A/N: Happy birthday to me (the 5th)! Brief hiatus break. Part one of a twoshot that's really just a long oneshot. I make no claims to brilliance; I'm just avoiding other work. Translation: review nicely.

Also, everybody should go read "Snare," by o Mischief Managed. Puts me to shame. Basically my favorite Leyna fic ever. Read it and adore her, omgs. It's hot like tater tots.

Disclaimer: I do not own PJO.

Reyna had a mental list going: things that she would never in a million years have anticipated. Things that ranked pretty high included having a Greek probatio elected praetor, or acquiring an addiction to jelly beans. Now she had something else to add: Jason standing in the doorway to her office, surrendering the camp bomber as a peace offering.

"Use your best judgment," the son of Jupiter was saying. "Keep in mind that Leo did majorly help us defeat Gaea, so try to stay out of 'cruel and unusual' territory."

The camp bomber went a little pale, his grin freezing in place. Reyna treated him to her best death stare.

"Thank you, Jason. I can take it from here." Praetors didn't dismiss each other, so they just nodded in sync, and Jason clapped his short Greek friend on the back and left.

She rose from her seat and stepped toward her guest/prisoner, her chin high and her hands clasped behind her back. A professional examination. Her first impression was that she didn't like the look of him—he looked wild, unpredictable, in a different way from, say, Percy. He was almost elfin, with his thick black curls and pointed ears and crinkly small nose. She knew about the eidolons, but going by appearances, she suspected he might do anything to get a laugh. Well, she was not laughing.

"Name," she said.

He jumped, laughing a little, nervously. "What?" He began to fiddle with his tool belt.

"Your name," she repeated in a clipped tone. Now she was irritated. Did Jason consort with idiots since his time in the Greek camp?

"Oh. Uh, Leo Valdez. You may have heard of me as the Super-Sized McShizzle."

Oh, gods. He was this kind of person. She wanted to rub her temples, but she settled for blinking deliberately, clenching her jaw. "Godly parent?" she forced out.

"Hephaestus. In Roman he's Vulcan, I think, like Star Trek." He gave a half-grin, raised his eyebrows, hoping for a laugh. She didn't respond.

"Excuse for attacking the peaceable city of New Rome with your warship?" she asked coldly.

His fingers worked double-time on his belt pockets, pulling things out and putting them back, buttoning and unbuttoning, twisting, turning, tugging. His mouth sped up too. "I thought you already—it wasn't me—not really. There were ghost possess-y things—eidolongs—lons—eidolons, that's what they're called. And one of 'em was all, 'Hey, look at that hot stuff, let's possess him and make him do stuff he wouldn't normally do, like start a war.' So if we're gonna 'cruel and unusual' anyone, it should be that ghost." He smiled at her hopefully.

She was unimpressed. "Really. I'll keep that in mind. Now, as both of my fellow praetors are effectively Greek ambassadors, I'll be conferencing them in when I decide what to do with you. Of course, I still have the prerogative."

Valdez actually gave a little sigh of relief. She stared him down in disapproval: he would do better to fear her.

"Until I come to a definitive decision, you will work to repair what was broken in the war," Reyna ordered. "You will have at least one legionnaire of centurion rank or higher supervising you at all times. You will not do anything without consulting me first. If you disobey, you will be put under house arrest. Do you understand?"

He nodded, pretending to be pensive. "Do I have to consult you for, like, snack time? Or potty breaks?"

She closed her eyes and breathed out through her nose. Why had Jason done this to her? "I anticipate I'll have your punishment decided within forty-eight hours. You may leave now."

Leo cocked his head. "Wait, so I don't get to ask any questions? It only seems fair. I want my turn at interrogation."

Bold. Foolhardy, even. Reyna's death glare returned. "Go right ahead," she said, low and dangerously calm, hoping he would take the warning and go, but he didn't. He was either very brave or very stupid. She was leaning towards the latter.

"You're Reyna, right?" he asked as his brilliant first question.

"Praetor. Reyna. Yes."

"We don't have praetors at Camp Half-Blood."

"I'm aware."

"The others told me about you," he continued, clearly oblivious. "I mean, they left out the whole Gorgeous and Homicidal part, but they mentioned you were a little territorial."

She ignored the attempt at flirtation. "If by 'territorial' you mean I don't like people shooting at my home, then yes, I'm a little territorial."

