Ngah, this was so nice and so sad to write at the same time.
It pains me to say, this is actually the last proper chapter.
There will be an Epilogue, and then that's it.
I can't think about it too much, it makes me pretty sad.
I'll say goodbye in the next update.
Anyway, please enjoy this, and thank you for being the person you are and reading my story!

Note: The song mentioned toward the end is called "A case of you" by James Blake. Please, please listen to it while reading the end of this chapter,
it just fits so perfectly in my opinion!

Chapter seventy-three: One Day
~Leo's POV~

During their whole return trip from Olympus (Argus picked them all up with one of the camp's vans), Leo felt strangely calm.
Maybe he should have been excited, or sad, or nervous or whatever, but he just sat in the back of the car, listening to Annabeth filling Pen and himself in on everything they had missed:
The battle with Gaia, their return to Camp Half-Blood, how Jason and Percy had prevented a huge battle and how they'd spent seven hours designing a peace treaty to finally end the feud between Romans and Greeks.
Leo was glad to hear all of this, except maybe the bit where his death had been used to pay the debt to the Romans for their destroyed city.
"So...won't they be kinda upset when I, like, show up?"
Annabeth frowned, but Jason quickly said "Just let me talk to Reyna first, I'll explain everything. They can hardly go against the gods' word."
Leo didn't feel completely reassured, but decided to just wait and see. Perhaps Piper could charmspeak Octavian into spending the day underneath a rock or something.
The others continued to talk, making plans for the next day, trying hard to sound optimistic and not, you know, randomly burst into tears. He guessed he could understand the constant undertone of
sadness in their voices, but he was trying not to focus on it.
After all, things were so much better now than they'd been only a few hours before.
For one thing, they got to spend a whole day with their friends, which meant they could say goodbye properly, see Camp once again and just be together for a bit.
And for another, when Penelope had returned from her talk with Hecate, she'd spoken to Zeus about something Leo hadn't even thought of:
"Lord Zeus" Penelope said, with a small bow "May I request our reward?"
There was a collective intake of breath. How could Pen demand even more of the gods?
"Your reward?" Zeus raised his eyebrows. "I was under the impression you had already received that, young hero."
His tone was dangerous, and if it had been Leo standing there, he would have backed off faster than a burning pegasus could fly. But Pen stood her ground, and said, in the most polite but firm voice
possible: "Please, I do not mean to be ungrateful for what you've given us. But Lord, you must agree that the blood is more a spoil of war than anything else, and that therefore, it can't count as Leo's and my reward for sacrificing ourselves in the war."
What was she getting at? Leo wondered. It wasn't like anything would be of much use to them after tomorrow.
"Speak your request then" Zeus had said, after minutes of thinking.
"Thank you." Penelope looked up from another bow and said, slowly "When Leo and I return
to the underworld after tomorrow, we would like to be able to chose our final resting place anew. That is, chose between rebirth and Elysium and not return to the fields of Asphodel."
The gods muttered, perhaps because this was a request unheard of before, but finally Zeus nodded.
"We will grant your wish, Penelope Rider and Leo Valdez. Do not waste our gift"

"Leo? You there?" Pen whispered into his ear, making him jump a little, he'd been so lost in thought.
"What? Yeah, yeah I'm there. Just thinking." he trailed off, looking out of the window for a sign of
Camp Half-Blood.
Pen seemed to know what he was thinking about. "Let's not decide just yet, okay? Let's just...enjoy this."
Something in her voice made Leo look at her, and he could see a definite hope on her face.
Her eyes were twinkling bright turquoise again.
"Yeah, you're right." he grinned. "Let's just enjoy this."

In the end, it turned out as no problem that Leo came back to camp, as Jason had talked to Reyna first, and Octavian and a great deal of the more stuck-up Roman lot had left for Camp Jupiter again.
Reyna had greeted him and Penelope nicely enough, and even said "I'm sorry this happened to you" with a sincere look on her face.
"I'm sorry, too. For what I did." Leo mumbled, and Reyna nodded.
Chleo and Nyssa had been beside their selves when seeing Leo and Pen walk into the dining hall.
It was dinner time, and so the whole camp was assembled to see Chleo, usually so reserved and haughty, jump up and hug the life out of Penelope.
"You're here! How – what-" she'd exclaimed.
Pen laughed, and patted her on the back. "It's good to see you, too"
That night the camp fire roared higher than Leo had ever seen it, while everyone sang along eagerly, delighted at the end of the war and the safe return of Percy and the others.
Quite a few Romans sat in the crowd as well, friendly ones like Gwen, Dakota or Reyna, chatting
easily with the campers.
Leo and Penelope were sitting side by side, his arm around her shoulders, breathing in the familiar
scent of the smoking wood.
"Are we going to tell them?" Pen asked him suddenly, her gaze fixed on the flames.
Leo thought. Should they tell the other campers about their fate? At the moment they were under the impression Pen and Leo had been granted life as a special gift from the gods for their services to Olympus.
But both of them knew that soon that belief would change.
"No." he decided. "I don't want to spend tomorrow having people stare at me and act like I'm on my death bed. I want a normal day at camp, and I want to enjoy the party in the evening. So no."
Pen nodded against his chest. "Okay."
After another couple of songs, they went to bed.
Pen took one look at the Hecate cabin and whispered "D'you think your dad would mind if I slept in your room tonight?"
Leo chuckled. "Probably burn you to a crisp."
"Oh, shut up."

