𝙼𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚒𝚊 (𝙇𝙚𝙤 𝙑𝙖𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙯 𝙓 𝙊𝙘)

είκοσι οχτώ

**********
She messed up. She messed up big time. He should have been one of the first people she told about her prophecy and her mark.

Elena watched open mouthed as Leo went into a flat out sprint to run away from her. The back of her ear tingled, the sensitive spot reminding her to stay alert as she tossed another soldier into the water, black tendrils swatting in annoyance as she began to chase after him. She had to face the music. The awfully out of tune guitar that was her life told her she had to tell him even if it meant hurting what they had together. 

"LEO! LEO!" She yelled, chasing him. Leo didn't turn back. She bounded towards the ship just as Annabeth and Piper made it on board, Gangplank falling into the sea as they tumbled on.
"Go!" Annabeth screamed. "Go, go, go!"

The engines rumbled beneath Elena. The oars churned. Jason changed the course of the wind, and Percy called up a massive wave, which lifted the ship higher than the fort's walls and pushed it out to sea. Leo remained at the steering stony faced and impassive at her attempts to talk with the excuse that he was busy.

Elena returned to her room to sulk, startling a tired looking Jason as she glared at him for bumping into her in the hallway. By the time the Argo II reached top speed, Fort Sumter was only a blot in the distance, and their warm and loving relationship had effectively iced over. At least in her opinion.

**********
Leo's mind was racing a mile a minute. Thoughts on what it was Elena was trying to say to him, on what she was hiding and how he'd react if he figured out she was lying again.
They broke up exactly a day after they'd gotten together (Leo's first and fastest relationship).

Not because of each other but due to the mutual agreement that they didn't have enough time to spend on dating. He was building a ship and Elena was... she was acting differently. Ever since they'd returned from their quest, she'd been different. It was minor at first. She'd greet him in the mornings slightly lethargic but nothing too drastic, the Hephaestus cabin hadn't exactly been catching z's either. Then within a week, he'd seen her less and less, she'd pop in to say hello, bring snacks then leave looking more and more dishevelled...more and more bruises and cuts adorning her body. Two months in, Leo realised one night that he hadn't seen her in a while.

When he asked Nyssa about this she'd shrugged dismissively. "Elle has always been in and out of camp. We went a whole year without her once. No one questions it anymore, it's just Elle being Elle." Leo wanted to protest that this was how many kids wound up missing or dead but dismissed it, she was a demigod, a strong one at that. Months later, Piper would inform him that she'd packed up and left for two months in the dead of the night, baby brother in tow. She also mentioned that Elena had been cryptic when asked where she'd gone. It hadn't mattered to Leo then, she was back at least.

Maybe he should have pushed harder. He should have asked about the bags under her eyes that seemed to get larger and larger, the ever growing collection of scars and the ominous cloud of black smoke that seemed to hang around her every time she walked through camp. He should have questioned all this instead of just shrugging and continuing building his ship. He should have been more attentive to the way this all disappeared a literal day before their departure. She'd walked into Bunker 9 the morning of their departure suddenly glowing, full of vitality that he'd never seen in her in the time he'd known her. They'd been together again officially for a month by then but even then- he hadn't questioned.

Leo realised with a startling clarity that he wasn't upset with Elena. He was angry with himself for ignoring how stretched thin she was. Maybe she had tried to tell him but he'd brushed her off? Maybe she was hurting? Maybe she was secretly crying at night while he wasn't there, sadness overwhelming her and-