New chapter :D Thanks for all reviews! You are awesome, guys! I checked out some of your fanfictions and they were all AMAZING :)
Now, this chapter is a long one, hope you will enjoy it :) It is not that good, though.
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ENJOY!
Chapter 2 – Work and fire
The next morning, Hazel felt like she was an empty scale. She managed to get herself out of bed and get some clothes on, but every step hurt.
At the breakfast, everybody looked like they had a rough night. Nobody said anything. Frank was seated next to Hazel, his cute baby face stuck in a frowny face. He still looked kind of cute, but Hazel did not care about that at all. Leo had wide, shocked eyes with dark rings around them, his face full of bad emotions.
She stared at her food, until someone finally said something.
"We should try to reach Greece as fast as we can." Jason said. His eyes were darker than usual, and he looked rugged in a handsome way. Piper had the same expression, like finally accepting what happened to Percy and Annabeth and determined to do something. Hazel wished she could get over it that easy too.
"You're right." Coach Hedge said. "This will not help. Everybody, get up! Our cupcakes down in Tartarus don't want us to just hang out here! We got work to do. Right, Valdez?"
Leo blinked. He looked so lost in thoughts that he did not even answer, he just nodded.
Everyone stared with pointed looks at him. He finally understood what the coach meant, and he cleared his throat.
"Right. Er, I want everybody to Iris message the people at Camp Half-Blood. I will take copies of the Archimedes book, so we can send them there. It will probably help them in the war against Camp Jupiter. After that, we have to use every spare moment we have to check that everything on the ship looks okay. It needs to be perfect when we reach Greece." Leo's brilliant brown eyes still looked lost, and would not focus on anything. "And I want someone to message Reyna too. Maybe see if we can slow her down. Frank and Jason contact Reyna. Coach Hedge and Piper contact Camp Half-Blood, I will come to you later 'cause I need to speak to Nyssa. Is that everyone?"
Hazel felt her heart sink when Leo forgot to mention her, but at the same time a part of her said: Snap out of it. You are Frank's girlfriend.
"Nico and Hazel left." Piper said, clearly unsatisfied with letting Jason contact Reyna. "Where is Nico, by the way?"
Everybody looked around, until Hedge said:
"Saw him sleeping in the spare cabin. The kid gotta get som sleep."
Hazel nodded.
"Yeah, that death-trance really drained him on his energy."
"Good. Well, then, let's start working!" Leo tried to do that goofy smile that was so much like Sammy's, but it just looked like a forced, pained shadow of a smile. Even Piper noticed, she frowned and said:
"Leo, are you okay?"
She apparently used charmspeak without knowing, because Leo shook his head. Then he blinked, a little confused, and smashed his hands together.
"Where were we? Right, Hazel, you can either go with Coach Hedge or come with me."
"I'll go with you." Hazel answered, a little too quickly. Frank frowned, and Piper gave her a quizzical look. Hazel felt how her cheeks were getting a little red, but luckily Leo did not seem to notice.
"Good. Then let's go."
Leo left the table, so did Hazel. Frank still looked a little miffed, but she gave him a little forced smile and followed Leo upon deck.
Even though he was lost in thoughts, Leo managed to give Hazel a little smile.
"Okay, let's start. If you press that button," he pressed one of the thousand buttons, "it will open this," on the left side of the button a little hole big enough for a bunch of paper opened up, "and then you can just put the first scroll in there."
Leo showed her how to do. After putting the scroll in, it closed and another hole in the exact same size opened up below. Out of there a perfect copy of the scroll appeared.
"Wow." Hazel said.
"Yeah, huh?" Leo smiled a little. "We want to copy every scroll, so let's start."
They kept putting new scrolls in the hole, until they'd copied all. The silence was kind of awkward, and made Hazel nervous. Leo looked a little nervous too, and he did not look as angry and shocked as before.
After a while, they were done. Leo took the real scrolls and was going to put them on a table, but dropped one. Hazel and Leo were both just going to pick them up, and their hands touched. Leo's cheeks were bright read, as if they were going to catch fire.
"Uh, I'll take it." He said. He snatched the scroll and straightened, and for a second they stood face to face.
Leo's eyes were beautiful.
Then Leo turned away and left the scrolls on a table. To Hazels surprise, the table started to walk away, into the engine room.
"Buford." Leo said and smiled a little.
"Let me guess." Hazel said, "Something that was created after my death?"
Leo laughed a little. It made Hazel feel warm inside.
"No, he is a magic table. My dad has them in his forges."
"Oh." Hazel said. "That is… great, I guess."
"Buford is helping me with stuff. He will do everything you ask him for, if you use Lemon Pledge. He hates Windex."
Hazel did not understand what Leo meant, but she figured that if she asked he would give her a long, complicated explanation she would understand even less of. So she kept her mouth shut and watched as Leo started to steer the ship.
