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Jake sat on the grass in one of Olympus’ parks. Around him were people in a variety of emotions; Katie and Travis crying into each other’s arms as they realised they’d both made it, Pollux leaning against a tree on his own, Clarisse sitting next to Sherman, both not speaking as they take in their respective losses.
Jake didn’t have it in him to be mad at Clarisse at that moment. He didn’t have it in him to do anything other than wait, staring at the doors to Olympus with hope and with dread. The Apollo cabin hadn’t come back yet. One of them had come up here to heal the injured, but the rest were still down there, even though the fighting was over.
Michael hadn’t come back yet.
“Hey, Jake.” He didn’t have to turn to recognise his sister, Nyssa,’s voice.
“Hey Nyss.” Jake echoed. Then he felt a poke in the side, just below the ribs, and jerked back. “Ow!”
Nyssa grinned at him. It felt wrong – so many friends dead, so many people gone, and yet the grin still made a light turn back on in Jake. A light he hadn’t felt since the battle started. (Since Charlie died on that boat.)
“We made it.” Nyssa said, allowing the words to sink into Jake. We made it . They made it.
“We-” Jake’s voice cracked, and tears started to pool in his eyes. “We made it .” Jake placed his hands around Nyssa, hugging her tightly, savouring the fact that he still could. So many had gone, and yet they made it.
Neither of them spoke for a bit, letting the world around them go on without them. Jake finally pulled away, keeping one arm around his sister as he asked a question that had been on his mind since the battle ended;
“Have you seen the Apollo cabin?” Have you seen Michael went unsaid.
Nyssa didn’t say anything. The chasm of dread in Jake’s stomach grew wider.
“Nyssa. Have you seen them.” It wasn’t as much of a question anymore.
His sister looked away. “I–” She gulped. “I’ve seen them. They’re still down there working on the ones who can’t make it up the elevator. But… but Jake…” She cut off and took in a breath, “You’re… I mean… fuck .”
“What happened.” Nyssa didn’t speak. “ Nyssa ,” Jake urged, trying not to get angry, “What happened.”
“Will said Kronos was on the bridge.” The world around Jake shattered. “The spy,” her eyes diverted towards Clarisse still on the steps to one of the gods’ temples, “Told him about how the Apollo cabin were separated from the rest of us. Percy came as backup, but the bridge was weak. The bridge collapsed.”
Glass shards fell around Jake, cutting into his skin, his heart, carving it out and replacing it with darkness.
“But–” Jake stammered, “But– but you said that Will told you. That means they lived, right.” Nyssa said nothing. “ Right .”
“Some of them lived.” Nyssa agreed, but her voice was hollow. “Some of them fell.” She looked into Jake’s eyes for the first time since the War. “Jake, Michael fell.”
He wanted to throw up. He wanted to cry, to shake, to deny everything. He wanted to hug Michael, to throw his arms around the son of Apollo and laugh with him and smile and walk through the strawberry fields and hide their relationship from the others at camp that weren’t Nyssa because both didn’t want to see how their friends would react, friends that were now dead, friends that you never got to tell .
He let out something between a choke and a sob. Nyssa’s face blurred, and tears finally started to stream down his face, down and down and hit the grass beneath him, streamed off his face and Nyssa was there hugging him suddenly, her body also shaking with sobs.
Michael was dead.
That sentence felt like a lie. It felt like a betrayal even thinking such a thing. Michael would come up the elevator and that shitty music and grin lopsidedly at him and joke about how he could ever think that he would die. It would all be okay.
Nothing was ever going to be okay again.
His anchor was gone. His life, his love, his guiding star in the sky had disappeared and left him lost in the darkness with no direction on where to go next.
Slowly, he began to piece together a shadow of what he once was.
“Okay.” His throat felt raw. “Okay. Who–” He swallowed, “Who else?”
“Sylvia from Demeter cabin, Silena, Nellie Redwood and Lily Immon from Aphrodite,” She hesitated for a second, “Ethan Nakamura and Luke, Lia Sharpe and Cress Rune from Hecate.” Michael didn’t recognise the last two names.
“Luke’s dead?” It seemed like a silly question as soon as he said it. Of course Luke was dead – that was the reason the fighting had stopped. They had won.
Suddenly the fact that they’d won didn’t feel so good. Was it really winning if they had so many losses?
How could they have won if Michael wasn’t there to celebrate with them?
That thought made the tears start again.
Anger bubbled up, threatening to overspill. He turned to where Clarisse and Sherman were sitting.
Clarisse looked up as he came close. “Mason–” She was forced to cut off as his fist connected with her face. She reeled back in shock and Sherman stood up, glaring daggers at Jake. Nyssa’s hand came down on Jake’s shoulder, trying to tug him back, but he just stared down at Clarisse.
“That was for Michael.”
He turned away and started walking towards the elevator down to the Empire State Building, ignoring Sherman’s shouting figure behind him.
If he had turned he would see Clarisse sitting, not shouting after him like Sherman, one hand on the area of her face that had been punched. If one didn’t know Clarisse, they’d say that she looked regretful.
In front of him, the doors opened to reveal the remains of the Apollo cabin.
He walked past them wordlessly. Will frowned as he walked past, hesitating as if he wanted to say something, but he seemed to decide against it.
Jake didn’t want to talk to them right now. Maybe he would in the future, back at Camp, when new people had filled the bunks that were now empty and there was laughter again, but not right now.
Right now he had a tree to visit. A tree that used to be full of smiles and happiness, a tree where two boys had once sat and kissed for the first time, unaware of the future that lay before them. Unaware that one day, only one would come back to that tree.