GAMMA | THE DREAMS OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED AND THE WEARY
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, sofioe, DontKillMyMockingjay,Says-the-Slytherin, ArticWolf4123, angelmarie1995, DreamHunterVo, Phoenix, kenziehoseaa, KeepItQueer, Cari, RHatch89, Jezel, Fran, LuckyGo, yasminasfeir1, lightwalnut64, NicoleR85, ThatCrazyGreekyRoman, Guest (1) AND Guest (2). I WAS BLOWN AWAY BY THE SUPPORT FOR THIS STORY, THANK YOU AND I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS CHAPTER!
WARNING: THIS CHAPTER IS EXTREMELY MUSHY. SANDER HAS LIKE NO CHILL AT ALL, I SWEAR. AND I APOLOGIZE FOR BREAKING JASON; IT PHYSICALLY HURTS ME TO HURT FICTIONAL CHARACTERS AND THAT IS IRRATIONAL. I NEED HELP, SEND AN AMBULANCE
Jason woke up in a bed that wasn't his, wrapped in silky sheets and something cold on his hand chilling his bare stomach. He grumbled, rolling over and expected to fall off the bed, as the beds in the cabins on the Argo II were designed for only one person.
But he didn't and Jason found his fingers hitting more bedding, all plush sheets mingled with the scent of the ocean.
He jolted up, sure that he had been kidnapped and his wide eyes took in his new surroundings. The walls were gray, like a stormy sky, with accents of sea green on all the furniture and the sheets were pure white, half-hidden under a deep blue duvet. Jason's brow furrowed and he rubbed his hands over his face, the cold jabbing into his face again as his fingers ran over his cheeks.
"What the—" Jason froze as he finally looked at his hand—specifically, at the silver band around his left ring finger. He pulled it off quickly, searching for anything to let him know what the Underworld was happening. And then he found it and his heart stopped at the single word engraved into the silver.
Together.
Jason jumped up, fear—and hope—seeping into his body and he nearly ran out of the bedroom. He found himself in the kitchen, facing the back of a dark-haired woman as she hummed and fixed herself a coffee. The silk dressing gown brushed against the back of her thighs as she danced around by the coffee maker.
"I must be dreaming," Jason murmured, eyes wide and the woman spun around.
Nerissa Jackson rolled her eyes, a small smile tugging at her lips. "Morning, lazy bones. You know, just because I'm actually in the kitchen for a change, doesn't mean you're dreaming." She slid the cup full of coffee towards him as Jason sat down on one of the stools lining the kitchen counter, "It just means that I felt like making my husband a coffee in the morning."
Jason gaped. He felt completely frozen and now he knew he was dreaming. There was an odd quality to his vision too, like there were ripples in his peripheral vision and Jason shook his head.
"It's…it's impossible that you're here."
"Yep," Riss agreed with a gentle smile. "You said that after you proposed—with a lightning show, of all things—and I didn't run then. But like I've always said: together. So it's not too impossible then. Now, come on, drink your coffee before Percy and Annie come to visit. They want my help with some wedding prep."
The son of Jupiter reached out, catching Riss' hands in his over the counter before she could exit the room to get dressed. He drew her to him, tugging at her hand to make her walk towards him. "I love you."
Riss laughed, her long hair cascading down her back and she walked out from behind the counter. "We love you too." Jason's mouth fell open as he took in Riss' protruding stomach and his hands fell to his wife's stomach in awe. "You always make the same face, like you're shocked every morning."
"I love you," Jason repeated. He tried desperately to remind himself that this was all a dream—that Riss was dead and they weren't older and married and expecting a child. He was only sixteen, Riss, seventeen, but he had wanted this life for them in the future—not perfect but perfect for them. "I'll always love you."
The daughter of Poseidon smiled sadly and she seemed more out-of-focus, more self-aware and sadder than she had been when he had walked into the kitchen. She reached out her left hand to caress Jason's face, her own silver band, along with a small sapphire ring, sliding across his skin. He closed his eyes at the feeling, knowing it would be the last time he would ever feel her touch, and his hands sought her rounded stomach. Jason caressed at his wife's stomach, over their child and his tears wet Riss' palm.
"I know. But you need to wake up." Riss glared at something behind Jason's head and he caught a glimpse of hot pink and bright blonde hair, "And for gods' sakes, stop messing with his head!"
