In times of deepest darkness,
I've seen him dressed in black
-Tapestry, Carole King

They don't talk about it.

Calypso is sure that Leo is fully aware of every word she exchanged with Eros, she can see it in the way his eyebrows fold together in confusion when he thinks she isn't looking.

She wants to tell him about the potential she sees in him. She wants to tell him that the flash of his eyes when he smiles makes her heart skip a beat, that he doesn't have to use humor as a shield, that yes, yes she wants to go on his boat with him and meet his friends and see the world outside of Ogygia.

Instead, she smiles when he makes a joke about Leo and Calypso's Garage and asks him how long he thinks he'll take.

"But will it work?" she asks once, wondering whether he might really be leaving her in just a week.

Time is different on Ogygia, but a week could be forever or an instant. She has a feeling this week will be quicker than a heartbeat.

"Getting out, no problem," he says, and she wonders whether he really can break the magical barrier. No hero has ever tried before.

But Leo is still talking: "But to get back I'll need Festus and—"

"What?" Get back?

No. No, he can't be—he's not suggesting—

He tries to sidetrack, to talk about Festus and something called an astrolabe, but she doesn't let him. "You can't come back," she says flatly.

"Because I'm not welcome?"

She almost laughs. Of course he'd be welcome.

I like Leo Valdez. She'd said the words to Eros just last night, after all. And given time, like could very easily turn into love.

Time was just the one thing they didn't have.

She pushes the thought aside. "Because you can't. It's impossible. No man finds Ogygia twice" – she doesn't even have a sarcastic comment to make about the fact that she just called Leo, scrawny, energetic Leo, a man – "That is the rule."

He protests of course: "We'll spring you. Take you wherever you want to go. It's only fair."

"Fair," she echoes, but she can barely hear the word over Ogygia's whispering – Leo Valdez Leo Valdez Leo Valdez – it's been so long since anything in her life has resembled fairness.

The wind picks up and the waves seem to crash against the shore harder than they normally do and Calypso realizes what is happening before Leo has even finished with his response.

No matter what Eros may think, falling in love is not something one can control. It's a sudden slide from I like you and you make me smile to I would rather be separated so that you can save the world and become a true hero, even if it hurts me more than anything has ever hurt me before, because I love you.

By the time he notices the raft, her throat feels so tight she can barely speak. "Hurry!" she shouts, and even just getting that word out takes more willpower than she thought she had.

This is singlehandedly one of the hardest things she's ever had to do.

Because Leo isn't going back to his Annabeth, his Penelope, his Elizabeth. He's going back to save the world.

Which means that he could have stayed.

And this time, she's the one forcing them apart.

He's staring at the raft. "But if it only shows up for guys you like…"

His eyes flash. He's alluding to the conversation he overheard between her and Eros, and she knows it, but godsdamn if she's going to let him get away with it.

"Don't push your luck, Leo Valdez. I still hate you." No I don't, no I don't, no I don't.

"Okay," he says, but he's staring into her eyes, his deep brown irises flowing with warmth and security.

"And you are not coming back here. So don't give me empty promises."

His eyes slip from her eyes to her lips. Her heart skips a beat.

"How about a full promise? Because I'm definitely—"

Calypso presses up onto her toes and crashes her lips against his.

This. This moment is better than any of her dreams about him could possibly have prepared her for. It's electricity and fire and love pulsing between them, two people who might never see each other again but at least have this moment right now together.

Leo is new at this, and Calypso may have had more experience but only with a smattering of guys, each one centuries after the last, so the kiss starts out slow, tentative, just a bare brush of lips that she still manages to feel through her whole body.

And then it picks up, and Leo catches her bottom lip between his, and he draws a sound out of her that she didn't know she could make. Her hands thread into his hair, his – those hands that could never be still – travel from her shoulders down her back and across her arms, setting every inch of her on fire.

But it has to end eventually, so she pushes him away.

"That didn't happen."

"Okay."

"Get out of here."

"Okay."

The wind pushes the raft away before she can even tell him she loves him.

Later, while she stares at her loom and tries to pretend that everything can ever be normal again, Ogygia's threads tremble against each other, reverberating with sound.

It's faint, and hard to make out, but she suddenly realizes that it's Leo's voice.

I'm coming back for you Calypso. I swear it on the River Styx.

Now my tapestry's unraveling
He's come to take me back
-Tapestry, Carole King

Fin.