Author's notes:
There is no excuse. Okay, well, let me try.
My beta reader has disappeared? tis chapter was supposed to be out in december and i don't know where she is so this is not going to be the best chapter. I'm deciding to upload it anyway, as I know you're probably missing this chapter. I work on about 4 creative works (outside of school) so I'm trying to get everything done. Plus commitments etc, so there really should be a new chapter every month.
xxxxx i love you so much if you're reading this xxxxx
"What? Khione and Gaea sent him there?" Annabeth frowned.
"Yeah. Khione kicked him off the boat and into the sky. We found him a few days later in Malta." Hazel explained, and Jason told the about how weird Leo had acted that day.
Eventually they decided that they had to find out what was going on in Leo's head, or heart.
However, getting Piper and her charmspeak was unfair, and an interrogation was uncalled for.
"So we have no way of getting Leo to talk?" Annabeth groaned. She hated it when there wasn't even the slightest trace of a plan.
"I think we should leave it for tomorrow." Hazel suggested. After a few arguments they agreed. Jason would bring it up at breakfast tomorrow.
Except Leo wasn't at breakfast the next morning, which was hardly a surprise. When Leo was focused on a project, it was the only thing he was focused on. Jason headed towards the engine room. He knew that Leo would have eventually gotten fed up with the lack of resources in his room.
"Cara de monda!" Leo shouted, throwing a spanner at the wall. "La concha de tu madre." He muttered. Jason didn't understand spanish, but he made a mental note to find out just what exactly Leo had said.
"Um, hello?" Jason held out a plate and goblet. Leo frowned. "You need to eat," Jason continued.
Leo relaxed. "Oh. Thanks for that. I'll just eat in half an hour." Leo went back to fixing the astrolabe.
"Leo, eat now."
Leo raised an eyebrow at Jason, pausing in his work. "Fine, if it really means that much to you."
There were no chairs in the engine room, so Leo ate standing up. He ate a single taco and started to push Jason out of the room, who left empty handed. With out the plate, goblet or any answers at all.
"Uh... maybe later." Leo answered Calypso's question. They were still in Bunker 9, and Leo felt that he should tell the story at a later time. As in, when he could maybe-if-only-finally-make-his-move-on-her.
"Why's that? Embarrassed that you just spent sooo long trying to find me?" Calypso teased.
"I did not spend sooo long trying to find you." Leo retorted. "It was super easy."
Super easy was the opposite of what the journey to find Calypso was. A lot of hard work, caffeine induced nights and love went into it. Literally. Even though the astrolabe was thrown against the wall a couple of times, Leo handled it with the utmost respect, love and a god damn need for it.
The Stygian Oath hadn't sunk it's full weight into Leo yet, when he was in the beginning stages of building the astrolabe.
"You're obsessed." Annabeth was leaning against the doorway of the engine room. It had been two days since Leo had come out of the engine room, and everyone on board was worried about Leo.
"No I'm not." Leo calmly said. His fingers were working much too quick for him to be calm, it was like seeing old ADHD Leo again.
"You haven't been out of this room for two whole days! Have you not eaten?" Annabeth asked. Leo's mind went back to when Calypso had asked almost the same thing of him on Ogygia, her face in a scowl as she set down a basket of food she'd made for him next to his bedroll. That was the last scowl that was meant for him.
Snapping out of it, Leo replied, "Uh, yeah. I have the goblets and plates you know." He was lying, of course, but he really did not want to draw attention to himself.
"Yes, but have you had food?" Annabeth raised an eyebrow at Leo. Leo avoided her gaze, both of them knowing now that he was lying and that he did not want to face Annabeth. She had severely disintegrated his image of dumb blondes.
"Yes, mother." Leo shot her a massive grin sarcastically, hoping to lighten up the mood. That was what he did, make sure everyone onboard wasn't slipping into depression.
"I'm not your mother, Leo. I'm a friend who is worried about your health and whatever you are trying to do. We all know you are building something important, but we don't know what."
Leo sighed, straightening his back as he faced Annabeth. Spreading his arms, he said "What if I said it was just me filling in time? A small project for myself?"
"Then I would know that it was a huge task, for someone else, and you are not filling in time. You need time." Annabeth crossed her arms, giving Leo one of her all knowing glares.
