annais couldn't help but feel on edge. They had walked into the belly of Gaea herself. It was a wonder she hadn't sent something to attack them already. Annais braced for it at every turn. That something would jump out and use their short-sightedness to its advantage. 

Just when the silence was beginning to stretch, Hazel answered.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Some kind of door is what's most logical."

Annais pursed her lips but said nothing. Some kind of door. Well, that narrowed it down.

"Do you think Frank and Leo have killed each other yet?"

Hazel chuckled. "Probably. I'm surprised they haven't come down here already. It's been a while now."

"That's what happens when you have a protective boyfriend," Annais acknowledged, the smallest of smirks forming on her face even though Hazel couldn't see it. "Frank's nice, looks at you like a lovesick puppy most of the time, but nice."

"Well, I'm glad to hear he has your approval," Hazel scoffed, though there was no bite to her words. "What about Jason? That boy worships the ground you walk on most of the time."

"Most of the time," Annais echoed with the hollow sound of a laugh.

But in her head, she couldn't prevent a frown.

You love him, the thought came before she could stop it. For a second, she thought about telling Hazel, asking her what the fuck am I mean to do with this? Annais Min had never been in love with anyone; sometimes, she barely even loved herself. It had snuck up on her, and at the worst time too.

Annais Min wanted to cut love out of her heart and feed it to the monsters that chased them. She didn't want it. Everything was so much better before when she couldn't get hurt. When she cared, but not to the point where her whole world would stop turning if Jason Grace was to die tomorrow.

"Hazel--"

The daughter of Pluto had frozen suddenly, Annais falling silent as she slammed into her back and stumbled. "Hazel?"

"It's the door. Annais, we found it."

It certainly didn't look like anything special. Made out of the same coarse stone as the walls, it blended right in with their surroundings. The only reason Annais even recognised that it was a door was the elaborate, Imperial gold lock with no handle -- or key -- in the centre.

"Can you open it?" Annais asked, trying not to get her hopes up when Hazel didn't answer right away. 

"I'm not sure. . ."

She reached out until her hand was hovering over the lock, fingertips tracing over the ornate design. Brows furrowed in thought, she looked the picture of sheer determination, but Annais could hear the impatience trickling in when time continued to tick past and nothing happened. She pushed on the door, huffing when the stone refused to budge.

"I don't think--"

Annais cut her off with a sharp twist of her body. Leo only just managed to dodge the sword that threatened to run him through, stumbling back into Frank's arms as Annais let out a frustrated sigh.

"Leo!" she exclaimed. "I could've killed you, dumbass."

"Oh, I'm the dumbass?" he retorted when he managed to catch his breath again. 

"Yes."

"Geez, I need to find a new girlfriend," he muttered. He was joking, but Annais' eyes almost immediately narrowed. "Don't tell Mel I said that. . ."

"I won't," she said and bared her teeth in a weak attempt at a smile. "I'll tell Ezra instead."

Leo's face went dangerously pale.

Maybe he should've just let Annais stab him.

"What are you doing here?" Hazel asked -- no, demanded into the sudden awkward silence. "How did you find us?"

Leo shrugged, not really having an explanation for the how; rather, the what as he said, "We ran into some angry tourists." Then proceeded to explain that the three men Annais had noticed were in fact eidolons.

"I knew something seemed off," Annais grumbled when he went quiet.

She should've killed them when she had the chance.

"I had eidolons," Hazel groaned in frustration. "I thought Piper and Mel made them promise to stay away."

"Oh... Actually, they made them promise to stay off the ship and not possess any of us," Frank corrected. "But if they followed us, and used other bodies to attack us, then they're not technically breaking their vow. . ."

Since when were monsters so smart? Annais wasn't used to this. . .

"Great," Leo scoffed. "Eidolons who are also lawyers. Now I really want to kill them."

"Get in line," Annais muttered.

"Okay, let's just forget them for now," Hazel sighed and turned back to face the door again. Leo and Frank inched closer to get a better look, the four bodies crammed uncomfortably in the narrow corridor. "This door is giving me fits. Leo, can you try your skill with the lock?"

Leo grinned. "Stand aside for the master, please." Only somewhat miffed, Hazel and Frank stepped back, but not Annais. Leo regarded her with a raised eyebrow. "That means you too."

"I hate this," she sighed, but didn't stop Hazel from yanking her back a step.

"Oh, you know you love me, really."

There was that blasted word again. It seemed that, now Annais was aware of it, she couldn't escape from the feeling, even with her friends. Love chased her down and all-but smacked her in the face.

For a while, they stood in silence (which did nothing great for Annais' wandering mind) the three watching as Leo hummed to himself and got to work with... well, whatever he did as a son of Hephaestus. 

At one point, he turned to them with a frown, "These letters are Greek," he declared.

