Summary: "If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world."

A/N: *officially done writing for 1,234,567 years*

Thanks to everyone for your reviews, support, etc. It's been a journey. Couldn't have done this without you guys. ;u;

Please enjoy this wretched chapter of feels, which is part 3/3, the final part of Ignite. This is the hands down the longest thing I've ever written (33k, omg!) so you have no choice but to like this. :P

I'm just going to sprinkle so much lovey-dovey crap on you that you'll forget just how terrible this chapter was. Hopefully.

Hope you enjoy! *utters fangirlish squeals*

[quote i. - Mercedes Lackey; quote ii. - Joan Crawford]

...

Ignite

III

…

The first light of dawn shone down through the terrace window, and if there was a rooster perched somewhere on a rooftop, she was sure that it would have crowed.

Piper rose out of bed, yawning and stretching as her scrambled mind tried to organize the upcoming events of the day. Scratching her disheveled mane of messed-up hair, she groggily gazed through the faded linen curtains of the window to her left, where the fiery orb in the sky was just touching the peak of the Empire State, standing tall far out in the distance.

She rose from her berth and proceeded to go through the motions, which included going to the bathroom to brush, getting dressed, and descending down the staircase into the living room immediately after. Downstairs, the heavy drapes were drawn, and yellow light pooled under the windows, making the room bright. Piper sighed a defeated sigh, and supposed that she shouldn't have been so surprised when she walked into the living room to find the sheets on the pull-out couch thrown back, and the pillows on the floor.

She yawned again, rolling her eyes and scratching an itch on her head. Leo was already up, doing God-knows-what at seven in the morning.

The first place she checked was the kitchen. He wasn't there, but a plate of eggs and toast were, bathing in a ray of sunlight that had strayed in through the kitchen window. Piper reluctantly grabbed some toast, smeared jam all over it, and took a bite, but left the rest of the meal alone. She would have to get back to that; she made it top priority to find him first.

The next few minutes became a search for her restless, incendiary boyfriend. She checked the washroom, the main level bathroom, the den, and a couple of other rooms upstairs. When she had checked the last room in the house, a pang of panic hit her, and she bit her lip in an act of anxiety. Where was he? Did he leave the complex? Was he okay?

A gust of chilly, howling wind blew into the room, and she shivered. Piper turned, and saw that the window to the fire escape was open, which was murder on her heating bill. She went to close it, which was a reflex, but suddenly stopped - the fire escape. Her crazy-ass boyfriend had gone out there.

Piper muttered a curse as she tugged at the hem of her lanate sweater, climbing through the window and onto the egress. She turned to her left, and there he was, sitting in his pajamas on an old, rickety lawn chair with his curly, black hair being tousled by the wind. Leo watched the sun rise against the city skyline, as if sitting on a fire escape in your Mickey Mouse pajamas at seven a.m. was the most normal thing in the world.

She exhaled a sigh of relief after she managed to get her teeth to stop chattering. "Okay, I found you - ten points for me. Now could you hurry up and come inside?"

"I'll be there in a sec." Leo didn't turn around. His tone was neutral - not angry, or happy, or sad, just even. Piper's eyebrows knit together, and she racked her brain for what that could mean.

"Leo," she tried again, attempting to sweep a lock of windblown hair out of her face. "Seriously, get in the house. It's freezing out here. I don't want you to catch a cold - I can't kiss a sick person."

He gazed at the rosy morning hues that made way to blazing orange and azure blue. A plane pierced the daybreak sky overhead, gliding through the air and disappearing behind the peak of a skyscraper, emerging from the skyline and slicing through the air in the direction of JFK. She heard him sigh from across the escape, and her attention was trained back on him.

"Piper...can I ask you a question?"

She blinked, and her hands found her hair, her fingers habitually playing with one of her braids. Piper shifted her weight from foot to foot, her nervousness growing with every passing second. 'A question' could have ranged from a number of things that she preferred not to agonize over, so she averted her gaze and braced herself for the worst when she answered with a prudent gaze. "Um...okay."

Leo slowly turned around to face her, throwing an arm over the back of the chair. His amber-brown eyes glinted auburn in the morning light, like coals in a raging fire (bad analogy, Piper).

"Why aren't you mad at me?"

She hadn't been expecting that. Her eyebrows arched, and she failed to understand what he meant. "What?"

"Why aren't you angry?" he asked again, and he looked genuinely perplexed as he gazed at her with questioning eyes, demanding for answers. "Seriously - you let me stay at your place, you bought me a whole new wardrobe, you let me raid your fridge twenty-four seven, and you actually laugh at my jokes. I just- I- I can't understand," He paused, and looked at her with such a strained look that she believed that he found the task to be impossible.

"Why are you acting this way? Why are you being so nice to me? How are you not even a little bit concerned that you picked me up from a correctional facility less than a week ago?"

Leo looked at her with such a puzzled look, and she could see it in his eyes - the confusion, the guilt, and she internally cursed him again for being so hard on himself. God, he was so difficult at times, hard to understand and even harder to satisfy.

The wind howled in the reluctance of her answer, the chill stinging her face, biting at the tip of her nose. He stared at her, and the answer came to mind, lingering at the tip of her tongue.

Piper smirked, but lurking behind her grin was a genuine smile. "You really don't get it, do you?"

Leo shrugged a shoulder, a sign of authentic befuddlement. "Not really, no."

She let her smile shine through. "Because I love you, why else? I didn't think I had to tell you before - I kind of thought that it was pretty obvious."

She smiled at him, and was more than a little bit confused to find that the next sound was a little strangled noise from the base of Leo's throat.

He hissed. "Fuck."

Okay. Now she was concerned.

She scowled in annoyance. "What the hell - "

"I was supposed to say 'I love you' first," Leo scowled, cutting her off. He glared at her, but the gesture was only half-meant. When she heard his words, the frown on her face replaced itself with a grin. Whoops. Relieved that his sudden outburst had not meant something else, Piper gave a breath of relief, unable to do anything but smile.

Leo scowled again in between a grin. "Damn, you just had to go and mess it up. The guy is supposed to say it first, not the girl. Thanks a lot, Pipes. Now our whole relationship is doomed."

"I doubt it," she replied with a laugh, striding across the egress to peck him on the cheek. "Now come inside so we don't become doomsicles, and I'll make you breakfast."

He sighed a sigh of defeat, and stood from the old lawn chair, pulling his robe tighter around him like he had finally noticed the cold. "Okay, fine. But I don't want any of that vegetarian crap."

She smiled, and let him climb in through the window before her. "Deal. And thanks for the food."

Leo muttered a hasty "Your welcome," under his breath, and they climbed back inside of the apartment. Piper went to close the window behind them, and her mind went ahead of her as Leo padded downstairs. She had to admit, this whole scene had gone a lot smoother than she had first anticipated, but in hindsight, she considered it a good thing. If Leo was content, then she was, too, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

She shut the window, and latched it closed, keeping out the cold and the bad memories in the process, only letting in the good.

Leo...well, safely put, Leo was a handful.

After his little 'incident' involving fire and his own home, Piper let him temporarily stay at her high-end flat in Manhattan. He didn't take up much space; he slept on the ratty pull-out couch downstairs and mostly kept his messes to a minimum, confining them into one area on the west side of the apartment. Piper stuck to the other side most days, wandering around and doing important things. She'd only run to the opposite end of the house whenever she heard a "BAM" and loud Spanglish swears, and those days always resulted in her bandaging up his cuts and scrapes from trying to fix something in her apartment.

For the majority of the duration of his stay, the two of them went through boxes of salvaged items that were sent weekly by the N.Y.P.D. The whole insurance/advance-legal-thing was tricky, seeing as how Leo was already in trouble with the law. It had taken a lot of persuasion to get the police to send the belongings in the first place, and even more to let Leo out in the open just like that to search the remains of his house for items (he wasn't under house arrest, but she swore that she saw at least three police cars following them on their walk through Central Park last week). In the end, he got some stuff back - 'stuff' including some clothes, some shitty movies, and a truckload of pills.

Sitting down on the creamy carpet of her apartment floor, shafts of bright light bore down on her, draping across her shoulders and pouring onto the ground. As she moved, her shadow stretched across the room as if she were grabbing the table, and not something much smaller and less profound.

Piper stuck her hand into the box before her once again, rummaging inside a mess of objects to find more 'hidden gold'. Wisps of her hair escaped her faded bandanna and fell into her face, and she blew them away, scattering coppery strands of her hair and the sunbathed fibers in the air.

A little off to her right, lazy-ass-Leo was laid back on the floor next to her, tossing a bottle of pills up in the air and catching it to pass the time. He tossed it up again, and she pulled out another bottle from the bottom of the box, sighing as she read the label. It had some long, medical name that she couldn't pronounce, so she turned to him for answers.

She held up the bottle, the pills inside rattling as she did. "What are these for?"

Leo glanced at her with a passive look and a bored wave of his hand. "Eh, stability or something. You can toss those back in the box, I don't need them."

Piper reread the label, which said that he should take the pills twice everyday, and raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"

"Yes, I'm sure," he scoffed, and she rolled her eyes as she stuck an arm back into the box and dug around for more. She gave an audible sigh, and after a while, she noticed that had Leo had stopped tossing the bottle. She risked a glance at him, and a smirk spread across his face, which was always a bad sign. Before she could do anything, Leo sat upright, and she yelped when his hands reached out and grabbed her, snaking his arms around her waist, and he rested his head on her shoulder.

He kissed her, right below the jaw. "Who needs stability when I have you?"

Piper felt the heat rise to her cheeks in the absence of a response. Like this morning's moment on the fire escape wasn't enough to make her blush. It was things like this that made Leo seem so intoxicating, and her seem so dull.

Leo smiled at her blush, and leaned forward to kiss the red on her cheeks. He smirked when she only blushed harder, and she forced herself out of her reverie long enough to shake the orange cellophane bottle in his face.

"Fuck - take your pills, asshat."

Leo reached out with a sly smile, sliding his hand over hers and clasping it in his own. "Okay, fine. But first..." Piper was getting to the box again when he pulled her down by the waist, and she yelped a second time when she fell down into his lap. He grabbed her chin and pulled her in, smiling against her lips.

"...We make out."

And, as expected, that's exactly what they did.

Sometime in the middle of the day, Leo made a compelling discovery.

"Look at what I found," he said in a sing-song voice as she looked up from a box of miscellaneous things. He was jittery this time of day, which was good - that meant that he had more than enough energy to sift through boxes with her.

Piper swept her hair over her shoulder, trying to keep it out of her face as she worked. "What is it? More pills?"

Leo waved an only partially melted movie case around with a smile, and tossed it to her. The dread she felt in her stomach was only confirmed when the movie landed in her lap, its title facing her.

She sighed as she plucked King of Sparta from her lap. "Why couldn't this just burn with the rest of the house?"

"You just got lucky, I guess," Leo smirked as he leaned back on a pile of couch cushions that she had strewn across the floor. "I think I'll keep it as a good luck charm."

Piper scowled at the picture of her shirtless middle-aged father on the cover. "Good luck charm my ass." That thing was going straight into the trashcan.

Later that night, they sat on the sofa downstairs, wrapped in blankets with the fireplace on. Since nothing good was currently on TV, they decided to entertain themselves with the thought of each other. Piper had played with the thought of making cliché cups of hot cocoa, but seeing as how both of them were lazy as hell, it was clearly not going to happen.

Piper snuggled into Leo, and pulled the heavy, faux fur, vegetarian-friendly blanket closer around her as they curled up by the glow of the fire.

The room surged with hospitable warmth. As Leo wrapped his arms around her, her mind went elsewhere; she couldn't help but ponder on previous events. To be entirely honest, her mind had wandered back to this morning. Piper was upset; the fact that Leo had thought that she would be mad with him concerned her more than it should have. Wanting to ask why he would think of something so preposterous in the first place, she bit her lip. Piper glanced at him as he stared at the fireplace, getting ready to take the plunge.

"Leo...can I ask you a question?"

He peered down at her with a shadow of a smile, wrapping his arms tighter around her. When he looked at her, the flames of the fireplace seemed to dance in the darkness of his eyes, and she found the effect mesmerizing.

"Sure, Beauty Queen. Anything you want."

She pursed her lips, resting a hand on his chest, her fingers skimming the smooth cotton fabric of his t-shirt with a feathery touch, her eyes not meeting his. "About what you said this morning - "

"Don't fret over it, Pipes," Leo brushed her off, and she let him go, his shirt wrinkling under her hands. He stretched back, and her eyebrows knit together in concern when he draped an arm over her shoulder in an attempted act of distraction. "It's okay, really. You don't have to - "

"But I want to know," she insisted, cutting him off. Piper rested a hand under his chin and gently forced him to face her. Leo relaxed when brown eyes met multicolored ones, but she observed that he was still on edge - she could see the anxiety in his eyes, and the dread at having to answer questions that he did not want to be asked.

She stared at him dead in the eye, holding his gaze. "Leo...why would you think that I'd be angry with you?" Her voice was soft. "You know I could never be."

Piper narrowed her eyes at him, searching his eyes for something she couldn't find. Her tone was upset, but still quiet, tinged with a hint of annoyance, but mostly concern.

"What made you think that I'd be mad in the first place?"

When she asked this, Leo averted his gaze with a hint of a frown. Her eyebrows furrowed in the hesitation of his answer, and she watched as he stared at the firewood as it kindled on the bed of coals, sending up cinders into the air.

His voice was low and smooth, almost as neutral as it was on the escape this morning. "A lot of other people would have been mad, you know."

The crackling of the fire, the steadiness of his heartbeat against her ear, and the hum of the dishwasher running in the kitchen were the only sounds in the room. Piper turned over his assumption in her mind. It wasn't the exact answer that she had been looking for, but she reluctantly decided to dismiss the vagueness of his reply and go along with it.

Piper pursed her lips. "I'm not like most people, if you haven't noticed already." Her words had a sarcastic twang.

Leo smirked at her, chuckling under his breath. "Oh, don't worry, I've noticed. I just forgot, that's all."

"Forgot?"

"It was a mistake. A lot of people aren't as kind to me as you are."

'A lot of people aren't as kind to me as you are.' The line repeated itself in her mind, making her eyebrows knit together, and a feeling of concern bubble up in her chest. A wave of overprotectiveness washed over her, and she couldn't help but do the standard girlfriend thing and feel anxious and upset.

Piper followed his gaze and stared at the crackling fire along with him. The flames flickered and flared, glowing brighter and hotter with every passing moment. She took his hand in one of hers, running her thumb over its slenderness, and when she spoke again, her voice was much softer than before. "You said...people don't treat you as kind as I do," Piper repeated in a quiet tone. Her gaze flickered to him, like a dying flame. "People like who?"

Leo made a face, like it hurt to try and remember. "Just...a lot of people, that's all." His voice was solemn, and when she looked at him, she could see the pain in his eyes. Piper could literally feel his sadness - it filled the room, drowning her in sorrow. She wanted to make him feel better about this, about himself, but all she could do was hug him tighter than before and hope that the gesture meant something. The blaze burned on, and she kept listening to his heartbeat with a weary sigh, willing hers to match his so that both of their hearts were beating in sync, pumping in perfect unison.

Piper hesitated, fighting the urge to look him in the eye; she couldn't say it. The words hesitated at the tip of her tongue, and when she finally managed to them speak them aloud, they were just a feeble whisper lost in the flames.

"It's because you're an arsonist, isn't it?"

It was the first time she had ever said the word aloud; it tasted like metal on her tongue, cold and bitter, wrong in all aspects, in every way.

Leo didn't look at her, and she squeezed his hand in what she hoped that he interpreted as assurance. He only gazed at the searing inferno that tinged the air with smoke, sending wispy curls of smog into the air, tainting the atmosphere.

"Yeah."

No words needed to be exchanged after that. She cherished this one rare moment of understanding between them, snuggling into his chest, willing her heart to slow down to match the pace of his breathing.

Piper eventually fell asleep right there in front of the fire. Later on in the night, when the waxing, silvery moon was hanging high overhead outside the window, her eyes fluttered open. She craned her neck to look up at him, and saw that Leo was still staring at the glowing embers that faded in the moonlight, as if he hadn't been asleep at all.

Days passed, dragging by like nine-to-five slaves trying to beat the rush hour on a free-way. Piper felt like she was stuck in some hazy, gray area of time, where it passed her and she struggled to keep up. She wasn't on top of things anymore; her thoughts betrayed her, becoming muddled slurs, and lackadaisical thoughts of Leo.

Soon enough, early November turned to late, and with the ending of the month approached Thanksgiving.

In Piper's life, Thanksgiving was one of the most prestigious holidays of the year. The annual, highly-esteemed cooking-of-the-turkey was an honor that was tossed back and forth between her and her circle of friends. Last year, the task had been issued to Hazel, and Piper had flown out to Berkeley for the weekend. Now, it was her own turn, and Hazel, Frank, Reyna, Jason, Annabeth, Percy, and her father would be there as planned. Them, and Leo, who seemed to not be leaving her place anytime soon.

"My dad's coming over soon," she reminded him as he tinkered under the kitchen sink. Nuts and bolts littered the floor as Leo twisted a wrench around a pipe. There had been a little 'accident' involving the bracelet he had made for her last month and the kitchen faucet, and luckily for her, all she had to do was wake her mechanic/plumber boyfriend from his midday nap and get him to venture into the kitchen.

"He is?" The clamorous clanking of metal-against-metal filled her ears, and Leo muttered a curse under his breath. Her eyebrows arched in concern, and couldn't see what was wrong because his head was stuck in the depths of the cupboard. She crouched down to get a better look as he continued on, still working on despite whatever had been the mishap. "What's the occasion?"

Piper sighed in annoyed disbelief as she rolled her eyes at his forgetfulness. "Oh, nothing. Just that annual holiday that rolls around every November."

"...Hanukkah?"

Piper glared daggers into the back of his head. "The level of stupidity you're displaying right now is totally ridiculous. Come on, Leo - we don't have much time. Everyone's going to be here. It's really important to me that you make a good impression."

The clanking of his tools against pipework momentarily ceased, and his head emerged from the depths of the cupboard. Leo raised an eyebrow at her, and she already began to regret bringing up the subject of Thanksgiving in the first place.

He crossed his arms. "What if I don't want to go to your Thanksgiving dinner?"

Piper returned the gesture, raising an eyebrow in return. "What if you don't have a choice?"

Leo rolled his eyes, sitting up with a pair of dirty pliers in hand, and she crossed her arms, feeling a surge of annoyance.

"Look," he began, getting up from his position to stand. He took off his grimy gloves and casted an arid look at her, stuffing the pair of gloves into the back pocket of his overalls. "I could deal with the two of us spending Thanksgiving together - only the two of us, exclusively you and me. I think that it would be really sweet and romantic and all that - "

"And it will be," she but in with an upheld finger.

