Archive of Our Own

Sitting in the back of the bus was a survival tactic for sure.  Don’t get Leo wrong, he also just loved the back because it was farther from Coach Hedge, and the seat spanning the back fit all three of them and their bags pretty comfortably, but it also put a firm barrier between them and all of the other cute little demons from the Wilderness School.  He was just weird and off-putting enough that even Piper’s drop dead gorgeous looks couldn’t lure them closer.  Plus, there was her and Jason’s mean glares whenever anyone got close.  He felt really lucky to have both of them, still hanging out after all these months, even though he was certifiably a loser.

“Leooo,” Piper groaned, “I think my arm is falling asleep!”

He snorted, eyes still tracing over everything and everyone in the bus while he fiddled with some pipe cleaners without looking.  “That’s what you get for sitting next to lover boy.  You know he falls asleep to the sweet lull of a janky ass charter bus.”

She pouted.  “We’re going to get to the Grand Canyon and my arm’s going to fall off,” she was trying to make herself sound upset but he could hear the mirth in her voice.

Leo made eye contact with Coach Hedge across the bus and made sure his smile was as innocent as possible.  The old gym teacher hadn’t used his megaphone yet, but it was only a matter of time.

The weird part was, his glare of suspicion wasn’t trained on him or Piper like usual.

It was trained on Jason.

…Suspicious by association?

He didn’t have time to think about it when the bus ran over a massive pothole that had the entire class shrieking and groaning from the jostling, and Jason’s head shot up, whole body tense.

Leo cracked a grin and nudged him.  “No need to stress, Superman, Metropolis was just experiencing some turbulence.”

Jason stared at him blankly and he rolled his eyes, throwing his hands up.  “No one appreciates my jokes,” he lamented overly loudly, “Pipes, you appreciate me, right?”

“No.”

He clutched at his heart.  “Without even missing a beat; you’ve wounded me, right here, in my soul.”

He pulled out his screwdriver and poked her with it, giving a satisfied smirk when she hissed and recoiled before slipping it back into his sleeve and pulling out another pipe cleaner.

“Who… who are you?”

He paused briefly, looking up at Jason.  “Huh?  Wow, that nap hit you hard, huh?  Well, if you need a refresher, this is Piper, your girlfriend, and I’m Leo, your Lord and Master.  You do all of my homework and chores, and follow my commands to the letter.”

Piper shoved him lightly.  “Oh, be quiet, Leo, he’s never going to believe that.  You’re just our annoying best friend.”

“And once again, the Beauty Queen has slain me in cold blood.  Bro, avenge me.”

Jason’s face was scrunching up in confusion, his eyes lighting with panic.  “I… I’ve never met you before.  Why am I on this bus?  I’m not supposed to be here.”

Leo blinked before snorting.  “Yeah, dude, this is all a huge mistake.  I didn’t run away seven times, Piper didn’t steal a BMW-”

“I didn’t!”

“-get mysteriously gifted a BMW,” he corrected without missing a beat, “and you didn’t… huh, you know, you’ve never really talked about why you got sent here, my guy.  Maybe you’re not even,” he gasped dramatically, “a delinquent!”  He dropped the fake shock, shrugging.  “Any of that jog your memory?  Man, you really gotta stop napping on the bus.”

Jason opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking around, lost.  At this point, Leo was genuinely starting to get a little concerned.

“Is this,” he squinted, “is this a prank?  Payback for the jello and shaving cream thing?  Dude, you said we were cool.”

“No, I genuinely do not remember you.  I don’t even think I was here this morning, let alone… how long do you think I’ve been here?”

Piper looked at him incredulously.  “Did you… hit your head?  Were the potholes really that bad?  Jace, it’s… it’s us.  You’ve been Leo’s roommate since September, our friend since October, and my boyfriend since… since three weeks ago, at the meteor shower.  I-”

Coach Hedge decided it would be the perfect time to speak up from the front of the bus.

“Alright cupcakes, listen up,” he barked, “we’re about at the museum-”

“What was that,” Leo couldn’t resist yelling back, “I couldn’t hear you, coach!  Try the megaphone!”

