Voices are all around her. People are shouting, kneeling nearby. No one is touching her, though. No one is close enough to, so her vantage point is clear.
There are three figures in the sky. The pain is almost blinding her. She can't see anything but their shapes.
Three figures. Then, two of them leave.
There's an explosion. It shakes the ground beneath Juliette's broken body. Fire in the sky. She hears cheers. She hears sobbing.
Two figures are left. They're getting close enough now that she can see some details.
Brown. Long hair. Regal, high cheekbones tilted down at Juliette in horror when she falls to her knees on the ground close by.
Piper. Right. Her sister. Julie wants to comfort her, but she's too far away to reach. And Julie can't move. She can barely even turn her head.
Yellow. Gold. Eyes like a sunkissed skyline. This one is close enough to touch. Rough, callused hands grasp her face, and she can see teartracks down his cheeks. Jason.
"Hey, don't look up there," He whispers, half his words a sob. "Look at me. Just look at me, baby."
Everything hurts so bad, but she can do that. She likes to look at him.
"Good job. Now stay awake, okay?" Jason says.
Julie tries to agree, but her voice just comes out garbled and broken. It makes his pretty eyes even sadder. The hands let go of her face and press into her leg.
Juliette screams.
"Hold her down!" Jason shouts. From the fire in her nerves, Julie barely registers Piper's tearful apologies as a smaller set of hands shoves down hard on her shoulders.
She can feel herself crying now, and not just in pain.
"No," She sobs, putting everything she has into lifting her head so she can look down at Jason by her feet.
Foot.
He's pressing the remains of a CHB shirt into the stump below her right knee, face screwed up in concentration as the purple blood hisses and smokes on the skin of his hands and forearms.
"I'm hurting you," Julie cries. She tries to scoot away, but Piper keeps her there. Why? Let her go, she's hurting Jason. She doesn't want to hurt Jason. She needs to stop hurting Jason why are they making her hurt Jason she needs to stop hurting-
"GET ME A MEDIC!" Jason roars.
"Stay awake, Julie," Piper says. Julie sobs. Gods, her sister's voice sounds so comforting. She wants to drown in it. "Lie still. Let us help you."
A calm runs soothingly down her body. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That sounds like a good idea. Like the only idea.
She feels her body relax, but the tears keep pouring.
"Jason?!" A voice calls in the distance.
Julie cries out when the boy at her feet shifts suddenly. "NICO! A HEALER!"
"We're coming!"
Juliette gets jostled. It feels like someone rips Jason away from her, and she panics. She looks up, crying out, and meets a different set of blue eyes.
"Stay calm, Julie," Will Solace orders. "You're going to be fine."
Jason. She needs Jason, where is he?
He's a little to the side, bickering with Nico as the shorter boy tries wiping Juliette's blood from Jason's arms with some purple cloth. Jason sees her looking and breaks away to fall back down at her side and run a hand across her cheek. "I'm here. I've got you."
"Where's the leg?"
Jason looks at Will, eyes wide. "The-"
"The leg. If I'm going to have a chance at reattaching it, I need it now."
Julie sees fear overtake Jason's expression. She leans into his hand and feeds on it like a mosquito. Like a parasite.
Jason glances down at her, tears rolling down his face, and then looks back to Will to shake his head.
Piper sobs. Nico curses. Will just says "Okay," and starts humming.
The last thing she registers is the kiss Jason presses between her eyes as her healer eases into the first chorus of I'm Still Standing by Elton John.
"You can do better than this."
Julie pants, knees bruising against the ugly patterned tiles of the main deck of the Princess Andromeda. Her hand is barely even gripping the bronze shortsword she's spent the last two hours swinging.
Luke sighs, sounding clearly impatient. Juliette looks up as he waves his hand, and the earthborn she's been fighting grabs a fistful of the back of her shirt. Julie gets lifted off her feet, and the sword she was given clatters to the floor.
Oh, well. It wasn't like it was doing her much good, anyway.
