Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If there was one thing Thalia loved, it was flirting with Reyna. The stoic, regal praetor of New Rome never knew what to do, and always ended up blushing horribly. Thalia considered it a game to get Reyna as flustered as possible, as often as possible.

It was a game she was quite good at, to be completely honest. And currently, standing at the doorstep to Reyna’s villa at 2 in the morning, she was winning. 

Reyma stared at Thalia blankly for a minute after opening the door, before letting out a long string of swear words in a thrilling combination of English, Latin, Spanish, and even a bit of Greek. While Thalia understood no Spanish and barely any Latin, Reyna’s meaning really wasn’t hard to distinguish.

Thalia’s jaw dropped. “Watch your mouth , praetor,” she said incredulously.

Reyna’s eyes widened, probably at the realisation that she had said that out loud. 

“I’m sorry, I was-” she said, trailing off at the end. 

She waited for Reyna to finish her sentence. When she never did, Thalia shook her head and grinned.

“My ears will NEVER. Be. The. Same. What goes through your head, Rey?” 

Thalia always made it a point to call Reyna ‘Rey’ as often as she possibly could, just because she could. She considered it a subset of her “flirting with Reyna” game. Reyna had given up weeks ago on actually getting Thalia to stop, but usually made some witty remark. 

Reyna sighed, probably knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to make Thalia stop at this hour. “What are you doing? It’s like two in the morning and you’re here in New Rome. Aren’t you supposed to be in Indiana?”

Thalia detected an opportunity to begin her favorite game. “Well, I had to come see my favorite ancient empire, didn’t I?”

“At this hour?” Reyna asked. Thalia could hear the exhaustion in her voice and felt slightly guilty for waking her. She made a mental note to be more careful in the future.

“Everything’s better in the middle of the night, Rey. It’s a fact.” 

Truthfully, she just couldn’t sleep and really wanted to see Reyna, then arrived a lot quicker than she had expected. The Hunters and the Romans both had grown accustomed to Thalia casually popping in and spending a few days at Camp Jupiter when things got slow. 

“You couldn’t have camped anywhere on Temple Hill? Or on the Field of Mars? Even on top of the guest barracks?” Those were all places Thalia had pitched her tent before. “You know Terminus would have let you do that.” 

Thalia smirked. “Well, if I’m going to see my favorite ancient empire, I may as well see my favorite Roman praetor.” 

She was so good at this.

Reyna’s face turned slightly pink in the dim light. Success. Thalia loved Reyna’s blush- to her it was the cutest thing in the entire world, and she could stand to look at it for hours.

Reyna glared at Thalia as the pinkness faded from her cheeks. That was the glare Reyna used when she wanted a different answer than the one she was given.

“I also kind of forgot my tent.”

Reyna sighed. “You know where the villa’s spare bedroom is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I haven’t slept nearly enough tonight and I need to get up early tomorrow. Good night .”

Reyna turned and headed back inside, leaving the door open behind her for Thalia. She found the spare bedroom easily, where she almost immediately fell asleep. 

When she woke up, it was still dark out. It took Thalia a second to locate the room’s clock, but, when she did, she found that it was past four in the morning. She hadn’t been asleep for more than two hours, and she was exhausted. 

Thalia wasn’t entirely sure why she was awake. Her internal clock never woke her this early, and she didn’t remember having any nightmares. She must have heard something that woke her up, she decided as she turned on her side and attempted to go back to sleep.

That was when she heard scratching at her door, followed by a thud. Then more scratching.

The first thought to pop into Thalia’s mind was that some monster had made its way into New Rome. That was impossible, so she quickly ruled it out. But there was something at her door, and she couldn’t let it move on and hurt Reyna or Frank.

That was why she found herself trudging to the door, a knife in her hand and her bow at her back. Her hair was sticking up in twelve different directions, and she knew she had a murder face on. She hoped whatever was at the door would see her and flee the building, but it was likely that it looked much worse than she did. 

Thalia paused for a second at the door and listened. Sure enough, the scratching continued. Then, however, she heard a strange whine, not unlike a dog’s. If she didn’t know better, that was a dog’s whine.

She cautiously cracked the door open and looked for any potential threats. There were no monsters in sight, but she did see a familiar flash of gold.

