When the boat sailed, she ran.

She ran for several reasons. One, she didn't want to see his face as he sailed away. For once in her life, she didn't know what it would look like. She was so used to seeing the face of a man – of a boy, really – with his jaw set and his eyes on the horizon, looking forwards. They were always looking forwards, and that made it easy to watch them as they left. She couldn't do that this time because this time he was looking back, and she couldn't bear it, she just couldn't.

She also ran because her lips burned.

That had never happened to her before. Kissing, in her past experience, did not leave one feeling like they put too much pepper in their food. It certainly didn't leave one feeling like they suddenly needed to put more pepper in their food.

Afterwards, she thought that running barefoot was perhaps not the greatest idea. By the time she made it to the garden, the soles of her feet had been scraped bloody raw. She hadn't been wearing her sandals for the past several days, and while her feet were growing tougher every day, they were nothing in the face of being slammed repeatedly onto rocks and twigs.

She ran until she reached her garden. There, in the presence of her tools and flowers, with the orchard smelling like apples and home, she felt safe. It was like a shield. This was her serenity, her place of peace, her –

Her fountain was fixed.

And suddenly her garden was no longer her serenity, but an assault. Everything here had been fixed, or polished, or built on, or greased, by him. She felt like all the air inside her body had been sucked out in one fell swoop, and she couldn't feel her legs or the ground beneath her. She couldn't even feel her bloody feet anymore.

So she ran again, into her cave, the one place on the island she knew he hadn't been.

Inside was a sanctuary. There was nothing here, she thought, nothing to remind her. She walked, slowly, to the very back wall of her cave – the farthest from the beach she could possibly be. Then she placed a hand against the wall, bracing herself, and closed her eyes.

Every other time she had cried.

With every hero that left her island, she cried. Sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. Sometimes longer. For Odysseus, it might have been years. You lose track of time, when every day is the same. Every other time, she cried until her tears ran out; and then she would dry her eyes, and start waiting for the next hero.

So she braced herself on the cold crystal wall, closed her eyes and waited.

Surely, the tears would come. They always did. They had been there, earlier, when the raft arrived. Tears had gathered in her eyes like a well, but somewhere between the beach and the cave the well had dried out, and now she couldn't cry if she wanted to.

Her fingers scraped on a rough piece of crystal. She opened her dry eyes, in surprise. There was a chunk of crystal missing. The edges were jagged, and the sand around her was littered with tiny, sparkling fragment and crystal dust.

Ah, she thought wryly. So there was a piece of him inside the cave as well, then.

She thought about Leo Valdez. She thought about his fiery attitude, his bad jokes, his crooked grin, his clothes, his clothes burnt away; the way his toes curled in the sand, the way his fingers worked machines, the way he cradled his sphere. She thought about his eyes, his small hands, his teeth, his ears, his knees, his laugh; his silly, reckless, stupid empty promise.

And Calypso smiled.

I can't believe it's been two months since House of Hades. Can you? And now, we have ten more months to wait until Blood of Olympus. I can't decide who has it worse - us or Calypso!

So I'll just be posting these weird drabbles, from now until the release of Blood of Olympus, chronicling the days she spends waiting for Leo, and delving into her past, her life story, and all the other heroes who've washed up on the shores of Ogygia. I guess it's my coping mechanism?

Anyway, hope people enjoy! Remember, we're in this horrible waiting game together!