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Look, I'm sorry about that. It wasn't m—well, it was me, but not me me. I would never do that. Like I said."

Reyna crossed her arms in front of her armored chest, her nails digging into her skin as she tried not to entertain murder fantasies.

"Don't worry, homicidal girls don't bother me. Some people just can't take the awesomeness of the great Leo Valdez," he said with a grin. So that was it? Apologize and go back to hitting on someone entirely out of his league? Incidentally the same person proclaiming judgment on him? Oh, yes, that was a genius tactic. What a way to win a woman.

"Leave," she ordered, unable to take any more of him.

He threw her a flamboyant grin. Then he ducked out the door and ran for his life. That was, as far as she was concerned, the smartest thing he'd ever done.

The sun was high when Reyna came out to watch the children of Vulcan and Hephaestus at work. She met Percy and Jason at the edge of the gathering, all three of them in their fine purple capes. The boys were separate from their female counterparts for once, a feat even more remarkable since Percy and Annabeth's stay in Tartarus, but she didn't say anything about it. They were not here to socialize.

"I have a list of what we used in the war," she said, pulling out a clipboard and pen and flipping through the pages. "We need to see what's okay, what needs to be fixed, and what needs to be replaced. Any preferences on how we sort it out?"

The boys shrugged, and she did the same.

"Fine." She divided the list into approximate thirds and handed them out. "It's categorized by the demigod in charge of it. So, for example—" She glanced at the first page of her own section. "—I need to see Nyssa, daughter of Hephaestus, about the celestial bronze cannons."

"Gotcha," Jason said, flapping his papers in a salute. She narrowed her eyes infinitesimally—the gesture was strange, flippant—but even if she had wanted to ask him about it, he and Percy turned away, and that was the end of that.

As it turned out, Nyssa's cannons were only in need of a good oiling, so Reyna marked them down as "okay" and moved on to the next few items: Hannibal the elephant's gear (to be fixed), a couple of enchanted yew bows (to be replaced), bomb balls (mostly okay). But then she flipped to the second page, and she took one look at the first item and groaned. Greek warship Argo II, under care of Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus. Briefly she considered trading her section of the list for Jason's, but deep down she knew it would be unprofessional. She just needed to summon her diplomatic skills and do it.

After she climbed up onto the deck, she followed a trail of oil drips and found herself ducking into the Argo II engine room, wincing against the increase in noise and fumes. Holding her breath, she scanned the room until her gaze landed on the back of a T-shirt, smudged but bright orange underneath the grime. Something shot up a stream of steam and the T-shirt jerked backward, revealing Leo, pumping his fist and taunting the steam.

"Excuse me?" she called, more than ready to pronounce him under house arrest. He should have had a supervisor, one of her higher-ranking Romans around to make sure he didn't—ah. Dakota was passed out on the table in the corner. Great. That was helpful.

He didn't notice her. "Yeah, you thought you were tricky," he grinned, one fist bouncing toward the steaming machine. "But nadie se rie al Genius Supreme Commander Valdez—"

Nobody laughs at the Genius Supreme Commander Valdez? Really? "Excuse me," she shouted, stiff and sharp (why did she have to have him?), but that seemed to do the trick. He turned in surprise and for a moment she read on his honest face that he was at a loss—what had she come for? Was she here to admire his work, or to collect him for execution? And just for that second, by accident, she felt a little bad for him.

But the moment passed—Leo forced a grin, and Reyna straightened her back.

"Morning, reina," he said with a jaunty salute. "What can I do for you today?"

Sighing, she shuffled the papers in her clipboard and absently twirled her pen in her fingers. "I'm here to check up on the ship."

He brightened, his expression clearing, brows raising and uncreasing, smile stretching just a little more naturally. She couldn't tell if it was because he liked the topic in particular or simply because it wasn't I'm here to take you to your death. "Great!" he exclaimed, hopping out from behind his current project. "Gimme a second, I'll show you around." He vaulted over one of the big engine-looking things and landed beside her with a gymnast's flourish.

