I'm sorry for not updating lately, but I've been kinda busy… So I just want you to know that I'm not going to update very often, maybe until after Christmas… But of course, the chapters will drop in sooner and later x)

Thanks for all amazing reviews!

Chapter 14 – Well, I'm in love

LEO

Leo wished he hadn't followed Jason to the mess hall. Just when he walked in and prepared for saying a joke, a blur of dark hair shot right at him and covered his sight.

"I thought you were dead, if you ever try to distract a dragon again I'm gonna kill you!"

Piper almost suffocated him, but Leo laughed.

"Well, I think that dragon would try to kill me first, but you can always get in line." Leo said and awkwardly patted her on her back.

Piper pulled away with tears in her eyes.

"You have no idea how worried we've been, Valdez! How could you be so stupid to try to distract so many dragons?!"

Then Coach Hedge's voice yelled:

"VALDEZ!"

He trotted over with the baseball bat raised, and Leo thought that he looked far too scary to be half goat.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, VALDEZ?! HOW COULD YOU-"

But Death Kid interrupted:

"Coach Hedge, don't you think Leo should rest before you start to yell at him?"

"Yes, definitely. Or he will just pass out while you're yelling, and then it won't have any effect, right?" Jason said quickly.

"I suppose you're right." The coach glared at Leo. "Valdez, we're not done."

He left the room, and Leo raised an eyebrow and said:

"He was not in a good mood."

"How are you?" Piper asked. "How did you get out of bed so quickly?"

Hazel told them about Apollo's visit while Jason and Dead Kid helped Leo to sit down in a chair. Hazel voice was kind of hollow, and she looked like she felt awkward.

Frank was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey, guys, where's Mr. Shape Shifter?" Leo asked. He shot Hazel a curious look but she looked away.

"He disappeared into his cabin after visiting Hazel and you a while ago…" Piper said and frowned. "Did something happen?"

Everyone looked at Leo and Hazel, but Leo put up his hands like he was surrendering.

"I was unconscious!"

Hazel didn't say anything.

"So… You want something to eat?" Piper asked Leo after an awkwardly silent moment.

"No, I'm fine." He said and grinned a little. "I'm going back to the helm. You guys saw how clean it's up there?"

Nico (a.k.a. Death Kid) looked confused.

"What do you mean?"

Leo looked sighed in exasperation.

"You seriously didn't check that everything on deck was okay while I was unconscious? My friends, you should have known that I'm never waking up from death again if you don't visit Festus and check if he is okay!"

Jason laughed a little.

"Okay then, Admiral. Let's go."

Leo led them up to deck and showed them how clean, shiny and perfect everything looked. Piper mostly appreciated it (it didn't matter how much Piper denied it, she was a daughter of the love goddess and she liked gossip and sweet stuff), but the others we're as confused as Leo.

"Wow… That's weird." Jason said. "If I left my dirty clothes up here, would they be clean now too?"

Piper rolled her eyes.

"I don't understand." Dead Kid said and frowned. "This shouldn't be possible. It has to be some god who did this. Maybe Apollo?"

"I don't think so…" Hazel said uncertainly. "He didn't mention anything about cleaning up."

Leo's brain didn't have the energy to think about something that serious right now. Instead, he just said:

"Come on, whoever it was, it was nice. Everything looks sweet. So let's just get back to work."

Piper stomped her foot.

"I can't stand this anymore! We're not doing anything that can help Percy and Annabeth or close the Doors! We're all just 'hanging out' and 'chilling' while the ship peacefully is going towards Greece! Does anyone realize that Percy and Annabeth maybe are dead right now?! Or that Gaea's armies are just storming out from the Doors without anyone stopping them?! Soon they will be unstoppable!"

Everything went quiet. Leo thought about his dream. Gaea is not the only one you will have to worry about…

"No." He said. "First of all, Percy and Annabeth aren't dead." He looked at Death Kid, who nodded. "And this isn't a peaceful trip to Greece, do anyone remember that we were attacked by dragons a few hours ago? The Argo II is going as fast as she can, and I'm sorry that there isn't anything to do other than just hang out right now. But we can't do anything about it right now, and it's good that we don't have big problems that everyone has to work on. Besides…"

Leo took a deep breath.

"Gaea isn't our only enemy. We have to be prepared to fight very powerful monsters and stuff, so it would be good if you tried to practice fighting. And we have to figure out who this other enemy could be."

No one said anything. Leo didn't really care. He yawned and turned to the helm.

One after another, the other left. Leo thought he was all alone, but then a voice said:

"Could you please tell me about this dream of yours?"

He didn't turn, but his heart raced a little faster.

"Leo, please, I know something is wrong."

Leo closed his eyes, but didn't answer. He felt Hazel looking at him.

After a moment, Leo finally turned and met Hazel's eyes. They were golden, beautiful.

"Nothing is wrong, everything's fine." Leo said sternly.

Hazel walked to Leo and put a hand on his arm. A wave of nervousness washed over him.