“Aurum!” she exclaimed.

The golden dog pushed the door open the rest of the way and leapt on her. Argentum wasn’t far behind, though he did Thalia the courtesy of not trying to knock her over.

“Why are you guys here?” she asked. “It’s way too early to be up.”

Aurum got off of Thalia and turned in a circle, whining once again. Argentum gently bumped his head into Thalia’s leg, making the same noise.

“Aren’t you supposed to be guarding Reyna?” Thalia asked.

At the mention of Reyna, both dogs started nudging Thalia, if possible, more aggressively.

Clearly something was wrong, Thalia thought. Knowing these dogs, it could be anything from having gotten locked out of Reyna’s room to Gaea waking up again. It was best to just see what they wanted, though she vaguely wondered why they weren’t asking Reyna.

Thalia stepped out of the doorway, letting the dogs guide her towards Reyna’s room. They had probably accidentally gotten locked out. The door was shut, so that made sense. She wasn’t entirely sure how they got out in the first place, but that wasn’t important. 

She opened the door with ease, and both dogs ran directly inside. While Argentum disappeared into the darkness, Aurum stood by the door, glaring expectantly at Thalia. They definitely hadn’t just gotten locked out- if they had, Aurum would be rushing over to Reyna’s bed right now to guard her in her sleep. Thalia followed them inside, making sure to be quiet. Reyna’s instincts if she woke up would land Thalia a knife in her heart.

She could see the glint off Argentum’s back in the dim light from the door. He was laying on the floor, sniffing at a dark shape Thalia couldn’t quite make out. It was much darker in Reyna’s room than it was in the rest of the villa, probably because there were less large windows and skylights, with thick curtains on the windows she had.

Without warning, Aurum dove down next to Argentum, head against the dark shape. Thalia inched closer, wondering what was going on.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that the shape on the floor was Reyna, curled up in the fetal position, her body shaking and her head thrashing back and forth, a pained expression on her face. She was muttering under her breath words that Thalia didn’t understand, probably in Latin or Spanish. 

Thalia wasn’t entirely sure what to do. Waking Reyna was out of the question, and there weren’t a lot of options once she ruled that out. She didn’t even fully know what was happening. Maybe she could get Frank and push the decision on him, but there wasn’t a lot he could do either, and waking him for nothing when he had work to do in only two hours wasn’t a good idea. 

Whatever she was going to do, she had to do it herself. And she couldn’t do a lot, given how little she knew. She would have assumed it was just a nightmare, but Reyna’s dogs wouldn’t have gotten her up for that. And she couldn’t wake Reyna to ask what was going on- she knew the praetor wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, and she needed to be able to function today. Judging by how Reyna had acted when Thalia showed up at the doorstep, she doubted Reyna had had much sleep, if any, before then.

Eventually, she decided to put a blanket she had found on a chair over Reyna and stay in the room to make sure she was okay when she woke up. It wasn’t much, but she didn’t know what else to do.

Thalia sat against the wall, far enough from Reyna and her dogs to give them some space but close enough that she would be able to see if Reyna woke up. 

She must have fallen asleep because, the next thing she knew, Reyna’s alarm was going off. Thalia, humiliated at not even being to stay up two hours, stood up and, after fiddling with it for a few minutes, managed to shut off the atrocious beeping alarm. When she did, she saw Reyna stirring on the floor.

“Reyna? Are you okay?” Thalia asked, kneeling on the floor beside her.

Reyna looked at her suspiciously. “I’m fine. Why? And why are you in here?”

“Your dogs went absolutely ballistic last night. They were scratching at my door and whining, begging me to follow them. When I did, I saw you curled up on the floor. You were talking in your sleep, but I don’t know what you were saying. I didn’t want to wake you- you’ve missed enough sleep as it is. I just put a blanket over you and stayed in here to make sure you were okay.” Thalia left out the fact that she fell asleep on the job.

“Well, thank you,” Reyna said, wincing a bit as she stood up, “But I’m fine. My dogs didn’t need to worry, and neither did you.”

She let the blanket fall off of her, revealing what Thalia hadn’t noticed earlier- several long, deep gashes running up and down her arms and legs. They were partially scabbed over, but looked fairly new. It occurred to Thalia that she almost never saw Reyna with her arms and legs exposed.

