A Series of Failed Girlfriends: A Leo Valdez Story

Chapter Seven

Her name was Hallie Livengood. I meet Hallie when I was twenty-four and she was twenty-three; she was the person who made me wake up, and forgive my friends; even if she broke my heart in the process.

I was back at camp, the Roman's were there, the hunters were there, Poseidon, and Athena were all there. The other seven, Nico, and Tyson were also there. Malcolm was there of course, he was one of the groomsmen. Everyone was standing around being happy. Except for one blond-haired girl standing off to the side; she leans against a tree in a black dress and top. She smiles at the happy couple standing at the altar, Percy and Annabeth, and watched as they kissed their I do's.

The ceremony, for friends, ends and Percy and Annabeth head down to the limousine waiting for them in front of the big house; they climb in and drive away to the second ceremony for family.

The people begin to leave and I see Piper and Jason herding three little kids towards a minivan. I laugh and watch one run over to me.

The little guy has Piper's hair and smile but has Jason's eyes and body. I pick him up and walk him back over to his parents.

"Hey guys!" I say to the stressed looking couple.

"Oh, hi Leo," Jason grumbles. Piper gives me a smile then takes back the little guy. She picks up another boy and Jason scoops up a little girl, which oddly looks a lot like Thalia.

"Jenny, you know you can't visit; now head back to your mommy." Jason says to the little girl. She nods and quickly skips off to Thalia, who stands in her Hunter uniform.

"So how have you two been?" I ask with a smile.

"Stressed," Piper says trying to hold both squirming boys. Jason takes one and continues to glare at me.

"How have you been Leo?" Piper asks with a smile.

"I've been good; I have my own mechanic shop in New York now so it's been good."

Jason looks at his, expensive, watch and says that they needed to be going. They get into their minivan and pull away.

I meander over to Thalia to talk but then I see something unexpected, Thalia kisses Nico! The little girl calls him daddy and he picks her up. Thalia waves good-bye to Artemis and they disappear with Nico's shadow travel.

The girl with blond hair remains leaning against the tree watching this all with sad eyes.

"Hi," I say to her. She looks at me a bit confused then shakes her head, "Hello," she says back.

Her hair has trickles of black in it and her dark green eyes flecked with brown.

"Hey, would you want to go hang out or something?" She shrugs and we head over to the lake.

"So what's your name?"

"Hallie Livengood, what's yours?"

"Leo Valdez."

"So you're a hero or something?" She asks with a half-smile.

"Not really, I haven't been back to camp in years… I haven't seen the other seven since I was eighteen, really weird to be back honestly." I say remembering the fall out.

"Well, is it true?" She asks with a questioning look.

"What?" I ask confused.

"That you can use fire; I was told that you could, I started camp a year after you left."

"Well, yeah, here I'll show you." I lift my hand and show her my lit fingers. She watches the flame dance from finger to finger and dims and blazes back to life.

We sit on the pier and talk for a few hours, when we hear a few kids come running down to the lake at almost midnight.

"Oh, sorry, we didn't see you guys there." A boy says. His black hair and brown eyes remind me of Nico. The girl stands awkwardly next to him, her blond hair and gray eyes give away that she is an Athena girl, and she looks quite a bit like Annabeth.

"Whose kids are you?" I ask out of curiosity.

"Um, I'm a son of Hades, and she's a daughter of Athena." The boy says awkwardly.

"What about the oath?" I ask now completely confused.

"The oath was destroyed about 19 years ago," The girl says. I nod realizing that Hades, Zeus and Poseidon kids were probably pretty common now.

"So how many siblings do you have?" I ask.

"Hades, Zeus and Poseidon are only allowed to have one kid at camp at a time. So it's just me in the cabin." The boy says plainly. He and the Athena kid run off back to the main camp and I shake my head in confusion.

"That's just a bad plan; world war three will start…" I say, mostly to myself.

"Well, then it'll be another fifty years and they'll try it again." Hallie sighs.

"True, they seem to have very short memories about those things." I laugh.

I take her hand and help her up, "Can I escort you to the city?" I ask her with a smile.

"Well, my ride isn't supposed to come till tomorrow, so why not?"

I laugh and we head to my new sports car.

We go up to the roof of my apartment building, and watch the city and the blank city night sky.

"Leo?" She whispers from next to me.

"Yes?" I whisper back, I put my arm around her and pull her closer so I can hear her mumbles.

"Why did you want to talk to me?"

"Because you looked lonely…like me…" I say with a bit of sadness.

"I…I can't even compare to the sadness I've heard you went through…" She says with a frown. I think of what she could have heard but then she continues, "I was told that your mom died...and that you were left at the alter…and that you had been dumped by girls you loved…and that you…" I listen to her continue listing off everything that people had told her that had happened to me, I thought of each of these events knowing what she said was true. Then she was quiet

"What happened with you and your friends?" She asks after a pause.

Thinking back on the night in that apartment with them all makes me cringe. "Listen I don't want to talk about it." I say pulling my arm away, "It's late; you should get going home…"

"Leo, I live in Virginia, I can't go home…" I look at her and sigh. "I'll get you a cab back to camp then."

