Name: Leo Valdez
Occupation: Deceased (Formerly), Ship Captain, Hero
Alias: Phoenix
Date: December 17 XX24
Chapter 5: Reunion
"Are you sure you've got the location?" Leo asks Festus for the third time. The AI unit growls at him, as if he was offended that he was being questioned. Leo backs up and taps on his wrist watch. A map of Key Largo projects holographically from the watch. He taps the watch again and the projection turns off. He reaches downs and grabs his backpack and puts it on his back. Not much was in the backpack; a flashlight, a hammer, a few bags of chips, duct tape, and a sweater. He begins to walk down the stairs from the command center.
"Going somewhere?" Leo heard a voice behind him say. He turns and sees Jason leaning against the wall. "It's pretty late to be walking around the halls." Jason pushes off of it and walks towards Leo, his wind lance in his hand and a small back on his back.
"Are you going to use your lance to keep me on the ship?" he asks gestures towards the weapon. Jason sighs and leans on it.
"No, I'm not going to use this to keep you on the ship."
"Good, that would make a lot of noise, and I wouldn't want to make Annabeth cranky." Leo then finally takes in Jason's appearance, he was wearing his Ventus suit. "Are you going somewhere dressed like that?"
"Yeah, I'm going to Key Largo." Leo's eyes go wide.
"How did you?"
"You must really be exhausted if you didn't notice me watching you in the command center." Jason adjusts his collar. "I'm going with you Valdez." Leo starts to laugh.
"You know I didn't know that you were funny," Leo says as he turns towards the hallway.
"I'm not kidding. I am going with you."
"No."
"Leo," Jason says as he puts his hand on Leo's shoulder, turning him towards him. "Look, I'm worried about you. We all are. I just want to make sure you're safe."
"I'll be fine. She won't hurt me," Leo says in a quiet voice.
"Your judgement with her has never been the best. Come on Valdez, we just got you back."
"I thought you didn't want anything to do with this business." Jason sighs.
"I was confused. We used to be the good guys, then we were told that we were bad guys. Now even worse guys are coming after us. I was honestly just wondering if we really did any good back then."
"We saved millions of people."
"We also hurt millions." Leo sighs.
"Look, I don't have time for this, let's go." He shakes his head and starts making his way towards the Pandora. The two of them round the corner and that's when they run into Piper, who was leaning against the boat waiting for them.
"You boys going somewhere?" she asks, her eyebrow raised. She was wearing her Nevermore suit and had a small duffle bag next to her.
"Yes, I assume you are coming too?" Piper doesn't answer, other than throwing her bag into the boat and climbing in. Leo pulls off his backpack and sets it on one of the seats in the boat. "You two will get along on this boat ride right? It's bad enough being the seventh wheel, but being the third wheel of an argument would be terrible." Jason and Piper share a look.
"We will be fine," Jason says not looking away from Piper.
"Yes. We will play nice," she says still staring at Jason.
"Great, I totally believe you. You're driving Beauty Queen. We are going to Key Largo." Leo talks a deep breath before taking a step in. The splashing sounds of the water echoed in his ears. He feels his throat closing in on itself as he sits in the back of the boat. He closes his eyes and starts to feel a bit better. Jason gets into the boat and sits in the front of the boat next to Piper.
"Where in Key Largo?" Piper asks. Leo opens his eyes and grabs at his wrist to take off his watch and throws it towards Piper. She catches it and taps on the watch face and the same holographic map that he saw earlier popped up. She nods to herself and turns back to Leo with a concerned look. "You okay?"
He nods slightly and says, "Yeah, just a bit tired. I'm gonna take a nap, wake me when we get there." With that he closes his eyes. Choosing to go to sleep was a double edged sword; he won't be having a freak out with Piper and Jason around, but it likely means that he was going to have another nightmare. Since he woke up from his "long nap" he has had nightmares every time he went to sleep, this lead to him not sleeping the past few nights. The rhythmic sounds of the boat leaving the Argo helped him go to sleep.
Leo looks around the deck of the Argo, the way it was before the battle of Athens. He sees Calypso sitting at the captain's chair looking at one of the computer monitors in front of her. He walks up besides her and kisses the top of her head. She looks up at him and smiles.
