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demigod-shenanigans · 1 month ago

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Summary: The quest to earn Jason’s first college recommendation letter had gone almost too well. The second one was currently trying to make up for this by being a massive pain in the ass.

After trips to three different sacred libraries and hours of stumbling through a cave system in the dark, Piper should have wanted nothing more than to have this stupid quest over and done with.

Except, well… the completion of their quest required them to find the Mnemosyne—the Fountain of Memory. And considering no one had ever bothered to fix the mess that the Mist had made of Leo and Piper’s memories, or the mess that the Queen of the Heavens had made of Jason’s… maybe there were things Piper wanted just a little more than going home.

Word Count: ~6K

Rating: Teen and Up

I did hope to eventually do at least some key moments from Jason’s college recommendation letter quests, so here’s one of them! So so stoked to finally be sharing my @lost-trio-week fics with you guys! I’m really excited about the event, I cannot wait to read everyone’s works and look at people’s art!!

This was technically written for the Wilderness prompt, but did end up a little nod to the Nickname prompt, too.

There’s some valgrace in this, but it’s relatively minor. This is, first and foremost, a fic focused on both the lost trio in general and Leo and Piper’s friendship specifically.

———

As they approached the third hour of stumbling through the dark underground tunnels, still looking like varying degrees of drowned rat in their drying, muddy clothes, Piper decided that this quest was much worse than the previous one had been.

For all that had gone wrong on the quest to earn Jason’s first college recommendation letter, it had been clear Apollo had at least intended to give them an easy win as an apology for temporarily getting Jason killed the previous year.

Mnemosyne had clearly had no such restraint. It wasn’t that the Titaness had been unkind—she’d been nice enough when they’d spoken to her—but she’d taken one look at them, decided they seemed competent and given them a quest that was a massive pain in the ass.

They were looking for the Mnemosyne—the Fountain of Memory—which had the exact same name as the Titaness for maximum confusion.

One of the children of Moneta, Mnemosyne’s Roman aspect, had been involved in an unfortunate Lethe-related incident on their last mission and had since had a worrying amount of memory problems. This would have been disturbing enough for your average demigod, but considering that poor kid’s whole power set revolved around memories, they’d taken things really badly.

The three of them had immediately agreed to help—honestly might have even if it hadn’t been for the college recommendation letters. They were all uncomfortably familiar with the concept of demigod memory issues and wouldn’t have wished that on anyone.

Piper still stood by that decision, even as they continued to stumble through the dark with only Leo’s fire lighting the way, as a little dip in an underground river had utterly wrecked their flashlights.

The issue Piper had with this mission didn’t come from what they were trying to achieve. It came from the fact that they’d gone through three different sacred libraries in different parts of the country in search of a flask that could hold the black waters of the Fountain, only to learn afterwards that the main part of the Fountain was in the Underworld.

Maybe this would have been fine, but no version of Eurydice in the myths had ever lived to touch the sunlight again, and none of them had been all that eager to find out what might happen if they took Jason back into the Underworld.

Unfortunately, this meant they had to deal with the only other place they knew that might still hold the water of the Fountain, if they were lucky: the Bluespring Caverns in Indiana, aka the residence of the Oracle of Trophonius.

As in: the very same place that Lester and Meg had partially blown up as a precaution about a year ago.

Originally, the Fountain had been above ground. But whatever explosive had been used to destroy the caverns had done its job so thoroughly that it had taken the waters with it, which made them much harder to find than they’d initially hoped.

The cave system was as vast as it was currently unstable, and it made for quite the experience. Several times, Piper had found herself wishing they had Hazel with them.

When, after hours of wandering around semi-aimlessly, the cave in front of them widened into a cavern and they could finally, finally hear the sound of running water that sounded more like a stream and less like a river, the three of them let out a collective sigh of relief.

“Wow, that stuff really is pitch black,” Leo concluded, holding his flaming hand over the river so he could take a proper look. “So, how do we find out if this is really the Mnemosyne and not, like, the grimiest stream of all time? Because, as the guy who has the most experience with Titans between the three of us, trust me, if Calypso had sent me to find magic memory water and I’d presented her with a bottle full of mud instead, she would not have found that especially funny.”

