Not my best work, I must admit it. I'll probably rewrite it, or write a continuation fic, in which they are a real couple. Let's just hope I'll have enough time.

This didn't exactly come out as I planned, but it's still sorta okay. Reyna is super OOC here but that's because I don't have enought time to write her properly. I'm planning on posting more one-shoots about this pairing (hopefully better than this one) because they are adorable. BTW, I didn't come up with this pairing, there are some stories about them (I think?) that are older and way better than mine.

Oh, I'm also planning on deleting my story 'Again' because I want to turn it into a one-shoot. And I'm not sure if I'll continue with 'Life isn't always as we planned it' because I'm seriously out of ideas. Besides, I don't like the way I wrote it.

As always, please correct me if there are any mistakes.

WARNING: Seriously OOC Reyna, as I've said before. Don't say I didn't warn you.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, I still don't own this. Shocker.

Under the grey sky, Reyna walks.

Blurred silhouettes of fading memories —just a few more souls lost in a world that doesn't stop spinning— and a drizzle that doesn't soak, but that surely makes you freeze. Reyna was never very fond of rainy days.

As the rain surrounds her, like a world from a distant memory (or maybe from a forgotten dream), she lowers her head, trying to go unnoticed.

But, well, it's not like New York is a city that pays much attention to those who walk by.

The gate to the cemetery creaks when she pushes it gently, cold fingers against even colder metal. A feeling of solitude and sorrow has always surrounded the pale graves.

Not this time, though.

This time, she feels as if a cold hand has wrapped around her heart, keeping it from beating. Maybe her veins are filled with frozen blood.

She lets her eyes wander around her, even if she has the place burned into her mind. Her feet step on the fallen leaves. Crash. Crash. Soft sounds against the cold air. She stumbles as she tries to make her way across the puddles. Splash. Splash. The sounds are too loud for this quiet place. The wind hits her face sharply. Swoosh. Swoosh. A world made of sounds that lacks substance (and happiness).

Kneeling next to the grave, she lets a tear roll down her cheek, hoping it could be mistaken as rain. Her hand is shaking so much that she almost lets the flowers fall.

White flowers, grey grave, black clothes and blood red lips.

She feels like she is in one of those old movies she used to watch with Hylla.

"I'm sorry." Her voice is velvet-like before the rain drowns it. "I'm sorry I couldn't visit earlier. Work's been crazy, and I—"

She tries so hard not to cry when she comes here, even if she fails every time.

The past can hurt. She has learned that the hard way.

When she stands up and dries the tears that are rolling down her cheeks, she sees him—a blond guy, around her age, maybe a couple of years older. Another person that has lost everything.

The rain is heavier now, and her black clothes start getting wet. The umbrella she has been using since she left her house is now useless against the huge amount of water. She misses Puerto Rico's warm weather.

Reyna looks at the sky, memories of better days filling her mind. It's funny how she only lets herself be so vulnerable here, where her parents are resting for the rest of the eternity, while she's known as the Heartless Queen outside the cemetery. There was a time when she didn't have to pretend. There was a time when she was genuinely happy. Now she's a woman with a heart made of steel and a soul made of glass.

Warm fingers close around her elbow, but she barely glances over her shoulder. Never show weakness, she repeats in her head. Never show any emotion.

"Reyna?" His voice is deep and gentle, almost as if he's afraid she will break when his words fill the air. "Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano?"

She turns around just slightly, her attitude matching her name.

"Yes." Sharp voice, empty words. "And who might you be?"

The boy —the man— looks kind of disappointed, but she doesn't care—she decided a long time ago that she wouldn't let people's expectations rule her life.

(Even if, in one way or another, they do.)

"I'm Malcolm. I—we went to the same school?"

It sound like a question than like a statement, although that isn't what draws her attention.

She went to school in San Francisco.

"Forgive me, but I don't know who you are."

