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In Tessa’s humble opinion, the disappearance of Jason Grace should’ve been marked with the sounds of a funeral march. Although a bit too cheerful for her current feelings, she would’ve accepted fireworks. Anything, really, just to mark the fact that he’d existed at all. As it was, she felt like the universe wasn’t doing enough to appreciate her devastation. The stone of the new library tables is cold through the thin material of her top, but she doesn’t want to look up to Octavian and Reyna’s concerned expressions.
“Are you sleeping?” Reyna asks, and Tessa naturally has to free herself from the comfort of her cotton sleeves. They are tearstained and a bit crumpled, but she shakes her arms out and rests her hands delicately in her lap.
“Just resting,” says Tessa, trying not to let her voice crack.
Out of the three of them, Reyna is the best at maintaining a normal public appearance. As the legion’s youngest ever praetor, she can’t be seen with a hair out of line. The devastating losses of the recent war have left the soldiers of New Rome with barely anyone to hold onto. Reyna is trying: her long hair has been carefully shepherded into a neat braid and Tessa can barely see the bags under her eyes. But it’s the other girl’s twitching fingers that give her away as she rustles through papers, an obvious sign that she is affected by Jason’s absence.
It’s an obvious sign to Tessa, at the very least. Which isn’t saying much, because Tessa’s own signs have tended towards blatantly sobbing at the dinner table and tearing her own hair out in frustration. She’s not the most subtle person.
“We haven’t done anything important,” says Octavian, clearly trying to get them back on track. “Jason has been gone for eighteen days and the most we’ve done about it is send out a group of idiots to check the surrounding area. Do we really think a kidnapper would’ve shoved him under the fucking Golden Gate?”
Reyna sighs. “Until there’s actual evidence of Jason being kidnapped, I can’t sanction a legitimate rescue party. We don’t have anything to go off in terms of foul play.” It’s a conversation they’ve had before, although Octavian’s hostility has been mounting with each passing day.
Tessa can’t blame him. She wants answers more than anyone.
Octavian’s eyes look slightly crazed, and he turns away from them to complete his latest circle around the library. He clenches his fists and lets his hands droop at his sides in alternation - all that nervous energy has to go somewhere. Finally, he spins back to them and pins his gaze on Tessa.
“Do you really think Jason would’ve just left?”
“No,” says Tessa. It’s the one thing she’s sure of.
Jason Grace keeps his promises. Jason Grace does not kiss girls and tell them he - she can’t say that part - he doesn’t just kill Titans and decide to leave for more than two weeks without a word. That’s the one thing Tessa is sure of, and the one thing Reyna refuses to believe. Tessa is aware she sounds like a little kid, but Jason promised.
They’re going to run away together. He wouldn’t do it without her.
“You guys are letting your emotions get the best of you,” says Reyna dismissively. She decides against reading the papers and lets them fall back onto the table with a decisive thump. “Jason will turn up eventually, and he’ll probably make fun of you guys for worrying so much about him.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” says Tessa. She speaks softly, but Reyna flinches as if she’s shouted.
“Maybe if you had emotions,” begins Octavian, but then he just sinks into his chair in defeat. He props his elbows on the table and puts his face in his hands, looking uncomfortably like Tessa at the beginning of the meeting. She doesn’t like that - Octavian is too strong to act like she does.
“I have a legion to run,” says Reyna, and stands up to go. She wipes the back of her hand across her face quickly, but Tessa catches the tears glittering in her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this again.”
______
That night Tessa gives up on praying. She dreams painfully, with the kind of colour that is characteristic to mortal daydreams instead of demigod nightmares. Jason appears in her dreams over and over again; protecting a faun and a boy with a head of curls, pushing food into a fire, pacing the length of an empty cabin. She calls out to him, but he doesn’t reply.
Her father appears in a column of fire and blazing light. He is the only thing that seems to exist in a dark room that gets smaller by the moment, and she backs up into a wall of cold stones. Apollo is not a forgiving god, and he has passed this trait onto her.
“What did you do to him?” she asks, feeling the licks of flame singe the front of her shirt. It takes every molecule in her body to remain calm. Tessa is not even angry: she is sad with a weight and frustration that threatens to sink her through the ground and directly into the earth. Weakness is not a trait gods are particularly interested in, especially when it comes to their children.