Leo groaned. "Well in that case, please leave because I have no time to talk to you." Leo started pushing her out of the engine room.
Leo had only a couple of full days of work more before the astrolabe was repaired, and then he had to configure the crystal into it, and then join it up with Festus. Oh, and then he had to find Ogygia. He knew it was a big task, but Leo had just defeated Queen Dirt Face, Gaea. He was pretty sure that finding Ogygia would be just as do-able. Impossible when you look at the odds, possible when you put yourself to the test.
"Yes you do. We don't arrive back at Camp Half-Blood for a while." Annabeth clamped her hands on the doorway Leo was trying to push her out of. Turning around and placing her hands on her hips, she gave Leo a final glare, "Leo, sooner or later you are going to have to tell us what you are doing. Believe it or not, we can help you. " And with that she stormed off.
Leo looked back at his table in the engine room. It was messy, with half-plans on the floor and rough drafts hanging off the ends of the table. Truth was, Leo could use Annabeth's architectual genius and personal mythology encyclopaedia. He could use Jason's lightning-man powers to power up the astrolabe. Piper's charmspeak would come in handy. Hazel might know something interesting about the crystal.
Leo had been wishing for a team to help him, and he had had one right under his nose the whole time. He would go up to them later, at dinner time. Maybe. If he had the courage.
Leo did. Two hours later he had organised his desk in case things went well, had drawn up a few more plans and adjusted a screw in the astrolabe. He stood inside the engine room, facing the door, hand ready above the doorhandle. "Come on, Team Leo." He said, and opened the door.
He climbed the stairs to the upper deck, old ADHD (or nerves) running through his fingertips. He walked right past his room, which he hadn't been in for days. He hadn't seen this part of the ship for days. He hadn't talked to Festus in days.
He walked down to the mess hall and turned into it. Frank was the first to notice him, "Leo?"
He walked over to Leo and gave him a hug, very manly. "Good to see you, thought Gaea had eaten you by now or something."
Leo grinned, still nervous about what might happen. "No way, too much muscle to cook into a tasty tender Leo burrito." Standing next to Frank Zhang, it was comical that Leo was showing off his biceps.
Everyone in the mess hall was now looking at Leo. "We have a dead person in the room and yet you guys are looking at me as if I'm a ghost!" Leo sat down next to Hazel, who yelled "Hey!" and gave him a friendly punch.
Annabeth gave him a glance, a small nod of approval, and went back to talking to Percy and Hazel. Conversation flowed after that, free and not-stilted from The Return Of Leo Valdez 2.0. It was good to be back, Leo liked it even though he felt the need to be somewhere else.
Leo stood up, he wasn't overly tall so he needed all the height he could get. Jason had just been talking to him about Camp Half-Blood and New Rome. It was all anyone could talk about now, it seemed. Going back, what would they do, where Jason and Percy would go, the new bond between the two camps. Leo knew that there was only one possible thing to do: start Leo and Calypso's Auto Repair and Mechanical Monsters.
Now everyone was looking at him. Annabeth was looking at him expectantly, as if willing him with her mind to speak. He needed a crew, that was true, but it was just so hard to say the words. He'd stood up so that it was impossible for him to not go through with his plan, but having all eyes on him set various pictures of escape into his mind.
"Hi, everyone." Leo laughed nervously, shuffling his feet. "I know I've been out of the joint. I know you all miss me like crazy," Leo grinned. "And I think I want to tell you what's been going on. Well, I don't really want to. I probably should though." Leo took his eyes off the floor and into the faces of his friends. "I'll start from the start, filling in the holes I've no doubt left."
Leo told them the story of what happened when he got landed in Ogygia, leaving out a few things because EMBARRASSING, and how he had the crystal and the astrolabe. "Oh yeah," He finished with, "i promised on the River Styx I'd come back for her."
Annabeth choked on her drink, exclaiming along with everybody on the table. "What?!" She cried out to Leo.
Leo built himself a backbone in an instant, straightening up and said "She wouldn't listen to me when I said I could take her with me out of Ogygia. She wouldn't listen to me when I said I could get back to Ogygia. She didn't hear me make the oath. But I'm going to go back to Ogygia." He faltered for a bit, and continued, "I just need your help,and I don't want to be shutting you guys out."
