You Don't Like Me

It had been four weeks since Jason had been voted Praetor, and Reyna had to admit that he was good at it. Maybe she still saw him as a little too nice for his own good, and she often found herself thinking that he spent too much time talking to the people than protecting them.

But he was good at it.

And they loved him.

So, she bit her tongue and kept quiet.

Jason didn't like this though.

The night he had been sworn in, they had gotten along, showed promise to one day be friends.

But, the next morning, she had clammed up again, and nothing seemed to have changed since they first met.

Nothing could match the defeat in Jason as he came over that morning and she was exactly the same. Jason wasn't sure what he wanted to happen, but he knew that it wasn't this.

Jason had thought that smile meant something. That maybe he was The One, the legendary person that everyone had imaged would come along and change Reyna. That he would be the one to get past those walls and find the girl underneath.

But it hadn't.

Or, if it had, she hadn't showed it.

Reyna wasn't sure what it meant, if it meant anything at all.

But she felt like it did, and she didn't like that.

She was Reyna.

Praetor Reyna.

Strong. Never affected by emotions. Or anything for that matter.

So, getting truly attached to someone was out of the question.

There was something about Jason though. He was so… Jason. He just made you want to laugh and smile and, well, like him. Reyna had always known that everyone loved him, but she had never thought about it or asked why.

Knowing him now, she saw why, and she was beginning to worry that she would one day be like them.

Which is why Reyna was determined not to ever get attached to him, especially not to fall in love with him.

But he was making it so hard!

He tried and tried to get her to like him.

Jason kept his eyes on Reyna, a little intimidated by how she zoned out when she was working on the plans for the newest security system that the City of New Rome had commissioned and left in their capable hands.

She pretended not to notice, keeping her eyes glued to the page, but she couldn't help but peak up at him.

He smiled weakly when he noticed that she looked up, and she tried not to moan.

"What is it, Jason?" Reyna asked as she flipped the page on the possible cameras, trying to decide if it was worth HD or not.

"Nothing," he shook his head, still with that weird smile, and Reyna raised her eyebrows.

Reyna thought Jason was weird, or at least that was what she told her friends and herself.

But she sadly understood most of his odd quirks since she had similar things herself.

Everything but that odd little smile of his when he looked at her like that.

That she was still able to complain about.

"Then you're staring, why?" she forced herself to seem uninterested as she used her Sharpie to mark something in the book she held.

Jason really had to think about it.

He didn't know why he was staring, but he was pretty sure that telling her it would end up in her rolling her eyes and telling him to grow a pair and shut up, which she had said once but Jason had remembered forever.

And he couldn't think of a lie.

"Just seeing what you chose," Jason told her, mentally kicking himself for such a lame excuse.

"I think we should do this one," she told him, pushing a stray hair falling out of her braid behind her ear, and she moved the book towards him, "What do you think?"

Jason wasn't sure what he thought about it.

He was good at this, yes, but no one had ever been able to compare to Reyna.

And he was praying that she would rub off on him.

"Uh, yeah," Jason agreed, pushing the book back to her, and she nodded as she marked the page and put into her bag.

"How are my two favorite Praetors doing?" Gwen walked up to the two, putting her notepad with the other customers orders in her pocket.

She and Reyna had been friends for a long time, and Gwen tried to be a big sister to her since Hylla was with the Amazons.

"We're your only Praetors," Reyna smirked, leaning back into the booth, smiling up at her friend.

"Which is why you're my favorite," Gwen smirked, "And, hey Newbie."

She ruffled Jason's hair, and he laughed.

"Newbie?"

"You're the new one, Reyna's student. Her pupil. Her protégé," Gwen was about to rattle on for new names, but Lewis cut her off.

"Gwen, there are people here who need their food!" he yelled out for Gwen, his voice carrying through the diner of New Rome.

"I'll see you later, okay?" Gwen quickly told Reyna as she hurried back to the kitchen, thinking of the choice words she had for her boss.

Jason began to wish that he could be close to Reyna like Gwen.

To know what made her mad and what made her smile instead of screwing up all the time.

