Chapter Text
His funeral was big. It wasn't common to honour the dead this greatly in New Rome, funerals usually being only small events with a few musicians and some words from loved ones. Funerals were mostly private ceremonies.
This was different, though. There were too many people who wanted to mourn him, to celebrate what he'd done in his final moments. A hero to all, a saviour who'd gone up in flames, and people wanted to thank him since they never got the chance to when he was alive.
The original funeral was meant to be held in Camp Halfblood. He was a Greek demigod, after all. It only made sense. However, the Romans protested, stating they needed to honour him for what he had done to save everyone. They suggested they have a public mourning, whilst the Greeks could have a private one after as more of his loved ones were at Camp Halfblood. The decision was given to the Seven and Hephaestus kids, who allowed it to happen.
So that's where Jason found himself. If he hadn't been so wrapped up in mourning, he'd have noted the beautiful combinations of customs, the flutes playing, the fires burning, the shroud lying down, waiting to be carried to burn.
There were no remains found. It was expected, but not any less sickening. Remains are hard to find in deaths as gruesome as his. A part of Jason, an irrational, delusional part of him, hoped that meant Leo could be alive somewhere, but he knew that wasn't possible. He was sure of it.
When the Greek hero had blown himself to pieces, destroying Gaea as he did, he left and took all the colours of the world with him. The last colour Jason had seen was the reds and yellows that killed and were ignited by Leo Valdez.
Reyna called Jason and his friends over to the shroud. They were to lift it now. Jason's stomach twisted violently, his throat choking up. Burning the shroud would make it official. Every single one of his steps felt heavy.
The family of the deceased, led by the soulmate of the deceased, were meant to walk beside the corpse before its cremation, but that couldn't be an option when there was no corpse and when Leo hadn't been too close to his siblings. They'd decided instead that his friends would walk followed by the Hephaestus cabin, burning his shroud before offering a drachma for Leo's transportation in the Underworld.
Jason hadn't told anyone what he knew about Leo's soulmate. He couldn't, not when he'd found out so violently and so soon, but he'd insisted he walked first, that he'd lead Leo's closest friends and siblings as they walked a nonexistent corpse in an empty shroud. Piper had looked at him with concern, but everyone had agreed; Jason was perhaps one of Leo's closest friends, rivalled only by Piper, and if he was willing, he could lead everyone to burn Leo's shroud.
Piper and Jason were the ones who mainly decided how the shroud should've looked like, how it should've represented Leo. It was covered in memories the three had created, honorary items that represented Leo alone, and, in the centre, Leo and his mother's names written in Ancient Greek and Spanish. It had been made in collaboration between the Greeks and the Romans, more intricate than most shrouds made by the Greeks but a fitting honour for the guy who had ended the war both camps had to fight.
Piper chose the colours. Jason's eyes filled with tears at the first mention of reds and browns.
And as Jason led the walk with the shroud, hands shaking as he moved up the marble staircase, his brain flooded with his final memory of Leo, an "I love you, I'm sorry" shouted at Jason and Piper before he jumped off Festus, and he felt his insides twist and his heart ache. His head pulsated due to the knowledge that it should have been Jason.
Nothing had ever ignited the pain he'd felt as he lifted Leo's empty shroud. His friends behind him did the same as they walked next to the large fire. They placed the shroud gently onto the marble floor, and Jason walked to the front of the fire to share a few words. He shakily pulled out a paper with all the words he'd meant to honour Leo with. He looked behind him, Piper, Nico, Hazel, Percy, Annabeth, Frank, and Coach Hedge either giving him supportive glances or silently mourning the loss of their friend. He'd turned back to the people who were silently awaiting his speech, and he took a shaky breath in before beginning.
"Words can't begin to describe Leo. For as long as I've known him, I've seen how vibrant, and intelligent, and passionate, and funny, and brave he is. He has always put others before himself, doing anything to protect those he loves. He loves— loved. He loved passionately and is loved passionately in return, by his friends, by his siblings, by all the strangers he's saved.
But nothing I've said or can say can explain how amazing it is to really know him and to be his friend. Even in the middle of a war, in the middle of a battle or in the middle of a quest, he managed to make every moment more bearable because that's just what Leo Valdez does. I have trusted people with my survival before, but with Leo, I could trust him with my life. I hope he knows how much he's changed my... our lives."
And he walked back to the row of people standing, and Piper rubbed his back with her thumb gently and wiped at the tears flowing down his face, except her face looked exactly the same, and holding his shroud felt sickening, and knowing he would never see Leo again felt sickening, and the world being in black and white after Leo died when Jason had thought his soulmate was the girl standing in front of him felt like having a knife sticking from his chest. Jason felt as if his chest would collapse in on itself with guilt and grief.
Jason walked to the Jupiter house after the funeral. The walk was solemn, lonely. He would have walked with Piper, but he was one of the first to leave, and Piper seemed to be better at mutual bonding than he was.
When he'd reached the purple building, someone who was not meant to be there sat at its stairway. Nico, who seemed to be almost drowning in his dark clothes, looked up at him, smiling weakly. His pale hand patted the spot next to him on the stair. "Nice speech."
Jason sat down next to him, despite having left to be alone, and he mumbled a quick, "Thanks."
