•as the world caves in•

•an end of a quest•

It's amazing how we went from international criminals to a sob story in a matter of ten days.

Poor Percy Jackson and his three unnamed friends were kidnapped from New York and brought all the way to Los Angeles.

They'd caused a commotion on the Greyhound in New Jersey to get away from the captor (a.k.a. Ares). Witnesses then claimed to remember the captor. It was actually the captor who caused the explosion on the St. Louis Arch, because two kids certainly couldn't of done that. A waitress in Denver had seen him threatening the children outside her diner and took a picture, notified the police there after. And finally, the brave Percy Jackson had stole a gun from his captor and battled him on the beach. Police arrived just in time, but an explosion happened, allowing the captor to flee the scene.

The reports who surrounded us fed us this, and we just sobbed and looked tired, playing the victims for the cameras.

"All I want," Percy chocked back on his tears, "is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew...somehow...we would be okay. And I know he'll want to reward each and every person in the beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number."

I hated Percy for that because I almost lost my act and started to laugh, but covered it up with more sobs.

The police and reports were so moved by his little speech, they raised enough money for plane tickets.

Takeoff was a nightmare, more so then TSA.

I was nervous for the flight, as not only was it my first time flying, but we had an angry god who could strike us down at any given moment.

When we touched down the press was already there, ready to swarm us with more questions, but we couldn't really answer any.

Annabeth lured them away before meeting us at baggage claim, of which we didn't even need to do since Percy left his bag on the flight with us.

We all walked out and Percy shoved us into a cap to Half-Blood Hill, which annoyed me, but I knew why.

"Percy," I said before getting in the cab. He turned around from his cab.

"Yeah, Cor?"

I smiled slightly at the nickname. Sure, I'd had it for years, but when he said it, it felt different.

"If you see my mom, tell her I say hi, okay?"

He nodded and smiled. "I'll do my best."

"Coriane! Get in!" Annabeth shouted.

"Okay! See you!"

"Bye!"

With that, we drove back to camp.

When we walked in, everyone snapped their eyes to us, and the whispers started.

"Coriane Anya Tucker!" Silena screamed as she launched herself to me. "Thank the gods!"

I started to cry as I hugged her, emotions crashing on me.

She rubbed my back. "Oh, it's okay, honey, you're home now."

"I missed you," I sobbed. "So, so much."

"I know, I did too," she cooed. She pulled away and smiled, but it faltered. "Where's Percy?"

"Mount Olympus," Annabeth said, and she looked like she wanted to cry.

"Alone?"

We nodded. "He made us come."

Silena studied Annabeth before opening her arms. Annabeth looked stunned for a moment, before collapsing in her arms, tears streaming down her face.

Grover shyly walked up and Silena laughed, pulling him in as well, then me.

We had a small group hug, before a voice said, "Are you really leaving me out?"

We looked up to see Luke, a stupid grin on his face. We all laughed and he went on the other side of Silena, trapping us youngest three.

Chiron approached. "Young heroes,"

We all looked up and stopped hugging, standing straight.

"You've had a long journey. Please, refresh yourselves, get rest, do what you must. Once Percy returns, we have some traditions to hold up to."