Chapter One: Red

As the leader of a team of seven teenaged heroes destined to save the world by fighting an evil time-warping god, Jay Argos was accustomed to dealing with blood. More than once, the sticky red liquid had made its way oozing from someone's skin as they looked down at it, forehead furrowed in confusion and face growing pale until they fainted.

He had learned to associate the colour red with disbelief.

Once, the team were sent to deal with a chimera the size of a small corner store, a feat that was difficult even by their standards. After a good half hour minutes trying to subdue the beast, the first injury was delivered to the person Jay cared about even more than the rest of his team: Theresa. His heart stopped for a moment as he watched her helplessly. Her fingers reached to her stomach, clutching the three diagonal wounds that the beast had slashed across her skin, red hair tousled by the breeze as she glanced down at the blood seeping through her fingers in confusion, disbelief, then growing anger.

Theresa had never been weak, he remembered then, the furious expression on her face startling even the chimera.

Tearing her hand away from the tender spot on her torso, she'd grabbed her nunchucks roughly and sent them flying at the chimera, the hard wood of the handles squarely looping its tail and the sharp chain cleanly severing the snake's head protruding from the tip as the other six looked on, amazed and quite impressed.

After that, it had been a lot easier to defeat the animal.

It was only after they'd defeated the mythical creature that Jay remembered Theresa's wound, and then his helplessness was justified. Growing pale as the stain on her shirt grew, Neil had been the first to notice her troubled expression when she attempted to stagger uphill to Herry's truck (curse him to Olympus for noticing before Jay did!) After the necessary panic, they'd carted her directly to the gods in Herry's monster truck. By that time, her voice had started to fade and her eyelids droop to the loud beating of Jay's heart as moved from his usual seat in the van in order to tightly clutch her hand. Archie had noticed and made a lame pun about him squeezing the life out of her. It hadn't been funny.

Once in the presence of the gods, Jay's beating heart was quieted somewhat. Hera's comforting, always consistently calm voice helped his nerves cool a little, even when Chiron appeared and gravely voiced his opinion that the wound was deep, and would not be too easily healed. That night was long, full of pacing up and down close to her bed, punctuated by short bursts of hope shortly followed by extreme disappointment.

They had stayed at her bedside for hours, until Neil stood and stretched, voicing his lack of sleep. Glancing at their disbelieving faces, he protested that school would still be in session the next day, and four hours of sleep was better than none at all.

A few minutes after he'd left, Herry and Odie reluctantly agreed. "No rest for the wicked, and that includes teachers," Herry had half-heartedly joked, though his eyes worriedly took in Theresa's still figure before they left, huddled and close and making quiet footsteps as if making a sound would worsen Theresa's shaky condition.

It was a good quarter-hour before Archie had stood up and stretched, getting slightly restless. He had the potential to become the best warrior of the group, though his restlessness and impatience knocked him down a notch. The violet-haired teenager gave a yawn and told the two remaining visitors he was going to catch some rest, and his glance moved across both red-headed girls, one lying with shallow breaths on crisp white sheets, the other absorbing her friend's condition with tired eyes. The quiet, wistful sigh that followed from his lips, Jay was certain, had to do with both the girls, though one slightly more than the other.

Not long after, Atlanta left quietly, not saying a word as she stuck her hands in her pockets and hunched over, a pose that Jay recognized more from Archie than Atlanta. Habits rub off between close friends, no doubt, and the echoes of her heavy steps sounded across the silent polished floors.

Once she'd left, Jay was left in the still quiet of the god's domain, the only sound punctuating the still air being their breaths, Theresa's shallow and erratic, his faster but falling into a pattern.

He liked patterns, easily predictable and quickly solved. It was this that made him self-conscious about being the leader; at times, he had trouble thinking outside the box, the mundane and simple being his plan of choice. Set bait, plant trap, catch bad guy was his favoured procedure, and it infuriated him to no end that Cronus was tricky enough to escape from their clutches time and time again. It was even worse, he considered, when one of his team was hurt; injuries were unreliable, unpredictable, and completely disabling. When he had died, he'd thought it bad enough that Atropos could conjure up creatures to catch him; it was worse, he knew now, to be helplessly watching someone on the verge from the outside.

He'd stayed at her side for another hour, ignoring the frequent interruption of gods sticking their heads around the door to see how they were doing or to tell him to go to bed. She didn't move, save for one moment when she'd gasped for breath and made his heart erupt into mixed desperation and hope.

It was around the time Jay decided to give up and leave that Theresa's hand twitched slightly, fingers curling slowly. He'd stared, hoping against hope that her eyes would flutter open - like so - and her lips would part for another breath. Her eyes, disoriented at first but connecting to his in due time, were clear, and his heart erupted into another shower of happiness.

"Jay."

The brown-haired Argos had never known such emotion could be released by just one that syllable, losing control of his normally calm exterior and standing, hastily bombarding her with questions about how she felt and did she need anything? Her face was still pale, white as cold, cold ice against her bright lips and the small amount of blood leaking through the bandage around her stomach, but she'd managed to chuckle softly with a glimmer in her eye and say, "I'll be alright."

It was at that moment when Jay let go completely, amazed and confused and euphoric all at the same time, when Theresa uttered those three words. On an impulse - something he so dearly disliked, for he followed patterns, damn it all to Olympus - Jay leaned forward over Theresa and gently brushed his mouth against her lips, the redness of her cheeks matching with the colour of her lips as he raised his head and looked back at her. It was that expression on her face, disbelief at first then laced with a contentment Jay hadn't experienced for a long time, that placed the final missing piece in the puzzle.

She smiled at him.

As the leader of a team of seven teenaged heroes destined to save the world by fighting an evil time-warping god, Jay Argos was accustomed to dealing with emotion. His friends exhibited it all the time - Atlanta's defiance, Neil's pride, Herry's patience, Odie's wicked mischief, Theresa's independent happiness, Archie's restlessness - and he'd lost his temper or felt amazing because of emotion more than once.

Yes, he had learned to associate the colour red with disbelief, but he'd also learned to associate the rich, bright colour to emotion; defiance, impatience, pride -

And joy.