Apollo regards her with a distant gaze that almost hurts to look at. “It is none of your concern. Demigods are built for things greater than themselves - this is something Grace has always known. Unfortunately, being aware of your life’s low value seems to elude you entirely.”
She is too accustomed to her father’s indifference to cry at these words. With every new disappointment, however, her nose pricks in sympathy with the roaring of her mind. “How much more suffering do the gods want from us?”
“More than you are ready to give,” says Apollo, and Tessa wakes in a cold sweat. She must’ve been crying out, because Octavian is sitting anxiously at the foot of her bed. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t be allowed so close to her bed, but the two of them are heroes of the Titan War. Allowances can be made for people who have suffered enough, but this thought only causes Tessa to grit her teeth.
“Are you okay?” Octavian asks, snapping her back to reality. “I heard screaming from down the hall.” His hand rests on her shin, patting in a manner that sits between formal and platonic. There has never been an inkling of romance between the two of them, likely a result of a decade’s worth of friendship.
Tessa likes words, she likes thinking about simple ways to quantify relationships. If she can focus on her friendship with Octavian, or her frustration with Reyna, she can stop thinking about her terrible father and the fact that Jason is missing. Words can do anything you want them to do. Truths are much harder to reconcile. It takes a couple moments of laboured breathing before she feels ready to respond.
“I had another dream,” she confesses, rubbing her sweaty palms on the comforter. This is standard procedure for demigods, but the way Tessa is reacting isn’t. Around them, the room is dark and her fellow soldiers are sleeping. Their voices are low and sweep the syllables away with strung out sentences. The only light in the room is the full moon, beaming a familiar circle of light onto a faded carpet.
“You know the gods took Jason away,” says Octavian. His voice drops lower than a whisper, and she has to read his lips to follow the words. Of course she knows the gods took him: there is no other way he would’ve disappeared without a trace. Reyna thinks it is a conspiracy theory. They know better.
“I do,” says Tessa, “and that makes whatever’s keeping him away a bigger threat than we know to go against.” She thinks about nights tucked against buildings like blankets and sharp blue eyes like stained glass and the way Jason hid from the sky like it was out to get him. Memory feels like a hot sharp blade against her chest, parting bones and muscle like so much butter.
Octavian is frenzied—not even a friend waking up with tears in her eyes can distract him from the righteousness of their cause. “They don’t deserve to have this sort of power,” he says. “We are descended from immortals. Don’t you think we deserve to be more than cannon fodder?”
“I just want Jason back,” says Tessa. “Your personal vendetta against the gods can wait.” She flops her head back onto the pillow and looks at him over the bridge of her nose. “It’s getting late. You should probably go get some rest.”
His face clouds over with something entirely unfamiliar; later she will recognize it as a dormant rage. “You’re right. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Octavian gets up and leaves her bed, and they don’t speak of it again.
Maybe they should’ve. Maybe it would’ve changed things.
But for now Tessa inhales the cheap laundry detergent on her beat-up pillow; in and out, in and out. She rolls over and hums a pattern under her breath. Patterns push everything else out of her mind, and it’s with blank thoughts that she manages to soothe herself back to sleep.
______
Weeks later, there is another orientation, which Tessa doesn’t normally do. It has always been Jason’s job, but he isn’t there to do it. Tessa thinks about his excited speeches about ‘building a sense of community’ and has to fight tears with a vengeance. She smooths out her hair with one hand, straightens her Camp Jupiter shirt, and prepares to meet the new recruits.
A tall boy with cropped black hair and an unsteady smile sits by the Tiber, fiddling with a long piece of string. He snaps to attention as she approaches, his hand wavering like he’s unsure whether to salute or not. Tessa lets him wonder for a moment before she laughs, and he puts his hand down while blushing.
“I’m Frank,” says the boy. “I just got here. I’ve just been to see the praetor, and she told me to wait by the river for a tour, and now you’re here. Um, I’m not exactly the best talker. And I don’t know anything about the Twelfth Legion yet.”
“I can tell,” says Tessa. “You’ll never have to salute anyone at a Roman camp.”
