It didn't take Leo long to notice the weird noises Festus was making. They weren't the creaks and squeaks the dragon made as if to communicate; there was something much more concerning about them. Leo wasn't sure that it wasn't just his imagination conjuring up something else to be worried about-or rather, he was hoping his imagination was doing just that-but when Lance tapped his shoulder and whispered those exact concerns softly into his ear in Spanish so as not to concern the others, Leo knew there was a problem.

Lance gently ran his fingers over the metal ridges functioning as scales as Leo made sure to turn the dragon towards where Jason was claiming there was a plume of smoke that nobody else could see. Lance wasn't sure whether he was trying to comfort the dragon or spot some sort of malfunction happening through touch alone, as if he were Leo. Needless to say, he didn't discover anything but he did feel a new rumbling beneath his fingers that he liked to think was purring. It felt oddly right even if things were going quite wrong. The lions came to mind again.

"This is going to sound weird," Lance started, speaking into the damp open-air more than towards any person in particular, yet they all listened, "But I'm starting to think the lions are real,"

"I literally told you that it doesn't sound that weird when this," Leo lifted his hands from Festus' neck for a moment to make a broad gesture, "Is apparently our life now,"

"But it is weird," Lance knew it absolutely was but he didn't know that he could quite articulate why-it was like his brain was telling him that the two scenarios were very much distinct from each other but not yet ready to tell him quite how, "There were no children of Hephaestus or any of these gods and monsters and things we've stumbled across,"

"Is "stumbled" the right word?" Piper asked the air.

"Then what was there?" Leo pressed as Jason leant forwards on his arms.

"People," Lance started, hoping that starting with the most normal thing might soften the impact of the spiral of disparate images that eventually lead to what he could only describe as madness, "Weird clothes-like really weird clothes, almost sci-fi-ish,"

"Cosplay?" Leo suggested.

"I don't think so," Lance shook his head, "it was too frequent and it all felt too real,"

"Well, what else was there?" Jason asked, hoping that he could help Lance restore his memory at least to the extent Jason had his own.

"More people but not really people-like some of them were almost human but a couple of details away, but some of them looked more like these monsters but most of them never acted like them," The others listened even if they were running out of ideas as to how they might be able to piece these things together. Piper was just about to make another suggestion, even though she wasn't sure what she opened her mouth to say, when she was interrupted by Lance taking a sharp, stuttering intake of breath. He sounded pained.

"Are you okay?" She asked instead. She was sitting behind Lance and could see from where she sat that Lance's hand had drifted sheepishly up to the area between his shoulder blades.

"Yeah, fine," Lance didn't turn to speak to her but his voice sounded like it was being hissed through gritted teeth. There was a pause and then his voice sounded clearer, as if something had passed. "It was like a phantom pain…?" He seemed unsure so Piper just had to press. He twisted his torso so he could look at her this time.

"A phantom pain? Like a memory?"

"I think so? Or a false memory?" There was another pause, an audible breath as if he were preparing himself to continue, "Is there a scar on my back?"

"Probably," Piper said without hesitating, "You're covered in them-there's bound to be at least one on your back from how you were found," ah yes, the Miracle Boy situation the didn't discuss as often as they probably would if the rest of their lives weren't so strange.

But Lance was shaking his head, "No, I mean like a big one, one that's at least a little bit older. I need to know if this is a real memory or not,"

"You want me to check?" Piper asked, ghosting her fingers across the fabric of his jacket.

"If you don't mind…" Lance sounded a bit unsure, like he was doubting himself.

So Piper balled the fabric in her hand. Lifting it gently, she saw something she hadn't been expecting. "Shit dude," Jason breathed from over her shoulder.

There was a large scar taking up a considerable portion of his upper back, roughly shaped and distinctly lighter than the brown of his skin-turning brown and white in places but still mostly pink, tinged red and even purple here and there. Lance shivered at the feeling of the wind against his now bare back and it reminded Piper to drop the fabric. The scar looked healed but barely, like it had happened before the Miracle Boy fiasco but not too considerably.

"How did that happen?" Leo was the only one who hadn't seen the scar but he could tell from the reactions that it was there and it was bad.