Thalia gasped without realizing it. “Reyna, what happened?” 

Reyna looked down and grimaced. “War games. My armor wasn’t on properly. I’ve got more on my back as well.”

“Do you want me to get you some ambrosia?” asked Thalia.

Reyna shook her head. “I’ve already had more than enough. If I had any more I’d probably catch fire.”

“Have you been to the infirmary at all?”

“No. I’m fine .” Reyna said this with an icy tone in her voice. Thalia would have stopped, but she was seriously concerned.

“Are you sure? Those look like they really hurt.”

“I’m FINE!” Reyna snapped.

Thalia knew she’d overstepped. Reyna had always had to take care of herself, and wasn’t used to people acting this way towards her. 

“Alright. If you’re fine, I’m going to leave now.”

Reyna sighed. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I just have a lot of things on my mind. But yeah, you’re leaving. I have to get changed at some point.”

Reyna smirked and Thalia had to bite back a cheeky flirt. She was glad the tension was gone, but wasn’t going to push an overworked and stressed praetor too far. Instead, she left the room, almost immediately running into Frank.

“What were you doing in there?” he asked.

“I ended up falling asleep on the floor,” Thalia said. “Reyna’s dogs came and got me at a ridiculous hour. I went in to check on her and had no idea what was wrong, so I just stayed in case she woke up. I was exhausted, so I ended up falling asleep.”

“I heard the dogs,” said Frank. “I'd just assumed they were roaming around the courtyard again. Is Reyna okay?”

“She said she is,” Thalia replied. “But I’m not sure. She had some pretty bad looking gashes on her arms and legs, and they looked like they hurt.”

Frank nodded. “Last war games the second cohort beat her up pretty badly. As in, not an inch of blood-free skin and her shirt hanging off her in tatters badly. She ended up taking care of her injuries mostly by herself, though I tried to help. She doesn’t like to say it, but she’s absolutely terrified of the infirmary.”

Thalia grimaced. “I’m just worried about her. She's probably in a lot of pain and she definitely didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

“I’ll take as much of her work as I can today. I got a fairly decent sleep.”

“What does the workload look like today? If there’s anything that doesn’t require qualifications, I’ll help.”

“Not bad, actually. Reyna’s scheduled for a sword fighting lesson at noon, if you can take that. It’s with some of the younger kids, so you won’t be doing anything crazy and advanced that only Reyna can do. She’d probably just hurt herself if she tried to teach the class.”

“Sounds like Reyna.” Thalia grinned. “I can do that. Anything else?” 

“No, not really. Just keep an eye out for Reyna. She’s got an amazing pokerface and superhuman pain tolerance. She could be dying and we wouldn’t know. I have a few archery lessons today, and just want to know someone’s making sure she’s alright.”

“Of course,” Thalia said. Just then, Reyna came out of her room, looking quite a bit worse for wear even if she had managed to cover up every one of her injuries. She wasn’t wearing her chestplate, but her purple praetorian cloak was behind her. She had bags under her eyes, which she had clearly tried and failed to cover up, and her hands were shaking. The look on her face was scaring Thalia a bit- she managed to, as always, look calm and in control, but Thalia could see that behind the facade she was in enough pain that she was trying not to either scream or throw up. 

“You okay?” asked Frank, who was clearly not blind. 

“Yep,” Reyna said, an annoyed look in her eyes. “I’m going to the Principia. Frank, you have an archery lesson now, right?”

“In about twenty minutes,” Frank said. “You don’t need to do your sword fighting lesson; Thalia volunteered to take it.”

“May as well be useful while I’m here,” she said with a shrug, hoping Reyna wouldn’t catch on.

“Well, that’s great. If you need me, you know where to find me.”

The three set off in their different directions- Reyna to the Principia, Frank to the Field of Mars, and Thalia to terrorize Terminus (her favorite pastime besides flirting with Reyna) for a few minutes before making sure the praetor hadn’t either died from her injuries or done something else to hurt herself.