The old grouch looked at him suspiciously, but he never passed up an opportunity to get even louder, so he raised it to his lips.

“THE COW GOES MOO!”

The bus erupted into laughter and Leo felt his face curve up into an impish smile even as Coach turned purple with rage.

“VALDEZ!”

Jason looked at him, bewildered.  “You did that?  How?”

Leo snickered.  “What can I say,” he let the screwdriver fall out of his sleeve, into his hand, and poked Jason with it, “I’m just a very special boy.”

He paused as the screwdriver made contact before brushing it off.  Of course it did, that was how he became friends with them in the first place…

“A special menace,” Piper snorted.

“Third time’s the charm, you've killed me,” Leo shook his head, “that’s all my lives.”

“Are you a cat?  Because if so, you should have six… no, four left.”

He paused for a moment before fixing her with an incredulous stare.  “How else did I die?!”

She gave him a judgemental look and he shrugged.  Fair enough.

The bus arrived at the museum and they all trickled off, standing in a horrible clump like usual.  Leo leaned over to Jason.  “I hope you still have your worksheet, because I turned mine into spitwads days ago.  Why Coach gave us the worksheets days ago and not right now, no clue.”

Jason stared at him some more, and Leo took pity on the guy.  “We’re partners for the field trip.  Buddies.  Besties, even.”  he looked over at where Dylan was sleazily making his way over to Piper and grimaced internally, putting on a mocking face.  “Poor Pied Piper,” he sighed, “forced to consort with the likes of him.”

Just looking at the guy made him irritated.

“Hey babe,” Dylan said with an infuriating smirk, “you get to work with me.  Lucky, right?”

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, shrugging his arm off of her shoulders.

“Yeah dude,” Leo got all up in his space, poking him with his finger, “I’ll have you know I’m a delight.  Not even to mention Jason, actual legend and marble statue.  Truly, the lucky one here is you!”

Based on the look on Dylan and Piper’s faces, he was almost inclined to try stabbing the guy with his screwdriver, or maybe take one of his other tools out of his deep pockets.  He was glad it was winter and chilly, because it gave him an excuse to wear his Coat-of-Many-Pockets, a habit left over from his days running away from foster homes and that one encounter when he was eight.  Still, he couldn’t.  It wouldn’t work anyway, and Coach would try confiscating stuff again.

Dylan sneered. “Run along Le-oser.  If I wanted to hear the opinion of a gutter rat, I’d visit the sewers.”

Piper whistled and sneered.  “Must have taken you forever to come up with that one.  Are you sure you’re going to have enough brain cells left to complete the worksheet?  Let’s just go.  The sooner we get this over with…”

She stormed off, and Dylan gave them a victorious sneer as he followed her.  Leo saw other girls giving Piper jealous and angry looks and resolved to put Nair in their conditioner again.

“Are you… okay?”

Leo jumped and wiped the impassive glare off his face, forcing a mischievous smile.  “Yeah.  She can handle him fine, he’s just annoying.” He ran a hand through his hair and tried his best to imitate the “sultry” and arrogant look.  “‘My name’s Dylan,’” he put on the voice as best he could, but intentionally made it breathy and stupid, “‘I’m so handsome and awesome, you guys are lucky to even be near me.  If I could be best friends with myself, I would, because I’m just that awesome, but I can’t, so you guys get to be the lucky ones instead.  Aren’t I so generous?  Feel free to kiss my feet.”’

Jason’s face scrunched up, but Leo could see a tiny smile.  Success!  “You’re so weird, Leo.”

He shrugged.  “You tell me that a lot.  Now come on, we got a museum to look at.  Oooo, an observation deck.  That won’t be terrifying at all!”

He dragged Jason around, constantly talking about the past few weeks in an effort to jog his memory while also fiddling with his hidden extra pocket.  He was just glad the museum didn’t have metal detectors.  Something about this had him tensing, but he didn’t know if it was Jason's sudden lack of memory, Dylan in general, or the storm clouds rapidly gathering above them.

