You don't like him. You don't like his messy hair or his kind of pointy ears or his know-it-all grin. You don't like his incessant moving around and fiddling with things, you don't like his hands always covered in grease, and you definitely don't like his attitude. You just really do not like Leo Valdez.

Which of course means you'll be stuck with him. But after an eternity of hardly any contact with others, even the presence of someone you despise is welcome. It helps you remember that you're not alone in the world. After a few days with Leo Valdez, though, you almost wish you were. He is loud, he's messy, and he's just plain annoying. Barging in on your island, breaking tables like he owns the place.

It's pretty rough when the only company you have that can actually hold an intelligent - well, intelligent is a strong word - conversation with you is a loud not-hero is set on bothering you. Except, you learn, he's not. He's set on getting back to his friends. And he helps you, and talks to you, and makes you laugh harder than you have in centuries. And he looks at you- honest to gods, not sugary sweet and caring but wearing a t-shirt and jeans and covered in dirt, you. And he likes it.

Honestly, you don't hate him as much as you insist that you do.

And then he sails off.

He's gone, like the rest.

And like the rest, he leaves you all alone.

The first night is always the hardest. You've been through it countless times before - a boy comes, you fall in love, he leaves. There were even a couple of girls who landed on your island, once upon a time , and they were just as hard to forget. It's plain cliché in your life but the pain never dulls. And this pain is worse than the rest, because you really fell in love.

It wasn't at all like Odysseus where you looked at him and immediately fell in love. Your relationship with Leo Valdez wasn't like any of your previous ones, for that matter. Leo made you work. His insufferable personality took time to respect. His shining golden moments only revealed themselves in increments. He didn't look like a god or shine like one or act like one. Leo acted like, and really was, a know-it-all, annoying little brat. But he was a know-it-all, annoying little brat with a heart of gold and you fell slower and harder than you ever had before.

So you lie down on the sand, and you cry. That's the first step. You have to crush the little bubble of hope Leo created, the idea that you could live together and run a shop and be happy. You know it's not possible, can't be possible. Leo has friends who need him, a world that needs him. Everything is more important than the simple girl stranded on an island who needs him.

You almost laugh because you have never wanted to be a damsel in a love story, but it seems that's the role fate has cast you to play. You spent your entire life being exactly the opposite, taking sides in wars and fighting with your family - and here you are, a damsel truly in distress. Except your hero is not here, and he certainly won't be again.

The sand is your pillow and the first night Leo is gone is the hardest that you have ever cried.

Step two is forgetting. You have to erase everything that was Leo from your existence, scrub him out until he is just another page in the sad story of your life.

You get up off the sand, because the ground is the place for mourning and emotional breakdowns and Leo slamming his face into it as he trips again - and you get up off the sand because it is not the place for forgetting.

But everywhere else is. Being busy has always distracted you so you do every possible thing to not think about him. You cook a full course meal out of random scraps you find all over - your invisible servants try to help but you wave them off with your hands deep into kneading pasty, white dough. You garden, planting trees and flowers and splashing your white shirt with stains of dirt and grass. You stand in the ocean and think about nothing, you climb trees and read books and ignore the nagging feeling in your chest. The one that tells you that Leo is and has always been stubborn, and the marks he left behind will be just as much so.

You go to bed early but you ignore your soft bed and instead lay on the cold sand, staring up at the stars and ignoring everything your mind starts to think about. Because that saying is wrong, all roads don't lead to Rome - all your roads, any path your mind takes, they all lead to Leo. And there is no escape because once you start thinking about Leo you will be a whole step behind again.

You don't get much sleep that night.

The next day, you're crabby and irritable and you feel bad when you glare at your invisible servants for the tenth time but you just can't stop this awful, terrible thing that bubbles in your chest. Because gods, he's gone and this has happened before and you are so, so used to it but you can't forget him - and it's tearing a hole in your heart even worse than any of the others, ripping you to shreds like paper and burning the pieces as they divide and you can't figure out how to put yourself back together again.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again.

You remember one of them singing it softly once, a son of Apollo, because his voice was soft and light as a feather and fuzzy at the edges. And you remember you sat down and listened to his tunes but you can't remember his name because you forced yourself to forget.

But now you're Humpty Dumpty and all the king's horses and all the king's men wouldn't be able to put you together again.

Finally, you ignore step two. You try to convince yourself that honestly, it's not important, if you can't do it you will just have to move on to step three.

So you do.

Step three is ignoring. You ignore your feelings, ignore the memories he left behind, ignore the tears on your eyelids and the shaking in your limbs. Ignore that horrible, dark, feeling of being left alone again.

And so you try, very, very hard.

You busy yourself with other things - you don't even attempt to maintain a semblance of normalcy anymore. You throw yourself head on into a million different tasks and a billion different projects. You plant three new gardens, read too many new books to count, draw hundreds of pictures and sew plenty of new clothes. You cook for yourself every single day and you take to exercising by running the length of your island.

You work yourself so hard so that when you lie down on your bed there's no energy left to think.

In a way, it works.

There's still a constant reminder of Leo everywhere you go, but now you turn away and pretend it's not there. And when you do lie in bed at night, you can't think about anything but the ache in your bones (and in your heart). It's only when you close your eyes that the flames come back and they bring a grease-covered, sarcastic little hero with them.

You try to stop sleeping, and that lasts longer than you thought it would.

Eventually, your invisible servants have had enough. You can feel them watching you as you force your eyes open in the twinkling dusk, and you know that they are quietly upset, watching you deprive yourself of this.

They take it upon themselves to try to get you to sleep - which really isn't what you want from them, considering how counterproductive to your plan it is. But you know they have an embedded instinct to care for your well-being and this must just be too hard for them to bare. They softly whisper by way of the wind, carrying their intentions in the breeze. You can feel them nudging you closer to the bed at night, trying to console you to sleep instead of watching the stars and drawing larger circles around your eyes.

