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Piper was about to get ready for bed when someone knocked on the door to her cabin.
She rubbed her eyes, confused, wondering if maybe she’d started drifting off and imagined the noise since it made no sense.
It was after midnight, way past the time when anyone except whoever was on watch was supposed to be walking around the ship. If it had been some sort of emergency, she couldn’t imagine her friends knocking instead of yelling about whatever was trying to kill them for the whole corridor to hear. And there hadn’t been a ton to report since they’d gotten stuck with Notus, anyway. Most likely, the main danger to Leo and Frank right now was that they’d bicker each other to death.
Hedge had already done his rounds, and he didn’t knock, exactly. He just yelled about how they all better be sleeping and banged his baseball bat against the door so loudly that if you really had been asleep before, you wouldn’t be after.
This only left Hazel, Nico or Jason, except Hazel had headed to bed early because she had a headache, Piper and Nico weren’t exactly friends, and Jason… he just wasn’t the type to break the rules, for any reason, no matter how much Piper wished he was.
The person knocked again, making it pretty clear that she hadn’t, in fact imagined it the first time, so Piper got up to open the door.
She was baffled when the door opened to a really sheepish, obviously anxious Jason.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?” he asked apologetically, looking at a point past her head.
“This might shock you, but I don’t usually sleep in jeans,” Piper joked. She raised an eyebrow. “Are you bending the rules to spend time with me? Who are you and what have you done to my boyfriend?”
Jason didn’t smile. He looked exhausted. The only benefit of the Notus situation should have been that Jason got some rest, since they weren’t constantly dealing with venti trying to crash the ship. Apparently he hadn’t been getting very much sleep regardless.
“Piper, listen, I… can I talk to you? It’s kind of important.”
She knew the instant the words were out of his mouth that this was it. They were done.
She’d been dreading this breakup for a while. Part of her had always known it was coming—that their relationship came with an expiration date. It was hard to put into words why. She just had. The way he’d been acting since his last mission had only made her more sure of it.
“Come in.” Piper forced a smile, trying to swallow the acid in her throat. She stepped aside to let Jason through, shutting the door behind him. “If you’re going to break up with me, I’d rather not have an audience.”
Jason didn’t argue. He wouldn’t even meet her eyes, dashing any hopes she might have had that she was misreading the situation again.
She sat back down on her bed, and a moment later Jason sank down next to her with obvious reluctance, far enough away that they weren’t touching. Great. Like this situation needed to get any more awkward.
“Listen, Pipes, I’m really sorry.” Jason was looking down at his hands, fidgeting uncomfortably. “It’s not that you’re- You didn’t do anything wrong. You’ve been great, actually. We’re just- I’m just not-” he broke off with a sigh, pressing his hands to his face. “Gods, I’m a disaster. I can’t even get the words out.”
“Here, I’ll help,” Piper huffed, crossing her arms. “It’s Reyna, isn’t it?”
She felt… she wasn’t sure what she was feeling, actually.
Not surprised, exactly. She’d need both hands to count all the times she’d thought Jason would break up with her in the last few weeks. She wasn’t even sure she could blame him, really. Reyna was gorgeous. She didn’t need charmspeak to control a crowd—her general air of authority was more than enough. She was an awe-inspiring force of nature. If Piper could gather all that from the short time they’d spent together and a few flashes in her dagger, she couldn’t begin to imagine what years with her would be like. Of course Jason was in love with her. It seemed utterly impossible for anyone not to be.
So what was it that Piper was feeling? Jealousy, maybe? Anger? Neither of those felt like the right way to describe it.
There was a pressure in her chest that she couldn’t explain. All she knew was that it hurt. That it had been hurting ever since she’d started thinking about Jason and Reyna together, hands linked as they walked through the streets of New Rome.
It hadn’t been an issue when he’d first told her—when Reyna had been a vague idea of a person that had meant something to Jason in a different life. But that had been before she’d actually met Reyna.
Everything felt different since.
“It’s not Reyna,” Jason choked out. He looked more upset than she’d ever seen him, despite the fact that he was the one who’d decided to break up with her. “It’s never been about Reyna.”