Leo looked nervously at his friends, seriously regretting his decision to speak. Finally, Frank was the first to speak. "So basically you're in love." Frank was smirking at Leo like an idiot. Everyone at the table tried to suppress their giggling, Leo in love?
Colour rose up Leo's cheeks. "I'm not in love with her! She's annoying, and always complaining to me, and stubborn, and not my type!" Leo confirmed. Well, confirmed to everyone else that he was in love with Calypso. "And she's not in love with me either!"
Percy and Annabeth gave each other a glance. Leo got it, Calypso was destined to fall in love with every hero that washed up on her shores. Except Leo hadn't washed up on the sands of Ogygia by the almighty Gods, He was sent flying into a dining table by Khione, under directions from a certain Titan Goddess.
"She's not?" Percy double checked.
Leo shook his head, "The rules don't apply to me."
"Super easy? All by yourself?" Calypso laughed at Leo. There was no way that even Leo Valdez could complete the daunting task all by himself. Not saying that Leo was much of an asset anyway, but Calypso knew he was definitely the best son of Hephaestus at camp.
She really hoped she wasn't being biased.
She hadn't waited for Leo. She had had heroes leave her too many times to waste wishful thinking on the hope he would come back. Not that she had hoped Leo would come back.
Except Leo wasn't the same as her previous heroes, filled with pride and loyalty and sweet words that tingled in her ear. He was filled with fire, energy, good jokes. He wasn't a cookie cut hero. More of a forged-in-a-fire hero. Maybe.
She remembered The Kiss she'd given Leo just before he'd left. His eyes had widened considerably and he'd lost all ability to walk straight. His voice was an octave higher as he said goodbye, trying to convince her to come with him. Leo and Calypso's Auto Repair and Mechanical Monsters. Lemonade and stew. Fresh fruit and vegetables. Never in all of her thousands of years had she expected it to happen. And there she was, outside of Ogygia. With their shop and house just like they had planned.
Her thoughts went back to The Kiss. Ever since Leo had left, up until that very day he had returned, Calypso had been trying to convince herself that she had been caught up in the moment. That was all it was, she had told herself night after night. Caught up in the moment. An act to say goodbye, absorbed in the sweetness and the rawness of Leo's emotions as he asked her to jump aboard the raft with him. That it was just her reacting to the change in Leo's demeanour, as he was usually light-hearted and sarcastic.
No feelings.
No feelings? A tiny little voice asked.
Leo rubbed the back of his neck, bringing her back to Camp Half Blood, "Not all by myself..."
"I'm telling you Valdez, I can't just zap your ball thing and make it work." Jason was trying to explain to Leo.
"Yes you can! Theoretically, because it hasn't been done yet. But I'm a demigod, Jason! We can do it!" Leo was shaking Jason now. It had been a day since Leo had confessed his plans for Ogygia, and so far Leo's progress was speeding up by 200%. It was like there were two Leo's.
Jason raised an eyebrow at Leo, "And if it doesn't? What happens then?" Leo paused. Jason was right. If the astrolabe didn't absorb the lightning energy, what would? Leo? His friends? Festus and the Argo II?
That was too big a risk.
Leo slumped his shoulders, losing confidence in his plans. He knew everyone was trying their best to help Leo, even Buford was helping, but the progress could never be fast enough. He had to teach everyone how to do their specific parts, or answer their questions, or talk to Hazel about what she could find out about the crystal.
Being a leader was hard work.
"Leo!" Hazel happily ran up to Leo, before he could talk more to Jason. "I found out how to operate the crystal!" In her palm she held the crystal from Ogygia. Picking up the pace, Leo listened to Hazel as she excitedly told him what exactly he would need to navigate with it.
Leo already knew most of what she had said, but her energy bounced off of Leo as his nervous ADHD flowed through him again at the possibility of reaching Ogygia. He just had to.
"It doesn't work on magnetism, we've been getting it all wrong." She finished. Great, no good news. Leo was well and truly swamped with bad news.
Percy had said that no one in his father's kingdom knew anything about Ogygia, or if the big man himself did. Arion, Hazel's friend, had trouble even understanding Ogygia, let alone it's location. Annabeth was trying to find a loophole in Ogygia's curse, and Jason's lightning was doing no good.
Leo's ship was sunk.
