(A/N: Happy Friday everyone! Hope you've all had a great week and enjoy your weekend. Sorry this is late, this week has been particularly frustrating. Thanks for reading!)
CHAPTER TWELVE
The first time Calypso actively helped one of her heroes' escape Ogygia was also the first time she realised she wanted this particular hero to stay. It was, of course, a slow realisation.
The morning after she finished her supply gathering, Calypso began at her loom again, bright and early. She began recalling the pictures she'd seen in Leo's not-magical-but-might-as-well-be looking glass of other girls' clothes as well as the clothes she'd already made for Leo. At first she had a hard time imagining that trousers and shirts could be so popular for women but when she tried the garments on, Calypso lost any shred of hesitancy.
The feeling of such close fitting breeches was liberating and comfortable, the stretchy denim conformed to her legs perfectly. It had only taken an hour or so to weave something that would fit her, trousers that were loose but not quite as loose as Leo's and a shirt like the one she'd made him. The end result was fitted but incredibly comfortable. They were much less of an encumbrance than her dresses and made her morning routine of gardening and weaving far easier.
It felt almost…risqué somehow, wearing fabric that fit so closely to her own skin, revealing the slenderness of her legs, the fullness of her hips and backside. But she'd seen the other females in Leo's looking device wearing similar clothing. It was obviously common in this new world and she resolved to start wearing more of it.
She began weaving rope for Leo's rigging. Twisting the strands together into tight lengths was trickier than she'd expected although eventually, she had wound several long coils at her feet and the morning sun was beginning overhead.
Calypso fidgeted, unprepared for the nerves that trickled through her spine. Her part of Leo's escape was done, she realised. She had helped in however she could and her side of preparations were completed. Peeking out from the cave entrance, she watched Leo moving around his camp, short bursts of bright flames appearing every now and then as he hunched over something on the workbench.
She wondered about him some days. He still bewildered her. Leo Valdez' tenacity was unlike any hero's she had ever encountered. He worked nonstop with a mechanical mind that pieced everything together like it was part of him. Leo had never really watched her with admiration, never took his eyes off anything but his work but he treated her like a person, not a goddess, not even like a pretty girl, or some delicate creature. It was as disconcerting as it was refreshing because, as Calypso was beginning to realise, she didn't want to lose these feelings of equal contribution between them.
With a deep breath, she tucked her hair behind her ear and set off towards the beach, slowly. If he had fawned over her like the others had, it might've been easier. As it was, Leo was so absurdly unpredictable that when she appeared at the edge of his camp, she felt nervous.
"Can I help you?" she asked, her tone harsher than she'd intended.
Leo didn't even bother to glance up from the device in his capable fingers. "Nope. Just pretend I'm not even here, Sunshine."
She tried not to feel offended but her voice was slightly sharp nevertheless. "I have completed the sail and rope. There are supplies packed for a weeklong journey and they are all encased in enchanted wrappings-" Calypso took a breath to steady her rambling. "Can I help with your project?" she finished, trying to make her voice light and friendly. It worked…marginally.
Leo finally looked up, curiously. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were anxious to get rid of me." He pointed out with a tiny flicker of amusement in his gaze.
Her spine straightened indignantly. "That's a bonus." She assured him, snappily.
The snarky remark seemed to gain more of his attention and he glanced over her clothes with a raised brow. "What's with the wardrobe change?"
Calypso followed his gaze and shrugged, fighting to keep her voice even. He had a horrible way of throwing her off her usual calm and it bothered her. A lot.
"They are far more practical than dresses." She replied, shrugging. "The clothes I made you were so comfortable that I decided it was a good change." In her cave, her new fitted trousers and shirt had seemed like a good idea but standing on the beach, she began to realise the shirt had soil stains on it and there was a tear in one knee of the denim pants from kneeling in her garden. No wonder Leo did not treat her like a goddess like the others had, she realised. Her mother would be horrified to see her looking as such.