Piper’s heart did something weird and awful, then. It unclenched slightly. Some of the tension went out of her shoulders, like it fundamentally wasn’t as bad if it was anyone else.
“Then who is it?” she asked, because she was supposed to want to know. Because she wanted to go on ignoring the confusing ball of emotion in her chest that told her maybe it didn’t matter.
She wanted to shove those feelings back in the box and never look at them again.
“It’s not about anyone. It’s just me.” Jason looked like he might cry. Piper wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him cry before.
He’d never been good at letting his walls down around her.
Despite the hurt and confusion, Piper reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. It felt like the natural thing to do. He’d been her friend before he’d ever been her boyfriend. “Hey, Sparky. Look at me.”
“Something happened. In Split,” Jason admitted after a long moment of silence. He did lift his head, then, but he still wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Yeah, that much is obvious from how weird you and Nico have been acting.”
Neither of them had talked about what had happened or how they’d gotten the scepter.
For the first few days after, Piper had barely seen Nico. He hadn’t even shown up for meals. He’d always been withdrawn, but not like that. And Jason… he’d been acting different around her. Pulling away when Piper tried to hold his hand, sincerely apologetic and terribly awkward at the same time. She’d hoped he was just stressed. The threat of the end of the world would do that to most people.
Apparently not.
Jason also seemed to have a newfound soft spot for Nico. He’d gone from jumpy every time Nico moved like he kept forgetting he was there to being protective of him whenever the subject came up, like he’d suddenly decided Nico was his younger brother and any bad word about him was a personal offense.
Piper wasn’t sure what Jason had done to change Nico’s mind, but whatever the case, as of two days ago he was back to eating with the rest of them.
“Tell me what happened.”
Jason shook his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry. It’s not my place to talk about it.”
“So tell me what you can talk about,” she said, not forcefully. She didn’t want him to tell her because she’d accidentally used her charmspeak. She wanted him to tell her because they’d been dating for months at this point and she deserved to understand what was going on, even if she didn’t like it. “Because if you’re going to break up with me, I’d at least like to know why.”
“I’m sorry.” He did cry, then, his eyes pressed shut like that might make the pain go away. “I'm just really confused right now. I know my timing is awful. But it wouldn’t be fair to just keep dating you when I…” Jason clenched his hands into her blanket, apparently trying to steady his breathing. He didn’t quite manage. Then he looked directly at her, his expression more vulnerable than she’d ever seen it. “When I’m not even sure I’m into girls. I. Uhm. I think I might be gay?”
Piper couldn’t stand the fear in his eyes. Before she fully registered what she was doing, she’d looped her arms around Jason’s midsection and pulled him to her chest. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Breathe.”
Jason made a surprised noise, but he obeyed, steadying himself against her as his breaths evened out against her shoulder. She wasn’t sure she’d ever held him like this before. It felt intimate, maybe more than any of their kisses had.
“You’re not mad?” he asked when they broke apart, looking at her like he was still expecting her to change her mind and start yelling at him.
“Why would I be mad?”
“Because I just broke up with you?” He sounded more confused than anything now. “Because I wasted a bunch of your time?”
Piper blinked, momentarily baffled by her own reaction. Jason was right. Maybe she should feel mad—not at his sexuality, obviously, and probably not even at him, but definitely at the situation. At the very least, she should probably feel bummed out, especially considering how long they’d been dating.
Somehow, she wasn’t feeling either of those things. She had, for a brief moment at the beginning, but not for the reasons she was supposed to be feeling that way. By now, any upset she’d felt had vanished completely. The confusing knot of emotions in her heart had unspooled into a treacherous feeling of relief.
For weeks, she’d assumed Jason breaking up with her would be the worst thing that could happen. Now that it was done, it felt like someone had removed a weight from her chest. Like she could breathe freely for the first time in months.
“I’m not going to be mad at you for something you only just realized about yourself,” she said, squeezing his shoulder gently.
“But isn’t it weird that it took me so long to realize this?” Jason asked, his expression still terribly vulnerable. “Shouldn’t this be something I just… know?”
