A/N: Y'all might want to follow me 'cause there could be Leyna oneshots coming. (I do already have the one, "Mannequin," which is kind of a thing that exists idk.) Especially Leyna week, September 1–7, be prepared for Leyna ficlets.

Unrelated: "Guest" pointed out in a review that you guys (or at least some) don't even know if I'm a guy or a girl. I'm a girl, folks. (applause) Hello, nice to meet you. You can call me Holly—or whatever you want, really, I'm cool with nicknames. Send me a PM or a tumblr note, I would love to get to know you. Friends 3

"I'm really feeling weak, queen-face. Are you sure I can't put my arm around you—for, you know, support?"

"Weak, my ass. Try actually sitting upright." Resting her weight on her hip, Reyna wore her best No Nonsense expression, waiting for Leo to actually put forth effort to get up from his hospital bed. Will had declared him well enough to go . . . if he ever actually went.

"Watch your language," he scolded her. "There could be children outside this room." Then he sat up too fast, apparently making pain explode in his head, as he clamped his hands to his temples and swore profusely, and only half in Spanish. Watch your language, indeed.

"Come on. Up, up, up." She gripped him by the forearm and lifted him halfway to a standing position, just far enough that his feet fell off the mattress and touched the floor. He groaned, but he stood, slow and wobbly. Pale, off-balance, but vertical. She felt that was enough of an improvement that when he slipped his right arm over her shoulder, she didn't shake it off. Will held the curtain open for them as they shuffled out of the makeshift room.

Reyna and Leo left the hospital and began to make their way slowly across New Rome toward the Argo II, stopping every so often so he could catch his breath and she could tease him about being a weakling. But it didn't take more than a few minutes out in the open, late in the well-populated Saturday morning, before he noticed the looks. The stares, the creased brows, the crinkled noses. He grinned, made faces, but eventually leaned over to ask, "Uh, Rey-Rey, do I have something on my face?"

She had to crane her neck, given that he was hanging over her shoulder. "Nope. Grease-free. At least until we get to the ship."

"What are the weird looks for, then?"

Clenching her jaw, she kept walking towards the ship. It wasn't far now.

"You said you told them." His hand tightened on the crook of her arm, and his tone dropped like he thought she might have lied.

"I did tell them. Can we talk about this when we're inside?" Ah, here. They stopped in front of Festus' head; Leo and the dragon exchanged some friendly clicks and whirs, and then the two demigods boarded, heading for the workshop by the engine room. He had barely flopped into his hammock when he brought it back up.

"Reina," he said, holding onto her fingers so she had to sit within arm's reach of him. She slumped against the wall and slid to the floor, letting her arm hang up where he held it. "If you told everybody and Octavian's out, why are we getting weird looks?"

With her free hand Reyna began to pensively finger her braid, smoothing the stray bits back into place. She tried not to let her face clench up; it was a dead giveaway. The nightmares had stopped since her showdown with Octavian, but she still remembered them all too well. "It's still . . . a foreign concept to most of them."

He sounded offended as he said, "They don't give Jason and Percy weird looks."

"I know." Rotating her jaw, she tried to take a deep breath, but it ended up just being a big shudder.

Leo leaned over the edge of his hammock to look her over, concern creasing his face. "Reina, are people giving you trouble?"

"It's nothing I can't handle," she said, trying to convince herself as much as him, and really it should have been true. She wasn't being demoted, she wasn't being executed, life ought to have been sunshine and rainbows. But her Romans took issue with her, and she knew it, and she hated it.

His grip on her hand tightened. "That's not cool. Has this been going on the whole time I was out of commission?"

She said nothing.

Leo swore in a huff under his breath. "And you're okay with this?"

"I spent the last week expecting to be beheaded when they found out," Reyna snapped, glaring at him. "No, I'm not okay with it. But it's better than it could be."

That quieted him. "Beheaded?" he finally asked, hesitant.

She grumpily stroked her braid. She shouldn't have said anything. "Octavian was saying stuff."

"Octavian talks shit, you can't listen to him."

"You think I wanted to?" She pulled her hand away, glaring full force. "Gods, I even had to dream about it. Do you know how many ways an ex-praetor can be executed by a Roman mob? Forty-three. My brain thought of forty-three ways in five nights."

Sliding onto the floor and scooting to sit across from her, Leo pulled his knees up to his chest and knocked his chin against them as he thought on this new information. "You weren't having nightmares about pirates," he said finally, in a low, ashamed tone. "You were having nightmares about the consequences of dating me." For once, the idea of their being together didn't set him aflame; he only drooped, curled a little more into himself, depressed that their relationship had had such an effect on her. She wanted to reassure him, but really, what could she say? He'd hit the nail on the head.

