━━ chapter thirty-two
southern belle

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━━Annabeth was making Fiona feel better by telling her stories of all the times Percy had been an absolute 'Seaweed Brain', as she called it. They sat together on her bunk with Hazel and Piper amongst them, the girls taking a moment alone together in a ship that seemed to suffocate them with the amount of idiotic teenage boys.

"He does drool in his sleep, doesn't he," Fiona couldn't help the laugh, her hand over her mouth in shock.

Annabeth nodded, chuckling. "He opened his eyes and was just like━" she put on her best Percy impression, "━'Wha...?'" Hazel giggled this time, and Piper smiled. She wrapped an arm around Fiona and bringing her into a side hug.

"That's really accurate," Piper sniggered.

Annabeth nodded to say, I know!

Spending time with them, it made Fiona almost forget everything that had happened in the mess hall with Jason, Leo about Nico. She knew Jason━she knew how cautious he was, how much he had to plan, and then double plan, and triple plan. He grew up in Camp Jupiter, he was shaped into the best Roman demigod the camp wanted. A true son of Jupiter; prince of the sky. He had changed since the last time she saw him. His time at Camp Half-blood had loosened him up, allowed him to make more risky and last-minute choices, but that part of him was still there, fighting against this new side. She was still angry at him, but she understood, because she understood him.

Leo, on the other hand? That was a different story. Maybe it was because he was so loud and obnoxious to the point Fiona was turned off in getting to know him, but he knew how to make her blood boil. They were polar opposites, and they were sure to clash more in the future.

But right now, Fiona was happy to be surrounded by the girls. She barely knew Annabeth and Piper, and yet here they were to make sure her and Hazel were okay. Piper had stood up to them against her boyfriend and best friend. Fiona had never experienced friendship like this from a girl except her sister, maybe because she was always so competitive. But she had changed as well. Competition was still important, but to the point where she locked herself from others? Not so much. It allowed her to chuckle and smile with these Greek heroes, and perhaps feel at peace, like she had been friends with them for ages.

That was until the moment broke away, and Frank burst into her cabin. "Where's Leo?" he gasped. "Take off! Take off!"

All four girls shot to their feet. "Where's Percy?" Fiona asked, worry building up in her stomach. "And Coach Hedge?"

Frank grabbed his knees, doubling over to try and breathe. His clothes were stiff and damp, as if having been washed in pure starch. "On deck. They're fine. We're being followed!"

Fiona pushed past him and took the stairs three at a time, Annabeth, Hazel and Piper right behind her with Frank trailing, still gasping for air. Percy and Hedge lied on the deck, looking exhausted. The faun was missing his shoes, grinning up at the sky and muttering, "Awesome. Awesome."

Rushing past him, Fiona dropped down next to Percy. He was covered in nicks and scratches, as if he had jumped right through a window. He looked pale, tired━exactly like he had back on the island when he had seen Polybotes. Fiona placed the back of her hand against his forehead, and was startled to find it burning. Percy didn't say anything, but he just took her hand away from his forehand and grapsed it weaky to say, Be right with you, as son as the world stops spinning.

Leo, Sam and Jason, who had been eating in the mess hall, came rushing up the stairs.

"What? What?" Leo cried, holding a half-eaten sandwhich. "Can a guy even take a lunch break? What's wrong?"

"Followed!" Frank yelled again.

"Followed by what?" asked Jason, already reaching for his weapon.

"I don't know! Whales? Sea monsters? Maybe Kate and Porky!"

"Kate and Porky?" Sam scratched his scalp.

Annabeth looked ready to strangle Frank, but calmed herself. "Sam, get down below." Her brother frowned at her, about to argue, but she scowled. "Now!" The son of Athena grit his teeth, but rushed back down, grumbling to himself. With that handled with, she turned to Frank. "That makes absolutely no sense. Leo, you'd better get us out of here."

The engineer put his sandwich in between his teeth and sprinted for the helm. The Argo II was soon up in the air, and Annabeth was manning the aft crossbow. Fiona stayed with her boyfriend, helping him up with an arm slung over her shoulder. He, Coach Hedge or Frank didn't start to recover until the Atlanta skyline was a hazy smudge in the distance.

"Charleston," Percy managed, gripping onto Fiona for support. He still sounded shaken up, and her worry only grew. "Set course for Charleston."

"Charleston?" the name seemed to bring back bad memories for Jason. "What exactly did you find in Atlanta?"

Frank unzipped his backpack, still breathing heavily and started to bring out souvenirs. "Some peach preserves. A couple of T-shirts. A snow glove. And━um━these not━really━Chinese handcuffs."

Annabeth huffed through her nose as if to tell herself, stay calm. "How about you start from the top━of the story, not the backpack."

