Piper didn't stop and explain to Annabeth why exactly she was running like a madman, but it was clear that the daughter of Athena knew what was going on.

"Do you know where Leo is?" Annabeth called, though not following Piper as she ran for the stairs.

"Just focus on getting the controls working!" Piper shouted back, taking a second to stop in her tracks and give a thumbs up to the blonde who had a worried expression on her face.

Sure, Leo was in the middle of throwing fireballs around his room, but Annabeth didn't need to know about that.

Before the other girl could press the conversation further, Piper disappeared down the stairs.
Leo... what did he think he was doing? Sure, he was the one who built the ship and considered himself 'captain', but even he should have known that his fire abilities weren't to be used freely while aboard the Argo II.

What was he doing using it... again?

Multiple questions raced through Piper's head as she ran to where her friend was. Past the Galley, Frank's room... Percy's room... Leo.

The door, although being open on the monitor, was shut.

"Leo?" Piper said, pounding on the door impatiently. "Valdez you in there?"

Of course he was in there. She had just seen him trying to set his bed up in flames.

"...Valdez!" Piper called, slamming her fist against the wooden door. The surface felt hot, and an instruction about what to do if there was ever a fire at the Wilderness School played back in her mind.

Unfortunately, 'Jump out the window, cupcakes! Every man for himself!' was the only thing her mind deemed worthy to remember.

Piper was about to reach for the doorknob and open the door herself when Leo did it for her from the other side.

"Hi." The boy cautiously, poking his head out.

Piper lowered an eyebrow. "Open the door."

Leo frowned. "That's not a good idea."

"I saw the fire Leo." Piper snapped, pushing the door open and sending Leo stumbling backwards into the knocked over desk chair.

He tried to straighten himself, but was already too unsteady and ending up falling to the floor.

"I didn't say you could come in!" He snapped, quickly jumping to his feet and putting the chair back into it's place at the desk. "Hence why I didn't say 'Hey Piper, come on in!' when you knocked."

Piper narrowed her eyes. Nothing in the room was on the verge of burning to ash at the moment. There was no fires, no smoke, nothing aside from the burns on the walls that Piper had already seen.

"What did you do?"

Leo lowered an eyebrow. "A little bit of clarification would help me answer that, you know."

"Leo, I saw you using your fir-"

The son of Hephaestus shot her a cold look that didn't quite suit him. "Were you seriously spying on me?"

Piper blinked. "No! Not intentionally... the computer brought the surveillance video up. Anyway Leo that isn't the point I'm trying to-"

"The ship's system doesn't do anything without being told to." Leo pointed out, as if it should have been obvious to her. "Don't lie to me, Piper."

The daughter of Aphrodite clenched her first. He wasn't having a word of anything she said.

"Could you at least explain these, then?" Piper snapped, pointing her hand to the burnt markings on the wall.

Leo squinted at them as if he had forgotten they were there. "I probably had a nightmare or something and freaked out, no harm done."

"Probably? You mean you don't know?"

The boy sighed. "I don't see why this is such a big deal for you."

"Answer me, please." Piper told him, allowing a bit of charmspeak to slip into her voice.

Normally she was against controlling people, but it was obvious that Leo wasn't going to tell her what she wanted to know.

However, as soon as the words left her mouth a look of recognition flashed on Leo's face.
For a second the son of Hephaestus almost looked conflicted, as if he was aware of the charmspeak and wanted to give in, but something was ordering him not to.

"I don't remember." Was his answer. Whether it was honest or not Piper couldn't tell, he didn't even look that sincere as he spoke the words.

Piper was so stuck in her frustration that she wanted to scream. He wasn't telling her anything! What did a simple 'I don't know' get her? She felt like she was forever stuck on Square One, Leo had designing the game to never let her advance.

Honestly, she wasn't sure why all of this mattered. Was it because he had acted rudely to Hazel? The daughter of Pluto could easily sort that out by herself.

Was it the rather offensive joke he had made to Frank? Surely a son of Mars didn't need an Aphrodite kid interfering.

It sounded lame that her only reason for nagging at Leo at the moment was because he was... what? Acting different? It had only been a few hours since either of them woke up, since his 'different' started. What kind of reasoning was that?

He was always acting different. The kid was constantly changing, switching gears and always on the move to be different.

It was hardly fair to call him out for it.

