And we approach the end. It's getting closer. Shit gets real. Not going to lie, I'm pretty proud of the end of this chapter. And the whole story's going to be out before HOH comes out, which is good, because it would suck to have this going on at the same time as that. Enjoy... if that's the right word.

Chapter 10

Percy and Hazel were still hanging around the kitchen when Annabeth, Luke, and Thalia returned. With their help, everyone else was rounded up and took their respective spots around the table. Percy even managed to drag the coach away from the game on TV. The eight demigods and one satyr looked expectantly at each other.

Staying quiet was just delaying the inevitable. Might as well get it over with.

"I figured out what's wrong with Jason," Annabeth announced. Everyone but Thalia and Luke seemed to perk up. Piper looked relieved. Annabeth felt sick to her stomach.

"For sure this time?" Percy asked, squeezing her hand.

"Yeah," Annabeth said. "For sure. I'm so sorry guys, but we can't help him."

"Wait, why?" Piper demanded. "What happened? Isn't he going to be okay?"

"No. He's not. It's a long story, and there are still a couple of bits missing, but we'll get to that eventually, okay? Just listen for now.

"Jason has blond hair, and blue eyes right? He's got a scar on the right side of his face, he's about six foot one, and weighs a hundred and eighty pounds. He's got really wide eyes, tans pretty easily in the summer, and when he laughs he kind of sounds like an elephant."

She looked around for confirmation of this. The demigods and satyr all sat there, apparently satisfied with her description.

And so Annabeth explained her conclusion. She told them all the parallels, how Thalia had created Jason and Hera had made him real. She reminded them how Jason only got sick once Thalia realized that Luke was alive. She said she was sorry, but there was nothing to be done.

"That's why he wasn't dead or alive," Nico said in a hollow voice, once Annabeth was done. "He wasn't a real person anymore, he was just half there."

"But I remember him," Hazel said. "He was at Camp Jupiter for years. We're friends. He led the battle against the Titans at Mount Tam. I know he was there."

"You're sure?" Annabeth asked.

"Absolutely." She didn't look it.

"Come on, Hazel, think. Are you completely sure that's what happened? That it was for sure Jason?" Hazel had to be wrong, although Annabeth hoped she wasn't. The whole theory didn't make sense without this vital bit of information. Hera had tampered with everyone's memory. Leo and Piper could still remember their non-existent days with Jason.

"No, it was definitely him," Hazel said. "There must be another explanation."

"I can still remember before Jason appeared on the bus," Leo added. "I mean, it's a bit fuzzy now. If I try really hard I can picture all these situations without him, with just me and Piper, like how it actually was. But I can still remember him being there."

"You sound like you want him gone," Hazel snapped.

"No. I really don't. I just want to know what's going on," Leo said, hurt. Hazel sighed and squeezed her eyes shut tight.

"Oh," she whispered after several seconds of silence. Annabeth was a little surprised to see Hazel's eyes fill with tears as she opened them. "Mike… oh, Mike."

"Mike?" Annabeth asked. Hazel nodded. She was shaking.

"How could I forget about Mike?" she sniffled. "He was in our legion, a son of Mercury. One of his brothers got killed by a Cyclopes, and after that he was always so determined to protect Rome. He – he led the army up Mount Tam to Krios. He was the one to destroyed the throne, and he killed Krios… but he blew up the whole place and didn't get out in time. Gods, how could I forget Mikey? He was my best friend there. There was this time when Octavian… well, he was being Octavian, and Mike stood up for me."

"But Aeoles…" Piper said. "He remembered Jason. He said that he recognized him."

"He remembered Mike, I guess," Annabeth explained. "Hera replaced everyone's memories, and Aeoles's mind is chaotic enough that it would be easy to change a few details. Monsters and nymphs wouldn't be hard either. Did Mike look like Jason?"

"Kind of. But he a little was shorter. And ginger. He didn't have a scar."

"So Hera just took a bunch Mike's memories and stuck them in Jason's head," Luke said. He sounded furious. "That's why he couldn't remember anything at first, he wasn't even close to being finished yet. Have I mentioned how much I hate the gods?"

Annabeth looked around the table, judging everyone's expressions. Reactions ranged from disbelief and grief-stricken to horrified. For once Hedge seemed to be at a loss for words. He just shook his head, and placed a hand over his heart.

