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Frank was grateful. Not just about the fact that he survived the war, but that he could look around the dinner table and see warmth and familiar faces, something others would never experience again. After the war ended he and his fellow Praetor, Reyna, had prioritized having dinners with close friends and family at least once or twice a month, even though they had busy schedules
Next to him sat Hazel and even though he knew she hated being stared at, especially with lust, he couldn't help but keep her eyes on her as she entranced him, even though she was just talking to her brother. Her brother, Nico, sat beside her as she chatted away about his camp counselor friend, Will, although Frank had a hunch that they were a little bit more than that. Alas, that was none of his business, but he still silently observed Nico describe Will in the ways that Frank would describe Hazel.
On the other side of him sat Gwen, Dakota, and Michael as they chatted away about the difficulty of their centurion duties. Michael was describing the pain it was to have to deal with the aftermath of Octavion's suicide. Octavion's family was trying to get a charge on someone for "killing their golden child" and Michael had been given the case because it was seen as a "minor issue". Frank felt bad that Michael had to deal with this case and just wanted to decline the request but Reyna told him to just go through with it to try and give the family "closure". More like trying to convince Octavian's family to keep funding the camp.
Lastly, his eyes wandered to the end of the table where Hylla sat with Reyna. Hylla hadn't forgiven Frank fully for breaking into Amazon Headquarters and had attempted to kill him when she found out he was her sister's fellow praetor, but with some convincing from Hazel and Reyna, she had let him off the hook for a while. As for Reyna, she had been very reserved ever since they had returned from camp half-blood. She had been softer on Frank since he had become Praetor yet he still felt a wall between them and it was tall. He had talked to Hazel about it, as it seemed she had a better glance of the other side of the wall but she would always tell him she only had observations, not facts. That was fair, I mean the only person who knew Reyna inside out was Jason.
"Hey Frank," Hazel whispered to Frank leaning over, causing him to snap out of his thoughts.
"Yes honey" Frank whispered back causing Hazel to flush. He knew that she loved being called that.
"Have you talked about who can take over Praetor for a day or two when we go to see Jason tomorrow?"
Frank had completely forgotten about that. Piper had messaged them a few days ago and told them that she and Jason were going to attend school in California, specifically L.A., and that before the school year started Frank, Hazel, and maybe Nico could come and visit them.
"I'll just ask him now, I mean everyone he needs to know is here," Frank said standing up to make an announcement. Hazel tried to tug at his arm for some reason but he was already standing up clinging his fork to his glass cup gently, trying to get everyone's attention. He liked doing this as it made him feel assertive and important and gentler and kinder than yelling.
"Hi everyone," He started saying to set the tone. "I know this is our monthly dinner but can we hold a quick meeting?"
He looked over to his fellow Praetor who nodded and responded.
"Go ahead Zhang," She said with a smile as she went to drink out of her glass.
"So Hazel, Nico, and I have gotten an invitation to go visit Jason and Piper before they start the school year. It will only take a day or two but I was thinking, Michael, could you cover me, I promise we'll only be gone for a day or two."
The room was dead silent as Frank finished his sentence. He looked around to see confused faces from Michael, Gwen, Dakota, and Reyna. Meanwhile, Nico and Hazel were strangely avoiding eye contact with all of them. The only person who seemed not shocked or guilty was Hylla, who looked like she was trying to hold back laughter.
"Jason's in California?" Reyna asked Frank, breaking the silence.
"Yes, he's going to be attending school with Piper in L.A. and while Nico was here we thought we could do a friendly visit."
This made the silence and facial expressions worse than before. Hylla went from holding back laughter to putting on her "overprotective sister" face as soon as she saw her sister's face change. Reyna looked like she was holding back a river of emotions as she gripped her older sister's hand secretly for what seemed like much-needed support.
Frank panicked feeling that he may have made Reyna feel left out. After all, she and Jason were good friends.
"You can come too if you want," Frank blurted out trying to save the conversation. "I am sure Jason would love to see his best friend!"
Reyna looked like a deer in headlights when Frank mentioned "best friend" and "Jason" in the same sentence. It seemed like something had hit her in the stomach.
Others like Gwen and Michael winced at that mention of Jason in that context meanwhile Dakota looked angry as hell, and Dakota never was angry like how he was now. Hazel and Nico looked at each other and then at Frank with pity, like he was about to be torn apart by Reyna.
