The first time Connor Stoll introduced Calypso to cable, Leo cheerfully thought about strangling him.

He wasn't entirely sure how the son of Hermes had become Calypso's pop culture tutor but it probably had something to do with the fact that since he'd been back, everyone seemed to want a piece of Leo, whether it be his help on a project or an answer to a question. He'd never been so popular in all his life but he liked to think he balanced well enough. He and Calypso would spend their evenings and free time together though he knew she'd probably need to take some time to get used to being around other people again.

Leo was a wildly busy near-sixteen-year-old. Connor, on the other hand, was studying for his degree in couch surfing with a minor in how to swallow a burger whole. His brother had turned nineteen the previous year and decided to move to a small apartment in New York with his demigod girlfriend Katie. Apparently, she'd pestered him into applying for colleges and with some classic demigod-simultaneously-good-and-bad-luck, they were accepted. Connor had been quite happy to stay at camp though he often looked like he missed having his partner in crime around.

On the whole, Leo liked the Stoll brothers. They were witty, sneaky, always good for a laugh. If he wasn't completely and utterly sure that Connor held absolutely no romantic feelings for Calypso, maybe he would've been a little more irritated by it.

As it was, he was simply sick of Connor letting Calypso watch old reruns of I Dream Of Jeanie, I Love Lucy and Bewitched.

He'd had to listen for a week afterwards to a stunningly pissed off Calypso who ranted on about how men hadn't changed a bit since she was young, how they were misogynists and rude and expected women to be simply content to serve them in bed and kitchen, and so on and so forth.

Leo had unthinkingly mentioned that she should look up women's rights on the new computer system he was teaching her to use and that spouted a whole new range of fun exciting yelling.

"What is this nonsense about equal pay, Leo?" she'd seethed as though she wanted to stab the computer for showing her such things. "Should men and women not be paid equally anyway?"

Connor enjoyed teaching Calypso. In fact, he hosted classes during Ancient History Hour called The Development of Boy Bands and Top Ten James Bond Films You Should Know. In a way, it caught Calypso up to speed in many areas of modern culture.

She learned about cars, the Depression, modern fashion, the World Wars, foods and cities rapidly, soaking everything up like a sponge. On the down side, Leo had a tough time explaining why the world's most famous super spy had gadgets that seemed like magic when she was assured humans thought magic was a farce:

"So it's mechanical?"

"Yes. But it's fake."

"Why?"

"Well because that kind of technology wasn't around back then."

"So they were pretending?"

"Yeah."

"But you could make something like that now, couldn't you?"

"Well, I guess-"

"Then it is not fake."

So when Connor dropped round the forges with an amused yet fearful expression, Leo groaned. "What did you do now?" he moaned.

"I didn't really do anything." Connor absolved himself, instantly. "I just forgot to turn off the TV."

"What channel is it stuck on this time?" Shane Brown asked, jokingly. His fellow Hephaestus campers were more than aware of Calypso's phases with television.

"Harry Potter movies?" Nyssa suggested.

Jake Mason, fully healed and out of his body cast, snickered along. "Keeping up with the Kardashians?"

"Oh that was a good one," Shane complimented, casually. "What about one of those archaeology shows?"

"Don't remind me," Nyssa muttered, rolling her eyes. "I was embarrassedfor them when she kept asking why they were saying the bathroom was a throne room."

"Wrestling?" little Harley suggested innocently although Jake and Shane suddenly locked eyes and raised their brows.

"That would be hot."

"Can you imagine-?"

"-Annabeth? Or Pip-" Shane muttered right as Leo nailed him on the back the head with a wrench. "No throwing tools in the workplace Valdez!"

"What happened, Stoll?" Leo mumbled though he knew his siblings only teased Calypso because they liked her. Even Nyssa had admitted the girl had spunk. "What channel?"

"She found the cooking network." He said, cringing.

"That's not too bad," Jake commented. "The one on daytime TV is pretty tame. Lots of infomercials."

"On cable."

Leo shook his head. "Okay…which cooking network then?"

"Erm…all of them?" Connor winced.

"Gods above, I thought you said she didn't like using the remote!" Leo sighed, rubbing soot from his cheek.

"Hazel showed her how." The son of Hermes said, helplessly. "They're watching in the Oracle Cave, both of them. Rachel joined them about an hour ago but she just laughs when I ask her for help."

Leo sighed again, reminding himself that it could be worse. He'd tried to watch a horror movie with her once and she simply kept asking what kind of monster plays with its food so much before it attacks and why the characters, though being given ample time to strategize and launch an assault, seemed too panicked to do anything but be eaten.

Very practical, his girlfriend was.

"I'll see how she takes it tonight," Leo decided, glaring at Connor. "But if you're going to make her watch this stuff, at least teach her how to use the channels properly!"

"I will, I promise!" Connor hurried to say before leaving and Leo got back to work, his mind fixed on what his girlfriend might be absorbing.

It wasn't quite as bad as Leo feared. Often Calypso would take on the shows she watched with a hungry vehemence, insisting upon researching it to death and questioning Leo until she'd exhausted his brain and moved to her friends in Cabin 6.

