One month had passed. One month since the unspeakable horrors of the war. One month since the paralyzing blur of death, and agony, and grief, and turbulence, and the bitter, acid taste of tears. It seemed to Jason that this last month had been a different lifetime, a glowing haze of bliss and laughter, tainted with the occasional nightmare or - gods forbid - a memory. They were all broken; there was no denying that. But the irrevocable bond between them was just enough to keep them from shattering.
The Seven sat, cross-legged, in the Poseidon cabin - whether they were present in corporeal form, or as a wavering, semi-opaque Iris message. And, to Jason, it was a perfect picture - filled to the brim with grins, and chortles, and contented sighs.
But two unspoken syllables drifted furtively around the room, passed from person to person through an apprehensive glance or a nervous twitch of the eyebrows. Nico. He hadn't set foot outside of the Hades cabin for days.
No one thought of him for long. If his name floated inevitably to the surface of their minds, they would brush it off subconsciously - for no one wished to dwell on such gloomy things. Nico was intangible as a shadow.
But hasn't Nico always been shadow-like? Jason wondered silently. Flitting from place to place, forever in the dusky background? Shadows bring such a profound and staggering darkness wherever they fly, yet no one ever seems to notice them...
"We might have to drag Reyna here so she can join the party," Hazel announced nonchalantly, a translucent Iris message. Her words jolted Jason from the ever-present maze of his thoughts.
"So, we'll be the Eight!" he replied, glad of a happier subject to pursue. "Or just the Seven plus Reyna." A smattering of laughter echoed throughout the cabin...
And Piper fidgeted, ever so slightly.
Jason turned toward her intuitively, and froze mid-chuckle. Gods, why did she have to be so beautiful?
Her eyes contained the depth of a radiant sparkle, the kind of sparkle that made you want to write overly sappy poetry. And her head was cocked gently to one side, so a strand of lustrous hair tumbled over her beaming face. Jason felt no yearning to tuck the strand behind her ear; there was something idiosyncratically PIPER about it. And then he was grasping her hand, and she was grinning contentedly, and he was probably smiling like an idiot, but godsgodsGODS he loved her.
• • • • •
"Or just the Seven plus Reyna," Jason suggested jokingly. Annabeth let out one of those half-hearted laughs that's really more of a forced exhale through the nose. Gods, she was tired.
Piper seemed to twitch involuntarily at Reyna's name. It wasn't jealousy; the daughter of Aphrodite was far beyond that. It was more like the - the subtlest trepidation. But all was well, for Jason then turned theatrically to his girlfriend and a besotted glow consumed his face.
Strange, Annabeth remarked silently. When Percy looks at me, he always seems so - earnest, so THERE. And Jason looks almost surreal, as if he's in some blissful dream. Maybe that's what it's like to love a child of love. Annabeth yawned sluggishly, storing the observation in some dark crevice of her mind. It would resurface sooner than she realized.