Olympus, Jason decided, wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Maybe he was a little resentful. The place had a primordial beauty, with Annabeth's stylized additions building upon what was already there—not that Jason had much of a comparison point. He had never been allowed up here until he had taken up the charge of pontifex maximus, and even then, he could only come here when his duties absolutely required it. Certainly not to visit his father or stepmother-slash-protector. They would never even meet him when he came.
Okay, maybe he was more than a little resentful.
In his defense, he had been frustrated before coming here. After tracking a minor nature spirit all the way to Cupid's palace, it had turned out that Cupid himself was visiting on Olympus, forcing him to return all the way back to New York City—the very place he had started.
It took some investigating to find someone who could point him to Cupid's location—one of the many halls in Olympus, used by gods for private meetings or small gatherings. Jason wondered which it would be, but the voices he overheard through the hall's gates gave him the answer.
"Don't you think it's time you released your hold on him? It's been three years!" Cupid's voice—forever seared in Jason's memory from their first and only encounter. He shuddered by reflex at the sound.
The second voice surprised him more. "I don't see why I should." It was Juno, her voice more familiar. "He was given to me from birth by my husband."
They had to be talking about him—unless Jupiter had had another son nobody knew about.
"So you will put your ideals above the best opportunity for such a union that Olympus has ever seen? Such a queen you are, Juno."
"Perhaps I should remind you the respect I am owed, as queen," Juno hissed. "It seems you've spent too long alone in your palace."
"Yet I apparently learned more about politics than you did."
"Jupiter fully agrees with me on this matter."
"And what does that say about the two of you?" Cupid scoffed. "Maybe we should ask him directly." The gates suddenly flew open, startling Jason. Cupid stood there, not elusive like he had been during their first meeting, but camped firmly in the opening. "Well, aren't you curious to know why we're fighting about you? Come in!"
Jason repressed another shudder, but he cast Juno a questioning glance before he moved. Cupid was powerful, but Jason knew better than to openly defy the queen of the gods.
She glared at him, but gave a sharp nod. "Since he's already here," she said, sighing.
Cupid shot Jason a predatory grin, before he stepped out of the way, waiting as Jason sheepishly walked inside before he closed the door. Both gods stared at him, then at each other, frozen in silence.
"So—what's going on?" he managed to say, hoping neither of them would see it as an offense if he spoke first.
Cupid was the first to speak. "What do you remember of your life at Camp Jupiter?"
"What he needs to," Juno cut off before Jason could answer, but Cupid's expectant gaze remained on Jason, unwavering.
"A lot's come back since the Gigantomachy," Jason said. "All of my training, how I became praetor, what I did during the Titanomachy—"
"What about your love life?" Cupid interrupted. With a faint chuckle, he added, "Sorry. You know me. This is what interests me the most. What do you remember about that?"
Jason frowned at him. Reyna had said that they'd discussed dating in order to strengthen their relationship, but hadn't had time to pull it off before Jason had been whisked away. She had looked like there was more to it, but he had never been able to get it out of her. That Cupid would bring it up now, however, made him wonder. "Not—much," he finally settled on. It was true: his own memories on the topic might as well not exist, as far as he was concerned.
"And why would he need it?" Juno said. "By your own admission, Cupid, he already found true love. True love that I gave him, I should note."
"But is true love really true if its foundation is a lie?"
Cupid's words did nothing to help Jason's discomfort. He had already had this talk with Piper—multiple times. How much of their relationship relied on the false memories Juno gave both of them? It was easier with Leo, where they'd had to rebuild their friendship from the ground up after he'd faked his death. He had never had that with Piper. Neither of them wanted to break up just to see if they could rebuild their relationship afterwards, but the doubts were still there nonetheless.
A smile bloomed on Cupid's face again—terrifying, yet fond. "But you can never know if your love is true unless Juno releases her hold on your memories."
"But you can't know that you'll have something better if I did," Juno argued. "Your love and happiness are true as they are now. If they weren't, don't you think your friends from Camp Jupiter would have told you by now?"
There was Reyna's initial attempts to question his relationship with Piper, but he'd dismissed that as jealousy. "What exactly are you getting at?" he asked. They were both pitching something at him, and he'd rather know what he was being sold before he had to listen to it all.
Cupid produced a small vial from his pocket. "Gorgon blood," he said. "The kind that doesn't kill you, of course. I believe you already know what it's capable of." Jason nodded—Percy had drunk similar blood, and his memories had slowly come back. "If you drink it now, Juno will have to release her grasp on you. Your memories will return, and your friends' false memories will fade. The process will likely be much faster than it was for Jackson, since she"—he nodded at Juno—"had an excuse to keep meddling."
"Why do you care so much?" Jason asked. "Can't you just tell me what you want me to remember, and then let me decide if I want that memory back?"