Which surprised him and Annais, but not so much Hazel and Frank. "Lots of Romans spoke Greek," Hazel shrugged.

"I guess, but this workmanship -- well, no offence to you Camp Jupiter types, but this is too complicated to be Roman."

Frank scoffed. "Whereas you Greeks just love making things complicated."

"Oh, you Romans are complicated," Annais muttered emphatically. "Just in other ways."

As Frank frowned, Leo cut in with an uneasy raise of his hands. A surrendering gesture, a white flag raised in retreat. "Look, all I'm saying is this machinery is delicate, sophisticated. It reminds me of... well, it's a more advanced sort of lock. You line up the symbols on the different rings in the right order, and that opens the door."

"But what's the right order?" Hazel asked, still glancing warily between Annais and Frank.

"Good question. Greek spheres... astronomy... geometry-- oh. Oh, no way. . ."

"What?" Annais frowned. Leo didn't answer. He was grinning like a mad-man. "Leo, what?"

"I wonder. . . what's the value of pi?"

"What kind of pie?" Frank questioned cluelessly.

Annais rolled her eyes. "He means the number," she said, then turned to Leo with firmly crossed arms. "But how are we meant to know? It's not like I went to an actual school. . ."

Well, that wasn't entirely true. She did spend a few months in the Wilderness School (which, when she thought about it, seemed like a whole lifetime ago) but she wasn't there to learn. She spent most of her time bludging her classes then cramming information into her brain at the last minute. She was sure pi would've come up at some point, but knowing her, she would've decided it was useless, something that would never be needed in the reality of her life. . .

How ironic.

"I learned that in Maths class once," Hazel said, her brows furrowing when she failed to offer up the answer. "But I don't--"

"It's used to measure circles," Leo filled in what she couldn't put into words. "This sphere, if it's made by the guy I'm thinking of. . ." Annais, Hazel and Frank stared at him blankly. Leo sighed and waved them away. "Never mind. I'm pretty sure pi is. . . uh. . . oh! 3.1415 blah blah blah. The number goes on forever, but the sphere has only five rings, so that should be enough -- if I'm right, that is."

"And if you're not?"

"Well, then, Leo fall down, go boom." Their blank expressions didn't waver. Leo rolled his eyes again. "Let's just find out!"

With that, he got to work, lining up the correct numbers while muttering to himself. It took him a few minutes and two attempts, but as the last number slid back into place, something in the lock clicked sharply, like a blade grating on stone. The door swung open, revealing a dark patch of darkness on the other side.

Leo let out a whoo! sound, throwing his hands into the air. "That, my good people, is how we do things in Leo World. Come on in!"

He didn't wait for them to follow him, disappearing inside like a dog to a bone. Monsters could've been waiting for them -- or worse, Gaea herself -- but Leo didn't seem to mind and Annais certainly didn't have a chance to deter him. 

"I hate Leo World," she heard Frank grumble behind her.

She called over her shoulder, "And we're back on the same page, Frank."

Hazel laughed and shook her head at them.

Annais couldn't have named half the objects in that room if her life depended on it. The only thing she knew was that it was a room rather than another corridor for them to lose themselves in. There were bronze worktables lining the stone walls, ancient tools and those blasted objects gathering dust in wicker baskets. In the centre of the space, a dozen or so bronze and gold spheres sat on the largest of the tables in various stages of disassembly. Annais wandered towards them and almost tripped sword-first over a thick metal cable, catching herself on the edge of the bench at the last second. There were dozens of them zig-zagged across the floor, she realised. Each of them crept up the wall like mechanical vines, disappearing into another closed-off room that two curved staircases seemingly lead up to. Annais went to approach them when Leo let out a shriek.

"What? What is it?"

Alarmed, everyone turned expecting monsters and found nothing -- again. Leo was cowering in front of two armoured mannequins. As creepy as they were, they certainly didn't warrant an Oscar-worthy scream of terror. 

"Sorry. Don't mind me." Slowly, some of Leo's fear faded away. He regarded the mannequins with interest, poking at one of the bronze chest-plates like it was a puzzle waiting to be decoded. "Dude. These would be awesome if they worked."

Frank didn't seem to think so. "Those things are going to come alive and attack us, aren't they?"

"Frank!" Annais groaned. "Why would you say that? You've just jinxed us, I know it--"

It was Leo's turn to laugh at them. "Not a chance," he disagreed, pulling at an exposed wire neither of them had noticed before. "They aren't complete. Look, the head wiring's been disconnected. And here, at the elbow, the pulley system for this joint is out of alignment. My guess? The Romans were trying to duplicate a Greek design, but they didn't have the skill."

Hazel scoffed. "The Romans weren't good enough at being complicated, I suppose."