"What are you still doing up?" she asks him, leaning her head against him.
"Well, my beautiful girlfriend went missing on me. I couldn't sleep without her." He sits on one of the arm rests and just stares at her.
"What?" she asks laughing. He smiles at her.
"Nothing. I love you, you know that right?" The smile fades from her face.
"Then why did you leave me?"
"What do you-"
"You abandoned me!" Her face morphed into Piper's face. "How could you?! I lost everything because of you!" Piper's face morphed into Percy's face. "I trusted you! The world trusted you." Jason's face made an appearance. "You just had to be the hero! Didn't you! You ruined everything!" Then Silena's face "I shouldn't have died…" She stood up and she was wearing the clothes that she was wearing when she was killed by Orion, still covered in blood. Leo winces as he feels something hit his chest, he looks down and sees a blade made of ice where his heart is. "You should be here with us," Silena says, blood falling out of her mouth as she says this. She reaches out and touches his face.
Leo wakes up with a start, he could feel the sweat on his body despite it being very cold out. His heart is pounding in his chest like a loud bass drum. He keeps his eyes closed to prevent a full freak out, but who knows what he did during his nightmare. He starts to get control of his breathing, and he realizes that the boat was slowing down. As the engine got quieter, Leo hears a hushed conversation between Jason and Piper.
"How many times do you want me to tell you? I made a mistake. I'm sorry," Jason tells her.
"It's not that simple Jason. You hurt me, you hurt your own sister. You threatened to arrest her," Piper says in a sharp tone.
"I was doing it to protect you. Both of you."
"It didn't you helped cement the fact that I lost everything. I lost my family, I lost Songbird, and I lost you." There was a silent moment between the two. " Wake up Valdez, we are close." Leo hears a shuffle around the boat and feels Jason touch his shoulder.
"Hey, we are in Key Largo." Leo opens his eyes and looks at Jason who has a defeated look on his face. Before he could ask him about it Piper speaks up from the front.
"Valdez, which dock are we heading to?" Leo stands up and moves towards the front, careful not to look at the water too much as he does.
"No idea. I just feel like…" he trails off. He sees a figure wearing a white dress sitting on the edge of the dock. The water around that single dock was frozen over, and it appeared to be snowing slightly. "I think it's that one," he says pointing at the frozen dock.
"No shit," she says turning the boat towards it.
"You asked." As they got closer to the dock, the figure became much clearer. Khione was wearing a white sundress with a large sunhat on her head. Her bare feet was touching the ice, most likely causing the ice. She had strapped sandals next to her on the dock, next to a large shopping bag. As the Pandora approached the ice, the ice retreated until the boat touched the dock. Jason grabs a rope and floats over to the dock, pulling and tying it to the dock. Leo grabs his backpack and jumps off the boat as quickly as he can. Khione stands up and smiles at him.
"You actually came," she says in disbelief. She glances at Piper and Jason, who of which had their hands on their respective weapons. "And you brought friends." She reaches her hand out to shake Jason's. He takes a step back and moves his lance into a defencive stance. She pulled her hand back and says, "Hi, I'm-"
"We know who you are Ice Queen," Piper cuts her off. Both of her crossbows were out of the holsters and at her side right now.
"Right." Khione turns towards Leo.
"I didn't have a choice, they sort of just came with me," he tells her.
"Right, well I should formally introduce myself nonetheless. I am Khione Frost," she says to Piper and Jason.
"Jason, Piper," Piper says pointing at Jason and herself.
"Do you guys have normal clothes with you? Because you will definitely stand out where we are going." Jason and Piper look at each other before they both lower their weapons and nod slightly. "Great, this is for you Leo," She reaches behind her and hand Leo the shopping bag that he saw earlier. He looks into it and sees a red button up shirt, black jeans, and a light blue tie.