He rolled his eyes. " - But me having to impress a bunch of random people when the two of us could just spend the night together alone doesn't sound very appealing to me at all."

"Leo," her tone was was whiny and impatient, words that rarely ever described her. "Just this one time, that's all I'm asking for. Just act nice, smile, and it'll be over, okay? I promise."

He raised an eyebrow. Piper pouted with big eyes, and she could hear a groan of submission lurking at the back of his throat. It took a while, but Leo finally sighed, running a hand through his curls in defeat.

He scowled.

"Fine...I'll try, for you."

Piper smiled a cheeky smile and pecked him on the cheek before he could leave the room. "Thank you - you won't regret this."

"Save the suck up for Thanksgiving, will you?" Leo retorted, muttering a complaint under his breath. He tossed something at her before walking out of the room, not looking back. It went flying, winking in the sunlight as it pierced the air, and she caught it in her hands before it could fall.

When she saw what it was, she smiled. Gold charms and silver chains gleamed in the sunlight, resting in the palm of her hand.

More days passed. Piper spent a great deal of time grocery shopping, sending Leo on the occasional errand to get her things like turnips and cranberry sauce. So far, the menu comprised of candied yams, collard greens, stuffing, and a bunch of other seasonal foods. She'd leave the turkey-making to Leo (when he brought a Kosher turkey home from the supermarket on Fourth, she literally had to leave the room and gag in the nearest bathroom). For the holiday, she would try to stick it out by eating only the side dishes, avoiding both the actual turkey and Tofurky entirely.

Piper was standing over the sink, washing dishes from last night's meal when the phone rang. Leo was off somewhere running errands, so she turned off the faucet and strode across the room. Disregarding the number displayed on the phone, she pressed 'talk' and prayed to God that it wasn't a telemarketer calling for a survey again.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Pipes," spoke her father, and she relaxed, drying her wet hands on a dishtowel before putting the rag down on the counter. She wiped her still slightly damp hands on her jeans. Piper was relieved to know that it was just him, and not a telemarketer promoting lengthy surveys.

Piper smiled, stacking the newly dried plates on the counter next to the sink. "Hey, Dad. What's going on?"

"I called to tell you that some...things have come up recently." He sounded nervous. Whatever those 'things' were, they must have been bad.

She frowned, voicing her concerns. "Things? Like what?"

"Um..." her Dad hesitated, and she could already feel the discouragement rising in her chest. She didn't want to hear what was coming next. "You see, it's about next week. Lenny called from the studio, and they want to do a retake of the final scene of my new movie. They didn't like the setting in the last one, so they want to try shooting the scene again in Ecuador next weekend...and I have to leave next Thursday."

It didn't take much for her to understand what he was trying to tell her. She tried to swallow her disappointment, but her voice betrayed her, faltering as she spoke. "So...you mean..."

"I can't come for Thanksgiving this year. I'm really sorry."

Piper swallowed again, her throat dry. Just like last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. "Um, it's - it's okay, Dad. I understand. Have fun in Ecuador. Don't forget to bring me back a souvenir."

He sighed on the other line. Her father was clear across the country, but he seemed even farther now; the gap between her and her Dad seemed to grow bigger by the day.

Her father sighed, his tone sad and regretful. "You're mad at me."

She took a shaky breath. Her eyes stung, and she wiped them before any tears could come out. "No, it's okay, really. Just go."

He sounded exasperated. "Piper - "

She hung up before he could say anything else, and before she could cry, she wiped her eyes on the long, brown sleeves of her shirt. Piper hissed a number of obscenities into the awry morning before she [accidentally] shed a tear, a single drop rolling down her cheek, and she gave up. She sat down on the tile floor, shrouded in sadness, and pulled her knees to her chest, letting a few more tears fall. She hated feeling this way - sadness was a feeling that she didn't like to experience much, one she hated to feel at all.

Piper sat there for a while, until her limbs were stiff from sitting still for so long, and she was sure her joints would creak when she tried to stand. She sighed into the stillness of the kitchen, and heard the turning of keys in a lock from the hall. The sound of the front door of her apartment creaking on it's hinges resonated through the apartment, and Leo chose that precise moment to come barging down the hallway and into the kitchen, grocery bags in hand. He came in unaware, smiling, like running errands was the best thing he'd done all day.

Leo glanced at her, not long enough to notice her current condition. "Hey Pipes, I - " He immediately trailed off, frozen, and glanced at her again. Piper looked up at him with a glare, and his voice shrunk, whatever he had originally planned to say dying in his throat.

Leo nearly dropped one of the grocery bags, fumbling with his car keys. "...What's wrong?"

Piper sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve; God, she hated crying. She croaked out the words, sniffling once more. "Daddy Moneybags isn't coming for Thanksgiving."

She could see the gears turning in Leo's head as his eyebrows shot up, and he put the bags down on the counter before sitting on the floor next to her. "...Oh."

Water dripped from the tap, the continual drip, drop, drip, drop acting as an odd kind of ataractic. Piper didn't say anything for a while, and she felt bad for shoving all of this emotional awkwardness on Leo, who sat on the tile floor next to her, unsure of what to do. After some time, he pulled his knees to his chest, getting into the same position as her. He wrapped his arms around his legs as he scooted a little closer to her, the awkwardness melting some as he did.

His voice was soft and soothing, offering solace when she needed it. "Is it okay if I ask why?"

Piper sniffled. "He has to shoot the last scene of his stupid movie in Ecuador," she spat. She felt bitter and stupid and lonely. Every year, her dad flaked out on her. She shouldn't have been crying. This wasn't any different. "All I wanted was one fucking holiday - that's not too much to ask, is it?"

Piper looked to him for an answer, and Leo did the safe thing, not answering in a way that told her that he understood and didn't at the same time.

She went on into a short ramble, complaining about how her dad was forever absent, and how he was too busy for her. Leo listened intently, which caught her by surprise - he didn't strike her as the listening type. On any other day, his ADHD would've gotten the best of him, and he would've diverted his attention to a passing fruit fly.

"...I just want him to be there for me, you know?" she finished. When she was done, Piper laid her head on his shoulder, and Leo draped an arm across her own and pulled her close. She sniffled into the plaid fabric of his shirt, and he rubbed circles into her back, pressing a kiss into her hair as she relaxed in his embrace.

In the silence that followed, the old antique clock chimed on the wall, and the sound of muffled laughter wafted in from far, far away. She closed her eyes as Leo ran a hand through her hair, sighing.

"I know, Pipes," he said softly, and she sighed into his arms. There it was again, that tone of vague sympathy, but she heard something else in his voice - not quite empathy, but something closer to understanding, the one achieved by personal experience. Leo's eyes glazed over with an emotion that she couldn't place, and his words became the grumblings of a personal vendetta. "I know."

Thanksgiving day rushed in faster than her Dad's plane rushed out of the country.

The first half of the day was spent cleaning up, which meant shoving things under beds, into closets, and moving everything out of sight so that her friends couldn't see them. Piper took care of most of the tidying up while Leo finished the final dishes in the kitchen. She often heard him yell something along the lines of "FUCK - !", "SHIT!", and "FUCKING JERKASS TURKEY", and she could only assume that the meal was almost done.

She had donned a slim-fitting black dress for the occasion, and a pair of emerald earrings that Hazel had gotten her for her birthday last year. She wore her brown hair up in a bun, and had caught Leo staring at her more than once from the kitchen window, to which she'd say, "Browsing the menu?" and he'd blush (which he seldom did; she saw it as a great accomplishment) and go back to cooking.

Leo himself had cleaned up today - he wore a dark brown button-down that matched his eyes, black slacks, and a pair of Oxfords. He kept tugging on his collar, and he didn't bother to do anything with his hair, which didn't matter to her as much as she thought it would. She kept a personal note to compliment him on how handsome he looked when the rest of the guests weren't looking.

Piper finished cleaning up, and was admiring all of her handiwork when the doorbell rang. Giddy and nervous, she smoothed down her dress, and went to the front door to let in the awkwardness.

She swung the door open to see the first guests of the afternoon, Percy and Annabeth, bickering over something entirely pointless (which was not at all uncalled for). Annabeth was the first to notice her standing in the doorway, and when she did, she stomped down hard on Percy's foot to grab his attention.

"Ow!" he yelled at the top of his lungs as Annabeth turned to face her with a smile. She formally smoothed down the front of her minimalistic gray dress, as if she and her fiancée hadn't been fighting a few seconds ago. "Hi, Piper. Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks again for inviting us over. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"It has," Piper confirmed, and she did the polite thing and leaned into a hug. She pulled back, and gave her friend what she hoped was a cordial smile. "It's nice to see you again." There was no point in being mean. Piper had given up on keeping their friendship on a vaguely sour note ages ago.

Annabeth passed her and went into the penthouse. Piper turned to Percy, who gave her his best I'm-still-mad-at-you face and recollected himself. Mr. Jackson wore a plain white shirt and black slacks with emerald cuff links that matched his eyes, and spoke in the curtest voice he could muster, regarding her with an upturned nose.

Percy's voice was taut, and he looked at her with hesitant eyes. "Piper."

She smiled, sugary-sweet.

"Asshole."

She stepped aside to let him in.

Annabeth had gone straight into the living room and sat down on the sofa, hands folded in her lap in that ponderous way of hers. Piper took their coats and hung them up in the front closet. Percy stood around the living room, inspecting things like the few porcelain knickknacks on the mantle, and the family photos on the wall. He turned to her, and she rolled her eyes at his lousy Sherlock Holmes impression before putting her hands on her hips. He looked at her, and pursed his lips.

"So, where's your boyfriend?"

He said 'boyfriend' like it was venomous, poisonous to the tongue. He said it in the same way that he would say 'arsonist'.

"He's in the kitchen," Piper replied with a glower, setting her jaw immediately afterward. She felt a surge of irritation, but pushed it down into the murky depths of her thoughts as she turned towards the kitchen. "Leo, could you come out here, please?"

"Just a sec!" There was some clanking, a muttered curse, and a number of other noises before Leo stumbled out of the kitchen, a spatula in hand. He composed himself before seeing Percy and Annabeth, and his dark eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Oh..." Leo glanced between them and Piper, and his gaze focused on Percy and Annabeth as he rubbed the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable. "Hello."

She smiled a tight smile, motioning to the couple. "Leo, these are my friends Percy and Annabeth. Guys, this is my boyfriend, Leo."

The air was thick with tension. Piper stood to the side and watched Percy and Leo shake hands with firm grips, nervously swallowing down a lump in her throat. The hairs on her neck threatened to stand on end; The two of them in the same room together felt ten times more dangerous than Leo was to Percy.

"Nice to meet you, Leo." said Annabeth with a polite smile as the two of them shook hands. Unlike Leo and Percy, she felt like Leo and Annabeth would get along better than not.

Piper opened her mouth to say something else, but the doorbell rang again before she could. She muttered a quick, "Will you excuse me for a moment?", and left the room. She opened the front door to welcome Hazel, Frank, Jason, and Reyna, who had all arrived on the same flight from California earlier that afternoon.

There were some hugs, and quite an exhausting number of words were exchanged.

"Hey, Piper!"

"Hey, Frank." She hugged her friend, who squeezed her in a bear hug that was enough to leave her winded. "How are things?"

"Great," he said with a smile, and she noticed that his tie looked a little, well, a lot off. She raised an eyebrow, and Frank immediately sighed.

He leaned down, whispering into her ear as Hazel walked into the room. "Hazel doesn't know how to tie a tie."

"I do so," Hazel retorted, shedding her coat and rolling her eyes. "You're the one who's supposed to know, not me." She waved a hand, clearly occupied with other things as she greeted Percy and Annabeth. "Piper, could you help him with it, please?"

Piper laughed, complying with a wholehearted smile. "Sure thing - and hi to you too, Hazel."

When Piper was done tying the crimson tie around Frank's neck, Jason was the next one to grab her in a hug.

Jason squeezed her, thankfully not as hard as Frank had. "Hey!"

"Hey, Jason. How's work?"

"Amazing, actually." Jason's light-cerulean eyes gleamed, and she knew for a fact that things were going well. "I'd go on about stock markets and sponsors, but I'm pretty sure I'd bore you to death, huh?"

Piper smiled, a laugh peering from behind her grin. "Good call."

He laughed and squeezed her again before pulling away, stuffing his hands into the pocket of his slacks. "So, is your boyfriend here?"

At hearing this, Piper glanced around the room, and her grin faded when she noticed that Leo was nowhere to be seen. She gave an internal sigh, but made sure to keep the smile on her face. "Yeah, he's here. I just have to find him first."

Piper walked off towards the kitchen just as Reyna ambled in, looking fatigued from her flight across the country. Piper stopped in her tracks, and was the one to pull her into a hug with a knowing smile. Air travel took its toll sometimes.

Piper chuckled under her breath. "Jet lag?"

Reyna groaned over her shoulder, hugging her back. "Absolutely."

Piper smiled. Her friends greeted each other, filling the room with grins and laughter. She beamed again, but glanced at the kitchen. Knowing that Leo was tucked away in there, Piper plastered on another grin and told them all to make themselves at home while she slipped out of the room.

She walked into the kitchen to see Leo holding a golden-roasted turkey, fresh out of the oven.

Piper pursed her lips, concerned. "Hey - why'd you slip away? Everyone's out there, and some of them are asking for you."

"The turkey was done," Leo reasoned, but she knew that it was just an excuse. He set it down on the counter, applying a dash of cilantro onto the dish with the defiant raise of an eyebrow. "You don't want it to end up like your birthday cake, do you?"

Damn, he was being difficult again. Piper glanced through the window across the room to see the sun begin to set, which meant that it was almost time for dinner, and put her hands on her hips with a weary sigh. "Are you almost done, at least?"

Leo picked up the dish, holding it out to her. "Just about. Put this on the table with the rest of the meal, will you? I'll be right out."

"Fine," she muttered as she grabbed a pair of oven mitts and carried the dish out of the room. Piper walked around the long way so she wouldn't be bothered, and set the turkey in the center of the dining table, emerging through another door and back into the living room.

She clapped her hands, grabbing the attention of her friends and ceasing conversation. "I think the meal's just about done. How about we all file into the dining room?"

The next moments rushed past her as they entered the room in question and took their seats, and the next thing she knew, the annual awkward table chitchat had begun.

Hazel pulled her chair closer to the table, settling down. She tugged on the long sleeves of her golden dress before motioning to the food with a curious gaze. "Piper, did you cook all of this?"

Piper spread one of her fancy cloth napkins across her lap. "Not all. To be totally honest, I only made the cornbread, the greens, and a couple of other dishes. Leo made everything else."

Reyna raised an eyebrow, sweeping a wisp of black hair behind her ear, her diamond earrings gleaming in the light. "Leo?"

Whoops. She forgot that she hadn't told them his name. "Yeah, Leo - my boyfriend. He should be out in a minute or two."

They waited, commencing standard table talk. She heard footsteps in the hall, and Leo eventually appeared in the doorway, eyebrows raised and hands in his pockets.

"Wow, lots of guests."

Piper smiled a grin that stretched across her face. "Guys, this is Leo. Leo, meet my friends."

As she watched Leo greet the others with a smile, she couldn't help but think that the entire thing was going all too well. And when she said 'all too well', she meant 'too good to be true'. Piper didn't know if it was her presence that made Leo so calm and collected in front of the others, but whatever was causing his good behavior, she hoped that it would last until the night's end.

They said their grace. "...Um, thanks God for food, and indoor plumbing, and other stuff like that. Mostly food..." After introducing himself to the others, Leo sat down at the head of the table, right next to her, and soon, he was the center of attention.

Piper passed the plate of cranberry sauce to Annabeth, who passed it to Jason, who eyed Leo hesitantly from across the table, where he was sitting next to Reyna. "So, Leo. I haven't really heard much about you. What do you do for a living?"

Leo piled a heap of stuffing onto his plate alongside greens and cornbread. "I'm a mechanic. I do a lot of handy work, and some building on my own time."

Piper nervously shoved a forkful of yams into her mouth. She chewed nervously; she couldn't tell if her friends were impressed or dissuaded.

Someone else asked a question, and she wasn't paying attention as to who it was. "How did you two meet?"

"He needed a ride," Piper answered quickly. She didn't want to admit it, but part of her was afraid that Leo would reply in the wrong way. "We met at a bar." wasn't exactly the ideal answer. "His car broke down, and he asked me for a ride so he could get his tools. I lent him my car, and he brought it back."

Someone muttered something under their breath. Piper's eyes swept the table for who had spoken, and landed on a shrewd looking Percy Jackson across the table from her.

Percy pursed his lips at Leo, and Piper narrowed her eyes at him. "So Leo, are you a resident of NYC? Where do you live?"

Leo looked up, his mouth stuffed with turnips. He and Piper shared a nervous glance, and he swallowed down his mouthful, scratching the back of his neck. "Um...I'm living here, actually."

"He moved in last month," Piper said quickly before Percy could grill him for more. Percy glared at her, and she returned the gesture before Frank decided to ask a question.

Frank raised a dark eyebrow. "Last month? How long have you guys been dating?" She looked at Frank, who tugged at his too-tight crimson red tie in annoyance, which was her fault; Piper had a habit of tying overly-tight knots.

"About six months," she answered right away, cutting Leo off before he could answer. At hearing Piper's answer, a number of eyebrows went up in surprise.

Hazel pursed her lips. "You two have been dating for six months? Why didn't you tell us about this before?"

"Yeah, Pipes," Percy spoke, swallowing a mouthful with an accusing gaze that was directed at her. "Why didn't you?" As soon as the words escaped his mouth, her gaze snapped to him, and he looked at her like a kid who was overly-satisfied with himself (despite the stubble and the few gray hairs).

Piper sent a glare in Percy's direction before confronting the question. She swallowed down a dry lump in her throat. This time, she didn't have an answer. "Well, um..." she trailed off.

"She didn't know how you guys would react."

Her mouth clamped shut, and her eyebrows arched under her bangs. The amazing thing about the previous statement was that it was well thought out, uncalled for, and spoken by not her, but Leo.

The two of them shared another quick glance. There was a glint in his eye, and his message was clear. My turn to speak.

Piper quickly looked away, leaving the rest up to him as she grabbed her fork and stabbed at her turnips in embarassment that Leo didn't quite catch.

"Piper was just nervous, that's all." Leo waved the question off, like the entire ordeal had been silly.

More or less satisfied with his answer, everyone reluctantly turned their attention back to their food. The conversation diverted its attention away and on to other things, but Percy trained it right back on them.

After answering a question about the upcoming wedding, Percy turned to face her with a faux smile. "So Piper, how's work going?"

