They watched Daria walk back up the gangplank, Piper with impatience and Jason with normalcy-a gentleness that couldn't be erased. Piper wondered if Daria ever noticed it, if there was something secret that Piper couldn't see or whether Jason just loved Daria more than she loved him back.
"Darling?" Piper asked aloud.
Jason glanced back at her with surprise. There was assuredly something different about him, a newer confidence, borderline arrogance, that he hadn't carried days earlier.
"Well?" she urged. "Blow out the candles."
Jason did. Piper wondered if he'd made a wish, wondered what it was. Hopefully, it would be something like we all survive the quest and live long and happy lives and I get to vibe with my kick-ass friend Piper for the rest of eternity.
Jason plucked the candle out of his cake. "I've been thinking."
That got Piper's attention. "With the amount of head trauma you have? Be careful."
He snorted, one of those outbursts of air that passed off as a laugh. "Ha." He put his hands on the grass behind him and leaned back, Piper found herself wondering if he would burn in the sunlight. "About Camp Jupiter," he continued.
Piper's heart beat a little faster. "What about it?" At Camp Half-Blood, Jason had been strictly analytical in his descriptions of New Rome.
"Camp Jupiter was basically a military," he was looking at something beyond Piper, drawing his inspiration from the city in front of them. "But before that, we started at the Wolf House. All new recruits had to pass Lupa's test before they could join the legion and I had already been there for a few months when Daria arrived." He smiled reminiscently, "oh my god, Daria and Lupa hated each other. As soon as Daria could talk, she was snapping at Lupa."
"She taught you English?" Piper wondered.
He shook his head, "Latin, our first language. Anyway, I found Daria incredibly annoying as a toddler, but there was no denying she was fierce, and she was ready to be accepted into whatever Camp Jupiter was."
"We became friends when we were...around three, I'd guess. We grew up in the same house, so we basically couldn't get a break from each other, and she became my best friend. We got our first stripe together when we were a little older than that."
Piper began to realize that this was it. This was the life story she'd been asking for in the Mediterranean. "And sure I was the son of Jupiter, but everyone respected the hell out of Daria. And she'd earned it too. She killed her first unhinged monster when she was five, was the first pick for the first cohort, even without recruitment letters."
"I was," he debated his wording. "Well technically, I was nobody. I wasn't a great student when we were in school. After we graduated, about 9, I think, I was a trouble-maker for a few years, snapping at people, refusing to follow the rules, and by the time I grew out of that, it was too late. I'd already made a name for myself, so I decided that all I could do then, was bring honor to the Fifth Cohort."
"Daria and I went on quests together, though. When she began to lead them, she always chose me, which people sneered at her for. People would laugh at her, behind her back of course, no one was crazy enough to laugh in her face, but she never stopped being friends with me." He swallowed. "Even when I was a total asshole, which, trust me happened a lot."
"And then Reyna entered the picture, and the whole dynamic of Camp Jupiter flipped upside down. Daria began to defer to Reyna, she had to, Reyna was claimed and she wasn't. And people began to see me as a leader too, even if I didn't deserve it."
"But, I didn't want to be the leader, Pipes." He sighed and looked around warily as if the praetors before him were hiding in the trees. "I'm not...a leader." He bit his lip. "And I've been trying to tell Daria, but I'm not as Roman as she wants me to be either."
"But why can't you?" Piper demanded. "She'll get over it. Or she can be Roman and you can be...whatever."
Jason observed her, actually seeing her for the first time in his monologue. "Pipes, on Hercules's island you asked what I was willing to do for Daria."
"Not my exact wording, but sure."
He picked at the blades of grass in front of him. He looked serene enough, but his voice was colder than she expected. "I would do anything. I would tear Mount Olympus to the ground brick by brick if she asked me to."
"Oh," Piper could feel her eyes widen. Her voice was small. "That's," she let out a high-pitched laugh, "that's a little terrifying, isn't it?"
Jason clenched his jaw, and glared at the floor, probably about to say something even more terrifying like "I don't care". But he didn't get the chance, because Percy Jackson was running toward them, and Piper could tell from his expression that he brought worse news.
***
"Hey um, Iris, show me Reyna Ramírez-Arellano," Daria said, throwing a drachma into the fountain. She knew Percy kept one in his room, but she didn't exactly have the confidence that it wasn't just a piece of junk. "Will you like, let me know if I said that right or do I just-"
Reyna shimmered into view in tempo with Daria's ramblings. It couldn't have been any later than six in the morning but she was sitting at her incredibly messy desk, only a small lamp illuminated the text she was writing; she looked exhausted.
