Far From Home (The Raven) by Sam Tinnesz

Leo was...quieter than usual. It wasn't apparent at first, but it was an underlying fact. They all felt it, just failed to acknowledge it.

There were times when Leo would just be staring off into the distance. Everyone daydreams once in awhile, but he seemed to be doing it more often than not.

But he still butted in to tell a joke and make people laugh like usual, so no one thought anything of it. But looking back on it, the 'like usual' is even more concerning.

The actual incident happened on a day that was a little more tense than usual. The Seven were in the middle of a war counsel and Leo was simply trying to lighten the mood.

Little did everyone else know, was that he'd been having a pretty horrible day so far already. To start it off, he'd stubbed his toe getting out of bed. Then, when he'd gone to check the engine room, it'd spit oil all in his face.

When he'd gone to wipe it off, he realized he'd used the shirt Calypso gave him. The white fireproof shirt. Tears had sprung to his eyes. Flames licked his ears. He was so tired of everything going wrong.

He took a deep breath and left the engine room. He remembered what his therapist told him: leave the environment.

So he carefully made his way to the mess hall. When he sat down beside Percy at the table, said demigod was drawing a horrid scene on his blue pancakes with syrup. With a frown he finished it off.

Leo raised an eyebrow, a smile already on his lips. "Didn't know you could draw," he joked. Percy glanced up, eyes warming upon seeing Leo there. That made Leo feel a little better.

"Just a dream I had," Percy said, using his fork to spread the syrup, destroying his picture. Leo turned to his plate and on it was Huevos Rancheros, a breakfast dish his mom always used to make for him. He got a lump in his throat and excused himself to the deck, leaving his food on the table.

They were small things, really. But they add up. And they continue to add up until it's just too much. Leo was tired. Of everything. About an hour of moping around later, Hazel came up on the deck and told him to report to the war counsel the rest of the Seven were holding in the mess hall.

"Sure thing," Leo responded with the biggest smile he could muster. He jogged down the stairs and into the mess hall.

They were already arguing when he got there. "But the Romans are advancing!" Piper yelled at Jason. "What do you propose we do?"

From the doorway, he suggested, "I mean, we could ask nicely." Everyone simply ignored him. "I could try talk to Reyna again," Frank suggested meekly. "It'll probably work as well as it did the last three times," Annabeth argued.

"You know, I try very hard to be this funny, and what do I get for it?" He waited. "I will literally slit Octavian's throat!" Piper gushed.

"Silence," Leo finished, finding his seat at the table. He realized that someone had moved his plate from before. He caught Hazel's eye and she smiled wryly at him, rolling her eyes at the others' antics.

Leo found himself having to look away. Leo sat for awhile, quietly listening to his friends argue. Finally Hazel piped up. "Nico, Reyna, and Hedge are handling it! We need to focus on getting to Athens and killing giants!"

"All in a day's work, am I right?" He asked. Frank snapped. "It's not funny Leo!" He looked hurt for a second before shaking it off. He expected as much from Frank.

But he didn't expect it from Jason. "Yeah, come on, man. Now is not the time for jokes." Jason shook his head in disappointment and annoyance before turning back to his previous statement.

It stung. It really did. Leo stood and made his way to the door. His voice was a little lower, choked with unwanted tears, when he said, "I'm gonna go check on something quick."

Annabeth glanced his way and nodded. "Not that anybody needs me here, anyway," he muttered to himself on his way out. No one heard him. That much was expected.

When he got to his cabin, he just had time to collapse into his bed before he started crying. This had been happening more and more frequently. It felt sort of good to let out these horrible feelings alone in his room. Sure, if he had someone there with him, Calypso preferably, he probably wouldn't be feeling as lonely. But there wasn't anything he could do about that.

By the time he was decidedly done crying, it was a half hour later. Leo somehow felt worse than he did when he first stumbled into his cabin. He was feeling desperate. He wanted out.

He glanced around his cabin in a new light, searching. Searching for a way out. His eyes landed on the bottle. He wandered over to it, picked it up, and examined it. He'd picked it up about two weeks ago, on their last supply run.