"You ought to just feed her to the hellhounds," Kelli chirps, examining her nails where she's lounged across Luke's lap in a pool chair. Chris is standing stiffly next to them. He closes his eyes when Juliette looks to him for help.
"No," Luke dismisses her suggestion. He sighs again, surveying Julie's struggling form in the air tiredly. Like a parent watching his child chew on a Crayon instead of drawing with it. Then, he motions Julie's opponent to the pool. "I know she can do better. Teach her."
Not again.
Juliette screams and cries as she's carried over to the water. She can hear Kelli cackling. Again, she looks to Chris, but he's glaring at his shoes. Nobody helps her when the earthborn forces her head under the water. Nobody helps her when the chlorine burns down her windpipe and floods into her lungs.
They help her once she passes out. Or, she can assume they do. She wakes up in her bedroom, a cup of tea that's long gone cold waiting for her beside a new children's book that she doesn't know how to read.
A strangeness takes over her consciousness.
Oh, wait. She isn't ten years old anymore. She's older now. This must be a memory. Is she dreaming?
Julie looks down at her little hands. So many scars are missing from the baby soft skin. Scars that this little girl hasn't yet had to try and heal.
She turns her hands over, and the light in the room catches on two gold rings. One on either hand. Juliette frowns in confusion.
She never had any jewelry on this ship. Luke and Chris were dumb teenage boys. They didn't know how to care for a little girl. All Julie had to wear here were old clothes from either of them that were five sizes too big for her.
She squints down at the rings. Each of them has a carving of a sickle.
These aren't hers. She's never seen them before in her life.
Juliette removes them from her hands, and her eyes go wide when they suddenly fold out into unfamiliar twin blades of Imperial Gold.
Jason must realize she's waking up even before Julie does. By the time she opens her eyes, he's already right over her, brushing her bangs behind her ear with a gentle touch.
Julie's mouth is dry. Her voice sounds gods awful when she says his name.
"Jason?"
Ew, it cracked. That's so embarrassing.
"Hey, Rosa," He replies softly. There are shadows under his eyes, but a smile on his face. "How do you feel?"
She grimaces and smacks her lips. "Thirsty."
Apparently, he finds that response amusing. It startles a laugh out of him, and he pulls away to grab a bottle of water off the table beside her bed.
Bed? Where is she?
Juliette looks around. The blankets tucked in around her are floral and puffy. To Julie's left is a flower shaped desk lamp atop a white side table hand painted with roses. There's a lavender vanity across the way and a collection of 5SOS and Taylor Swift posters all over the walls. "Is this my old room?"
What a dumb question. Obviously, no one else would have such impeccable interior design skills.
Jason helps her sit up, propping a heart shaped pillow behind her so that she can drink from the bottle he hands her without spilling it. "Yeah. The infirmary is a bit packed, and Will said there wasn't much else to do but wait for you to wake up. Bringing you here was Percy's idea."
That gets her attention. "Percy? Is he okay?"
Jason nods. "Yeah. He's fine. Nico and Piper too. None of your siblings got hurt either."
Juliette doubles over in relief, letting out a breath she didn't realize she was holding and resting her forehead in her hands. "And everyone else?"
Jason goes silent.
If Julie didn't have emotion sensing abilities, maybe the beat of hesitation before he changes the subject would have been quick enough to go unnoticed. But she does, so it isn't.
"Hazel and Frank are good. They're actually heading out later today-"
"Jason."
His face drops. Julie can see the dread of whatever he doesn't want to tell her pulling on the worry lines of his forehead. She stares at him expectantly, though, and eventually he sighs and drops his head.
That's when the grief starts trickling out.
"We lost Leo," He mumbles.
To storm or fire
"He was in the explosion that took down Gaea. Just after you fell."
She knew he was planning something. She knew, and she didn't do anything to stop it.
"We didn't find him, but...Nico says that he felt it. That he's gone."
Jason watches her. Probably for a reaction. She probably should be having one.
