Something of a breakaway here… There's somebody else we need to catch up with ;) It took me a lot of editing until I was happy with this, and I still may end up making small changes here or there. But whatever. We're moving on for now.

Enjoy!

Crosswalks and crossed hearts and hope-to-dies / Silver clouds with gray linings

Leo Valdez had definitely had better days.

Hundreds of them, in fact. Probably thousands. Discounting those twenty-five lovely months he'd spent as a resident of FDC Houston, the rest of his life hadn't been all that bad, all things considered. Sure, he'd been orphaned at age eight, spent most of his adolescence hopping foster homes, fell in with some questionable crowds in high school, and had more than your average number of police run-ins and near-arrest experiences. But even the high-risk life of an illegal arms dealer was more fun that his most recent situation.

Yup, there was nothing like playing hostage to an obsessed and sadistic government agent with a violent superiority complex to make a person realize how good they had it.

There were a lot of things Leo had started to miss in recent weeks. Sunlight, for one thing—he was always stuck indoors during the day, as his CIA escort only traveled at night like some sort of vampire circus. Also caffeine, spicy food, the History Channel, his lighter, music that didn't suck, his car, the auto shop… It was a pretty long list. He didn't have much to do, after all, besides mull it over and add things here and there—sort of a depressing pastime, come to think of it. But it kept his mind occupied, which was better than the alternative: focusing on the present and probably letting it drive him insane.

Actually, Leo liked to think it a testament to some sort of superhuman resilience that he hadn't gone crazy yet, considering Number Two on his list of things he missed—'not being in a constant state of pain.' Assuming such a time had ever existed, of course. He'd sort of forgotten what it was like to have full mobility, to feel strength in his muscles and adrenaline in his blood. Sometimes it was hard to believe that the all-over burning ache he was growing rapidly accustomed to hadn't always been there, like some kind of incurable disease he'd suffered since childhood. Some of his memories hardly even made sense because of it; how could he have done any of the things he remembered, feeling like this? It didn't exactly add up.

Maybe I am going crazy… he'd think dejectedly whenever this doubt crossed his mind. How else could one explain contradictions—imagined or otherwise—in their memory?

Leo shook his head and gritted his teeth, mentally reciting his list in descending order in an effort to keep his head grounded—remind himself what was real. When he reached Number Two, he stopped and started over, like he always did. Thinking about Number One made him feel guilty, after all, so he avoided it whenever possible.

Because in a situation like this, he didn't want to see the thing he missed most if it would mean putting her in danger. So some streak of insanity inside him had decided that as long as he kept her out of his mind, she'd stay as far away as possible.

Leo shifted his arms, allowing the soft clink of metal against metal to break the silence of the passenger jet interior and distract him. He allowed himself to focus on current discomforts in an effort to break his thought train—the high-altitude pressure of the air around him, the rough and scraped skin on his wrists beneath familiar handcuffs, the way the angle of his arms pulled on the still-healing tendons in his left shoulder, sending a numbing tingle across his triceps. He slid the chain of his handcuffs along the pipe they'd been fastened around, which ran the length of the jet's low inner ceiling, and flexed his fingers to try and renormalize their blood flow. He wished Atlas could have just cuffed him to his seat or something. Was it really necessary to stick him in such an annoying position? He'd already tried yanking the thin pipe loose (sparing little thought to the possibility that it may be essential to keeping them in the air), but for how weak the thing looked it wouldn't budge. No such luck, naturally. Instead he'd chosen to be glad the lowest part of the ceiling was close enough to the back row of seats that he was able to sit down. Regardless of flight safety, he didn't for a second put it past Atlas to make him stand the entire trip, which would have been considerably worse.

With a short sigh, Leo leaned his head over the back of his seat and stared straight up at the slanted, dark gray ceiling. He had to admit that something about this trip made him nervous. They'd been traveling by van for weeks now through the southern portion of the continental U.S. (though Leo was rarely certain exactly which city they were visiting at the time), but that evening the routine had been switched up when Atlas had suddenly split his team, taking only Leo and two other agents aboard the jet and sending the rest off elsewhere. For some reason, Atlas's plan had been altered. And given the fact that the Deputy Director seemed like a stick-to-the-plan kind of guy, it made Leo wonder what had happened to change things. Something gave him the feeling that whatever was going on, it was nothing good for him.

