GUYS I AM OFF MY HIATUS. YAY.

okay, so i'm back with this megaoneshot, which i hope you'll enjoy. please. it's mostly hazel-centric, with a mishmash of pairings and other thingies... i think.

I MUST WARN YOU: the timeline is kinda messed up. So since the Last Olympian was released in 2009, the events of Heroes of Olympus, in this story, are happening in the year 2010. is that okay? okay.

this is what i wouldn't call a light read. it's monstrous and full of dialogues. LIKE, REALLY FULL OF THEM. and also it's my first time with OCs and I hope they're okay. and also to avoid confusion, the Jason in my story is NOT Jason Grace.

I actually kind of like this thing, and i hope you guys will too. :3

Not a Second Time

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

Jason's quest realization number one: lugging around a giant bent gold gladius through the woods is hard.

Especially when there's a rabid army of monsters right behind you.

Breathing hard, he stumbles along like a drunken giraffe, tripping over vines and twigs and leaves and roots and everything. He's not the fastest runner even on level ground, and his stamina's even lower than his self-confidence (which is pretty damn low). Cursing as he trips yet again, Jason looks up to figure out where the hell they are and, hopefully, to figure out a plan.

He can see the twins Kathy and Nathan up ahead, looking powerful and awe-inspiring as they plod forward, with their sleek black hair lifting up around their determined faces in the wind. They're cutting down vines with their lances faster than he's tripping over them; they haven't even broken a sweat yet.

Stupid athletic children of Mars.

As he staggers forward, they turn back to him and stop to let him catch up, which is kind of embarrassing, since he's the one supposed to be leading the quest.

"Go!" Jason hisses, hefting his useless sword like he can handle this, because he's the son of Jupiter and that's his job.

They both look pretty unconvinced, Kathy especially, but he glares and they turn away and start moving again.

"Mabel!" Jason yells.

"Here!" He looks up to see a silver-and-red blur dart ahead on him among all the green of the trees.

"Slowpoke!" he hears her call. "They're close!"

Jason grits his teeth, sheathes his sword, and sprints forward, only to stop again when he sees Kathy and Nathan gesturing frantically.

"What?" he screams, hysteria rising above his fatigue. "Move!"

Even from this distance, he can see Kathy roll her dark eyes. She points.

There. Right between all the trees, almost camouflaged. A house. More of a cabin, really, large-ish and very homely looking. Probably where rich people go for a quiet holiday. It's right beside a cool stream he'd plunged face-first into, with flowering bushes leading up to the front door. The lights are off.

It's enchanting, really. Very peaceful, almost beautiful. May very well hold all sorts of dangers, but that's not really foremost on his mind right now.

"Let's go." He heads straight for it.

"It could be a trap," says Nathan doubtfully, but Jason hears the heavy tread behind him that indicates that Nathan is right behind him.

Jason springs up the stairs like a caffeinated pixie and pushes the door. It swings forward to admit them immediately.

"Not a good sign," Kathy hisses in his ear. He ignores her.

"Mabel," he whispers.

"Got your back." She touches him lightly on his shoulder and they all jump.

"Close the door, dummy," she grins, and he does.

"Quick," Nathan tells her, "the protective enchantments."

Mabel brushes her frizzy red hair out of her face, which is gleaming with sweat. She looks exhausted, but she takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and is just lifting a palm when a voice cuts in.

"That won't be necessary."

They all whip around, drawing their weapons. Astonishingly, none of them clash together like they did last time, which had resulted in their enemy literally falling down to their knees and howling with laughter. Not the kind of effect you want to have.

"Show yourself," Nathan growls to the darkness.

Jason closes his eyes and concentrates. The lights flicker and switch on to reveal a smallish old woman still in her long nightgown, shielding her eyes against the bright light. Kathy shoots him an approving glance and he grins; his ability to control electric currents in one thing he'll admit pride in.

"My, my," says the old grandma. "Aren't you a strange bunch. And you look so tired. Would you like a sandwich?"

"No," Kathy says angrily, her eyes flashing.

"Oh, dear," the woman says vaguely. "Maybe pasta, then?"

"She means," Jason cuts in, "We can't exactly...I mean, trust you..."

He trails off, seeing, for the first time, the situation he and his friends are in. Here they are, on a suicide quest, alone, hungry, tired, lost, with a pack of bloodthirsty monsters behind them and a strange old lady in front.

His mind goes into overdrive. With all the danger they've been in the past few days, this lady is most probably a monster. He'd heard stories of the legendary Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon, being hoodwinked by an old lady on his first quest, and old lady who'd offered him food. Only she'd turned out to be Medusa. Could this lady be...?

No. Medusa hadn't re-formed since, and this woman had eyes – molten gold and breathtakingly beautiful – that you could look into. And he can see her hair, white with a few streaks of brown, curly like Mabel's but not as frizzy.

Maybe, he thinks, maybe she's just a regular mortal.

Unsure of what to do, Jason shifts his crooked sword from hand to hand. The woman's eyes pass over it coolly, and, with a jolt, Jason realizes that she is actually seeing his weapon. Not a hockey stick or something. In his shock, he lets it clatter out of his hand.

"You're a demigod?" he splutters. Of course, he's seen older demigods in the city in Camp Jupiter. But never, ever outside. He can see Kathy and Nathan looking shocked as well, and Mabel's eyes are bulging out of their sockets. Demigods older than twenty are all but extinct in Camp Half-Blood, of course.

The woman smiles. "Yes, I am. But I suppose you want proof?"

She turns and begins to rummage in her drawers. "Must be here...gods, I haven't taken it out in years..."

Jason catches Nathan's eyes, signalling him to stand ready at the door.

"Ah!" The lady pulls out a roll of yellow parchment and unfurls it with a slight flourish, revealing a letter of recommendation from Camp, complete with the mark of the legion. She nods almost smugly at them. "I'll be seeing yours now."

Jason shows it to her, signed by the two praetors Natalie and Liam. The lady smiles. "That seems to be in order. I knew you were demigods, of course, the enchantments keep out all monsters, but-"

"Oh my gods!" Mabel shrieks excitedly, pointing at the parchment in the woman's hand; her glazed eyes suggest that she's using one of her creepy Hecate powers again. "Your letter's been signed by Reyna!"

Now it's Kathy's turn to shove her eyeballs back into her skull. "Reyna? The Reyna? Daughter of-"

"Bellona," the lady interrupts, scrutinising her carefully. "Yes, that Reyna."

"But," says Nathan, "Reyna's a legend! She died...fifty-something years ago!"

Jason raises his sword again, ignoring the spasms of pain shooting up his arm. "Who in Jupiter's name are you?"

The woman smiles again, so unperturbed by his sword it's embarrassing. "Oh, silly me. I forgot to introduce myself."

She looks at them, and suddenly her golden eyes shine with a brighter light.

"My name," she says, "is Hazel Levesque."

Hazel leads them over to the dining table and gives them nectar and ambrosia. She walks to the kitchen; they hear her bustling around the cutlery.

All Jason can think to say is, "How old are you?"

This gives her a good laugh. "It's impolite to ask a woman her age."

Kathy's still staring at the kitchen door, smoothing down her braid like she's plucking the courage to ask for a photograph.

Hazel walks back in with a selection: chips, cookies, a few cans of Coke, pizza, and a bunch of other stuff that vanishes the moment she sets on the table, because, apparently, Nathan was a whole lot hungrier than he'd let on.

Jason inhales the cookies and gulps down his drink so fast it comes of his nose.

He's just recovering from his coughing fit when Mabel says, "You're one of the seven. I didn't even know you were alive! The others died-"

"Ages ago." Hazel, who hasn't eaten anything, looks at Mabel sadly. "I know. Funny. Technically, I was the first to die, and here I am, the last one left. The Fates are ironical that way."

She sounds bitter. Jason and Kathy exchange a look while Mabel picks at the tablecloth.

Hazel lets out a breathy laugh. "So, am I going to have to address you by the colour of your eyes or are you going to tell me your names?"

Kathy swallows a whole cookie in her haste to answer first. "I'm Kathy Scott, this is my brother Nathan."

Nathan, whose mouth is still full of chips, nods in greeting.

Hazel turns to Mabel. "You must be a daughter of Trivia, right? You must be talented if you can cast a protection spell already."

Mabel blushes the same colour as her hair. "Thank you, ma'am, but it's Hecate. Not Trivia. My name's Mabel."

Hazel raises her eyebrows as if this is news. "A collaborative quest between the two camps? That's a first."