But, she just feels numb.
"Did I miss the funerals?" Julie asks instead.
He looks her over, gaze flicking back and forth across her unresponsive face. Julie just counts the withered petals on the dried up daisies by the window.
"They were this morning," Jason answers, sounding a bit guilty. "Nico and Hazel did the rites together. They did a good job."
Remembering she's the one who asked the question in the first place, Julie makes herself nod in response. "Good."
"...Yeah."
There's a tension between them that neither of them wants to pluck. But, both of them know what's causing it. They sit there for a while, Julie staring off at the dead flowers on her window sill and Jason staring at her. His resolve breaks quicker. He speaks first.
"What do you remember?" He asks her carefully.
A snort escapes Juliette. She looks over at him with one eyebrow raised, frowning. "Have you just been waiting this whole conversation for the least inappropriate time to ask that?" She snaps.
Jason cringes at her tone and starts tugging on the label of Julie's water bottle. "I just wasn't sure-"
"I remember," Julie interrupts shortly.
Jason looks away, nodding, and Julie feels a stab of guilt for her tone. She doesn't feel like apologizing, though. She just glares down at the divot in the blankets at the foot of the bed.
Her Soldier Boy shifts next to her, reaching out. "You know, there are things we can do to-"
"What happened to your hands?"
He freezes. It gives Juliette enough time to look at them better. What she sees makes the earth stop spinning.
He's scarred. Both of his hands all the way up over his wrists are red and roped with scar tissue. Even higher, up to his elbows, there are splotches of it. Like someone flung red paint at a previously California tanned and smooth canvas.
Chemical burns. Deep ones.
The scars look stiff. They look permanent.
Juliette can't look at them anymore.
"Please leave," She requests. Loudly. Looking away from him and crossing her arms so he can't grab her hand. He's silent for a second of indecision, and the inferno of guilt Julie feels burns hotter. The hurt that is floating from him makes her close her eyes and take a deep breath. "I'm sorry. Just, please go for now."
"Of course," He says softly. Jason lifts up from the side of the bed. Before he walks away, he does lean in to uncross her arms. Julie still doesn't look at him, but he uncurls one of her hands and places the label-less water bottle into it before slowly releasing her. "I'll go tell Will that you're awake. We'll be back soon."
Juliette doesn't respond. She tries to manage a small jerk of her head, but she isn't sure it comes through. Jason's footsteps echo out of the room, and the door clicks shut quietly behind him.
She sits there for at least five minutes without moving. The Big House sounds quiet. There are voices outside at the campgrounds, probably all grieving loved ones and rebuilding.
Reluctantly, fearfully, like a snake might be hiding underneath it, Juliette reaches down to move aside the covers.
It doesn't look as bad as she was expecting it to. Probably because of the nectar still humming in her veins. It's fully healed, actually.
Her left leg is shapely - long and tanned and muscled. She's always had beautiful legs. They're one of her favorite things about her body. There are scars littered up and down her shin and thigh, but she just thinks that makes her look even more interesting. Who would rather look at a blank canvas when there could be stories painted across it instead?
Her right leg is gone.
She has a knee. She has about two inches past her knee as well. There's the beginnings of the curve of her calf, and then it ends in a rounded off, ugly stump. There's a horizontal scar across the front where Will must have sewn her up.
It's disgusting. Disfigured. The sight makes her turn over in bed and throw up.
She coughs out the bile, and she coughs out tears. Just a few at first, and then a tsunami's worth. She can't breathe. Her lungs are spasming and won't take in air. Her throat and nose are on fire, releasing ugly sobs and stomach acid all across her sheets.
She doesn't want this. She wants her leg back. She wants Leo. Gods, what did she do? What did she do?
This wasn't supposed to happen.
Nothing else will come out of her. So, she turns over and grabs the lamp beside her bed, hurling it at the floor. It shatters, and that feels good.
Julie picks up the whole side table and chucks it at the wall.
