Chapter Text
Leo POV
Leo had opened his eyes only moments ago, which, in his professional opinion, was a miracle worthy of at least three celebratory tacos. Four if they came with extra guac. Maybe a party hat too. Definitely some confetti.
Given the fact that he had been — you know — dead not too long ago, being alive enough to blink felt like a win in itself. Getting blown to smithereens by Gaea, then being revived via ancient magical not-even-sure-what-just-happened resurrection cure, all within twenty-four hours… yeah, there was no medical handbook in existence that would call that “healthy.” Especially if you were a demigod. Or had bones. Or internal organs.
Being dead had sucked. Shocker, right? Even now, some stubborn fragment of it lingered, a cold after-death tingle running down his spine. Like he’d swallowed an entire snowstorm and it was still melting somewhere between his ribs. He wasn’t sure if that was normal post-resurrection side effects or just his body’s way of saying, “Congratulations, you broke me.”
Festus’s wings beat in a steady rhythm beneath him, every movement punctuated by the low groan of bronze joints flexing in the wind. The cold air pressed against Leo’s back, and the air roared past his ears, sharp enough to sting. Beneath him, the dragon’s back was warm, almost soothing, the heat radiating into his aching muscles. He let it wash over him, partly because it kept him awake and partly because it reminded him he wasn’t a pile of ashes anymore.
Leo groaned softly and rubbed a hand over his face, scraping away some dried salt from his skin. Tilting his head, he glanced at the astrolabe strapped to his wrist. The mechanisms inside clicked with each passing moment, a sound almost like a Geiger counter—though Leo seriously hoped it didn’t function like one. Dying to Gaea’s return only to end up taken out by radiation poisoning would be a pretty lousy way to go. Especially considering how close he was… how close…
He was almost there.
Almost to Ogygia.
He thought about sitting up — maybe throw his arms wide like “I’m back, world!” — but the idea of pitching off Festus’s spine and plummeting into the Atlantic put a quick stop to that. Turns out, when you’re flying several thousand feet above the ocean on the back of a magical bronze dragon, sitting up is less “brave” and more “excellent way to become sky salsa in five seconds flat.” For now, slouching was the smarter option. His muscles still felt wrung out, his joints heavy, and somewhere in his gut there was a strange hollowness that he didn’t want to think about too hard.
Not just because his insides were still somewhere on the scale between “overcooked pasta” and “frozen mashed potatoes.”
Okay, maybe those were most of the reasons.
But mostly, it was because they were close. So close.
To her.
Calypso.
Even just thinking her name made something twist in his chest—not in the ow, I broke a rib way. He let the cold wind bite at his face until his cheeks went numb. Calypso had been, well, the love of his life. Sure, they had only known each other for less than a week. And sure, she was an immortal Titaness who was several thousand years old. And sure, she had been cursed to fall in love with every hero who washed up on her island, only to lose them forever—a long list of names he assumed he was now part of. But something about her… he knew she had felt it too.
Well, at least he hoped she had. What other meaning could the kiss she gave him moments before he left have had? Just thinking about it made Leo wince in embarrassment. Who knew he could be such a romantic?
He pulled his thoughts elsewhere. Friends. Right. He had friends. And most of them were probably going to want to strangle him when they found out he wasn’t dead.
His thoughts drifted to Frank and Hazel. They were probably getting wrung out right about now, considering they were the only ones who had actually known about his plan. At the time it had seemed like a good idea. They were Roman, and Romans practically had a degree in the whole self-sacrifice thing. But now, thinking back, it was probably unfair to dump that kind of burden on their consciences. He hoped they weren’t beating themselves up about it.
Then again, he didn’t even know what “now” was. Or how long he’d been dead. For all he knew, Piper could have already done the whole yelling-at-them-for-letting-him-die thing. Or maybe she hadn’t gotten to it yet. Either way, the thought brought up an important question—how long had he actually been gone? That probably should have been the first thing to cross his mind when he woke up. In his defense, he had just gone from literally blowing himself up to waking up somewhere over the Atlantic. A little mental lag was understandable.
