Leo slept on the couch with a
blanket that night. He was deep in sleep, dreaming about weddings.

He imagined his
mother getting married with his godly father, Hephaestus. He knew, of course,
that gods don't get married with their mortal flings. But it was nice, though,
to see his parents getting married.

Then the dream
switched so he was watching his own wedding. He saw himself all dressed up in a
tuxedo, his hands clean of any oil stains. A veiled bride was coming down the
aisle. Leo hoped it was Calypso, but as she got closer, he saw that it was Gaea
in her veil of dirt, her eyes closed and a dreamy smile on her lips.

Leo gasped and
looked back at himself, but only to find dream-Leo gone, replaced with a
faceless person. Leo blinked a few times but the unknown groom was till
standing there. He turned back to look at the bride to see it was someone
different. It looked like an older Calypso. Like, anold-older Calypso. Her face
was all wrinkly, but her bright eyes and cheerful smile were still the same.

Leo felt a pang
through his gut. He knew it was just a dream (not that all demigod dreamswerejust dreams), but it pained him to see
his crush happily getting married with some other guy.

He awoke from his
dream so suddenly he thrashed out his arms trying to defend himself because he
thought he was being attacked in his sleep.

"Ouch!"
cried a girl's voice.

Leo froze.
"Who's there and what do you want?"

The voice huffed
under her breath. "It's just me, Calypso."

Leo waited for his
eyes to adjust to the darkness. It was, in fact, Calypso standing by the couch
were he slept. "Calypso," He asked. "Why- what are you
doing?"

She held up his
blanket. "I was getting a glass of water, and I saw that you had kicked
the blanket off in your sleep. I tried to put it back on because it was a
little chilly until you freaked out." Calypso frowned and threw the
blanket at Leo.

He put the blanket
aside and arranged himself so he was sitting upright. He patted the space next
to him, motioning for Calypso to sit down. Warily, she complied.

"Well, now
we're both awake. Wanna' talk?" Leo asked.

"Not really.
Tell me a story instead." She answered.

"About
what?"

"About your
quest to stop Gaea."

"That'll be a
long story."

"The night's
long enough."

Leo sighed, and
leaned back on the couch, aware of how close they were. "It all started on
the bus in the Wilderness school. I've told you this part before though. Want
me to skip it?"

Calypso yawned.
"Sure. Begin where you guys flew to Camp Jupiter
the first time."

So Leo told her
the long and sad and mad and happy tale of the biggest quest of his life. He
skimmed over the part about his days on Ogygia. He was almost done when he
noticed Calypso snoring softly beside him. Her head was tiled to the side so
that her neck would be sore when she woke up in the morning after sleeping in
that position for a long time.

Leo tried to set
her more comfortable as gently as he could. It resulted in her head lying
against the arm of the couch and her body occupying the rest of it.

Now, Leo had no
place to sleep but the floor. He could go sleep in Calypso's empty bed, but
that seemed like an invasion of her privacy. Even though it was only the guest
room and it wasn't really hers anyways.

Leo didn't feel
like sleeping the night in either place, so he tried to curl up next to Calypso
without really touching her.

Since she was on
the outer edge of the couch, he tried to place himself next to the back of it,
facing the cushions. It took a long time because he was trying not to wake her,
but he finally managed it.

He snuggled on the
couch with his back to hers and fell asleep.

Leo woke for the
second time, but to a surprised gasp right in his ear.

He groggily opened
his eyes. He had his body cocooned around something long and soft. For a
second, he thought it was his *cough* huggie-pillow *cough* back at home, but
it was breathing. Pillows don't breathe. Or snore softly like…Calypso. Oh, no.

His eyes flung
open and he saw that he was cuddling with Calypso. Leo sat upright, knocking
her out of the couch.

"AH!"
She yelped as she hit the ground with a thud. "What in Olympus…?"

Leo sat on the
couch, his face beet-red. "Wha-!"

He met eyes with
Calypso, who was in a heap on the ground. They stared at each other wide-eyed,
they awkwardness to thick to break through. The sound of two doors opening and
shuffling came from down the hall. Frank and Hazel ran to the living room in
their pajamas.

"What's
wrong? Is everyone okay?" Frank asked, looking around the room, searching
for an intruder.

Leo broke eye
contact with Calypso and said, "No, everything's all right." He
searched his head for a passable excuse. "Calypso just came to wake me up
for breakfast and scared me."

Frank and Hazel
looked at them.

Hazel sighed.
"All right. Just don't scare us like that. I really thought something bad
had happened."

