Chapter Text
Death, Jason Grace thought, is very boring.
Granted, dying hadn’t been anything of the sort. Dying had been terrifying and painful and something that Jason very much wanted to avoid repeating in the immediate future. 0 out of 10. Negative a million stars. Would not recommend it. Thank you very much.
But all those thoughts about his last moments, facing Caligula and his minions, playing distraction while Piper and the others fled for their lives…. they all felt very… distant. Everything down here felt that way.
It might have been the endless waiting he had already gone through. Jason vaguely remembered Nico complaining, at some point, that the traffic in the Underworld made Manhattan at rush hour look like a theme park fast pass. Or, it might have been just a part of being dead. The rush he had felt in the moments before his death were gone. He couldn’t do anything now to help the living.
I hope the others got away. But even the thought of Piper, Apollo, and Meg barely raised any emotion out of Jason beyond weary resignation. He was just so tired. Tired of fighting, tired of having to be brave, tired of having to be Jason Grace, son of Jupiter, former praetor of Camp Jupiter, now former Pontifex Maximus. But mostly, he was tired of waiting in these damn, death lines!
First, there was the wait in the weird lobby. Then the wait for the elevator (or was it a boat? It had shifted into a boat at some point) to cross the River Styx, to fill up with the other newly departed. After that was waiting in the queue to be sorted among those who were destined for one of the Underworld’s “lovely” choices for an afterlife.
He could still hear the distant screams that were coming from the Fields of Punishment and the bass from the rave that was being thrown in Elysium, echoing in his head from when he had passed them earlier. But where he was now, standing in line to bathe in the River Lethe, everything was still and quiet.
Those ahead of him in line each faced forward, waiting to take a dip in the river that would erase their very existence, allowing them to be reborn into a new life, with no memories of their past to stop them from living to see a new future.
This was the afterlife that Jason had chosen.
As already stated, he was tired. And for once, he wanted a chance at a life that might not end in terror and pain. Was that too much to ask? He had saved the world twice now and protected multiple gods! Jason believed that he deserved a chance at a future with friends and a family who loved him, without him being the son of the king of the gods! He wanted a mother who cared for him! A father who was proud of him! Siblings who looked up to him! And a future where he could grow old with someone who loved him despite everything! And if taking a deep dive into a potentially toxic river would give him a chance at that, well, let no one ever say that Jason Grace ran away from a tough situation.
As the line to the Lethe crept ever slowly forward, Jason had a moment of apprehension. Would he be reborn immediately? Could he end up living in the same world as all of his loved ones, but they were never destined to see each other again? Or, would he have to wait, like he had been, for years to go by before he had a shot at a second chance at life. Jason wasn’t sure which option he preferred. As long as I’m not reborn as another child of one of the Big Three. I couldn’t care less about the rest.
“That’s good to hear, child. Because we have a greater plan for you.”
Jason whipped his head up and around towards the voice that had addressed him. Distantly, he realized that he had reached the riverbank and that all of those who had been in line with him were gone. Muscle memory and battle instincts had him reaching for his gladius, that he no longer had, before he paused. He finally got a look at the woman who had addressed him, or rather, the three women who had addressed him.
They had to have been some of the oldest ladies that Jason had ever seen -each wearing bleached, cotton dresses and bandanas. The lady on Jason’s left was holding what looked like a large bag almost overflowing with bright colored yarn skeins. The one in the middle was bracing a half-finished blanket of multiple colors in one hand and a large yarn needle, strung through with sky blue yarn from the other lady’s bag, in the other. And the last lady was fidgeting with a large pair of scissors, closely watching as the second lady carefully stitched the blue yarn into the blanket.
“Uh… can I help you?” Unsure of what to do with his hands, Jason shoved them into his jean pockets. He felt off-balance without a weapon, especially since this was the first time someone had really talked to him since he had entered the Underworld.
Charon, the ferryman, had ignored him. And when he had been before the Judges of the Dead, the three men had mostly whispered amongst themselves before waving him along to the River Lethe. The old ladies did not appear to be a threat, but that really didn’t mean anything in Jason’s personal experience. They were definitely something powerful, but besides that, Jason wasn’t sure what to make of them.
“Can you help us?” the lady on the left asked with a disgusted huff.
“That depends, young demigod, on whether or not you are truly willing to.” the one with the scissors added, still not taking her eyes off of the work of the second.
