Jason thinks he's been in denial all this time. He doesn't think he really got what's been happening.
He knows the prophecy. He knows Herophile's warning. He knows that Imperial Gold will stop his own heart before he'll ever let it pierce Juliette in his presence.
She won't be beating him down to Hades. That's a race he's never going to let her win.
That certainty right there - the complete understanding that Jason is never going to watch his girlfriend die - is probably the reason that he never quite understood just where she has been. What she's been going through.
But now Jason is holding her bow.
He's never seen anyone hold her bow except her. Not even Nico. Not even Percy.
And yet Apollo carries the little arrow charm on a string around his neck.
'She just gave it to me,' He'd told Jason. 'It's beautiful. I don't know why she trusted me with it.'
Jason knows. It hit him like a brick to his face the moment that he saw it.
She was never expecting to come back.
The sketchbook on his desk is filled with notes to Annabeth and Reyna. There's a page at the back completely dedicated just to Nico. Jason's spent weeks on it. He wanted there to be something left behind of him that might offer at least a little bit of closure.
This bow was going to be his murder weapon. Whether she meant it to be or not. And Jason has made that sketchbook into hers.
He's ashamed of himself. He's grateful. He's angry at her.
He's so incredibly conflicted.
The souls on the surface of the Stygian Ice in his hand are screaming all of those feelings right at him, and she isn't here to calm his inner storm with just a touch.
"Do you know where she is?" Piper asks, eyes a blazing sunset orange. "Have you known this whole time?"
Jason stares at the girl he's most recently let down, the air conditioned hallway silent and cold, the square bulbs in the ceiling stale and white and shadowing her features.
Piper's shaking. Her fists are clenched by her sides, and the braids in her hair are frayed like she hasn't slept in weeks. Like she's praying he's going to tell her no.
She looks terrified and angry, and Jason is the reason. But before this, she's had months of peace. After this, she'll move away with her father and finally have a childhood. He can't find it in himself to regret it. Not even when he answers her with a nod, and the flat of her palm cracks against his cheek.
Apollo gasps, hands flying to his mouth. Jason's glasses clatter to the floor along with Meg's jaw.
His instincts want him to defend himself. Jason tamps them down and lets Piper slap him again, this time in the middle of his chest. He flinches at the sting.
"You are a coward, Jason Grace," She spits, tears in her eyes. "A fucking coward."
He knows.
"You don't deserve her."
He knows that too.
"How long?!" Piper screams at him. Jason's eyes stay on the hallway floor. The tiles are the same ones as in his dorm room. Just dirtier. The classroom he emerged from has gone silent at her shouting. Piper hits his chest again. He feels the slap all the way through to his back. It echoes between his shoulder blades. "How long have you left her there?!"
Jason doesn't have to answer her. No response is going to make her feel better. But he owes Piper more than that. And maybe if she's angry with him, she'll have an easier time learning to be happy in her new life.
"Two months."
She chokes. Or maybe sobs. Piper stumbles a few steps back from him and shakes her head.
She's looking at Jason like she doesn't know who he is.
If Jason doesn't even know, she certainly never has. He enjoyed their friendship while it lasted, though.
Lost for words, Piper rakes her hands down her face and turns away. She escapes down the hallway back towards the parking lot. Jason watches the backs of her worn out Jordans leave him behind, cheek stinging and right pinky finger completely numb.
He closes his eyes. He can't remember what coconut smells like. That hurts worse than anything Piper has said to him.
"She is...a bit frazzled," Apollo murmurs. When Jason opens up his eyes, the former god has bent down to retrieve his glasses for him. He's holding them out. "Yesterday was hard."
Jason nods, accepting and cleaning the lenses on the inside of his uniform blazer.
"The witch said she knew you," adds Meg.
Jason doesn't look at her. Her face is too familiar. It makes him too angry. "Medea?"
"Mhm."
He nods again. "She does."
"She said she has Julie."
"She does."
Meg hums. The three of them stand there silently for a moment, just listening to the creaking of the air conditioning and the uncomfortable muttering from the classroom at Jason's back.
"I'm gonna kill her."
Jason does look at Meg this time. In surprise.
