Hello! Here's a second chapter to go with the memory. SURPRISE! I hope you enjoy it!

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

What About Angels

Chapter VIII

Could You Be Able to Go Back

This time, Jason woke up from the dream with such a start, that he nearly tipped backward in his chair. Still, it wasn't nearly half as violent as his reaction when he noticed the man in the robes standing in the corner of his dining room.

Then Jason recognised the god.

"Lord Somnus," Jason said. "It's… ah… an honour."

"You're lucky about that much," Somnus said pushing the worn traveler's cloak from his shoulders. "I was just about to slice your throat."

The bags under the sleep god's eyes were a frighteningly dark shade of blue which walked a thin line towards purple. The veins on his eyes popped so much that they overpowered the iris and the pupil.

"You were here to murder me?" Jason asked. "But I didn't fall asleep on duty. I was studying! That's hardly fair."

Jason had been a full-time and nearly around-the-clock student since the age of sixteen. Being groomed to be a praetor and a picture-perfect legionnaire had left little to no time for school work when he'd been younger. Jason had learned to count while doing inventory as a child and his grasp of history was centered around the classical world and the early Medieval ages. He'd learned to write to sign papers and write out orders and fill out paperwork and compose declarations and proclamations. The only reason he'd memorised Latin verbs so efficiently was because a man-eating she-wolf was his mentor. Once Paul Blofis had shown Jason how to read English during his stay at Camp Half-Blood, he'd been obsessed with the idea of school no matter how much Leo and Piper complained about it. Especially after Frank had become praetor. Jason had worked his ass off to get his high school diploma and here he was with a bachelor's degree in physics and a few months away from being a certified teacher in the state of New York- all of this while maintaining a full-time job as a bartender and pacifying the tantrums and wishes of a handful of gods. He thought that maybe he deserved a power-nap after all of that, even by Somnus' standards.

Of course, the nightmares were self-induced- that Jason admitted was entirely his fault. He'd gotten a grip of himself for long enough to read through the first Wikipedia entry on dynamaryphagosis syndrome. It made him sick to know what was currently eating away at Reyna. The life expectancy, the pathophysiology (word he had to look up), the limited management solutions… The symptoms were heartbreaking. Nausea, chronic fatigue, weight loss, dizziness spells, narcolepsy, epilepsy, autoimmune issues, sleep problems, amnesia, heart and kidney failure…

"Even so, I'd expect more from you, Jason Grace," Somnus said.

Doesn't everyone? He thought to himself.

"I'm awake now," Jason said. "Do I get to live?"

"I suppose so," Somnus said. "Considering you didn't seem to quite enjoy whatever you were dreaming about either."

Jason held the god's stare.

"You know, I have a twin brother," Somnus said. "I understand that you and your sister haven't been close for long, but try to imagine how complex that bond is."

Jason chose to ignore that and stayed friendly. "Who is he, my Lord?"

"Thanatos," Somnus said.

"Sleep and Death are twins?" Jason asked.

"Yes. You should be happy that I'm the one who visited," Somnus said, "though I imagine you're seeing a whole lot of both of us, Jason Grace."

Jason had more and more trouble staying friendly with the immortal, but he slapped a noncommittal smile on his face. "How may I dignify this visit, Lord Somnus?"

"Oh, I was just here to wake you up," Somnus said. "Try not to dream too much, Jason. Reality is beckoning for your full attention at the moment."

"So I've noticed."

The god smiled cruelly. "Just know that though us gods can impose dreams on demigods, most of them- let they be nightmares, visions, snippets of the future, or regular activity of the inconscient- are what you attract to yourself. Because you need it, because you are curious, because you fear it, because you feel it coming closer…"

"Thank you for the wise words, Lord Somnus," Jason snapped, interrupting the god.

"You are very welcome, Jason Grace," the god said. "I wish you better dreams sooner… or later."

He disappeared and Jason shut all his books and powered off his laptop.

Enough. He'd had enough.

Jason was a fairly patient person and he dealt with gods and their descendants on a regular basis as a direct consequence. But this dream thing was bullshit.

He didn't want and he didn't need a reminder of Leo's death. What was this god thinking? As if Jason needed a reminder. As if Jason didn't remember the day Leo died. As if Jason had forgotten even a single crushing ounce of anguish and regret and guilt about the whole thing. As if Jason couldn't remember every day how close –how close- Leo had been to him literally ten seconds before they died. As if Jason didn't realise how he seemed to always, always, lose his best friend.

