I think I'm not alone to say that as Mark of Athena gets closer the whole fandom is going through increased and spiraling feelings. I vent, you read and hopefully enjoy!
Disclaimer: Me no own
Home is Where the Heart Is
"How about Percy, you can go give our guests a tour. I'll get Jason settled in and inform him of what he missed. He'll inform me about camp. The legionnaires will trust the information more if it came from him, and it will look good if all praetors know what's happening within the first hour of your arrival." Reyna said. "Hazel and Frank are going to have to go back to training or else some of the legionnaires will think you're disruptive."
"Sounds good," Jason said. "Are you guys okay with that?" He asked the others.
"I'll try not to get lost," Percy said. "But I can definitely give a tour."
"If it's laid out like an original fort, don't worry, I'm not letting you get lost." Annabeth said still looking around, her eyes drinking everything in as if she'd just fallen in the rabbit hole to Wonderland.
"Let's do this," Leo said. Hedge slammed his club against his hand and grunted approvingly. Piper nodded, trying to soak up all the details of a place she'd only been told about.
"Centurion Zhang, Hazel, please go back to your duties." Reyna said.
"Yes Reyna," they said before saying their goodbyes and jogging off.
"No salute?" Leo asked. "No salute? Really? I am so disappointed in this."
"I'll catch up with you guys quickly," Jason told Piper and Leo. "Before lunch."
"Lunch? Lunch? You guys get fed three times a day?" Leo said.
"It's good eating here, Valdez. You'll be okay." Percy said.
"The food isn't even dry bread and you get water that doesn't have a high chance of containing cholera? Well this doesn't sound so bad." He said.
Nobody broke it to him, and they split ways.
"Percy has the second set of Praetor keys," Reyna said. "But he didn't want the villa."
"He didn't?" Jason asked.
"He liked bunking with the others better." Reyna said. "You nearly did that."
"True," Jason said.
"How good is your memory?" She asked.
"Poor," Jason said. "It came back and it went, it's a nightmare. And some of it came back around the time the boat's been finishing up, but I don't remember much about places… just people."
"Well that's good," Reyna said. "I'd hate to have to reintroduce myself."
"I'd hate to make you do that," Jason said.
The way he said it… Reyna thought that maybe a reintroduction was in order, actually.
Anyways, she unlocked the door and pushed it open. She held the door as Jason followed her in before propping it up with a heavy rock fished from the Little Tiber.
The first thing that told him he was home was the smell; coriander and pine. A praetor had told him, when he was a little kid and got away with asking questions left and right, that it was a smell that had been used in ancient times.
"Do you mind if I take my cloak off?" Reyna asked. The villas are too warm to wear them."
"No," Jason said. Reyna undid the clasp at her shoulder to reveal her chest plate, purple t-shirt and black pants. She hung her cloak on one of the cloaks.
Jason wandered through the vestibule. One of his hoodies was still hanging on a hook there, and a spare pair of basketball shoes was thrown in a corner. His basketball was on the overhead shelf, hanging out with his helmet. A backpack was suspended by a single strap, the purple criss-crossed with duct tape patchwork.
"Exactly like I left it," Jason said.
"Nobody but I came in," Reyna said. "I insisted."
"Thanks. Oh gods, Octavian going through my clothes…"
"That's why," Reyna said with a weak smile upon seeing his face. He had a way of staying emotionless, but the way he talked told you enough about what was going on inside.
They proceeded to the atrium, the main room, which had no ceiling to let the rain water fall through into a basin. Usually this was used for baths, but a Praetor who'd owned the villa back in the 60's had converted it to a fish pond because the Baths were cooler.
Big orange koi fish swam around the surface and Denarii glittered at the bottom, coins that people had used for wishing. There were more than Jason recalled, and he'd spent a lot of time recalling this place.
Down a corridor called the tablinum, they were in the peristylium; a garden. A covered walkway went around the perimeter, but Jason and Reyna wandered down the center sandy path, sunlight shining against their faces and glinting on her armour. Fountains spouted water to and from each other. Small cedars grew in gated sections, ivy crawled around the columns, and flowers bloomed. Jason never took care of the garden, it just always seemed to grow and trim itself so he wasn't surprised to see it intact.
"I actually missed this place," Jason said.