The next day went by quickly, but it was probably one of the best of Leo's life.
After breakfast, they did some practising, just out of habit, and then went for a long walk by the lake.
At lunch, the crew of the Argo II went to their old ship, still not used to spending so much time away from it.
The trireme had become their home, almost as much as Camp Half-Blood, and so they spent a good part of the afternoon in the mess hall, simply hanging out, with Leo telling Hazel and Piper one joke after the other, and Annabeth and Pen immersed in an intense chess game.
When the sky outside started to get darker, the girls got up.
"Where're you going?" Percy asked them suspiciously.
"To get ready for the party" Piper winked, and the other girls actually giggled.
"See you later" Penelope waved at them, and they all disappeared.
The boys looked at each other.
"Aw, does this mean we have to dress nicely as well?" Frank muttered.
"Seems like it." Leo moaned.
"Come on" Jason said grimly, sounding like he was heading into battle.
With a lot of complaining, the boys trudged off to their cabins, to get ready for tonight.

At seven o'clock that evening, Leo was standing outside the Hephaestus cabin, looking around nervously for his friends. The whole camp was buzzing with excitement, as Chiron had promised them a celebration worthy of the gods, with Dionysus himself in charge of sustenance and a huge firework display planned for the end of the night.
Right now, Leo was waiting for Penelope, as he'd promised her they'd go down into the amphitheatre together.
"Hey there, repair boy" a girl's voice suddenly said next to him and he looked around to see Piper,
looking pretty amazing in a dark red dress, smiling at him.
"Look at you beauty queen" Leo grinned, and she stuck her tongue out at him. Jason was by her side, actually wearing a suit, and looking pretty uncomfortable.
"Nice outfit, Grace" Percy said, from where he was standing a few feet away talking to Grover, his satyr friend.
"Thanks" Jason said ironically "My girlfriend picked it out for me"
Leo wiggled his eyebrows at Piper "Uh-oh, Pipes, your Aphrodite side is showing."
"It is not!" Piper said indignantly, turning red like her dress.
"Come on, let's go" Jason said, pulling her along. "Before you two bite each other's heads off."
Piper grinned and followed Jason, but turned around once to call to Leo: "You just wait until you see Penelope"
With a wink, they disappeared.
Great, now he was even more nervous. For all his teasing of Piper, Leo had actually headed Aphrodite as well when choosing his wardrobe. Or rather, the goddess had taken pity upon him,
because for reasons unimaginable to him, the outfit she'd given him on his first quest had been hanging undamaged in his closet, clean and ready to go.
Leo was quite thankful, he would have had no idea what to wear otherwise. He'd ditched the hat though, preferring to feel the evening breeze in his hair.
"Hey, fire boy." a very familiar voice said to his right, and he turned around only to stop in his tracks.
Pen was standing there, and she looked beautiful. Her hair was open, tumbling over her shoulders and down her back, shimmering purple in the moonlight.
The dress she was wearing was strapless and dark blue, flowing softly from the waist downward.
But the most beautiful thing about her was the smile on her face.
"You look..nice" Leo said weakly, and Pen laughed even more.
"Thanks. Not too bad yourself." she gave him a wink.
"Shall we?" Leo asked her, bowing old-fashionedly and offering her his arm in mock reverence.
Pen chuckled "You're so weird."
"I know."
With that, they walked away from the cabins together, with the moonshine lighting their way to where the celebration was already in full go.
The next hours blurred together into a stream of dancing, eating, talking and laughing with what felt like everyone at camp.
The mood was so good, so exuberant, that little room stayed in Leo's mind to think about how with every hour that went by, their decision was moving closer toward them.
All of them were just sitting by the edge of the dance area, when the music changed to a slow song.
"Come on" Pen said, grabbing Leo's hand and pulling him onto the dance floor. "Please."
Leo rolled his eyes, but didn't protest. It was difficult to say no to anything now, and as it was a song that didn't exactly involve a lot of complicated dance moves, he thought he could manage.
"I love this song" Penelope sighed, as she wrapped her arms around his neck, while Leo placed his around her waist.
They revolved slowly on the spot, to what turned out to be a sad, beautiful melody. Leo couldn't have imagined a better one for them.
Everything seemed too perfect: The celebrating demigods around them, the food, the night sky and of course his girl in his arms, something he couldn't have imagined a year ago.
On an impulse, Leo leaned down to whisper in Pen's ear: "I love you"
She smiled at him, and whispered back "I love you too"
And that was when they both knew.
"It's time isn't it?" Pen said, and Leo nodded.
"What are we going to do?" he asked her. "Elysium or rebirth?"
Pen remained silent, for a very long time. "Let's go to the beach" she finally said, and Leo understood that she meant to tell him there, but didn't want to do it in front of everyone else.
So, he took her by the hand and guided her off the dance floor.
They went over to where the rest of the crew was standing, talking about the fireworks still to come.
It was a shame, Leo thought, that they wouldn't get to see them.
The others fell silent when Leo and Pen stopped in front of them, and Penelope used their silence to say: "We're going down to the beach."
Leo knew that his friends understood the actual meaning of this, that it meant goodbye.
Nobody said anything for a moment, they simply stood there in silence, which wasn't uncomfortable or awkward, but that of friends who knew each other well enough to communicate without words.
Finally, Annabeth said "See you later", and gave them a searching look, as if trying to imprint their faces into her mind.
Leo saw Piper holding back tears, and even the guys were looking pained.
But when Pen squeezed his hand, Leo didn't feel scared at all.
"Yeah" he said, with a small grin "See you later."
And with that, he and Penelope turned around and left.

The End.

Okay, so like I said, there will be an Epilogue.
What do you think Leo and Penelope chose: Elysium or Rebirth? Tell me your guess!
xxx