She blinks at him like she's challenging Jason to say any differently. The sheer stubbornness in her too familiar face fizzles out any anger left in him.
He expected to hate this kid for what she got Juliette involved in. But he understands her situation. How could he not? Jason's just a soldier too.
Just a soldier. Since he was two, he's been just a soldier. Why is behaving like a soldier starting to feel more and more like a character he hates playing?
He can't help but laugh at the young soldier girl's bluntness. It's refreshing. "If you get to her first," He challenges.
Jason has plans for Medea. Plans involving lightning and the sharp edge of his sword.
Meg smirks. Like a shark. Like Percy Jackson fresh out of Tartarus. Then, she shrugs, pushes her cateye glasses up her nose, and spins on the heel of her bright red converse to follow Piper out of the school.
It's just Jason and Apollo left in the hall now. He looks to the god - to his brother - whose eyes are so much deeper, wiser than they were at the Acropolis.
"There's something I need to show you before we go," Jason tells him, pressing Juliette's bow back into Apollo's hand and leading the way.
Juliette's favorite color is bubblegum pink. If someone asks her when she's in a bad mood, though, Jason knows that she'll say lavender.
"I HAVE EXPERIENCED LESS G-FORCES IN THE SUN CHARIOT!"
Piper is speeding. Both passengers in the back seat are gripping their seatbelts and yelping every time she swerves around a slow left-laner and lays on the horn. Jason isn't bothered. If he could make the creaky school van move even faster, he would.
Juliette's favorite song is Lover of Mine by 5 Seconds of Summer. She sings it when she's in the shower, and she misses every note. Jason loves listening in when he's not supposed to. He loves the color that her face turns when she comes out of the bathroom with her hair dripping wet and realizes he was sitting there the entire time.
"Where am I going?" asks Piper. She cuts her eyes at him and swerves around a city bus.
Jason points at the exit signs above the road. "Stearns Wharf."
"Why do you know that?"
"I scouted it. It's where Caligula's ship stops in California."
"You scouted it?" Piper snaps, moving to the right lane. "Alone?"
Jason takes a deep breath and chooses to look out his window instead. "I went with Tempest."
Piper laughs bitterly. "You took the horse before you took me."
He grits his teeth, deciding not to respond.
"Who's Tempest?"
Jason hears Piper adjust the rearview mirror and look back to answer Meg's question. He continues staring out his window and picking at the fabric of his dress shirt where it sits over his heart.
Juliette tells people that her favorite flowers are water lilies. Jason knows that she secretly loves roses, though. She just can't bring herself to admit so out loud. He suspects that it feels too much like she's wishing her mother might pay her some attention. Whenever he brings her roses, he gives them to her privately. Every time, he's rewarded with a toe curling kiss that has his head spinning for hours.
"Jason."
He looks back at Apollo. The god is frowning at him earnestly. "You need to tell her."
"Tell me what?" huffs Piper.
Apollo is insistent. Not in a commanding way, though. More like he's pleading with Jason to give Piper a chance to understand. Like he thinks she could do something to change the outcome of today.
She can't. What's prophesized always comes to pass.
Jason looks at his friend in the driver's seat. This is the first he's seen her up close in months. Jason's done fly-bys of her house every night to check that she hasn't gone against his careful preparations and continued trying to take Caligula down without him. But, he's always stayed far enough away to avoid detection.
Jason has always thought that Piper is beautiful, even if he's never returned her previous crush. Her hair is long and cut into choppy layers like making it as messy as possible might distract people from her Aphrodite-ness. She's in baggy clothes to hide her figure. There's no makeup anywhere on her blemish-free, brown skin, and her lip has a new piercing that she must have gotten since Jason last saw her. It's a silver ring. Right where Jason's own scar is.
She's so different from her sister. Not in bad ways. Just different.
She's the same in a lot of ways too. She's strong and intelligent. Funny. She loves fiercely and fights even fiercer. Jason sees how Juno could have looked at Piper and thought that he could love her. Maybe in another universe, he would have.
He would never trade what he has with Juliette for anything. She's the best person he's ever met. The best person there ever was. Even so, it's surprisingly easy to imagine what could have been.
