Mother Teresa won my poll, and therefore, this will be posted first! For those of you that wanted other stories, I'll be posting those, too. This is just the first!

Also, the title is meant to be ironic because for those of you that know who Mother Teresa is, she was a really great person, but Leo's foster mother is the complete opposite. That's the reason it's called Mother Teresa and not Miss Teresa or something similar.

Disclaimer: if I owned HOO, why would I be writing here for free when I could be making thousands, maybe even millions, of dollars. Really, people?

WARNINGS: LANGUAGE, IMPLIED ABUSE

Leo didn't want to go to the ball, but of course, Piper was making him and Jason go anyway ("My dad's getting an award and I don't want to go alone, so would you two please come with me?"). He didn't understand why Jason couldn't just go with her and he was sure that Piper had slipped in some charmspeak to make the fire user go to this thing, but he knew that his best friend wouldn't do that. If he knew what was going to occur at the ball, he sure as hell would've stayed at camp.

Complaining about having to wear a fancy suit, Leo lugged himself out of the limo. "Why couldn't Jason just go with you?"

"Because you're my best friend," Piper replied.

"And you also wanted to dress me up like one of those groom figurines on top of the wedding cakes," Leo pointed out with a smirk and Piper blushed.

"Come on, Leo, give it a chance!" Jason persuaded.

"I went to enough balls when I was living with one of my foster mothers. I hated those things!" Leo groaned, stifling a shiver at the memory of this particular foster mother.

"So this isn't your first rodeo?" Jason sounded so suprised, Leo laughed.

"Jason, I have probably done everything you can think of!"

"Rode a horse?"

"Won some competitions too."

"Rode a motorcycle?"

"Crashed into a police cruiser, but yes."

"Drove a car?"

"I had to make a quick getaway!"

"Played Pokémon whilst drinking chocolate milk in an ice bath?"

"It was a dare!"

"Give up, Jason, I think he's right. He's done everything," Piper snorted at the look on her boyfriend's face.

"Thank you, Piper!"

"Pipes!" Their strange conversation was cut short when a very familiar voice screamed Piper's famous nickname, the nickname her father had given her.

They turned and saw Tristan McLean rushing to meet them, decked out in a fancy tuxedo with a black tie and gelled dark brown, almost black hair.

Leo thought that they all measured up to him. He himself was wearing a similar suit, but with a red tie, and Piper had managed to tame his brown curls to be semi decent (he absolutely refused to use gel or moose or anything of the sort). She'd taken his tool belt and placed it in her purse, charmed to be virtually bottomless while hanging on a golden cord. This was only in case of a monster attack and she was keeping her dagger in there as well, but Jason's coin remained in his pocket.

Anyway, Jason was dressed similarly in a nice suit and with a blue tie to match his eyes. His hair wasn't gelled because it was always windblown enough to look cute by girl's standards but not enough to be entirely messy (at least that's what the Aphrodite kids say; it really made no sense to Leo).

Piper was radiant in her blue dress, which was only slightly lighter than Jason's tie, the change in tones almost unnoticeable. Leo couldn't help but feel like they had done this, so everyone would recognize them as a couple and him as their annoying friend. Her hair was still choppy, but she'd brushed it and it now smelled so strongly of lavender that Leo was sure Camp Half-Blood could smell it across the country. She'd actually put on a little bit of makeup but not Drew territory and definitely not Isabelle territory.

"Why, don't all of you look spiffy tonight?" Mr. McLean teased. "Nice to see you again, Jason, Leo."

Before we continue, you should know that Piper did eventually inform her dad of their heptic demigod lives, shortly after the giant war. It had taken a few days of wandering around in shock until he finally accepted it and Hazel had actually found a way to lift the mist for him to see Piper's dagger as truth. She'd brought the son of Jupiter and the child of blacksmiths to meet her dad, and they were practically family now.

"Hello, Mr. McLean," Jason greeted and Leo waved, awkwardly.

"For the last time, you two, call me Tristan," Mr. McLean smiled, good naturally. "Now, what were we all talking about?"

"All the crazy things Leo's done," Piper responded.

"I still cannot believe you played Pokémon while drinking chocolate milk in an ice bath!" Jason exclaimed, and Mr. McLean raised an eyebrow.

"I've got a picture somewhere. I was also wearing a cheerleading uniform," Leo laughed. "I've also jumped off of a building; kicked a police officer where the sun don't shine, if you know what I mean; and used a construction site as a playground."

As he ticked them off on his fingers, he noticed that all three of them were gazing at him in wonder.

"Okay," Piper snapped in a motherly voice, "we need to talk about what dangerous things you are allowed to do and dangerous things you are not allowed to do!"

All four of them laughed before waking inside.

Leo immediately became anxious. He didn't have good memories when it came to balls or dances of any kind, and he was sure that this wasn't going to be the first.

If it wasn't for the McLeans, Leo and Jason would've blended in perfectly with all the other males in suits and girls in ball gowns. Yet, with Piper and her dad... it was an entirely different story.

People stopped whatever they were doing- dancing, eating, talking, whatever- to stare at the celebrity, his daughter, her boyfriend, and their friend, who was kind of feeling like an outsider. After a moment of shocked nothingness, everything started to go back to normal, except for one woman, who stared intently.

She looked so familiar to Leo with her blonde hair that rivaled the color of Annabeth's when it came to how golden it was. She was dressed in a pretty blue dress that reached her ankles, the color of ice, and it matched her cold eyes that were locked on Leo's. She wore a lot of makeup but not enough to be ugly. Her lips were red as blood and her skin lightly blushed but otherwise only a shade darker than Nico's Di Angelo's, who was the palest person Leo knew. When she smiled cruelly, it clicked.

"Oh no," Leo whispered.

"What?" Piper asked, and he realized that he'd interrupted her while she was talking to her dad about what had been going on at camp lately.

When Leo didn't answer, the three followed his gaze.

"That's Teresa Wilkes," Tristan said, looking perplexed. "What about her?"

"She used to be my foster mother," Leo mumbled, his hands trembling.

"What?" Piper gasped. "Really?"

Leo nodded.

"So what are you oh noing about?" Jason questioned.

"My time with her were the worst three months of my life, Jason." As if on cue, Teresa seemed to break out of her shock and strolled over to them.

"Leo Valdez, darling," she smiled, sickly sweet, and he noticed that she had never lost that hint of British accent that had faded since she moved here when she was nineteen. It was still present and hadn't changed in the past four years.

"M-M-Miss T-T-Teresa," Leo stuttered, and his friends and Piper's dad stared at him, wondering why he was so scared of this woman.

"Long time, no see, my little runaway," she murmured. Jason didn't miss the way she put emphasis on the my, and a barely audible growl escaped him.

"It isn't polite to leave without a goodbye," she said, and she put a hand on his shoulder, seemingly an innocent gesture, but Tristan didn't miss the way she squeezed it bruisingly or the way Leo flinched. He put his hand on Leo's other shoulder and pulled his honorary son away from the woman with a forced smile.

"We best be going," he said through gritted teeth. "It was nice meeting you, Teresa."

He dragged his daughter and unofficially adopted sons away from the smirking woman, but not before she hissed, "Stick around, Leonardo, you'll learn that everything comes with a price."

What'd you think of the first chapter? It turned out shorter than I wanted it to, but around chapters three or four, the chapters will start to get longer. REVIEW!