Mabel blinks almost stupidly; the quest was never collaborative. They'd met her at a Starbucks and persuaded her to come along. Children of the magic goddess were valuable, after all. And plus, relations between the two camps had soured over the years. Each acted like the other didn't exist.

"Not the first," Jason says quickly before someone says something. "Second. After the prophecy of Seven."

Hazel gives him a tinkling little laugh. "Right you are, Jason Stewart. I've heard quite a lot about you, son of Jupiter."

"How'd you know?" he asks. Surely some gods haven't been complaining about him. He's been a good little boy all this time, trying to be heroic, never causing any trouble, trying to live up to all the expectations placed on his skinny little shoulders.

"Of, Thalia told me." Hazel smiles a smile luminous with affection. "Thalia Grace, you know."

Jason scowls. Thalia Grace, immortal sister of Jason Grace. Another person's feats he could never live up to. He'd met her a few years previously, overjoyed to have a sibling only a few years older. Only, she'd been fifteen for ages and she'd always be fifteen. He'd liked her well enough, but her idea of fun – electrocuting his eyebrows right off – seemed a little too...extreme to him.

Hazel nods like she knows exactly what he's thinking.

Jason looks at her more carefully. Even though her face is ridden with wrinkles, her skin is still dark and glowing. Dainty and unshrunk even in her old age, bearing traces of great beauty. Her eyes sparkle even in the dim light. Somehow, he feels like he's seeing her for the first time, which is ridiculous. He's grown up at Camp Jupiter walking past statues and pictures and great big painting of the Seven. But the painters have captured everything except her eyes, her gorgeous eyes made of liquid gold.

Silently, he thanks Fortuna for his good luck. Not many get this chance.

"Please, ma'am," Mabel whispers reverentially, "if it's okay with you, could you please tell us about your quests?"

"Not only the quests," Kathy adds. "Everything. From the beginning."

"From the very beginning." Nathan's finally finished stuffing his face. "And then about the quest to defeat Gaea! About the Argo II, and how Percy and Annabeth trekked through Tartarus and closed the Doors of Death, and how Leo burnt all of-"

Hazel purses her lips. "You must have heard them already."

"Yes," Kathy persists, "but never from someone who'd actually experienced it."

Everyone who'd experienced it is dead, but nobody says it.

"Well," Jason ventures, "it would be pretty cool."

Hazel shakes her head with a ghost of a smile on her face. She takes a deep breath like she's making a decision.

"If you have the time," she says.

"I was born in 1928," Hazel begins.

Jason, not wanting to interrupt, tries to do the math in his head. Mabel shoots him a look and mouths the words one hundred and seventy four.

Jason gasps like a little girl, unable to handle it. "You're...a hundred and...you look half that!"

Hazel laughs. "Why, thank you. But that will be explained a bit later."

"Sorry." Jason shrinks back in his seat.

"I was born in 1928," Hazel resumes. "To the god Pluto and Marie Levesque. As you know, those were dark times. Racial discrimination. My mother...she wanted to live like a queen. That was why she summoned my father, that was why she asked for all his riches. To fulfil this request, I was born."

"I was born with the power to bring forth precious stones, gems, metals...all beneath the earth, a skill I still posses. See, here-" She picks up a ruby from the ground and hands it to Nathan, who turns it over and over again in his fingers.

"Yes," Hazel says with pride. "My mother was overjoyed. For a while, we were happy, and then came the curse."

They all stare. Nathan puts the ruby on the table, looking stricken.

"Nothing good," Hazel sighs, "ever comes without a price. The gems started acting up, people started dying. Our lives were ruined. My mother was in despair, with often surfaced in the form of fury. Fury at herself, at me, at my father. And her hatred for him, her weakness...that was what drew Gaea to her."

Hazel sighs. "We moved within the year. To Alaska."

"Alaska?" Kathy whispers. "But-but that's the land beyond the gods! No-one goes there anymore!"

"And for good reason," Nathan frowns. "Wasn't that giant-"

"Alcyoneus," Mabel supplies.

"Yeah, him, didn't he rise again there? And then Frank had to drag him to Canada and then kill him!"

"Yes, we moved to Alaska," Hazel continues as if the conversation hadn't even occurred. "I hated it, the cold, the ice, and Gaea most of all, but the thing I most missed was Sammy. Sammy Valdez. I would later find out that he was the great-grandfather of Leo Valdez, who I, of course, did not know at the time. But in Alaska, I felt powerless. Every night, Gaea , possessing my poor, frail mother, would lead me to an island, where, with my powers, I summoned all I could from under my feet."

She shakes her head. "I am not proud of it. Raising the giant. But I realized my mistake, and sacrificing both myself and my mother was the only way to redeem myself. So I died. I delayed the rebirth of Alcyoneus. I kept the world safe for another half-century."

She says this in a detached voice, as if she's trying to steer clear of any emotion that is too powerful to overcome. But Jason can see that her heart clearly feels otherwise. Deep in the back of her head, there is still some pain, and it shows only very slightly in her eyes.

Silence.

"What-what was Elysium like?" Jason asks. Elysium, Underworld Heaven, where all the heroes reside. Percy Jackson, Jason Grace, all the rest of the Seven. Somewhere in his head something gives a little tingle of pleasure. He'd like to go there after he dies.

Hazel smiles. "I don't know."

"No way," Nathan gasps. "You didn't go?"

"Oh, I was offered," Hazel says breezily. "And I must admit, it was tempting. But if I went to Elysium, my mother would be sent to the Fields of Punishment."

"Why didn't you?" Nathan says angrily. Kathy looks down to mask the pain and anger that is obviously showing on her face, and Jason sighs. Kathy and Nathan's mother had left them vulnerable to monsters on purpose. She'd left them in a national park and scarpered, and if Lupa hadn't found them, they'd probably be dead. And Jason had never even known his mother. He's not even seen a picture, although he supposes he gets his looks from her, his ashy hair and skinny frame.

The one time he needed his dad to intervene, and all he gets are stormy blue eyes which aren't even scary. Not like Thalia's, which crackle and spark. Not like Jason Grace's, which inspire calm and respect. Yup. That's him, all right, an all-round useless demigod.

Hazel looks at her small wrinkly hands. "It did occur to me. I was angry at her. But the last words she said to me...she said that I was her gift. And something told me she really meant it. After hearing that...I couldn't. So I agreed that both of us could go to Asphodel."

Jason can feel his hands shaking, although he doesn't know why. Something about that story irks him, itching right at the raw, sensitive parts of his heart. He'd never known what a parent's love felt like. His mother had abandoned him; his father, apparently, had better things to do than say hello to his son. A letter. An Iris-message. A sign. Nothing. In seven years at Camp, Jason had received nothing. And now, listening to Hazel talk about her mother, who'd shunned her and led her to her death...how could Hazel have possibly forgiven her?

"I know you all must be thinking that I was an idiot to do that," Hazel says, nodding at them. Oddly, Jason calms down. "But one day, you'll realize why I did that. Why I forgave her, even though she would never remember me. Why I gave up what I did."

She pauses. "Do you want me to continue?"

"Yeah," Mabel says before any of the others can respond. She shoots them a look that observably says hold it together.

"I was in Asphodel for...around fifty years, when he found me," Hazel says, with a thoughtful glance at the clock on the wall to her right. Like she had a schedule to adhere to. Or she's running out of time.

"Who found you?" Jason finally asks, growing increasingly irritated by each tick audible tick of the clock.

She actually laughs. "Nico di Angelo. My brother."

"Nico was looking for his own sister. He knew the Doors were open. He wanted to bring her back to life." Hazel taps her fingers lightly on the table.

"That's wrong," Kathy says.

"Oh, I suppose it was," Hazel agrees. "Cheating death is not really favoured by the gods. But Nico loved his sister more than life. When he found out she had chosen rebirth, he was devastated. It was by mere chance that he found me, another sister, exiled for life in those endless fields of nothing. He gave me another chance. To live."

She smiles. "I was still thirteen. So you see, I really am only around fifty in this life."

"He took me to Camp Jupiter," Hazel continues, "where I was accepted in the Fifth Cohort. Jason Grace, who was then praetor, became one of my only friends. As praetor, he was supposed to impartial, but he always had a soft spot for us in the Fifth. And he was probably one of the only few who did."

"What?" Nathan says. "But the Fifth's considered, like, the best cohort now! Everyone wants to be in the Fifth, but you only get in for, like supreme acts of valour. Four of the seven – Jason Grace, Percy Jackson, Frank Zhang and you – were a part of it! The golden eagle-"

"Yes, but that is now," Hazel agrees, smiling ruefully. "Back then, we were a blot on the legion's squeaky-clean record. We were hated, blamed for losing the eagle the first time, because of which, you know-"

"You, Frank and Percy had to retrieve it," Kathy says.