"Things are going fine," she answered with a wary look, because she didn't know where Percy was going with this. "I got a deal for a lead in a fantasy movie, and we're supposed to start filming next summer. Could you pass the greens, please?"

Percy picked up the dish, his glare unwavering, and she took it from Frank, who passed it down to her. The tension between them was suffocating, but it managed to pass the other guests unnoticed.

Percy's scrutinizing gaze shifted from her to Leo in under a microsecond. "Leo, how about you?"

"Work's fine, I guess," Leo muttered as he cut a slice of turkey. It was a lie - both she and Leo knew very well that his boss was going to let him go sooner or later, and finding another job before he was unemployed was taking a lot longer than they had both anticipated.

Percy raised an eyebrow, sitting back in his chair in mock concern. "You guess? What do you mean?"

Leo shrugged. "It's just hard to scrape by, that's all."

"Why so?"

She forced down a mouthful of cornbread, glaring at Percy with more intensity. His gaze fluttered to her for less than a second, but both of them knew that he got the message. Stop.

"It's mostly the pay," Leo answered reluctantly before picking up his glass, bringing the rim to his lips. She could feel his annoyance at Percy's pressing questions, and saw him narrow his eyes at him over the rim of his glass. "I'm interested in starting my own business, and my salary isn't exactly prime."

Piper saw the look on Percy's face, his eyes turning a stormy green. She gripped the sides of her chair, bracing for impact, because she knew that they had just wandered into a hurricane.

"How about we change the subject?" He suggested, stabbing at the turkey on his plate. "Did you guys hear about that fire the other day? You must have heard about it, Leo."

Game, set, match.

Leo froze, fork in midair. Piper forgot how to breath.

He slowly rested his fork back down on his plate, and she was the only one to notice his arm shaking as he did. His eyes met Percy's, a disconcerted gaze clashing with a satisfied one, both on opposite ends of the table.

Reyna gave a small frown, clearly concerned. "A fire? When?"

Leo didn't answer.

Percy continued on. "Yeah. Apparently, an arsonist burned down his own home last month. Crazy, right? I read about it online."

Stop, she screamed in her mind as Leo narrowed his eyes at Percy. Whatever it was that had kept the day calm had long gone abandoned them. Stop. Just stop - please.

Leo swallowed, and Piper stared at her plate, already having lost her appetite.

"And what happened after that?" His voice was soft, a hesitant whisper laced with dreadful anticipation. Her previous conversation with Leo re-entered her thoughts - "A lot of people aren't as kind to me as you are."

"People like who?"

People like Percy.

"He was arrested," Percy remarked slowly, and the words cut into her like a knife, giving his desired effect. Her heart skipped a beat, pounding in her ears. Percy held his glass in one hand, and looked at the two of them with a condescending look, his condemning lips red from Chateau wine. "Someone bailed him out."

Leo gripped the sides of his chair, and she knew that he was ready to spring to his feet, ready to take action. "And?"

"And he's sitting at a dining table having Thanksgiving dinner right now..." Jackson trailed off, and she could feel the anger brooding deep down in the depths of Leo's mind.

"...And as a matter of fact..." Percy paused to spin his glass, it's contents sloshing around inside.

"...I'm looking right at him."

Before Leo could fly across the table, Piper sprang up from her seat, chair scraping against wood. She slammed her hands down on the mahogany in unbridled anger, and sent a death glare at Percy Jackson.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with you?" Percy retorted, springing to his feet as everyone recovered from the last sudden outburst. She felt bad for the others - they had no idea what was going on as the scrambled back from the table, stunned. Heck - even Leo was speechless.

Annabeth stood, glancing at the two of them with startled-yet-stern gray eyes. She demanded answers with balled fists, her blond hair swishing over her shoulders as she glanced between the two of them. "Will someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?"

Piper gritted her teeth, her heart pounding in her ears with a deafening roar. She ignored Annabeth's question and looked straight at Percy, burning holes into his eyes with her glare. "This is not how you fix things, dumbass. You're not supposed to make things fucking worse."

"Things were bound to get worse, anyway," he spat, and she quickly grabbed her knife. A number of voices rose up at once.

"Whoa!"

"Wait - "

"Oh my fucking God - "

As soon as her hand touched the silverware, Jason was behind her, pinning her arms to her back to keep her from making the mistake of creating the world's first Percy kabob.

"I hate you," she hissed at Percy as he backed away, and she threw the knife down on the table, the metal clattering against china with a loud noise that filled the stunned silence in the room. She wrenched herself away from Jason's grasp, and snatched her plate from the table as an excuse to escape.

Her tone was snarky and mad. "Get the hell out of my house."

She stormed out of the room.

Piper hated scrubbing dishes.

Back when she was younger, it was her least favorite chore at home. She had always thought to herself that, if her and her Dad lived in a Malibu mansion, and if they had enough money to back a small nation, then how come they couldn't get a maid? How come she had to wash the dishes?

Thinking back on it, it was probably a discipline thing, but she didn't care. She sure as fuck still hated washing dishes.

Piper had never been so pissed at anyone in her entire life. Hunched over the sink, she scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, her hands trying to release her anger. She tried to imagine that the plates were Percy, and that she was scraping his face off with a clump of steel wool. She had to admit - it helped, somewhat.

Amidst the sound of rushing water from the faucet, she heard footsteps. She knew who it was right away, and turned off the water, throwing the dishtowel over her shoulder and whirling around with a pang of dread in her gut.

Leo stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame. His arms were crossed, and he had a bemused look on his face that confirmed that he didn't find anything humorous about the situation (which had to be a first).

The clock ticked on the wall, and water dripped from the faucet. They regarded each other with mixed feelings, and when the guilt became unbearable, she looked down at her heels in shame. Leo choose that moment to speak.

"Is it just me," his voice was low and smooth, even and threatening in its own way. It scared her, because it did not sound like him, but someone more serious - the silent tone of what used to be passive-aggressive anger. He continued on. "...or is your friend out for my ass?"

Piper opened her mouth, but closed it again. She was at a loss for words; she really had nothing to say.

"I didn't want to come - " Leo started, his tone quiet. He strode into the room with quiet steps, slowly walking towards her in a mercurial way that made her back away. " - Because I didn't want to be judged, Piper. That's why. But I guess that no one got what they wanted tonight, huh?"

He stopped in front of her, looking down into her eyes with crossed arms, waiting for her to stammer out a startled reply. She gazed into his eyes, and saw the hurt, the pain, the betrayal, the anger - every emotion he felt at the moment, everything she never wanted him to feel, and she was overcome with another heavy wave of guilt.

Piper reached out to him, but he stepped back from her touch. "Leo, I- I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't want Percy to know - he found out on his own. I didn't- "

"On his own?" He snapped. She could practically see the anger emanating from him, rolling off of his shoulders in waves. His voice raised with every word. "Didn't he have to get help to find that out?"

"I never wanted him to know," Piper repeated. She struggled to keep her voice steady, and to keep her tone over a whisper. "It was a mistake. Please, calm down, don't be mad. I'm sorry - "

His voice shook. "I don't want to calm down. You expect me to just wave that off, pretend that this whole night didn't happen? I have a right to be angry."

"Leo - "

"Don't try to calm me down, Piper. I trusted you not to say anything, I didn't even think I had to mention it - "

She wanted to cry. "Leo - "

"I'm done," he declared, waving a hand in the air, as if he were showing just how far he had been pushed, just how past the breaking point he already was. "This is why I do it - because of people like him, accusing me of things that I didn't intend to do. You think I want to be like this?" He motioned to himself, hands on his chest, and she didn't answer. "You think I want to be an arsonist, want to go to jail? Fuck no. I didn't ask for any of this shit. I didn't ask for any of this at all."

He could have gone on all night. He could have yelled at her, hit her, kept on going, anything - but he didn't. Leo looked down at her with all of the anger and hatred he felt, but when she looked up into his eyes, she saw his anger replace itself with something else. The tears that had welled up in her eyes began to roll down her cheeks; her emotional dam had finally gave way.

Leo blinked, and looked at her as if he were gazing at her for the first time that night, realizing that she was crying. He looked at his hands, as if they covered in her blood. She saw the realization dawn on him that he had made her cry, that he was the one that had just hurt her, and he looked absolutely terrified.

He looked her in the eyes, and his words were choked. "Piper...I- I didn't... " He trailed off.

"Just go," she hissed in between her tears, and he backed out of the room, his eyes not leaving her until he was gone. Piper choked back a sob, the first one many. She felt like absolute shit, standing in the darkness of her kitchen with her mascara running. She wanted to leave. She wanted to crawl a hole into the carpet and die.

She turned her back to the door, but heard more footsteps soon after. Piper closed her eyes, and didn't bother to turn around this time.

The person standing in the doorway spoke in Percy's voice; his shadow was cast across the room, stretching over her.

He sighed before he spoke. "I get it, you're mad. I did something wrong."

She did not open her eyes. She did not answer.

Percy kept going, clearing his throat. "I, um - I heard you guys fight from the other room. I know that it's my fault, and I wanted to say that I was sorry. I...tried to take care of this the wrong way. I thought that, maybe- " He faltered, but he picked right back up again. "I thought that pushing him away from you would fix things. I was wrong. I was being a dumbass, you were right. Now I'm apologizing for it."

Silence flooded into the room, and she used it to her advantage, getting her anger across.

Piper opened her eyes.

"Get out."

There was a shuffling noise behind her that was him shifting his weight from foot to foot. He started to say something, but the words died in his throat, so he tried again, succeeding this time. "Piper, I don't think - "

"Leave," she snaps, and she feels the anger swell in her chest. She knows that he apologized, but in the heat of the moment, she didn't care; she blamed it all on him - his stupid background checks, his stupid interrogation. She was angry, she was furious, and she didn't want to see Percy Jackson again for a long, long time.

No footsteps. He doesn't budge, standing his ground.

At this, she turns around, glaring at him through dried up streaks of mascara. "I said get your motherfucking ass out of my house, dipshit - and take your fiancée with you."

He looks at her with a look of regret, and walks out of the kitchen. She's in no mood to be a dinner host anymore.

Piper doesn't leave the room until she sees her friends climb into their cars out of the kitchen window, rev up their engines, and maneuver down the busy city streets until they're all out of sight. She goes upstairs, where she sees that the door to the guest bedroom is locked, and knows that has Leo shut himself in there. Piper passes the closed door and goes to her own room, where she collapses on her bed, not even bothering to take her dress off. She's exhausted, immanently and physically. Her heart hurts. She's running out of emotional band-aids.

Closing her eyes, she falls asleep to the sounds of New York, car horns honking in her dreams.

Piper had a nightmare.

In this particular vision, she was standing in the center of a fire - a blazing, intense inferno, burning hues of red and whitish blue, consuming all around her and leaving smoke in her eyes. There's an ax in her hand, which she doesn't understand, but she doesn't let it go.

She's closed in, or so it seems. Pipers reels in a circle, looking for some way out, and sees a door - a door, maybe ten feet away, and she hears someone banging on it, calling her name, trying to break out.

"Piper!"

It's Leo.

She runs to the door.

Her words come out in sobs and screams. "Leo, move back! I'm going to chop the door down!" Her voice is strange - she sounds like herself, but her voice is far away, like she's speaking from the end of a pipe. She hefts the ax over her shoulder, and tugs it forward, aiming for the door.

It makes contact with a satisfying wham. It takes her a while, but she pulls it back out, pushing her foot against a beam next to the door for support, and swings again as fragments of the door free themselves from the wood and fall to the floor, consumed by the flame. She sees his face on the other side, and gives a sob of relief as he helps her pull the door apart, working with only his bare hands.

"Keep going!" he yells over the roar in her ears, his words laced with emotion. "Don't stop!"

She swings again - there's a big hole in the door now, big enough for roughly half of a human being. She hefts the ax back over her shoulder, and tears streak her cheeks, sizzling in the heat. "I'm going to get you out of here. Move back!"

Leo backs away, and she swings one last time - the entire door is reduced to splinters. He pushes his way out and wraps her in his arms, and she drops the ax and hugs him back with an overtaking cry of reprieve.

He kisses her, and it feels just as real as reality.

Leo pulls back, then glances upward at something she can't see. He looks back into her eyes with a sad smile, and cups her face in his hands before kissing her one last time. "I'm sorry, Piper."

She doesn't understand. "What?"

The next thing she knows, she's being pushed - and she's falling, falling, back into the flames, and she hears the groan of creaking wood from above. A beam above them - it shudders in the heat, and falls, consumed in fire. She hits the ground, and the air is torn from her lungs when it crashes down on him, and she sobs like she's never sobbed before. The whole room collapses in a number of seconds, and she doesn't even get time to scream.

Piper woke up crying.

It wasn't the sorry kind of crying where your eyes were just wet, or the silent one where tears ran down your cheeks and you kept most of the sadness pent up inside. She was legitimately sobbing, crying out in heart-wrenching wails, bawling into the darkness of her room with no one to comfort her but a teddy bear and the intimidating glow of her alarm clock.

She tried to calm herself down, which took a much longer time than she had first anticipated. She managed to reduce her sobbing to a hiccup, but she was still shaking. It all had seemed so real - the fire, the kiss, his death. Piper wasn't entirely sure if this was even reality. She pinched herself, which hurt, but she still wasn't convinced. Maybe she had actually died in the fire, and heaven looked a lot like her bedroom. Maybe hell looked a lot like a bedroom.

The quiet murmur of sirens blared off into the night, wailing like a distant memory. Piper rubbed her eyes, and she realized that she was still in her dress. She stood from her bed and changed out of the gown, stuffing it into one of the drawers of her dresser across the room. After wiping her dried makeup off of her face with a wipe, she pulled an over-sized Simpsons tee over her mess of hair before padding towards her door. She grabbed the knob and slowly creaked the door open to slide into the hallway.

She needed to apologize. She needed to go find Leo.

Piper quickly tip-toed into the hallway and passed a set of doors. The late-night shadows looked distorted in the moonlight - eerie silhouettes stretched across the walls, reaching out into the awry night. Piper turned a corner with Leo in mind, wondering exactly how she would muster up the courage to say 'sorry' first, and as soon as she turned on her heel, she jumped five feet in the air to see someone she hadn't expected to be up at this hour.

She screeched, nearly waltzing into Leo. "Holy shit - !"

" - Fuck, don't scare me like that." He hissed, backing away with wide eyes. Leo hadn't been expecting to see her either, and both of their yelps had been loud enough to wake the neighbors. Piper exhaled, her heart still racing, and as she glanced into his bloodshot eyes, it hit her that he was in fact not in his room.

"Where were you going?" she asked with a raised eyebrow, and she saw the ends of his ears go pink, even in the darkness. Leo scratched the back of his neck.

"I was, um - I was kind of heading to your room." She smirked at his failed attempt to make it sound unperverted, but it quickly disappeared when he continued on. "I, uh - I thought that I heard you in your room." His eyes darted away, and his demeanor changed from one that was embarrassed to one that was frankly uncomfortable. "I thought I heard - I, um, that you were crying."

Oh. "Oh," she voiced, and she hastily looked away. There was an awkward silence. Piper wished that there were crickets in Manhattan, so they could fill in the gaps with chirping instead of her having to listen to herown pathetic muses.

She fingered a braid in her hair, tugging on it in the way that she always did when she was nervous. "I was..." Her gaze fell to the floor. "It was because I had a nightmare."

"Oh."

More vaguely awkward silence.

After a while, Piper stole a glance at him. Leo stood tall against the shadows, moonlight pouring over his shoulders and illuminating his curly, black hair in silver light. His eyes were bloodshot, and she could tell that he had lost a considerable sleep thinking about something - (probably her (or then again, maybe she was overthinking her own value)) - and she felt bad, yet good at the same time, comforted in the thought that she wasn't the only one who had had a bad night's sleep.

Leo chewed his lip, taking a breath to finally break the silence between them. "I wanted to apologize."

Her eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Yeah..." He scratched the back of his neck again, and she could feel his discomfort at having to apologize first at three in the morning. "I'm sorry, Pipes. For being such an ass."

"A huge ass."

Leo rolled his eyes in the cute way he did when he knew that she was being purposefully annoying, and his nose wrinkled at her correction. "Yeah, a huge ass, whatever. I shouldn't have lashed out at you earlier. It was wrong of me."

She was not appeased.

"I- " she paused. "I want to forgive you," Piper admitted, and her heart hurt at seeing the sudden concerned look on his face. "And I'm sure that I will, eventually, but you have to make me a promise first."

He raised an eyebrow. "A promise?"

"A promise," she repeated in the white noise of the night, meeting his gaze with the intent to hold it for good. Piper knew what she wanted, and she balled her fists in an attempt to muster up the confidence she needed as she began to voice her concerns. "I want you to promise me that won't make me feel like that ever again."

"Feel like...?" Leo trailed in a help me, here kind of tone.

"Shit," Piper deadpanned, crossing her arms. "Promise me that you'll never do that to me again, as long I - you live."

He frowned. "That's a lot to promise."

"You're a lot to handle."

Leo turned this over in his mind. Touché.

He sighed, a loud breath that she might have misinterpreted for a hiss. He placed a hand over his heart, milking the entire ordeal. "I, Leo Valdez, swear on my soul that I'll never, ever - "

She glared a soft glare at him, not finding it funny. "This isn't a joke, Leo. I'm serious."

He puffed a breath into the night air. "Okay." The next moment went by in a rush - he took a deep breath, and when his eyes found hers again, his mask crumbled piece by piece, right in front of her eyes. Leo's face dissolved into a look of worry and guilt, and he reached out. She took a reflexive step back as he cupped her face in his hands, making her heart skip a beat and her cheeks flush. In slow, fluid motions, Leo leaned his forehead against hers, his lips hovering over hers. His next words were a quiet whisper.

"Piper," he began, and his breath blew against her lips, drawing her in, but she held herself back. When she looked into his eyes, she was surprised to find fear, and guilt twinged down in her stomach as she realized what of: losing her. "Piper," Leo repeated, and she desperately wanted him to hurry up and belt out his apology, desperately wanted him to kiss her. "I promise, and I absolutely mean it when I say that I don't, won't, and will never make you feel like that ever again. I'm sorry. I- " He his voice broke, and her heart did, too. " -I don't want to act like that ever again."

Piper put her hands over his, and a garden of guilt blossomed in her chest. "I'm sorry for making this mess," she apologized, and she didn't know when, but they had somehow gotten closer. They weren't kissing yet, but his lips brushed hers, and she found herself waiting in aroused anticipation. "It's my fault that Percy was acting that way, and I was an ass for thinking that he'd be okay with this."

Leo pulled back a little with a look of confusion and raised an eyebrow, not catching on. "This?"

"Us. He's not exactly a big fan of our relationship."

He hummed in agreement, his eyes fixed on her lips. His gaze flickered to her eyes before he gave her a sheepish smile - Leo wanted this as bad as she did.

