The Quest for Closure (Camp Half-Blood Fanfic)

James' POV

One day later

Tiffany and I sat down next to each other in the warm sand at the beach, staring at the sunset. My hand was on top of hers. We were relaxing after a quest that made both of us tiresome. We deserved it, after all. I was worried about Kait, though. We hadn't seen her all day, and not even yesterday, except for dinner, where she just got a small portion of pasta. And for breakfast she hadn't even shown up so her sister, Piper, had to bring some to her. I couldn't blame her though. She was mourning. Mourning for her boyfriend, her best friend. MY best friend, too. At this exact moment in time, the daughter of Aphrodite surprisingly appeared. She wore an oversized gray hoodie-- wait. Not just any gray hoodie. MAX'S gray hoodie. And her hair was dyed black, which was a pretty big difference from her previous natural brown hair. "Y-your hair..." I stuttered.

She held her hands up. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I needed a change. A change after... Max." She hugged herself.

My girlfriend smiled at her warmly. "He'd love it," she said sweetly as Kaitlyn sat down next to her.

The child of the love goddess nodded her head. "Thank you," she whispered.

I was no mind reader, but I could tell she was having a hard time. Her eyes were red and puffy, and whenever she spoke her lips quivered, as if she might bawl any moment. She was as sensitive as a vase of thin glass. "Are you alright?" I asked her carefully.

She nodded again. "Fine. He's happy," she responded with a slight smile, which startled me.

How could she know that? Did she get Nico to take her to the Underworld to visit her deceased lover? She looked at me straight into the eyes, as if she were reading MY mind. "And if you're wondering how I know, he left me a note."

Tiffany pursed her lips. "Oh. That's... nice."

She nodded and brushed her fingertips along the water. She looked rather... at peace. I watched as she continued to play with the water, a smile spread across her face. She was truly in tranquility. I glanced at the daughter of Apollo, who looked as confused as I. But we enjoyed the silence, hoping it would last.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Whew! That was ROUGH. Sorry for the lack of chapters; I know the first fanfic had many more POVs. And so sorry for killing off Max 😭 He was probably my favorite character but I needed something unexpected. At least I HOPE it was unexpected. Fun fact: I only wrote this because I forgot to write something in the FIRST fanfic, so I realized I and the readers needed closure. And I had this like idea of Max dying sadly and honorably like that, sooo yeah. Sorry if it broke your heart :( There will not be a third fanfic unless you guys really REALLY want one and come up with some good ideas. If there were to be one, how do you guys feel about dark Kaitlyn? That'd be pretty interesting. Anyway, thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed :)) WoAh I just realized this fanfic takes longer to read than the other one- I guess that means the chapters are just longer hahahaha