Piper could never have loved him in return, though. Not for real. Not outside of the magic Juno cast on the both of them. He's never been enough for her, and that's okay.
She's his friend. He loves her regardless.
There's no point in telling her his reasons. It'll just make it harder to keep her safe. Harder to keep her from trying to make sure it's him that walks out of this instead of her. What's prophesized always comes to pass. He knows that.
Why can't Jason get himself to go back to accepting it?
"In the Burning Maze," Jason admits. "Herophile told me that if we kept going after the emperors, one of us would die."
Piper looks away from the road. Her red-rimmed eyes dig deep into Jason's soul. "What?"
"That's why I stopped you from taking on Caligula," He explains. What is he doing? "And why I didn't tell you about Juliette."
Piper's grip on the wheel is so tight, he can see the bones of her hands through her skin. She moves onto an exit ramp, once again glaring out the windshield. The atmosphere in the car is so thick, Jason can feel it clogging up his lungs.
He lets out a tight breath. "I didn't want you to di-"
"That wasn't your choice," Piper hisses.
Jason feels his chest twist as he watches tears gather in her eyes.
Juliette loves to draw. He knows she wants to be a fashion designer, but she once admitted to him on a quiet night on the Argo II that she's thought about being a tattoo artist as well. It had surprised him. When he asked her why, she'd said that she wants to make people feel beautiful. That tattoos are permanent and something only the person they belong to will control. Something about that speaks to her. Jason hadn't ever thought much about his own tattoo. It had been a symbol of Jupiter's control over him if anything. That night, though, he'd looked at the beautiful girl resting on his shoulder and suddenly wanted nothing more than for her to be inked into his skin forever.
"I know. I'm sorry."
She shakes her head. Then, she looks at him again, misty-eyed, and a tiny, irritated smile creeps across her face. She rolls her eyes at him and snorts. "No, you're not."
No, he's not. Piper's still alive, and that's what he cares about. The scars on his hands feel warm and tingly.
Jason can't help but grin as well. "No, I'm not."
Piper glances at him, still reluctantly smiling and still holding back tears. "She's my sister, Jason."
"I know."
"I deserved to know."
"...I know."
"You don't get to stop me if I want to save her. The stuff with my dad aside, I have just as much right to die for Julie as you do."
Jason doesn't want her to die. Juliette wouldn't...She wouldn't want...
He squeezes his eyes closed.
Jason knows that Juliette gets fidgety when she's dehydrated. She'll always bring an insect outside before letting somebody squash it. Unless it's a spider. Those she stomps without mercy.
She only goes out without doing her makeup when she's feeling sick, and she's never forgiven herself for telling Annabeth she shouldn't have been trusted to lead that quest into the Labyrinth. There's no one that Juliette admires more. Except for Percy, who Jason knows is the one person who could get her to turn her back on anyone and anything if it meant his happiness.
He lets out a deep, coconut scented breath, and he's able to open his eyes once more.
Hesitantly, Jason slides his hand onto the center console, palm up.
Piper rolls her eyes again, huffs, and releases one of her hands from its white-knuckled death grip on the steering wheel. She laces it with his between their seats.
"Neither of us is going to die," She tells him. Demands from him. "We'll get to this asshole's base, get Julie out, find the shoes, and leave. Nobody needs to get hurt, and nobody is seeing Elysium. You hear me?"
Jason pulls his scar between his teeth.
"We'll just keep each other from dying," Piper decides, linking her pinky with his. "Okay?"
Her hand is warm. Jason's spent months freezing cold. He didn't realize how much he's missed his family.
"Okay."
Jason knows where the shoes are. He's done so much aerial reconnaissance of Caligula's fleet by this point that he could draw Apollo and Piper a map right to them. Can draw them a map.
He does draw them a map. On a napkin from the beachside taco shop with a pack of kids' menu crayons.
"I don't know what the interior of the ship looks like, but they're definitely on this one here." He points down at one end of the armada formation he's squiggled out. "And, judging from the amount of shoeboxes I've watched them throw overboard, you're going to have a lot to dig through. So try to make it quick."