XXXXX
It was clear more than usual that Jason was upset the next morning. He was quieter, more sullen than usual.
Jason didn't think that he would ever have to live without Riss; he also knew that he loved her more than anything and that he would never love anyone as much as he loved Nerissa Jackson. They were both young, yes, but demigods didn't tend to live long enough to have a 'happily ever after' or to even question if their 'ever after' was going to be happy.
Piper had noticed immediately and offered to take everyone out to lunch. Everyone was willing to go, except for Jason, and Percy offered to stay behind with him. The entire crew was worried that Jason would go off to fight a monster when he wasn't in his right mind and get himself killed, so they were all taking turns 'baby-sitting' him.
"What's up, man?" Percy asked from the doorway of Riss' room. Jason was sitting on the edge of the bed, his elbows balanced on his knees and his head in his hands.
Jason glanced up. He seemed to be weighing up telling the twin brother of his dead girlfriend what was troubling him. Finally, he dropped his hands and set his jaw, "I think Aphrodite is messing with me."
"Aphrodite?"
"Or someone," Jason grumbled. "But how many people do you know that wear full hot pink outfits? I had a dream about Nerissa…"
Percy furrowed his brows and sat down beside his friend. "What about Neri?"
Jason let out a laugh, sounding annoyed with himself. "We were married, living together in a small apartment." Percy listened with interest, not saying a word. "Neri kept rushing me to drink my coffee so I could get ready before you and Annabeth came to visit." Jason wet his lips and turned his head to fix his glassy eyes on Percy's sea green ones. "She was pregnant, Percy. It…it was just a dream but I was going to be a dad. No monsters, no gods—just Neri and I, living happily, with a baby on the way."
"And you want that," Percy concluded. Jason nodded slowly and Percy smiled in understanding. He wanted a life with Annabeth like Jason's dream of a life with Riss—university degree, nice apartment, married life and maybe a few kids. "Maybe you can."
"But Neri is dead."
The Jackson boy looked down, "I don't think she is." Jason's head snapped to him, shock written all over his features and Percy kept going. "I don't feel like she's gone and I trust my instincts more than the gods. Did Neri ever tell you how our mom 'died'?"
Jason nodded, "Yeah. She turned into—" Realization flashed over Jason's face, "Gold dust. Neri told Nico that Hades was going to look after her. You don't think…that Hades took her for the gods?"
"She made a deal with Zeus didn't she?"
"Yeah." Jason scrubbed at his eyes and Percy noticed that Jason had moved the ring that Riss used to wear to his left ring finger—where his wedding ring in the dream would have been. "She could be alive."
Percy smiled, "Yep. And now we just need to find out where she is."
XXXXX
Piper figured out that her mother had done something after she sat down in the café and had a long, hard think about Jason over a caramel latte and some weird mixed berry scone that was way too sour to finish. Her brows had remained pinched in annoyance for hours and eventually, Frank had suggested that they all go their separate ways for a while. And despite Leo's insistence to stay with Piper—he had become increasingly protective of his sister-figure since Riss had died—the daughter of Aphrodite had, rather guiltily, used some charmspeak to get the boy to leave.
Piper pulled her knife from the inner pocket of her—formerly Riss'—leather jacket and eyed Katoptris. For a long time, Helen of Troy's blade had only given her vaguely helpful visions but it had failed to predict Riss' death. Piper's hand tightened around the hilt; the knife should have helped save Riss.
"You look about ready to stab someone."
The McLean girl's head snapped up at as the words registered in her mind and she gaped at Coffee Boy. He was smiling serenely at her and slid into the booth, lacing his fingers together.
"You mean you can—"
"See that wicked sharp knife that you're staring into? Yeah, I'm a demigod too." The dark-haired boy—man, really, as he seemed older than Percy, who was almost eighteen—winked at Piper. "I'm Sander Soloman. So, what's on your mind, babe?"
Piper opened her mouth, then closed it, before she realized she was doing a pretty good interpretation of a fish. Maybe she could call Percy to translate for her…And then Piper froze, having picked up on the pet name Sander had just given her and a hot blush flared to life in her cheeks.