Gathering on the quarterdeck so Leo could hear the conversation as he navigated, Frank and Percy took turns in explaining what had happened. Sam had rejoined them from below deck, looking very miffed about being sent down for nothing. He stood as far away from his sister as he could, arms crossed and glaring at the wood at his feet.

When Percy explained about the captive sea creatures in the aquarium, Fiona now understood why he had been so upset. Even she was livid, clenching her fists, "How dare they ... We need to help them," she turned to Annabeth; their leader for her input.

"We will," Percy said instead. "In time. But I have to figure out how. I wish ..." he shook his head. "Never mind. First we have to deal with this bounty on our heads."

Now that there was no talk of the fighting they endured, Coach Hedge was bored, and wandered towards the bow of the ship, practising his roundhouse kicks and complimenting himself on his technique.

Annabeth gripped the hilt of her dagger, annoyed. "A bounty on our heads ... as if we didn't attract enough monsters already."

"Do we get WANTED posters?" Leo asked, risking a glance back from where he navigated the ship. "And do they have our bounties, like, broken down on a price list?"

Hazel wrinkled her nose at him, "What are you talking about?"

"Just curious how much I'm going for these days," Leo shrugged. "I mean, I can understand not being as pricey as Percy or Jason, maybe ... but am I work━like━two Franks or three Franks?"

"Hey!" Frank complained.

Fiona agreed, frowning up at Leo. "Frank would be worth more than you, trust me. And why aren't I worth like the same as Jason. I mean, I can like control━"

"Knock it off," Annabeth ordered, and the three of them fell silent. "At least we know our next step is to go to Charleston, to find this map."

Piper leaned against the control panel. Her gaze was distant, and Fiona wondered whether she had seen something else in her dagger recently. "A map," she murmured. "But a map to what?"

"The Mark of Athena," Percy looked cautiously at Annabeth. She set her jaw, and looked away. "Whatever it is," he continued. "We know it leads to something important in Rome, something that might heal the rift between the Romans and Greeks."

This caused for Fiona to narrow her eyes in thought, trying to sift through her knowledge o mythology to find out whatever this could possibly be.

"Giants' bane," Hazel added with soft realisation, and Percy nodded.

"And in my drea the twin giants said something about a statue."

Fiona's frown deepened. A statue? A thought occured, and her stomach churned. No, it couldn't be ...? No one saw her eyes widen, and she soon hid it. No, of course it isn't, she chided to herself. No one knows where that is, it probably doesn't even exist anymore.

"Um ..." Frank rolled his Chinese (wait, no, not-so-exactly-Chinese) handchuffs between his fingers nervously. "According to Phorcys, we'd have to be insane to try and find it. But what is it?"

Everyone looked to Annabeth for the answers, but she didn't seem to want to give them━whether she knew or not. Fiona studied her, wondering whether perhaps they could be thinking of the same thing. They locked gazes, and there was a flicker of suspicion in Annabeth's grey hues before it disappeared, as if she scolded herself for even thinking what she had. "I━I'm close to an answer," she said instead. "I'll know more if we find this map. Jason, the way you reacted to the name Charleston ... have you been there before?"

Jason's gaze glanced uneasily at Piper, but so quickly Fiona thought she had imagined it. "Yeah," he admitted. "Reyna and I did a quest there about a year ago. We were salvaging Imperial gold weapons from the CSS Hunley."

"The what?" Piper arched a brow.

"It's the first successful miliary submarine," said Fiona while Leo let out a, "Whoa! That's the first successful military submarine." The two glanced at each other, an awkward air settling on them as they had both said the answer the same time. Fiona turned up her nose, ew, she had something in common with him. She quickly looked away and let him continue. "Uh ... it's from the Civil War. I always wanted to see that."

"It was designed by Roman demigods," said Jason. "It held a secret stash of Imperial gold torpedoes━until we rescued them and brought them back to Camp Jupiter."

Hazel crossed her arms. "So the Romans fought on the Confederate side? As a girl whose grandmother was a slave, can I just say ... not cool?"

Jason put his hands in front of him in surrender. "I personally was not alive then. And it wasn't all Greeks on one side and all Romans on the other. But, yes. Not ocol. Sometimes demigods make bad choices," his gaze then fell sheepish, glancing between Hazel and Fiona. "Like sometimes we're too supsicious ... and we speak without thinking."

It took Fiona a moment to realise he was apologising. Oh ... how does she react to that?

Jason elbowed Leo.

"Ow!" he yelped, but understood. "I mean, yeah ... bad choices. Like not trusting people's brothers who, you know, might need saving━uh, hypothetically speaking."

Hazel pursed her lips. The two sisters shared a glance, before deciding to forgive them. "Fine," said Fiona, crossing her arms. "But back to Charleston. Are you saying we should check that submarine again?"