For such a tall person, he really does have abysmal posture. It’s probably a result of the way he curls in on himself, attempting to take up as little space as possible. She’s seen this before from new demigods: the combination of ADHD and dyslexia usually leads to bullying at school. Although she’s not in a mood to be welcoming, Tessa tries to smile.
“It’s not exactly my day either,” she confesses in a rush. “I hope you don’t mind a terrible tour.”
“As long as nothing tries to eat me for breakfast, I think it’ll be fine,” says Frank, and Tessa nearly slumps in relief. Her smile is more genuine once she straightens and gestures for him to follow her, mentally running through the different parts of camp that should be introduced.
“What we’re on right now is just a field,” she says. “You don’t actually have to know what everything is called, it’s just something Jason set up so new legionnaires wouldn’t get lost all the time.”
“Who’s Jason?” Frank asks, and Tessa feels something tighten in her chest. Stupid, really, to mention him, stupid for his name to be on the tip of her tongue, stupid of him to have been gone for a month now and no signs—
“He was our other praetor,” she says. The words sound too formal, so she hastens to add: “I was pretty close to him.” Then she stops, because she’s implying an intimacy that didn’t exist. (An intimacy that could’ve existed.) “I… he’s been missing for a month.” That’s all that matters.
“I’m sorry,” says Frank. “I know it never sounds like people are actually sorry when they say that, but I reckon they just don’t know what else to say. Cause I don’t. But I’m sorry.” He winces at his own awkwardness, and Tessa feels slightly farther from tears than she was moments ago.
“You sound like you’ve lost someone recently,” she says, and Frank nods. “I’m sorry too.”
They don’t say much for the rest of the tour, but at the end he asks if they have a library and she perks up to tell him. Frank turns out not to be dyslexic, and she tells him they can put him to good use. He comes to the library before training, and with him comes a new sense of order.
Octavian groans when the other boy shows up and turns to Tessa with theatrical discontent. “Must you keep adopting strays? We don’t have enough chairs in the library for this. And I’m not running a charity.”
“The only thing you’re running is your mouth,” retorts Tessa. They have an easy banter between them, something born of boredom and loneliness, although Frank seems like he’s getting the impression they hate each other.
“I can go,” says Frank nervously, and Octavian huffs.
“You should stay,” says Tessa. “Libraries are always safe spaces. Besides, I could really do with company from anyone who isn’t Octavian right now.” She elbows the blond boy, who throws his hands up in the air and stalks off to cut open a couple more stuffed animals.
“Is he always like that?” Frank asks. “I mean no disrespect, but I’m not sure he likes anyone.”
“That’s because he doesn’t,” says Tessa, and hears Octavian grumble something about disaffected daughters of Apollo and their blight on society. She lowers her voice. “He’s like one of those teddy bears he likes dissecting so much. Very frowny and annoying on the outside, but soft once you get to know him.”
Suddenly, she thinks about Octavian’s crazy eyes and the way he talks about dishonoring the gods. She is not sure that he is entirely soft on the inside, but Tessa brushes this away. Octavian is one of her only friends, a circle that involves three people. He must be reliable in a world where nothing makes sense.
“If you say so,” says Frank, and pulls out a chair to sit at. He looks around the library in wonder - it is not full of books, but a variety of CDs and cassette tapes with a couple scrolls thrown in for interest. One would have to actively search for a paperback on these shelves, although Tessa is sure they exist. Coloured sticky notes mark the spaces where devices have been taken out for listening purposes, and she makes a mental note to bother Julian in the Second Cohort for her iPod back.
Watching Frank take in the library reminds her of building it: years of work worth it for moments like this. The weight in her chest eases, marginally, into a moment that feels like it could be the start of something that hurts less.
______
There are no War Games, so Tessa is sitting on the Field of Mars enjoying a picnic. It’s probably disrespectful to some god or the other, but the gods have never respected Tessa Achara and don’t deserve courtesy in return. She stretches her legs out across the plaid of Reyna’s old picnic blanket, shoving Octavian to a corner of the space.
“Please keep your legs to yourself,” he grumbles.
“Make me,” says Tessa, because she knows he is too full to move.
Frank and Reyna exchange a look that says I’m tired of Tessa’s shit but I don’t have the willpower to stop it. Tessa snorts at them and crosses her legs again, drinking in the first sun of June and sighing contently. (It’s June. Jason has been gone for two months.) Her heavy lunch threatens to resurface. She can feel her face crumple, but she refuses to cry again.