"I'm not sure," Lance said as if he was ever sure of anything anymore, leaning back ever so slightly like he was a little bit too at-ease, "I think it was some sort of explosion,"

"What were you doing that could put you in that situation?" Piper asked, vaguely terrified of hearing the answer.

"Protecting a friend," Lance answered. Piper had never heard him more sure of anything.

They lapsed into a sort of thick silence, almost palpable, where no one was sure quite what they could say. Eventually Leo fell asleep and he was confronted with a vision-a demigod dream, the sort that made him genuinely consider insomnia as a lifestyle.

Leo was woken up from an unpleasant dream to something worse. At first, all he could register was screaming. Terrified screaming. Three different pitches; some sort of cacophonous harmony of horror.

Then there was the cold. Rushing up past him, freckled with rain that was clinging to his clothes. Then there was the cold beneath him, like he was sitting on ice rather than a working machine that was generating heat. His eyes snapped open and then he saw it.

They were plummeting quickly and Festus was unresponsive. The falling was almost becoming some sort of trend and Leo wasn't too happy about it. Leo joined the screaming briefly as he watched the sky streaking past them, like an impressionistic painting that made less sense the closer you looked at it. His brain was taking a moment to catch up and figure out a rational response but his senses were basically flooded with panic. Luckily enough, there were other people onboard who hadn't just woken up.

Lance's voice was shaking as he tried to speak loud enough to be heard over the rushing of the wind. "Jason, fly, get us off of here and fly, hopefully Festus will fall slower and leo can figure out what's happening,"

"Right," Jason nodded, sounding much calmer. He lifted himself, Piper, and Lance off of the dragon's back and Leo was glad for the chance to fiddle with the dragon's wiring in hopes of fixing it.

Jason was struggling under Lance and Piper's combined weight being paired with his own so Lance tried his best to alleviate some of that trouble. He gathered some of the water from the air into a sort of platform that he quickly froze beneath his feet but did not trust to hold his weight completely. Jason kept his arm around Lance's shoulders but there was a lot less effort there than there had been.

It didn't take too long for Leo to get Festus into a glide rather than a drop, but it wasn't the most stable or long-term of solutions so he scoured the area for a place where they could land rather hastily. Lance insisted Jason drop him back off on the dragon's back so he did and Lance quickly unfroze his makeshift platform so that it didn't fall intact and hit some poor, unlucky sod on the head.

Lance dropped to his knees, relieved, as soon as he was back on Festus' back. Leo grinned at him. "Nice to have you back,"

"Thank you," Lance grinned to, "No offense Jason, but I really trust Festus more than you, flight wise,"
"I'm probably the safer option at the moment," Jason reminded him, readjusting the way Piper was held.

"Lions," Lance reminded him, as if that had become a valid answer at some point.

"There's a mansion over there," Leo pointed out. It felt like an odd choice and like it was in an odd place but Lance didn't really question it. When he peered over the edge of the dragon he spotted the giant garden behind the mansion and Leo's choice of landing spot was immediately justified.

"Well then, lead the way," Jason told him and they began to head downwards.

But then, of course, as things are want to do, everything went quite predictably wrong.

The first bad sign was the spotlights-bright and glaring and burning Leo's eyes as soon as they flicked on. He tried to rear Festus up and away as soon as it had registered with him but Festus wasn't in the best condition and even if he was he never had quite the same response speed as Jason did when in flight. Jason managed to pull himself and Piper away in an instant but Leo and, by extension, Lance, didn't have quite that same luxury.

Almost immediately after the spotlights flicked on, things went even more wrong because how could they not?

There was a bang and Leo and Lance, after a moment of shock where nothing really registered, blacked out.

When Leo came to he was sitting on a scorched patch of grass, groggy and disoriented . Lance was already awake next to him, propped up on one hand as the other loosely held a water bottle to his mouth. He sipped gently before putting the bottle down at his side and turning his head so that Leo could see him properly. The first thing he noticed was the gash on his head that narrowly missed his eye. Or, more specifically, the shard of metal stuck in it.

"What happened?!" Leo stumbled to his feet, ignoring the extra dizziness that came from standing. He felt battered and bruised and there was a rip in his trousers revealing a gash that was bleeding steadily on his thigh. Piper handed him a square of ambrosia that they had been provided for the trip and he ate it but did not stop staring at her and Jason, waiting for an answer. Piper ignored him for a moment. She hesitated when she was about to give one of the lemony squares to Lance.