"I am good Frank," Reyna said while putting a hand up in the air while smiling gently at Frank. Frank was relieved. At least she wasn't angry like Dakota who was starting to turn as red as his Kool-Aid. "I should stay back and keep this city running but you, Hazel, and Nico should go and see both him and Piper. Now if you could excuse me from the table."
As soon as Reyna left Dakota and Gwen took their plates and left shooting angry looks at Frank. Shortly after Michael left, but smiled and thanked Frank for trusting him to be a temporary Praetor while he was on leave.
That left Nico, Hazel, and Hylla at the table. Hylla looked at Frank with glaring eyes while Hazel grabbed his hand to hold. He was going to need emotional support for the words that were about to come out of her mouth.
"Oh boy have you opened a Pandora Box," Hylla said shaking her head. "I'm going to go check on my sister, but it's not like she is going to tell me anything."
"I'll come with you to talk to her too," Nico said, getting out of his seat. He patted Frank on the back as he and Hylla left the room.
Frank turned over to Hazel, who rubbed his hand as he sat there contemplating.
"Don't worry Frank, Reyna is just processing right now and hasn't been very public about it. She knows you meant no harm." Hazel said kissing Frank on the lips gently.
"Thank you, Honey," He said kissing her gently back causing her to giggle a little bit. " You truly are the best woman I know.'
"And your best man I know," Hazel said, getting out of her seat. "We should get back to our quarters so we can sleep now. Maybe I'll even let you walk me to mine."
"I'd like that," Frank responded kissing Hazel's hand as he got up out of his seat.
Even though Hazel's gestures were sweet and took his mind off the guilt he felt about that night's conversation, there was still one question floating in his head about the conversation from tonight. What was everyone else getting at about Jason and Reyna that he wasn't?
Frank couldn't sleep. Something just didn't sit right with him. He kept asking himself over and over what context was he missing but he was finding no answers, just dead ends. So he did the next best thing he could do, go for a midnight walk.
The sky was nice and starry tonight. It reminded him of how whenever his mom was home from her military tour and he couldn't sleep in the summers, she would sleep with him outside so they could fall asleep looking at stars. She said whenever he needed her to look up to the stars. He tried but it just made him miss his mom even more, her warmth and comfort. Of course he found warmth and comfort in other people such as his girlfriend, his future brother in law, his friends from the seven crew, and even Reyna. Even though he had all those people no one could replace the feeling of love that his mom always gave him and he had come to terms that it would never be replaced or replicated.
As he walked down the path he saw two guards on duty, Dakota and Gwen who both seemed to be in the middle of a heated conversation. He had forgotten that they were on duty tonight, no wonder Dakota had slept through half of the group dinner.
Then it hit him that the heated conversation was probably about the Jason topic that had been brought up tonight. Maybe if he could just listen in as an unsuspecting animal for two seconds he could answer his burning question. Sure, Frank knew that it was morally wrong but he just couldn't help it, he needed the truth and he had the opportunity to get it now.
Frank morphed into a owl and flew up to where the best friends were having their conversation. Frank braced himself, he knew that the two of them were very truthful between each other. Even though he was disguised as an animal, he couldn't draw to much attention to his human behavior or else they would know it was him.
"Dakota, Jason still remembers us," Gwen said crossing her arms and scowling a little bit. "He got his memories back as far as we know."
"Oh wow that makes me feel so much better Gwen" Dakota said trying to keep his voice in a hush tone. "That he you know, chose to forget about us instead of actually forgetting about us."
"He just needs his space," Gwen retaliated. "Take a page of advice about respect and boundaries from Reyna's book and she has a different situation then us!"
"He is never coming back," Dakota said out of sadness, not anger. "Admit it Gwen, Reyna may have a different situation yet he's still treating us the way he's treating her. If that's not apparent after then tonight then I don't know when it will be for you."
Gwen was silent looking down at the ground looking like she was trying not to cry. "He said he would always stand with us, the fifth cohort. He promised we would always be a family no matter what."
"Well he lied," Dakota said turning away. "Even Percy has talked to us more times than he has these past few months. If Percy can take to the time to talk to us ever so often then Jason can, but he isn't."
