A/N Io non aquisto.

Book of the Update: Cat Skidoo by Henry Holt

A lot of the dialogue and stuff is straight out of MOA so it's not completely my writing. Sorry, guys.

Chapter 14

"I swear it on my life."

"On your life?" Octavian looked meaningfully at the senate after Percy made his very risky announcement. "We will remember that, if this turns out to be a trick."

I almost rolled my eyes at him, but stopped myself when I remembered I was in the presence of the senate. Gods, that boy drove me insane sometimes. All the time. But I might lose the praetorship I had worked so hard during the war to gain if I tried to gut him with my knife.

A gasping messenger ran into the senate house, disrupting my murderous thoughts about Octavian. "Praetors! I'm sorry to interrupt, but scouts report-"

"Ship!" Tyson, Percy's Cyclops….brother called out, pointing at the gaping hole in the ceiling.

Sure enough, a Greek warship appeared out of the clouds, probably about half a mile away, descending toward the Senate House. As it got closer, I could see intricate designs and bronze shields along the sides and….a dragon. There was a giant metal dragon's head, right on the front of the ship. On the tallest mast, there was a white flag of truce flying in the wind.

"Praetors!" the messenger cried. "What are your orders?"

Octavian shot to his feet and started screeching something about deception and Greeks bearing gifts, jabbing his finger at Percy. His voice was calm, yet firm when answered with a strong no.

"You all raised me as praetor for a reason. I will fight to defend this camp with my life. But these aren't enemies. I say we stand ready, but do not attack. Let them land. Let them speak. If it is a trick, then I will fight with you, as I did last night. But it is not a trick."

All eyes turned to me. I studied the warship, which most certainly looked hostile, and then turned my gaze back to the occupants of the room, focusing on Percy. He was quite visibly becoming nervous, with good reason, too. If I vetoed his orders, there would be chaos and confusion everywhere, but the Romans would follow my lead. I had been their leader for much longer than Percy. I looked back at the warship once more. I trusted Percy to make the right decision. I really did.

"Hold your fire," I said. "But have the legion stand ready. Percy Jackson is your duly chosen praetor. We will trust his word - unless we are given clear reason not to. Senators, let us adjourn to the forum and meet our…new friends." The last words were chosen carefully, as I wasn't yet sure what the Greeks were to us; friends seemed the safest way to go.

Everyone stormed out of the auditorium, and I couldn't tell if it was from excitement or panic. A bit of both, I suppose. I walked over to Percy and stood at his shoulder.

"I support you, Percy. I trust your judgment. But for all out sakes, I hope that we can keep the peace between our campers and your Greek friends."

"We will," he promised. "You'll see."

I glanced up at the warship again. "You said Jason in on board…I hope that's true. I've missed him." It probably came out a little more wistfully than I'd intended, but Jason was my best friend. And, yeah, he was hot and I may or may not have had a little tiny crush on him. I marched outside with the rest of the crowd and stood waiting, trying to shield my eyes from the sun with my hand as I stared up into the sky.

I heard a pop and then the sharp sound of Terminus's voice echoing down from the ship. Oh, I hadn't thought of that….never mind nervous and paranoid Roman citizens, the Greeks weren't going to be able to get past our statues!

Some loud arguing and a few minor explosions, then the ship stopped moving and just sort of….hovered over New Rome. After a moment or two, a rope ladder dropped from the ship and a blonde girl in an orange shirt climbed down, jumping the last few feet to the ground. The crowd parted for her and she stopped in the middle, looking a bit awkward, like she wasn't really sure what to do next, so I stepped up through the crowd, stopping a few yards away from each other.

So this was the famous Annabeth. I have to admit, she's not what I had expected. Blonde hair thrown haphazardly into a ponytail, an orange t-shirt with something that looked suspiciously like oil stained onto the bottom hem, ratty cutoff jeans….she had bags under her eyes, as if she hadn't slept much for a while. As I looked at her eyes though, I could see a fighter. She was strong and smart and I could see what Percy saw in her. Any petty jealousy I had had for Percy's girlfriend vanished at that moment.

Speaking of Percy, he stepped up beside me at that moment, and something in the girl's face changed, but Jason shoved through the crowd and Percy's mystery girl lost my attention; it was all on Jason Grace.

