Chapter Text
Nico
I knew it would be difficult explaining to our friends that we were together again.
Jason, for example. He wouldn't exactly disapprove, but he'd be afraid that I'd get my heart broken once more. That it wasn't that Will couldn't be trusted after this, but that it would just be better to move on. It would be safer, he'd say in his careful, calculating way, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose.
And Reyna. Reyna had long ago learned what love could do to a person. Both the exhilaration and torment it could bring in one fell swoop. It would be dangerous, she'd say in her rough tone. You would be making yourself vulnerable again.
Taking that into account, I put it off for as long as possible. The only people that knew were Elijah and Evanna- the former because I told him, and the latter because she just seemed to know.
It was like the Annabeth Instinct™. The daughter of Athena always seemed to know everything before even you yourself knew it. I wouldn't be surprised if it had rubbed off on Evanna. After all, the two had been hanging out more often lately.
And Elijah. What could I say for him? He was happy for me. When I told him, he nodded knowingly, almost as if he knew this were coming.
"You have such a beautiful truth, Nico," he'd said in his soft, smiley way.
I remembered not quite knowing how to respond to that. What do you say to the person whom, without guilt, not only gave you the chance to find your peace again, but shoved it in your hands and demanded you seize it?
So I'd hugged him and told him, "Thank you for helping me find it."
Of course, granted everything that had happened, it took a while to know each other again.
I rediscovered things about him that I'd forgotten in the long months we'd not known each other the way we had used to, forgotten in the seven long years we'd loved each other, and things from the periods inbetween in which we'd thought we'd been out of love.
I don't even know how that might have been possible, looking back. Looking up, looking around, looking at him... I never fail to feel more lightheaded, more vulnerable, more loved and in love than in so long. So, so long.
His name is William Solace, but he likes to be called Will. He's the most practiced healer of his time, possibly ever. He lost the memory of what he loves most when he was twenty two and regained it days before he turned twenty three. He has a scar over his heart. Nobody is quite sure how it got there, but it hadn't been there before the quest. He insists it pained him to forget me so much that it scarred him right where he kept his memory of me closest. I call it bullshit, but it makes me warm inside. He says he loves me, now that he knows he does. Every single day, like if he didn't say it to me like a mantra then those words might be lost to him, and he might never find their meaning again.
It's hard, sometimes, getting to know him again. Painful, too.
Sometimes in the middle of the night he thrashes about and wakes in a cold sweat, and most of the time whatever he mutters will be nonsense. I always thought it was until one particular night, he woke up on the verge of tears. Of course, I woke up with him. It's second nature. That and the fact that he turns inexplicably cold during these night terrors, like whatever he's dreaming about chills him to the bone, saps him of everything that could warm him when he dreams.
On that night, he refused to tell me what was wrong at first. He rolled over on his side and let his arms dangle over the sides of our bed. All I could make out was the shaking frame of his shoulders. I scooted up to him and put my arms around him from behind. And slowly, very slowly, he turned over, red-rimmed eyes searching my face. Memorizing it. He held me then, and I traced patterns into his back with the tips of my fingers until he calmed down enough to speak.
What he did manage to choke out was barely coherent, but it made me ache all the more.
"I can't forget you again."
"What do you mean?" I questioned tiredly. He winced, sensing the tiredness in my voice. "Tired," I reminded him gently, "but not of you. Never of you."
"Everytime I close my eyes..." he shuddered, doing just that momentarily and then snapping them back open. "It hurts, Nico. I keep forgetting. And I keep having to see you when you realize... and you always look so dead inside... so broken-hearted..."
"Luce de sole," I whispered into his ear as he gripped me tighter to his chest, "I'm here... and you're here... and we're together. It wasn't your fault."
"I never want to see you like that again in my life," he rasped. "When you saw me at the lake. After the quest. You asked me who you were and I told you I'd never seen you in my life. You cried. You never cry."
"That I did," I admitted quietly. "And for you I would do it many more times."
He shook his head, but didn't say anything to me. I sighed deeply, nosing into his neck and trying to remind him that I was here. In this time, this space. With him and only him, and it would only ever be him.
