Hi, I've been working on this chapter for a really long time now. But I have a lame excuse for not being on, besides Christmas. Well, actually a couple lame excuses. One, John Green novels. Two, School. And three, Tumblr. Great right? I need to put my Tumblr URL on my profile. Note to self. Please enjoy the chapter!
-SAVE THE NARGLES
When Reyna fell back into consciousness, she did one thing. She threw up.
Everything was blurry, the sunlight was blinding. How long was she there, hours, days?
She shook the plaster out of her hair, and tried to sit up, but a piece of the wall trapped her legs. Reyna pushed the plaster off of her legs, and shakily got to her feet, and her eyes finally focused.
On the ruins of her house.
Everything came flooding back to her, overwhelming her. The dragon, telling Eli to go and get the backpack, the fatal arrow striking it in a chink of its armor.
She leaned against what was once a wall, clutching her stomach, her head hurting and her ankle in pain. Leo. Eli.
They were gone. Eli must have escaped, but what if she was at the Legion, being trained to hold a sword properly, not living a somewhat normal life, not being the sweet little girl she was. She could be dead, for all she knew. Her little girl, dead. All she knew, she was gone.
And Leo. Who once was just a Greek who blew up the Forum, now the love of her life, her husband, and the father of her daughter. The one person who knew how alone she felt all of those years. Gone.
Such a bitter word, gone. She always knew that, she faced it many times. But now it had a whole new side, it had the same attributes, but it was deeper, filled with much more longing. She was connected to Eli by blood and flesh, and to Leo as lover to lover, ring to ring. And now she could cry.
But not now. Reyna staggered away from the house and by the yard. Yellow police tape surrounded the house, but the cops were guarding the wreckage didn't see her. She knelt on the ground, when she was out of sight. The numbness was fading, and her head hurt, and so did her ankle. Reyna looked down. It was bruised and swollen, and she knew it was broken.
She looked down at what she was wearing. Her old SPQR shirt, grey sweatpants, a lousy sweatshirt, and slip-on shoes, and her wedding band. Acceptable.
Reyna took all the stuff out of her pockets. A lint ball, a couple of dimes, her missing debit card, a crumpled piece of paper and a couple of squares of ambrosia.
The debit card would have at least a couple hundred bucks on it, the lint and dimes are useless, so she unfolded the piece of paper. In Leo's messy handwriting, it said
2960 5th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101
Below that it said, For Emergencies!
Reyna stared at the piece of paper. It was Hylla's address. This was what she needed. This was solid ground.
A little voice in her head was murmuring that she should go and find Leo and Eli. But she needed a plan. And all she needed for her plan was an address and some money.
Since the dragon attacked, she let herself breath. Quickly, her headache came sharply again, so she placed half a square of ambrosia in her mouth, and slowly, she drifted off to sleep...
She held her head high, though she was alone. Her dogs weren't with her even. She wanted the peace after the war to just be peaceful, not hectic with parties. Plus, the parties fended away the nightmares, something she would never do. At least in waking hours.
She strided though the streets alone, towards the Garden of Bacchus. Restless wind whipped though her hair, and her toga hem was covered in dust. She climbed up the hill, and The garden was ghostly in the darkness, but the silence was comforting to her.
Reyna sat down on a bench, and watched the view spread out in front of her, and for once, she let herself take a breath, because everything was safe. Rome will survive, no, thrive, with the Greeks at their side.
But she was still alone.
She brushed her toga off, and stared off into the distance, over the land, past the forum, where the feast was.
"Shoot, shoot, shoot!" She heard though the trees near her left. And Leo Valdez ran out from the trees, tripped and fell right in front of Reyna.
"MY FACE!" He yelled, holding onto his face, which had a measly scratch on it. He was a wimp to be one of the seven.
"Hello, Leo Valdez." Reyna greeted coldly, and she stood up and started to walk away.
"Wait!" She felt him grab his shoulder. "Why aren't you at the feast?"
Reyna glared at him. "Why aren't you at the feast?" Truthfully, she didn't want to be around all the happy couples, and ever afters. Those were the things she would never get.