“We knit the future, crochet the past, and stitch the pattern together to create the tapestry of the world.” the middle lady let out a cackle that made the hairs on Jason’s neck stand on end. “Oh, how low we have fallen, sisters, that we must rely on one so small to unknot this mess of Fate.”
At this, all three women looked up at Jason, and he took a step back at the intensity of their stares. “You’re the Fates, aren’t you, the Moirai?” He could feel a cold sweat breaking out along his spine. Why would the Fates show up here?
“You know of us, child. That is good.” The one on the right opened and closed her scissors. “I am called Atropos, the one who cuts the threads of Fate.” She then gestured with her scissors to the other two. “And these are my sisters, Lachesis, who measures the thread, and Clotho, who weaves the thread into a life.”
“As for what you can do for us, son of Jupiter,” Lachesis took a step towards Jason, causing the blue yarn connected to the blanket to be pulled taut. “You can fix what was never meant to be broken.”
She dug around in the bottom of her bag for a minute, half dragging Clotho, who was still adding blue to the blanket, forward. Jason had a moment where he wondered if Clotho was going to stab her sister with her needle before she returned to stitching the blue thread into the blanket.
Jason realized, now that the sisters had moved closer, that the blue was actually an outline of something that Clotho was embroidering into the blanket. It looked like the outline of a man with a sun behind him and something in his arms, a sword maybe? Before Jason could get a closer look, Lachesis let out a cry of triumph as she pulled a tattered sweater out of her bag.
How did she get that thing to fit in there? Jason thought in confusion.
It was huge. Easily the size of something a large cyclopes or giant would wear, not that the sweater would cover much. It was half burned and looked to be soaking wet in other places. The yarn had been torn and knotted in the front, and the left sleeve was almost completely gone. It looked like there might have once been a pattern to the weave, but it was lost to the blackened remains of whatever fire had destroyed the thing.
Atropos tucked her scissors into the bag and helped her sister spread out the sweater, giving Jason a good view of what had once been something beautiful but was now nothing more than trash.
“As you can see child, Fate has been marred, ruined beyond repair by those who wish to destroy this world and remake it as their own.” Atropos said with distaste.
Jason took a step forward, and when Atropos nodded to him, he reached out and touched the sweater. The yarn under his fingers felt brittle, more like dried straw then the softer wool Clotho was still working away with.
“The Triumvernant?” Jason questioned. The Emperors were turning themselves into gods and attempting to destroy the rest. After the destruction he had seen them unleash, with the burning maze and hearing the stories of the attacks on Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter, he wasn’t surprised if this devastation was the result of their interference.
“No child,” Clotho said, not looking up from her work. “They are just the latest upstarts in a long list of others.”
“Ha!” Lachesis spat. “They are just like all the rest, thinking that they can control Fate or simply destroy it when it doesn’t go the way they wish!”
“Yes, the Triumvernant, the Giants, the Titans, they all must answer to Fate.” Atropos gave the sweater another disgusted look. “We are the Moirai. We weave the past, present, and future. They might have destroyed our work, but they did not destroy us! We will simply weave something new!”
It was at this that Jason realized that all three Fates were looking at him again. He tensed, gripping the threads tighter and causing part of them to crumble to dust in his hands.
Letting go of the work, he quickly took a step back and raised his hands in front of him, attempting to fend off the Fates as their eyes followed him. He was very quickly reminded that these old ladies literally controlled the outcome of the world. They might not be able to see the final work until it was complete, but with a thought they could end any living being, be them god or mortal. And for some reason they had sought him out right before he was set to start his new life as a happy nobody.
“Listen, this is all fascinating, but I don’t see what that has to do with me.” Jason took another step back. He was practically at the edge of the bank. He could feel the cold of the River Lethe seeping into his back.
“It has everything to do with you, Jason Grace.” Atropos gestured to the sweater. “Fate: past, present, and future, has been damaged beyond even our own abilities to repair.” And here she pointed a bony finger at Jason. “We need a champion to fix this mess. And we have chosen you.”
Jason stood frozen for a moment. His first response was shock, but that was very quickly followed by a sort of exasperation that every demigod felt when an all-powerful entity appeared to send them on a panic-inducing quest. And that feeling was followed almost immediately by anger. How dare they just show up here, at this very moment! Hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t he lost enough? He had literally given up everything for the gods! A chance for a happy and safe home? Nope! The assurance of an education? Not unless it consisted of marching in formation! An older sister who loved him? She was a tree and now a Hunter of Artemis! A girlfriend that would stick with him through thick and thin? Not a chance!