He'd just started passing time by contemplating all the possible vacation spots the CIA could be planning to drop him off at when the cockpit door at the other end of the jet opened with a metallic creak. Leo didn't bother lifting his head; he could tell by the steady thump of heavy boots who'd dropped by for a visit.

"Glad to see you're awake," Duke Atlas said gruffly as his dark, brutish face stuck itself into Leo's line of vision.

Leo sat up straight as Atlas took a step back, stooped beneath the low dip of the slanted ceiling. "Wasn't easy," he replied, his throat so dry his voice came out unexpectedly scratchy. "I considered nodding off a little bit ago—I mean, it's just so comfortable back here."

Atlas's lips twitched in a smirk as he took note of the sarcasm. Heavy irony was clear in his own tone as he said, "Your comfort is, of course, my number one concern. Mind if I take a seat? It's been a while since we talked."

"Depends," Leo responded, wondering at the man's definition of 'a while'. He shifted his arms and leaned forward, eyeing the silver attaché case Atlas had just set on his lap as he sat down. "Aw, man," he groaned, trying not to visibly react as his chest tightened anxiously. "You couldn't at least wait 'til we land this thing? You're gonna give me vertigo, and unless you want me hurling on those size-seventeens…"

"Sorry, kid," Atlas argued conversationally, sounding something less than 'sorry'. "But things've changed. You and me got a bit less time together than we thought, so we don't got the luxury of convenience anymore."

"Luxury of…" Leo repeated vaguely, thinking that nothing about this situation could be defined as anything close to luxurious. As he studied Atlas's face, though, his mind trailed off; the agent was good at reining in emotion from his expression, but the way his dark eyes shone more coldly than usual and his teeth clenched just noticeably tighter told Leo something was up. Atlas was serious now—more so than before.

The man was uncharacteristically silent as he unfastened the snaps on the attaché case and flipped open the top to reveal a set of familiar medical syringes. A frown creased his brow and squinted his eyes as he lifted one from its foam casing and slid the needle into the tiny opening of the sterilized bottle of clear liquid beside it. After filling the chamber, he flipped the syringe and tapped the needle, checking it to ensure proper working order, before setting the case on the next seat over and climbing to his feet.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Leo asked nervously, his entire body tensing up. He dropped the blasé act, too mentally and physically unprepared for whatever change Atlas had undergone. "Aren't you gonna… you know, ask me something first?"

"And draw this out?" Atlas shook his head. "Like I said, Leo, time's getting thin. I figure it's best we loosen you up a bit, then get to talking."

"No, wait," Leo tried again hastily as Atlas grabbed his wrist below the cuff and he felt the prick of the needle on the back of his hand. "You don't even know if I'm gonna—"

He halted and grimaced as Atlas slowly pressed the pump and the cold, clear liquid entered his bloodstream. He shut his eyes for the six short seconds of anticipation he knew would follow, before all at once a searing pain spiked in his arm, drawing a guttural scream from his throat. It spread like wildfire in a desert, soaking into his body and blinding him to everything except a burning, white cloak of heat, like each of his cells was being poked with a microscopic, fiery needle. Atlas and the plane disappeared. For that short time it was all he knew—all he had—and the tiny, weak part of his mind that still held onto conscious thought would do absolutely anything to make it stop.

Too bad the only way to do that was to give Atlas exactly what he wanted, whether Leo actually had it or not.

When the pain receded substantially to a low, dull ache, Leo realized he was hunched forward and panting heavily, arms pulling so tightly against his restraints that the metal cuffs had dug into his skin. He was only dimly aware of the narrow drops of blood skittering down his arms.

One of the most important things he'd learned during his stay with the CIA team: apparently, certain precise combinations of muscle relaxants and anesthetics could, when injected into smaller veins, cause extreme physical pain without doing any lasting damage to the body. Who knew, right? He was told the effects lasted less than a minute, but whoever measured that had clearly never experienced them firsthand—when you were under, it felt like an eternity. Objectively speaking it was a solid interrogation technique, allowing someone to hurt and scare their captive without the danger of seriously injuring them and losing any information they had. But then, Leo was hardly capable of speaking objectively. Not after weeks of personal involvement.

