One of the many one-shots/songfics I have promised! This one takes place a year after they win the Giant War, and surprisingly, I've made Piper and Reyna friends at the end. And I like Piper in this one...

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own crap. Can we just go to the story?

A New Beginning

"Bye Pipes! See you in a few hours!" Piper's father shouted from the limo as the daughter of Aphrodite waved casually back, making her way down the street to Percy's apartment. She was going to meet all her friends so they could catch up.

She was walking quietly down the road, careful to hide her trademark kaleidoscope eyes behind her choppy hair; she didn't need crazy Tristan McLean fans to recognize her as his daughter.

Piper was turning left at the corner when-

CRASH!

"Di immortales!" Piper exclaimed, rubbing her head. She slowly looked up to apologize until she recognized the dark-haired girl looking at her with an amused expression.

"Fancy meeting you here, Piper," the Roman said, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Reyna? What are you doing here?" Piper asked, shocked. She didn't expect to see the praetor after the Giant War, a year ago.

The daughter of Bellona rolled her eyes. "Percy invited Jason and I to meet at his apartment. Jason went to get Leo, insisting I come here first. You're here to see them too, right?"

Piper gulped, nodding. After they won the war, Jason still didn't decided, breaking it off completely with Piper, saying it wasn't fair to anyone until he figured out his feelings. He visited often, but never mentioned anything. "Oh."

Reyna glanced at the purple watch on her wrist, black accents surrounding the face. "It's still a bit early-do you want to get something to eat?" she suggested, looking straight at the charmspeaker. "We really need to talk about...you should know what."

The Cherokee girl bit her lip, trying to push away her memories of Jason and her, happy, until she had snapped out of it, reminding herself painfully that most, no, all, of her memories were fake. She didn't really want to talk about it, much less with her ex-boyfriend's 'other woman', but Piper knew Reyna was right. "Starbucks?" she proposed, pointing to the cafe. Reyna nodded and the two girls silently walkked into the ship, getting in line.

"Medium coffee, please," Reyna ordered, glancing at the display of cookies. "And the cookie in the second row."

The cashier nodded and punched in the order. "And you, miss?" she asked, looking at Piper with wide eyes.

She snapped out of her thoughts and put on a small smile. Piper could tell the cashier knew who she was. "A small caramel frap and I'll let you keep the change if you keep this quiet," Piper finished in a low voice, handing the awed cashier a fifty dollar bill. The cashier nodded quickly and directed them to the receiving area.

Reyna chuckled. "There are benefits from being rich, huh?" she observed, grabbing her coffee and cookie.

Piper grimaced. "If my father wasn't famous, I wouldn't even need to do that." She sat down across from the praetor, sipping her cold beverage. "What I wouldn't give for a normal life."

Reyna snorted. "A normal life isn't all that easy, you know. A lot of people would kill for your life. Never having to work. having people follow their every command..." The Roman shrugged. "I would like to live like that for once in my life."

Piper pursed her lips. "It's nice and all, but I've always found that the things that you work for is what really makes you happy because you've earned them. "I mean, I was born into Hollywood just because my father's famous. I, myself, am not famous because I'm me-the only person that matters is my father. It doesn't mean much if it happens like that, but when we won against Gaea, I was happy because I worked for it, for the fame, and people liked me for something I did, not my dad."

Piper saw an approving smile appear on the praetor's lips. "You're different than I expected." She turned serious, putting down her coffee. "I'm sorry for the coldness I displayed to you when you landed with Jason. It was uncalled for."

The Cherokee girl waved her hand in dismissal. "It's nothing. I should apologize for all the glaring I did. Leo was this close to changing my name to the new Ice Queen," she said, smiling. The two demigirls fell silent. sipping their drinks. Piper noticed that her ex-rival kept playing with the chain around her neck. She studied the necklace, the accents also sparkling black. "Nice necklace," Piper commented.

Reyna flushed a deep scarlet. "Thanks. Uh, Jason gave it to me," she said, carefully watching her expression.

