When he asked for the Gods to let Calypso free, he didn't get what he expected. They told him to find her and take her off her island, but they warned him that her immortality would fade away. It took him three years to find Ogygia, but that was only because he would be called back to camp, either by friends, his siblings, or by orders of the Gods.
But when he found her, it was as if time had stopped –though he wasn't sure why, maybe it was just the magic of Ogygia. She was a bit older, a bit taller, and a bit friendlier, but he was too, and he was happy to say that he was two inches taller than her now.
Calypso didn't kiss him, not that he had really expected her to. No, instead she ran to him and jumped into his arms, knocking them both to the ground.
But that didn't matter, as he was there with his magnificent boat to take her off that dreaded island. She didn't even care about losing her immortality; all she wanted was to get away.
So they sailed away, just the two of them on the huge war trireme.
When they made it back to New York, everything started to change. He started classes for engineering, and worked the odd repair job in between the somewhat steady garages. She started making clothes and worked the little plot of ground that they had outside of their apartment building –even though they lived on the fifth floor and their landlord didn't want her out in the yard. And she started writing, late at night, when they had pushed the little coffee table that he made –which they also used as their dining room table- up against the wall and rolled out their inflatable bed, which just had enough room, once they pushed all of their –his- half forgotten projects away, she would sit on his lap and read to him. They didn't have a TV and the radio only got the one good station that they liked once in a fifty chance –though they tried every night and he reconfigured the radio at least once every three days-, she would tell him stories from her island, while writing them down at the same time in one of his special graphing notebooks.
Those nights were the nights that they turned off all the lights except for the one overhead one, and they lite dimly sweet candles around the apartment. Those were they nights that he felt her immortality fade away as she wrote down her stories about almost lovers and their lovers far away. Those were also the nights that he was happy that they lived on the fifth floor and could only hear the traffic outside if they opened the window more than halfway.
It was those nights that they would kiss each other softly and murmur about ideas and plans and anything that they wouldn't say under any other circumstance.
Some nights though, when she didn't want to think about Ogygia and he didn't want to hear about her prison, they would play cards. He knew all the card games and then some, growing up in different foster homes taught him how to gamble though, but they only gambled in the nuts and bolts that he has plenty of and yet never enough when he really seems to need them. She likes those nights, as the laughter always starts in his stomach and makes its way up to his chest and then out of mouth. Those are the nights that she can feel her immortality slipping away, just as Leo tells another bad joke. He speaks in Spanish on these nights, because she loves the way he rolls his R's and she wants to learn to speak like that as so many people speak Spanish where they live.
PercyandAnnabeth, PiperandJason, or FrankandHazel, come by every few days, or they go over to one of their apartments. Except for Tuesdays, which have affectionately become to be known as Taco Tuesday, and the eight -sometimes nine if Nico comes along, sometimes ten if Rachel also gets roped in- of them crowd into the too small apartment for tacos, and cards, and talking, and laughing, and memories, and stories. It reminds Leo of when he was younger, of Sunday dinners at his abeula's* house. But what's best is that there's no awkwardness between Calypso and PercyandAnnabeth, or between him and FrankandHazel.
Calypso is also amazing at making salsa, but that's because she makes it every Monday night, no matter what time they get in.
One thing leads to another and he's out of school long before anyone expected. Everyone is happy for him and a party gets thrown in his honor in time for them to spend that first weekend of summer at camp. It works out better than plan because Mr. D isn't there, and the Stollbrothers raid the kitchen, and somehow ClarisseandChris get alcohol in, and he wakes up on top of the Demeter cabin grass roof in only his boxers.
But he's not the worse off.
With his degree, and a little help from the bank, and a lot of help from Hephaestus, they open the first shop. The bought a building and suddenly he doesn't have to catch a bus or the subway to make it to work on time because they live right above his work. They also have a real bedroom, but they only really use it to store clothes and he builds a desk for her to have a space to write in.
The garden is beautiful in the back and their flowerbeds are the envy of every business within five blocks of them. They get a great reputation within their first month, he can fix or build anything, she can cook and mendandmake any clothes.
They still stay up too late at night, their blown-up bed in the living room, but because of this, he's the first to get a call from Percy telling them 'yes, she said yes' to his proposal. And too soon than he would want to admit, Annabeth is coming over to talk to Calypso about flowers and dresses.
Not that he really minds, but it does bite into their alone time.
Months later, a few weeks before the wedding, he lets Hazel in on a Wednesday night, and within two hours she's telling him that Piper –his best friend- is pregnant.