"I am?" I prompted, yawning a little.
"Nico di Angelo," he said hesitantly.
"And who am I to you?" I hoped to show to him that he was not, in fact, going to forget me, that his answers were proof that he would keep his memory with him for as long as the gods willed it.
A beat. A pang of fear struck through me before he responded, "Everything."
I stopped, feeling my stomach flip.
"You gross sap," I grunted, burying my face in his neck. I felt him smile.
A lot of our days are like that. I never wanted to go another day without seeing that smile. I remembered telling him this. But more than that, I remember seeing that smile grace his lips once more when he said, "It's a good thing you'll never have to, then."
He took my hand in his and knelt down. His long, gangly fingers with their chewed off nails covered mine easily.
"Nico di Angelo... where do I even start with you?" He shook his head, wavy blond strands of hair swaying with the movement. "I've loved you since we were kids. I loved you all through our teenage years. I loved you until I didn't anymore, and even then the memory of you, the one nearest and dearest to my heart-" here he brought our hands to his chest, where that scar born of love lay underneath his shirt- "had to be torn away from me by the goddess of that very power before that could happen. And then I loved you once more. It's with you that my dreams for my future lie, and it's in you that my deepest fears are rooted. And that's how I know... I've always known... that everything ahead of me? This endless road that stretches out in front of me, as far as the eye can see? Nico, angel, I don't know what the future holds, and I go to sleep every night and wake up every morning fearing that I won't be there for you and you won't be there with me and that there won't be an us anymore, that we'll have forgotten what the concept of us even meant in the first place. Each new day is so unpredictable it scares me."
He took a deep, shuddering breath and for a split second I glimpsed the fear he was speaking about in his eyes.
"Which is exactly why... well- I'm trying to say is... my dreams? My endless stretch of future that goes as far as the eye can see and the gods only know what it holds? Angel, if- and only if- you'll have it that way... I want to call it ours. And whatever's out there-" He choked out a laugh, tears rolling down his cheeks, voice cracking- "I want to tackle it together. Head on. You and me and whatever else we'll make for ourselves against the world, godliness and quests and fears be damned."
He smiled again and wiped a tear from his chin.
"So what do you say? Make it ours with me?"
I didn't realize I'd been crying until he reached up and brushed the tears from where they were leaking from the corners of my eyes. I nodded furiously, face burning and scrunching up as even more rolled down my face, bearing my overwhelming emotion and the smile on my face to him. Him and only him. And now it was real... that it would only ever be him, I realized through the daze of tears.
"Ours," I choked out.
Will
"I'll be honest, I have a pretty long-ish speech planned today, which is ironic, considering I don't really know how to put everything I feel for this man at the altar with me into words. It wouldn't be very Nico di Angelo of me to stand here and be sentimental about why I love him- which, he's probably going to do. Right?"
Nico glanced at me. I felt my ears heat up.
"Uh-"
"Exactly. He's going to be very Will Solace about this and say some stuff that'll probably make me cry, knowing him. Something beautiful that will be a testament to us, and what's soon going to be ours. It'll be short and sweet and he's probably going to put it into words perfectly, so I'm not going to say anything about that. So, what am I going to say? I'm going to say that fate never seemed to be kind to me when I was a child. I often felt isolated, alone, like there was no hope for me in the world and who would even miss me if one day I went on a quest or went to the Underworld and just... never came back? I learned a lot about the world when I was a kid, and what I'd learned had me convinced the world was cruel and miserable. I'd learned that you could put it all forward, extend your hand into hell- no shade, the metaphor seemed appropriate-" he amended quickly at Percy's wounded look, "and nobody would take your hand then, but they'd still be the first to slap it later, even after you'd tried your hardest. You know what? There were so many people that, metaphorically and literally, never took my hand, because they couldn't or just didn't want to. But on that day on Half-Blood Hill, when we were scouting the Romans? I'd turned to leave and you did." Nico turned to me, eyes alight with something I had never seen before. "For one of the first times since my life had taken a turn for the worse after discovering I was a half-blood, someone had taken my hand even when I wasn't extending it, and they never seemed to let go after that, even when they did. So-"
Nico smiled, and held out his hand. I took it gingerly, and Nico plucked the silver wedding band from the pillow and slid it onto my finger.
