Disclaimer: All is Rick Riordan's.

I couldn't reply personally to the reviews, because I had no access to PC, but now I say thanks to everyone who reviewed, it means a lot.

Chapter 2

"Jason, what happened in there?"

Jason sighed. He'd known that a kiss was too much to expect under these circumstances, but he had hoped that she'd at least smile at him. No such luck, it was "What happened in there?" as soon as she saw him.

"It's a long story," he said.

"I have time," Piper countered. She could hardly believe what she was doing. Here she was, alone with Jason, and she was losing time discussing these… Romans?

"Do you want to see the Jupiter cabin from the inside?" he offered, but one look at his fellow campers told him that this idea might not be so great. They would not interrupt, of course, but they were watching the pair closely. They did not trust Piper. Now wasn't the time to lead her to his cabin.

She was clearly following his line of thought. In the falling dusk, her face looked breathtakingly beautiful. Jason wanted nothing more than taking her somewhere, to do something together with her like any normal couple. But they weren't it. They had a fate – and not a too bright one, it seemed.

"What did Bobby say?" she asked. "Why did everyone react as if he had just killed a baby?"

Jason laughed and sat in the grass, beckoning her to do the same. Piper did so and for a moment, it was just like the old times in Camp Half-Blood, when it had been just the two of them, just Jason and Piper. No quest, no animosity in the air. Just them.

But it lasted only a minute, then Jason's face became sad. "For a moment, it felt just like before," he said. "I don't have all my memories back yet, but I remember Bobby saying things like that all the time. It was hilarious. I wish you had met him then, Piper. I think he was someone you would have liked."

She smiled faintly. "I like him already," she said. It was true: he was not as hostile as Reyna and the rest of them and he was quite engaging, not unlike Travis and Connor Stoll back home. Home. It was so strange, yet pleasing to think that she now had a home. Sure, she loved her dad, but his house had never felt like home. It was people who made it such and he was just too busy.

"But you would have liked him more had you met him before." Jason's voice was so, so distant. "I think he would have flirted with you – no, nothing serious, just so you like it and feel relaxed, welcome. That was what he did."

"Why, doesn't he do it now?"

Jason shook his head. "No. He doesn't flirt with anyone any more. He stopped, when Gwen was mauled so."

She blinked. "Bobby and Gwen? They are… together?"

"They've been together for a few years." He gave her a curious look. "Haven't you… noticed?"

Piper shook her head silently. A whole afternoon with them and she hadn't seen a thing. Some daughter of Aphrodite she was!

Jason looked aside. "He's changed, Piper. We all have. He was charming, funny and someone to be aware of. Now, he's serious. And sad. And grown-up. When Juno took me away, he hadn't cracked a joke in months and judging by the reactions of the others, this hadn't changed through my absence."

She stared at his profile and then at the still blazing horizon. "It was the war, wasn't he?" she asked. She had not fought in it, but she had the feeling it was a part of her life – it came haunting the survivors in the Greek camp in the most unexpected moments. It seemed that it was no different for the Roman ones. Piper had already learned to tell the signs and she was seeing them in Jason now.

He slowly nodded. He would still not look at her. "We lost a lot of friends, Piper. Jerry, Christine and so many others…"

She waited.

"We led the assault," Jason finally said, relieved that she had not pressed him into talking while he wasn't ready. Now, he went on hurriedly, trying to get everything out and be done with it. "I was with the boats; Kota was leading the other half of our people on dry land. We both knew it was dangerous, but we led them into this hopeless battle…"

Kota? Dakota? They were finally getting to the core of it. Piper sat and listened. Her eyes followed the darkening shapes of the trees in the wood and she wondered what it was that Jason was seeing right now. Probably the battlefield, all over again.

"When the first demigods reached the ridge, they were faced with an army of monsters. Kota knew that their only chance of joining us was to hold the army at bay until the others can climb, too. So they stood and… took the blows."

"Oh," Piper whispered. Now she realized why they had reacted so strongly at Bobby's thoughtless remark. It had been just a joke, but the fact that Dakota had got many of his friends killed before turned it into something different. "Still… he didn't mean to say it like that. Dakota is…"

"It's more complicated than you think, Piper," he interrupted sharply. "It isn't just Bobby, Kota has some problems, too. Gods, when is it going to be over? I can't believe we're going to fight the giants when we are like this!"

His voice sounded harsh, but when she looked at him, she noticed the glistening drop on his cheek. No wonder he did not want to look at her. She reached for his hand, but he drew it back, leaving her stunned and rejected.

"You don't know what it was like, Piper," he said. "Pray that you never do. Now, come on!"

She followed him, even more confused.

"Do you know where Will Solace is?" Jason asked.

