Thank you for the reviews, as per usual! I'm glad that you guys enjoyed seeing baby Jason, because I'm planning on incorporating a bunch of memories in this story. I think it'll help to flesh things out. I hope that you enjoy the chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters portrayed below.

What about Angels

III

Some Things Aren't Ours to Give

"I'm driving," Piper said when they reached the hospital parking lot.

Jason didn't argue with her, handed over the keys, and settled into shotgun as Piper adjusted the mirrors and the seat.

"You can choose the music anyways," Piper offered. This was the grandest peace offering she could possibly offer since their fights on the subject had been so seething that they'd had to implicate a driver chooses the music, shotgun shuts up policy.

"I'm okay, thanks," Jason said in the placid and polite tone that brought Piper back to the first few days she'd met him, when he was all but a robot repeating doctrines and rules for which he had no alternative. It was far from the Jason she knew now. Unless he was hiding something and he didn't know what else to do. It made it hard for Piper to get a read off of him.

Piper buckled up and drove them home. Jason didn't make a single reach for the radio, nor did he say a single word. Piper tried not to let the silence squish her like a bug, and she pulled up in their driveway.

"We're ordering Indian for dinner," Piper said. "I'm not cooking."

"Yeah," Jason said. "Yeah, no, me neither. Indian is great."

Piper pulled the keys from the ignition and took a deep breath.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"What is there to say?" Jason asked, looking at Piper with the saddest little smile.

"Not much," Piper said. She couldn't get the image of Reyna in her hospital bed out of her mind. The idea of Reyna weak struck Piper even after all these years of friendship, the idea of Reyna so weak that the damage was irrevocable... "Not… not much."

And even what there was to say, Piper didn't want to put it into words. I'm sorry that your best friend from childhood is dying. I'm sorry that you can't do anything about it- oh wait...

Jason nodded and tilted his head back. He took his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes.

"Hey," Piper said. "That was your sad face, then your tired face, but now you're doing guilty gestures."

"No I'm not," Jason said.

"Don't lie," Piper said. "You can't be guilty about Reyna. You heard Will; they don't know where this comes from, it's… it's a freak coincidence that it's someone we know and love. There's nothing we can do."

Jason was drumming his fingers against his knees. Unlike most demigods (notably Percy), Jason didn't have nervous tics or a constant motion clause. This was real nerves, serious anxiety, actual stress right now.

"You're still thinking about it. About what you could do," Piper said.

"It doesn't matter," Jason said.

"It absolutely matters!" Piper said. "Is that even possible? For you to give Reyna your life?"

"I don't know Pipes," Jason said.

Piper made a mental note about finding out the answer to that before he did. She thought Drew was seeing a son of Hecate- Alabaster something or other... She'd call.

"I didn't know children of Bellona could do that," Piper said.

"I didn't either," Jason said. "Until Reyna did it. It's a well-kept secret, for good reasons."

"That's true," Piper said. "So I'm guessing there's not a lot of people who could answer any questions?"

"I don't know, Pipes," Jason said.

"She was pretty adamant when you brought it up," Piper said. "About not wanting you to interfere, no matter what."

"Piper," Jason snapped. "I just found out my best friend is dying. Whether or not I can do anything about it is a whole other story. I've known Reyna for too long for this to happen without... without... I've always been able to protect her, I've always been able to protect everybody. It's something I have to do. I can't even begin to explain it to you, because I can't even explain it to myself. It just runs too deep. It's a need like breathing. So this is enough on its own, I've got a lot on my mind, please... please, stay out of it. Out of this."

"Okay," Piper said after a second. "But I'm watching you and Seb is watching you and Reyna is watching you. Don't forget it."

"Fine," Jason said before walking out.

Piper stayed in the car and banged her head against the steering wheel a few times before resting her forehead against it and taking deep breaths.

She didn't know if she'd said the right thing. Mostly because she didn't know what to do either.

She would've been upset and distraught enough with Reyna's news, but now she wasn't even sure how to tackle her grief because… well… would she have to tackle it? Piper knew Jason well enough to know that he would die for his friends, die for his home, die for any cause he fought for. She'd seen him risk his life for Frank, Hazel, Percy, Annabeth, herself, or even faceless strangers on multiple occasions- both on the Argo II and in the dangers and adventures since. She knew as soon as he opened his mouth what he wanted to do. Jason was serious about taking a bullet for Reyna, even a medical one.