"-Take my hand again, loser, we're using the buddy system for the rest of our lives."
A moment passed, solely of us staring at each other. I took a shaky breath.
"Alive," I began, feeling my lips begin to curl into a smile.
I glanced up, taking a moment to look into his eyes. They were still lit up. It was beautiful.
"That's the feeling that ignites me when I think of him, when I look at him. When he smiles at me while sitting under the shade of some tree and I grab his hand to keep him from slipping into the shadows and landing gods-know-where. This once-dark, once-gloomy son of death makes me feel so alive."
I paused again, taking a moment to survey the crowd.
Percy and Annabeth, hand in hand, the former bouncing their son on his lap.
Estelle, clutching her basket of flowers, in the lap of Paul, who was hand in hand with Sally- mirroring Percy and Annabeth almost exactly.
Jason and Piper stealing loving glances at each other from opposite ends of the pavilion.
Leo and Calypso, back from another one of their dragon-backing adventures in Europe, just in time for the reception.
Hazel handing Frank a lace handkerchief from the depths of her dress, looking as if she, too, might burst into tears on the spot.
Grover, who had burst into tears after receiving his invitation, and Juniper, who had been delighted and took it upon herself to decorate the pavilion for the ocassion.
The Hunters of Artemis standing respectfully in the back- there to pay their respects to Nico, they had said.
Chiron, who had been more than happy to let Jason take over as the minister, watching the ceremony commence like a proud father.
Reyna, Nico's best woman, with one hand on Nico's shoulder, the other on the knife in her pocket, and both eyes on her girlfriend in the front row.
Rachel, our licensed wedding photographer, snapping pictures as we spoke.
Coach Hedge and Mellie in the front row. Chuck, holding the pillow bearing now only one ring.
Apollo, arm in arm with his children, adjacent to Hades and Persephone, who were eyeing their son with pride, accompanied by Demeter- who was eyeing her five tier chocolate and vanilla buttercream monstrosity with satisfaction.
Aphrodite, there to give us her final blessing.
The members of every Cabin, friends, family, mortals, demigods, gods and goddesses alike- gathered in the pavilion at Camp Half-Blood, here to celebrate this joyous union.
I took a deep breath.
"And here, right now, I'm going to say exactly what I told him, months ago in this very spot. I loved him until I didn't anymore, and even then the memory of him, the one nearest and dearest to my heart, had to be torn away from me by the goddess of that very power before that could happen." I broke off to stare at Aphrodite pointedly, who shrugged.
"Guilty as charged."
That got a laugh out of everyone. I waited for it to die down.
"And then I loved him once more. I still do, I always have, and I always will. Isn't it funny to think that what started with your ass in the infirmary for three days ended like this? Guess you're stuck with me now, di Angelo," I teased, taking great care in slipping the gold wedding band on his finger.
Nico coughed and mumbled something.
"Sorry, what?"
He looked up.
"I said, di Angelo-Solace," he enunciated, face bright red, "if Jason would hurry up and get on with this already."
"Oh! Right!" The son of Jupiter fumbled with his papers.
"We are gathered today to unite these two men in the bonds of holy matrimony. Gods be willing, may their union be blessed and everlasting, during life and after death. Do you, William Solace, take this man, Nico di Angelo, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in good times and in woe, for richer or poorer, keeping yourself solely unto him for as long as you both shall live?"
"I do," I answered without hesitation.
"Do you, Nico di Angelo, take this man, William Solace, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in good times and in woe, for richer or poorer, keeping yourself solely unto him for as long as you both shall live?"
Nico froze for a split second. His eyes darted between me and Jason. I began to sweat a little as the crowd began to shift uneasily. Was he going to say I don't? Suddenly, Nico smiled at me, then turned to Jason.
"I..." He glanced at me, waggling his eyebrows, "will."
I sighed deeply.
"Your Honour, is it too late to terminate this marriage contract and file for divorce?"
