A/N: Salutations! This is a series of Leo/Reyna songfics, 'cause I just adore Leyna and I know a lot of songs that work for it. This first one is a songfic to Dare You To Move by Switchfoot. Hope you like!

Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes of Olympus. It belongs to the amazing author known as Rick Riordan. I also don't belong the lyrics to Dare You To Move. They belong to the amazing band known as Switchfoot.

/*\*/*\

Welcome to the planet, welcome to existence, everyone's here, everyone's here...

Leo wishes he had a time machine. There were so many things he would love to change. He would go back several years and have never let his mother go back into that workshop that would go up in flames minutes later. He would go back a few weeks and stop himself from looking like a fool in front of Reyna when they first met ("I'm...um...Le-you are really pretty.").

He would go back ten minutes and stop himself from telling Reyna everything. Everything that had been weighing on his mind like a ton of boulders, just waiting for their chance to break him. Everything that had been keeping him awake at night, and, when he finally did sleep, made him dream about only one person. Everything that had made these past weeks the best weeks of his life.

And she had just looked at him with those intelligent brown eyes of hers, blinked three times exactly (he had counted), and said, "Okay."

"Okay." Not "I feel the same." Not "I had no idea, but that's the most amazing thing I've ever heard." Not even "Wow."

"Okay."

Well, Leo certainly didn't feel okay right now. He feels like Reyna had rode her pegasus right over him. But that's what this love business is like in the real world, isn't it? Nothing like in the Disney movies.

Leo rests his chin on his knees with a heavy sigh. He gazes out unseeingly at the sunset as the yellow ball fades and disappears behind the trees. He wonders if maybe he should leave his perch in the tree, but he can't bring himself to. He feels safe up here. Or at least, safe from the possibility of running into Reyn-

Leo snaps the rubber band on his wrist as hard as he can, and it delivers a hard, stinging smack to his wrist. He grimaces at the pain, but it distracts him from far greater pain.

He leans back against the trunk of his tree, resting his head on a branch. Brittle leaves tickle his bare skin but he can't be bothered to care. He doesn't feel in the mood to care about anything. He doesn't care that he has been missing for eight and a half hours and that somebody is probably looking for him. He doesn't care that his stomach growls loudly every ten seconds because he has missed both lunch and dinner. He doesn't care about anything. Nothing but her. But she doesn't care about him, does she?

Leo squeezes his eyes shut and is almost asleep when he hears a voice call out his name. He groans inwardly and hopes that the foliage from the tree is enough to hide him from view. But it must not be, because a moment later he hears a rustling in the branches, a twig snap, and then Reyna's head appears startlingly close to him.

"There you are, Valdez," Reyna says by way of greeting. "I was pretty sure that I would find you here."

He wants to tell her that he wishes she hadn't found him at all, but he can't say that, so he just grunts. She pulls herself up further so she's beside him on the thick branch that would make an Ares (or Mars) kid look like a toothpick. Leo makes no comment, instead just crossing his arms across his chest and looking away like a pouting little kid. He can feel her eyes boring into him and, not for the first time, wishes that he could know what she's thinking in that infuriatingly secretive mind of hers.

"Why are you up here?" Reyna asks finally. He glances over at her with an 'are-you-kidding-me?' look on his face. She just shrugs.

"I needed to get away," Leo answers after a long while during which Reyna looks at him and he looks at his hands.

"I can understand that," Reyna says knowingly. Leo quickly snaps the rubber band on his wrist to stop the flood of words that he feels coming on. When he stays silent, Reyna continues. "Everyday is like a whirlwind. You know?" He nods. "And everybody is always counting on me to be the leader, and have a plan no matter what happens, and never show any emotion, let alone fear." She studies him intensely. "Do you see what I'm getting at here?"

Everybody's watching you now, everybody waits for you now, what happens next? What happens next?

He shrugs moodily. "I guess so. But don't you ever need to have somebody to just talk to without having to pretend?"

"For a long time, that person for me was Jason," Reyna admits. Leo's expression darkens.