"Gonna miss that kid," he said. "Poor little bugger."

"But Thalia can keep him here, can't she?" Piper's voice was higher than usual. Her eyes were red rimmed. "Right? You just have to try."

"No, she can't," Annabeth responded.

"Well if you tell her she can't, obviously it's not going to happen," Piper said, more frantic sounding now.

"Jason was fading even before we knew what was going on," Annabeth muttered. "Now that she's aware, the illusion's completely broken. I'm guessing he's got less than a day before he's gone entirely."

"We just have to try harder," Piper insisted. "Come on, Thalia, he's your brother! You can save him. He's real, you just have to make him real."

Thalia looked from Piper to Luke and shook her head.

"I can't," she said. "I wish he was real, but he's not."

"But you have to," Piper cried, reaching across the table and grabbing Thalia's hand. "Come on, please Thalia. I know we don't get along, but please! Just try, okay? I don't want to lose him, not again. You have to do something!"

"I know," Thalia said, pulling her arm out of Piper's grasp. "But I can't."

"He'll be okay."

"No, Piper, he won't," Annabeth said. "But you can say good bye to him."

"Okay, okay. He'll go to Elysium and I'll find him there eventually. We can get him back, like with Luke."

"He won't go to the Underworld," Annabeth said. "He's not real."

She looked at Nico for confirmation. He nodded.

"But we have to do something!"

"Piper." It was Luke who spoke this time. "We can't. I know you don't want to lose him. I know the feeling. And it sucks. But there's nothing we can do."

Piper glared at him before burying her head in her arms and sobbing, her shoulders heaving. Leo looked at her helplessly. He was crying, too. Luke reached out towards Piper hesitantly. His hand hovered above her back for a second, then her gently patted her shoulder.

Nobody moved at the table for a long time. Hazel, Leo, and Piper continued to cry while Hedge looked uncharacteristically solemn. Annabeth couldn't bring herself to look Percy in the eye; she had already seen the tears welling up. Frank looked worried and concerned, chewing on the sleeve of his sweater, and wiping his eyes with it every now and then.

Annabeth was the first to get up. She couldn't stand looking at what her theory had done. No, what Hera had done, and she had explained. The familiar boiling fury began to rise inside her – the one that she felt when the prophecy kids complained about how hard their lives had been, the one that was there when Thalia had been turned into a tree, when Kronos had taken over Luke, and whenever she saw Hermes. Hera didn't run their lives. She had no right to. And Annabeth was going to make sure that she stopped.

The rest of the afternoon was a bit of a blur. Annabeth cried at least once, she was sure of that. In her bedroom, by herself, curled up in her blankets. She didn't like crying around other people. Annabeth was going to miss him. She'd never been super close with Jason, but they'd been friends. They'd worked together. And the place was going to seem a little empty without him.

At some point (Annabeth wasn't sure when it was) Percy came to her room. He sat down on her bed, while she scribbled down possible plans for what Gaea could be up to. She needed at distraction, and this was perfect. The notes she had made about Jason had been torn out of the notebook and crumpled up, so now only the pages on Gaea remained.

"So I'm thinking Gaea's trying to get an army together," Annabeth said as soon as Percy took his seat. "She's probably hunting down laestrygonians, giants, empousi, whatever monsters she can find. Probably organizing them. I doubt she'd get any of the minor gods or any demigods on her side this time, but I'm sure anyone stuck in Tartarus would be glad to get out, so she might get some Titans, too."

She was babbling, she knew. But Gaea was important, and Percy needed to know these things.

"She's probably trying to find the weakest link in Olympus, someone who she might be able to manipulate and use to infiltrate. She might go for Ares, but he's recently been tricked, so he also might be on red alert. Maybe one of the minor gods who didn't fight with the Titans, or one who wasn't satisfied with the deal they got at the end of the war. There's no way she's given up, or just stopped because the gods have disappeared, and I don't think she's going to go for the Doors of Death again. She might, just so that she can get some old demigods and mortals back, but I don't think it's going to happen. She could probably just open up a hole in Tartarus anyway and let them out. I mean, she is the Earth and everything – "

"I'm going to miss him," Percy interrupted. Annabeth gasped for the breath that she hadn't taken for the past couple of minutes.

