kaleidoscope gold ● jason grace

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 Jason pushed open the door to Daria's cabin. He was exhausted, and he wanted to spend time with his girlfriend, preferably somewhere that monsters couldn't find them.

Daria was lounging on the bed, her head propped up on her hand as she spoke excitedly to Reyna who was cross legged by her feet, her back to the door. At his entrance, she looked up. There was a sparkle in her eyes he hadn't seen since before they fell and he counted his blessings for Reyna's presence in their lives every day.

"Hey," Daria greeted him, face lit up. "Come here."

"Hey back," he said, weary, but warm as he obliged her request. He shut the door behind him and sat with his back against the headboard. His shoeless feet were dangerously close to Reyna's body, and he drew them away before she remembered that he was ticklish. "What are you guys talking about?"

"Just reminiscing," Reyna answered. "Talking about the MetaFours."

Jason snorted at the old nickname. The MetaFours (Daria had come up with the name; none of them were that bright) were the failed band that Dakota, Michael, Nathan, and Clara had tried to start. They had lasted about a week before Dakota had gotten so annoyed that they drenched Nathan's off brand guitar in Kool-Aid, and you can imagine how that went.

"How are they?" He asked. Their friendship seemed like forever ago, in reality it had just fizzled out after the war. Jason had picked up Hazel, Reyna had picked up responsibility, and Daria had bridged the gap.

"Good. Annoyed," Reyna corrected. "Worried for you. I would send them one of those Iris Messages but they're probably in enemy territory."

"By being loyal?" Daria shook her head. "That's ridiculous. Octavian's a psychopath."

Reyna shrugged. "Octavian said he would hold off. I know you two don't like each other but he's still loyal to the legion."

"He tried to replace Jason two weeks after he went missing!"

"To be fair," Jason pointed out, hoping that Reyna wouldn't rile Daria up too much. "I wanted to get replaced anyway." Daria groaned.

"I wanted to talk about that," Reyna leaned in to glare at him, but Jason was too used to her to be intimidated. "You left me with Frank Zhang."

"Technically Percy did that," Jason amended. Reyna hated technicalities.

"Frank's brave," Daria said in her quiet thoughtful voice. Somehow, she had let her arm sprawl across his waist, using his shoulder as a pillow instead of her hand. "He's kind most of the time, he's strong. He'll make a fine praetor."

"Sure," Jason agreed. "Once he gets his head out of his a-"

"Jason."

He relented, going back to tracing random shapes on Daria's shoulder. He didn't hate Frank, but his scrutiny still stood. Even stubborn Percy Jackson had shown some remorse, had a traumatic backstory to go along with his mistrust of Jason's girlfriend. Still, he didn't get it. How could anyone hate Daria?

"How was your talk?" Daria changed the subject, as if reading his mind. He would never understand how she managed to do that. "All good?"

He thought about the prophecy: to storm or fire, the world will fall. The worrying part was that Piper's interpretation made sense, and if it came down to it, Jason wasn't going to let Leo die, and he wasn't going to tell Daria about the prophecy. "They were bugging me about Tartarus," he decided. A half-truth.

Reyna raised an eyebrow, "and you didn't tell them?"

"It's Jason," Daria pointed out. "He'd take it to his death bed if he wanted to."