They sat in silence in the workshop, listening to the muted creaks and whistles of the engine room next door. Not snacking, not joking, not speaking at all, not even looking at each other. Reyna undid and redid her braid, working it carefully with her slim fingers so that it ended up pristine.

"Wait," Leo said, lifting his head from his knees. "I don't think even bloodthirsty Romans would have killed you if you dumped me and sent me away. Are you saying you died forty-three times because you wouldn't reject me?"

Cheeks heating up a little, she stroked the sleek end of the braid. "More," she admitted. "A couple times they repeated."

"Holy Hephaestus," he exhaled, and when she dared to look up he was staring at her in awe, solemnity and respect in his eyes like he truly felt the weight of the revelation. She blinked a few times and swallowed thickly, the lump in her throat burning as she fought to appear calm. He didn't try to hug her or kiss her—didn't touch her at all, actually—and she was glad. She probably would have become weepy, and the loyalties of a weepy teenage girl were not nearly as impressive to earn as the loyalties of a stoic praetor.

They stayed in his Argo workshop until noon, at which time one of his half-finished clock projects started to squawk and run around the workshop table banging against things until it beat a crater into its head. Leo hopped up to quickly disable whatever mechanism had faulted, and as he tinkered, his stomach let out an emphatic grumble. He glanced at Reyna, then at the door, and it didn't take a genius to figure out he was ready for lunch, so she pushed herself to her feet.

"Let's go," she said, giving him an it's okay look, so he braved a small smile and walked with her out the door.

The two of them walked side-by-side from the ship to the mess hall, close enough that their shoulders brushed occasionally, and sometimes when they passed another demigod, Leo hooked one of his fingers around one of hers, a quiet claim and reassurance. Nothing dramatic. No Octavian-style standoffs. It just was. More often than not, the other demigods simply went on their way.

The mess hall was rowdy and active, nothing new there. Lunch was already so far underway that even the late entrance of a praetor didn't distract more than a few people from their food and conversation. The two of them still attached by hooked fingers, Reyna led Leo over to the rest of the Seven and sat down, prim and silent. An aura brought her the usual, steak and grilled asparagus, with extra asparagus, as if it knew she needed extra sustenance for this meal.

The others looked them over warily, but no one said anything until Piper broke the ice. "You feeling better, then, Leo?" she asked him, the brightness in her tone only slightly forced.

He pretended to salute her. "Back in top condition, beauty queen, ma'am."

She rolled her eyes and took a perfect bite of her mashed potatoes. Wiping his mouth, Percy looked up from his blue waffles to ask, "You gonna be okay to fly us back?"

"Probably tomorrow," Leo said, but he glanced at Reyna and sadness, disappointment, flashed through his eyes, just for a moment: he'd forgotten he needed to leave. Frankly, she'd kind of been hoping to put it off.

"We can wait," Annabeth suggested. Reyna looked her way, and the blonde's brow was creased in sympathy. "I don't think we're imposing, and we definitely want you to be okay for such a big trip. It wouldn't be a big deal to take a few more days—right, Reyna?"

"Right," she said, surprised. "That'd be fine."

Laughing like a victorious child, Leo grinned and nudged her on the shoulder; she rolled with the movement, trying not to blush and failing miserably. "You have me for a few extra days—what are your other two wishes?" he teased her.

She snorted, but a smile tugged at her lips. "Eat your food," she ordered, and he did, widening his eyes and pretending to grimace in terror at her tone. As everyone went tentatively back to their meal, it didn't escape her that the two of them had six pairs of eyes on them, observing the couple that had caused all the drama of the last few days. It was about as subtle as they could be, which was to say not very. Reyna pretended not to notice every time Leo's knee brushed against hers and sparked, or the few times one of the Seven opened their mouth only to be shut down by a sharp look from the others. But when conversation started back up, the others did notice Leo's bounce, his extra-wide grin and extra-cheesy puns, and the small smile that crept onto Reyna's face at least twice more before dessert. And she herself was so busy watching him stuff his face, amused by his antics and relieved just to have him around again, that she forgot to keep an eye on Jason and Piper.

By the time they all filled up and parted ways, the rest of the Seven seemed at peace with Leo and Reyna's relationship. In her books, it was a good lunch.

