A/N: Hmm, where do I begin? First off, the title IS the title, not a VVIP preview or something, okay? :) This story was inspired on two songs - Rough Draft by Yellowcard and Distance by Christina Perri and a mix of Leper muses and own experience. o3o It's loosely set around four years from the events of SoN, post-Gaea war.

Di Immortales, this intro is terrible. I'll re-write it later. xP

This was supposed to be a oneshot, but I had to break it into three parts because it kept getting longer and longer as I wrote. *shakes fist at Leper muse* Friend-zoning is harder to write than romance. D:

Anyways, a huuuuuuuuge bunch of hugs and thanks and cookies to S. Layton, for helping choose the title, beta-reading and beta-testing, and convincing me to finish the fic and post it, and helping me out of the scaredy-corner. I owe this entire story and many other story/art muses to his works - and he's also a great, great friend.

This is for you, Flamingo. Rough Draft is is dedicated to you. Thank you so, SO much. ^u^

And a lot of thanks for another little friend, whom I shall call Lotus - thanks a bunch for the bugging! xD Hope you like it, and find the waiting worth it. :3

And a big, BIG hug for you too, reader. You guys are absolutely awesome. Enjoy and review, and keep the Leper/Leoper ship sailing forever! :)

Disclaimer: RR owns Leo and Piper and the Camp Half-Blood series, and we all know that. xD Keep trolling, Riordan!

~ Rough Draft ~

- Part One -

Many years had passed since the war against the Giants. The fight against Mother Earth was deadly, and caused a heavy toll on the demigods and the world at large. Many of them would remember the battle as the most traumatic experience in their life for many years. Along their journey they had lost too many of their friends. Those heroes would never be forgotten, but always remembered with fondness and honor.

But now, the war was over. Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter, the two demigod camps that had been alienated so long ago, were reunited. Once the War against Gaea ended they returned to their own camps, which had been their real homes for thousands of years; but that didn't mean that they bid good-bye forever. They didn't know for how long this unity would last - but they were optimistic about the future. For once, the demigods were having a quiet time for themselves, able to live almost normally, without fearing or fighting for their lives in every moment.

In fact, several new recruits of the Camp Jupiter were staying at Camp Half Blood right then, on a friendly visit, or a field trip, or whatever you want to call it. They were quite interested to see Bunker Nine, even though it had originally been built to oppose the Romans in their own demigod Civil War.

Leo had the time of his life surprising them with the many mysteries the Bunker hid (he didn't show all of them, though) and even astonishing himself now and then. He had been practically living in this bunker for nearly four years, but it still hadn't stopped startling him. There would be a tiny opening in a wall or on the floor, with a seemingly-simple combination lock or a magical key to open it, and behind it would hide a simple smiley-face key chain. And it would break into full body armor when squeezed.

This bunker was the haven for ADHD kids.

He led them around feeling like the Cheshire Cat that had to answer too many questions –

"Leo, what's this?"

"Leo, what's that?"

"Leo, what's- ARGHH!"

There were a couple of minor accidents mainly due to people being too inquisitive; nothing major. Everyone else had a wonderful time in Wonderland.

He was quite pleased and really, really tired at the end of the day. Teaching was definitely out of his future career choices - he just didn't have enough patience to survive so many questions everyday for the rest of his life. Maybe he would become a firefighter. Yeah, that would be good. If things started getting too lazy he could start a fire himself.

However, at the end of the day he finished off the workshop well satisfied, shooing away the Romans and Greeks off with an exhausted, "That's it for today, lads. Go down to your dinners and gimme some quiet time by the machines. I need to fix up my ears – they're blocked with all your questions. Now… OUT! I am Thor!"

They ran out laughing as he brandished a hammer in the air, laughing maniacally. It was a poor joke, but there were perks to being the Clown of the Camp – everything you would say automatically becomes ten times funnier. The downside of it, though, was that it would make people roll their eyes at you even when you said something serious. Still, he wasn't the best philosopher in the camp – that was the job of the nerdy Athena cabin – and he was fine with the rolling eyes most of the time. So long as they didn't roll them too much and the eyes got stuck behind.

