PERCY TWIRLED BLONDE curls through his fingers as he waited for Annabeth to wake up. He wasn't sure if it had been minutes or hours, to be honest, but this waiting was a personal hell. It tended to be that way with them. Or demigods in general, really. Of course, the government creeps told him she would wake up, and logic did, too, because why would they kill her if they had questions to ask her? But in the long run, he was still petrified that something was wrong. Petrified that maybe, just maybe, Annabeth's breathing would slow, then stop for good. He was going insane.

          Percy sucked in a breath. He was not going insane. He was fine. And Annabeth would be, too. Logically. Unless, of course, these weirdos were toying with him or something. But that would be ridiculous. They had no reason to—they were mortal, as far as he could tell. What if they knew the truth, though? Maybe they had a vendetta of some sort? He wasn't sure what a group of mortals could do against gods, but hey, gold star for trying.

          Percy cursed himself for joking around, even in his head. There was nothing to do. Nothing to keep his mind occupied. As much as he tried, he still noticed the shadows dancing just at the edge of his vision, and he frantically tried to think of something, anything, rather than the inevitable. The car. What was going to happen to the car? Would it be towed? Would Camp Jupiter find out? Wait, Camp Jupiter already knew, because of Jason. Had he told Camp Half-Blood? His mom—

          His mom. Gods, Percy felt like an asshole for only thinking of his family now. He desperately hoped they hadn't been told. Not yet. The last thing Sally and Paul needed with a two-year-old running through the apartment was to hear that he and Annabeth had been taken by mortals into a giant black plane. Yeah, that wouldn't stress them out at all. If Jason had common sense—which he did, Percy knew—he wouldn't tell them for a few days. Hopefully.

          The more he thought about it, the more he realized that it was Annabeth they had wanted. If he hadn't been there, they would have taken her anyways. Percy was suddenly very glad that they were sharing a cell in the sky. Right on cue, the plane shook with turbulence. Percy screwed his eyes shut tight as he waited for the rough spot to pass. Looked like Zeus wasn't going to give him a free ride after all.

          "Percy?"

          Percy's eyes flew open. There was Annabeth, awake and alarmed, eyes wide with confusion. "Where—?"

          "We're on their plane," Percy explained, relieved. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

          "How?"

          "They shot you with something. Said it was dendrotoxin, but it was blue." He shook his head. "I. . .I thought. . ."

         She put her hands to his face soothingly. "It's okay. I'm okay." Their foreheads touched.

          Percy locked eyes with her, worry etched on his face. "Wise Girl, how do we get out of this one?"

"Well, if you let me figure out what's going on, I can probably tell you," Annabeth mumbled, her voice heavy with sleep.

Percy cracked a smile. "You're hilarious."

"I try," she said, rubbing her eyes and sitting up. She scanned the room, but didn't seem to find anything she was looking for. "Did you—"

"Yeah. I didn't find any bugs, but there's a tiny camera in that corner." He pointed. "Probably not supposed to be found, but I have nice eyes."

"You really do have nice eyes," Annabeth smirked. "Although usually the term is 'good'".

"I knew that."

They canvassed the room, again for Percy, but you could never be too careful, and there wasn't anything else to do anyways. They didn't find anything else.

"Where even is the door?" Annabeth exclaimed, frustrated.

"Somewhere over there," Percy answered, gesturing in the direction he'd come in. "Hard to tell with all of these dumb ass hexagons."

Suddenly, they were laughing, crying, clutching their sides, because of hexagons. Maybe they were delirious.

"Why is this funny?" Annabeth choked out.

"I don't know!" Percy could barely breathe.

"Stop laughing," Annabeth scolded, laughing. "We've been taken captive, goddamnit!"

Percy calmed himself a little and kissed her. "Gods, I love you."

"I know," Annabeth mussed up his hair from where she was sitting on the cot.

Percy held his hands out in the universal stop gesture. "Wait, wait, wait," he said, thinking, "am I Princess Leia in this scenario?"

"Yes," Annabeth said simply. "Except you managed to save your planet this time."

"Almost didn't," Percy shrugged, moving so he sat cross-legged on the floor. "Stupid nosebleeds. All they're good for is waking up the evil goddess of the Earth."

Annabeth didn't answer, the conversation having taken a slightly darker turn than they would have liked.

Instead, she pulled her boyfriend into a hug. "I'm sorry for scaring you."

"It's okay." Percy put his ear to her chest, listening to her heartbeat.

          "Oh, hey," she said, remembering something. "Did Jason come through?"

          Percy pulled away so he could look at her. "Uh, sort of. He dropped by as we were getting on. Obliterated, like, a two-foot circle of grass. Now the question is, what's he going to do about it?"