There were several strongly worded protests and Drew Tanaka herself stood up and shouted, "YES!" Jason looked at me and shrugged, not bothering to contain his grin.
"Sorry, the people have spoken. If anyone can show just cause to why this couple cannot lawfully be joined together in matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace. Nobody? Great!" Jason finished quickly. He looked to Aphrodite expectantly, who smiled and made her way to the front. She put her hand on top of our joined ones.
"You two have weathered through the trial to end all trials and emerged ultimately victorious. You have my final blessing, now and forever, for an ever-prosperous love... not that you need it. You are what some dreamers would call soulmates, meant to be together in every world, every reality. It will take something truly fierce to reckon with that, fiercer than the barrier between life and death. I guarantee you two your happiness together, and under my protection, no harm shall come to either of you when it is in my power to prevent it. The path of love brings even gods to their knees, and here two simple demigods have come out singing. May you continue to sing for the rest of your lives together. Jason Grace, may I?"
"You may, Lady Venus." Jason's eyes shone through his glasses lenses.
"I now pronounce you husband and husband. You may kiss the groom."
I swept Nico off his feet, dipping him backwards as I kissed him. He threw his arms around my neck. Our noses were squashed together a bit painfully and the kiss was sloppy but that was more than okay, because I felt him smiling into the kiss and at that moment that was all I needed.
Annabeth
It was many almost a year after the attack before I decided to bring it up. After all, there were more important things going on. Nico and Will's wedding came and went, a rather beautiful ceremony that had ended with many new memories and lots of leftover wedding cake that had turned out to be rainbow on the inside.
Demeter can bake. But I digress.
I found her sitting alone by the lake, letting her feet wade in the water. Not a somber kind of alone, the kind of alone that you seek out on your own because you need to hear yourself think once in a while.
I sat down next to her, shifting Charlie off my hip and into my lap. He was the spitting image of Percy, down to the way his eyes glimmered in the light. He looked at Evanna solemnly, cooing.
"Awe, Charlie!" Evanna looked over, grinning. "How's it going, Bethie?"
"Oh, it's going," I laughed.
"Can I take Charlie for a minute?"
I handed him to her, and she dipped his feet in the lake. His eyes went wide and he started laughing. Evanna tickled him under his chin as he kicked his feet back and forth in the lake.
"He's three months old now, right?"
I nodded. We sat in silence for a while, making occasional small talk before I finally decided to drop the bomb.
I didn't bother beating around the bush. "You let them in, didn't you?"
She froze. The only sound in the clearing was Charlie's babbling and the splashing of water.
"What?"
"That day during the campfire. The attack. Those monsters weren't ones native to the forest. They couldn't have gotten in without help from the inside."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
I ignored the claim. "What'd they offer you? Wealth? Protection? Power? Revenge?"
She was silent.
"Evanna, I was close with Luke Castellan before he died. Looking back, he was a royal bitch and kind of a pedophile, but he had his motives. His way of going about it was wrong, but he had a point with everything he wanted for demigods. Kronos manipulated that, pulled at his weak spots and offered him everything he'd ever wanted. What the fuck did they offer you that you'd put all of Camp at risk? WHAT WAS IT?"
"It wasn't Kronos or whoever the hell was responsible for manipulation demigods and rising in the past," Evanna bit back, but I saw the pain flash briefly in her eyes. "Okay? My mom... Tyche... she told me if I gave them admission, that she'd fix my luck. She'd give me a chance for a better future than past. My entire life has been in sevens, and everything that ever could have impacted me happened in sevens too. It's supposed to be lucky. I'm supposed to be lucky. I just wanted a chance..."
A single tear rolled down her cheek. Charlie cooed and the droplet lifted off her face and was deposited into the lake.
"Why in Hades would a minor goddess like Tyche want to attack Camp?"
"Fuck, you think I know? All I knew was that my life before I turned eighteen was a shitshow. And my mother, the goddess of luck, gave me an out from that in the future. I didn't think it would go that far. I didn't even know who she wanted me to let in. She just told me to whisper my permission at 7 pm. She didn't even elaborate past that. I tried to help in the fight but my coin..."