"I'm Annabeth's brother. You guys were friends. Right?"

And, suddenly, it clicks. Malcolm Davis, Annabeth's half-brother. The guy that was never able to beat her at chess, even being five years older than her.

Malcolm Davis, the only older person she could trust, since her parents were always away —they even were away when they died— and Hylla didn't care. Malcolm Davis, her only friend besides her sister.

How could she not recognize him?

(The answer is easy—she is always trying to leave the past behind and move on.)

"Malcolm Davis." She turns around to face him as she says his name out loud, almost as if she's testing how it feels in her lips. "I do remember you."

He smiles childishly, making a pair of dimples appear in his cheeks. His grey eyes lit up and she can see it—Annabeth. The share the same facial features. Taking the resemblance between the two of them into consideration, it seems kind of impossible that they are just half-siblings and not twins.

"I thought you wouldn't, for a moment," he says happily. "How did you end up in New York?"

She is tempted to say that she came here following the guy she had been in love with forever, even if he was already committed to a Cali girl, prettier than she'd ever be; and that staying here was a better option than going back to the city that ignored her.

"College," she replies, shrugging.

"Oh. Oh, that's great. What degree?"

She smiles politely, like she always does when someone asks her about her job. It's almost as if the rain, the cemetery and the wet white flowers don't matter anymore.

Her job is her pride. And she's proud of what she has achieved.

"I'm a lawyer. I've just started my own firm."

"A lawyer. I—wow. A lawyer." His blonde hair falls over his eyes. It seems like both Malcolm and Annabeth took most part of their DNA from their mother. "Well, I'm struggling with middle schoolers right now."

"A teacher." She tries to keep her voice neutral, not tainted with any emotion.

"A math teacher, yes. I, ah, I don't suppose we can share your umbrella? I'm kind of drowning in the rain."

"Oh. Right. Uh, sure, why not." She has kind of forgotten her manners after living alone for years.

"Thanks." They are close, too close, shoulders touching, her right sleeve getting wetter and wetter as it remains in contact with Malcolm's jacket.

She guesses she could care more; but, strangely enough, she doesn't.

For a moment, it's just them standing silently shoulder-to-shoulder and hand in hand in front of her parent's grave as the feel the cold wind run over their skin.

"Can I, um, ask you to get a coffee? Like, it's okay if you don't want to, or—"

"I'd love to," she interrupts him. Well, she doesn't really know if she would love to, but she certainly doesn't mind.

Malcolm grins, and intertwines his fingers with hers.

"It's good to have you back, Reyna."

"And yet you made no attempt to talk to me." She isn't saying it with resentment in her voice. She is just stating a fact. No feelings involved.

(They never were, anyway.)

"I thought about it. I guess—I felt like I needed a new life, completely new and mine, you know. I tried to make myself believe that I could be a different person if I left my past behind."

Reyna bits her lips and remains silent, because she doesn't know what to say. She never knows what to say in this kind of situations. Fortunately, this time she doesn't have to.

"If it makes you feel any better, I didn't keep in touch with anyone. Literally. Not even Annabeth."

She glances sideways at his freckled cheeks as they cross the gate and she resists the urge to look back.

"Are you telling me that you spent the last ten years of your life ignoring your sister?"

Her voice is calm, like it always is. But it's also sharp and cold, and she tries to ignore Malcolm's grimace when he hears it.

"Yeah. I did."

He sounds so defeated, like he has been regretting it for years but couldn't build up the nerve to do it, that she squeezes his hand lightly.

"Coffee," she reminds him. "And then we can talk about that call you need to make."

He smiles at her gratefully and it occurs to her that maybe she has saved a life today.

(Or maybe she hasn't, but the feeling of victory remains.)

"Coffee," he agrees. "And then, everything."

The rains still falls over them as they walk through the busy streets of New York City, fingers intertwined and a cryptic smile on Reyna's lips.

For the first time in years, she feels hope.