Wonderland, Dreamland, Wishland (for PJO Ship Week #7)

Heroes of Olympus © Rick Riordan

Lost Time Memory © Jin

An alternate reality by Chocochino

The author does not take any financial profit from this story

.

"Would you mind join our tea party, err..."

"Hazel. Hazel Levesque."

She smiled and took a seat beside the Dormouse. Once her cup filled by tea, she only needed a sip to exclaim a praise. "This is the best tea I ever taste, Hatter!"

Mad Hatter grin sheepishly. His orange fedora hat with neon pink lace dancing around his head while the madman kept moving like nothing could make him sit down gracefully for just a second. "Great, then! You have to eat the cakes and cookies, too. I'll bake more if you wanted."

.

"So, Hazel Levesque, where do you come from?"

Mad Hatter was trying to start a conversation, Hazel knew it in instance. The tea party seemed to be an endless one, but she did not care. "I'm coming from America. I lived in Camp Jupiter, where we trained and learned a lot of things. I like it."

"Training? Learn?" Hatter gasped, his face showed pity. "That's not good, that's not good. Everyone should play and have fun every time! Or having an amusing tea party, like the one I held."

"Yes," March Hare nodded, "Mad Hatter is the best tea party host in the whole Wonderland!"

"Of course we played too, guys," Hazel laughed. "Sometimes we have war games and it was exciting. Mostly when your team is the winner."

"War games? That's—"

"War? NO, THERE'S A WAR! HIDE NOW!" Dormouse went hectic and searching a shelter in every teapot on the table. The rest of them laughed.

.

"Who is your real name, Hatter?" Hazel asked spontaneously when the tea party was over for the day—there would be another one, he had promised her. "I mean, your name can't be only Mad Hatter."

He did not answer. In fact, there was no single word slipped from his lips since she asked. For a moment or two, Hazel afraid that Hatter started to hate her and will expelled her from his house—her only shelter now.

"I don't have one."

She sighed. At least, he did not hate her for asking. "So Mad Hatter is your name from the start? I was thinking that it's just a nickname, or an alias."

"No, people called me Mad Hatter, so I go with that name. But I want to have a name, though. Like you."

Hazel stared at him. He was currently wearing a green bowler with dried colorful roses and satin white ribbon on it. "How if I gave you a name? A proper name for you, not just a nickname."

"Really?" His eyes were full of joy. "What is it? What is it?"

She took a deep breath and announced, "Leo Valdes."

.

They were lying on the grass in the middle of a night when a question popped out. "Do you ever wanted to go back to your camp, Hazel Levesque?"

She thought a while and immediately said, "No."

"Why?" Mad Hatter—or now he called himself as Leo Valdes—asked with confusing intonation. "You told me that your camp was exciting. You learned, you played, and you have a lot of good friends."

"I like to be here," she answered while gazing to the stars above. "Having tea party at noon, and spending time with you—only me and you—when the sun is no longer shining. Laughing everyday with your friends and knowing each other every night. Sometimes going to discover a new side of this Wonderland. I love this place, Leo."

"But you're not from this world. You belong to another place, right?"

"Oh, so you are going to reject me, Valdes?" She woke up from the ground and he winced. Hazel never called him 'Valdes' when she is not angry with him. "Are you tired with me and want me to go away?"

"No, it's not—it's not like what you thought, Hazel Levesque!" He blurted quickly. "It's just... don't you miss them? Don't they miss you, too?"

Leo Valdes did not expect a hug afterwards.

Hazel tried to choke her tears. "I... all that I need is here. If I go back to my world, the one that I need will be gone. You are here. With me. And it is more than enough," she rubbed his curly brown hair and touched his tan skin. Her Leo is here. In Wonderland. In her dream.

"I'm not going to lose you anymore."

.

Up in Camp Jupiter, Hazel Levesque was falling asleep in her bed in Fifth Cohort after taking another sleeping pills which she was able to sneaked in. The daughter of Pluto smiled peacefully.

Ever since Leo Valdes decided to be the one who closed the Doors of Death and trapped himself in Tartarus, Frank Zhang never saw that smile when his girlfriend awake.

(oh, maybe he did not deserve to call her as his girlfriend anymore. Surely she loves someone else who had already been gone.)

*THE END!*

In this midsummer dream maybe see the younger me that I was playing before you flew free
Back in the days where I had hid in the haze but slowly running ablaze and burning red in my brain
IA - Lost Time Memory (English translyric by JubyPhonic)

A/N: If only Sammy's last name wasn't Valdez ... Rick Riordan is superb in making plot twist, that's for sure.