Liz

My feet hit the water and the nausea faded almost immediately. Zeus was a menace—there was no way you were going to tell my any different— and the Wright Brothers could go and… do something… dangerous and life threatening. Yeah, that got away from me.

I looked around and saw David struggling with his parachute. Luke was slowly pulling his closer to himself, so I swam to help my brother. I held us up with the warm currants bellow us and pulled the retraction cord. His chute pulled itself back into the pack and I zipped it close. I looked around and saw Percy land about ten feet to my left, and then proceed to help Annabeth out with her own gear. But I couldn’t see Luke. I turned around franticly, about to start yelling his name, when David grabbed my shoulder.

“Relax; you’re going to give yourself whiplash. He’s over there. And that must be the French coast. How’s your French?” He asked, his accent changing slightly at the end of his sentence. I smiled.

“Still better than yours.” I responded, also in French. He nodded, and started swimming toward the beach in front of us. I followed after him and Luke. As I started Freestyle, I stuck me face in the clear water and breathed deeply. I sighed as my blood brought my muscles the excess oxygen. I felt my heart speed up and smiled again. This felt right; cool fluid, strong—this was perfection.

I pulled the currants toward the beach to try to help Luke and David out, but I don’t think it did as much as I hoped it would. I looked at my watch—which, according to Leo, was completely water, fire, lava, and sand proof— and noticed that we had been swimming for almost ten minutes. Percy and I would be fine, but I worried for David, Luke, and Annabeth.
I finally reached the shallows and began walking up to the beach. David was about five feet in front of me now, slowly crawling up to the dry sand, but making little progress. Luke was laying on the beach, the waves washing up his legs, almost to his knees. He lay still but gasped for breath. David finally stopped crawling and turned to lay on his back, about two feet below Luke, on the beach.

As I watched Percy and Annabeth reached the shallows and Percy began walking, Annabeth behind him, until she stumbled into his back. He turned around and picked her up, and then continued walking until he set her down on the cool wet sand. The three of them lay there for several more minutes. I took my bag off and started to take stock of what were still viable supplies. Percy brought his and Annabeth’s packs and started to do the same, kneeling next to me in the sand.

“This must be what it feels like for the mortals.” Luke said. I looked up. I looked at Percy and then back to Luke.

“You guys are like the demigods and the rest of us are the mortals… This is humiliating.” He said, rolling onto his lean on his elbow.

Percy and I looked at each other. I tried very hard to keep a straight face, but I cracked first, grinning. Then we both simultaneously broke out laughing. He laughed so hard, he fell back onto the ground. Then Annabeth grinned. She giggled a little, and then started laughing as well. Luke started laughing, and soon all of us were lying on this beach in France, stressed out and exhausted, waiting for something to go terribly wrong.

Eventually we all got up and grabbed our supplies, but it took a few minutes for the giggles to recede as we made our way on. We walked for several minutes down this dirt road leading inland, before we reached someone. Then we saw a couple of figures ahead of us. One was a very well-aged man, but you could see that he was at least into his seventies. The other was a young man, about sixteen, with brown hair and eyes. He was stocky and lean but very tan. They both were. As we neared I heard the older man yelling at the boy in fluent rapid French— though I could catch enough to know that he was a farmer and the boy had left something important behind.

I looked at the others and David nodded. I nodded back and strode forward.
___________________________________________________________________________

Luke

I watched as Liz broke away, striding forward towards the arguing men. I stepped forward but Percy put his hand on my shoulder.

“She’ll be fine. You of all of us should know that she can take care of herself.” He said, hiding his chuckle behind a cough as he finished. Luckily I could laugh at Liz and my first training encounter. I was really off my game. And she… she was really used to taking care of herself. I didn’t blame her. I understood.

We all slowed to a stop as Liz got closer. We were a little less than ten feet away when Liz walked up to them. I was still wondering how she was going to explain what we need to them, considering the minor language barrier. But I lost all doubt as soon as she spoke.

“ Bonjour! Mes amis et moi sommes un peu perdus. Nous devons trouver le moyen le plus rapide dans une ville où l'on pouvait obtenir des fournitures pour notre voyage de camping. Pourriez-vous nous donner quelques indications?"

I probably stood there with my mouth hanging open while the older man responded to her spot-on French, until Annabeth shut it for me. I looked to her and she just shook her head. The only one who didn’t look confused was David. He was currently rumaging through his pack and seemed to be checking his supplies.

I put my attention back on Liz. The elderly man seemed to be wraping up his instructions.

« … Ensuite, vous prenez un virage dans le dernier virage. Vous devriez être en mesure de louer une voiture là. Bonne chance avec votre voyage. » He said turning back to her after looking up the road. Liz smiled at both of them.

“Merci beaucoup. Vous avez tous deux ont une bonne journée." She said, and then turned to walk back toward us. The younger man reached out and snatched at her wrist after she had barley taken a step. She stiffened, and I felt all of us move; Our hands to weapons, leaning in ready to run to help. She whipped her head around, and faced him. He dropped her wrist and looked down.

