I never realized how much I missed this couple until I started writing about them again. :( Sorry for the horrible wait, I have no excuses.

Enjoy! This one was interesting to write.

oooOOOooo

49. Toad

You have to kiss a few toads to find your prince.

She's heard the saying a million times in her life. In fairytales and from old ladies in New Rome, from her friends who say, in more modern day language, that the first few boyfriends they had were immature and silly, nothing more than a crush, but the ones they have now are amazing and sweet and the real thing.

Reyna's never believed it, mainly because she's never dated before. She's had crushes (cough, Jason, cough) but never anything real and true, never something that moves forward instead of stands still.

Now it's almost a year after the war with Gaea and the demigods have moved on and Reyna finds herself falling hopelessly, desperately in love with Leo Valdez.

After the whole ordeal with Calypso- she won't get too far into it, but it turns out the Titan is immortal and will live forever and Leo is not and will die. Kind of puts a damper on the whole 'growing old together thing'- Leo was alone, Reyna was alone, and what do you know, it turns out they were actually great at being alone together.

He's her first boyfriend though, and she's inexperienced and unsure about so many things. She could not be able to tell you the amount of Iris messages she's had with Piper, Nico and Hazel begging for relationship advice- a position she would never have thought to find herself in. Ever.

So she's heard her friends say the phrase, 'You have to kiss a few toads to find your prince,' and it scares her because she knows most people don't find their soulmate- or life partner or whatever you want to call it- in their first boyfriend or girlfriend. (Percy and Annabeth seem to be one of the lucky exceptions of that rule, because everybody knows those two are meant to be.)

Reyna, if you didn't know, was great at over worrying.

So she's freaking out and thinking about this, about how the odds are stacked against them, and she's staring out of the window of her Praetor house when Leo comes in and finds her like this.

Immediately he sits across from her on the window seat. "What's wrong?"

She shakes her head. "I'm just thinking."

He studies her before frowning. "About what? It's upsetting you."

She's changed since the beginning of their relationship, and it's obvious when she answers honestly right away instead of hesitating. She can barely meet his eyes. "Do you ever think it might not work with us? We're only sixteen, Leo. It's hard to be in love in our age."

Then he's looking worried and grabbing her hands as if to reassure himself that she's right in front of him and not going anywhere, and his grip is tight and-

"What are you trying to say, Rey?"

She shrugs again and looks down at their hands. His thumb is slowly rubbing back and forth across the back of hers. "We're so young. We have so much that could happen to us. I don't want- I don't want any of that to come between us or what we have."

The worry leaves his eyes when she looks back up at him. "Okay," he says, before taking a breath. "Do you love me?"

"What-?"

"Do you love me?"

"Of course."

He smiles. "I love you too. You're more important than anything. As long as we both feel that way, nothing will ruin this."

Later, Reyna thinks that maybe, just maybe, she didn't have to go through any toads to find her prince.