"Is that why you rejected me earlier?" he asks glumly, before sense can stop him in his tracks. "Because of Jason?"

Reyna looks taken aback, but she nods slowly. "Partly, I suppose."

"He's not as great as everybody makes him out to be, you know," Leo says, desperation tinging his voice and mannerisms as he reaches out and slips his hands into hers. She's too stunned to react and pull away. Or maybe she just doesn't want to pull away.

"Leo," Reyna murmurs pleadingly. "You have to understand something."

"What?" he demands. "That I'm not Jason, and I never will be? I understand that, Reyna. Loud and clear."

Welcome to the fallout, welcome to resistance, the tension is here, tension is here...

"It's not that," she assures him immediately. "It's that...well, surely you've noticed that we're about to be at war, Leo. I cannot afford to become close to somebody right before a war. Because if you died..." she trails off, but he has heard enough to understand.

"So...it's not because I'm not good enough?" Leo asks. "It's that you're afraid of becoming close to me and then losing me?" When she nods, his heart soars and he gives her hands a squeeze. "Reyna, I'm not going to die. Trust me, I've got plans for my life. Ain't no giants going to stop me."

She starts to protest that he doesn't know that for sure, but the corners of her mouth slowly twitch upwards in spite of herself.

"You'll get yourself killed just because of your cockiness," she declares reprovingly.

"My cockiness can be a good thing, though, no?" He winks at her and she rolls her eyes but leans against him a bit. They sit in comfortable silence with no noise to disrupt the moment save the occasional chirp of a cricket. And then Reyna speaks, softly.

"This is so wrong, Leo."

"Wrong?" he repeats, horrified. "What could possibly be wrong about this?"

"Wrong. I told you before: I can't do this. And what about Jason?" she adds, and then immediately wishes that she hadn't when she sees the look on his face.

"Jason," Leo pronounced carefully, "can go screw himself. Or better yet, get Piper to do it for him."

"Leo!" Reyna glares at him. Leo meets her gaze evenly and then says what is possibly the single most incredible thing she has ever heard come out of anybody's mouth.

"I dare you to move. I dare you to go back to how we were: friends who didn't know how far they could go before it all fell apart. I dare you to pretend that today never happened. I know that for one, I can't. Because I love you."

I dare you to move, I dare you to move, I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor, I dare you to move, I dare you to move, like today never happened, today never happened before...

She stares at him for a minute. For once in her life, she is at a complete loss for words. She opens her mouth to reply, though she doesn't know what she plans on saying, but she is interrupted by a snapping sound. Both Leo and Reyna look down and see Piper standing below them with her hands on her hips, tapping her foot impatiently.

"Reyna, you left to find Leo an hour ago," she calls up. "What exactly have you two been doing? Actually, forget I asked that question. I really don't want to know."

Reyna rolls her eyes and is about to climb down when she realizes she never replied to his declaration of love. She meets his anxious eyes with a slight smile.

"Yeah. Same here, I guess."

And with that, she drops down from the tree and lands on her feet. Leo joins her after a few moments of dwelling on her answer, except he lands on his knees and groans loudly. Reyna and Piper grab his shoulders and hoist him to his feet. He smiles sheepishly.

"Come on, love birds," Piper tells them. She then walks away, leaving them looking after her with raised eyebrows.

"You have any idea what she meant by that?" Leo asks casually. Reyna gives a shake of her head even as she slips her hand into his and leads him back towards Camp Jupiter.

As they walk, she notices the rubber band on his wrist, along with a few painful-looking red marks. She blinks and gestures at them, asking Leo what they are. He shrugs sheepishly and replies, "Nothing..."

She just rolls her eyes and leans her head on his shoulder. "Okay."

I dare you to move, like today never happened, today never happened, today never happened, today never happened before...

/*\*/*\

A/N: I know it was short, and it strayed a bit from the song, but I enjoyed writing it. I hope you liked it, and please PM me if you have any suggestions for a song. DO NOT leave a song suggestion in a review. Thank you!

- Hyper