It seemed that he had fallen into someone's wicked spell
And I wept to see him suffer, though I didn't know him well.
~Tapestry, Carole King

"If you want that device to work, perhaps you should try a musical invocation." She says it mostly just to break the silence, because Leo Valdez is standing there with no shirt on and it's unnerving.

She anticipates his sarcastic response before he says it, something about tap-dancing to fix his machines, but she ignores him and sings the practiced incantation, letting the Greek words tumble from her mouth and brush against Ogygia's magic threads. She has to focus more strength into it than normal because Leo wants to see the present and Ogygia often resists images of the outside world.

She feels Leo's eyes on her, seemingly staring at her and through her at the same time. His jaw has gone slack, lips slightly parted— don't think about his mouth.

"Any luck?" she asks, trying to distract herself from her own line of thought, but Leo snaps back to awareness and hovers over the screen.

"Nothing. Wait…"

But she can see it to, images of other teenagers pouring across the screen, shifting quickly from scene to scene. She can't make sense of it, but tries anyway, and Leo patiently explains that the Greek demigods are preparing for war against Roman invaders. These are outside problems that should not concern her, but Calypso feels a knot of worry form in her chest for Leo's friends.

"Oh, that's not good," Leo says suddenly, pointing to a new image.

"A Roman standard," she says, recognizing it from the tales Hermes told during her early days on Ogygia.

"And this one shoots lightning, according to Percy," he says.

Calypso knows that Leo meant it as an offhanded comment. He probably didn't even think twice about the effect that Percy's name would have on her—

Although, to be honest, it's much less pronounced than it should have been. Which is strange. Rather than the overwhelming heartache she expected, Percy's name conjures up more of a faded melancholy.

And yet she still feels irrationally angry about the fact that Leo mentioned it, so much so that when the screen goes dark an instant later and he yells out in protest she snaps, "I suppose that is your girlfriend?"

The girl on the screen was tall, with tanned skin just a shade lighter than Leo's and chestnut brown hair that flew behind her in the wind. She walked with her shoulders thrown back, chin held high, and Calypso finds herself making a mental comparison. Would Leo think she was prettier than this girl?

She hates herself for the thought; first, for being jealous of some Roman praetor, and second, for measuring her self-worth in terms of what some boy thinks of her. She's promised herself time and time again that she will stop thinking like this, but it's an easy pattern to fall back into.

"Your Penelope? Your Elizabeth? Your Annabeth?" She shouldn't push like this, but suddenly she's on a defensive roll.

"What? That's Reyna. She's not my girlfriend."

Calypso ignores the flood of relief that rushes through her body.

"I need more!" Leo is yelling. "I need—"

The rest of his statement is cut off as the earth begins to shake.

"Need! Need is an overused word," Calypso recognizes the voice as Gaea's before Leo even manages to drop the shocked expression from his face. Gaea continues talking: "You don't need this, my poor boy. It would make no difference. Your friends will die, regardless."

Calypso clenches her hands into fists. Gaea's words sound like the words Ogygia has been whispering to her for millennia. It would make no difference. Try as hard as you want, you'll fall in love and be heartbroken, regardless.

Leo provides another scathing remark ("What I don't need are more lies from you!"), which surprises Calypso because he looks like he is about to pass out.

Gaea is speaking again: "Now you are trapped here, helpless, while the mortal world dies."

Calypso notices Leo's fists are clenched like her own. She sees the first trails of smoke, but it takes a moment for her to register what is happening and by then Leo's hands are surrounded by fire.

She puts a hand on his shoulder to calm him. She may be immortal, but he certainly isn't, and she has a feeling that Gaea wouldn't take too kindly to fireballs.

"Gaea," she says, making the three-fingered protective ward even though she knows it won't be much use against the Earth-mother. "You are not welcome."

"Ah, Calypso," Gaea turns her attention to her. Calypso had been relatively calm before, but now she felt the first hints of anxiety. "Still here I see…"

Ignore her ignore her ignore her, Calypso tells herself, but try as she might the words still filter through her mind. "I offer you a chance Zeus could never give you."

"Where were you these last three thousand years?" Calypso snaps. It's useless to snap at a Titan, she knows, but Gaea's words cause rage to bubble up within her.

She realizes too late that her anger is probably exactly what Gaea wants, probably a part of her plan, but Calypso ignores her hesitations.

"The Earth is slow to wake," Gaea says, "When I remake the world, this prison will be destroyed as well."

"Ogygia destroyed?" It takes her a moment to process the words. She may hate that she cannot leave Ogygia, cannot see the world.

But Ogygia is also the only home she can remember. For it to just be gone

"You do not have to be there when it happens. Kill this boy. Spill his blood upon the earth, and help me to wake. I will free you and grant you any wish."

Gaea is out of her mind. Calypso may have sided with the Titans once out of a sense of familial obligation, but she will never murder to achieve a goal. She has a sense of morality.

And then Gaea twists the knife in deeper. "Would you still have the demigod Percy Jackson? I will spare him for you. I will raise him from Tartarus. He will be yours, to punish or to love, as you choose. Only kill this trespassing boy. Show your loyalty."

Before she had met Leo, she might have considered it. She would never have murdered Leo, but she might have tried to negotiate with Gaea. But even with the possibility of seeing Percy again hanging over her head, Calypso is furious at Gaea. She is not some chess piece in the Titans game to be played when needed and cast aside at whim.

Leo, for his part, looks terrified, as though he expects her to stab him with her gardening shears as soon as she has the chance. Does he really think so little of her?

She makes the three-fingered ward against evil, focusing all her energy on casting Gaea out. "This is not just my prison, grandmother. It is my home. And you are the trespasser."

Leo is watching her with an expression that is a mix between confusion and admiration. Calypso decides that she rather enjoys the admiration part.


A/N: Sorry for the late update! Also for the fact that this chapter is mostly dialogue. Next chapter will be more fun, I promise. Review?