Before Piper could suggest something really foolish—like how one of them should try drinking the waters and seeing if it fixed the holes in her own memories, which she’d been secretly hoping to do ever since they’d gotten this mission—a figure took shape in front of them.

“You’ve come to the right place,” the Titaness confirmed before she’d even fully taken form. Her dark hair blended nicely into the general darkness of the cavern. Her luminous white robes, which were almost startlingly bright, were still covered in black words like they’d been the first time they’d met her, which definitely did not help her beat the walking e-reader allegations.

The words seemed to have shifted. Maybe someone had skipped a few pages on her cloak since the last time they’d seen her.

“How’s Zac doing?” Jason asked immediately, clearly worried. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know this kid. Of course he was worried about them. He had first-hand experience with having his memories utterly shaken out of him.

“They’re still very confused.” Mnemosyne sighed. “But the waters will help.”

Piper tried not to be annoyed. If the Titaness could have appeared by the stream any time she wanted, why hadn’t she just taken the waters to her child herself?

But she knew by now that things were just like that in their world. There were rules, and gods didn’t do their own quests if they could send random demigods to fetch their magic items instead. That wasn’t ever going to change.

“So, did you just pop up here to confirm we’re not about to gather mud water?” Leo asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No.” The Titaness eyed the stream, then looked between the three of them. “I wasn’t sure how much of the Fountain would be left after everything that happened here last year, or I would have made you this offer much sooner. But if the three of you wish to have your own memories restored, you may drink.”

Piper’s body went rigid, and she could tell Leo and Jason were just as affected. Apparently all three of them had had the same thought for the entire mission—that this might be their one chance to finally get back the memories that Hera and the Mist had taken from them.

“How- how did you know-” Jason asked, startled.

“I’m the Titaness of memory, child.” She smiled at him. “I never forget a story, and yours is quite unique. I’ve heard it told many times, and I remember each version in detail.”

“That sounds like a massive headache waiting to happen,” Leo muttered.

The Titaness laughed. “Perhaps. It can be both a blessing and a curse. But I knew you three have had parts of your memory taken from you, and it was not hard to guess you might wish to regain it. Memory is powerful. It shapes us into who we are as people. Mortals aren’t made to retain all memories, of course, but losing too many can utterly reshape their being.” She eyed Jason with a curiosity in her eyes that Piper really did not like. “I’ll admit, part of the reason I offered you this quest was that I wanted to meet you, Jason Grace. I was intrigued to see who you’d become, with so much of your sense of self stripped away.”

The way she spoke wasn’t unkind, but it was a tone Piper was used to with most gods—one that suggested demigods served mainly as a source of entertainment for higher powers, with no regard for how it made them feel.

“And? Happy with the results?” Piper snapped.

Even in the dark, she could tell Jason was trembling. She moved to stand beside him. Apparently, Leo had had the same impulse—within a moment, they were flanking Jason.

“The path he might have carved with his memories intact would have been very different from the one he carved with them gone,” Mnemosyne said, tone gentle. “It’s important for me to reflect on this, every now and again. The way forgetting can be just as powerful as remembering. Lethe and Mnemosyne balance each other out for a reason. Your friend served as an excellent reminder.”

“I understand that Juno did what she had to do, at the time,” Jason said quietly. He squeezed Piper’s hand. They hadn’t been dating for more than a year, and they were better off for it, but their natural instinct for comforting touches had stayed. “I wouldn’t change what’s happened for anything. But now that the camps are united… is it selfish? To want to remember?”

“Not at all. Being the Titaness of memory, I may be slightly biased on the matter, but wanting to remember has always seemed like a natural instinct to me.” She smiled at him. “The waters could return your memories. Restore what was yours. But you must know that it will restore all of them. Memories can be a heavy burden, sometimes.”

“Is it safe? Drinking from the stream?” Piper asked hesitantly.

“For you and Valdez? Utterly.” Mnemosyne confirmed immediately. “The memories you’ve lost are still within you. A single sip is all you’ll need.”

