I never liked planes.

     I resented the greyness, loathed the food, and hated the scratchy seats that probably were infested by bedbugs.

     Now, I think my mind has been changed. Yes, it took me by surprise, but nonetheless, it happened. After Lamia tried to kill Peggy in the pilot's cabin and tried to eat her after the plane started spirally out of control, and after I retched very graphically in front of the guy I was trying to avoid, I realized something.

     I despise planes.

     Travis quickly pulled me into my seat as the passengers of the aircraft slowly started to wake up. Conner scrambled into his own spot and August sat in the middle of the three-seat row, grabbing the unconscious Peggy to rest her head on his shoulder so it looked like she was sleeping, not dead. 

     Realizing that since the unconscious demigod was sitting where he would have sat, Travis's blue eyes met mine cautiously. I swallowed the acidic taste in my mouth from puking a minute ago and looked away as he slowly lowered himself beside me. He was really close right now.

     I shrank in my seat, leaning back so deeply so I was as small as possible. His hands were withdrawn from the armrest, placed on his lap as if he also wanted to avoid contact. Yet even with the measures of going to the very sides of our seats, there was still a level of proximity I wasn't comfortable with. It must have felt the same for him.

     The nausea in my chest only got worse and I grabbed another motion sickness bag quickly. This immediately caught his attention as I barfed, the disgusting aftertaste of my half-digested airplane food lingering in my mouth. I thought it would be over, but it wasn't. 

     Gods, this was so humiliating. I didn't want anyone to see me like this, especially not Travis. I hated turbulence, I hated it when all you could see out the window was black and there was no landscape or green to make your head calmer. 

     For the last week, I hadn't been able to sleep properly and I very much regretted that now. If I had known a week ago that I'd be on an airplane today, I would have tried to sleep a lot more. 

     I didn't dare to look at him as I prepared to puke again. His seat moved slightly and from my peripheral vision, I saw him leaning towards into the isle, likely to move further away from me and the smell. But he slowly leaned back and I felt his hand brush my knee. 

     My eyes widened at the contact, about to draw back my leg, but he quickly shoved three more motion sickness bags into my seat pocket.

     "Thanks," I mumbled before barfing again.

     To my surprise, he put his hand on my back and started rubbing continuous circles to soothe me. It would have, it really would have, but it didn't. His touch was very cautious, smooth, and held back. I could feel his eyes trained on me, regretful, caring.

     I didn't know why it was hurting so much, but it did. He was so caring towards me and it contradicted everything. Travis had slept with another girl but he continued to offer help and not expect anything back. It was too confusing. 

     Maybe it was because he made it so hard to hate him. For the first time, I had an almost valid reason to. We were different from the bickering thirteen-year-olds or the foolish sixteen-year-olds. Everything was different now. Being an adult wasn't for messing around anymore. It wasn't time for stupid mind games because time should be spent on things that would actually benefit you. 

     It was easier when he didn't know how to be a role model or how to be there for the members of his cabin. He used to be self-centred and when newbies needed support he was horrible at it. Yet now, he literally was the Camp Half-Blood psychiatrist. Travis was no doubt horrible with his personal life but when it came to scared newbies, he handled it extremely well.

     This confusion made me feel sicker and I started hurling harder. Yet every quake of my body felt more like a sob than puking. Usually, if it was that I sobbed because I was puking, rather than puked because I was crying.

     And the more he tried to soothe me, the more it hurt. I wanted it to be better. How was I supposed to let it make me feel better when days ago, every part of me hurt from him? My eyes started to water and I didn't dare to try to hold back, almost as if I'd rid myself of these emotions if I continued to barf.

     Maybe it hurt because I finally realized why it hurt. 

     It was love.

     Shit, shit, shit.

     Only love would hurt me like this. If this wasn't love would it have lasted for more than three years? Would I be thinking about him all this time or letting something as simple of his hand on my back make me empty my stomach's content?

     I think he realized that it was getting worse and he retracted his hand from me, placing it back on his lap.

     When I finally closed the bag and shoved it into another one, he handed me a bottle of water. 

     "Sorry," I squeaked. "I get motion sickness and I haven't been sleeping well,"

     I didn't want to face him. I didn't even want him to look at me like that. 

     "Katie..."

     The sound of his voice saying my name burned my ears and I had to swallow the acid in my mouth. 

     "I'm sorry," he replied slowly.

     "For what?" I asked, pretending to be stupid. It was easier that way.

     He didn't reply and I sighed in relief, leaning my head on the window, hoping that this nightmare would go away. I didn't want to save a damn forest in the middle of nowhere anymore, I just wanted a little peace and quiet. Was that too much to ask for?