Still, the problem remained. How exactly was he supposed to tell everyone he was alive without getting himself killed again in the process? He imagined walking back into camp, acting casual, and immediately getting tackled, punched, or both. After the first time, he had come to a very firm conclusion: Leo Valdez did not enjoy dying. And he wasn’t looking for a sequel any time soon.
He tried out possible reunion lines in his head.
“Hey guys, surprise, not dead!” — No. Too cheerful.
“Guess who just respawned?” — Too video game.
“Before you hit me, please remember my fragile bone structure.” — Actually... maybe. Worth trying out.
Festus gave a metallic chirr, the kind that always carried more judgment than a dragon should be capable of.
“I know, I know,” Leo muttered, running a hand along the warm bronze plating. “You think I should just rip the bandage off. But you don’t have to deal with the whole ‘Valdez, what were you thinking?’ routine from six different angry demigods.”
Festus’s gears clicked in a slow, mocking rhythm.
Leo rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. You’re the wise old dragon, I’m the impulsive hothead. We’ve been over this.”
Leo made a mental note to check Festus’s internals and figure out what exactly was making the dragon drip with so much sass. Last he checked, this was not a feature he’d built in.
As his thoughts wandered toward all the upgrades he wanted to make—sleeker armor plates, a better heat sink for the fire core, maybe some kind of retractable espresso machine—something on the horizon caught his eye.
Normally, a few months ago, he wouldn’t have paid attention. But there was a subtle shift in the light, just enough for him to notice. The sky seemed… different. Like looking at an old childhood photo and realizing the colors had once been brighter. The air felt warmer in a way that wasn’t just the sun.
It clicked for him almost immediately. Weeks of sailing on the Argo II had made him a pretty solid navigator. Judging from the position of the sun and the way the wind curled over the water, he was getting close to Ogygia.
Not that he had the island perfectly mapped in his head or anything. Not that he’d memorized the shape of the beach, the tilt of the cliffs, the exact shade of the water. And definitely not that he’d spent way too much of his free time on the Argo II imagining it.
Nope. He would never do that.
Leo sat up a little despite himself, one hand gripping the ridge of Festus’s neck.
“We’re close, buddy.”
Festus rumbled deep in his chest, the sound vibrating through Leo’s bones like the hum of some massive, well-oiled engine. The dragon’s wingbeats slowed, each downstroke more careful than the last. It was almost theatrical.
For all the clanks, groans, and yes, the recent attitude problem, Festus had a knack for setting a mood. Leo could tell his big metal friend was more than eager to make this reunion with Calypso as cinematic as possible. The sun was angled low, glinting off the water in shimmering ribbons. The air was warm with that faint sweetness he remembered from before.
Leo gave a crooked smile. “You know, for a dragon, you really do love your drama.”
Festus let out a low hiss of steam, which Leo decided to take as agreement.
The ocean below stretched out forever, deep blue and endless, broken only by whitecaps and the occasional dark shape of something moving far beneath the surface. Schools of fish scattered like liquid glitter when Festus’s shadow passed over them. A pod of dolphins arced from the waves, catching the sunlight like silver coins before disappearing again. Somewhere far beneath them, sea creatures probably looked up, confused about the massive bronze shadow passing overhead. Maybe they thought he was some new kind of god. Festus, Lord of Fish Anxiety. Leo almost chuckled at the thought.
As Leo flew over the ocean, watching Festus’s new “subjects” scatter below—schools of fish darting in chaotic patterns at the approach of their newly appointed Lord of Fish Anxiety—he couldn’t help but reminisce about his first trip to Ogygia.
Granted, it hadn’t been the smoothest first impression. He’d literally fallen from the sky and demolished Calypso’s table in the process. Not exactly the stuff of romantic ballads. Still, the memory tugged at him with a strange nostalgia. Not so much the part where he was catapulted into the air and crash-landed—though, okay, maybe a little—but mostly the moment he first saw her.
