I've been rereading Method to the Madness and now I'm rereading Sanity is Optional. I never finished Lou's past and it's really bothering me XD Maybe I'll get around to finishing that and the rewrites, but this first!

To Riordanlover16- She does need a hug, poor lass been through it. She's totally fiiinnnneee.

Louisa insisted they stayed the last half hour he had booked. He had paid for it, with his mysterious potentially ill-gotten gains, so she stayed. Leo assured her she didn't have to if she didn't want to. She refused. Fired up. They had already destroyed what remained of their destruction, but that didn't stop her from destroying it once again.

"Fuck!" she fumed. "Fuckin' bastards, fuckin' bitches, fuckin' fuckin' fuck!"

Leo dutifully stood to one side. She hated feeling like this. Powerless. Scared. She was a dreadnought, had always been a dreadnought. She was in uncharted territory and, even if she didn't want to be, it made her angry. It made her fed up. It made her wish for something beyond the expectations of a demigod's life.

She swore again, struggling to find something else to break. Leo helpfully pointed out a half-demolished TV. They had got the screen and the surround, but not the box bit on the back. She rounded on it, knuckles white on the handle of her bat. She had been feared across the realms. The relentless, dreadnought daughter of Neptune. 'Seaspawn' was a common moniker for her. Monsters ran at the sight of her. Gods feared her wrath. Titans fell beneath her sword.

She didn't want the power back. She didn't want the fighting and the wars and the fury back. All she wanted was the security she had once felt. A slight angle of her chin had once sent enemies into quivers of terror. Now, it was because she was trying not to cry.

She made quick work of the television set, leaning her back to the wall once done. She snarled and threw the bat, an underarm throw that carried it to the other side. It left a dent in the wall.

"OK," she said after a few minutes of getting her breath back. "I'm done."

"Lunch?" Leo offered. She thought about it, humming.

"How far away is that pancake place?"

"Mm, fifteen minutes' walk."

"Can we get pancakes?" she asked tentatively. Leo smiled.

"Of course we can."

"I really want pancakes."

"They're good pancakes." She nodded in agreement, pushing herself from the wall. Leo offered her his arm, opening the door for her.

They thanked the man at the desk, returned the protective gear. Louisa's hair had frizzed under the helmet and she muttered swears, working through it with her fingers. Leo thought about the last time they had got pancakes, how her hair had been expertly curled by Piper, how it had prettily framed her pale face. She had taken his breath away, an unexpected style to her that had rendered him temporarily speechless.

He looked at her now, still holding his arm. Her face was flushed with the last dregs of temper, the two hours of demolition. Her hands shook, unable to tame her hair. If anything, it was worse than it was before her meddling. Her eyes, however, were bright and clear, fixed in an all-too-familiar glare.

Leo smiled to himself. Gods, she was beautiful.

He offered her a hairbrush from his toolbelt. She took it with a murmur of thanks, attacking her unruly locks, wincing at the tangles. She swept it back into her usual ponytail, the height of her hairdressing skills, and passed the hairbrush back.

She frowned at him. "What's that face for?"

"What face?"

"That face."

He was staring. Drinking in every detail. The curve of her cheek, the line of her smile, the way her eyes creased at the corners in question. He loved the way her hair fell, the small line between her brows as she studied him, the set of her mouth.

"No," he said, aware he was still staring, "I was just thinking." Unable to draw himself elsewhere. She frowned. Her head turned away. Sea green eyes remained fixed on him, unblinking in their scrutiny.

Leo made himself smile, the jackhammer heart mercilessly back once more. He held back his thoughts, electing to keep them for himself for now. Thoughts he would keep safe and secret, but thoughts he would nurture with hope and patience.

Bradley, he felt, would look like her. He already had the dark, tousled hair and he had seen what Mikey had said— babies were often born with blue eyes, he had discovered, though Bradley's were like his mother's already. Oceanic, tinted with the green Leo knew and adored so much. They would only get greener still; Leo knew it as surely as he knew his own name.

His thoughts, these other thoughts taking seed and awaiting their season to bloom… oh, he would not share these thoughts with anyone but himself for the time being.

Maybe, one day, Bradley had siblings. Maybe, one day, Leo would see her looking back at him from another tiny face altogether. Maybe, one day, he would see himself. Or better yet… maybe, one day, he would see them both.

He loved this woman still holding his arm despite the sceptical look she had fixed him with. He loved this woman and the family they were building. Because it was, it was a family. Leo loved Louisa and he loved Bradley. He loved his family.

Family had been a foreign concept to him for the best part of his life. Now, here and now, with her, with Louisa, with the dreadnought who did not now think of herself as such, the dreadnought he knew was still there, he was beginning to understand. He could see himself nowhere else but here, beside her. He could see no other face he would want to wake up to but hers. He could see no-one but her in his future. Her and Bradley and maybe, one day, maybe more.