He whistled as they made it onto the observation deck, suspended over the Grand Canyon and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination, the scamp.  He idly heard himself daring Jason to spit off the edge while he mindlessly put the finishing touches on the pipe cleaner helicopter.  He hesitated briefly before pinching off a bit of metal from the hidden pocket.  He didn’t hiss at the briefly molten metal, because he couldn’t feel it as more than warm, but he added it to the contraption, the spinning part especially.  If anything, using the fire had warmed him up a little.  It was only half a second, but it was hot, since it needed to be hot enough for him to warp the metal.  Doing it inside a pocket was risky, but better than people seeing anything glow.

He glanced over at Jason, ready to tell him to watch his creation soar, when he frowned.  “Hey man,” he called, “you alright?”

The boy jolted, still looking a little sick and pale, but he tore his eyes from the sky.   “Just a headache.  What were you saying?”

This amnesia thing was getting more and more concerning.  “Just wanted to show off my helicopter,” he waved it around a little, “you ready for the Grand Launch?”

“At the Grand Canyon?”

Leo grinned.  “No better place.  Watch.”

He spun the propellers and watched in satisfaction as it puttered forward, pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks holding up well in the wind that was picking up.  Jason let out a sound of wonder and he grinned wider, but it turned into a pouting sigh when the mini helicopter fell apart and into the canyon itself about three fourths of the way over.  He mourned the loss of the metal more than the project, since this wasn’t even the first prototype and he knew exactly how to make another, but he’d known what risk he was taking when he added it.  Still, it would have been cool if it’d gotten all the way over.

“That was amazing.”

He felt red creep up his neck, but he just turned to Jason with a grin.  “Why thank you.  I told you, I’m a special boy!  The first one worked better, though.  I wish Mrs. James hadn’t confiscated my rubber bands…”  Maybe then he’d have gotten his metal back.  He only had a limited amount, after all.

Jason’s expression changed from awe to upset again.  He looked like a lost puppy and Leo felt kind of bad.

“Are you sure we’re friends?”

He had to admit, that kind of hurt.  “Yeah, dude,” he tried to keep his voice light, “we’re friends.  I stabbed you with my screwdriver when you told me you were my roommate, and we’ve been inseparable ever since.”

“That doesn’t seem like a good start to a friendship.”

Leo waved the screwdriver in the air, letting it glint kind of orange in the last legs of sunlight. “Nah, only people I stab get to be my friends, those are the rules.  Tried and true since I was eight.  Helps me find my people.  If they can’t take a little stabbing, they don’t deserve all of this.”

Jason snorted, and he grinned again.  Even if Jason didn’t remember, Leo couldn’t let him forget they were friends.  He didn’t have many.  Piper was the first one who’d passed the screwdriver test, and Jason was the second.  To prove it, he mockingly poked Jason with the phillips head.  Jason clicked his tongue and swatted it away, but something in Leo just relaxed.  There was still a bad feeling, but now it wasn’t coming from Jason.  He looked at the sky again.

“Hey, blondie!”

They both looked up at Coach Hedge, who had fixed his beady eyes on Jason.  He jerked his head and Jason walked over.  Leo pretended to be disinterested and meandered just within eavesdropping distance, pretending to be focused on six other things at once.  The only two he was actually focused on were Piper and Jason, though.

“Is this you?”

Leo couldn’t help but glance over.  Was Coach showing him a missing person’s flyer or something?  But no, he was just gesturing at the sky and scowling.  What the heck?  Was Jason the sky?   Or was he responsible for the weather, or something?  What a weird question to ask.

But he did pass the screwdriver test.

He tuned back in as Jason jolted.  “So you… know me?  I’m not… students?”

Leo mentally cursed and moved closer.  The wind was getting louder.

“Never seen you before today.”

Leo’s heart sank.  What?

“…definitely not supposed to be here.”

“You can say that again!”  Coach’s voice got quiet and Leo edged as close as he dared to try and hear him without being noticed.

“…monster…”

“…telling the truth!”

“…protecting two, I wasn’t exactly planning on someone coming in and making it three…”

“…what package?”

