"Well, I told you that I would break your spirit Leo Valdez, but you're doing an excellent job hiding it behind that stupid little happiness mask you keep on."

Leo forced a laugh "What mask? I don't have a mask on. This is my real face."

"The one to hide all that depressing, pathetic sadness swelling up inside you from your friends and siblings. The guilt of killing your mother. Not having a family for ten years. Not loving anyone or anyone loving you for ten years. Years spent on the run with no one to care for you. The bullies at school, and those abusive foster families."

Leo felt the other look at him in surprise. He didn't tell them about the bullies or the abusive families. He kept his eyes on Gaea.

"You killed my mom. It's all your fault."

"My fault?" Gaea chuckled. "Why, it wasn't me who started the fire that killed your mother. It was you. See?"

She snapped her fingers bringing up this weird screen thing that showed them her talking to Leo ten years earlier in the machine shop. It showed him getting upset and scared, his hair catching on fire and him passing out, igniting the shop with his flames. Then it showed inside the shop where his mom was. He saw the terror in her face when she saw the fire. Her calling out 'Mijo! Leo! Leo!' He watched with tears falling down his cheeks.

"Mama." Leo said quietly.

The fire demigod turned in anger to Gaea. "If you didn't kill her, I wouldn't have had to deal with the running away. The abusive families."

"What, like this one?"

The image changed to his first foster home when he was eight. It showed a man in his late 50's sitting on a couch watching TV.

"Kid! Get me a beer!"

The eight year old Leo on screen grabbed a beer from the fridge and brought it to him.

"Wrong kind. I don't want this kind. I had it yesterday!" He threw the beer bottle at Leo, where it hit his shoulder. Leo ran out of the room, running back in seconds later with a different kind of beer in his hand. He tripped on the rig on the way in. The bottle shattered against the floor just before he fell on the glass. The man got angry and as Leo stood up, he pushed Leo against the wall.

"THAT BASTARD!" Leo heard one of the seven shout, but he was too lost in the memory to figure out which one said it.

"When I want a beer, I want to be able to drink it!" He punched Leo in the stomach where he had the cuts from falling on the broken glass. Leo's face showed nothing but pain as he held in a cry. "Go to your room! Now!"

There was sobbing now, but it sounded very far off and Leo paid no mind to it while his thoughts whirled around, remembering how awful it had been there. Mr. Richards had been the first of many foster families to treat him that way, constantly imprinting in his head that he wasn't any good, would never be enough.

The scene changed to Leo standing in the bathroom cleaning his cuts and wincing wherever he got soapy water in the open wounds on his arms and stomach. There was a bruise on his stomach from the punch he just received and bruises from other times his foster 'father' had punched him.

The seven watched as the screen thing showed the morning after when he went to school. Leo had been pushed out the door. Leo stood at the bottom of the driveway for a second before turning and running to school.

"Do I need to show you more? Or maybe I should I show your mom what you have been through? Oh what fun that would be! I can just picture it now, showing her you running away six times. Maybe the time when you were on the run for a whole year. Just imagine her face when she finds out how she failed you as a mother."

"No! She was a wonderful mother! The best I could've possibly hope for! She was ten times the mother you could ever hope to be!" Then in a quieter voice Leo choked out. "I don't want her to see that."

"Hmm, I think you're right. I think she's seen enough."

Leo's eyes widened and he spun around to see his mother's ghost watching him sadly.

"Mijo," she said quietly, and that broke the dam Leo had been struggling to keep up, and emotions soon overwhelmed Leo.

He turned and ran, passing her and the other, but not getting far before collapsing to the ground, his whole body shaking with sobs.

Jason watched the video in horror. He couldn't believe that Leo had been abused as a child. He didn't want to believe the things he saw. Also Gaea add said families, as in more than one. How many abusive homes had Leo gone to?

The blond stared at Leo sobbing in shock. Why hasn't Leo tell him? He told him about the fire but not the abusive families. How could someone hide this much pain for so long?

He shook himself out of the stance and ran over to Leo, pulling the smaller boy into his lap. He felt Leo lean against him as he wrapped his arms around him. One of his hands rubbed Leo's back and the other ran through his dark, wild curls as Leo sobbed into his shoulder, arms snaking around Jason's waist. Leo's mother's ghost, Esperanza Valdez, ran over to them.

"Oh, Mijo, my baby. Oh Leo."

Leo's sobs had reduced into light cries until he heard his mother's voice, in which he cried harder. Leo looked up from Jason's shoulder to his mom. He watched as Leo tapped on his knee, guilt all over his face, which was red from crying, and saw that Leo's moms expression soften as she tapped the ground.

Morse code. He remembered Leo telling him that he and his mother communicated through Morse code.

Jason helped Leo stand up before looking at the others. They're faces showed the same shock that Jason was feeling for what Leo had gone through.

"Leo, why didn't you tell us?" Jason finally asked once Leo calmed down.

"I didn't want you to know. I wanted to forget what happened."

"You are so strong, Leo, for keeping all that in by yourself for so long, not talking about it to anyone. I don't know how you manage to keep it hidden without letting on that something was wrong"

"Years of practice, always making jokes and always grinning goes a long way." He grinned crazily as if he just told a joke.

What was scariest of all, was that it looked so real, as if nothing was wrong. Jason wouldn't have known if it was fake if he hasn't seen what he just saw.

"Leo," Jason pulled Leo into a hug. "I wish you told me."

Leo rested his head against Jason's shoulder, hugging him back. Jason could smell grease and oil on Leo but he didn't care. Leo went through to much pain, his comfort came first over cleanliness.

Leo shrugged. "What's done is done. Nothing you could've done to change it."

"I could've helped make the past year a bit easier."

"Thanks, Jace."

Leo's breathing slowed down before he fell asleep against Jason who stumbled a bit with the extra weight.

Jason scooped him up, surprised at how light he was.

Esperanza walked up to Jason and placed a hand on his arm.

"Take care of him, please? He trusts you, and he needs someone to be there and to help him, even if he won't ask for it.I haven't seen him look at anyone else like that in a long time."

Jason was touched. He knew that Leo was his best friend, but he was glad to hear from Leo's mother that Leo trusted and needed him.

He nodded. "Of course. I'll always be there when he needs me."

Esperanza smiled and said "Thank you."

He turned to the rest of the seven. "Let's get going." They nodded numbly before turning and following Jason back to the Argo II.

Once aboard, Jason went to Leo's room and put him down on his bed. He just looked at his best friend for a moment, going over what he had seen; the battered bossy, the scared looks.

Jason sighed, pushing Leo's hair out of his face, getting ready to leave Leo alone to rest in peace, but before he could go, Leo's hand shot out and grabbed Jason's, tugging him to the bed. Jason smiled warmly, nudged Leo over and climbing in. He wrapped his arms around the skinny latino beside him with the feeling to protect and feel asleep with absolute warmth beside him.