"Really? It always looked like you could do without it."
"Lots of things ended up being that way," Jason said. "About this in particular, I missed the fact that nobody's ever here, but it doesn't feel sad or creepy. There is nowhere like that at Camp Half-Blood that I found."
"I'm sure if you'd have looked hard enough there would have been," Reyna said. "Annabeth probably knows a dozen spots."
Jason nodded and they went back inside. The dining room which was adjoined to the garden was empty, as per usual. A table, a few chairs, none of which had ever been touched except for that once time Dakota and Bobby had wanted to measure it to see if both a Ping-Pong and afoosball tables could fit in (they'd been disappointed upon learning that nobody had a budget for that).
That led them to the kitchen, also empty. The mini fridge (which was only stocked if the aurae working at camp liked the praetor living there) was empty. The food in it had all expired and been emptied out. Jason usually had ice cream and spicy tuna rolls in there, along with those tiny soft drink cans of Pepsi for a bad day
"There'll be stuff there by tonight," Reyna told him as he closed the door. "Those nymphs love you."
Jason grinned. They skipped the bathroom, that wasn't interesting.
His bedroom, on the other hand, felt like a big hug as soon as Jason walked in.
It smelled like basilica and lime, as it always did.
The walls were dark blue and the ceiling had dozens of tiny names scribbled on it, the signatures and encouraging messages of all the praetors who'd lived in the villa. He recognised names like Herman Melville (the guy who wrote Moby Dick), Walter Lippman, James Fenimore Cooper, Betty Friedan, George Marshall, Samuel F.B. Morse (Camp Jupiter had been using the Morse code for five years before he introduced it to the rest of the world)… As well as names that were only known to demigods, but the kind of heroes Jason had grown up hearing; Aurelia McQuid, James Long, Marius Legault, Chun Park, Marie-Pierre Taureau, Remus Anticosti, Romulus Anticosti, Barbara Read, Roxanne McGuire… Messages like 'stay strong', 'congrats', 'why are you reading the ceiling', 'be courageous and be brave', 'don't let the people down', 'you are remarkable to be here' were scribbled above their names.
His bed was made. On the wall there was a poster of the LA Lakers. It was funny to him now; technically they were his home team, he'd never even known that.
His desk had been cleared of Praetor documents, and he assumed that Reyna had come to get and take care of them. All there was on there was a Sports Illustrated magazine that was practically ancient now but had only a week old when he'd picked it up in Berkeley.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was on a shelf. His fist Latin book ("This Senator went to the Market", approximately eight pages) was there too.
"You learned to read with those two books," Reyna said. "In Latin, and then in English."
"There would be worst books to start with," Jason admitted.
"This one is right up your literary alley," she said pointing to the children's book.
"Oh, shush." Jason said.
Right next to those two books there was a wooden box filled with rocks. He opened it up and saw them all. That was how the legion had kept him buys when he was a kid; they sent him off to collect rocks while war plans or heavy subjects were being discussed.
A few comic books in plastic slips were there too. Jason already knew the titles so he left them alone.
Maps of the San Francisco area was on the wall over the headboard of his bed. The most common routes from the Wolf House were traced in colour, as was New Rome, the Caldecott tunnel, Mount Othrys…
There was also a 'STOP' road sign with the left side folded inwards and a hole like acid hanging on his wall.
"Gwen's sister Carrie picked it up for you after your wolf house run," Reyna said. "You got a few street signs destroyed."
"Was it seriously my fault?" Jason said. "Or some monster?"
"You never told me," Reyna shrugged. "I assumed it was because I've seen the damage you can do."
Jason picked something that was leaning on the wall. A red, blue and white shield with a white star in the center. He held it up to Reyna.
"Gwen made you that," she said. "Well, she made Hank build it for her, but she painted it."
"Captain America, right?" Jason said, putting his arm through the straps of the shield.
"Your favourite superhero," Reyna said. "Although you've never used that shield. It's not sturdy enough for battle. Also you'd look like an idiot."
Jason laughed. "I would. But I like this."
"Good. Gwen was bribing you into surviving the storming of Mount Othrys with 'The best birthday present you'll ever have', if I remember correctly." Reyna said.
"Yeah, that sounds right…" He said.
There was a mosaic of pictures on the wall. Jason knelt on his bed to get a better look at them.
