Who. Tess Phillips What. Saying goodbye Where. Half-Blood Hill When. Monday afternoon, July 14th 2014 Warnings. None?
They say time heals all wounds. Well whoever said it first, they were full of shit. It had been eight months. Eight months since she'd lost her sister, and Jason. The wounds didn't hurt any less. Sometimes Tess even dreamed about them, the dreams feeling so real she woke up hoping it was some weird demigod prophecy thing and they were out there somewhere waiting for her to find them. That's how demigod's dreams worked, right? But no. There was no prophecy, no quest. Not this time. This time, things were exactly what they seemed.
And that was the worst part of it.
Still, at some point Tess had to admit to herself that she wasn't staying here for the camp. Thalia had already outgrown Camp Half-Blood a long time ago, Zeus's Cabin was a regular point of avoidance for both of them, and Xander was rarely there. He had Camelot, and Tess had nothing. Nothing except a tree and a headstone with no body buried underneath it. She was staying here for the dead.
Artemis's arrival, the annoyingly ironically named Zoë, should have been her wake up call. Some sort of sign from the gods that Tess didn't belong here anymore, but she still sat around for a month after and wallowed. She'd been wallowing for eight months, why stop now? The world was moving on without her, and Tess was just tired enough to let it. Why should she move on? It was her fault they were dead. She deserved to stay trapped here, paralyzed by her own depression and guilt.
It was funny how easy it was. People never tell you what happens after your whole life falls apart. How easy it is to just sink down into your own misery until there's nothing left but a shadow of what you were. Living on memories and the ghosts of people who don't exist anymore. Hating the quiet and becoming dependent on it all at once. For months Tess barely talked to anyone, and when she did, she was usually withdrawn and hostile. It was no way to live, but she was content to walk through her life asleep. Until one day when she finally woke up. At first she couldn't pin point it, that is until she stepped outside and took her first look of the day up at the tree. His tree. Jason's tree. And she realized it was finally time.
The work took her a whole week. Tess had never been very good at needlework, as in she'd never even tried. The embroidering was the hardest part, and by the end of it she had more then a few bloody puncture holes in her fingers, but it was worth it. Due to the circumstances of his death, Jason hadn't gotten a shroud when they made one for Penny to burn with her. But he still deserved one. Tess had to shut her eyes, willing herself not to think of how Jason had looked while he was lying there dying, slowly being covered in roots. Luke's shroud had been a metallic white and emerald green, but Tess made Jason's an electric blue with the image of a lion etched into the center in a soft brown. Jason would get it, if he were here. A lump formed in her throat at the thought but she kept working furiously until it was done. Now, a week later, Tess was climbing to the top of Half-Blood Hill. To say her final goodbyes.
Jason's tree was just down a few feet from Thalia's at the very top, with her sister's head stone next to him. Tess steeled herself, kneeling down to place something on it. The horn of the Minotaur she and her sister had helped defeat together that Tess had given Penny for her birthday, wrapped in a light pink cloth. You wouldn't think a Daughter of Zeus and a Daughter of Aphrodite could get along, but there was no one closer. Only her sister's ashes lay here now, but she couldn't let her sister go on to Elysium without this. The same day that Jason had, she had died a hero that day too. A single tear slowly rolled its way down her cheek, touching finger tips to her lips and then to the soft ground before raising steadily to her feet.
I swear it by the River Styx, Theresa Philips. I'll never abandon you again. I won't ever let you down.
Jason's words echoed in her ears like a ghost as she took a long look at his tree, and the Golden Fleece draped across him. When they'd first put the Fleece on his branches Tess couldn't understand why it didn't work the same way it had for Thalia. Why wasn't he coming back? It'd worked for Thalia, hadn't it? The Fleece had brought her back, so why not him? She'd kicked and screamed at the base of the tree until she'd passed out from exhaustion, but nothing changed. Jason never came back to her, and now she understood why. He'd made the ultimate sacrifice, given up his life and kept his oath to her. That was why he didn't come back, he'd chosen rebirth. He couldn't let her down again. Tess hastily wiped at her cheek, still damp as she reached up into the tree's branches and draped his shroud across them opposite the Golden Fleece.
It wasn't fair. She could scream and cry for days about how fair it wasn't, how her shitty little life had been, for the briefest of moments, so much better because of him. Only to have that taken away too. Even now, part of her was still in denial. Part of her still believed this was some sick joke and she was going to go back down the hill where her sister and Jason would be waiting for her. But they weren't. That was the hardest part about losing the ones you loved. They never left you, but eventually, you had to make the hard choice to leave them. Think... rebirth. Try for three times. Isles of the Blest. Despite herself Tess had to smile and shake her head. Like Luke, Jason had always pushed himself too hard. And as tempting as it was to spend her days waiting around for him to be reborn and try to find him again, she couldn't live her life like that. Not anymore, and she knew he wouldn't want her to.
"It's okay, Jason," Tess whispered, echoing Thalia's words on the day of his death, while placing a hand on the shroud and blinking blue eyes up into the tallest branches. It really was beautiful up here. "You can rest now."
The hardest part was letting go, and for a long moment she wasn't sure if she could ever tear her hand away from that tree, but she knew he'd be okay. They all would, thanks to him. The Golden Fleece breathed new life into the camp from his branches now, and she could walk away. They weren't running from a prophecy this time, there was no terrible Big Three fate for Tess, no fate that she knew of other then this one. In some ways, a part of her knew she'd always been meant to join Artemis's Hunt. Giving one last long look at the spot where her sister's ashes lay beneath Jason's tree, Tess shouldered her backpack and turned away to make the slow climb down Half-Blood Hill. Maybe for the last time, but who knows. All she knew was she finally felt the last eight months lift off her shoulders for good. She could finally breathe again. "Goodbye."