So what exactly was Piper supposed to do now? Put her emotions on hold, a feat of its own, and wait to find out who she was going to mourn for?

Piper's first instinct was to strap Jason to a chair and lock him up and tell him not to move, not to do anything stupid. She wanted to chain him down to the house and have him latch onto his life and set the world on fire so he wouldn't switch his fate for Reyna's. She wanted him to stay close; she wanted him to stay alive. But that just came to her from years and years of friendship and relationships and of praying during his quests and setting camp next to an infirmary bed when things got bad. She'd give her own life for Jason in a fight without thinking about it. After that, no other sacrifice should seem too big- but it was like her dad liked to say. There were things in this world that were meant for us, and there were things that were not ours to have and hold and touch and keep and, ultimately, to give.

Because Piper's second instinct was to empty her pockets and her soul to find a way to save Reyna. Medical, divine- she really didn't care how at this point, but there had to be something. Demigods always found a way to scrap up a little something to survive and endure, they were born to live, and so they did. She loved Reyna too.

And she felt guilty and selfish because if she didn't know Jason, if a stranger tapped her shoulder on the subway and said Excuse me Miss, I'd like to swap my life for your friend's so they can have a long and happy life, Piper would have kissed them and pointed them in the direction of Reyna's cold and impersonal hospital room. But now that the random stranger had bright blue eyes and a scar over his lip, Piper's courage shriveled up. She felt guilty and disgusted with herself; so immensely guilty.

But wasn't that a rational feeling? For humans to want to save their friends and family and lovers? If only Piper was more than half human; the bigger picture wouldn't be plaguing her and she could follow the easy and traditional path to that instinct: she didn't want Jason to go. Nearly as much as she didn't want Reyna to die...

She wasn't sure if she wanted that as much as she didn't want to lose Jason. Besides, Jason had so much to live for, more than he even knew... The thought of Piper's life playing out without Jason made Piper panic- but wasn't Seb panicking right now too? Maybe not the same way, but still. Would a phone call at ungodly hours from Seb or the hospital be worst? This entire scenario brought Piper back to when they were kids, to the initial flutter of the rumour mill when she and Jason had started going out, when the Romans would whisper about Piper tearing Reyna and Jason apart as if she was the principia's homewrecker, or that wild lesbian bondage rumour when Reyna and Piper became friends... How was it that Piper was always smack in the center of Jason and Reyna's friendship? Because she cared about both of them so much? If so, that was the real problem. She cared about both of them too much. And the same thing would happen again this time: if Piper said even a single word to influence Jason's decision about this, someone would call her on it. Someone would accuse her of meddling. And maybe, in this case, she would be.

It was both stressful and relieving that this wasn't Piper's decision to make. That was the only decision she managed to make in her flurry of nerves and steering wheel abuse and crying without realising it. She wasn't well-placed to make any calls here; absolutely not. Some things aren't ours to give, Dad had always said. That's what he'd told Jason when he'd asked if he could marry Piper. Poor Jason had only been trying to fit the mortal rules of marriage, and this time Piper would be trying to do what anybody else would: take care of the people they loved. It was hard when you had two of them at stake.

A morbid version of the scenario was playing out now. It wasn't Piper's life at stake here. What if Jason decided to give Reyna her life back, what if he found a way? Would she stop him? If he stayed put like Reyna asked, would Piper agree with him over Reyna's casket? Would she have the right words and the strength to help him live with himself? Just right now, Jason had stormed away locked in his own thoughts- thoughts Piper had no access to.

No, this was out of Piper's hands.

She tried to calm down. She'd been a mess lately. She'd been flustered and irritated and worried for anything and everything, she wasn't thinking right. Maybe she was reacting too strongly to the possibility of loss again, as if she was Pavlov's dog and she knew just by the sound of it how badly it would hurt if she lost another friend... This was rare magic, Reyna had said. Maybe there was a no-return policy, maybe what Jason suggested wasn't even an option. But a part of her, a part of her that always said unpleasant things and was unfortunately frequently right, said that it was. That things were going to get ugly from here on out.

Piper didn't want to know what she'd do, but if one thing was certain, it was that the more she thought about it, the more scrambled this entire thing became. Except for one thing which became clearer and clearer: this entanglement of Jason and Reyna was a spectator sport. Piper could only watch.

When she walked back into the house the first thing she did was throw up.