"Precisely," says Hazel, "but that's later. That was before Juno set her whole plan in motion."

"The plan to..."

Hazel smiles. "Are both of the camps friendly?"

"Well," Jason says, looking awkwardly at Mabel, "I guess...I mean, a bit."

"No, not really," Nathan sums up.

Hazel shrugs. "I thought as much. But back when we were kids, the two camps never knew each other. The gods put up all kinds of magic to make sure the two sides never met. Meeting usually caused catastrophes like the American Civil War."

"Okay," Kathy murmurs, after so long a pause Jason's afraid the silence will swallow them all up. "Did not know that."

"So," Hazel says conversationally, "that was Juno's great plan. Unite both camps. Fulfil the prophecy. Lead happy lives. She intended on doing this by switching both camp leaders, wiping their memories clean. "

She forces a smile, but it comes out looking like a grimace.

"I am sure Juno meant no real, long-lasting harm. Only," she says, "ever since she began her little interfering scheme, none of our days were the same. And as for happy endings, let alone happy lives..."

She lowers her gaze. "None of us got them."

Hazel goes on to tell them a wonderful tapestry of myth and mystery woven out of thin air and words. He catches a few bits here and there –Percy and Terminus defeating Polybotes, The arrival and extremely quick departure of the Greeks on the Argo II, Annabeth and her deadly solo quest, following the Mark of Athena. But all these stories – all these wonderful tales of his favourite heroes: Jason and Percy and all the rest – don't excite him that much. Even the small, less significant parts, which really have Kathy and Mabel on the edges of their seats: Leo and Sammy being, like, twins (separated by a few generations), Percy and Annabeth's little scandal on the ship. When Hazel tells them about the weird flashback thingy with Leo, Mabel actually bursts into tears, but Jason sits there, transfixed, not moving, not blinking, not even joining in the cheering when Hazel describes how each sub-group defeated their own respective adversaries and successfully rescued Nico di Angelo.

He stares at his shaking palms. Emotions like anger and sorrow and bitterness, mostly bitterness, roll around inside of him so quick he begins to feel nauseous.

None of us got them, Hazel had said.

These were seven of the greatest demigods the world has ever seen. And none of them got a happy ending. Couldn't the gods have, at least, ensured that for them? The ability to enjoy the rest of their lives? Those demigods have saved their world and honor, some more than once.

Percy and Annabeth had gone to Tartarus for them. Hazel had sacrificed herself. Leo and Frank had lost their families. Jason had been ripped from his life – his sister – when just a baby. Piper had lost pretty much everything close to her heart after the War.

He begins to understand some of his own sour thoughts for the first time. Or maybe he'd just never looked this hard before.

Hazel's next words jolt him out of his reverie.

"We blasted our way through," she says. "There was no other way. Cars flew up into the air, we all went back inside for a bit, but Percy stayed, and in a few moments, he'd yelled Annabeth's name, dashed off the ship like his life depended on it, and when we saw him next, after we all got off the ship...he was hugging her as she sobbed in his arms. She looked terrible: she had a broken ankle, she looked battered and bruised, covered in spider webs...I'd never seen Annabeth cry before..."

She swallows. "She told us her story. How she defeated Arachne. And, by gods, to this day...I have never been more impressed in my life. The rest of the Seven...we all had spectacular powers. Annabeth was powerful too, no doubt about it. Powerful enough to be one of the seven of the prophecy. And I've seen her fight; she's a terror on the battlefield, with her strategies and whatnot. But she had no powers to rely on but her own wits. Listening to her...I couldn't believe my ears."

"She'd retrieved the Athena Parthenos," Hazel continues. "The enormous statue of Athena, glory of Athens before the Romans plundered it to the ground, hid it, instigating the wrath of every child of Athena and the goddess herself. It was colossal, that statue. And, to think...Annabeth was the only child of Athena ever to find and retrieve it. The Athena Parthenos...it radiated power, strong enough to draw the attention of monsters. The worst monsters. In Tartarus. Over time, it created a direct pathway to the statue. Only Arachne's webs held the entire structure together."

"But," Jason says, fingering his napkin, "Arachne died. So..."

"Yes, Jason," Hazel says softly. "Arachne died. So her webbing wasn't supporting anything anymore. Within seconds, the Athena Parthenos began to fall. Jason, Frank, Leo and Piper flew up to secure the figure. That left me, Nico, Percy and Annabeth on the unstable ground next to the pit."

"Annabeth." Mabel's voice cracks. "I've heard the legend. She was covered in..."

"Spider silk," Hazel nods. "Some led to nowhere, but hers let straight into the pit. We were on our way to the ladder when she stumbled. I realized what had happened, I tried to get my sword..." her voice falters, dies, and she continues in a frail little trill. "...but it was tangled in the ropes..."

"And, of course, Percy couldn't let her go..." Hazel gets up from her seat and slowly walks over to the window. By the light, it's close to noon.

She looks over at them with moist eyes. "Nico and I...we were screaming for help, but by the time they heard, it was too late. Percy and Annabeth were gone."

Kathy puts her head on the table. Mabel shakes violently. Jason and Nathan glance slightly at each other, embarrassed to show their weakness.

Why, he thinks, why is this story affecting me like this? I've heard it a million times before.

"Miss...Hazel," he says slowly, so as not to disturb her mourning, "did you..."

She shakes her head like she knows what he'd wanted to ask.

"I still blame myself," she whispers. "A million scenarios...if I hadn't messed up with my sword..."

She lets out a hollow laugh. "Gaea had wanted one boy and one girl to raise her. And she got the best of us. Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase."

"It's a wonderful story, indeed," she says. "Percy and Annabeth journeying through Tartarus, closing the Doors of Death in the House of Hades. And there are many theories as to why exactly they let go, why they fell into the depths of the world without a second thought - not like they had a choice..."

"Love," whispers Mabel almost inaudibly. "They did it because they loved each other, didn't they? Percy could have let her go, but he didn't, because he loved her. That's why they fell in together."

Hazel tilts her head, considering this viewpoint. "Many think so. Venus' children do their best to propagate this particular opinion. And maybe it is right, to some extent. But I have a different idea."

She looks outside the window again, as if imagining her two dead friends calling her from across the shores of the living.

"I think they did it..." she takes a long, lingering breath; her eyes flutter shut. "I think they did it because they were tired. Tired of all this drama. Train. Fight monsters. Go save the world. Again and again and again. All they'd ever wanted, I think, was peace. They'd been going out for nearly a year. Just think, Percy had been missing for eight of those months. So, in that moment, I think they gave up trying to fight. And they accepted their fate."

"Why would they do that?" Nathan says. "Isn't that what we're born to do? Fight? To survive, against all odds?"

"And they did," Hazel points out. "I'm not saying they weren't true fighters. They were, right to the very end. But, all your life, you're just holding on. And to what? That the gods are good, after all. Tell me, Mabel, how is the Hermes Cabin doing?"

Mabel starts. Everyone stares at her.

"It's overpopulated," she says. "Full of undetermined campers."

"There you go." Hazel, for the first time, has an uncharacteristically ugly look on her face. Her smile is bitter and is twisted upwards in anger. Her wrinkles seem more visible, more prominent. Her dark skin glows with resentment. "I knew that would happen. The gods don't keep their promises. They never do. And that, I think, is what Percy and Annabeth discovered that day. That there's no use hanging on to a lost cause. And so they stopped fighting. They let go."

Thunder booms right overhead, thunder so loud Jason has to cover his ears. His friends are doing the same, but Hazel, stooping over in age, sits up straight and looks at the ceiling. She does not flinch as wave after wave of what seems like nuclear bombs hits the roof.

The thunder stops after a minute or two, and Hazel looks back at them. Jason is struck by the visible change in her demeanour. Two minutes ago, she'd looked like a nice old grandma, feeding them cookies and telling them bedtime stories. Now, she looks stronger. A grandma who'd once been in the army. At least, that's the first comparison he can come up with in his head, because her eyes are filled with something Jason recognizes as defiance. Pure, unadulterated defiance.

And he's filled with a whole new kind of admiration for her.

"We were in shock for a long time after that," Hazel admits. "We blamed ourselves, each other...those were dark times, when we turned on each other. In retrospect, maybe that was Gaea's plan all along. Divide and rule."

"You had barely a month before Gaea was to rise," Kathy says with something almost like disappointment. "Didn't you guys realize what was going on?"