"Jason Grace, my former colleague…" I almost spit the word colleague, because, yeah, I was mad at him. He just up and vanishes one day, leaving the entire of New Rome, not to mention Octavian, for me to handle on my own? Yeah, I was a little mad. "I welcome you home. And these, your friends -"

I was cut off as Percy flew by me, almost knocking me over, to meet Annabeth somewhere in the middle. For a moment, all was fine. They were kissing and talking like a perfect little couple, but then Percy was lying on his back on the stone pavement, Annabeth holding his wrist. She had Judo-flipped him over her shoulder.

I cracked a smile. Maybe this girl wasn't so bad after all. She seemed a bit more Roman than we'd been brought up to think the Greeks were.

The crowd behind me raised weapons and began to rush toward the couple, but I held up my hand. "Hold! Stand down!"

Annabeth pressed her forearm against Percy's throat and there was silence for a moment until Percy laughed. He was lying on the stone pavement with his girlfriend choking him, and he was laughing. Gods, he's great, I thought with a smile. They got up and Jason cleared his throat awkwardly, drawing the attention back to him.

"So, yeah…it's good to be back." A girl with choppy brown hair and gorgeous eyes shyly walked around from behind him and slipped her hand into his, (Not jealous. I'm not jealous.) followed by a tall familiar-looking boy with shaggy black hair and a black oil smear across his cheek. He looked at the crowd surrounding them and smiled a mischievous smile that seemed oh-so-familiar to me.

"Umm, this is Piper," Jason said, looking to the girl, who gave a little wave. "And that's Leo."

Oil-smear boy finally turned his gaze on me and my breath caught in my throat. Leo. Leo Valdez.

The smile dropped from his face, replaced by a look of disbelief, which soon melted into a genuine Valdez smile, the same one I hadn't seen since I was 12. He bent down and took my hand, kissing the back of it gently.

"Your Highness." I bit my lip to keep from squealing and attacking him in a hug, keeping my face neutral, but didn't pull back my hand.

Jason slapped at his shoulder. "Stop it." He turned to me. "Sorry, just ignore him."

I nodded blindly, still staring at Leo, who gave me a wink and flashed a peace sign. I couldn't bite down the smile that crept onto my face this time.

"And that's Annabeth. Uh, she doesn't normally Judo-flip people." Jason continued, stealing my focus away from Valdez.

"You sure you're not a Roman, Annabeth? Or an Amazon?"

She grinned and held out her hand. "I only attack my boyfriend like that," she promised. "Pleased to meet you."

I shook her hand before announcing to everyone. "It seems we have a lot to discuss. Centurions!" they came forward. "Gwen, get the citizens out of the way, tell them we'll explain later. Frank, tell the legion to stand down. Dakota, alert the spirits in the kitchen. And, Octavian-"

"You're letting the intruders into the camp?" he asked in that screechy voice, elbowing his way forward. "Reyna, the security risks-"

I flashed him an irritated look. "We're not taking them into camp, Octavian. We'll eat here, in the forum."

"Oh, much better," he grumbled, "Let's relax in the shadow of their warship."

"These are our guests," I said, every word coming out clipped and very not-under-control. Deep breath. "We will welcome them and we will talk to them. As augur, you should burn an offering to thank the gods for bringing Jason back to us safely."

"Good idea," Percy put in. "Go burn your bears, Octavian."

I bit my lip again to not smile. "You have my orders. Go."

He left, but not before glaring daggers at anyone and everyone and giving Annabeth a distrusting look.

"Excellent." I turned to Jason, and to Leo, who stood right behind him, making a silly face at me. "Let's talk and see if we can have a proper reunion."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

About halfway through the long and seemingly never ending chatter and story-telling between the Greeks and Romans, Ella the harpy started spewing out a prophecy and things got a bit…sticky. Luckily, Annabeth (I was starting to like her more and more) stood up to Octavian, practically laughed in his face, and then left with Percy to see a tour of New Rome. Once she was gone, Octavian started up again with the whole "Treachery! It's a warship! Bleh blah bluh!" I wasn't really listening too much.

Leo offered to give him a tour of the Greek ship, to show that it really wasn't a threat, and when Octavian refused, he turned to me, pleading in his eyes.

"Would you like a tour of the ship, praetor? To be sure we aren't gonna, like blow up New Rome or something?"