Between the two twins, at least Thanatos was honest about the grief he caused.

Jason tried to resist. He'd spent enough time with gods, both Greek and Roman, as pontifex to know that they toyed with mortals with glee until they got bored, and then moved onto demigods when they were really looking for a challenge. Still, he felt like he was going to be sick with guilt. It was horrible how prone he was to feeling things and worrying about things before they even happened. How he was guilty before he'd even harmed anyone. How he was bracing himself for tragedy when Will had given Reyna at least a few more weeks...

Still, he made the Iris-Message to settle his conscience the only way he knew how; by giving himself away.

"Hey," Lou Ellen said a few minutes later, sitting down at her vanity and picking up a hair brush. "My assistant told me I had an Iris Message. Wasn't expecting it to be from you."

"I know, I'm sorry to interrupt, I know you're on tour," Jason said. Behind Lou Ellen's twinkling eyes and dainty figure, he could see posters from past magic shows decorating the walls. Nico had told Jason that she was in Los Angeles at the moment, trying to dazzle the crowd and score a permanent gig there. LA seemed like the perfect city for a child of Hecate, a good place to dissapear and be easily out-weirded. "But I have a question about rare magic."

"My specialty," Lou Ellen said smiling. "Shoot."

"It's about a magical gift called the Bellona Donum," Jason said.

"Ooooh, yes that's a rare one," Lou Ellen said brushing her hair. The sequins on Lou Ellen's blazer shimmered and between that and the way her eyes changed colours, Jason had trouble focusing. "It's a well-kept secret indeed. Understandably, of course. Children of Hecate have a long history of persecution at the hands of mortals- Medieval Europe, Salem, all of that. Children of Bellona had it surprisingly bad. In olden days men didn't want women on the battlefield, you know? Does the name Joan of Arc ring a bell?"

"Of course," Jason said.

"Yeah, she was a daughter of Bellona. What a powerhouse! But, typically, when ladies took place and names way back when it was always witchcraft, lesbian, feminazi, blah blah blah. Same thing now, to be honest. How did you find out about this, anyways? Children of Bellona don't come in large quantities and they're incredibly… Ah, let me guess. Praetor Ramirez-Arellano."

"Reyna, yes," Jason said taking a deep breath. "I had to look in some old Roman files for the name."

He may not have been praetor for a long time, but his account on hadn't been terminated- probably a favour from Reyna and Frank.

"So you know what the Bellona Donum does?" Lou checked.

"It gives the gift of life to a falling soldier," Jason said.

"Boom," Lou Ellen nodded. "That's some cool magic."

"And that's coming from the girl who was born with magic in her eyes," Jason said, reading a poster behind her

Lou Ellen smiled. "Miranda pops out slogans like there's no tomorrow, but she isn't wrong. I'm your girl for all things magic. Anyways, what's your question?"

Jason shuffled uncertainly. He looked behind him, but the house was still empty, of course. Piper was still at work. Jason was alone with his textbooks and his notebooks and his racing thoughts.

The temptation to call Lou had been eating him alive over the last week, he was surprised he'd lasted this long. Piper had been watching her like a hawk, as promised, and he'd been at work nonstop. That was the only way he'd managed to forgive himself for only sneaking in short visits with Reyna here and there, visits during which he wouldn't quite meet her eyes or talk about more than the weather. The weather. The weather of all things. If hell was real, it was talking about the weather with your best friend, or anyone else who knew the crooks and nooks of your soul.

"Is there a way to reverse the process?" Jason asked.

Lou Ellen squinted her eyes and cocked her head. "Details?"

"Is there a way for the… when someone- a daughter of Bellona- gives the Bellona Donum to someone else. Can they take it back?"

Lou Ellen chewed her lip. "Not on their own, no. I don't think so. Because when a demigod uses the Bellona Donum, they're also invoking their mother's name. Bellona herself has to approve of the recipient, you know? It's hard to undo a god's will."

"But you can reject it," Jason asked, thinking of Annabeth's word at her wedding, about Percy refusing immortality. It was a touching speech, a story that Jason had never heard before but that had had the room in tears. Even the gods seemed more touched than resentful. Surely saving Reyna's life was a good enough endeavor for the turnout to look similar.

"True," Lou Ellen said. "So I suppose that according to the rules of transferation… Since it's a divinity based spell with a living terminal station, I think that the receiver would be able to decline it but the provider couldn't reclaim the gift."