“Désolé. J'ai juste-je veux... vous dire... Tu es très belle. Désolé."He said. I couldn’t understand it but I could hear him stumble over the words. He turned around and went back to fixing whatever was on the back of the wagon, and I saw a distinctive red of his face. Liz turned, and walked to us. Her face was down and she glanced behind her at the two of them. When she looked up, she was blushing. It was very slight but still there.

A burning began in my stomach and moved up toward my lungs making it hard to breath. I looked around, but it was just me. I was almost shaking, and I dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand.

The others started walking forward and I followed at the back of the pack. I didn’t snap out of this until Percy elbowed me in the ribs. He did it lightly but I still jumped.

“You okay?” He asked. I shook my head.

“I have no idea. I think it would be easier to be dead again. I wouldn’t have to deal with people and emotions, and who knows what other crap there is that I can’t remember how to process.” I said. Percy laughed as I finished and I laughed with him. I was way more stressed by this quest than I thought. I could now only hope that I wouldn’t be the first to die.

Cause, with five people, it was sure that at least two of us were goners. But I didn’t want anyone else to die either. Of the ‘many’ options were two of my best friends, his sister, and her brother. If we lose one of them everyone else hurts. But not me.
If I died, they could all go on. Out of all of us, the camp would be rocked least by me. In order of worst losses for everyone, and not just this group, It would have to be Percy, Annabeth, toss-up between Liz and David, and then me. Who knows what would happen if the camp lost either Percy or Annabeth, nothing would be the same. If they lost Liz or David, they would be down a good healer and archer, or an incredible strategist and powerful warrior. If I died, the camp would lose a dead-man walking who had lost his edge and didn’t sleep anymore. None of them needed me anymore.

I would make sure if there was a choice it would be me.

No one would die because of me, this time.
____________________________________________________________________________

Annabeth

I really couldn’t believe it when we managed to walk into the little rental place. We had been walking for hours. All of us were feeling it now, even Percy and Liz. We needed a car, and soon. Luckily the man who gave us directions was detailed and we got there no problem. A couple of wicked looking pigeons had tagged along and I couldn’t decide whether or not we were being followed. It was four in the afternoon and David, Liz, and Luke all sat down and opened their bags. Percy and I walked up to the counter.

Liz had taught me enough to get the car.

“Nous aimerions louer une voiture.” I said, slowly and very broken. The women gave us the paper work, and after half an hour, we were packed up and making some good progress.

“Where to first, Liz?” Percy asked from the driver’s seat. Liz stared out the back right window, and didn’t seem to hear him. She looked worried, and I wondered what she was thinking about. Before I could ask her, David nudged her from the middle seat, and pointed towards Percy.

“Sorry, what?” She asked. Her eyes seemed to have almost glassed over, like she was about to fall asleep but something was keeping her up. Like she was in pain.

“Where’re we going?” I asked her, quietly. She seemed to wake up a little and shook her ha, as if to clear it.

“Oh…Um… Leman Forest, Saint-Gringolf. It’s close enough to the Swedish boarder that we should be able to leave France tonight.” She said and then went back to staring out the window. I was about to ask Luke something when I realized he was paying even less attention. He was asleep, leaning against the backseat driver’s side window, His breath creating a tunnel of fog on the cool glass. His hand kept twitching so I assumed it wasn’t a very deep sleep. But he looked like he needed it. I decided I was going to let him sleep, and maybe get some of my own.
_____________________________________________________________________________

Liz

I stared out the window of the car as we neared the forest, but I hadn’t actually seen anything for miles. Only the images that flashed in front of my eyes. Dozens of overlapping images, of people I had never met. But I knew who they were.

They were the other fifteen people who had gone on this quest. It was what happened to them. The same circumstances, the same tests, the same fights. All this pain from each of them, and I had to watch all of it.

Chiron said the leader of this quest was Isolated. I don’t think he knew how accurate that was. I saw everything, knew where to go, what we would face. But not how any of it would turn out. All of these people on the quests, it is never the same type of group twice; every person completely unique, Bringing something totally different to each and every fight.

I had to stare blankly out the window and pray to every god I could think of that if anything happened, we would at least reach Olympus and fix the wheel. I knew what happened on quests with more than three people. The only quest that came back with more than three had been the Argo II, and well they technically lost Leo. But it had been the end of the world, the earth itself was attacking. I guess miracles can happen then. But what about now?

On a quest to literally fix time, how were the five of us going to make it? I mean we were all good fighters, Annabeth and Luke could probably talk us out of any situation. David was a trained field medic, Percy and I could control most forms of water, And I knew what we were up against. We had the edge, but at the same time, I was toeing it as well. One wrong move and I could pull all of us over.

I just hoped we still had our parachutes, if that happened.

Notes