BETA | RESURRECTION AND OTHER WAYS TO DEAL WITH BEING ONCE DEAD
Disclaimer: I do not own the Heroes of Olympus series or any of the characters. I only own the character Nerissa Jackson and her original plot lines and dialogue.
THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO NicoleR85, yasminasfeir1, LuckyGo, sofioe, lightwalnut64, NicoleR85, ThatCrazyGreekyRoman AND Cari.
"I hate you."
"No, you don't," Sander Soloman, the demigod son of Somnus, disagreed immediately. Weeks by her side had led the man to realize that despite the amounts of times she said 'I hate you,' she really meant 'don't leave me.' He flicked his sword, disarming her once again. "Forty-three to—"
"I get it!" The young woman snarled in return. She hated this—the constant baby-sitting, the constant inability to actually leave Olympus. It was like she was in the army. Get up at the crack of dawn, have breakfast, training, have lunch, training, dinner, training, and the go to bed.
She was disarmed again and Sander did a small, celebratory dance that included wiggling his eyebrows and flapping his arms around. "Forty-four to—"
"Screw. You!"
Sander's twin blades went flying, impaling themselves in the wall with a force that wasn't from the flick of her blade. Her eyes were flaring with power and her shoulder shook with the effort to hold herself back as her own blade fell from her loose grip. It clattered against the stone floor, a golden glow diminishing from it, as she bit her lip and let out a heavy sigh.
"Hey…" Sander murmured, reaching out for the woman, despite the fact that she turned away from him. He didn't flinch away from her power, knowing it would only scare her as well. "Hey, it's okay. You'll get the hang of this—all of it."
She was lonely and lost, he knew that. Sander had just recently returned from the Underworld, after centuries of being dead, and admittedly, she had been the one to make him feel safe again. She made him feel like he was worth something and he, unknowingly, kept her seeing the world a little brighter.
A huge weight was on her shoulders and she felt like she was being crushed by the sky.
She turned her head to burn a hole into Sander's face with her vivid green eyes. They glowed all the time, bright and acidic, and she blinked slowly, almost owlishly. Sander shifted a bit, uncomfortably, under her gaze. It always felt like she was able to stare into his soul with those eyes but he respected her and her power too much to make a comment.
"Thank you, Sandman."
Sander grinned at his nickname and reached out to grab the girl's hand. She didn't push him away—they both needed the comfort and, despite wishing that they were holding different people, their bond of friendship would alleviate a little bit of that darkness in both of their hearts.
Gently, the Soloman looped her limp fingers around the hilt of her sword. She smiled gratefully but her lips quickly pinched and her brow furrowed again. The woman slipped into a fighting position and, with his quick reflexes, grabbed the swords that flew at his face.
"You're most welcome…Nerissa."
XXXXX
It was on an extremely short break in some dead-end town at nearly ten o'clock at night that Piper McLean first saw him.
Piper had hoped that the outing—and getting away from Annabeth—would help Jason but it was really doing nothing. He kept staring at the notches in the dark wood of the table and she could hear his knee knocking against the underside as his leg bounced. Since Riss' death, Piper had noticed how his had was almost constantly over the pocket which held his coin.
Jason was depressed, there was no other way to describe his current mood. He barely ate, and when he did, he picked at his food. He barely slept and when he did, Jason stayed in Riss' room, wrapped up in the blankets which still smelt like her. He wore Riss' ring too, a chunky, silver thing which changed in size depending on the wearer, on his hand. Jason's fingers often flew to the ring when he was nervous and just spun it aimlessly.
It had shown up the night of Riss' 'funeral,' which had been held after they had rescued Percy and Annabeth from Tartarus. Annabeth had been livid—absolutely terrifying as she screamed and cried and threatened Jason with her new sword. Percy had cried too, devastation written all over his features, but he hadn't tried to run Jason through. He had just held Annabeth close to him, away from Jason after she had punched him in the face, and the pair had disappeared to their now-shared cabin afterwards without another word.
Piper had heard both of them crying for hours, the multiple shared 'I love you' and 'don't leave me' mingling with the sounds of her own tears and the soft whimpers of Leo from next door. She didn't think Jason had cried since Riss had died but she remembered clearly what it had sounded like when he did—like his heart was shattering in his chest and he was trying to expel the sound from his body in the form of tears and sobs.
"Hey, bud…" Leo said softly, ignoring the way his voice cracked, and waved the laminated menu at his friend. "You hungry?"
"I'm fine."
I'm fine had become the biggest lie on the Argo II and it was usually paired with don't worry about me or go away. Everyone on the Argo II were walking on eggshells around each other. Percy and Annabeth refused to speak to Jason, believing that he hadn't tried hard enough to save her. Leo wasn't speaking to Hazel either, he thought she could have prevented Riss' death; she was the daughter of Hades, after all. By extension, Frank wasn't speaking to Piper, Jason or Leo, as he was adamantly loyal to both his girlfriend and Percy.
And poor Piper was stuck in the middle, completely alone because she didn't even have Coach Hedge to keep her company.
