This is how the story went,

I meant someone by accident,

Who blew me away,

Blew me away.

And it was in the darkest of my days,

When you took my sorrow and you took my pain,

Buried them away,

Buried them away.

I wish I could lay down beside you,

When the day is done.

And wake up to your face against the morning sun.

But like everything I've ever known,

You'll disappear one day,

So I'll spend my whole life hiding,

My heart away.

- Adele, Hiding My Heart

I had forgotten what it was like to be without her. Before she'd come, I hadn't missed anything. I'd never felt her presence, never heard her laugh, never tasted her. But now I had and it was distressing being away from her. I constantly reached towards her, only to find her further away. She slipped away from me, like a shadow flitting ahead or behind, never substantive enough to hold.

She grew silent and sullen. Most people would have disagreed with me.

"Relax Jason," Dakota said, exasperatedly, one day. "She's got a lot going on. She's preparing us for war."

But I didn't agree. I felt like she was avoiding me. So one day, I cornered her.

"Afternoon, Praetor." She didn't look up from the row of weapons she was studying, but I saw her bite her lip and the way her shoulders tightened.

"Jason."

I took a deep breath and took the plunge. "You've been avoiding me."

"Have I?" She was deliberately keeping her voice carefully casual. "I hadn't realized."

"Well it certainly feels that way. It feels like I need to make an appointment to see my girlfriend."

That got her attention. Her head snapped up, eyes cold. "What did you call me?"

"My girlfriend." I drawled the word out emphasising it.

Her nostrils flared. "I see," she replied quietly. "I hadn't realized we'd given it a name."

I straightened up and stepped closer to her. I was finally at eye level with her. I made my voice as even as hers. "Then what did you think we were? After all those afternoons together, alone."

She looked away, swallowed and crossed her arms. "Jason, it's not a good time."

"No!" I shouted. "No, you don't get to tell me it's not a good time." She flinched and stepped back. I grabbed her hand, trying to tug her back towards me. "What's going on with you? You haven't been the same since Charleston."

"Please, just leave it alone," she said, in that same quiet voice. "Some things we just can't fight."

"What the hell are you talking about?" She pulled her hand away and started walking away. "Reyna!" I yelled after her, running to catch up.

She turned back to me, her face steel. "You know this would never work," she hissed.

"Why would I know that? That's not something I thought at all."

"Because."

"Because what Reyna?!"

"Because! Because you're you and I'm me!"

"What does that even me."

"Nothing!"

"It means something. What the hell are you talking about?"

"You've got a great life ahead of you and you'll find someone who'll bring so much peace and happiness into it," she said, gesturing and pacing wildly. "And I'm me. Things don't last around me. They just… they always break."

"Reyna." I took her shoulders in my hands, forcing her to standstill. "That's bullshit."

She looked at me, her brown eyes now a tortured black. "You know what I've done," she whispered.

"That's in the past. I also know what you've done since. We made you Praetor for a reason."

She looked at me for a long while, studying. Finally, she took a deep breath, straightened, and pulled my hands from her shoulders. "Thanks you Jason. For everything you've done for me and everything you're still trying to do. But it's just not a good time. I need to focus on getting everyone through this war. I can't have you distracting me." She wouldn't look at me and I knew she was hiding something from me.

"Reyna-"

"That's enough," she snapped. "It's over. Whatever fling we had, it's over." Her voice was cold, final, no room for argument. It felt like a whip.

I flinched and stepped back. Maybe I should have argued more, maybe I should have held onto her, made her tell me what was wrong, what I could do to fix it. But my pride was wounded and I didn't have it in me just then to assuage her guilt. So I let her go.

Reyna was an excellent Praetor. We couldn't have chosen a better leader for this war. She sent scouting missions out often and the information they gathered was invaluable. She used this intel to form strategic plans and organized us into guerrilla battle units. The real battle was still looming but in the meantime Reyna had us try and destabilize the Titans any way we could. It seemed that she and Marissa were an unbeatable team, but then one day that hope was shattered.

Reyna and Marissa were leading a couple of scouts up Mount Orthrys to gather intel on the Titan's new recruits. It was a simple plan – infiltrate the ranks of rogue demigods, mill about, find out what we could about their numbers and their supply routes, then head back to Camp Jupiter. We had a maximum of seventy-two hours.

It started out well enough. We made our way into the enemy encampments easily. Too easily, it turned out. It was an ambush. We had been betrayed – Ilias, son of Morpheus, had allied himself with the Titans and had been playing spy in Camp Jupiter. They knew we were coming and it was the perfect opportunity to take out the Camp's leaders and their 'golden boy'. They hadn't plan to waste this opportunity.

The fight was bloody – so many legionnaires dead. There was just a handful of us left.

"Go!" Reyna turned and yelled at them. She turned to me. "Go! Give them cover and get out of here!"

"I'm not leaving you behind," I said simply. But I whipped up a fog around the others and told them to run. "Get back to camp as quick as you can." Gwen opened her mouth to protest but I cut her off. "We'll meet you back there, don't worry." She hesitated for a moment, then nodded, pressed a kiss to my cheek and ran off. Dakota nodded at me, said, "I'm not kissing you, but do come back," and took off behind her. Once the fog had receded far enough away, I turned to Reyna and Marissa.