The storm boomed and Leo jumped away, then cursed.  Jason and Coach were looking around, if he acted at all interested, Coach would clam up.  Monsters, two into three, Jason really not having been here before today… but what did that mean?   Did Leo, Piper, and everyone except Jason and Coach Hedge just have fake memories?  One of the groups was wrong, but which one?  The reasonable thought was the minority, but everything about this felt wrong.  His eyes traced their classmates, who were muttering about the storm, having apparently just noticed.  One of the only people who didn’t seem to care was Dylan, too engrossed in trying to convince Piper of something dumb that was probably ditching Leo and Jason and shacking up with Mr. Perfect.

Lightning crashed just across the canyon and people started to scream as rain started to fall and the overlook wobbled in the wind.  Leo grimaced and looked for Piper.  Dylan was grabbing her.

“Alright,” Coach yelled, conversation with Jason apparently over, “everyone back to the bus!  Let’s go, cupcakes!”

A sudden wind made him slide across the now slick glass in the direction of the edge, and his chest filled with panic.  Another strong gust or two, without being able to find purchase, and he’d make a very sad Leo-pancake at the bottom of the canyon.  It seemed like the winds were gearing up for it too, so he desperately pulled something out of his hidden pocket and gripped it tightly, ignoring how it wasn’t designed to be held like that.  He could stab it into the ground, maybe.  It was a snowball’s chance in a desert, but he’d take anything at this point.

An arm wrapped around him, grabbing onto his jacket, and he almost stabbed out in instinct before he met Jason’s wild eyes and let himself get hauled up.  Between the two of them, they had just enough traction to get onto dirt, where walking became easier.  It still wasn’t amazing, of course; it felt like the wind was clawing at him and trying to drag him into the canyon, and Jason grunted in exertion from where he was practically carrying Leo.  He couldn’t help but feel a little bad that Jason was doing most of the work, but it was mostly covered up by how grateful he was that Jason was extremely cool and buff.  He’d be sure to tell the boy when they were back in the bus.

He felt the little fire inside him light up in indignation at how soaked to the bone he was and couldn’t help but smile briefly.  It really did remind him of eight years ago, when it’d been an early March storm that had taken him, freshly run away from his aunt, by surprise.  Between the two of them, neither caught colds, which was good, since neither had really been equipped (funded) to be sick at the time.

Dylan and Piper were the only other two students off the bus, Coach herding everyone else in while those two kept the doors open.  Piper looked as soaked and bedraggled as they did, hair whipping every which way and jacket doing little to stave off the wind and rain.  Dylan, on the other hand, looked perfectly poised, and almost amused.  Leo clenched his hand tighter on his tool and his paranoia raised its head again.

As soon as the last student got in, the wind slammed the doors shut, trapping Hedge inside.  He immediately started pounding on them and trying to pull them open, but it didn’t work.  Piper scrambled for the door to push them in, but again, nothing.

“Help me,” she snapped at Dylan.

The boy made a show of considering it, before waving it off.  “Nah.  Can’t have them interfering with part two.  What a gift!   I mean, we’ve been following you two for months, but him?  Wrapped up like a present!  My mistress was right.  You’ll make fine prizes.”

“I’m glad you recognize our worth,” Leo said shakily, “but can we get on the bus now?”

Dylan grinned and a tornado formed in his hands, blasting Leo away from Jason entirely.

He vaguely heard Piper and Jason call out for him as he rolled and tumbled towards the edge of the cliff.  He cried out as his leg hit the fence.  You know, the one to prevent people from falling to their deaths?  He slid right past it, and only last second instincts had him hanging on for dear life.

His blood roared in his ears and he felt the metal warping under his burning grip.  He stabbed the little piece of metal into the ground and it went willingly, not bending under the strain like normal bronze would.  This was hands down his favorite metal to work with.  Not even a competition.

He squinted through the rain to see Jason and Piper trying to fight Dylan, but the wind was keeping Piper contained and it slammed her into the side of the bus.  Leo saw red as she slouched and reached into his pocket again.

He briefly considered calling out, but knew that was something stupid people did.  Sneak attacks were best.

He considered the wind and the rain, but it wasn’t changing direction; not by him, at least.

He cocked his arm back and threw.

