Piper scanned the stars with a contemplative sigh, her heart heavy with worry. Around her, Jason's arms tightened and he pressed a kiss to her temple.
"Something wrong, Pipes?" The son of Jupiter - and her boyfriend of two weeks – asked her gently. His voice was soft, so as not to wake the campers sleeping in the vast array of cabins around them. They wouldn't precisely get in trouble for sneaking out like this, but neither of them wanted to think about the rumors that would happen if they were caught.
Piper didn't reply immediately. Instead, she wriggled in the circle of Jason's arms until she was at the right angle to curl her arms around his neck and press her face into his chest. He seemed a bit surprised, but he didn't complain. Piper smiled softly when she felt one hand begin to stroke her hair in a soothing, repetitive motion.
"Care to tell me?" Jason said after a moment. Piper hesitated, then pulled away from the close embrace and turned back around. Leaning back against Jason, she took in a deep breath and tried to shove down her racing emotion just enough to speak.
"It... It doesn't feel right, somehow," she said sadly. "For us to be this happy together, when..." Though she couldn't see his face, she knew Jason's eyes would be bright with comprehension. It didn't take a genius to know what she was getting at.
"When Annabeth's not. Is that it?" he said gently.
"She doesn't think we can see – but I do see it, Jason. Every time she sees us, she's happy for us... but it hurts. It brings back too many memories, and it hurts her, and I hate it," Piper finished unhappily. "She misses Percy so much – I didn't even know the guy, but these days, I feel like I do. Everyone here respects him and looks up to him, but Annabeth loves him. Like, really, really loves him. If we find him dead... I don't know if Annabeth can survive something like that."
"At least now we know that he's probably at Camp Jupiter," Jason reminded her, "Juno has a plan. He'll be safe."
"We hope," Piper said softly. And that was the end of that, because she had named what the two of them feared most – what everyone here feared most, really. Percy was nothing more than a face and a name and a whole plethora of heroic deeds to them, but Annabeth was their friend, and every day they had to see her torn to pieces over and over by his absence.
She found Jason's hand and gripped it tightly in hers. Piper couldn't imagine surviving that kind of pain. She hoped she never had to.