Hanging by a Thread

Summary: For the first time in eons, Calypso hopes. She's not disappointed.

Pairings: Calypso/Leo Valdez

Note: Part 2 as per popular request. Takes place from where the first part ended off. I'm probably not going to make a part 3 to this that extends post-series, but if I do for some reason they will be added as chapters to this story. (They'll probably only be drabbles though!) Also, I don't know how much time passed between the Leo's arrivals, so I took a creative liberty and made it up/did some weird fictional time scattering and things. All mistakes are mine.

Disclaimer: Obviously Rick Riordan owns the series and mentioned characters. I do not make profit off this. All dialogue you recognize (at the end) is directly from the books.

DAY ONE

Calypso woke up with the side of her face blanketed by the sand. She frowned, sitting up and stretching her sore muscles. She rubbed the sand off of her face and tilted her head quizzically. At first she wasn't sure how she ended up sleeping on the beach of all places and why her chest ached so much. Then she remembered.

Oh. Oh.

Tears threatened to fall down her cheeks and a lump rose to her throat. She stood up abruptly, rubbing her eyes furiously and repeating the words I'm fine I'm fine over and over again until it lost its' meaning against the tirade of emotions threatening to overwhelm her.

She should have expected this. In fact, she did expect this. But there was something about the demigod that had her hopeful if only for just a moment. The sooner she accepted it, the better: he was not coming back, and Calypso would never see him again. If she were extremely unlucky, another hero who knew him would land on Ogygia and start yapping about Leo Valdez and whatever future girlfriend he was bound to get. But this news would hurt indefinitely more than with Percy.

Of course, falling out of love is no easy feat. How silly she was! To think that Leo was the one who would escape this curse of hers and they would part on the terms of friends if not acquaintances. It was stupid of her to kiss him like that even though she knew he was leaving.

The heart wants what it wants, Calypso thought bitterly. Except she never got to keep it.

It was nothing to dwell upon any longer. What happened with Leo was over, and she had to move on with her life just like she had with Percy and Odysseus. Calypso stared out into the open sea before she gathered the pieces of her heart that was scattered around the beach and headed back home.

DAY TWO

Percy spoke of dreams.

Calypso remembered from his stay at her island. The demigod dreamt, and he dreamt often. She herself, however had never dreamt a single dream in her entire life. It was possibly the side effect of being a goddess. Whatever it was, it had never bothered her before.

But now...

Leo was standing in front of her, rambling on about how some invention of his had gotten him back to the island the second time. Calypso wasn't listening. She swooped him in her arms and he let out a yelp of surprise. "Whoa, Sunshine!" he said, but his tone with filled with joy and they laughed together.

Calypso pulled away slightly, looking into his eyes before kissing him briefly on the lips. His hands tightened around her waist and their kiss became more intimate as he surged up to meet the kiss. They kissed, and kissed, and kissed...

And suddenly Calypso was lying in her own bed and staring at the cavern walls. The air was cold around her and goosebumps prickled on her all too mortal skin. Her heart felt heavy and leaden, and she would have liked very much to lie down and sleep forever in this hollow.

She rose from the bed and continued on her monotonous routine she had been following for the last centuries, but even the flowers couldn't comfort her.

DAY THREE

Calypso thought it must be easier to leave someone than be left behind.

Everyone who left would go back to being with their friends and family that they had left behind. So what if they lost one person who may or may not have been important to them at one point in their lives? They would have other people to fill the hole that was left in their hearts, and soon Calypso would be nothing more than a distant memory of a paradise that never was. She would become not a person or a thing or even a goddess but just a story to be told and passed along.

Being left behind however hurt so much that Calypso couldn't even open her mouth without wanting to break down into tears. Leo could forget her amongst the loud voices of the other demigods. Calypso's garden was her only living company. She could feel the ache constantly: in the beat of her heart, the pressure in her throat, the unshed tears behind her eyes, and the phantom brush of lips on her own.

Her hands clenched at the thought and with a sharp yank upwards she uprooted a dead Moonlace.

DAY SEVEN

There was something wrong with her garden. The Moonlaces were wilted, and most of them were already dead or unsalvageable. While it was unpleasant to see all the dead flowers, there was something different about it that it relieved the ache if only just barely.

Of course it's Leo who comes here and ruins all monotony, Calypso thought half bitterly and half in amusement. The moment she thought about him, the impish demigod came into view again and she felt her heart twist with pain and anxiety. Time passed differently on Ogygia and the mortal world, and Ogygia never kept within the same time difference. Some days Ogygia would walk hand in hand with the mortal world. Other times, Ogygia would take a hundred steps for every one of the mortal. Most of the time, Ogygia lingered behind the mortal's steady pacing.

Perhaps seventy years had passed for Leo while only seven had.

Perhaps Leo had died in Gaea's promised war.

The thought was both terrifying and relieving. It was confusing enough that Calypso immediately discarded the idea and went to carefully tend her garden. By the end of the Ogygian day, all the Moonlace in the garden had been removed save for one.

DAY TWELVE

For some reason, she dreamed of a memory.

