madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-that thing Nico's allergic too [spoiler alert, there's a lot of emotions]-

"What if it takes ages?" Piper asked quietly, looking up at Jason. She was sitting outside the infirmary, obviously. No one was prepared to doubt Teqi's recovery in front of her. Or in front of Leo.

Jason rubbed his face and sunk down next to her, his shoes squeaking on the floorboards.

"I don't know," he said. He felt pathetic. He should know the answers to this, it was the one thing in the mess of this quest he could begin to understand.

Piper squeezed his hand, even though he was the one supposed comforting her. He tried for a smile, but he could hear someone arguing from a few rooms over, and that only made it worse. They were all at a loss.

"How long did it take you to get all your memories back?"

Jason hung his head. Exhaustion prickled behind his eyes, and he just wanted to curl up on the pull out mattress next to a purring Leopard, knowing his friends were around him. Knowing they were okay. Instead, he was here, waiting in the hallway while Will tried to talk to Teqi and the big spotted cat was locked away in Hazel's room as to not increase everyone's blood pressure.

He picked at the scabs that had formed all along his arms over the distraught skin the wind had peeled back when he steered the smoky grey horses around the coast of Africa towards the House of Hades. They were still docked at the island.

Piper looked like she was going to get up, probably to bring snacks, that the was the only comfort all of them really knew how to do, but Jason stopped her.

"I still don't have all of them," he said. "I think."

"What?"

He looked away. "I wouldn't know. But... mine came slower, like they were drip-fed or something, once we freed Hera. But they were out of order, and random, and...I couldn't put them all together to figure out anything for months..."

"And now Teqi's getting them all at once," Piper whispered. "After going..."

"...Mad," Jason finished.

Piper chuckled, but the way she did it gave him the feeling it wasn't a happy thought. "Remember when we were stressed about getting to Enceladus and Porphyrin at the same time?

Jason shook his head. "I would give anything for it to be that simple."

Well, maybe not everything.

He wouldn't give the fact that Percy and Annabeth and Nico and Teqi were out of Tartarus finally, safe, or at least as safe as a demigod could be on a world ending quest.

He wouldn't give his friends. He wouldn't give Hazel and Frank and maybe Reyna, depending on how angry she was at him, from the part of his life that still felt like a past life.

He wouldn't give the way he'd woken up on that bus trundling out into the middle of nowhere sitting with Piper behind Leo with his screwdriver and plan to prank Coach Hedge and a grumpy Teqi.

Or Annabeth, who'd stomped up demanding he hand over Percy with a look that could kill. He wouldn't give Percy up either, partly because Annabeth would kill him, and partly because he did like him, despite the fact he was probably supposed to hate him.

Or Nico, even though he wasn't sure what was happening there at the moment.

He wouldn't give up his friends for anything.

And he knew that Teqi wouldn't either, and that was how he knew they were going to be okay.

Because he knew there was a part of her that would still fight for them if a monster landed aboard the Argo II at this very second.