     As I decided that dwelling on our relationship struggles was not the goal of the mission, I worried about Peggy. A demigod's first brush with death was always traumatic. I remembered my own, an evil karpoi who wanted to kill me, seeking revenge with a daughter of the harvest. I remember the same time, the Stolls were attacked by them too, trying to get them out of the way to reach me. If it weren't for August, I doubted we would have made it out alive.

     I looked past Travis and saw the girl's eyes screwed together as if she was trying to block out a nightmare. The satyr, hooves hidden with a pair of Converse high-tops, long patterned socks and a pair of blue jeans cuffed at the hem, was staring at her, worry evident in his eyes. He quietly rubbed her shoulder in an almost parental-like motion, trying to soothe whatever dream was causing her distress.

     "I feel bad for him," Travis said softly.

     Blinking, I turned to him as his eyes were glued to the screen of his silver laptop. The plane was dark, encouraging people to sleep. We both knew that none of us would be getting any slumber anytime soon, most especially Peggy, unconscious dreaming.

     "August?"

     "Yea," he muttered. "He's like a dad, you know? It's his job to protect us but also his job to watch us die."

     "Who said someone was dying?" I asked.

     "When everything leads to the temperature's rise; An act for one's family is their demise, you know you can't cheat a prophecy, Katie. We're too experienced to be so naive." 

     We were. We had already lived longer than the average demigod and had seen a lot of horrors in our lifetime. Wars scarred us, burnt marks in our souls we couldn't erase.

     "We shouldn't think about it," I told him. "It doesn't do us any good to think about such things."

     "You're right," he sighed, "It's just hard not to get close anymore."

     "Close?" 

     "You know, with people on the same mission as you? I don't know how to prepare for whoever's dying. It will wreck me."

     He was right, and I knew deep down if he was the one dying, he'd wreck me the most. I wondered if there was even a point of trying to defy a prophecy, to defy fate. There probably wasn't. We'd just have to be able to say that we tried to save everyone.

     "I'm ordering two connectable rooms," he told me. 

     "What?"

     "For the hotel. Peggy might need a bed to herself and August doesn't deserve to sleep on the floor like he usually does. We're not going to try saving money unless we have to." he replied.

     "Oh,"

     Besides, the brothers could easily steal everything anyways, after all, they hacked into the paid Wifi system for us.

     "I guess you'll be sharing a bed with August. Are you comfortable with that?"

     "Yea,"

     The tension in the air was swallowing me whole. I could tell he was trying to make conversation, but I didn't know if responding was in my best interests.

     "You don't have to do that," I told him as I took a drink of water and tried to fill my empty stomach with flavourless soda crackers. Planes were too stuffy for my liking. No matter what class I was on, I'd never feel comfortable. 

     "Do what?" 

     "Where you try to fix us. You don't have to fix us." his blue eyes widened in alarm but I ignored it. The more I thought about him, the more I felt. I didn't want to feel it. "You don't have to try and stop things from being awkward. I forgive you, ok?"

     He took in a sharp breath and nodded, running his hand down his wrist as if the watch was still there. "I'm sorry,"

     "Gods, Travis! Stop being sorry!" I hissed before my voice cracked again. 

     Travis stopped typing and I looked over at his essay before turning back to trying to be a normal passenger. The way he bit his lip in thought made me uneasy. I felt guilty for treating him so badly. Whatever reason had made me like this, I didn't want it to control me anymore. 

     He let me in. He told me so many things that he hadn't told anyone else and I had only focused on the parts of him that were cruel, not the parts that made him human. Who did that? Who betrays someone's trust like that? Yet who was here to blame? Should he be faulted for having sex and leading me on? Should I be faulted for being cold to him?

     "Can we do this?" he asked.

     His voice was lower than usual, calm, but there was a slight tremble of doubt.

     "Can we do what?"

     "Can we complete this mission without our personal feelings getting in the way?"

     "I don't know," I admitted softly. 

     For us, there was always something about our personal feelings that we didn't ignore. We'd bicker at counsellor meetings and refuse to work together. The last time we had been sent on a quest together, we were 13. If that hadn't been an easy one, we likely would have ended up dead. 

     Time brought us maturity, but it also brought up more problems that didn't change the number of problems arising while working together. We didn't argue about topics such as which cabin was better or the need for pranksters or gardeners anymore. Our arguments stemmed from ourselves, from who we are as people, parts of us that are much more challenging to change.

     "Katie, I don't think we have a choice," 

sorry for the late update, this is one of my secondary stories and my other has a strict updating schedule that i try to follow. on that note...does anyone want a naruto fanfiction?

don't forget to comment and vote loves!