"You are not coming back here. So don't give me any empty promises."

"How about full promises?"

Her cheeks were wet when she woke up, but she was also smiling for the first time since he left. The ache still hurt, but today - just today she felt like doing something else. She strolled down to the beach - the edges of the island she was cursed to remain on until the end of forever. She hadn't gone back for a while, but today felt different. The crater in the sand was gone and so was all evidence that the awkward, but boyish and charming demigod had ever been on this island at all.

Her heart took a steep plummet downwards and she stared at the endless waves washing against the sand. She felt lonely and small for a goddess of eons, but she kept hearing his words repeating over and over again. Full promises full promises full promises. How about full promises?

"Leo Valdez, you are one great big mystery of a demigod for such a foolish boy," she said out loud for the first time in days. Part endearment, part angst, and part bitterness.

But she went home feeling lighter for some reason, almost like she could see a small crack in the wall where there had been nothing before. If she could just keep sight of it and wear it down a little more every day, then the wall would collapse and she would be free. But the thought was fleeting and fickle, and she felt as if she were hanging by this single thread of light. It could snap at any moment and leave her in an even more broken state - but it could also give her back the wings that were clipped so long ago. Holding onto it was a risk - but it was a risk she wanted to take.

Maybe this was what hope was meant to feel like.

DAY TWENTY

The Moonlaces were growing again, giving off a beautiful luminescent glow when the sun fell beneath the horizon. Calypso had spent days exploring the island to collect wild Moonlace to grow in her garden after most of her domesticated flowers died due to poor care.

She watched the flowers under the night sky in contentment. The single Moonlace that hadn't died off shone the brightest amongst the rest. Calypso felt a little silly for doing so, but she decided it was only fair that she bestowed the name Leo to that particular Moonlace.

DAY THIRTY-EIGHT

Clothing wasn't the only thing that Calypso procured from Leo's memory when he was still on the island.

Humans seemed to take an interest into fine literature these days - especially grumpy old women with severe buns who liked to yell at Leo. She could almost see the words of the book Leo had been forced to read in a place of suffering called 'school'. As disgruntled as Leo was to be force-fed Romeo and Juliet, Calypso was secretly happy. She accessed the book easily through Leo's unwanted memories and had soon read the book multiple times.

While she could recall from Leo's memories how his peers had discussed why Romeo and Juliet were not an example of a pure love story, she couldn't help loving the secret tryst and the romantic notations that were snuffed out so quickly. That, and the fact that this William Shakespeare was such a master of prose that she often found herself repeating lines over and over again until they were seared into her memory.

But the reason why she loved it so much was that it was different. She had only known one love story her whole life: her own. The hero arrives, she falls in love, the hero leaves forevermore. It was an endless cycle of repetitive heartbreak but she couldn't help falling hard every single time.

(But if anyone asked, Leo was the one she would always remember the most fondly out of all of them.)

Romeo and Juliet was a love story that she never knew. Perhaps it was because it was the main love story of the heroes that she had encountered. But unlike those heroes, Romeo never had a Calypso thrown in his path. He walked down the tragic road of a forbidden love and died in the arms of his lover. Calypso was enraptured by the passion - being able to love so much that you would willingly die so you did not have to spend another day without your lover.

But Leo was still alive, she kept telling herself over and over again even though a thousand years may have passed in the mortal world. As long as she clung onto that thread of hope, she could wait until the end of time itself for his promised return.

DAY SIXTY-FOUR

She missed their banter.

Percy, Drake, and Odysseus - they were all so serious, and angsty, and anxious, and sad. Now that she was thinking back on it, Calypso felt more like a woman who was only there to offer comfort and distraction to those demigods. She was a distraction for their women, their quest, their duty. She was just an obstacle in the story - a seemingly random goddess that no one expected nor wanted.

With Leo, she could be herself in a way that she never could with the other heroes. The others were suffocating and forceful - pushing her into the role of the temptress she never wanted to be. The lightness of their conversations and their quick-witted and jocular teasing was what made him different from them. He didn't force her into the role she always subconsciously resigned herself to playing. He let her breathe, and by Tartarus, it felt good to breathe.

DAY SEVENTY-ONE

The loud noise in the sky was what awoke Calypso. Something stirred inside of her - deja vu as the mortals call it. But it was less deja vu and more deja me sens. She felt it inside the folds of her heart like it was bursting free and singing like a joyful bird in the early morning.

(Even though the noise was less joyful morning creature and more creaking hinges, somewhat obnoxious clicking, and the loud sound of whirring gears.)

So she wasn't exactly surprised when she saw a giant bronze dragon fly through the sky heading directly for the island, a somewhat charred but whooping figure on its back. An involuntary smile came upon her lips and she didn't even look back when she rushed from the cavern and the garden onto the beach where they first met. Her heart was leaping for joy. Her footsteps, once graceful and controlled, became the short and clumsy stumbles of a mortal. She couldn't find the will to care.

She was there just in time to see him face-plant onto the sand, and she was absolutely certain it was Leo at this point. For who could be so clumsy yet endearing? It certainly wasn't Odysseus.

