Hi! I got geckos yesterday- which has nothing to do with the story, but they are my new babies and they make me happy.

Since I started school and am getting slammed at work, I'm going to have to retreat to just publishing one chapter a week with this story... at least for now... Very sorry, so I hope that you enjoy the chapter even more than I usually do! Thank you for your support as always!

Open letter to the anon who criticised Piper about being pregnant and messing with Jason's life: I've gotten better and better at letting my characters speak for themselves and letting go of reader or spectator perceptions, I'm going to have to disagree with you. Piper may be the one who's pregnant, but Jason is just as responsible in this scenario or any other. Also consider that in this chapter they're married adults, and so having a child isn't exactly out-of-this world for them.

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

What about Angels

Chapter XV

Rules of Death

It was a day like any other for Jason and Reyna. Their cohorts had free time all morning instead of drills, so they wandered down to Camilla's Coffee Haven and picked up two coffees for Raj and Joelle before heading to the principia.

"Sorry kiddos," Raj said. "Today we don't have any work for you. Joelle and I need to do this on our owns."

Reyna peered over his shoulder at what he was doing.

"You're sending letters," Reyna said. "Apologies."

"Not apologies," Joelle said. "Letters to the families of the legionnaires and the priestresses who perished on the Temple Strike."

Jason and Reyna were quiet. The Temple Strike had been the first real sign of a war, if you discarded the lunatics and ominous dreams. Somehow, the Temple of the Vestal Virgins had always seemed too… sacred to attack. Clearly it wasn't so for the Titans, however. Jason still had nightmares.

"But, we don't want to lose a day of work," Raj said. "Now would we?"

It wasn't even subtle anymore, the way that Joelle and Raj were grooming them as a pair. The way they showed them how to file away paperwork in the principia, juggle meetings and inspections and tours in New Rome, wear Roman ceremonial dress, told them stories about the artefacts in the principia, taught them about myths and monsters and quizzed Reyna and Jason while they swept the entire grand room or polished the table… Just yesterday, Joelle had given Jason the keys to the building and told them to lock up once their filing was done while she went to "help Raj get over a hangover" (bullshit, they were making out in her villa). They wanted Jason and Reyna to become praetors after them. And the scary thing was, if they continued to excel on quests and not look like dumbasses in the senate… maybe everyone else would too.

"No," Jason and Reyna both agreed in chorus.

Joelle smiled and took a big book off the shelf and laid it down on the table. She gave Reyna a list.

"Here are some interesting books and the relevant page numbers for today's reading and information," she said like a high school teacher. "Reyna, why don't you flip through this brick while Jason goes and grabs the rest of them? We're right here if you have any questions."

Reyna went through the book and frowned at Joelle once she saw the page.

"This is a map of the Underworld as drawn by… Grigory Rasputin is it?"

"A rogue legionnaire who was eventually put to death in Russia out of all places, but an excellent connoisseur of mythology," Joelle said.

"After any battle, after any attack really, people wonder about death," Raj said putting a hand on Joelle's waist. They never touched in front of other people, but they were more open in the principia. Still, Jason should have registered how unusually protective this was. "It's impossible to answer everything, but here's what we know."

"That's a morbid subject for today," Jason muttered.

"But a relevant one," Joelle said. "And isn't that more important?"

Jason and Reyna set up shop on the other side of the table so that they could talk quietly without Joelle, Raj or their two metal guard dogs hearing. It took about twenty minutes of reading and note-taking in spiral notebooks Raj had given them before they broke down and started whispering at each other.

"This map is ridiculous," Reyna said pointing out various flaws. "The fields of punishment are so close to the edge of the Underworld, to the River Styx where the ferryman docks- the exit. Strategically, no wonder souls like Sisyphus can escape."

"And if the Isles of the Blest are islands, why aren't they in one of the rivers or something?" Jason asked, drawing back to a time when he'd been playing in a stream as a child and Lupa had yanked him out in a panic, telling him that the three sons of Kronos coloured inside their very strict lines only. "Also how does that work if Neptune controls water but it exists in the Underworld?"