Chapter Text

Thalia spent roughly twenty minutes bugging Terminus, which she mainly did by giving Julia all kinds of sweets, daring Terminus to stop her. Needless to say, it was impossible. He didn’t even tell her off for it, as that would involve mentioning his lack of arms. He just sighed and looked the other way while Thalia showered the delighted little girl with more chocolate than any human should be able to keep on them at any given time

When she had done enough damage there, Thalia started back towards the Principia. As she walked by the border, leisurely passing almost every statue of Terminus, they were all looking at her with an expression that clearly read, “there is no hope for this idiot.” Thalia had to say, she agreed. She prided herself on being insufferable to people like Terminus.

And what was he going to do, smite her? He had no arms and would most likely piss off Artemis by smiting her lieutenant.

Needless to say, Thalia was able to make it to the Principia very un-smited. She opened the door to the building slowly and carefully (obviously on purpose and not because the door was so heavy she could barely move it) to see Reyna practically asleep over her paperwork. Frowning a bit, she went further inside.

The door slammed behind her, causing Reyna to flinch slightly and look up. “Hey Thalia,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper but amplified by the emptiness of the room and the lack of other sound. Thalia didn’t see how Reyna could stand the space being so quiet. Personally, she would go nuts in 24 hours, tops.

“Are you doing alright? Frank wanted me to check on you.” Thalia put the blame on Frank, deciding that it was sort of his idea. Either way, if Thalia didn’t blame him, Reyna would chew her out for being paranoid and overprotective.

“I’m fine. I just did not get enough sleep,” said Reyna. 

She was acknowledging that she was human and needed sleep every once in a while, which Thalia took as a good sign. 

“Do you want to take a break?” Thalia asked. “Frank said there wasn’t a lot of work to do today, and a half hour off will probably do you good."

Reyna sighed and looked at the clock. “Sure. I’m barely awake as it is.”

Thalia waited for Reyna to get up from the desk, then walked with her to the exit. “It’s your break. What do you want to do?”

“I need hot chocolate,” Reyna deadpanned. 

“Hot chocolate it is then,” Thalia said, trying to open the door. Reyna took the door handle from her and gave it a sharp yank, opening it a few inches and using her foot to push it far enough open to exit through.

“I can never get it either,” said Reyna. “This city was designed with the aesthetic heavily in mind. This door is made of gold- plated steel. This ten foot tall door. Who decided that was a good idea?”

“I don’t know. Where can we get the best hot chocolate?”

Reyna pondered for a second, pointing down a wide cobbled street lined with vendors. “Down there. I can usually get it for free from the man who owns the cafe, purely because I’m in there so often.”

“Convenient. How often do you have to go there to get it free? Hypothetically, of course.”

Reyna stifled a laugh. “I’ve been there at least once a day since I was thirteen. You going in there and bugging him isn’t going to get you the same.”

“Too bad,” Thalia said. “You can’t really blame me for trying, though.”

“No, I really can’t. Hot chocolate is amazing.”

“Agreed. As is just about anything with chocolate in it. Julia and I were bonding over it at the Pomeranian line earlier.”

“Meaning you gave her as much chocolate as possible, taunting Terminus about being unable to stop you?” asked Reyna. When Thalia gave her a dumbfounded look, she laughed. “I’m Praetor, remember? I get around. After last time you pulled the same stunt, Terminus ranted to me for at least ten minutes about Julia needing to develop healthy eating habits.”

“Guilty,” said Thalia. “But she was so happy, I couldn’t just not give her chocolate.”

Reyna rolled her eyes as the two arrived at a small cafe with a purple awning in the center of town. There were tables out front, but none of them were occupied. 

Reyna led her inside. The place was bright and cheerful, a small display case of doughnuts and a chalkboard with a menu written on it in colorful chalk at the counter. Music was playing quietly over the light chatter that could be heard. A few people sat at tables, each of which bore a small vase of wildflowers. 

Reyna walked up to the counter, and Thalia followed. An old man, probably in his eighties, greeted her. Thalia was amazed, as most demigods don’t live past their twenties. She concluded he was probably a legacy, as legacies didn’t get sent on as many quests, thus usually living longer.

“Your usual, praetor?” He asked.

“It hasn’t changed in four years. I see no reason to change it now,” Reyna said. 

“And you?” He asked Thalia.