"I don't know what it will do if the wound heals with the metal in it," She explained as Leo's cut stitched itself closed, leaving a raised scar but no pain in its wake, "But I also don't know how to get the metal out," She handed him a tissue instead and he held it firmly against the cut, mostly in an attempt to stop the steady flow of blood from getting into his eye. "It looks bad,|" She told him as if he wasn't already aware, "It's bleeding a lot,"
"Head wounds do," he reminded her. She nodded but told him that it was still definitely a problem to be concerned about.

"Seriously," Leo put his hands on his hips, "What is going on?"

"Festus…" Jason started unsurely. Leo turned to him pointedly, terrified of where the conversation could go from there, "He's… Well there were lasers and then…"

"He's gone," Leo finished for him, voice strained. His eyes trailed over the scorched grass until they landed on something that was still intact: Festus' head.

He approached the metal head tentatively and promised that he would find a way to repurpose it, at least eventually. He had grown awfully attached to the dragon and seeing him in such a state of disrepair was tugging on his heartstrings in a way he was sure he wasn't supposed to feel about a machine. Or maybe-as a son of Hephaestus-he was supposed to feel exactly like that. He called upon Hephaestus to move the head back to Camp Half Blood where Leo would be able to find it later. He was doubtful that it would work but incredibly grateful when it did. He slinked back towards Lance who was still sitting on the floor, Piper crouched next to him trying to tend to the wound. He sat down heavily next to him.

"I'm sorry man," Lance told him, seeming as genuine as ever. His tone was soft but not pitying, "I miss Blue but at least I can get back to her," Leo had a feeling he was running on autopilot as he spoke again, mostly to himself, "I wonder if she's missing me?" Without asking, Leo knew he was alluding to the lions.

"You need to heal that," Jason told Piper as he walked over, "We don't want to have to deal with an infection,"

"I also don't want to have to deal with a hunk of metal sticking out of my face," Lance added.

"But I don't know what to do!" Piper exclaimed, more overwhelmed than frustrated.

"Just pull the metal out," lance told her, "I'd do it myself but I think it would be a lot easier and safer if somebody else did," Piper seemed hesitant, "We have the ambrosia," he reminded, "There's really not to much lasting damage you can cause,"

"Except scarring," She tried to argue.

"There's already going to be a scar," Jason told her, "Besides," He turned to Lance, face making it evident he was joking, "I've heard chicks dig scars," They all had a laugh even if it hurt Lance to move his face.

"I'm taken," He said through giggles. Then he stopped, like he'd realised something. His face melted into a sappy sort of relieved grin.

"Ooh," Leo teased, "Lance is in looooove," Lance shoved him gently but his face still said amused even if he was caked in blood.

Jason and Piper laid Lance down to remove the metal before passing him the piece of ambrosia Piper had hesitated with earlier. Lance nibbled on it and felt nothing but relief as the gash began to knit itself closed.

"So what's her name?" Piper said before piping in, as if an afterthought "If you remember it, of course,"

Lance looked like he was stifling a giggle as he said "Keith," and Piper immediately realised her mistake. Jason chuckled softly and Leo was speaking before Piper got the chance to apologise.

"That's a weird name for a girl," He said completely seriously. Instantaneously, Piper forgot about apologising as all three of them dissolved into laughter. "Oh no," Leo said as soon as he realised, "I'm sorry Man, Jesus Christ, I'm and idiot, I'm so tired,"

Lance gestured to their surroundings, "I think being tired is the least of your worries at the moment,"

A/N

I'm sorry to have been gone for so long, this story hasn't been abandoned, I was just having a tough time mentally (still kind of am but I'm trying my best) and I'm having to get work done for sixth form induction tasks. Also it is like unbearably hot in England at the minute and most of my clothing is like jumpers and tracksuit bottoms so that's fun.

Thanks for bearing with me and thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favourited, or followed-it means a lot to me. If anyone has any suggestions for filler scenes or anything else they'd like to see let me know in a review or PM and I might include it.

Anyway, Lance is remembering things and also Klance. That is all.

All the best,

We'reAllABitOdd