His voice was still barely above a whisper. "So...are we cool again?"

It was a weak attempt at humor, but the mirth still shimmered faintly in his eyes.

"Depends," she mused, and her body did the rest for her - some invisible force pushed her towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck and fixing her gaze to his eyes. "You kind of have to kiss me first."

Leo finally leaned down and put her out of her misery. He kissed her with a smile, which he hadn't done in a while. It felt just like it had in the dream - it was was real and sincere, and she felt okay for the first time in a long time.

"No more fights, okay?" Piper murmured into his shoulder when they had pulled apart, stuck in the gesture of a hug.

"No more," Leo breathed in agreement before leaning down to kiss her again, and she leaned forward in compliance. They broke apart once more, and they had less than a moment to take each other in before Leo leaned down again, missing her lips and catching her jaw. Piper opened her mouth the say something about it, but he planted another kiss on her neck, working his way down until she was sure she was blushing red and praying to God that he didn't see it in the moonlight.

"Not now, jackass," Piper muttered, but he must not have heard, because he went to the other side of her neck, doing the same thing. She made a little strangled noise in her throat before forcing herself to push Leo away, and he reluctantly pulled back with a look of disappointment.

Leo opened his mouth to complain, but she silenced him with a peck on the lips. "Damn it Leo, I'm not that awake. Aren't you tired?"

He contemplated this. "Eh...Maybe a little bit."

Taking him by the hand, she led him back to her room with a smile. The two of them fell asleep in her bed that night, her in her over-sized t-shirt and him in his Mickey Mouse pajamas, perfectly content just being in each other's arms.

December came and went, and she started a new year just as she had ended the old one - wrapped in Leo's arms, making out in the middle of Times Square.

A lot of things happened in the beginning of the new year. Piper started filming the final season of the sitcom she had been working on, and everything seemed to be wrapping up. Leo had lost the deal on the garage he had had his eye on for a while, but another one went up for sale downtown. They both knew that he didn't have enough money to buy it, but she planned to not do anything, at least not until he asked her for help.

They stayed at home a lot, watching TV and talking about things that neither of them were interested in. They kissed a lot, too, but Piper felt like she had slipped into that gray area again - time slipped through her fingers like loose grains of sand, and she didn't realize that she had been wasting it until she had the last grain left, nestled in the palm of her hand.

For the most part, Leo was doing fine - at least until January rolled in. With the first month of the year came something he greatly despised.

Frankly put, Leo hated therapy.

Ever since he was sentenced with death-by-psychotherapy by the Orange County judicial department, Piper had to lug his ass down to Queens, so he could talk to his crappy therapist about life and other shit like that. He complained to her about it almost everyday, mentioning snippets of his sessions like the 'fucking psychotherapy shit' he had to endure, and the 'dumbass intellectual crap' the doctors tried to press on him. She wasn't really allowed to know what really went down on those sessions due to violation laws, but Leo didn't seem to care.

On the morning of January fifth, Piper was reading a book with him laid across her lap, tinkering with some wire in his hands. She tried to focus on the plot of her novel rather than Leo's consistent rambling, which was a lot harder than it sounded.

He waved his arms around, right in the middle of a rant. " - I swear, every time I go over there, it's an angsty shit-fest that's too cheap for streamers and confetti. The whole thing goes full-circle - I go in, get depressed, and then they actually slap the label on me and sign me up for another round. There's literally no escape. If those assholes intend to hold me in there until I fucking die - "

Piper slammed her book shut, his voice hammering in her head as she gritted her teeth. The words had already begun to float off of the page, and adding Leo's ADHD-ness to her dyslexia wasn't a good mix.

"God Leo, will you shut up?" She hissed through her teeth, giving him a good smack with the classic in her hand. "I've been trying to read this book for two months now, and every time I pick it up, you go off into your little rants about your shitty therapist. If you want to vent so much, why don't you just go to him? I'm not the one with the doctorate in psychology."

He pouted, his head on her lap. "But I don't want to go back."

She scowled. "Why not?"

"If you had been listening, you would have understood that therapy is a major pain in the ass."

Piper rolled her eyes. "I'm sure it's not that bad, Leo. Just go over and be good for Dr. Thorp, okay? I made an appointment for four this afternoon."

Leo pouted again, looking up at her with a deluxe pair of puppy dog eyes. "But Pipes..."

Piper glared at him, smacking him on the head with her copy of Pride and Prejudice for what hadn't been the first time that day. "No buts. Now get your ass off of me so I can read my book."

The day sped by. When the long hand of her watch rested on the twelve and the short hand on four, Piper found herself standing in a sleek, stainless steel elevator with none other than Leo Valdez by her side. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, and he had bedhead from his midday nap, but she judged him to be somewhat presentable before catching the M train and taking him over to Queens for his appointment.

Some old Madonna song played softly in the background as Leo muttered a series of curses under his breath. She crossed her arms at his immature behavior. "Oh, please. Talk therapy can't be that bad."

"It's not terrible," Leo muttered reluctantly in response, pacing around the elevator car. He was jumpy as they neared the office - he couldn't stay in one spot. "But I still hate it."

Piper rolled her eyes for what must have been the hundredth time that day; she was entirely done with his foolishness.

"I'm sure that it's not that hard. All you have to do is sit on a chair and talk about your life, right?"

"Well, yeah, but that's not the point."

Piper raised an eyebrow, a hand on her hip, because she honestly didn't see what the big problem was. "Then what is?"

Leo ran a hand over his stubble and gave her a look, one that suggested that he wanted to say something, but couldn't. When he didn't answer immediately, she pursed her lips. Violation laws hadn't held him back before, so she didn't see why answering her question was such a big deal.

His hands emerged from his pockets as he stammered out an answer. "It's just that - "

The elevator dinged. The steel doors of the lift slid open, cutting him off, and she stepped out of the elevator car with a huff of her breath. "Let's just get this over with, okay?"

She was upset, of course. Leo wouldn't tell her exactly what was so bad about therapy, and it pissed her off. She sashayed down the hall, him reluctantly following, and stopped at the door at the end of the aisle. When Leo reached her, she spun on her heel and turned to face him.

Piper gave him her best no-nonsense face. "You are going to go in there, and you are going to behave."

He frowned. "But - "

"No buts. Just go inside, answer his questions, and this will all be over. That's all you have to do."

They had a mini glare off, her winning, him losing. In the end, Leo pushed past her with a muttered, "Fine.", and opened the door of the office, where they emerged into a waiting area filled with other government-deemed 'psychos' like him.

It was an ugly little place. The walls were covered in peeling, vintage wallpaper and posters with smiling people that just made her feel more depressed. The lights washed the waiting room in bright, artificial light, the one bulb flickering in the corner, and a couple of dying potted plants sat in opposite corners of the room. Even the woman at the front desk looked drab, with stringy blond hair and dull-hued skin.

Piper pursed her lips and made a beeline for the front desk, Leo groaning behind her.

"Hi, I'm Ms. McLean. Leo Valdez is here for his four o'clock appointment - "

"Ugh."

" - and his therapist is Dr. Thorp, and - "

"Ow. Shit - stop kicking me under the counter - "

" - room eighteen? Thank you."

Piper grabbed Leo's arm and tugged (correction: dragged) him down a hallway to their right, turning a number of corners, already knowing the way. They emerged into another hall, and she approached the door at the end of the corridor, Leo grumbling all the way.

She turned to him as soon as they reached the door. "Take the E train back, and I'll meet you back at apartment in an hour. Don't do anything stupid to embarrass me, and try to cooperate with Dr. Thorp, okay?"

Leo opened his mouth to protest, but she raised an eyebrow. The words died in his throat, and he rolled his eyes. "...Okay."

Piper pecked him on the cheek right before she left, and felt his eyes on her as she retreated down the hallway. She felt his gaze drop when she turned the corner, and when she was back in the elevator, going down to the main floor, she couldn't help but worry about him.

She opened the door to the apartment, throwing her keys in their designated place on the table in the hall.

"Leo, I'm home!"

It was dark. Night had fallen over the city skyline, and the glow of neon signs, street lamps, and car lights lit the city to make up for the lack of stars. The moon was full tonight, and the air was cold, chilling her down to her bones and forcing her to wear a scarf and gloves. Piper shed her outerwear and hung her coat on the coat rack, tying her scarf around a rung.

She called out again. "Leo?"

No answer. She took a few seconds to get over the déja vu of it all, and flicked the switch of the hallway light. It flickered on, and she swept a lock of hair behind her ear as a sign that she was nervous.

She walked down the front hall, the heel of her shoe clicking against the wooden floors.

"Leo, are you here?"

Nothing. She could only guess that he wasn't.

Piper walked into the living room, turning on the light. It was late, almost ten, and Leo was supposed to have already come back from his appointment at five. She plopped down on the couch, kicking off her shoes, and as she gazed around the emptiness of her apartment, couldn't help but feel worried.

The clock read ten thirty. She had called his phone over ten times, but he hadn't picked up. After leaving another text, she turned on the TV and sat back to watch the news.

" - and is sentenced to fifteen years in prison. This is Jenna Hayes, reporting for ABC seven news." The scene changed to a reporter standing in front of a blazing fire, the husk of what used to be an apartment complex kindling in the background. The young woman looked into the camera with a serious gaze, and Piper felt a pang of dread in her gut.

"An act of arson was committed in Manhattan today, east of Central Park. A building of the Port Jefferson apartment complex was lit on fire by an unknown individual, who is described by nearby residents and victims of the arson to be a young male wearing a black jacket. The building was lit ablaze on the south side at around six fifteen p.m., and police are still searching the area for the criminal..."

The remote slid out of her hands, falling to the floor, and her heart pounded like a drum in her ears.

Leo.

It couldn't be.

" - at least seventy five people are without homes tonight, and are being sheltered at various locations. Police Chief Donald Reyes spoke on the issue today during a press conference."

The image changed to an older man, wearing the insignia and credentials that marked him as a high-ranking officer in the N.Y.P.D. "The Manhattan Precincts of the New York Police Department are determined to find this incendiary before he can commit more felonies and put him on trial for his crimes, for the betterment and safety of the Greater New York area."

Piper could barely remember how to breathe. Put him on trial for his crimes - for the betterment and safety of the Grater New York area.

She stood from the couch, quickly grabbing the remote from the floor, turning off the TV. Knowing that the criminal would be put on trial did anything but make her feel better. If anything, it made her worry increase tenfold - she shook with the thought of Leo behind bars again, and she was afraid that this time, she wouldn't be able to bail him out.

Piper went upstairs, worried all the while. When the clock was half past twelve in the morning, she changed out of her outfit, putting on her pajamas. As she buttoned her top, she heard the door to the apartment open, and the stomp of heavy boots against wooden floors.

"Beauty Queen? You there?"

Her heart crept into her throat. It was Leo.

She left the first few buttons of her shirt unbuttoned and quickly pulled on a pair of pajama pants. Piper ran downstairs, descending the staircase to see Leo standing in the living room, and he turned when she walked into the room.

Her anger began to bubble and boil inside of her. The faint noise of the city soundscape threatened to lull her asleep, but her irritation at one curly-haired Latino kept her awake. Leo watched her with nervous eyes as she regarded him with hard ones, and he winced with a hand behind his neck; he held up his hands submissively, trying to calm the storm before it came.

"Okay, I know that I was supposed to be home seven hours ago, but - "

" - Do you know how worried I was?" Piper snapped, cutting him off and poking a finger at his chest. "I've been here for nearly twelve hours, and I haven't gotten a single word from you since your appointment - "

Leo cut her off, rubbing the back of his neck. " - Erm, that's because my phone was off, sorry. You didn't have to get all worried like that - I was just busy, that's all."

"Busy?" Piper snapped, and all of the scenarios that her sleep-induced mind had come up with during the last several hours replayed in her head, filling her heart with fear and anxiety all over again.

"Busy doing what? Fucking around? Getting arrested? Burning down houses?"

The last part slipped out. As soon as the words escaped her mouth, Leo narrowed his eyes at her, and she knew that he was clenching his fists within the too-long sleeves of his jacket.

He narrowed his eyes at her accusation, and Piper cursed her miser for being such an asshole for even suggesting it in the first place. "What?"

She couldn't back down now. "Look - " Piper grabbed the remote and fumbled with the buttons, turning on the TV. Sure enough, the reporter was still there, droning on about the fire on the Upper East Side. "You had me freaked out for so many hours, and then I saw this on the news - what was I supposed to think? That you were just wandering around the city at night after hours?"

Leo glanced between her and the screen, his eyes gradually growing wide as his brain processed her accusation. He still looked incredulous, like the answer was so obvious. "Um...yes?"

"Hell no," she seethed. She turned and stormed out of the room, going into the kitchen to do something that didn't involve him.

"Piper - " Leo called after her, but she ignored him. She went into the fridge and grabbed an avocado and a hunk of cheese, making herself a sandwich. Piper strode to the island and cut the slices off with a great amount of force, to the point where she left indentations in the wooden surface of the table.

Leo watched her from the doorway, fists balled. "Pipes, if you'd just listen- "

"Listen to what?" She whirled around in anger. "You avoid the topic? Leo, I'm mad at you, okay? Just- " Piper fumbled with the bread in frustration, throwing it down on the counter. " - Just go somewhere, damn. I need to be alone right now."

Leo stood his ground - he was almost more stubborn then Percy. He set his jaw. "Jesus, Piper, could you please stop shutting me out? I have the right to be mad, too, you know."

Piper spun around a second time, a look of incredulity on her face. "Mad about what?"

Leo continued to stand firm. "For not trusting me. For thinking that I committed that crime because just I happen to be the only arsonist you know."

"So?" Slicing more cheese for her sandwich, Piper glanced up at him. That didn't matter. "You left me no other choice. I'd much more prefer you burning down houses over dead somewhere in an alley."

Leo held up a finger, but it dipped down again as he pursed his lips. He had nothing to say to that.

There was a short silence between them, something vaguely comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. She looked at Leo, and he pursed his lips at her. Leo took a deep breath, and stared her in the eye, and she knew that he'd be the next one to speak.

He his lips stretched into a taut, straight line. "No more fighting, Piper."

Piper froze, going still at hearing the promise she had made so long ago. It strained her to say the words, but she managed to get them out, sighing immediately after she did.

"...No more fighting."

They took each other in, each one standing at an opposite end of the kitchen.

Leo cleared his throat, because tension was beginning to build up between them, which was never a good thing. "I'm sorry if I scared you, Pipes. I just got a little too wrapped up in what I was doing...but I hope you know that I'm still upset." He looked at her with displeased eyes, ones that were a little miffed at having to be the one to apologize first again.

Piper pursed her lips, leaning back against the counter as she crossed her arms, giving him a sardonic smile. "Don't be. I'm sorry, too, but you have to promise me that you won't pull a stunt like that ever again, okay?"

"Yeah," Leo sighed a reprieved sigh, one that suggested his relief at her believing him. He had been making a lot of promises lately, and she was glad that he complied. "Okay. I promise."

They took steps toward each other and met in the center of the room, like a dance that they had practiced time and time again. Piper threw her arms around his neck and Leo snaked his arms around her waist, and the two of them leaned into a kiss.

She pulled back, and she still had questions lurking in her eyes - what had he been doing for so long? Where had he been? Was he really not the one who committed the crime? Looking into his warm brown eyes, she figured that it was best to leave those questions unanswered [for now], and she kissed him again with a smile, feeling more assured than not for the first time in a long time.

They pulled apart once again, and he muttered something about going to change. Piper watched him ascend the staircase, and a shiver went up her spine when she realized something - his jacket. She bit down hard on her lip, praying to God that it was only a coincidence.

Leo walked upstairs and took off his dark black jacket, throwing it over his shoulder without a second thought.

Some months passed, and they slipped into April, which Piper wasn't so sure if she was happy about.

For the duration of the month, it rained - and hard. It was difficult to go anywhere at all. The tempestuous storms flooded parts of the subway system, brought up silt where there was green, and blocked off entire roadways, forcing cars off of highways in search of higher ground. Every time one torrent left, another came in from the Atlantic - trapping Piper in her apartment, and Leo in with her, which wasn't as bad as it sounded. In truth, they just saw rainy days as more time to make out.

Today happened to be one of those infamous days. The deluge outside pelted down on the windows of her apartment like steady bullets, and a clap of thunder chose that moment to shake the foundation of the sky. Night had fallen, and she had busied herself doing chores that needed to be done while Leo moped around downstairs, his mood matching the weather. He had distracted himself by fixing the ceiling fan in the living room, and she had been folding clothes and sorting them in their designated piles when she unfolded a pair of ratty his jeans, and a voice recorder fell out onto the floral-patterned sheets of her bed.

Piper picked it from the covers, regarding the object with curious eyes. She didn't know how that had gotten there - she had never seen Leo carrying it around the house. Piper glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was at the door, and when the coast was clear, she turned her back to the wall and faced the oncoming storm. It wasn't hard to figure out how the device worked, so she played the most recent recording, listening in apprehensive wonder.

The bland voice of Leo's therapist, Dr. Thorp, broke the silence in the room. " - and you haven't had a dream since then, correct?"

"Uh...yeah."

Piper fumbled with the recorder, nearly dropping it. She was listening to one of his therapy sessions.

This had to be wrong. She was pretty sure that this had to be illegal, too.

"I see." She heard the scratch of pencil against paper, and knew that the therapist was writing Leo's answer down. "Leo, could you tell me about your family?"

"I don't have any," Leo deadpanned, not a trace of anger or pain in his voice. His lack of hesitation made her heart hurt, and it pained her to know that he was used to things being this way.

"Hm. What about Piper?"

Dr. Thorp said her name as if it were a title, a label he gave to an object that he didn't find interesting. She tried not to be surprised at him knowing her name - Leo was bound to have mentioned her more than once. A small part of her mind was curious about the things he said about her - if they were good or bad. She crossed her fingers and hoped for good.

"Piper?" Leo replied in a incredulous way that made her eyebrow arch. "I don't really consider her to be family. My family is mean as hell. She's a lot nicer than that."

Dr. Thorp scribbled this new bit of information down on whatever he was writing on. "So, in conclusion, you don't consider her to be family because your definition of 'family' is marred, yes?"

"Um...I guess?" More writing. Lightning flashed outside of the window, and the rain came down in heavier torrents then before. Piper held her breath, like any moment God would notice her wrong-doing and strike her down with lightning.

"What are your plans for the future?" Someone exhaled, she guessed Leo.

Leo muttered something [undoubtedly rude] under his breath, and Piper chose to ignore it. "Not exactly sure," he replied to the therapist, and she heard a sound she couldn't place in the background. "My main goal right now is to move out of Piper's place and get back on my feet again."

"Is that all?"