“And for Jason?” Piper probed, not liking the fact that he'd been left off the list one bit.

“He’ll need to drink more deeply than you two. It’s not without dangers. The memories may overwhelm him.” Mnemosyne turned towards Jason again. “I’m grateful for everything you’ve done to help my child. You will have your recommendation letter regardless of whether you choose to drink. But know that if you choose not to regain your memories now, it’s likely you never will. The more time passes, the greater the dissonance will be between the person you were in those memories and the person you’ve grown into without them. Even now, there’s no telling how well you’ll handle this fact. Waiting longer… it would simply be too dangerous.”

Piper knew Jason wouldn’t reject the waters just because it was risky to drink them. He’d gone through two quests assuming he was destined to die. He’d never been as scared for his own well-being as would have probably been good for him.

Besides, she’d heard the way he talked about Reyna. He’d forgotten so much—felt so detached from the memories he didhave—that only the shape of loving her remained. And for all of Piper’s insistence that that shape could be filled with new memories, she knew that it had never felt like that was enough to Jason.

She knew what he’d say even before the words left his mouth.

“I’ll do it.” Jason wrung his hands. “I want to remember who I was. All of it. Even the bad parts. It’s a burden I don’t want to keep living without.”

The Titaness seemed to like this answer.

“I’ll leave you to the privacy of your memories, then,” she announced, disappearing in a swirl of letters.

Piper wasn’t sure there could be any real privacy, considering she was the Titaness of memory and this was her stream, but she appreciated the sentiment.

~~~~

They gathered some of the water up in a flask. It was far more than Zac would need—Mnemosyne had said that a gulp or two should be more than enough to fix them right up—but they figured it couldn’t hurt to have extra, just in case the usual shenanigans happened or someone else might need the power of the waters in the future. Who knew how long this stream was going to stick around here. It was pure luck that it had even still been here at all, linked as it was to the destroyed Oracle. There was a good chance it would shift and reappear elsewhere in the future, and who knew how soon they’d be able to find it again when that happened.

Once Leo had safely stored the flask in his tool belt, the three of them kneeled side by side at the bank of the stream.

Jason was trembling, staring intently into the water but making no move to touch him.

“Whatever happens, we’ll be right here with you, okay?” Leo said gently, one arm wrapping around his boyfriend’s shoulder.

“It’s just… what if I remember who I was and decide I don’t like myself?” Jason asked, voice suddenly small. There was clearly more he wanted to say. Piper could tell he was afraid.

But Jason had never been good at letting himself be vulnerable.

Thankfully, Leo had the situation handled. He elbowed his boyfriend, raising an eyebrow. “Are you implying I have a terrible taste in men? Because I cannot let that stand.”

He leaned forward and kissed him.

Jason laughed, despite everything.

“You always manage to make me feel better. I don’t know how you do it,” he said, voice full of fond awe. He took Leo’s face in his hands, sighing contently. “I love you so much.”

“Aw, I’m dating a complete sap.” Leo grinned. He flicked Jason in the head and kissed him again.

Maybe Piper should have felt awkward watching them. Third-wheeling your best friends when you were newly single would probably not have been most people’s favorite activity.

But Piper had spent the better part of a year grieving Leo and three months with the gaping hole Jason’s death had left in her chest. Seeing them alive and well and so genuinely happy together after everything that had happened made her heart swell.

This didn’t mean she wouldn’t give them shit about it, though.

Piper whistled, grinning widely at them.

“Hey lovebirds! We should probably get a move on with the memory stuff if we want to make it back to the Waystation before dark.”

“Buzzkill!” Leo complained, chuckling.

“That is my job description as your best friend, yes,” Piper confirmed, pulling them both into a tight hug. “No matter what happens next, we’ll handle it together. We’ve been through much, much worse.”

~~~~

Jason gulped down a handful of stream water and was out like a light within three seconds.

This just left Leo and Piper conscious on the bank of the stream.

Maybe it would have been smart to take turns with this—have two of them drink and the third stand guard until the others woke up—but as difficult as this place had been to find, Piper doubted any random monster would be unlucky enough to just wander in here.