That would've been messy business.

He tinkered around the cabin for some time, cleaning the mess and putting the tools back in their proper places; playing with a few random pieces of metal and wire to occupy his tingling fingers. In a few minutes he had a minute model of a dragon with wings stretched in flight. Two tiny rubies the size of sesame seeds completed the replica, and he set it on a table and stepped back to admire his craft. Leo had forgotten the number of Festus models he'd made over the years – his fingers automatically made a copy with whatever material he had on hand whenever he wasn't focusing on a particular project. He gave them away to friends and admirers, or just anyone who asked for it (the Romans went away with a number of Festus models as souvenirs) and kept making more.

I should make life-size copy sometime, he thought. As soon as he could convince Chiron to lend him five tons of solid celestial bronze for a pet project.

He wasn't hungry. Working on an empty stomach had become a second nature to him ever since he found this bunker; the work itself was quite filling. He told the coffee maker to brew a double espresso (voice commands were very ADHD-friendly) and went outside with the steaming cup.

Leo sat down on a mound on the hill that looked down to the camp grounds. The woods had been cleared in some places – courtesy of the giants and fire breathing monsters throwing bonfire parties in the war – and so he had a pretty clear view. Dinner was over, but there was a cheery fire in the amphitheatre with bright purple flames twenty, thirty feet high. The vague sound of the camp songs drifted to his side when the wind blew in his direction.

Fire. Cheeriness. Jokes. Crazy impish dude living on coffee. Sounds familiar? Oh yes, he was the Supreme Commander of the Argo II, who kept everyone's spirit up throughout the war with his laughs and vegetarian tacos. If it wasn't for his endearing annoyingness that distracted the heroes from everything Gaea used to break their will, the whole war might have taken a very different course.

Yet few saw the pain that was cleverly concealed under the laughs. Few saw him when he was in one of his 'moods' – in which he hid from the rest of the world, showing his suffering to no one. He managed to keep those short and few, and with the Earth Mother and her sons demanding most of their attention in the past few years, he didn't have time to retreat inside his head. But with the war over and their lives returning to 'normal', he seemed to fall back into the impish jock of the Wilderness School. Teasing his way through the day to stay away from the memories nagging at the back of his head - his mother's death, his best friends…

Hey, hey, stop right there, Valdez, he told himself. Those thoughts are not going to help anyone, much less yourself. Think something else. The sickle moon in the sky, the waves in the beach, the dryad girls in the woods (except Juniper, unless you want the Lord of the Wood releasing the Panic on you) …anything. No being the Grumpy Goose. Shut up. No thinking of past. It's gone, get it? It's gone. Don't you keep returning. There aren't any what-could-have-beens. Now drink that coffee before it gets cold.

Running away. From the memories, from the thoughts, from the pain. It was always running and running again for him. It didn't make the distress any lesser. A small comfort at the time, distracting himself, but it would always returned; a little worsened every time it reappeared.

Someone was moving away from the cabins and the amphitheatre – apparently he wasn't the only one running away tonight. Leo squinted at the figure – it seemed solid enough to be human, and it was a girl…

A nightly stroll was ordinary and harmless. It wasn't unusual to see a few demigods walking around the grounds in the semidarkness before the curfews hit and the harpies came out on their night rounds. There was something wonderful about the semi-lit strawberry fields and the beach under the moon. But this was different.

Leo ran back up to the bunker and set down the half-empty cup on a table and grabbed his jacket. Something felt wrong. It wasn't his business to keep track of everyone's wanderings, but he felt…drawn. Maybe it was intuition. He rushed through the woods, making a shortcut to the Half Blood Hill, where the girl was clearly headed. A few dryads waved their fists angrily as he broke through some branches on his way, but he didn't stop for chitchat.

"Hey! Where're you going?" he shouted up to the girl who was about fifty meters ahead.

She stopped in her tracks, lingered there for two seconds, and then started running up the hill.

Recognizing the girl and getting thoroughly confused, Leo ran behind and caught up to her halfway up the hill. He grabbed her arm to stop her, who tried to pull herself away before slumping down, looking at the earth.