(Okay, he could admit that Thalia and Piper had both made the choices that were best for them, and he could never be that selfish to take away their agency to choose like that. They had so little opportunity to find happiness in their lives already. Jason didn’t fault them in the least.)
But what about him? Didn’t he deserve a chance to choose something that could make him happy? Why couldn’t he, for once, run from a fight that wasn’t his! Why did he have to be the one who was always left behind to clean up the mess? Why am I always left behind?
Belatedly, Jason realized that he had been yelling all of this at the Fates. His chest was heaving like he had just run across all of the Underworld, and his hands were shaking with repressed rage. Huh, I thought I had gotten over all of this. Guess not. Whoops.
He looked back at the Fates who just stared back, impassively, Clotho still stitching away.
“You misunderstand, child.” Lachesis stated. “We are giving you a choice. We just already know the answer you will choose.”
“Of course you do.” Jason grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest tightly to try and hide the shaking. He knew it was a pointless gesture, but he really didn’t want to show any more weakness than he already had. “Why am I not surprised? Go ahead, tell me what choice I’m going to make? Oh! And need I remind you that I’m already dead? It’s not like I can do anything to fix Fate or whatever it is you want me to do from here.”
And, okay, Jason might have taken one too many pointers from Percy on how not to talk to mythological creatures. But he was tired, damn it! And he really just wanted to leave the whole situation.
“Oh, but you have already made your choice.” Lachesis nodded to the River Lethe. “By choosing rebirth, your Fate continues on. Jason Grace is dead, but that does not mean that Fate is done with you yet.”
“Many have gone on to do great things after death.” Atropos continued. “Patroclus lingered after his defeat and roused Achilles to continue the fight against Troy. Daedalus escaped death over and over and went on to make many great things. Even your friend Hazel Levesque escaped death and because of her actions, Fate continued a little while longer.”
“So you see, child, Fate has a way of weaving a new pattern through the actions of those that allow it to be. We do not decide what we shall weave, we merely allow it to exist.”
And with that, Clotho tied off the blue yarn by attaching it to a yellow one. Atropos reached into the bag and pulled out her scissors, quickly snipping off the extra blue without disrupting Clotho as she started to add the yellow to the blanket.
Jason watched their actions in silence for a long moment trying to decipher what they had been saying before giving up. Understanding how Fate could be manipulated was way above his pay-grade.
“Okay… So how does me choosing rebirth help you fix Fate?”
“Ah, now we get to that.” Atropos put her scissors back in Lachesis’s bag. “You chose rebirth, and that is your right as a departed hero. But by doing so, you provide us an opportunity to ensure that our work is not wrecked beyond recognition.
“We will… guide your soul to the best moment of rebirth, where you will be given the opportunity to prevent the most damage.” She continued. “You will still have the chance to live the life that you so desperately long for, but in exchange, you will assist us in ensuring that Fate remains true to the pattern that we have created.”
“That doesn’t sound like a nice, easy life to me.” Jason said crossly.
“No, I imagine it doesn’t.” Lachesis bared her teeth at him in what Jason thought might have been a grin if it weren’t for the slightly wild look around her eyes. “But you will be given the chance to save several of your friends from a truly horrible Fate. Isn’t that what you have always wanted? To ensure that no one has to ever feel abandoned like you had?”
Okay, that was a low blow. Yeah, use the guy’s deep insecurities against him. Jason thought uncharitably.
“And if you make the right choices,”she continued. “Who, but Fate itself knows, you might get to live that long and happy life you so desperately want.”
Jason took another look at the torn sweater. He could just make out a light pink color among the wreck. Piper. He thought. And there was a burnt orange that looked like it had been chewed on. Leo. The black and silver thread that looked both burned to a crip and was unraveling. Nico. The longer he looked at the mess, the more details he could pick out. This was the story of his life, his friends’ lives. All the hard work, everything they had fought and bled for. Every triumph and defeat, all illustrated in this one, ugly, ruined sweater. Everything they had worked towards, gone, unraveling before his very eyes.
He couldn’t leave it like this. They were right. If he had the opportunity to help, then he was going to do what he could. Even if it all turned out horribly for him in the end. But there was still something bothering him.
“Why me?” He glanced at the ground before forcing himself to meet each of their eyes in turn. “Why not send someone else? I’m sure there are plenty of others around here who would jump at the opportunity to play the hero.”
The three shared a long look with each other before answering. “Because, Jason Grace, you are Pontifex Maximus. You built us a temple for the first time in a millenia. You are of both Rome and Greece. You understand what is at risk and you understand what needs to be done.”