"I was following you. I wanted to invite you on the Argo II for refreshments, beautiful." He winked. Reyna gagged inside her head.
Reyna wanted to be alone, but she knew he won't stop bothering her unless she said yes, and she didn't want to go on the Argo II.
"I have some paperwork to do, but thank you for the offer." Reyna nodded politely to him and turned away and started down the hill
"You're lying. Why would anyone do paperwork on the night of a feast? Come with me." Leo jutted in front of her, and held out his hand.
Well, she wasn't planning on doing paperwork. But he was a Greek. A Greek who destroyed part of the forum.
But why not?
"Ok." He grinned, then grabbed her wrist and started sprinting down the hill, towards the Argo II, dragging Reyna with him.
They got to the Senate House, where the Argo II was parked in midair, and Leo hopped up of the bottom rung of the ladder. He quickly opened a pocket in his tool belt, and fished out a remote.
"You coming? We're going the fun way!" Reyna knew that they probably weren't going to climb up the ladder, but she grabbed on to the rung confidently next to Leo.
"Leo is going to take you for a ride." Then he pressed a button on the remote, and the ladder shot up. Reyna clung to the ladder, and it a second, it stopped.
Leo grabbed the edge of the railing and hoisted himself up, and she quickly followed him.
"Tour or a dinner cooked by moi?" He asked, once they were both safely on deck.
"Dinner, please." Reyna answered, feeling her stomach churn with anger.
"Sure." He ran across the deck and down the stairs, till they got to an area of couches and a table.
Reyna sat down in one of the chairs and watched Leo heat up a plate of pasta in the microwave. All she was wondering was why.
"Here you go. Dinner." He placed a plate of pesto pasta in front of her, then sat down in front of her with a plate of pasta for himself.
"Why did you invite me here?" Reyna asked him, while he was stuffing his face with pasta.
"Well, you were not at the feast, so that's just friendly concern, but you were alone, and I was alone, so I thought, we can be alone together! Plus some of the couples are just so sappy, it's gross."
"That is very true, Leo Valdez." Reyna looked up at him, and he was grinning, as if expecting her to grin with him.
Then they heard a voice call Leo's name up on deck. His eyes widened.
"Come on, grab your plate." He grabbed her plate anyway, and ran over to a blank area of the wall, and quickly pressed certain areas of the wall, then the panel slid away. He turned around to look at Reyna.
"Are you coming or what?" Reyna looked back to where the table was, and the sound of footsteps coming towards them, then she ran after Leo into the panel.
Bellona walked down the sidewalk, invisible to the mortal eye, but as she walked past the police officers, they stiffened, knowing her presence was near, even if they didn't know who or what it was. Everyone gets nervous at the sight of war.
She stepped aside, leaving the officers in peace, and walked though the door, and into the house. She slowly closed her eyes and roamed though the rubbish, feeling the sense of war there. She held out her hand and slowly, what she wanted came to her.
Her daughters knife was in her hand, glowing gold, was in front of her. Bellona smiled, and continued walking. Her daughter would need her knife.
"Reyna will need more than that, Bellona." A voice said behind her.
Bellona grimaced. "She needs her knife to defend herself."
"Yes, but she needs the memories to give herself hope." Venus appeared in front of Bellona. "The hope that Rome would last forever helped her when she fought before. But this isn't about Rome."
Bellona turned around and stared at the wreckage. "It's about her surviving."
"Not just that. It's about her finding Leo and Eli." Venus placed her hand on her shoulder.
She shrugged it off. "Both of them are strong people. The Greek and my granddaughter."
"I know, but sometimes love can defend you in ways a knife can't. She needs to remember how much she loved Leo and Eli if she wants to find them again." Venus waved a piece of paper in front of Bellona's face. Di immortales, she can be annoying sometimes.
Bellona glared at her. "You don't know my daughter."
"Yet I knew this would happen. I talked with her in Charleston, over tea and cookies eleven years ago, and I knew that she would fall for someone unlikely. I told her that, and it would prolong her connection to fate. Fate is never done with the living because it is closely tied to love. Not just love for a spouse, but the other kind of love I stay out of, love for a family."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, look at the gods, both Greek and Roman. We are all related to each other, though blood, so we are a family. Our 'family'," Venus made quotation marks with her fingers. "Is messy, I stay out of it. It doesn't need my help. It's a disaster, that's been in process for millennia, it can never be perfect. Yet it forms out of nothing, love in a family. Look at Percy and Annabeth. If they never got together, they still would love each other as best friends and as partners in crime."