"Too late," Hazel answers sheepishly. "It took almost two weeks for us to set everything behind us. And we owe it to Nico, all of it. He called us all at dinner, yelled at us. He was the youngest of the group, but his words were like slaps in our faces. We woke up."

She chuckles. "I shudder to think about what would've happened if we hadn't."

Hazel lays down their game plan: send word to Camp Half-Blood. Iris-message Reyna. Go to Epirus, rescue Percy and Annabeth in the House of Hades. Close the Doors of Death. Go to Mount Olympus – the real one. Hope the gods join the battle. Defeat Gaea.

"The plan was actually going okay until we reached Epirus," says Hazel, smiling ruefully. "The Romans would not attack Camp Half-Blood just yet. Not until they got proof that Leo had been possessed when he attacked the city."

"And now, Epirus," she then says distractedly. "Epirus was gorgeous. Annabeth would have loved it. So beautiful from the sky, although, I admit, it did take only a few minutes for the monster attacks to begin."

"How bad were they?" Jason asks. Surely nothing could be worse than the recent skirmish they'd come out of.

"I am not exaggerating when I say that a different monster attacked every few seconds." She looks at their shocked faces and nods. "It was a nightmare. We never got any sleep; we all had to be on watch at all times. And we had to search for the House of Hades. According to Nico, we'd know it when we saw it, but it took two whole days before we finally did."

Hazel pauses, perhaps thinking of some long-lost memory that surfaces once in a while.

"The House had a number of defences, designed to test each of us physically and emotionally. I think they were specially created to attack our weak spots. Our fatal flaws. I do not know, to this day, what the rest saw. But the things I did see, I will never forget." She swallows, and continues thickly, "We were all on the floor, in pain, or crying. Leo actually curled up on the ground and covered his ears. It's only a guess on my part, but I think he saw his mother. And, by the looks of it, she was blaming him for her death."

"Oh," Mabel gasps. "But it wasn't his fault! Gaea-"

"Yes, but Leo'd always felt guilty about it," Hazel counters. "When you're faced with these terrors, logic and reason go away. It took a lot of coaxing each other, and a lot of reminders that we had two of our friends who needed our help, for us to finally break through."

"And then what?" Nathan says in a hushed voice. "Where were Percy and Annabeth?"

Hazel looks at him with shattered eyes. She puts a hand through her snowy hair, feeling her curls. "We finally broke through a massive set of doors to find ourselves in a hall. It was splendid; the floor made of white marble, arches and pillars of black. It was the size of a football field, but we could all see the structure in front of us."

She looks at them grimly. "The Doors of Death."

"Heck yes," Nathan whispers beside him. "Finally. Here comes the kick-ass part."

"I am sorry, Nathan, dear," Hazel smiles. "But that comes a bit later."

As Nathan wilts in his seat, she continues in a voice of despair: "They were closed. We thought we were too late, that Percy and Annabeth were dead, when we saw them. They were lying face-down, unconscious, right in front of the Doors. They looked like...like death."

"Bleeding?" Kathy says.

"Bleeding, bruised, scraped. They were just skin and bones. Their shirts were stained with blood. Annabeth's ankle-"

"Whoa," Jason cuts in, "I'd forgotten about that!"

She shakes her head. "We all did, Jason. It's okay. But her ankle was bent in all wrong, like it hadn't healed at all. Percy had a gash on his face, Annabeth's shoulder looked it had been raked through repeatedly by claws. They looked grimy, sooty, almost. And when we turned them over...I nearly fainted. Percy's chest was leaking blood. Based on the pallor of his skin, he barely had any to spare. Annabeth had a huge purple bruise the size on my fist-" Hazel curls up her hand and places it lightly on the table– "on her stomach. Small scars all over their body. I know a few never really healed. They looked like they'd been mauled. Thick, dark blood lay congealed all over any bits of exposed skin."

Mabel's trembling hands clap over her mouth. Next to Jason, Nathan mumbles, "Too graphic."

Hazel looks even more shocked than they: maybe it sounds more real hearing herself say it. Maybe she'd acted like it had all been a bad dream before, and maybe that had comforted her in someway, but now that illusion. Her voice dies out. "They would have been better off dead."

Jason shares a look with a teary Mabel before looking at his own hands. Shaking like a leaf. He doesn't know what to say, how to say it. He looks at Hazel. She looks so dispirited now, utterly defeated, shoulders curled forward in hopelessness. He should comfort her, say something, change the topic. But his throat fails him. He's useless, and he balls up his own palms into fists, too.

It's been nearly fifteen minutes when Hazel speaks up again. "Would you like me to continue?"

"Yeah," Nathan says eagerly, before realizing how insensitive that might have sounded. He changes tack at top speed. "I mean...only if you're, uh...okay with it, I mean-"

Hazel smiles. "You remind me of an old friend."

They wait, but she does not elaborate.

Even so, Nathan positively glows with pride, and Jason has to bite his lip to stop the laugh escaping, because Nathan's acting so different that at camp, where he was the cool, tough guy, the real leader of the Fifth Cohort. One look at Kathy and he knows she senses it as well.

"Okay then." Hazel stretches her fingers slowly, flexing them. Like she's letting the blood flow right to the tips. "We had no time to waste. We grabbed Percy and Annabeth – not gently, I regret to say – but we were desperate to get out of there. We were afraid Gaea had planned another trick for us. So we got the hell out of there. And we never saw it again."

She smiles in contentment. "Thank the gods for that."

"Yeah," Mabel agrees. "I imagine you wouldn't have been sad to see the back of it."

Hazel shakes her small face slowly. "But try as we might, we could never forget about that place. In nightmares, in daydreams...somehow, that house had squirmed its way into our consciousnesses. But we learned to live with it. Percy and Annabeth, on the other hand...I doubt they ever really recovered. They never spoke of their time in Tartarus. They smiled just the same in front of us. But from then on, they slept only in the daytime."

She looks at them. "They didn't fear the dark, exactly." She summons another stone, but his one is midnight black. She hands it to Mabel.

"They didn't fear the dark," Hazel repeats. "They feared what was in it."

"Percy and Annabeth took a week to be able to move even slightly again," Hazel says. "And by then we were in a state of complete panic. We had only a few days before the inevitable battle and the day Gaea was due to rise."

"How did you even manage it?" Kathy mutters.

"Oh," Hazel says with a radiant beam, "that was thanks to Leo. He got us to Mount Olympus in a day. And just in time, because the monsters were already assembling, giant armies of them. But the giants were nowhere to be seen."

"How many were there?" Mabel asks curiously. "There are different versions; someone told me that there were thirty-three of them..."

Hazel snorts. They all stare, and she holds up her hands like Sorry, I know old ladies aren't supposed to do that, but I couldn't help it.

"That's the problem with people," she says exasperatedly. "They change everything to make it seem more impressive. Amplified. Well, Mabel. Please go tell this person that there were exactly seven giants, one for each of our parents."

"Well," Nathan says cheerfully, "at least you weren't outnumbered, then."

"Outnumbered?" Hazel begins to laugh. "We were so outnumbered it was comical. Just compare-" she waves her hand at the ceiling – "the stars in the sky to all the demigods in both your camps. That's how much we were outnumbered."

"Oh," says Nathan in a small voice.

"At least," Hazel says dismissively, "at least the gods found the guts –under a rock, I'm sure - to join us. Otherwise, it would not have been a battle. It would have been a massacre."

"How did you do it, in the end?" Jason asks interestedly. "With Percy and Annabeth too weak, and no army on your side? And why didn't both camps join you?"

"You know what, Jason?" Hazel says, tilting her head slightly, "I don't know why the camps didn't join us. But maybe they were too preoccupied with their own Greco-Roman feud. And we did build up quite an army, in the end. We recruited nymphs, spirits. Minor gods and goddesses. Thalia arrived, as well. Satyrs and fauns. Harpies released from Phineas' torture joined us. River gods followed Tiberius' lead and allied with our forces. Tyson, Percy's half-brother, sent us a small legion. Not as massive an army as our enemy, of course, but it was better than none at all, in the end."

"Wow," Kathy says in awe, "their army must have been humungous."

"It was." Hazel smirks. "But it was that wonderful time when everyone in our debt had to repay."

"But there were monsters that wanted revenge on their side," Nathan points out shrewdly. "And if they outnumbered you..."

"Well caught," Hazel concedes. "Yes, you're right. There were fearsome monsters on their side, even without counting the giants. The Minotaur, Medusa, Arachne, I remember that there was a bunch of Cyclopes especially bent on killing Leo..."

