Thorn In My Side

Lavender

- devotion -

The next time Katie saw Travis was three days later, as the romans were preparing to leave, the Stoll brothers had pulled Reyna aside and had been talking to her for the past few minutes.

Katie told herself she didn't care. But she did. She really did. She tried to distract herself, but her eyes kept drifting back to Travis. At one point he caught her eye and winked. She took up, she could eat later, she told herself as she walked out of the dining pavilion.

She was walking along the beach when she saw a small lavender plant beside a pile of rocks. She scooped it up, that was strange.

Then she heard a shout and she turned to see Travis jogging over.

"Why did you run off?" He asked.

She shrugged, looking anywhere but at him. "Does it matter?"

"Not really... I just thought you thought that I..." He cleared his throat, "I just want you to know that I don't like Reyna..."

"What?" She asked. How had he known?

"I mean, she's cool but kinda scary."

Katie nodded, trying to hide her smile. "And why did I need to know?"

Travis looked like someone had just put a spotlight on him, "Um... I just thought that maybe... I dunno."

She let out a laugh, "I love your thought process."

"What thought process?" He asked. Then they were both quiet for a moment. "Can we talk Gardener?" He asked, causing her heart rate to quicken. "We haven't actually talked in a while and it'd be nice."

She nodded, "Sure." Katie help up the lavender plant, "You can come with me to plant this."

~ ~ ~

They entered the garden behind the demeter cabin and Katie made her way over to the other violets and, as usual, there was a hole in the dirt where it belonged. She knelt and began to replant it. She glanced over at him, "What are you thinking about?"

Travis took a deep breath, "A lot happened this week."

Katie nodded. "Yeah." And suddenly the events of the day caught up to her, she felt hollow, empty. She tried not to cry, she really didn't want to cry in front of Travis. Not again. Katie blinked back tears. But when she closed her eyes she saw fire. Her least favourite thing. She saw fire as the Argo two exploded. As the idiot of an Auger the romans had flew into the sky. As the son of Hephaestus went up in a fiery explosion. She saw the fire eating away at the shrines of the fallen heroes.

"Hey." Travis said, crouching beside her, "Hey, hey, hey. What's wrong?"

Katie didn't know what to say, so much was going through her mind. He put an arm around her, only making her confusion worse. "Its alright Katie."

Gods, the way he said her name. Probably the most attractive thing ever. Why hadn't she noticed that before? No wait. It was not attractive. And neither was crying and hugging the son of Hermes.

She pulled away and took a deep breath, "Sorry."

"It's alright."

"No it's not. All I ever do is cry."

"That's not true. You're allowed to feel like that. A lot happened this week."

She only nodded, that wasn't the only reason she was crying, Travis didn't need to know the rest.

For a moment he seemed to hesitate, then Travis took her arm, "Do you know what made you pass out the other day?"

She was grateful for the change of topic, Katie shook her head as she wiped away the last of her tears, "Probably just exhaustion from the battle... Just like Will said."

"Are you okay though?" He asked, gently squeezing her arm.

Katie pulled her arm away, "I'm fine."

For a fragment of a second he looked hurt, then he stuck out his had, as if for a hand shake. "Hi fine, I'm Travis."

Katie rolled her eyes. "Gods, I hate you."

"I know."

"But what did happen exactly? I don't remember."

Travis shrugged as he walked off, "You fell for me, Gardener." He called over his shoulder.

And little did he know, he was right.