Ok, I didn't want to do a Mark of Athena, but I may (key word: MAY) continue this, depending on the feedback I get. If I get tons of reviews asking me to continue, I MAY continue this. I already have a series going, so I probably won't do it, but who knows? Enjoy!

I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Frank

I stared up at the gigantic ship hovering above New Rome in amazement, one arm around Percy, my hand brushing Hazel's.

First a girl climbed down the ladder. She had blond hair that sparkled in the sunlight, and it was pulled back in a hasty ponytail. She was wearing Greek armor and jeans and an orange t-shirt underneath it. She was very tan and strong, and I heard Percy suck in a breath when he saw her, and I guessed that it was his girlfriend, Annabeth.

A small guy with black, very curly hair climbed down the ladder, then a girl with choppy hair. Hazel drew a breath at the guy with the curly hair. I knew why: he looked exactly like Hazel's friend from the nineteen forties. I wondered if this guy was Sammy's grandson or something.

A blond guy stood at the rim of a ship in a toga and a purple cape billowing behind him. He had an air of command, even from a distance, and I instantly knew it was the lost Praetor that I had heard tons about: Jason Grace.

The rest of the Fifth Cohort that had known him wouldn't shut up about him since we had gotten the video-scroll thing. It amazed me what he had done: come to camp at the age of three, defeat the Trojan sea monster, lead Rome into battle on Mount Othyrus when he was thirteen or so, and now he's joining together two enemies that have been that way for centuries. Even the First Cohort had tidbits of information that made him seem legendary: as bad as Percy during the War Games, defeated the Titan Krios with nothing but his bare hands, and had insane plans that sounded impossible but worked out ninety-nine percent of the time. And if it didn't work, he changed it in mid-stream to make it work. He had more lives than a cat, the Fourth Cohort says. He's been in more tricky places than the legion and New Rome put together, not counting Percy and Reyna, I overheard someone exclaim from the Third Cohort.

Which reminded me about Percy. His memories weren't totally back, but enough to know all of his friends and describe all of them in detail, especially Annabeth. The war, the battles, the quests, prophecies, a really random memory of exploding toilets? I seriously doubted that Jason had been in more tight spots than Percy. At the very least he didn't know how to anger more gods on his first quest, and survive. I mean, the Big Three, Minerva, and Mars? No way he could've survived that…but he did. Somehow, by some insane fluke, he did.

Percy also had battled four Titans. He had the same aura, quiet, but commanding. Burdened, but strong. He was a lot like Jason, from what I've heard of him, and that could probably either be a saving grace or a disaster. No pun intended.

"Alrighty, I hear you peeps throw rockin' parties!" I was jerked out of my thoughts by the could-be grandson of Hazel's childhood friend. Confused? Welcome to my very strange world.

I resisted the urge to do a face-palm. Romans do not have a sense of humor. And if they did, they didn't show it until they knew the person. Hazel had an odd look on her face, and Percy looked like he was mentally doing twenty face-palms.

"Leo, let's not hear any more jokes for right now?" the legendary Jason Grace said, descending the ladder himself now that everyone was on the ground. The girl with choppy brown hair scooted a little closer to Jason. Jason himself looked a little uncomfortable, but it was washed away almost instantly.

"I am Jason Grace, son of Jupiter, uh, former Praetor of the Twelfth legion." Jason said strongly. The only part where he faltered was when he spotted Percy and the cape he wore.

Percy

The air was completely still, and for a moment I thought Reyna was going to order them to attack, but instead there was, "Jason!"

"You leave us like that and return with Greeks again, I will torture you until you die!"

"Who are they?"

"Are they Percy's friends?"

"How did you make such a warship?"

"Why do you have a warship?"

"Are you ok?"

And then he was practically dog-piled by the Fifth Cohort and there were hugs and back-slaps all around the legion.

That was all good, I suppose, but I was still looking for Annabeth, but I didn't want to leave Hazel and Frank. I went up on my toes, trying to be discreet about looking for her, but Hazel stomped on my foot and Frank pushed me forward.

"Good gods, Percy, don't leave her standing there!" Hazel yelled at me, pushing me again towards the ship. I did a mock-salute and ran towards the ship.

I ran into somebody and both of us went sprawling, her on top of me. "Oh thank gods, Percy! You're ok!" she gasped in my ear.

"Annabeth?" I said.

"Well, do you remember me or not?"

"And you call me a Seaweed Brain. I just said your name!" I grinned at her. She hugged me tight, her head buried in my chest. I hugged her back, just as tightly. "Come on, let's get up. You make it a little hard to breathe." I said.

She rolled off me, and we both stood up.

And then she promptly slapped me across the face.

"How dare you disappear for months on end! That phone call to your mother was COMPLETELY inappropriate!" she yelled at me. I backed up a little. "How dare you leave me, wondering if you had been slashed to bits by monsters, or had found some reasonable shelter, or found the Roman camp. HOW DARE YOU!" she yelled at me even louder. Some of the people, Romans and Greeks alike, were snickering to see the great Percy Jackson being scolded by his girlfriend.

Annabeth shot them a glare, and they all shut up, giving me a moments' reprieve from her yelling.

I stood there, wincing at the right times, waiting for her to get it out of her system.

"And then you have the nerve to DISOBEY my orders, you Seaweed Brain, and go on some gods-forsaken quest to ALASKA of all places, without your memory, without someone that you've known for years, and of course, without ME!" she yelled at me. "I don't even WANT to know how many monsters attacked you, especially since she's waking, and how many times you had to defeat them-"

I winced for real, remembering the gorgons. Annabeth ranted on.

"and what you faced! Zeus knows how many monsters!"

