(A/N: HAPPY MONDAY AND I HOPE YOU ALL HAD FANTASTIC WEEKENDS!

Wow, okay, super long chapter alert. This probably could've been split in two but whatevs, I like it this way ;)

Thankyou to all my lovely readers, reviewers, followers and favouriters, you're all phenomenal and I hope you enjoy!

Shy)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The first time Leo fully understood the Prophecy of the Seven, he also may or may not have made Calypso so angry that the water around Ogygia started to boil.

When he managed to hobble out of the cave, the first thing he saw was an enormous dragon charging him and shooting steam out of his nostrils with pleasure. Festus was ecstatic to see Leo up and moving and Leo realised the new control disk he'd spent time on had given the bronze automaton a far more playful personality.

When Festus realised Calypso's goddess super-strength, she indulged the dragon and played fetch with a boulder the size of a beanbag for an hour before it cracked.

Leo was pleased to see the two getting on so well, though he was still a little frustrated that Calypso had not been freed. She insisted the magic was still surrounding the island, although Leo couldn't sense it. Apparently, hurtling from thirty thousand feet in the air to find the phantom island was not enough for the gods. But if that didn't do it, what would?

"I find your friend quite delightful!" she called out with laughter as Festus charged a group of seagulls on the shoreline, blowing fire and roaring. They looked unimpressed and merely fluttered further down the beach.

"He likes you too." Leo noted as Festus took to the skies again, circling overhead and enjoying the well-deserved rest.

"I'm glad," Calypso confessed, walking up the beach towards the demigod. "I want him to like me. He brought you here." She sat beside him in the sand gracefully and hugged her knees to her chest.

"And he'll take us back." Leo added though Calypso didn't respond, instead merely turning up the cuffs of her jeans with great attention. "I think it's time to call for my dad." He said, meaningfully and the goddess sighed.

"Leo, the gods mightn't think it a good idea." She said, slowly. "They may decide to keep me here."

He kind of wanted to groan in frustration. "What? No way, Percy made them swear, I made them promise!"

"You're young Leo," she murmured, staring down at her bare toes. "You can still believe in things like honour and promises and principles. But let's face it, it wouldn't be the first time the gods said one thing and did another."

"I'm not that young." He countered, quickly, wishing she'd believe in the possibility for just a second. He knew logically that Calypso didn't doubt him, she doubted the gods and it was pretty reasonable from where he stood. But in a surge of what he liked to believe was courage, he grabbed her hand in his and tugged on it slightly to get her to look into his face. "And they're going to honour the promise. I'm not leaving you here, Calypso. Not again." he said slowly.

For a long while, Leo watched her intently as a little spark of hope in her expression tried to gather enough bravery to believe the words. He could see the initial wariness pretty clearly and it didn't surprise him. To be honest, Leo wouldn't have believed him either- it reminded him of the first couple of homes he lived in and the slow fading wish that maybe this one would be better, different, kinder. Eventually Leo stopped hoping entirely in anything except himself. It wasn't really until he met Piper and Jason that he started thinking perhaps things could be different for him and even that was an uphill struggle. He more than anyone knew how hard it was to start hoping again when you'd already made yourself stop. But he wanted to be for Calypso, what his friends and Camp Half Blood were for him: a new chance.

But maybe it was too soon because as soon as the hope flickered to life, Calypso cut her eyes away from him and ran her fingertips across the lines and callouses of his palm. The feeling tickled slightly.

"It's alright, hero." she soothed, quietly. "If you can visit me every now and then- well, that is more than I ever thought would be possible."

Too soon, he sighed internally.

"I'll do more than visit you." Leo muttered, standing up and craning his neck to look up at the sky. "Dad? Dad? Are you there? Come on, I did it! I followed the rules, it's time to pay up! Zeus said if I found Ogygia-"

"He can hear you, son." His father's rough voice cut in as the god himself appeared in a whirl of bright white flames. Clad in his usual dark green overalls with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, Hephaestus of the Forge was cleaning his hands off with a piece of old rag as he strode up the beach to meet the couple. "No need to bellow."

"Lord Hephaestus," Calypso greeted politely. She stood up and brushed the sand from her hands. "It has been quite a while since we last spoke."

"Leo talks enough for both of us, I find." His father nodded to the goddess with what might've been a smile under his bushy bristly beard. Leo realised that despite the casualness of his appearance, his dad wasn't covered in grease or soot. He looked…clean.