He could still picture it perfectly: the way her face had lit with sharp indignation the second her eyes met his, like a very angry, very cute ball of sunshine who’d just watched someone dropkick her favorite centerpiece.
Yeah… he really did want to see her again.
Wow, Leo realized, he was down bad for her.
As Leo thought that, a sudden gust of wind slammed against Festus, jolting him out of his fantasy—no, memory. He raised an eyebrow and looked up to see what could possibly cause such a disturbance, then groaned.
A storm spirit. Of course.
Yeah, he recognized it instantly. He’d seen enough of them to last several lifetimes, and after burying Gaea—literally and figuratively—he’d kind of been hoping to avoid one for at least five years. Maybe ten if the universe was feeling generous. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.
Now, an especially angry-looking spirit was trying its absolute best to blow him off Festus’s back.
Leo ducked low, clinging to the dragon’s bronze plating as another blast of wind tore past. His fingers burned with strain, his knuckles white against the metal. For one terrifying moment, he felt his grip slip.
“I think we’ve got trouble!” he yelled over the roar of the wind.
Festus answered with an indignant blast of steam, as if to say, You think? His bronze wings fought against the turbulence, each flap sending shudders through Leo’s spine.
The dragon snapped his jaws open and spat a column of fire, the heat curling across Leo’s back. The storm spirit darted away, cackling in a voice like shredded aluminum. A few embers whipped backward toward Leo’s head, forcing him to duck.
“Festus, buddy, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but you realize we’re still moving, right? Translation: you’re setting our flight path on fire!”
Festus groaned, which in dragon language translated to something like, I have it under control, puny human. Another burst of flame erupted from his mouth—tighter, more focused this time—but the spirit slipped aside again, riding the currents.
“Nice aim,” it jeered.
Festus froze for a fraction of a second, clearly offended on a deep, mechanical level. Then the spirit zipped forward, confident in its dodge game.
Leo grinned. “Oh, you’ve done it now.”
This time, Festus didn’t blast fire. He waited. Just as the spirit zipped in close, the dragon lunged—snapping his jaws shut around the vaporous head. The shriek that followed made Leo’s teeth rattle. The spirit burst apart into ribbons of mist, which evaporated in the wind.
"Yeah, that’s what you get for messing with Leo and his flying dragon!" Leo cheered—right before coughing as the dust from the until-recently-former storm spirit hit the back of his throat.
Festus gave a sharp jerk and belched a massive plume of fire into the air, like a victory salute.
"Yeah, yeah. Show-off," Leo said, patting the dragon’s warm bronze neck.
After their little run-in with the storm spirit, the flight turned almost suspiciously peaceful. Who would’ve guessed? Remove the murderous wind elemental trying to launch you into the ocean and suddenly things were downright pleasant. For a few quiet minutes, the only sound was the slow, steady beat of Festus’s wings slicing through the air.
Then, without warning, a warmth spread over Leo like someone had flipped a cosmic light switch. The air thickened—not in a bad way, more like it wrapped around him—and a golden glow spilled across the sky. The sunlight sharpened. The ocean below shifted from restless chop to perfect glass. Even the breeze seemed to carry the scent of blooming flowers, faint but unmistakable.
It was like he’d crossed through some invisible wall. Which, considering the whole magic-island thing, was probably exactly what happened.
He knew this place. Not the island itself, not yet, but the bubble of magic around it. The invisible borders that kept Ogygia sealed away. The curse that had once made it impossible for Calypso to leave.
Leo let out a slow breath. The hard part was over—he’d found it again. Something that was supposed to be impossible.
And this time, he wasn’t here to leave her behind.
This time… he was taking her out.
The thought made his stomach knot—the same way it did when you realized a public speaking assignment was due in five minutes and you hadn’t prepared a single word.
“Okay, Valdez,” he muttered under his breath. “You died once already. This is nothing. You got this.”
Festus’s glowing ruby eyes flicked back toward him. Leo couldn’t tell if the dragon was amused or unimpressed.
