Hi! So for those who get emails every time I publish a story or upload a chapter, I am terribly sorry that I've been on a posting frenzy lately. Not only was it summer so I am oozing with free time, energy, mania and inspiration- but the idea was that I wanted to hit my 300 stories before I went to camp. I'm proud to announce that this is the three-hundredth piece of fanfiction (at least published on this website), and I am very excited about it.

This will be a multi-chapter story exploring the concepts of sacrifice, life, death, altruism, and merit, as well as how deep a friendship can possibly run.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters in the story, nor the lyrics that will be used in epithets of later chapters.

What about Angels

Prologue

They knew from the beginning that traveling with Jason was dangerous; his scent was so potent and there was so much riding on him, both from the Legion's perspective and also the prophecy and the war's. But Reyna had always known that she and Jason had a chemistry, a kind of link that meant they could fight and win and cover impossible grounds together. This, to her, made up for the risk- and it would even if Jason wasn't her best friend. It always had- from the moment they were twelve on their first quest until now.

Because this had never happened before. Never before had they been ambushed so badly, so desperately.

Never before had Jason either been killed either.

Reyna was so pissed that the basiliscus had poisoned her friend that she slayed the beast in two seconds, sending its entourage of onocentauri to Tartarus with it, but the titan laughed and escaped. He may not have gotten what he wanted from Jason and Reyna, but a dead son of Jupiter was nearly as good as a few lines of prophecy...

"Guard!" Reyna told her dogs before she rushed to Jason's side.

"Jason," Reyna said throwing herself to her knees next to his slack and still form. Jason's skin was clammy and slick with sweat; the breath of a basiliscus was one of the worst poisons known to the legion. Reyna tried to think of all the records and reports she'd read while under the praetors' apprenticeship: had anyone ever survived..?

"Jason, no. Jason, that was just a minor titan, the real fight hasn't even begun. There's a week left until the prophecy starts. Jason get up, fight this. Fight this Jason!"

As she encouraged him and edged him on and threatened to kill him if he died on her, with one hand Reyna was doing the practical and realistic thing: checking for a pulse against the curve of Jason's neck.

She couldn't find it.

"Jason," Reyna said. She tilted Jason's head back and breathed two gulps of air into his lungs before putting her hands together and pushing down on his chest, counting each compression until she got to thirty, checking for breath, blowing air into his lungs twice, starting over…

When Reyna had gotten her first aid certification at the spa, she'd been told that one should repeat the cycle as often as possible until they got too exhausted to go on, or until emergency first aid respondents arrived at the scene. But Reyna knew that demigods didn't have that luxury- the luxury of waiting or passing the torch on to someone with more responsibility, more seniority, more age. Not only that, but they had the burden of making heavy decisions every day.

Reyna checked for breath again, stubbornly continuing CPR despite the cues she was picking up from him- Jason was her army right now, with him she could fight anything, and she knew exactly how well his vitality was. Jason wasn't breathing. His heart wasn't beating. His blood wasn't flowing. He wasn't alive.

"No," Reyna said in an exhausted voice that came out like a choke. Then she got pissed and screamed it.

It didn't bring him back, and such childish and silly behaviour was usually beneath Reyna, but her heart was beating out of her chest. She wanted to be sick and cry, but she was past panicking because... well, what was she to do?

"No," she said. "Jason… Jason you can't die on me. Don't die on me."

Then she remembered a spell. Not one from her days with Circe, not a little trick that Hylla would use to clean the house or make supper or find Reyna when she snuck out. A spell much more powerful, much rarer. It was the only thing that Reyna's mother had ever taught her, and even then it had been in a dream, so Reyna didn't know how well it would work...

"Don't die on me, my brother-in-arm, don't die on me, brave soul of last, don't die on me, your blood is spilled well."

Even then, he didn't move.

"NO!" She shouted angrily. She slapped the ground next to Jason's head.

His eyes shot open.

Reyna fell back and landed on her elbows, looking in stunned silence as Jason rolled onto his side and threw up before gasping for air as if someone had held his head underwater for too long.

"Holy shit," Reyna said, looking at Jason in awe. He pushed himself up and looked to Reyna. He looked pale and clammy, but colour was rushing back into his face as if it just remembered that he hadn't been supposed to die. Yet. "It worked."