"You're late," she said when he looked up at her. His curly hair was in disarray, his clothing ruined somehow, and soot covered his arms. All in all, he looked terrible, but that didn't deter her glee.

"Sorry, Sunshine," he said, and it was then that she realized how much she had missed that timbre. "Traffic was murder."

She had an overwhelming urge to hug the demigod senseless. Calypso restrained herself, opting to point out the disarray in his appearance. "You are covered in soot. And you managed to ruin the clothes I made for you, which were impossible to ruin." Only Leo could ever manage something like that. She held out her hand to help him up. He took it. She hadn't felt the warmth of skin-to-skin contact for so long, and she just wanted to hold on to him tightly and never let him out of her sight again.

"Well you know. I'm all about doing the impossible." They stood so close that Calypso could smell him. She wrinkled her nose at the uncurrent of rot amongst the smell of burnt flesh.

"You smell - "

Leo cut her off with an easy grin. "I know. Like I've been dead. Probably because I have been. Oath to keep with final breath and all, but I'm better now - "

Leo - foolish, reckless, and brave - Calypso couldn't keep up the pretense any longer and pulled him roughly closer to her for their long-awaited reunion kiss. Leo didn't smell pleasant at all, but she couldn't muster the ability to care at this point.

"Leo Valdez," she whispered when they pulled away. His full name felt right on her lips, singing in her vocal chords like no other name had before. She reached out, tracing a finger along his cheekbone and her own heart trembled and swelled at the sensation.

"That's me." His voice was breathy and awed. "So, um... you want to get off this island?" He smiled at her, tilting his head to look at her with his endearing dark eyes.

"What gave you that idea?" she said in jest. With a raise of her hand, her invisible servants whisked two suitcases at her feet. They were packed with everything she had ever needed during her long time on Ogygia.

(She also packed a single Moonlace plant - Leo the Moonlace. That was a story she was both reluctant and eager to tell to the original namesake standing in front of her.)

"Packed for a long trip, huh?" The easy grin was back, and it took all of Calypso's restraint not to kiss him again.

"I don't plan on coming back," she said. Despite her words, she allowed herself one more glance back toward the garden and the cavern, and the place that was her home and her prison. "Where will you take me, Leo?"

The demigod thought about it for a second. "Somewhere to fix my dragon, first. And then...wherever you want." He seemed to flush a bit at his words and he quickly changed the topic. "How long was I gone, seriously?"

Calypso tried not to let out a wince at the thought of those endless days spent without Leo by her side. "Time is difficult on Ogygia." With a pause, she admitted, "It felt like forever."

At these words, Leo's face took an expression of doubt and questioning, but he quickly turned his attention back to Calypso. "So once you leave Ogygia, do you stay immortal or what?"

The question was startling. "I have no idea," she said without preamble. The thought of being mortal after so many years of an endless loop...it sounded wonderful. Brilliantly wonderful. Maybe this wasn't what Percy had in mind when he asked for the Olympian gods to free her. But this - the idea of being mortal and prone to the changing of times - perhaps this was the freedom she was searching for the whole time.

"And you're okay with that?" Leo's eyebrows scrunched in concern as he examined her face.

A smile made its' way upon her lips. "More than okay."

"Well, then!" Leo turned to look over at his dragon. "Buddy, you up for another flight to nowhere in particular?"

The dragon looked at Calypso, blowing fire in an almost affectionate way and limped around in the sand.

Calypso took a step closer to the dragon and then stopped herself. "So we take off with no plan. No idea where we'll go or what problems await beyond this island. Many questions, no tidy answers?" She could feel the excited pounding of her heart - this was the hero's side of the story. No longer was she merely a distraction in the form of a woman, but a character in a story about to be told.

"That's how I fly, Sunshine. Can I get your bags?" Leo asked, smiling brightly at her.

The answer was immediate, followed by a smile that spoke of delight. "Absolutely."

When they were high up in the sky on the back of a giant bronze dragon, Calypso finally allowed herself to glance down at the island that was growing smaller and smaller by the second. From up here, the island looked small and insignificant: all green and paradise but no longer the place she called home. Now she was on the other side of the story: she was the one who was leaving Ogygia. But this didn't feel like goodbye at all. This was a promise, an oath fulfilled, and a step (or a beat of giant mechanical wings) toward a new beginning.

She turned back around to face forward, wrapping her arms tighter around Leo's waist as they flew off toward the depthless blue skies.

Author's Note: I hoped you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Again, I do not plan to extend this pairing past this point, but keep an eye out for any AU's I post about them. (Though R.R stole my attention by putting in Nico/Will! haha. It's more likely that for 50 Solangelo fics I will write 1 Caleo fic at this point.)

A note about the fic: while I don't think Leo is the person to read anything except hardcore physics textbooks and mechanical manuals, my thought is that he probably was forced to read a Shakespeare play that is almost always taught to every American student as soon as they can write essays.

Reviews are amazing of course! Even if it's just a two-word review. Or maybe one word. Nevertheless, I would be very grateful!