She felt in her pocket and pulled out a penny, weathered and beat up.
"It won't turn into a switchblade anymore. I thought she had given me her blessing, because of Reyna. Something finally seemed to be going right for me, until it wasn't..."
I was deadly quiet when I spoke.
"You do realize how many people nearly died because of you? My husband nearly fucking died for this- Will, one of your closest friends, nearly died, and your sorry attempt at justifying yourself consists of you complaining about how fucked up your life was? News flash, we're demigods. Our lives are naturally fucked up. My parents never wanted me- my stepmother would abuse me constantly as a child, my dad hated me, because I attracted monsters and didn't fit into their perfect little mortal family."
"Annabeth, I-"
"Percy had an abusive stepfather, everyone thought he was trouble, he wasn't wanted at any school or anywhere- he was traumatized so much as the son of Poseidon on all of his various quests- we fell into fucking Tartarus! Nico and Will- what happened to them- I knew a man named Charles Beckendorf, Charlie's namesake, he was the backbone of our camp during the Second Titan War until he sacrificed himself to blow up an enemy ship that had Kronos himself on it- talk to anyone here at camp and you'll see just how ordinary your story is. All of our lives are fucked up, and that's not an excuse to actively take steps to better your life at the expense of everyone else's!" I didn't realize I was rambling or screaming until Charlie started crying.
"I know I was wrong, Annabeth," she shouted back over Charlie's wailing. "Have you thought about how I felt when I realized just what I'd done? I didn't know half of what was going to happen, I was given an order and I fucking followed it. They're gods, immortal fucking beings who have the ability to turn our little world upside down. This little bubble you call Camp Half-Blood, the only place where we're 'safe'? It's all a facade. None of us are safe, even here."
I snatched my son from her arms in a fury.
"There might be an inkling of truth somewhere in that spiel, but one thing's for sure- we are a whole hell of a lot safer here or in New Rome than we are out there, fending for ourselves, fighting the monsters our blood attracts, with no knowledge of who we are or how the fuck we're going to survive. This 'bubble' is just that- it's our safe haven, we have borders, and as long as we, the generation who's watched our friends and family die and fought wars in the names of each other, are alive, it is our duty to the next generation of demigods to keep the vicious cycle of survival going. We owe it to them- to give them a place to stay, to protect the ones too young to fight for themselves, to provide a backbone. And, just like we have since the beginning of time, we will continue to keep each other alive- all in the heart of the home you have the audacity to sit there and mock."
"All I'm saying is, is it really as safe as you think?" Evanna spread her arms at her sides, and let them fall. "What happened goes to show that you never are, even when you think the opposite. I'm sorry about what I did, and I regret it with every ounce of my being. If I could turn back Fate, you think I'd do the same thing?"
I let the silence stretch out between them. She did sound sorry, and I hated that she couldn't believe it.
"I don't know," I finally said. "I thought I knew you. I don't think I know anything about you anymore."
And with that, I walked out of the clearing with Charlie, ignoring my name being called behind me.
It was only when I was back in the Poseidon Cabin, alone, that I let the tears fall as I relived the panic of those weeks again.
"Hey, Beth. Percy wants to know if..." Nico poked his head in through the door and trailed off. I jolted, wiping my eyes frantically.
"Yeah? What does he need?"
Nico didn't finish the sentence. He stepped in and shut the door behind him. He fixed me with such an analyzing look that I was beginning to feel uncomfortable until he sighed and his shoulders dropped.
"That's not important right now." He pulled the curtains together, sat down next to me and wordlessly passed me the box of tissues sitting on the bedside table.
"I'm getting an odd sense of deja vu right now," I said after blowing my nose embarrassingly loudly.
He laughed absently, twisting his wedding ring.
"You need to talk?"
I shook my head.
"What I need," I said wistfully, "is for Charlie to take his nap. And maybe a hug. Definitely a hug."
"I can handle the baby. And the hug, if you'd like," he offered after a second of thought.
"Please."
He obliged. I let my head rest on his shoulder and closed my eyes.