"Why did you…" he starts to ask before he takes in his appearance. He was currently wearing a faded orange T-shirt that had some burn holes, and an old pair of jeans that was covered in grease stains. "Nevermind." He looks up and sees a bathroom and heads over to it. He sheds his clothes and puts on the fancier clothes. He rolled up the sleeves to his elbow, unbuttons the top button and loosens the tie to the opening of the shirt. He leaves the shirt untucked and puts his sneakers back on. He throws his clothes into his backpack and steps out of the bathroom stall. He sees Jason in front of the mirror wearing a similar outfit to what he first saw him in, the only difference being that he was wearing a light green button up shirt underneath. His lance was propped against the wall, and his uniform was stuffed into the backpack that he brought.
"Well you look fancy," Leo says to Jason. He sees Jason turn to look at him.
"Thanks, but am I overdressed?" Leo studies him a bit more.
"Nah, it fits you." Jason looks relieved for a second before getting a confused look on his face.
"Wait, what the hell does that mean?" Leo laughs as he walks out of the bathroom. He sees Khione was sitting on a chair made entirely of ice, while Piper was sitting on the ground drinking out of a flask. Piper is wearing a gray tank top with a black, short-sleeve leather jacket on top of it, black skinny jeans, and black boots. The duffle bag that she had earlier was next to her, with her uniform in it Leo assumes. He noticed that Khione and Piper were not talking to each other and that they were facing away from each other.
"We ready to go?" Leo asks. The girls nod as Jason exits the bathroom. Piper brushes the dirt off of her pants as she stands up, and the ice chair that Khione was sitting on melts. "So where is your dad?" Leo asks. Khione starts walking down a path.
"Tampa," she says without looking back.
"Tampa!? That's like a four hour drive from here!" Piper says angrily.
"Four hours by car, only one by helicopter." Piper looks at Leo in disbelief.
"We are going there by helicopter," Jason says mirroring Piper's tone.
"It was not mine or my papa's choice. We needed to go there for a reason, he just hasn't told me yet," Khione says as they approach a helicopter. It was a helicopter that could easily seat six people in it. Leo recognizes it as the same helicopter that Khione was riding in when he saw her in New York. She takes off her hat and opens the door to the back. She walks around to the front. "One of you can sit up here if you want or you can all sit in the back." She hops up and puts on one of the headsets. Leo looks at Piper and Jason and gives them a look, asking them what they think they should do. Piper rolls her eyes and nods towards the door, while extending her arm. Leo hands her the backpack and hops into the passenger seat next to Khione. He puts on his headset and looks back at Piper and Jason. The two are sitting next to each other with the bags in the seat across from them. "Everybody buckled up?" He hears Khione over the headset. He gives a thumbs up.
"We're good back here," Jason says over the radio. With that, the chopper took off towards Tampa. Most of the trip was done in silence, the best that Leo could come up with is that Jason and Piper went to sleep. They left the Argo at two in the morning, and by the time they made it to Tampa it was six. It was still dark as they landed on the roof of the hospital. "We here?" Leo hears a groggy Jason ask. Leo takes off the headset then hops out. He opens the backdoor and grabs his backpack and Piper's small duffle. The trio then follows Khione into the hospital. The biggest shock to Leo is the fact that the hospital is very empty. Even early in the morning, he expects to see nurses, other patients, or even a janitor, but the floor had few people.
"Finally, you are here. He doesn't have much time. Hurry up," he hears one of the few people on the floor say. Leo gets a good look at him and sees that he is actually wielding a large jagged sword. He was a very tall and buff man, who despite looking like he was in his late thirties, had an entire head of white hair. It takes Leo a bit to recognize who this was.
"Calais?" Leo asks the large man. He smirks at Leo.
"Good to see ya kid, you're still way too scrawny," Calais says slapping Leo on the shoulder, resulting in Leo falling to the floor. "Khi, hurry, Papa says that there isn't much time left."
"What do you mean? Is he dying?" Piper asks. Calais looks like he was trying to figure out how to put it into words.
"Hurry," Khione says grabbing Leo by the arm. He follows her downs a hallway to a room at the end of the hall. Piper taps him on the shoulder.
"So are we going to just ignore the whole, big dude has a sword, thing?" Leo shrugs as they enter the room. When he enters the room, he sees Boreas in the hospital bed. It had been almost nine years since he last saw him. His hair was a grayish hue, being almost the same color as the hospital gown that he was wearing.
"Leo, iz zat you?" Leo heard him say in his heavy french accent. Even though his eyes were open, he wasn't looking at him. He smiles. "It is you. Tu es tellement gros."