A family of their own.

And maybe, just maybe, her name would match theirs.

He let himself be with these thoughts, content in his imaginings. Louisa knew, purely by that little smile he wore, she would garner no further information from him. Her curiosity would not settle, however, her own mind swirling.

Still shaky from the rage room, she was caught amidst a bolt of feelings. She was angry, Nico had been right on that. She had been angry for years, so angry she had now surpassed it. Her temper had broken and, unexpectedly, she had gone with it.

She had never thought that would happen. She could see the end of the tether closer each day, could see what was left of her patience fraying and threatening to snap. She knew what she had expected or, more truthfully, what everyone around her expected.

She had been a child when the gods had dubbed her their killer. The title followed her around, a guillotine waiting to drop. She knew that's what everyone expected of her. She knew that's what everyone feared of her. They feared she would hit a point too far and ichor would fall. One more friend killed before her, one more pain inflicted just so, one more nightmare she awoke screaming from.

How was she supposed to bear it? These were her friends, her family. She gritted her teeth and endured, because that was what the sea did. The sea endured. She could not be in pain because others needed her to heal them. She could not be scared because others needed her to be brave for them. She could not be weak because others needed her to be strong for them.

It was all for them.

It ate her up. Exhaustion brittled her bones, filleted her brain and slowed her sword, but she had to keep going, she had to endure. It was her nature.

How much was she supposed to endure though? Had anyone ever asked? Had anyone ever thought, hmmm, where do we draw the line?

The line had been crossed the day Luke had taken her. Whatever creature wore his face, whatever beast had held her all that time, it flaunted its way past that line. It used the line to capture her and render her immobile. It rubbed the line in her face each time it branded her skin with a glowing blade.

There was no going back. She knew that. Everyone knew that. She was not the same as before, nor was she alone in her terror.

Bradley carried the same burden, though he did not know it yet. He had suffered the same as she, though it would be many years before any such turmoil came his way.

"Hey," Leo's voice said, "I need blood flow in my arm." She stared at him, his words fuzzy and distant. He looked down and she saw her fingers clutching his arm with bruising force.

Hands stiff, she relinquished.

"Sorry," she croaked.

"Where did you go?" he asked. She licked her lips, mouth dry.

"Bradley's gonna be better than me," she said. Befuddlement twisted his features, underlaid with concern. Louisa gave a slight shake of her head, a determined set to her face as she spoke. "He won't… he won't have ta deal with anythin' I did. He's gonna be better than me. I'll make sure of it."

I will make sure of it, she promised herself. She had not asked to have Bradley and he had not asked to be born. Not anymore than she had herself, like she had said to Nico. Because of her, he was of Big Three blood. He needed to be ready.

He would not have a childhood like hers. Not while she still breathed.

She tugged on Leo's arm. "Can you promise me somethin'?"

"Of course," he smiled. How he smiled. His whole face lit up, his eyes sparkled and there was always an impish sense to him, mischief brewing or not. No wonder Estelle believed he worked for Santa.

His smile was worlds away from what she wanted to ask and it almost made her not. For the span of a few heartbeats, she held her tongue.

Then she could hold it no longer.

"If anythin' happens ta me, look after Bradley."

"What?" His smile faded. Countless questions clamoured for attention, slamming over each other like waves on the shore. "Lou, what… where's this come from?"

"If anythin' happens ta me," she said again slowly, "look after Bradley. He'll be yours if I'm not here."

"He'll… no, no." He was shaking his head, eyes squeezed shut. "No, I won't. He's ours. We'll look after him together."

"But—"

"I'm not losing you again. I… I can't lose you again." He was pale. Terrified. He clutched her hand, her arm, pulling her closer as if she could vanish into thin air at any moment. They had stopped walking. The air had never felt so heavy, the ground never so light.

"If somethin' does happen though, if somethin'… if I'm… if I'm not here, he'll—"

"No." He shook his head again. "No, I promised you normal."

"Promise me this too." He hesitated. "Promise him normal."

"But… but what about your moms? Percy, Annabeth, the others?"

"I want him ta go to you. I know they'll help, I know they won't leave you with him, but I want him ta go to you." He stared at her, stared into her eyes as if he could see through to the mechanics beneath. Louisa held his gaze, her own pinched and watery. "Please, Leo."

"It won't happen. I won't let it. I'll… I'll…" He floundered, his own tears building. "Where's this come from?" She shrugged a shoulder, gave a small shake of the head. An iron band sealed itself about Leo's lungs. "Lou, look at me. I swear, I swear I'll look after him always. But you will be with me, you will. I won't have it any other way, not again."

Her hand was soft on his face, her thumb brushing under his eye. Leo caught her hand in both of his, kissing her fingers.

He had been thinking of a life together. She had been thinking of a life without her.

Come on, you lot! Review! Riordanlover16's carrying the team right now XP