It was going to be alright.
Percy
Annabeth worries about me a lot, these days.
Apollo's touch did a lot to heal me. I'm not dead, which, of course, I'm pretty grateful for when I think about everything the future had held in store- but the aching pains that come and go sometimes make me wish I were.
It's fleeting and occasional. It's like poison settling itself and cementing in my bones. It burns. It pounds like a migraine that won't leave. It doesn't happen a lot, but when it does sometimes I can barely move out of fear that if I make a wrong move then something inside me will snap like a taut rubber band pulled too far.
Last time I visited him, Will told me that those kinds of fears are irrational (but not invalid) and prescribed me something to help with the pain.
It works, surprisingly. It would be sad under other conditions- the great Percy Jackson, Hero of Olympus, meeting his match at last- except for the fact that I believe that it's for the better- I never wanted to be great, after all. I have no doubts that the gods might call on me for my help sometime in the future, though. It's what they do best. But if anything, at least for the time being, this allows me the opportunity to relax more than I have in years. A little bit of bodily pain is a small price to pay to kick back with Annabeth and our son for some time, however long it might last.
Our son.
Thank whatever deity is out there watching over me that I survived. When I said that I couldn't believe I was about to die and miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime, I wasn't lying. This is paradise. Paradise in the form of no sleep, endless diaper changes, and ungodly amounts of spitup for an infant.
Like I said. Paradise. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
It's obvious he's a Jackson-Chase, if the fact that he were a carbon copy of me isn't enough to go by. He's me in his bottomless sea-green eyes and deep skin and he's Annabeth in his mannerisms, his long periods of silence until he decides he wants to be heard, his stubbornness, his everything else.
Figuring that out was more relieving than anyone could ever fathom. Thank whatever deity, God if there is one, that he isn't like me. I was a pretty suicidal kid. Pain helped me feel human. It helped me to forget that there was a part of me that was godly, the part that I loathed. That the blood in my veins was red, like it was mortal blood, not gold, not tainted with ichor.
Charlie scares me for this reason. I thought I knew what I feared most in the world up until now. Now my worst fear is that one day I find out that my son is just like I was, just like I am. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I want to protect him. I have to protect him.
I don't care what I did in the past. If I fail to protect this fragile little family, then I will have failed at everything. Full stop. I always wondered why I were born. I think this is why. Annabeth and our son. They are why. Everything that has happened so far was just a culmination of events that was leading up to this.
I consider this to be my final quest, the one that, if all goes to plan, I will take with me to my grave incomplete- to keep them safe.
Why incomplete? There must still be a family after I am gone to keep safe. They will survive long after I will, and they will be safe.
I swear it. I swear it on the River Styx.
Jason
I was never able to shake the conversation I had with Reyna in the woods that day. It was haunting, in a way.
"After everything that's happened, everything we've gone through, Aphrodite has to come in and fuck everything up. It was bad enough that you disappeared thanks to Juno. When you came back, you had this new girlfriend and no memory whatsoever of me, or us, or New Rome at all, Percy had Annabeth, and the prophecy- the prophecy!"
"Yes, well- I didn't seem to matter to you."
"I'm tired of people leaving, alright? Of coming into my life and storming out like it's no big deal. It's a big deal to me!"
The guilt was one of the worst things I'd felt in so long.
I knew this woman once. We had worked together. We had been friends, then partners in crime and possibly in other things. And I had loved her. I still do, albeit not in the same way, but I love her nonetheless. So what else could I have done?
I started on the journey to make amends.
She doesn't make it easy for me. I think she's scared, more than anything, that this might be for nothing.
Reyna is scared of a lot more than she lets on about. I feel connected to her in that way. It feels like something we might have bonded over once upon a time- having to hold it together for everyone else's sake and not being afforded the luxury of wondering who's going to be there to hold it together for you.
I've come to peace with that. I've found my people and holding it together is no longer something expected of me. I can simply be Jason, with no strings attached. Not even Grace. Thalia had the right idea when she disowned our mother's surname. It's a distraction from who I am and who I've become. Thalia understood that long before I did.
