Title: try, try again

Character: Calypso, Percy, Leo

A/N: I really like Leo and Calypso as friends. So that's reflected in here. Also, a slight altering of the ending of the series.

Summary: Calypso learns of love the same way she learns of heartbreak: in the half-told dreams of lost sailors.

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Calypso learns of love the same way she learns of heartbreak: in the half-told dreams of lost sailors. They wake up on her shore, one by one, bedraggled and coughing up water. "I was on a boat," they tell her. "There was a storm."

"I can help," she tells him.

He, and it is always a he, accepts her aid. Accepts her company, her food, her bed. In return, she is told of the wonders of the world outside, of the changing tides that have altered her homeland in unrecognizable ways.

It doesn't take long for cupid's arrow to pierce, for the inevitable to occur.

It doesn't take long after for the sailor to leave, to yearn for home.

Odysseus was not the first to break her heart, but she remembers him the clearest. He had looked at her with eager eyes when she offered him the raft.

"I will go home?" he asks, his tone nervous. The gods can take as easily as they can give and he knows that lesson all too well.

"Yes, I was told so," she replies. And he is no longer looking at her but through her, at Penelope, at his homeland. At the years lost and the years to come.

He's already gone and above her, she can hear the gods laughing.

-x-

It's an eternity before the next sailor washes ashore. She's almost forgotten the company of mortals, of another when Percy lands on her shore.

"I have to go back," he admits, he confesses. His words are ones she has heard a million times already. "There's someone waiting for me."

And of course there is, there always is. By now her glued-together heart should be shatter proof, should be as hard as rock. She knows this pain too well, can taste it in her smile and her quiet nod.

But her hearts breaks into tiny pieces anyways. Maybe that's part of the curse, that each experience is as fresh as the last. The pain never dulls.

"I know," she replies, already motioning for the materials to appear. "I know."

And there really is nothing else to say. The dance will go as it always does, the pattern never changes.

"Thank you," he replies, his smile sincere. His eyes are like the ocean she once loved, like the glass bottles she drinks from.

The knife twists in her heart and she tries to keep the edge away from her words.

"It's nothing."

"I'll come back for you," he continues, and this is new. This is different. They are going off the normal path and she can only stare at him in surprise.

"You can never find your way back, it's part of the curse."

"Then I'll get the gods to break it," he promises. His expression is determined, his hand gripping hers tightly. "You shouldn't have to live like this."

That sincerity, she can hear it in his voice. No one has ever considered trying this. Not once in the centuries she has lived here.

"Really?" and her voice cracks, she wants to believe him so bad. Wants to believe in this slip of a boy, this boy who has lived for as many sunsets as she has lived years.

"When you come to New York, we'll eat blue pancakes together."

When Percy disappears into the sunrise, she keeps his words tucked safe into her heart.

He reminds her of hope, of a feeling she thought she long lost.

-x-

"We're almost done!" Leo announces, excited. He's dirty, as usual, the grime caked onto her face.

She imagines she looks the same, her clothes covered in streaks of brown and black. It is not enough to build just a raft, not for a son of Hephaestus.

No, there is always some way to add gears and bolts, to get oil and grease into the system. Even now she is surrounded by nuts and screws and more machine parts than she knows the name for.

"Tomorrow?" she asks. It'll be lonely without Leo, she realizes with some surprise. Despite his crude behaviour, his strange jokes, she has come to like the boy. He is as warm as the fire he likes to play with and maybe if she stays near him long enough, she'll be warm too.

"Yeah…" His excitement dies down when he realizes what that means.

They stare at each other, awkwardly. This is different too. She's used to seeing someone's back, someone's profile. To catching glimpses of a person when they aren't looking.

With Leo, she's always looking head on.

"I'll come back for you," he says, and she can hear the echoes of another boy, another promise. Can hear the echoes of another heartbreak, but her heart isn't broken for once.

It is full and it is whole and maybe Percy did break the curse.

Instead of a one-sided love washing ashore, a friend has.

"I believe you," she answers, smiling.

-x-

Her raft is ready. She's spent the last two weeks working on it. After making so many rafts for so many people, she has it down to an art.

It's sturdy though simple. Loaded with far more supplies than she'll ever need, she adds a few books before she makes ready to sail. Behind her, her house awaits, her gardens call.

And it's scary, it's absolutely scary to try leaving this island. This prison has become a home of sorts and for all the pain it has caused, it is safe.

But she wants danger. The danger that comes with relationships, with trying, with living.

She wants to have to work to do something, to put an effort in the things she wants. Calypso pushes her raft into the water and climbs aboard.

After waiting so long for a rescue, it's about time she's tried it herself. And maybe she'll fail, maybe she'll wake up ashore once more.

But she'll have tried and that's more than she can say about anything else she's done.

Turning back, she watches the island as it shrinks.

She'll miss the place, in some part of her heart.

But she will never return. Instead, she turns around and faces the empty sea in front of her. It's deceptively calm, though she can sense the storms growing in the air.

A challenge, then.

She can handle that.

Already she can taste the blue pancakes, taste the grease and oil. It's the taste of freedom.