"And that's not all," Hazel frowns. "There were minor gods on their side as well. Khione, goddess of snow. Sons of Ares, Phobos and Deimos. Janus. But I doubt he can be considered, he kept flitting between the two sides."

"And the giants?" Jason asks.

"Oh, of course." Hazel rolls her eyes. "As if we didn't have enough enemies already. And they each had a personal grudge against us. Let's see...Polybotes and Percy...Alcyoneus and I...Annabeth and Enceladus...Porphyrion and Jason, Mimas and Leo, Pelorus and Frank. The giant Typhoeus had a rather large bone to pick with Aphrodite, for it was she, during the First War, who tricked the Giants to go the cave in which Hercales was waiting, leading to their destruction. It was like a huge game of chess."

"And what day was this?" Mabel questions.

"It was July the twenty-ninth," Hazel recalls. "It was a Wednesday."

"So the battle would begin only three days later," Nathan sighs. "That's good. At least you had some time to rest."

"My dear boy," Hazel says with amusement, "the rules were a mere formality. We were standing on the edge of what was definitely cut out to be the greatest, bloodiest war of the age. Do you think either side held back?"

She grins. "They attacked us that very night."

"Could you see?" Jason asks. "I mean, were the monsters, like, camouflaged or something?"

"No," Hazel replies. "The satyrs performed some kind of nature magic that lit up the fields. We could spot them miles away."

She exhales with a little puff. "Then came our defences. Pegasi dropped Greek fire from above, Frank and most of the nymphs sent showers of arrows. But they kept coming..."

In his head, Jason visualizes a great barren field, a horde of monsters running forward, dodging the falling arrows, swinging their weapons, wanting to kill and waiting for it. Hazel's soft voice floats into his ear, "Our strategy was mostly a defensive one, but for a moment, we were out of ideas to delay them. Then Percy stepped forward. He yelled something like 'hold on!' and we all did, clasping onto each other."

"And then?" Mabel breathes.

"He stomped his foot."

Silence.

"Deadly," Kathy finally says.

Hazel smiles. "Oh no...well. That came out less impressive that it was. See, Percy stomped his foot, and the whole ground shook. Cracks appeared at our feet, spreading as they surged forward, growing bigger, deeper. A few hundred meters in front of us, a crevasse appeared. The monsters, obviously going too fast to notice or care, were caught unawares. They fell right in."

Jason blinks, and turns to Kathy. "Deadly is right."

"Son of the God of earthquakes," Hazel smiles. "Of course, that move drained his energy so much he was knocked out for a little while, but that slowed down the monsters. They made easy targets now: we wiped out nearly a quarter of them before they finally retreated."

"So," Nathan says, "That was day one."

"Night one," Jason amends.

"Yes, that was." Hazel looks at them thoughtfully. "But the battles would take place only at night. Strength of the monsters increases as the sun goes down. They would multiply and gain strength. But they'd lost a lot of their soldiers. We hadn't even lost one."

The dread hits Jason on instinct before his mind can even wrap around it. He looks at Hazel with a sinking feeling, like he's the one facing that battle. Even though he knows the outcome, how the story ends.

"It was a ploy, wasn't it?" he asks quietly.

"Right." Hazel shakes her head in amusement. "I called the war a game of chess, remember? Well, those monsters...they were the pawns. And by the time we realized this, by the time we realized Gaea's true game, we were surrounded."

Mabel's voice trembles. "But you said...but it's common knowledge that monsters can't travel in the daytime..."

"Yes," Hazel replies gravely, "but they didn't."

"But then what-?" It hits Jason like a sack of sand. "Underground."

"Crap," Nathan whispers. "Crap, crap. Crap."

Hazel smiles. "I could feel them moving in those tunnels, I tried to collapse them. It didn't work. Gaea's tricks, I assumed. But I strained so much and so hard that a pile of jewels collected at my feet. But I couldn't bury the monsters to save my life. I couldn't even move a clod of mud. That, I must say, is the one time I actually felt fear. My powers had deserted me. So all we could do was wait. Wait for them to show themselves."

"Stinky, rotten creatures," Kathy snarls. "When did they show themselves?"

"They didn't." Hazel cocks her head at the surprised looks on their faces. "Why, surely you know this?"

"No," Jason admits a little sheepishly. "We got the extreme kickass version where monsters kind of fall from the sky and the seven of you defeat them all, and then the gods show up and you guys join forces, and together you defeat Gaea."

Hazel throws back her head and laughs. "Oh, I'm sure." But then her tone becomes more serious. "Really? No mention of our allies?"

"No," Mabel responds, shaking her head.

Hazel looks down quickly enough to hide her expression, but Jason catches it in a fleeting moment: that same bitterness from before. He wonders what made her this way, this angry, and he wonders why she's trying and failing to hide it.

Hazel looks up again, calm and stoic as before. "Well, it's sad that none know. Those nymphs and satyrs should be honoured for their courage. You know, when we first arrived, the field was desolate. When we left, it was beautiful. Green. Peaceful. Littered with all the reincarnated forms of all those who had died to fight for us."

Jason's not sure, but he thinks he sees a tear in her eye. But then she blinks and it's gone.

"I'm sorry," Kathy murmurs. "The way we heard it...you guys did it all yourself."

Hazel looks at her and something inside her seems to slowly melt. "That's not your fault, dear. That's the way stories are. They're stretched, made to be more imposing than they really are. And for what?"

She looks at Jason, then. Something in her glance makes him tremble.

"Maybe," she says, "the people who do it don't mean any harm. But all they end up doing is make others feel small. Inferior. Like, however much you try, you will never live up to our predecessors. "

She holds his gaze.

Jason opens his mouth to speak, but his voice fizzles out like a lone flame exposed to the rain.

Hazel goes back into story mode. "Where were we...oh, yes. The monsters did not attack us. They stayed in those tunnels for two days. On the night of August the first, we realized why they had not assaulted us, so close and so vulnerable."

"Why?" Nathan asks.

"They were dead," Hazel says simply.

"Dead?"

"As a doornail," she pronounces calmly. "Another part of the trick."

"How?" Mabel asks quickly as Nathan leans back, looking as stunned as Jason feels.

"They were a decoy, something to draw our attention while the real army assembled. Those monsters..." Hazel shakes her head in disbelief. "They were holding up these tunnels for days. And this act of valour, of course, caused them to lose massive amounts of energy. And this energy-"

"Went into the earth," Kathy cries in dismay. "Went to Gaea!"

"Well done." Hazel sits back in her chair and closes her eyes like her job is done. "More pawns dead. All for Gaea to rise. A tremendous waste, really."

"And then?" Jason prompts.

Hazel opens her eyes. "You know the rest."

"Yes, but we don't know what's real and what's not," Jason says desperately. "Please."

Hazel smiles. "The armies met the next day. And we finally saw for ourselves just how, well, screwed we were. It was almost equal when the giants arrived, rising like massive mountains straight from the earth."

"Alcyoneus too?" Nathan asks. "But he would be weaker, right?"

"Yes, a lot. But this was a war of the ages. I bet he didn't want to miss it." Hazel smiles ruefully. "But seeing those giants lined up in front of us...well, if the gods hadn't shown up –finally- I wouldn't be talking to you right now."

"As I told you, there were seven of them," Hazel carries on. "One for each of us. And there were about a hundred times our size."

Jason's jaw drops open. Kathy grins at his expression and rolls her eyes. Jason quickly closes his mouth, cheeks burning.

Hazel grins. "Collectively."

Which of course leaves his jaw hanging again.

Mabel drums her hands on the table. "So how exactly did the gods make their entrance? Was it then or later?"

"Then. Right then," Hazel agrees. "And quite a dramatic arrival, I must admit. Riding on flying chariots pulled by these giant pegasi..." She smiles almost dreamily. "And what's more, all of them were there. And even though they were still flickering from their Greek to their Roman forms, they looked...formidable. That's for sure. And after all those weeks of feeling useless and doomed, they were a sight for sore eyes."

"You know the rest," Hazel remembers tiredly. "We fought. Gaea started to rise, a huge muddy spire at the peak of Mount Olympus. Each god and demigod took on a giant, ringed in a semicircle. We attempted to push the giants back, but they rallied. Their main aim was to defend the mountain, and they intended to die defending it or kill us in the process. Our fear –well, at least mine – turned into desperation, pure and simple. It was a battle against the giants, for sure, but it was also a battle to survive, at all costs."

"It was a blur of water and fire and earth and wind," she says. Jason tries, again, to visualize it as she speaks. A mishmash of the four elements, ever butting heads, finally joining hands to create a resistance strong enough to beat anyone. Even the giants.