"And while they do that, we're gonna go get her?" Meg asks.
Jason gives the girl a weak smile and nods.
Piper crosses her arms, staring down at his cereal box style map with an unhappy frown. "Where is she being kept?"
He sighs. "I don't know for sure. But, I figure that she'll be close to Caligula's head ship. He'll want her nearby to stay in his control, right?"
"That would be my prediction," agrees Apollo through a mouthful of fish taco. "After the chaos she caused Commodus, Caligula won't be likely to let her stray far from his presence."
Jason shakes his head fondly. That's his girl.
"Then we'll bring the fight to him," He decides. He pats Meg on the shoulder and fixes her with a patient expression. "If you're up to it. It'll be dangerous, Meg. I won't make you do anything you don't want to."
No way. Sister or not, Meg barely knows Juliette. Jason would never push her to put herself on the line for this. His girlfriend would probably shoot him full of arrows if she found out he'd tried.
Meg's too-grown-up eyes go a bit wide. She seems confused by his statement.
Then the little girl scowls and shoves a handful of french fries into her mouth. "I'm not scared," She grumbles around the food.
Jason smiles at her. She looks so much like Rosa right now. Stubbornness must run in the family. "I know you aren't. You're tough. You could probably kick my butt to Jupiter and back."
Meg turns red and devours her lunch even faster. Piper sighs across the table and shakes her head at him.
"Okay, womanizer-"
Jason scowls.
"-you two be careful. If Julie's really under Caligula's control..."
She purses her lips and looks to the wharf. Jason nods grimly.
'She destroyed Festus,' Apollo had recounted.
'Yep. Ripped his head off.'
'And she nearly killed my sister's Hunters. All of them.'
If even Thalia couldn't subdue her...He pulls his wallet from the pocket of his slacks, flipping it open so he can study the picture inside.
Jason knows that Juliette hates the smell of bleach. She says it reminds her too much of chlorinated swimming pools.
He knows that she tried to learn to knit the spring before Gaea, but she didn't have the patience for it.
He knows anything that she cooks is going to be either burnt or ungodly salty.
He knows that the night Drew got her acceptance letter to that modeling institute in France, Juliette made an excuse to sneak off to Cabin 13 and spent the night crying into Nico's shoulder.
She's Jason's best friend. His literal (he has divine confirmation now) soulmate. Jason knows that, no matter what condition Juliette is in when he finds her, he still will never ever leave her behind. Never.
He needs her too much. Beyond that...Jason wants her.
When was the last time he said 'screw destiny' and just let himself have what he wanted? Has he ever?
Maybe Jason Grace, Son of Jupiter, was all about respecting prophecies. Maybe he would go quietly into tonight, obedient and rule-following and ready to give his life for Olympus because that's what the gods had laid in his path. But, like he's said before, Jason doesn't actually remember who the Son of Jupiter is.
Maybe the Jason that he is today just wants to go to prom.
He swore on the Styx that he would always find Juliette. So, if Elysium is taking him away tonight, Jason is going to leave behind claw marks in the earth.
"I'll find a way to free her," Jason states, tucking his wallet back into his pocket with a new fire burning in his belly. One unrelated to the fish tacos. "I'll bury that bastard at the bottom of the ocean, if I have to."
Piper smiles at bit, watching the waves crash on the sand. "I think Percy would appreciate that."
He chuckles. "Probably."
"Do you really think that?" Jason asks, heart sinking.
Juliette hums, chin resting in her palm, both feet (bronze and real) kicking in the air where she's laying on her stomach on the floor of Cabin 1. She flips a page of the magazine she's looking through. Slumped against Jason's pillows, Nico does the same with his comic book.
When Jason doesn't speak for a moment, Juliette looks up at him. He's by his wardrobe, sweaty, sandy shirt balled up in his hands. It was a rough training day at the arena. Percy is going to be gloating over that win for weeks. Her jaw goes slack for a moment while her eyes scan his bare chest, and Jason feels his face warm up. She shuts her magazine and gives him her undivided attention, grinning.
"I mean...I'm not saying I wouldn't be interested in trying," She giggles, wiggling her eyebrows.
