Time is tight in my quest for writing a story for every PJO character in the archives (and people KEEP ADDING THEM- even really stupid/small ones like Mithras and Esther- grr) yet I trek on. Also I discuss my interest about the Battle of Othrys.

Disclaimer: Me no own.

Hesitation

A flurry of movement. That's the only way Jason would ever be able to describe his fight with the Titan Krios if he made it out. Even if Aeolus' gift was holding out and he could fly, even with all his training and preparation and adrenaline… fighting a Titan one-on-one was not easy. Newsflash.

He could barely keep up with Krios' manoeuvres and whenever he seemed to have some kind of upper hand, he completely lost it within nanoseconds. But he was starting to see patterns. Tons of feints, lots of tricky handwork and quick footing. It made sense if you were always the little guy. You fought as if you were small and quick, and you worked and worked and worked on your technique instead of relying on strength and bulk. That was how Krios fought, and how Jason did too.

"You see it too," Krios called.

Don't talk in a fight. It wastes your energy and splits your concentration in two. He'd learned that one from Reyna, from trying to be friendly with the new girl during their first drill together. He kind of always assumed that his opponents were as ruthless as she always was, so that gave him an advantage usually. Most guys didn't expect the feist of a guy desperate not to be beat up by his best friend.

"You see how we're similar, you and I," Krios said. "I may not be the youngest of Uranus' sons, granted, but I am the smallest. Lord of the South, where Rome's influence was weakest, where the other civilisations kept prospering or refused to die. Lord of the constellations, big deal. Symbolised by the ram- a glorified goat… "

Jason managed to slice Krios' cheek during that little spiel. It was encouraging, so he tried to ignore the logical part of his mind which emphasised on how he still wasn't accomplishing enough.

"You know you're not that different," Krios hissed. "Centurion of the weakest cohort, the fallen, the dishonoured… the only reason they let you lead the siege of Mount Othrys is because your praetors think that it's a hopeless idea, and they want the blame on your shoulders when everything goes wrong."

Somehow that snapped Jason out of the zone he was in. He heard the screaming and the shouting from outside the temple to Saturn. He could make out Reyna's voice –strong and calm- and Latin orders. He may have been mistaken, but he even heard retreat. Or was that his imagination?

"My father hated his children," Krios said. "You know that, don't you? I imagine that you've heard the myths. But he only cast the children who looked abnormal into Tartarus. I was always on the edge. It's nearly worst isn't it? To be an unwanted child without being explicitly told where you're at on the totem pole…"

Jason felt like he'd gotten punched in the stomach. All those empty prayers; all the times Jupiter's name was thrown around in a conversation about how Jason should be better, how Jason should handle things, how Jason should act; all those pending answers that Jason gave up a little more on every day, all, all, all… Even at the dawn of the most important and climatic battle of his life, Jason hadn't gotten an prayer or a sign from Jupiter. Unlike all the other legionnaires, reassured by the augurs or a flash of light or a shine to their blades... Jason had nothing. Nothing from a father who was nowhere, never there and meant nothing to him.

"Come on son of Rome," Krios said. He extended his head, as if he and Jason had been in a diplomatic conversation. "We were both supposed to be great. Look at us now. We could still betray everything and prosper. What do you say? We take one back for the little guys?"

Jason would be ashamed of this for the rest of his days. He hesitated.

But when he saw Reyna standing in the back of the room, facing the temple, his brain snapped back to the present.

This was the emptiest temptation you could get, from a Titan. But San Francisco, Camp, New Rome, California… those places were full. Of people, of history, of traditions, of emotion, of memories, of innocents, of heroes and villains, plants and animals, mortals and demigods… like Reyna.

"Yeah," Jason said relaxing his shoulders. "One for the little guys."

Krios smiled at Jason.

It didn't last long because Jason stabbed the Titan in the shoulder- the equivalent of an Achilles heel, it allowed the Titans other than Saturn to exist outside of Tartarus.

Krios wailed and fell.

Jason landed next to him.

"I didn't say that you were a little guy too," Jason said.

The sounds of battle faded out like the ending to a song.

"I was worried," Reyna said as they stripped off their armour and purple draperies.

"Yeah?" Jason said hanging up his cloak and kicking off his sneakers. He may as well make himself at home in the new villa. His feet felt sore without the support of soles.

"Yeah," she said. "You were… I'd never seen you that way. When you were talking to Krios up there, on the mountain? It looked as if you were listening to him, but not like you'd listen to another senator. Like you were listening to the man who'd save your life."

She unclipped her hair. It cascaded around her face. Jason couldn't help but let the truth pour out too. To her, if not to anyone else.

"Reyna I was," Jason said. "I was, I was listening to him."

He felt like slicing his tongue and lips and vocal cords. He shouldn't have said that.

Reyna evaluated him with cold eyes, even by her standards.

"Why?" She asked calmly.

Jason blinked. Why was usually her second step, the first being pin it.

"I don't know," Jason said. "I don't know, I don't…"

"That's sad. Well, lucky for you, I do," Reyna said, unclipping her breastplate. "It's because you always hesitate when someone questions you. Not in the senate or anything. Not when you're in front of people. That's part of it see, you don't want to disappoint anyone, so when someone insinuates that you are a dissapointment, to Rome or your Dad or whatever, or that you will be… You get scared."

"I do?"

"Yeah. I hate to break it to you Grace, but it's your fatal flaw," Reyna said patting his arm. "Try not to keep the 'fatal' part in, kay?"

Jason turned away, back to the wall.

"I wouldn't have snapped out of it if you wouldn't have been there," Jason said. "I would have done exactly what the old praetors said I'd do, lead a suicide mission- except it'd have been…"

"Are you freaking kidding me?" Reyna said. "I just told you that doubting yourself is your fatal flaw, and then you go and beat yourself up. Really? You're impossible."

"Hamartia is supposed to kill a hero," Jason said. "Not everyone else around them."

Reyna grabbed his wrists and pinned him to the wall violently, not even paying attention to him- not like in a play fight.

"Listen and listen well. You didn't cost us the battle, and there's no way in hell that you would have. You would have done the right thing whether I'd been there or not, it's what you do. You are a good person, and nobody is dissapointed in you in this city- and if Jupiter is, it's his problem and his standards need to be reevaluated. Don't you ever suggest otherwise or I will beat you," Reyna said. "You are a good person, a good legionnaire, and you will be a good praetor. You will be an excellent praetor if you pick your nasty podex off the ground and stop pounding on yourself. Are we clear?"

Jason blinked. For someone so quiet, someone whose actions were louder than her words, Reyna was terrifying when angry.

"It'd be worrying if we weren't," he said.

"Good," Reyna said. "Let's go, I want to check out if those rumours about the ping-pong tables in here are true or not."

Just as she was about to disappear from the vestibule (a staple of the Roman villa), she stopped and turned around.

"Also, if your hamartia kills you, it'll kill be too," she said hesitantly. "So watch yourself for my sake too."