The feeling of eyes—his eyes—on her was what made her look up. And then immediately look away after their eyes locked for a few, precious seconds. He was gorgeous—all dark, angular features and he was sitting alone at a table, casually reading a newspaper as he drank a cup of, what looked like, coffee. The daughter of Aphrodite figured that her interests lay more in guys like her kinda-ex-boyfriend—all blonde-haired and blue-eyed like Jason—but he drew her in, like moth to flame.
Piper shot him a smile—one that was laced with a teeny-tiny bit of power from her mom—but he didn't seem frazzled by it. Instead, he just smiled back at her, twitched his fingers in a wave in greeting and looked back to the paper.
Piper tried desperately to hide the tiny grain of hurt at his obvious dismissal and turned her attention back on her two friends—one of which was using a little bit of wind to flick salt granules around and the other who was creating a catapult out of a rubber band and a couple of icy-pole sticks.
She sighed, eyes sad as she gazed at the two boys and tried to fix a smile on her face. "Come on, pick something to eat. My treat."
XXXXX
Admittedly, Sander Soloman didn't stick around Olympus all the time like he was supposed to—or even claimed to.
Nerissa Jackson could look after herself, like she kept telling him, and she wasn't under the impression that the older demigod was always doing what he was supposed to do. Gods, even when he said 'I'm going to be in my room,' Riss knew that he meant 'I'll be anywhere but here. Olympus gives me the creeps.' The Jackson girl knew that Sander was a rebellious spirit, which she figured was probably why he hadn't been gifted immortality like his brother, Morpheus, had been.
Riss nudged her sock-covered toes at the large, stuffed dolphin at the foot of her bed. She remembered when she had got it—a summer trip with her mom and Percy, which had resulted in Percy almost being 'drowned' by an over-excitable dolphin named Bubbles. To tease him, Riss had named the stuffed animal, which she had forced Percy to buy her, after Bubbles. Riss had no idea how Aphrodite had gotten her hands on it. The older goddess had brought a number of Riss' knick-knacks from the Poseidon cabin to 'make the room feel more like home.'
She knew it sounded ungrateful but she hated the large room she was in, with its big bed and massive cupboard. All she wanted was a small box for her clothes, her old, occasionally rickety, bed in her cabin on the Argo II and—
Jason, Riss realised mournfully and her fingers stretched out, searching for the warmth of his body beside her, despite the fact that she knew he wouldn't be there. The thought of him made her throat tighten. She missed him so, so much and she couldn't see his face again or tell him that she loved him until Zeus deemed it 'time'—deemed her able to control her new powers enough without blowing Jason up.
And now, Jason thought Riss was dead, along with all her other friends and her parents, when she was really just locked away in Olympus, under his father's watchful eye.
The burn in the back of her eyes, which she had gotten familiar with, returned and Riss snatched the dolphin to her chest as the tears fell and the force of her heart-broken sobs shook her shoulders.
XXXXX
The Argo II had never felt so lonely.
Riss wasn't laughing or making snappy comments. She wasn't running passed Percy and Annabeth as they hugged, yelling or nieces and nephews. She wasn't almost glued to Jason's side and making him blush.
The Argo II was just…empty.
Percy was feeling a tidal wave of emotions but he couldn't make sense of them. He didn't hate Jason—couldn't, because he knew how much Riss had loved him and how much he still loved her—but he couldn't help but feel that Riss' death had something to do with Jason. Percy just couldn't figure out what. Avoiding Jason was actually hurting Percy a bit too; they had been friends after all and had been connected through Riss.
But his not-hatred for Jason wasn't the confusing thing.
No, it was the feeling that Riss was still alive. He knew that his twin sister was dead—he'd been told by the entire crew, who had recounted how Riss had turned to gold dust and had been blown away—but he also knew how being without Riss felt and it didn't feel like this.
It felt like Riss was still alive—breathing, laughing, fighting—and that his mind was the only thing tricking him into believing she was gone. Percy refused to believe she was dead, especially when he could still feel her to a degree, and he knew that he wouldn't stop until he found out what really happened to Nerissa Jackson.
Jacksons were stubborn that way.
XXXXX
Jason twirled the ring around his finger again. Once clockwise, two times anti-clockwise and repeat.
His mind was so focused on the simplistic task that it startled him when there was a knock at the door. Within a second, he was on his feet, sword out and ready to kill. Jason immediately became more defensive when Annabeth walked in.
"Here to punch me again?"
Annabeth's grey eyes flitted to the still-healing bruise over his eye. He'd refused anything to heal him and no one had offered again when he told them the only thing that could heal him was Riss back. "No…I, uh, came to apologize."
Jason blinked. He didn't know what he had expected but it certainly wasn't Miss I'm-Always-Right to apologize. Especially after she had done something that he had actually hadn't minded—it had given him just a flash of something other than grief to feel for a few seconds.
"Percy told me I should," Annabeth admitted. "But I was going to anyway. I just wasn't ready to yet."
Jason nodded slowly. "I get it. I blame myself for her death too, just so you know."