"That is true." Calypso laughed, softly. "But he is kind and clever. Very much like you I find, my old friend." With that, Leo could feel her hand entwining with his again, almost shyly. It seemed so unlike the pushy, bossy, big-mouthed goddess he knew and yet it was comforting to know she was sort of nervous about this...thing between them too, in some ways.

"I'll take that as a compliment." His dad winked and Calypso laughed again. When she wore jeans and a t-shirt, teased him and argued with him, it was so easy to forget Calypso was an ageless immortal goddess who knew his dad better than he did.

"Dad, tell her the curse is broken." Leo cut in, feeling outnumbered by the immortals present and not just a little creeped out that his father seemed to be flirting with the girl who made him explode when she kissed him and held his hand like she just wanted to touch him.

His dad's response wasn't comforting in the slightest: Hephaestus sighed heavily and his hands twisted the rag into various shapes uncomfortably. "It's not really that simple."

"What do you mean, it's not that simple, of course it is!" Leo argued, frustrated by the lack of stability to the gods' promises. One minute they said yes, the next they said no and in between they spewed all kinds of obscure mumbo jumbo to confuse their children. "Snap your fingers, wiggle your nose, whatever you need to do! Zeus already swore-"

"Calm down, hero." Calypso said, squeezing his hand gently. "Nothing will be solved with anger."

"That is hilarious coming from you." He told her with a pointed look to remind her of the first time they'd met. She rolled her eyes impatiently and nudged him in response.

"Zeus remembers his promise, Leo." Hephaestus added with an uncomfortable look. "But the Fates…"

"The Fates have decided I am not to leave." Calypso deduced with a blank expression.

"Not…exactly." His father mumbled. "The curse was designed to be eternal. Three thousand years is, after all, a long time to follow one strand of fate-"

"Trust me." Calypso broke in, her eyes flashing. "I understand exactly how long it is."

His father looked…humbled. "You've become interwoven with the curse. The conditions of Ogygia are tied to you and you to it. To break with Ogygia would be to break with…yourself."

"Wha-what?" Calypso turned ashen and her jaw dropped.

"What does that even mean?" Leo groaned, his head hurting from the riddles the gods seemed to spout nonstop.

But it was not Hephaestus who answered. Calypso instead took a deep, shaky breath and her hand trembled in his. "It means," she began haltingly. "That if I am to leave Ogygia, I…I would no longer be a goddess."

The idea ran circle around the inside of his head as Leo studied the pair of them intently. "You would be-?"

"Mortal." Hephaestus finished with a solemn look.

"How does that work?" His brow furrowed, absolutely stumped. He had always been under the impression that mortals became gods, not the other way around. How did one mortal-ise a goddess anyway?

"You are certain?" she ignored him, looking at Hephaestus with sorrow. "There's no other way?"

His dad's expression took on a bitter edge. "When the compromise was…presented to the council, they leapt for it. Gods know, Zeus doesn't want more Titans running around with the potential to start uprisings."

As if hearing the unsaid words, Calypso laughed, sourly. "I can only guess who might have suggested such a compromise."

"Would someone please fill in the mere mortal as to what the hell is going on?" Leo suddenly demanded, irritably.

Calypso turned to him, pale and stiff. "It means my immortality is now tied to the island, just like the mortality of anyone who stays here. I cannot leave as a goddess. It would have to be as a mortal." She explained, looking troubled.

"Hermes intervened on your behalf," Hephaestus leapt to say. "You would retain the magic and ability you possess now, perhaps a little more in time but-"

"But I will never be the immortal I was before. My powers- my full powers, they are gone." Calypso nodded, teeth gritted. "I understand. Lord Hephaestus, may I-?"

"Take your time." He suggested gruffly. "I know this is a difficult decision. Whatever you choose, you only have to leave of your own free will and it will be done." With those last words, he exploded in a blinding wreath of colourless flames, leaving Leo and Calypso on the beach alone.

"I'm sorry." Leo muttered, shocked. "I thought- I thought they could do more for you."

Hera's cool, parting words in the throne room came to his mind and suddenly made sickening sense. With a few conditions, of course. At that point, he didn't know how but he would bet every ounce of celestial bronze his hands had ever touched that the Queen of Heaven had known Calypso would have to make this choice if she wanted to leave. At that point, Leo wanted to barbecue his crazy babysitter for not breaking the news to him just a little earlier.

"It is hardly your fault, Leo." Calypso sighed, sitting back down in the sand. "I never expected I would ever be offered a chance of freedom like this."