"No," Leo continued, and she found herself anticipating what he had to say next. "No, it's not. I want to buy myself a garage. I want to get a Master's. I want to have enough to support myself, and stay stable for Pipes."

Aw. She blushed with a little smile, and the rain rapped even harder against her window. He wanted to stay stable for her.

Dr. Thorp hummed in what must have been approval. Piper heard a shuffling noise, and she honestly had no idea what it could have been.

"Leo, I'm going to show you some pictures..."

Leo groaned. "Again?"

"It's more or less protocol, and I find that it seems to help in your particular case. Can you tell me what this is?"

"Erm...a house."

She heard the turning of paper.

"People."

Another sheet was turned, followed by a noise that she couldn't quite place.

When Leo finally spoke again, his voice was soft. His entire tone had changed to something more serious, more solemn, and outside, thunder clapped beyond the window, like God was giving the earth a standing ovation.

"...Fire."

More thunder.

As soon as he said this, Dr. Thorp changed the subject for the worse and not the better. "Leo, could you tell me again why you find burning things pleasurable?"

"I don't," Leo replied in a strained voice, like the conversation was hurting him. "I never did. I didn't do it because I wanted to. I did it because I felt like I had no other choice."

Piper imagined Leo being confined to a quaint little chair, nestled in a corner and fidgeting for an hour and a half while an older man in his early sixties pestered him with questions, which was pretty accurate to what she was listening to.

"No other choice? Please explain."

"When - " Leo took in a shaky breath, and lightning struck the sky, illuminating the room in a bright white light, only for a fraction of a second. "When my mom died, people thought that I was dangerous. That I was the one that killed her. They treated me like a criminal and nothing else after that, and that's what I turned out to be."

"Is that all?"

"No," Leo continued, and her conscience chose this moment to speak up, oddly having been silent for the duration of the recording. Turn this thing off right now, Piper. This is personal. You're not supposed to be listening to this.

Fuck off, Piper replied with her default answer. She listened intently, finding herself leaning forward in anxious anticipation as Leo went on.

"No, that's not all. I felt like I was supposed to be bad because that's what people thought I was. No one had good expectations for me, so I only gave them bad ones."

She heard the scratching of Dr. Thorp's pencil against paper. "And is that why you burned down your apartment, Mr. Valdez?"

"Not entirely. I don't think I was in my right mind that week. I just looked at the place, and it only reminded me of bad memories that I didn't want to remember. So I burned it down."

He said it so nonchalantly, that it almost scared her, like a psychotic murderer musing on his latest kill. My boss was being an ass. So I chopped him up.

She could practically see Leo's therapist raise an eyebrow. "On purpose?"

"...I guess. It was the only time I actually set fire to something without a valid reason."

More sounds of sheets being turned. "So you had reasons for setting fire to the truck of your former classmate, and burning down the west side of the Sheldon Lake State park?"

"The guy was a jackass, and the park was an accident with a set of fireworks. I hadn't meant to do that last one, but they filed it as an arson case just because it was me."

"...I see."

"...Yeah."

Piper felt strangely upset; she was reduced to a mixture of frustration and dysphoria, a melancholic feeling that panged in the pit of her stomach and left her emotionally and physically drained. So this was how Leo felt. This is what he had to go through. It annoyed her that he had barely mentioned any of his feelings about this to her, and that she had learned more about him from a recording than she had from Leo himself.

Despite this, Piper pitied him in contempt of a quiet promise to herself not to, and she felt terrible about it. She couldn't just brush off a feeling like this, not after being the first one to hear his story and discover that it lacked a happy ending.

She felt a twinge of guilt as she sat down on her bed, the device feeling wrong in her hands. Piper tuned out the monotonous drone of Dr. Thorp's voice, and was about to turn the recording off when a voice broke into the tainted silence, loud above the rain.

"I meant to burn that, you know."

She flinched. Thunder rumbled. The rain beat down even harder, streaking the window like angel's tears.

Leo stood in the doorway, leaning on the door frame with an eyebrow cocked over the other. Startled to see him, Piper dropped the voice recorder, the device slipping out of her hands and crashing to the floor with a thud. Her heart stopped, and she realized with a pang of guilt that he had heard the entire thing.

"Leo!" she yelped his name, a reflex. Piper stammered out an answer, her words lost in the storm. "I- I didn't mean - it was just there, and I- "

"It's okay, Beauty Queen," he said with what seemed to be a smile as he walked into the room. Piper watched, frozen in place as he strode over. Leo stopped a few feet away from her with a bit of reluctance, but soon enough, he stood over her and cupped her face in his hands, pressing a kiss to her lips.

He smiled as he pulled away, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear with a brush of his fingers. "I'm not mad."

What.

Piper looked at him in incredulous wonder, her eyebrows furrowing under her bangs. She didn't understand, and her voice came out in something barely stronger than a whisper. "I - wait - what?"

Leo breathed out a laugh and brushed a thumb over the corner of her mouth before pressing another kiss to her mouth.

She still didn't understand.

"What the hell is going on?" she stammered, confused. "I just listened to your therapy session, for fuck's sake - isn't that illegal? I'd understand if you were mad at me, but..." Piper shook her head in disbelief as Leo raised an eyebrow. "...You're not." She regarded him with inquisitive eyes, pursing her lips as she took a step back, her expression unsettled.

"I was upset, Leo," Piper confided in frustration, and she was hit with a wave of emotion. Her voice broke, and Leo's gaze softened as tears threatened to well up in her eyes. "I just wanted you to tell me what you said in the recording - how you felt. Why the hell won't you tell me anything? I'm your girlfriend, remember? Aren't I supposed to know these things?"

Piper was hurt. To her, it felt like he didn't care enough to spill his feelings with her...she felt like she didn't have his trust.

Lightning flashed outside the window. Leo pursed his lips and looked away, his gaze dropping to the carpeted floor.

"Aren't you supposed to ask?"

Hearing this, Piper scowled, and she felt like she had a knot tied in her chest. "Goddamnit, Leo, I am asking. Don't you think I want to know what's going? How am I supposed to help you if you keep pushing me away?"

"You don't have to help me," Leo muttered under his breath. Lightning flashed, the phosphoresce light illuminating the both of them, their shadows melded together a like a single mass.

She stomped down in frustration. "Yes, I do. Who else is going to?" Piper looked at him with pleading eyes, taking a step towards him. Leo turned away, but she put a hand on his cheek and turned him to face her, cupping his face in a tender act of concern. "You said it yourself, Leo - people treat you differently, even your family. I'm all you have. You're all I have. We're supposed to stick through this together."

"Then why don't you trust me?"

"What?"

Leo pulled her hand away, his gaze hardening as deluge pelted the window pane. "Did it ever occur to you that I don't need your help? I can do this on my own, Piper. It's my problem, not yours. If I wanted your help, I'd ask you for it - but I won't. Why can't you just - "

Piper sighed in frustration. "Leo, could you please - "

"God," Leo hissed just as thunder roared, a low, cacophonous tremor that set off a car alarm as soon as it sounded. His eyes brimmed with frustration and an emotion that border-lined anger. "Will you please just let me explain? You've helped me enough, okay?" Lightning arched against the cimmerian clouds outside, and the monsoon hit the window like artillery. "I'm not trying to get on your nerves, Pipes, I'm really not. It's just that you've already done so much for me...I don't want to ask you for more. I want to do this on my own," Leo breathed, and she was dumbstruck, because tears began to streak his face. He was crying. "You gave me a reason to stop, and I couldn't have asked for more, but I can do this. I know I can. You just have to stop bitching me about it and give me your trust for a change."

A blast of thunder shook the sky, like the boom of a thousand cannons setting off at once. The downpour seemed to let up a bit, but it did nothing to hinder the roaring of thunder out in the distance.

Piper's stomach hurt. She felt hollow and empty, spent after a moment of arguing. Her throat stung with the taste of tears, and she looked into Leo's eyes with a blue gaze, something fragile that was being held together with a promise and a few band-aids.

"I do trust you, Leo," She admitted her voice quiet to the point where it even scared her. "I just need a better reason to."

A crack of thunder shook the sky.

Leo heaved out a shaky breath. The rain began to beat down in an expected pace again, and Piper turned away, brought back to the reality of it all with the soft pat of rainfall. She sighed into the dimness of the room, and her finger found a loose thread in the floral-patterned blankets of the bed. She bit her lip. It was his turn to speak.

Leo looked at her and deflated a little, running a hand through his unruly black hair.

"I'm sorry."

"Shut up."

Leo made an annoyed growling noise in the back of his throat. Piper didn't look at him for a number of reasons, the main one being she didn't want him to see her blush; her face was totally red, a fire burning in her cheeks. God, she loved this guy - he didn't want help because she had given him enough. She gave him a reason to stop. He didn't want to bother her because she'd given him more than he could ask for.

Shit, Leo was perfect. Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh.

Lightning flashed. "I'm sorry," Leo repeated stubbornly, reaching for her hand. She let him grab it, her hand tensing for a moment, but it quickly relaxed as his calloused fingers closed around her slender ones.

Leo cast a sorry look at her, but she could tell how obligatory he felt at apologizing. "I- I should have told you how I felt before, okay? I shouldn't have - "

"Shut up, Leo," she cut him off with a kiss. Piper ran her hands through his hair, and when they pulled apart, she smirked at his blush as they took each other in. "Stop apologizing, dumbass. You know you don't want to."

They both leaned into another kiss. She rested her hands against his chest. When they broke apart, Piper pushed him back with gentle touch until his spine was flat against the mattress.

Leo looked alarmed as she climbed over him. "Piper - "

"Did I not tell you to shut up?"

Piper leaned down. When she pulled away, she saw a look in his eyes that mirrored her own thoughts - she saw apprehensive fear and longing, the painful kind, the kind that wanted this as much as she did.

They kissed again, and it was real. She pulled back gasping for more, and her hands went ahead of themselves as they fumbled with the buttons on his shirt.

Leo hissed out a sharp breath when she ran her cold hands over his bare chest. "Jesus Christ - "

"Shut the fuck up. And please - don't bring Jesus into this."

The night was predetermined to go by in a haze for her, leaving her realizing just how much she had really wanted this - the way he touched her, sure and unsure at the same time. The way his hand ran along the arch of her back when stars twinkled in her eyes. The way he whispered her name into her hair, nibbled on her ear with a smile, managed to make a stupid joke when it was over, when they were just a pile of sheets and limbs. She had never been been so sure of anything in her entire life.

For now, it was just this moment. Thunder shook the sky in the background, and Piper leaned down into yet another kiss, with him running his hands through her hair, and her hoping to give him what he was longing for.

"So, what do you think?"

Her head snapped to face the real estate agent, who gazed back at her with expecting eyes. Piper glanced around the voluminous room one more time, and Leo squeezed her hand in assurance. The two of them shared a smile, and she turned back to face the agent, exhaling a breath into the late May morning. "We like it. I think it's great."

"Good to hear," the real estate agent smiled and went on, her beach blond hair swishing behind her back as she began to list the pros and cons of the building. Piper tuned her out, and she and Leo followed the woman with quiet footsteps.

"You really like it?" He whispered to her when the woman from the agency was way ahead, droning on and on about the electrical lighting and the plumbing.

"Of course I do," she whispered back with a smile. "It's really nice. You think you can have the place running by December?"

"I hope I can," Leo whispered back with the bite of his lip, and she returned the gesture, squeezing his hand in assurance.

"You will, don't worry. I'm sure that everything's going to go just fine."

Leo smiled down at her and pecked her on the cheek, but she could tell that he wasn't entirely convinced - there were a number of bids on this place, and even thought that - for the time being - the two of them held the highest bid, other people were bound to top their measly two hundred and fifty thousand. This garage was in a good area, close to her place on 45th and near the apartment they were looking at on 47th.

They reached the end of the tour, and the real estate agent (Piper forgot her name), turned to face them with a smile. "And that concludes the tour. We'll contact you if there's higher bid, okay?"

"Yeah, thank you," Leo replied, gazing around the vast expanse one last time as he slung an arm around her shoulders, and the two of them shared a smile.

They waved their goodbyes. Piper and Leo descended the steps at the main entrance of the building and emerged outside. They crossed the crumbled parking lot and slid back into her Porsche, strapping themselves in as a train passed by on the overhang above.

Piper pulled on her seat belt, and Leo watched her with a smile. She glanced at him, and couldn't help but smile, too.

She had to yell; the rumbling of the train was so loud. "What?"

"Thanks," said Leo, and he sounded grateful and relieved, happy after a long time of not being so. "I really appreciate you doing this for me, Pipes - offering to pay back my loan, that is. I don't know how I would have done this without you, to be honest."

Piper smiled. "Don't thank me just yet," she reminded him with an upbeat grin as she leaned forward and pecked him on the lips. "Save your 'thanks you's' for when we buy the place, okay? Then we can start celebrating."

"Yeah, sure," he rolled his eyes as he leaned back in his chair, reaching over to sweep a lose strand of her brown hair behind her ear. "But thanks, anyways."

They drove off into the morning, heading down the city streets with smiles.

It was late. A half-moon rose outside the window, peering through the metal bars of the escape above, casting gridded shadows down on the carpeted floor. It was a cool, calm night, and stories down from her apartment, the traffic blared softly, and the blissful shouts of night-owl laughter began to fade away. She lay awake downstairs with her phone in her hand, waiting, listening to hear a sound that didn't come until the break of dawn.

When he arrived, he tried to tiptoe in, shutting the door softly behind him. Her eyes found his silhouette even in the shadows, and she knew the soft clunk of his work boots anywhere.

When he made it to the stairs, resting a foot on the first creaking step, she spoke up.

"You think you're slick, don't you?"

He jumped, shrieking "Holy shit!" into the awry night. Piper turned on the lamp to her right, and he stumbled back, tripping over his own two feet and falling to the floor with a thud. There Leo was, rubbing his head with a stunned and disgruntled look on his face, sprawled across the floor.

He scowled in between a grimace. "Okay, fine - you got me. This is what? The second time you've noticed me leave in three months? ...So, yeah. Pretty slick if I say so myself."

Piper stood to her feet, crossing her arms after sliding her still-glowing phone into the pocket of her robe. "Where were you?"

"You really feel like going through the motions right now?"

"Where were you?" Piper repeated, her words carrying the weight of her seriousness. Leo sighed and slowly got to his feet, shrugging off his black jacket as he pursed his lips at her.

"Sorry, but I can't tell you. It's a secret...more of a surprise, really."

"How can you leaving in the middle of the night lead to a surprise?"

She saw the corner of his mouth twitch as it threatened to stretch into a smile. "That's for me to know and you to find out."

She glared at Leo. He raised his dark eyebrows at her. They went on like this for what must have been a minute or two before she scowled and yanked her blanket off of the couch, admittedly too tired to argue. "This isn't over. You're banished to the couch for the night."

Leo shrugged. "Meh. I can deal."

He passed her on his way to the sofa, and she quickly reached out to grab his arm.

Piper's eyes went wide. As soon as her fingers curled around his arm, Leo turned to her with a look of concern, frozen in fear. "Pipes? What's - "

"That smell," she managed, narrowing her eyes at him. "Is that...smoke?"

Leo's eyes went wide. "Piper - "

"Is it?" she snapped, quickly letting go of his arm to cross her own. "Is that what you've been doing lately? Going back to your old habits? Or are you going to lie to me again and say that you were out taking a smoke for five hours?"

Leo narrowed his eyes at her. "I didn't - "

"I don't want to hear it anymore," Piper declared with a wave of her hand as she walked away, heading for the staircase. Leo groaned in frustration before running after her, stopping at the bottom of the stairs.

"It's not what you think!" he called from the base of the staircase. Piper turned around and scowled over her shoulder down at him.

"I don't know what to think," she retorted, and before Leo could come after her, she disappeared into her room, locking the door behind her. As soon as she did, she muttered out an anguished curse, leaning back against the door.

Piper's back slid down against the wood as she massaged her temples in exhaustion, the frustration bubbling in her chest, and the faint smell of smoke still on her clothes.

"Okay, ladies - game time!"

The announcement was met with a shout of buoyant cheers, and Piper nearly laughed at the sheer girlishness of it all.

She tapped her manicured nails against the table. A smile graced Piper's lips as her eyes swept across the spacious expanse that was the pavilion. Her gaze momentarily rested on her red gift amidst a sea of pink Victoria's Secret totes, and her smile widened. Piper hoped that Annabeth would like her gift; she was pretty sure that she was the only person who didn't get her lingerie.

Thalia stood at the mic, standing proud and regal as the host of the bridal shower. Unlike most of the other attendees, she didn't wear a dress (she was an even smaller fan of them than Piper was), but stood tall in a pair of blue heels, black slacks, and a white tunic with a matching blue scarf. The maid of honor looked excited as she unfolded the piece of paper in her hand, and the dash of freckles on her tan skin spread out in an eager smile.

Thalia grabbed a roll of toilet paper from the table of miscellaneous things behind her, and turned around to face the crowd with a huge grin.

"For the first game of the night, we'll be splitting into two teams! Time to pick a bride and design a toilet paper wedding dress!"

A number of squeals and cheers emerged from the throng. Piper glanced down the table at Annabeth, who was too busy readjusting her tiara to notice all of the hustle and bustle.

"The bride-to-be gets to pick the teams and brides, and is the official judge of the night." Thalia turned to face Piper's table, grabbing the mic with a smile. "Annabeth, you call the shots. Who's on team one?"

Annabeth glanced around the room with pensive gray eyes as everyone sat at the edges of their seats. The room went quiet for only a second, the soft track of some song blaring in the background. Thankfully, Annabeth's eyes passed over her and landed on an unsuspecting Clarisse La Rue, sitting at the table across the room.

The blonde's eyes brimmed with mirth. "Clarisse - you get to be the bride."

Piper laughed so hard, she had to stop and wheeze.

Annabeth turned to Hazel immediately after the laughter had died down. "Hazel, you're on Clarisse's team. And you, too, Katie - " Annabeth went on to list the names, and in the end, the room was divided equally, with Annabeth as the spare. Piper was on team two, and she waited alongside with the other members or her team - which included Reyna, Rachel, Thalia, and a handful of Annabeth's friends from college - to see who Annabeth would deem as the bride.

The bride-to-be put her hands on her hips as she took thoughtful steps towards Piper and the rest of team two. Annabeth looked silly with her dollar-store tiara and a number of colorful boas around her neck, but none of that hindered the intimidating gaze that was directed at them.

Don't pick me, don't pick me...Piper couldn't help but think. She didn't like attention much. She also didn't like the idea of being a test subject for twenty minutes while people dressed her up in Charmin Ultra Soft.

Of course, since the universe already seemed to hate her, Annabeth's gaze stopped at Piper, and a smirk stretched across her face.

"Piper, you're the bride."