"I'm heading home," Reyna smiled weakly as she pulled her bag over her shoulder, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"I'll walk with you," Jason told her before she could say anything else about it, and she shrugged in agreement.

He knew that he was running out of groceries and that he still had his friend holding a cart full at the grocery store, but he couldn't help it.

It didn't take long for the two of them to weave expertly through the town and towards their two houses.

Jason felt like a rookie every time he was with Reyna. He felt like he was truly being trained by her.

Sometimes he liked it, sometimes he didn't.

He didn't like it now.

He felt like his home was really her town, not his.

"I think I finally figured it out, you know," Jason smiled as he broke the small talk and brought up a real topic.

"Figured what out?" she raised her eyebrows, looking to him.

"You really just don't like me."

Did he seriously just ask that? Reyna began to wonder as she watched him.

She didn't know if she liked him or not, and it was driving her insane, too.

"Okay?" it was supposed to be a statement, but it felt more like a question.

"I mean, I thought it was because you didn't like me because you thought I was a pretty boy," Jason began, "But you just don't like me."

She wanted to tell him that he was being stupid, but she couldn't do it.

"Why do you seem to so happy about that?"

"Because you don't like me, I get to start over again. And I have more to prove to you," Jason smiled weakly.

He knew that he had repeatedly said this to everyone.

That he had something to prove to Reyna so that she could see that he was just as good at all this as she was, but he didn't mean to make it seem impossible.

He really thought that he could do it.

But that it was taking a while longer than he wanted it to…

"Start all over?"

"I don't have to be Mr. Nice Guy with you."

Mr. Nice Guy?

"I can be Jason," he continued.

"Jason isn't Mr. Nice Guy," Reyna'a jaw dropped without her realizing it.

She tried to close her mouth and pretend that she wasn't shocked, but she felt like she was going to pass out from the immediate force of seeing that he actually wasn't that guy that she had always thought he was.

He stared at her, trying not to laugh even though he wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh from the shock or how she had thought he was just that pushover she had always thought he was.

"You think I came this high in ranks from being Mr. Nice Guy?" he raised his eyebrows, and Reyna was shocked to see how he was taking on this secret dark side of his.

Reyna tried not to seem shocked though, like she had always known him to be such.

"Well then why do you keep that around?"

Reyna had gotten rid of her 'Mr. Nice Guy' years ago, and she didn't see much need for one.

"I guess so people will like me."

Jason didn't always like to be the nice guy everyone saw him as, but he wasn't a stone hearted Praetor either.

He was in between, and he wasn't sure how to show that.

Or what would happen if he did…

Juno had often told him that he should stop trying to just have people like him, but he wasn't sure how to do it. Which is why Juno had been so keen on the idea of Reyna working with Lupa.

Actually, that was why she demanded that Lupa not wait to have him as a Praetor but to have him work with Reyna before she retired.

Juno saw the hero in Jason. She saw the man he could become, and she was tired of waiting around for it.

If anyone could give Jason a crash course, it would be Reyna, and that was why Juno picked her above anyone else she could have entered into his life.

"It doesn't matter if people like you. You have a job to do, and, if you do it, you're fine."

"But what if no one likes you and you lose your position to an idiot just because people won't take care of him?" Jason crossed his arms, and Reyna shrugged.

"They'll figure out their mistake quickly and reelect you."

Jason rolled his eyes.

He was serious about being happy that she didn't like him though.

Jason didn't want to have to be the perfect hunk that he was to everyone else.

Sometimes, it felt like so much work to not explode when everything else was falling apart. To smile and make jokes about his job when all he wanted to do was talk about anything else. To go out with his friends when he really wanted to sleep.

And he knew that he would have to spend more time with Reyna than anyone else, being almost joined at the hip.

He didn't want to have to pretend with her, too.

Not that she had ever fallen for it when he tried.

She could tell what he was feeling since she often felt the same way, and she didn't care if he smiled politely or carried on a conversation in the early morning hours when they were still working together.

All she wanted him to do was pour the coffee and do his job, even if that meant being as crabby as her.

And, even though her disregard for social etiquette also drove him mad sometimes, he had to admit that he found it refreshing.

With Reyna, he felt like he could start over.