“Hey,” says Frank. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” says Tessa, “absolutely fantastic.” She looks to her left to avoid eye contact and notices a group of kids kicking around a soccer ball some thirty paces away from them. It occurs to her how young they are, how they are being trained to fight in endless wars and probably haven’t started high school. Before Jason Grace could apply for a learner’s permit to drive, he killed a Titan with his bare hands.
It’s the sort of thing that leaves scars you can’t see on someone’s face.
“Do you need a nap?” Reyna asks, which is probably dramatic irony. Tessa keeps her gaze on the kids playing soccer because she knows if she looks back she’ll cry. Her fingers reach for something to do and pull at the fraying edges of the blanket.
“Hey! Tiny Roman children!” yells Tessa. She’s always been a bit too impulsive for her own good, but the kids stop anyway. The oldest of them can’t be more than twelve years old, and she remembers some of the faces from Third Cohort orientations. “Come over here!” she yells, emboldened by recognition.
“I want in on whatever you’re on,” mutters Octavian.
“I’m the praetor, you don’t have to worry,” Reyna tells the approaching children. “She’s not crazy, just very sad.” Shockingly enough, this does not inspire their expressions to look anything other than bemused. There are five children, two of which are in Third and the other three in Fifth.
Tessa has a knack for faces, and names, and tiny bits of trivia people don’t expect her to remember. Images of older picnics with dozens of kids flash behind her eyelids and she folds her hands in her lap as if it will help keep them away. “Akemi, Igor, we met at orientation,” she says, addressing the kids she recognizes, “and I know you guys are in the Fifth Cohort, but I can’t put names to faces. That’s my bad.”
Akemi exchanges a look with one of the younger strangers. They seem to have decided that she isn’t completely off her rocker. The youngest kid must be six? Seven? Tessa knows the number will break her heart. Wordlessly, Frank shifts to make space for the newcomers.
“I’m Rodrigo,” says the seven-year-old. “These are my friends Yael and Scott.” The other two children nod nervously, but Rodrigo seems actively excited to be invited over. “You’re the librarian, right? Will you tell us a story?”
The thing about Tessa Achara is that she was a storyteller before she was ever a demigod, and she was a librarian long after she knew she was a demigod, which meant folklore was an inextricable part of her character. She assumes a simple cross-legged position, places her hands on her knees, and takes a deep breath in. The most important stories are the ones that bear repeating, but they’re also the ones in which every fact must be told exactly as it happened.
Sun beams warmly on the grass and lights the faces in front of her, all of which are pressed in close to await the tale. Frank is leaning in curiously, and Octavian has rolled over so he can see her face, and Reyna looks like a praetor to everyone approaches but has tilted her head so her good ear picks up Tessa’s words.
“Once upon a time, there was a boy who thought he could take on the Trojan Sea Monster. As it turned out, he could. Let me tell you about what happened in between.”
______
Reyna’s office is not as cold as a lot of people make it out to be. It features a gray desk covered with paperwork and bags of candy, shelves with legion rulebooks and incomplete histories, and a pair of swivel chairs so praetors can address other campers with some degree of authority. Reyna sits on the blue chair, annotating the Fourth Cohort’s request form for supplies. Tessa is perched on the desk, writing out the monthly budget review. She’s fast with figures and always does the report anyway, so it’s not something that’s been bothering her.
(She doesn’t sit in the red chair, she hasn’t been in the red chair for four months, she won’t admit he’s gone, she’s waiting for him to walk in and tell her to sit on a chair already. She’s waiting for him to show up so she can steal his seat instead of staring at its emptiness.)
Tessa bites the inside of her cheek and chalks Octavian’s stuffed animals up to a business expense. Reyna drops a stack of paperwork and pushes herself away from the desk with a huff.
“You don’t have to let anyone purchase their weight in Sprite,” says Tessa. “Despite what they say, it won’t help them ward off monsters. That only works for particularly brilliant daughters of Apollo.”
“What? No,” Reyna blinks at her. “Stop trying to get me to sign off on stupid ventures. A couple idiots in the Third Cohort have decided we should wage a war against the gods. They’ve filled out a legitimate form for this and everything. I’m going to have a migraine.”