"I don't remember when most of these were taken," he said.
Reyna knelt next to him and did a quick survey before pointing out the best ones.
"That's you, Bobby and Kota on the day that the fifth cohort won the war games for the first time."
"Yes it was," Reyna said, smiling that he'd remembered that.
"When was your first?" He asked.
"When I saved your life," she said knocking her finger knuckle on another picture.
"What happened?" He said.
"You were drowning," Reyna said.
"What in the world was I in water for?" He said.
"You'd gotten pushed into the Little Tiber, which used to be a lot deeper." Reyna said. She recalled how she hadn't wanted to even touch water after her experience with Blackbeard, but this kid had been drowning and nobody was around since the guy who'd pushed him had gone away… she wondered how different her life would've been if she hadn't jumped in after him.
"By a son of Mars, Hayden Oliver I think. And it wasn't like you had any idea how to swim, or like the river god tried to save you. Anyways, Oliver was let go soon after."
"Well thanks for that, I guess."
Reyna laughed. "You repaid me. Don't worry about it."
Nothing was said for a while, Jason just examined the pictures.
"You look much friendlier in this one," he said pointing to a picture of Reyna in Berkeley, her hand covering her mouth as she ate something, obviously not expecting to be photographed. It was a wonder she'd let him keep that picture, even more put it on his wall.
"I can be friendly," Reyna said. He should know this. They were friends. They were… "I just chose not to be most of the time."
"Did I ever tell you that that's a shame?" He said.
"Yes, but not in those exact words." Reyna said carefully.
Then he looked to the side table of his bed. He picked up the Pikachu plush toy and Reyna nearly burst out laughing right away. The look on his face was priceless.
Jason just felt the twirling emotions. "What? Huh? Why?" He asked.
"I got it for you on your last birthday," Reyna said with a smile. "I always called you Pikachu. Your hair was yellow and you had these powers over electricity and until you were about fourteen you were minuscule and short and scrawny."
"And Pikachu is the first thing that comes to mind?"
Reyna laughed. "Yes," she said. "Don't look at me that way; it makes a lot of sense."
Jason let it go figuring that he'd probably had this debate before without ever winning it, and put Pikachu down, adding that to the list of things that Valdez was never allowed to find out.
He looked at the dresser and the tiny statues on top of it. There was a small R2D2 (although he'd never actually seen a Star Wars movie), a little McDonald's toy tiger that did backflips, a smiling green wooden doll that had another doll inside it which had another dolls inside it, a lion carved out of wood, a wizard-frog, a bald eagle on a wooden perch, a tiny bear holding a toy block with the letter 'J' on it… he had no idea where they came from, but he was pretty sure he hadn't picked any of them out.
"They're gifts," Reyna explained. "Legionnaires who went to New Rome used to figure that you had nothing and that they were going to start a brand new life, so they gave you little knick-knacks like that."
"That's kind," Jason said.
"What I find kind is that you kept them all." Reyna said.
Everything in his drawers was neatly folded and smelled like moth balls.
He sat down on his bed.
Reyna sat down next to him. "Does it feel like home?" She asked.
He looked at her. Reyna. She hadn't changed either. Same black braid, immaculate appearance, armour, black pants, purple t-shirt, arm greaves, gladiator sandals, dark eyes, strict expression… But there were lines on her face that hadn't been there when he'd left and she'd been happy, and that he would always feel bad for.
She was his accomplice and his co-worker and more importantly his best friend. She knew the story behind the stuff in this room and she knew the little details that made this house his home. She could furnish his memory like you'd furnish a house. She knew him. His memories were leaking back to him just looking at her.
"Of course it does," he said putting an arm around her. "It feels like home when you're around. Even my memories are popping back. You've always been a part of home, Sting Ray."
He knew that she'd hoped that that nickname would stay forgotten.
"I'm glad to hear it," she said. She hoped her tone wasn't dry. She hoped that he didn't sense that he was still forgetting something. She hoped that he didn't sense her disappointment.
After a while of just looking around and breathing in the coriander and pine he spoke up.
"What's that quote?"
"Which one?" Reyna asked.
"It goes something like 'Life is where the home is'."
"Home is where the heart is." Reyna said.
"Yeah," he said. "I think it's right."