He didn't even really know why he'd grabbed it in the first place. Just in case, maybe. Maybe he was just desperate. He sure was desperate now.

He grabbed the glass of water he had at his bedside and screwed open the cap of the pill bottle. His fingers were shaking. His pinky finger in particular was on fire. His heart beat impossibly loud in his chest. He was afraid someone would hear it. No he wanted someone to hear it. Maybe someone would save him. Maybe someone would care.

He paused a few more seconds, beating heart breaking a little more when no one came running. Maybe they didn't care about him. This, of course, he knew, but was hoping wasn't true.

He steeled himself, one last question on his mind. 'Do I really want to do this?'

He answered by downing the bottle.

Nothing happened at first and he was almost relieved. But then the room started spinning and he felt unbelievably nauseous.

'I want to get to the engine room,' he thought. 'I want to be in the engine room.'

He stumbled out of his cabin, crashing into the door on his way out. It was a lucky thing that his cabin was the closest to the engine room. Or else he never would've made it.

^*^*^*^

"But that will never work. You have to—" Piper was cut off by a bang. Everyone froze, listening for a moment. Hazel stood. "Leo?" She called nervously. No answer.

They waited a moment longer before Percy stood as well. Piper fiddled with her hands. "I have a horrible feeling..."

Percy's eyes widened in a different kind of horror. "Leo," He said, dashing out of the mess hall. Startled, the rest of the demigods scrambled to follow him.

They arrived in Leo's cabin first. It looked mildly disturbed, the usual, but Leo was nowhere to be seen.

Percy's worrying eyes swept the room for clues. He too, had a horrible feeling about what happened. His eyes found the bottle of pills. He let out a sound of fear and picked it up. Empty. He seemed to notice for the first time the empty glass on the desk. He dropped the bottle and ran for the engine room, all caution left behind.

With a sinking feeling in her gut, Annabeth knew exactly what had happened. She was the first to follow Percy.

When Percy arrived in the engine room, he found Leo. The son of Hephaestus was unconscious on the floor near the engine room, curled into a ball. His hand was resting in a puddle of his own vomit.

Percy took this all in in the span of a five seconds. He didn't hesitate to slide in on his knees, turning Leo onto his back. He checked for a pulse first, finding a weak one, and then to see if he was breathing.

He wasn't. Percy got right to work. He held out his hand and summoned water from the bathroom sink. He forced the water down Leo's throat, searching for the pills. He got most of them within the water and forced them back up, causing Leo to throw up again. Percy angled him so he wouldn't choke and then laid him back down.

He started doing CPR. He placed his hands on Leo's chest and pumped. 1...2...3...4...5 times. Hazel was crying. She didn't understand what was going on. Had a monster poisoned her friend? Jason and Annabeth knew. And they hated it. Piper and Frank simply refused to acknowledge it.

Percy initiated mouth to mouth, pinching Leo's nose and breathing for him. He did this four times before Leo let out a gasping breath.

Percy, satisfied for the moment, scooped him up and ran for sick bay. Hazel, Piper and Frank didn't even try to enter with Jason, Percy, and Annabeth. They knew they wouldn't be of use in this situation. But the other three, sadly or fortunately, knew what they were doing.

This went on for a while, Percy never stopping or slowing down, just desperately trying to keep his friend alive. He didn't dare risk ambrosia or nectar considering he was already overdosed.

In the span of time they spent in sick bay, Leo's heart stopped once. Luckily they had a human defibrillator.

"Jason!" Percy shouted, grabbing Jason's hands at the wrists and rubbing them together to cause friction, or in Jason's case, sparks.

Annabeth held Leo's wrist, actively searching for a pulse that wasn't there. "Clear!" Percy yelled, and Jason's hands were working to revive Leo. Percy's eyes found Annabeth's where she was waiting.

"Got it!" She praised. "It's there!" Percy's sigh was audible. "Damn you, Valdez," he said through a few tears.

Things calmed down considerably from there. Leo was okay. He was going to be okay. Eventually. Most of the Seven were beating themselves up.