Besides, she was itching to touch the waters herself. The thought of getting her Wilderness School memories back almost made her vibrate out of her skin with excitement.

No more random flashes of Jason where he hadn’t been. No more fake memories overwriting the friendship her and Leo had shared. She couldn’t stand the thought of waiting even a second longer.

“Hang on,” Leo said, grabbing her arm before she could reach into the stream. “I mean, obviously I get why Jason needed this. But are we sure we even want to remember?”

Piper’s first instinct was to protest that they’d wanted this for so long—that they’d spent forever mourning those first few months of their friendship, thinking they’d never get a chance like this—but the look in her best friend’s eyes gave her pause. Apparently, Jason hadn’t been the only one of them who was afraid.

She put a hand on Leo’s shoulder, squeezing it gently.

“What are you worried about?”

“I’ve been thinking, and… what if all of it was fake? What if all the memories we have of Wilderness School were Hera just making things up so we’d do her stupid quest?”

“You think maybe we weren’t really friends before that day at the Grand Canyon?” Piper asked, heart clenching at the thought.

Over the past two years, she had gotten occasional flashes of Wilderness School memories with Leo that hadn’t featured Jason, and she’d always assumed those were her real memories. But what if Leo was right? What if that had just been a second layer of Hera-induced nonsense? What if she’d spent this whole quest hoping to get memories back that didn’t even exist, and the reality of Wilderness School had just been them being lonely and miserable in separate corners of the school?

“Yeah. Maybe we didn't even know each other aside from being classmates,” Leo mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck and refusing to meet her eyes. “Or worse, maybe you, like, hated me or something. What if you get those memories back, and you suddenly decide that you do find me annoying?”

“Hey,” Piper said, pulling him into a hug. “I think you’re plenty annoying now, but that’s never stopped me from wanting to be your best friend,” she teased, squeezing him tightly. “And if Wilderness School Piper really did hate you for whatever reason, I’m just gonna have to tell her off for having shit opinions about my best friend. End of story.”

“Okay,” Leo said shakily. He buried himself in the embrace, squeezing back just as hard. “Okay. I just… you’re my best friend, and I…” he trailed off. His voice was watery.

“I know. But whatever we were back then can’t take away what we are now. Trust me on that one.” Piper rubbed his back soothingly. She could feel herself tearing up, too. “If you originally thought Wilderness School Piper sucked? Tough luck. You’re not getting rid of me ever again.”

“Sorry. I’m getting better about this, I swear. I know you guys love me so much. I just- I don’t want to lose you, ever.”

“I get it. The feeling is very much mutual.” Piper gave him a watery smile.

“I don’t really want to spend my whole life wondering if we had memories together from before,” Leo continued, voice growing steadier. “If we were friends back then, I want to remember every moment of it. And hey, maybe I actually do want to remember it even if I did think you sucked at first. I was really good at keeping people at arm’s length back then. Remembering how that changed with you and Jason… maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing.”

They kneeled next to each other at the pitch black river, leaning down to gather up a small handful of black water each.

“Ready?” she asked, glad to have Leo by her side for this.

He smiled more genuinely now. “Bottom’s up.”

They drank—a small sip, and no more than that.

The water had no taste, but the feel of it was intense. It was a numbing kind of cold that reminded Piper of the anesthetics she’d been given when she’d broken her arm as a child. She remembered the doctor asking her a question or two. She remembered giving nonsense answers.

In a few seconds, the world had faded into nothingness, just like it did now. The cavern surrounding her disappeared, turning as black as the water of the stream.

*******

Remembering felt like walking into a dream and like waking up all at once.

Piper was fifteen again, staring intently out of the window of her Wilderness School classroom and tuning out the teacher. Suddenly, the door had banged open, and there he was—Leo Valdez. He had his arms spread out and bowed mockingly, a cheeky grin on his face. She’d known immediately that this boy would spell trouble.

“You’re fifteen minutes late!” the teacher had protested, which had just made Leo’s grin widen.

