madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

- oh look, a big strong man needs rescuing!-

Teqi woke up with a lurch as the taxi stopped suddenly, her head fell off Leo's shoulder and Piper helped the confused girl out. They were about halfway up the mountain, and Teqi could see the city sprawled out below them. Piper grabbed her pack out of the taxi and passed Teqi her Captain America one, while Leo paid the driver.

"That's Concord," Jason said, pointing to the north, as Teqi went through her bag, finally seeing what Aphrodite had packed her. "Walnut Creek below us. To the south, Danville, past those hills. And that way ..." He pointed west, where a ridge of golden hills held back a layer of fog, like the rim of a bowl. "That's the Berkeley Hills. The East Bay. Past that, San Francisco."

"Jason?" Piper touched his arm, sensing something was wrong. "You remember something? You've been here?"

"Yes ... no." He gave her an anguished look, before sighing. "It just seems important."

"That's Titan land." Coach Hedge nodded toward the west, hefting his club like he was ready to fight it. "Bad place, Jason. Trust me, this is as close to 'Frisco as we want to get."

"I got an iPod!" Teqi said happily, holding up the little device attached to the headphones she found. "Hey, guys," Leo said, redirecting their attention. "Let's keep moving." The ground was starting to sink around them, like quicksand. Teqi was still at normal height because of her chunky shoes, but the rest of them were a good bit shorter. She rested her arm on Leo's head patronizingly, showing off her height.

"Gaea is stronger here," Hedge grumbled. He popped his hooves free from his shoes, then handed the shoes to Leo, who was rolling his eyes at Teqi. "Keep those for me, Valdez. They're nice." Leo snorted indignantly. "Yes, sir, Coach. Would you like them polished?"

"That's varsity thinking, Valdez." Hedge nodded approvingly, starting forwards. "But first, we'd better hike up this mountain while we still can."

"How do we know where the giant is?" Piper asked, looking around the dirt road they were on. Jason pointed toward the peak of the mountain. Drifting across the summit was a plume of smoke. From a distance, it had looked like a dark cloud, but it wasn't. Something was burning up there.

"Smoke equals fire," Jason said, pulling his shoes out of the sinking ground as well. "We'd better hurry."

Teqi was eternally grateful she had stayed fit through the whole homelessness and then wilderness camp stage, because it was really paying off now. Unfortunately for her friends, she still couldn't walk up a mountainside that was trying to suck her down while carrying them all, much to Piper's protests.

Leo was fiddling with his little gold thing again; she wasn't sure exactly what he was going to make it into. He looked up when she slowed down slightly to walk next to him. She was still digging through her pack, looking for something that wasn't there.

"Here?" Leo asked, holding out the orange camp half-blood hoodie. "It was on the back of your chair; I grabbed it before we left." She examined it quickly, checking the nametag again and then shrugging it on, covering the exposed scars. "Thank you."

"Is it..."

"Yeah."

"Mi querida, I don't, I don't know what happened before, at Aeolus's place, but you know that I'd never hurt you, right?" Leo asked tentatively, glancing up at her before focusing on his shoes, that slowly sunk into the ground when they walked too slow.

"Of course, I trust you, Leo." Teqi said simply, smiling at him. I'd trust you with my life. "You're my best friend." You're more than that.