Work Text:
Piper stared into the fire, watching the flames dance up towards the stars.
Winter had finally ended, and if Piper never saw snow again, it would be too soon. She hoped Khione was grounded forever.
Spring had finally arrived, and it wouldn’t be too much longer now until they set off on the Argo II and headed to New Rome.
Sitting in Bunker Nine with Leo, it felt surreal, even when she was staring up at Festus’s dormant bronze head, watching the vessel come together.
A bronze trireme that would fit in any of the mythology books she had dug into while helping her dad research for King of Sparta. Only those myths were so much realer than she had known.
Just a few months ago, it had seemed impossible to her that monsters and demigods and giants were real. Now, she was a quest veteran, and she had fought her way across the country armed with her voice and an ominous blade.
Now, the idea of a second camp—a Roman camp—didn’t seem so strange. If Jason was here, then Percy Jackson had to be there, or he would end up there soon enough.
For Annabeth’s sake, Piper hoped that Percy succeeded. Jason seemed worried about his Greek counterpart. If Camp Half-Blood was a little lax with bodily safety, then New Rome was straight up brutal. Death, dismemberment, and being chucked in a sack of weasel and dropped in a river were all codified punishments.
Call her undisciplined, but Piper would take lava dishwashing duty any day over a sack of angry weasels and drowning.
The next time she went to California, it would be to New Rome to get Percy and the rest of the Seven, whose names they didn’t yet know.
She would be close to home, but it wouldn’t matter. There would be no tearful reunion with her dad.
Sighing, she stretched out her folded legs.
“What’s bugging you, beauty queen?” Leo asked, pausing the schematic he was marking up. Something about Poseidon-proofing the plumbing.
“I hope my dad’s alright.”
Leo made a sympathetic face. “I’m sure Coach and Mellie are taking good care of him. You said he’s just started filming a new movie, yeah?”
“Mhmm,” she hummed unenthusiastically.
Leo tucked his legs under him on the bench and turned to face her fully. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not really, but thanks.”
Leo sighed in relief and then gave her a guilty look.
She snickered and punched his shoulder. “I know you’re busy dreaming of nuts and bolts and gears to help us save the world. I don’t mind.”
With a shoulder-cracking stretch, Leo groaned and then flicked his hand towards the dying fire, coaxing it back to a full flame. “Man, where the heck did our boy go? It’s been like an hour.”
“I’m here,” Jason called from the bunker’s entrance. “It took a while to get to the Hermes cabin and back.”
“What did you get?” Piper asked, noticing a bundle of stuff in his arms. “And what did you give up?” she added with an incredulous eyebrow.
Jason smiled, which stretched that adorable little scar on his lip. “Well… you mentioned how much you missed s’mores, so I decided to remedy that.” He shifted, almost shy for a second. “I agreed to be their defense lead for the next Capture the Flag game… plus I took stable duty for a week.”
“Dude, how can s’mores possibly be worth a week of pegasus poop?” Leo wondered, scrunching his nose.
Jason plopped down next to Piper on the workbench and showed her a couple large chocolate bars, a box of graham crackers, and most notably bag of speciality vegetarian marshmallows.
Piper’s heart and throat swelled with emotion. “Jason, that was so unbelievably sweet. You didn’t have to.”
“I know,” Jason said, his blue eyes so gentle and guileless. “I wanted to.” He squeezed her hand and then turned. “Leo, you got some skewers we can roast with?”
“You kidding?” Leo reached into his tool belt and pulled out 3 dowels. “I’m always ready to roast.”
Piper snickered, but she eagerly took one of the dowels and ripped open the marshmallow bag. The boys followed suit.
Raising her skewered marshmallow over the fire, Piper said, “A toast: to us.”
“My favorite people,” added Leo with a grin, knocking his marshmallow against hers.
Jason chuckled and added his skewer to the toast. “To us,” he agreed.
The s’mores were perfect, and so were Leo’s rambles about the boat and Jason’s soft snores when he fell asleep with hint of chocolate still smeared in the corner of his mouth.
Piper wouldn’t be going home to her father anytime soon, but she had another home right here with these two.