She sighed with unenthusiastic jazz hands. "Yippee."

The two groups got to work.

Team One grabbed as many rolls of toilet paper they could grab, immediately getting started. Piper could hear Clarisse's pleas of mercy from across the floor as her team wrapped her up, covering her in the soft fabric like a mummy. Back on her end, Rachel had Piper stand on a chair so the whole ordeal could be easier. As the other team made progress,the members of Team Two stood by, watching Piper with decisive eyes as she tried to figure out why they weren't doing anything.

Piper blinked down at them in confusion. "Aren't we going to start? The other group's ahead."

"Well, yeah," said Rachel with a dismissive wave of her hand. None of that seemed to matter to her. "But the prize goes to whose dress is more creative, not who finished first." The redhead narrowed her eyes in thought. "...I'm thinking lots of bows. Any ideas?"

"We could layer it, like a tier dress," Reyna supplied with a shrug, and there were some murmurs of agreement. Piper couldn't think of anything, and since no one else had any more suggestions, Thalia held up a roll of toilet paper with a mischievous smile. "Well, c'mon then. Let's get to work, ladies!"

Twenty minutes dragged by in what seemed like hours.

Team Two worked effortlessly, weaving sheets of toilet paper around her over and over, tucking pieces in here and pulling them there. It was like some weird type of weaving, where they left ruffles and threads of paper out to create layers in the "dress". Rachel tied numerous bows around her waist with ginger hands, and whenever something ripped, she'd mutter a quick "Fuck this game," under her breath, and Piper would snort. It was all very delicate work.

Team One was moving along. They were busy working on a veil for Clarisse, who looked absolutely miserable with streaks of toilet paper covering her face. Piper chuckled under her breath as Ella wrapped some toilet paper around her arms, hastily creating make-shift sleeves.

Annabeth watched the two groups with amusement, taking a sip of her drink as she checked her phone for the time. "Four minutes!"

After that, everyone worked faster.

There was a lot of yelling as Team One rushed to finish Clarisse's dress, which looked to Piper like someone had tried to TP her when she wasn't looking. Team Two worked faster, nimble fingers weaving toilet paper around her waist, over her shoulders, and around her arms. Piper nervously shifted her wait from foot to foot as Reyna grabbed a bunch of toilet paper and shoved it in her hands, a humorous excuse for a bouquet.

"Time!"

Sally quickly helped Piper down from her chair. Annabeth stood, her gaze cutting between the groups, and regarded both teams with critical eyes.

She walked to Clarisse first, assessing her outfit. Team One had gone for a long, flowy-type dress, with strips of toilet paper that hung around Clarisse's ankles. She grumbled as Annabeth judged her dress, and her "veil" of toilet paper trailed behind her, with the rolls still attached at the ends.

Annabeth snorted at their bouquet, which was just a roll of toilet paper that had been hastily shoved into Clarisse's hands. "Really?"

Katie shrugged. "Meh."

Annabeth turned to Team Two.

Piper went still as Annabeth observed the handiwork of her team, taking in the bows, tiers, and sleeves of her toilet paper dress. She watched the blonde as she judged her outfit, and tried to analyze her pursed her lips at her bouquet, and her smirk when she saw how uncomfortable Piper looked during it all. The stupid dress was getting itchy, and Piper internally wished that Chase would hurry up and say something before she ripped the thing off.

The blonde glanced between the groups one last time, striding back to the center of the room. Having come to a decision, Annabeth clapped her hands together, smiling at the two groups.

"And the winner is..." No drum roll, but Piper couldn't help but imagine one. "Team Two!"

The room was soon filled with the jubilant cheers of a group of screaming women.

"Congrats!" exclaimed Annabeth with a smile. She grabbed a bag off of the table with the miscellaneous things, and held out a gift bag. "Everyone gets a gift card!"

She went down the row and handed one to Piper. It was a ten dollar American Express card; she could deal. That could probably get dinner tomorrow for her and Leo.

The night dragged on. Piper ripped off her toilet paper dress and was entirely content with being in just her own clothes again. There were jokes, and she laughed. There was some karaoke, and she laughed even harder. After having her second plate of spinach puffs, her fourth plate of chocolate pastries, and her second margarita, she decided that it was time to slip away for a little while and work it all off.

When everyone was engrossed in a rousing game of limbo, Piper left the pavilion and went outside into the garden, and it took her breath away all over again.

The New York Botanical Garden was one of the most beautiful places Piper had ever seen. For a world of gray, the garden provided so much color; red roses, blue violets, peach carnations, and yellow buttercups bloomed in their flowerbeds, and their sweet aroma blew in the breeze. Tiger lilies blazed orange in the night. The sweet scent of honeysuckle wafted through the air. Piper had never felt so at peace, so calm, and she was eternally grateful that Thalia had chosen such a breathtakingly beautiful place to throw a bridal shower.

She walked along a cobblestone path, the heels of her shoes scuffling across the stone. The air smelled of fresh dirt and greening plants. Crickets chirped in her ears, the trill incorporating with the hum of the pounding music in the building to her back and the trickling of water from the Elizabethan-styled fountain across the green. She walked past a weathered statue of some old, ancient god, and found a bench shrouded by a hedge, nestled in between beds of beautiful, multicolored flowers.

Piper sat down and took in the coolness and serenity of the night, closing her eyes with the mindset that she'd make this her happy place. As soon as she did, a noise broke into the stillness.

"Piper? You out here?"

Her eyes snapped open.

"Piper?" the voice called again. Piper reeled around in the direction of the sound, and tilted her head to the side.

Was that..."Annabeth?"

The steady early-summer, late-spring breeze rustled the folds of Piper's tunic. Long strands of her brown hair fell into her face, and she continuously swept them behind her ears to escape the current, which was an act in vain. Her eyes darted around in the stillness, and she heard heavy footsteps, retreating, then approaching.

Piper didn't think that her friend would find her amidst the blooming azaleas and chrysanthemums, but she was wrong. She saw a flash of gold through the leaves in the hedge, and caught a glimpse of lush, blue fabric.

"Piper? I heard you. Where are- " Annabeth paused. "Wait...is that you?"

Piper sighed into the coolness of the night. "Yeah, I'm in here."

A foot stuck out from the hedge, followed by a lean arm. Limbs made their way through until their owner emerged, and Annabeth stood in front of her, brushing the leaves and petals from her skirt and picking twigs out of her hair. She sighed before striding over to where Piper sat on her bench, and Annabeth pursed her lips as she took a seat down next to her friend.

"Please explain to me why I had to climb through a hedge to find you."

Piper snorted. "There was another way around, you know."

Annabeth wrinkled her nose in disdain. "Well, too bad for me. Going to answer my question now?"

Piper breathed a sad sigh and looked down at her hands, fiddling with her thumbs as the fountain trickled in the background.

"I was just...I don't know. Taking a breather, I guess."

Annabeth's mouth twisted into a smirk. "Too many margaritas?"

"Not enough, actually."

There was a hasty silence, which was spent with Annabeth watching her with analyzing, gray eyes.

The blonde pursed her lips again. "Piper...are you thinking about Leo?"

Her head snapped up. "What?"

"Your boyfriend. You are, aren't you?"

Piper contemplated this. "I always think about him."

"So I'm right, then," Annabeth concluded as she readjusted her tiara on her head of golden curls. She smiled at Piper, but when she didn't return the gesture, it disappeared. Annabeth pursed her lips again and reluctantly turned away, gazing at the blooming flowers ahead of them.

"...Percy told me about Leo."

"Great," Piper muttered, her eyes falling to the browns and beiges of the cobblestone path. Fucking Percy had to go and ruin everything.

"He told all of us," Annabeth continued on, and her gaze dropped to the path. She tapped her nails against the concrete of the bench and crossed her legs in that feminine way of hers. "He thought that it would be fair to let us know."

Piper chose not to say anything. She looked around the garden and chose to look at something that was not Annabeth. In the end, she conducted a one-sided glare off with a bumble bee that was too busy pollinating a patch of tulips to notice her.

The crickets chirped louder, competing with the booming of the music from the pavilion. Annabeth glanced at her, and her gaze didn't leave her this time. "I know that he's an arsonist, Piper. I know why you two had that fight. I'm really sorry that things had to play out that way."

Piper breathed out a bitter laugh. "Yeah. I bet you are."

Annabeth narrowed her eyes at her, giving her a small frown. "I am. I wouldn't have come all the way out here in the middle of a limbo game just to lie to you."

Piper broke her glare to turn to Annabeth. "Then what are you going to say? What are you going to tell me now? That I made a bad decision? That I have to break up with him? It's way too late for that, Annabeth."

"I know," snapped the elder woman, her gaze hardening at her. "I didn't come all the way out here to tell you some crap that Percy already told you. I came to try and get the two of you to reconcile."

What the actual fuck? "You want us to what now? That asshole nearly ruined my relationship. He's been against Leo and I from the start. He hates him, Annabeth - but I love him. I refuse to give him up, especially when it's just to make Percy happy."

Annabeth looked at Piper with a steely gaze, her lips stretched in a taut, straight line. "Did it ever occur to you that getting rid of Leo isn't what he wants anymore?"

"What?"

"I'm telling the truth," said Annabeth quickly, and she had Piper's full attention now. She pursed her lips again, and the corners of Piper's mouth twisted in a frown, her eyebrows furrowing at this new bit of information.

"Percy's seen you and Leo. Even though he's not the brightest star in the sky, he knows when not to interfere. He crossed the line on Thanksgiving - he gets that. Now he's willing to apologize."

Piper was still skeptical. "Why couldn't he just tell me this himself?"

Annabeth gave her a dry smile, and an are-you-being-serious look. "I'm pretty sure that the groom's not invited to a bridal shower."

Piper rolled her eyes, rephrasing her question. "Why couldn't he tell me before?"

Annabeth's smile disappeared, and her gaze softened as she gave Piper a slight frown. "He didn't know what to say."

Piper pulled her knees to her chest. The moon above them shone silver, shining it's lunar light down on the earth. A cool breeze blew again, and Piper shivered. Seeing this, Annabeth pulled off one of her many boas and offered it to her.

"Cold?"

Piper eyed the feathery article with hesitant eyes. "Yeah...thanks."

She felt silly with the neon blue boa on, but somewhat warmer. Her gaze fell to the floor, and a question came to mind.

"What do you think?"

"Hm?" She had caught her friend off guard, which was not a well known feat. Piper didn't count it, though, because it was extraordinarily easy to get lost in the beauty of the Botanical Gardens. Annabeth quickly turned to her, absently plucking a green feather off of one of her boas and dropping it into a bed of pansies.

Piper bit her lip, her gaze cutting between Annabeth and the fountain as she nervously worked up the courage to ask it again. She was afraid of what answer she'd receive. "You, um, told me what Percy said...but what about you? What do you think of Leo and I? Are you upset?"

Annabeth pensively pursed her lips, as she worked out a suitable answer in the vast expanse that was her brain. Piper had no idea what was going on in there, and she thought that it was best and less complicated to not try and find out.

After she was done pondering, Annabeth looked back to her, a small smile gracing her lips.

Her question was unexpected. "Do you love him?"

"I do," Piper breathed, rubbing her arms and looking at Annabeth with anguished eyes. This almost sounded like a wedding. She loved Leo so much that it hurt.

Annabeth smiled at her, turning away to gaze at the silvery moon. "Then I guess that I like him, then. I can't stop you from loving him, and I'm sure that you can't stop yourself either. If you can see past what I see, then it's probably meant to be."

Annabeth's eyes remained glued to the stars as Piper gazed at her in wonder. She really was the wisest of them all - her knowledge and insight surpassed her years by eons, and Piper wondered for the millionth time what was going on in that vast expanse of hers.

Piper shook her head in what was a mixture of disbelief, gratefulness, and pure, sheer relief. She couldn't believe this. Piper could have just told Annabeth all along, and she would have been fine with it.

Piper tackled her unsuspecting friend in what an innocent bystander would call a 'hug'. "Thank you - really. I just - you have no idea how much that meant to me."

"Your welcome," her friend managed in her grasp. Piper was squeezing the life out of her.

"You can- let me- God, Piper, when did you get so strong?"

Piper laughed, the vibrant scent of cordelias, roses, and orchids riding the breeze. She had never been so glad to have a friend like Annabeth Chase.

"Hey."

Months had passed. The day was July first. Percy and Annabeth had had their wedding last month, right at the end of June (there was lots of crying on Piper's part), and the ceremony was pretty much the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Leo had finally gotten his dream garage, and things were finally looking up, the odds finally turning in their favor.

At hearing a voice, Piper quickly spun around on the heel of her shoe, her hands gripping the handle of her bag. She swore that she had just heard her name mixed-and-mingled in with the yells of cab drivers and the brash honking of temperamental NYC drivers, the cigarette smoke and the smell of fresh car exhaust.

Walking down the concrete slabs towards her was none other than Percy Jackson, hands stuffed in the pockets of his dark green hoodie, the earbuds in his ears covered by shaggy bangs of raven hair. As he walked towards her, Piper pursed her lips in distaste. She knew that he wasn't listening to anything; Percy wasn't really the musical-type of person. She made a face; he looked more like an old teen than a young adult.

He looked uneasy and uncomfortable as he approached her with slow, meaningful steps. Piper's hands curled over the back of a chair that sat at the rusted cafe table before her, and Percy's did the same when a chair came in reach. Their gazes crossed for what must have been less than a second, and they both scraped their seats back against the pavement in unison, hesitantly sitting down in the same place for the first time in a long time.

Piper picked at a wad of gum under the grid-patterned table before picking the minty goop out of her nails. "Hi."

The silence consisted of tire screeches and the shrill squabbles of New Yorker accents. A flock of grungy pigeons fluttered down from the rooftop of the frozen yogurt place across the street and glided over the traffic, settling down not so far from their little hotspot as they lingered around in hope of scrounging for leftover droppings of food.

Percy rapped his fingers on the table, and his gaze did not rise to her when he spoke. His voice was quiet, yet still somehow louder than the muffled traffic, which was the average-volumed tone of an experienced NYC native. "Long time, no see, huh? I haven't been keeping tabs. How are things going at the McLean-Valdez residence?"

"Things are okay," Piper muttered, her voice not nearly loud enough. In all honesty, she didn't want to be here at all. Leo was waiting back at the apartment, and they had plans to go out to Broadway to see a musical later. By the rate this conversation started out, it seemed that their date would have to be cut short.

She gave Percy the smallest of smiles. "How about you and Annabeth? You two must be having tons of fun over in Long Island. You two enjoying life as newlyweds?"

Mirth flashed in Percy's sea green eyes, and she saw the shadow of a smirk on his face. The gold band on one of fingers rapped against the metal of the table, making a clanging, ringing sound that filled her ears like laughter. "Things are going great, better than I expected. She's spending less time calling me stupid and more time being all lovey-dovey and stuff. I couldn't have asked for more."

Piper wrinkled her nose. "I'd rather have her call you names, you know."

Percy snorted, his face almost mirroring hers. "I'd rather have her not."

Their gazes met for the first time during the encounter, and Piper's soft smirk quickly dissolved as she realized that whoa, wait, she was supposed to hate this guy. They had barely talked the entire year. The only time they had managed to conduct an entire conversation was at his and Annabeth's wedding, and even that turned out with both of them cringing and scowling as soon as it was over [despite Annabeth's pleas for it to not turn out that way].

Piper's eyes darted away, but she could still feel Percy's gaze on her, his aqua eyes crowding with the worry of almost six months of solicitude.

Piper fiddled with the handle of her bag, and Percy cleared his throat.

"How's Leo holding up?"

The words were reluctant, and not-so-subtly muttered under his breath.

"He's fine," Piper murmured, only glancing at him. Percy had pursed his lips, and buried his hands deeper in his pockets, his dark bangs blocking his gaze from her sight. "He moved in for good, you know. Got another job. He's doing a lot better than before."

The only noises were the cooing of pigeons, and the slurred curses of a cab driver to a slacker on the corner.

"That's good to hear," said Percy with the quick flash of a feigned cheeky smile as he slouched in his chair. Percy sent a gaze across the street. For a fraction of a second, she thought that he was staring at a homeless man wrapped in newspaper on the sweltering sidewalk before she noticed that he was actually eyeing a gyro cart, and she could sense his hunger.

"You want to get lunch?" she found herself saying.

Percy looked at her, grateful for her ability to read minds. "Yeah. Lunch sounds nice, actually."

Sometime later, Piper found herself walking through Central Park with the once-a-dumbass she identified as Percy Jackson, with him telling stupid jokes about his last few times in the area while she laughed, white gyro sauce dribbling down her chin as she bit into the meal in her hand.

" - and that is why you should never, ever, wake up a homeless guy," Percy finished with his goofy smile. It almost looked like Leo's, except it was less lopsided, and she pretty sure that his didn't mask sly-intentions. The thought of Leo made her smile dip in the middle of a laugh, and when Percy noticed this, his eyebrows drew together pensively.

"Something wrong?"

"No," she said too quickly, hastily swallowing down a mouthful of meatless gyro. She didn't know how to answer. "Nothing's wrong - I mean, yes, there is, but - It's...it's nothing that you should be concerned about, really. It was just that I was kind of supposed to go out with Leo tonight, and - "

"You think he's going to marry you?" The question was so random, so out-of-the-blue, so undeterrably Percy Jackson that she had to stop and get flustered with him right in the middle of the cobblestone path.

A couple of birds flew down onto the path from the tree above them. Her cheeks flushed white, only to have the blood rush into them. Piper blinked away the spots of sunlight dancing in her eyes as she gawked at him, because that was the absolute last thing she had expected to escape his lips.

When she didn't answer right away, Percy's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "What, you don't think he will? I've been placing bets. Annabeth and I give it another month or two."

Wait. "What?"

"...Yeah, or maybe earlier, who knows. Frank and Rey bet that it will take longer, but who knows." Percy smiled a genuine smile at her, and she had to take a moment to process his last comment.

He chuckled at her reaction, tossing his hair out of his eyes as a smile stretched across his face. "Leo really loves you, you know. I saw how you two were all over each other during the wedding reception."

"To be fair, we were drunk," Piper mumbled in reply as Percy's smile grew into a smirk. He was entirely satisfied with himself and his 'great' judgment skills. "You and Annabeth stocked up the guests with way too much wine, and sadly, neither one of us was immune to that, so no blaming us for making out half of the time, okay?"

Percy snorted, his eyes flashing with humor. "You weren't making out, Piper."

Her cheeks flushed all over again, and her face lit up bright red. "Jesus, Percy, shut up. I don't remember, okay? Just mind your own fucking business."

He laughed. Piper's heart felt light, like a burden had been lifted off of her shoulders. She was actually glad that Annabeth had called her over here. She didn't need to hate him anymore.

