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Jason didn’t know what to think about Apollo.
For almost all of his life, the gods- other than Lupa, really- had been unknowable and untouchable. He knew the mythos, he knew their names, he knew their places in the world and what they did for Rome. It was only after he met the Greeks, though, that he started to actually know the gods themselves.
Thalia had said a little bit about Apollo on some of their calls, and Leo had told him about his talk with the god on Delos.
He’d been one of the first gods Thalia ever met, at the same time she’d met Diana- Artemis- before she’d become a hunter. He’d also helped them a lot on the quest they’d gone on, which did make sense, since it was his sister they were going to save.
After she’d become Artemis’s lieutenant, she saw him around a lot. Apparently he liked showing up every so often to bother his sister. He was annoying, Thalia had said, but a lot more tolerable than other gods she’d met.
Leo had gone to Delos to ask Apollo about the Physician’s Cure they’d been chasing. He’d been whiny and dramatic, Leo told Jason afterwards, but he had given him the flower he needed, as well as directions to Asclepius so they could actually get the cure. Without Apollo, Leo never would have been able to live past his stupid suicide plan.
Between the two of them, he’d gotten the impression that Apollo was fairly helpful, for a god, if also annoying and arrogant and a terrible poet.
At the Acropolis, though, he’d seemed so different from the god Jason had been told about. Standing there with his sister, facing their father’s wrath, he’d looked like a child. Small and scared and helpless, all but begging Zeus for mercy.
Never be afraid of a storm, Jason. That’s just your father telling you he loves you.
So his first impressions of Apollo had been- interesting, certainly. But when Jason actually met him, well-
The mortal boy who’d stumbled into his dorm room so many months later felt like a different person entirely.
Lester seemed so earnest, in a way he didn’t think Apollo had ever been.
The things he’d gone through- it was a lot, even for a demigod, and he knew there would be more to come. But he’d seemed to have already accepted that it was necessary. He’d seemed to be entirely prepared to face his trials head on. He’d seemed like any other hero.
He’d seemed so human.
His wide-eyed look, like a deer in headlights, when Jason told him what he’d done at the Acropolis, as if no one had ever stood up for him before. His shaking voice when he described some of the harder parts of his trials. His curiosity about Jason’s projects. His obvious care, for everyone and everything around him.
He’d been so insistent that Jason’s prophecy wasn’t what he thought it was. The first thing any hero learned about prophecies was that they were impossible to avoid no matter how hard you tried, and yet here was the god of prophecy, telling him that he didn’t believe in that.
It got Jason thinking.
People lie. Promises are broken. You have to keep your word because there’s no one else who will.
Jason had spent his whole life believing that. That was the thing he had built himself around, kept close to his chest and sparking like electricity in his veins.
His mother had told him she would be back for him. She didn’t come back. The thing that had come back to him hadn’t been his mother.
Thalia had said that she would always be by his side. She would always be his big sister. She would take care of him, she would protect him, she would be there to catch him when he fell.
She hadn’t been there.
It wasn’t her fault. None of it was her fault. But she hadn’t been there, and even though she had come back to him eventually, she wasn’t the same big sister who had to take care of him and he wasn’t the same little brother who she had to take care of. She had found an entirely new family to protect. He was so, so happy she was happy.
But she had said she’d be there. And she hadn’t been.
Lupa had promised he would always be a part of her pack. She’d promised he would always belong to Rome. Always belong to her.
He didn’t belong to Rome. Not entirely, not anymore. He belonged to Greece, too.
If it was anyone’s fault, it was his. It wasn’t Lupa’s fault. He was the one who decided to choose both sides of the pantheon, to leave behind everything he’d ever known and throw his lot in with those who were supposed to be their enemies. Juno may have been the one to take him from Camp Jupiter, but he had decided to stay at Camp Half-Blood.
So it wasn’t Lupa’s fault. And he knew that some part of him would always be her pup. Always be that boy left alone in the woods, with no one but the wolves to care for him.
But he wasn’t really a part of the pack. Not anymore.
Leo and Piper had promised him that it would be the three of them against the world. They’d promised him they wouldn’t leave him.
Both of them left.
And he didn’t blame them for it. Either of them. They had their own lives to live, their own people to be, and he couldn’t be prouder of them.
But they had still lied. Still left him behind.
It didn’t matter how much anyone loved him. How much he loved them. They all lied to him. They all broke the promises they made to him, time and time again.
Promise me one thing. Whatever happens, when you get back to Olympus, when you’re a god again, remember. Remember what it’s like to be human.
What made this time different?
I promise.
A million years ago that morning, he’d had a god in his dorm room. He’d had a god in his dorm room, and he’d practically spat in the face of divinity.
Apollo hadn’t been upset with him, though. He’d just looked at him, brilliant blue eyes so like Jason’s own filled with understanding and determination and despair, and he’d made the promise. Just like that.
Maybe he was just saying what Jason wanted to hear. Maybe he had no intentions of keeping his word. Maybe. But if it wasn’t a lie-
If it wasn’t a lie, then that meant that maybe things could get better. That maybe the gods could be better.
So for the first time since that day at the Wolf House, Jason let himself believe in someone else’s words. Apollo would keep his promise. He would remember his humanity. He would.
And if Jason had to die to make sure of that?
So be it.
Wind swirled around him, shards of celestial bronze and imperial gold scraping against his skin and leaving tiny lightning-strike slashes. His glasses were crooked on his nose, a jagged crack running through one of the lenses. His hair was whipped in every direction. He kept still, keeping an air of peace and composure even while his heartbeat pounded like thunder.
Piper was crumpled on the floor, her hair matted with blood. Apollo was kneeling a little ways away from her, the point of an arrow pressed to his heart, the shaft trembling in his hand.
Jason had already made his decision, but seeing the two of them there strengthened his resolve.
Piper McLean was not going to die tonight.
Apollo was not going to die tonight.
He was going to get out of there. He was going to live like Jason couldn’t. He was going to move forward and free his oracles and make things right. He was going to remember, and he was going to make things better because he was the only one who could. The only one who would. The only god worth believing in.
Jason had made his decision. He was going to believe in Apollo. In this one promise.
Apollo was going to remember.