59. Angel
"Do you believe in Heaven, Leo?"
Leo's quietly surprised because Reyna's still somewhat of an anomaly to him. Closed off and quiet, she exudes a confidence that just makes you know she doesn't need anybody else, she doesn't start conversation.
She reminds Leo a lot of Annabeth- especially of the way Annabeth was before she was reunited with Percy.
The thought makes him sad.
And now the demigods have just rescued Annabeth and Percy from Tartarus and Reyna just arrived on her pegasus and had to put Scipio down and Leo sees a look in her eyes that he's all too familiar with.
Reyna looks lost, she's trying to find answers, and Leo senses that she needs to talk to someone.
And honestly, everybody else on this ship, except for them and Nico, have someone to talk to.
He thinks of Calypso and he wonders if he'll ever have that with her. On Ogygia it had been hard to think past the next hour, hard to imagine anything past getting off the island. Leo never fully comprehended the fact that Calypso is a Titan. She is immortal and she will not age and Leo will- hopefully- and he's not sure if he's ready for something like that. She was immortal before she was banished to her paradise and she will be immortal after because she is a Titan and that doesn't just change because she steps foot off of a piece of land.
He will rescue her because he promised her. But after that… he doesn't know what he'll do.
He meets Reyna's eyes from across the kitchen counter (all of his midnight talks on the Argo II seem to happen here) and he thinks, selfishly, that it feels good to not be the only person who's alone.
"No," he says. "How can I, when I know that the Olympian gods and their myths are real? I don't believe in Christianity."
"Not Christianity," Reyna says, staring at the mural of Camp Half-Blood with the strangest look on her face. "Heaven. Angels. That sort of thing."
"I believe in the gods," he says, trying to figure out where her thoughts are going. "In the Underworld and Olympus. I suppose if I believe in Heaven, Olympus is it."
She sighs and meets his eyes finally and he feels, just for a second, that he can see past her walls. "Do you ever wish that some other things were right?" She asks. "That it's not just the Greeks and Romans who were onto something? Do you ever wish you could just… choose to escape it all? Find something else to believe in?"
"All the time," he answers, because it's the truth and he thinks he finally understands what she's trying to say. "But, Reyna," it's the first time he's said her name and it rolls off his tongue easily, "none of those choices are easy. Every single religion, every single story, had some sort of problem."
She stands up from the stool she's sitting on and he realizes that only the counter separates them. "You're right, of course. I'm sorry, I'm just- in a strange mood."
He thinks of the look on her face when she had to kill her horse and he thinks he understands, just a little, because Festus died once too.
She shakes her head. "This is our life, we don't get to choose another one. I just- sometimes I wonder."
"Yeah," Leo says. "Me too."
She shoots him a surprised look a small smile. Then she leaves.
They don't talk about that conversation for a long, long time.