"I don't understand what keeps souls from walking out," Reyna said. "Why can they be ghosts in the Underworld, but not ghosts here and who decides who goes where, and how? What if you never get in Charon's barque, what if you never get in line for the judges and just stood there for centuries?"

"And who picks the judges? What makes them such huge experts on death?" Jason asked. "Shouldn't they ask the dead? Shouldn't they ask demigods? Shouldn't they ask doctors and nurses and priests and soldiers and firemen and police officers?"

"None of this makes any sense," Reyna said, frustrated. "I can't even start naming all the ways death makes no sense."

"The entire premise of death is flawed," he agreed with her.

"Careful what you say Jason," Joelle called from the other end. She got up and made her way towards them. "Your uncles don't need any excuses to draw a target on your back. Or shoot the one that's already there."

"You heard everything?" Reyna asked.

"You both got upset," Raj said, perching himself on the corner of the table next to Joelle. His hand went to her waist again, gentle and protective. This time Jason noticed. "And very loud."

"But you're not saying we're wrong," Jason said. "There are plenty of myths about people messing with death. See? All those red post-its in the textbook over there, I was reading the other day and I thought it was crazy. There's the phoenix' tears, the physician's cure, Sisyphus' escapes, immortality in the stars…"

"But we still die," Reyna said. "Despite it all."

"That's because death is an order when it comes, not a suggestion," Joelle said. "When these things work, it's because Pluto has yet to give his directions. If he has, nothing can unbalance him, and nobody can disobey them."

"So we can't break it," Jason said.

Joelle and Raj looked at each other uncomfortably and looked back towards their work.

The two dogs at their feet growled, which was jamais vu. The dogs had never turned on their masters before.

"You're lying to us," Reyna said. "Or you're hiding something, at least."

"It's nothing," Raj said. Aurum growled again and Joelle shushed the dog, wrapping her hand around its muzzle.

"The dogs don't seem to think so," she said. Reyna loved those dogs, she always snuck them extra motor oil and extra biscuits. They were completely gaga over her.

"The dogs can get out and take a long walk to New Rome and back," Raj said sharply. The hounds whimpered and Joelle touched his arm.

"Rajesh," Joelle said. "We've been working them particularly hard lately. Drilling them, teaching them, giving them extra chores, being anal about their uniforms… preparing them… I think we owe them an explanation."

"Jo-" Raj said. Joelle held his glare and that's when Jason and Reyna both knew that she was winning whatever this strange argument was about. Daughters of Psyche had wicked eyes- not only was their mother the goddess of the human soul, but they could probably see yours.

"Joelle is sick," Raj told them. "She's poisoned, more precisely."

"It happened during the Temple Strike," Joelle said. It could have sounded like any other battle story told around the campfire, but Jason's blood chilled right away. "It was the first time a Titan was seen since the gods defeated them. It was impossible to predict, but their military technology is…"

"Outdated," Reyna said. "That's the flaw we exploited to ultimately save the temple."

"It's not outdated," Joelle said. "It's archaic. In some ways, Roman technology trumped the ancient, pre-classical Greek one. True. However, some others… like their poisons… they defy modern medical knowledge. Kind of like how humans designed the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building, but we still don't know how the pyramids were built."

"You can't be dying," Jason said perking up like a deer in the woods who'd heard a branch crack. "Absolutely not!"

"What do you mean, 'absolutely now', Jason?" Raj said. "Are you the one making this call right now? Making this happen?"

"Raj, don't take it out on them," Joelle said turning towards him sharply. She put a hand against the back of her neck and hissed. Raj paled and touched her elbow lightly.

"I'm okay," she said. She looked at Jason and Reyna. "Do you understand now why it's important for you two to understand death? To understand what it means for the legion, what it creates and how its ripples work?"

