Alexander was not like his brother. Not completely. He had never met his brother, a source of heartache for him. But he'd heard all sorts of stories, none of them kind to Octavian. They said Octavian had been a jerk but he refused to believe them. He worked with Jason to unite the camps and wished Octavian could have seen the solution rather than the problem. Octavian had never gotten the chance to see the solution, or to be part of it. He hadn't even gotten the chance to tell the girl he liked he liked her, though it had been obvious to everyone especially Rachel. Alexander spent his days fixing problems his broken brother had created before accidentally killing himself. Alexander shuddered whenever he thought about the onager and what had happened to Octavian. It disturbed and troubled him and though he'd only ever seen pictures of him (courtesy of camp Jupiter) he had the perfect mental picture of the horrific occurrence thanks to a dream he'd had the night after it happened. They'd had a memorial service for him but no one said anything because no one had anything good to say about him. It had just been his parents, him, and a bunch of guilty looking demigods who'd managed to wrangle a few of Octavian's possessions, his knife, his Camp Jupiter shirt, and a small stuffed raccoon. Alexander had claimed his brother's meager remaining possessions for himself, vowing to let the memory live on. He used the knife in battles and monsters fight, wore the shirt though it was a bit small (go figure his 19 year old brother was skinnier than he was) and was consistently befuddled by the stuffed toy. From the stories he'd heart about Octavian he'd sacrificed stuffed animals and showed no mercy to the species. It also weirded him out that he was starting to think of stuffed animals as a species. It wasn't until he iriis messaged his parents and they explained the toy that he finally understood Octavian.

The toy had been the last thing that Octavian had been given by his parents. The last thing he had to remember what family meant. Octavian hadn't had family, he hadn't had friends. He'd been shipped off to Camp Jupiter and he'd been bitter and sad about it. People remembered him as a jerk but he was just lonely and bitter. Alexander felt that he would have been the same way had he been in his brother's situation. He couldn't imagine being abandoned just because of a power he had. The thought sickened him and he looked at his parents in a different, darker light. They were horrible people who had shown prejudice against their own son and then pretended he didn't exist. How they'd treated him was unfair, but he couldn't change it.

He was living at Camp Half Blood. His healing powers (a gift from Apollo) were helpful in the infirmary, he'd been there for a few years actually. He found that felt like he belonged there and so he spent most of his time in the infirmary and rarely ever took a break. It had been several years since the war with mother earth Octavian would have been twenty three, Alexander was sixteen. But no matter how old he got he grieved his brother. He grieved never meeting his brother. He grieved how no one had tried to save Octavian, how no one had tried to talk him down from the metaphorical ledge. Had he been given the opportunity, he would have done the talking. He would have helped his brother but he never got a chance. He wished he could make up for the lost chance. But he couldn't, so he worked in the infirmary and tried to make friends and never ever let people talk about Octavian negatively. Since he was so insistent on no one ever talking about Octavian in a negative way no one ever talked about Octavian at all. By the time Alexander was 16 he was pretty sure that he was the only person who remembered him. He slept with the toy at night. He still used the knife in all of his battles. He was the only one who saw Octavian as broken and lonely rather than insane and out of his mind. Alexander was willing to overlook villainous attributes to stay loyal to his brother. He figured the loyalty was the only closure he'd get for losing the brother he'd never really had. It was his only chance. He'd already lost enough chances. He would never meet his brother. He would never get to fix Octavian's brokenness. All he could do was remember the augur for what he could have been and help the people Octavian had pushed away. He refused to judge Octavian for what he'd done, everyone else had already done that enough. He'd seen the disgust on Rachel's face at the thought of Octavian having a crush on her. He'd seen the silent relief on Reyna's face when she fully realized that Octavian was no longer a problem. He had no sympathy for the pillow pet of percy's he'd heard that his brother had slaughtered. People who thought killing inanimate objects were just stupid, it had been Octavian's job, and it wasn't exactly animal cruelty if the animal had a made in china tag on its butt.

I'm calling this story Closure. I actually never intended for this long wordy bit that is this chapter, the story was supposed to have an entirely different focus, a focus who will show up in the next chapter giving Alexander the closure he deserves. By the way this is the third Alexander story the first one called Little brother where he and Octavian do end up meeting, the second is the one this is a sequel to and is called He could have been.