Chapter 25 We've Got a War to Win!

Piper's POV

I woke up with a pounding head ache. I let out a groan and looked up through heavy lids to see the familiar walls of the camp's infirmary. What in Hades name had happened? I sat up slowly and heard a snort beside me. I looked over to see a sleeping Jason, his head lolling to the side. I reached out and poked Jason's head, trying to wake him up. Jason just let out a groan and turned over in the chair.

Poke

"snort"

poke

"Ugh"

poke

"go away Leo"

poke

"Piper your awake" Jason cried as he opened his eyes I just smiled victoriously. I knew poking would wake him up, it always does!

"Jason what happened" I asked, still confused.

"You don't remember" he asked concerned. I just shook my head. He sighed and gently kissed my head. "Well-" he started to explain but was interrupted by Leo bursting into the room.

"Piper I'm soooo incredibly, super duper, absolutely sorry" he cried looking distressed

. "Woah" I said holding my hands up in a stop gesture.

"Will someone tell me what happened" I asked, annoyance leaking into my tone.

"She doesn't know" Leo asked looking at Jason, who shook his head.

"She is right here and would like to know what happened to her" I grumbled.

"It's was all Leo's fault" Jason declared, pointing at Leo.

"Thanks for the support buddy" Leo said sarcastically.

"Hey if she kills someone it's not going to be me" Jason said shrugging. I raised my eyebrows questioningly at Leo.

"Well.... you know how you had the hiccups" Leo asked looking sheepish. I nodded suspiciously. What did he do?

"Well I sort of tried to scare you by jumping out from behind you but I overestimated the distance so I kind of jumped on top of you and made you hit your head on a rock" he blurted looking terrified. Ugh seriously Leo? I sighed rubbing my temples, it was definitely a Leo thing to do.

"I'm not going to kill you Leo" I said, eliciting a relieved from him. "But if you ever do anything like that again I will not hesitate to gut you" I warned. He nodded so fast he looked like a bobble head.

Leo flopped down on the chair previously occupied by Jason and grinned. "Man Pipes you should have seen sparky over there he was a mess". I grinned at Leo's words and looked over at Jason who had turned slightly red.

"I wasn't a mess, just a little worried" he said, steadily getting redder.

"A little" Leo indecorously before snorting.

"You pretty much had a panic attack and wouldn't leave Pipers side the whole time" Leo said grinning impishly. Jason now resembled a strawberry. I let out a laugh, touched by his concern, and lent over to give him a kiss.

"I think that it was sweet" I said as I pulled away. Jason had now gone from strawberry to fire hydrant, an impressive achievement.

"Piper your alive" Percy said happily as he and Annabeth walked in. "I'm glad you not dead!"

"Me to Perce" I said laughing. "So", I said as I swung my legs out of the infirmary bed and stood up. "What do we do now?"

"Well..." Percy trailed off looking sheepish. I narrowed my eyes at his guilty expression, I had seen it on Leo a fair amount of times and it never lead to good things. What things you may be asking? Well I don't have time to name all of them but they include a flaming hairdryer, a toilet water soaked taco, an exploding phone, and a pink cow. Yup you heard me right, a pink cow. "You see I might have played a prank on Katie and Nico with the Stolls and glued them to a tree but we didn't know that is was permanent glue and now their stuck and reeeeally mad" he said in a rushed voice.

"You do realize that their both going to murder you, right" I asked, eyebrows raised questioningly. Leo nodded in defeat. Sometimes I seriously questioned his sanity. "Well let's get going we have some angry and possible murderers to free".

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU" Katie screamed at Travis, trying to pull herself free but with no avail. Travis just laughed.

"Whatever you say Katie-kat" he said grinning with an amused expression on his face. Katie narrowed her eyes dangerously and I heard Percy let out a low whistle, Travis was so going to get it now!

"I'm not kissing you for a month" she declared, watching smugly as Travis's expression of amusement quickly turned to horror.

"Wait Katie I was just messing around, I didn't mean it" he pleaded looking slightly panicked. "You don't really mean it, right?" Katie just smirked evilly.

"Wow Travis is no longer gonna get any from Katie, big deal" Nico said sarcastically. "But do you guys want to know what is a big deal? ME BEING STUCK TO THIS DAMN TREE!"

"Okay guys let's form a human chain" Percy called, starting to divide us into two groups. I latched on to Nico's left arm, Annabeth on his right one, Conner and Jason on his abdomen, and Chris holding onto Conner and Jason. Everyone else was working on Katie except Clarisse who didn't want to bother to help and was busy sharpening her knife.

"On three" Annabeth called. "One, two, THREE". We all pulled as hard as we could, grunting with effort. With a loud ripping sound Nico went flying off the tree and on to us. I let out a groan as I laid sprawled on the wet grassy floor.

"Get off, for such a skinny boy you weigh a lot" I heard Annabeth grumble as she shoved him off, effectively lifting the weigh that had been crushing me. Annabeth was right, for someone who constantly looks like they need a double cheeseburger he weighed a ton! I sat up only to have my eyes bulge out of my head and start laughing hysterically because glued to the tree that we had pulled Nico off of was a pair of black denim jeans, Nico's jeans to be more precise.

The boy himself was turning a bight shade of pink and was trying to cover his smiling skull patterned boxers with his hands. I snickered behind my hand while Percy pulled Annabeth's cell phone out of her back pocket sneakily and took a quick picture. Nico growled and ripped Percy's shirt of before wrapping it around his waist like a skirt and storming back to the cabins, leaving a shocked Percy and a blushing Annabeth behind. Everybody else's response was to burst into another round of hysterical laughter.

Ten minutes, a pair of pants, and a shirt later we were all waiting in the dinning hall. "So guys I think that it's time to go back to the war" Percy said grimly. My heart dropped. All the fun we had been having had completely wiped any thoughts of the war form my mind. The rest of the future campers seemed to feel the same way, judging from their dejected demeanor's.

"Why do we even have to go back?" Conner asked sadly. "Time's frozen there it won't make a difference."

"Yeah maybe he's on to something" Travis piped up, while Chris, Grover, and Katie looked interested.

"Hey hey" Percy said, raising his hands up in a 'hold on' gesture.

"I know we've been having fun here but and you probably don't want to go back but why would we want to stay here either? All of our friends are in our time and yes they may be frozen but if we stay here then they would stay like that forever. Plus it's not just like we could stay here, we would have two versions of us for our entire lives." I sighed at Percy's speech, it might not be what we wanted to do but it was our duty to, as friends, family, demigods, and heroes.

"So you guy's are going" PJ asked, a hint of sadness was present in his voice.

"Yeah I guess we are" Percy said, nodding.

"Well it was nice meeting me -er- you" PJ said, stumbling over the correct way to address Percy. "I've always been scared about what the future would hold, being a demigod and all, and while I'm still completely freaked out and can't wrap my head around this, I'm not scared anymore." he said gratefully. Percy gave him a crooked smile.

Percy's POV

We walked back up to the ship, waving goodbye to all the campers that had come to see our departure. I climbed up the ladder and headed up to the ship. Seeing Annabeth across the deck I walked over and wrapped my arm around her shoulder. She snuggled up to me in response. I looked over Annabeth's golden curls and saw Piper laughing as she tried and failed to teach Hazel what a cellphone was, Nico sprawled out on a bench snoring loudly, Jason and Frank having a staring contest Grover eating Leo's hammer, and Piper chasing Leo around demanding for him to give her back her underwear which was placed on his head as he ran around yelling about being a new superhero called underwear boy.

I smiled fondly. Sure I had a great time here but it didn't matter where I was as long as I had these guys, my family, they were my home.