Jason I

Jason felt miserable. He almost wanted to jump into that evil pit with his own girlfriend. He was now left to be the leader of the most important quest in the century, without the help of two essential and powerful demigods, who had decided to fall down a huge and dark pit. Another downside of this was that he felt like everyone was whispering about him behind his back. He felt like his new friends, and even Leo and Piper, were siding against him, blaming him for Percy and Annabeth's fall. Jason sat in his room on the Argo II with his head in his hands, mulling over the events when he heard a voice at the door.

"Knock, knock?" Piper stood at the door of his room, her hip leaning against the doorframe. She was wearing a white v-neck shirt and a pink denim jacket over a brown hoodie and a worn jean skirt with some white cowboy boots. Her dark brown hair was worn in two pigtails that were tied off around her chin and a brown eagle feather was braided into her left pigtail. Her expression looked normal, but her eyes showed much more. Jason knew her eyes were full of sadness.

Piper had been like this for the past few hours. She wasn't that good at hiding her emotions from him, he'd learned that in the months they'd been dating. Jason supposed that it was another downside to being a daughter of Aphrodite, but he secretly liked it. So many girls that had been at Camp Jupiter with him; the girls he'd grown up with, had serious poker faces, but with Piper, it was like she was always open with him. Sometimes Jason felt guilty that he couldn't be so open with her, but he'd been brought up that way; to never show too much emotion and to follow the rules.

Oh no! The curfew rule! Jason immediately panicked; Coach Hedge would probably ground both of them if he found them together since it was almost curfew. "Jason..." Piper chided. "I know you blame yourself for what happened, but you've got to understand that it wasn't you."

"How can you be sure?" Jason asked, he felt his fists clenching. He wasn't sure if Piper had started to use charmspeak on him, but he knew that he was beyond the works of charmspeak now. "I could've cut those strands of spider web on Annabeth's leg: I actually thought about doing it. I could've ran over there and helped pull them up! I could've done so much more!" He buried his fingers into his blonde, straight hair, entangling it.

"Jason..." Piper came over to his bed where he was sitting and sat down next to him, and put her hand on his shoulder. "Yes you could've done that, but wouldn't you rather have an alive Percy and Annabeth in an area that Nico thinks they can get out of with the key to restoring the peace between the two camps onboard the ship, or an alive Percy and Annabeth with us, but the camps war unstoppable? You were working for the greater good of everyone. You don't need to feel guilty."

"But..." Jason started to protest, but Piper gave him a look and he became silent.

"Jason... either you stop blaming yourself," she said, "or I'm going to charmspeak you so I don't have to listen to you put yourself down anymore."

Jason smiled at this, for he had thought Piper had already attempted to use charmspeak on him. For a second, his worries stopped, but then he looked back up into Piper's eyes which were currently a brilliant shade of a dull turquoise. They didn't match the smile that was on her face. She was probably just trying to hide the grief she was feeling for Percy and Annabeth, but Jason was worried by what they seemed to say:

What secrets are you keeping from me? Her eyes asked, while she slipped her fingers into his. Why are you acting so distant when you're around me?

"Goodnight Jason." Piper said as she kissed him sweetly and let go of his hand before walking to her own room, her eyes' questions still lingering in his mind.

Jason's dreams that night were filled with darkness, darkness and the whispers of Gaea, wind too, like he was falling... Oh gods, he thought, this is where they are. He didn't see Percy and Annabeth, but he could see the faint green glow of Percy's uncapped sword below him.

There's a reason that they're falling and not you. Gaea's voice whispered in his mind. Your emotions for Piper are too conflicted and erratic for me to count on that you'd save her. Part of Jason wanted to protest, but another part was agreeing with Gaea, as if she'd just given him a huge dose of charmspeak that was directed at his heart, and not his mind.

"That's not true!" Jason screamed into the darkness, hoping that Gaea wouldn't hear him, but she did.

Really? she asked, How about I show you where they are and what they're doing? What would you do in this situation Jason? Would you accept your fate? Would you keep fighting? Would it bring you closer to Piper? Or further away?

Jason's dream zoomed in to where the glow of Percy's sword was coming from. Percy and Annabeth lay in the darkness, the air zooming past them. Anaklusmos was uncapped in Percy's left hand, and his right hand was in Annabeth's. "Together," Annabeth was saying in her sleep, "As long as we're together."

Jason felt his stomach clench with a mixture of jealousy, pity, terror, and sadness. Would he have jumped into Tartarus with Piper? Or Reyna? Would he have had the loyalty to even defend them if they had ever descended into Tarturus?

