A/N: I guess I just really needed a break from writing. Just a few days before Leyna week starts! Skipping ahead a little because reasons. I'll come back to the nightmare scene later maybe.


Leo was guarding the northwest corner of Team I's territory (on Jason's orders) when Octavian appeared. The Super-Sized McShizzle normally didn't look twice at the augur, who was as skinny as he was and twice as sickly-looking, but for war games Mr. Sickly Scrawny Stuffed-Animal-Killer had his knife out, so Leo kept both eyes on him, even though it was just the two of them. Maybe partially because it was just the two of them.

"If you're looking for the loser's side, it's that way," Leo said, pointing helpfully back the way Octavian had come.

The augur was unamused. "Yes, I heard your wit matched your stature." Then, before Leo could bring out the big guns of sarcasm, he changed topics: "A little bird told me that you got volunteered to fix Reyna's dogs the other day. How did that go for you?"

Leo's brow creased. They hadn't told anyone about that, and he doubted any of the Seven would have told Octavian. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side, hoping to suppress the fire sparking suspicious and angry across his knuckles.

Octavian treated him to a condescending smile, contemptuous, no warmth in it. Colder than the most evil part of Canada in wintertime. "I will grant you, you must have at least a little bit of talent if you got the dogs running again. That particular problem was supposed to be near unfixable."

Furious fire burst across Leo's hands, up his forearms. "It was you!"

"Cleverly deduced."

The megaphone blared, announcing the end of the game, but Leo only stood and glared. "You son of a—cabrón. Capullo. She loves those greyhounds. How dare you even touch—"

"I was trying to prove a point. I succeeded, by the way." Octavian, the smug bastard, began to walk away. Leo slipped in the mud, scrambling to catch up.

"What point?" Leo ground out, suppressing the impressive list of insults that came to mind. "That you have no shame?"

"I suspected that Reyna's loneliness had made her desperate," the augur said, haughty as he stepped out onto the Field of Mars. "Willing to do just about anything, even contaminate herself. Not very Roman, if you ask me."

Leo sucked in a breath to defend her, his lungs hot with anger, but Octavian saw it and scoffed.

"Oh, please. I think we both know there's no real interest there. On either side. The secondhand popularity is pretty nice for you, isn't it? Finally got a girl. And she's been pining after the other boys for so long, it's gotten to where she'll jump in bed with any male who makes a pass at her. It's dirty, disgusting—"

"Don't ever talk about Reyna like that!" Leo exploded, shoving the augur from behind.

But he wasn't very strong, and Octavian only swung to face him like he thought he was king or something. "Anyway, the point is, I was right. She's been sneaking around, lying, not to mention having a scandalous affair with the least trusted Greek available"—his lip curled—"so I'm afraid that puts our praetor in quite the precarious position."

"Reyna's never lied, not once. And if you think you can—"

"She will be discharged," he said, chin high, as if dismantling an innocent girl's career were something to write home about. "I'm going to take her place. It's about time someone got Camp Jupiter back on track. And what are you going to do about it?" The augur looked at him the way he might a centipede—something disgusting but small and insignificant. In a moment his blade was out, pointing at Leo, waving in slow, sarcastic little circles. "You're just a dirty little Greek. It's almost pitiful. At least I don't have to look too hard for examples of Reyna's poor choices."

"Reyna's choices are none of your business." Leo's tone was harsh, brash, because he absolutely meant it.

Octavian stepped forward again, his grip tighter around his knife. Something about that had gotten to him, to the apparent root of the matter—he scowled as he spoke, getting angrier, the words screwing up his face. "It's my business who's dirtying Rome, some graecus polluting the name of—"

Then, out of nowhere: "Octavian, stop!" Reyna was running up to them, looking fiercely beautiful (and maybe a little worried?) even with mud spattered up her legs, and she looked way too pissed to take any of the legacy's crap.

"Speaking of polluted," the augur sneered, his knife still up and pointed at Leo.

"Go back to the others," she ordered, glaring. "Don't ever let me catch you bad-mouthing our allies again."

"The others are here." He gestured back at the two camps' worth of demigods that were slowly following her across the field, coming closer to the three of them. Leo felt his hair catch fire as he looked back to Reyna, but she was looking right at Octavian, her posture tense. "Oh, sure. I'm the danger," the augur said when he read the reason for her focus. "I'm not the praetor throwing my home and honor down the aqueduct for, what? A roll in the hay with a graecus?"

"There was no hay involved," Leo snapped sarcastically, without thinking, tired of the slurs.

Octavian's expression darkened, his knuckles whitening. "You dishonor yourself," he told Reyna. "You dishonor the legion, you dishonor Rome. You even manage to dishonor Greece, which takes skill given its already remarkable disgrace."

Leo scrubbed water from his eyes as it began to rain again, coming down hard from the dark summer afternoon skies. It sizzled against his skin where his fire still burned, furious at the slights against Reyna's character. She stood her ground, giving none to the augur.

"In the midst of all this dishonorable talk of allies, I wonder if you've forgotten that allies are meant to be temporary. You liaise, you win, you separate." Octavian stepped toward Leo, his knife out, heels gritted into the dirt. "And if a former ally puts you or your people in danger, then you fight back, and you kill them."

Lightning cracked in the dark afternoon sky, and Leo barely followed the corresponding flash of the augur's hand, slashing forward—into him. The tip of the blade broke the skin under his navel and kept going, then jerked up. The entire world went white for a moment—burning, flaming white—the worst pain he had ever endured. Worse even than the tanker explosion, since he'd at least been able to pass out after that.

When Leo faded back into regular vision, the knife was at least out of him, but even as he swore mindlessly and pressed his hands against the dripping red gash, the pain pulsed through his entire body, begging for him to stop feeling, please, please. His legs gave out and, grimacing, he felt himself sink to the ground, the mud soaking into his clothes, cold and wet and sticky. The rain drenched him where the mud didn't. He thought he might have cared more if he didn't feel his life leaving him through his open stomach.

This was bad, so bad. His sense of humor, his sometimes-false optimism, left him. This was definitely worse than the tanker, a thousand times worse. He felt himself shaking but couldn't stop. Every time he blinked, he struggled to reopen his eyes.

But when he did, when he forced his eyes open and focused, he at least found the most amazing girl in the world at his side. Reyna leaned over him, and it just barely registered in his mind that there were tears, not just rain, streaming down her face. She was so close, so very close, and he wouldn't have asked for anyone else, but the way she looked at him . . .

He tried to lift his head, but it only dropped back into the mud, so he just squinted around his torso at the wound. He pressed his fingers weakly to the wound—immediately he recoiled, squeezing his eyes shut at the unexpected shocking force of the pain.

"Don't touch it, don't touch it," Reyna whispered, tugging his fingers away from the wound and then not letting go. The blackness lingered at the edge of his vision even after he reopened his eyes to look at her. Her lips moved—was she saying something?—but he didn't catch it.

So much red. He strained to breathe. "There's a lot of—"

"I know, I know," she said, her voice choked and quiet. It was getting harder to focus on her, but he felt her hand stroke his shivering cold muddy cheek.

"Really cold, reina," Leo sighed shakily. "And tired." His lids were closing, and he didn't think he had the strength to open them again. At least she'd kept her promise: he did see her after the game.

"No, stay awake," she ordered, her face crinkling up as she tried to stop crying. "Don't . . . please . . ."

But she was fading, everything was fading, and if she was still talking he couldn't hear her.

Then his world went black, and the pain finally went away, because he couldn't feel anything anymore.