undoing [percy jackson]

vii. taking the midnight train going anywhere

"Subway entrance," she told them. "Let's go south. Alexandria."

"Anything," Thalia agreed. They bought tickets and made it through the turnstiles without any issues, even though they probably looked super suspicious considering they kept glancing over their shoulders. Andi still didn't relax until their southbound train had left the station and they could see the helicopter circling the parking lot with seemingly no clue of where they'd gone.

Grover sighed in relief, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. "Nice job, Bianca, thinking of the subway."

Bianca's cheeks flushed pink as she smiled, looking quite proud of herself. "Yeah, well. I saw that station when Nico and I came through last summer. I remember being really surprised to see it because it wasn't here when we used to live in D.C."

"New?" Grover was frowning now. "But that station looked really old."

"I guess," Bianca said with a shrug. "But trust me, when we lived here as little kids, there was no subway."

Thalia sat upright, furrowing her brow. "Wait a minute. No subway at all?"

The daughter of Hades nodded. Everyone else looked super confused, but Cass and Andi just exchanged knowing looks.

"Bianca," Zoë started to say, her voice soft. "How long ago..." She trailed off as the sound of the helicopter filled their ears once more.

Percy grimaced. "We need to change trains. Next station."

No one argued. There was no reason to. They had to keep all of their focus on staying alive. Over the course of about half an hour, they changed trains twice. It seemed like it took them forever to finally lose the helicopter. When enough time had passed since the last sighting and they became confident they'd gotten away safely, Andi had to bite down on her bottom lip to stop herself from screaming, "Thank fuck!"

Losing the helicopter was the good news. The bad news was they'd reached the end of the line and were now stranded in an industrial area, surrounded by warehouses, railway tracks, and piles and piles of snow. Andi was fucking freezing. Everyone else had a winter coat but all she had was her sweatshirt. She hugged herself tightly and rubbed her arms tirelessly as they searched the railway yard for another passenger train to no avail. 

"Do you want my coat?" Percy asked her, hanging back to fall into step with her. Andi smiled at him and made a mental note to congratulate Sally Jackson on raising such an incredible son if she ever got the chance to meet her.

"Oh, gods, Andi!" Cass gasped, eyes widening at the sight of her sister shivering like a chihuahua. "You're turning blue!"

"I am not turning blue," Andi said with an eye roll. "I'm fine. Look. Up ahead."

She pointed to where Apollo in his Fred disguise stood at a trash-can fire. 'Fred' flashed them a friendly smile, though the effect was somewhat hindered by his lack of teeth. "Y'all need to get warmed up? Come on over!"

Andi picked up the pace and reached the fire first. She sighed in relief at the heat radiating off of it, even if it was just barely enough to combat the frigid temperatures.

Thalia wasn't doing much better. "Well, this is g-g-g-great."

"My hooves are frozen," Grover whined.

"Feet," Percy corrected. 

Andi looked over at Cass and realized she was staring at 'Fred' with wide eyes. Oh yeah. This was Cass's first time ever meeting her dad, wasn't it? And it was while he was pretending to be a homeless dude. Not exactly an ideal meeting. Luckily, all of their friends seemed too busy freezing to death to notice Cass's gaping at the homeless guy, so they didn't have to answer any uncomfortable questions.