But Leo didn't appear to care much. His expression twitched slightly in a way she hadn't seen before, perhaps surprise, perhaps something else but before Calypso could try figuring it out, he'd gone back to work on the device. A surge of irritation flew through her. "So?" Calypso pressed, pointedly.
"So…what?" he muttered back, glancing back at her.
"So can I help? How is it coming on?" she added, gesturing to the device. It looked like a bundle of rubbish to her but then again, the Titans had never had much use for mortal machinery.
"Oh, uh, I'm good here." His voice sounded slightly flustered though she couldn't think why. "I guess. If I can wire this thing up to the boat, I should be able to navigate back to the world."
"Now all you need is a boat." Calypso added, nodding with a small peek at the supplies she'd stacked up near his camp. A mix of irritation and sadness swept through her that all Leo Valdez needed to escape Ogygia was a boat. How easy it was for him.
"What Gaea said…" Leo suddenly said, looking wary. "About you getting off this island. Would you want to try it?"
Despite herself, Calypso scowled. As though it were so easily done.
"What do you mean?" Calypso replied, her teeth slightly gritted. Gaea's offer rang around the inside of her head sometimes in the darkness of her cave, looking up at the crystals scattered over her roof, glowing with magical light. Killing one strange demigod for an end to her punishment. But she couldn't do such things. She wouldn't. She was not a Titan. She was not her parents.
"Well…I'm not saying it would be fun having you along, always complaining and glaring at me and stuff." Leo pointed out, dryly. "But I suppose I could stand it, if you wanted to try."
The offer felt bittersweet. "How noble." She remarked, cursing the word in her head. She hated the noble ones. Nobility made her love them, nobility made them leave. "But no, Leo. If I tried to come with you, your tiny chance of escape would be no chance at al. The gods have placed ancient magic on this island to keep me here. A hero can leave. I cannot. The most important thing is getting you free so you can stop Gaea." Calypso explained, keeping her voice steady although there was definitely strain. Leo's expression seemed conflicted and she quickly hastened to add, "Not that I care what happens to you but the world's fate is at stake."
She couldn't have him thinking she liked him in any sort of way.
The conflicted expression didn't leave. "Why would you care about that?" Leo asked, brow furrowed. He didn't look quite as offensively joking with his face so serious. "I mean, after being away from the world for so long?"
The question caught her off guard because honestly, everyone assumed that she was a Titan's child, through and through, since the first war. It never crossed their minds that she might have changed, if only because Titans were so infamously bad at adapting and changing. "I suppose I don't like being told what to do." She decided at last. "By Gaea or anyone else. As much as I hate the gods sometimes, over the past three millennia, I've come to see that they're better than the Titans. They're definitely better than the giants."
In her head, Calypso recalled both sets of immortals with a shudder: killing mortals for sport, pronouncing their superiority at any given moment, their behaviour unchecked by any divine laws. The ancient rules were hardly perfect but they were better than nothing. "At least the gods kept in touch," Calypso added, thinking over her last immortal visitor. "Hermes had always been kind to me. And your father, Hephaestus, has often visited. He is a good person."
Sometimes, she could see glimpses of her old friend in Leo. Something about his voice, or the capability of his hands or that incredible mechanical sense of the world. Hephaestus had often visited her, not like Apollo or Dionysus had, to woo her and try their luck at bedding her, but as a friend, gentle but strong and well meaning if not utterly awkward. Calypso found herself studying Leo with thoughtful eyes. How much like your father are you, Leo Valdez? She wondered, reaching out to close his jaw, which had clicked open somewhere between her talking about giants and her telling him that she knew his father quite well.
"Now, how can I help?" she asked, impatiently.
The demigod didn't seem to really hear the words for a moment. "Oh." He glanced down at his project. Calypso could actually see the moment his idea hit him, the slight change of his expression from surprise to inspiration spilling from his eyes, his mouth, the peak of his brows. When Leo had an idea, he wore it all over his face. "You know that flameproof cloth? You think you could make me a little bag of that fabric? About yay big?" he held his hands out to show her.
