A little one-shot that's been on my mind for a while. Pay close attention to the details; the story is somewhat open-ended but I'm curious what you think.

Little Last Things

Miranda stands stunned before the ruins of the Demeter Cabin as the voices behind her fade into a warped silence.

Beside her, Billie wraps her arms around herself and says in a small voice, "Everything… it's gone."

Miranda folds Billie into an embrace, but she feels so hollow herself that she wonders if it will do her any good. Nevertheless, she holds her sister and reassures her that what matters is no one got hurt, and surely something remains. She soon runs out of comforting words and they stand among the ruins as the cold winter air shrieks around them.

Billie nods and drags her sleeve across her eyes, taking off all her silver eyeliner and teal eye shadow. Without it she looks so young, the age when Miranda first came to Camp. Miranda takes Billie's hand and leads her to begin cleaning up the detritus that was once their home. Nothing precious is recovered, and Miranda is not surprised. In the uncertain tomorrows of demigods nothing lasts, and it only hurts to hold on. She does anyways, clinging tightly to all the people and the few things she dares to love. She knows eventually she'll lose anything she can't string to her necklace, but it still hurts.

When they finish clearing everything, Miranda and Billie sit in the loose dirt, dazed. Miranda closes her eyes and searches inside for her core memories of home. Once, it was her dad's house, a small rickety house with a porch on a fantastic five acre spread of land where they had an apple orchard, an orange grove, and an endless field of sunflowers. Then, for a time, it was the Hermes Cabin, where she relentlessly teased and was teased by Connor and Travis Stoll. But for the last six years, it was the Demeter Cabin, where she could hide in the top branches of the oak tree whenever she wanted to think and she could always count on someone being there. Amidst its ruins she feels more empty and alone than she ever has before.

In spite of the cold Miranda detects a faint and faraway warmth from the ground and opens her eyes to find white and blue daisies peeking above the snow as Billie coaxes them from the ground.

One of the hardest things to do is to grow new life where there is none. Miranda does not know where Billie finds the inner peace to grow, but she forces a smile on her face and stands up. She brings Billie to the Hermes Cabin. Alice and Julia whisk them in and tries to throw things together for them.

As Miranda stands by the doorway she feels at once heavy and strangely faint, like her body is sinking into the floor as her mind floats weakly above it. All that has happened finally hits her – the voices that called to her deep in the woods and the attack that followed, the long dark fall through her own consciousness as she lay strung up by the doors of the Grove of Dodona and the voices that continued to whisper at the edges of her mind, the battle against the Colossus that destroyed her cabin. Miranda braces herself against the wall.

Connor comes and stands by her. "Hey Mandy," he smiles and puts his arm around her shoulders. Sherman has beat up guys for less than an arm around her shoulders, but Connor does it all the time anyways.

Miranda nestles her head between his chest and shoulder. It dimly crosses her mind that she shouldn't, but Connor makes her feel safe. There's no reason why he should – he's not big and tough like Sherman, and he's a downright idiot sometimes, but she's known him from her very first day here when he pushed her into the canoe lake and he's been by her side through more than anyone else here. He knows her and she takes comfort in that.

"You know, it'll be fun to have you back in this cabin." Connor's smile turns mischievous. "It's easier for me to mess with you."

Miranda gently shoves his chest with her shoulder. "Don't you dare, Connor Stoll."

He smiles wryly and his dark blue eyes sparkle like an evening sky bursting with stars. "There's nothing I wouldn't dare when it comes to you Mandy."

"Well this time around I know how to fight back." Miranda pokes her finger at his chest.

"You'd never fight me." Connor laughs, and for the first time since she was dragged off as hostage, Miranda laughs.

"Just kidding, you know I love you." Miranda hugs him with a teasing grin.

"Nah." He pushes her away playfully.

She borrows a t-shirt and sweatpants from him and climbs onto the bed above his and tries to sleep. They don't bother to wish each other sweet dreams anymore – it's a lie.

Miranda lies awake for several hours, staring at the beams in the ceiling as terrifying images play across the roof. For the last two weeks of sustained unconsciousness she had fallen through a bottomless void of darkness and horror, torn from one nightmarish scene to the next, each more terrible than the last, and thrown back into her worst memories of regret and loss. The only despite were the voices. She knows now that it was the Grove of Dodona, eager to reach out to a child of Demeter, a sea of voices tugging at her very being to warn her of the future. They meant well, but their words were not of any comfort.

Alas, my dear, all you cherish will be lost.
Though you are not at fault, you will pay the cost.

Miranda quietly leaves the cabin and walks back to the place of destruction.