"He said that you've gotten bigger," Khione and Piper say at the same time. Everybodies eyes fall on Piper.
"I know French, got a problem with it?" she says indignantly. Everybody shakes their heads, except for Boreas who laughs.
"Je ne m'attendais jamais à rencontrer la soeur de Léo. Piper, tu es aussi jolie que ce qu'il m'a dit." Piper blushed as he spoke.
"Tu me flattes." Piper leans forward and looks into his eyes. "Mais je ne sais pas si vous pouvez me voir."
"Je ne vois pas seulement avec mes yeux. Je suis ce que vous appelez un ESPer. Je vois le passé, le présent et l'avenir de ceux que j'aime, même si je ne peux pas les voir," he says with a weak smile. Leo leans over to Khione.
"What's wrong with him?" Khione pulls him towards the door, not leaving, just standing by the door. She takes a heavy breath.
"The doctor's don't know. They don't know why his sight is gone, or why he has had seizures every few days."
"But?" She glances back at her dad.
"It's his power. Normally he used to get headaches whenever he used it, but apparently over the past few years, it was worse. That's why I came back," she tells him guiltily. Some of her hair fell down and covered her face.
"Is it his age? The strain it takes to see the us, must be too much for his mind now."
"Léo, La femme que vous recherchez est à proximité," Boreas says. Before he could respond, Leo hears a commotion coming from the outside. He opens the door to peek out, but he was hit in the face as the door opened. Leo falls on his butt and sees Jason ready his lance, Piper draws her crossbow from the back of her pants, and Khione's hands encase themselves in ice. A man with black hair and light blue eyes, similar to how Khione's look, stumbles in clutching his side. He was bleeding from the right side of is abdomen. He was wearing what was once a nice suit, but there were cuts and scrapes all over it, not to mention the blood that was soaking it. In his other was a sword made entirely of ice. Leo recognizes this as Khione's other older brother, Zethes. Khione drops her and and gestures for Piper and Jason to lower their weapons as well. Zethes uses the sword as a cane to make his way into the room, looking directly at his father.
"They found us," he says to the occupants of the room. Jason and Piper both look at Leo.
"The ones who tried to kill Leo?" Khione asks, causing Leo to look at her. "I told you that I was there to see you." Piper glares at her. Jason, who clearly wanted to change the subject turns to Zethes.
"Are they guys in all black, mercenary looking people?" Jason turns and grabs some towels and walks up to help stop the blood. He puts the towel on the wound and has Zethes put pressure on it.
"Yeah, a lot of them. And there was another." Jason pulls his tie off and starts to tie it around Zethes's waist to keep constant pressure on it.
"Another? Did he look like a cowboy?" Leo asks, finally getting off the floor. Zethes shakes his head.
"No, it was like a ripple."
"A ripple?" Piper asks, looking out the window to the ground floor.
"The air just rippled and people were dead." Jason and Leo meet eyes.
"A movement based Enhanced?"
"Sounds like it."
"He is here," Leo heard Boreas say. Within a blink of an eyes Leo felt something grab him and suddenly he was on a sandy beach. He looks around and sees all of the bags right next to him. He scrambles to his backpack and puts his hand on his hammer. As soon as he does, he hears the sound of something hitting the sand behind him. He turns and readies his hammer. On the ground in front of him was Jason.
"Jason, what is happening?"
"Where the hell are we?" Jason asks looking around frantically
"-hell did they go? Where the hell am I?" Leo hears Piper says behind him. "Leo, what is happening?" The air ripples and suddenly Khione falls onto Leo. She looks up at Leo before looking around. She takes a step back and looks around.
"Um…"
"We don't know either," Jason answers her. Leo claps at Piper and points at his wrist. She looks confused for a moment before realizing what he wanted. She quickly pulls off the watch and tosses it to Leo. He catches it and taps the button and a holographic map appears from the watch face.
"Well, we are in Key Largo, so that solves one problem."
"How did we get here?" Khione asks. She turns towards Jason. "You guys said something about a movement Enhancer."