A few minutes later…

"Let me get this straight," Will said evenly. "You expect of me to treat a guy who was wounded as long ago as the Titan war and actually heal him?" He shook his head. "If your Apollo kids hadn't managed to get him back to health, it's highly unlikely that I'll manage. And if I fail, your lovely friends will blame me for making him sick, forgetting that they couldn't do a thing for him either. Do you have any idea what's going to happen to this alliance which doesn't look promising from where I stand even now"

A sharp hiss of breath: Dakota unsheathed his blade, ready to attack the Greek, but Reyna and Hazel stopped him and started talking to him in hushed tones.

"I won't have an argument about that right now!" Jason's voice rose. "All I want of you is to help someone who is sick. Will you give him your help?"

"I have to." Will's voice was a lesson in tranquility.

"How can we be sure that he won't do something to Nicholas?" a girl yelled and Will looked at Jason, as if to say "I told you so."

"I am sure. I swear my life on it. I vouch for him." Jason's statement put an end to all objections. They headed for the infirmary.

Piper wasn't in a hurry. She waited for Annabeth and Leo to come near and they all walked together – along with Percy, of course. These days, he and Annabeth were joined in the hip.

"It's a disaster," Piper said under her breath. "We hoped to patch things with them. Instead, we are losing even Jason. He's becoming more Roman by the minute." Right now, he was walking with Reyna and Dakota, listening carefully to whatever the blond beauty was saying. Figures!

"Easy," Percy muttered. "They aren't so bad. Well, they aren't,' he insisted when he was met with three astounded pairs of eyes. "Some time, I must tell you about my beginning with them," he added, "but not now."

They had reached the infirmary. "Do you think Will… do you think he'd be able to help him?" Annabeth asked.

Percy hesitated and shook his head.

Jason was the first one to enter. Piper did not know what particular memories he held about this place, but he confidently strode to the farthest corner and lifted the curtain that separated the last bed from the others.

"Nick,' he said. "Nick, it's me, Jason." He stepped forward, gasped and staggered back.

Piper rushed to his side. When she saw what he stared at, she went still.

The infirmary was suddenly filled with stench coming from a shrunken figure supine in the bed, the flesh on his emaciated arms and legs blackened, festering. They had shaved his hair off, so they could treat the appalling injuries on his skull, but obviously, it had not worked. His left leg was bent under an angle that was anything but natural. There was barely a part of him that was not either bleeding or festering. Only the rise and fall on his chest indicated that the boy's heart still beat. Piper could not believe that someone in such a state could be conscious. She hoped he wasn't.

Then Nicholas' blue-green eyes opened and his anguished gaze as it landed on them showed that he was fully aware of his torment and that Jason stood before him. His caked lips moved, trying to form unintelligible words.

Reyna hastened to his side. "He can't speak," she told Jason who stood aghast. Sure, Nicholas had been deadly sick months ago, but obviously things had got turn for worse. All Reyna and the other kids from the Apollo cabin could do was keep him alive. Jason could only hope that Will Solace would be able to do more.

He wasn't. Everyone saw it in his face even before he finished his examination and shook his head. "Why are you doing this to him?" he asked Reyna.

She bristled, ready for a fight. "What else could we have done?" she asked. "Leave him to die?"

"He's dying anyway," he said. "You are just… tormenting him."

Nicholas was trying to say something that Jason could not understand. He looked helplessly at his friends. Hazel leaned close to Nicholas' mouth. His talonlike fingers grabbed her wrist. She looked up sorrowfully.

"He begs your help. He wants you to help him… to die."

Her last words were a mere whisper but they could be heard clearly in the terrible silence of the infirmary. Reyna was the first one to react.

"No!"

"Reyna." Dakota's voice was soft and tormented. "We made a mistake. We should have let him rest long ago."

"Let him die, you mean!" She whirled on him, furious. Saving lives was a natural instinct for the Apollo kids and now Dakota was telling her that she had to give up? "He lives. There is still hope."

"That isn't a life, not for someone who was like Nick was. His life were battles, and fire camps, and going on quests. His life was laughter and camp songs, and chariots. His life was Christine, and we, and the adventures we had together."

It was strangely surreal to speak about someone's death while they were still breathing. But really, that was the only thing that linked Nicholas to the living – this and the torment. Piper knew that as long as she lived, she'd never forget the appalling scene.

"Holy Ares," Clarisse muttered, so only those next to her could hear. "Percy, if I ever get to this state, do me a favour. Do not let them turn me into this."

For once, Piper agreed wholeheartedly with Ares' daughter.

A few hours later…

It was almost dawning when Bobby came back to the Mercury cabin. He was just reaching for the doorknob when a hand touched his. Gwen. She silently motioned him to follow her and for a few minutes, no one said anything until they reached the wood. There, Gwen sat with her back against an oak trunk and stared at the horizon.

