The sound of Christmas carols was wearing a hole in the side of Percy's head, and he was hitting a point in the day where he couldn't stop his stray thoughts from bouncing around his brain like billiard balls. He knocked on the door that connected his office to Jason's.
"What?" Jason asked.
"Can they turn it down?" Percy thunked his face into a file folder. "I can't hear myself think."
"At least they waited until the workday was supposedly over to start this racket," Jason said, opening the door. "Here, I think my office is a little more soundproofed than yours."
"I don't think it's more soundproofed, I just think the secretaries and staffers are more afraid of you than me. They don't listen at your door with a glass in case you start military-barking at them." Percy grabbed the pile of papers he'd been working to compile a speech out of and went into Jason's office. "Whose idea was the live music, anyway?"
"The President. I swear, this is what happens when there's no First Lady to keep things in check." Jason shook his head. "Hasn't happened since James freaking Buchanan. Nothing good comes of no proper support to the office."
"You'd better not be saying that a woman's place is to support a man's office. Reyna will have your head for that." Percy frowned. "Besides, what about Grover Cleveland?"
"Got married while in office, he doesn't count." Jason scribbled something on a Post-It and slapped it on a file. "I'm not getting anything done at this point, can't stop hearing Little Drummer Boy. It's like it's little drumming on my left temple."
"Ra pum pum pum pum," Percy agreed. "Besides, I've got an idea I want to run by you. Best not to discuss it where anyone could overhear."
"I know a spot." Jason flashed a grin. "Can you keep a secret?"
"The Cheesecake Factory?" Percy looked at Jason in disbelief. "When I said a place where people wouldn't overhear, you can't possibly have thought I meant this."
"It's my favorite place to take casual, quiet meetings, especially after six o'clock at night." Jason shrugged. "It's loud enough that we're hard to hear unless someone's literally sitting at this table. It's a cheap happy hour that runs long enough that I can catch it between leaving the office and heading home— on the days I leave before midnight, anyway. What's not to like?"
Percy shook his head. "I can't tell if that's genius or insane."
"I like to think of perusing the excessive menu as the most American thing I could possibly do short of joining the army, which I already did, and therefore patriotic," Jason said as he flipped open the admittedly huge menu and signaled their waitress. "A mac n' cheeseburger with fries, a Jack and Coke, and…"
"A dark and stormy for me, please. Well rum is fine. And…" Percy glanced down at the menu and picked the first thing that looked good. " Pizza-style chicken farm, I guess."
"Right, that." Jason discreetly handed the waitress a folded bill. "In case of prying eyes…"
"I'll direct them to the bar, and not anywhere near your table, Mr. Grace. Of course. I'll be right back with your drinks."
"So." Jason rubbed his hands together and looked at Percy. "You had an idea?"
"Yeah. It's going to sound absolutely freaking crazy." Percy ran a hand through his hair. "I talked to the agents who were with us in Rosslyn. You know Zhang?"
"Yes, I put him on Annabeth's detail a little while ago. You talked to him back at the hospital?"
"When she was unconscious." Percy nodded. "They got the guys who fired the bullets. Kids, really— one was only sixteen."
Jason let out a low whistle. "They indoctrinate them early."
"You already know, though, don't you?"
Jason nodded his affirmation.
"Then you also know that they've been working their way up the ranks of the the White Aryan Resistance, which is basically just the KKK by any other name." Percy leaned forward. "The agents— and I guess now the FBI, and us— have their search data, their plans for trying to shoot the President and Reyna, everything."
"I know." A shadow passed over Jason's face. "Perce, does your plan have anything to do with the research that you and Annabeth have been doing about Luke Castellan's last days as a senior staffer before he left?"
Percy shook his head. "No. But for the record, I do think she and I were onto something with that— he was trying astonishingly hard to build a paper trail to make it look like we were the cause of the Yew shooting."
"I figured as much." Their drinks arrived, and Jason took a long sip of his, quietly waiting for their server to walk away before gesturing for Percy to continue. "So if this doesn't have to do with Castellan, and it doesn't have to do with the meetings my sister-in-law has been having with a senator and with the press secretary we're all pretending is still keeping her job…"
"I think Annabeth should sue the White Aryan Resistance." Percy blurted the words out.
"And you want to be on her legal team when she does it." The words weren't a question; Jason looked at Percy appraisingly. "You're going to need additional testimony. Maybe an additional plaintiff."
Percy nodded. "Nico di Angelo."
"The pollster? Bianca's…" Jason sighed. "Of course. Yes, makes sense. Have you already spoken to him about it?"
