Little filler/kinda important chapter for you here.
I don't own PJO/HoO, as I'm sure you're all aware.
Please enjoy this, thanks to everyone who reads!

Chapter fifty-six: Before the Earth
~Leo's POV~

When Leo woke, he felt cold. This wasn't a usual sensation for him, as normally his fire-affinity
kept him constantly warm from the inside out.
But now there was an icy chill on his skin, and it made him shiver with nervousness as much as cold.
He blinked a few times, and carefully sat up. He'd been lying on the floor of the little cave, probably
having fallen asleep during watch. Ah well, they were still alive.
Instantly, the word alive gave him a jolt, and he whipped his head around to check on Penelope,
to make sure she hadn't disappeared again.
His heartbeat slowed down a little when he saw her curled up beside the spot where he'd gone to sleep, her body thin and her dark hair in a mess around her face.
Smiling a little, Leo edged out of the cave and started to cook breakfast. It took him a while to
get a fire going, and he could only be thankful for Piper, who'd once forgotten a box of matches in
his room, which he'd pocketed on a whim and which now proved to be extremely useful.
It was annoying having to make fire with little sticks instead of his fingers, but Leo knew he'd made
the right choice every time he turned his head around to glance into the cave and see if Pen was up yet.
Soon, he'd gotten the hang of striking a match and had a nice little fire going, which warmed up his
skin and made him feel more comfortable. The weather was quite different from the last few days
when it had been warm and sunny, whereas now it was cloudy and a chill hung in the air.
Leo could only hope it would clear up before they got going.
When he'd cooked his last provisions (cursing the fact that the magical plates and goblets hadn't fit
inside his bag) he crawled back inside the cave and gently shook Pen's shoulder.
"Hey" he whispered, when she stirred "Breakfast"
"'Kay" Penelope mumbled, and she rolled onto her stomach. Leo knew this meant she was about to get up, and so he went back outside, where Penelope soon joined him, rubbing her eyes, which had
dark shadows underneath them.
"How d'you feel?" Leo asked, after they'd both had some bread with cooked mushrooms.
Penelope didn't answer immediately, but chewed on her portion, as if unsure what to say.
"Different." she finally concluded, and Leo raised his eyebrows at her, silently prompting her to go on.
"I'm not sure how to describe it honestly. It's just so...different. Like I'm not the same as I was."
Her eyes were clouded, and Leo knew the feeling deeply troubled her.
"I think that's probably normal after, you know," Leo tried to avoid the word dead "what you've been through. I bet it'll go away again though." he tried to sound upbeat, but kinda failed.
Pen smiled at him nevertheless, a little sadly.
"I don't think it'll go away. It might get better, but it won't go away. I was dead, Leo. Dead." She said the words as if their meaning was only just starting to register.
Leo didn't know what to say, but Pen was already continuing. "I mean, I knew it was going to happen. But when it did, it was so...it was like flying away, far away. You forget all about time and space, and then I was inside a huge dark cavern, before a three headed dog. Just as I was about to join a queue-" here she broke off, staring ahead of her, lost in memories.
Leo's breakfast had turned to led in his mouth. He didn't want to hear this, but couldn't tell Pen to stop either. She needed him to help her figure things out.
"What then?" he asked gently, taking her hand.
"Then" she continued, speaking quieter "something held me back. Everything went black and the next thing I knew, I was inside a chamber, with a million little balls of light inside it."
Her hand gripped his tighter, and Leo realised she was talking about the souls Hecate had shown him.
"I was there for" Pen frowned "I can't remember how long. And then...pain. My whole body..it hurt so much, I couldn't..." Now tears filled her eyes, and Leo reached out but she turned her head away.
"It was bad. But then it stopped and you were there."
Her eyes met his, and they shared a long look, Penelope's glistening in the light.
She opened her mouth to say something else, but seemed to think better of it and shut it again.
Leo wanted to know what she'd been about to say, yet another thought occurred to him.
"Wait, you were in the underworld? You saw Cerebus?" he demanded, his voice sharp.
"Yes. Why?" Pen asked, confused.
"But Hecate, she said..." "You spoke with my mother?!" Penelope asked, her voice so loud it scared
a brown bird in a nearby tree, making it take off with a rustle of earth-coloured wings.
"Yeah" Leo said, slightly taken aback. He launched into the story of what had happened to him
before Pen had come back, and as he spoke, her eyes got wider and wider, whether from amazement