"Now that we're all good and relaxed," Atlas said as the loud buzzing in Leo's ears faded. He sat back down in the seat to his captive's right. "Let's chat a bit. Was it nice being back home after so long?"

Home? Leo repeated mentally, his vocal cords too sore to produce sound. Instead he shook his head silently.

"I know we weren't in Houston long," Atlas went on, causing Leo's heart to skip a beat as he understood. "Too bad you couldn't give us a tour. We did unearth some interesting history, though, and the boys and I've been meaning to get a little more background. Maybe you can help us out."

Leo hung his head and waited, recalling Atlas's earlier claim that they were running out of time and subsequently wondering why the agent was bothering to beat around whatever question he wanted to ask.

"You see, it involves a woman named Esperanza Valdez, who—if I'm not wrong—you used to be quite close to."

The name gave Leo a burst of energy. Fire flared in his stomach, pushing away some of the nausea that the earlier pain had brought on, and he finally lifted his head, turning to face Atlas with a glare that he hoped didn't look as weak as it felt.

"Your mother, yeah?" Atlas asked rhetorically. "She owned a machine shop, back in the day. Relatively small, a solid business but not overly lucrative. Revenue was hardly sufficient to support the lease, let alone the livelihood of a single mother and her kid. No other jobs that you know of, right? So how do you explain the comfortable lifestyle you had back then?"

Leo was having a hard time keeping up with Atlas's swift explanation. It was a long time ago. He hadn't exactly worried about things like money when he was a kid. How the hell was he suppose to answer that question—and more importantly, what did his childhood lifestyle have to do with anything?

When he didn't answer, Atlas went on unperturbed. "I'll explain it for you," he offered. "It took some tracing, but you'll imagine our surprise when we learned the truth—that your mother had been receiving generous grants wired directly to her bank account from a third party source that had nothing to do with her business. Every other month for almost ten years before her death, like clockwork."

Leo's brain seemed unhelpfully blank. He was still so distracted wondering how this was at all relevant to Atlas's crusade against Olympus that the information he was getting wasn't entirely sinking in. "…What?" he muttered hoarsely.

Atlas's eyes hardened. Leo thought it strange that the agent wasn't wearing the satisfied smirk that typically stretched his face during interrogations. If inflicting pain wasn't bringing the Deputy Director the usual joy, then they really were getting low on time—and Atlas was getting desperate. This wasn't exactly a comforting realization for Leo, either. A desperate Atlas wasn't exactly something he was eager to witness. And that wasn't even considering what was supposed to happen when this 'time' ran out.

"Even more interestingly," Atlas went on, "the grants were routed through a financial institution in Chicago, Illinois. Cash deposits, every time. We contacted them and had them do a persons search, and they got back to us just a bit ago and confirmed that the name used for the transfers was fake." His voice dropped, taking on a menacing intonation. "Now, who do we know with access to that kind of money and a central division HQ so close to the source of the transfers?"

Leo was trying with all his active brainpower to focus and piece together what Atlas was telling him. He'd expected the agent to grill him again on Annabeth Chase or her boyfriend he'd only known for like three hours, or Poseidon or Hades or anybody else he hadn't even a glimmer of information on. This business with his family was entirely new and entirely unexpected.

As the story settled, however, Leo found he was still having a hard time fully processing it. He replayed everything in his head and the agent's implication finally clicked. "Wait…" he said slowly, nonplussed. "Are you saying… you think Olympus was bribing my mother? What… Why?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," Atlas said with a shrug. "Thousands of dollars coming her way every other month from just before you were born to the day she died? Sounds like blackmail to me. And sounds like it had something to do with you."

Leo felt his eyebrows draw together and unconsciously he leaned away from Atlas. This was news to him, just as it was to his interrogator. But it didn't make sense. He hadn't even known about Olympus until he got into weapons dealing when he was sixteen. Atlas really was desperate now, seeing elaborate conspiracies where there shouldn't have been any connections at all.

Still… Olympus or no Olympus, what was the explanation for what Atlas had uncovered? If he was telling the truth (which Leo had to assume he was; what reason did he have to demand information on events he'd made up?), then maybe there really was a story here.