“Hey, I figured if I was going to join the class mid-semester, I might as well make a grand entrance. Punctuality is bad for grand entrances, you know.”

The teacher had looked at him in displeasure. Then she’d said the words that were about to make her own life significantly worse, and Leo and Piper’s lives significantly better.

“You’re sitting in front with McLean, where I can keep an eye on you.”

He’d rolled his eyes, but dropped into his assigned chair regardless, not bothering to unpack his bag.

They hadn’t really talked much during that first class they’d shared. Leo had spent the whole time tinkering with some unidentifiable object made of screws, bolts and rubber bands.

Piper had pretended it didn’t bother her. She hadn’t felt like anyone at this stupid school wanted to be her friend since she’d first arrived there, and she’d convinced herself she was fine with that.

It wasn’t like she’d ever really managed to make friends who were interested in her as a person rather than her celebrity dad. That was never going to change.

Except, well… Piper’s pen had gone out of ink, and a moment later, the new guy had wordlessly pushed one of his pens in her direction.

“Don’t give her your stuff,” someone in the row behind them had warned Leo in a stage whisper. Piper had known instantly that their classmate had wanted her to hear every word. “Piper’s here because she’s a klepto. You’re never getting that pen back.”

Piper had been fuming, getting ready to retaliate, but the new kid had been quicker on the draw than her.

“Good. I fucking hate that pen.” Leo had smiled at her, then whirled on the person behind them, speaking loud enough that the whole class heard. “And what are you here for? Because, unlike me, you’re clearly not at risk of getting arrested for your winning personality.”

The girl’s face had gone as red as her stupid hair. Several of the kids around them had started snickering, Piper very much included.

“I can deal with these idiots by myself,” she’d told him afterwards. “But I do appreciate the sentiment.”

“Noted. I just can’t stand people like that. Would gladly watch you take her down a couple notches from the passenger seat sometime, though.” He’d grinned at her. “The name’s Leo, by the way.”

“Piper.”

She’d known they would be friends, then.

~~~~ The roommate thing had come as a surprise to both of them. Wilderness didn’t really do co-ed rooming.

But Leo had apparently managed to piss off three roommates in just as many days, and since they’d chatted a few times in class and sat together at lunch twice, someone in the faculty had apparently decided that, if nothing else, Piper was at least very unlikely to beat Leo up.

“What did you even do to piss Tyler off that much?” she’d asked, allowing Leo to sit on the bottom bunk that had belonged to her for the past month while he pressed an ice pack to his face. “I mean, I know the guy’s got a short fuse, but usually it takes him longer than a few hours of knowing a person to flip his shit like that.”

Leo had shrugged. “Apparently he liked his previous roommate. Came as a shock to me, too—I didn’t think he liked anyone.”

”Just that?”

“Okay, admittedly, the 3 am tinkering probably didn’t help,” he’d amended. “Fair warning: I don’t do well with sleep. Or silence. Or most things, really. If you get sick of rooming with me—which I’m sure you will—don’t worry. I won’t bother you for long.”

~~~~

Leo had tried to make good on that promise less than a week later, when Piper had woken up to him noisily breaking their window lock at one in the morning.

“What in the world are you doing?” she’d asked, eyes wide. She’d crawled out of her bunk to see Leo standing in the dark with a backpack slung over his shoulder and a makeshift tool that looked a little like a torture device in his hand. “You’re leaving?”

The memory was vivid now—the way her heart had dropped into her gut at that moment. It had startled her, then, just how much the thought of Leo leaving had terrified her when they’d barely known each other for a week and a half.

What right did she have to feel this level of attachment to a guy she barely knew? Sure, they’d talked, and she’d made the teachers cut him some slack about homework a few times. Sure, they’d sat together at lunch for all of the past week.

But there was so much she hadn’t known about Leo at the time. So much he hadn’t known about her.

They had, for all intents and purposes, still been strangers.

But they’d been less strangers than any of the other people she’d met at this school—or, honestly, most people she’d met in the years before that. Leo made her laugh. Being around him was the happiest she’d felt in months.