As Hazel speaks, he imagines it like a movie in his mind, a mountain ringed in fire. A smallish boy shooting fire from his fingertips, directing the tongues of flame into their opponents' flesh. A stout boy and a petite girl with dark skin causing chaos amongst the monsters' ranks, the boy turning into a different animal with each blink of an eye, the girl burying her enemies alive. Two girls, one bronze-skinned and gorgeous, another pale and weak but still standing firm, holding their daggers aloft, defying anyone standing in their path. And finally, two tall teenagers, one black-haired and one blond, fighting back-to-back, swinging their swords, creating gales and hurricanes, mowing down creatures, creating a tornado of freezing air and droplets of water. The gods, glowing with sheer power, backing their children. The giants, laughing as they demolish everything in front of them – be it their own army or their opponents. Nico di Angelo conjuring skeletons out of the soil. And all around them, the armies, battling valiantly but perishing by the thousand.

That single image nearly rocks his brain right out of his head, but he still is transfixed by Hazel's grave voice, flowing like honey from a bottle.

"One by one," Hazel recalls, her eyes glowing a pale orange colour, "the giants fell. One by one, again and again. Until it was only Porphyrion standing, and he fought like a madman. He killed most of our remaining force before he finally went down. And it took a combined effort. Nico, my father and I sunk him upto his neck, then each god and demigod came and touched him on the forehead with their weapon. Each touch brought more ichor out, until there was a gaping hole in his skull. And finally, finally, he was sucked into the depths of Tartarus, never to return again."

"But," she says, "there was still the matter of Gaea to take care of. And she was still inching upward. Her eyes were open, full of malice. And I-I saw horrible things...days in the Underworld. Dark times when my mother was possessed. My first death, and promises of a second. And we realized we were out of time. If Gaea rose, we'd all be finished."

"And then Aphrodite came forward," Hazel sighs.

"Venus?" Nathan whispers.

"No, Aphrodite," Hazel says. "She walked up, shrunk to normal size, and, with Piper, they approached Gaea. And then, just when I thought they were surrendering themselves, they began to sing."

"The old lullaby," Mabel says quietly. "I know that song. Every Greek half-blood does; we sing it every time we lose a camper..." She breaks down into silent tears.

"You know the lyrics?" Hazel says in a hushed voice.

Mabel looks up, and in a broken voice, says in fluent Greek, "Upon the hearth the fire dies, up in the skies free spirit flies. Go, for today the day is done, go, for now is gone the sun. May your brave soul ever sleep, may you be plunged in slumber..."

She begins crying again at this point, but Hazel finishes it for her in Latin. "Deep."

There's a weird kind of stillness in the air while Mabel sobs into her hands. This is not just about the song: Jason intuitively knows that she's lost someone close to her, probably sang this song for them.

"You've lost someone?" Kathy asks quietly.

"My little brother," Mabel says with a little hiccough, rubbing her face. "He-he was my life..."

Jason does not find anything to say in the 'vast stores' of his knowledge. "Why didn't you say-?" Kathy glares at him beffore he can finish and mouths a single word that he's pretty sure is tactless.

"You didn't ask," Mabel replies, and weeps afresh.

Hazel reaches out and takes her hand. "We have all lost people close to our hearts, dear. Family, friends..."

Mabel looks up. Perhaps, remembering Hazel's own misfortunes in that particular box, she nods tearfully.

"Sorry," she murmurs. "You can go on."

"Sure?" Kathy asks. She slowly pats Mabel's back.

Mabel nods. Hazel says reluctantly, "They sang the lullaby, and it seemed to have no effect on Gaea at all at first. None at all. And then, her eyes began to flutter shut."

"She was struggling to keep awake," Hazel whispers. She looks no better than Mabel now, only stiffer. "The only way for us to keep the momentum was if we all helped. And so, in pairs of twos and threes, we all joined in. Until we were all singing, singing this song, lulling the goddess back to sleep."

In his minds' eye, Jason thinks of the scene. A kind of anticlimax to the war, all these gods and the Seven standing in a circle, singing. Singing this melodious song while, around them, monsters and satyrs and nymphs all try to hang on to life. Singing this song about receiving death while everything burns and scorches behind them, and the last bits of the blaze fizzle and die out. It calms him, in some way. Gives him hope, makes his skin feel all warm and tingly.

"Slowly," Hazel states numbly, "but steadily, Gaea was shrinking. More and more, until she was only a small pile of mud. As we watched, it crumbled, and a small flower – a-a pink tulip, I think – broke through and bloomed. Right before our eyes. Such beauty, arising from the most evil being to tread the earth. And th- that was that."

There's a pause while everyone drinks this in. Hazel's gone pale now; she grips the table so hard her knuckles turn white, every laboured breath, every slight movement, seems forced.

"We had won," she says in a hollow voice. "We had won."

Jason tosses and turns on his bunk. He shifts the pillow so much and so often he finds himself in the same position several times, but no, sleep has evidently decided not to come to him tonight.

Hazel, after those last words, had simply looked like she had lost the ability to speak; with slow, measured steps, she had led them to their bedrooms and then padded somewhere out of sight.

Underneath him, Nathan snores like a saw being sharpened. Added to this, he occasionally bawls out encouragement to imaginary soccer teams in his sleep.

Finally, Jason decides can't take it anymore. He sits up and shakes away his drowsiness, and, with soundless movements, he jumps from the top bunk to the floor. He opens the door by waving his hand slightly, and hops out of the room with Nathan yodelling, "Pass, dude, pass!"

He floats downstairs, passing the girls' room, where he can hear a whispered conversation in progress. It's all he can do not to join them; he wants to talk to someone –anyone – so, so badly.

Finally he stops at the back door, where he realizes his feet have simply acted on their own and followed the almost inaudible melody coming from behind the closed door.

Jason flicks his hand again and the door swings silently open again, almost eerily. There, he sees Hazel sitting on the steps, gazing out into the night sky. In front of them both is forest, deep and impenetrable, and a small brook flows close by. If he strains his ear, he can hear the monsters howling in the distance.

He focuses on Hazel's back, listening quietly to her song. It's the same one, the last lullaby, but she's singing it in Latin. Her voice is rather broken but she sings it in a lilting tune that somehow makes Jason feel as if he's heard it sometime before. And suddenly, all he wants to do is leave. Leave, and never think about the Second giant war ever again.

He's just turning to go when Hazel says, "You may stay if you'd like."

With mechanical motions, Jason sits down next to her. For a while, they both watch the forest.

"You didn't tell us how it really ended," Jason blurts out. He immediately clamps his jaws shut tight again. But it's no use. The words are out there now and there's no way to bring them back again.

Hazel stares ahead. "What's left to say, Jason?"

"A lot," he plucks up the courage to say. "How it ended...I mean, for each of you."

He's not sure, but he thinks she smiles. Just when he thinks she's refused, she says, "It's not really something I try to remember, Jason. See, immediately, Piper, Annabeth and Percy were taken to Olympus for medical treatment. They'd recover in a week, Apollo said. The rest of the gods teleported away, with promises to call us again on Olympus for a proper congratulations, after we took care of our other problem."

"Camp Jupiter," Jason guesses, groaning. "They didn't attack, did they?"

"No, but they might have," Hazel says. "And we had about two minutes to figure out a new plan. But in the end, it was decided that Leo and Jason would come back on the ship, as they were the only two who could control it. Frank and I would take...Arion." She says the name tentatively, like it brings back bad or painful memories. Jason recalls pictures of Hazel on the untameable horse, riding fearlessly into battle, and decides to remain silent, wondering what had happened later on.

"We were to give both camps the good news," she says, trembling. "And we did, and for a moment, we were happy. We were actually happy."

"And then the Argo II arrived," Hazel actually sounds in danger of sobbing. "Jason released his hold on the winds, and with it the last defence of the ship was gone. He and Leo were laughing, high-fiving, waving at the crowd. While they were landing...a huge mound of earth arose from the east, and descended on the ship in a cloud of dust, before the cheering even began. The ship tore like paper before our very eyes."

Jason gapes at his fingers. He'd seen the Argo II in its former glory in paintings, and he'd also seen the broken version while on diplomatic missions to the Greek counterpart to his camp. He hadn't known how that had happened, most likely because he hadn't asked. No one ever really talked about how the seven of the Prophecy died. Mostly they talked about how they'd lived. He'd always assumed the ship and its many parts had decayed over time, the large dragon masthead lying lifeless on the battered deck.

"We found their bodies on the deck." Hazel trembles. "The camps' feud was called off. The feeling of victory was all gone. We hunted down the supporters of Gaea in about ten minutes. But they'd done what they set out to do. They'd officially destroyed our world. 'A final hurrah to Gaea', as they gloated to us."