"It's a classification we designated. We break up Demi-humans into five categories: Enhancers, ESPer, Elementals, Diviners, and Mages. An Enhancer is someone who can enhance their body to do extraordinary things, like super-strength, replication, or super-speed," Jason explains. The air ripples again, but this time instead of someone falling out of the ripple and it running off again, this time the ripple turned into a person. It was a man wearing an almost all black super suit with a gold caduceus in the center. He is also wearing a white speed bikers helmet and aviator goggles.
"Hey guys," the figure says bouncing in place from one foot to the other. He pulls his goggles to his neck and smiles at the group.
"Travis?" Piper asks.
"What are you doing here?" Jason asks in shock.
"Saving lives, you know the hero thing." Travis's figure blinked out of existence for a second before reappearing. "Hey." blink "-are we-" blink "-punching-" blink "-her today-" blink "-or are we-" blink "-working-" blink "-with-" blink "-the-" blink "-Ice Queen-" Travis stops blinking in and out of existence, breathing heavy.
"Working with her for now," Piper says, still suspicious of Khione.
"Good, we need all the help we can get," A voice said to the left of them. They turn and see Connor and Katie walking up to them. "Did you lose her?"
"Does it look like I lost her?" Travis says to his brother. He super speeds to Katie and suddenly there were four bottles of water at her feet as Travis disappears again.
"Who are you guys talking about?" Jason asks. He pulls his Ventus suit out of his backpack.
"Some girl who can move at super-speed, but she's wearing some sort of suit to do it."
"Like an exoskeleton?" Leo asks.
"That's exactly what it is."
"What is it? I know that the gears are turning in your head," Piper says to Leo. She started to set her Nevermore suit in the quick changer.
"Orion."
"What about him?"
"He didn't miss. I've been going over it and every single bullet he shot hit a target that he needed it to hit. It was almost robotic." Jason turns his head.
"Are you saying he was a robot?"
"No, but his eye, it flashed r-."
"No time, look," Connor said pointing to the water. The water was making waves that wasn't natural. Suddenly Travis was in the ground next to them.
"Travis!" Katie cries. A flash of green light happens and suddenly Katie was in her Flora garb. She was wearing "clothes" that was similar to a one piece bathing suit made of green leaves. She was wearing high heeled boots that look like they were made of leaves and vines. She raised her right hand and a patch of vines sprouted from the beach and pulled Travis out of the ground. Out of nowhere a woman wearing a black tank-top and khaki pants appeared. Over her clothes were what look like hydraulic legs and arms. Like Travis and his Speedster suit, she was wearing a pair of aviator goggles.
"Speedster, you must realized you can't beat me. I am just like you, but better." The mysterious girl looks at the rest of the group. "Flora, Quantum, Nevermore, Ventus, Phoenix, and the Ice Queen. Looks like you brought some friends." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out some black business cards, the same ones that Orion had. She quickly flips through them and pulls out four. "Looks like you're on the list Ice Queen. Four kill will get me so much higher on the ranking." She went down into a runner's stance. Travis vibrates himself and shakes the vines off and gets into a runner's stance himself. Leo readies his hammer by setting it ablaze. As he does not have his suit to help him fight, he was at a big disadvantage in this fight. He looks to his left and sees Piper and Jason in their respective suits, weapons up and ready to strike. To his left, Khione and Katie were in a fighting stance. Conner was behind him, wearing his white suit with a gold caduceus. On his head was a large visor with twenty lenses on it. This is used to expand his field of vision to improve his power of teleportation.
"Before we start this off, I never got your name," Travis said, not moving a muscle.
"The name is Nike."
"Like the shoe brand?" Leo asks. Everybody turns to look at him.
"Like the Goddess of speed and victory." Then the battle began. Nike and Travis both disappear, only ripples, clashing sounds, and wind are the only evidence that a super speed battle was actually occurring. Jason jumps up and takes flight, using his wind lance to through inds into the areas where he believes the battle to be occurring. Khione creates massive walls of ice to limit the battle and to prevent anybody from seeing, although this was the strangest structure to see in Florida. Katie touches the ground and summons vines into the new arena, probably meant to entangle Nike and reduce her speed, and it seemed to work. The ripples were much larger, indicating that they were moving much slower. Leo heard a murmur to his left and suddenly he couldn't move. Both of the super-speed fighters lock up and come tumbling out of combat. They are both frozen as if they were in the middle of running when they froze. Piper starts walking forward with handcuffs in her hands As soon as Nike was handcuffed, Leo is able to move again. Conner blinks into existence next to Travis and starts to treat his wounds. Leo, realizing that he contributed nothing to the fight hurries over to Nike and disconnects the hydraulics to her speed suit. Once he disconnects the last hydraulic, Khione destroys her ice walls. Nike starts laughing.