"But…?" he could hear the unsaid word.

"But…" she murmured, tugging on the end of her braid. "I've always longed for my powers back. It is hard to think I will never have that part of myself again."

He pushed away his rising anger with Hera, filled with a sudden worry that maybe it wasn't a sweet enough deal. Leave Ogygia with the irritating demigod but lose out on the awesome god powers? Was it enough for her?

"Would it be so bad?" he asked, quietly. "Being, you know, mortal? I mean, we're not all bad, if I say so myself."

"I was never meant to be a mortal, hero." She tilted her head back to watch the clouds drift overhead. "Even when I was trapped, I've only ever lived as a goddess. I never expected to die. I never expected to bleed or change or grow old."

"I find the threat of death comes in handy," Leo spluttered out, unthinkingly. "I mean, it stops me from doing stupid stuff all the time."

"Really?" her voice was dry.

"Well…some of the time." He allowed with a slight grin before he summoned every last ounce of courage in his chest. He reminded himself that he'd faced down monsters, Romans, riddles, sorcerers, legions of the dead, the Doors of Death and Dirt Face herself. Talking to the girl of his dreams shouldn't be much harder, right?

"If you became mortal, you could come with me." he proposed, quietly. "I could take you to New York or Morocco or Timbuktu. You'd grow older. You'd become an adult with me."

"As much as you can be an adult." She added with a small smile.

He didn't rise to the bait, instead kneeling in front of her in the sand. "You could stay with me."

"I could." Calypso finally turned her eyes on him, her eyes conflicted but determined. "I think I would like to stay with you very much, Leo Valdez. And I think...If I were to take my final steps as an immortal, I think I would do so for you. With you."

He was about a second away from leaping into the air with gods damned joy when the words sunk in.

"Final steps…" His mind suddenly leapt to a rhyme which had taunted him since he'd first made it to Camp Half-Blood, always at the edge of his thoughts whenever a spare moment arose. "A final breath…" he realised. An oath to keep with a final breath. "Your final breath. That's what it meant!"

"What are you speaking of, hero?" Calypso asked with a confused smile.

"An oath to keep with a final breath. It's a line from the Prophecy of the Seven, the one that predicted Gaea's fall. An oath to keep with a final breath. That's me and you. My oath. Your final breath- as an immortal. Oh man," Leo laughed aloud. "It all makes so much sense now!"

"Your oath?" Calypso echoed, bewildered. "You did not take an oath, Leo."

"But I did!" he exclaimed, rubbing his eyes. "When I left, that night, on the raft. I swore I'd come back for you, on the River Styx-"

"What?"

"-and now it's all come true. Man I don't know how Rachel does it, I mean wow-"

"You swore an oath?" Calypso's eyes had narrowed to slits and she looked like she could cheerfully rip his tongue out. "On the Styx? Have you utterly lost your mind?!"

"What?" Her angry exclamations startled him out of his musings. "No! I swore I'd come back for you and I did-!"

"Did you ever think what might happen if you hadn't?" she stood up suddenly, seeming to grow several inches. The air began to swelter and flex with heat and energy and the waves began to roll in more violently.

"Uh, Calypso-" he said in a small voice.

"It's a phantom island, you had no way of knowing if you would ever come back! Do you know what happens to oath breakers who swear on the Styx? Do you?" she yelled, furiously as the wind picked up.

"Well, no but-" he stammered but he didn't get far.

"The Styx tortures them, Leo, it fills them with agony, it skins them alive with their dishonesty, makes them feel as though their every nightmare has come to life! And then, maybe it might kill you!"

"That seems a little extreme." He noted, idly.

"And even if you had died, if you perished without coming here? Do you understand, Leo? The Styx does not forget oaths sworn to it!" she roared, as the ocean began to bubble and foam, the humid air growing unpleasantly hot even for Leo. "It would hold you to it even if you had died! You would never achieve Elysium, no matter how heroic you were in life!"

"Er, Calypso, maybe you should calm down…" Leo suggested as sweat began to drip from his forehead and the ocean bay boiled fiercely in reaction to her fury. But she ignored him.

"You would never find peace! Not even in the Asphodel Meadows! You would never-"

Leo kissed her. It was really the only thing he could think of and it had worked so well on him. Besides, he really enjoyed kissing her.

The air went still, the waters silent. It was the first time he'd kissed a girl first but di immortales, what a girl. With everything gone calm, he found himself concentrating on all the tiny details of her like how she had one stray curl that tickled his chin or how her skin almost hummed with power when he cradled her face in his calloused fingers. Finally, Calypso pulled away with struck but still heated eyes.