Oh, and PiperandJason are no longer PiperandJason, but just Piper and just Jason, even though the baby is Jason's.
Once he sends Hazel on her way, he finds himself over at PercyandAnnabeth's (almost) new house, where their (almost) finished wedding plans are hanging by the chandelier and the four of them –Jason, PercyandAnnabeth, and Calypso- are talking (arguing) about flowers.
He doesn't really think about what he tells Jason, he just knows that he has to tell him. Piper may be his best friend, but Jason is his bro, the brother he never got to have.
Not that he would ever let Piper know that.
Jason runs out of there faster than he's ever seen a white boy run –though he doesn't mean it in a racist way. And when PercyandAnnabeth ask him how he found out, he tells them about his night with Hazel, which was just dinner and cards.
They play Uno until Jason comes back, his face red from where Piper slapped him, and he tells them all the details, concluding that he's not moving back to California because he wants to be there for the baby. Then he throws his cards on the table and starts crying.
The next time he sees any of his friends is that next Tuesday for tacos and cards, Nico ends up coming as Hazel dragged him along. For the first time since Leo met him, he seems almost normal, almost. Though no one will say anything as Hazel will have their heads and to his surprise Calypso warms up to him better than anyone.
A week before the wedding though has Nico and Leo leaving some fancy suit shop on what was supposed to be a good day. It ends with Nico missing and thought dead, and Leo returning to his friends with Nico's sword. Leo keeps the sword in the back of a closest; maybe he'll give it to one of his children, or someone else's.
Either way, Leo has claim to the name Nico, when it comes to naming his children. The others don't argue, not even Calypso.
PercyandAnnabeth get married without a single problem. The summer moves on in its normal crazy pace. He can't help but note that Piper's getting bigger every time he sees her, and she yells at him every time he mentions it, once she even threw a spare hammer at him, barely missing his face.
They never hear the phone ring on that blistering hot day in September, but when they do, they feel horrible and he's almost sick in the subway.
When they get there, Piper is holding a small tan bundle in her arms, while Jason is watching the door on one side of Piper's bed. Piper's dad sits calmly on her other side, smiling at his grandson.
Stephan Jason McLean.
Piper lets him sit at the end of her bed and puts the baby in his hands.
'Tìo Leo, right?'**
He doesn't stop smiling, even after they leave the hospital.
She finds it odd, how he's so in love with the little boy, but never brings up marriage or children with her. He seems to like being Tìo and she has to admit being Tìa Calypso*** is fun, especially after PercyandAnnabeth have their son Charles Perseus.
His name is shorten to Charlie before Frank even holds him –and he's the third person to do so as neither Grover or Thalia (the godparents) are around. Annabeth is angry about it, but Percy just points out that Beckendorf was sometimes known as Charlie, she doesn't say anything about it, but she never gives in to the nickname.
That July, the heat never breaks. They find themselves sleeping almost naked with the overhead fan spinning lazily overhead and the sound of traffic loud through the open window.
She wakes up one night and demands that Leo finally fixes the air conditioner sitting –not even- five feet away from them.
An hour, their stripped alarm clock, and a sudden hush from the city later, has them both lying on their bed, cuddling each other as coolness hits their hot tired skin.
She doesn't tell him –or anyone- about the baby until after Stephan's birthday.
He faints, but that doesn't end up being their only good news that day. As about five minutes later, she's hanging up the phone and telling him that her first novel is getting publish.
They let the rest of their friends know that Tuesday.
In January, when she feels too big to be comfortable and stands with Annabeth –whose only about a three weeks behind her- and Piper –whose a month ahead of her-, and watches the boys move stuff into her's and Leo's new house. It's about two blocks from PercyandAnnabeth's house, and a few doors down from PiperandJason's –who are still on the rocks, but considering Piper's pregnant, better than before Stephan.
Lucy Piper Grace, Zoe Elizabeth Valdez, and Bianca Sarah Jackson are born in February, March, and April respectively. And when Piper, Annabeth, or she isn't busy, they watch all the children. Stephan whose two, and loud, and playful, and already so protective of his two month old sister. Charles whose wobbly, and smiles, and careful expressions, and surprisingly gentle. And then the girls, all of three of them with light hair, blue or brown or green or gray eyes – Lucy's changing a different shade of brown every time she looks at them-, soft skin that has either freckles or a light tan.
