Something of a companion piece to Fire and Ice, set during the first week and a half of Leo's stay in Camp Jupiter. You don't have to read that one – but please do :).

Disclaimer: I own neither 'Begin Again' by T-Swizzle or Percy Jackson by Rick squared. Some parts may be slightly OOC, but are intentionally so to match the song. Alternatively, I've changed some things around – e.g. I just can't see Reyna in high heels, no matter how hard I try, so I'm changing that to three-inch ones. Little things like that. I still don't have my copy of SoN, which is still with a friend, so I made up some details about New Rome that I couldn't find on the Internet.

Also, present tense indicates what's happening in the story's present, past tense indicates past. In case there's any confusion.

She is not happy. Not fucking happy. Not at all.

It was bad enough when Jason went missing. She'd woken up in her Praetor's Villa, noted he was missing, alerted the Senate and then notified the rest of the Camp.

And then broken down in tears in the safety of her bed in the middle of the night when she was sure she was alone.

Until recently, that took the top post for 'the-most-irritating-thing-to-happen-to-Reyna', closely followed by having her home destroyed by idiot Greek half-bloods three-and-a-half years previously.

And then, of course, one of those idiot Greek half-bloods actually showed up at her Camp with no recollection of ruining her life whatsoever. Talk about rude.

A series of things then happened in succession, each one as irritating as the next – he said no to her initial offer of becoming Praetor, a chance others would kill for; Octavian approached her again and again for Praetorship; the Greek finally accepted Praetorship, only (and she noted this closely) when the position was pushed onto him; his friends arrived, along with Jason, to bring him to Rome as part of the Prophecy of Seven, and they blew up her home.

Again.

And the boy that blew up her home the second time? Well, she'd learned the importance of forgiving and forgetting – less of an emphasis on the 'forgetting' part – but it was one thing to look at him and smile and say that all was forgiven and pretend it never happened and a whole other thing to invite him back to Camp Jupiter.

Of course, she hadn't really had much of a choice. Part of their treaty that had yet to be drawn up properly stated that they had to be civil at the very least and offer their hospitality to each other if ever a camper needed it. How else would they heal the rift that had grown between them for thousands of years because of the treatment of the Athena Parthenos? If it were any other Greek Camper, she would have been perfectly happy to play host to them.

But it had to be him. And he had to be right there when the daughter of Vulcan had been claimed.

And it isn't enough that she's letting him into her Camp. When none of the Cohorts were willing to let him in, she had to open her Praetor's Villa to him, too. On top of that, she has to watch over him as he fixes weapons and makes new ones. She has to remind him to keep his head down and work and stop drawing attention to himself. She has to endure his idiotic nicknames for her. She has to keep other Romans in line that get too aggressive with their guest. She has to listen to Octavian, as superstitious as he still is, prattle on about the untrustworthiness of the Greeks, this one in particular.

She isn't sure he realises how much having him around inconveniences her.

Even if it's only for two weeks at the most.

Needless to say, she is not happy.

She remembers well the exact moment she started...well, if anything, the moment she stopped disapproving of him and started becoming more...appreciative. From the beginning, she absolutely despised having him in her Camp. He'd only been there an hour when she really started to lose her patience with him. His job was to assist them in the rebuilding of the Senate House, as well as various other shops and building that had been demolished in the...incident. He was no Annabeth – the architecture nerd that she was – but he was the son of the god of forges. He could certainly help.

She'd taken him around the look at the damage, done a bit of shouting, and stormed angrily back to the Villa. She's infuriated as to his comments on how she needs to 'loosen up' – and horrified as to how right he is, how much he knows about her without really knowing her at all – and refuses to talk to him for a couple of days, ignoring his incessant chatter instead of her usual barking orders at him.