She passes Tessa the form, which is exactly as described. Tessa frowns when she sees the familiar loop of Octavian’s scrawl across the bottom of the page, but decides not to mention anything. Reyna and Octavian hadn’t been getting along lately as it was, and a sprinkle of anti-god sentiment was nothing Tessa couldn’t handle herself.
“They’re just trying to stir up drama,” says Tessa, but the words are thick and get caught in her throat. She spits them up anyway. “I’ll talk to some people in Third, try to get them to see reason. I’m sure it’ll all go away in a few days.”
Reyna massages her temples, and Tessa wishes for the thousandth time that she could take a little bit of the world’s weight off her friend’s shoulders. Conflict resolution, storytelling, budget reviews, the library… it’s just not enough. She’s seen the bags under Reyna’s eyes and the scars on her hands from doing a two person job alone, she’s seen the way her friends were wrecked by doing a job meant for high capacity adults. Krios took without discriminating and now teenagers with ghosts in their kitchens are all that’s left.
“It’ll be okay,” Tessa repeats, but the words ring hollow even to her.
Someone knocks on the only door, and Reyna vaults over the desk to answer it. She’s wearing her purple cape and has her truth-telling dogs on her heels, so whatever poor sap is unfortunate enough to see her will be scared witless. It’s an unfairly intimidating picture to get of a girl whose idea of a good time is marathoning Audrey Hepburn movies from random websites.
“Show-off,” says Tessa, and Reyna just grins.
When she opens the door, they find a tall Black boy with green eyes and shaky hands. He is gripping a dirty Pillow Pet like it’s his exclusive tether to the mortal realm and has the jittery, frantic look of a demigod who is being pursued. In short, he’s exactly the type of person Camp Jupiter is built to protect.
“Octavian is going to have a field day with that bear,” says Tessa, and chuckles to herself.
The boy regards her with a look of bemused suspicion and switches his gaze to Reyna, who Tessa has to admit looks far more professional. “My name is Percy,” he says, “and I don’t remember anything else.” He is trembling so much he drops the stuffed animal on the floor, although it seems more of a reaction to cold than actual fear.
“Your clothes are soaked through,” says Reyna, then shakes her head. “I mean, welcome to camp. This is a safe place for demigods - which you must be, because you were able to cross the river - sorry, it’s been a hell of a day already.” Her dogs nip at her cape, and Percy can’t seem to form more words.
“Amnesia,” says Tessa, testing the syllables on her tongue. “Do you remember anything about your past, Percy?” He hesitates, and she tries not to be suspicious. A lot of people suffer to get to safety, and she can’t be too judgemental of flaws in character.
“I’m the son of the sea god,” he says, and Reyna sucks in air so sharply it sounds like a whistle.
“As if today hasn’t been hard enough,” grumbles Tessa, but alarm bells scream liar liar liar in the back of her head. She doesn’t think he’s lying about Neptune, but she also refuses to believe everything a stranger tells her right off the bat. (Maybe she’s gotten more cynical than she used to be.)
“I’m sorry if I’m any trouble,” says Percy quickly, and she softens.
“It’s not really about you, it’s just been a rough day in general,” she says. “It’ll be alright.” (She believes her own words more this time.) “Would you like me to show you around camp? We can move quickly, get you settled in. Reyna’s got a lot of work to do.”
“I’m the highest ranking officer in the camp,” explains Reyna, launching into a brief description of her position. The alarm bells in Tessa’s head tell her Percy should react more to a sixteen-year-old being the highest ranking officer in a place with hundreds of demigods. He just nods and takes it at face value.
“It would be great if you could show me around,” Percy tells her. “I’m sure you’re really busy too - it looks like the praetorship is a two person job.”
Tessa blinks back tears ferociously and Reyna corrects him so she doesn’t have to.
(He knows too much. She’s being paranoid. Jason isn’t around to temper her paranoia.)
“I don’t have much to do,” she finally says. “I’d be more than happy to show you around camp.”
______
Weeks pass by in a helpless daze. Frank and Percy immediately get on, pseudo-adopting Hazel from the Fifth Cohort. (She’s only thirteen, she’s only thirteen, they’re all so goddamn young.) They spend a lot of time at the library, and Tessa cleans cassette players, and Percy expresses so much actual confusion at seeing a vinyl she laughs until her stomach hurts.