"Gross," Nico complains flatly. He flips another page in his comic book. Jason glances at him a bit bashfully before returning his attention to the daughter of Aphrodite currently drooling onto the rug by his bed.
"Seriously, though," He insists. "You really think you'd be a bad mom?"
The idea is insane to him. Juliette is the most caring person he knows. With her medical role on the Argo, she'd practically mothered the Seven for their entire cruise through Europe. Any kid would be lucky to have her around.
The question seems to make her feel a bit awkward. She laughs nervously. "I mean, I dunno," She shrugs. "It's not like I'm particularly responsible."
Nico snorts. She glares at him.
Jason sets his shirt down into his hamper, grabbing another at random from a drawer to replace it with. His shower is going to need to wait a bit. He leans back against his desk and tilts his head down to look at Juliette.
"You'd be an amazing mom," Jason tells her honestly.
Juliette's face spasms. She looks surprised. Then she swallows and turns her head back down to her magazine, reopening it. "Eh. I probably won't live long enough to find out, anyway."
"Truth," confirms Nico, flipping another page.
"And even if I did, I doubt I can actually have a kid, anyway." Juliette waves her hand dismissively. "If I melt tampons every time I get my period, I highly doubt sperm is going to be swimming around for long."
Nico's comic book slaps shut. He looks horrified. "Okay, no. I'm done with humans. I'm going to my own cabin."
Juliette grins. "That's a weird way to pronounce 'Will's office.'"
Jason laughs when Nico flips her off without a backwards glance, disappearing out the front door of the cabin (indeed towards the infirmary). He shakes his head at the kid and then goes back to attempting to get his emotionally avoidant girlfriend to actually talk about something serious for once.
He approaches her and bends down to steal the magazine out of her hands. She scowls at him, but he tucks it under his arm. A hostage.
"Rosa, I've watched you with your siblings," He points out. "You're great with them. You may not love kids, but you'd be a good mom."
She crosses her arms, failing at looking irritated rather than amused. "It's not like it even matters! Like I said, I probably can't even make a kid."
"For someone who's adopted herself, it's weird that you're ignoring that entire solution."
"Why's it even a big deal?" Juliette laughs, standing up clumsily to reach for her magazine. He holds it above her head, out of reach, and she huffs. "Are you planning on having a kid with me, or something?"
Jason laughs too when she tries hopping for the magazine and nearly falls over, still wobbly on her new leg. He steadies Juliette around the waist and pulls her in until they're chest to chest. The proximity makes color flare in her cheeks, and Jason smirks.
"I mean, I'm not saying I wouldn't be interested in trying," He echoes against her lips.
Juliette's eyes widen. Jason can't wipe the smug grin off his face as he leans in to kiss her.
She softens against him, and he lets the magazine drop onto the floor so that he can brush her hair from her shoulder. Despite their big words, the kiss is innocent and light. Just lingering enough that Jason can still taste her pineapple lip gloss when they pull away.
He keeps his hand by her neck, tracing the arc of her jaw with his thumb, and she turns her face to press another kiss into the pink scars of his palm. Jason presses one of his own to her forehead and breathes in the smell of coconut and mountain laurels.
Then he snatches her around the waist and throws her upside down over his shoulder.
Juliette screeches like a cleaning harpy. "JASON!"
"Say it!" He grins, bouncing her on his shoulder.
She slaps at his back. "Put me down, you meathead!"
"I will," Jason assures her. "Once you say it out loud."
"Say what?!" Juliette complains.
Jason looks over his other shoulder at her. She's arched her back enough that she can look him in the face right-side up. Her pout becomes a glower when he laughs at her frustration.
"Say it, Rosa."
He repeats it more softly this time.
Understanding dawns on her freckled face. She goes limp again on his shoulder so she can hide behind a curtain of strawberry blonde waves. He sees that smile, though. She can't hide that from him.
"I'd be a good mom," She mumbles into his back. Jason presses one more kiss to her leg - the one ending in metal - before he lets her down.
"Don't I know it."
Jason watches Meg walk a little ways ahead of him, her swords clenched in hands that are probably a third the size of his own. The sight makes him anxious.