"What's so funny? We just kicked your ass," Piper said.
"Oh, you know nothing. You are insignificant people, playing cops and robbers at the expense of human lives. All of you are just the defects that lead to perfection." She starts to stand up. Piper puts her crossbow to Nike's back.
"That's what all the crazies say." Suddenly the handcuffs snap and Nike snatches the crossbow from Piper's hand.
"The boss is waiting. I suppose I won't be getting my rank up today." She turns and runs at an incredible speed, not nearly as fast as she was going before, but so fast that she was a blur.
"She had speed even without the hydraulics," Leo said.
"It's like they were just boosting her speed," Jason says landing next to him.
"But where did she get that? And Valdez, did you notice?" Piper asks picking up the crossbow that Nike dropped.
"A second crazy chick who is also wearing a black tank top and khaki pants, has powers that are very similar to a demi-human but is somehow off, and was trying to kill an argonaut? No definitely didn't notice a thing," Leo said sarcastically.
"Wait are you talking about that ESPer who was at the warehouse?" Jason asked.
"It fits."
"Guys," Connor calls out. The trio rush over to Connor and the others. Travis was not looking well, his face was bloody and his suit had a lot of rips and tears. His breathing was very shallow and his left eye was almost completely swollen shut.
"Trav," Katie cried, her plant clothing disappearing, returning her old civilian clothing. She put her ear to his chest and listened to his breathing. She then reached into her pocket and pulled out a small flashlight. She then checked his eyes responses.
"..what're you doing?" Travis slurred out. She put the light away and tapped on his left eye. "That hurts."
"Well you're not dying for now," she said relieved. Travis smiled weakly, wincing slightly as he does.
"...how would you know? Everybody knows that vets aren't people doctors." She glares at him before punching him lightly on the gut.
"Lucky for you, you are just a mutt." She says helping him up.
"Let's go. We all need to get back to the Argo. Annabeth is probably freaking out that we left," Leo said walking towards the dock.
"Wait you didn't tell her you were leaving?" Piper and Jason ask.
"I didn't tell her about the message, why would I tell her I'm leaving?" Leo asks. Everybody starts making their way towards the Pandora except Khione. Leo turns and looks at her. "Khi, come on."
"I can't go, my papa...I should be with him." Leo and her lock eyes and he nods slightly. Leo looks down at his wrist and pulls his watch off. He walks over to her and puts it in her hands, cupping hers in turn.
"Take this. If you ever need anything, you can use this. Anyday, anytime." She nods. She leans in and kisses him on the cheek.
"I'll keep you up to date about my papa." He smiles and lets go of her hands. He then jogs to catch up with the group. Jason slows down so Leo can catch up to him.
"So are we going to talk about that?" he asks quietly.
"Nope," Leo says shutting it down. His thoughts go back to Calypso. Leo didn't know what Boreas said before he was forced away from Tampa, but he had a feeling that it had something to do with her. As they approach the dock, Leo notices that the sun was rising over the horizon. He looked at his wrist before he realized that he gave Khione his watch away. He guessed that it was about seven am. As Katie and Connor were loading Travis into the boat, a little boy came running up. He was about seven years old, with curly brown hair, and almond brown eyes. He look like he was of hispanic descent.
"Hiya, are you fisherman? Did you catch anything?" the boy asks trying to look past Leo.
"Uh, no we aren't fisherman. We are just...visitor." The boy finally looks past Leo.
"Why is that man wearing a weird outfit? Is he a hero like my mommy told me about?" Leo looks back and sees most of party was in the boat. He crouches down so he was at eye level with the boy.
"Can you keep a secret?" he asks. The boy nods. "He is a hero. His name is Speedster." The boys eyes go wide.