The small bronze knife got deflected last minute, but still buried itself in Dylan’s shoulder.  He was looking less than human right now, and Leo shuddered as the whatever-monster stared at him angrily and incredulously.  Leo mustered a bright grin and threw two more knives as he moved forward, but as soon as he lifted his foot, the wind came back with a vengeance and his heart dropped out of his chest.

For a moment, it was like he was suspended in time, or maybe in the pool, just floating.  Gravity didn’t exist.

Then reality came crashing back, and just like the rain, he fell.

All he could do was exist in a blind panic as the other half of him settled into hopeless resolve.  He was going to die as a sad Leo-pancake at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Then arms wrapped around him and held him close, and that feeling of suspension came back as they hovered in the air.  Leo opened his eyes (he’d closed them so it would be a surprise) and looked into blue eyes.

“You’re really cool and buff,” he squeaked, “I was going to tell you later but now seems like a good time.  Are we flying?  Oh shit, where’s Piper?  And Dylan’s a monster-”

“Ventus,” Jason said, “he’s a storm spirit.”

“Oh,” Leo threw up his hands a tiny bit from where they were wrapped around Jason like he was a koala, “a ventus!  Jason, if you knew about this world, you should have told me after I stabbed you with the screwdriver!”

Jason frowned in confusion, but then they were going up, and Leo wrapped himself around Jason and shuddered.  It wasn’t that he was afraid of heights, but he challenged anyone to fall almost to their deaths and not be a little leery of a large drop after that.

Coach had managed to make it out of the bus, and he and Piper were holding Dylan off.  Leo spied a flash of bronze in Piper’s hands and warmed at the thought that she was using one of his knives.  With that thought, he fished out another one.

“Hold still.”

“Wha-?”

Luckily, Jason had frozen.  Leo hadn’t had a lot of opportunity to practice on moving targets, whether he was moving or the target was.  He’d done what he could, but still.  The tiny knife rammed into Dylan’s thigh and Leo grinned, though it quickly faltered when it made Dylan turn to them with a murderous glare and launch something at them.  Leo quickly pushed off of Jason, stumbling to the ground, and jerked his head up when the crackle of ozone faded.  Jason had sparked.

“Dude!  Did you get hit?!”

The other boy sat up, looking a little dazed.  The ends of his military-like hair cut let off a few blue sparks before his gaze cleared and hardened.

“What are you,” Dylan hissed, “that was enough electricity to blackout New York!”

Jason took something out of his pocket and flipped it.  It was a golden coin.  When it landed in his hand again, it was a sword.  Leo itched to get his hands on it, because it didn’t look or feel like normal gold.  He resolved to ask Jason about it after, palming a few more knives as he stood.

He did his best to stay back and on his feet.  Most knives got blasted off course, but he felt good about the fact that Dylan was having to pay attention to him and not just Jason and occasionally Hedge.  Piper was doing her best to yell at him, trying to convince him to stop fighting, and stabbing with Leo’s knives when the storm spirit got too close.  She was also having to dig her feet in.

Finally, Dylan had apparently decided to cut his losses.  He shouted something Leo couldn’t hear and made a grab for Piper, but between her and Leo, he didn’t manage it.  He took off flying, and Coach launched himself at the spirit, not letting go.  Jason looked like he wanted to follow, hand clenched tight around the sword, but in no time at all, they were a speck and then gone.  The sky started to clear up, some blue shining through the grey, and Leo let out a shaky breath, all the energy leaving his body.  He groaned and squatted.

“Coach,” Piper whispered brokenly.

Jason awkwardly patted her on the shoulder.  “He was a good faun.”

Leo looked up, squinting accusingly.  “You didn’t tell me you were involved!  You know about monsters!”

Jason looked taken aback.  “I… I didn’t remember?”

Piper looked between the two of them incredulously.  “You two knew about this?!  What the hell!”

“In my defense,” Leo started, standing and waving his hands, “if I didn’t have my knives I definitely would have thought it was a dream!  And it’s not like I have an actual explanation or anything, I just know that monsters are real and sometimes will try to kill people like us!”

“People like what?!”