The surprise silly gymnastics were not as big of a surprise as its result: without thinking, she was tempted to say eight out of ten, maybe pretend to hold up a judge's score card, and though she neither said nor did either, the thought itself shocked her. The mere temptation to tease someone was rare, as few people dared to joke around with her. And the rareness was compounded by its being Leo, whom she barely knew and didn't particularly care for. It would appear his silly demeanor brought out her sense of humor, rusty though it was. Strange. She'd have to work on suppressing that.

Reyna shook her head just a tiny bit to clear it, and she half-turned toward the door. "Let's go, Valdez, I haven't got all day."

"Aye, aye, grumpy cap'n lady," he said with a grin and another salute, and he trotted to the door, sweeping his arms in the universal gesture for ladies first. She stepped back into the hallway, head high and shoulders back, and when she was through he jumped out too. His gaze went to her arm—was he thinking of offering his?—but thank the gods, he didn't try it. Instead he bounced ahead, gesturing for her to follow him. "I'm glad you've come, I mean, not you personally, even though you're amazing, just somebody in general," he babbled.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"People just think the Argo II runs great by itself and never has any trouble, which is understandable given my amazing skills, but really, we just won a war, so I think that merits a little TLC. Wouldn't you think?"

"Indubitably," she said flatly, uncapping her pen. "Can you show me anything in particular?"

Leo's expression brightened. "Sure!" he said, turning a corner, and then he launched into a lecture on trireme anatomy. She didn't understand ninety percent of what he said, but his enthusiasm was somewhat reassuring, and she did catch key words like "fine" or "needs." She wrote down what she could and made notes for questions to ask when he ran out of air.

Eventually he did, and before he could reopen his mouth she asked, "Can you just give me the condensed version of that? I really don't need the technical nuances—I just need to know what parts to budget for."

"Oh, uh, sure." His grin didn't reach his eyes quite as fully as before. "Here: you can put down that I need some new converter belts, more firepower for the cannons, new canvas for the mainsail, and better wiring for the internal lighting."

She marked these down as addendums to what she already had down. "Do you have any numbers for sure, or just 'some'?"

"Four belts," he said immediately. "Five pounds of gunpowder, just in case. Twenty-seven and a half yards of canvas, and seven yards of wiring at least. And if there's any extra room in the budget, a new Wii remote would be great."

Hmm. Reyna noted these as well, irritated at the slight sense of being impressed that was niggling at the back of her head. Of course he's skilled, she told herself. He's one of the Seven of the prophecy, and the head of his godly half-siblings. She shrugged it off, but the pragmatist in her held onto it. She hadn't yet decided what to do with him, though she'd been leaning toward banishment from Rome. But this checkup was making her think he might be useful. He clearly wasn't a threat, and if he knew mechanics this well, it might be more hurt than help to ban him from ever coming around. Especially given the talk of an aerial navy that the Senate had been throwing around.

Leo was staring at her, waiting. Damn, she was thinking again. She tapped her pen against the paper and said neutrally, "These repairs don't seem too bad. Must be a decent ship to have survived the war so well."

He beamed, this smile shining in his eyes. She almost took a step back. "Thanks, Reyna. She is pretty much the awesomest thing ever."

She didn't correct his use of her first name without a title, but just in case he was thinking about getting comfortable around her, she made sure her queenly posture was as flawlessly imposing as ever. "That will be all. I'll see myself out. And, Valdez—next time make sure your supervisor is conscious."

As he blinked rapidly at her standoffishness, a few emotions ran across his face, too quickly to name. But he recovered with his typical grace: "Thank you for the fabulous pleasure of your company, milady," he said melodramatically, sweeping her a clumsy bow. "Please feel free to come back if you need to meet your daily quota of awesome."

Reyna eyed him, trying not to be amused and mostly succeeding. "Tonto," she sighed under her breath, idiot, with a little shake of her head, and without waiting to see if he'd heard, she turned and swept toward the staircase that led up to the deck.

It turned out that he had in fact heard her. At lunch an hour later, Reyna approached the Seven just in time to hear Leo ask with serious determination, hanging bothersome over Jason's shoulder, "—is she? She insulted me in Spanish."

Jason was unimpressed, or maybe just unsurprised. He rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "I think she's Puerto Rican, yeah."

"Dios mio, man, you know what this means?" Leo demanded, ecstatic, practically bouncing. "There's finally somebody who can—"

"Be irritated with you in more than one language?" she supplied, perching beside Annabeth on the opposite couch. The blonde gave her a smile; Reyna's lips quirked as she nodded in return.