"...I'll try," he chuckled, and he dumped the remains of his lunch in a gated off trash can that sat under the shade of the tree. "Just get me good seats at the wedding, okay? I don't want to have to sit in the back."

"I can't guarantee anything," Piper said with a smirk and a gleam in her eye. "But we'll see if we could bump you up to the tenth row."

They laughed. The metal bars surrounding an oak that lined their path winked in the golden sunlight, and further down the trail, a kid sped along on roller blades, and a couple walked their husky. Colorful kites hung low in the cloudless sky, and a flock of birds swam overhead, casting their shadows down on the concrete path. Piper looked back at Percy, who gave her a hesitant look that didn't seem to fit with the calmness of the day.

"Are things...okay now? I mean, between us? Annabeth told me that you two talked at her bridal shower last month, but I didn't know if - "

Piper silenced him with a peck on the cheek, to which he actually blushed.

"Things are okay," Piper reiterated with a genuine smile, giving him a playful shove. "I'm just mad that it took so long for things to get back to normal."

Percy smiled and gave a breath of relief. "So we're cool?"

Piper snorted under her breath. He almost sounded like Leo. "Yeah, Jackson. We're cool."

"Good," Percy smiled, and his hand emerged from the pocket of his hoodie with an envelope. He held it out to her, and Piper eyed it with confused and speculating eyes.

Uh...the wedding was last month. She didn't have an idea as to what this invite was for. "What is that?"

"There's a party at camp for the Fourth of July," said Percy with a smile, and Piper reluctantly took the invitation from him. She opened it, and had to smirk at what she read: "You, Piper whatever-your-middle-name-is McLean, are encumbered with the task of bringing your ass down to Farm Road 3.141. Long Island, New York 11954. And bring your boyfriend, too."

"They're bringing back the fireworks display they used to do." Percy continued, rocking back and forth on his heels. "They told me that I could invite anyone I wanted, so...you up for it?"

Forget Broadway; that could wait another day. Piper looked up from the invite with a smile. "Definitely."

"Crazy party, huh?"

Piper almost didn't hear Drew. The sound of synthesizers boomed over the stereo, blaring throughout the entire hall as people danced along. Piper had strayed away and left Leo on the dance floor to grab a drink, where she had run into a former foe of hers, Drew Tanaka, who had attended the camp long ago, around the same time as her.

Piper glanced at the dance floor with a snort, watching at least six drunk girls collapse over themselves, toppling over other people in the process.

"Yep. Crazy."

Drew laughed her bitchy Mean Girls laugh before putting a hand on her hip, tossing her dark hair back with a whitened smile. "So, I didn't get to ask. How are things going with you?"

"Great," Piper smiled a wry smile. This whole conversation was entirely amusing. "Jason and I broke up, if you didn't get the memo fourteen years ago. Oh, and I'm famous now, so yeah. And I also have a boyfriend."

"Oooh," Drew fussed, poking her teasingly with a manicured finger. "Is he here?"

Drew uttered a drunken hiccup before Piper nodded at Leo, who sat across the room with the rest of her friends. They were laughing (probably over one of Leo's jokes), and when he glanced at her, he beamed brighter. Piper blushed, and Drew followed her gaze, hiccuping in approval.

"He's cute," she confided with raised eyebrows, and Piper's eyebrows furrowed in alarm as she turned back to face her.

Piper rested her drink back down on the snack table with a frown. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, calm down," Drew hiccuped again, licking her lips as she shoved her drink in Piper's hands. "What are you so worried about. I'm only going over to say hi - It's not like I'm going to fuck him or anything."

Okay, now she was alarmed. "Drew - wait -"

"Piper!" She heard her name being called behind her over the roar of the music, shouts, and laughter. Piper whirled around to see the newlyweds, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson. Percy wore a t-shirt and swim trunks, and Annabeth a bikini top with a pair of shorts. The two of them were all smiles, and Piper noticed that they were soaked from head to toe. "Hey! Glad you could make it! Is Leo here?"

"Yup," she said wryly, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at a disturbed looking-Leo as Drew drunkenly giggled at something he said. She'd get over there sooner or later to drag her ass away from him.

Annabeth beamed, yelling loud to be heard over the music. "Great! The fireworks are going to start any minute now, so we're about to head outside early. Want to come with?"

She glanced at Leo, who was not-so-subtly now backing away from Drew. Piper shrugged. She really had nothing better to do. "Yeah, sure."

Percy smiled, water trickling from his damp hair into his face. "'Kay then. Meet you outside!"

As soon as they disappeared into the crowd, Piper turned around to face her boyfriend. Her eyes caught Drew as she stalked away, and Piper approached Leo with a smirk as he as he cast the raven-haired girl a look of disgust.

Piper leaned on the wall next to him, linking his arm through hers. "So, Leo. I see you met Drew."

"Yeah..." Leo looked relieved, now that it was over and there were witnesses. He scratched the back of his neck with one last harried glance in Drew's direction. "The pleasure was all hers, apparently."

Piper snorted, and grabbed his hand in hers, weaving their fingers together. She leaned closer to him, whispering in his ear despite the noise. "You want to go outside?"

Leo raised an incredulous eyebrow. "You want to stay in here?"

Piper pecked him on the cheek. "Nicely put. C'mon."

After all of these years, Piper was surprised that she still knew the way. She led Leo by the hand down a hall, up a staircase, and through a door onto the porch of the Big House, the main building at camp. She sent a smile back at him before leading him off of the porch, and they walked past the stables and the cabins before grass turned to sand, and they could hear the crashing of waves over the hill.

Leo stepped in pace with her, still holding her hand. "We going to the beach?"

"Yep." She cast a smile at him, squeezing his hand. "Hope you don't mind getting wet."

He leaned over and whispered something into her ear that Piper would rather not relay.

She shoved him, face red. "Leo, that's disgusting."

He smiled his signature smile at her. "You're amazing."

Piper's face went pink in a fluster, and she rolled her eyes, still rattled by his previous comment. "Oh my fucking God - just shut your mouth. That doesn't even make sense."

Leo laughed, and it was such an elated, happy sound, that she wouldn't believe it if he laughed like that on any given day last September.

Piper smiled. He was happy.

He wasn't just satisfied, or dissuaded, or content. He was actually happy - he was all of those things, plus more. His smile was completely real, with no undertone or hidden grimace behind it. He was happy. She was happy. And that was all that mattered.

They walked over the crest of the hill, and the source of the sound of roaring waves presented itself; the strip of land stretched out for a good distance, dotted with shells and small hermit crabs, and trash left over by pesty campers. Capri-colored waves tossed and turned, crashing on the surf with a sound as loud as thunder. Piper led Leo down the hill of sand, and they walked across the shore, leaving fresh footprints in the malleable surface.

They walked to a good spot, and Leo motioned to the patch of sand under a tree. "Ladies first."

"To what, sit?" Piper grabbed Leo's hand with a snort, and lowered herself down on the cool sand. She grabbed a palmful of minerals in her hand as Leo sat down next to her, and she let it blow away in the breeze, grain by grain, until she had no more.

She lied down next to him, turning so that they faced each other. Piper blushed for no reason in particular as he gazed into her eyes with a smile, wonderstruck as he brushed a brown lock of hair behind her ear.

"Damn, you're beautiful," Leo breathed, and she tried to fight back the blush. He thought that she was beautiful. She weighed the comment in her brain, locking it away in the recesses of her mind. In the end, Piper's cheeks glowed a faint, dull red, and she tried to cover it up with a scowl.

She rolled her eyes. "Stop saying that."

He snorted. "What, you want me to lie?" Leo raised an eyebrow, the mirth kindling in his chocolate brown eyes. "Okay, then. You're not pretty. You're actually breathtakingly ugly. I thought you were a seaweed monster when you washed up on the beach."

Piper snorted in return. "Since when did 'stop saying that' mean 'start spewing insults'?"

Leo leaned over with a smile and kissed her on the forehead, the waves crashing in the background. "Since you started dating me."

They had a magnet-moment, and were both drawn into a kiss. It went on for a while, leaving her gasping for air, like a good kind of drowning, a pleasant kind of asphyxiation.

Leo's hands were buried in her hair and Piper's arms were around his neck when someone cleared their throat.

"Ahem."

Piper jumped, and the quickly broke apart. Standing over them were Percy and Annabeth.

Annabeth looked down at the blushing duo with teasing, gray eyes. "We said meet us outside, not make out outside. Get your facts straight, McLean."

Piper bit her lip, sharing an embarrassed glance with Leo. "Whoops."

Percy snorted, clearly amused. Piper narrowed her eyes at him, and saw that he was holding a folded up beach towel under his arm. His sea green eyes flitted to her, and she immediately looked up at him, meeting his gaze.

"The fireworks are about to start any second now," he stated, his hand entwined with Annabeth's. "Everyone's going to be here in a few minutes. Mind if we sit with you guys?"

"Not at all," said Leo with a smile as Percy and Annabeth lowered themselves down on the damp sand, Percy spreading out the beach towel as the other three stood back. They sat back down on the industrial-sized towel, Percy with his arms around Annabeth, and Leo with his arms around her.

Leo wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his head on her shoulder. Piper listened to the soft crashing of the waves, and soon, other sounds joined the scape; party-goers ambled onto the beach for the upcoming display, quiet laughter crashing along with the roar of the waves. They walked across the surf, kicking up sand in good-natured fun, filling the air with shouts and calls, and their laughter only fed the silence.

"Hey, check it out." Leo's breath tickled against her ear. Piper bit her lip; the dark curls of his hair brushed against the base of her neck, and she fought the urge to squirm. She fixed her gaze at what Leo pointed to with an upheld finger, and she looked up at a row of constellations, bright and starry against the dark fabric of the sky.

Her eyes danced across the stars, observing the bigger ones, the best, the brightest. "What constellation is that?"

Leo breathed a laugh into her ear, and she bit her lip to keep from smiling like a love-struck idiot. "Not exactly sure. I kind of thought that you knew."

Piper leaned into him with a smile and a soft shake of her head. The waves beat down on the surf, and the air was salty with the smell of the ocean.

"You really are a dumbass, aren't you?"

Leo planted a kiss on her bare shoulder, wrapping his arms tighter around her waist with a smile. "You're just now noticing?"

She snorted.

Piper closed her eyes with the hint of a smile still gracing her lips. She was content - euphoric, even. This - this is what she wanted. This - being in his arms on a cool summer night, with the breeze teasing her hair, was the definition of bliss.

"I love you."

It was an outburst - random, even; It was the first thing that Piper could think to say right now, and the only thing she felt that would fit.

She felt Leo's chin move in a smile against her shoulder, and he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek as the waves rolled down by the waterfront.

"I love you, too."

Her eyes slid closed. Crack.

They jumped, startled out their reverie before they could savor the moment. Piper's eyes ran to the sky, and she saw it - an orange light, a flare in the night, streaking across the starry sky like a fish in translucent water.

Her eyes followed it down, and it exploded in mid-descent, shattering into flaming hues of blue, orange, and red.

"Fireworks," she breathed, placing a hand over the one around her waist. Piper laughed as Leo smiled against her shoulder. It was beautiful.

Crack. A neon green flare broke the murmurs of the crowd. It exploded into values of blue, green, and yellow, sparkling glimmers falling down to the earth in the aftermath.

Crack, boom. A purple flare this time. It burst, spreading across the sky in a huge display of oranges, reds, and violets, like a supernova happening right before her eyes.

A yellow one came next. It wasn't as showy as the other fireworks, and was unreasonably small, but Piper didn't let herself get discouraged just yet. She'd been to a number of these light shows before, and she knew better when Leo groaned over her shoulder in disappointment.

There was a long gap in between the time the last one set off and the next one bursted in the sky. Leo frowned, and she craned her neck to look him in the eye.

"Is it over?" he asked, clearly disappointed. Piper couldn't help but smile.

"It's - "

She didn't get to finish, because high-pitched tremor struck the air as heads turned back to face the sky. Piper looked up again, and a pink firecracker sped through the air, exploding into a exhibition of purples and reds, pinks and indigos. She smiled to herself; they had brought out the big guns.

The fireworks display became more showy and less modest. Piper witnessed a number of pictures streak the stars; there was a sloppy image of George Washington against Orion, and an American flag overlapping the Big Dipper. The entire spectacle was detailed down to every last sparkler, every last dying glimmer falling down to the earth. Smoke hung in the air, mixing with that of a bonfire that had been lit by some campers further down on the beach, and the entire thing seemed so surreal. She could only hear the booming in her ears, and when she glanced at Leo, she saw the colors of the fireworks splash against his eyes, and he looked just as mesmerized as she was.

His gaze caught hers, and the corners of his mouth tugged into a smile. "Hey."

Piper smiled back, habitually sweeping a strand of dark hair behind her ear. "Hi."

A firework shattered, blasting through the air, shooting glimmers of crimson, peach, and gold across the stars. Her heart beat faster when his lips found hers, and in that moment, with the star-burst of colors in front of her and the campgrounds to her back, she found her definition of forever.

She woke up to the sound of sirens.

Piper didn't know what time it was. She had dragged herself into bed hours ago, right after staying up late to watch some crime show that had captured Leo's interest. It had been too late at night for him to go driving all the way back to his apartment, so the two of them just ventured upstairs and passed out on her bed. Suffice to say, they didn't get much sleep that night.

When Piper heard the sirens, her first thought was that they were close. The shrill sound was not a stranger to her ears, seeing as how the New York crime rate was ridiculously skyrocketing nowadays. There was always some crime being committed on some street, but hearing the familiar sound of sirens in such unfamiliar territory was not exactly music to her ears.

Piper groggily sat up in bed. She turned to the window to her left, and sure enough, she could see the glow of flashing lights - blue, white, red, repeating into the darkness. She muttered a curse and stumbled out of bed, grabbing her robe from the dresser and shrugging it on before freezing as she realized something.

She glanced back at the bed.

Leo wasn't there.

Fuck.

Piper grumbled a number of obscenities under her breath as she raced out of the bedroom, her feet cold against the hardwood floors. She ran downstairs, nearly tripping over her robe, and into the main hall, hastily shoving her feet into a pair of her sneakers that were sitting by the front door. She opened the front door, and sure enough, the other residents of her building had noticed all of the commotion; people spilled out of their apartments and into the hallway, dressed in nothing but their pajamas and bunny slippers, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes.

Piper glanced down the hall. A line of drowsy laggards had formed by the elevator, so in her haste, she ran down the hall in the opposite direction and turned a corner, taking the stairs the whole five flights down.

She emerged in the lobby, not yet short of breath.

Piper raced past people ambling out of the apartment, pushing past them to walk out into the cool summer night. The sirens wailed louder, and she turned in a wide circle, looking for anything that could lead her to Leo. She turned around, and her heart sank.

Two blocks down, a column of flames licked the sky as she gazed at a burning building, only a husk of what it used be. The anxious wail of sirens continued to pierce the air, and the terrified screams of horrified people shattered the silence.

She ran all the way down those two blocks, her dread increasing with every step. She walked up to the rear of the crowd, and absorbed the entirety of the situation; the complex down the street from hers, Gleaming River Apartments or something like that, had gone up in flames. She asked around, and no one knew why. Could have been an electrical fire, or someone being careless.

After a woman voiced her opinion on how she thought it was some kid in room 103 messing around with matches again, Piper knew what else it could have been.

Could have been an arsonist.

She looked around for Leo.

Piper pushed her way to the front of the crowd, grabbing a young man in nothing but a t-shirt and his boxer shorts by the shoulders and forcing him around to face her. He gave her a wide-eyed look before she gave him a weary glare.

"Have you seen a Latino Santa's elf running around here?"

The guy blinked. "Uh...what?"

Piper pursed her lips. "Nevermind." She didn't think that this guy would be much help. She let him go before tapping an older woman in the front of the crowd on the shoulder from behind.

The woman turned around with raised eyebrows. "Hm? Oh, um, hello - "

"I'm looking for my boyfriend," Piper started, dismissing the woman's greeting as she cut to the chase. "He's short. Latino. Has curly black hair and pointy ears. You've probably seen him going around wearing Mickey Mouse pajamas and holding a lighter or something."

The woman's eyebrows shot up under bangs of graying hair. "Oh, him? He went around out back a while ago. I saw him talking to the firemen, and - "

" - Thank you." Piper dashed away, not waiting to hear the rest. Wading through the crowd in the same direction she had came, she emerged on the other side, glancing around her. Out back, huh? That meant that Leo ran around the block, on the other side of the burning building.

She sloshed through puddles of water that had gathered at the corners of the block between 49th and 48th. Piper held her robe close to her, but soon realized that there was no need; the heat emanating from the blaze was intense, pulsing through the air, and it warmed her up faster than any robe could. She stayed a good distance away from the fire, running along the sidewalk parallel to it, but started to choke on the smoke; she was standing downwind of the roaring inferno.

Piper ran onto the other side of the block, facing a group of bright red firetrucks and a number of police cars. Her eyes followed the trail of a hose that some firefighters had hooked up to a hydrant further down the street, and they pumped water at the flames, which only grew bigger and brighter with every shallow breath she took.

Piper shook her head, trying the clear her thoughts to keep her from panicking. She ran to the nearest firefighter, who turned around as soon as she approached them.

She let out an exhausted sigh, resting a hand on the tough yellow fabric of the firefighter's jacket. "Excuse me, but have you seen - "

The fireman turned around. Piper's jaw unhinged when she realized that the person staring back at her was exactly who she was looking for.

Her eyes widened in shock. "Leo?"

Leo looked stunned as he pulled off his helmet, giving her a gaping frown. "Piper? What are you doing out here? You're supposed to be back - "

Leo's words were cut short when her fist connected with his face.

"Jesús Christo de mierda!" he swore in Spanish, his hands flying to his nose, blood seeping through his fingers. Leo looked at her with angered, startled eyes as she inhaled a shaky breath.

"What the hell - "

"You motherfucking asshole," Piper seethed, angry and relieved and confused all at the same time. She balled her fists as Leo doubled over in pain, and bystanders across the street winced and "Oooh" - ed for him in sympathy.

"I fucking hate you," she spat, and in some twisted way, she was really trying to say that she was more relieved than ever. "You had me out here looking for your sorry ass, thinking that you set this fucking building on fire - "

Leo glared at her with his hands still covering his nose, and his voice was nasally when he spoke. "Well, I was kind of doing the opposite, if you haven't fucking noticed."

Piper glared at him. "Oh, you shut the fuck up. I don't want to hear any backsass from you. Now can you please explain to me what the hell you're doing out here dressed as a firefighter?"

Leo stood up straight, uncovering his throbbing nose for only a second before covering it back up with a wince and a glare at her. "I'm a volunteer, duh. All that time you spent stressing over me when I was out, I spent putting out fires." He momentarily let go of his nose to give her a sorry pair of jazz hands. "Surprise."

