Sorry for the wait! Hope you enjoy! Oh, yeah. Since I haven't been doing it… the song that goes with this chapter is "Animal" by the Neon Trees.

Disclaimer: I do not own TLH or any of its characters.

X

JASON

Reyna yanked him aside, eyes fierce and a little wild, like a cornered animal. "I need to talk to you… privately," she hissed.

Jason waved Leo and Piper off reluctantly. But he knew he could handle himself if Reyna got out of control.

"Okay, so let's talk." He waited warily.

"First off, what's with you and the Greek girl?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me." She glared at him defiantly.

He said nothing, staring back at her blue-green eyes.

"Fine." Reyna's jaw clenched. "Don't tell me."

He continued to stare at her.

"What the hell, Jason! I've known you since we were seven, and you won't tell me what's going on between you and a girl? Seriously!" she huffed.

Jason sighed. "I have rights, you know."

"Yeah, but you can't tell your best friend something about a girl?"

"I don't even know you," Jason frowned. He tapped his head. "Amnesia, you know."

"You are the single most annoying person in the universe!" Reyna screamed, a crazy light in her eyes.

"I don't know you!"

Reyna folded her arms. Then a slow smile spread across her face.

Jason was seriously scared. This girl was unpredictable and dangerous.

"She's reaaaallly pretty," Reyna smirked.

His face burned. "None of your business."

"AHA! I hit something there," Reyna sang.

"Shut up!"

"You like her, don't you? I can see it written all over your face."

"What? If Leo wrote on me, I swear I'll—"

"No, stupid, it's a figure of speech," Reyna interrupted snidely.

"Oh." He'd become too worked up to notice.

"So, what have I missed since you left?" She changed the subject suddenly.

"I can't really explain—"

She cut him off. "You mean you won't explain. TRY."

So Jason gave her a rundown of everything that had happened. The entire time, her intense eyes never left his face.

When he'd finished, Reyna nodded. "Okay, I see." Her expression was troubled. "So… do you remember… anything?" she asked hesitantly.

"Sort of, but unclearly."

"Let's give you a test. Who's my godly parent?"

"Um, Mars."

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen?"

"How old were you when you met me?"

"Seven?"

"Which Titan did you kill last summer?"

"Aren't they immortal?"

"Do I care?"

"Uh… no, probably not."

"So which Titan?" she pressed.

"Krios!" he nearly shouted.

Reyna snorted. "Your memory seems fine to me." They stood in silence for a while.

"So, um… were we, like, dating before?" Jason asked. His face was probably about the same color as a tomato.

"Yeah… kind of… except, it was sort of a secret from everybody else."

"Wha—?"

"See, um, we sort of were… rivals, you could say. And it was sort of weird… so, um, yeah." Her face was the same shade of scarlet as his.

"Okay… sorry I asked…" She was glaring at him with an intensity that made him uneasy.

"No, it's okay." Reyna let out a breath. "It's just… um… sort of annoying for me. Like, I have you back again, but you don't remember..." She didn't finish.
"Sorry to be annoying," Jason said sarcastically, trying to break the ice.

Reyna cracked a smile for the first time since he'd seen her, and Jason thought, She's got a cute smile.

Her smile transformed her face from an angry, hardened commander of war to a normal teenage girl's. It made her look… pretty cute, instead of just tough and intimidating.

That was a thing about Reyna he didn't understand: she was pretty short, and yet she radiated authority that made you want to straighten up and salute.

"Well, that's new," she said, still grinning. "Usually I'm the one who makes the jokes. Is your friend over there rubbing off on you?" She jabbed a thumb in Leo's general direction.

"How would you know that?"

"He seems like a clown. A total wisecrack."

"Yeah, that seems about right," Jason said, and rolled his eyes. "Leo Valdez is like his own stand-up comedian show."

"He smells like fire," Reyna brought up suddenly. "What's up with that? I mean, Vulcan kids usually smell like metal, and he does, but…"

"Leo's a fire-user," Jason explained. "So, like, he can summon fire like I can summon lightning."

Her eyes widened, and Jason could see the gold flecks shimmer in them. "But… the last one…" She didn't finish the thought.

"I know, but we can trust him. He's a good guy."

She raised an eyebrow. "You know me and trust…"

Jason sighed, exasperated. "Can't you get over it?" Even though he wasn't sure what he was talking about.