Thalia glanced up at the menu to see at least two dozen types of hot chocolate. It was in English, but the fact remained that Thalia was dyslexic. She usually didn’t drink hot chocolate; she had no idea there were so many options. “Um- I’ll have the same as her.”

Reyna smirked. Thalia guessed she found it funny that she couldn’t decipher the menu. “Are you sure?”

“Why?” Thalia asked, slightly suspicious.

“I drink my hot chocolate the way the Aztecs made it. It’s a bit of an acquired taste. I’ll warn you though, it’s really hot.”

“I can deal with hot,” Thalia said. She held back a flirty retort. How dare Reyna assume she couldn’t drink hot chocolate just because it was hot? Hot is in the name!

They only had to wait a little while before the hot chocolates were ready. Reyna took hers and handed the other to Thalia. It didn’t feel hot. 

They went outside and sat at one of the tables under the awning. Reyna almost immediately started drinking from her hot chocolate. Thalia took a sip from hers. She smirked at Reyna, as if to say that she had won.

It was an estimated two seconds later when she realized she was wrong. “REYNA! What is in this?”

Reyna laughed. “Chile peppers. I warned you.”

“Water.” She ran inside the cafe, where the man at the counter had already prepared several cups of water, grinning at Reyna through the window. Thalia drank them all in record time, and her mouth was still burning. 

It took her roughly twenty minutes to dim the hellfire to a bearable level. She returned to Reyna, who was overcome with hysterical laughter.

“Who the absolute-” Thalia looked around, spotting several small children. “Frick- yes, I maintained my self control- but why on Earth would you put chile peppers in hot chocolate?”

“Excuse me, it’s fantastic,” Reyna shot back. 

“How long did it take you to feel like that?” asked Thalia.

“I’ve always liked spicy things, so not so long. But clearly, you aren’t like that.”

“Clearly!”

“Want to go inside and get one that won’t set your mouth on fire?” Reyna asked.

“That would be good.”

The two went back inside the cafe. This time, Reyna recommended one so Thalia wouldn’t have to read the menu. 

“Enjoying your date?” asked the man at the counter as they stepped up to order. 

“It’s not a date,” they said in unison. Thalia’s insides traitorously did a backflip at the thought of a date with Reyna.

“You sure about that?” He asked.

“Don’t get me wrong, Rey’s absolutely amazing,” Thalia said. “But we aren’t on a date.” She jokingly put an arm over Reyna’s shoulders. 

Reyna immediately yelped and doubled over in pain. Her face contorted and it looked like she was trying not to scream. Thalia was, needless to say, confused. Reyna was never crazy about people touching her, but she was generally okay when Thalia did things like that, mainly because they were fairly good friends and because Thalia knew not to restrict Reyna’s arm movement. 

Needless to say, she had never hurt Reyna before. Thalia didn’t know what she did- she was sure she had been fairly gentle. 

She withdrew her arm and jumped back. “I’m sorry Rey. I didn’t mean to- are you okay?”

“I’m- fine,” Reyna said, though the tone of her voice suggested otherwise. 

Thalia almost asked Reyna what was wrong, as she was absolutely clueless how she had hurt her so badly, but decided against it.

 “Obviously you aren’t fine. Sit down,” said Thalia, directing Reyna to the nearest table. 

Reyna collapsed into a seat and Thalia sat in the one next to her. Thalia didn’t ask Reyna if she needed the infirmary. It was evident that she did, but she would never agree to it. Instead, Thalia just waited for her to catch her breath a bit. 

When she did, almost ten minutes later, she stood up. “I should be going back to the Principia now. It’s been almost an hour and I have work to do.”

“No you aren’t,” Thalia said. “What was that? I’m fairly certain I didn’t touch you hard enough to hurt you that badly.”

“I know that. It’s nothing. I’m quite confident it won’t happen again. If you don’t mind, I have work to do.”

“Frank can fill in for you. I’m not letting you go back to work if you’re in that much pain.”

“I’ve spent no more than a half hour working. I’m not leaving that quickly,” replied Reyna.

“Yes, you are. You haven’t taken a day off the entire war, and now you’re hurt. Nobody is going to object to you taking the rest of the day off,” Thalia reasoned. Reyna wasn’t going to go back to work, not on her watch. She would stay here for a week if that was what it took.