As she approaches, she makes out a roughly foot-shaped crater. She kneels in the center of it all, wraps her arms around herself as if to physically contain all her sorrow for what is lost and slowly crumples until her forehead touches her knees, until she folds right into the shadows.

Somewhere lost in the wreckage are the last letters her dad ever wrote to her, the celestial bronze earrings that were her only gift from Demeter, the photographs she cherishes of her brothers and sisters who died in previous battles, and the blanket she had been wrapped in when she was sent down from Olympus to that old house in the countryside. These are the only things she dares to cherish, the only remnants of loved ones who she will never see again; she's held onto them for years after the people she loved them for have left her so she can have something to love of them, and now they are truly gone and she has nothing.

Miranda knows that all her life she will be paying for the crimes of others – demigods are born to die for the faults of the gods – and that all life dies. She is, after all, a daughter of Demeter and all around her she senses the continual turning over of life into dust. All the daisies Billie grew earlier are now dying in the snow, their petals fallen and their stems broken. Miranda feels like one of them.

She folds her hands into her chest, trying to remember how to feel warm and how to grow life, but it is so hard and she is so empty and so broken. She can't even summon the energy to cry.

Still, Miranda tries. She reaches into that storehouse of memories – of love and happiness and life. Whenever she needs to grow life she looks back into her own life, looking upon the faces of those she loves and lives for, those who she will keep hope for even when there is none. She holds her arms out weakly, trying to envision the sunflower fields in their old home in Maryland and how she and her dad used to take walks together at sunset. She focuses as hard as she can to hold onto the memory instead of the thought that those fields are gone and so is her last connection to her dad.

Miranda opens her eyes and there is nothing but hard snow.

She hangs her head and curls up against the ground, trembling from the wasted effort. She wonders what Katie would say if she were here. Katie is her opposite; she holds onto nothing and no one. She does not mind being seen as cold or imperious, does not mind being alone. Katie never crumbles, never fails to stand strong, though Miranda has never known what it is Katie fights for – she only knows there must be something, because they've all been through too much.

There is a crunch of snow beside her. "Miranda!" Sherman kneels and takes her by the shoulders and shakes her, as if checking she's conscious. Miranda's body is stiff and her eyes blank. Sherman pulls her body upright to face him. "I saw you walk past my window, what are you doing out here?" He puts his hands on her shoulders, searching her eyes.

Miranda says in a small voice. "I can't grow."

Sherman tilts her face up towards his, fixing her with an intense gaze. His brown eyes are deep and steady, just like him – strong and unmoving through all that comes before him. He has courage and strength enough to spill over oceans and he is determined. "Yes you can." He says firmly, without pity. "Try again."

Miranda curls her fingers around fistfuls of his shirt and squeezes her eyes shut. Part of her wants to fold up into the shadows and dwell on her sorrow if that is all that remains of what is lost, wants to protest that Sherman can't possibly understand what she means. His heart is genuine but he has no patience for sentimental clutter, for the little last things Miranda clings onto like a lifeline back to herself.

"Miranda, you are a daughter of Demeter." Sherman says pointedly. He is so strong and sure of himself; even without speaking or moving he offers the promise of protection. Miranda focuses on the warmth of his body and imagines it slowly seeping into her bones and her fingertips the way she can feel life flowing from the trunk of a tree to its roots miles underground just from touching a single green leaf.

She tells herself that she is a daughter of Demeter, and that life grows even in the face of adversity. There are wildflowers that grow from cracks in the rocky cliff side, seeds that survive floods and fires to sprout into new life, and meadows that bloom from once barren land. She reaches into her own pain, remembers the stargazer lilies she planted outside her window after her sister Emma died and how they once spread through the entire garden behind their cabin and there will always be stargazer lilies even if her pictures are gone, she turns back to her dad's last words to her that she will remember long after everything else in her life is gone and how she will never forget his face when he tells her I love you, Mimsy.

She pulls from Sherman and spreads her hands, pouring the last of her strength into the cold ground and willing life to blossom at the surface. All the warmth in her body floods into the ground below her and spots dance in her vision when she opens her eyes. A single green bud peeks out from the snow between Miranda and Sherman. Its leaflets are closed tightly around a tiny bud listing to its side.

Miranda exhales a sigh of exhaustion. "I did it."

Sherman wraps his arms around her. "Of course you did." He helps her up to her feet.

Miranda tries to smile. She did grow something, after all. But the burst of resolve that grew the impossibly tiny bud does not give her any peace. She still longs for the things that are lost and lingers on the voices and the darkness that have not left her.

"You need sleep." Sherman furrows his brow, looking intensely concerned. Miranda feels guilty that it is four in the morning and he isn't in his warm bed but standing out in the snow in the coldest hour of the day. He looks warily in the direction of the Hermes Cabin as if he doesn't like her being there. But he turns her towards it anyways, and makes his way over with her.

