After the...incident, Alexa found herself in the infirmary. Although, she realized, calling it an infirmary might've been a bit generous. The room only had two cots, each low and uncomfortable, and a set of six chairs all with no sort of cushioning. It was in one of these chairs that Alexa sat. After checking her over and only finding minor burns that were quickly treated, Chiron had told her to sit and calm down while he took care of the rest of the campers who had been at the explosive event.
She knew what he was really doing. He and, she could only assume, Mr. D were discussing her only a few rooms away. She could hear the gently clopping of Chiron's hooves on the floor as he paced, snippets of the conversation floating down the hall into the infirmary. She kept hearing words like "Rare" "Training" and some V word she didn't quite catch.
Alexa looked down at her hands and flexed her fingers. Her anger had been pushed out of her by Chris's calming voice, but she could still feel something. If she had to put it into words she'd say she felt raw. Like the anger had been a burning heat inside her gut and now, without it there, she felt better, but the flesh inside was charred and tender. Reminding her of just how mad she had been, and just how much was still bubbling under the surface.
"Well howdy neighbor!"
Alexa jumped, looking up. There, standing in the doorway was Jazz, her barb wire grin already in place. Unlike Alexa, Jazz looked like she had just been in a fight; Bandaids decorated her face seemingly at random, her left arm was wrapped in a bandage that gave off pungent, sickly sweet smell, and her hair was still singed in a few places.
Alexa felt her whole body stiffen at the sight of her, the embers of her resentment coaxed to life deep in her gut. She resolved herself to just being silent again.
"None of that" Jazz said, walking into the room and wagging her finger slightly. "I put in too much work for you to go back in your shell again. We're either gonna talk or you're gonna try to beat the crap out of me. Hell, both those things might happen. Day's still young and I've got more places that aren't burnt yet!"
Alexa hesitated. Was this how it normally went in school or camp? She hadn't had many friends anywhere near her own age growing up, only Morgan, was this how it normally went? The thought of her sister sent a pang of sadness through her heart. She tried to ignore it, pushed it down until it once again became a dull background ache, and focused on the person in front of her.
"What do you want Jasmine?" She asked quietly.
"I wanted to see how you were feeling, Spitfire." She said, her grin growing all the larger as she sits down opposite Alexa. "That was a bit of a tussle we had, and with everything going on…" She waves with her uninjured hand.
Alexa said nothing, she just glared at her tormentor. Jazz responded with a sigh.
"Still pissed at me, huh?" She grumbles, her smile fading. "Look, kid. I might not be the sharpest sword on the weapon's rack, and I'm definitely not 'in touch with my emotions'" She said, using the air quotes and pulling a slight face. "But I do know something about anger. That's why I went out of my way to help you since you got here. When you put up walls like you did, and you let the emotions rot in your brain, it will eventually completely fuck you up."
She pauses to point at Alexa with her free hand. "From the moment you got out of the satyr's van, I knew you were pushing your feelings down. I knew you were making it worse for yourself. So, I used the best emotional battering ram I had to break down that wall; I gave you a target! I gave you someone you could get so mad at that you can let the pressure out."
Alexa stared at Jazz for a very long time before saying what was on her mind. "That's...so dumb."
"Hey, it's only dumb if it doesn't work! If it works it's inspired!" Jazz said, her grin returning " Only thing I didn't really plan on was the lava. I thought you were just going to throw a bit of a tantrum and that was it...But still. I got what I wanted."
She scoots forward on her chair, leaning forward to look Alexa in the eye. "But now that I have the gate open, it's up to you to decide the next step. If you want to talk, talk, if you want something to beat up, I'll get my armor on and we'll have a little sparring match. But whatever you want to do, you can't just bottle it up again. You gotta let it out or it'll tear you up inside."
Alexa looked down at her hands again, flexing her fingers while she mulled over what Jazz had told her.
"Just think on it a bit, okay Spitfire?" She gave Alexa a pat on the shoulder and started walking towards the door.