"Me too," she said, leaning her head on Percy's shoulder as he wrapped his arm around her. She wanted to keep working on her plans about Gaea, but at the same time she wanted to fall asleep and never wake up.

"How did you even come up with that?" Percy asked after a minute of silence. "I never would have guessed that he was a … whatever he is." He shook his head.

"I don't know," Annabeth sighed. She really didn't. The idea had just popped into her head. "It was a lot of things coming together at once. I mean, they look really similar, but there was also the timing, with Thalia attacking Luke. That's when Jason started getting sick. And then they liked all the same things, and I guess they kind of talk the same way. But all that was just a bunch of unrelated information. It didn't click until Leo said that it felt like him and Luke were already really close after knowing each other for just a couple of days."

"I still can't figure out why the fuck Hera would do something like that."
"Maybe she really is that obsessed with families. And if she wanted to switch two boys, she needed one that the Romans would care about, and the guy who led their army in the war was dead.

"You aren't happy that Luke and Jason are the same person, are you?" Annabeth asked.

"I don't know. I guess not," Percy said. "I mean, Jason always seemed so much more trustworthy than Luke."

"You trusted Luke at first. But just because Jason is Luke, it doesn't mean that they're exactly the same. Their personalities were a bit different."

"Yeah, why is that? Wasn't Thalia trying to recreated Luke or something?"

"Kind of, but it was meant to be a perfected version of him. So anything that got him in trouble – lying, stealing, rebelling – got thrown out and replaced with honesty and obedience, and basically any traits that wouldn't have gotten Luke in so much trouble in the first place. He was supposed to be Luke, but better," Annabeth explained.

"Jason didn't go around hating everything in his line of sight."

"Luke has a special ability to do that."

"How did he take this, anyway?" Percy asked. "I mean, finding out that your best friend's long lost little brother is actually a weird model of you."

"He's really pissed off at the gods, mostly, for actually letting this whole thing happen. You know, the usual. I think he's too weirded out by the whole thing to really react any other way. How's Piper?"

"Awful," Percy responded. "But I guess finding out that your boyfriend is actually a dead guy who you don't even like is a bit of a shock."

He seemed way too calm which Annabeth found strange. Pretending nothing had happened was probably his defense, though. Annabeth had distracted herself. Maybe he was just going with denial.

"You okay?" she said quietly.

"Yeah." Percy looked at her confusedly. "Do I not look okay?"

"No, you look way too calm."

"Oh. I guess. I don't even know what to think. It's just too fucked up." Percy shook his head. "Gods, I'm gonna miss him."

He didn't need to ask how she'd taken the whole thing. It was obvious enough that she wasn't happy. The guilt was all over her face.

"I don't know what to think about anything anymore," Percy continued. "Like, the gods created Jason, and then order us around while they don't even do anything."

"I know. I've honestly given up on them."

"It's like when we were in Rome, and before Bacchus would help us defeat Ephialtes and Otis, we had to prove that we were worthy fighting partners to him. As if I haven't spent the past five years running around doing whatever they wanted, fighting Titans, and never questioning it! I… I guess I kind of understand where Luke was coming from when he said it was time for someone else to take over." Percy looked at her guiltily. "They act like they own the world."

"They kind of do," Annabeth pointed out. "But they let it go to their heads too much. The gods aren't good, but they're the best we've got."

"What?"

"Churchill. You know? 'No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise.' That whole thing."

"Yeah. Pretty much. Life's shitty no matter what," Percy sighed. Normally he wasn't so negative, and neither was Annabeth. Of course, normally they didn't have a dying doppelganger a few doors down. Mix in a depressing prophecy, and it was all just miserable.

The two sat in silence for a while, having nothing else to say. It was a situation so unfathomable, so abrupt and unexpected that no one was quite sure what sort of reaction was appropriate. Annabeth allowed her mind to go blank for a while, until Frank cautiously opened the door a crack and peeked inside.

"Can I come in?" he asked nervously from the other side. He probably didn't want to stumble upon them sleeping together again.

"Yeah." Percy called back. Frank took a step into the room, more serious and sombre than Annabeth had ever seen him look.