His expression grows cloudy as they come closer to the Hermes Cabin. Connor throws the door open, his eyes wide with concern. Sherman scowls at him.

"Mandy!" He runs out to her. "Are you okay? I checked on you and you were gone and I – gods, you must be freezing!" Connor rubs her arms. She suddenly realizes she is shivering from the cold, her arms bare in his borrowed t-shirt.

"Stoll…" Sherman growls.

Connor ignores him. "What happened?" His eyes focus on hers, as if trying to extricate her sorrow, sharp and penetrating through her attempt at being okay.

Miranda tries to speak but can't find the words. Sherman takes Miranda into his arms, effectively pulling her from Connor. "She just needs some sleep." He says to Connor in a low and threatening voice, challenging him into silence.

"Okay." Connor spreads his hands and turns his palms up in a gesture of peace. "Whatever you need, Mandy."

Sherman holds Miranda tight with one muscled arm – his biceps the size of bursting grapefruits – and with his free hand grips Connor's shoulder so hard his fingers turn white. He is several inches shorter than Connor but almost twice as thick. "If you give her trouble, or let anyone else, I will pulverize you."

"Yeah, if you can catch me." Connor says sarcastically, flashing him his trademark troublemaker's smile. "You don't trust me, Sherman?"

"Not in the least." Sherman responds.

"I do." Miranda says, her teeth chattering.

Sherman's expression softens as he looks at her, though still deeply concerned and conflicted. He grits his teeth and glares threateningly at Connor, but relents. "If you'll feel safer in my cabin, just tell me." He says reluctantly. "To Hades with the rules."

Miranda smiles and hugs him tightly. "Good night, Sherman." She rests her forehead against his for a moment before she lets go. She doesn't have the words to tell him how much she appreciates coming out in the middle of the night and not knowing what to say but still finding a way to give her strength. She's still new at being in this relationship, so she doesn't know if her embrace says it all, but he smiles, so she thinks he does.

Connor puts his arm around her shoulders and takes her back inside. As soon as she enters the wonderfully warm cabin her exhaustion finally washes over her and her knees give way. Connor catches her and carries her to his bed.

Miranda fights to keep her eyes open. She can't end the day with so much unresolved. She wants to tell him about how terrified she is to sleep because she might never wake up from that endless fall through the darkness. She wants to tell him about the whispering voices etched in her memory. She wants to tell him she's sorry about Sherman.

"Connor…" Miranda reaches for him, struggling against the weight of her own body.

Connor gently tucks her arm under the blankets, pulling them over her shoulders. "Yeah?" He sits on the bed beside her.

The darkness obscures the light in his eyes. His dark blue eyes look like the deep blue of the sky just before it blackens to midnight. There was something else the Grove of Dodona had told her: a lovely flower forsaken by the dove, rightly adored and yet torn by your love. She didn't understand it then, but Miranda's eyes fill with tears as she meets Connor's eyes.

"It's okay," Connor smiles, brushing his thumb under her eye as tears spill over, and she wonders if he knows what she's thinking like he always does. His eyes are so calm.

"Connor, I need you to tell you…" Miranda's voice breaks.

Connor brushes her tears away and gently cradles her face in his hands. "You've been through a lot, Mandy." He says softly, giving her a way out.

Miranda doesn't want it. "Connor, I know I tell you this all the time, but I – I…" Her words tangle on her lips and she knows she won't say it right.

" – need to get some sleep." Connor finishes for her. "You'll know better in the morning. I promise it'll be okay; we'll work out everything as it needs to be." He smiles, his eyes clear and knowing. She doesn't know how but Connor always makes her feel better, feel safe. She believes him.

Connor brushes away the last of her tears and kisses her forehead.

Then he turns out the light and climbs onto the bunk above hers. Miranda tries to fight her exhaustion, terrified of that long fall through the darkness, but this time it isn't endless. She splashes into the clear blue waters of the canoe lake she liked so much on her first day at Camp. As she surfaces she sees a familiar face smiling at her through the rippling waters. He's laughing and his eyes are sparkling as he reaches his hands out to pull her from the water.

All through the night sunflowers grow around the Hermes Cabin, tall and strong, even one that sneaks through the window and greets her when she wakes up.

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Depending on what you think/prefer it is somewhat open-ended. You might fill in the rest of Miranda's unfinished sentence, or interpret the sunflowers differently. Let me know what you think! Personally, I'm very curious about what Rick Riordan saw in Miranda and Sherman being together, though I always liked her with Connor. (Also curious, where does the Miranda/Lou Ellen pairing come from?)

Please don't leave without letting me know what you think :)