Hello, fellow Jeyna shippers. Did you miss me? Sorry about the hiatus. I'm back now, though.

Sometimes, when he first wakes up, Jason has to remind himself of the person he is. Sometimes the cloud of amnesia that had wrapped around his brain his first days at Camp Half-Blood hovers over his head again. Hera had promised his memories would come back, but also that the process would be slow. His memories mostly came in dreams, trickling in bit by bit, and filling him with a sense of purpose. A reminder of his old life. A life he knows, deep down, that he can never return to.

There are days when he wakes up with a smile on his lips and love flooding through him. This love is replaced by thoughts of Piper, and then a confusion that is almost overwhelming to him. Love and war, Greeks and Romans, beauty and the beast. These things do not go hand in hand. Jason doesn't care what anyone says. Some combinations are deadly. Such as he and this Percy Jackson guy being switched.

Jason knows that he and Piper are a deadly combination as well. Yet secretly, he doesn't care. Maybe he wants to be a part of something deadly and something dangerous, after always sticking to the rules his whole life. Just one small hint of a rebellion to make him feel freer. Not just some puppet on a string that the gods use for their entertainment.

And Piper does make him feel free. She is as careless as the wind, and as innocent as a budding flower. Her smile is the sun and her eyes are the rainbow. She likes to run barefoot when they play tag in the forest and swim in the canoe lake with him as the sun casts sparkling diamonds on the water. When he leans in to kiss her, something within him stirs and a nagging feeling deep in the recesses of his heart, of his soul tell him no.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what part is telling him to not love Piper. It is the fragment of his heart, the shard of his soul that Reyna keeps of him. If Piper is a rose without thorns, then Reyna is a dandelion. She is a dead weed that has burrowed deep in a shaded corner of his heart. This dandelion does not grow. It does not spread it's seeds and fill his heart with undying love for the daughter of war. It simply stays. As a reminder of his Roman origins. A spark of something else. An untouchable dream, an impossible wish that will not be granted.

Jason sometimes wonders if a new praetor has already been elected. Maybe this new praetor was a striking, gentle, and respectable son of Venus. It could be possible that he and Reyna were together. Maybe at this very moment they were in a house that used to be Jason's house, and laying in a bed that used to be his bed. Their bare legs are probably tangled in sheets and her head is most likely resting on the child of love's muscled chest. Their fingers laced together and the early sun gently kissing their faces and causing Reyna's long, obsidian hair to shimmer in the light.

Has this son of Venus placed kisses on her neck and touched the small of her back? Doing what Jason had wanted to do so many times before? Had he kissed her long and slow in the pouring rain like Jason wished he could have? Had he smelled her vanilla scented hair when it tickled his nose as it had Jason's thousands of times when they hugged? Or did he ever see those rare moments when her frightening eyes changed to glistening orbs of dark brown that seemed to smile with amusement? Has he even heard her laugh? He must have. He shouldn't have, though. Love and war are a dangerous combination. These things do not go hand in hand.

(Then again, neither does a son of Jupiter and a daughter of Aphrodite)

When he thinks of these disgusting fantasies, anger burns through him. It is an inferno of rage, blazing through him like a wildfire. It burns so long and so brightly that he begins to fear it will never be extinguished. That he will never be at peace again.

To get himself through it, Jason reminds himself of what he knows is true. He does this by looking back on his dreams. He hadn't seen this imaginary son of Venus. He hasn't even heard Reyna mention him in her dreams. Yes, sometimes, as one dream switches to another, he would see Reyna's sleeping silhouette. Her face was shadowed by the dark of her bedroom. Not once had he seen another figure sleeping beside her. Besides, of course, Aurum and Argentum.

(What he doesn't see are the dark circles under her eyes, and how her lips form his name in her dreams. Nor does he see the tears that have carved their way down her face as she fell asleep).

There will be one night, months from now, that he will wake up with a start. His body will be coated in a thin layer of sweat as cold as ice and tears will prick his eyes like needles. Jason will tremble as he pulls the blanket tighter around him and grit his teeth to keep from screaming. From cursing the gods.

The dream he will have will be of Reyna and Octavian. Where he'll kiss her neck and his tongue will graze her skin. In which Reyna will dig her nails into the wooden table her hands are pinned to. He will scream at Octavian and try to run to Reyna's rescue. There will be an invisible wall in his way that he cannot move. And all Jason will be able to do is watch in horror.

He will slide to the ground and end up with his head in his hands, his body shaking, and tears streaming down his face. Unable to turn away from the sight in front of him, he will be too shocked to move. When he sees Reyna's jaw set defiantly and her eyes filled to the brim with tears, Jason's heart will feel like it's shattering. He will hear a terrible snarling and then awake from the nightmare.

Jason will curl up with his back against the cold marble wall, hiding from the view of the large statue of his father in Greek form. And for the first time since being at Camp, he will feel like a prisoner. It's one of those few times in his life that he'll feel truly, completely helpless.

All he will be able to do is sob. Knowing that there had been nothing he could do to protect Reyna from that horrible snake. She could have easily fought back. Why hadn't she, then?

He will cry so hard and so long that eventually he'll feel like throwing up and have a splitting headache. His skin will be heated to the point he'll believe he's running a fever.

Jason will wish that he could go back to a time- gods it will seem like eternities away- when things were good. A time and a dream where he wove flowers through her hair that were not yet wilted, and their feet splashed in the current of a bright blue river whose waters had not yet boiled with anger or hate or malice and cruelty. Where they once danced in sunlit lands bathed in gold, before the sun had darkened and the lands had turned to ashes and rubble around them.

These times of childhood, of innocence, will be long gone for the both of them. It had been gone for the both of them the moment he'd been placed at the Wolf House, or for Reyna, when the pirates overran Circe's island. From then on, he will realize, they had been turned into puppets. They had been brought up like warriors. Their lives were not easy. It never had been. Their short span of childhood was an unattainable butterfly that had flitted just out of their reach.

Do not cry. You are not alone, little one. Lupa had told him when he was a child. This quote will replay in his mind as he thinks of how lost and isolated and alone he truly feels.

This is not a lie, though. The great silver she-wolf almost always spoke the truth. There were people like him. Demigods like him. Ones that had bcome lost and confused along the road. Ones that had let the darkness in. Like the one son of Hermes who had hosted Kronos.

Do not accept the darkness when you are lost in it. Wait for the sun. Look to the stars. If you find the light again, follow it. It will guide you home. Lupa had also told him. She told him this a day before he left for Camp Jupiter. And he did exactly that. As a child, he had took the saying literally. But now that he's older, he will understand it's real meaning.

Eventually, hours later, Jason will find sleep again. He will rest his head against the wall and close his eyes. As he's drifting off he will hear Reyna's voice, muddled with sleep, in his head.

"Don't leave me alone. Swear."

"Okay, Reyna. I swear... I swear."

His eyes will open fretfully as he will realize all too late he broke his promise. He did leave her alone. He is thousands of miles away. At a camp that was supposedly a safe place, a place he should call home. If he was there he could have saved her.

"I'm sorry. That I broke my promise." Jason will tell the empty cabin. His words will be simple, but he'll mean every syllable. They'll be shaky and thick with emotion but he won't care. He will hope, wish, pray that Reyna will hear his words. One way or another.

(What he doesn't know is that as Reyna's sleeping, she will hear his words. She'll misinterpret them entirely).

To her, she will think he means that he'll never leave her again. That he will return for her.

But his true meaning will be far from her preconceived notion. On the surface, it will seem he's sorry for leaving her. For not saving her. But deep within that first apology will be a second. An apology that in the future he will choose Piper to be with instead of her.