"Piper," Leo said, snapping the girl out of her thoughts. "I don't know what you're expecting me to say, but I'd appreciate if you left me alone now." Although she felt like the words were supposed to sound genuine, Piper couldn't help getting the impression they were pulled right off a script.

Piper watched him for a few seconds before nodding.
"You're right... I'm sorry."

As she turned around to leave and was just about to walk out into the hallway again, Piper remembered that the ship still wasn't moving.

"Oh! And Leo-" She said, whipping around to face her friend. She stopped talking when a shine caught her eye, like the glittering of gold.

"Yeah, what?" Leo snapped. His face was no longer pointed towards her, so all she saw was the back of him as he pulled the blankets over his bed.

"Annabeth needs help getting the ship moving. Can you-"
"Use the Wii remote that has the blue case."

"But aren't you going to-"

"The A button will start the engines up, and Festus already knows where to go so don't worry about steering or anything." Leo explained, still not looking at her.

She had made him angry at her, hadn't she?
Of course she had.

Piper dropped her eyes to the floor and turned around back towards the hall.
"Thanks."

---

Jason and Frank were both alongside Annabeth now, but both of them seemed to be having the same luck with the computer that Piper and her had had.

"Have any of you seen a Wii remote?" Piper asked, scratching the back of her head as she walked up to them.

Frank looked around him and shrugged, Jason cast her a curious look.

"We don't have time to play virtual bowling at the moment." The son of Jupiter told her. "Maybe if we're not all dead within the next few weeks or so, we can have tournament."

Annabeth's eyes widened. "I'm so stupid... The one with the blue case, you mean?"

Piper nodded.

The daughter of Athena rubbed her forehead and groaned. "Not since yesterday. Percy took it, I think."

Frank blinked. "He told me that it wasn't working."

"Only the A button actually does anything." Annabeth explained without missing a beat, "That way no one would get it confused with the real controllers... oh my gods, Frank, do you know what he did with it?"

"Put it down?"

"Telling me where is what I meant."

"Oh! Yeah, I knew that. He dropped it somewhere on the floor in his room."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Once she was gone, Frank must have gotten the impression that he was the next in line to leave and quickly excused himself.

Jason turned to Piper and looked at her carefully in the eyes. "Are you okay?" He asked. When she didn't answer, Jason put a hand on her shoulder.

"Seriously Piper, are you alright?"

"I'm fine..."

"...But...?"

"I'm just worried about Leo." Piper admitted. "He didn't want to talk to me when I went to his room, Jason. He basically just shooed me out."

Jason furrowed his eyebrows. "He's been kind of like that since we found him again-"

"It wasn't as bad as that, though! If you had been with me and Hazel earlier... oh gods, Jason you should have seen it." Piper groaned, rubbing her forehead with her hand.

"What do you mean?"

"He set part of his room on fire, that's the best I can explain it." Piper said, reaching for the single braid in her hair. "Then, he told me he didn't know how it happened, like he just woke up I guess and suddenly nearly everything was burnt! He lied straight to my face."

Jason's blue eyes were suddenly filled with thought. "How do you know he lied?"

"You're defending him?"

"I'm just asking. What if he-"

"Had some sort of nightmare and lost control during the night?" Piper huffed, folding her arms over chest. "He wasn't telling me everything, I could tell."

Jason frowned. "Maybe it's best not to pry, Piper."

Piper gaped at him. Was she hearing him correctly?

She couldn't be.

"Jason, what if-"

"I understand that you're worried, but if anything was wrong or bothering Leo, don't you think he'd tell us about it?" Jason pointed out. His voice sounded confident, like he was entirely sure of himself and had no doubts, but there was a lingering bit on uncertainty in his eyes.

Piper didn't see it.

She thought about what the son of Jupiter said. He was right... wasn't he?

Leo was a chatterbox, that was for sure. He could drone on about the same subject for hours if his short attention span didn't jump over to a new topic.

He talked with everyone, was friends with everyone, but he wasn't... open.

Piper didn't recall Leo every talking about his own troubles. He complained, he nagged, he would go out of his way to make a point of how stupid something was, but anything to do with him and his feelings... Leo tended to block them out.

Piper didn't think Jason was so right anymore, but she gave a nod in agreement anyway and didn't push the subject.

She trusted that Leo would tell them if there was more going on than what he was currently letting her see.

Notes