She tears apart her pillows, littering the floor with debris from every item within reach of her spot in bed. She's not able to move to reach anything else. She's sitting in her bed, next to a puddle of vomit, and walking away isn't an option.
She can't do this right now. She just can't.
For once, her powers are a blessing. She turns into a wyvern, which doesn't go well considering she's indoors.
She breaks the bed she's laying in. Her tail and wings crash into the vanity and dresser, knocking them over and shattering mirrors. Julie's enormous. She's too big for this room. She's a monster, and all she does is destroy what she touches.
Julie looks down at her bed. At the sick on the sheets.
She doesn't want Jason and Will to find her like this. She doesn't want to be seen right now.
Juliette grabs the entire thing in her remaining back claw and shatters the window and part of the wall as she makes her escape from the Big House into the sky.
She should have expected Iris messages to be back online now that the gods are healed. It's sort of impressive how many drachmas Percy and Jason manage to round up. She's swatting away the rainbows pretty much constantly for the better part of an hour, not letting either of them get in more than a word before the call is ended.
Maybe they run out of money or maybe Iris gets fed up and switches Juliette onto Do Not Disturb. Eventually, the calls stop, and Julie is left alone to stare out at the ocean by herself.
She didn't initially intend on Montauk as the location of her pity party. Something in the winds just sorta brought her here. Maybe because it reminds her of a time before everything got so fucked up.
Julie sits in the shallows of the ocean, watching the seawater soak into the thin cotton shorts whoever tucked her in must have changed her into. Probably Kayla. Or Piper. In the back of her mind, she's aware that she probably shouldn't have such a fresh amputation exposed to the ocean just yet. It's fully healed thanks to ambrosia, but still.
Oh, well. The leg is already gone, what else does she really have to lose?
It's times like this, hanging out in the waves and watching her childhood bed sink into the ocean in the distance, that Juliette understands the appeal of Dionysus' domain. Gods, she'd kill for some wine right now, yucky or not. Anything to make her feel...Just less.
But, alas, Sally and Paul must have made sure to take any bottles they kept here with them last summer. Maybe just cause they felt like turning up in Manhattan. Maybe because one of them suspected keeping a close eye on their alcohol would be a good idea given the stressful lives both their children lead.
Juliette's leg hurts. She'd like to know how that's possible, since it isn't even there anymore. She feels like it shouldn't be, but there's a dull, aching pain cramping up her right thigh all the way to the base of her spine. Severe enough that every breath brings tears to the corners of her eyes.
There's probably something she can do to medicate it. Nectar probably. Right now, she's going to let herself feel the pain.
She deserves it.
Every time she closes her eyes, she sees that crooked smile Leo gave her. There in the Acropolis, his goggles half buried in wild brown curls, he had looked at her expectantly. He knew that she knew. And, she did.
The gravity of his plan just hadn't sunk in yet, she guesses. The fear that she had for Jason won out over her love for her friend.
She chose this path. She let Leo die. She picked Jason's life over his.
To storm or fire, and she chose fire.
Is she okay with that?
The question makes Julie prod at the stump below her knee. She doesn't feel the poking sensation she should. The nerves there are probably fried.
Maybe she is okay with it. Maybe nothing matters except that Jason is alive. Maybe she's not as good a person as she believed herself to be before all of this happened.
Losing a part of her body feels right, almost. She gave up her friend, and he took a piece of her with him. She's sort of glad.
It'll be a permanent reminder of what she let him sacrifice.
There's splash off to Julie's right and the whinny of a pegasus. She sighs. It's been about four hours since she ditched camp. Honestly, she expected Percy to find her sooner.
"Hey," She greets without looking over.
"Who loses a leg, and their first impulse is to hit the beach?" Her brother grumbles, splashing over to her.
"You're one to talk Mr. If You Need Me I'm Brooding On The Lake Bed."
He harrumphs and plops down next to her in the waves. "Yeah, yeah."
Julie glances over at him. Percy's blatantly staring down at her wounded leg. It's probably the first time he's seeing it, but rude. She scowls. "Do you mind?"