She felt even guiltier. His eyes were surrounded by dark circles, after all this hours of steering. He had not been sleeping for days. He looked even scrawnier than before, maybe because every time they were supposed to eat, he did not eat or he was still steering.
Still, he looked beautiful. Just like Sammy.
"Leo, when was the last time you ate something?" Hazel asked him.
Leo blinked.
"What? Uh… I was in the mess hall with you at breakfast."
"Did you eat something?"
"I wasn't hungry."
"Leo! You have to eat, unless you want to die of hunger before we get to Greece."
"Hazel, I'm not hungry. I'll eat something later."
Hazel sighed. Leo did not change his expression at all; he kept his eyes on the horizon and continued steering the ship.
"Leo" Hazel said with a soft voice, "You can't do this to yourself. Please come with me and eat something, Festus can keep the ship aloft. Please."
Leo frowned. He still looked cute.
Hazel cursed herself. I AM IN LOVE WITH FRANK!
"Okay, I suppose…"
He pressed some buttons, and started to go, but then froze.
"Last time I did this it didn't end well." He muttered.
"Leo?"
"I-I can eat later. I don't want any more Shrimpzillas to attack the ship."
Hazel wanted to scream. Why was it so hard to make Leo just come with her, eat something, so she did not feel so guilty?!
Then she realized that was really selfish.
"Leo, Shrimpzilla was not your fault. I took you to that flashback." She said softly.
"And I forgot the sonar."
"You are not a machine, Leo, you are a human. Humans forget. And forgive."
"But on this ship, I am not!"
He turned to Hazel, his eyes wild.
"I am nothing here. I am that guy who steers the ship, the joker boy that no one takes seriously. And I don't care! I like to be that! I can be surrounded by machines, I can joke. It has always been this way for me, and I don't want that to change."
Leo did not meet Hazel's eyes. He turned to the helm and pressed some buttons.
"You don't need to stay to keep me company. I got Festus."
He seemed to think he said too much.
Hazel hesitated, and wondered if she should say something else.
"You are not alone, Leo." She finally said.
She touched his hand, and he winced. Hazel felt sad, she knew Leo lied to her, he did feel alone even if he would not admit it. It had been so much easier with Sammy, she could read him like a book and he had never been sad or alone.
Hazel left Leo standing there, steering the ship to Greece, and certainly thinking about his dream.
Everyone had something to do, but Hazel just wandered around. She tried hard to forget Leo's and her conversation, but everywhere Hazel looked she saw something that reminded her of him. Of course, Leo had built the whole ship. She still could not wrap her mind around that.
Leo's shocked face and wild eyes were burned behind her eyelids, every time Hazel blinked she saw the image. She was so lost in thoughts that she did not see Frank coming through the corridor, and the result was that they bumped into each other.
"Sorry." Hazel mumbled.
"S'okay. How did it go with Leo?"
Frank's voice was careful, like he was trying hard not to curse.
Hazel did not answer. What could she say?
"You do not look good. I mean, you are cute as always of course, but-"
She would have laughed, but she just felt even sadder. How could she choose between Frank and Leo? It was impossible.
"I understand. Well, I am tired, so I wanted to get some sleep before lunch."
Frank nodded.
"And, by the way, Nico just woke up. He is with Jason speaking with Reyna. I wanted to check on you-"
So you would not do something stupid with Leo, Hazel finished Frank's line in her thoughts.
"-'cause you were so distant this morning."
"Yeah. Well, I will go to sleep, so I will see you later." She said and left Frank.
Hazel stepped into her cabin, and found Nico sitting on her bed. His eyes were dark, his hair tangled and black. A skull-ring sat on one of his fingers.
Even if he and Hazel had the same dad, Nico radiated a dark, Underworld-ish power that made Hazel shudder.
"Hi, what are you doing here?" she said. "Frank said you were with Jason, speaking with Reyna."
"It didn't go so well. When Reyna started to yell at Jason about that he abandoned the Romans, I decided to leave them alone."
They were quiet for a moment.
"Are you okay?" Hazel finally said and sat down next to Nico. "Feeling better?"
Nico laughed a little.
"Physically? Yes. Ambrosia fixed that up. Mentally? Nope."
Hazel frowned.
"Why?"
"The House of Hades. The Doors of Death. Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus. That's why."
"Look, Nico, you cannot blame yourself for what happened. You could not do something. And, we need someone on the other side of the Doors, right? So to close them, someone had to go in anyway."
The words sounded warm and nice, but Hazel felt hollow. She blamed herself too. Everybody on the ship blamed themselves.
"Maybe you're right." Nico said and sighed. "Well, if we could make the other believe that too… That it was necessary, maybe they would get in better spirits. The group are tearing themselves apart. You see that, don't you?"