"I don't know what to say" Gwen said rubbing her head as she looking at Frank.
Frank hooted. He was so done, they had caught him. How was he even going to explain this to them? Or even worse Reyna?
"Hey Owl," Dakota said. "Give Gwen her some wisdom, she's in denial."
Gwen grunted at the awful joke Dakota had made as a another guard ran up to them.
"Shift change!" He yelled.
This cued Gwen and Dakota to move to their next posting causing Frank to mentally sigh. Since they had spotted him it would obvious he was Frank if he followed them cause normal owls didn't follow people to listen to their discussions.
He had gotten some answers but still needed more, thankfully for him, he knew exactly who to go to.
Frank knocked on Hazel's door room with his shaking fist. He felt the adrenaline in his body telling him he needed to search for answers and he was anxious to find them.
Hazel opened the door while rubbing her eyes. She was dressed in a two piece rose gold colored pajama set on along with a matching bonnet to protect her curls
"Yes who is it- Frank?" she said opening her eyes wide at the mention of his name, "Hey what are you doing here at one in the morning?"
Frank looked down at himself in his pajamas. He forgot that other people weren't nocturnal like him.
"Hey sweetie can I talk to you?" Frank said as he looked at an unimpressed Hazel. "I know it's a conflict of interest with our rules-"
Although the senate had no issue with people of opposite genders sleeping in the sharing the same room for whatever reasons that may be, Hazel had always made it clear that was not going to be the case with them. She was very strict about what they could and couldn't do when it came to the physical things of their relationship and had always made said that other things they wanted to do would have to wait for "later in life".
"Frank just come in here." Hazel said giving him a moody glare. I mean he couldn't blame her, she was sleeping peacefully before he arrived.
"Are you sure it's ok if I come in?"
Hazel sighed and turned around as she closed the door behind him. "Yes I think it is ok if you come into my room, as long as we don't do anything too risque."
She smirked at him walking to her bed. On the floor was a blown up mattress where Nico usually slept but it was empty. Instead Nico was sitting on Hazel's bed getting up to go sit on his blown up mattress. Frank looked around at the tidy room Hazel kept with the hair products Reyna gifted her on the vanity in order and her clothing basket open and empty.
"Let me guess you're here to figure out what's wrong with your little statement tonight?" Nico said with a look on his face which Frank couldn't read. It was either angry or sympathetic, maybe it was a mix of both.
"Can someone please just give me a straightforward answer?" Frank asked crossing his arms. "Cause I feel like everyone's hiding their real answers."
Nico sighed and shook his head. "it's more complicated than that Frank."
"Is that your excuse to not tell me about anything that has been going on?" Frank said trying to have an angry tone. That wasn't the way to get Nico to tell him any information plus he didn't want to scare Hazel, she hated it when he got angry.
"I can't tell you what happened because that's the problem, nothing happened. You can see for yourself tomorrow," Nico said crossing his arms. "Trust me I would know."
Frank assumed that Nico was talking about his sister but it could be about anyone, he had sensed that something had between him and the other campers before.
"Look Frank, I would tell you everything that happened detail for detail but I feel like that would be disrespectful to all the parties involved. Especially Reyna, I couldn't do that to her. Sorry that I can't give you anymore information."
Nico looked like he could cry. It's like he could feel all of pain that was going on between the friend group, the same pain Frank was trying to understand and maybe even repair. Nico instead got up and pointed his thumb towards the door, insinuating that he was going for a walk.
"Frank" Hazel said turning to him. "I know that you want answers tomorrow but please don't bring it up, at least not with Piper there."
Frank silently agreed and went to cuddle Hazel who giggled gently.
He needed Jason to complete this mystery that was haunting his mind. He needed the missing piece to why Reyna was acting the way she was. Honestly if it was just Dakota and Gwen he would've thought they were being their regular dramatic selves, but the fact that Reyna was struggling to mask some heavy feelings caused this case to be even more intriguing.
After a long drive Frank finally hopped out of the vehicle. Since he was sixteen and Hazel and Nico were not, they all decided to go the safe and legal route, which was something they would usually never do. Frank was grateful that Reyna had pushed him to get his driver licence, even though he had been resistant, as he swore up and down he would probably just fail it. But he didn't and here he was, bringing his girlfriend and her brother on a road trip to L.A.