"Jason's… not good," Frank said. "He's barely even conscious now. Piper, and Leo, and Hazel were with him, and they're trying to get everyone together. I just saw him and… I – I don't really know how much longer he's going to last. So you should probably come now."

Percy and Annabeth were off the bed before Frank finished talking. They followed him out into the hallway, and down towards Jason's room. Leo, Piper, Luke, Nico, and coach Hedge were already there, crowded around Jason's bed, where he lay, slowly blinking up at the group. Thalia and Hazel arrived soon after Percy and Annabeth.

Sick wasn't the right word to describe how Jason looked. Pale didn't work either. He didn't look ill, or dying, just very, very sleepy. His skin seemed almost translucent, and his hair delicate. His features were blurred, out of focus. They seemed to not exactly, change, but remain in flux. Undetermined. Unfinished. The once blue eyes seemed to be drained of their colour. Annabeth closed her eyes despite the fact that he might only have had moments left. She needed to preserve the healthy, normal version of Jason in her mind forever. His face, the way he walked, his voice and laugh. She could picture it perfectly inside her head, and she never wanted to forget it. Even if Jason was a recreation of Luke, he was still Jason.

Piper leaned on the bed next to him, stroking his hair. With each brush, she looked hesitant. Her hand would hover over his head for second, scared that she would break him somehow. Leo stood right behind her, wiping his eyes every couple of seconds. Not wanting to miss any of this precious time with his best friend.

Annabeth reached out and touched Jason's hand gently, which was lying on top of the covers. It didn't feel like a hand. It felt like smooth, fine silk, like a thin leaf. Delicate, once again. Jason's head rolled to the side, and he looked directly at Piper. She quickly brought her sleeved arm to her face, soaking up the tears.

"Piper?" he breathed. His voice didn't come from his mouth. It came from everywhere within the room. Annabeth couldn't pinpoint the origin of its location. It existed, but had no specific place.

"I'm here, Jason," Piper said, blinking back tears. She tried to say something else, but choked up. Jason's eyes moved slowly to each face. He looked desperately at Annabeth. She didn't look away. She wanted to, but he deserved this much at least.

"We're all here for you, man," Leo said quietly. Jason's eyes swivelled up to focus on him.

"What… happen…" Jason's voice appeared again in synch with the movement of his lips.

"You're just tired, that's all," Luke said suddenly. "You've just got to relax, okay? Deep breaths, and relax. Don't worry, you'll be fine. Everyone's here, and you just need to rest."

Luke had always been one to speak up when others wouldn't, and even now he was the one talking. Comforting another version of himself into death. Maybe he cared because Jason was him. Maybe it was because people he cared about had known Jason. Maybe it was survivor's guilt, or maybe it was just plain guilt.

"Can't … legs… feel," Jason managed. Luke nodded. He had managed to get to the front of the crowd, and knelt next to Piper.

"Yeah, I know. But don't you feel free at the same time? Free of anything binding you down… Just relax. Drift. Don't try anymore, just sleep, Jason. Relax."

Piper sniffed and wiped more tears from her eyes.

"I love you," she whispered. Jason looked at her blankly, his eyes dull and a little glassy looking. Annabeth wondered if she meant it completely, or if she was saying it because she would never see him again and it would be her last chance. Piper held her breath and choked back a sob.

"You see?" Luke said. "We're all here for you, you're fine. Nothing's going to hurt you, just relax. Let go. You're almost free."

Jason tried to say something, but Annabeth could only hear a whisper, too quiet to decipher. She had no idea what it was saying. She felt the air rush into her ears, the sound bounce, and no words form. Empty.

He didn't try to say anything afterwards. Luke muttered a few more words of encouragement.

"It's time to sleep now. You'll feel better once you let it go. Stop trying, and relax."

Piper kept stroking Jason's hair methodically. His chest wasn't even moving at all anymore, and his eyes wandered, rolling vaguely around the room. He was made of dust and light. Dust floating in the air, arranged in the shape of a sixteen-year-old boy.

Annabeth's eyes roamed hungrily over every feature of his being, memorizing it, determined to keep it alive in her mind. He was made of a trick of a light, a reflection, a misled interpretation of the information received by the retina.

Piper's hand brushed a pillow. Luke whispered words to no one. Leo stared at empty sheets. They stood next to an empty bed that had once held Jason Grace, son of Jupiter.