"Okay," Jason said trying to puzzle her lingo together. "When you say decline- would it have to be on the spot? Could you be able to go back?"

Lou Ellen cocked her head the other way and tapped the end of her brush to her bright red lips.

"Not on your own," Lou Ellen said finally.

Jason remembered when he'd died. He remembered it vividly.

He remembered waking up and walking through a field of tall grass, which was funny because since he was a baby, Jason had heard Roman soldiers tell each other "See you in the fields" before a battle they may lose, or a War Game they were particularly outnumbered for, or a rough senate meeting.

He'd panicked at first when he'd remembered the scenario he'd left Reyna alone in. Then he remembered thinking I'm dead. I'm dead, dead, dead. The Titans haven't attacked yet, Mount Othrys hasn't even moved yet, and I'm dead. I left everyone up there alone. He'd started looking around for a way to get out of the fields and to the judges. Nobody had told him how to do that, though, but he'd been sure that the crows that landed all around him weren't part of the deal.

"Son of Jupiter," one of the crows spoke. "You left the world young."

"As half-bloods do," Jason had said carefully. The crows circled him. Jason stood tall. This wasn't worse than the wolves, and they'd become his family.

"Would you go back?" Another crow asked.

"Pardon?" Jason asked, stunned.

"Would you go back?" the crow repeated. "To the real world."

He remembered hearing the words faintly. Hearing the rhymes, hearing a spell... But not in a voice he knew, in several voices. Some old, some new. Some English, some Latin.

"I would," Jason said. "I'd go back to her. To my friends. To my men."

"You're fortunate that someone loves you very much," the crow said.

"What are they saying?"

"You'd go back," the crow said, jumping back to its initial question.

"Yes," Jason said. "In a heartbeat. Why?"

Then he heard Reyna's voice clear as day: Don't die on me, your blood is spilled well.

On a whim he'd dived towards the crow and grabbed its talons just as it shed its feathers to burst into flames. The fire caught to the field around Jason and the bird soared up so quickly that Jason got vertigo.

He remembered throwing up once he'd hit the ground again, before realising that he was with Reyna again. A shocked, shit-scared Reyna, that was. But still.

He had zero grasp of magic. Unlike Reyna who'd grown up with C.C. and had had her mother's blessing in her from the day she was born. But he understood how hard and how powerfully Reyna must have said those words -shouted that spell- to get Jason back. He'd lost Leo and he was still dealing with that pain. He couldn't blame Reyna for wanting to spare herself that kind of turmoil, and he hoped that she couldn't blame him for trying to do the same now.

"Lou, this is important," Jason said. "I wouldn't be asking you if I didn't know that you took curiosity and… confidentiality to heart."

"Magic isn't good or bad," Lou Ellen said. "Magic is a tool to test people for those qualities. I'm not in the business of telling others what kind of people they are."

"Okay," Jason said.

"I'm telling you this because children of Hecate have gotten a bad rep for our time with Kronos," Lou Ellen said. "I don't want to be held accountable for you, Jason Grace."

"Understood," Jason said, his heart beat stilling a bit with the disappointment. He couldn't blame Lou, of course. She wasn't dumb, nowhere near that. She knew where Jason was going with this, someway somehow. And if she didn't, then she at least knew how messy it would get.

Lou didn't take her eyes off of Jason. They were lined with intimidating black kohl and various other layers of stage makeup.

"But I think you're waist-deep into something very complicated, and I don't want to pretend to know any better than you do, and I think it's important," Lou Ellen said.

"So important," Jason said.

Lou Ellen squinted. "So eager… Okay, what I can do for you is give you a second terminal. You know, a tool to bounce the Bellona donum back to the original power source..?"

"Okay," Jason said, adrenaline and energy and excitement going through his blood. "How would that work? How would it be used?"

"I don't know," Lou Ellen said. "I haven't built it yet. Every spell is unique, Jason. If I could get any details at all, it could help."

Jason straightened up. He heard the doorknob wobble- Piper was home.

"It's important," Jason said quickly. "It would help me save someone I love, keep a promise I've already broken, and make a wrong right."

"Okay," Lou Ellen said. "That's 'important' in my books. I'll see what I can do."

"I owe you one," Jason said. "I'm not even kidding, whenever you need a favour in New York, call me."

You better collect quickly, he nearly added.