He threw his hands up.  “I don’t know!  The person who saved my life didn’t know either!  But they can only be hurt by these,” he waved his knives, “or weapons like them!  Speaking of, Jason, that sword.  What-”  He stopped.  “Wait, where is it?”

Jason tentatively held up the coin and Leo stared for a moment before pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Sure,” he muttered, “if we can have powers, why can’t the funny weapons?  Why not?”

“Powers?!”  Piper pulled on her soaked hair, making the drips speed up.  “What powers?!”

Leo winced.  “Well, you can make people do what you want.  Jason can, can fly?  Apparently?  Actual literal Superman, I swear.  I…” he trailed off before swallowing.  “I can build things really well,” he finished weakly.

Jason frowned up at the sky.  “Incoming.”

They all tensed, watching warily as the shape got closer.  Leo gripped the knife tighter and noticed Piper doing the same.  He looked around and scooped up the ones that had scattered from the fight, slipping most of them into his pockets again.  He handed Piper a second one and she took it without looking.

The shape got closer until they could make out two winged horses pulling a chariot.  There were two people in the back, a buff boy and a tall blond girl.  They touched down and the girl stormed over while the boy tended to the pegasi (because that might as well happen).

“Where is he,” she demanded.

Leo and Piper exchanged a glance.  “Coach Hedge?”

She jolted.  “What?  What happened to Hedge?  Where’s your protector?”

Jason coughed lightly.  “Are you the extraction team he mentioned?”

Her nostrils flared and she looked him up and down, fixating on his lack of a shoe.  “You!  Where is he?!”

“Woah,” Leo chuckled nervously, still on edge, “Hedge uh, he sacrificed himself going after that ventus-”

“Anemoi thuellai. Ventus is Latin.”

Leo privately decided to keep calling them the coffee size.  It was way less of a mouthful.

“Yeah, that,” he said cheerfully, “he, uh-”

“It doesn’t matter,” she shook her head, which Leo thought was quite possibly a little insensitive, “tell me what happened here.  Who are you?”

Jason’s face crumbled.  “I don’t know,” he said miserably, all that gladiator macho fading away, “I don’t know anything!”

He explained his story and Leo just felt worse.  He was supposed to be this guy’s best friend, but he’d woken up with no memories and almost immediately gotten attacked and then possibly shot full of lightning.  He couldn’t help but fidget, twirling the throwing knives around his fingers.  Her eyes flickered to them and she tensed, narrowing her eyes at him, but eventually turned back to give Jason her almost full attention.

At the end of the story, her expression crumpled a little before it turned to helpless rage.

“No!  She said I’d find him here!”

“No,” the boy came over, “she said you’d find a clue.  And you did.  Guy with one shoe, Annabeth.”

She looked up at the sky like it had personally wronged her.  “What do you want from me? Where is he?!”

She turned away and took a few shuddering breaths before turning back to them with the kind of severe, stone-cold face that Leo associated with the kind of character that could have a breakdown and then immediately turn around and wreck your shit, and he was kind of mildly terrified.

“Butch,” she said frostily, “get them on the chariot.  I’ll look around some more just in case.  We take off in two.”

She stormed off and Piper swallowed.  “What’s… up with her?”

Butch herded them towards the gorgeous winged horses and the golden chariot they were pulling.  Leo put all but one of his knives away, and Piper handed the other two back to him.  The motion did not go unnoticed by Butch, but other than a narrowing of eyes and some curious contemplation, said nothing about it.

“She’s always been a little like this," he explained, “but it got worse three days ago.”

The three of them exchanged a glance.

“What happened three days ago,” Jason prompted.

“A camper missed a check in,” he grunted.  “Usually it wouldn’t be cause for concern, but no one can get a hold of him, and he never misses check in.  We have people out looking, but this is the closest thing to a lead we’ve gotten.  Even his dog can’t find him.”

Leo pursed his lips, but Jason beat him to it.  “But who is he?  Why’s he so important?”

“He’s a demigod legend,” Butch muttered, “even before he became a war hero.  Half of camp is rioting with him being gone.  Most of us would be dead without him.”

Piper narrowed her eyes.  “So many words you just said don’t make sense.  What war?  What camp?  Demigod?”