"My mommy told me all about him. He can run fast."
"Yeah, he got hurt so I'm here to help him," he says patting his head.
"Who is she?" he asks pointing behind him. Leo turns and sees Piper, whose eyes were wide.
"The Nevermore. She's a friend of mine." Leo stood up. "I have to go now kid. Remember, this is a secret," he says putting his finger to his mouth. The boy copied the gesture before holding his pinky out. Leo is confused by the gesture.
"Pinky promise." Leo smile and links fingers with the kid before turning around. Piper blinks a few times before turning and walking with Leo.
"Who was that?" Piper asks, worry in her voice.
"I dunno. Some kid," he says shrugging. He turns to look at her and she still looks concerned. "Don't worry Beauty Queen, he can't get us arrested, he's a kid. Odds are we won't see him again," he says getting into the boat. Leo smiles to try to cover his own worry. The water was sloshing around him, started to get to his head. He instinctively closes his eyes.
"You okay Valdez?" Katie asks him. He hears Piper and get in and the water sloshes again. He feels his words getting stuck in his throat. He wants to tell them he's fine but he can't.
"Motion...sickness," he chokes out. He feels someone start to rub his back. He opens his eyes and sees Piper giving him a look and he knows what the look was. She knows something is wrong with him, but she didn't know what it was. He saw her glance towards the shore at the kid before looking back at him. He closes his eyes and he hears the engine going again. Leo moves and lays his head down next to him and Katie stops rubbing his back. He keeps his eyes closed for the entire duration of the boat ride to the Argo, only opening them when he was in the ship itself. As they were making their way up the floors, Piper grabs his arm and pulls him into the engine room. "Whoa Piper, take it easy. People might get the wrong-" Piper punching the metal by his head shuts him up.
"Spill," she says staring into her eyes. Her eyes seemed darker than usual. Piper seems more irritable right now so he decides to tell her the truth and he sighs.
"I have been having...panic attacks I guess you'd call them."
"How long?" She asks pulling her fist from the wall, a small dent appeared where her fist was.
"Since I've woken up." She runs her hands through her hair and walks in a circle.
"Do these panic attacks have anything to do with you being exhausted all the time?" Leo gives her a confused look. "Bags under the eyes."
"No that would be the nightmares." She throws her arms up into the air.
"Why haven't you told us?"
"How would that conversation go down? Hey guys, great to see you, I know there is some group out to murder us all, but I don't know how much help I'll be. I have trouble breathing when I see a puddle of water, it's a good thing we are living on a boat surrounded by water. Oh did I mention that I keep flashing back to the moment I almost drowned seven years ago. What about the fact that every single bad thing that has happened to my friends can be traced back to the fact that the world thinks I died seven years ago. Oh I almost forgot to mention that I don't sleep anymore since I'm not only scared that I won't wake up, but I'm visited by all of the people who I've known who has died, or people who are probably dead based on how much time has passed-" Leo rambles out until Piper hugs him. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he whispers. He didn't even realized it but he had started crying.
"It's not your fault. It's not your fault," Piper told him. She pulls away from him and wipes the tears from his eyes before wiping her own. "Maybe we could talk to Will. He could give you something that could help or…"Piper trails off. Leo shakes his head.
"No. No one can know."
"Leo."
"We are facing an unknown enemy right now and we are short handed. I can't bother peoples with this while we have so much to do."
"But-"
"There is too much going on. Once it's over. Then I'll tell them." Leo looks at her. "Can you keep it a secret?" She nods slightly. She turns and sees his cot in the corner of the room.
"Are you sleeping here?"
"I'm not sleeping in general, but I've been staying here. I can't be in that room without…" he trails off. He looks back at Piper. "Can you...I just need to be alone right now." Piper starts to walk out, turning when she gets to the door.
"I'm here for you, you know that right?"
"I know. Thanks Piper." She walks out of the door and Leo lays down and stares at the ceiling.
Hello, so it definitely has not been 15 and a half weeks since I last updated. I definitely was not play way too much Overwatch or Miitopia or anything like that. And I definitely was not watching my niece all summer...sorry.
Next update: September 15th (for reals this time.)