You know they worry, but you can't stop.

It's almost strange, having them so concerned like they are - your entire life has been a montage of one person after another who didn't love you, didn't care enough, didn't want to stay. You have spent countless moments caring for others, giving up your time and life and heart to do what you are denying your servants of right now. And so when you lay on the ground that night, staring at the stars and wishing that you were one - because at least then you could see Leo, see the whole world, see the universe - you close your eyes for just a little too long, and you drift off into a world of grime and grease and heat and regrets.

You dream about him, which is to be expected.

Except something is broken because there's no sound, just Leo looking sad and tired and worried, which makes you all the same.

You wake up too soon and too confused and you're not really sure what to do now.

Sometimes, you think in poems.

That's probably not for the best when all you can seem to compose is endless stanzas filled with fire and heartbreak and the ends of the earth, the ground rising to crush everything good that had ever come.

For the first time since your imprisonment, you wish you could fight. Alongside Leo, but anything would be better than patiently sitting and waiting for the world to end, or not.

Finally, you just pretend like you've moved on, like you can.

You sit down and tell yourself that Leo was never here, and that he's never coming back. You go to sleep on time and when you wake up, sweating and crying from the attack of nightmares and visions and flames that lick up your mind and remind you of him, you push it down and swallow your sadness and pretend like everything is fine.

You haven't cried since you started pretending, and you're not really sure if that's good.

It's been months, you think, since you started pretending. Long enough that time has become fluid again, filling in between your fingers and dancing across your palm. It's strange, on Oogygia, how time is so fluid and malleable and strange. None of the demigods who land there ever seem to truly understand.

But you do, and time is like the strings of a violin, plucked out of order and for random lengths, but combining together to create music that flows and mixes.

But it's been months and it feels like years - the first time you are ever really upset with the difference this island makes on your perceptions.

And you push yourself through and keep going, because you are strong, and you will endure.

You're hit with the feeling one day.

The world is ending.

There's nothing to justify your fear; no earthquakes or explosions or even a nice hurricane. Everything is peaceful, quiet except for the rustling of your servants, moving around her as if you are a fragile vase.

But you know the world is ending from the headache forming and that empty, ripped feeling in your stomach. Oogygia has always been cut off from the rest of the world, and it seems like it's been cut off from this, too - at least until Gaea comes for you, ready to throw you down to Tartarus.

It doesn't really scare you, though, your fate. You've been preparing for this since your imprisonment started, imagining how someday, the gods would throw you down there too. You never even entertained the idea of becoming free. You would either rot on this island, suffering every day from the open wounds of your heart, or you'd fall down to Hell with your brothers.

But none of that really scares you. What scares you is that you can't sense Leo, can't feel anything.

You go to bed that night and your mind is free of all dreams.

And when you wake up it is still empty and you have never been this afraid.

Leo is dead. You're sure of that.

Whatever happened, you felt it in the way your soul snapped and the sweat that beads on your brow. Your messy braid is no more, hair flying across your head like strings of birds aching to be free, the way you feel all the time. Air won't come; you can't catch a breath, can't grasp at the air you need to calm down. Everything is rushing at you, a drumbeat pounding in your head and calm is only an illusion as your soul breaks in half, crushed by another heroes' defeat.

You're not sure how it happened or why. You don't even know the fate of the world, although you assume it can't be good if one of the Seven is gone. But you can't bring yourself to care about the world, although maybe you really should. Despite that, your pain comes solely from the death of a brat who you hate - well, hate is a strong word - and from the hole his existence leaves in you.

Dreams don't give much detail, and you're not sure whether you're happy or sad that his death has been left a mystery, your mind wrapping around it to find an answer.

Through all this, your skin burns, an echo of pain and fire and heat inching up your arms and you don't know what to do because you have never felt this, never had a reaction when one of your heroes died.

So what makes Leo special?

You find out, later.

When the fire raging under your skin suddenly cools, like an ocean washing in waves over your pain, taking it with the tides. It's like nothing was ever really wrong, because suddenly the air comes rushing back into your lungs- it's a buffet, and you can't seem to scoop enough oxygen into your body to feel full. Everything is still - the heat is gone, replaced by a cool breeze and a gentle, comforting warmth.

Your servants are calm - still, unmoving, and seemingly confused.

You still don't know what happened but somehow, you know that Leo is alive.

You start packing, because that is the next logical step.

If that scrawny little fire-elf boy can cheat death, he can certainly find his way back to you. You've never been more certain, more expectant than you are in this very moment. Usually you don't let your hopes fly high but now, you let them soar as if they were kites on a thin string, waving in the wind.

So you wait. It's just you, the island, and the waiting game.

Leo comes far slower than you hoped and far faster than you expected.

Falling onto your home with the same spectacular style he fell the first time, Leo brings a giant, shining dragon down with him this time.

You try to be mad, really, but you can't bring yourself to care. "You're late." You try to glare, crossing your arms and everything, but it's incredibly hard when a smile is forcing itself onto your face, no matter how hard you try to push it down.

It's especially hard when he laughs, sand coating his face and making a home in his messy hair, looking at you with a smile that could outshine Apollo. "Sorry, Sunshine," he grins. "Traffic was murder."

All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again.

But Leo Valdez could - and he did.

i cannot believe that it has been so long since boo came out and i haven't posted anything before now? i have a lot of stuff in the works in regards to pjo but as we all know i am a super slow writer so i apologize in advance for how long those are probably gonna take to come out

but yeah, back to this - long story short, i'm caleo trash. this is my proof of that.

leave a review, if you're up for that? (pLS BE UP FOR THAT)