"You said not to muzzle you so I figured this was the only thing that would work." Leo pointed out with a half-grin. (It made her melt. Just a tiny bit.)

"Promise me you will not do something so foolish again, you stupid demigod." She muttered, the anger drifting away and replaced with fear. "Especially not because of me."

"Should I promise on the Styx?" he teased and she whacked the back of his head in reply. "Ow!"

"Stupid demigod," she repeated, hugging him close to her. "I cannot believe you swore such a thing. I have never heard of anything so foolish in all my life."

"Hey," Leo said, wounded. "I knew I was going to follow through. And what's with all this 'stupid' business? Let's go back to when you called me 'wonderful' instead." He suggested.

Despite herself, Calypso smiled a small smirk into his shoulder. "Promise not to scare me like that again, Wonder Boy."

"'Wonder Boy' is not 'wonderful'." He pointed out, still unimpressed.

"It is accurate however. You are indeed a boy of wondrous things, Leo Valdez." She noted ruefully, running a hand through his hair. Leo noted in some corner of his mind that she seemed fond of doing it and hell if he was going to try stopping her. "Promise me, Wonder Boy."

"I can promise I'll try." Leo said, thoughtfully. "But I dunno, I do a lot of stupid, dangerous things. I might scare you a little."

"I suppose that will have to do." She sighed, pulling away. "Come, I must pack my things."

"So you're coming with me?" Leo asked hopefully. "You're gonna be mortal?"

Calypso smiled and grabbed his hand, pulling him toward the caves. "Yes, Leo Valdez, I'm coming with you."

There it was, he thought. That flicker of hope he'd seen before was now spread across her face.

"There are so many things I want to do." She said, her excitement growing. "There are cities and people and many things to try. I want to know about that device known as a cell phone and I want to see that ship of yours and I want to feel snow again-"

"Let's start with making it back to camp first, huh?" He proposed, his grin wide and ecstatic as she talked. He didn't even care he looked like a cheesy cartoon character or that her mention of snow made him think of Ice Nut Khione- it was worth it. So worth it.

"Yes, camp!" Calypso said, a startled laugh falling from her lips. "Stars above, camp. I-I'm going to see Camp Half Blood. And that great city you spoke of-"

"New York?" Leo suggested, amused.

"Yes! The city without gardens. And something called a subway, I don't know what it is, but I want to try it." She babbled. "And you said you would take me to…what was the word…ah yes, a movie. In Manhattan. With that popped corn you speak so fondly of."

She just asked me on a date. He realised with a jolt of admiration and surprise. His first date and it was with a goddess who was going to give up immortality to spend her life with him.

"Sounds like a plan Sunshine." he told her, trying not to turn too red at the thought.

She rolled her eyes. "Stop calling me that, would you?"

He just snickered in reply. "Never."

(A/N: Naww, they're sickeningly cute sometimes. Except when Calypso's about to boil Leo's ass.

Did it make sense? With the whole oath/conditions thing? If anyone has any questions or issues, feel free to review or PM, just...keep it kind guys? Please?)

Now, guest reviews:

Sydwashere: YOU ROCK AND I AM GLAD YOU LIKE IT :D

Z: Perhaps too much fluff, but that's a decision for later on. In the meant time, I must know what qualifies as 'suspiciously good' ;) ? As for Leo's first kiss, I always planned for Calypso to be a little more forward than Leo would be, mainly because for all his charm, he's still kind of new at the whole relationship thing and Calypso's not- So yeah, maybe in his dreams :D. Anyway glad you enjoyed it ;)

Ilovethisfanfic: Caleo forever, I agree- also, glad you liked the fluff but for the sake of my stomach, I might have to tone it down eventually. There is such a thing as too mushy after all but I'm glad you liked it :D

Guest: *claps back and squeaks like dolphin* YAY I AM SO HAPPY YOU LIKE IT :D

Alyssa: YOU ARE AMAZING AND THANKYOU SO MUCH, I AM GLAD YOU LIKE IT SO FAR AND YEAH, THEIR KISSES ARE FEEL-FILLED, AGREED. Thanks for taking a minute to review :D

Tara Luna Apple: Too much fluff? Might tone it down soon, it gets hard to write after a while. Anyway, glad you're enjoying it and MORE KISSES THIS CHAPTER :D

Guest: Thank you for taking the time to write this lovely review and I hope I finish it too ;)

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