Gods, where did that thought come from? He thought to himself. He hadn't thought about Reyna since they left North America, but she was out there, the spear was probably already thrown, planning a probably lethal attack on the peaceful Camp-Half Blood. Perhaps they were already laying seige upon the camp, and she still was leading alone just like she'd been for the past nine months...

Jason wanted to slap himself. How could he have forgotten the pressures of being praetor so soon? It must've been a side effect of Hera's amnesia scheme. Either that, or he was just really, really dense. Seeing Annabeth like this, her hair tangled and messy, covered with spider webs, blood dripping down her forehead. Her expression was the same that Reyna had worn before she and him had charged together in battle with Krios. It had been so long ago, but Jason still remembered that expression, he thought he'd recognized it anywhere...

Another punch of guilt hit Jason in the stomach. Reyna had also been wearing that expression in Charleston. She was serious about this war. She was serious about revenge against the people who'd blown up her home... again.

Annabeth started talking in her sleep again, saying something about hot chocolate and guinea pigs, but Jason's dreams whisked him awake before she could finish the sentence.

Jason awoke in a cold sweat. The clock next to his bed read 7:42. Light filtered through his window as he sat up. He got dressed, brushed his teeth, and combed his hair before heading out the door of his room to the lounge.

"Okay," Hazel said to everyone once all the demigods had settled into the lounge. "We have to figure out what we're going to do with this giant statue of Minerva... I mean Athena... until we can get back to the United States and stop the attack against the Greek camp... I mean Camp Half Blood."

"Hazel's right." Nico said. "Demigods have already started being killed on both sides, although not on a huge scale. I wonder what's holding them up..."

"I know what it is..." Piper put in, "At least, I think I do." She pulled on her braid in confusion. "It's something about volleyball? And Rachel? I'm not really sure about what's going on, but Rachel's convinced the Romans to do something that is really, really, really weird."

"Moving on from that..." Leo said, "I think that it should be me who takes the statue back to Camp Half Blood. It's my fault that Percy and Annabeth are in Tartarus..."

Everyone except for Hazel burst out in protest, especially Jason, because despite what Piper said, he still blamed himself for it. "Hazel understands." Leo pointed out. "We...we were talking with Nemesis and she gave me a fortune cookie and said she'd help me, but for a sacrifice... and I think they were the sacrifice... on the other hand, now Frank, Hazel and I are alive, and I have the Archimedes spheres to upgrade the Argo II. Anyway, the point is I'm the perfect candidate. No one here will miss me. I'm the seventh wheel right? And I think Reyna might understand me. She's Puerto Rican, right Jason?"

Jason stared in shock at Leo, realizing that that question was directed at him. "Yeah.. . she's Puerto Rican," he said, shooting a nervous glance at Piper, "but Leo we'll miss you! We can't afford to lose any more people. Anyway, right now you're no more of an outcast than Nico..."

Nico stood up from the shadowed chair where he'd been sitting, pretty much unnoticed by the rest of them. He glared at Jason before standing up himself. "No." Nico protested, sounding a lot older than thirteen. "I'm the only one who really can go."

Everyone stared at Nico. He didn't look like much to Jason, just a scrawny little kid with curly black hair and skin that looked like it was supposed to be dark, but had never seen the sunlight, so it wasn't. His brown jacket hung loose around him and he looked like he'd melt into shadows any second, like he wasn't really tied to the earth.

Jason didn't know how Nico could possibly solve a war between two camps; sure, Nico had been coming to Camp Jupiter for the past year, but he'd never really done anything but observe, and he wasn't sure how either camps would react to him now that they found out he'd been a traitor.

"Look, kid." Jason started to say, "I have no idea how you could possibly..."

Nico cut him off, "Okay, you guys have a quest.. a reason to be here. Me, I'm nothing more than a stowaway. I'm not one of the seven of the prophecy, no one needs me. And if the camps both turn against me, at least they won't be killing each other. Besides Leo, you're really the last person who should walk into a mob of angry Romans since you were the one who blew up New Rome in the first place. Then again, I need to lead you to the Doors of Death, and Annabeth's the only one who can really unlock the power of the statue, so we're going to have to wait until we get to Greece."

This seemed like a good idea to Jason, but he couldn't figure out why the plan made him so nervous. "Where exactly are we going Nico?" He asked.

Nico smiled in a devilish grin, that set a very creepy fire into his eyes, in which Jason swore he saw images of tortured souls. "Why the Necromanteion in Epirus, Greece. We're going to visit the Oracle of Death."