He's trained campers even younger than her how to use a sword. Jason guesses he's just never imagined them actually using one in combat. The battle with Gaea had allowed only 13 year olds and older to fight. The younger kids had waited out the battle in the infirmary and command tents, finding ways to help out other than combat. If they had been involved, Jason knows for certain that the level all of them are currently at would never have kept them alive.
Meg moves like a veteran, though. Even at twelve. Jason just watched her do serious damage in that fight with the pandai. She's experienced with those blades. It makes Jason wonder...
Is that what he looked like?
A little kid wearing Imperial Gold armor overtop a pair of velcro Sketchers. Did Jason have loose baby teeth when he was given his first commanding role? When he came home from active duty as a soldier, did he cook his own dinner while standing on a step stool?
"Where did you learn to fight?" Jason asks.
Meg stops at a fork in the hall. Jason steers her down the correct corridor with a hand on her shoulder. She's so short, it makes his heart ache.
"My step-The Beast."
The Beast?
Jason glances up at the ship signs. They're aft of where they need to be. The gangway connecting to the next ship in the line is farther forward. He points with his gladius towards a staircase to their left, and Meg follows him without delay.
"You're amazing with those," Jason notes, nodding at her blades. "Juliette never did get the hang of swordplay. You should challenge her to a spar sometime. You'd wipe the floor with her."
Meg looks at him strangely, but he grins at her. After a moment of studying him, she hesitantly returns it.
"She's wanted to meet you for a long time," says Jason. "I'm glad that she finally got to. We were worried about where you might be."
The ship they're making their way through is full of vases. It was clearly once a luxury cruise line - the carpets are red velvet, and crystal chandeliers rattle on the ceiling with every bump on the floor above them. Now, though, Caligula must be using it mostly for storage. The yellow wall sconces reflect brightly off the barrel sized Imperial Gold tins lining the hallway towards the exit. Stepping around them is getting more difficult the further into the hall that they get. There are more and more in the way. Jason ends up sheathing his sword so that he can give Meg boosts over the taller ones.
"Why are you so nice?"
He glances at the girl questioningly as they step over yet another Imperial Gold vase. She actually seems irritated with him. "Is being nice bad?"
Meg rolls her eyes. "Why are you being nice to me? Aren't you, like, her boyfriend?"
Jason nods, peeking around the bend in the dimly lit hallway. "I am, like, her boyfriend, yes."
"So, shouldn't you hate me?"
He turns back to her.
Meg's hair is a mess, dark and tangled. She has dirt on her face and under her fingernails. She's dressed like a city stoplight, and Jason thinks his aforementioned girlfriend would likely faint if she got a whiff of the way this kid smells. He feels a swell of urgency again.
Did anyone ever look at him and feel this...this need to protect him?
He doubts it.
"No," He answers her firmly. "No, Meg. I shouldn't. And I don't."
She's just a kid.
Meg ducks her head down, fidgeting with her glasses. They're a little wonky from the wear and tear of questing. They keep sliding down her nose. It makes a short laugh puff out of Jason's chest. He glances around at their surroundings quickly before kneeling down to her height and reaching up for them.
"Let me see those," He nods at the frames. Meg looks at him funny, but obliges. Jason gently bends the arms of her glasses into a better shape for her. "Don't want these flying off in battle. Fighting blind stinks. Trust me."
She giggles a bit when Jason sets them back onto her nose for her. Just to milk the sound a bit, he backs up like a photographer and views her from a few different angles, jokingly adjusting the bright red glasses to be at just the right spot on her face. Eventually, Meg swats at him, stifling her laughter into her elbow, and Jason lets his own grin shine through as he draws his gladius once more and turns back towards the hall to the gangway.
"You ready?" He asks.
Meg smiles wickedly. She gives her blades a twirl that reminds Jason of watching Juliette toss her pom poms. "Let's kick some stupid emperor butt," She states.
Jason couldn't have said it better himself. He offers her a high five, and they open up the door onto the bridge.
I was going to release this chapter and the next as a double-feature, but I got too excited to post this one, so here it is! The next chapter will be out within 24 hours. Bring your trauma, kids! I plan on pain and suffering :)