The thought of him leaving her…

“I’m just going up to the roof,” he’d told her. “It’s kind of stuffy in here, and I really need to stretch my legs. Realized earlier that the fire escape outside our window goes up, too, so I figured why not?”

A lie. Piper knew it now like she’d known it back then.

She couldn’t have asked him to stay. Not under those circumstances. But there had been something she could do.

“Can I join you?” she’d asked. “The view’s probably pretty great, and you did wake me up, so might as well make the most of it.”

At least admit you’re leaving, she’d thought. At least tell me goodbye.

Leo had hesitated for a moment, but then his face had softened into a small smile.

“You know what? What the hell. I guess I wouldn’t mind company.” He’d looked her over. “You might want to change into something that isn’t pajamas, though. Unless, of course, your goal is to freeze to death so you won’t have to go on that stupid survival trip we’ve got scheduled tomorrow. Which, you know, would be completely understandable.”

Piper hadn’t pointed out that Leo was only wearing a t-shirt and shorts himself. She hadn’t known he couldn’t get cold back then.

They’d spent the whole night lying on the roof, just talking about a whole bunch of nothing for hours and hours. Piper had pointed to some of the constellations her dad had taught her when she’d been little.

Her dad… she still didn’t know entirely why she’d done it, but when the moon had started to dip towards the horizon, she’d told Leo the truth about her father.

“Hang on. Tristan McLean like the movie star?” Leo had looked at her with wide eyes. “I thought having that kind of money got you out of just about anything. What in the world did you steal to still end up here?”

“Technically, I didn’t steal anything,” Piper had said quietly. She hadn’t expected him to believe her. No one ever did. “I did get a car salesman to lend me a BMW, though.”

Leo had laughed wildly. “You may be the craziest person I’ve ever met. And trust me, that’s a compliment.”

“Gee, thanks,” Piper had told him, but she had let out a small chuckle of her own.

Then, Leo had done something that had really surprised her. For the first time, he’d shared a little bit of himself.

“I’m a tragic orphan, personally. I’ve been through a bunch of foster homes since I was eight.” He’d shrugged. “I’m not really great at sticking around. That’s how I ended up here.”

You stuck around tonight, she hadn’t said. “They can do that? Stick you in a correctional facility for running away?”

“Apparently.” He’d shrugged again. “I’m kind of jealous. Your backstory is much cooler than mine.”

They’d declared that roof their secret hiding spot after, using it to stash snacks they weren’t supposed to have and skip gym whenever Hedge was being particularly annoying. It was the first place they’d ever carved out that had truly felt like theirs.

~~~~

Piper remembered venting to Leo about her dad and his stupid assistant—something she’d never, ever gotten to do with anyone else before this. She’d complained about the last birthday present she’d gotten: a makeup kit that had clearly been picked out by her dad’s assistant, along with a card that misspelled her name as “Pipes”.

She remembered Leo joking that clearly he should be Pipes, because he was smokin’—a joke that was made even worse by the fact that Leo had fire powers, which she hadn’t known at the time.

“What about you?” she’d asked eventually. “When’s your birthday?”

“I don’t do birthdays, Pipes,” Leo had said, smirking at her. Was that where the nickname had come from? “Tragic orphan, remember? Besides, I ended up here for being a serial runaway. No way in hell I’m sticking around until my next birthday.”

“Then there’s no harm in telling me.”

“I guess. If you really want to send me a birthday card from juvie, I suppose I’ll let you know what bridge to address it to ahead of time.” He’d paused. “Sorry, stupid joke. Rich girls don’t go to juvie.”

But he had told her. He’d done it claiming it wouldn’t matter, sure. But Piper knew him now, in a way she hadn’t back then. Saw the slight change in his posture. The way his smile melted into something a fraction more vulnerable. That she’d wanted to know had mattered to him.

As much as Leo spoke of leaving, she’d never woken to him halfway out the window again after that.

~~~~

The memories kept crashing over her. Weeks upon weeks of sitting together at lunch and late night conversations and passing notes in class. Of playing stupid pranks on their classmates as well as each other. Of carefully letting down their walls, brick by brick, until they could at least mostly see each other past their respective barriers.