Jason shrugged. "Well ... I can think of two places in Charleston we might search. The museum where they keep the Hunley━that's one of them. It has a lot of relics from the Civil War. A map could be hidden in one. I know the layout. I could lead a team inside."

"I'll go," Leo said. "That sounds cool."

Jason nodded, giving his friend a small smile. He turned to Frank, who was trying to pull his fingers out of the Chinese handcuffs, brows furrowed. "You should come, too, Frank. We might need you."

Frank looked surprised. "Why? Not like I was much good at that aquarium."

"You did fine," Percy assured him. "It took all three of us to break that glass."

"Besides, you're a child of Mars," said Jason. "The ghosts of defeated causes are bound to serve you. And the museum in Charleston has plenty of Confederate ghosts. We'll need you to keep them in line."

Frank pursed his lips. He fumbled with the handcuffs again. "Okay," he finally relented. "Sure━" frowning at his fingers, he tried to pull them out of the trap. "Uh ... how do you━?"

Leo chuckled. "Man, you've never seen those before? There's a simple trick to getting out."

Frank tugged again with no luck. He grit his teeth, concentrating. Then, to their alarm, he disappeared and shrunk down to a small, green iguana crouched next to an empty set of Chinese handcuffs.

"Well done, Frank Zhang," Leo said dryly. "That's exactly how people beat Chinese handcuffs. They turn into iguanas."

The demigods burst into laughter. Fiona mustered a small smile, meeting Frank's gaze to assure him━as he turned back━that they were laughing with him, not at him. He managed an embarassed smile. "Anyway," he said, anxious to change the subject, "The museum is one place to search. But━uh━Jason, you said there were two?"

The smile faded from his face. "Yeah," said Jason stiffly. "The other place is called the Battery━it's a park right by the harbour. The last time I was there ... with Reyna━" one again, he glanced at Piper, then rushed on. "We saw something in the park. A ghost or some sort of spirit, like a Southern belle from the Civil War, glowing and floating along. We tried to approach it, but it disappeared whenever we got cose. Then Reyna had this feeling━she said she should try it alone. Like maybe it would only talk to a girl. She went up to the spirit by herself and, sure enough, it spoke to her."

Everyone waited in silence for him to continue, but he didn't.

"What did it say?" Annabeth asked.

"Reyna wouldn't tell me," Jason admitted. "But it must have been important. She seemed ... shaken up. Maybe she got a prophecy or some bad news. Reyna never acted the same around me after that."

Fiona frowned. She didn't like the sound of that. Annabeth pursed her lips. "A girls' adventure, then," she said. "Piper, Fiona and Hazel can come with me."

Fiona went to nod, only to realise that with Jason, Frank and Leo gone, and the girls as well, Percy would be left alone with Coach Hedge and Sam ... which probably wasn't the best thing to do as a caring girlfriend. But on the other hand, he looked as though he needed a moment alone to just rest. They locked gazes, and he gave her a reasurring nod to say, Yeah, it'll be fine.

Annabeth watched the exchange, and nodded herself. "So, that's settled." She turned to Leo, who was studying his console, listening to Festus's creaks and squeaks. "Leo, how lnog until we reach Charleston?"

"Good question," he muttered. "Festus just detected a large group of eagles behind us━long-range radar, still not in sight."

Piper leaned over the console, her eyes turning grim. "Are you sure they're Roman?"

Leo rolled his eyes. "No, Pipes. It could be a random group of eagles flying in perfect formation━of course, they're Roman! I suppose we could turn the ship around and fight━"

"Yeah, bad idea," said Fiona. "That would remove any doubt that we're enemies of Rome."

"Or, I've got another idea," Leo held a finger up to tell her, you didn't let me finish. "If we went straight to Charleston, we could be there in a few hours. But the eagles would overtake us and things would get complicated. Instead, we should send out a decoy to trick the agles. We take the ship on a detour, go the long way to Charleston and get there tomorrow morning━" Fiona went to protest, but Leo held the finger up higher to shut her up, "━yeah, I know, I know. Nico's in trouble and we have to hurry."

"It's June twenty-seventh," Sam held up his hand, speaking for the first time this entire exchange. "After today, that's four more days. Then he dies."

"Yeah, I know! But this might throw the Romans off our trail. We should still have enough time to reach Rome."

Hazel scowled. "When you say should have enough..."

Leo winced, "How do you guys feel about barely enough?"

Fiona clenched her fists again. She wanted to wring his throat, but calmed herself down. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. "Okay, okay. Leo, what kind of decoy are you talking about?"

He sent her a mischevious grin. "I'm so glad you asked!"

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    a/n: this was a filter, I'm sorry. Short and a filter, ooops. I just wanted to update this, and so I decided to split up this chapter that was planned to be quite long into a few shorter ones. Sorry...?

     also, Leo and fionas friendship is at beginning development, y'all ain't ready for the power team they'll make