She and Bellona locked eyes, and Venus pressed something in her hand.
"It's the kind of love that holds the Valdez family together." Venus answered, and she faded into a silver mist.
Bellona fingered the pieces of paper in her hand, and she quickly unfolded them. One was a picture of her two daughters, Reyna and Hylla, on Circe's island. The second picture was of Leo and Eli sleeping on the couch. Bellona scowled, but she didn't dare crumple them.
"You did this all for two measly pictures, Venus." Bellona stalked out of the ruins with the knife and the pictures until she came upon her daughter.
She knelt, and touched her face, and Reyna breathed out. Bellona left the dagger and the pictures next to her, and silently gave Reyna her blessing.
"Wishing you luck in your fight." With that, Bellona disappeared.
Jason always loved little kids, so taking care of Eli was a dream come true for him. He barely knew this girl, yet he felt this connection to her, being so young to come here, like he was when he joined the Legion. She is only a bit older than he was when he came here.
But Eli had this...stiffness. She clinged to her spoon, along with Conjito. Piper explained the situation to Jason that night, after Linnaea left. She was tough, more vicious than a lot of the demigods. She acted older than her age, but still seemed like she still had a part of her that was free.
Jason had called in sick for both him and Piper that morning. Jason taught sword fighting to some of the New Rome kids, who were planning on joining the Legion later in life, but were not old enough for the recommendation age range. Piper was an ambassador for the two camps.
He got up and went downstairs. He whipped up some eggs, bacon and pancakes for the three of them, then went upstairs to wake up Eli. He would wake up Piper too, but he didn't want a face full of dagger.
Jason glanced at the picture on top of the microwave. It was a crew picture of all the demigods of the prophecy, plus Nico, Coach Hedge and Reyna.
He and Piper lived together in New Rome, with good jobs, and Piper was five months pregnant with their first child.
Hazel and Frank also lived in New Rome, both just getting out of college, Frank in Military science and Hazel in Painting. Both also learned Greek.
Percy and Annabeth lived in New York with their two children. Annabeth worked for an architect firm, while Percy was a teacher at Goode, where he went to high school.
Gleeson Hedge was the same violent goat. He was in a relationship with Mellie, still worked for Piper's dad, just older.
Nico was still Nico, still traveling, even though Hazel and Percy both begged him to get a job, an apartment, do something. Still, Jason thought that he was less pale than he was before. So, Nico was slightly improved. Still creepy, but less time in the Underworld.
Reyna disappeared, and there was a short search done when she first left, but Jason thought that Reyna was tired of being in the Legion, so she left without a trace. He didn't know where, but even though her disappearance shocked everybody, he knew that wherever she was, she could take care of herself.
Leo, last time Jason talked to him, had a good life in Houston. But Leo was the one person who he was worried the most about.
Jason knew something was up since the quest was over. He sometimes was happy, sometimes he had something on his mind. It went on and off for years. He lived at Camp Half-Blood, and worked on Festus and on the sphere, creating many great inventions and fixing Festus, so he had a complete body again, and a new control disc.
When he was eighteen, he retreated away from everyone, and left Camp Half-Blood, and six months later, he got an I-M saying that he was working at a machine shop in Houston and bought a house, and was living by himself. It's a new chapter, he had said. I'm home again!
But it got worse when he and Piper got married, though Leo was his best man. Jason knew Leo was lonely, though Leo told him that he was financially well and went out once and a while. When he was visiting Camp Half-Blood, he spent most of his time with Festus, and worked on the sphere.
When he was in New Rome, he stayed inside, because both he and Jason knew that Rome hadn't fully forgiven Leo for the destruction of the forum, so Leo was cooped up inside, feeling worse about himself than ever before.