She spends those silent hours comparing him with Jason. Jason, with his Roman-god good looks, honey blonde hair, sky blue eyes, tall and authoritative figure. Proud like her, confidant like her, a brilliant warrior like her. In a way, he is – was – more Roman than she is. He'd spent twelve years at Camp Jupiter, learning to fight in the ways of the Twelfth Legion; she's only spent a few years there herself. Growing up on Circe's Island at the Spa and Resort, she'd understood the value of relaxation and having a good time; him, not so much. She supposes that was one of the reasons she had felt attracted to him: he knew what his duty was, and wouldn't waver in it whatsoever. He was strong, reliable, and dependable, like stone.

She remembers last year's Feast of Fortuna. For some reason, she had a strange desire that night to show off to everyone how much she had grown up, prove to everyone that she could be as much of a girl as any daughter of Venus if she so chose. There'd been a small party for the Senators of New Rome in the Praetor's Villa after the main festivities – strictly casual – and, in a moment of weakness, she'd changed out of her Praetor's robe into a pretty red dress she'd bought from a shop in New Rome and black heels. Nothing like the ones that the girls wore on Circe's Island, but modest, three-inch ones that Jason had criticised for the whole night, telling her that she didn't need to wear them. At the time, she had been smitten and had thought this was him telling her she was fine just the way she was. Looking back on it, she just got angry.

He'd even had the nerve to criticise her favourite song, 'Carolina In My Mind' by James Taylor.

"Why do you even like this song, Reyna?" he'd asked her.

She hadn't wanted to say the real reason, that it spoke to her on an almost other-worldly level, so she'd said, "I like James Taylor. Plus, he's talking about missing North Carolina, isn't he? He misses his home. I get that."

He'd just frowned at her. "I don't," he'd said, before changing the subject. Of course, perfect Roman Jason would not know what it was like to miss a home. He'd been in Camp Jupiter most of his life. He didn't know what it was like to have your life totally uprooted and leaving the only place you've ever known.

Took a deep breath in the mirror.

He didn't like it when I wore high heels but I do.

Turn the lock and put my headphones on.

He always said he didn't get this song but I do.

I do.

It's been two days since she's talked to Leo since their shouting match in New Rome in front of the rubble and the mess of the town. She hastily makes her way to the town now, after leaving him a note last night to meet her in one of the cafés to continue the more civilized part of their conversation from two days ago. She is dead tired and completely unwilling to have this conversation, but she's Roman, by Jupiter, and she will not walk away from this just because she doesn't want to do it.

So it surprises her when she walks into the café, fully expecting him to be late and mentally preparing a lecture for when he does show up, and he's already sitting at a table waiting for her. He lifts his head when he hears her walk in, and smiles – odd, the last time she was in the same vicinity as him they were both shouting at each other like their lives were in danger – getting up and pulling the other chair out and sitting back down again.

If he thinks chivalry will do him good, he's in for a very rude awakening, she thinks, before noticing that he's already ordered coffee for both of them.

Or maybe both cups are for her.

Either way, he's suddenly off to a very good start.

Walked in expecting you'd be late.

But you got here early and you stand and wave

I walk to you.

You pull my chair out and help me in.

And you don't know how nice that is but I do.

"Those better both be for me," she grumbles. "I could use two cups of coffee."

He starts laughing. "I'll order another one for myself, then."

"Good," she says, already halfway through the first cup. "I claim both of them as mine."

He laughs again. "Are you normally such a comedian in the morning?"

She narrows her eyes at him, not sure if he is joking or making fun of her. If it had been Jason, she would say for sure he was making fun of her in that slight subtle way of his that she is only able to detect now. She supposes there is something about the eight months of separation that has allowed her to see more clearly about her and Jason's relationship – or rather, the lack thereof. There was never any relationship to begin with – at least, no proper relationship. The separation has only clarified that, as well as her belief that relationships only disappoint anyway. Her relationship with her sister, with Jason, with Percy...all disappointments.

With Leo, however, she assumes the former. There is something about him that makes her sure that he is not making fun of her.

"Only on Wednesdays," she says, and he laughs again.

And you throw your head back laughing like a little kid.