"I know you're sick of hearing it," he said after a minute, realizing that Atlas was still waiting for an answer, "but I've got no idea what you're talking about."

Atlas gave a short sigh, his jaw tightening. "Like I said, kid, time isn't something we can take advantage of anymore." He reached around his back and produced a 45-millimeter handgun, which he pointed at the ceiling and waved casually back and forth. "I'm prepared to press a little harder if I need to. I always suspected you were hiding some connection to Olympus. Why else would you be helping them?"

"I told you," Leo reminded him, agitated and confused. "I was only after—"

"But now I know it's true," Atlas cut him off. "Now I know you have more history with them than you say. This thing with your whore of a mother is proof of that."

"Back off her, you—!" Leo broke off as Atlas pressed the barrel of his 45 against the not-quite-healed gunshot wound in his right leg, a memento of their first few minutes together that the agent liked to remind him of now and then.

"You want to talk?" Atlas growled. "Then talk. I don't know what Mommy did, but she must've had some inside info on Olympus for them to pay her off like that. Now maybe she didn't share it with you. But I've got a hard time believing you're totally in the dark here. If that were the case, you wouldn't still be helping 'em out, now, would you? Like mother like son, eh?"

If Leo had a slightly larger fraction of his usual strength and wasn't handcuffed to a plane, he probably would've started swinging regardless of the gun in Atlas's hand. Accusing him was one thing—hey, he wasn't a model citizen. He'd admit it. But accusing his mother, who, as he remembered it, had done nothing but work hard to give the two of them some semblance of a normal life? That was going too far. So Leo never had a father. So his mother never talked about him, or even seemed to know who he was. That didn't make her a bad person. And it definitely didn't mean Atlas could throw words around like he understood.

When Leo continued to fume quietly, Atlas released a frustrated sigh. "I'll get the truth out of you somehow," he promised. "No matter what it takes." He slid his gun back into its holster and picked up the silver attaché case, retrieving another syringe.

"Hey, come on, just… listen to me for a sec," Leo stammered, watching the agent fill the syringe with liquid and starting to feel sick again. "I can't give you something I don't have. I swear, I don't know anything about this."

Atlas climbed to his feet. "We'll see about that."

Leo felt his still-aching muscles tense in helpless dread as the older man's oversized hand reached for him, but before it made contact a voice from the front of the jet interrupted, "Agent Atlas, we have a problem."

Still bent forward beneath the low ceiling, Atlas turned sideways, revealing one of his agents standing near the open cockpit door and staring at them with a stony expression. "What is it?" the Deputy Director asked with a bit more harshness than was called for.

"We detected a trace, sir," the agent reported. "Rebounded. We couldn't track it back to the source so we don't know what they got before we blocked the signal."

"Damn her," Atlas growled, throwing the syringe to the floor and crushing it under an enormous boot. His square jaw slid back and forth as a hard glare solidified his facial features, dark eyes staring at the nearest wall for a few silent seconds. "Stay on course," he decided, turning back to face the agent. "Kronos should have taken care of Poseidon and left New York by now. He'll be expecting us back in Langley. Once we're there, we won't have to worry about outside interference. And you." When he spun around, his gun was back in his hand, cocked and aimed at Leo's chest.

Leo flinched in alarm as the agent near the front of the jet said hastily, "Agent Atlas, sir, medical is limited here, I wouldn't…"

Atlas ignored him, angry gaze fixed on his prisoner. He stepped forward and bent low, gently touching the cold barrel of his weapon to the skin above Leo's right eye.

He's not gonna kill me, Leo told himself adamantly. He's just trying to scare me. He needs me. It was the truth, the logical side of his mind knew. Trouble was, logic didn't exactly win out easily against the feeling of having a gun to your head.

"Get some rest," Atlas advised, voice low and rough. "We'll catch up back home. Got a lot to talk about, you and me. Have to fit it in before your time's up." He smiled and lowered his gun, patting Leo twice on the cheek before closing the silver case and taking it with him to follow the other agent back into the cockpit.