“Yeah, thanks for the vote of confidence,” Leo sighed.
The air grew sweeter as they flew, the familiar scent of flowers weaving through the wind. It wasn’t overpowering, just enough to wrap around his senses and make him think of warm breezes and green hills. Festus dipped lower, skimming above the glassy surface of the water.
Leo leaned over the side and blinked. The sea here wasn’t like the sea anywhere else. It was so clear it was almost invisible, yet so deep it looked endless, a shimmering window into a blue that never stopped. Even miles from shore, it felt… different. Like the water itself was holding its breath.
And then—he saw it.
Ogygia.
The island rose from the horizon like it had been waiting for him, its beaches white as pearl, its cliffs wrapped in ivy and crowned with groves of cypress and olive trees. Flowers spilled down the hillsides in colors he didn’t have names for, their petals catching the light until the whole place seemed to glow.
His pulse quickened. This was it.
The last time he’d seen the island, he’d been on a raft, drifting farther and farther away while Calypso’s figure grew smaller against the shore. He could still hear his own voice, hoarse from shouting, vowing on the River Styx that he would come back for her.
Now he was close enough again to make out the fine details. The curves of the coastline. The way the cypress trees swayed in the light breeze, their leaves shifting like green silk. The white foam of the waves as they broke gently against the rocks. Every part of it was exactly as he remembered, which somehow made it harder to breathe. Somewhere down there, he knew, was Calypso.
It was beautiful—too beautiful. The whole island shimmered like it had been carved out of a dream and set adrift in its own private corner of the world, untouched by time or decay. But no matter how much the sunlight made it glow, Leo couldn’t forget what it really was.
A prison.
A cage wrapped in flowers. A place that had stolen centuries from her life and replaced them with loneliness.
His stomach twisted. He couldn’t tell if it was excitement or fear. Probably both. He’d pictured this moment so many times, imagined what he would say, what he would do. He’d wanted to show her everything—Festus, the world beyond the horizon, the people who had become his family. He’d wanted to tell her about the little things, too: how camp smelled in the summer after a rainstorm, how loud fireworks sounded when you were right under them, how the stars looked when you weren’t trapped beneath the same patch of sky every night.
Then he grimaced. Maybe he was overthinking it. Ugh. People were so much harder to figure out than machines. With Festus, if something didn’t work, you tightened a bolt or swapped out a gear. With people? You never really knew if you’d fixed anything at all.
But he did know one thing for sure.
No matter how she reacted—whether she was happy, angry, or somewhere in between—he was getting her off this island.
And this time, nothing was going to stop him.
Calyspo POV
The skies of Ogygia were always serene around this time of day. The light lingered stubbornly between afternoon and evening, refusing to commit to either. The horizon glowed with that soft, honey-gold warmth that made the sea look as if it had been poured straight from the sun itself. The breeze carried the mingled scents of salt and citrus, and every so often, the faint song of a bird echoed somewhere in the distance.
To anyone else, it would have been paradise.
For Calypso, it was just Tuesday.
She lay on her back in the meadow that sloped toward the cliffs, one arm pillowing her head, the other trailing loosely in the grass. Her hair spilled across the ground in dark waves, catching strands of green. The grass here had shaped itself to her long ago, pressed flat in a shallow outline of where she always sat — or, more often, where she always waited. It was not the most comfortable place she could sit, nor the most magical — Ogygia was filled with wonders far greater than a patch of flattened meadow — but it was the spot.
But this was the spot.
She didn’t like to admit it, but she had made it a habit to come out to this very spot every day. The sand here was warm and fine, shaped into soft grooves that she had memorized over time. In return, it seemed to carve her own silhouette into the meadow that stretched just beyond the shore. At first, she told herself she came here because she liked the view. Then she told herself it was for the sound—the constant, steady rhythm of the waves, the distant calls of seabirds. But in the end, she couldn’t avoid the truth. She came here because of him.