Of course they leave. Of course Mars shows up and reveals himself to be Frank’s father (Tessa wishes she could trade him hers, maybe if she was a daughter of a war god she wouldn’t cry so much), of course Hazel and Percy get sent along with him to look for the missing golden eagle. She wishes they wouldn’t send such a small child out for blood but no one ever listens to her. Apparently it’s important to the legion - the eagle, that is.
(Tessa resists the urge to point out that when Jason mentioned doing this exact thing two years ago he was told he was wasting resources. Apparently it’s different when it’s an order from a god.)
She’s not the only one with those sentiments. The anti-god fervour from the Third Cohort has spiked; now they call themselves the Liberators of New Rome (LNR) and leave flyers everywhere they can put them. They’re calling for a dissolution to the cohorts, a removal from the gods… and a new praetor. Reyna hasn’t mentioned anything, but Tessa can tell that it’s wearing on her.
The worst part is it isn’t all ridiculous. Demigods shouldn’t be cannon fodder for their absent parents, they shouldn’t be the only defense between mortals and monsters. They shouldn’t have to fight their whole lives and pray they don’t die early. Tessa watches Rodrigo try to lift a sword and wonders whether they would be better off without their parents.
Frank calls her after two days headed out to Alaska. “Is everything okay back at home?” he asks, and Tessa is heartened that he’s only been there for a couple weeks and already calls camp home as if it’s second nature. She doesn’t want to tell him what’s happened.
There are riots, violent ones, where the kids who get visits and powers from their parents go against those who don’t. High school fights are already bad enough: it gets worse when everyone involved is highly trained in combat. Tessa throws herself into the throng and pushes people apart, she screams for reason until her voice is hoarse, she doesn’t know what to do with herself and she knows it isn’t enough.
She wants them to stop fighting each other: there are enough threats from the outside. They still haven’t figured out who took Jason. It has to be the gods. She wants to join the LNR and scream up to Olympus and she wants to hunker down with Reyna in the praetor’s office and she wants to shake Octavian by the shoulders and tell him there are better ways to make change. Tessa is too young to be dealing with this.
“Everything is fine,” she tells Frank, and he is too polite to comment on the way her voice cracks when she says it. He goes on to complain about how annoying Hazel and Percy are, but she can already sense a friendship forming between the three of them. Octavian and her have never lost the veneer of “I hate you” in their long-lasting friendship.
Octavian, who she can barely talk to anymore. Is there a word for caring about someone despite knowing without a doubt they’ve gone off the deep end? She doesn’t want to find out what it is. Tessa spends her nights underneath the table in the praetor’s office so no one can hear her when she wakes up screaming from nightmares.
(She tells the gods in her dreams it isn’t funny anymore, she wants Jason back, and Juno says it’ll all happen in due time, and that’s the only thing that keeps her holding on to anything anymore.)
The eagle comes back. Hazel is safe. Percy is safe. Frank is safe. No one from the legion has died in quite a while. No one has gone from the world in months and months, but time is slipping away from Tessa. It could’ve been closer to years, but the Titan War wasn’t even a year ago. She hates this, the distinct feeling of uselessness coupled with passing time.
Frank and Percy help with riot damage control. Hazel works magic behind the scenes, and Tessa is too tired to ask exactly what’s being done. All she knows is that she is tired, she is so tired, she is almost done with existing at all. She wants to strangle the LNR.
“My mom used to tell me that it would all be okay in the end,” says Frank. “If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” It’s comforting to have someone who doesn’t know all her worst parts. She’s not breaking, far from it, but the camp is and it’s almost too much to bear. She hides in the praetor’s office and buries her face in the seat of the red chair when she can’t sleep.
“I’m okay,” she tells Frank, and he just nods.
“It’s okay if you’re not,” he says.
“I’m okay when my camp is,” says Tessa, and they leave it at that.
______
It is August 22nd when the warship arrives. They have no advance notice, no prior sign. It’s just a Greek warship hanging over their home base, and Tessa is surprised when she doesn’t have a heart attack. She’s sitting with Reyna in the Garden of Bacchus when Terminus squawks and they both start running.