Calypso waved her hand dismissively. "That will only take minutes. Will it help on your quest?" she asked, doubtfully.
"Yeah. It might save a life." he told her, frankly with a bright glint in his eyes. "Also, um, could you chip off a little piece of crystal from your cave? I don't need much."
The more he spoke, the more he seemed like his father, Calypso noted, wryly. His mind worked four steps ahead of everyone else too apparently. "That's an odd request."
"Humour me."
It was on the tip of her tongue to reply that not trying to drown him or otherwise kick him off her island the first day he'd crash landed on her beach was humouring him enough but she paused. "All right. Consider it done. I'll make the fireproof pouch tonight at the loom, when I've cleaned up. But what can I do now, while my hands are dirty?" she showed him the dirt encrusted beneath her fingernails and the callouses from weaving rope. His face froze for a second and he gulped, shaking his head as though to rid himself of a stray thought. That odd expression of surprise was back, mixed with a kind of wary admiration.
"Well, you could twist some more bronze coils." He suggested with a shrug. "But that's kind of specialised-"
Calypso nearly rolled her eyes as she studied the coils on the bench beside him and began working the bronze wires in her lithe fingers, braiding the pieces together as easily as she'd done with the rope. "Just like weaving. This isn't so hard." She told him, frankly.
He looked at the pieces critically but seemed pleased. "Huh. Well, if you ever get off this island and want a job, let me know. You're not a total klutz."
She decided to focus on the backhanded comment rather than his talk of leaving Ogygia. "A job eh?" she smiled, smugly. "Making things in your forge?"
"Nah, we could start our own shop." He replied, a mischief-laden grin spreading across his face as he spoke. "Leo and Calypso's Garage: Auto Repair and Mechanical Monsters."
Despite herself, Calypso grinned back. "Fresh fruits and vegetables."
"Lemonade and stew." He continued, dark eyes bright with humour. "We could even provide entertainment. You could sing and I could, like, randomly burst into flames."
The image of the pair of them in front of masses of customers listening to her sing with Leo suddenly exploding into flames at random intervals was too much. She laughed loudly, her hands paused on the wires for a moment. A small part of her wondered what it might be like (ridiculous entertainment ideas aside) to work alongside Leo back in his world as they worked together here in hers.
"See, I'm funny." Leo pointed out, proudly.
She couldn't let his head swell too much so Calypso tightened her expression, though it still bore traces of laughter. "You are not funny. Now get back to work or no lemonade and stew." She added, threateningly.
"Yes ma'am." Leo snickered and the silence that followed for the afternoon seemed to pull them together rather than forcing them apart.
That night in her bed, Calypso let her thoughts drift to a far away shore called Manhattan, to an imaginary workshop with her name and Leo's across the door. She let herself think about how it might feel to stay with Leo Valdez, how perhaps he was not as cocky or insufferable as she'd first supposed.
Calypso thought of how different Leo Valdez was to the rest of the demigod heroes. He was the Hephaestus to their Apollo, she thought, idly, though the comparison did not suit perfectly. She wondered if he had meant it when he'd asked her to come with him.
She wondered if perhaps the kind, equal way he treated her wasn't more respectful and welcome than any hero who had showered her in compliments before him.
Thanks to everyone who's reading, I really really hope you're enjoying it so far!
REVIEW TIME! (Also, I really should stop writing responses that are as long as the damn chapters)
MEleeSmasher: I'm glad you're enjoying it. The next chapter is a bit different to the book, kind of a deleted scenes type of thing and after chapter fifteen, it should start deviating more which is where I get to have a bit more fun. Thanks for reading :D
Fearless Noodle: You've got to stop giving me these compliments, my head won't fit through my door. Lots of Caleo action in this chapter and also, Catching Fire is flipping amazing except for the fact that they ignored Madge Undersee and I can never forgive them for it. Also, I ENJOYED MY VIRTUAL BLUE COOKIE VERY MUCH THANK YOOOU. Hope you liked chapter twelve :)
The Invisible Pretender: The light will come sooner rather than later. I hope. Also, RESIST THE URGES! MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU IN YOUR QUEST and thank you for reading!