"Medusa's sisters, a flock of gryphons, an army of ghosts, an army of Cyclopes and centaurs, and two giants." I said, nodding, thinking about them all. "Well, Hazel and Frank took the first giant." I amended.

She punched me in the chest, and was going to continue on ranting until I stopped her.

I kissed her.

When we both drew away, she punched me again weakly. "I missed you, Seaweed Brain."

"Did I mention that I lost the Curse?"

Jason

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw who Percy Jackson was. I was half-excepting this huge guy with baseballs for muscles and a tiny patch of black hair and green eyes. This guy looked…normal. Like a guy you'd see on a middle-class street, walking home from school. This was the guy who'd defeated the Minotaur bare-handed with no training? The guy who'd defeated all three Furies and avoided WWIII with a week of training? The guy that angered so many gods and they had to put up with it because of his lineage and heroism? The guy who defeated Saturn with a single choice? This guy looked absolutely normal, and yet not at the same time.

He had wavy black hair and bright, sea-green eyes. He did have muscles, but he wasn't one of those huge guys with baseballs for muscles and a centipede for a brain. At a first glance he seemed like a football quarterback in high school. At a second glance you could see he had an aura of power and confidence. But if you looked closely, you could see warmth and friendliness, but he was burdened with a virtual bag of stones. Even tired out with the obvious recent battle, you could see he was trustworthy and would take the burdens of others to ease their pain. If you looked at his eyes, they were extremely deep. They had seen war, pain, and death, something that no one should see at sixteen or any age, and especially not all three at once, like I had, and I had a feeling that he had too.

Part of the reason I was laughing was that he looked so normal, and part of it was that he was getting chewed out by a girl that was six inches shorter, but I knew this girl, and she was not to be underestimated.

I was only half-following Annabeth's rant at Percy, so I was rather startled when there was a very loud, "YOU WHAT?"

Percy held her by the shoulders, away from him. "I lost the Curse of Achilles." he said slowly and distinctly. "I probably have your handprint on my face." he said, smiling. I didn't really get why he was smiling; getting slapped by a girl was not my definition of fun.

In fact, Percy did have a red handprint on the left side of his face, and Annabeth paled slightly. "Oh come on, Wise Girl. You slapped me because you thought it wouldn't have any effect? I didn't know you cared!" Percy said, mock-surprised. Annabeth punched him again. "What am I, your personal punching/slapping bag? I suppose you drew my face on a doorpost and punched it sometimes." Chuckles flew around the crowd watching the two bicker. Percy rubbed his face. "I'm glad that drawn face wasn't my real one."

More chuckles. Annabeth flushed a bit. "Well maybe if you told me that first, you wouldn't get hit so often."

"Oh I don't know about that. I seem to recall that you either kissed me or punched me every time I did something stupid." Percy countered. The people who knew Percy personally laughed. Percy was always doing something stupid, I guessed. "Or hit me with whatever was in your hand. Did you know hardbacked books hurt?" he complained. The people laughed harder.

"Yeah, you might've mentioned that before. Maybe along with telling me in advance that you were going to be kidnapped."

"I'm not Rachel!" Percy protested.

"You have enough dreams about the enemy or the future to replace Rachel. You could've practically replaced the Oracle a long time ago, if you hadn't blown up so many schools, cars, playgrounds, or homework. And if you hadn't gone on so many quests or been kidnapped."

Percy nodded thoughtfully. "You do know that the exploding homework was sent to kill me when I opened the packet? And most of the other things were mostly because of monsters…" he trailed off. "I haven't blown up a playground." he stated. "Tyson broke it on a regular basis, but we never exploded a playground."

"Isn't that pretty much the same thing?" a guy with a babyish face and the build of a wrestler said. He was holding hands with a girl I faintly recognized…Hazel? Yeah, Hazel. First month camper then, and now she should be nine months or so. The guy wore the Centurion medal, and if I didn't recognize him, he must've been here for eight months or less. That means he either went with Percy on the quest, or did something really spectacular. He also had the Mural Crown. A Fifth wearing the Mural Crown with eight months or less? Impressive. Percy probably had something to do with it, I mused.

"Frank, you can replace a part, but if you explode a playground you have to replace the entire playground set." Percy explained.

Frank, I thought. Nope, doesn't ring any bells.

"Oh." Frank said. He turned to Annabeth. "Not trying to be insensitive, but are you done ranting at Percy?"

"Ah, leave it, Frank. She's used to ranting at me on a daily basis, and she has eight months to catch up on, so she won't be done anytime soon." Percy said amusedly. "By the way, don't worry about slapping Hera upside the head the next time you see her. I already dumped her in the Tiber, Annabeth."

"Ok, wait, I'm hearing a lot of interesting stuff, but I have no idea who or what you are talking about. Can we do backstory?" I cut in. I held out my hand. "Jason-"

"Grace." he finished. "The Fifth Cohort hasn't shut up about you yet. In fact, I don't think the legion has shut up about you yet. Percy Jackson." He shook my hand.

"I have to say the same. When we-" I pointed to Piper and Leo- "arrived, the camp was frantic. I've heard just bits and pieces."

Reyna checked the position of the sun. "It's almost time for dinner. The Seven can meet at the Praetor's table and share stories." She eyed Percy and me. "Just between the two of you, it should be really interesting, and very long."

I surveyed the faces. The three that came with me—Annabeth, Leo, and Piper—were faced with a bunch of hostile Romans that would pounce as soon as Reyna so much uttered a sound. This would be a long dinner.

Ok! You can either leave this up to your imaginations or do a long shot and ask me to continue. Just to get something across: NO PROMISES. I already have school, which takes up most of my time, and I already have a series going. This was pure luck that this popped into my head, and those of you who know me personally: you know I can't resist when I get an idea.

Please tell me what you think!