"Daria," Reyna looked up briefly before looking down again, her eyes were calm, collected, and unsurprised, but Daria was finding it hard to see her friend in them. "What are you doing?"
"I," Daria thought about it. What was she doing? She had gone and called her without realizing that maybe war had made enemies out of sisters. "I don't know, I just wanted to talk to you."
"I was thinking about you too," Reyna admitted, her guarded expression softening by the second. "Listen, I don't know how much time you have, wherever you are. So I'll preface this conversation with some bad news: your grandmother died last night."
Nani. "Was it peaceful, at least?"
Reyna nodded, "peaceful enough, with all that's going on at camp. The villagers are holding a service for her tonight but-"
"No, she wouldn't expect you to go," Daria interrupted. "Not when you have so much on your hands." She was crippingly old, so it wasn't a shock, but a heartaching loss for all three of them anyway. Assuming Jason, remembered, or cared.
"I wish I could, for you two," she sighed, dull shadows noticeable on her cheekbones. "Where are you anyway?"
"We're in Rome. Reyna, if you could see it, it's..."
Her face tightened. "I'm sure," she said dismissively.
Daria felt guilt tear at her. "What's going on Reyna? Is Octavian...?"
Reyna threw her pen down on the table unexpectedly, creating a fist with the empty space. "Fuck! Octavian wants to go to war, Daria. And then, he wants to take the eight of you as prisoners and kill you, and I don't know what happened with Leo Valdez but now the legion practically laps at Octavian's combatant propaganda. Michael and I are just trying to stop in-fights between his army and the handful that are loyal to you."
"You're the praetor," Daria reminded her gently. "They're loyal to you, Rey. Not me."
"I wish you were here," Reyna grumbled. "I wish you and Jason, if he ever gets his head out of his ass, could help me stop this." Her voice caught at Jason's name, but Daria didn't mention it. "What about you? Have you told them about Gaea?"
"Yeah...there were mixed reactions."
"And Jason, is he okay?"
"Jason's not coming home, Reyna," she snapped..
"Daria?" Jason said quietly behind her. Reyna went mute, but she still tapped her fingers on the desk noticeably and unapologetically. "Percy's here, we've got to go."
"Bye, Daria," Reyna's eyes met hers. Take a breath, they seemed to be saying. It'll be okay. "Jason. Take care."
"Bye, Rey." Jason waved at his old friend, and then she was gone and it was just Jason and Daria again.
Daria bit her lip as she turned around. Jason was looking at the floor, his gladius strapped to his side, a replacement for Ivlivs. She supposed she should feel guilty, but it just wasn't there. "We should go."
He caught her arm before she could open the door, and they stared at each other for a few moments. "Nani's dead," she blurted out before he could say anything. She didn't know why she said it, but it was too late now, hanging between them like fruit at Tantalus's pool.
It took him by surprise, clearly. He stared at her for a few more seconds, sparks of lightning flashing in his sky blue eyes. The look he was giving her was thoughtful, intense, and should have been harder to read, but for the first time since he had come back to her, there were her Jason's. He was speaking a language that only the two of them understood.
"Your favorite color is Lilac," he stated. "When we were six, you got upset because you had to trade in your trusty wooden sword for two real ones, but soon after, you named the left one 'virtus' and the right one 'veritas'. Courage and Truth. The names never stuck. And secretly, you kind of wish they did."
"Depending on the day," the scar on his lip twitched upwards, "you think I need to be more careful or I need to live my life more. You think the amount of coffee I drink is an atrocity and you like when I call you 'darling' because both 'darling' and 'Daria' start with the same three letters. You say your affinity for this is because you don't have to train yourself to respond to another sound, I think you just like the way your heart beats faster when I say it."
"I," he continued, "have been in love with you since I knew what love was. I love the way that you pretend to listen to my infatuation with Newton's cradle. I love the way your eyes flash when Octavian says something ridiculously stupid in front of the Senate. I love the way you tell me one of Nani's bedtime stories when I have a nightmare and the way you kiss my cheek when you're sleepy. I love you, darling, and I love you more."
Somewhere, he had switched into Latin. It was, after all, the language that they both shared. Her heart swelled. He intertwined their hands and raised them to kiss hers. "I'm here. And I will never leave you again." His eyes were determined and apologetic at the same time. "Come now, darling, before Percy wonders what we're doing in his cabin."
"So Annabeth was kidnapped on a motor scooter," Piper summed up, "by Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn."