He knew she was still feeling out of place in the new world; hell, he could barely think about learning fifty years of Ancient Greek history let alone the three thousand she missed on Ogygia. At times, he became irritated, if only because she usually pointed out where the gaps in his knowledge were.

Who was this? Why did they say that? What happened here? What does this mean?

But Leo also knew she was dealing with the new world by drowning herself in information; in foster care, he'd seen all kinds of coping mechanisms. His own was a blend of class clown and false bravado in his dashing good looks and charm. He couldn't begrudge her a way of dealing.

So he let her pester him with questions and argue with him about political matters from seventy years ago. Part him was actually glad to see her so happy and excited to learn everything around her- it was so much better than the wariness she'd originally displayed weeks ago. Another part of him decided that he liked it when her eyes started to smoulder with understanding or vibrancy because damn, his girlfriend was hot.

All things considered, the cooking phase was not so bad. Calypso began to help out the nymphs and dryads with preparing camp meals. Mr D looked disgruntled but stayed quiet. His face was constantly pursed in a constipated expression that Leo began to call 'Olympian Thinking Hard While Taking a Dump'. The nymphs themselves were pleased to have her, not taking the camp director's opinions to heart.

Thing was, Calypso wasn't a great cook. On Ogygia, the air servants had tended to her meals and at one point, Leo jokingly told her they'd have to cut 'Lemonade and Stew' out of their title for their auto garage because she didn't make it herself. Calypso had responded with a sideways look and a face full of tomato soup when he wasn't looking.

(He got her back later on with the tiramisu they served for dessert and had lots of fun stealing coffee-chocolate-flavoured kisses afterwards)

But she was getting better every day she practised and eventually, she started to build a better understanding of recipes and ingredients. The one thing she wasn't really getting the hang of was baking. The day Leo found out, she'd come out of the Dinner Pavilion one night before dinner, sighing with her lips turned down.

"What's up Sunshine?" he asked, cautiously.

"I burnt the jelly for the pie." She muttered, casting her eyes down furtively.

Leo tried to restrain himself but a snicker escaped. "You burnt the jelly?"

"Shut up Wonder Boy." Calypso rolled her eyes. "And yes, I did."

"I didn't know you cooked jelly over a stove…" Leo tried to be sympathetic but suddenly the singed end of her braid and slight scent of smoke made perfect sense.

"You don't."

He couldn't help him: he burst into howls of laughter as they wandered through the woods, towards the Oracle Cave, which sat beside the river bank.

"I don't know how it happened!" she bemoaned, her shoulders slumped. "One minute, everything was fine and the next, it's no longer grape purple, it's gone crusty and blackened."

"…crusty and blackened…?" Leo wheezed, pausing for a moment to steady himself on a nearby pine tree.

Calypso shoved him and walked away, growling. "Yes, like your heart!"

"Oh c'mon," he called, still snickering even as he caught up with her. "You were doing so well!"

"I am a barely passable cook." Calypso admitted as they came to the river bank. She sat down on the small strip of sandy bay nearby and Leo joined her, the sensation feeling more like their nighttime picnics on Ogygia than anything else. Behind her, her garden was slowly starting to take shape.

"That's not true," Leo rushed to say, trying to keep a straight face. "That quiche you made last week was…interesting…"

"It was awful." Calypso argued, flatly. "But I can make food that is edible most of the time and I'm getting…better. But Juniper says baking is simply not my forte."

"There are so many more important things to be good at, Sunshine." Leo told her, stretching out and watching as she dug her bare toes into the sand.

"Sometimes, I wish I could be a goddess again." She admitted, quietly. "I had a purpose then. I had talents. History, knowledge, a future. But here, I feel like a newborn babe trying to learn a culture that has progressed far beyond me."

Leo tentatively linked her fingers with his. "You're purpose is to be Calypso. Incredible former goddess, conflicted angsty teenager, horrific baker." She smiled weakly at that at least. "That's the great thing about mortals, we don't have a plan sorted out. And for demigods, that goes twice."

She let out a laugh, this one louder and more sincere. "You think so, huh?"

"About demigods not having a plan?" Leo sat up with a raised eyebrow. "Percy's last strategy in Capture the Flag was to, and I quote, 'wing it'. Of course, it didn't help when he won-"

"No, I meant about my purpose." She bit her lip and studied Leo's fingers which were tapping against hers in a familiar Morse code pattern. I love you. I love you. I love you. He stopped, a little embarrassed for letting it get away from him.

"Of course." He shrugged. "You'll figure it out along the way. We'll figure it out."

Calypso smiled at him, thankful for the steadfast support he provided, often without knowing it at all. Of all the heroes and gods she had met, Leo was perhaps the only one she had ever truly trusted.

"Just promise me one thing?" he asked after a long pause.

"Yes, hero?" she asked, softly.

"My birthday's coming up…" he began, struggling to keep his expression sincere. "And I was wondering if you could make a cake…?"

In the next second, Leo was in the middle of the river, spitting soggy water plants out of his mouth. "You cheated!" he bellowed, trying to swim back over to where Calypso had collapsed on her side, shrieking with laughter.