LEO

Leo found it hard to sleep.

He'd set a course for Piper's coordinates, a task that had become a little more complicated without Festus to take the wheel. In the absence of his beloved dragon, and every other living thing, Leo realized he'd never been alone on the ship before. At least, not since it left the bunker.

He hadn't been this alone since before Jason and Piper.

But they'd left him. Or he had left them.

It was easier to think of it as a mutual separation, but that didn't stop him from feeling abandoned. By everyone. Even Annabeth and Hazel, who he'd willingly stranded. But they didn't try to stop him. Or join him.

Not even the hum of the engine could distract him from the quiet. The silence, the absence. It made it impossible to sleep. Like if he closed his eyes, it would follow him, or swallow him up.

This wasn't the first time Leo craved company besides his own, but what puzzled him was his machines could normally fill that void. Like they were alive, like they responded to him, like they knew him. Now it was as if that magic was gone. He didn't see friends- he saw pipes, and meters, and screws. Was this all that everyone else saw too?

Desperate for noise, and a distraction from all the thoughts trying to run through his head, he turned on Hazel's favorite radio station. Top hits from the 1940s. He roamed the empty, creaky ship, and turned on every television, every fan, every machine that could utter a sound. Even Coach Hedge's sports games.

Anyone else would be overwhelmed, but finally, along with the familial engine hum, it put Leo to sleep.

That was, until he heard another noise. One he wasn't responsible for. A sound he'd strangely been missing, but one he couldn't replicate.

Footsteps.

Usually, Leo could recognize whose footsteps were whose. Frank's were loud, deliberate. He couldn't sneak around if he wanted to. Piper's were soft, like she never wanted to disturb anyone. Hazel's were practically nonexistent.

The ones he heard now didn't belong to anyone he knew.

...Maybe he left one of the TVs on too loud.

He crept up the stairway from the engine room, and the footsteps came from even another floor above, from the deck. Whoever was here wanted him to know it. They stalked around, pacing like they were frustrated, or impatient.

Leo tip-toed, trying to sound as quiet as Hazel somehow always did, but the closer he got the more his heart pounded. A deep cold settled into his bones, and he couldn't tell if it was from the weather or his fear.

He stopped halfway up the stairs, so that he remained below deck, but could still tilt his head and peer over the floor.

A figure was leaning over the railing on the other side, back turned.

Leo didn't have time to register what he found so familiar about them, until they spoke.

"I thought you'd want some company."

The figure turned around, and moonlight silhouetted his black hair, his ragged clothes, looking worse for wear than the last time Leo saw him.

Percy.

…This was a dream.

A bad one? He didn't know yet.

"I know some people who are looking for you," Leo said, revealing himself as he came up the steps.

"It's not the first time." Percy didn't move as Leo approached, except to sit back against the railing as the trees below flew by.

Leo tried to match his casual behavior, and leaned a shoulder against a mast pole when he got closer. "I bet it feels good, knowing people care this much."

"I don't like worrying people. I don't need to disappear to feel important, I just am."

"You know, that's funny, Annabeth told me you didn't have an ego."

"It's not an ego, it's an observation. But I can see why you'd be jealous- who'd come after you?"

"Jason would."

"Jason didn't hesitate to leave you behind. He didn't even think twice about leaving me. You think he's your best friend, but he doesn't care."

Okay, this was a bad one.

Gee, how could he have guessed.

"Why are you doing this?" Leo asked. He was talking more to his self-conscious than dream-Percy, but he still wanted to know, and hey, why not ask? "I left my friends to help you, I jeopardized the quest for you."

"Did you do it for me? Or did you put yourself in my shoes, and do what you thought you friends should've?"

Percy's eyes seem to glow in the darkness, and Leo wondered if that meant he was getting angry. Percy continued:

"You try not to think about it, but it's always at the back of your mind. If they abandoned me, they would have done the same to you. Whatever's in the best interest of the quest."

"A rational part of Leo's brain knew he was arguing with himself, but that didn't stop him.

"They were being practical, logical- that doesn't mean they don't care."

"Practical would've meant sticking together. But they couldn't wait to get away from you."

"Jason tried to get me to come with him, to change my mind-"

"That's what he had to do. To keep up the guise of friendship. If he was your real friend, your real best friend, he would've found a way for you to stay together. Why do you think Piper's with him, but not you?"

Leo couldn't honestly think of a way to counter that.

"It's not just romance," Percy said. "Not just because the girlfriend always has a leg up. No one wants you, Leo. They want your ship. They want your weapons. Your skills. They want what you can give them."

"That's not true."

"Things are dire. They can't keep pretending, even if they wanted. Annabeth, Jason, Piper...it's not the stress. It's not that they're tired, or anxious, or anything else. They're just sick of tolerating you."

Leo slid to the ground, fighting back tears. It wasn't true. It wasn't true. He knew that so why was he still so upset? Why could he feel his eyes burning, his heart clench?

"You think your dragon malfunctioned on its own? No, Annabeth was right. They want the Argo. She knows, because if she was in their place, she'd want the same thing. Lucky for her, she already had it."

Percy stalked around Leo, now cowering against the mast.

"Didn't want your ideas though, did she? For how to...capture me. Like I said, the girlfriend, the boyfriend, the partner- they come first. Always. And everyone's paired off, but you. Odd one out. No one's favorite."

Percy bent down next to him, and the air grew cold. This dream figure- all its physical features matched Percy's, but he still looked like a stranger. He whispered:

"But you already knew that."

Leo kept his eyes to the floor.

He didn't just know it. He had it rubbed in his face everyday.

"Now you have to decide," Percy stood up and walked back towards the edge of the deck. "Are you going to give Jason the Argo?"

"Or will you head back and find me, the one everyone actually likes?"

Despite his feelings, Leo couldn't help but point out the flaw in that logic- that half had chosen to leave him behind.

"Not everyone."

Percy almost smiled, amused. But there wasn't any real emotion.

"I'm a priority to one side, and a loss- even if they deem it necessary- for the other. You're not important enough to be either."

He pushed himself atop the railing, swinging his legs over the side. "Looking at the river, the gulf in the distance, I'd say you're about halfway between your two choices."

Percy's eyes glowed gold, and the edges of his shadow seem to blur with the night sky. Just another nightmarish detail for Leo to remember when he woke up.

"I'd make one soon, if I were you."

He jumped off, and Leo didn't rush to see where he fell, in case he was still there.

Instead he ran to the control panel, and stopped the ship's course- leaving the Argo hanging in the air, unmoving. He couldn't stop the ship in a dream, but something compelled him to try anyway.

The next morning, he woke up on the deck:

To the sound of silence, and a still ship.