I don't think Reyna has made her peace with that yet, though, but she seems to be well along that path, if her fledgling relationship with Evanna is anything to go by.
They make each other happy. Evanna doesn't seem nearly as subdued. Reyna was happier than I could ever recall seeing her in my very limited memory in the years after the war. She didn't need anyone to come along to make her 'whole', but she told me she welcomed the companionship. The feeling of being loved and giving love in return. She also tells me she has doubts about the nature of the relationship, but doesn't elaborate past that.
Nico and Will got married a while ago. I have to admit I was more than a little skeptical about Will's memories returning. It was nothing against him, but who can really trust the word of a god? They're not bound to it unless they swear by the Styx- and even then, the lines are blurry.
They're getting along well, though, and seeing them together makes me feel like a teenager again. They're so in love with each other. It was an honour to marry them and know that I had a hand in, as Annabeth and Percy would say, something permanent.
It's something you never quite get used to. The feeling of fulfillment. As a demigod, being content unsettles you. It's like there should always be some threat leaning over your shoulder, casting its shadow as a reminder of its imminent presence, and the absence of it has become unnatural.
It's ridiculous, I'm well aware. But even so...
Piper and I want to leave. We've discussed it and made our decision. We're going to stick around long enough for Christmas, and then we'll be off.
I love Camp Half-Blood and I love Camp Jupiter. They're both a part of me at this point, and to separate myself from either one of them would be to sever my identity. My work as Pontifex at these camps are far from done, it's true, but plans can be drawn anywhere. I can oversee the erection of statues and monuments over IM.
Piper and I want to make our own home now. We don't want to grow old within the protections these camps offer. There's more out there, I know there is. We've seen so little of it. There is more to the world than this bubble of safety. We intend to find it and make some of it ours.
I think this is what a happy ending is. Except it doesn't feel like an ending. More of a happy beginning.
Yes, I like that. A happy beginning. Our happy beginning.
Reyna
Venus's words often come back to me when I least expect it.
"You will not find love where you wish or where you hope. No demigod shall heal your heart."
"And you. You, Praetor of New Rome, Hero of Olympus. You are already complete. What a beautiful thing, is it not? And yet, you will meet someone who will break you down and rebuild you. Walls erode, you know."
I think I'm in love. I like this girl- that I know, without a doubt. Doubt sets in, though, and when it does, it sets.
I can't rid myself of the suspicion that this won't last. I want it to. I really do. But no demigod will ever heal my heart, and her godliness is underlying and apparent. It's in her eyes and in her smile, how her fingers handle a pack of cards and in the way she somehow always knows when and what to gamble on.
How luck always seems to be on her side, in the most trivial things.
I don't want to make my entire narrative about my love life, so I'll cut to the chase.
I broke up with her on a Friday evening, a bit after the wedding. She took it well. We parted ways as friends. It hurt, as love tends to when it comes to me, but I'm glad I did it. I would rather do it now with Venus's words in mind than in a couple of months or a year after choosing to ignore them.
Enough of that. I don't wish to dwell on it more than I have to.
My brother's wedding was beautiful. It filled me with a sense of pride to see him reach this milestone in his life, and I was touched when he asked me to be his best woman.
I wasn't even expecting it. Almost immediately after Nico had announced his engagement, Frank had asked, more out of interest than anything, "So have you decided who your best man is going to be?"
He'd paused, then his cheeks had turned red. "I mean, not me. I'm not asking because I want to be the best man, I'm just interested in knowing if you've decided. I don't want to be the best man. That's not why I'm asking. Please don't make me the best man."
Nico had unsuccessfully tried to hide his smile.
"I wouldn't dream of it, Zhang. I know how much you absolutely dread the responsibility that would come with it."
Relief flooded Frank's features.
"Well, the rest of us don't. Spit it out, Nico! Are you going to tell them it's me?" Leo asked over the IM, a shit-eating grin on his face.
Piper pulled out her phone to take a video as Calypso gave everyone a look of exasperated apology.
Nico had opened his mouth to respond but Percy beat him to it.
