Heroes of Olympus Children: Road to Happiness

Finding Leo

A/N: Hey guys! Wow, it's been awhile since I've touched this series. I figured you'd all be curious as to how the Seven and Nico got to the place they were in life before the kids appeared. That and I really wanted to try something with these characters again that isn't an AU. Hope you like it. You know the drill. The picture is of New Rome. Let me know what you think in the comments. -G

It had taken all of two hours for Leo and Calypso to find, and successfully crash into, Camp Jupiter. But for the other six and their friends it had been two years. A long and exhausting two years of trying to recover from the Giants War. And for all of Leo's friends the sight of him alive and well and with Calypso could have been a happy reunion. But then again they were not very happy to discover their friend had secretly been alive and hadn't told them.

Piper was the first to react with a nice punch to Leo's face, which he admitted was well deserved. Then came Reyna and Frank casually mentioning, in a not so happy tone, that it had taken a long time to repair New Rome after Leo had fired on it and now they'd have some more repairs on their hands. Then Nico explaining, in his quiet angry voice -which Leo swears is a million time creepier than his regular angry voice-, that if he ever came back from the dead again, and most importantly scared Hazel and made her feel guilty for it again, that he would not return from it a second time. Then came the introductions and the bombarding of questions, the biggest one being; How much did Leo miss while he was gone?

"Well," Piper started as they began to move away from the wreckage that was a crater in the middle of New Rome, "the camps made up. We've got an exchange program that we were just discussing before you so rudely fell out of the sky and interrupted us."

"Next time I'll call ahead." Leo said with a smile. "An exchange program, huh? How's that going?"

"As Piper said," Reyna said smoothly, "we were just finishing our discussion on it. I believe we can do such if all the terms we discussed are met." The praetor directed her question towards Piper.

"I'm sure they will be met with little to no problem." Piper replied easily. "Now that we've finished with that I do believe it's getting to be around dinner time."

As Reyna and Frank lead the others through to the dinner feast Leo held Calypso's hand tightly and tried to calm his breathing. Two years had passed and it showed on his friends. All had some type of growth spurt and as Leo made a quick observation in just a few short minutes his body adjusted to fit him as a seventeen year-old. He was taller, not by a lot but a few inches had been added on, and he wasn't scrawny anymore per se. He had a slightly more muscular build, but nothing like Frank. Even Calypso had aged slightly, not as drastically as Leo feared when he heard she'd given up her immortality to be with him, but just enough to make clear that she was seventeen or eighteen.

Once dinner had started Leo and Calypso had relaxed some, but Leo was still wary of explaining everything to his friends, and wary was not a word often associated with Leo Valdez.

"So two hours for us equaled two years here, huh?" Leo asked, taking in the sight of his friends older than he remembered.

"I guess." Hazel said with a shrug. "But the real question is how long was it for you? I mean getting back here?"

"Two hours tops." Leo said. "I swear it couldn't have been longer than that. I didn't mean to be gone for two years guys."

"I get it." Percy said. "I'm not saying we're gonna jump to forgiving you instantly, but I understand. At least you didn't show up to your own funeral."

That got a few confused looks and a loud groan from Annabeth. As the two began to explain Leo figured it was close enough to being forgiven for now, after all he had two years to make up for.