"Or delicate," Frank said in the same pointed tone. "Or sophisticated."

Annais grinned. "Come on now. You're starting to sound bitter."

"I just call it like I see it," Leo added. Another flag of surrender. "Still... it's a pretty impressive try. I've heard legends that the Romans confiscated the writings of Archimedes, but--"

"Archimedes? Wasn't he an ancient mathematician or something?"

"Sounds like a spider," Annais commented as she turned back to the stairs. Cautiously, she tested her weight on the first wooden step. Much to her surprise, her feet didn't slam straight through. "Arachne... Archimedes... close enough."

"But still a mathematician."

"Oh, he was a lot more than that," Leo said with a vaguely dreamy expression. "He was only the most famous son of Hepheastus who ever lived. Definitely not a spider, Annais."

"I've heard his name before, but how can you be sure this mannequin is his design?" Frank asked, looking and sounding doubtful.

"Because it has to be!" Leo insisted. "Look, I've read all about Archimedes. He's a hero to Cabin Nine. The dude was Greek, right? He lived in one of the Greek colonies in Southern Italy, back before Rome got huge and took over. Finally the Romans moved in and destroyed his city. The Roman general wanted to spare Archimedes, because he was so valuable -- sort of like the Einstein of the ancient world -- but some stupid Roman soldier killed him."

"There you go again," Hazel sighed. "Stupid and Roman don't always go together, Leo."

"But--"

"How do you know all this, anyway?" Frank interjected. "Is there a Spanish tour guide around here?"

Annais snorted. "He definitely has an ear-piece or something. That tour guide from before is feeding him his answers."

"No, you guys!" Leo exclaimed through gritted teeth. "Look, you can't be a demigod who's into building stuff and not know about Archimedes. The guy was seriously elite. He calculated the value of pi. He did all this maths stuff we use for engineering. He invented a hydraulic screw that could move water through pipes."

"A hydraulic screw," Hazel echoed with an unphased blink of her eyes. "Excuse me for not knowing about that awesome achievement."

"He also built a death ray made of mirrors that could burn enemy ships," Leo huffed. "Is that awesome enough for you?"

"Well, what if the enemy wasn't on a ship?" Annais countered. "Then what? This death ray would be useless."

"Annais, you're supposed to be on my side."

"She's got a point," Frank argued. "I saw something about that on TV. They proved it didn't work."

"Ah, that's just because modern mortals don't know how to use celestial bronze," Leo dismissed. "That's the key. Archimedes also invented a massive claw that could swing on a crane and pluck enemy ships out of the water."

"Okay, that's cool," Frank admitted, defending himself when Hazel raised her eyebrows at him, "I love grabber-arm games!"

"Well, there you go," Leo grinned. "Anyway, his inventions weren't enough. The Romans destroyed his city. Archimedes was killed. According to legends, the Roman general was a big fan of his work, so he raided Archimedes's workshop and carted a bunch of souvenirs back to Rome. They disappeared from history, except... Well, here they are."

Eagerly, he gestured to the bronze and gold spheres sitting idly on their table. Truthfully, in Annais' expert opinion, there was nothing special about them, they were just... giant hunks of leftover metal, probably scraps from weapons or something.

Hazel seemed to agree. "Metal basketballs?"

Leo scowled, thoroughly irritated at this point. "Guys, Archimedes constructed spheres. The Romans couldn't figure them out. They thought they were just for telling time or following constellations, because they were covered with pictures of stars and planets. But that's like finding a rifle and thinking it's a walking stick."

"Leo, the Romans were top-notch engineers," Hazel ground out. Her tone was scolding, like a mother lecturing her son, no longer that dreamy, doe-eyed girl she used to be around him. "They built aqueducts, roads--"

"Siege weapons," Frank added defensively. "Public sanitation."

"Yeah, fine," Leo rolled his eyes. "But Archimedes was in a class by himself. His spheres could do all sorts of things, only nobody is sure..." 

All of a sudden, he interrupted himself by setting his nose on fire. Annais snorted, nearly dropping her sword as she doubled over in laughter. Hastily smothering the flames, a red-cheeked Leo dashed over to the staircase Annais stood on. She half-expected him to tackle her, but he came up short to examine the scrolls stuffed in the row of cubby holes beneath the stairs. 

"Oh, gods. This is it. Guys, this is the lost book! Archimedes wrote this, describing his construction methods, but all the copies were lost in ancient times. If I can translate this..."

"The secrets of Archimedes," he murmured, holding the scroll up like an offering to the Gods. "Guys, this is bigger than Daedalus's laptop. If there's a Roman attack on Camp Half-Blood, these secrets could save the camp! They might even give us an edge over Gaea and the giants!"