Both of them are her ahijadas.****
But Zoe is her's. She hears Leo whisper to her daughter what their similarities are. Whenever he thinks that she can't hear him. Zoe only got his dark brown eyes and his curls, which even those, are tamed down.
They find themselves having a quick and quiet wedding, and she surprises herself by being happy with it. They never needed anything big, it just wouldn't fit for them, but she's happy that they can mix their cultures, well his cultures. So they have a tiny Greek-Latino wedding -which is almost impossible, but they do it, and it works despite everything.
Not even a few months later, she finds herself in Annabeth's position with Bianca, another baby. This one they name Esperanza Samantha, she's born almost three full weeks before Leo's birthday –and like Bianca, is two months early. But she's beautiful and healthy. The only problem is that she also looks nothing like him; in fact she's a little clone of Calypso.
But he doesn't care, as this is his daughter, his second daughter. He never imagined having a child in the first place, so to have two is amazing. He only hopes that there is more to come.
He isn't at all surprised when she tells him a handful of months later that they're going to have another child. He begins to wonder how they'll be able to manage three children all under the age of two, but they plan and begin to work it out. But it's the arrival of James Alexander Zhang in January and Lucas (Luke) Frederick Jackson in May that somehow keeps them running around and never really finishing any plans.
But then it's September, a whole week before Stephan's birthday, and Diana Grace Valdez makes her way into the world, screaming and wiggling. Diana also looks just like Calypso, just maybe a little more elf-like, pointy ears and all that.
He doesn't even want to think about children, so he opens a new shop. It's close by, but a little less homey as the first one. They still bring in business and this one has updates of their children though, pictures of their girls litter two or three of the different bulletin boards –and also one in the first shop. This shop though, becomes an annoyance after a while, as his girls become more prominent in his life.
And he realizes why family is so important when Hazel is rushed to the hospital at the end of February. She didn't even notice that she was pregnant, and now they have Marcus (Dannie) Daniel Zhang.
A few months later, Piper has Michael Tristian Grace, who looks like Jason, but has Piper's black hair, and ever changing eyes, and Frank comes up with the nickname 'Clark Kent' just because Stephan and Lucy are 'Indian Superman' and 'Blonde Wonder Woman'.
Leo just calls him 'Pretty Boy' and Piper claims that she's going to disown them all.
She doesn't of course, but they all laugh as they sit around the table, and play cards, and eat tacos as its Tuesday.
Months continue to pass and then everything changes again all at once. All of the girls are pregnant and due within three months of one another, it's almost like when Lucy, Bianca, and Zoe were born again.
But the happiness doesn't last long when someone runs a red light. Piper doesn't die, but she's put into surgery and it turns out with the news that she'll never be able to have children again, and that she lost the baby.
Then Bianca gets sick, only to be saved by a powerful blessing from Poseidon, which only grabs the attention of the other Olympians; causing them to get a summons that needs to be answered before the end of October.
Also Frank gets a new assignment, they need to be in South Carolina by the end of the first week of November, a week before Hazel's due. This only puts more unneeded and unwanted stress on their lives.
Malcolm Finn Jackson is born with complications, resulting in Annabeth to get the same surgery as Piper. The two of them bond over not being able to have any more children. He never thought that this would be a good thing, but both of them are hormonal and he doesn't want to get caught between them.
Nico Orion Valdez, born five days after his birthday. He takes him as a late birthday present; he's his only son and the first of his children to look like him. Not that he cared or anything –Calypso though can't help but roll her eyes whenever he makes the slight mention of their son's appearance.
By the end of the next week, everything has gone to Hades. PercyandAnnabeth are missing, leaving their children with SallyandPaul, HazelandFrank are in South Carolina, with a new baby –Olivia (Emma) Emilia Zhang-, and JasonandPiper are his only support.
She suggests that he takes it easy, that he calms down and thinks of a plan. But she regrets it, as PiperandJason are already ahead of them and following Charlie and Luke out to California with their other mortal grandfather.
A few weeks later she finds herself at the second shop, watching Leo as he and a few others pull an engine out of a car that she knows she should know the name of but can't think of. She watches as he carefully takes it all a part, cleaning and replacing parts as he goes. Then he puts it all back together. When he's all done, he's covered in grease, and oil, and dirt. And it's been a long time since she's seen him so dirt and filthy that she can't help but smile.
If only they could put their lives back together like that. If only they could take it all apart and fix what needs to be fixed, clean up all their loose ends.
If only, their lives could work that way.