Overtime, Leo generally vanished, not talking or seeing anyone for months at a time. Visits turned to I-Ms, which turned to phone calls, which turned to the occasional short paragraph on a piece of paper sent in a small envelope with a Hermes Express sticker on it.
The last time Jason heard anything from him was when he sent a letter, telling him that Piper was pregnant. He sent a letter back, and they treasured it, Jason remembered exactly what it said.
Hey, congrats, Sparky. Bet you and Beauty Queen will be great parents. Hope you're doing well in New Rome. I'm awesome as always. Tell the others I say hello. Make sure Nico isn't a vampire yet. Congrats once more.
Repair Boy
Leo didn't want to live in the world of the gods anymore. That was clear. Everything that happened lead to this.
Jason felt that he could of been a better friend himself, that he might of stayed if he was. He knew that everyone felt that way, at least, those who were close to him. It stung. It felt like it was his fault. Their fault.
Jason broke his gaze from the picture, and placed the food on the table, and he heard quiet footsteps fro above him, where Eli's room was. Jason left the food and jogged up the stairs, until he got to the closed door. He knocked slightly. No answer.
"Eli..." He said quietly, then he opened the door.
The little girl ran right under him and sprinted down the stairs. Jason stood there for a second, taking in what just happened then followed Eli.
He burst into the living room, and he heard a clicking sound. He followed the clicking sound until he saw her, trying to open the locked door. She got the lock on the knob, but she couldn't reach the top lock. Jason instantly crouched down, and approached Eli slowly. She was still trying to unlock the door.
"Hey..." Jason said quietly. Eli turned around. She held out her spoon out in front of her and shuffled slowly towards her.
"What's wrong?" Jason asked. Eli stared at him clearly confused, but then she slid towards him. She got close, then she leaned next to his ear, as if to tell him a secret.
"You...can't catch me!" Then she whacked him on the head with the spoon and darted away.
Jason sprinted after her into the living room, where she was jumping on the couch, yelling, "YOU CAN'T CATCH ME!"
He went to go and grab her off the couch, but she jumped off and ran into the kitchen and he ran into the couch. Disagreeable is an understatement.
In the end, he chased her around the house for twenty minutes, until he catched her.
"Aw..." Eli sighed when he grabbed her and carried her to the kitchen and set her on the stool.
Jason held her. "Do you want some breakfast? I made pancakes."
"Yay! Pancakes!" Jason set down a plate of pancakes for her. She quickly started eating them.
"So, how are the pancakes?"
"Bueno." Eli dug the fork into the pancakes, and Jason poured her a glass of milk.
"Thank you for the food, Señor." She said mildly, as she finished her pancakes.
"No problem, and call me Jason." He told her.
She nodded. "Mamá says that you should always call an adult properly. Can I call your wife by her name too?"
"Yes, she wouldn't mind. You speak Spanish?" He asked.
Eli nodded. "Mommy and Daddy both speak español. They taught me." Then she got quiet. She looked down, and Jason saw a tear slip from her eyes and onto her plate.
"You miss your parents, don't you?" Jason handed her a napkin, and she dabbed her eyes with it.
"Sí, but they're alive. They have to be." Eli looked up at Jason. "They're brave." At that moment she started bawling her eyes out. Jason picked her up and she sobbed silently into his shirt. He gently sat down on the couch and rubbed her back, knowing how she felt, when he came to Camp Jupiter, without anyone else.
Piper walked in and kissed his cheek, then sat down next to him, until Eli stopped crying.
"I'll take Eli to get some clothes for her today. Linnaea is coming at three so we can sign the paper work. Percy and Annabeth are staying in New Rome next week, they are bringing their kids, Luke and Zoe." Piper whispered, then she touched Eli's shoulder.
"Eli? We need to get some clothes for you, if you are staying here. Do you want to go and buy some clothes in New Rome?"
Eli looked up, then nodded.
"Great! Do you want me to brush your hair and put your ribbon back in?"
Eli got off of Jason's lap and touched her hair. It was a deep brown, almost black, slightly wavy, but long and thick, pulled back in a purple ribbon, and it was really, really tangled.
"Mommy put my hair in the ribbon. She says that morado is a royal color.'" She sniffled, but got up and followed Piper to the bathroom.
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