or horror, Leo didn't know.
"...And then the pieces of ash started to fly around wildly, Hecate warned me you might not" Leo paused, unsure how to say it. "What?" Pen asked and he said, hurriedly "might not be the same, as er, before. And then you were there, and, well, you know the rest."
Neither of them spoke. Penelope seemed lost for words, as she absent-mindedly stroked the grass
beneath her fingers.
Leo wondered what she was thinking of.
"You gave up your fire. For me." Pen whispered, so quietly Leo almost didn't hear it.
She sounded hollow, as if she couldn't believe that she'd caused him so much trouble. Her head was
turned away, and when she spoke again, her voice was full of shame.
"Hecate should never have created me. I wasn't supposed to be alive, and it would have been best
if it had gone the way the Fates wanted it." her words made Leo feel sick. How could she think so
little of herself?
"And you, Leo" she continued, getting up and turning around to look at the mountains in the distance. "Do you even realise how much pain and trouble I've brought upon you?! Atlanta, Talos,
Moros, and now you've lost one of your greatest powers because of me! You should never have
saved me! You should have let me stay dead, because then I could never have hurt you again!"
Penelope was yelling now, and it made Leo feel angry all of a sudden as well.
He sprang to his feet, his hands clenched.
"Are you even listening to what you're saying!? You keep going on about how you shouldn't be alive, and how it would be better if you weren't here, but guess what, Penelope, you are alive,
you are here, and you'd better learn to deal with it! I didn't risk my life for you so you could go around feeling sorry for yourself for the rest of your life!"
This made Pen whip around, her dark hair flying and her pallid face come alive with anger that flushed her cheeks.
"Excuse me?! You think I'm feeling sorry for myself?! You think that's what this is about?!"
"Yeah I do!" Leo shouted back, taking a step forward, kicking away the rest of their breakfast. He didn't know what made him so angry, but he couldn't hold it back any longer.
"You should be happy you're alive! Not everybody gets to come back from the dead you know?!
What do you think Percy and Annabeth would say? They're in Tartarus for Zeus' sake, and they're
probably dealing with it better than you are!"
He knew what he was saying wasn't true, that Penelope had barely said anything about coming back
alive, that he was accusing her of wrongs she hadn't done. But it felt like there was some fire back inside him, and he relished the feeling, completely ignoring the fact that it might hurt someone. All the anxiousness he'd held back the past few days, all his anger at the world, the gods, at Penelope herself came out of him, and he realised what the real reason was why he was shouting like this.
And then he noticed that Pen hadn't yelled anything back. That she was standing there staring at him
with disbelief in her face, her mouth opened in horror.
When she spoke, her voice was barely a croak. "What did you say about Percy and Annabeth?"
All Leo's rage drained out of him. She didn't know yet. He'd completely forgotten to mention it, which made him feel like a horrible friend altogether.
As the anger left him, a new weight settled on his shoulders, making him feel like he wanted to succumb to it and sink into the ground for all eternity.
"They...fell. After we went to get Annabeth from Arachne's chamber. The whole room was falling apart, and there was this great pit and we..Annabeth told us to secure the Parthenos...but she was still attached to some spider web and it..pulled her in, Percy grabbed her, but it was too strong.
They fell together. They're gone."
His words came out blurred together, as his voice cracked.
All of a sudden the day around him seemed as dreary and cold as before. It was all his fault.
Within two strides, Penelope was there in front of him, and she wrapped her arms around him, tight.

He could feel her breathing in deeply, as if she was trying to keep herself from panicking.
"It's okay" she whispered, stroking one hand through his hair. "It's okay, they'll be okay. We can meet them in Epirus, and we'll save them."
Leo nodded stiffly. "I opened..the cookie." he mumbled, barely audible, but Pen seemed to hear him.
She leant back a little and put her hands either side of his face.
"Listen to me, Leo Valdez." her tone was firm. Her eyes captured his and their intensity made everything else fade into the background. "It wasn't your fault. You are the greatest friend anybody could have, so don't you even dare go blaming yourself. Understood?" She sounded almost like a teacher, and Leo felt the urge to smile.
"Okay." he said.
"So, we'll make a deal: I won't go on about having died, and you won't blame yourself for what happened to Percy and Annabeth, okay? We'll get them back, I can promise you that."
It was amazing how she could convince him of even the most impossible ideas. Maybe she'd inherited some of her mother's charmspeak. Or maybe she simply knew him well enough.
"Listen" Leo mumbled, shamefaced. "I didn't mean what I shouted at you. Of course you can talk about what happened, in fact you should. I'm sorry."
Penelope smiled at him, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Now that the anger had gone from her face, the pale deathly look had returned, and it pained Leo to see it.
"No, you were right. We have to move on. That's part of our life in this world, if we don't learn to leave things behind, the pain will overthrow us. I don't want that to happen to you and me."
Leo nodded, and they stayed like that a little while longer, their arms wrapped around each other.
It almost felt like having his fire power back again.
Some while later, Leo noticed that Pen was leaning more heavily against him, and that her face was drawn. He himself felt like crap as well, and so he suggested staying one more night in the cave, just to make sure they were back to their usual strength again before continuing their travel to Epirus. Penelope nodded relievedly at this suggestion, and they spent the rest of the day thinking of
ways they could travel. Leo found some wild berries which he thought he'd seen grow at Camp Half-Blood, and they were both so hungry they scoffed them down without thinking.
It wasn't until later, when they both lay curled up against each other in the cave, that Leo realised their mistake.
A terrible laugh filled his mind, gleeful and merciless.
Such a fool, Leo Valdez. You have learnt nothing.
Berries grew on bushes.
You brought back a valuable pawn into my game, without me even having to force you.
Bushes were plants.
Heroes are so easily fooled. A little birdie told me all about your adventure.
Plants grew on earth. On Earth. On the Earth.
Sleep now, little hero, and when you awake, see your world in ruins.
No! Leo thought desperately, trying to get up, but the berries he'd eaten immobilised him with sleepiness, and so he couldn't fight the roots that had started to break through the ground around him, he couldn't even open his mouth to warn Penelope.
How could this be happening to them? He thought groggily, as the roots closed around his middle and started to drag him into the ground. They'd only just been reunited...
Sleep clouded his eyes, and he tried to stay awake, but it was impossible.
The last thing he saw was Penelope being dragged under by roots as well, and then the damp darkness of the earth swallowed him up.
His eyes fell shut, and he could feel himself loosing consciousness.
Help was his last thought before he fell into a deep, deep sleep.
Help.