"I just don't get it," Hazel whispered. "He tried to kill himself."

She trailed off, at a loss for words. They all sat around his bed in sick bay, too drained to move and too worried. Every once in awhile he'd move or make a face. He was in pain and it showed.

Frank was crying. "I just—I can't believe we didn't realize it sooner. We could've helped. I never knew he felt this way. I wish we could've been there."

"Me too," Percy nodded. "But that's in the past now and there's nothing we can do about it. But what we can do is be here now. We can help him now."

They all nodded in agreement. "Percy, how do you know so much about this?" Jason asked in awe, just a little hint of fear in his voice. "It's not my first suicide attempt," he answered simply.

Piper's eyes bulged. "Rescue! Rescue," Percy clarified. Annabeth nodded. "There was a girl at camp that tried to...you know. Percy was there though. He brought her underwater and they talked for the whole day. She's doing a lot better now that she's getting the help that she needs."

"So how long is he going to be out?" Jason asked, biting his nails. "About a day," Percy answered, not even skipping a beat. "He'll have one hell of a headache when he wakes up though. And the first few days'll be pretty rough, but he'll get through it."

Piper narrowed her eyes. "How do you know so much about this?" She asked. Everyone seemed to lean in to Percy to get his answer.

Percy avoided her eyes, looking first to Annabeth, who nodded, then to the floor. He swallowed. "Because I tried it too," he said.

Silence.

"But that was ages ago, and I'm fine now. Let's worry about Leo," he begged. The others reluctantly agreed. It was eye opening for them to uncover all of this at once. There was obviously a lot more about each other that they didn't know.

It wasn't until the next day, late afternoon, that Leo started to stir. By that point it was only Percy and Piper still in the room with him. Leo groaned and curled into himself farther.

He threw his hands over his eyes, attempting to keep the light out of his face. His head hurt like Hades. It felt like the two sides of his brain were trying to separate and fight their way through his skull in opposite directions.

He stomach was churning itself in knots, and he fought to keep the bile from rising in his throat. "Leo," Piper called, relief heavy in her voice. Leo's hands fell over his ears and he cried out in pain at the loud harsh sound of her voice.

Guilt filled Piper and she backed away at Percy's look. Percy lowered himself to his knees so he was close to Leo's face. He whispered so softly it was hard for Piper to hear him.

"Leo, how are you feeling?" He asked. Leo groaned again, the sound ending on a whimper. "Like shit," he choked out. Percy chuckled sadly, handing him a glass of water with a straw. Leo sipped at it, eyes closed.

Percy opened his mouth to say something, but Leo turned over and was asleep in an instant.

^*^*^*^

Leo woke up again the next morning, feeling a little better. Percy had long since left and Jason sat in his place.

"I have to pee," was the first thing Leo said and Jason couldn't help but laugh. It gave him hope that Leo could get better.

"Sure thing," Jason said, helping Leo first to a sitting position and then to his feet. Together, they hobbled down the hall to the bathroom. They didn't run into anybody on the way, thankfully. Jason didn't know how Leo would handle that.

Jason helped Leo into the bathroom, searching the cupboards quickly with his eyes, before leaving Leo alone for a few minutes.

Just when Jason decided he was going to go in there to make sure Leo was okay, the door opened and he hobbled out, leaning against the wall. He flashed Jason a grin and the two headed back to sick bay.

Jason could tell Leo's mind was elsewhere. And he knew he would have to address it sooner or later. He decided he'd rather Leo heal sooner rather than later, so he steeled himself.

He waited until Leo was comfortably sitting on the bed again. "Leo...you tried to kill yourself."

Leo's content look slipped and he scowled. "I..."

"Leo you can always talk to me. You know that right? Whenever you're feeling sad or just need someone to talk to, I want you to promise me you'll talk to someone first. It doesn't even have to be me. Just promise me you won't go through this alone."

Leo was at a loss for words. Eyes watering, he looked at the floor. "Thanks, Jason."

Jason sat next to him on the bed and pulled him in for a much needed hug. "I love you, man. Don't ever forget that."