Percy stared at the condensation on the glass in front of him, considering his words carefully. "No. Frankly, I don't know if he'll do it. He's angry, but… we need to be careful in how we do this, and I think his brand of anger falls more in line with breaking things and not caring where the shrapnel goes than with being patient in a court of law."
"Call him." Jason suggested.
Percy, who had just taken a sip of his drink, spluttered, coughing up ginger beer. "What?"
"Do it." Jason waved a hand at Percy's phone, which was sitting facedown on the table. "Ask if he'll participate in a hypothetical lawsuit, should one be brought against the WAR."
"I…" Percy looked at Jason again, whose face was entirely composed. Not joking, then. "Okay."
He dialed the number and waited for it to ring. Finally, di Angelo picked up. "Who is this, and how do you have my number?"
"Nico. It's Percy Jackson."
"Fucking bastard. Lose my number." Nico growled.
"Better idea. Want to be a part of a really expensive lawsuit that might not happen, might not be a good idea, but will really, really screw with the guys who hurt your sister?" Percy crossed his fingers under the table, entirely unsure of what response he was about to get.
"They didn't hurt her, you moron, they killed her. And she wouldn't have been there if it hadn't been for you." The words were intended as a stab in the gut, and Percy felt each one twisting like a knife.
"I know." Percy let out a long breath. "I could apologize, like I've already done. I could offer to have Secret Service officers come and explain to you how things happened the way they did, like I've already done. But I sort of thought you might like the idea of revenge enough to hear me out."
"Don't need to hear you out. You and Chase are going to do something crazy, or you're doing something crazy on Chase's behalf, and you want to sue them, because you people like to sort things out in pretty little courtrooms and no offense, but neither of you have the balls to assassinate someone." Nico paused. "Even if you did, you wouldn't upend that sort of thing by telling me."
"I'm serious about this." Percy took a sip of his drink, choosing his next words carefully. "I want to see them brought to justice— not just for my friend and coworker, not just for the President and his chief of staff. For your sister, who was hurt more than all the rest of us. She wouldn't have been there if we hadn't asked her to be, but she wouldn't be dead if it hadn't been for the fundamentalist psychos who showed up to a small speaking engagement with guns meant to kill. And I think you know that."
"Fine," Nico spat. "But for the record, you're not really going to want to sue them."
"Why, because they have a hell of a lot of money and they play dirty?" Percy shrugged, even though Nico couldn't see. "We know they're coming, we've got security details coming out of our ears, and our whole staff is made of some of the best lawyers in the country."
"No." A note of curiosity entered Nico's voice. "You really don't know?"
Percy went quiet. "Know what?"
"Talk to your agents again. I did some digging—"
"Reputable digging? What kind of… I don't want to know, do I?"
"I've been told desperate people do desperate things," Nico said, unexpectedly blithely. "But no, you probably don't want to know. There won't be any proof, of course. There never really is. But it wasn't a high-up member of the WAR who gave the order to shoot, and it wasn't just a spontaneous decision, either. It was a directive given from Capitol Hill."
"That's… not possible." Percy's eyes snapped up to meet Jason's.
Jason frowned and mouthed 'what?'
"Dig into the Speaker of the House." Nico chuckled mirthlessly. "You won't believe what you can find out once you start pressing the right buttons. You find out more about that, and I'll join your little suit."
The line went dead.
Jason's burger and Percy's chicken arrived. Percy was speechless, a sudden bout of nausea rising in his chest.
"I take it di Angelo said no?" Jason asked, once the waitress had left again.
"He said a whole lot more than that." Percy took a sip of his drink, the ice-cold rum not doing much to soothe his nerves. "I think… he just said— without much proof, mind you, but he seemed pretty certain— that John Kronos might have tried to have the President assassinated."
Jason worked that thought through his mind for a moment; Percy could see the wheels turning inside his blond, buzzed-cut head. "Think there's any credibility there?"
"I'm not sure," Percy answered honestly. "But if there is…"
"Then it changes things for sure. I'll have our guys look into it, and I'll ask Reyna…" Jason bit back a curse. "I'll have our guys look into it. We'll bother Reyna when it's time. In the meantime, let's eat. This will all feel a whole lot clearer on a full stomach."
Two hours later, nothing about the situation felt clearer to Percy. He was fuller, that was for sure- in addition to their dinners, Jason had also ordered two slices of cheesecake. Percy hadn't realized how hungry he must have been- his plate was now empty, with just streaks of strawberry syrup and stray graham cracker crumbs left littering the white ceramic. At least there weren't Christmas carolers or a live orchestra blockading all of his thoughts inside his brain.