"...My mom used to hit me." Later, when looking back on this moment, Alexa wouldn't have been able to tell anyone why she decided to open up to Jazz. The only thing she could really tell anyone was, she had. Jazz's footsteps stopped on the way to the door. Alexa didn't look up but she knew that Jazz had stopped walking, and she was reasonably sure the older girl was watching her closely. Alexa kept her head bowed, and stared at her hands. She had never said that outloud, nor had she ever told anyone what she was about to say.
"Whenever I did something she didn't like...I'd get hit, or worse. Sometimes she'd use a bottle, sometimes her hand. But…" She took a shaky breath. She was aware of wetness falling onto her hands, her fingers trembling, and her vision going a bit blurry, but she pressed on.
"S-sometimes...sometimes she'd lock me in the cupboard under the sink. When I really…" She trailed off, Morgan had been trying for most of her life to get her away from that line of thought. She never deserved it, she knew that, but it was hard to argue with the grip her mother had on her mind. She could still remember the fear, the pain as the woman jerked her arm, the oppressive darkness beneath the sink, the stink of cleaners and the claustrophobia caused by the cramped space.
"M-morgan...my big sister…" It was getting harder now, her throat seemed to want to stop the words from coming. She swallowed several times, tears flowing freely down her cheeks and splashing into her lap. She suddenly became aware of someone next to her on the little cot, a hand gently resting on her shoulder and somehow she found the strength to keep going.
"M-morgan tried to keep me safe. S-s-she said mom was just s-sick. Her br-brain was bad. S-she felt like my daddy l-left her when he shouldn't have and th-that's what made her so mean. S-she'd try to step between me and mom and...and sometimes she'd get hit too because of it."
There was so much more that she wouldn't, couldn't say about her big sister. The way she held her at night when the bruises and scars on her back burned, the way she snuck into the kitchen to slip food into the cabinet where she took her time outs, the way she had taught her to hide when their mom was drinking heavily, the many trips to parks, or the library, or anywhere to get away from the apartment, the two times they'd both packed up and tried to run away, only to be caught and brought back within the week. Her sister had been her everything; her mother, her protector, her teacher, everything that she was now she could thank Morgan for.
"T-the night Uncle Theo found me, w-we accidentally woke mom up. S-she had been drinking. H-her brain was worse when she was drinking. M-mom was mad. More m-mad than I ever heard her." The words were coming out in a flood now, she couldn't have stopped if she wanted to. It was like a dam had sprung a leak in her mouth and all the emotions, the anger, the guilt, the despair everything was just flowing out into the room. Alexa's body started to tremble as she struggled to hold back against the flood "S-she was gonna break down the door s-so Morgan told me...t-told me t-to run. To go down the fire escape. S-she wanted me to run away."
She turned to face Jazz. Tears ran down her face. The daughter of Hephaestus felt a fresh wave of sobs bubbling up through her body.
"A-and I did!" She wailed. "I ran away!" She threw her arms around Jasmine. Dimly, she was aware of one of Jazz's muscled arms wrapped around her shoulders as she sobbed. What Alexa was unaware of was the other hand, quickly waving away a pair of older men. Alexa didn't even hear the soft clop of Chrion's hoof as he backed out of the room.
"I s-should've been there! I s-should've been there to help! M-morgan's gone because of me!" Sobbed the little girl. This statement Jazz couldn't just let go without challenging.
"Hey…" She said gently, more gently than she had ever said much of anything. "Alexa, look at me." She gently nudges Alexa's face upwards, turning those glistening eyes towards her.
"Alexa, you did the right thing. Half-bloods can't do everything, especially before you know what you can do. Had you stayed that witch would've killed or seriously hurt both of you." Jasmine said softly.
"B-but...but I'm a demigod...I coulda...I should've been there for her!" She sniffs. "S-she's dead because I wasn't there!"
"I guess you could see it that way." Jazz conceded. "You could think that she's gone because of you, or you could think that you're alive because of her."