Leo immediately fixed his attention on her, dark eyes focused, searching, undeterred. "No, mi reina, hablar conmigo en español," he corrected. He wanted to speak Spanish with her?

"No es de buena educación usar una lengua diferente a la que se habla en un grupo," she reprimanded him, the Spanish rolling too easily off her tongue to stop it: it's impolite to use a language different from that spoken in a group. But rather than shaming him, this only encouraged him, and his grin gained more teeth. "Que tonto eres," she muttered, and then she switched back to English. "Does everyone's food taste all right?" Not that she truly believed it was questionable—she just wanted verbal confirmation that her Romans and her Greek guests were both satisfied.

"Great as normal," Jason said, Piper leaning into him. "How's work coming?"

Reyna gave a small shrug, her jaw clenching at the couple's closeness. If it had been just him, she might have considered going into more detail about answering letters, trying to handle war repairs, deciding Leo's fate, but she didn't know the rest of the Seven well enough to admit any weakness. "Fine. There's a lot of it."

He didn't make any sign that he read her discomfort through her curtness. She would have liked to imagine he did see it and just didn't want to embarrass her by pointing it out here, but really, she knew there was a much better chance that he simply hadn't noticed. She put it out of her mind for now.

Reyna was returning to her office after going for her midafternoon hot chocolate when Leo got in her way, quite literally. He walked into her path and then began to back up, remaining always in front of her.

"Buenas tardes, reina," he said nonchalantly, grinning at what he probably thought was a sly use of Spanish.

Her response was cool and crisp (and English): "Afternoon." She tried to circumvent him to the left, then to the right, but both times he moved with her. "Out of my way, Valdez."

"Where you going?"

"To work, believe it or not."

"Can I come?"

"Do I look like a daycare center?" Reyna feinted left and then skipped around Leo to the right, and she got a few seconds of quiet walking in before he caught back up with her, this time trotting along at her side like a puppy. An irritating puppy, the kind that would dig up gardens and pee in the living room.

"No, really, I had some questions about some stuff," he said. Given his incomprehensible complexity when talking about the Argo II's inner workings, she suspected that his current vagueness meant he just needed someone to entertain him. She definitely didn't have time to babysit the son of Hephaestus today, but he could be exceedingly stubborn when it suited him, so she compromised.

"It'll take me five minutes to reach my office," she said, raising her chin an inch as she deigned to glance at him. "Start talking."

He brightened and immediately obeyed: "Okay, so I was talking to Piper and Jason earlier, 'cause I was working and they came to see me—some people do that 'cause me aman, you know, not just 'cause they need me for something. Anyway, they came to see me, and we were talking about New Rome."

Reyna's ears perked up. She hadn't expected a topic she actually cared about. "What about New Rome?"

"I was getting there," Leo said, crossing his arms in mock pain. "We were talking about New Rome, and—"

"I got that."

"If you keep interrupting me, I'm going to keep starting over," he warned. "We. Were. Talking. About. New. Rome. And Piper said something about how Percy and Annabeth were thinking about going to college here, and I asked why we didn't have someplace like this for Camp Half-Blood."

Probably because Greek demigods tend to die before they get old enough for it, Reyna thought but didn't say. That would be politically incorrect. Her politically correct alternative: raising her eyebrows infinitesimally and shrugging.

"So Jason and I thought it might be cool to build, like, a New Athens or something on Long Island!" Leo bounced forward. "Or maybe one Greek-Roman-neutral camp in the middle between Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter. Do you think that might be a thing you might do? Or help with? Or not attack with fire?"

This surprised her, though less with the mention of Jason's input. A New Athens (or whatever the name) would be a logical investment for the Greek camp, but her perspective was torn over the idea of a middle-ground camp. On one hand, yes, it was only common sense that the two camps learn to get along by living together. But on the other hand, it might increase the odds of monster attacks, or of inter-camp fighting.

"Would it replace the two individual camps?" she asked, her brows knitting as she tried to process the possibility of leaving Camp Jupiter behind forever.

Leo's face cleared as he realized she hadn't immediately shot the idea down. "No! I mean, it could, but it wouldn't have to. And obviously we haven't thought through any of the details yet. I—we just thought it was a cool idea."