Hazel hunches over and grips her own knees. For a brief moment, Jason sees only a small girl curling up in fear, crying for lost friends and family.

"Leo-" Hazel chokes, "Leo was still smiling."

With that, she breaks down almost completely, sobbing silently into her hands. Jason wipes his own tears which are welling up in his sockets. Slowly, tentatively, he pats the old woman's back. This old woman, Hazel Levesque, one of the Seven, known especially for her calm demeanour under pressure.

After what seems like eternity, her body stops shaking. Jason withdraws his hand gratefully.

She stares at him with glistening eyes and speaks like a machine. "Piper was a wreck. In that one fateful instant, her whole life, her reason to live, was shattered. She'd lost both her boyfriend and her best friend. And I've never believed that a person could die of grief, but I honestly think that that's what happened to her. We found her, lifeless, in her apartment, four years later."

"Monster trouble continued," Hazel whispers. "Becoming worse and worse until the Amazons were attacked at their base. Hylla, then their Queen, called Reyna – her sister – to help. Only Reyna. Reyna left, and the monsters were successfully defeated, but then there was a minor skirmish amongst the Amazons themselves in which both Reyna and Hylla were killed. Another loss from which we could barely pull through."

"Percy and Annabeth slowly recovered." Hazel looks up, desolate, at the sky. "They were treated like living legends in both camps, to such an extent that one could almost call it worship."

"What about you and Frank?" Jason says, in a fit of righteous frustration.

Hazel raises a white eyebrow. "Frank and I didn't travel through Tartarus."

Jason is silent.

She smiles. "Don't worry, dear. My husband and I both got our fair share of recognition. But Percy and Annabeth...their fame was dangerous. They probably had more control on the demigods more than any living soul, at that point."

"It's still like that," Jason says delicately.

"Which makes their end even more tragic," Hazel says. She's getting angry again.

"Annabeth got pregnant a few years later," she mutters.

"I-I didn't know that," Jason says hesitantly. Tentatively. He doesn't know if he's supposed to know, either.

"Not many do," Hazel growls; the new tone makes him nervous. "None, actually. The only people who knew were Frank and I. Percy and Annabeth told us; they said they wanted to come to Camp Jupiter for a while, only-"

"They died along the way." Jason suddenly feels sick in his stomach. "Yeah, didn't some monsters throw explosives on their car?"

"Percy, Annabeth, and their unborn child all died after meeting with that unfortunate...accident," she hisses.

"But you don't believe that?" he asks her timidly.

She looks at him and sighs. "The official report was that they died in a monster attack. The car was burning as well, so it was decreed that the monsters threw Greek fire on the car. But I was one of the first people on the scene. And I noticed that...that the car was charred black. The hair on Percy and Annabeth's heads and necks was standing straight up. The hair on their forearms was singed right off. They looked shocked, numbed. And as far as I know, that's not a side-effect of Greek fire. My theory is that they were struck by-"

"Lightning." Jason crumples. "Lightning. I-It can't...did my dad-?"

"Not your dad," Hazel says gently.

"Zeus, then! Big deal!" Jason says in despair. "If Percy and Annabeth were Roman, Jupiter would have done it just the same! And would you shut up!" he screams at the sky in response to the loud clap of thunder.

Hazel is looking at him with a new appreciation as Jason glares at his clenched fists. "You don't think Frank was killed off by his celestial relatives as well?"

"No," Hazel says, "Frank died in his sleep three years ago. Calm, painless. It was the right way for him to go. As far as I know...no godly intervention. But Jason..." she wrings her hands together. "My life started falling apart a long, long time ago. And really...all I could do is watch."

Jason is silent for a long time.

"They're sick," he says, ignoring the thunder.

"I know," she replies indulgently, with the air of a teacher speaking to a stupid pupil.

"What they did is disgusting," he replies, trembling with rage.

"I know," she responds.

"I-I..." he struggles to form the words. "I think I hate them. Like, really."

Hazel is so silent Jason thinks he can hear his own heart pounding away like a drum from within his chest. And to his surprise, there's no thunder. No furious bolt of lightning. Maybe they're as stunned as he is by his declaration.

He continues quickly as if afraid she'll stop him. "My dad's never taken any notice of me. Maybe he's ashamed of me, and I don't blame him or anything...I'm so unlike his last son it's amusing, but-but he's my father! And...and none of the gods even give the slightest indication that we even exist, only the frequent sound of thunder to remind us that we're puny compared to them."

He stands up and spits, "It's stupid, that's what it is! Worshipping them, praying to these-these tyrants who only spoil our lives!" His temper causes the wind around to gain spped, something which happens only when he's angry. Otherwise, his control over air currents is negligible.

"That's new," she says after a long while. "I've never heard that one."

"Well, yeah," he says sourly. "That's me. A regular freak."

"You're not a freak," Hazel says softly; his anger dissolves. "Thinking differently does not mean you're a freak at all. You must be the first demigod I've ever seen to say something like that out loud. I know how you feel, Jason. I've felt the same things. But it's too late to act on them now, as I'm so close to death."

Jason stares and sits down; she tilts her head, reviewing his expression shrewdly.

"I'm not afraid of dying," she says simply, reading the look on his face like a book. "People die all the time. And so many pieces of me are already dead."

He stutters, "B-but you've...you'll be dying a-again...I mean, kind of." Suddenly, he wants to ask her all kinds of questions, he wants to talk to her longer.

All he can whisper is, "It's not fair."

"The gods don't care about fairness," she replies smoothly. "They don't work that way. All they care about is efficiency, and power. They eliminate those who even gain a small bit of power. That's why Percy and Annabeth were murdered so ruthlessly. Of course, some gods...Poseidon, Athena, Hermes, Aphrodite...they were stunned. Poseidon, if you've noticed. Has not had any children since. But they could not challenge Zeus. You're absolutely right, Jason. They are tyrants."

"Well," he says fiercely, "I'm not going to give in to them any longer."

There's a long silence following this declaration, which is broken when Hazel calmly tells him, "I wonder if you'll do a favour for me?"

"Sure," he says numbly. Some slightly sane part of his mind is already regretting his outburst to her about the gods. This rebellion distracts him so much so that he has to force himself to acknowledge her.

"The story I told you today," Hazel says, breathing in deeply. "The way it happened, not the..well, counterfeited version. Today was the first time I've ever spoken about it, ever. And it's enlightened me somewhat. I don't want these lies to continue."

"So? What's that gotta do with me?"

"I trust you," she says, surprising him right down to his core, but she says it with such transparent sincerity that he begins to feel warm again.

"You remind me of some of my old friends," she tells him with a smile. "Strong, but humble. And yet with firm convictions. You are now the only living soul, besides me, to know the entire tale as it happened, at this point. And if you agree to do it, I'd like you to make sure it doesn't die out."

He swallows. "But-"

"The gods won't like it," Hazel pronounces. The look in her eyes suggests that she knows his thoughts, his repentance. "At all. But I've died once before with no one knowing what I'd done, how it happened. I'd like people to know how the entire event really took place."

Jason feels his fingertips vibrating against his knees; he quickly shoves them into his pockets.

"I'm not asking you to do it," she says quietly to her own open palm. As Jason watches, a few rubies and sapphires jut out of the ground at their feet.

She looks at him with a steady gaze. "I'm asking you to think about it."

Jason wakes up a few hours later with Nathan clearing his throat in his ear.

"Idiot," he moans groggily, and he shoves the pillow over his head. Too late, though: he can't find sleep again. But now that he's awake, the details of the previous night's conversation with Hazel comes back to him with a force stronger than Hannibal crashing into his shield (which hurt, a lot). He clamps his hands over his pillow harder, to block them out of his head.

Had he really said all of those things? He was lucky to be alive.

But a minute part of his mind rises up in revolt. What he'd said had also been true. He felt those things still, but perhaps he should be a little more...cautious from now on. No knowing which wrathful god might be listening in.

He lifts the cushion. "What's the time?"

"Five," Nathan says cheerily. "We've got to leave early, or the monsters may catch up. And we have to move today, anyway. Only three days to our deadline, or we've failed."

Jason sits up and climbs down. He sees his sword resting in a corner and glares at it resentfully.

"It's like a pretzel, dude," Nathan remarks, twirling his own perfect lance from hand to hand.

"Yeah, well," Jason says, shrugging, "maybe it'll work like a boomerang or something."

