Reyna swept inside the Praetors' Villa, and promptly flopped on her bed in exhaustion. Her mind was still teeming with thoughts, though. What on earth could possibly break both of them, together?

"How many times have I told you not to sleep in your armor?"

Reyna was up and in a defensive position before even her dogs moved. "And how many times have I told you not to do that?!"

Jason shrugged. He changed topic, startling Reyna: "You want to know what happened."

A statement, not a question. Jason continued without even waiting for her to nod. "Annabeth was up against Arachne. That's why all of her brothers and sisters died on that quest. She's the only one who survived. She made Arachne weave her own trap, out of the webbing that encased the Athena Parthenos."

Reyna's eyes grew wide. "You mean-"

"The statue is safe on Olympus. We couldn't very well replace the fake with the real one without raising a bunch of questions from the mortals and risk having our society revealed."

Jason paused. "The Athena Parthenos was located right over an entrance to Tartarus. The flooring started to fail, and it almost toppled into the chasm. Annabeth was covered in webs, and none of us thought to cut them off of her. We didn't realize until Nico told us that one of the webs on her was attached to Arachne, who had already long fallen into the pit. We were too busy trying to save the statue. Percy tried to grab onto her, but the weight on her broken ankle was too much, and they went over."

Reyna gasped, though she had been expecting it. It was like someone had knocked the wind out of her, and she couldn't breathe. Jason looked at her sympathetically before continuing.

"Percy managed to grab onto something, but the weight was too much. Annabeth's strength was gone, so Percy couldn't let go of her without her falling into the pit. So he yelled up to Nico, 'The other side! We'll see you there! Promise me, Nico!'. He let go of the wiring, and they both fell."

Jason's eyes seemed to be distant. At the moment, his ears were ringing with the chaos of the cavern, the shouting, the groaning of the floor, and the grunting. But he thought that everyone heard the one sentence that changed the Seven and Nico's lives: "As long as we're together."

" 'As long as we're together,' " Jason repeated. "And you know what Reyna? I heard that sentence. Everyone heard that sentence, and no one even knew it until they were all on the Argo. It had freaking rained cars, and we didn't know that we had heard that sentence, the last sentence before they fell. We all knew about Percy's fatal flaw. And it never occured to us to see why Nico was shouting at the cavern. I could've done something. We all could've done something. But no, I didn't do anything, and I was the closest."

Jason buried his head in his hands. "Why didn't I realize something was wrong other than the cavern was falling down around us, the Athena Parthenos almost fell into Tartarus, and it was raining cars? Why didn't I realize?"

"Lightning McQueen, you look at me, or so help me Jupiter I will kick you into Tartarus!" Reyna demanded, standing up from her bed. Jason looked up. "You didn't realize, because you had chaos around you. It's a miracle that you heard that statement or noticed Nico yelling at all, so stop beating yourself up about it! Gods, don't give me your broken eyes. You are a Roman, Jason. Everyone has a breaking point. I get that. But when you break, you had better patch yourself up or so help me Pluto I will murder you, if not just to get your shattered eyes out of my sight! You didn't look like this when you lost most of your Cohort. You didn't look like this when I almost died. You didn't look this haunted or afraid or broken and shattered during the Titan War!"

Jason looked at her straight in the eye. "That's because there are worse things to see than death."

Reyna slapped him. Jason put a hand to his cheek slowly in astonishment. "What did you just do to me?" Jason demanded.

"You didn't react when I called you the car, you didn't react when I ranted at you, so I had to resort to physical pain!" Jason looked mad. "See! See! There's the fire that I know and love! There's the Jason that you are! I managed to dig you out of your depressed shell, and now I expect you to stay that way, because you aren't Jason if your depressed. Who's the one who pranked Praetor Mark on April Fools' day when he was nine?"

Jason grumbled, but complied: "Me."

"Who's the one who didn't give a crap about my rank and still teased me relentlessly about the bob I had when I first got the Praetorship?" Reyna demanded.

Jason brightened a bit. "Me."

"Who's the one who truly led the storm of Mount Othyrus?"

Jason smiled. "Me."

"Who's the one who turned the opinion of the other Cohorts around?"

He straightened. "Me. But then, when I disappeared, it turned around again, so don't count that one."

Reyna frowned. "Who's the one who's beating himself up over something that couldn't be avoided?"

Jason protested, and Reyna held up a hand. "Did you have a blade?"

"No," Jason said, looking puzzled.

"Were you tired?"

"Uh, yeah, I just got finished fighting two giants!"

"Mm-kay. What did you do when you got back on the ship?"

"Collapse."

"Ok. So, you had no blade to cut the string off Annabeth's ankle, you were falling out of the sky anyways, and you certainly did not have the strength to haul up two people, much less two people and a two-ton spider." Reyna conceeded.

"Yeah,"

"So, there was absolutely nothing you could've done." Reyna laid it out.

"Rey..."

"Don't you dare 'Rey...' me, Grace. First you disappear, then you reappear with a girlfriend, and then I find out you have a Greek sister. Oh, and yes, you've been depressed and emo because you didn't do anything about something that you couldn't do anything about," Reyna snapped at him. "How's your day going?" she added sarcastically.

"Suckish," Jason replied. "I wake up on a school bus, holding hands with a girl I don't know, and I don't even know my own name or age or what on earth I'm even doing there. Then I visit the Zeus cabin and find a picture of a thought long-dead sister who apparently took care of Annabeth when she was seven and then got turned into a tree and then joined the Hunters of Artemis when she reverted back to human form, thanks to Percy, so she's now immortal. Then I land here and have Leo blowing up the place because of a stupid possessing spirit that I'd like to punch in the face. I also land here to see my city in shambles. Then my new boy" he put emphasis on that word, "best friend and his girlfriend falls down the bottomless recycling pit of doom."

Reyna snorted at the wording.

Jason finished his rant: "Oh yes, just fine."

They looked at each other and promptly dissolved into hysterical laughter.