"Pipes? What are you doing?"

"Don't call me-"

"-Pipes. I know, okay? Don't get away from the question."

The daughter of Aphrodite didn't answer. She was dressed for travel, complete with a backpack and combat boots. She didn't meet his eyes, nor even look at his side – he could barely see her puffy eyes. She sounded like she had a bad cold. Piper was usually a good actress, even her closest friends sometimes had trouble seeing through the charmspeak - but today he could plainly see her crumbling. This was not the Piper he knew – the beautiful, strong, stubborn, persuasive Piper McLean who was the binding force between the Prophetical Seven.

She tried once again to push him away, but the effort was so weak – he hardly felt it. Leo caught her by the shoulders and turned her to look at her face. He thought he heard a stifled sob. She still wouldn't look up.

"Piper…? Are you alright? Is everything…okay?"

He knew that it wasn't. Everything wasn't alright. Everything was wrong. Very wrong. If it was alright he wouldn't have caught her here, apparently running away. That was a stupid question. But he didn't say that.

"Piper?"

She swayed on her feet. Leo caught her before she could faint and pulled her into a gentle hug. It was just then that he remembered that she hadn't been around for meals lately. Piper sent word with a cabin mate that she's busy or had an urgent call with someone – and always escaped questions later. In fact, coming to think of it, she hadn't been around the usual places in the camp either. He'd cursed himself inwardly – he'd been too caught up with trying out Daedalus' and Bunker nine's tall piles of blue prints lately. Had she had any food those few days at all?

He thought she would protest and pull away, say she's alright in her charmspeaking and maybe even tell him off for such a daring move. But she didn't do anything. She simply stood there without a word, not a single reaction.

What was up with her?

Organic life forms were not his specialty. He patted her clumsily, trying to be comforting. Leo felt like he should say something. Something to get her talking. Anything.

A quiet Piper McLean was almost as unusual as a talking dragon. At least Leo was able to sense what was wrong with Festus. Pull a wire and tinker with some scales, clean the memory chips and oil the joints and the dragon would be up and snorting flames again. He couldn't open her head and pull wires. Though he could pull her choppy hair, he had a feeling that it wouldn't fix anything.

"You're sick, kiddo. Let's get back to the camp. I'll get an Apollo kid to look at you-"

She shook her head, still not uttering a single word.

"-Or we can go to the Bunker. Yeah, there's nectar and ambrosia, and I'll whip up something from the stores. Just like the old times. Those harpies still can't pull a decent veggie taco. C'mon, I'll get Chef Leo back in the taco stand…"

Piper stifled another sob in her throat. She was so pale, so fragile, like she was on the brink of falling to pieces. He hated his clumsiness when it came to human beings, he hated not being able to pull her back together, he hated not knowing what to do, or how to help. Why couldn't someone write a user manual for relationships with fellow humans?

She made no attempt to stop him when Leo half-led, half-carried her away from the path, into the edge of woods where a glade had been created by yet another monster attack. It didn't seem like she had any more strength left to protest. He didn't think all of her was here, either. This unnervingly tepid girl was not somebody he ever saw in all their years of friendship.

He made her sit down on the leaf-covered ground and took away the backpack. Once again, she didn't say anything.

"What's going on, Pipes? Why are you dressed up in jacket and boots? Where were you going?"

She simply shook her head, still not looking up, weakly twiddling her fingers.

"Were you running away?"

No answer.

Or perhaps the silence was a better answer.

"Is it dad? Did you talk to him? Is everything okay at home?"

She shook her head. No.

"No? No what? If that warlord satyr has done something or let anything happen…I'm going to fix his memory chips for him."

Another shake. Maybe a ghost of a smile that disappeared before he could be sure.

"Pipes, talk! You know that I'm not good at words like you."

No answer again.

"Fine then. Until you feel like unlocking your mouth, I'm going to poke in your bag, okay?"

Blank.

"You better have something to eat in there. Because, no offense, you look like you could use some, princess."

Silence.

A couple of dryad girls peeked from behind the trees. Leo shook his fist at them. They ran away, probably to start a rumor that Leo Valdez and Piper McLean were having a late night picnic in the glade.

