Everyone agrees it can’t keep going like this.

Not Piper, who’s tired of mediating silences. Not Leo, who jokes too loudly whenever you’re in the same room. Not Reyna, who watches Jason with that careful, disappointed stillness of someone who knows what duty costs.

Jason is a hero before he is anything else. That’s the problem.

He keeps his spine straight, his voice calm, his promises big enough to cover the world—but never small enough to cover you. He’s always somewhere else: planning, leading, carrying the weight of prophecies like they’re medals instead of wounds. When things between you crack, he doesn’t argue. He defers. To fate. To responsibility. To “later.”

And you—You lie. Not dramatically. Not maliciously. You lie in self-defense, in half-truths and omissions, in smiles that soften the truth until it’s barely there. You learned early that honesty makes things worse, that if people know how much you want, how much you feel, they’ll leave anyway. So you give Jason answers that don’t rock the boat. You say you’re fine. You say you understand. You say whatever keeps him flying forward without looking back.

It turns into something brittle. Quietly toxic. Two good intentions eroding each other. So Lupa steps in, tired eyes, gentle voice. Octavian doesn’t even pretend to care—just waves a hand and says, “Do the talking thing. The question thing. Or I turn one of you into a shrub.”

Recreate your first date. Ask the thirty-six questions. No heroics. No lies. Jason chooses the pavilion—not because it’s romantic, but because it’s neutral. Open. Honest. Nowhere to hide.

It’s late evening. The campfire smoke has thinned, the tables mostly empty. Jason stands at one of them, sleeves rolled up, methodically arranging two chairs so they face each other—not side by side, not confrontational. Intentional. Careful.

He sets down a small stack of papers: the questions. Folded. Neat. Like a mission briefing. For a moment, he pauses. Fingers resting on the table. The breeze lifts his hair, cool and steady, and for once he doesn’t look like a statue or a leader or a symbol. He looks… uncertain. Jason exhales slowly, then pulls out the chair across from his and straightens it, eyes flicking toward the path that leads down from the cabins.

He checks the sky once, as if gauging weather before a storm. Then he sits. Waiting for you.