"Hmm." She looked back to her path, still thinking on it. "We'll see."

"Awesome," he grinned. She was prepared for three minutes of awkward silence but then he blurted, "Oh! I had another question? Nobody here's said anything about building an aerial navy, but I'm 98 percent sure I saw some of your Heph—Vulcan kids marking over designs for a flying ship."

Reyna glanced over at him, trying to discern from his expression where he was going with this. But his emotions were mixed up and illegible, and he didn't continue. "What's your question?" she prompted him.

"Uh . . . I guess, are you guys making a bunch of Argo IIs?"

"I can't confirm or deny it at this point," she said, which was a roundabout way of (not officially) admitting that they were thinking about it. "Why, is it an issue?" At the last Senate meeting, when they had brought up the possibility for (ahem) building an aerial navy, no one had said anything about copyright problems.

"Not unless you try to set them on us," he joked. "Might be cool to see your guys' take on magic flying ships. Though none would have as cool a masthead as Festus."

She didn't comment. The fire-breathing dragon head was a truly fearsome figurehead, easily of the same caliber as the classic warships'. And her pragmatic nature approved of (if she remembered correctly from Jason's description) its double-duty as the motherboard.

Then they were paused in front of her office door, and he smoothed his hair back and leaned against a column, trying desperately not to be awkward.

"This is me," she said, short and awkward, and he kind of flailed one hand in a wave before she and her hot chocolate went back inside to work.

The next morning, a quick double-knock came from the outside of Reyna's office door, and as usual she just rapped the end of her pen against the paper and called, "Come in," without breaking pace. The door swung open, and she looked up to see Jason come in with a stack of papers tucked in his arm. Involuntarily she smoothed back her braid, straightened her armor; something about his constant perfection made her question herself.

"Here's this," he said, offering her a tentative smile as he pulled them out, straightened them, and handed them to her over the desk. She took them and glanced them over: they were his third of the war gear checkup list. He'd marked exactly what needed to be replaced, detailed and flawless, just like her own. She'd expected nothing less.

"Thank you," she said with a nod, setting it beside her and Percy's thirds. Once she was done with her current project, she'd make a compilation of all the repairs they'd need to budget and execute. He hung around, and she eyed him, masking her uncertainty. Did he need something else? Did he think she needed something else? Was he expecting her to make small talk? She'd never been good at it; he knew that, or at least ought to have.

"Everything okay?" she managed, which she thought was a nice balance between Concerned and Professional.

He shook himself a little and focused a little more on her. "Huh? Sorry, I was thinking about some—something else."

She set her pen down and interlocked her fingers on the mahogany desktop, interested and trying not to be. "Anything I can help with?"

He considered this. "What do you think about going out to dinner?"

This came like a happy kick to the stomach; pleased nervousness rising in her chest, she drew herself up, adjusted her seat, prepared to—

"Sorry, I mean, not you and me specifically. Like, as a date idea in general. Would it have to be fancy, or can it be casual, or . . .?" He drifted off, rubbing his jaw.

Immediately she halted, the nervousness deflating into heavy disappointment, though she never for a minute let it register on her face. Piper. She reminded herself for the thousandth time that she was happy for him, really she was. "I suppose it would depend on the girl," she said, a little stiff. "Speaking as one myself, I'd say as long as it didn't look thrown together at the last minute, anywhere on the fancy-casual spectrum would be acceptable."

"Really, you think?"

"Yes," she sighed, and the relief that saturated him made her pick up her pen again. "I should really be finishing this, if you don't mind."

"Oh, sure, no problem." He was half out the door before he turned and gave a half-wave. "See you around, Reyna."

"See you around," she echoed, but her gaze lingered on him, melancholy, and then he was gone. Taking a deep breath and holding it, she looked back to her file, but the words swam in her vision. She blinked the stinging sensation away and forced herself to put away the emotions. This is work time, she said to herself, firm and unyielding. You can have self-pity time later, when your work is all done. But a stray drop of water dripped from her chin onto the paper, spreading into a circle of darker white as it soaked in, and for a minute she let herself squeeze her eyes shut, disappointed in life and Jason but mostly in herself.

Then she wiped the stinging wetness from her eyes, reopened them, set her jaw, and signed her initials in ink over the water-soaked line.