Years pass before their eyes, and too soon their children are in school, their best friends with Bianca and Malcolm Jackson –though of course they would be SallyandPaul didn't stop any traditions-, and then their off to camp. By the time Nico's ten, he has five small painted clay beads hanging around his neck, Zoe at thirteen has eight, and Esperanza and Diana have seven and six respectively.
That was the same year that Frank died. Years before that, sometime after Zoe's first summer, Lucy had died.
It's those days that Calypso remembers her mortality; whenever she hears about demigods deaths she remembers that her life is just as fragile now.
Leo also opens another shop that year, and this one is mostly all family. Children of Athena and Hephaestus who have nowhere to go and need a job come to him in pairs of twos and threes asking for a job and a place to stay, he never says no. The girls thrive in that shop too, it becomes their second home. Calypso doesn't mind because she remembers living above that first shop before any of them were born.
Another few years pass by, and soon all of their friends are back, PercyandAnnabeth from Alaska –dragging along several children who are worse for wear-, PiperandJason from California, and Hazel with only her children from New Orleans.
It's about this time that Zoe's depression makes itself heard louder than ever before. It's about this time that she realizes that Esperanza really isn't coming back to stay, she really did become a huntress. It's about this time that Diana includes her in the sickening tale of her unborn daughter, though Calypso knew before she told her. It's also about this time when Nico makes it clear that Olivia Zhang really is special and he may or may not be in love with her –which he is.
It's also about this time when she becomes more and more thankful for small miracles, all of them manifesting different shapes and forms.
Charles Jackson, who is no longer the cute giggling baby, lifts Zoe's spirits higher than she could ever imagine. Lady Artemis, who promises to protect Esperanza as much as she can and let her visit whenever they may need her at home. Michael Grace, who loves Diana more than anyone else in the world, even if she did break up with him and had his baby –though she did give it up for adoption. And Olivia Zhang, who flusters and blushes around Nico, making it just as clear that she likes him too.
And for the first time ever, she thanks the Gods for these miracles.
~ LeoandCalypso ~
For the first time since before Zoe was born, the house is empty. No kids, no friends, just the two of them.
He decided to surprise her while she was out. He pushes all of the living room furniture into a different room or up against the walls. He gets out the old piece-of-junk radio and fiddles with the dial until their favorite radio station comes on. Then he blows up their old inflatable mattress.
She laughs when she walks in the door, all around are the dimly sweet candles ablaze with light. She can see the old couch pushed up against the wall and faintly hear their favorite radio station's classic ads. She laughs hardest when she turns the corner and sees him already asleep on their old inflatable mattress.
She kisses him lightly, and he grabs her wrists.
'You're my prisoner now.'
'Sure thing,' she laughs.
And just like all those years ago, in their first tiny apartment, he pulls her into his lap.
That's when the very last of her immortality slips away, making her truly his equal.
A/N: First ever Caleo, but I hope it isn't the last. I never really have an idea about my characters until I start writing about them, I first thought that this would be a cute little fic about Leo and Calypso, as I wrote the first scene (the island part) about two weeks before I wrote the rest last night at a little before midnight last night. I just needed to know their story and I actually wouldn't have even gotten back to this if it was for Chapter 23 in Letter in Ink by theforgetfulalchemist (go check her out). And then I just had to find my groove, and by then Calypso and Leo had begun to talk for me. Leo had a story to tell, he needed us to know about Calypso, who had a story to tell about her family.
Though my personal favorite part is before any of the kids come along, before PiperandJason has Stephan, and PercyandAnnabeth get married. I feel like the story changed as soon as kids came along.
Also I know it seems a bit ridiculous that Leo and Calypso would have three children almost one after the other, but that's just my headcannon. I personally have friends that were born within a year of each other.
The squished name thing, that's all Leo. He does think of his friends as different people, but when he constantly sees people together, he thinks of them as himandher, or herandher, or himandhim.
And about the end, I just love the idea of Leo being cute and trying his hardest to impress/surprise Calypso –or anyone. I do feel like they would have a really strong relationship, one that their friends would look up to. As PercyandAnnabeth have been away for years and don't know their children. PiperandJason have an on and off again relationship, that finally settles after Michael is born. And FrankandHazel have picked their family up and moved around so much, also after Frank dies, Hazel becomes really withdrawn into herself.
Translations:
* abeula means grandmother
** Tio means uncle
*** Tia means aunt
**** ahijadas means goddaughters
~WR
P.S. – Any questions about Percy and Annabeth's disappearance are answered in my other story Letters to Frank. You can find it on my page.