She sits up and looks at me, "Listen I'm sorry for asking, but I can get my own cab." She stands up and walks back into the building.

I sit there for a minute then get up and follow her.

"Hallie, I'm sorry that was rude." I say to the empty hall.

I look around and ride the elevator down to the lobby; I ask George, the door man, if he had seen her.

"Leo, she went down the road that way," He points towards the empire state building and I thank him. Running down the street I look for the blond.

"Hallie!" I scream down the street, nothing.

It's this just before dawn time of the city where everyone is home, there isn't a single person going down the street and no cars are going down the street. When I turn the corner I see a figure walking down the street in all black.

I catch up to them and turn them around, the blond stares at me with a tear streaked face.

"Hallie, I'm sorry. That was rude; I shouldn't have been mean about it. I just…I just don't want to talk about that. Why were you crying?"

She stands there and takes a deep breath puffing her chest up, "No one pays attention to me. I figured you were different. You weren't, I'm going back to camp and getting the ride from my friend home. Good-bye Leo…"

She pushes me aside and whistles a passing cab down. She climbs in and it drives away.

I don't know what it was but I felt like I needed to get her, I needed to see this girl. It was probably Aphrodite, but I ran after the cab.

When it stopped she got out of the cab, "Leo what do you want."

"Those things you said were true. All of it. None of those things were stories and it all happened to me. I have serious baggage, you have to know that."

"Okay," She says looking for me to continue.

"Please don't go back to Virginia." I don't know where the words came from but they felt right…

She stares at me and when I don't waver she nods.

"I'll stay for a week, and then we'll see…I guess…" She says a bit confused.

I smile and close the cab door. I hand the man some cash and we walk back to my apartment together.

I make some eggs and toast for breakfast. She smiles and takes a few bites.

"So…you really want to know what happened with me and my friends." I ask.

"Yes." She says firmly.

"Okay…So I had just gotten an apartment for myself in the city and the gang was over to hang out. That would be Nico Di Angelo, Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase now Annabeth Jackson, Piper McLean now Piper Grace, Jason Grace, Hazel Levesque now Hazel Zhang and Frank Zhang. I made a big dinner and we were all eating when an argument broke out. Jason and Piper were fighting and I tried to get them to calm down and Jason swung at me, so I swung back. Only difference is that my swing landed a hit. He got a bloody nose and by the end of the night I had two cracked ribs, a broken nose, and one black eye. Piper almost left him for doing that, but she didn't. I had to go to the hospital and when I came back Piper was the only one there…they all just left me. I felt like I was still the unimportant seventh wheel…I haven't seen any of them since then, well till yesterday that is. I never went back to camp, and none of them have ever tried to contact me. So yeah that's what happened." I breath for a moment and look at her.

"So, what's your sad tale?" I ask now wanting to know.

"You want to know why I'm so screwed up." She asks with a dry laugh. I nod and she sighs.

"My dad is the god of death, and for his first pick since the forties he got a woman who was a drug addict and an alcoholic. She didn't care for me and I basically lived on my own. I was taken to the underworld and lived as a servant till I was eighteen, the year after you left, and was announced as a Hades kid. So that was pretty traumatizing."

We talk about our childhoods for a few more hours and I tell her I have to go to work. I leave her with a key to the apartment so if she left she could get back in and headed down to the mechanic shop.

We spend the week like this and on the last night she stays…we didn't talk about it she just stayed.

She stayed for a full year, and I was getting a friend again and a girlfriend at the same time.

Then May rolled around…I came home from the mechanic shop and found the apartment empty.

I call her cell and nothing. I go down to the front desk and find out that she left a few hours earlier.

I wait in the apartment for her to come back, I wait for the entire night, the next day I go to work and when I come back she is still gone. I didn't sleep for an entire week. I found that she ditched out on the city life. She went back to Virginia, and never contacted me again.

Percy called that same night.

"Hey dude, so how have you been?" He asks kind of awkwardly.

"I could be doing better but its fine, anyhow how you and the wife?" I reply taking another sip of my beer.

"Good, we, she, uh well Annabeth is going to be having twins!" I almost drop the phone when he says this.

"Wow dude! Congrats, when are the two little guys or girls due?"

"Well this summer solstice actually, I mean go figure!" Percy says with a laugh.

I laugh at the irony of this and begin to say something but Percy interrupts me, "Leo, I was wondering if you wanted to come over and help me out with making some stuff for the babies room, and I don't know catch up?" I smile and nod, then remembering that he can't see me, "Yeah man, I'd love too!"

"Awesome, see you on Saturday? If that's good for you?"

"Yeah, I'm off so that's good, you in the same little apartment?"

"No, we moved up to the fourth floor of the same building, 54D is the number." I nod and write it down on a napkin beside me.

"See ya on Saturday then!"

"Okay man, see you then."

I smile to myself, I was gonna get my friends back, even if I do lose Hallie in return…

So that's chapter Seven, not very good I know, but it's something right? No? Oh, okay :( Sorry...