"How're you feeling?" Nico asked, voice gentler than Jason had ever heard it. As if he were talking to a wounded puppy. Jason didn't knoe how he felt about that, so he ignored his feelings towards it altogether.
Instead, he decided to talk, because that's all he could do. He didn't even think as he replied with: "Awful. Guilty. Like it shouldn't have been Leo."
He stared at the ground in front of him, glaring at it as if it had caused Leo's downfall. He couldn't look at Nico. He couldn't ignore the ache in his chest either.
"That's called survival's guilt," Nico said, and Jason immediately shook his head.
"That's not it."
"Yes, it is," Nico insisted. "You feel guilty because you survived, but he didn't. It happens to most demigods at some point."
No, it wasn't survivor's guilt. That was too simplistic. He wasn't just guilty, he was angry and sad and empty and anxious and grieving and every good thing had suddenly disappeared because Leo was no longer there to experience it with him. Guilt did not begin to encapsulate that.
He looked at Nico, and he could finally tell Nico was speaking from experience. His dark eyes would not make contact with his either. His body slumped as he fidgeted with his fingers. He bit his lip almost religiously.
Jason sighed. When he spoke, he spoke quietly. He found he was speaking to himself just as much as he was speaking to Nico.
"The Romans always told me the best way to honour the dead is by letting yourself live.
Nico smiled weakly at that, turning to Jason. "They're right. It gets a little easier with time."
And their eyes locked for the first time since they began to talk. A mutual understanding of what it meant to lose, to grieve. Jason sighed before standing up.
"Leo's your soulmate, isn't he?"
"What?" Jason said, eyes wide.
"Leo. Your soulmate," Piper repeated. They were preparing for Leo's Camp Halfblood funeral in the Aphrodite cabin. It was empty besides the two; activities were still on, and people were already starting to leave camp due to summer's end.
The two had agreed to get ready together. They did so quietly, the occasional sniff or shuffle breaking the silence, until Piper had asked what she did.
Jason thought of his best course of action. He knew he had to tell the truth, but doing so was... It was easier said than done. When he opened his mouth, no words would come out for what felt like an eternity of Piper staring at him.
"I... How did you know?" Jason managed.
Piper nodded, as if the fact did not surprise her at all. "You've done a bad job at hiding it."
"Oh."
"I should've known sooner, honestly,” she said softly, “but I was so caught up with my own problems that it didn't even occur to me."
She was acting as if all the signs were there which, he supposed they were. The first time Jason saw colour, he was with Piper and Leo, wasn’t he? And Piper’s memories had been altered. Gods, he probably replaced her soulmate in her memories. She would know them if it weren’t for Jason.
He looked at her, brushing her recently cut dark hair. She looked at him with an expression that was just as complicated as what Jason felt.
"It never crossed mine either until the world turned grey,” Jason replied through a tightened throat. “And I'm sorry. I was planning to tell you."
She smiled at him, and it was small, but it felt genuine. As if everything could be sorted out. As if they weren’t both grieving, or maybe as if they could move past that grief one day.
It gets a little easier with time.
"Don't be,” Piper said gently. “I'm so sorry you found out that way. Finding your soulmate is supposed to be beautiful."
A silence rang in the room. There were no words to be said, really, as they gave themselves time to understand, or to accept, or do anything with what they’d told one another. Piper looked at him again, eyes calculated and face unreadable before she spoke again.
"Do you love him?"
And there it was. Jason felt all the air knocked out of him. It was just a question, just a question . It did not stop him from feeling that he had been hit in the face.
Do you love him?
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t thinking about it, or that he didn’t think about it before. It was easy to shut down the thoughts when he thought Piper was his soulmate. They were destined for each other, he’d thought.
And when he found out that wasn’t true, Leo was dead.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” is all Jason managed, and he couldn’t look her in the eye when he said so. He felt guilty, horrible.
Piper came up to him, put a hand on his cheek. Jason almost flinched at the touch. “Jason, it’s okay. Please.” At that, Jason lifted his face to look at her.
"You're not upset?"
Piper grimaced, her hand falling. “Well... I am, but not really at you. I don't know. And... I always felt that something was off.”
Jason swallowed. Maybe he did too. Maybe he wasn’t expecting that it was mutual.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“It’s not your fault.”
"It is, and sometimes I think I'm going insane because I think I can still see red, but he's gone."
Silence rang again. Jason blinked away tears, trying to get himself together, trying to stay calm, be calm, things would be okay, but he didn’t feel okay .
"Why wouldn't he tell me?" Jason whispered.
"You would've stopped him."
He couldn’t disagree.
And it was back to silence, and Jason was so tired of silence, of not knowing. He looked at Piper, voice shaking as he talked.
“We’re over, aren’t we?”
Piper nodded. “That doesn’t mean I don’t love you. We’ll get through this. And... we'll still have love for each other, right?”
Jason looked away, staring at a distant candle. He could almost swear he could see the reds and yellows of the flame. “We will,” Jason nodded. They went to the funeral arm in arm, as if they weren’t over, as if things were okay, and if the strawberries in the fields looked red, Jason tried not to think too hard about it, because what use was hope with no result?