"Not kidnapped, exactly," Percy said. "But I've got this bad feeling...." He took a deep breath, like he was trying hard not to freak out. "Anyway, she's—she's gone. Maybe I shouldn't have let her, but—"
"You had to," Piper said. "You knew she had to go alone. Besides, Annabeth is tough and smart. She'll be fine."
Piper put some charmspeak in her voice, Daria could hear it, which maybe wasn't cool, but Percy needed to be able to focus. If they went into battle, Annabeth wouldn't want him getting hurt because he was too distracted about her.
His shoulders relaxed a little. "Maybe you're right. Anyway, Gregory—I mean Tiberinus—said we had less time to rescue Nico than we thought. Hazel and the guys aren't back yet?"
Daria checked the time on the helm control. She hadn't realized how late it was getting. "It's two in the afternoon. We said three o'clock for a rendezvous."
"At the latest," Jason reminded, he hadn't left her side for the entire retelling. But it didn't matter. Even his presence was different, his speech, everything.
She knew that the situation was dramatic, that Annabeth was probably in perilous danger and Nico was on the brink of death-so she didn't grin. But between Percy's sentences were reminders that came in the squealing voice of a pre-teen. He loves you more! She tried to stop thinking about it, but it wasn't easy. Especially not with Jason smirking, knowing exactly what he'd done.
Percy pointed at Piper's dagger. "Tiberinus said you could find Nico's location...you know, with that."
Piper bit her lip. The last thing she probably wanted to do was check Katoptris for more terrifying images.
"I've tried," she said. "The dagger doesn't always show what I want to see. In fact, it hardly ever does."
"Please," Percy said. "Try again." He used his pleading baby seal eyes. Daria wondered how his mother ever reprimanded him as a child. Piper sighed and concentrated on her dagger.
The view zoomed in. On one side of the stone floor, a set of stairs had been excavated, leading down to a modern iron gate with a padlock. The blade's image zoomed straight through the doorway, down a spiral stairwell, and into a dark, cylindrical chamber like the inside of a grain silo. Piper dropped the blade.
"What's wrong?" Daria asked. "It was showing us something."
Piper let out a shuddering breath. "We can't go there."
Percy frowned. "Piper, Nico is dying. We've got to find him. Not to mention, Rome is about to get destroyed."
Piper glanced at Jason, who nodded back reassuringly. Hesitantly, she picked up the knife again.
In the blade they saw two giants in gladiator armor sitting on oversized praetors' chairs. The giants toasted each other with golden goblets as if they'd just won an important fight. Between them stood a large bronze jar.
The vision zoomed in again. Inside the jar, Nico di Angelo was curled in a ball, no longer moving, all the pomegranate seeds eaten.
"We're too late," Jason said.
"No," Daria said. "No, I can't believe that. Maybe he's gone into a deeper trance to buy time. We have to hurry." She had forgotten how much she cared about Nico's well-being until now, but Percy looked at her protectively, like she was wrong for voicing her hope.
"We should wait for the others," Piper said, nervously. "Hazel, Frank, and Leo should be back soon."
"We can't wait," Percy insisted.
Coach Hedge grunted. "It's just two giants. If you guys want, I can take them."
"Uh, Coach," Jason said, "that's a great offer, but we need you to man the ship—or goat the ship. Whatever."
Hedge scowled. "And let you three have all the fun?"
Percy gripped the satyr's arm. "Hazel and the others need you here. When they get back, they'll need your leadership. You're their rock." He said his words in a trance. Daria figured Piper's charmspeak affected him more than she realizes.
"Yeah." Jason managed to keep a straight face, though he shared a glance with Daria. "Leo always says you're his rock. You can tell them where we've gone and bring the ship around to meet us at the Forum."
"And here." Piper unstrapped Katoptris and put it in Coach Hedge's hands.
The satyr's eyes widened. A demigod was never supposed to leave her weapon behind.
"Keep an eye on us with the blade," she suggested. "And you can check the baseball scores." That sealed the deal. Hedge nodded grimly, prepared to do his part for the quest.
"All right," he said. "But if any giants come this way—"
"Feel free to blast them," Daria said.
"What about annoying tourists?"
"No," they all said in unison.
"Bah. Fine. Just don't take too long, or I'm coming after you with ballistae blazing."
Ah??? They're so CUTE.
Also, even though it might have been different when they were younger, I maintain the fact that Jason is the lady and Daria is most definitely the line without a hook.
Leave a comment please!
-M