She could still see him in her mind: Leo Valdez, hunched over some strange contraption on the beach, his hands moving with quick, sure precision. She had stood right here, trying to coax him into resting for the night. He had insisted on working, claiming he was this close to finishing. The two of them had argued over whether he should stop, until finally, she’d lain back in the grass, calling out over the sound of the surf. She’d told him he needed one night off.
He’d looked up from his work, dark eyes ringed with exhaustion but lit with something fierce and bright, and flashed her that infuriatingly confident grin.
“Sleep is for people without style, Sunshine.”
The memory tightened something in her chest. She had so many memories of him in this spot. It was where they’d argued, teased each other, laughed until her ribs ached, and—against all reason and her own better judgment—where she had kissed him for the first time.
It was also where she had pushed him away, forcing herself to take in his figure one last time before he left.
She plucked a blade of grass now, letting it roll between her fingers as the tide whispered against the shore. She let herself sink into the memories—how she had wished he could stay just a week longer. She remembered the way he’d been so confident that he could, the way his voice carried a certainty that almost convinced her. And she remembered the look in his eyes when he realized what the raft meant.
It had been a look she knew all too well. Crestfallen. Hurt.
The same look she had worn for centuries, watching every hero she had ever cared for vanish beyond the horizon.
Her lips tightened.
She tried to imagine what might be happening beyond the mystical borders of Ogygia. Her thoughts drifted to the war Leo had told her about—the one she’d caught a glimpse of when her grandmother, Gaea herself, had risen from the shore and offered her salvation in exchange for Leo’s life. The memory sent a cold shiver down her spine.
Time on Ogygia was fickle. Some days seemed to stretch on forever, while others slipped by in the space of a heartbeat. She wondered how long it had been in the mortal world. How long since Leo had left her?
Her mind, traitorous as always, began to wander. Maybe the war was over. Maybe Leo had…
She cut the thought short before it could finish, pressing her lips together.
It didn’t matter anyway. That was the cruelty of her curse—nothing beyond the island’s borders truly mattered. Unless the gods were overthrown and some new hero washed up on her shore, the outside world could twist and change and burn, and she would remain here. Always here.
She closed her eyes, and for a moment, she almost heard him again.
Calypso closed her eyes and let the wind wash over her face. For a heartbeat, she thought she could hear him again.
That quick, irrepressible laugh of his that always seemed to dance at the corners of his mouth, where a smirk was forever tugging. The scrape of his tools against celestial bronze as he worked on whatever invention had captured his brain that day. The soft, metallic clangs echoing from his cave, punctuated by the occasional spark of flame. His ridiculous, tuneless humming whenever he was lost in his work.
It was all so…
Leo.
Leo. The one hero she couldn’t seem to get out of her mind. He drove her insane. She’d been in this position before—her curse had ensured that her solitude was never without company for long—but Leo… Leo was different. Calling him a hero felt wrong somehow. Yes, he had the marks of one, had fought monsters and even defied the earth mother herself, but to lump him in with the others who had washed up on her shores over the centuries felt like an insult.
When he looked at her, it was never with that dazed, enchanted awe she had grown used to. He did notice her beauty—she’d caught him staring when he thought she wasn’t looking—but there was something else in his gaze, something that reached past the surface. It was as if he was trying to understand her, not just admire her.
Even his arrival had been so very… him. Literally crashing into her home like some stubborn, combustible star, falling straight out of the sky and right through her table. She could still see the mess, still hear his voice making some ridiculous joke as if he hadn’t just shattered half her dishes.
And she hated—absolutely hated—how much she missed it.
But then she began to see him work — the spark in his eyes whenever his hands were busy with gears and bronze, the quiet focus that settled over him like a second skin. And the way he… respected her. Not just as some myth or prize, but as herself.
For the first time, someone didn’t treat her like Calypso, the object of desire — the Titaness trapped on an island, forever at the mercy of her curse. No, Leo treated her like Calypso the person. The girl who wanted to live, who wanted to be free, who had been wounded again and again for thousands of years and would be wounded for thousands more.