It took Leo a moment to calm his nerves and realize that he was alone again. He let out a shaky breath and leaned backward, trying to relax. Not that it was easy. A pale red hue still bled into the corners of his vision, though he wasn't sure if the cause was anger or pain. He'd experienced a considerable amount of both in the past few minutes. He shifted his stiff and tired arms in their restraints and winced; his right arm was almost completely numb now—a side effect of the drug, he knew from experience. It would fade in a few hours. Then the pain would be back.

Leo let out a frustrated growl and kicked the base of his seat below him, tilting his head back and glaring at the ceiling. Distressing as his constant state of physical discomfort was, he had something more pressing to dwell on—what the hell had Atlas been talking about?

This wasn't the first time the Deputy Director had exploited Leo's familial history and insulted his single mother in an attempt to get a rise out of him. But the information he'd given, that an anonymous source very near Olympus's headquarters had been sending them money regularly for years—Leo had to admit he found it unsettling. A spark of doubt had taken root in his memory. What if this time Atlas was right? What if his family did have some connection to Olympus that he'd been unaware of all his life? Had his mother actually been involved with them, blackmailed them for some reason like Atlas seemed to believe? Was she the reason the criminal organization had come after him years later—the reason he was in this mess at all?

Immediately after that thought crossed his mind, he regretted it. The idea that he was second-guessing the woman who'd raised him—who'd worked so hard and been rewarded for it with an early and accidental death—pulled painfully at something inside him, making his heart ache with guilt. He shook his head and tried to make himself believe that Atlas was wrong, that he was tired and weak and unable to think clearly. But it didn't last. Atlas's voice stayed rooted in his head, whispering accusations in his ear and flashing images behind his eyes. His memory of his mother was one of the few core ties Leo had to who he was, something he'd think about whenever things got tough. But now even that had been tainted with darkness.

Olympus. This was their fault. All of it was their fault. It made him feel wrong to think he was connected to them—unclean, worse than the criminal he already was. He wished he'd never agreed to go after Zeus in the first place. Sure, it was great to see the old man get what was coming to him. But the more time passed, the more he wondered if it was really worth it. The danger he'd put himself and Reyna in was too extreme for—

Leo sat up quickly and yanked on his arms, purposely digging his handcuffs into the cuts on his wrists so the pain would fill his mind and shove everything else aside. He wasn't supposed to think about her. She was safer that way. It was better—easier—if he was alone.

The list. Remember the list.

Coffee and sunlight. Power tools and rock music. Restful sleep. No pain.

Those were the things he missed. Those were the things he wanted back.

He sighed shakily and closed his eyes, hating the way his swimming vision made the walls around him seem to shift and wave, driving a strong feeling of nausea through his chest and stomach. He wished he had something to tell the CIA. Wished it more than once before, in fact. Maybe if he gave them some information they found useful, they'd let him go. Yeah, they knew he was involved in arms trafficking. Some part of him deep down suspected that once he'd given that info up he'd erased any chance of his getting free. But that didn't mean he couldn't hope for a little bit of lenience, even despite the fact that Atlas clearly didn't like him.

Which wasn't exactly his fault, he preferred to believe. He knew he wasn't the most docile of hostages. But sometimes he couldn't really regulate what came out of his mouth. The counselor he'd been forced to see in high school had told him that the jocularity he exhibited in response to confrontation was a 'defense mechanism', a way to protect himself. His reflex was to make light of any otherwise heavy situation, because mentally he couldn't handle the strain of depression. It was ironic that this so-called 'defense mechanism' usually only served to get him into more trouble, but it was something he couldn't control. To Atlas, it probably looked like he was intentionally screwing with them, refusing to cooperate. But that wasn't the case. Really, he just wanted this all to stop.

Got a lot to talk about, you and me, Atlas's voice echoed in his head, taunting him. Have to fit it in before your time's up.

Your time, he'd said. Not our time or just time. Your time.

Dry throat tightening uncomfortably, Leo glanced up at the cockpit door and realized that before long, he might end up getting what he wanted after all.

Yeah, so I did end up needing to add some more POVs. Not a lot, though. The vast majority of chapters will be narrated by either Annabeth or Percy. Only like... three, I think, won't be them. They're the stars here, after all.

How 'bout a review? Have a good weekend, gang! Later days!

-oMM