"I've been meaning to ask," Percy ventured. "You and Piper McLean."
Jason's blue eyes widened, defensive. "What about her?"
"You two still together? You used to sing her praises and she used to want to be at the office, but ever since the article and the shooting, she's…" Percy shook his head. "I got to know her pretty well, those days at the hospital waiting on Annabeth to wake up."
Jason pushed one of his few remaining fries around his plate. "I can't blame her for not wanting to be around the office as much. She's been pulling triple duty, covering Annabeth's desk and helping out…"
"She's basically living at Annabeth's, from what I can tell."
"We've been friends for a good little while, now, right?" Jason leaned back in his chair.
"Through some of the worst shit I've seen in my career," Percy agreed. "Why?"
"I'm going to tell you something I haven't told anyone, not even Reyna or Annabeth." Jason stabbed a French fry with his fork, mashing it into the plate. "I was going to propose. Before the shooting, the article, all of it… it's soon, I know, but…"
"But sometimes, it's magic. Like lightning, it hits you and you know." Percy paused. "Wait. You were going to? Not still are?"
"She's leaving," Jason said simply.
"You don't know that for sure," Percy said, not sure he believed himself.
"She hasn't said it yet— at least not to me— but she's more than one foot out the door already. And I know the way to get her back is to say fuck the paperwork and just run away for a weekend, or to stand up in public together and say something, but I just can't. And even if I could, she's a movie star's daughter who refuses to go anywhere near Hollywood. The attention…
Percy thought back to the days directly after his Olympics, the crush of the press on every one of his personal habits and activities. Even his law school graduation had had more cameras present than he'd have liked.
"That's probably fair." He conceded. "But still…"
"And I can't just bring myself to end it," Jason added miserably, as though Percy hadn't said anything. "If I could, it'd be clean. But I can't, I love her. So I'll just keep hanging on until she decides it's time, and then she'll be gone, and I can't do anything about it."
"Maybe she won't," Percy argued. "You never know…"
Jason scoffed. "You're one to talk, anyway. What about you? You were seeing what's-her-name, the girl with red hair who kept getting visitor badges. Haven't seen her in a minute."
"Rachel," Percy filled in. "Yeah, that's… over. Maybe for the better, I don't know. I haven't really been in the headspace for much of anything romantic, and she saw it before I did."
"Too worried about Annabeth?" Jason arched an eyebrow.
Percy rubbed at one eye, suddenly feeling the weight of the last few weeks more heavily than he had in days. "I almost wish I wasn't. Not just her, but the injustice of it— I didn't get into this job to play babysitter to political appointees. I came here to make change. And I'm sitting here pushing papers around my desk while she nearly bled out in a limousine and is still working three times harder than me while she's on bed rest."
"Well, that's Annabeth," Jason pointed out, more gently than Percy felt he deserved.
"Whatever." Percy took a sip of his drink. "I've known her a long time. Since law school, since before she worked here. She's the best of us, really. Best advocate anyone could have. Knowing that she was here, in this White House, it was my sign of hope that someday, someone could make some real changes, the way I wanted to. I always figured if anyone could, it'd be her. And then I watched her try to die, to save me. I'm alive because of her. And I don't think I'm doing nearly enough to live up to that."
Jason's eyes softened. "Percy…"
"No, seriously." Percy wove his fingers together. "I'm asking. You saw action, you've led a command. How does anyone live up to that?"
"You just keep trying." Jason's voice was flat. "I forget, sometimes. That you've known her for so long. That you knew her before she came here."
A genuine half-smile poked through as Percy thought back to those five-in-the-morning library study sessions, the coffees he'd convinced her to drink, the mornings when he'd hauled her back to his couch and cooked her breakfast, convinced her to nap between studying and law review meetings. "Yeah," he said softly.
"So think about it," Jason suggested. "What would she do for you?"
Percy thought back to the days when he'd missed assignments and she'd shoved papers under his apartment with her notes scribbled all over them, then pretended like she'd done no such thing the next day. The days when he'd taken the blame for her missed work on a group assignment when she'd been holed up in her bedroom with swollen red eyes for a week after one of the fights she and Luke had had.
"I'm pretty sure our love language— if you can call it that— is taking bullets for each other. Literal ones, now, I guess."
"It's not your job to jump in front of the bullet, Percy. Not hers, either." Jason sighed and drained the rest of his drink. "Now. Want to start pulling together case laws for her to read through, in case we go through with that suit?"
"Never hurts to be prepared." Percy signaled the bartender for the check.
For those worried about just how slow the slow burn is… next chapter, more than breadcrumbs. I promise! ~GT