Born Again

[7: a great big dragon out by the lake ]

The next days were excruciatingly painful. He broke down crying multiple times, not only because of Calypso, but because his sucky his life always turns out to be. To add to the situation, he had gotten attacked by a few monsters while he was forced to ride Festus until he was able to land on a farm in the middle of no where. Leo usually tried to hide from his thoughts, but being alone made it so much harder to do so. As his feet touched the grass he nearly cried again. After three days of flying over seas, he finally found land.

It's hard to describe what happened after that. Leo doesn't remember much of it himself. He had found land and collapsed the second he hit solid ground. Later, he realized he was in a Southern Asian country, due to the terrace farming with rice and the fact that they were all speaking an Asian-sounding language. He was quite the detective. He spent his time traveling from wherever he had landed across Asia and Europe and eventually across seas. It wasn't easy. He had no drachmas to use to Iris message any of the seven, so they were left thinking he was dead. Truly, he wanted to contact his friends, but a small part of him was hesitant.

Did they really want him alive? He told Haze and Frank his suicide plan, and they cried and tried talking him out of it. But after a few minutes they seemed to accept his death and didn't try to talk him out of it anymore. They were probably glad he was gone. There was also Percy and Annabeth, who hated him so much after his bombing of New Rome. He knew Percy thought he was too weak to let the Eidolon control him that much, and Annabeth looked disappointed. Jason and Piper were always left with him third wheeling. Leo knew that they were probably happy they didn't have him awkwardly tagging along behind them.

Before he knew it, weeks passed by as he tried to get back. Some of the time he was fighting monsters, some of it he was flying Festus, and some of it he didn't know what he was doing. He didn't remember half of his time spent across seas, but he had a feeling he was going through one his slumps. He's had them before, where he can't find the motivation to ever get up or do something, because he was just too empty to do anything. But he managed to do it. He made his way back home. From high up, Camp Half Blood looked tiny.

"Festus," Leo ran a hand over the metal dragon. "Prepare for landing!"

His heart started racing at the idea of seeing his old friends, if they still wanted him of course. He was really hoping that however much time he spent on Ogygia didn't equal years in the rest of the world. You would have thought he'd have time to find a newspaper, but no one actually reads them anymore, so finding one was pretty hard. Not to add to the fact he couldn't really speak with any of the locals wherever he was.

The land came closer and closer until his feet were actually back in Camp Half Blood. Leo's heart pounded as campers came out to greet him-- a large metal dragon landing next to the lake was bound to draw some attention. Relief filled him as he saw familiar faces; years didn't pass after all. Harley did look a little bit older though, but it was probably due to the fact that everyone aged rapidly when they were young. He and Nyssa ran out from the crowd and hugged him, a million questions going though their mind, but putting it off until later. Leo felt more relieved that his siblings didn't hate him.

"I'm so glad your back."

As he smiled, his eyes looked up to see the seven, plus Nico, running up to him, excluding the Romans who were stuck in Camp Jupiter. Harley and Nyssa backed away to let them all have a reunion. Leo smiled and got ready to get pulled into a big hug.

What he was not ready for was for Piper to slap him across his face, tears running down her own. "How-- Where were you, Valdez! Leo you can't not tell us you were alive!"

"I tried, but I didn't have any drachmas and I barely had any clue where I was and--"

"You could've tried harder. I thought you were dead, do you know what that feels like!" Piper looked at him pointedly and crossed her arms. The others stood their awkwardly, and Leo has to bit his tongue from saying something sharp back. His insides felt like they were getting twisted around and frozen to ice cold.

They didn't want you to come back. His thoughts told him. You've always know they hated you.

"We're glad you're back, Leo." Annabeth said, and Leo found himself in the group hug he was expecting. He was getting choked by everyone hugging, everyone except Piper who stood there watching with tears running down her face.

All of Leo's other friends and siblings came up and reunited with them. Everyone was at the cabins when Nico was instructing all the campers to get in a line to punch him for returning. Leo's insides turned cold every time someone punched him, his mind telling him that they were glad when he was dead. A few campers even punched him and got back in line afterwards.

"So, Leo, where were you?" Jason asked. Him, Piper, Percy, Annabeth, and Nico were all sitting at a table next to him while everyone had their turns at hitting him.

"When I first came back to life I was on Ogygia, and then when I left and found shore, I was somewhere in Asia. I basically went from there to here." Leo answered, trying to be as vague as possible. He tried not to think of what it would have been like if Calypso would've been there with him.

"Ogygia? What happened to Calypso, then?" Annabeth asked. Leo stayed silent, his eyes looked down to avoid their stares. They took his silence as an answer.

"Sorry, dude. If she broke up with you, that's her lost." Percy said sympathetically.

"She didn't break up with me!" Leo's voice cracked at the end. He cleared his throat. "She, um, died."

The five of them got quiet, and the only noise was an Ares camper punching Leo's arm so hard he was going to have to ice his arm later.

"Okay, stop! No more punching Leo! I'm all punched out!" Leo shouted at the line before turning to his friends. "Listen, I'm exhausted and haven't slept in who knows how long. I'll see you later, and if you can let Hazel and Frank know I'm not dead."

With that, Leo walked away in order to get some badly needed sleep.

a/n::: sorry i didn't check my grammar and stuff, i haven't updated in so long that i just wanted to get this out there. also, a few fyis. firstly, i don't ship caleo romantically because i find it forced and gross (she's under a love spell, and she's like thousands of years old and leo's fifteen) but i still included it because it's canon and because i needed it for more angst. secondly, i saw a few headcanons that leo's written as if he has borderline personality disorder, and i really liked that idea so i'm trying to include a few symptoms so he could get properly diagnosed in a later chapter. anyway, sorry for not updating in like a month.