Reyna had just set aside that form and replaced it with a notepad and the complete list of war utilities when someone knocked on the door again. She looked up sharply, missing the last stroke in her "A"—was Jason back?

"Come in?" she said, gripping the pen like it was a sword hilt. The door swung open to reveal Leo stuffing his face with five-cheese nachos.

"Ma'y'ana, 'ayna," he garbled through the chips and topping, a greeting she interpreted to be meant as "mañana, reina"—morning, queen. Why was he so obsessed with getting her to engage with him in Spanish?

Her eyebrows drew together as she forced herself to stay in English. "Morning, Valdez. I haven't decided yet; come back later." She hoped he couldn't tell she'd almost been crying—that was the last thing she needed, for him to think she'd been shedding tears over his fate.

Leo shrugged, wiping some crumbs from his mouth. "I was actually just here to say hi. And offer you a nacho, si uno desea."

He held out the plate, and she eyed it, sorely tempted but not entirely convinced. The grease would doubtless get all over her pen and paper, and what was even in the toppings? For all she knew, Leo liked hot sauce and pickles on his nachos.

He read her hesitation but didn't retract the offer. "It's just tortilla chips y queso, mi reina."

Huh. It did smell delicious, and her stomach was grumbling under her armor. Reyna motioned for him to take a step closer as she dug through her lowest desk drawer for the napkins she kept hidden for mid-workday snacking. "I'll just take one," she said, and with a grin Leo swept into a partial kneel, holding out the plate of nachos like he thought he was a waiter in a fancy restaurant.

Reyna carefully pinched one chip from the only corner that wasn't covered in cheese, but when she lifted it up the cheese strung along 3 other chips as well. Reyna decided to just keep the extras—you know, throw herself on the bomb.

"Try it, try it," Leo demanded, staring her down. Tentatively she bit off one corner of nacho, prepared to spit the food out and comment on how mechanics should never make food—but ay caray, that nacho was the best snack she'd had in days. Her hand over her mouth, she wasted no time in stringing the other chips apart and eating those too.

"Good?" he prompted.

"Really good," she said in surprise through the mouthful, making him beam. "Wow. Now that is a useful skill."

His held-out plate lowered, and his smile lost a few teeth. "You think I don't have any useful skills?"

Mierda. She shook her head no and swallowed the nachos. "No, that's not what I meant, I meant as opposed to someone else, theoretically, who maybe couldn't cook or . . ." She was not helping herself. Trailing off, she gave up trying to make her words sound good. "I guess I didn't expect you to be able to cook."

"Oh, that's not cooking. I can't cook actual food. Just snack variants." He shrugged like it wasn't a real issue.

The corners of her lips twitched upwards. "Did you need something, or did you just come by to feed a hungry praetor?"

Leo set down the plate between them and leaned against the desk. "Nah—none of the centurions were available to keep an eye on the bad boy supreme, so since I'm not really feeling house arrest, I thought I'd come see if you had alternate instructions. And, you know, to say hi and feed a lovely, hungry praetor lady."

It was a good thing for Leo that her lie-detector dogs were in the kennel today. Reyna felt her face go a little warm at the nod to her (debatable) attractiveness, but her complexion was dark enough that, thank the gods, she know the blush wouldn't be visible. Back to the topic at hand: "Did you ask Percy or Jason?"

"Couldn't find either of them."

Ah. This did pose a problem. "Well, I certainly can't have you running around causing trouble in my camp," she mused.

"My awesome might distract the peasant-folk," he agreed.

She breathed out short through her nose—almost a laugh, but not quite—and continued, "And I definitely don't want you messing around on your warship without supervision. So I guess for now . . ." Oh, gods. ". . . you can stay here with me."

Surprise flitted across his face, replaced swiftly by an almost childish glee. Before he could start anything, she set aside her pen and asked, "How's your work coming?" Just a moment's break couldn't hurt. And more important, if he didn't get a little one-on-one attention, she suspected he might be reduced to playing practical jokes in her office.

Leo brightened up considerably. "It's going really well! Festus was for the last day pitching a fit about his cracked transmitter, but I found a spare one in one of your camper's stuff—no te preocupes, I asked first—and ever since I installed that, he's been great and I actually fixed a carburetor in half the time it normally takes me!"

