TRIGGER WARNINGS- THIS FIC WILL INCLUDE ABUSE, DEPRESSION, MURDER, DRUGS, ALCOHOL AND SIMILAR THEMES. PLEASE BE WARY WHEN READING

Hey guys, I have another update for you! I'm really enjoying writing this story, so I'll probably focus on this one for a little while. Don't worry, I'm not ditching any of my other stories.

This one contains mild abuse, so please do not read it if this is a trigger for you. I will place a warning at the beginning and end of the abuse in case you want to skip it. Please do be careful.

Again, I recommend reading Learning about Leo by mewsugarpudd. It's really good and one of the best in this category that I've found, and I've looked at a lot of Watching Leo's Memories fics. Hope you enjoy, I love you all so much and stay safe besties!

Little Leo sat in a chair in what looked a little like a waiting room. He had soot and grime on his face, and tear streaks were making small paths through it.

Piper's heart ached at the sight of her normally cheerful best friend looking so shattered.

In the background, yelling could be heard. It sounded like a pretty vicious argument was going on. Every time the voices got louder, Leo whimpered a little and shrank in on himself.

The door burst open. A woman with black hair and a mole on her chin walked out, followed by a woman with brown hair and a file held in her hands.

The first lady had the same skin tone as Leo, so it wasn't too hard to guess that they were related. But the way she looked at Leo, you'd think he had killed her whole family.

She stalked up to Leo. "Diablo!" she hissed. "Asesino de mi hermana!"

Subtitles appeared at the bottom of the screen. Devil, Killer of my sister

Hazel gasped softly. She couldn't understand how she could blame poor Leo for the fire.

"Tia Rosa, por favor, it was un accidente!" Leo begged.

START OF ABUSE

Slap.

The Seven cried out in shock. Leo was not looking at the screen, and was instead tinkering with something so fast his hands were near impossible to see.

It hurt Piper's heart to see him avoiding them like that. How had they never known any of this about the boy before them?

She vowed to talk to him with the others at next opportunity, whether he liked it or not.

Leo fell backwards and hunched over into a ball as Rosa started kicking him, screaming that he was a devil spawn.

The second woman from earlier quickly ran up to Rosa and pulled her off Leo. She yelled for security, who came quickly and dragged her away.

END OF ABUSE

Leo was still curled up on the floor, trembling slightly as fresh tears poured down his face. The lady bent down next to him, and gently caressed his shoulder.

"Hello, Leo. I'm your new social care worker, Eleanor Baker," she said. She seemed to be nice. Leo clearly agreed, as he straightened out of his ball and sat up.

She held out a hand to help him get up. He looked at her suspiciously, judging if she could be trusted or not. Apparently he decided that he could as he took her hand and stood up.

Every second of the memory made Piper feel worse. He shouldn't have had to be so wary of adults at such a young age.

Piper turned to the boy next to her and hugged him tightly. He hesitated for a fraction of a second, before resting his head on her shoulder.

"Where am I going?" Leo asked.

He sounded so broken, Piper almost sobbed. She hugged the boy tighter, if that was possible, and buried her face in his shoulder.

"I'm going to find a good foster home for you," Eleanor explained. "We have one already which we think will work well for you."

He nodded and smiled, a small smile but a smile nonetheless.

Next to Piper, Jason visibly relaxed. It was good to see a hint of their friend in his younger self.

"Come on, then," Eleanor said, and held out a hand to Leo. This time, he didn't hesitate before he took it.

The screen turned off.

Leo was still avoiding eye contact with the others, so Piper grabbed his cheek and turned his FA cue towards them. She faltered when he saw his eyes- so hollow and hopeless.

Percy took over. "Leo, we really need to talk about these memories."

"No we don't," Leo replied. "We can just ignore all of this and act like it never happened. Even better, you could let us go back to our QUEST, HERA!" He yelled the last two words.

Hera's voice sounded again. "The memories will not be finished until all of the crew has understood Leo Valdez. Just a heads-up, they will no longer be in chronological order. Leo will have to tell you when it was."

Her voice went silent again. Leo looked angrier than they had ever seen him.

Piper took charge. "Look, Leo, clearly we won't be going anywhere until we fully understand you. And we all want to. We feel terrible that we've been such bad friends. Please, help us understand."

She let some charmspeak slip into her speech, and Leo's eyes grew slightly damp.

"It gets worse," he said, sounding shattered. "So much worse."

Piper almost cried when she heard that this wasn't the worst her best friend had been through, but stayed firm. "We want to know."

Leo looked at her for one more second, as if judging to see if she was telling the truth, before smiling softly. "Okay," he whispered.

"Can we talk about the previous two memories?" Percy asked gently.

Leo sighed, and leant back. "Fire away."