"Maybe. Probably not. When you trust somebody and they betray you enough, it sort of repels you from trusting again."

"Wonderful," he grumbled. "My old girlfriend doesn't trust me." He searched her face, hoping she'd say, "Of course I trust you! Why wouldn't I?"

Reyna looked down at the ground, arms folded. Her silence was enough to answer him.

"So, what did she talk to you about?" Piper asked, walking next to him. As usual, Leo hung back, fiddling with some new gizmo. Reyna was far behind Leo, eyes narrowed slightly with the calculating focus of a crocodile.

Jason groaned inwardly. He'd been hoping to avoid this conversation.

"Stuff," he said lamely.

"What kind of stuff?"

"Um… really stuff-ish stuff."

"Uh-huh." She raised an eyebrow. "Was this stuff-ish stuff something about… you and me?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe means yes, doesn't it?"

"Maybe. What do you think?"

"I think it means yes."

"Okay, fine."

Piper apparently figured out then that he didn't feel like talking much, so she shut up.

They finished walked back to the heart of camp in silence.

Jason found out that the Romans could actually be normal sometimes.

Nobody was sparring in the amphitheatre anymore. Instead, the Apollo cabins from both groups were on stage, playing instruments and singing pop songs.

Roman and Greek demigods mingled, dancing like normal teenagers. All except for Nico Di Angelo.

He hung away from the crowd, all by himself like a lone wolf. Dressed entirely in black, he seemed exceptionally small.

Jason went over to Nico. "Hey, man. You don't have to be alone all the time, you know."

Nico shrugged, dark brown eyes hollow like death. "Nobody wants me around."

Jason heard the unspoken words: Because they're afraid of me.

"Try dancing. Mingle. Maybe find a girl." Jason suggested.

"Yeah, a ghost girl, maybe." Nico smiled without humor. For a thirteen-year-old kid, he seemed pretty mature.

At that moment, Shay bounded up, purple eyes luminescent. "Yo, Dead Boy! Go dance! Act like you're alive, instead of hanging around like a rock all day."

She yanked him by the elbow and dragged him into the crowd, until the son of Hades had blended in with the other demigods.

Jason smiled at the sight of Nico protesting and kicking Shay, to no avail.

The rest of Friday was spent doing all sorts of fun activities. Jason wished that the day would never end.

But soon enough, he found that everybody was going to bed; the Greeks were sleeping in the Roman versions of their godly parents' cabins.

Jason stayed up by himself, walking away from camp to a hill with a laurel tree. He stared at the horizon.

"Is it possible to be homesick when you're home?" he muttered to himself. The Roman camp was his home, but it felt like he knew the Greek camp better.

He kicked the ground. "SPQR," he said aloud as he traced a finger across the letters burned into his arm. Once they had held so much meaning to him. Now, not so much.

"Senatus Populusque Romanus," somebody said behind him. "The Senate and People of Rome."

Jason whirled around to face Reyna, leaning lightly against the lone laurel tree. She smirked at the surprise on his face. "Somebody's getting rusty—didn't you know I was here?"

In the moonlight, her face appeared bone white, dappled with shadows. It made her look like a ghost.

"Were you spying on me?" he demanded, glad for the darkness as his face burned.

"No. I usually come to this place every night."

"Oh."

They sat in silence.

"What brings you here?" Reyna asked after what seemed like an eternity.

"I needed some time to think."

"Well, you can do that better without me here." She turned to leave.

"Stay."

"What?" She looked at him, blue-green eyes glowing in the darkness.

"Just… please, stay."

"Okay, if you say so…" she continued to stare at his face.

Jason could see the gold flecks in her eyes, shimmering in their depths like fairy dust.

She undid her braid, pulling off the metal ring at the end. Her wavy brown hair, shining silver, flowed halfway down her back like water. She pulled it over her right shoulder, leaving a few strands hanging in her face.

Jason caught his breath. Reyna looked just as beautiful as Piper right now, with none of the Aphrodite-beauty thing to help. Even with the scar under her left eye.

And so, without him thinking about what he was doing, he reached out and took her hand. She smiled at him, a sweet smile that lit up her face.

Reyna Lopez, daughter of Mars.

Beautiful.

That was a sucky ending, but I couldn't come up with anything better… XD.

This chapter's member-of-the-seven is… Annabeth.