"What? Are you insane? It's obviously me! I've known him the longest and we've been through so much together!"
Annabeth groaned. "If you're going to argue, take Charlie so he can remind you of your humanity before you get into a fistfight."
Jason cleared his throat as Percy accepted the newborn. "I think you're forgetting I was the first to befriend the goblin that was Nico during our days on the Argo II."
"Okay, but who helped him land the guy in the first place? Who never complained once when they were put into different situations alongside Nico to make Will jealous all those times?" Mitchell raised his voice to be heard above the rest.
"Wait, what?" Nico sputtered.
"Shush. You're engaged, aren't you? Yeah, you're welcome." Mitchell tossed his head back and put his hands on his hips.
There were several shouts of protest and poor Frank looked sorry he'd ever brought up the topic in the first place.
"GUYS! SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE!" Nico shouted.
Everyone had turned to stare dumbly at him as he took a deep breath and smoothed out his shirt.
"You all are kidding yourself if you don't think Reyna's going to be my best man. Or woman. Whatever."
At this point I had made an undignified squeaking noise.
"That is, I mean, if you want to." Nico had turned to me then.
I had only been able to nod, feeling too dangerously close to tears to trust myself with words.
So much seems to have happened since then. Jason and Piper have formally announced their plans to leave and find a home outside of the camps. Leo and Calypso left the week after the wedding to resume running their temporary roadside garages and dragon-backing adventures. Percy and Annabeth were staying, of course. Hazel and Frank's home was in New Rome, and at the end of the day they always returned with me. We can't stay at Camp Half-Blood forever.
Jason is making an effort to know me once more. I don't feel that way about him anymore, but at times I am reminded why I did. It's his nature. Sometimes I distance myself from him without really meaning to. I thought I'd ridden myself of that tendency years ago. I guess not.
I'm working on it, though. That's all I can say, right? That I'm working on it and I'm trying to become better. At the end of the day, significant other or not, I will still be Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano. I will still be praetor of the Twelfth Legion. I will still have my home in California to go back to. I will still have my friends.
I'm no longer seventeen, something I'm grateful for. My purpose in life is far greater than the girl from all those years ago would have ever believed. It's not even for being heroic, strangely enough. It's for just being me. My quiet existence in New Rome with my dogs. Running a camp for Roman demigods and maintaining our relationship with our Greek brothers and sisters. I don't exist simply as a background character in other people's stories. I have my own story, one that I am the main character of. I think I needed to remind myself of that.
Drew
What can I say? Things worked out in the end.
If I'm being honest, it wasn't my work, or Piper's, or Jason's- or anyone's, really. When it came down to it, we didn't have a hand in getting them back together.
No amount of our meddling- yes, I'm calling it that- would have given Will back his memory. Jason had been right. They needed that emotional trust they'd built up over the years over anything. Ultimately, it was something they'd worked out between the two of them. We couldn't have forced that.
It makes me wonder if our missions were a thing of the past, things we used to do in our spare time as dumb teenagers because we had nothing better to do.
I did a lot of dumb shit as a dumb teenager. Portraying myself as a mean girl was, without a doubt, one of the worst decisions I've ever made. It did help our matchmaking considerably, but still.
As children of the goddess of love, we were pretty involved with others' love lives. A bit more than involved, some might say. Perhaps the Solangelo Fan Club was taking it a little far, but it was something only nosy teenagers with nothing better to do with their time would even think about doing. I look back on that time with fondness. For what it was worth, it was worth all the while.
But we were kids then. We're adults now, and most of us have moved on from Camp to other things. It would be weird if we continued matchmaking the new generation of campers with as much vigor as we matchmade our friends. Still, love is our cabin's strong suit. It's what we're known for.
Some may say that we involve ourselves in matters that we have no business sticking our noses in, which sometimes I think might have a hint of truth to it. Then I remember all the people who have found love in each other as a result of our involvements, and I smile.
Maybe we will have stopped, but our siblings will carry on the trend. Very rarely are our instincts wrong when it comes to these things, after all. It's what we do best. It's what we've always done best.
Love.
It wins. Always.