"Please."

It was unfair. Those golden eyes made him want to tell her everything, that look was even stronger than Piper's charmspeak.

"I-I had this dream." Leo started.

Gosh, she is beautiful, Leo thought.

And Frank's girlfriend! A voice in his head said.

Hazel still had her hand on his arm.

Then suddenly she backed away in alarm, looking terrified. Leo ran to her.

"What's wrong?!" He asked.

"Y-You're on f-fire!" She stammered.

Leo cursed. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were ablaze. Very quickly he smothered them.

"I'm sorry." He said and tried for a grin. Hazel smiled a little, but she still looked at his hands.

"I thought you could control that."

Leo felt his heart sink.

"Well, I usually can, it's just-"

It's just that you are here, he wanted to say. But he stopped himself.

"You should, uh, keep your distance." Leo said. He felt very awkward. Why did everything always go wrong when he was around Hazel?!

"No, it's okay." She laughed. "It's not your fault. Were you born with that ability or…?"

"Yeah, I was." Leo said, not too happy with the topic. "I accidently set stuff on fire when I was, like, two years old, so I'm pretty sure I was born with it."

Hazel nodded slowly.

"Accidently setting fire on things doesn't sound too good." She said.

Leo shrugged.

"Nah, I'm okay with it. Since I came to Camp Half-Blood, I've gotten better at controlling it. But I'm not too happy about it. The fire-powers, I mean."

He thought about his mother, killed by a fire he started because Gaea wanted to break his spirit. It didn't matter if you said that the fire wasn't his fault, that he just wanted to stop Gaea, but his mom's death still was his fault: if it wasn't for Leo, Gaea never would have come to the machine shop at all. Then his mom would be alive.

Apparently Hazel noticed something was wrong, she asked:

"Does something bad ever happened because of it?"

Leo didn't know what to tell her. Why should he tell her, a girl he only known for a short time, about his mother's death when he never told anyone else?

But he did.

"It kinda'-It kinda' killed my mom." Leo bit his lip, trying not to cry. Why did he do this to himself?! Nothing would get better if he told Hazel; she would give him the same kind of sympathy he got his whole life. Leo wouldn't get happier by telling her or thinking about it at all.

Hazel didn't say "I'm sorry" or "That's terrible!". She was quiet.

That encouraged Leo to tell her even more.

"Gaea came. I was eight years old. Mom and I were in her machine shop, and we were just on our way out when she realized she had left the keys in the shop. She told me that she would be back in a moment and went in again… The door slammed shut and Gaea appeared. I remember her telling me that the Fates didn't allow her to kill me, but they didn't protect my mom. I was scared, and-" Leo stopped and blinked. He smiled painfully to Hazel. "-And I knew that Gaea would just pass through the wall and kill mom. So my hands caught fire…"

Leo didn't continue. Hazel's eyes were full of sadness and sympathy, genuine sympathy, but she still didn't say anything. He was happy for that.

He had a hard time trying not to cry. It felt really weird to tell anyone so much about his mom's death, he felt like someone turned him inside-out, took all the things that made him work and then turned him back to normal. He felt like an empty scale.

He smiled sarcastically and looked away.

"I don't know why I told you that… I'm usually not that whiny-"

But Hazel didn't speak. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Leo and hugged him tightly, hugged him like no one ever had after his mom's death – and Leo loved it. For once, someone showed some genuine sympathy, someone really cared about how sad he was. They just stood there, hugging.

Leo tried very hard to not catch fire, but he suspected he was warm. The strange thing was, he never been comforted or hugged like this. The hugs he got since his mother's death had all been to comfort others. This really was nice. It felt so good…

But a part of Leo cursed. This was, like, the thousand time he had Hazel in his arms, and still he hadn't kissed her. And she was Frank's girlfriend.

Frank's girlfriend.

Leo pulled away.

"Thanks, I guess." He said awkwardly.

He gave her a little smile, trying not to show how nervous he really was, and turned to the helm.

"Will you be okay?" Hazel asked him after a silent moment.

"I-Yeah. Of course." Leo said. He kept his eyes on the horizon.

"Then I'll go."

He heard the sound Hazel's footsteps faint. Leo seriously wanted to slap himself. What was he doing?!

Truthfully, he hadn't a clue. How did you deal with girls? How did you speak with them? Of course Leo had been in love before, but not like this. This was a girl who could have been his great-grandmother and liked him because he was like his great-grandfather. This was a girl who already had a boyfriend.

Leo felt weirdly peaceful. Telling Hazel about that night in the machine shop had been easier than he thought it would be, and it felt good.

Festus creaked.

"What's going on? Well, I'm in love. That's going on."

But the thought of being in love with Hazel made him sad. He promised Frank to not move it in on his girl. Now he was going to lose a sort-of-friend who probably would trample him in bear shape and maybe even the girl he liked.

I know, not very good ending (or anything...), but I hope it will satisfie you until the next chapter! :)