Disclaimer: I am not Rick Riordan, and do not own anything from the PJO or HoO series.
Maybe he was overthinking it, but Leo wasn't sure that a melted ship would seem very heroic.
His fingers drummed on the prow of the ship, igniting every few minutes. Piper stood on his right with a bucket, dousing him with water whenever he started flaming. On his left, Jason held the string of a large, clear, balloon. It contained one of Calypso's invisible servants, which kept buzzing excitedly and straining southwards. Festus snapped at it irritably.
"Festus!" Piper scolded. The dragon looked sorry, but when Piper looked away, he exhaled a puff of smoke at the balloon, making the invisible servant jump.
Leo stared down at the water. He felt like wind spirits were wrestling in his stomach. What if Calypso had gotten over him? Or what if she'd fallen in love with someone else? Was it too late to turn the ship around?
Apparently, yes. The balloon string jerked out of Jason's hand and flew down, towards a small green speck in the ocean.
Ogygia.
As the ship descended, Leo felt simultaneously more scared and excited than he had ever been in his life. Piper put a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't worry. She's waiting for you."
Leo was about to ask how she could be sure, but then he remembered that being a daughter of Aphrodite, she knew stuff like that. Though he would never tell her, he had always thought of her powers besides charmspeak as kind of useless, but now he realized what love could do to you. He shivered a little despite the warm, sweet air.
"You're sure?"
Piper rolled her eyes.
"Why don't you go find out for yourself?"
The boat had landed, gliding onto the sandy beach. Leo felt like he was going to throw up.
"Do you want us to come with you?" Jason asked. Apparently he had noticed Leo's expression.
"No… no it's fine. I'll be back in a bit." For better or for worse, he thought. He patted Festus's head, jumped over the prow of the ship, and started walking inland.
It wasn't long before he saw her. She was sitting at the crater he had made when he first landed, looking even more beautiful than he remembered. It wasn't cold, but she was wearing something over her white dress. The corners of his mouth turned up in a smirk as he realized it was an army jacket.
He stepped towards her, and she looked up. Her deep brown eyes widened.
"L-Leo?" She stood up and hesitantly started walking towards him.
Leo couldn't help it. He broke into a run, not wanting to wait a second longer, and she did too. They collapsed into each others' arms, and he was surprised to find that he was a few inches taller than her now.
Calypso pulled back a bit, her eyes shining with tears.
"How did you… no man ever finds Ogygia twice… you shouldn't have been able to…"
Leo smiled.
"It's good to see you too, Sunshine. But I'm not a man, remember? I'm a scrawny, charbroiled runt, and I-"
He didn't get to finish, because Calypso kissed him. Her lips were soft and sweet, but salty from her tears, and she felt so fragile, like centuries and centuries of sadness had whittled her down. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer, his other arm sliding into her hair.
Finally, they broke apart. Leo fingered Calypso's sleeve.
"Nice jacket."
She scowled and flicked him gently.
"It has no relation to you. I simply realized that the multitude of pockets is good for holding seeds and tools and such."
Leo raised an eyebrow. She sighed.
"Fine, maybe it has a little relation to you. But that's not important—how did you find Ogygia?"
In answer, he held up a bronze sphere, embedded with a crystal.
"Odysseus made this, and I think he wanted to use it to find you, but apparently he needed a piece of crystal—one from your cave. I wired it to Festus's control disk, and—"
He trailed off as he saw her expression. "Oh gods, I'm sorry."
"It doesn't matter, Leo. I have you, don't I?"
She smiled up at him, but it didn't reach her eyes. Still, his heart skipped a beat. Gods, she was beautiful.
"Now, do you want to stand here talking for another three thousand years?"
She turned and marched towards the shore. Leo grinned and jogged after her.
A/N: Sorry, I have title-creating deficiencies. I hope you liked this chapter, please leave a review and tell me what you think of it!
Edit: I have decided to make this a stand alone story, and I will post the rest of the story as a multi-chaptered fic later. I'm sorry for any inconvenience, but I've had so much work lately, and I can't really keep up.
~Lily