Annabeth came back and closed the chariot behind her, making it slightly more safe for Leo’s own peace of mind.  “Let’s go,” she ordered, fiddling with a bronze navigational device at the front.  Piper looked like she wanted to protest, but Leo grabbed her and held on, gaze locked onto that device.  It was the same metal.

“You,” he jolted as the blond lady addressed him, “where’d you get those?”

There was a hint of desperation in her voice that made him swallow nervously.  “Me?  Get what?”

“Your knives.”

He relaxed as the chariot took off.  He only wobbled a little and very carefully did not look down at the place he almost went splat in.  “Oh, easy, I made them.  A friend told me I’d need something to protect myself.”

She glared.  “And you just happened to stumble upon some celestial bronze?”

He blinked.  “Man, that’s cooler than what I’ve been calling it.  Leg bronze just doesn’t have the same ring.”

She and Butch both tensed up more.  “You fought an empousa?”  Her voice was urgent.

“Um, no?  I don’t know what that is.  Is that the name of the snake ladies?”

She stalked over to him and he pressed himself at the very edge of the chariot.  There wasn’t much room to move, but he did his best, hiding behind Jason and Piper.

“When did you last see him?”

“See who, lady,” he said, an edge of fear to his voice and the wind whipped through his hair, “you have to be more specific!”

“PERCY JACKSON!”

He jolted and she latched onto it.  “You do know him” she breathed, “please, please, when did you see him last?”

Pieces clicked together in his mind.  The camper who’d gone missing, the one she was looking for, that was Percy Jackson.  His heart sank a little.

“A little under eight years ago.”

The hope that had been brimming in her eyes dimmed and shattered as she slouched, and he felt like a major douche.  He wished he’d been able to give her better news, but he hadn’t seen the older boy in actual ages.

“He’s…” he licked his lips, “is he alive?  Is he doing okay?  I mean, neither of us had a phone, so it wasn’t like we could stay in contact, and we were both on the run at the time.  It was only a week, so he probably doesn’t remember me at all, actually, and-”

He swallowed as she pulled away.

“Can someone,” Piper’s voice was shaky, “please explain… something?  Monsters?  Demigods?  Camp?”

“Camp Half-Blood,” Butch offered.

Piper bristled.  “Excuse me?”

“Half human, half god,” Jason muttered.

In all his wildest ideas, that was not what Leo would have picked for an explanation for why they could do what they do, but Jason seemed pretty confident, and the two people in the orange shirts didn’t seem to be wanting to correct him.

Butch turned to him suddenly, and Leo had an urge to tell him to watch the road, even though they were in the wide open sky.

“You’re the Colorado Kid, aren’t you?”

Leo gaped for a moment before he couldn’t help but laugh.  “Oh my gosh,” he snickered, “I completely forgot I was in that phase where I refused to tell anyone my name.  Wow, that brings me back.  Uh, yeah, unless he gave a bunch of shitty scrap that didn’t deserve to be called swords to any random kid, I guess that would be me.”

Butch smiled.  “Jake’s gonna freak out.  He’s been trying to find you for ages.  Promised Beck.  We’d almost given up hope that you were still alive and kicking.  Must be the Jackson influence.”

Leo shrugged.  “I only ever knew him as Percy.  Percy Jackson, huh?  Fits him.”

Piper burrowed into his side more.  “This is insane.”

He snorted.  “More insane than monsters?”

“So, what, you get attacked, saved by this dude who’s a war hero and also missing, and he gives you knives?”

“Ew, no,” he wrinkled his nose, “his metalwork was an insult to the name.  I made these myself.  I suck at every other weapon, and yes, we did check as many as we could-”

The chariot rattled as the winds picked up and Annabeth swore in Greek.  “Jason,” she barked, “can you do something about this?  Control the winds?  The anemoi thuellai are back, and we’re almost there-!”

Jason grimaced.  “I can try.  Hold on!”

“We’re going to crash!”  Piper was screaming, his arm was going numb, and he was lightheaded.

“Aim for the lake!”

“This was the worst field trip ever,” Leo breathed as they crashed into the lake in the middle of December.

At least he still had his knives.