She had seen through him, too. The way his laughter sometimes came a fraction too fast, like he was trying to keep ahead of something that might catch him if he stopped. The way his gaze lingered on the horizon, restless, as though he was always ready to leave before anyone could leave him first. He carried hurts he never named, and maybe that was why her chest still ached when she thought of him — because for once, she’d found someone who needed her as much as she needed them.
She pressed her palms over her eyes, trying to will away the sharp sting there.
There had been nights after he left when she cried. Not the kind of crying that came with wails or sobs — she wasn’t the type for dramatics. But the tears still came, hot and unbidden, slipping down her cheeks no matter how tightly she pressed her lips together. Because she missed him. Because she didn’t know if he was still alive. Because deep down, she believed he was never coming back.
She knew better than anyone — because she had lived it more times than she could count — that no man ever returned to Ogygia twice.
It was the most unshakable truth of her curse.
She had watched heroes come and go for centuries. She was cursed to love them. They were cursed to leave.
But there was something about Leo that both stung and clung to her at once. When she urged him to go, she had seen in his eyes that he wanted nothing more than to stay. She had known, without him saying it, that if she gave him the smallest reason, he might have remained on that island forever. But Leo Valdez had a role to play, a destiny to fulfill, and in those final moments, he had sworn on the River Styx that he would return.
Stupid, impossible boy.
She wished he hadn’t said it. If he had left without that vow, perhaps she could have let him go the way she had let the others go. Instead, the ember of hope he left behind refused to die, no matter how many times she tried to smother it.
She told herself all the things meant to make it easier. That he had moved on. That he had found someone else. That the world was too vast and dangerous for him to risk finding her again. She repeated them until she could say them without flinching. But they never took.
Because in the quiet moments, she still looked at the sky. Still listened for the sound of wings. Still wondered what it would be like to hear his laugh again.
She sat up, brushing bits of grass from her skirt. The garden would need tending soon — the roses had been unruly this week — but she didn’t move toward the hut.
That was when she heard it.
A sound rolled across the island, faint at first but growing sharper: a metallic clank, a rush of air, and then a crash that shook the ground beneath her.
Calypso’s heart stuttered. That wasn’t a wave breaking on the cliffs. It wasn’t a falling tree. It was something heavy that had landed.
For one dangerous, impossible second, hope flared in her chest.
No. She shoved it down. It couldn’t be him. The curse didn’t work that way. No man ever came back to Ogygia twice.
…Right?
The wind shifted, carrying a sharp, metallic tang threaded with smoke. Not the wild acrid smoke of fire — the mechanical heat of bronze and oil.
Her stomach flipped.
Her feet moved without her realizing. One step. Another. Slow at first, as if the island might dissolve beneath her, then faster. The pull in her chest was impossible to ignore.
It could be another hero. Someone else entirely.
But what if it wasn’t?
Leo POV
Leo Valdez had been through a lot of bad landings in his life.
But this one? Oh, this took the metaphorical cake. And the cake he’d just won was made of sand — and it was everywhere. Sand in his mouth, his eyebrows, his boots, and probably other places he didn’t want to think about. Man, he hated sand. It was coarse, rough, irritating, and it got everywhere.
Face-first on the beach, cheek mashed into the grit, Leo groaned into the earth. Beside him, Festus was half-buried in a sandbank, wings twitching like an offended metal pelican. A creaking sound followed as the dragon tried to haul himself free, which, Leo had to admit, was pretty amusing to watch. Festus clearly didn’t share the sentiment — the sand beneath Leo began to grow hotter as his dragon started melting his way back to the surface.
“Yeah, I know,” Leo mumbled, voice muffled by sand. “Not my smoothest move. But hey… style points?”
Festus responded with a loud hiss of hot steam that blasted directly into Leo’s face.
“Alright, I’ll take that as a no.”
With the dignity of a man who had crash-landed on the same island twice — or at least as much dignity as such a man could manage — Leo hauled himself upright. Festus gave a mechanical shiver before opening every vent at once, blasting out torrents of scalding air and sending rivers of sand sliding off his bronze frame.