Without speaking, we pressed our backs together in a circle. Suddenly I felt a surge of new strength and resilience wash over me and I looked over at Reyna. Her knees were bent in her fighter's stance and her jaw was set. Well if I was going out, then going out fighting beside her wouldn't be the worse way to go.

The monsters closed in. I summoned lightning and bent the winds to my will. Reyna fought like a demon assassin, arcing over and around the monsters. Marissa's spear stuck true each time. But it wasn't enough. Our backs were to the cliff's edge, the ground a million miles away. Marissa looked over to us. Her eyes met mine. She nodded and I understood what she wanted. Without preamble, she pushed me and Reyna off the cliff. I grabbed Reyna and tucked her into my arms, willing the winds to help our fall. But it was hard. Reyna was fighting me.

"No, no, no, no, no, no! LET ME GO!" she screamed. So I did. I let go, and bent the winds around her. When I touched down next to her, she was trying to scramble back up the cliff.

She let go when a terrible, screeching scream reached us.

"NO!" Her fingers clawed at the loose rocks of the cliff face, trying to pull herself up. I grabbed her and held her tight against me. She twisted in my arms, punching me, kicking me, and when that didn't work, biting me. When I still didn't let go of her, she collapsed against me, her body shaking, silent tears soaking into my t-shirt. My own face was wet.

We didn't say anything on our way back but we didn't let go of each other. What had happened had been a rude, shocking, awakening. War was here and it was going to unravel us.

The camp was so quiet. Grief wrapped itself around us, a thick heavy, suffocating blanket. To speak took too much effort, to cry left us hollow.

Emergency elections were held. Surprise! I was praetor. It should have been a great honour. I should have seen it coming. But as I sat on the steps of my new villa, the small box of my things I'd emptied from the barracks sitting next to me, I couldn't help but feel that this was just another thing isolating me from everyone I loved. Now I was a praetor, I wasn't just a legionnaire, everyone would look at me differently. The only person who wouldn't, well, she didn't even look at me anymore, so it wouldn't matter.

I sat on those steps and watched Reyna bustle around in front of the Praetor's steps. She worked harder now than ever. She spoke little, ate quickly, and rushed around doing everything. Making sure we had enough weapons and equipment, making sure the pegasii and horses were groomed and trained, organizing training activities, making new battle plans, and quietly trying to root out more spies. Her mouth seemed permanently set into a tight line, her brows permanently furrowed. Her eyes had dark bruises underneath and her cheeks seemed hollow. But her uniform was perfectly neat, her armour shone, her hair was combed into a sleek braid. She's hiding, I thought tiredly, she's hiding behind all that armour. Good, I thought, viciously. Let no one see her.

I picked up the box and stepped into the villa. It was empty and yet it felt like Marissa was still standing somewhere in here, waiting to jump out at me from any corner. I took my shoes off and walked cautiously deeper into the villa, my socks silent on the floor. I felt like a trespasser, a squatter living in someone else's home.

"It's eerie, isn't it?" Her voice was quiet and yet it felt too loud in this house. I cringed. Putting the box down, I turned around to see her standing in the doorway.

"Welcome to my new home," I said stretching my arms out and trying to grin. The grin felt like torture as if my muscles had forgotten how to smile.

Reyna sighed and stepped into the house. She noticed my shoes at the door and slipped off her own. She walked over to me and glanced down at my box of things. Then she walked around the living room, walking into every corner. "Feels like a ghost is in here, huh?"

I nodded. She came back over to me and took my hand. She led me around the house, into every corner as she'd done before. Finally, she picked up my box and pushed it into my arms. Then she led me into the bedroom. I glanced at the bed and then glanced at Reyna and suddenly I was blushing. She noticed and rolled her eyes.

"Really?"

"I didn't say anything."

"I can tell what you're thinking, it's all over your face Grace."

I shrugged. "Sorry."

I put the box down on top of the dresser and sat down on the bed. She leaned against the dresser and looked down at me. Finally, I stretched my hand out to her, and surprisingly, she stepped towards me. I drew her closer wrapping my arms around her and pressed a kiss to her stomach. Her fingers toyed in my hair and then she was leaning down and I was raising my chin and all of a sudden we were kissing again.

And it was bliss. Hungry and deep and thoughtless. And I was pulling her onto my lap and her fingers were tightening in my hair and she was the only thing that felt real. That felt imminent and the only thing that lay before me. She was the only thing I wanted. My fingers edged under her t-shirt. Her skin was warm and soft. I pressed my hand against her back trying to press her closer to me, not sure where this was going, but wanting to find out.

And then just as suddenly she pulled away, pulling herself to her feet. Her chest was heaving, her lips swollen, her eyes wide with shock and something else. Something like terror? She backed out of the room before I could say anything and I heard the door slam shut as I got, shakily to my feet.

I huffed and flopped down onto the bed, my skin hot and my breath still shallow.