sky blue ● jason grace

plunge

Jason hopped onto the table, deferring. Hazel was the one who held the answers so who was he to be bitchy about it? "Start from the beginning," he pleaded. "We have all night, Hazel please." He inhaled, fleeting feelings of a similar vulnerability threatening to make themselves known. "Tell me everything."

She peered at him, and he could see adoration that hadn't been there when he had so stupidly insulted Nico's situation. He knew Nico di Angelo, he would even say that the two sons of the Big Three respected each other. "This is going to hurt," she reminded him.

"Thirteen years in the legion, Hazel," he shot back. This probably wasn't going to do him any favors from his nurse. But then Hazel started talking, and his stitches weren't the most painful thing in the room.

"We first met properly a few days after Nico brought me to camp. Even though both you and Reyna were pretty new at the whole praetor thing, she was much better at it than you were. So when she allowed me to stay, I figured that you barely even knew who I was, letting Reyna pass her judgment and then seeing to it that it was put into place, as you usually did."

"But anyway, it was around midnight. I was in the barn, grooming the horses for some punishment, although it wasn't really a punishment in my case. But you snuck in, with Scipio, who obviously, you weren't supposed to have. But instead of trying to plead with me to not tell Reyna, the first thing that you did was smirk and say 'well, I guess they do say Haze is for horses. Gods," she laughed, "you were so arrogant. And then you put Scipio away, and the next day, I ratted you out to Reyna." She grinned in triumph.

"So yeah, you were an annoying praetor and every time Daria or Reyna were busy you would somehow find me. No matter where I was-that was kind of weird. But then you found out that I was failing arithmetic, and of course, you had already taken all the classes at camp, and you couldn't help yourself, so you offered to tutor me."

"That's when we actually became close. We had tutoring twice a week, but even then you would teach me how to spar better, or you would tell me about you and Daria, that happened a lot. And I guess that's the gist of it really." She knotted the thread, using medicinal scissors to cut off the excess.

"It's funny," she said. "The last thing you said to me was so...nonchalant. We had no idea. We were at dinner, and you were sitting at the praetor table, but during dessert, you came up to me and told me-"

"-that your hair was unmanageable," Jason said softly. "And it was getting in your food."

Hazel offered him a wistful smile. "And that if I swallowed one, I would probably die."

"I was annoying," Jason remembered. "And I am so, so, sorry, Haze."

"Not for being annoying, I'm sure." She touched his hand in a sisterly way. "And it's okay, Jason. Just don't leave again."

He let out a short laugh, "I'll do my best."

Hazel sat on the bed that Frank was lying in, staring at him with an unreadable expression. "Now, she said, "what's been going on with you and Daria?"

***

Daria made her way above deck the next morning. Her shift had ended around 3, so she figured no one would blame her if she took the extra hour to sleep in. It was probably just a delusion, but she swore she could still smell the Diet Coke Percy had used as a tribute. She figured Dionysus would like it, whether the fish would, she didn't know.

"How far till Rome?" Daria asked. Leo and Annabeth were standing at the helm; they didn't speak aloud, but Daria could see them communicating through the hundreds of buttons on the dashboard. Piper was farther down the line, swinging her legs over the side of the ship. They were airborne now, and Daria couldn't help but wonder if Piper was insane.