a/n: this is the last chapter. i loved writing this, and thanks to all those who enjoyed reading it! i want to write more personal interactions between the seven + nico + reyna as different fics, so let me know if you have favorites! sidenote: this got a little dark? but i love reyna :)

"rebuild your world, rebuild your empire

but make sure you rebuild your ideals too...

be a force for good, not a force for yourself."

― dan abnett

reyna is used to solitude.

it does not scare her (it used to, back when she was younger, when she was freshly abandoned by her sister and left to fend for herself, when she first started pushing her resentment for that pain down, deep down, down to where it could not hurt her).

when she treks into the woods surrounding camp half-blood, stands alone in the silence of the natural world that does not feel silent at all – instead it feels like a powerful but subdued hum, like pressure just underneath the surface like an underwater volcano waiting to erupt – reyna closes her eyes and obeys the silence, rests unmoving and unfettered.

this solitude is a blessing (this solitude is a curse).

reyna rallies her troops and helps them recover. they are bruised and tired, but they retain a strength that arises only from the thrill of triumph. they mingle with the greeks, whom – for all of her external disapproval, reyna cannot seem to genuinely dislike – and reyna watches. she watches the way they laugh over jokes around campfires, relay their fiercest battle stories, mourn their common dead, and together, heal.

their attempts to regain happiness make her lips quirk upwards with the smallest hint of a smile. the perception, of course, has always been that she is a praetor and a warrior – a vision of strength and cold calculations, and a battle-hardened leader with no room for the weakness that is human emotion – and she is. she is all of that.

but sometimes, when she lies in the makeshift extra tents set up for her, listens to the distant tide and feels the difference of the air in New York (and it is different, somehow, as though here there is a distinct lack of pressure that has been lifted but at the same time has left a pocket, an empty black hole that is sucking in everything around it, including her), reyna breathes in slowly to calm herself from the rush of emotions that wash over her and it comes in the form of a deep, shuddering breath.

that is when reyna determinedly gets out of bed and makes her way silently to the training grounds with a sword, hacks her way through every dummy until there's nothing more than shreds and does not confront all the fucking sorrow that threatens to consume her because they won, gods damn it, they won and she helped them win and she did her job well and she made her predecessors proud and why the hell is that still not enough?

reyna is nothing if not determined.

hylla attends the celebratory feast.

she sits, of course, with the amazons. reyna had seen her in battle, a fierce commander and a mighty leader that their mother would have been proud of. they had interacted, greeted one another briefly and then returned to the battlefield separately, losing sight of one another until now.

reyna herself does not sit for long. she eats quickly before standing and making room for others, and then wanders purposefully through the mess hall, her eyes weary but still performing the constant routine of surveying, scanning, analyzing. she spots hylla glancing at her, occasionally, but she doesn't know what she'd say to her older sister and is glad that she doesn't approach.

you are a coward, reyna thinks to herself. she watches her sister throw an arm around an amazon sister and laugh.

one night, she stands outside the pavilion and listens to the rush of tree branches shifting in the wind.

a voice behind her calls her name, and without a moment to think she is whirling around with practiced grace, has a sword drawn and aimed before the intruder can blink, and it's her sister. they look at each other.

hylla, she says. her voice trembles and she hates herself for it.

hylla sighs, smiles: how are you, sister?

reyna purses her lips and sheathes her sword, but her fingers don't leave its handle. she shrugs and says: alive. more than i can say for so many others.

hylla nods. there's a long beat of silence, and then:

the amazons and i will be leaving soon. to go home.

reyna's voice still trembles even as the rage inside her builds. it's unlike her to speak so openly, but she does: i was your home. i am your home, you swore it to me, swore it all those years ago when we faced death together, hylla and – i was always supposed to be your home, and you've abandoned everything –

i've found my place, hylla cuts her off, sharply. i've found my home, now. and you have too.

there's a pause, and then: we stayed together because we needed to survive, reyna. but you and i were not meant to live and die by each other's sides.

it hurts, but not sharp and stabbing, not a flesh wound; no, this hurts like the scorching burn of too much sunlight, like a hammer shattering glass.

reyna's eyes water until hylla's sad, cold face is blurred. she lets herself hate the family resemblance, and turns back towards the trees. go, then, she says, and here at last her voice is firm. go to your home.

it's embarrassing how much she cares, but then again, what has she done in front of her sister except show weakness?

hylla's footsteps are silent when she leaves, but to reyna they echo like drums of battle.

the next time she's outside the pavilion on her own, she runs into nico. he offers her a half-hearted grin and she returns it with a nod. they sit together quietly under the trees, listen to the rustling of the leaves and watch the stars twinkle faintly. it feels different this time.

i know, he says abruptly. his soft voice breaks the tranquility.

what? reyna asks.

nico nods to her. it's over, and it isn't enough, right? you've done all this good, and there's all these people who care about you – and still. it's not enough.

she stares even as nico returns his gaze to the stars above them. she feels suddenly and uncomfortably vulnerable, as if someone had thrown her into a coliseum with nothing but the clothes on her back. she shifts her gaze from her companion to the stars.

you're right, but what am i supposed to do about it? she admits, quietly. it's unlike her. she's been doing a lot of things unlike herself, lately.

nico half-laughs. if i knew, i wouldn't be sitting here in the dark with you.

they look at each other, and then break into (only slightly hysterical) laughter. it feels good, even though it doesn't make sense.

reyna spends afternoons with piper, hazel and annabeth, and female friendship is unfamiliar but welcome; she walks along the beach with percy, wonders at his strength and feels him wondering at hers, because despite their differences in that way, at least, they are the same; she discusses praetorial duties with frank, helps him embrace his strength; she even cracks jokes with leo, to everyone's surprise (this is another thing unlike herself). she dreads the first time she and jason are alone together, but she steels herself and finds she no longer needs to. he is happy, both with piper and on his own, and he deserves it. they all do.

so does she, reyna's beginning to realize.

the romans return to san francisco.

reyna leaves hylla behind. she leaves jason and percy and annabeth and piper and everything behind. they visit frequently, and she enjoys it, genuinely, lets herself feel real with these demigods who have fought by her side and against her side and embraces it.

but she leaves it behind.

when she returns to new rome, reyna is no longer just a fearsome praetor, a deadly warrior, a rejected girl, a broken little sister.

when she returns to new rome – to her home, and maybe hylla was right about that – reyna finds herself venturing into the sparse woods.

it's silent – really silent. she remembers running through woods with her sister, when they were young. when they were innocent.

but her sister is not here. no one else is.

it's just her, reyna, and this silence – this comfort of knowing the quiet exists but also that it ends: when percy and jason and piper and annabeth and leo and calypso and frank and hazel and nico come barreling through, surprising her, she laughs and feels the solitude lift.

it's a blessing (reyna doesn't really believe in curses anymore).