Jason and Piper: "I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next." —Gilda Radner

The basketball made a satisfying swish as it dropped through the hoop and bounced straight into Jason's outstretched hands. Sweaty and exhausted, he dropped onto a bench, stuck the basketball between his feet, and leaned back as he surveyed the activity going on around camp.

Suddenly, there was movement beside him, and he turned to see Piper—back from her video call at the Big House.

"Hey. How'd it go?"

He felt more comfortable asking her questions now, even though he knew that his memories weren't going to be good for them. It was coming back to him slowly now—there was a girl named Reyna at the other camp, but he couldn't remember whether or not they had ever been serious. The problem was, he liked Piper a lot.

Oh, well. They would cross that bridge when they came to it. That's what friends did, right?

Only now, Jason found himself wishing that they could be a bit more than just friends.

—-—-—

Little short one that popped into my head right as I was about to go to sleep. Gotta love plot bunnies, right? :D

I found a couple quotes that inspired me to do one of these from Percy's POV right after the Battle of Manhattan, so that'll probably be next chapter. Anyone interested in that? (I figured a break from romance every once in a while would be good, since most of my fics are about romance anyway. I need some other practice.) After that—definitely a Tratie, and a Frazel, and the big Jeyna one. Yeesh, that's going to be hard to write, since I don't really know much about how to write Reyna really well. Ah, well, time to reread Son of Neptune.

Okay, huge long A/N over, because I need to go to bed. (Hope, you remember what happened last time I pulled an all-nighter and ate giant marshmallows, right?)

EPC