“But I don’t know what needs to be done! How am I supposed to fix the problem if I'm reborn after the fact? Or with no memories of what’s happened?”
The Fates all let out a cackling laugh. Their eyes almost seemed to glow with a white light causing Jason to flinch away, remembering his experience with seeing Juno in her true form. But instead of the light growing brighter and more radiant, it simply seemed to illuminate the blanket that Clotho held up for Jason to see.
The image embroidered on the blanket almost appeared to be split in half. She had embroidered the outline of a man, just like Jason had thought, in that sky blue thread, and he was holding a sword. The sky behind the man seemed to be split between a stormy sky filled with lightning and a clear blue sky with the sun shining bright. Jason had a moment of confusion, wondering how Clotho had managed to add so much detail in such a short time, but then focused back in on the man. He stood in the middle of the blanket, facing towards the left of the blanket, with his back to the half-finished outline of another man in yellow.
The yellow man was facing the right and seemed to be holding something different in his hands. But with the lack of details, Jason couldn’t make out what it was. He could see that behind the yellow man was a scene of a valley that was filled with half-finished people and creatures. But beyond that, Jason had no idea what to make of the image.
Looking back at the blue man, Jason realized that he did recognize many of the details. The man on the left stood, facing a battle scene. Demigods and monsters clashed in great, jarring detail. He honestly had no idea you could portray that many things with just thread. But the Fates had managed to encompass so many moments into the folds on that blanket. There was the Wolf House and Lupa pacing outside of it. In the corner was Reyna flying through the air on her pegasus, fighting a group of venti. He could see the rest of the Seven fighting the Giants in Athens. And as the battles raged across the surface of the blanket, the blue man stood tall and defiant, watching the turmoil unfold around him, but frozen at the edge of the image with his sword raised to attack.
And looking at the blue man more closely, Jason realized with a start that he had glasses and a scar over his lip. That’s me! But then… who is the yellow supposed to be… Unless…
He looked back up at the old women with their glowing eyes. “Yes, Jason Grace.” Clotho answered his unspoken question. “The yellow is the you that will be. We are the Fates, and we weave what has been and what will come. We must start over, and you will be the starting point. The thread that holds the whole piece together.”
Jason took another look at the blanket and he could see how the yellow and blue thread seemed to be interwoven throughout the entire piece. He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out slowly.
“Alright, so say I do what you want. How will I know how to ‘fix Fate?’” He put air quotes around the last two words.
“Do not worry, child.” Lachesis sounded almost gentle, though the glowing eyes kind of defeated the purpose. “You will know what needs to be done when the time is right. Just do what you believe is best, as you always have.”
Jason took one last, long look at the three Fates. Clotho was still holding up her incomplete blanket. Atropos and Lachesis were still delicately holding the ruined sweater. He closed his eyes and felt all the fight drain from his body, because, as annoying as it was, they were right about him. Jason couldn’t, wouldn't, run from a fight, especially if it meant helping those who needed it. If this was a chance to make sure that his friends were safe, and not doomed to the horrible sweater, well, he would do just about anything. I have done everything for them. I died for them. Might as well try living again for them.
“Okay, I’ll go with your plan. I’m still not sure what you want from me, but I’ll do what I can to help.” He opened his eyes and squared his shoulders. “What do I need to do?”
The Fates looked at each other for a long moment, almost like they were surprised that he had agreed so easily. But, and here Jason had to ruthfully smile to himself, this sort of interaction with the gods was normal for a demigod. They appeared in all their glory, and the demigods fought their battles. It was the way it had always been, and Jason doubted it would be changing anytime soon.
When they turned their glowing eyes back to Jason, he was ready for the intensity of their stare. He stood in what was the Roman equivalent of a parade rest, ready to spring into action the moment the Fates gave the signal.
“You will be reborn into a point in the past, before the second war with the Titans even began. You must neutralize their agent and ensure that he will not betray the gods.” And here Atropos gave a wicked smile. “You may use any means necessary.”
“From there, simply allow Fate to guide you. You will know what must be done when the time is right.” Lachesis continued with a smile of her own.
“Know that you go with our blessing, Jason Grace. That is not something to take lightly.” Clotho finished off.
And with that, the three Fates began to glow even brighter, and Jason had to slam his eyes shut in order to avoid being burned by their true forms. And with a ringing clap of thunder, Jason Grace ceased to exist.
And in a tiny hospital in rural Connecticut, a baby opened his eyes for the first time.