Moomoopie: I LOVE YOU TOO ;/DMIFOFIM/AFPODfmwrflargnle Bleurgl. (You made me fangirl into my keyboard with your wonderful review so I hope you liked chapter twelve!)
PJoHoOFan: Hello! Dam skeletons getting in the dam way! Hope you liked this Friday's update, sorry it's late!
Sly Raccoon (cool name): I'm really glad Calypso makes sense, her character is really based on both the books and the bit of research I did about her. She's a daughter of two badass Titans, I figure she's got to be pretty cool herself :D Thank you for the cookies and I hope you liked this chapter too!
Anaklusmos26: Awww, thanks! I'm so glad you're enjoying it, it's my first PJO fic but I couldn't help it after reading HoH :D Thanks for reading! P.S. Is that Percy and Ariel in your picture? That's so cute!
OrangeNinjaAttack: OH MY GODS YOU'RE GREAT! I'm glad Calypso's coming across as a blend of angsty, nurturing and kind, that's pretty much where I was trying to head. I feel like she's got such a cool backstory, it's a shame to waste her ;) Glad you're liking it so far and I'll definitely check your profile this weekend :D
The Oz Meister and Jen Baas: If only wrenches were magical Dirt-Face-Destroying-Weapons. *sighs* Guuuuyyyyysssss, my face is going to explode from blushing if you keep sending me messages like this (but thankyoooooou!) Hope you liked this chapter too!
Totalbooknerd13: We really, really do, Calypso sweetheart. But I think I can safely say, we'd all be much happier if you sucked it up and KISSED THE BOY! (Thanks for reading!)
Toomanybooks16 (No such thing in my opinion ;) ): I'm so happy you're enjoying it! I feel like Calypso and Leo have such a cute dynamic in the books, it's really fun to interpret them in my own little story :D Thanks for reading and I hope you liked chapter twelve too!
Themadkatter98: I LOVE YOU AND AM SAVOURING THE BURN OF MY FANGIRLING AS WELL! I'm so pleased you like Calypso's little slip ups, I'll admit, they're fun to write. They're whole I'm gonna pull your pig tails because I like you dynamic is adorable. Also, everyone who reviews gets enormous hugs from me because you're all absolutely amazing and so, so supportive :D Besides that, I think you write with a fair bit of humour too. Anyways. Sorry this is a bit later than normal and I hope you liked chapter twelve :D
Team Le0: Man, you're incredible. And sweet. And flattering because seriously, I'm gonna catch on fire from blushing if I'm not careful :D It's so great that you like it and everything makes sense and you think it's awesome. I think you're awesome. Thanks for reading and I hope you like chapter twelve! I LOVE YOU TOO!
Mila-is-a-bookworm-101: Hello! I agree, I feel like Calypso would be a lot happier if they just stopped nudging each other like ten years old and MAKE OUT ALREADY! But alas, they're stubborn so I'll just have to seethe quietly while they work it out. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you liked chapter twelve!
Carrot-Bunny: Hello again! I think it's wonderful that he includes his son's work. I have to admit, I don't have personal experience with ADHD or dyslexia but how great is it that his dad turned something he didn't like into a sign of being a demigod hero?! Also, I get the feeling Leo and Calypso will be defying Dirt Face an awful lot in this fic (and possible Blood of Olympus too if Rick hurries up and finishes it) and you are certainly welcome into Operation Guillotine if things don't work out in Blood of Olympus (where channelling Gleeson Hedge is never a bad thing). Thanks for reading!
Dragonleader1: You are awesome and I'm sending you telepathic hugs :D Glad you're liking it so far, I've got plans for these two ;) Thanks for reading!
Sorry it's late guys, this week has been…difficult in a whole variety of different ways. But it's here and I hope you all like it :D Next update is Monday and because you're all wonderful readers:
The first time Leo talked about his adventures, Calypso suspected he didn't even realise what he was saying.
I'm forseeing fluff in my future.