"Okay," Hazel was the one to break the silence. Annais had no idea what to say. Even after all this time, she felt unprepared for... well, this. She didn't have all the answers, had no idea what was coming, and she hated it. Maybe even more than she hated the intensity of her feelings for Jason. "We didn't come here for a scroll, but I guess we can take it with us."

"Assuming," Frank coughed. "That you don't mind sharing its secrets with us stupid, uncomplicated Romans."

"What?" Leo frowned. "No, look, I didn't mean to insult... Oh, never mind. The point is this is good news!"

"Good news," Annais murmured. "Okay, then what do we--"

She'd barely gotten the words out when everything went to shit.

Leo stumbled in front of Annais, ignoring her scowl as he held an arm out in front of her. As a whirring, clicking sound filled the air, spider-like legs extended from one of the bronze basketballs and struck Hazel and Frank like live wires. The two of them shook with electricity and collapsed. 

Annais screamed at the sight of Hazel's fluttering eyes, her dangerously shallow breathing. She shoved past Leo's arm, ignoring his shouts of protests. Her hands had almost reached Hazel's when two swords sliced through the air towards her.

Leo was there. He tackled her aside, then yanked her back towards the stairs as two of the armoured 'lifeless' mannequins advanced towards them. Beneath their helmets, eyes that hadn't been there before glowed gold.

"You cannot escape us, Leo Valdez," one of them growled. "We do not like possessing machines, but they are better than tourists. You and the Min girl will not leave here alive."

His friend had turned to observe Hazel and Frank, golden eyes blinking slowly. "A male and female demigod," he murmured, and Annais swore he would've been smiling had he had a mouth. "These will do, if the others die. We do not need you, Leo Valdez. You or your protector."

Annais sneered. Despite the erratic roar of her heart in her chest, she couldn't help but frown. Was this how Ezra had felt? When Gaea pretty much rejected her blood? Offended that she was considered a protector, a nuisance in the firing line. . .  

Unlike Annais, Leo grinned.

"Hey! You always need Leo Valdez!"

The first mannequin swung his sword at Leo, forcing him and Annais back a step. "I have been in your mind, Leo," they could hear the sound of a smile in his voice; eerie, the calm before the damning storm. "I helped you start the war."

Annais scowled. Beneath her hand, she felt Leo's arm tense with the familiar strain of guilt. "That was you? You made me fire the ballista? And you call that helping?"

"I know what you think. I know your limits. You are small and alone. You need friends to protect you."

"Don't listen to him, Leo."

"Without them, you are unable to withstand me."

"He's trying to psych you out."

Leo swallowed thickly. He did not look at Annais.

"I vowed not to possess you again, but I can still kill you."

Annais acted on instinct. Slipping her ring off her finger, she all-but shoved Leo behind her, the roles reversing as she held her sword out in front of her. Her heart continued to pound. She wondered if the eidolons could hear it.

"I'd like to see you try."

Behind her, Leo had started to laugh. "First, you don't know me." He yanked sharply on the back of Annais' jacket, a warning before he added, "And second? Bye!"

Annais whirled around incredulously and found he'd taken off halfway up the stairs.

"Leo!"

He frowned down at her. "You were supposed to come with me, idiot. I gave you the signal."

"Since when did we have a signal?" she grumbled, and raced up after him as the mannequins began to advance. She didn't like the thought of leaving Hazel and Frank behind, but found comfort in the lack of a shadow encasing them. The mannequins didn't even glance in their direction as they creaked and groaned their way up the stairs one at a time.

By the time she reached Leo, he'd reached the closed-off room and was about to slam the gates that guarded the door shut, almost locking out Annais in the process.

"Dude!" she shrieked in disbelief. 

He frowned at her. Again. Like he couldn't comprehend what was taking her so long.

"Hurry up!"

The petty part of her considered the logistics of shoving Leo into the eager arms of the mannequins -- friendship be damned -- but she refrained for the time being, stepping behind the gates just as they swung into the mannequin's faces. Leo fused the locks with molten hands. Then, he stepped back and laughed.

"This is foolish," the second mannequin sneered. "You only delay your deaths."

"Delaying death is one of my favourite hobbies," Leo smirked, in a 'take that!' kind of tone. "And my companion here is death! You're messing with the wrong demigods!"

The mannequins began to shake the bars, the ancient metal rattling like wounded lungs. When Leo stuck out his tongue at them, Annais decided they had more than tested their luck.

"Come on, Leonidas." It was her turn to tug on his shirt, deliberately pulling at the collar. He glared at her, coughing and spluttering his smirk away. "You can lead the way."

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A/N: The inspo for the current act of Annais and Jason's love story is Sometimes by Chelsea Cutler. More specifically, the lines: 'Cause I love you, but sometimes, I'd rather die, than have to feel this way inside.' Just let that sink in :))