Archive of Our Own ^beta

Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t slept in three days, or maybe it was the fact that they were stranded in the middle of a wheat field and wouldn’t be getting rescued until Jason drove five hours down the coast to bring Leo his toolbelt so he could fix the little wing problem Festus had developed, or maybe it was just the humidity that was stressing him out; but whatever it was, Leo was sure of it now. He just wasn’t happy with Calypso anymore.  

Honestly? He wasn’t sure he ever had been in the first place.  

When he met Calypso for the first time it felt like the weight of the world was bearing down on his shoulders. Literally. If he and his friends couldn’t find some way to defeat Gaia then the world as they knew it would be over and there would be nothing they could do to fix it—if they even lived that long. And where was he while everyone else was doing the heavy lifting? Oh, yeah, Ogygia. It was wonderful; it was the exact break from reality he needed, Calypso had been just what he needed. It wasn’t any sort of secret that he was lonely. He was always lonely, he always had been. His friendship with Piper and Jason, as real as it had become, there was no forgetting that their memories together had been manufactured by Hera for her little scheme. And the rest of the seven? It was starting to feel like they might be better rounded out to an even six, if he was telling the truth. But Calypso? He knew she was real and she was just as alone as he was. She was exactly the friend he needed. (Y’know, once they actually got around to becoming friends.) And yeah, maybe he did have feelings for her. Confusing, butterflies-in-stomach feelings that made his insides twist in knots and his head feel light—but that was normal. He was a hopeless romantic; he had a hard time seeing anyone he thought was attractive without imagining how wonderful it would be to fall in love with them and have them feel the same. 

He thought he’d finally found that with Calypso. He really did. What else was he supposed to think when that raft showed up on her island when he knew men could only leave her after she’d fallen in love with them? He went back for her. Of course he did. There wasn’t any way he would have left anyone stranded on that island, especially not her, not when he knew how much she wanted to be free. He found the loophole, he cheated death, he went back for her.  

That meant they were supposed to live happily ever aft er, right?  

She was sitting next to Festus’ head with her back toward Leo, watching the sunset over the mountains in the distance as she ran her hands over the dragon’s metallic snout. Her hair was braided in a thick rope down her back and her auburn flyaways caught the fading sun like a halo of sparks around her head.  

His whole chest deflated with a sigh and he forced himself to take a step towards her, to sit down next to her where she had her side propped up against Festus’ neck and take her hand in his. Their hands...Oddly enough, they were a perfect match. Calypso’s were strong but nimble, calloused , and even though his were just a tad bit more slender than hers they were almost exac tly the same size. Lacing their fingers together felt like second nature to him now.  

She sighed, too, contentedly, and looked over at him with a smile. They looked the same age on the surface but there were little tells that reminded him otherwise. Tiny things gave away her immortality without her even realizing it—her eyes were one of those things. Now that she was away from her island he could see the smile lines starting to form at the edge of her eyes, but it wasn’t so much that as much as it was what he saw when he looked deep into the brown, gold-flecked irises with rich pools of black at the center. For all that she was deprived of in her banishment, she still managed to have the wisest eyes he’d ever seen.  

He squeezed her hand, taking it in between both of his and her eyebrows knit together, a curious quirk tilting the edges of her smile up now.  

“Everything okay?” She asked.  

He was lost in her eyes again—they’d seen so much and yet she still had so much of the world to explore. Part of him wanted to be there with her, to experience as much as he could with her on his borrowed time. The rest of him...the rest of him wanted to go home. The last few weeks had been wonderful in their own unique ways; in every place they’d visited he’d made memories he wouldn’t trade for anything but...He lived his whole life sleeping under the stars, in shelters, in abandoned buildings and in gutters. If he didn’t keep moving, he would have died. It didn’t have to be like that anymore, not if he didn’t want it to be. He had a home now. He had Camp Half-Blood. He had a bunk and a cabin and a family. He loved Calypso, maybe he was even in-love with her, but he couldn’t keep pretending like parading across the country was making him happy. She deserved better than that, they both did. 

“Cal,” He said, running his thumb across her knuckles. “I’ve got to tell you something.”  

Because they were going to live happily ever after, he was sure of it. They both were. But they couldn’t do that if they stayed together.