XXXXX
A blast of sea air threw open the doors of Aphrodite's chambers and she jumped up from the bed she had been reclining on. The icy, terrifying expression the woman had seen on her uncle's face before frightened her even more as it twisted Riss' pretty features. It was insisted on that Riss wear 'goddess-worthy' clothes and her dress almost caught on her heel as she stormed towards Aphrodite but she didn't let if faze her.
The blonde woman rose her hands in a placating gesture, "Pacalis—"
"My name is Nerissa," Riss snarled, stalking closer to the goddess of love. "Tell me you didn't screw with Jason's mind; tell me you didn't taunt him with what we could have had if I hadn't made that deal! For the love of the gods, Aphrodite, tell me you actually had a heart for once!"
"I was trying to help him through his grief!"
"You were trying to mess with his heart!" Riss' fingers drifted to the new weapon at her hip, the one that represented her perfectly. Before she had become Pacalis, Riss' demigod self and her destiny had rivaled, leaving her with weapons—her sword, Nauticus, and her bow and arrows—that didn't represent her as a person. And now, the long, silver spear with prongs that shot out to make a deadly trident. "Tell me you didn't…"
"I can't tell you that," Aphrodite admitted and Riss jumped forward, her arms outstretched like she was about to strangle the life out of the goddess.
Aphrodite let out a frightened squeak and disappeared in a puff of pink glitter. Riss shook her head and lowered her arms, flapping at the glitter which flew into her eyes.
"Dammit!" She raised her left arm, a collection of silver bangles falling down her arm as she brought a sapphire-imbedded silver cuff closer to her face. "Sander? Sandman, get your ass back up here."
XXXXX
Sander was proud of himself.
Piper McLean hadn't stopped laughing the entire time they had spoken and they hadn't been interrupted once. Leo had been smart enough to steer the rest of the demigods away from the table Piper and Sander were at and the Valdez boy was instead sitting a good distance away, eyeing the man carefully. The others busied themselves with eating and talking, except for Annabeth, who idly spun her knife on the table and allowed herself to mourn and think.
At one point, Leo lit his finger on fire and waved it threateningly at Sander. The Soloman demigod had gulped and awkwardly looked down at the table.
But before long though, Sander was speaking animatedly again, telling Piper all about his latest quest. Of course, his latest quest was millennium ago but Piper had yet to realize that the man talking to her with the pretty eyes and the sharp jawline that could cut glass was almost older than dirt.
"So, who are you the demigod son of?" Piper asked politely. She wasn't sure if that was a question you could just casually ask someone you just met so she asked carefully, allowing Sander to ignore the question.
Thankfully, Sander seemed okay with the question. "Somnus."
"Somnus?" Piper searched her memory for the name before her eyes widened, "The Roman counterpart of Hypnos, father of Morpheus?"
"The one and only," Sander grinned rakishly and moved his fingers over the rim of his coffee cup. He knew that Piper had not had a good past with Roman demigods but they had spoken for a while, so hopefully she'd trust him. "Haven't seen dad in a while. He's been too busy kicking Morph's ass for siding with Kronos."
Piper tried not to smile, "You call the god of dreams 'Morph?'"
"He's my big brother," Sander shrugged. "Why wouldn't I have an embarrassing nickname for him that I use in public? Morph is a god but he's not the god, there's a big difference."
The McLean girl nodded contemplatively. She understood what Sander was saying but she didn't have a sister or brother—not a full sibling anyway—to compare the situation with. And Sander was right in the sense that Morpheus was, although a god, still accountable for trying to kill all the Olympians and deserved to be punished.
"I think if I tried that with some of my siblings, they'd stab me."
Sander nodded in agreement, "Venus—I mean, Aphrodite's—kids aren't all sugar, spice and all things nice. I've had a few run-ins with your siblings in the past."
"Huh. Not as nice as me?" Piper was shocked by the flirtatious edge to her voice and Sander's grin widened.
"Not nearly as pretty too. Hey, Piper—" The Soloman cut himself off, his eyes flashing acid green for a second and he stood up quickly, startling Piper. "Sorry, my patron is calling. It was nice speaking to you, Piper. I hope we can do it again some time."
Piper froze, hand drifting to her dagger at the words, "It depends. Your patron: Hera or…Gaea?"
"Someone cooler and ten times more powerful than Dirt Face," Sander winked. "Better fashion sense too. She says that's she's glad her jacket looks good on you."