Hazel wanted to say: No. Everything is fine! But she knew Nico was right. If everyone kept blaming themselves, soon they would start to blame each other.
"Yes. But what can we do?"
Nico shrugged.
"Just keep doing stuff. Keep being busy, too busy to think about Percy and Annabeth. Like now, everyone is doing something and it makes them feel better."
"Since when did you examine as a psychologist?" Hazel laughed. Nico smiled a little.
"Let's get you something to eat." Hazel said and got up. "You look awful."
Nico rolled his eyes.
"Why, thank you."
They walked out from the cabin when Piper came running with a terrified expression on her pretty face.
"Monster." She said, breathing hard. "On deck. Fast-"
The three of them ran to deck, where they saw a horrible scene.
A gigantic Chimaera, with red paralyzing eyes, was growling towards Jason, Leo, Frank and Coach Hedge. Jason was trying to stab it with his sword, but the monster was too fast. Frank shot arrows on it, but they harmlessly bounced off the Chimaera and just seemed to annoy it. Coach Hedge swinged his bat and yelled: "Die!" until a huge paw struck him and made him fall unconscious on the floor.
But the worst of all was Leo.
He shot columns of fire toward the Chimaera, who replied with more fire. Leo's eyes danced with some kind of angry, dark light, and combed with his hands full of fire it made him look absolutely terrifying. Still, for every column of fire he shot, he looked a little bit more tired. The ship was in flames, and every time the Chimaera breathed fire (which was really often), Leo screamed:
"You will NOT set my ship on flames!"
Hazel just stood there, her mouth hang open. Then a horrible scream woke her up.
Jason's shirt was on fire. He tried to smother the flames, but it did not work. Piper screamed.
Leo, who did not take his eyes off the monster, yelled:
"Roll on the floor!"
Jason listened and did what Leo told him to do. It looked kind of ridiculous, but the flames died out. Jason's shirt was tattered and smoking, but he seemed to be unharmed.
At the same time, Leo dodged an attack from the Chimaera's snake-tail.
"We can't reach them!" Nico said. "The fire…"
Hazel saw the problem. The Chimaera's last fire-attack had created a fire wall between Piper, Nico, Hazel and the others.
Frank had no more arrows. He had not noticed all the fire, but now when he did, all color drained out from his face.
The flames got higher, so Hazel could not see the others anymore.
She felt her throat closing up from panic. If the fire burned her, it would burn Frank's lifeline too. Then they both were dead.
Piper fought back tears.
"JASON!" she screamed desperately.
Nico just looked terrified.
Hazel started to think. They needed water, A LOT of water.
We need Percy, she thought grimly. Why does this have to happen exactly when he is not here?!
"LEO, TRY TO GET US DOWN IN THE WATER!" she screamed the loudest she could, and just hoped Leo could hear her. Maybe they in some way could make a wave if they were in the water. It would certainly be easier than if they were aloft, that was clear.
And indeed, she felt how the ship slowly turned down, sinking through the air. A few seconds later, they hit the water.
The Chimaera roared. Hazel could not see the others, just bright, orange fire, but she could almost imagine how Jason attacked with his sword and Leo shot another column of fire.
If Percy was there, he could just make a wave big enough to kill the fire but not sink the ship. He was the son of Poseidon. This was his territory.
Then, like a miracle, the noise of the water heaving below them got louder. With a sudden SPLASH! And a really horrible roar from the Chimaera, everything got quiet.
The fire in front of them was not there anymore. Hazel was soaking wet. She saw Leo, Jason, Frank and Coach Hedge just standing there (not the coach, he was still unconscious), shocked. The Chimaera was gone.
Without even thinking Hazel ran to Leo and hugged him tightly. She felt the smell of machine oil and smoke in his shirt. Leo just stood there, completely still.
Hazel heard Piper screaming to Jason:
"You IDIOT! You could have died!" But she did not really sound angry, just relivied.
Besides from that, it was still quiet. Hazel felt her cheeks getting red, even if no one could see that.
Why had she hugged Leo?! She just complicated things with Frank now. He would think she was in love with Leo.
Still, it felt awfully good. It felt so… Sammy.
Slowly Hazel backed away from Leo. He looked surprised, but a little smile played on his lips.
"Someone was scared, huh?" He joked, and Hazel felt her cheeks getting even redder.
She glared at him.
"You are stupid, I thought you was going to die, ALL of you, it was just scandalizing, how could you-"
Hazel did not finish. Flustered she looked around her; Piper was suppressing a smile, Jason looked kind of surprised but not in a bad way, Nico was looking at her like: Seriously? and Frank-
Frank was not there.
"I-I just…" She fanned herself a little, and then walked off, trying hard not to run.
No one followed her.
You will get to know about why that wave saved them later. Hope you'll liked it!