"Say what?" Louisa glared at him. Leo barely registered, trying to get his mind around what the General had told them. "Outside? You want us to go Outside?" The General gave a curt nod.

"Why? Something the matter?"

"Why do you want us to go Outside?" Leo asked.

"It is the Government's wish. In the past, we have sent out families with young children, but none have ever returned. We decided that maybe a couple-" Louisa cleared her throat.

"We're not dating." Leo translated. Yet, he added silently.

"My apologies." The General glanced at Louisa before continuing. "Obviously you have no children and will not be expecting any soon. With Louisa's military training and your expertise in technology and the likes, the Government deems you fit to go Outside."

"What's Outside?" Leo quizzed.

"We are not sure."

"Then why send people Outside at all?"

"We are trying to raise the population, boy." The General growled, getting frustrated with the questions. "This District will only hold so many."

"So, you're thinking of expanding or building another District elsewhere?" The General nodded. "And we're going Outside to see if people can live out there?" Another nod. "I hate guinea pigs." Louisa rolled her eyes.

"You're friends with this?" She gave a nod, pulling a face that said 'apparently'.

"Hey." Leo protested. "Offense taken." Louisa smirked.

The General sighed.

"If you come back alive, you will be granted an upper class apartment and enough funds to last ten years. Each." He added. "Should you not come back alive, the apartment and the money will be donated to people of your choice."

"Can we split the money?" Leo asked, thinking of his small group of friends. Louisa nodded in agreement.

"It can be done, yes."

"Right, the apartment can go to, uh…" Leo glanced at Louisa. "Percy and Annabeth?" She nodded. "Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase and their son, Tobias can have the apartment. If I give you a list of names, can you split the money between them?" The General nodded. "Thanks." The General nodded again. "When do we go then?"

"Give yourself time to heal. We will wait a fortnight before we send you Outside. You will receive weekly updates on the situation." Leo and Louisa nodded. "Smith, drop the list of names on my desk Monday." Louisa nodded, standing to attention and saluting. "Dismissed. And not a word to anyone." The General left.

Louisa collapsed on the bed next to him.

"Idiot." She grumbled.

"Who?"

"People."

"Fair enough." Leo smiled weakly. "Any idea what's Outside?" He asked. She sighed.

"I've seen glimpses. There was on tower ya could climb ta the top, but it's not that safe now."

"Anything?"

"Just… just old houses 'n' broken cars. I thought I saw the shadows movin' at one point, but I couldn't tell. 'N' I got spotted." She paused. "That's, uh, one of the reasons why I got inta the Legions. I could climb."

"And had the nerve to do so." She nodded. "So… how about that kiss?" She groaned in annoyance, her shoulders slouching in defeat. Leo chuckled. "You wrote it down, remember?" He smiled, retrieving the sheet from under his pillow. "Look, see?" He held it in front of her face. "Look, Lou, look what it says."

"I know what it says, I bloody wrote it."

"How about you settle the debt then?" She hunched her shoulders and folded her arms stubbornly. "You know you wanna…" Leo teased. She went to smack him, remembered his injury and froze. "You were going to attack a crippled person."

"Ya ain't crippled."

"I am." She looked at him. "Temporarily." She continued to look at him. "I'm in pain." He was still getting the Look. "I'm lazy. But I am in some pain."

"Mm-hm." She hummed disbelievingly. Or carelessly, Leo couldn't tell.

"Florence Nightingale much." He sighed, smiling.

Louisa stayed with him that night. Sleeping in a separate bed the infirmary had provided, but at least she was still in the same room.

Leo was struggling to sleep, his stomach hurting like crazy. Instead, he contented himself by watching her sleep.

For the first few hours, she seemed fine, happy with whatever she was dreaming of. She looked so angelic and peaceful asleep; no frowning, no glaring, no worries. But slowly, a grimace started to take her smile's place. She looked scared.

Leo was forcing himself to sit up and reach for her, chivalrously ignoring the pain in his stomach, when he noticed she was crying.

He froze in shock before quickly shifting beds. She didn't wake, but cringed away from him, as if his presence and his weight on the bed had affected her nightmare somehow. Tears still streamed.

"Lou." He shook her shoulder. "Lou, wake up." Leo couldn't wake her with normal wake-up attempts. He could wait until she woke herself up, but he didn't want her suffering from the clear nightmares any longer.

Very bravely- or stupidly- Leo leant down (again, ignoring the agony blazing in his stomach).

And he kissed her.

She woke up then, smacking him away instinctively.