There’d been a lot they hadn’t talked about back then, but even when they weren’t talking, the fact that they’d had someone to sit with and say nothing to had been a welcome novelty for both of them.

Piper remembered her dad not showing up on the weekends he’d promised to come visit, and how Leo had never pointed it out, but had always made backup plans so they’d have something fun to do to distract her.

She remembered how down Leo had been on what she now knew was the anniversary of his mom’s death. She hadn’t known exactly what was up with him, at the time—just that something was. She remembered roping him into a kitchen heist. She remembered sitting in their shared room afterwards, laughing, handing the tub of strawberry ice cream back and forth until they both felt sick.

She remembered coming down with that stupid cold in late November that had left her bedridden for a week, and how Leo had skipped class and gotten himself in trouble just so he could sit with her, rambling excitedly about some projects he was tinkering with and how they could be misused in the next pranks they’d planned. She remembered being snuck several cups of chocolate pudding in an attempt to cheer her up—which had tasted strangely better than the one the cafeteria usually served.

Back then, Leo had claimed her taste buds were probably just wonky because she was sick.

She realized now that he’d probably made it for her.

~~~~

Piper remembered the meteor shower—gods, the meteor shower. The memory that she’d spent forever thinking of as her first date with Jason.

She remembered Leo dragging her up to their spot on the roof, his whole face alight in excitement. Remembered them sitting together on a picnic blanket for hours, watching light streaking across the night sky.

“You were right, by the way. About what I was up to that night I broke our window lock,” he’d told her quietly, when it was already late into the night. “I was going to leave. I’m still not sure why I didn’t.”

“Do you regret it?” she’d asked. “Staying?”

“Pretty much every time Hedge makes us run laps.” He’d grinned up at her. “But then I look back to see you eating my dust, and I think, hey, maybe this isn’t so bad.”

“Aw, you like being around me that much?” she’d teased, and- oh. Oh no.

Piper felt the mortification of that moment slam back into her as the rest of the memory hit her like a truck.

“Maybe,” he’d said, looking up to meet her eyes. “Hey Pipes? Can I do something really stupid?”

“Past evidence suggests that you very much can,” she’d told him, feeling weirdly shy all of a sudden.

And then he’d leaned forward and kissed her.

She’d thought about kissing him before that moment—about how she’d never loved anyone like she loved Leo. If there was any boy in the world she’d want to kiss, it had to be him.

She remembered the exact moment it had hit them both that this wasn’t it. They’d jumped apart so abruptly that Leo had nearly toppled backwards off the roof.

“Careful!” Piper had yelled, and Leo had gone rigid where he stood, thankfully unharmed. “Jeez, Leo. The kiss was bad, but throwing yourself off the roof over it seems a little dramatic.”

Relief had unspooled in her chest when she’d seen the grimace on his face and known it hadn’t just been her.

“Nope, that was completely warranted,” Leo had told her, wiping at his mouth, her own relief mirrored in his expression. “Sorry, Piper, you’re really great and I love you to death, but let’s never do that again.”

“Gladly,” she’d agreed without hesitation. “If I could forget this ever happened in the first place, I would.”

Current Piper wanted to smack herself a little bit for tempting fate like that, despite the fact that she sort of shared the sentiment. That was the one memory she wouldn’t have minded losing permanently.

*******

When Piper woke, it only took a second or two more for Leo to jolt awake next to her, which made sense, seeing as they’d been reliving the same memories.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” she teased, trying to find a sense of normality in all the things she was feeling right now.

“Well, this is officially the most embarrassed I’ve ever been about something I did over two years ago,” Leo groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Why did we do that?”

“You ended on the memory of the kiss, too, then?” Piper asked, cringing.

“You should have just let me fall off that roof,” he joked, shaking his head.

“Death isn’t getting you out of this friendship. You’ve already tried that, remember?” She pulled him into a tight hug—this stupid fool that she’d never, ever wanted to kiss, and that held half of her soul regardless. Her face felt wet. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this fragile and vulnerable and utterly whole. “I don't regret getting my memories back. I can’t believe all of that was you. I can’t believe we almost lost it forever.”

Leo held her just as tightly.

“Yeah, I-” He sniffled. “That would have really sucked, hm?”

If there was any merit to the myth that humans had originally been two-headed, four-armed, four-legged beings that Zeus had split in two, there wasn’t a flicker of doubt in Piper’s mind that Leo had been hers—the half she’d spent her whole life searching for.

Their love didn’t need to be of the romantic variety for that to be true.