When they go downstairs, they find Mabel -whose yes are red and puffy- and Kathy at the table, wolfing down pancakes. Jason sits down between them, avoiding Hazel's eyes. In a few moments, he sees a sweet-smelling pancake slide onto his plate. He grabs the syrup and slops it on, and begins to eat it in huge bites, barely taking time to swallow.

He can feel Hazel's gaze on him, though, waiting to see if he's made a decision. And he hasn't. The whole thing scares him and appeals to him at the same time. He feels like a grain of sand on the beach, blown this way and that by the wind. And all he wants to do, right now, is melt into the maple syrup in front of him. It's too much pressure from both sides. To be the good ol' son of Jupiter in front of his campmates, and the bad one in the shadows. He can't do it.

He can't do it.

Finally, when they're all full to the point of bursting, it's time to leave. There's a hasty goodbye and hurried hugs and handshakes, and they're out the door when Hazel calls him back. For a moment he's seized with a fit of fright, but he turns and goes anyway.

Her eyes are kind. "I'm not forcing you into anything, Jason. And I certainly don't blame you for your dilemma. But I wanted to thank you for listening to me and for considering my words at all. So..." She holds out her hand and holds out a sword.

Jason's interested before he realizes it's a cavalry sword, and then it's hard to hide his revulsion. "Uh...thanks, I guess?"

Hazel's expression changes from irritation to sorrow and then, finally, to bitter amusement. "I see things in the legion haven't changed."

"No, no," he hastens to reassure her, "it's just, I don't have a horse. Without one, it's kinda...inconvenient."

She smiles, like she doesn't believe a word. Which is okay, since he'd been lying anyway.

"That can be easily remedied," she smirks queerly, "just whistle. He should come to your aid immediately. If he has doubts, show him the sword."

"Who?" he asks curiously, but she touches a finger to her lips.

"Good luck," she says, and Jason has no choice but to turn and walk away. He fingers the hilt of the sword, feeling this new weapon. He's honored really, to be carrying her weapon...if only it wasn't a cavalry sword...

He lets his old gladius fall to the ground carelessly. And suddenly, he feels guilty for not even saying good bye to the old woman properly.

But when he looks back, she's gone.

It's two days later when the monsters finally so catch up. And they surround Jason and his crew, snarling and taunting them. There must be at least fifty, and each of them have weapons twice as big as Hazel's sword.

There's no way out, because there's no way in.

"Nice fighting with you," Mabel trills. She withdraws her tiny dagger from her belt.

Breathe. It's okay, Jason thinks. You're going to be okay. Just breathe. Breathe, and remind yourself of all the times in the past you felt this scared.

And he does, reminds himself how each time, he made it through. Life has thrown so much at him, and despite how difficult things have been, he's survived. All he has to do is trust that he can survive this too. Trust that this struggle is part of the process. And trust that as long as he doesn't give up and he keeps pushing forward, no matter how hopeless things seem, he will make it.

Nathan and Kathy glance and each other and do the same as Mabel. Jason's about to whisper a few inspiring about-to-die speech in their ears when it hits him.

And then he whistles as loud as he can.

"What are you doing?" Kathy hisses in his ear as the demons frown in confusion.

"Help me," he whispers back.

Reluctantly, Kathy joins in, and a few minutes, they're all whistling madly into the air.

Nothing happens. Jason's heart plummets downwards, all the way to the Underworld. Maybe he'd been wrong in thinking-

CRASH!

"What in Pluto's name was that?" Nathan yelps.

Jason suddenly laughs. His friends stare at him like he's demented, but soon they're all yelling and ducking for cover as a brown blur circles them; the monsters are flung aside like rag dolls. When the thing stops, Jason can only stare in wonder. He hears Mabel gasping repeatedly behind him.

The majestic horse canters to a stop in front of him and breathes menacingly right in his face, like he's saying: Get out of my way, silly puny boy. I will trample you to death.

In reply, he holds up Hazel's sword.

The horse snorts and stomps its hooves. It rears, and Jason finds he can't get his feet to move. Nathan moves forward desperately, looking stricken, but he'll be too late, but then-

The horse sinks down into what is clearly a highly reluctant bow. Then it looks up at Jason with a look at he's pretty sure indicates that he's only obeying him for Hazel's sake.

And he's okay with that.

As the horse rights itself again, Jason looks at his friends. "Come on, let's go. The pack'll recover soon."

"But," Mabel squeaks, "can it take all of us?"

The horse stomps and shakes it mane haughtily.

"I'm taking that as a yes," Jason decides, ignoring the terrified look on her face. "Let's get going."

He mounts the horse, which shifts uncomfortably a little bit under him, but Jason tentatively pats his head. "Thanks for this... Arion," he smiles, and Arion raises his head a little higher.

When they're all up, there's nothing left to do but ride off into the sunset, grinning almost despite themselves.

Just like real heroes.

A few weeks later, Jason visits Olympus with his cohort for their annual trip. There's the usual tour around the throne room and the hall of fame, and then everyone's given a half-hour break. As usual, people migrate off in smaller groups, looking at the view from the patio, or else to the salad bar, or to look at the massive statues of different gods and demigods.

Jason walks alone to the familiar set of statues which is already drawing most of the half-bloods: some simply come to stare, others admire the sculpting. Jason looks up at them, the seven half-blood who had answered the call, standing back-to-back in a perfect circle. He ignores the silent squeals of the girls ("Oh my gods, Percy and Annabeth's fingers are touching, oh my gods!"), and this time, he passes by the statues of Jason and Percy, standing on opposite ends of the ring, holding their swords aloft. The statues are all made of white marble save for one feature: their eyes. Jason's are of sapphire; Piper's are a mixture of different sparking crystals – amethyst, opal, rose quartz, rubies, agate...but not in the way where it ends up looking like a sloppy mishmash of hues. Leo's are made of tiger's eye, which glint in the sun wickedly; Annabeth's blank moonstone and Picasso marble eyes glint blankly at him. Percy's eyes are made of huge orbs of emerald; Frank's are of a dark topaz.

As Jason passes, he reads the small slab of stone under each statue. Years of their birth and death. He circles them slowly to reach the last statue on the other side of Jason, reading each one: 2010, 2014, 2014, 2033, 2033, 2049. With each step, he feels like he's sinking into the solid concrete beneath his feet.

Finally he stops at the last statue. A small girl with a petite frame and curly hair blowing crazily in the wind, with intimidating eyes of gold and amber. Holding up her sword – now hanging at Jason's belt – and staring up fiercely at something in the distance. Hazel Levesque. For some reason, he'd never visited the statue much before, even though she was just to the right of Jason Grace, one of his favourite heroes and his half-brother. The statue had just never...drawn him. Not the way it's doing now.

He lowers his gaze to the stone slab, and sees something he's never seen before. Two sets of birth and death dates. One says 1928 – 1942. The other only says 2009. The last space, Jason deduces, is because Hazel is still alive.

But as he watches, graceful writing appears in the empty space. The year 2062. His mind slowly processes the numbers. 2062. 2062. This year.

Jason feels panic closing up his throat and he gasps for breath, choking on thin air until he reminds himself to breathe. He holds onto the base of the statue for support but looks up again, sees the stoic little girl, and gags again. He should Iris-Message Hazel, he wants to, he needs to, his heart is screaming at him to do it, but his limbs are frozen, and he doesn't have a single drachma on him. And besides, even if he got one, he's afraid of what he'll probably see.

But no, Hazel couldn't possibly be-

"Dead," Jason whispers. His fingers trace the curly numbers. Hazel is dead. Hazel is gone. Soon, someone will attempt to contact her, and realize the truth. He should really tell someone. But he still is rooted to the spot. But even though he hasn't seen her die physically, his heart bangs horribly against his chest. This way, he decides, this way is worse.

He looks up at the statue once more, and again down at the writing, written in stone. Hazel Levesque has died twice now, with her story untold once. And somewhere Jason knows he would not be able to live with himself if that happened again. Because Hazel cannot die in vain. Not a second time.

He smiles. Sparks fly out of his fingers.

"All right, Hazel. You've convinced me. I'll do it," he whispers, and adds, for good measure, "If it kills me."

He's then hailed over by a couple of friends, but he looks up at her one last time as he turns to leave. Her slight smile remains unchanged.

But he swears her eyes shine brighter than ever before.

So I bare my skin and I count my sins

and I close my eyes and I take it in

guess who just killed everybody you loved.

buuuuut I hoped you liked it. it's far from perfect, obviously, so please give me inputs and cc and stuff. please. feedback rocks, and i do try to implement it.

so, reviews would be greeaaaat. ;3 drop one if you liked this!

more oneshots to come i swear okay.

vani