“Sometimes it’s not,” Piper said, trying to keep the trembling out of her voice. Something in her chest was resonating, threatening to spill out, and she wasn’t quite ready to face it. She thought back to the conversation she’d had with Hazel a few nights ago. “You know how the Mist works? How it will make people see what they’re expecting to see? It can be like that, too.”
It had been so easy to lean into it and ignore all evidence to the contrary. Piper McLean was in love with Jason Grace. There wasn’t a giant trireme flying over Europe.
She thought about how she’d told Jason she loved him when she assumed they were going to die, only to feel the same treacherous relief she did now when she’d realized he hadn’t heard it. She’d rationalized it by saying it would have been too soon.
It was starting to click that that hadn’t been the reason for her relief at all.
Piper had an actor for a dad. Maybe it made sense that she was just a little bit too good at pretending.
Jason looked at her, surprised, and then he smiled, tiny and fragile and like he could see right through her.
He hugged her again, and Piper felt like her chest might cave in—like all the things she’d refused to let herself feel might come tumbling out for everyone to see.
It terrified her. But something about this—about the fact that she wasn’t terrified and confused alone—made it easier to breathe.
“I’m glad we’re friends,” Jason said softly. “I like you so much. I think you’re awesome. I just… I don’t think I ever saw what I was supposed to when I looked at you.”
Piper’s head hurt, the way it sometimes did when she knew she was going to start crying. This was why it had been so perfectly easy to pretend with Jason. Why it might have been even without the fake memories and her mom telling her they were meant to be.
Jason was nice and brave and conventionally attractive. He was her friend, and Piper cared about him. Why wouldn’t she want them to be more? He was like a cardboard cutout of the love interest in every high school romcom she’d ever watched.
He was everything she was supposed to want in a boyfriend. She was supposed to fall asleep thinking about him. She was supposed to want to be alone with him. Instead, every time they were, she wished Leo was there to bridge the awkward silences. When she closed her eyes, she thought of Annabeth and their game of domestic breakfast theft. She thought of Reyna’s determined expression reflected in her knife.
But Annabeth was her friend, and Piper was worried. Of course she was thinking about her.
And Reyna… Reyna wasn’t anything to Piper. She was just a girl Jason had never dated, a girl he’d repeatedly stated he didn’t see as anything more than a friend. She wasn’t a threat to the relationship that Piper had convinced herself she wanted. There was no reason for the amount of space Reyna had taken up in Piper’s head.
She’d taken up residence regardless, and whenever Piper let her thoughts wander, her fingers wound up tangled in long black hair.
Gods, fuck.
“Well, turns out we’re both kind of a mess,” she choked out, rubbing at her eyes, and yep, she was definitely crying now. It was as close to the truth as she allowed herself to get.
Jason swayed a little as he held her, like they were the strangest pair of dancers in history. It was weirdly soothing.
“And we’re both going to be okay,” he said, like it was the most certain thing in the world.
Piper held on tightly and let herself sink into that feeling. She wasn’t in love with Jason, but gods, she did love him. Curled up against his chest, that was one of the few things she felt certain about.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked quietly, after she managed to get a bit more of a handle on her emotions again.
They’d never been great at the talking part. They made a decent questing team, sure, but the moments before and after, when it was just the two of them… Piper never knew what to do with those. Jason didn’t seem to have much of a clue, either.
Needless to say, she was a little surprised when Jason nodded.
“It’s confusing. It’s been confusing since Hera took my memories. They still don’t really feel like mine. They’re more like a movie I watched a few times—I know the plot and remember all the important bullet points, but that’s it. I’m not attached to them in the way I’m supposed to be.” Jason sighed. “I don’t remember ever seriously thinking of dating anyone, but maybe I had crushes. Some of the emotional parts didn’t carry over great. Maybe I was getting there, and then Hera decided it was inconvenient for what she had in mind, and now I’m confused all over again.”
Piper cringed. Having to do this once was bad enough. She couldn’t imagine what it’d feel like to have to go through it twice.
“I’m sorry.”
Jason was back to wringing his hands.
