Based on a real moment I had (ignoring all the obvious demigod references, of course).

Disclaimer: Obviously I do not own PJO. Rick Riordan does.

She has a moment. And in that moment, she can see everything.

She is sitting alone in front of the fire, wearing her customary orange t-shirt. She takes another sip of water, relishing the warmth spreading from the dying fire in front of her. The others are occupied: some are already asleep in their cabins, some are walking slowly back, some are, like her, sitting by themselves and enjoying the remainder of the fire.

For a moment, she is intimately aware of the missing presence of one particular person. This awareness tingles through her, spreading through her like the warmth from the fire. The fact that this person is missing is not lost on her – the tingles in her abdomen are proof of that – but this awareness is so painful and so dominant that she is slowly becoming numb to it.

She is not a stupid person – in fact, she prides herself on her intelligence – and she knows exactly what is happening. She sighs.

She misses him.

Of course she does. How could she not? The moments they have had together – life threatening or otherwise – are so well preserved in her memory that they are impossible to forget. They have saved each other a hundred times over, laughed with (and at) each other a thousand times over, and fought (both verbally and physically, and she knows she is much better at either of them than he is, and more often than not she emerges victorious) a million times over. They have been virtually inseparable (she ignores the school year and the days she'd been kidnapped, because really, how could she help either of them?) since age 12 –

The thought of her kidnapping reminds her of the reason he is absent. So yes, maybe having friends outside of their exclusive camp is desirable and seemingly impossible given the nature of their...existence...and she is slightly annoyed that he has managed it when she has not. And maybe she doesn't like how he seeks out the other girl's presence instead of hers, as though she is not enough for him. And maybe she'd rather that he not be anywhere near the other girl's mortal, clear-sighted, redheaded paws –

She has to stop herself from snapping something. Or hitting someone. Or both.

But she isn't jealous. That would be crazy. And she knows crazy – she's a demigod. For her to be jealous, she would have to like him. And she doesn't.

Certainly, he's her best friend (or, at least, the only one who hasn't left her – yet) and she did kiss him (only because she thought he was going to die) and her heart does flutter when he smiles at her or hugs her (she assumes this is a result of adrenalin, as more often than not it happens after or while they've been fighting a monster and she's just so happy they haven't died) and she does pay a little more attention to what she looks like in front of him (the very first time happened after she'd spent a training session with Silena, who'd dressed her afterwards for the campfire 'in thanks', and he'd complimented her in front of everyone by saying that he'd never realised how long her hair was, and that she should keep it long. She supposes – because she values his opinion as her best friend – she has remembered this every time she sees him, and wears her hair out even now to remind herself of him).

So, no. She doesn't like him.

Nevertheless, she can't help but think, What if he enjoyed the kiss I gave him? What if his heart flutters when I smile at him or hug him? What if he paid attention that one time I said he should always wear blue?

What if he likes me?

And suddenly, as though confronted with mist – the normal kind – her vision blurs. Her senses are hyper aware of everything, and she swears she can feel a pair of strong, tanned arms wrap around her waist and a set of warm, soft, familiar lips press into the skin somewhere between her shoulder and her neck and give her a soft kiss. She can feel his body, radiating heat and pressed up against the back of hers, and consciously recognises her desire for more contact. She both feels and hears him chuckle into her shoulder, and senses as he lifts his head so that his lips are in line with the bottom of her ear lobe, his hot breath washing over the sensitive skin there and burning her with more of that intense desire that she just can't ignore. It is as though he has read her thoughts. Chuckling again in a low, attractive voice, she can feel it as he opens his mouth to whisper something in her ear –

She isn't staring at the fire anymore. She is staring down at a man with black hair and sea-green eyes, tears in both their eyes, who mouths the words 'I love you' and 'Will you marry me?'. The image blurs into another, and she is staring at the same man, dressed in a black suit, whose eyes are shining with that same substance Aphrodite's eyes always have, and mouths the words 'I do'. The image blurs with another, and she is staring up at the same man, who is cradling something wrapped in blue in his arms that she knows instinctively is hers, who looks at her with a look of pure love and adoration and mouths the words 'You're beautiful'. The image blurs with another, and she is sitting on a bench with the same man, who doesn't look quite the same as he did in the last image now that he has a full head of grey hair instead of that one lock, but looks at her with the same amount of love and adoration sparkling in his sea-green eyes, as though he has seen nothing more beautiful in his whole life.

Her eyes snap open. She doesn't even realise that they'd closed. She is staring into the fire again. Nobody has been holding onto her, and yet she feels the loss as keenly as if somebody had been. Nobody has pressed their lips into her shoulder, chuckled, and gone to whisper hot, sweet nothings in her ear. Nobody has proposed to her. Nobody has married her. Nobody has held their first child, who she prays to the gods is the spitting image of his father. Nobody has held her hand in their shared old age, looked at her with love shining in their eyes, and silently promised to try for the Isles of Blessed with her. She is alone, and yet, not alone at all.

She cannot say how she knows, just that she does. She is no child of Apollo, but she knows, like she knows that the world may or may not end in a week's time, like she knows that the sun is round and like she knows that the Brooklyn Bridge was opened on May 24, 1883, was originally designed by a German by the name of John Roebling and is 1,595 feet in length, that she has seen her whole life flash before her eyes.

Or, more accurately, the life she would have if she were with him.

Her mind, in the way it normally does as she goes into analysis mode, blanks, and one single thought runs through her: Why would I be thinking of him like that? Why would I be seeing our lives together? Why would we ever be in those situations with each other?

She expects the answer to come to her immediately, the way it normally does. And she is not disappointed.

Because you love him.

It hits her like a dracaenae, a hellhound and a telkhine have decided to tackle her simultaneously. Like a true child of Athena, she was not mistaken before when she stated that she didn't like him. She was just using the wrong word. She loves him.

And, she resolves as she continues to stare into the fire, she will tell him the next time she sees him. Her heart thuds painfully as she thinks that she has no idea when that will be.

He was off spending time with...her...at the moment, but he and Beckendorf were scheduled to attack the Princess Andromeda tomorrow. She'd be lying to herself if she said she wasn't expecting it. But she always felt that, with such little time left and only a week until his sixteenth birthday, she'd somehow have enough time to –

Oh, gods. To what? Confess her undying love for him when he was so thoroughly convinced, especially after last summer, that she was in love with Luke? Admit that her only reason for not joining the Hunters was because she felt that they'd be able to have something together? Reveal that she really is jealous of Rachel, who he has been spending more time with this summer than it seems he has been spending with her since they met? Tell him that she regrets not having said anything before, in fear that he would reject her, and her only reason for telling him now was because she couldn't bear the thought that he might die and he would never know?

It sounds ridiculous, even in her head.

No, she thinks finally. She won't tell him tomorrow. He and Beckendorf will attack the Princess Andromeda, they will both come home to her and Silena's waiting arms, and she will make sure that both him and her have survived the war before she says anything. She will not let herself lose faith in herself like that. In him like that.

Having planned what seems to be the rest of her life, the way any child of Athena would, she continues staring into the fire, and doesn't even notice when the rest of camp leaves her to her thoughts.

I realise I went a bit OTT with the italics, but honestly? I don't care. In true Apollo fashion:

I wrote a story

Poured out my whole heart and soul

Give me a review