“Well, then tell Odysseus I’m not taking the day off, so he doesn’t have to worry."

“Did you just-” Thalia started. “Nevermind, I know you’re trying to distract me. It isn’t working.”

“Thalia, you’re causing a scene,” Reyna said. “I’m fine. Can you please just let it go?” 

“There’s absolutely no way I’m letting this go, but we can take the argument outside if you want.”

“Fine.”

Thalia and Reyna both got up and sat at the table they had been sitting at earlier. Thalia’s spicy hot chocolate and Reyna’s empty cup were still there. 

“Why are you so insistent on going back to work?” Thalia asked.

Reyna gave Thalia the stink eye, which she guessed she deserved. “I have work to be done and Frank and I are the only ones who can do it. I’m certainly not loading this all on Frank because of a minor inconvenience.”

“If that’s your definition of a minor inconvenience, I don’t want to know what you qualify as an actual problem."

“A minor inconvenience either doesn’t bother me that much or is easily fixable. A problem is harder to fix.”

“THAT didn’t bother you? We all know you’re human, Rey. I’m sorry I hurt you like that, but you need to know that it’s okay to take a day off once in your career.”

“I know I’m human. And it was nothing you did. It was just one of my injuries from the war games.” Reyna carefully pulled her sleeve off her shoulder to reveal the end of a very angry-looking wound, raised above the rest of her skin and scabbed over in yellow and green with a large red area around it. 

“Um- I hate to break it to you, but that looks infected.”

“What? There’s no way it’s infected.” Reyna looked at her wound, skepticism in her eyes. Even if she didn’t know how to recognize an infected wound, she had to know that they could be dangerous if left untreated. 

“There is. How long is that gash?”

“Almost all the way down my back,” Reyna said. “When I bent over after you touched it, I aggravated the rest of it.”

“You’re definitely not going back to work now,” Thalia said. “Do you have any more that look the same?”

She nodded tensely. 

“I know you’re not going to like this, but you’re going to the infirmary. It’ll be a lot better for you than if you don’t.”

Reyna was silent. Thalia knew she didn’t like the infirmary, but there really wasn’t another option.

“Fine. But you’re coming with me, and if they try and make me stay overnight or any longer than it takes them to finish, you’re vouching for me.”

“Deal.” This was a small price to pay, considering Reyna was perfectly capable of taking care of herself overnight and probably wouldn’t need to stay in the infirmary anyway. 

It took the two of them a long time to get to the infirmary, considering Reyna ended up greeting every legionnaire that came up to them and giving fighting advice to a pair sparring at the edge of the Field of Mars. But Thalia wasn’t going to complain, considering she’d gotten Reyna to go to the infirmary in the first place.

Finally, they arrived. Thalia could see Reyna tighten slightly, but she didn’t stop moving.

The infirmary was empty- today must have been a day weirdly devoid of casualties. A few children of Apollo lingered in the small reception area, looking bored. They looked up when Reyna and Thalia entered.

“You two are the fifth and six people here all day,” one of them commented. “Kind of surprising, the low number.”

“It’s ten in the morning,” Thalia said, puzzled.

“We usually have at least twice that by this time, not including people staying over from yesterday. But what brings you to our weirdly quiet corner of camp?”

“I got a few bad cuts on my back at the last war games, and just want to have them looked at. Thalia seems to think they’re infected,” said Reyna.

“Sure. Do you want us to make Thalia leave while we look?” One of the infirmary workers asked. He wasn’t trying to be rude, Thalia knew, just preventing Reyna from murdering anyone who didn’t give her complete privacy.

“She’s here to make sure you don’t try making me stay any longer than I have to,” Reyna said. 

“Alright then,” said the infirmary worker, who had probably seen much stranger. “Could you remove your shirt?”

Reyna hesitated, but obeyed. Thalia respectfully looked away. However, she could hear several gasps and incredulous noises, which piqued her curiosity enough to glance over.

Reyna’s back was covered in long gashes not unlike the ones Thalia had seen on her arms and legs. These were, however, much worse. She instantly spotted the one on Reyna’s shoulder that she had touched earlier, as it looked more aggravated, if possible, than the others did. That was saying something, as they all looked bad enough that Thalia didn’t know how Reyna had even managed to get her shirt off.