"Congratulations," she replied, her tone bland. His enthusiasm was commendable, but she really had no idea what he was going on about. A conversation on war tactics and how to avoid feelings would be more up her alley. "Next you'll be telling me your thingamabob skitzafritzed, and I just don't think I can handle the shock."

Laughter bubbled out of him, and he cocked his head and looked at her a little oddly. "You made a funny?"

It had only felt proper. Her eyebrows drew together a little. "Don't expect it to happen again," she shrugged as she picked up her pen again and began to draft her complete list of Repairs To Budget For. Her own section was first, so she moved efficiently through her immaculate handwriting. She was almost through page five when she felt the presence behind her.

"Do you ever smile?" Leo asked, hanging over Reyna's shoulder as she worked. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes or, worse, make a joking reply that he might interpret as encouragement.

"Only if there's something around worth smiling at," she replied, her tone unamused but at least not icy. That was almost friendly, and more than most people would ask of her, but this person kept at her, looking for her sense of humor. Luckily she'd spent so long keeping it under lock and key that it wasn't terribly difficult to ignore him. Of course, it would have been easier had he left her alone.

"What are your thoughts on puns?" he asked contemplatively. As if Leo Valdez could ever even dream of being contemplative.

"I think the world is better off without them." Which was 90 percent lie. The 10 percent truth was the fact that she made a strange snerking sound when she laughed at them, so really it was better for the entire world if she never had to hear them.

"Really? I think seven days without any punning makes one weak," he said, straight-faced, and it took her a second to realize he was punning.

But she'd heard that one before. "I need silence to work," she said shortly.

"A grenade thrown into a French kitchen could result in Linoleum Blownapart."

She gritted her teeth. That way if her lips twitched, she could pass it off as extended facial frustration.

"Alcohol and calculus don't mix, so don't drink and derive."

"You realize I don't have to keep you around."

"I suppose that's true," he mused, and then he fell silent for a few peaceful minutes. And then: "Did you hear about the crime that happened in the parking garage? It was wrong on so many levels."

"Leave," she burst out, hiding a chuckle with a heavy sigh as she threw her hand toward the door. He cocked his head again, and she pressed her lips together. "I'm very serious. Get out. I need to work. Go find Percy or Jason, and come back tomorrow at noon."

"Okay, okay," he said, raising his hands and backing out, but before he was gone he added, "With the apocalypse approaching, Armageddon out of here."

Thankfully he swung out the door and didn't see her lips twitch upward even while being pressed together. Hmm. She had very nearly figured out how to handle Leo, and she was going to regret this decision; she could just feel it.

The next day, one day late to her estimated deadline, Reyna had the dubious pleasure of waking up at five o'clock to the clanging of two metal dogs trying to tear each other apart. Even when she separated them into their cages (had she forgotten to drop both locks last night?) they kept banging against the frames, so she had to take them to a Vulcan mechanic and then—when that failed to solve anything—to take him to the infirmary and cart Aurum and Argentum to work with her.

It was, at that point, six in the morning. If she wasn't running, that was far too early to be up.

She struggled to get work done with two ornery automatons causing trouble, but she managed well enough, though she kept hoping they'd wear themselves out and go into sleep mode. She knew the Vulcan kids could initiate that mode, but they wouldn't let her mess with the dogs' mechanical inner workings, so even though she might be able to guess at it, she didn't want to accidentally make the problem worse or even cause permanent damage. Which meant the dogs only got more irritable as the morning wore on, and she had no good way of fixing it.

Noon came and went, with no break for lunch. She didn't trust her dogs to be alone for that long. About two o'clock in the afternoon, Reyna was drafting a response to a question about legionnaire status when someone knocked on her door.

"Come in," she called, glancing up to see what brave soul had come to see her. Maybe by the grace of the gods, a better mechanic? She crossed her ankles under the table, and Aurum snapped at her half-heartedly, earning a firm "no." He and his brother sat up as the door creaked open to reveal Leo, who was putting a lot of effort into his "happy and carefree" mode today. Probably a defense mechanism, since he was two hours late.

"You called, milady?" he asked, tugging on his suspenders, but when Argentum growled the dog stole his attention.

Reyna half-rose from her seat. "I did. For you to come at noon. I wanted to—excuse me?"

