Hero

Piper

The wind blew through the leaves around her, the rustling filled her ears. The overgrown grass around her brushed her knees and her ankles, tickling her skin. It was a windy day. How appropriate. She could hear the tide washing in and out on the beach, a distant lull of the ebb and flow, like the seconds passing by. 

Another reminder of the time that wouldn't ever come back.

She brushed away a stray lock of her hair that had blown into her eyes. When she drew her hand away, her fingertips were wet. Nearly two months and it seemed like there was still pain to be felt, still tears left to cry.

She'd heard that time heals the greatest wounds...but nothing would change until she would let go.

And she couldn't let go- of the memories, of him, of any of it.

The last few years of her life had been a storm, four years ago she wouldn't have believed any of it. Even before finding out she was a demigod, her life had been caught up in this tangle of gods and titans and giants and magic, though she hadn't quite known it.

If any thing prepares you for change, it's finding out you're a demigod. But this change, the fact that he was gone, was something she would never be able to come  back from.

Because Jason grace had been part of it all. He had been part of both sides of her life (the line between them got blurrier everyday) and although he had fit right into the quests and the wars like he had been born to do it (he had, in a way), he had still been the one thing that kept her grounded, that made her feel like she was just a normal girl.

He had been there for her, for all of them, until the end. He had been there even before he had been there, in the fake memories Hera had planted of him.

She nearly laughed at how strange it all was. Her memories not being real had made her feel like her feelings weren't real either.

Now there was nothing she wouldn't give for some more fake memories.

She closed her eyes and when she opened them, he was kneeling in front of her, the sunlight glinting off his gold-rimmed glasses. His blond hair had grown out and blew around like corn-silk. "Hey Pipes," he smiled, a small happy pure smile that spokeof contentment and lazy summer days and all the time in the world. A smile that said he loved her. 

His sparkling blue eyes crinkled, and there was not a single shadow of fear or doubt or sadness within them.

"Jason?" she whispered breathlessly. Her face broke into a smile, but the tears cam even faster. She closed her eyes tightly to make them stop, and while they were still shut, she reached her fingers out to touch him, hold him, never let him go again. Because she loved him. She knew that now. She knew it too late. The daughter of Aphrodite felt her heart breaking.

She realized that that's what true love was: it could come from anywhere and din't have to make sense and if lost, it left scars that wouldn't heal.

Her fingers didn't find skin. They scrubbed against stone. She let out a shuddering breath and opened her eyes.

R.I.P.

A child of Greece and Rome alike.

A friend and comrade and leader and brother.

A beacon of hope, pure and bright.

Truer and kinder than any other.

Who everyone here was honored to know,

Here lies Jason Grace:

A HERO.

"Happy birthday, Jason."

I love you.