fun fact: i do not own heroes of olympus or percy jackson. the more you know...

Leo Valdez was not proud to say that the delay of his return had little to do with the differences in time on Ogygia. He had not broken down more than expected, and he knew he could have been back within three days, but his trip took a whole two weeks. After the first night, he was hesitant to face his friends again. He felt guilty for it, but he stalled as much as he could. He knew that if this happened to one of them, he would want to know that they were alive as soon as possible. Really, he should have let them know before he left to save Calypso. Ah well, how worried could they be about him? It's not like he was the most important in the crew.

He shook his head. Still, it's not okay to push off meeting them for this long. You're a piece of shit, Valdez.

He sighed and whispered "I know" under his breath.

"What?" Calypso asked from behind him.

"Nothing." He muttered. He turned his head to look at her disappointed face. He had been practically ignoring her for a week and a half, but he couldn't bring himself to communicate. Pathetic.

"We'll- uh- we'll land at Camp Half-Blood in about fifteen minutes." He bit his lip. That's all you can think to say? This is your girlfriend. Speak.

A thousand silent apologies went through his head, mixing with insults directed towards himself. He just wasn't good at speaking out loud since that dream.

It was the first night with Calypso off the island, and he felt as if he had finally done something right. He didn't screw it up. A beautiful girl was with him and with every mile they flew her face lit up in astonishment at the expanse before her, waiting to be explored. When he returned he would be a hero. He landed and found a place to rest. A few repairs would be needed in the morning if he wanted to fly the long distance back to camp, but it was nothing he couldn't handle.

He could feel the joy radiating off Calypso as she brushed her hand across the walls of the old warehouse they had found. He smiled as he lied down and closed his eyes.

His dream was not quite as cheerful as that day's reality. It was dark and he was alone until a figure appeared from the shadows.

"Leo Valdez." The voice echoed through his mind. It got just bright enough for him to make out his face.

"Hades?" He was thoroughly confused, why would the god want to talk to him?

"I must start by saying that this is by no means personal, I do appreciate you defeating Gaea and I do consider you a hero for it. Normally, you would be practically guaranteed a spot in Elysium. That is why I have personally come to warn you and are even allowing you to live until you die by yourself, instead of killing you right here."

Leo's heart started pounding. No. Not when everything had started to be perfect. There couldn't be a catch, he deserved a happy ending.

"I regret to inform you that as you have so blatantly cheated death, you must be sent straight to the Fields of Punishment when you die. I can't tolerate people coming back to life all the time, and so you will skip the judges and go straight to your eternal torture. Don't look at me like that, all surprised, you know I let some people get away with it during that Thanatos incident because that was a special case, but if I let any more people get away with cheating death everyone's going to try it, and I don't have time to deal with that. I don't get enough respect as it is."

"I- I-" Leo struggled to push the words out. "I didn't mean it as an insult to you. I just had to fulfill my promise. I-"

"That is of no importance. The fact is that you escaped my domain back to the realm of life at a time when you would have been condemned to eternal punishment for breaking an oath you swore on the River Styx. You fulfilled it after coming back, but really it makes it appear as if you escaped to avoid the Fields of Punishment. If I let you just get judged normally next time you die, it reflects poorly on me. Like I said, my brothers already look down upon me, I can't afford to lose any more respect. This is not personal. I don't believe that you deserve this, but not everything's fair. I warned you, and that is as good of a deal as you will get."

"But-" Leo had started to speak, but the god had started to disappear. He woke to find that Calypso was sound asleep next to him. He checked the time. He had been out for about an hour. Funny, the rushed excuses the god gave him seemed like they would have only filled three minutes or less. Though sometimes dreams can seem to last hours and when you wake up it was only fifteen minutes, and vice versa. Time was weird in dreams. Almost like Ogygia.

Leo got off the ground and walked outside, making sure not to wake Calypso. He stared at the night sky, his face blank for a long time. He could barely process what had happened, but when it finally hit him, the tears started to fall. He cried and cried and kicked the ground and set himself on fire.

He could understand when his friends would often ignore him in favor of their dates. He wasn't that interesting, it made sense that they wouldn't want to talk to him all that much. He didn't deserve great friends, he deserved to be a seventh wheel.

He could understand that he would be the best man to risk his life in the final battle. He was the one who most deserved to not make it. If the physician's cure didn't work, at least no one would have lost the person that meant the most to them. He was sure that even Calypso would have found someone else, he made sure to program Festus to get her off that island with or without him.

What he could not understand, however, was how he deserved eternal torture. He thought that when he risked his life it would have made up for everything. He thought it would at least get him to Asphodel.

Over the next two weeks it never left his mind that no matter what he did he would be sent to the Fields of Punishment. He could save the world and risk his life a thousand times and it would not make a bit of a difference.

It even crept into his dreams. He had nightmares where he saw nothing but felt pain running through different parts of his body, as if an unseen creature were cutting him with a knife. He had screamed when he woke up, and Calypso held him and asked what was wrong, but he pushed her away and said he just panicked a little. He was unable to even pretend he was fine after that, so he kept his mouth shut. All he could think about was how real those dreams felt, and how maybe it was just a taste of his future. Hades deciding to send a sample every now and then so he doesn't forget.

Leo shook himself out of his thoughts. They were coming up on the camp. He took a deep breath, preparing himself for his friends' reactions, and went in for a landing.