“Greeks and Jason Grace!” the god yells. “Greeks and Jason Grace!”
Tessa’s heart threatens to beat out of her chest and directly up to the warship. She’s Roman, she doesn’t like the Greeks, but Jason? It’s been almost a year and if Jason really has returned, if he’s not dead, if Juno hadn’t lied to her… the thought is enough to make her race hard enough she hits the forum before Reyna does.
A thick rope ladder is thrown over the side of the ship and people start to climb down. It’s huge, it’s insanely huge up close, but her worries about an attack are dashed when she sees the first boy turn to face the legion.
“It’s just me!” yells Jason Grace. “Don’t attack.”
There is a throng of people gathered around the place where he has docked, but his eyes seem to be searching the crowd for someone in particular. He’s clearly uncomfortable with the attention, moving to the side so that the Greeks can get onto the ground. (Tessa is going to have to yell at him for consorting with the enemy later.)
“Welcome to New Rome,” says Reyna, who has caught up and broken through the crowd. “Welcome back.” She’s grinning in a way that probably isn’t professional, but they’re just teens and they don’t have to be perfect, and Jason is very obviously looking for someone. Tessa bemoans her diminutive height and tries again to get closer to him.
“Reyna,” exclaims Jason. He rushes to hug her, but the gesture is overlooked when one of the Greeks launches herself at Percy Jackson, who ends up picking her off the floor and spinning her around. A couple people shout and reach for their weapons, but Jason disentangles himself from Reyna and motions for them to stand down. “Don’t worry,” he calls out, voice loud from years of practice. “That’s just her boyfriend. Speaking of which…”
He mumbles something in Reyna’s ear, and she rolls her eyes affectionately. “Would you all make way for Tessa to get here and punch Jason in the gut for leaving us all?” The people around her finally move, and she’s looking at Jason for the first time in almost a year, and it’s not just a picture, and it feels like the universe itself has remembered it’s supposed to be moving.
“Hey, Tess,” says Jason, and his mouth quirks into a smile as his eyes gloss over.
“Oh, you idiot,” says Tessa, and she runs to him at a speed she’ll probably never be able to replicate. She probably would’ve knocked him over if he hadn’t started running in turn, but he does, and so they smack into each other in the middle of the Field of Mars. People are staring. Tessa doesn’t care.
“Thank the gods,” breathes Jason, and his arms are so tight around her it feels like he’s worried she might fly away. She’s holding onto him just as tightly; and it’s okay, it’s okay, because he’s back and he’s alive and everything is going to be alright. “How are you actually here? I… I got kidnapped, and I didn’t get my memories back until literally a week ago, and… and I missed you even when I couldn’t remember what you looked like.”
“You are ridiculous,” Tessa mumbles into his shoulder. “Are crappy romance novels the only thing the Greek library has?” She’s so relieved he’s back she wouldn’t care if he’d taken to reading autobiographies in his spare time. He’s back. He’s back and that is enough for her.
“You wouldn’t believe it, but they don’t even have a library,” says Jason, and when he draws back she can see actual tears glittering in his eyes. “Did Octavian burn ours down while I was gone?”
“He didn’t,” says Tessa, and her knees shake stupidly. She’s bracing herself on his arms and doing a bad job and not crying. “Uh, I missed you too. Please don’t get kidnapped again.”
“Stop trying to play it cool,” Jason says, and he blinks as if doing it passionately enough will make him stop crying. “Goddamnit. I didn’t leave you. You know I wouldn’t do that, right? That was the thing that was bothering me, that you might think I decided—”
“Not even for a second,” Tessa promises, “no, fuck, I’m just so relieved you’re back.” She hates talking about her emotions but she’d go to therapy if it meant Jason stayed safe.
“Good,” whispers Jason. “That’s… that’s good.”
“Goddamnit is kind of spicy,” Tessa observes. “When did you learn to cuss?”
“Will you get off my back for one minute—“
“I can’t believe the Greeks brainwashed you—“
And then they’re just staring at each other, laughing because this is the way they’ve always been and they’re back. Jason hugs her again, quickly and tightly, before he has to turn and explain what happened to everyone else.
“Welcome home,” Tessa tells him, but she’s not sure whether she’s talking to Jason or herself.