          Annabeth looked thoughtful. "Well, he's not praetor anymore, but the Legion'll probably still listen to him. And Frank and Reyna."

          Percy laughed softly. "One of the benefits of being demigods. Everyone comes after you when you go missing. I know firsthand."

          "Me, too," Annabeth reminded him. "Garden of the Hesperides."

          "Gods, that was awful."

         Annabeth agreed. She stroked Percy's raven-black hair, paying special attention to his gray streak. "We'll get out of this, Seaweed Brain. We always do, one way or another."

♆

          Agent Alphonso Mackenzie sat in front of the monitors, trying to make sense of it all with Fitz at his side. He had no idea what the kids were talking about, but it was new. It sounded like total gibberish. He leaned forward intently, watching the two interact. They could only hear snippets of the conversation, but Mack doubted the full one would help much.

          "Oh gods, remember the time —"

          "Chiron was so mad—"

          "—stayed at the bottom of the lake for hours—"

          "—Leo's nose caught fire!"

          Mack didn't know who Leo was, but he hoped the kid was okay. As for Chiron, whoever that was, he seemed to have his hands full. Mack was still speculating when the audio quality suddenly improved as the conversation slowed with a different topic.

          "Percy, I didn't tell you before, but while I was out, I had a dream."

          The boy looked troubled and moved closer to her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

          She shrugged. "There wasn't much to it. There was a pit."

          Both of their moods seemed to decrease tenfold. Percy's eyes darkened. "The Pit?" He was tentative.

Mack didn't like how they talked about it. They seemed genuinely concerned about a dream. As if it were real. He didn't want to let on, but these kids were seriously creeping him out.

          "I don't know," she said helplessly. "There was just a voice." She paused. "Kept talking about a hidden son of fire. I don't know why."

"Son of fire," Percy repeated. "Leo? He was hidden for a while."

"Son of fire?" Mack murmured to himself. He looked at Fitz next to him. "Any idea what that means, Turbo?"

Fitz just shrugged, not taking his eyes off of the monitor. "I don't know," he said carefully, "but the stuff they're saying. . .it sounds an awful lot like Asgardian mythology." He bit his lip. "Sounds weird, hearing them talk about a Leo."

Mack nodded wordlessly. It was easy to forget that the guy's first name was Leo, especially since no one even called him that.

"Not Leo this time," the girl said solemnly. "Gods, I wish I had my dagger. And my sword."

"We'll get them back," the boy assured her. "That sword's been with you through thick and thin."

"Yeah. Tartarus. The Giant War." She shrugged. "And countless scuffles with the little guys. Remember when we had to ditch a date because of the Chimaera?"

Mack was about to say something else, but Fitz was way ahead of him, already typing the terms into his tablet. "Not much for the Giant War. But. . ." He scrolled through the results. "Tartarus is the deep abyss that is used for a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked, also personified as a divine figure. Associated with Greek mythology." He looked at Mack. "The omega. On the dagger. It's a Greek letter. Maybe. . ." He shook his head, lost in thought.

"You think these kids are affiliated with a new sort of. . ." He searched for the right word, but couldn't find it.

"Yes, I do." Fitz took a breath and started to read aloud to Mack again. "The Chimaera was a bizarre fire-breathing creature with the body and head of a lion, a goat's head rising from its back, the udders of a goat, and a serpent for a tail, as described in Homer's The Iliad."

Mack didn't say anything. They were just kids. Kids. But here they were, locked up in the Bus. Man, it was crazy to think that he'd been worried this mission would be boring, what with Yo-Yo off on a tangent of her own. He watched as they hugged one another. A distressed shout came from the monitor.

"Why can't they leave us alone?"

Mack blinked hard and looked away. His eyes landed on a small band-aid—from the dagger they'd played with not a half hour ago. Only three of the team members were 'worthy', in May's words. There didn't seem to be a connection. Whatever it was, it would evade them for a little while longer.

Mack was jolted out of his reverie when May burst through the door. He couldn't help it—he jumped. He was trying to calm his racing heart when she spoke.

"We've got a situation."

★

me: come summer, updates will be more frequent because of no school!
me, in the summer: *does not post for a month*
i know! i'm sorry! i don't have an excuse other than i've been hella busy. thanks for sticking with me! hope you find this filler chapter interesting at least 😬 but anywho, to my american readers, happy late independence day! to my non-american readers, well, happy random day in july.
what countries/states are y'all from?
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸'MERICA🍔🌭🍟🍕🍩🍫
*cough* sorry, i meant, i'm from the us.
smell ya later,
cajoling