"Jo," Jason whispered thinking back of trips to New Rome where they'd look at all the shop windows and clap for the street performers when he was small. She'd once bought him a double-chocolate muffin against Lupa's strict commands, handing him the treat and putting a finger to her lips and whispering our secret to him. Jason had never shared anything with anyone, much less a secret.

To all the goodnight stories Joelle had told him because she thought that those were what really made a childhood, and she was the one person who'd ever realised that Jason deserved one too. To all the lullabies she had sung- she'd once looked up a tune that Jason remembered from home just so she could sing him that when he was two years old. Out of all the legionnaires who'd cared about Jason and thought he was cute and entertaining as a child, it was Joelle who had raised him.

"Once I die, the senate will demand for another praetor to be elected," Joelle said. "I'm in touch with a lawyer in New Rome to get my will officialised so that I can name my replacement. That will be Reyna to keep the gender balance, at least for a little while, and buy us some time. Once I die if Octavian gets witty in the senate, which he will, he will point out that the comitia centuriata is the one charged with designating praetors and that there is no legal precedent to a will being used as a democratic tool."

He thought back to all the times Joelle had laughed at his bad jokes, all the times she'd gone over the roman offices with him when he was a confused child who just wanted to follow his hero into all the cool buildings, all the times she'd listened to him recite Latin verb charts and snippets of the Aenied and the Twelve Tablets by heart and then clapped and congratulated and encouraged him, even though she knew all of it like the back of her hand. Not to mention all the scraped knees Joelle had kissed and all the times she'd told him to get back up and to all the manners she'd taught him gently and to the multiple occasions where she'd helped him order at a restaurant...

"Octavian would be right, and he will make sure to boast and bribe and threaten the legion with visions of the war to come to try and get elected. We're hoping that Reyna's recent stunt with the Trojan Sea Monster will make people happy enough to accept her right away, and maybe buy us some time before the senate starts wasting it's time with bureaucracy. Raj will have to claim the right to choose the partner with which he finishes his term to avoid his rise to power."

He remembered the day Joelle had become praetor, when he was nine, and Jason had nearly cried despite his hours of training because he'd been sure he'd never see her again, that he'd lost a big sister. He had a vague idea, a vague itch at the back of his mind and at the top of his chest, about how much that would hurt. Joelle had slid off from the shields she was raised and paraded on with Raj, and had wrapped her hands around Jason's wrists and looked into his eyes to make sure he was paying close attention when she told him she would never ever leave him alone. He wanted to take her hand again right now.

"With a little luck Reyna and Raj will be able to lead us into the next battle- let it be Othrys or anything else- so we never have a fresh duo of praetors. After which he'll step down, so that the two of you can operate together since Jason has all the chances in the world of being elected by popular vote in the comitia centuriata," Joelle said looking from Jason to Reyna to gauge their reactions. Their faces were stone, of course. They were simply listening to their superiors.

Joelle's eyes landed on Jason for a second longer.

"Do you understand, Jason, that I'm not leaving you alone?"

Reyna recognised his moment of weakness and took Jason's hand, squeezing it tightly- quickly three times, long once, quickly three times, long once. In the secret language they'd developed it meant I love you. He signaled back to her, and Reyna shuffled her foot against the floor in circles. It's okay. Jason returned the gesture.

At least someone was holding his hand.

Still, Jason didn't like hell and death like his mythology and his people told it. The idea that hardship and misery were necessary was macabre and it made Jason angry about all the things he had to go through, like maybe he had to jump the hoops in front of him to one day be happy. He thought it was a lie. He and Reyna could have met in kindergarten, where everyone met their first best friend, had the world not been so rough. He saw dreams and happiness stopped mid-way by death itself. He had extremely tense views on how the Greco-Roman conflicts could have been solved ages before the rise of Gaia had the gods been more reconciled within themselves. And when he grew up, he was sure that he and Piper would have found their way to each other anyways, one way or another.

Even back then, Jason would have much rather fought Death. When had letting it do its will done him any good?