"Did they decide what they are going to do with Nick?" Bobby asked and sat down, but not next to her.

"No, they didn't," she answered.

"Is Kota okay?"

"Why don't you see it for yourself?"

He didn't answer. Gwen wondered who he had talked to about Nick – he certainly hadn't come close to any of them after the accident with the stupid joke.

"Kota will be fine," she said, in a softer tone, and then fell silent for a while. 'I don't know what is the right decision about Nick, though," she admitted.

"Neither do I."

She tried to smile. "Bobby Ringling admitting that he doesn't know something? What will happen next? Neptune proposing to Vesta?"

She hoped he'd point out that Neptune had, in fact, proposed to Vesta. He didn't.

"Actually, I was glad when you said that today," she admitted.

"Why?" He looked at her. The rising dawn reflected in his dark eyes but there was no warmth in them, just blank glitter.

Gwen stared at him, stunned, then she suddenly stood up and dropped to her knees beside him, taking his hands in her own. How strange that they were warm when he seemed so remote and cold. "Because I… I need you, the way you were."

"Need?" He arched a brow. "You?"

"Stop mocking me. My family is going away. I need someone to be here."

"And you chose my unworthy self?"

"I don't want to be alone. It… hurts."

It felt so strange. They'd been together for years, yet they had never talked about the future. Maybe it was because they had never expected that they'd have one. Gwen was surprised at how hard this conversation was.

"Does it?" He gazed up at her face. "Poor Gwen. If you rely on me, it will surely hurt more."

"You're the only one I can go to. You know me. You've accepted me as I was, since the very beginning." She paused. "And I know you."

He shook his head.

"I do. I've always known how you are. I don't care."

He studied her for a long time before saying slowly, "I believe you. Extraordinary."

"So you must come back to me. I don't want to be alone again." Her eyes met his and then she buried her disfigured face in the hollow of his shoulder. "I don't want you to change, I don't want you to become all thoughtful and serious."

He stiffened in surprise. "What's going on with you, Gwen?"

She did not raise her head from his shoulder. Instead, she buried her face deeper against his neck. "We are in a war, Bobby. We are in a war again, we've got Greeks here – Greeks! – the world is changing and I… I don't think I can manage without you, the way you were before. I need something constant, something that does not change."

Stunned, Bobby realized that he had no idea what to do or say. "What do you mean, things changed?" he asked stupidly.

"What doesn't?" She fell silent. "Affection doesn't," she finally decided. "But affection makes people hurt when people go away. My father went away and now Jason is going away too."

"Jason would never leave us."

"But he'll never belong us the way he did. You were there; you saw. He's adopted some of the ways of the Greeks. He is trying to compromise with what we've been taught since children should not be compromised with. No, I am not saying it accusingly. He doesn't want to leave us, but he does, in a way. You can go away too, one day, but I won't have you leave like this. There is no reason why you can't stay with me now." She paused. "Is there?"

She held her breath, waiting.

He did not reply.

"Answer me," Gwen said, trying to keep the panic from her voice.

His hand slowly caressed her hair. "You're not going to give up, are you?"

"No."

"You're crazy, to want someone as unreliable as I was, you know."

She was almost limp with relief. He was coming back. He was hers.

He held her tighter. "We'll be better off with a few hours' rest."

But they did not move.

"Do you think they'll be okay?" she asked. "Kota, Jason, Reyna…"

He shrugged. "I set my hopes on the Greek girl."

She did not need to ask who he meant. "I love him too, Bobby, you know this. But sweethearts cannot fix each other."

He held her away from him and smiled. "You're wrong. What about us? We fixed each other."

Gwen stared at him wide-eyed. "Did we?"

"Didn't we?" he countered.

She laughed. "That's you," she said and stood up. "Let's go to sleep, so we'd be ready for the Greeks."

At the same time…

What were they going to do with the giants? With Gaea? With these unfriendly Romans who did not make her peacemaking mission any easier? What were they going to do with the dying boy? What was she going to do with Jason who was as friendly with them as ever, but was quickly adapting to his old life? Piper turned back and stared at Argo II, feeling somehow protected by its massive shadow and the thought of her friends sleeping inside.

She was slowly walking along the cabins when something drew her attention to Reyna's cabin – as a commanding officer, she has one of her own.

Piper might not have any experience with stuff like that, but she was a daughter of Aphrodite and she had watched enough movies. She recognized immediately the sounds coming from the inside and she saw red. Reyna was making love to Jason – her boyfriend, her guy! Without thinking, she threw the door open and her eyes widened when she saw the naked entwined bodies.