Piper greeted them at the front. Her brown hair was had grown out quite a bit and gleaming in the sunlight. She had a bright smile with welcoming eyes. She ran towards them going in for a giant bear hug.
"Oh, I missed you guys" She exclaimed whilst tightly hugging Hazel and Frank. Nico intentionally stepped out of the way to avoid the hug but made sure to smile.
After a quick greeting outside, Piper led the crew inside of the mansion. Frank was guessing it was her dad's since they were near Hollywood and truly only a Hollywood star like Tristan McLean could afford such a grand house. It made him feel jealous that Piper had access to all of this wealth as she blabbered on about how annoying the paparazzi and her father had been lately. He remembered how when his grandmother got retired due to her sickness, his family lived pay check to pay check trying to make sure they could make ends meet. He remembered how his mom went back on tour, that was the tour she died on. She did all that so they could keep the family house, which was probably up for sale since his grandma had died too. It made him sad and felt like a punch in the gut but when he saw Piper overjoyed he couldn't help but be happy for her.
Piper gave them a quick tour of the place which made Frank's head spin. He was totally going to get lost in this place.
They entered the second dining area and there he sat. Jason Grace. He looked somewhat solemn, with his glasses and grown out hair. He looked different than how Frank had seen him before in old pictures of him. It was almost like he was a completely different person.
He got up and gave Nico and Frank deep hugs. With Frank it was like a regular bro hug but with Nico it was so much deeper than that. Hazel, on the other hand, got a distant side hug. He looked at Jason's face who just seemed to be in a different world, like he was mentally social distancing from Hazel and her association. This made Frank mad as Jason had shown his coldness to Hazel before in a time of need but Frank told himself not to take it to heart.
Lunch was weirder than he expected. Jason had these cold eyes like he was in blank thought. After a while he did warm up, like he had finally remembered that they weren't a threat. Along with that they only talked about camp half-blood and everyone living there. Neither Piper or Jason brought up the fact that Hazel and Frank were in high ranks in the senate. Part of Frank wanted to ask Jason for advice about being a Praetor but he was afraid of making things more awkward, and trust, he didn't want to make that mistake ever again. They talked about the The conversation shifted to Piper and more about her dad after to break the silence after everyone finished the sandwiches Piper had made them. Jason didn't say one word about what he was planning to do in California, it seemed as if he was only following Piper just trying to figure out what he was going to do with his life.
"We should get going" Hazel said looking around with her tired smile. Frank raised an eyebrow knowing that was the smile she always did when she was tired of working with people and it was a sign of her being near her breaking point emotionally.
"I thought you guys were going to stay overnight?" Piper asked confused. Jason also raised an eyebrow.
"We have an important last booked meeting in the morning, Jason would get it" Nico said trying to gracefully have a light tone. Something he only ever did when comforting his sister.
Jason nodded his head but his eyes still read blank and confused. It was almost like he didn't know what Nico was trying to imply but was playing it off. It was like he forgot what it felt like.
He still in shock that Nico and Hazel's lies and Jason's reaction to Nico's statement but to be supportive just nodded and added to the illusion. "Yeah we were going to message you but we completely forgot, well specifically me, you know, goldfish tendencies!"
Although Piper did look a little disappointed as she always loved spending time with them but she smiled and let out a little chuckle. Jason turned to Frank and smiled like he felt secure with them again and knew who they were.
They quickly said goodbyes and headed back to Reyna's beloved Jeep. As soon as they stepped in the vehicle, they all let out a deep sigh. There wasn't a single word peeped on the way back. It was like they were trying to forget what had just happened.
Frank should have just kept his mouth shut from the beginning. He had meddled in something that didn't need to involve him and had let his emotions control his mind. And now, he sat in bed at three in the morning trying to simply sleep. He couldn't deal with the dead silence, that was going to kill him. So he went for a walk.
He couldn't walk outside like how he normally would, because it was raining so he decided to walk inside the praetor building, where he lived. He thought about talking a quick sheltered short cut to go see Hazel and Nico but after the day they had, he wasn't really up for the task. He walked around with his head down in his own thoughts. It still haunted him how Jason seemed like a completely different version of himself than the one Frank had looked up to. It wasn't that he was more vulnerable and open, it was that he was more blank than he had been before. Like some part of his mind had started over.
