Learning to Trust (A Leo Valdez Love Story)

Chapter 24

When they arrived at the infirmary, Will looked worried, which of course made Leo assume the worse.

"What's wrong? Is Kyra alright?" He asked quickly.

Will nodded, "She's healing well. She should be awake in a few hours. What happened to her?" he finished.

"We don't entirely know," Piper admitted. "When we found her, she was really hurt and then we think she overworked herself once she discovered her powers."

Will nodded, frowning. "Her injuries are consistent with years of abuse. I've never seen anything like it," he admitted, shaking his head.

Leo felt his heart sink as he also frowned. They really had no idea what she had been through.

Will looked to Leo, "If you want, you can come to see her, she's just sleeping now."

Leo nodded, looking at his friends and Annabeth. "Okay, let's go," he said.

---

The infirmary was practically empty besides another Apollo camper taking care of someone who had a small cut on their hand.

Will lead the group of them to the back of the infirmary past a closed curtain.

"I don't think she's going to wake up for at least a few more hours, but when she does it's probably best to limit the number of people in here. Considering what she's been through," he said.

Leo froze at the entrance of the back area Kyra was being kept in. He didn't mean to, but he expected her to look a lot better than she did. She was still very pale and had deep bags under her eyes. Will had bandaged the majority of the wounds she had gotten while traveling with them.

Jason nudged Leo, "Come on, she's alright," he said. Leo nodded, grateful for the reassurance from his friend.

Leo walked forward and joined Piper, Annabeth, and Will at Kyra's bedside.

"She's a fighter," Will said, smiling fondly at Kyra. "I had to restitch a few wounds she already had, looked like she closed them herself."

"Yeah, she is," Leo replied as he looked at Kyra.

Leo noticed Annabeth frown as she observed the girl before looking up at the rest of them grimly. "I think she is also one of the eight of the prophecy," she explained.

Jason frowned, "No, it's too dangerous," he said.

"It makes sense," Annabeth reasoned. "You found her on your quest for a reason."

Leo didn't want to admit it, but Annabeth was right. Kyra was a part of the Great Prophecy.

The group of them stood in silence, watching the rise and fall of Kyra's chest as she breathed slowly.

"Like I said it might be a while before she wakes up, I'm sure you're all tired. Why don't you go get some rest."

"I'm staying," Leo said firmly.

"Leo," Piper started gently. "She's not going to wake up anytime soon, and you look exhausted. Why don't you get some sleep?"

"No." He said shortly. "I'm not leaving her."

"We can take shifts sitting with her," Piper suggested.

"No. You guys didn't see where Medea was keeping her. Y-you didn't see how scared she was. I can't leave her. She needs to know she's safe when she wakes up."

"I think you could all use some rest," Annabeth said before looking at Leo. "But I understand that you want to stay with her. We can come back and check on you later." She said with a somewhat wistful look in her eyes.

Leo nodded, ignoring the look she gave him as he sat down next to Kyra, watching as the group left the infirmary.

Leo sighed and put his head in his hands after his friends had left, feeling tears brim his eyes. He didn't quite know what it was, maybe the fact that he had just recently found out his dad was a god and how he almost died multiple times on a quest to rescue a goddess, the memories of his mom the quest brought up, or the thought of what Kyra had been through before he met her but frustrated and sad tears began to stream silently down his face.

He angrily wiped them away, he was supposed to be the happy jokester, but this wasn't him, rather this wasn't who he was expected to be. He sat up and looked at Kyra again as she twitched in her sleep, her once calm face transforming into a frown.

"Kyra," he whispered, thinking she was waking up. That was a lot faster than Will had said.

She moved once more, her body slightly sliding toward where Leo was sitting.

"Please," she whimpered. "Don't hurt me anymore. I promise I won't do it again. I'm sorry," Leo froze at her words, shocked at what she was saying. She wasn't waking up, she was having a nightmare.

"Kyra," Leo tried once more, moving closer to her and wondering if he should get Will.

"I'll be good, I promise. Please stop," she let out quietly as tears began to stream down her face.

Leo bit his lip in concentration. What was he supposed to do? If she kept moving around like this she was going to hurt herself or reopen her stitches.

As she let out another pained whimper, Leo moved to grab her hand.

"Hey, it's okay Kyra. You're safe now. It's gonna be okay. I promise," he finished, reaching out to gently stroke her hair with the hand that wasn't holding hers.

"Please," she sobbed quietly, making Leo's heart hurt.

He repeated his words and soothing actions as she gradually stopped whimpering and her face began to relax once more.

Leo sighed as her nightmare ended. This was worse than they thought. Leo had nightmares about his past and had seen some of the kids in his group home have nightmares similar to Kyra's. But those were kids who were abused by their family or foster family. And still, he had never seen one as bad as this. Thinking back to the words she murmured while dreaming made Leo feel sick.

He stopped stroking her hair as her face lost its frown, but Leo kept hold of her hand, which had curled to grasp his while she was sleeping.

Leo looked back down at their intertwined hands, seeing that Will had placed some sort of cream around the scars and cuts on her wrists. He let out a breath, trying to calm himself when thoughts of finding and hurting whoever did this to her invaded his mind. He wasn't normally so violent and didn't know why he was feeling this way. Normally he would shove what he was feeling down and pretend that he was fine. But this wasn't something he could pretend to be okay with. This wasn't something he could just laugh off.

Kyra was going to need support and someone to trust, but he had no idea how to help her.

He felt his eyelids get heavy, the exhaustion from the past few days finally catching up with him. Leo rested his head on an open spot on the bed beside Kyra, allowing himself to drift off to sleep listening to the sound of Kyra's breathing.