"What the bloody hell d'ya think ya doin'?!" She shouted, jumping to her feet.

"I was trying to wake you up. You were having a nightmare." Leo explained. He had one arm around his stomach, as if it would settle the pain. He looked up at her. "I panicked, OK?" She glowered at him, breathing heavily and trying to calm down.

"Sorry." She eventually said. She carefully helped him to his feet, wary of his injury. She helped him back onto his bed, checking that nobody had come running at her shouts. "I'll get the doctor." She turned to leave, but Leo grabbed her hand.

"I'll be OK."

"Leo, it's amazin' ya didn't break anythin'." She gently pulled her hand free and went to get a doctor.

Leo was glad when she came back and even happier when he saw a doctor with her that had a morphine shot. Normally, he hated injections, but he liked this one.

"Fell out the bed?" The doctor smiled.

"I fidget." Leo returned easily. The doctor laughed softly, put a small dressing over the injection wound before leaving. "Fell out the bed?" He hissed at Louisa. She shrugged.

"I couldn't exactly say I attacked ya."

"I take some blame for that." She smiled weakly.

"Sorry."

"It's OK."

"No, it's not. That could've ripped ya stiches."

"I have stiches?"

"Oh, Leo, how on earth d'ya survive? Yes, ya have stiches."

"Cool."

The next day, Leo wanted to get up. Louisa wouldn't let him.

So he fell out of the bed. On purpose this time round.

"Oh for the love of… idiot." She grumbled. He refused to be pulled to his feet, going limp and unhelpful.

"Leo no wanna go bed." He said in a childish voice.

"Ya have ta." Leo shook his head stubbornly, folding his arms. Louisa sighed. "Fine." She grabbed the sheets from the bed and bundled them up into long strips. Before he had even figured out what she was doing, she had tied his hands together and then tied the sheets a narrow column in the room. Leo tugged on it.

"Damn you."

He had visitors half an hour later.

"Leo?" Frank stared at him, perplexed.

"I fell out of the bed and Lou tied me up." Leo sighed. "I did want to sit on the floor."

"Why?" Hazel laughed.

"I didn't like the bed." They all smiled at him.

"Where's Lou then?" Annabeth asked.

"Dunno. Hopefully she's getting me brekkie. I'm starving." Leo looked curiously up at Percy and Annabeth. "How's Tobias?"

"Well, after we left you, Annabeth had a bit of a strop and we, um, persuaded them to let us see him."

"He looks so tiny in that horrible incubator." Annabeth frowned. "I don't want him in there. I want him home. There's tubes and wires everywhere and I don't like it."

Louisa was listening outside, hearing her best friend's complaints. She went to find out what was going on with her nephew, sneaking to the maternity wing. It took a while for the doctors to understand what she was silently saying and by the time she did, she was halfway down the corridor and looking for the infant herself.

"Ma'am, you're not allowed in here." One doctor said.

"You're not the boy's parents." Another said. Louisa glared at them.

"Her brother is the father. She's the baby's aunt." A nurse mumbled. They left quickly, faltering under her glare.

Tobias was tiny in the incubator, miniscule. It didn't look right with all the wires and tubes, but one was the ventilator, the other pumping steroids into his small body while a wire kept track of his heartbeat.

The infant slept peacefully, even drooling a little. Louisa smiled.

She just wanted to free Tobias from the incubator, the wires, the tubes and take him to his parents, but what good would that do if he was too fragile?

But he had seemed fine. The paramedics had said so, even if he had been born dead. They wouldn't be paramedics if they couldn't do their job properly, would they?

Louisa gently traced her finger and thumb along the steroids tube. It reached up to an IV pole with a bag hanging from it.

Her dyslexia jumbled the letters momentarily, but she didn't see any words related to steroids.

Louisa burst into the room, in a right state.

"Lou?" Louisa gestured, pointing crazily and waving her arms in the direction of outside the door. "What?" Annabeth frowned. Louisa face-palmed, grabbed her best friend by the wrist and dragged her out. Percy followed at a brisk jog.

"What's going on?" Leo asked, trying to get up. They had freed him from his restraints, Frank and Nico getting him back on the bed.

"Dunno. But whatever it is, Lou's not happy about it." Piper chewed her lip worriedly.

"Lou's not going to lose it again, is she?" Hazel asked quietly.

"I don't know." Piper answered honestly.

"It depends what it is, doesn't it?" Reyna said.

I'm going to live it there as I have nothing else at this current moment in time. I hope it's alright! Please review! :D