ᴾʰᵒᵇᵒᵖʰᵒᵇⁱᵃ [ᴶᵃˢᵒⁿ ᴳʳᵃᶜᵉ]

v.

No matter how much Aza pried, she knew Jason was hiding something from her. She could see the hesitation in his crystalline orbs, more hesitant to meet her eyes than usual. Ever since they had gotten the sceptre from Diocletian's palace, he and Nico had been acting odd - more cagey than usual, like cornered animals. They had never been quite close to begin with, but now her boyfriend and Nico would actively seek different sides of the room. For the fifth time, Aza silenced herself at Jason's pointed electric glare, literally sparking with electricity, and she knew her questioning was finally beginning to get on his nerves.

Finally, she chose her words carefully, "I really feel like something happened that you're not telling me. But, can you at least tell me... is it something I will need to know?"

"Aza," Jason's voice was firm, and for the first time in a while she was reminded of the authoritative quality he could so easily take on - one that she had to force slightly, "This is the last time I'm telling you. Leave it. Please. There's nothing you need to know. Nothing happened."

"Okay," Aza said in a slightly sing-song voice to ease the tension, and she nodded, not convinced in the slightest, "I'll drop it. Hey, how's it going?"

"Your hair is very..." Jason trailed off, and he struggled to pull hair into the section for the french braid.

"Thick?"

"And long," Jason gulped, and she felt a tug on her scalp when he tightened the braid. "I mean - very pretty. But this is going to take forever."

"Yeah," Aza nodded, her lips pulling into a satisfied smirk. She glanced at her boyfriend in the mirror. "Why do you think I asked you to do it?"

She almost felt bad for him. He looked like a deeply, deeply confused puppy; or a first-grader who had been given trigonometry. Or Aza, when she had been given trigonometry. His eyes were slightly wide in concentration, his eyebrows sewed together in frustration; his tongue poked slightly out of the side of his mouth, but he quickly noticed and retracted it, beginning to chew his lip instead. Thank the gods he learned quickly, because Aza had always hated braiding her own hair - she typically saved the task for Annabeth (or Clarisse during the school-year, who grumbled under her breath the whole time).

Jason met her eyes in the mirror, and he quickly turned his gaze to the back of her head. A few moments later, he slowly asked, "Have you talked to Nico since Rome? Just Nico."

"No," Aza sighed, and she shook her head as best she could with his tight grip on her hair, "He feels even more closed off than he used to be. I feel like he needs space, I guess... But he always needs space." She trailed off and rubbed her eyes. She inhaled shakily and sighed again, the memories almost too painful to articulate, "He used to actively seek me out. The short time we were at camp together, Clarisse called him my little shadow. Bianca spent most of her time with the Hunters, and he seemed sort of lost so I helped him out. But then... I was there when she died. And Percy and I had promised Nico we'd protect her. I know he blames us."

"Bianca?" Jason asked, glancing at her through the mirror.

Just the name made Aza's stomach twist, the same way it did when she thought about Michael. Her mouth tasted slightly bitter, "His sister. I was fourteen - Nico was ten. Kronos was rising, and Annabeth had been captured - so had Artemis. Zoë Nightshade, a huntress, was issued a quest to save their goddess. The two of them, your sister, Grover and I went on a quest; Percy snuck along. We were in the Junkyard of the Gods, and we knew not to take anything - but... Bianca took a mythomagic figurine for Nico; this little card-game he used to love. It was the only one missing in his collection," Aza smiled sadly; she missed the little kid that babbled almost nonstop about his game. It had annoyed her to no end at the time, but now she would do almost anything to hear it again, or to see the smile he always had when he rambled about the gods' hitpoints.