Frank was quickly snapped out of his thought though, when he heard faint but unsettling noise coming from Reyna's room. He felt an immediate rush in him causing him to run and profusely knock on her door.
"Reyna" he called. "Are you ok in there?"
He waited for a response but was met with nothing, like something bad was going on in her room. He took a deep breath, praying to the Gods that nothing that would scar him for life was happening in there, and swiftly broke open the door. Directly in front of him sat Reyna, boxes surrounding her filled with photo albums, papers, clothes, and a few stuffed animals. She swiftly looked at him and Frank had to stop himself from gasping. She looked as if she had been crying for a while, with her red puffy eyes and dried tear marks on her face. She looked away as quickly as she could, seeming ashamed that she could ever be caught like this.
Frank walked over slowly to where she was sitting. She didn't look up at him once and instead just tried wiping away her tears. He sat in front of her looking down at the ground to see a photo album titled "My Favorite Person". It was a plain purple photo album but Frank had a feeling in his gut it was so much more than that. She looked up at him looking with a stern face. It scared frank how quickly Reyna could switch up like that.
"You should just go" Reyna said leaning her back on her king sized bed. "Forget this ever happened, just don't mention a word about it to anyone."
Frank opened his mouth but was completely interrupted by Reyna.
"And before you ask, cause I know you will. No, i haven't seen what's in the album, I was just crying over something stupid. I doubt it's even about me, I'm just wishing it was."
Frank looked at Reyna while also leaning against the edge of her bed like she was. She was looking at the floor before popping her head up to stare straight ahead.
"Can I read it?" Frank said holding the photo album. He didn't know what was going to be in the scrapbook but still felt compelled to know.
Reyna looked directly at him and sighed, but nodded her head.
Frank opened the photo album to see a picture of Reyna and Jason arm in arm with each other hugging. They both had big smiles on their faces and seemed around the age of 13, so fairly young still.
Frank couldn't help but smile seeing how happy both Reyna and Jason looked. He had never seen either of them smile like that before, and definitely not at each other like that.
Frank flipped the pages just to see the whole photo album was just filled with pictures of him and Reyna, no one else. He really must of meant it when he titled this book "My Favorite Person". As he went on there were more solo photos of Reyna, which was a rare sight as Reyna never took photos, at least never solo. Then the photos stopped, and all of a sudden there was a folder. Frank opened it to find a collection of letters from Reyna to Jason stuffed in the paper folder in between the pages.
Frank put the scrapbook down immediately and put it in Reyna's hands.
Reyna looked at Frank for the first time since he had entered the room. Her eyes looked big and sad but she still smiled at him and took the book into her hands. She flipped through the pages with shock in her face. Then she smiled and laughed.
"I asked him to delete all of these" Reyna said smiling at the solo photos of herself. "He was always so good at photography. He used to do practice shots with me but I always told him to delete them afterwards."
She chuckled and moved on to the back of her book where all the letters were. She saw the folder and took it out of the book. She took out the first letter and gasped reading it.
"I told him to throw this out too!' Reyna said chuckling with a little bit of a sad tone in her voice. "Wow he really kept everything."
She handed a letter to Frank.
'I wrote this letter to him when he was away doing training and i found out I was able to run for praetor." Reyna said looking at the ceiling. "If I hadn't of written this letter to him I would've never gotten the response that motivated me to go and win that election. But that was a long time ago."
Frank put the letter down and put a hand on Reyna's shoulder.
"Don't worry" Frank said smiling grabbing the photo album. "He'll come back, see your his favorite person."
"I was. At one point i guess I was his favorite person."
"Reyna, if this has anything to do with Piper I can assure you-"
Reyna held out her hand to silence him. She looked at him with tearful eyes which she was struggling to hold back.
"It's not that Frank," Reyna said letting go of her tight posture and leaning on him. "It has to do with- It has do with more than romance. I wanted us to work no matter what, no matter how mad I was at him. That's how it always was."
"You can always work things out. If it's that important you can always work it out." Frank said trying to be reassuring.
"Not I- I can't."
Reyna put her head in her hands, shaking her head like she had shared something she wasn't supposed to. She looked at Frank in annoyance.