“I’d never even kissed anyone before you, which is probably part of why I didn’t figure things out sooner. I have no idea how it’s supposed to feel. Just that whatever I am feeling probably isn’t… that.”
This seemed like something Piper was supposed to know. She was the daughter of the goddess of love, for crying out loud.
The truth was, she didn’t. Not really.
Jason was the only person she’d ever kissed, in whatever moments she felt warranted a kiss. That in itself maybe should have told her something a lot sooner—how she’d thought of kissing him not as something she wanted to be doing, but as a task to be checked off a list.
It was incredible what the Mist could hide if you didn’t think it was there. If you weren’t ready to see it. How well your brain could pull wool over your eyes when it came to things you weren’t willing to process.
It was one thing to risk being all over the tabloids with a stupid stunt she'd pulled to get her dad's attention. If people judged her for that, she could brush it off because they didn't truly know her.
Because that behavior was a choice she made, and one she could stop making at any time. But she already had enough people who judged her based on her heritage. If she could at least take this part of herself and package it up until it was unrecognizable so she never had to deal with what anyone else thought of it, wasn't that worth it, even if it made her miserable?
But you couldn't will the Mist back once you'd seen through it. And here, with Jason, who got her even if she still couldn't get the words out, Piper didn't think she wanted to.
She wanted to hold that piece of herself to her chest and just be, damn it. The world might end in a few weeks. And if they couldn't stop it, she'd so much rather live these last few weeks as herself. And if they did manage, well… she would cross that bridge if Gaia didn’t blow it up first.
Piper let that decision settle, with all the mixed emotions that came with it. It felt mostly good.
Then she gave herself a moment to really consider what Jason had said about kissing, thinking back to the campers who’d come to her for advice. In retrospect, that felt terribly ironic. Who was she to give romantic advice to anyone when she’d made herself so blind to her own feelings?
“I think there’s supposed to be sparks,” she finally said. “Not that I’ve got any more experience in that department than you do.”
“What, like I should fry them?” Jason raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound safe.”
“Not literal sparks.” Piper paused, thinking about the gems that appeared whenever Hazel got nervous, or the way Leo would sometimes catch fire when he was stressed or excited. Maybe Jason’s thought wasn’t completely absurd. “Actually, there might be literal sparks, with your powers. But for most people, it’s more metaphorical. A warmth in your chest whenever you think about kissing them. Your heart flutters, and you want to keep doing it, today and tomorrow and maybe forever. Everything just feels right. It fits. Like you’re two sides of the same coin.” She laughed. “Oh Gods, I sound like a cheesy Valentine’s Day card.”
Jason snorted. “A bit. But thanks for trying. I think I might just be hopeless when it comes to this stuff.”
“You’ll figure it out. At least one of us has to,” Piper said, elbowing him gently. “It’ll probably get easier once we’re done constantly worrying about how the world might end in a month.”
“Yeah. Or maybe I’ll just be dead.” Jason bit his lip. “I hate this stupid prophecy. I don’t want to die. But I could never let it be Leo.”
There was something so determined in his expression that it scared her—like Jason had already decided how this was going to go, and the Fates should just try to lay a finger on Leo instead. Piper understood the sentiment—Leo was her best friend, and the thought of something happening to him just about killed her. But Jason was her friend, too, and she wasn’t any more okay with losing him than she was with losing Leo.
“Even if I’m right about the prophecy, we’ll find another way,” Piper said, trying to sound reassuring. They had to. It didn’t seem fair that a bunch of sixteen year olds would have to make that kind of choice. “Besides, you know how Leo is. Tell him he can’t do a thing and he’ll take it as a personal challenge. One time, back in Wilderness School, one of the other kids told him he couldn’t possibly eat fifteen Jell-O cups. Made himself sick for two days, but he ate twenty just to spite that person.”
There were few scenes from that time Piper remembered clearly, thanks to Hera’s Mist memories. Why this was one of them, she had no idea.
The corners of Jason’s mouth ticked up. “Yeah, when Leo sets his mind to something, he’ll do it, laws of the universe be damned. The Fates won’t know what hit them.”
