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She corners him after the Battle of Manhattan. Camp Half-Blood is a mess—there are bodies (some of them campers, some of them Luke’s demigods) piled in the Archery Pavilion. The dead deserve a proper burial, and cabins with losses barely have time to grieve between the focus on finishing shrouds. She’d poked her head into the Big House earlier, and Mr. D and Chiron were both still trying to reach next of kin. The bodies will be burned, of course, but there were still families to send the ashes to, second funerals to be carried out. Katie feels uncomfortable in her own skin, she keeps pinching at her own arm, trying to make sure she’s really here.
She’d called her dad on a payphone in Manhattan, and everything had been blurry after that—the process of getting back to camp, the headcount, how the relief had sunk in when she’d realized every single one of her campers is still standing. What’s left the next morning is only guilt, some for being so happy to be alive and some for what she’d said in the heat of the moment, what she'd continued to believe until it was almost too late. So, she forces herself to knock at the door of the Hermes cabin, feeling terribly out of place.
“Can I speak to you? And Connor, if he’s here.” She asks. Travis looks exhausted; there’s still blood in his hair, on his face. She feels the random urge to wipe at it, but she knows better. “Privately, I mean.” She can see faces peering at her from behind him, a few of them look vaguely interested but the general air of exhaustion carries pretty far. The Hermes cabin has bigger things to handle than her dumb apologies, but she’s standing there anyway.
She’d expected a fight, some sort of remark on her timing, but instead, he nods numbly, slamming the door of the cabin shut as he steps out onto the Hermes cabin’s porch. “Connor’s with a camper, but I’ll bite. Make it quick, Gardner.” There’s none of the normal light, no teasing lilt, and her heart feels like it’s being squeezed in her chest.
She steels herself, meeting his eyes. “I wanted to apologize—to you and Connor—for what I said last week, about the Hermes cabin and about you. Y’all are both so important to camp, and I know you would never jeopardize any of our safety. That goes for the candy store comment too.” She frowns. “I was suspicious and angry, and neither of you deserved that. I’m sorry.”
He nods. “Thanks, Katie. I’ll, uh, let Connor know.” She thinks he’s going to turn back towards the door, so she steps back, turning to leave. She’s surprised when he grabs her wrist to keep her from leaving, a ghost of his normal cocky smile splayed on his face, much softer but there. He looks years older than he had the previous morning. “For the record, I didn’t think you actually meant it.” He pauses, finally lets go of her wrist (It had only been seconds, but his hands are calloused and all she can think about is the feeling of his skin on her own.) “We can call it even, yeah?”
“Even?” She furrows her eyebrows together, not quite understanding his meaning.
“For the Easter bunnies, I mean.”
She snorts despite herself; the Easter bunnies are a distant memory now.
Later, when she replays this scene in her head, she’ll realize her heart was racing for more than one reason, and although she’s always considered Travis Stoll attractive in a sort of infuriating way, she’d been actively terrified at the thought of his last memory of her being something as degrading as accusing him of being a traitor. For now though, she nods at him and manages a half-smile, suddenly keenly aware of how grateful she is for the Stolls’ sometimes misplaced levity. “Yeah, we can call it even—all bans on fraternization lifted.” She means that they’ll be allowed in the strawberry fields for activities again, and that Demeter will no longer immediately ally themselves with the opposite side of capture the flag, silly consolation prizes for what they’ve all been through, but Travis raises an eyebrow; and she flushes anyway.
Still, he doesn’t rise to the bait, instead he nods again, running a hand through his hair. It’s an awkward, nervous gesture; one she’s never seen from him before. “I, uh, better head in, but I’ll pass the message onto Connor, yeah?”
With that, he turns back to the cabin. She thinks she sees someone scramble back from the door as he pulls it open, clearly listening in, but the door is shut before she can tell who it is. It doesn’t matter much anyway, she thinks, turning to leave.