"That looks gnarly," He mumbles, eyes wide. Julie flushes and pulls it up to her chest, wrapping her arms around to hide it. Percy shakes his head frantically. "No, I mean like cool gnarly! Like a battle scar!"
"If you're trying to make me feel better, you're doing a terrible job."
He winces. "Sorry. I didn't mean it like that."
Rolling her eyes, Julie lets her leg straighten back out below the water. She glares at the scar tissue at the base of it. Will did a good job stitching it up. The scar is symmetrical and thin, just a white, puckered line across the base of the stump. Compared to the charred mess that Azalea still carries around on his legs, it's a beauty.
You know what would look even prettier than good stitches, though?
A fucking leg.
"I don't want to go back," Julie states, trying to set the horizon on fire with her mind.
She sees Percy nod beside her and lean back on his elbows. "Yeah, I figured," He turns to address his pegasus. "Blackjack, bud, you can head back home. I'll buy you a dozen glazed if you come pick us up in the morning, though."
The black stallion trots his front hooves in celebration and nips at Percy's hair affectionately. Julie laughs at the interaction and smiles when the pegasus tosses his head in her direction like 'later, kid!' and takes off into the sky. She watches him soar through the clouds thoughtfully.
"Does Blackjack like me?" She asks.
Percy snorts. "Yeah? Why do you ask?"
She shrugs. "Jason's horse hates me."
"Tempest? The wind spirit?"
"Mhm."
"Why?!"
"I don't know, but every time Jason calls him, he finds some opportunity to bite me. Leo thinks-" Julie chokes on her words and closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath. "Leo thought it was hilarious."
The ocean breeze is tangling her hair. It smells like salt and seaweed. With a kind of lingering stinkiness from the septic tanks a block away. Julie dunks her hand into the water and winds her fingers through the sand. Percy lets out a heavy breath beside her.
"He saved all of us, you know. It was meaningful."
Juliette closes her eyes. "I know."
She can feel Percy staring into the side of her face. She doesn't look at him, though. When she opens her eyes, she looks out to the place she watched her bed sink into earlier instead.
Percy clicks his tongue like he's debating something. Then, he blows a raspberry and leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "Did I ever tell you about Gabe?"
Julie looks at him now, frowning. "Your first stepdad?"
He nods. His eyes have gone distant.
Julie hugs herself. "A little. Just that he was an asshole, and Sally turned him to stone," She grins humorlessly. "Wonder what that feels like."
"Yeah, well, Gabe actually deserved it," Percy grumbles. "He used to hit her."
Surprise jolts through Julie. Her eyes almost bug out of her head. "Sally?"
That doesn't fit the image of the woman Julie knows at all. Sally Jackson is a shotgun wielding spitfire. The kindest person Juliette knows, too. She's no victim.
Percy nods, though, and dark storm clouds gather in his eyes. The sight makes her shiver, unnerved by the dangerous set of his scowl.
She has a feeling that, if Sally hadn't taken care of business back then, petrification would have been a far kinder end than what a grown Percy Jackson would have had in store for that man.
"She married him to hide my scent from monsters. Apparently, he got it into her head that taking the punches would keep him from whaling on me," He laughs bitterly.
Percy glances at Juliette and then straightens up, tugging the hem of his t-shirt up to show the skin beneath his left underarm. All along the top few ribs are red, circular scars. About the same size as a cigarette.
The rage that pulses through Julie must come out in her aura, because Percy gives her a fond half smile and drops his shirt with a shrug.
"It wasn't that bad," He dismisses.
"How have I never noticed those?" mutters Julie.
Percy shakes his head. "I've been pretty careful. Don't like to talk about it, so I try to keep them out of sight. He put 'em there 'cause it's easy enough to hide. You and Annabeth are the only ones I've shown." He frowns in consideration. "And, I guess Will would know from treating me for stuff, but he doesn't ask questions."
"Sally?"