He pulled the bag to him and started rummaging it. Was it awkward poking inside a girl's backpack? Eh, he was the King of Awkward. Besides, she was his best friend in Camp Half-Blood, and she had poked inside his bunker enough times.

"Gee, Piper. You forgot to pack edibles in here. Were you running away to live on water and air only?"

Predictable silence.

"There's only a bottle of water and two wafers of ambrosia! Where were you going to go?"

He took out her purse. It had a thin wad of mortal money – a hundred dollars at most? – and a few drachmas. There was a photo of Tristan McLean with Coach Hedge and Mellie taken at her home, and another folded photo of the survivors of the war at Greece. Several familiar faces waved at him, with a painful reminder of the ones who should have been in there. Funny, there were no photos of the three of them – Leo was sure he'd given both Piper and Jason a copy of their group photo with Festus' head taken at the Bunker Nine shortly after their first quest.

Did she lose it?

But he didn't believe that – Piper was very careful with her belongings. It was she who insisted with keeping the Bunker orderly and neat, and took it upon herself to clean it up every week. He used to grumble at first – he was fine with the mess so long as every tool was at hand's reach. But then he became used to her neat cupboards and had to agree that it was pleasant not to trip over hammers and tool boxes.

Losing a photo of her best friends, the old trio? Nah, that didn't sound like her.

Then again, this silent specter didn't sound like herself either.

"Where was that photo, Pipes? The one we took at the Bunker? I still have mine; I can give you a copy again. Is that okay? Jason probably won't li-Piper!" He broke away mid-sentence because Piper suddenly covered her face trying to cover the renewed sobs. There, he did it. He finally hit the sorest spot.

Brilliant, Valdez, he cursed himself. Way to go. Keep it up.

"Hey, hey," he whispered, patting her awkwardly and holding out a packet of tissues he just found. "Shh, it's okay, Pipes. I'll give you my own. Let's go back to the Bunker. You'll catch a cold here. Come on, it'll be alright. I'm here, Piper."

It only made it worse. He didn't know what to do – he had never seen her lose control this way. She was always composed and calm, capable of keeping every emotion under control in the toughest moments. The closest was the time she had to leave her broken father – it seemed so many years ago – but even that was nothing, nothing compared to this. At least Jason had been there to hold her while she sobbed out her pain. Leo could only summon tissues. And he hated seeing her in so much pain. She had been a great help in so many levels to him – and wasn't there anything that he could do for her right now?

Praying to all gods that she wouldn't push him away, he hugged her again. She didn't resist; except that the small move brought a fresh wave of tears – did she remember too?

Leo felt like he was stealing Jason's place…

Except Jason had stolen it in the first place.

He had got so used to shutting away his own feelings and emotions, and escaping memories, hiding behind a grinning mask – the sudden resurge shook even him a little.

But he shouldn't let them.

She would curse again.

It took so long to recover from the first pain; he didn't want to take the two of them through it again…

He couldn't let himself get close again.

He couldn't be human.

He couldn't take her through that pain again.

He himself might be able to shut it away; kick a wall, punch a table, channel his pain into his work. But he couldn't let her suffer.

Not again.

Not without so many immortals playing with their lives.

She already had enough. A tool in higher schemes, a favorite pawn.

Not again.

He, Leo Valdez, would never let that happen to his best friend again. No. Never. Never. Did you hear that, you bored Olympians?

He didn't realize that his own eyes were stinging.

Or that his fists were clenched, trying to drown his own suffering.

He took deep breaths, trying to push back his sudden mood change. It wouldn't do to remember it again. He wouldn't let her leave, but it wouldn't be on his own feelings. He had to find a way around it.

A/N:If you started tearing up (which I doubt, D: ) here's a tissue. If you've got any questions, ask away! :) I'll try my best to answer them. (Or not. xDD) Where will Piper go? Will Leo be able to stop her? Or will he go with her? I don't know.

Will they end up in a happily ever after?

Umm...no, I think. D: But don't lose hope, guys. :s

And yes, I'll update soon! o3o Stay tuned! :)