So I don't know guys, but am I doing something wrong?
Because I feel like the last two chapters were really bad as I got almost no feedback.
I need to know if you still want me to continue this story, so please
tell me what you think and leave a review.
I don't own PJO/HoO
Enjoy the chapter
Chapter sixty-six: Forgetting
~Penelope's POV~
Grey forms passing by. A continuous but senseless stream of whispers moving around. Hopelessness. Nothing.
"Pen? There you are!"
Someone grabbed her by the hand and Penelope turned around to see..Leo.
For a scary second she couldn't remember his name. "Why, was I gone?" she asked, and was surprised but not altogether shocked to hear her own voice come out quiet and kind of empty.
"Yeah, you wandered off and I couldn't find you for.." Leo frowned "Huh, I don't really know how long. But I guess it doesn't matter now."
"No." Penelope agreed, and started to drift on again, but Leo's hand which was still holding hers
pulled her back.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked, and his face looked so...alive in comparison with the other ghosts. He wasn't alive, of course, but his eyes still had that flicker of life, that flame of a soul
which was too stubborn to fade away. Pen didn't know what her eyes looked like, and she found she
didn't care. It didn't matter anyway, not here.
But she still cared about Leo, she still wanted him to be happy, and so she forced her mouth into a smile and said "Nothing's wrong really." Before she could stop herself, she added. "This place is just getting to me I guess."
Leo's frown deepened. "I've noticed. I mean it affects me too, but" he stalled "you know we have to hold on right? Because if what the peri said is true-"
"But what if it's not Leo?" Penelope cut him off, not managing to put enough importance into the words. "It said the chance was immensely tiny, and we've been in here for what feels like years. We don't even know what we're waiting for. I just don't see how this will change. We might as well get used to it."
The shocked look on Leo's face made Pen feel a little ashamed at her words.
"Don't talk like that." he said quietly, very serious.
"Okay." Pen murmured, reaching out her hand to stroke his cheek. It felt good, like a little part of her was coming back to her.
"We need to talk, we need to remember what makes us us, okay?" Leo was saying, looking at her hard. She suspected he knew how she felt, like everything of their old life was slipping away, fading into nothingness, until there was only longing left. But Leo wasn't feeling it the same way she was, Pen realised. Her memories weren't as focused because she didn't have a lot to remember, which only made her longing for her old life, or a life at all really, all the more intense and heart-wrenching.
Yet she had to focus, had to at least help Leo keep his spirit.
"Tell me something then." she smiled, entwined her hand anew with his, and started to drift into a random direction, pulling him along.
"What?" Leo asked, his eyebrows furrowed, obviously thinking hard.
It reminded Pen of a cute baby kitten, and suddenly she knew what she wanted Leo to talk about.
"Tell me how it was like when you were little. Before the fire, I mean."
A brief look of pain passed over her friend's face. "I dunno, Pen.."
"Come on. Like you said, we need to remember what makes us us. Right?" Penelope coaxed him, pushing away the nagging thought that all they were doing was merely prolonging their suffering.
"Fine." Leo sighed, and raised his eyes to the ceiling while he thought.
"What's the earliest memory you have?" she prompted him, and a smile flickered across Leo's face.
"Well, the first thing I can remember ever seeing was my mum's toolbox. She always had it on the kitchen table, you see, when she cleaned her tools, and I can remember grabbing a wrench and swinging it around while my mum wasn't looking. I'd proceeded to banging myself on the head with the thing when she did turn around, and almost gave her a heart attack. I was fine though."
Penelope smiled as the image of a two year old Leo, happily hitting his own head, filled her with warmth, something she hadn't felt since she'd come down here.
"I don't know about that having no effects though" she said teasingly, making Leo grin and shove her. The shove didn't really do anything except make her midriff swirl ghostly, but his touch felt nice.
"What's your earliest memory?" Leo asked, before clapping his hand against his forehead and exclaiming "Oh gods, sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"It's fine" Penelope assured him, ignoring the stab of sadness in her gut.
Leo was, well, not red, but his greyish cheeks were tinged with pink, which was probably about as much as a ghost could blush.
There was silence between them which might have lasted a minute or a month, Penelope couldn't tell, but sometime later she replied.
"The seawater. And then, your face." she told Leo, who turned his head to look at her.
He opened his mouth to say something, but apparently he couldn't find the right words as he shut it again.
Penelope evaded his gaze. The recollection of that first taste of salty water and the twinkle of Leo's eyes (which she hadn't even realised had been a memory and not a dream until Leo told her of her short awakening on the beach) made her very sad. She felt her fingers slip out of Leo's, yet neither of them reacted.
Penelope expected she wasn't the only one lost in memories of days that could never return.