Percy looks down at the ocean, smiling sadly, and shakes his head.
Julie isn't sure how to respond. She pulls her intact leg up to her chest and rests her chin on it, choosing just to sit beside him in silence until he's ready to continue. Percy huffs a long sigh.
"Anyway, I guess I'm telling you all this because," His face scrunches up as he looks for the right words. "I guess, sometimes there's not going to be a way to keep bad things from happening."
She looks at Percy, frowning, and he chews on his lip.
"I mean, like, you can try to do everything you can to keep people safe, but sometimes what happens is just out of your control," He tells her. "Sometimes, bad things happen because other people chose for them to, not because you failed."
His words make something sting in Julie's chest. It must show on her face, cause Percy scoots a little closer and gives her a weak smile.
"My mom didn't fail me. She did what she could. And, you didn't fail Leo." He pauses. "If that's what you're thinking, anyway."
Yeah, that's what she's thinking. Julie drops her forehead against her knee, squeezing her eyes shut to hold back the tears.
"But, I knew."
"Yeah, apparently so did Hazel and Frank."
Juliette lifts her head sharply. "What?"
Percy shrugs. "He told them. They knew too. But, they trusted him to make his own decision. Just like you did."
Oh.
The stinging gets a little lighter. It doesn't hurt quite as bad.
"I didn't know the guy super well," Percy says. "But, he seemed like the kind of friend that wouldn't want you beating yourself up for something he decided to do. He died so we could live. So live."
Juliette stares at her brother incredulously, jaw hanging open. He raises his eyebrows at her, and she can't help but scoff in surprise.
"Why are you being...like...wise?"
Percy's face sours. A tiny wave bubbles up next to Julie and splashes her right in the face, making her cough and then giggle. "Don't be a bitch. I'm trying to be nice here."
"It's weirding me out."
"Fine, be sad then, see if I care."
Percy crosses his arms and pouts, and Juliette laughs again. She scoots a little closer to him and loses her balance a bit when there's no foot to stabilize her right side. Percy catches her with one hand and pulls her in to lean against him, arm around her shoulders as stars start popping up on the horizon.
Julie lays there for a bit, watching Percy make really terrible attempts at sculpting little horses out of seawater. After about his fiftieth try and subsequent sigh of frustration, she shakes her head and speaks quietly.
"How do you deal with the anger?"
Percy lets the six legged monstrosity he's glaring at drop back into the ocean and leans his head onto Julie's. "I dunno, kid. Normally, I just punch something, and it goes away for a bit."
"Yeah, that seems healthy."
"You asked."
She snorts. Then, she shivers. Summer or not, the wind tonight is a little too chilly to be sitting in the water.
"You cold?" Percy asks. She nods, and he hops up to his feet and bends down in front of her so she can climb onto his back. "I think the house is empty. I don't have a key, but Mom always leaves the back window unlocked when she leaves."
Juliette yawns and lets him lift her up off of the wet sand. She didn't realize how tired she was getting. She tucks her head into his shoulder as he starts heading to their little cabin on the beach, intending on just closing her eyes until they get inside. She's asleep before he even reaches the porch.
"Alright, slow and steady, matey. Yer yee ol' peg leg ain't been commissioned yet," Percy arrghhs, cackling and gripping Julie's forearms as he leads her out of the stables.
"Percy, I swear to the gods, make another pirate joke, and I am going to make you regret it," Julie threatens, teeth gritted in concentration. She's trying not to fall over, and he thinks now's a good time for humor.
"What're you gonna do, lassie? Get yer loverboy to come rough me up?" He asks, pirate voice still strong.
Juliette glares at him as she hops the rest of the way out of the doorway and into the summer sun. "No. I'll tell Annabeth you dropped her Art of War copy into the communal toilets."
"I dried it off!"
"Don't test me, Jackson."
Percy grumbles, but relents and drops the buccaneer impression. "Fine, fine. Let's get you back down to camp. You have a date with the infirmary."