It was Annabeth's turn to blink now and she met Jason's eyes unflinchingly. There was something broken in those blue orbs and something understanding too. Annabeth had punched him because she had blamed herself—she hadn't been there, hadn't used her intellect to figure out why Riss had seemed so off just minutes before her death—and she had lashed out at Jason because of it. She hadn't realized that there was a lot of self-hatred on the Argo II, not just her own.
"I'm sorry," Annabeth finally said and glanced at her feet before looking up again. Jason was twirling the ring on his finger, one that was stamped with a trident, which glinted at her. "Is that…?"
"Neri's ring?" Jason began to pull it off, "Do you—?"
Annabeth quickly reached out, placing her hand over his. "No! She…she would've wanted you to have it. Besides, I found her Camp Half-Blood necklace." The daughter of Athena pulled out the bead necklace from under her shirt. "Percy got Nauticus after I was able to remove it from her other necklace. Frank got her bow and arrows, Hazel got this old-fashioned brooch that some goddess gave Riss. Uh…I think Piper got Riss' leather jacket, you know, the one she always used to wear. And Leo got…" Annabeth frowned, "I actually don't know what Leo got."
Leo hadn't been the same since Riss' death. He was taking it almost as bad as Percy was—he'd lost his best friend, a sister-figure to him, and was unable to find a way back to the woman he had fallen in love with. Annabeth knew that if Leo told Riss about Calypso, she would make a joke about how unlucky Leo was in love and then immediately try to find a way to get him back to the island. He'd barely left the engine room, save for when he needed food or a bathroom break; the son of Hephaestus was always fiddling with something he refused to let anyone see so they didn't push.
"I'll have to ask," Jason muttered, fingers still fiddling with Riss' ring.
His voice lacked enthusiasm and the Chase girl knew that he would either forget or wouldn't have it in him to ask. Annabeth shifted before she headed for the door, realizing that it was probably best if she left Jason to his own devices.
She paused, her hand on the door handle, when Jason spoke up, "Hey, Annabeth? Thanks."
The blonde girl smiled but bit her lip as she watched Jason lay back down on Riss' bed. He curled up, in something close to the fetal position, Riss' blankets wrapped around him. Annabeth didn't miss the way Jason curled his body, like he was wrapping his tall frame around a slightly smaller body—or at least, around the space the smaller body used to sleep beside him. Pity and sorrow swirled in Annabeth's gaze, a pity she knew Jason wouldn't want and she almost couldn't bring herself to leave him.
Jason Grace needed someone but the person he needed the most was Riss.
"I'll be fine."
Annabeth sighed at Jason's words, knowing that he had seen her hovering by the door. "I know you will be. We all will be. Eventually…"
XXXXX
Aphrodite hummed a song as she headed to check on Riss Jackson—or Pacalis as the Olympians insisted she respond to now—in her new room. The goddess could tell when the newest goddess had fixed a fake smile on her face and said that she loved the room, which had been decorated with so much glitter and pink that it should have been illegal, and wanted to make sure she was okay.
She raised her hand to flamboyantly throw the door open but froze when she heard something from inside the room.
Aphrodite pressed her ear to the door, only to huff and pull away to shove copious amounts of blonde ringlets away so that she could hear properly. When she finally managed, the woman's happy-go-lucky smile fell immediately and she closed her eyes at the sound of Pacalis' sobs reverberating from the room.
"Oh…" She murmured sadly. "Oh, this just won't do." And then Aphrodite vanished in a puff of pink smoke and glitter, headed for the throne room.
XXXXX
Leo let out a slightly enraged huff and slammed his fists down into the table he was working on. "Sorry, Buford."
The table gave a shake, clearly unhappy, but it didn't walk away like it could have. Instead, Buford settled again, willing for it's creator to unleash all his pent-up rage on it—as long as there was no fire.
The Valdez boy placed his head in his hands, feeling the pressure build behind his eyes. Nothing was working; he's inventions were all breaking down, like that Hephaestus curse was finally kicking in, his eyes were always hurting from the lack of sleep he was getting and his dad wasn't answering his prayers for even the tiniest amount of help. But what had he expected from Hephaestus or any god for that matter?
Leo breathed out a long, calming breath before moving the sheet of paper in front of him again. It was draped over ten unopened envelopes—one for each of the demigods of the prophecy, one each for Nico and Rachel and the final two were for Sally Jackson and Poseidon.
"Easy task you gave me, Riss," Leo grumbled but he was smiling, glad that Riss had trusted him enough to hand out the letters when the time was right. The son of Hephaestus turned his attention back to his own letter, letting the words bring him comfort.
To my little Latino elf,
I know that if I ask you something important, you'll tell me the truth. So here goes…does my sword make my butt look big? Okay, joking aside. I have a job for you, Leo, and it can either save the world or end it…Up for it?
Leo grinned at the page as he finished reading the first paragraph of many. "Underworld yes."
XXXXX
I probably won't update for a while, I'm just warning you, because my exams are coming up. I really hope that you like the beginning of this story! Riss won't be a big part of the prophecy until later chapters but let me know what you think about Sander! I really enjoyed writing him already and he will play a large role in Pacific.
I would very much like at least 5 REVIEWS for the next chapter!
Thanks for reading,
~ Raven