Reyna stopped by her villa to change clothes and pick up her beach basket, and then she swept out the door, leaving dogs-surrounded Leo to decide whether to follow her or not, which of course meant he would follow, if he knew what was best for him.

The door swung open again behind her, slamming shut as he trotted out into the sun. "Hey, aren't you forgetting something?" he called.

"What?"

He scrambled to catch up, running in front of her with his arms wide like he wanted to yell Ta-da! "Me!"

"Hmm," she considered, looking him over playfully. "No, I think I meant to leave that behind."

"Aww, you don't mean it."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Nooo." He matched her pace, and they went on their way. "Do we really have to do this now? I mean, I'm all for you in a swimsuit, but swimming sounds like hard work right now. Plus I bet the water is naaasty dirty." His complaints grew more and more pressing the closer they got, but she refused to grace them with responses.

When they reached the lake, Reyna set her beach basket down on the sand. It held sunscreen, towels, sunglasses, snacks, basically everything someone might want for the beach and then some. Will had suggested water therapy to help get Leo back on his feet and at least fit enough to walk five steps without needing a breather, and despite the repair boy's protests, she personally knew that the lake was clean enough for that. So now she wore her swimsuit and cover-up, and grumpy Leo had plunked himself down rebelliously in the sand, wriggling his butt in his swim trunks like I'm not going in there. Well, they would see about that.

Very deliberately, she pulled the sunscreen out of the basket. Making quiet squeegee noises with her lips, she went to work lathering the protective liquid all up and down her neck, her shoulders, her arms, her lovely long legs. Leo was peeking over his shoulder; she waved the bottle in his direction.

"You need some too," she said in a tone that left no room for argument, and indeed he made good time scrambling over for sunscreen application. Tugging off his orange shirt, he looked at her hopefully. "You can apply your own," she told him, but immediately he put up such a show of pain and stiffness that she pursed her lips, rolled her eyes, and squirted the sunscreen into her left hand.

"Do I really have to get in the water?" Leo mumbled, frowning like a child served Brussels sprouts as he turned to face away from her.

"Yes." Reyna swiped a glob of sunscreen across the top of his back, parallel to his shoulders, and she would have been lying if she said she didn't take her good sweet time rubbing it in. For a scrawny guy, he had some strong shoulders. Probably a side effect of working constantly. She let her sunglasses slip a little down her nose.

"What if it infects my giant, gaping wound?" he persisted.

"Turn around." He pushed himself around so he was now facing her. She flicked some onto his nose and then went to work on his chest and arms. He really could have been doing this himself, she knew that full well. "The Apollo kids said your giant, gaping wound is practically good as new. Good try." And given her perfected evil eye, she knew they were telling the truth.

He looked down at her hands tracing purposeful circles on his abdomen. Both their faces flushed, she felt his stomach clench, and his hair began to crackle with flames. It took a minute to put it out, and the embers at the tips of his curls never really went away. She suppressed a smile as she closed the bottle of sunscreen.

"And now we get to wait until it's all dry."

He groaned, bouncing on his butt in the sand—a kid on Christmas morning. Apparently he only wanted to stay out of the water when he wasn't supposed to. What else was new. He stayed still for all of two minutes before hopping to his feet and heading for the edge of the water.

"Sit back down," Reyna called, hanging her head back and looking under her sunglasses at him.

Grinning, Leo turned around and waved innocently. "I'm only gonna wade, reiNNAAA!" He promptly tripped over his own feet and plowed headfirst into the waves and sand. He came back up shaking the mud and water out of his hair like a dog.

She blew a strand of hair out of her face and sighed, the corners of her lips twitching.

"Come on, it's warm!"

Taking a moment to deliberate, she finally did get to her feet and make her way toward the edge of the water. She eyed it warily, but when it hit her toes it truly was warm, as promised, unlike the other camp's lake or the Long Island Sound. Trust a lava-blooded mechanic to actually know heat when he felt it. She waded deeper to get to him; he stood where the water came just above his waist—not terribly far, but for two medium-sized people, just far enough. She got there just in time to be knocked back by a chest-high wave.

"Ugh, thank you for that," Reyna complained as she spat out the water, trying to regain her balance against the tide, but instead Leo almost knocked her over with a tackle-hug. She flailed backward, slapping against the water, but he held her to him, his hands firmly on her waist and his mouth just as firmly on hers. She smacked him lightly on the chest but let her fingers move upward to comb through his hair.

Water therapy, indeed. She'd have to thank Will for the fantastic idea.