“So, those are definitely infected…” said one of the Apollo kids, tone calm and even.  

“Great,” Reyna said bitterly. “ Exactly what I needed.”

For what must have been an agonizingly long time, one of the infirmary workers painstakingly cleaned out every one of Reyna’s injuries. To her credit, she didn’t once flinch. She was then given pain medication and put on strict orders to come back every day to get them cleaned out again and not to go back to work until the infection died down.

Eventually, Reyna was released from the infirmary. She stumbled outside behind Thalia, back covered in gauze and bandages.

“I’m going to get more hot chocolate and sleep for a week,” she said, leaning slightly on Thalia (who was not complaining.) 

“How about I get you hot chocolate on my way back from teaching sword fighting class and you sleep for a week and one hour?” Thalia asked. “No offense, but you look like you’re about to pass out on your feet.”

How Reyna was still standing upright at this point was beyond Thalia. She had so many wounds, all of which had to be hurting her horribly right now. And on top of that, her lack of sleep must make things so much worse.

Thalia, as a hunter, healed quickly and needed less sleep than most people. Even then, she still wasn’t half as tough as Reyna. Thalia felt bad for her. She’d probably never been treated like an actual human being in her entire life, and thus felt like she had to be invincible.

By the time they reached the villa, it was very clear that Reyna was not invincible. After over an hour in the infirmary and a twenty minute walk back to the villa, as well as all that had gone down beforehand, Thalia was practically carrying the praetor. 

Inside the villa, Reyna instantly flopped face first onto the first horizontal non-floor surface in sight, which happened to be the couch in the living room. Her dogs bounded into the room within seconds, as if they had a sixth sense for guarding Reyna in her sleep. 

On the off chance that Reyna woke up, Thalia scribbled a note on a stray piece of paper saying that she had left and would return in an hour with hot chocolate. She then left quickly and quietly. 

Thalia arrived at the Field of Mars early for the sword fighting lesson she was to teach. There she found Frank, who had by this time taught four successive archery classes. She decided it was in his best interests to know what had happened with Reyna- after all, he would be the one filling in for her.

“So you actually got Reyna to take a day off?” Frank asked. “Wow.”

“It was pretty bad,” said Thalia. “She’s currently asleep on the couch in the villa.”

“Between you and me, I don’t think she’s had a day off since she took office. Jason doesn’t remember her ever missing a day, and neither do I.”

Thalia grimaced. “Harsh. I have a few minutes until the sword fighting lesson. If you need me, I’ll be cowering in a corner near several eight year olds with murder sticks.”

“At least you don’t have the eight year olds distance-stabbing,” Frank said. “There’s really no way to hide from that. Good luck.”

Thalia managed to survive the sword fighting lesson, but just barely. The eight year olds were every bit as dangerous as she had imagined. There were three legacies of Mars in the same lesson. Who thought that was a good idea? Needless to say, she wasn’t going to be volunteering to teach children to use swords again in a hurry.

Thalia arrived at the villa within a half hour with Reyna’s hot chocolate in hand. Aurum and Argentum perked up at the sound of the door, but didn’t move from their spots at Reyna’s feet and by her side, respectively. 

Thalia set the cup of hot chocolate down on the coffee table and sat on the floor next to the couch. Maybe there wasn’t any space left next to Reyna, but Thalia would stay with her until the end of time. She looked up at Reyna’s sleeping face and smiled. She would be here, she decided, until Reyna woke up.

The hot chocolate had long since gone cold when Reyna opened her eyes and looked down at Thalia.

“Has it been a week?” she asked.

“Close enough,” said Thalia. “How are you doing?”

“A lot better. I should be able to go back to work in a couple of days.”

“That’s great,” Thalia said. “But next time, be more careful.”

Reyna rolled her eyes. “I think I’ve learned my lesson from that, don’t worry.

There was silence for a few minutes as Reyna drank the hot chocolate Thalia had brought her. It wasn’t an awkward silence or a bad one, just there . Peaceful.

“The man at the hot chocolate place thought we were on a date,” said Thalia after a few minutes.

“He did.”

“Do you want that to be true next time we go there?”

Reyna smiled at Thalia, and she felt her world explode. 

“I thought you’d never ask."