Piper forced a smile. "You guys were pretty close, huh?"

The Roman rolled her eyes. "We've known each other for five, six years, ever since I came to Camp Jupiter, but we've only been friends for four or five years. I spent the first year insulting and rejecting him as a friend." Reyna shrugged. "I was brought up to hate boys, and Jason happened to fall into that category." Piper smiled and Reyna continued. "Ever since I let him in, I got dosed with too much information about him. I know Jason inside out." The daughter of Bellona smirked. "Did you know Jason's afraid of dolphins?"

Piper giggled. "But they're so cute!" Reyna looked at her as if she had grown three heads, and Piper realized what she had said, wincing. "Sorry. Mom likes to make me look and sound like a giggle bimbo." She took a long slurp from her frap. "How did you find that out?"

Reyna broke her cookie in half, passing one half to Piper. "He took me flying one time, and we were so busy talking that we were flying until we were floating over the Atlantic Ocean. We were pretty low and I had seen a dolphin leap into the air. He squealed like a mouse and promptly landed us into the ocean. Luckily, some friends of his swept us back into the air before Neptune could drown us." She laughed. "I called him Squealing McQueen for a while after that."

Piper couldn't believe how easy it was to talk to Reyna. She had always assumed the praetor was a cold-hearted Roman who cared about nothing but her camp. Piper would have never guessed that she would be sitting here, a year after the War, and laughing and talking with Reyna as if they were friends. "Why don't you smile more often?" she asked suddenly. "Your frown scares people."

Reyna stirred cream into her coffee. "As soon as I got to Camp Jupiter, I knew my life would change. My sister and I were orphans, but she cared for me as a mother. When I heard about praetors, I knew I had to be one so I could help others just as my sister, my mother, and my father had done for me. We're demigods, after all, and we always seem to have bad luck. People didn't take me seriously, however, because I was a twelve-year-old girl who wanted to be praetor, so I trained myself to become the best, letting nothing faze me." She smiled, shrugging. "It's the life I chose for myself, and at the end of the day, I wouldn't give it up for anything else."

Piper looked at the daughter of war. She could see everything Jason saw in Reyna: strength, determination, loyalty, and the 'queen-like' qualities she possessed.

"I'm letting Jason go completely," Piper said softly, and surprisingly, the words didn't hurt her as much as she thought they would. They left a hole in her heart, but Reyna had known him longer, fussed over his disappearance as much as Annabeth had with Percy. And, Piper didn't really know him either; she'd known the Jason she had dreamed of, had made up.

Reyna looked at the charmspeaker with confusion. "What are you saying?" she demanded, her hand frozen onto her cup.

Piper forced the tears away. Why did doing the right thing feel so painful? Be brave, my daughter, a voice said in her mind. "I don't want to be with Jason anymore."

Reyna narrowed her eyes. "You're lying."

The daughter of Aphrodite sighed. "I think it's best if I let him go. He loves you more."

The praetor crossed her arms, her coffee momentarily forgotten. "And may I ask how you know that?"

"I'm a daughter of Aphrodite-I can sense these things." Piper smiled sadly. "Besides, it doesn't take a genius to know how Jason feels about you. Before we even got onto Argo II, he remembered you, and I could tell he was thinking of you whenever we were alone at the back of his mind. He regrets being with me-he slipped when he accidently said your name; I had to find out who you were from Leo."

The Roman leader shook her head. "Piper, I-"

Piper cut her off. "Reyna, I'm okay with it," she gulped, "I really am. You know him better than anyone else."

Reyna looked at the charmspeaker and Piper could tell she had unshed tears in her eyes. "You really are something else," she said quietly. "Just like Jason said you were."

Piper gave a small smile. "Yep." Piper finished her drink and got up, dumping the cup in the trash.

Reyna did the same and afterwards, held out her hand. "Friends?" she asked.

The Cherokee girl smiled and shook her hand. It was truly a new beginning. "Friends."

Aw, I love the end. More Jayna to come from me!

Please read and review!

-DOTE