The older girl paused, squeezing Alexa, trying to comfort her. It really wasn't something Jazz had necessarily trained for, being someone's emotional anchor. But she was the daughter of the war god, and any good platoon leader knows that the soldiers in their care need to be fit to serve. She was getting Alexa to that point.
"You know what that tells me about this sister of yours?" Sniffling, Alexa shook her head. "It tells me she was brave, and she loved you very much. She loved you enough to give you the chance to live."
She held Alexa for she didn't even know how long, she waited until the sobbing started to die down before speaking again. "If it makes you feel better...it's not like you won't ever see her again."
Alexa's head snapped up so fast that she ended up head butting Jasmine's chin. "Ow!" Gasped the child of the fire god, rubbing the top of her head. "W-what do you mean?"
Jasmine rubbed her chin. "Well I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty damn sure what your sister did, giving her life to protect someone, that's hero material. Which means that if she's anywhere in the underworld, its Elysium." When Alexa gave her the same blank look, Jazz let out an exasperated sigh and said "The good place."
"O-oh…" Alexa responded.
"So all you have to do is live a really good life and you'll see her again. Be a hero. Just like her."
Almost two hours later, Alexa felt a bit more in control of her emotions. Well enough to actually take a trip with Jasmine down to the cabins.
"You know…" Jazz said slowly. "With the kind of power you're packin', I don't think anyone would argue that you need a certain amount of training to go along with it."
"Yeah, good luck finding someone willing to train someone like me." Alexa grumbled softly. She still looked a little down. At least she was talking now, Jazz mused. They had taken that big step together earlier today, now the rest of the journey would be taken in smaller steps.
"Well, my dear, little Spitfire, it's a good thing I know someone perfect to train ya, and she's not too far away either!" Jazz grinned.
It took a moment or two for Alexa to comprehend just what Jazz was saying. She stopped in the middle of the commons area, between the 12 cabins. "You'd...really do that? Even after I burned you…?"
"Yeah, well, I can't exactly do anything real complicated until my arm's better. So you might be stuck going one on one with a training dummy for a few days before I can actually step in. But you need to learn how to work with what ya got." Jazz gave Alexa a reassuring pat with her good arm and started walking again, steering the younger girl towards Cabin 9; a squat brick building with a tin roof, a series of smoke stacks and a thick metal door.
"That lava stuff is no joke. The sooner you can figure out how it works, the sooner you can use it in a fight. The sooner you can use it in a fight, the more training time you can put in with it. The more training time you put in with it, the more useful it can be in any fight. And the more useful it can be in a fight…"
"The more dead monsters" Alexa supplied helpfully.
"Exactly!" Jazz beamed. "I'll hash out the details with Bond tomorrow, today you got something else to worry about." Jazz stepped up to the large metal door and knocked loudly.
"I do…?" Alexa asked hesitantly. "W-what?"
Jazz's grin sent up an immediate red flag and made Alexa's body stiffen. Before either girl could say or do anything the door to the cabin swung inward. Somewhere just inside the door some brass trumpet belted out a celebratory melody quickly followed by an assault of confetti on the two guests. When Alexa managed to clear the colorful party favors from her eyes, she just managed to make out seven figures, the oldest 14, the youngest 10, all beaming at her beneath a flattened sheet of bronze, with colorful images racing across its smooth surface.
After a moment the images condensed themselves into a message, written in Ancient Greek. It simply said "Welcome Little Sister!"
Alexa felt her breathing hitch, and not just because of the piece of green confetti that had found itself on her tongue. She hadn't considered what being claimed would mean for her, what each cabin represented. She had forgotten that being claimed by her daddy meant that there were others in camp that also had the same dad.
"I think they want to celebrate having a new cabin mate" Jazz said, gently nudging Alexa. "Go on...I'll see ya tomorrow."
Alexa smiled, and brushed a few more strands of confetti out of her hair with a shaking hand. "I'll...see you tomorrow" She agreed before turning and trotting through the door, into the waiting arms of her new family.