“Yeah, well, we’ll get you a proper clean-up when we’re back at Camp Half-Blood. I can tell you from experience, that’s not enough to get all the sand out.”
Festus stomped, clearly unimpressed. Leo ignored the very moody dragon in front of him and turned his gaze back to the recipient of his spectacular landing.
Ogygia.
The sun was doing that whole dramatic golden spotlight thing. The air carried a faint mix of citrus and wildflowers. Waves lapped gently at the shore, calm and peaceful — like they hadn’t just watched him wipe out in spectacular fashion.
Even Festus, once he got over the whole crashing thing, seemed to notice how unreal the scenery was. The big guy’s whirring slowed, his head tilting as if he were actually… admiring it.
For a long moment, Leo just stood there and breathed. His chest felt tight — and not just from eating half the beach a minute ago.
This was it.
He'd made it.
And then—
"Leo?"
The voice. Oh, that voice — sweeter to Leo’s ears than any sound he’d heard in months. For a second, he thought his brain was pulling one of its cruel tricks again. But then it came again, carrying a jagged breath, like its owner had been breathless from running. There was doubt in it too. The kind he imagined would be in his own voice if he spoke now — half afraid to believe what he was seeing.
Slowly, he turned toward the cliffs.
And there she was.
Calypso.
His brain short-circuited for a good three seconds. He’d pictured this moment a hundred times — okay, more like a thousand — and every single mental rehearsal went up in smoke against the reality in front of him. She stood framed in sunlight, hair spilling in dark waves over her shoulders, amber eyes wide enough to hold the whole horizon. She looked exactly the same. She looked completely different.
"Hey, Sunshine," he managed, his voice cracking halfway through the words. "Miss me?"
Calypso didn’t answer right away. She just stood there, the glare of the sun hiding her expression, and Leo let her — he was still trying to process the fact that she was real and right in front of him. She was staring at him like he might disappear if she blinked.
Then, without warning, she moved.
One heartbeat, she was on the cliffs. The next, she was a blur of skirts and bare feet pounding across the sand. Leo barely had time to open his arms before she slammed into him full-force, knocking the wind out of his lungs and most of the thoughts out of his head.
“Ow!” he wheezed. “I’m still mortal, you know. I bleed normal blood, woman.”
She pulled back just enough to cup his face, her fingers trembling, amber eyes boring into his. Then the words came in a rush, spilling over each other so quickly they almost became one.
“HowareyouhereIthoughtyouweregoneIsawyouleaveontheraftthecurseitsimpossibleforyoutobehereareyouevenreal—”
He cut her off with one simple motion, wrapping his arms around her. Calypso froze, breath caught, before slowly melting into the embrace, her grip tightening as though she might anchor herself to him.
Calypso glanced briefly at Festus, blinked, then looked back at Leo.
“You came back,” she said, her voice soft now.
Leo shrugged, aiming for casual. “Of course I did. I mean, yeah, there were some explosions and maybe a little bit of actual dying involved, but—”
She hugged him again. This time she didn’t let go.
Leo froze for a beat. He felt her breath against his chest, the warmth of her hair under his chin. For a second, all the noise in his head fell quiet.
Then the voice came.
You know how this works, Valdez. She’s cursed. She falls in love with whoever lands here. That’s not you she loves — it’s the curse.
He tried to push it away, but the thought clung stubbornly.
If she wasn’t trapped here… if she could choose freely… would she ever look at you twice? You’re Leo Valdez — orphan, seventh wheel, too much for some, not enough for others. You don’t fit. You never have.
His arms tightened instinctively, almost like he was holding onto her against the thought itself. But the voice wouldn’t stop.
She’s a beautiful, ageless daughter of the Titans. And you’re… you.
A sliver of doubt slid in, thin but sharp. The warmth of the moment dimmed, just enough for him to notice. He still wanted this — wanted her — but suddenly he wasn’t sure if what he felt was real or if it was only the thrill of keeping a promise.