Piper blinked. The sneer on her face disappeared as the anger in her chest simmered down. She couldn't believe this.

"You...you volunteer?"

Leo shrugged, still wincing. "Yeah. I figured that it would be a good way to get rid of all my angsty-arsonist shit if I put out fires instead of made them. And, plus, it looks pretty snazzy on my resum - "

He didn't get to finish, because Piper threw her arms around his neck and kissed him right there on the spot.

The kiss was gross. His nose was still bloody and she was pretty sure she got some on her face, but she didn't care. He didn't do it. It was just what she needed to hear right then.

Piper pulled back with a wearied, pacified smile, her anger dissipating into the smoke. "Tell me next time, will you?"

Leo smiled back. "Of course."

A low groan pierced the air, and someone shrieked. Piper looked up, and fire spilled out of the windows of the building, stretching towards the sky. The wall creaked and moaned, fire peeking through the red-hot bricks of the structure, and Leo pulled her back further down the street. The building was going to collapse.

Piper turned back to him with a scared gaze; his eyes were trained on the flames. She began to ask questions. "How did it - "

"We don't know," Leo muttered. "We think it was electrical. Someone careless who left the stove on or something."

Her eyes flew back to the blaze, which fought back against the water that was being pumped by the firefighters. "Is everyone okay?"

"I wish we knew," Leo replied. "Two people were unaccounted for. A woman and a boy."

At hearing this, her eyes widened. "So they're in there?"

"Maybe - possibly, I don't know. I was told that it's too dangerous to go inside."

"So no one will?"

Leo looked down at her, and the dread returned to her stomach when his somber look stretched into his trademark smile, a gleam dancing across his eyes as the inferno roared on in the background.

He motioned to the other firefighters with a nod of his head. "They won't."

She didn't have to be Annabeth to understand what that meant. Her eyes widened, and the anger she had felt towards him before came back for a reprise.

Piper pushed herself out of a surprised Leo's arms with a menacing scowl. "You wouldn't dare."

"I would."

"I won't let you."

"You will."

She stomped down on the pavement. "You - you can't just - "

"I can." Leo took a step towards her and rested his hands on her shoulders, looking down into her eyes. "I promise I'll be right back, I swear. Just let me do this, Piper." He squeezed her shoulders. "Please."

They stared at each other for a long time, bathed in the glow of the fire. It hurt her to see him like this, wanting to help so badly. She couldn't bear to lose him. She had come so close so many times before, but to actually have him gone, out of her life, was not something she wanted to experience ever again - not as long as she lived.

Piper set her jaw. Having made up her mind, she hastily took the bracelet from around her wrist and pulled her hair back, twisting it into a sloppy bun. Piper messily tied it up with the gold and silver chains, and grabbed the helmet from the hands of a startled Leo, putting it on her head as she shed her robe, standing in the middle of a New York street in nothing but a pair of fleece pajama pants and a faded tank top.

She lifted up the visor of the helmet, gazing into his eyes with a glare that was just as mindset as his.

"I'm coming with you."

If Leo was going to get himself killed, then sure, it was fine by her. Just as long as she was there with him.

Leo's eyebrows furrowed, and his mouth twisted down in a frown. "Absolutely not."

Piper sighed in exasperation. "Leo - "

"No."

"Can't you just - "

He shook his head. "Nope."

Piper crossed her arms with a defiant growl. "Leo - just stop. Why won't you - "

"I couldn't forgive myself if something happened to you," Leo breathed, cutting her off with a shaky breath and a sheen of tears in his eyes. Ash peppered the air around them like darkened flakes of snow. When she looked into the brown of his eyes, she saw fear - not only of what he was about to do, but of what she wanted to do. "Just one of us dying is enough. Stay out here, and I'll come back out for you, Beauty Queen - and I mean it this time." Piper scowled, but Leo kissed her before she could protest. He slid the helmet off of her head and fixed it back on his head of curls. "I love you, okay? Don't go anywhere."

Leo left her standing there with ash falling down, leaving her to watch him run back towards the conflagration that burned before her. Other people began to notice him, screaming to alert the other firemen. Shouts filled the air as he neared the building, and others ran to stop him, but it was too late. He ran inside a gaping hole in the back of the building, and was immersed in a wall of flame.

The wail of sirens continued to pierce the air, mixing in with screams, shouts, and the gushing of water from the hose.

Piper started to cry. She couldn't take it. She spun around in a wide circle, looking for something she could use, and spotted a sturdy jacket with yellow stripes lying on the side of a firetruck. She ran. She grabbed it, and quickly shrugged it on.

Silent tears poured down her cheeks, and the world became distorted as she tried to peer through her tears. Piper stared at the building, which continued to groan under the weight of the flames. Leo was in there. He could have been dead already, for all she knew. But it didn't matter; she was going to go in there after him, whether he was alive or not.

The fissure that Leo had climbed through was still open, and she could see the flames swell inside the building, and debris fall as the structure of the apartment building threatened to cave in on itself. It was the only open entrance now, and a second company of firefighters trained their hoses on it, dousing the flames to no avail.

Piper balled her fists, taking a step forward. She'd probably die within a few minutes, but she didn't care.

She heard shouts as she surged forward.

She ran into the building.

...

Piper had never been so hot in her entire life.

Everything was red - the fire, the debris, the smoke. There was no air to breathe. Smoke stung her eyes, and they watered uncontrollably as she crouched to the ground with a retching cough. Her skin stung, and she could feel herself burning in the intense heat. She closed her eyes to stop the smoky burn that stung her eyes, but it did nothing to help her at all.

The air on the floor burned her lungs. The fire raged on all around her, kindling everything in sight. She crawled forward as much as she could, and made her way into into another room just as she heard the crack of wood behind her, and she turned back, looking at the sight through her tears.

The entrance collapsed, which was the only way out. She had to find Leo before the whole place came falling down.

Her lungs burned with every gasping breath of hot air she took. Piper crawled down a hall. Everything burned orange. She passed a burning stairwell with painful steps, and kept crawling until she reached an empty elevator shaft, the doors wide open. She let out a series of coughs as she looked up and saw something she didn't expect to see.

Piper looked up. There was Leo, climbing up the cable, not twenty feet up from her.

She croaked his name before letting out a ragged cough; her mouth was full of smoke. "Leo!"

He looked down. She couldn't see his expression, but she knew that he noticed her. Before she could gather enough air in her lungs to say something else, the building groaned, and a low-pitched creak threatened to take the whole place down. Piper shrieked before backing away from the shaft, praying to God that both of them would be okay, and the groaning subsided. She quickly peered back up the shaft. There he was, gripping the cable with a strong grip as it shook with the vibrations of the building.

Piper glanced down the shaft. The broken shell of an elevator sat fifty feet below, the crushed metal of the car red and blazing. She glanced up the shaft again at Leo, reaching for the cable and gripping it with shaky hands. The stairs were already on fire. The shaft was the only way to get to another floor, and her only chance of getting to where Leo was going.

"I'm coming!"

She grabbed the metal cable in her hands, wrapping her legs around it as she held on for dear life.

Piper shimmied up the cable. She passed burning floors washed in red, blue, white and orange hues. Every floor was on fire. As she climbed, the building shook again for a moment, and she whimpered as she curled against the cable. The creaking stopped. She looked around, took a shaky breath full of smoke, and coughed vigorously before she kept climbing.

The fire consumed the oxygen as she swung off of the cable, grabbing Leo's outstretched hand from the fifth floor. He pulled her onto the charred, brown carpet and wrapped her in a hug. The fabric of his uniform was rough against her skin. Leo lifted his visor, his curls matted to his head with sweat as he coughed from the smoke.

"I thought I told you to stay outside!" he looked at her with angered eyebrows, and she coughed back at him, the only reply she could give. Everything hurt. Leo's gaze softened when he saw how much pain she was in, and quickly pulled off his gloves before unstrapping his helmet and giving it to her.

She retched, her eyes red and her lungs dry, burning inside of her with the heat of the flames. "Leo - "

"Take it," he insisted, strapping it onto her head. He grabbed her hand, and she winced. Both of them looked down at her palms. They were red, blistered, and scarred. Leo cursed, quickly pulling the gloves onto her hands to keep them from kindling in the heat. He said his words in a wheeze. "I found someone."

"Really? Did you get them out?"

"No," Leo coughed, and his face was red. His eyes watered, and he let off a series of coughs before continuing on. "It was the woman. She was on the second floor."

"And?"

"She was dead."

Oh.

"We have to find the boy b-before - " He coughed again, shaking in pain, before crouching lower as he nearly became level with the floor. " - before the building collapses, Piper. We have to hurry."

She nodded, her legs still stinging in the heat. "Okay."

Leo led the way down the hall. They turned a series of corners as he continued to cough, his lunch coming up at the fumes of the smoke. He placed the back of his hand to one of the many closed doors that lined the hall, and when he discovered that it wasn't searing hot, he shakily stood to his feet and pushed it open, stumbling inside.

They both crawled in. The two of them had wandered into someone's abandoned apartment, where the walls were searing with the surrounding fire, but the heat lessened some. They kept moving forward until the smog thinned, and when Leo took in a deep breath, she knew that some of the air in the room was breathable.

They both collapsed on the floor in exhaustion. Searing heat burned against her cheeks as she laid her head against the carpet and closed her eyes, taking in the first breath that wasn't filled with poisonous smog.

"Who - who are you?"

Both of their heads snapped up in unison. They two of them turned in a wide circle. Standing way off to the side of the room was a boy no older than eight years old, eyes wide and wild as he backed away against a wall, blond hair matted to his forehead with sweat.

Leo pushed himself up with shaking arms. "We're here to help," he croaked, but he looked like he needed some help himself. His face was red, and his hands were covered in charred blisters.

Piper watched Leo move closer to the boy, and winced as her legs stung in the intense heat. She pulled up a pant leg, and discovers that she was covered in painful, red welts.

"Are you here to put out the fire?" the boy asked, his eyes full of fear as he glanced at the oncoming flame. His blue eyes were watering. Piper suspected that it was from tears and not smoke.

"Yeah, I'm here to put it out. Come with us, and we'll get you out of here, okay?"

The boy looked at Leo with reluctant eyes. He glanced at Piper, and their eyes met. She opened her mouth to speak, writhing in pain. "Wh- why," she let out a grimace as her limbs began to ache. "Why didn't you run when everybody else did?"

The boy cried harder. "I was afraid."

He wiped his eyes, starting to wail. Piper watched with an aching heart, and Leo pushed himself up to his knees, crawling to him, wrapping the boy in his arms.

"It's going to be okay, t- trust me," he smoothed down the little boy's hair, crying himself. "We'll get out. Just come with us, and - "

The room shuddered. The far wall toppled over, flames spilling into the room with a crackling roar as the boy screamed in Leo's arms. Leo stood with shaky steps as debris began to fall on the opposite end of the room, and beads of perspiration dotted his forehead as he tried to stand.

Both her and Leo turned in a wide circle, him biting his bottom lip as he carried the little boy in his arms. "What's your name, kid?"

"Brian."

"Brian, huh? I'm Leo, and that's my friend, Piper. Brian, I need you to help me find the way out, okay?"

"...Okay."

They ran out of the room, trying to stay as low as possible as the smoke stung her lungs and the heat sizzled her tears.

"How old are you, Brian?"

"Seven."

Leo coughed a ragged cough. "Where are your parents?"

"I don't know. My mom's not here. She went out."

"She left you at home alone?"

"No. Layla was here."

"And where is Layla now?"

"I don't know." Brian peered over Leo's shoulder, training his wide eyes on Piper. "Are you that lady from TV?"

Piper cracked a pained smile, nodding because her throat burned too much for her to speak.

They crashed down the hall, Leo coughing the entire way as the boy buried his face into the fabric of Leo's jacket. Piper ran after them, laying low. They turned a corner, going back the way they came, but it was blocked; a fiery wall of flame blazed down the hall with intense heat, consuming everything in its path. They backed away, rushing back in the same direction they came.

"Hurry!" Piper yelled, her skin tight with a lack of moisture, her chest stinging. The entire building chirred, and the sound of the hallway being crackling as it was engulfed in flame pressed at their backs. Piper was up in front, with Leo and Brian behind her. She had no idea where she was going, but she stopped when she turned a corner and spotted a window surrounded by a small patch of writhing, orange flames.

"This way!"

She didn't know if they had heard her, the roaring in her ears was so loud. Piper led them to the window, crawling along the brown carpet of the hallway floor.

Halfway there, the building groaned again, and Piper looked up to see a beam shudder in the heat.

Leo let go of Brian. He pushed the boy forward right before the wall between them fell down, cutting Leo and Piper off from him. Piper screamed as Leo pulled her back. His voice was a strained croak. "Brian - you see that window? Take a piece of wood and break away the glass. After you do that, I need you to lean out the window and wave your arms as high as you can. Yell to whoever you see. They'll come get you, okay? Then you're getting out of here."

His eyes widened as he let out a ragged cough. "But - "

The beam cracked, falling down lower above them. The next thing she knew, Leo grabbed her in his arms and gave Brian a frantic look. "Go!"

Brian coughed, running off towards the window.

Piper sobbed. Leo wrapped his arms tighter around her, and flames raced around them, keeping them from trying to reach Brian on the opposite end of the hall.

On the other side, Brian leaned out the window, waving his arms around.

"Hey! Hey! Over here! Help!"

Back on their end, Leo gave a bitter laugh, his face glistening with sweat, his skin dark and tanned. "What a way to go, huh?"

She didn't answer. She kept crying.

Leo pulled the helmet off her face, kissing her forehead. He wiped the tears off of her face with coarse, bruised fingers. Her throat hurt. Her legs felt swollen. Every part of her ached in pain.

"I..." Leo paused to retch, resting the helmet down as he gripped his sides. "I was planning to propose, you know. Next month. I got you a really nice ring."

Piper sobbed into his jacket.

"You would have said yes, right?" he whispered into her hair. She shook in his arms, her lungs tight and shriveled in her chest. Every breath pained her. She didn't understand how Leo could talk for so long without choking on his own words.

Piper gave a shaky nod. "Y-yeah."

She gave a small, out-of-place smile as she remembered something. Percy and Annabeth would have won the bet.

Leo planted another chapped kiss on her forehead, patting down her hair. "Damn, it's really hot in here."

"No shit, Sherlock."

"I could really use a drink right now," Leo continued on in a mutter with a sad smile, pressing a kiss into her hair. Her skin darkened. Her vision reddened. Her hair curled back, singeing from the flame. Every second of waiting for the end dragged by like an hour.

She opened her mouth, inhaling the searing air. Piper's voice was only a feeble whisper. "Leo?"

He closed his eyes. "Yes?"

She coughed into his arms. "I hope you know that I wouldn't have changed a thing. Not at all."

Leo smiled a soft smile, opening his eyes again. The flames danced across his eyes - brown, orange, red, and he sighed into the smoke.

"Me either, Pipes." He laughed a pitiful laugh, glancing around the room that burned hotter than a furnace. "...Me either."

The beam cracked, a loud sound that roared over the crackling and the lashing of the inferno. It fell lower, right above them, and white flames crept upwards toward the shaft of wood, burning it down towards them as Piper whimpered in Leo's arms.

"I love you."

He croaked it into her ear, barely a whisper. His voice was dry and brittle, but it meant so much to her, hearing those words come from his mouth, that all Piper could do was keep crying. It was so hot, even her tears dried up as they fell down her face, sizzling like water on a stove.

"I love you, too, Leo. So, so much."

She kisses him. It's the last one they'll ever share.

The beam snaps.

Piper shrieks and buries her face in Leo's arms.

He holds her close.

She holds him tighter.

The beam finally falls.

It moves slowly, slowly, crashing down...and in the end, they are both enlightened by becoming insignificant stains in the fabric of the universe, and muttered names on the news.

...

i.

"If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world."

...

- alternate -

Gazing up at the clear blue sky, she can't help but think that today was destined to be beautiful.

There was a celebration. The air was filled with laughter and the smoky smell of barbecue. On this sweltering summer day, brightly-colored balloons sauntered through the sky, and children ran around along the asphalt, playing a game of tag. There were smiles, smiles everywhere. Nothing could have hindered this moment, even if it tried. It was one of the happiest days of her life.

She walked across the pavement with a plate of salad in her hand, striding towards the building with the banner hung over the entrance and the balloons tied to the posts of the gates out front. There he stands, talking to Frank and Hazel, smiling hugely and making exaggerated hand gestures as he explains his plans for the future.

His gaze catches hers, and just like that, they're both beaming.

"You guys have met my fiancée, right?" says Leo as he pulls her over to them. She rolls her eyes, the ring on her finger winking in the sunlight. He always makes a big deal out of it.

Hazel begins to gush over them. "Oh, I can't wait for the wedding! What are you going to wear? Oh - and what about the flowers? And the bridal shower - "

"Okay, Hazel." Frank pecks her on the cheek, and she stops, blushing. "I think that's enough fangirling for one day." Piper snorts, and Frank smiles a genuine smile at them. "We're happy for you guys - we really are."

Leo smiles back, shaking Frank's hand. "Thanks, Zhang."

Frank and Hazel wander off somewhere, and Leo snakes his arms around her waist from behind.

Piper leans back into him. She watches her friends go, and they walk across the block to Percy and Annabeth. Annabeth has a hand on her stomach, which bulges under her dress. She glows, radiating the beauty only someone who's two months pregnant can pull off.

Reyna and Jason join them from across the lot. They hold hands, and Reyna beams the biggest smile Piper's ever seen on her face as Jason pecks her on the cheek. Her friends stand right under the banner that reads "GRAND OPENING" in big, white letters over the front doors of Leo's newly opened garage, and they laugh at something Percy said, doubling over. Piper smiles. She had never been so glad for friends.

Leo pulls her close and rests his head on her shoulder before pecking her on the cheek. The curls of his hair brush against her neck, and she smiles before pursing her lips in thought as she gazes at a laughing Hazel.

Piper craned her neck to speak to Leo. "You think Hazel's going to freak when I tell her that I'm pregnant?"

The hiss of ribs on the barbecue fills the air. A lone cloud drifts through the sky, and there's more laughter, more smiles. Leo snorts, and she finds it hard to believe that person holding her in his arms was once so bad, once considered to be someone so dangerous that the thought of a moment like this with someone like him would have almost seemed appalling.

The gleam is in his eyes again, and it spreads like a crackling fire, a warm glow that warms Piper down all the way to her toes. Leo presses a kiss to her forehead with a laugh, sincere and simple, real and wholehearted.

He smiles at her. "Definitely."

...

Ignite

...

...

ii.

"Love is a fire.

But whether it is going to warm your hearth

or burn down your house,

you can never tell."

...

- the end -