Leo had sunk to his haunches and was holding out his hand to the dogs, neither of whom looked particularly thrilled to meet him, if the angry red gleam in their eyes was any indication. She started to warn him, "I really wouldn't—" But the next instant Leo was up close and personal with her greyhounds, rubbing them behind the ears and trailing his fingers along their mechanisms with obvious curiosity, and they did nothing except whine a little bit. As he pulled a tiny wrench, a screwdriver, and some other tool she couldn't name out of his tool belt, he pressed along Aurum's neck and then manipulated something so that the dog froze in sleep mode. He opened up a neck panel, poked around inside until something went clink, and then when he closed it up and restarted Aurum, the dog's tail pounded the floor. Grinning a little to himself, he did the same repair on Argentum and received the same response. The now-congenial dogs head-butted the son of Hephaestus, demanding more of his attention, specifically the rubbing behind the ears.

Reyna was staring, frozen in shock, when eventually Leo got back to his feet. He looked back at her, clearly self-conscious, probably waiting for her to throw something at him. "Hope that helps," he offered, though it came out more like a question.

"How did you do that?"

"Oh, that was the easiest automaton fix I've ever done, just an automator cog loose in the—"

"That's not what I meant. How did you fix them without getting killed?"

Leo shrugged, grinned, turned a sight shade of pink. "What can I say, machines love me. Better than people do, most of the time."

She eyed him and shook her head. "No, they've been tetchy all day. They bit a Vulcan mechanic twice on the arm, and they were even starting to snap at me. There is no logical reason why they would like you so well, take so quickly to you."

He held up his hands, palms up. "My skills do defy logic, pretty praetor lady. It's best not to question it."

Reyna had a good sense for what battles were worth pursuing, and this was not one of them. Exhaling, she filed that tidbit away and motioned with two fingers for Leo to have a seat. He lowered himself into one of the chairs in front of her desk, and his legs began to jitter as he and she stared at each other. She crinkled her nose at an unexpected new smell—"Is something burning?"

"No!" he yelped, his hands flying to his hair. As he patted his curls, the slight smell of smoke faded away. She put this away for later reflection as well. "Did you need me for something, or did you just miss me?" he prompted, hasty to change the subject.

"Sí, te extrañé." She slipped into sarcastic Spanish accidentally—perhaps having another Spanish speaker around would be more trouble than she had anticipated. No matter—he had brightened far too much, so she made a conscious return to English. "No, I called you here because I've decided what I'm going to do with you."

His grin froze in place, carefully carefree. "And the verdict is . . .?"

She rested her chin in one hand and clicked her nails against the mahogany desktop. "My first thought was, of course, execution," she said, which wasn't really an answer. "And if not for your part in the war with Gaea, rest assured that's certainly what you would have earned."

This did not seem to comfort Leo.

"So my next thought was banishment," she continued. "That way I don't incur anyone's wrath by killing you, but I still don't have to see you ever again."

His eyes didn't leave hers, yet something in his attitude deflated. Was he blanching?

"But it would be foolhardy of me to pretend you don't have your uses," she finished, earning a sharp intake of air from him. "So you can stay, for now. I'm going to have you keep working on reconstruction, and maybe help my Romans develop that aerial navy."

Leo began to jitter again, almost a whole-body movement, and the warmth reentered his eyes and smile. He reached for her like he wanted to hug her; she leaned backward, out of reach. "Thank you so much, Reyna, dios mio, you're so awesome, gracias gracias gracias, I'll be good, I swear, no bombings or anything—"

"Don't read too much into it," she shrugged it off, though she would have been lying if she said she wasn't a little bit pleased to be appreciated. "It was a diplomatic decision made based on logic and reason."

"And grace," he insisted. "And awesomeness."

She cocked her head a quarter of an inch and pursed her lips, but didn't disagree. "All right, perhaps a bit of those too. But—" He tried to start praising her again, and she talked over him. "—But I have work to do right now, so you, leave."

Grinning and giddy, Leo left with strings of Spanish on his tongue, praising her wisdom and leaderliness and also the perfection of her facial features. It was . . . as much as she hated to admit it, it was nice to be appreciated. She shook her head, suppressing the barest hint of a smile, and turned back to her paperwork. It wasn't until her greyhounds started pawing at the door, whining for the mechanic to reappear, that it occurred to her that they had a nearly flawless sense of character.