"That is….a good idea. We'll convene a senate meeting in one hour. Make sure I'm back by then, Valdez," I said to him, pointedly ignoring the sputtering noises Octavian was making as he crushed some poor teddy bear.

We walked in an awkward sort of silence as Leo lead me through the city and back to where their ship hovered. Silence again as I followed him up the rope ladder and onto the ship.

"You have a nice ship," I commented, just to break the silence.

"Thanks."

Silence again.

"Do you wanna see the lower decks?"

"Sure."

We were walking down the stairs in that annoyingly awkward silence that just wouldn't seem to go away, but Leo finally broke it with something other than just monotone comments on the ship.

"Where's Hylla?"

I smiled – for some reason it made me happy that he remembered Hylla. "Down in the city somewhere. She's queen of the Amazons now, so she's just visiting."

"Oh, that's pretty cool. So what about you? You liking the whole 'praetor of New Rome' gig?"

"It's….."I trailed off, unsure what it really was. "Did you design this whole ship?" I asked, changing subjects to avoid answering.

He grinned. "Pretty impressive, huh? Better than a pipe-cleaner helicopter anyway," he said with a smirk, referring to something he had shown me back when we were little. I laughed a real genuine happy laugh. I hadn't done that in years; it felt good.

"There's that pretty little smile I remember," Leo teased, making me laugh more. "It's a pretty weird coincidence, huh? Me being captain of the Argo II, you being praetor of New Rome…"

"Leo did you….did you know you were a demigod when I knew you?" he shook his head and I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding. I didn't really like the idea of Leo lying to me.

"Just found out earlier this year. I don't really know when; I was working on the ship pretty much day and night for months. Speaking of which, what day is it?"

I smirked. "It's Tuesday, Valdez."

He grinned and swung his arm over my shoulder as we walked down the long hallway with all of the doors to the cabins. I could see names written on some of them. "Good," he said in a low voice near my ear. He was still taller than me. My head barely passed his shoulder and his lips were just above my ear; the perfect place to press kisses to my hair and whisper the word good into my ear. That was good.

"Why is that good?" I asked him, trying to ignore whatever it was he was doing to my brain that seemed to turn it into mush.

"Because it was a Tuesday when I met you," he said in the same low voice near my ear that sent chills down my spine. "Since then," he continued in a normal voice, moving his lips away from my hair, "Tuesdays have been my favorite day of the week."

I laughed again. "Leo Valdez, you are….really something."

He smiled that stupid little smile of his. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

I couldn't take it anymore. I stopped walking and put my arms around his neck, smiling as he put his around my back. "That is most definitely a good thing, Lord Valdez."

He pulled his arms tighter around me, squeezing us closer together. "God, Reyna I have missed you so much…I still can't believe that you just left me, but you were right. Everyone does have their own destiny. Mine was a crayon drawing from when I was five," I decided not to question this, just because it was Leo and he said things that didn't really make sense sometimes. "Yours was New Rome. But I know for a fact that it's fate that keeps pulling us together." He didn't give me a chance to respond before he pulled back and frowned. "That sounds like something out of some cheesy romantic movie from the 80s."

I smiled at him. Same old Leo. "I thought it was perfect."

He opened his mouth to say something, but all of a sudden, his expression became frozen and neutral and his eyes cold and hard. The hallway suddenly seemed very cold. He dropped his arms from around me and smiled a pretty fake looking smile and spun around, marching back down the hallway.

"I'm going to go check on something real quick. See ya,"he called over his shoulder in a dismissive tone.

I stood there, shocked, then narrowed my eyes and followed him. Whatever just happened wasn't Leo. Something was controlling him or disguised as him or possessing him or something…..I gasped. Eidolons? I had only seen them once or twice, but it looked like this. If eidolons were here, that couldn't mean anything good for anyone, Roman or Greek.

A/N Okay, so I lied. ONE MORE CHAPTER! For real, this time.

Reviews mean a sequel! On another note, I'm officially a year older now! Whoo! But seriously, do you think we could get this to be the most-reviewed Leo/Reyna story on this site? Please? It would make me super-duper happy :D

Ok, I have to say this. I know that Leo is like, OOC, but I really suck at writing funniness, especially classic Leo Valdez funniness, so…yeah. Deal with it.