Calypso got up and
straightened her nightclothes. "I'm sorry. Should I cook breakfast? It's
the least I could do." She looked at Leo again and the two quickly averted
their gaze.

All Leo could
think about through breakfast was the fact that they had spent the night
together in the same couch. Hopefully Calypso didn't mind, because Leo
certainly didn't.

The morning went
by quickly to Leo's relief. The four planned to do some practicing in the camp
grounds.

"You never
know when a monster will come after you." Leo said. "We may have
defeated Gaea, but we're still demigods—excluding Calypso here—and that means
we're still at risk. You don't want to be confronted by a hoard of monsters and
find that you're a little rusty at fighting."

"Like how
Percy and Annabeth still attend Camp
Half-Blood," Hazel
pointed out. "And I could practice my Mist-bending skills."

"Exactly.
So what kind of things do you practice?"

"Well,"
Frank said. "We can see if we can practice Pegasus riding. Oh, and maybe
we can use some battle armor and weapons to practice combat fighting."

Leo didn't really
have a weapon of his own. If he needed to fight, he just used his fire or tools
from his magic tool belt, but it couldn't hurt to try. For example, if he didn't
have his belt or if he fought someone who was immune to fire attacks.

In reality, Leo
thought, riding a Pegasus was harder than it seems.

Don't be misguided
by those cartoons where people just jump on the Pegasus' back and fly off into
the rainbow. You have to make sure theywantyou to ride them. Then you have to
make sure you don't slip off the dumb winged beast. Its wings are always
getting loose feathers in your face or pushing you off. And trust Leo when he
says, falling off a horse in midairhurts.
Luckily Frank is in eagle mode to catch fallers. If you don't have a Frank,
then you're screwed.

Leo had no idea
how Percy manages to stay in his horse/brother Blackjack. (And yes, Leo thought
it was disturbing that Percy was a half-brother to all Cyclopes and horses. And
the fact his dad dated Medusa who had Pegasus.) Calypso seemed to be getting on
okay, and Hazel already knew how to ride her horse, Arion. Leo had only ridden
him once, and they wentveryfast.

Combat training
was alright, if alright meant that you accidentally burned off your clothes
again in front of all of Camp
Jupiter and almost got
killed by your crush with a sword. Yeah, Leo was not a good
Pegasus-riding-sword-fighter.

Nonetheless, he
was having a great time. Leo was doing something active with his friends and it
gave him a chance to erase all tension with Calypso. The day was good, until
some roman dude started hitting on Calypso.

They were having
lunch Roman-style (which was amazing, Leo thought. Romans knew how to eat.),
when this guy came and sat right next to Calypso. Like, he shoved Leo aside,
looked at him like this guy thought he was some kind of Latino defect, and
flashed a dazzling smile at Calypso.

"Hey
there," He said. He reminded Leo of Dylan, the storm creature that pretended
to be human and tried hitting on all the girls in school, including Piper.

Leo glared at him
as hard as he could. Too bad; Leo couldn't shoot lasers from his eyes.

The new guy
continued his attempt at flirting. "I haven't seen you around before.
Where have you been all this time?"

Leo was about to
tell this guy off for being rude and trying to get his almost-girl.

Calypso scoffed.
"Definitely away from you.*"

Leo stifled a
laugh as the guy scowled.

"Now, now, I
don't like girls who play hard to get."

Calypso frowned in
frustration. "Leave me alone.Get
lost. By the way... I'm taken."

Leo gaped at her.
Taken? Like as in, taken-taken? By who?Leo?

The dude frowned
even more and got up to leave. "Whatever, I'm out of here. There are
better girls around here than you." He strutted away, leaving Leo
flabbergasted.

"Taken?"
He asked Calypso.

She blushed but
shook her head. "I just said that to get him to leave."

Leo's heart went,plunk. "Oh."

Calypso eyed him
shyly. "Unless…"

Leo looked up.
"Unless?"

She fiddled with
her food, opening and closing her mouth like she wanted to say something but
couldn't find the right words. Leo felt that way right now.

Should I ask
her?

How? Should I
just say, Hey, I want to be your boyfriend, so date me please?

Should I—

Leo was spared
having to ask when Calypso blurted out quickly,
"Unless-you-want-to-maybe-like-go-out-sometime?"

Leo sat there with
his mouth slightly open.

"I mean, if
you want to…" She shook her head. "I shouldn't have asked but you—I—I
mean…"

Leo took her hand.
"Yeah. Sure. I mean, of course!" He smiled and she smiled back. The
day world could end and nothing would damper his mood.