"Listen you can't tell this to anyone else ok?" Reyna said glaring at him with her cold icy eyes. "No one knows this, not Nico, Hazel, even my sister."
Reyna sighed and shook her hands trying to presumably calm herself down.
"You remember how Jason got his memory back from Hera?"
Frank nodded his head. "I wasn't there for it but I heard."
"That's the thing though he didn't." She closed her eyes and stopped herself before continuing. "I guess Thalia recalled one of the stories I told her, about the first time I met Jason, I guess she brought it up as a joke to tease him or something. He didn't remember though, she told me he just blanked and said he didn't recall it."
Frank looked at her to see she was upset, but not upset by the revelation. That's is when everything connected.
"You knew before though. You saw that blank look."
Reyna looked at Frank and shook her head yes.
"I noticed it as soon as I sat across from him during the war meeting and looked at his eyes. I thought I was just being emotional and petty cause I knew there was distance between us but it was more than that."
They sat in silence as Reyna played with her thumbs, trying to distract herself from the awkward silence. Frank usually wouldn't be this speechless but he couldn't help but feel a sense of pain glide over him. It made him feel awful that Reyna was going through all of these emotions alone. It hurt him knowing that all it took was one or two visits from Jason to revive his memory and their friendship. Why wouldn't she do that?
"I know your asking yourself why don't I just jog his memory and we can fix all of this?"
Frank was shocked. Guess she knew him better than he thought she did.
"I thought about it," Reyna said with a little bit of a shake in her voice. "I wanted to sit down and tell him everything, Thalia even encouraged me too. But he's happy without them, it makes it easier for him to build his new life, with you, Hazel, Nico and all of the others at Camp Half-Blood. As much as I would love Gwen, Dakota, even Michael, to be apart of that, it makes it so much simpler if we just let him do that. But I'm to scared to tell them, sometimes it's just better to not know the truth and just know a lie."
Frank was relating a lot to that right now as he teared feeling guilty for his ignorance towards the situation. It wasn't straight forward anymore.
Reyna took a pause as her voice sounded like she was about to cry and a Spanish like accent started to slip through.
"The hardest part sometimes is knowing he's right there, one phone call away. And I'll pick up the phone but I can't, it's like he's not connected to me anymore. I sometimes doubt if we ever had a connection. It's like my mind is playing a cruel joke on me. I guess it's hard though, knowing he's out there living his best life, a life he always dreamed, and he's out there doing it without me. And now I feel stuck cause my best life was always whenever he was there. And now he's not and he can't be and I feel lost.
Reyna out her head in her hands and stayed silent for a moment. She then quickly wiped her eyes and popped up her head to reveal red eyes from flowing tears.
The words stranger rung through Frank's ears as he thought about Nico's words about how sometimes things were more complicated than the surface level. Frank really thought he could fix this. He really thought he could make everything right. Like how his mom always made everything right. So he did the next best thing he could think of.
"Want a hug?" Frank asked opening his arms as he turned to Reyna who was slowly starting to tear up while taking deep breaths.
Reyna looked at him with sorrow in her eyes but she slid over on the floor over to him. Frank was going to say something to her but judging by slowed breathing and slowly drying tears, no words needed to be said.
"Knock,knock!" Frank said holding some coffee while entering the praetor office. "I got some coffee!"
Reyna smiled at him. She had been a lot calmer since they she had opened up to him a week ago. "Thank you Frank!"
"You doing ok today?" Frank asked checking in with her. "Have you taken a break yet today?"
Reyna rolled her eyes at him. "Yes I took a one hour break today and that is all I will take and I'm doing a bit better today, thank you.
Reyna hadn't been feeling spotless emotionally but she seemed to be doing better. Her interactions were a lot less robotic than before and she had so much more of a smile than she did before. She started going on midnight walks with Frank to go see Hazel, who was so happy to see Reyna around more. Even Hylla noticed the change in behavior and asked Frank how he "closed the Pandora box". He guessed that she knew more about the Jason situation then she was letting on.
"Well you can go on one more today because Hazel wanted to host a dinner and invite everyone, including you, Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano."
Reyna rolled her eyes once again. "Well since Hazel is hosting I will be there Frank Zhang."
He had a feeling that this praetor partnership was going to be the best New Rome had ever seen. After all it was the start of a new life.