After a long moment, he loosened his hold. Not enough for her to think he was pulling away, but enough to breathe again.
“Uh,” he said, glancing over her shoulder at Festus. “I should… probably make sure the big guy’s systems are good before we think about taking off.”
Calypso’s eyes flickered — hurt, confusion, something in between — but she nodded.
Leo took the opportunity to crouch by the dragon's side. A loose panel on Festus's flank had been bothering him since they landed. He pulled a wrench from his tool belt and started tightening it, partly because it needed doing, but mostly because fiddling with gears was a lot easier than thinking about the next ten minutes. He then bent to fuss with a bronze wing joint that was perfectly fine, muttering nonsense about "pressure seals" and "hydraulic flux resistance" like Festus didn't know he was faking.
Eventually he looked up from his busy work, and saw the eyes of calypso staring down at him. gods those eyes... no leo stay focused focused on getting out of here besides you dont ev- he dispelled the thought from his head, no time for doubts now he could deal woith all this romance later he needed to keep a promise to her he was gonna get her off.
though htere was something about the curse, aside from well the whole falling in love part he was worried about.
“You know, we should probably talk about the curse thing.”
Calypso arched an eyebrow as if that was not the question she had expected him to ask after suddenly leaving their embrace, something he could she was evidently not happy about. "The curse thing."
“Yeah. You know — no man finds Ogygia twice.” He waved vaguely at himself. “Except… here I am. So if we leave together… do you know what happens to you? Could be you turn mortal. Could be you grow wings. Could be you burst into flames?”
Calypso’s expression shifted into thoughtful consideration. “I never… well, I never considered it a possibility,” she began. “But since you’re here now, on the island, that must mean on some level the island’s curse has been lifted. If something as absolute as ‘no man can find Ogygia twice’ no longer holds true, then there’s a chance the curse in its entirety has been broken.”
Another unwanted thought crept down Leo’s spine. Curse broken… she’s no longer bound to love you, Valdez. Soon she’ll see what you’re really worth and leave you like the rest.
He grimaced. “So what you’re basically saying is… you have no idea.”
A silence hung between them before she answered. “I hate you, Leo Valdez.”
He grinned. “So I’m right. You, a goddess, know just as much as me, a mere demigod, about what’s going to happen when you leave this island.”
“Oh, get over it.” She rolled her eyes, but a small smile tugged at her lips. “I suppose, as you put it, there’s a chance I could burst into flames the moment I step off Ogygia’s shores.”
“Great,” he muttered.
“But,” she continued, stepping closer, “for some reason, I don’t think I will.”
He arched a brow. “And that’s… what? Divine wisdom?”
“Call it a gut feeling,” she said softly. “I have a strange inkling that the gods have released me from this curse. You’re here, after all.” She squeezed his hand gently. The contact made his heart skip — and, inconveniently, the voice in his head stir again.
Or maybe this is just the last flicker before she sees the truth.
“Y-yeah,” he said, shaking the thought away as he finished Festus’s pre-flight checks. “Ready to go, sunshine? Got your bags packed?”
That was when he noticed the invisible servants gathering her belongings — a neat mahogany suitcase adorned with painted flowers.
“Yes,” she said, smiling softly as she looked back at Ogygia, perhaps for the last time.
“Are you gonna miss this place?” he asked.
“For everything it was, it was still my home.” She glanced at him. “But I wish it to be my prison no longer.”
They worked together to load her things onto Festus, and for a moment, it was like those first days they’d spent on the island — side by side, moving in sync. When everything was secured, Leo extended his hand. Calypso took it firmly and slid onto the back of the dragon behind him, her arms settling lightly around his waist.
Festus rumbled, wings flexing. The island’s breeze carried the scent of flowers and sea salt — and something else Leo couldn’t name.
As Festus crouched to leap into the sky, Leo looked once more at the shore. He’d done it. He’d come back for her.
And yet, as the island shrank behind them, the question gnawed at him like a loose gear in the back of his mind.
Now that she’s free… will she still choose me?