Jason’s voice was soft and fond. He had an expression like he’d follow Leo to the moon if he asked—over a stupid story about Jell-O cups, of all things.
“You like him a lot, don’t you?”
“I mean, obviously.” Jason smiled softly. “Leo’s kind of the greatest person I’ve ever met.”
“Aw, you sap.” Piper elbowed him again. “Please don’t tell him that, though. I’m not sure he needs his ego even more inflated,” she joked.
Jason rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “It… might be a little too late for that.”
Piper raised one eyebrow. “What did you do?”
“I maybe told him that he was important, and that people with special gifts like his show up when they’re needed the most. Half a year ago, in the sewer.”
“Oh my gods.” Piper couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing. “That’s really sweet, don’t get me wrong, but I cannot believe I fell asleep early one time and you immediately started hitting on my best friend.”
“That’s not- I wasn’t-” Jason’s face turned crimson. “I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean.”
“I wasn’t saying you didn’t mean it.” She didn’t push him, no matter how much she wanted to point out that this was the most romantic thing she’d heard him say since they met. It would have been too much, too soon, even if they hadn’t had the prophecy hanging over their heads. “I am, however, saying that you are the corniest person I know. If I was boring enough to be genuine, I’d say Leo probably really appreciated it, though. He’s not the best at admitting when he’s having a hard time, and you saying sappy stuff like that is sometimes more helpful than me joking with him.”
“Good.” Jason’s shoulders slumped in something that looked like relief, and he gave her a tentative smile. “I’m glad. I’m sure he appreciates you joking with him just as much, though.”
And somehow, after all the breakup talk and the half-spoken truths about themselves and each other, this was almost easy.
Piper believed Jason when he said that it wasn’t about anyone in particular. That he was just confused and this didn’t feel the way it was supposed to.
She was also pretty sure she now knew something he didn’t.
It was the middle of the night by the time Jason left her cabin, and Piper was glad no one was around to witness it. Frank probably would have had a stroke. Coach Hedge would have promptly beaten them both up with his baseball bat before either of them got the chance to explain that they’d actually just needed some alone time to break up in peace.
Piper was still kind of shocked about how well things had gone. Despite the circumstances, it had been her and Jason’s first non-awkward solo conversation in what felt like forever. Go figure that breaking up would somehow make things less weird between them.
They hadn’t exactly decided what to tell the others, or when they would. Piper had joked that they could just wait for someone to awkwardly point out that they weren’t kissing anymore. With them all constantly trying not to die, their friend group really had more important things to worry about than the non-existent relationship drama between Piper and Jason.
Sure, it would probably take them a moment to figure out how to properly go back to being friends after they’d dated for months, but amicable as their breakup had been, they’d manage.
Piper really should have tried to sleep now, considering the fact that she was supposed to be on watch in the morning and it wouldn’t be great if she slept through that.
Instead, she sat at the edge of her bed and got out Katoptris. It hadn’t shown her any new visions since Rome. She’d been hoping to get confirmation Annabeth and Percy were alive, at first, but it vehemently refused. The only thing it bothered to show her now was a still. Every time she looked at the blade, the same stupid image of Reyna on her pegasus stared back, like the blade had gotten stuck on it somehow. Like someone had pressed pause on this exact frame and then decided to lose the remote.
Reyna looked exhausted. Her hair had come loose from her neat braid and was completely disheveled, but there was a grim determination in her eyes like she could handle anything. When Piper looked at her, she really, truly believed that.
She wanted to reach out and brush the stray strands of hair back behind Reyna’s ears. Maybe redo her braid, despite the fact that she wasn’t great at braiding and Reyna probably wouldn’t want her to even if she had been.
This was the part where usually, Piper’s brain would kick in and start trying to rationalize things away. Girls were objectively pretty. Piper admired Reyna. She needed to know the competition. She wanted to be friends with her. There were perfectly heterosexual reasons for why she wondered what her palms felt like and why she really needed to figure out how well Reyna’s jaw fit into her hands.
But it was three in the morning, and there wasn’t a Jason-shaped weight pressing down on her chest, and for the first time, Piper let the thoughts linger.