I think it's strange that you think I'm funny cause he never did.

I've been spending the last 8 months thinking,

All love ever does is break and burn and end.

But on a Wednesday in a café I watched it begin again.

She notices he has been absent-mindedly been tapping out the rhythm to 'Carolina In My Mind', and without thinking she hums the rest of the line. He stops abruptly and stares at her.

"You know James Taylor?" he asks, clearly surprised that she recognizes the song.

"Of course I do," she says. "That's my favourite song."

"No kidding," he mutters under his breath. "You're, like, the only girl I know who likes him. I don't actually know many girls, so – "

"I don't like him, I love him," she clarifies, cutting him off. "That song's about missing home and displacement. I get that," she finishes simply.

"Yeah, me too," he mumbles.

"Jason never liked it," she whispers, not expecting him to hear it but not being surprised when he does. "At the Feast of Fortuna last year, the Senators had a party and we played this song. He couldn't get why I liked it so much."

"My mom and I used to listen to James Taylor in her shop," he supplied. "Man, there was this one time where we were playing it full blast..."

She listens and somehow absorbs what he's saying and laughs where appropriate, but manages to think about how much they don't know about each other. It hits her that they have something as normal, as banal, as song preference in common, and are still complete opposites.

And that they are actually getting along without having to host another shouting match.

You say you never met one girl who

Has as many James Taylor records as you, but I do.

We tell stories and you don't know why

I'm coming off a little shy but I do.

The trip to visit the rubble momentarily forgotten, she tells him the story of the day Percy and Annabeth came to visit the island and inadvertently destroyed her home.

"Wow," he says, amazed. "I didn't realize you and Percy went that far back."

"We don't really," she amends. "It did, admittedly, make our first meeting here uncomfortable when he couldn't remember how he knew me..."

He laughs again. She doesn't remember the last time anybody had laughed so much at what she said. She is more cynical than humourous, not to mention she rarely makes jokes. She is Roman, in a Camp surrounded by more Romans and she is in charge of all of them, as she has been for the last eight months. She doesn't have the time to make jokes when she is too busy keeping everybody, including and especially Octavian, in line. She supposes Leo is one of those people that laughs at pretty much anything, and she thinks that she rather likes making people laugh, even if he is one of them.

But you throw your head back laughing like a little kid.

I think it's strange that you think I'm funny cause he never did.

I've been spending the last 8 months thinking,

All love ever does is break and burn and end.

But on a Wednesday in a café I watched it begin again.

They walk to inspect what of the rubble can be salvaged and what cannot be reused. He goes to tell her the details of what precisely they can use the different materials for, but she is no child of Vulcan; she has no knowledge of how to use these materials to their advantage. She waves the details off, every single time, and asks him to write them down. Sandstone and marble, he says can be reused, as can most of the metal. Smaller things, like foundations for buildings, will need to be done with new materials; there is no hope to reuse most of the wood that makes up the debris.

As he makes his way through the debris, she can't help but feel as though there is a parallel between his assessment of the remains of his unintentional attack and...well, not just her, but everyone affected by this experience. On the outside, there are physical scars and reminders, things that need to be reshaped but can still be reused. The inside, however, is a whole other story.

No one, except perhaps Nico di Angelo, is privy to the information of what happened to Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus, and even then he doesn't know the details. He doesn't need to know the details; he knows exactly what sort of horrors lie in the depths of Tartarus. That, more than anything, will have left painful physical and mental reminders. She supposes, half the time, both of them wake up in the middle of the night screaming in terror. She doesn't blame them. For the remaining demigods lucky enough to evade falling into Tartarus and lucky – or unlucky, she can't decide which – enough to survive the war against the giants, they have been severely affected on the inside. Their foundations have been shaken to the core.

For one thing, they now know that, if an immortal so chooses to do so, they can uproot a hero's life and blot out their memory. They know about their Greek and Roman counterparts. They know about the tragedy and costs of war. They know so much more of the world, and yet, nothing at all.