~~~~ For the longest time, they stayed like this, just holding each other.

It took much longer for Jason to wake up. This didn’t really come as a surprise to either of them. Piper and Leo had only lost a few months of memories, and regaining those had knocked them out for almost half an hour.

Jason was missing the majority of his life.

They sat with him the whole time, each of them holding one of Jason’s hands between their own to remind him he wasn’t alone—to lead him back, if necessary.

“He’s got this, right?” Leo asked anxiously. “I don’t know what I’d do if-”

“None of that,” Piper interrupted him. “I’ve warned you both what would happen if you died on me again. He’s not going to risk that. He’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” Leo wiped at his eyes. “Okay, you’re right.”

“What would you do without me, hm?” she asked, grinning at him.

“Steal much less cars, probably,” he said, grinning right back.

“Fuck off,” Piper told him, laughing. “I’ve returned almost all the cars we’ve borrowed for demigod emergencies, and I’ll have you know that we’re using an actual rental this time.”

“Somehow, the thought that someone would let you rent a car is even scarier. I’ve seen how you drive.”

“Shut up.”

Before she could think of another, wittier remark, Jason started to stir between them.

He made a confused noise, looking up at them with a hazy expression.

Leo leaned down to press a kiss to his boyfriend’s forehead. “Hey, Superman. How are you feeling?”

“Leo? Piper?” Jason’s eyes slowly started to clear.

“That’s us,” Piper agreed, trying to ignore the growing unease in her chest.

The way Jason spoke sounded different—a little more stern. Something about the look in his eyes was different, too, though she couldn’t quite pin down what it was.

When he sat up, his movements seemed stiffer. More controlled. It reminded her of the Jason they’d met all the way back at the Grand Canyon, and not in a way she liked.

She tried to remind herself that this was to be expected—he’d just gotten the vast majority of his memories shoved back in his head after living without them for more than two years. Of course he was different. It would have been weirder if he hadn’t been.

This didn’t mean that he wouldn’t still be their Jason.

But then he opened his mouth again, and her blood turned to ice.

“Get up. We need to move.”

He said it like a general giving orders to his troops.

———

Fic notes:

Someone please take Piper McLean away from me, I cannot bring myself to shut my darling girl up (I do not mean this, don’t you dare take her away from me actually)

Yesterday this fic was 2k words long. It’s now 6k words. I have spent all day on this and am now feeling thoroughly unwell. So glad you’re here to feel unwell with me!

If you’re wondering what the hell is wrong with Jason at the end there, the answer is getting his memories back, including all of the traumatic ones, mayyy have messed him up a little. Are things going to be okay? Well, wouldn’t you like to know! There will be a sequel fic to this one that’s from Jason’s POV, but that one isn’t written yet and isn’t a lost trio week fic, so you’ll have to wait a little longer before you get answers on that one. Sorry!

For now, I’ve got lots of fun stuff planned for Lost Trio Week, though! The fic for tomorrow’s prompt is going to be late, though I will at least tease that it’s a Star Wars Crossover and shall be posting a snippet on here tomorrow, if nothing else!

Most of the other fics are already written and just need to be edited. I’m very excited to share them with you all.

Thank you so much for reading! Hope you enjoyed! Comments immensely appreciated as always!

I’m having so much fun with this event, and I’m hoping so is everyone else!

#Lost trio week #the lost trio #piper mclean #leo Valdez #jason grace #platonic liper #heroes of olympus #hoo #leo and Piper #valgrace #Pjo fanfic #my writing #Leo pjo #Piper pjo #Jason pjo #ao3 link

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