"Now, now. Is that how love operates?" Cupid chuckled. "Of course, you wouldn't know. From your standpoint, love just happens to you, bursting into existence like our dear Athena from her father's skull. To most people, Jason Grace, love starts with a leap of faith. Accepting the feeling before you even know that it's real. Before you know that it can lead you anywhere."
"You can refuse," Juno said. "Stay in the happiness you know with Piper. You have everything you want already."
"And thus we bring you a choice," Cupid said, smirking. "Truth versus comfort."
Jason stared at him. "Why do you care? Even if you won't tell me what memory you want me to remember so much, what's it to you? You said my love was true."
Cupid smirked. "Another opportunity has arisen."
A hint of curiosity arose in Jason. He wanted to ignore it—to focus on Piper, on what he already had and would likely be broken if he drank from that vial, if Juno's insistence was anything to go by. Yet he had heard Cupid mention a union that would impact all of Olympus. Another love for Jason? One that would not leave him plagued with doubts like he was now? Could he do that to Piper, to himself?
But maybe holding on to their relationship was the wrong choice. What if Piper stayed because she didn't want to hurt Jason any more than he wanted to hurt her? Was that enough for a relationship to hold, especially now that this conversation was bound to leave him with more questions than before?
"Can I—take some time to think about it?" The least he could do was ask Piper about it.
"You can take the blood with you, as far as I'm concerned," Cupid said. "Drink it, or don't—maybe even give it to heal someone else's wounds. I'm giving you the opportunity to take the leap, but I won't push you off the edge." He held out his arm, the vial resting in his palm for Jason to take.
"You have to drink it."
Jason stared at Piper with unabashed shock. "Did you—did you hear the rest of what I said? It could break us."
"But it's your memories, Jason. What kind of girlfriend would I be if I forced you to keep them locked forever when you have an opportunity like that? If you hadn't been so busy finding obscure gods, I would already have started a quest to restore your memories on my own." She sighed. "Besides, if Juno's so adamant that you shouldn't do it, it's good enough for me to tell you that you should. She's always been more interested in the impression of perfection than love."
"So you want me to take the chance, and damn what we have?"
"If it's all a lie? Yes, Jason!" Piper had a tired smile. "Cupid thinks he can set you up, and…well, he's Cupid. You only heard the part where the union would have political value, but do you really think Cupid wouldn't first worry about you finding love?"
"You—want me to replace you?"
She shrugged. "I can find love again. You could say I'm a little bit of an expert in the field, myself. And who knows, maybe it's all just some kind of mind game. What if we do fall in love again after you have your memories, but this time it's for real?"
Jason stared at her. "You don't actually believe that, do you?"
"Hard to tell. I love you now, but without the fake memories, who knows? Either way, I think we owe it to ourselves to try, don't you think?" She chuckled. "And to Leo, too. We're holding his memories hostage along with ours."
The vial had been snug in his pocket since he'd returned from Olympus, so he took it out and considered Piper's words. "I—need a moment."
If he were honest with himself, he knew he was going to drink the gorgon blood—he had known from the moment he had left Olympus with the vial. But he needed answers first. He had gotten Piper's, now all he needed was one more question. One that couldn't be asked through Iris-Message.
So he traveled to New Rome, a day's travel that left him simmering in his own angst, before he could finally request an audience with the praetor. Reyna, luckily, was alone in her office when he arrived, and he was brought to her immediately.
"You've looked better," Reyna said. "Tough mission?"
Jason dropped onto a chair, sighing. He had never even asked Cupid about the spirit he'd been chasing, after all of this. Maybe he would never find it. Jason found it hard to really care, right now. "Cupid gave me this," he said, holding out the vial.
Reyna's eyes widened instantly in recognition. "Did you—"
"Not yet. But I will."
Reyna nodded slowly. "Does Piper know?"
"She does. She convinced me to do it." Or at least she comforted him in his decision, which was just as well. "But before I do it, I thought back to everything you told me about—before. When I was praetor here. So I wanted to give you one last chance to tell me the truth."
"Are you giving me an ultimatum, Grace?" There was a smile on her lips—close to a sneer with how ferocious it looked.
"Were we dating? Is that what I'm going to find out when I drink this? That I've had my true love so close all these years?"
Reyna burst out laughing. "No. No we weren't. As you might have noticed if you hadn't been worrying so much about your own 'true love' all these years, I'm just not into…dating. At all. Piper calls it 'aromantic'."
Jason gaped at her. "I thought—"
"That I was jealous? Unable to move on from you? Jason, we talked about dating back in the day for political reasons. Unite the praetors, which, with Octavian on the rise, was more than necessary. And we were proven right, since he did take over eventually. Which I don't blame you for, you were busy saving the world and all, but that was precisely what we were trying to avoid."
"So—what is it? You know something, Reyna. Just spit it out."
"I—" She faltered for the first time since Jason had come into the office. "I'm not even sure you're going to believe me until you drink that. Honestly, I thought that you would have realized in spite of Juno's manipulations. That it would have—come back to you."
"What are you talking about?"