The McLean girl gasped, opening her mouth to demand what the Underworld Sander meant. The jacket had only belonged to one person—but Sander was already leaving the diner. Before Piper even stood up, Sander was turning the corner into the alley beside the diner and she saw a flash of dark blue light.
Piper jumped to her feet, breathing heavily, and Leo appeared beside his friend. "Hey, what's up? That guy do something?"
"No…" Piper breathed in reassurance. "Just…something he said."
XXXXX
Percy was not as fragile as Annabeth seemed to think.
Apparently, because he hadn't completely broken apart at Riss' death—yes, it had hit him hard, ten times harder than losing a normal ally—and had continued to function like usual, Annabeth seemed to think that her boyfriend had yet to accept what had happened to his twin sister.
She acted like he was going to break—arriving early in the morning before he woke up to slide into bed with him to hug him close, carefully avoiding all mention of Riss in any conversation that even remotely steered close to the topic of the deceased daughter of Poseidon.
But Percy wasn't fragile and he wasn't breaking to pieces.
Annabeth was still grieving herself and she wasn't allowing herself to the time to really mourn Riss. Instead, it was short moments, here or there, when her mind wasn't completely cluttered with facts and there was a lull in things to distract her. And when Annabeth's gray eyes clouded over, it was Percy's turn to support her.
The son of Poseidon couldn't tell Annabeth what he thought about his sister's death—he had told Jason because he had been just as unwilling to accept Riss' death—but Annabeth had read enough psychology textbooks (in her spare time). She would think herself an expert and would simply put Percy's beliefs to being his way of grieving and try to help him 'realize' that Riss was dead and nothing could change that.
Percy sighed, pressing his fingertips into his eyes, "Gods, why can't life be simple?"
"That's the question," Jason agreed. He was reclined on Riss' bed, arm thrown over his eyes. His stomach rumbled occasionally but he was too exhausted to get up. Percy shot him a look from where he was sitting against the wall.
"You didn't need to agree."
"You didn't need to say it out loud."
The two didn't tend to get along, their egos clashing on so many occasions. It was similar with Zeus and Poseidon—Thalia and Percy had gotten along as often as their fathers had—and it seemed that it worked the same way with sons of Jupiter and Poseidon. But they could get along when they needed to, they'd proven that in battles and, when it came to Riss, the two boys were the best tag-teaming bodyguards there were.
Jason propped himself up, fingers tangling in the sheets—cream and smelling of whatever detergent the probably-named washing machine used—and he vaguely wished for the dream again. He shook his head, quickly clearing his thoughts, "We need a plan."
"Yeah, we do." Percy set his jaw, "But there's not much we can do when we've got no idea what deal Riss made. Or if she's even alive at all."
XXXXX
The gods were useless, selfish and cruel.
Aphrodite had proven to Riss, once again, that the gods only thought of themselves. She hadn't given the dream to Jason to help him through the grieving process. No, she had done it taunt him and break his heart once again. The gods only did things to achieve their own ends, not to help their children protect mortals.
And that was why Riss would never be the perfect little goddess that Zeus wanted as his soldier against the giants. She was too headstrong, still too mortal, to mindlessly follow orders like the good little minor goddess she was supposed to be. That was probably why Zeus was keeping a close eye on her and keeping her locked away in Olympus like some fairytale princess with infernal curiosity or an irrational sense of adventure.
Sander appeared in Riss' room in a flash of blue light and a sea breeze—the Jackson girl's calling card—and dropped down onto her bed with a huff. He still wasn't used to being teleported around when he was called by his patron, especially because he only got a twenty-second warning before he was teleported from wherever he was.
"What's up, sea breeze?" Riss gave Sander a dead look and he pursed his lips, nodding, "Right…I should think of something else. What's up?"
"I'm done," the sea-green-eyed girl announced, waving her hands out. "I'm done being under Zeus' thumb. It's time I do something—and I'm going to help my friends finally be safe. Wanna help?"
Sander smirked, winking at his patron, "You got it. Let's kick some ass."
XXXXX
UNEDITED
I'm so sorry for going MIA! But I hope you like this chapter, it's really mushy at the beginning but I was trying to convey how insensitive the gods are and how they are directly affecting the mental health of just about everyone. Riss should be back with the gang in the next chapter or the chapter after.
PLEASE REVIEW!
~ Raven