She feels the same. This whole experience has taught her much, but she stills feels as though she knows nothing, as though she really has not learned a thing. Particularly about bloody Jason, she thinks to herself.

On the way back to the Praetor's Villa, she almost brings Jason up. She's not sure why, but the emotional trauma that his 'kidnapping' has left has scarred her emotionally, and there is only so much of it she is willing to take without telling someone about it. Why Leo seems like a good idea is beyond her, but he is Jason's best friend, and can provide valuable insight into Jason's psyche.

Or, that's what she tells herself.

She is saved, however, by Leo's innate inability to keep quiet, something she is very familiar with by this point.

"It must be nice, having New Rome around. You never really have to leave, if you don't want to," he mumbles. "After my mom died...I never really liked foster homes. It'd be great if I never had to leave Camp Half-Blood."

She finds herself almost curious about the other Camp now. "You didn't go to school last year, did you?"

"Holy Hephaestus, no."

"Do you intend to this year?"

He mulls it over for a second. "Probably not. I might, though. Go into mechanics or engineering, or something."

"And at your Camp...did you stay there over the Christmas holidays?"

He nods, and launches into a story about what he and the rest of his siblings in the Hephaestus cabin – she finds it bizarre that they are grouped according to their Olympian parent – did for Christmas for the year-rounders at the Camp and those who had come to stay for the holidays.

"Why on Earth do you celebrate Christmas when you know the gods actually exist?" she asks.

He shrugs. "Something to remind us that, whatever happens, we're still human. Well, half human," he amends. "We all did things for Christmas with our families before we realized who we really were. Just holding on to the familiar, I guess."

She thinks about the familiar things she holds on to. Surprisingly, one of them is the proper application of make-up – a souvenir from her time spent at Circe's Island. She thinks about her usual morning routine, involving a half-an-hour-to-an-hour jog and a cup of very strong coffee; the training exercises used by the legion, designed specifically to train them to be the best Roman soldiers; the prayer she says to her mother every evening, thanking her for the gift of life and helping her find Camp Jupiter when her and her sister escaped from the pirates.

"I never saw it that way," she admits.

And we walk down the block to my car and I almost brought him up.

But you start to talk about the movies that your family watches

Every single Christmas and I will talk about that for the first time.

What's past is past.

She is telling a story about one of the times someone was marooned on the island, and to her surprise and delight, he is laughing all the way through it. Maybe it is the way she is telling the story rather than the story itself, but he seems to be thoroughly enjoying herself. She likes these responses to her stories. Most other Romans will hear the story and think about the moral they can get out of it, the purpose of the story. Leo just seems to like stories for the sake of liking them.

And so she offers more stories about her life, finding that this is the most she has ever told anybody about herself. In return, he tells her stories about his life: living in Houston, moving from foster home to foster home and running away from all of them, stories from Camp. The ones she likes best, however, are his stories about the last two months, the things that happened in Rome and Greece.

Unlike the others, Leo doesn't flinch in front of her when he mentions Jason or Piper; he continues on with the story as though they are just two more people who feature in Leo's life. She likes is that way: it makes her feel like less of a ticking bomb, and more like a normal person.

People stare at them as they walk past. Two seemingly sworn enemies, getting along and laughing and, more importantly, not shouting at each other? She can't find it in herself to care about what people think, which is a first for her. Others people's opinions of her is normally one of her priorities, simply so she knows that her stoic façade is working, but when she is busy laughing and telling funny stories, it doesn't seem that important.

She speculates, the next morning when they are shouting at each other again and she keeps up her façade for the whole day without breaking down for the first time in a long time, that she really is only a comedian on Wednesdays.

Cause you throw your head back laughing like a little kid.

I think it's strange that you think I'm funny cause he never did.

I've been spending the last 8 months thinking,

All love ever does is break and burn and end.

But on a Wednesday in a café I watched it begin again.

But on a Wednesday, in a café... I watched it begin again.