"Whatever," Julie groans. Yay. She can't wait to be poked and prodded by stressed out Apollo kids.
She lets Percy support her at her side as she hops down towards the main campgrounds. Holy crap, she's going to need some crutches. Hopping around like this may be building her some excellent thigh muscles, but her left leg is also about to give out, and she's dripping with sweat.
"No more running away, okay?" Percy requests. "Jason and Piper just about peed themselves panicking over where you went."
She rolls her eyes. "I was mad."
"You're still mad."
"Yeah."
"So, no being mad and running away because you're mad."
"Fine."
Percy nods in satisfaction. They round the corner, and Julie is still stewing in frustration as they make it to the path to the infirmary.
A laugh draws her attention. She looks over to the left and freezes, making her brother stumble. She ignores his protests and stares at the scene before her.
Chris Rodriguez. He's sitting with Clarisse, laughing hard at something she said while the daughter of Ares smirks and wraps leather around a newly forged spear.
Julie's never minded him being at camp. She's glad he got out from under Luke's thumb, and she owes Clarisse her life enough times over that she'd never dare argue her boyfriend's safety. Plus, Julie and Chris seem to have always had an unspoken understanding.
They stay out of each other's paths, and neither of them has to talk about what happened back then. Neither of them has to remember that ship - those six months of hell that Julie endured before her escape.
The teenage boy that she once knew is a young adult now. The two years he's been back at camp have done him good. He's taller and broader, the unhealthy sheen to his skin he'd had for months after the Labyrinth is gone, his skin now light brown with a youthful bounce to it. He's smiling too, looking at Clarisse with complete adoration as she pretends not to be pleased by his eyes on her.
He's happy. Settled. Something about that just grinds Julie's gears.
"Chris!" She yells over to him.
The boy looks over, and his eyes go wide when he realizes who's calling him. He seems to freeze, looking like a squirrel caught between lanes of traffic, and Clarisse looks over in interest. Julie feels the stiffness that's entered Percy's posture. He's silent as she waves her hand in a beckoning motion.
"Come here, would you?"
Opening and closing his mouth like a fish, Chris looks between Julie and Clarisse. His girlfriend just kicks back and raises her eyebrows like 'what're you looking at me for?'
He nods, clears his throat, and stands to make his way over to Juliette and Percy.
As he's walking to her, Julie lets that anger in her simmer.
Chris stops a few feet away. Juliette beckons again. "No, come here. Closer."
The son of Hermes glances at Percy. Julie doesn't see Percy's face, but he must hurry him along somehow, because Chris nods and steps right up in front of them, just about six inches away. Julie stares at him.
He looks at her nervously. "Do you need someth-"
Juliette's fist cracks into his face, and his head snaps sideways as he tumbles to the ground.
Percy lets out a startled burst of laughter. Chris coughs on the grass, holding his broken nose in a bloody hand as his looks up at Julie with wide eyes.
She glares at him.
Slowly, the wideness of his eyes relaxes, and he forms the ghost of a smile. Chris wipes some of the blood onto his shirt and nods, laughing quietly. "Fair enough," He concedes.
Julie shakes out her hand. That was the first time she's ever actually punched someone in the face.
That shit hurt.
"That did help, Percy. Thanks for the suggestion."
Percy starts howling with laughter, pointing down at Chris' bleeding, but honestly kind of amused expression in the dirt. Julie looks over at Clarisse, half expecting to have a spear levelled at her, but grins herself when she sees a smirk of approval across the older girl's face.
Clarisse glances at her bleeding boyfriend. Then, she looks at Juliette and nods.
Julie nods back, and then turns to her hysterical brother. "Okay, I'm good. Infirmary please. Especially 'cause I might've just fractured my hand."
And, she is good. She's good.
Somehow, Julie feels like something has clicked back into place in her chest, and she knows that she's going to be alright.
This isn't going to be easy. Her life is going to be different now. Very different. But, she can handle it.
She's Juliette Aster, and she can do anything.