Colorado is impossibly dark, nothing like the glaring orange-purple cloudy night sky of the city. The night wraps around her like a cocoon, the Milky Way stretching wide and beautiful above them. Her scalp is pressed against Leo’s, their heads tucked against each others, eyes on the stars.
“I’m glad that Jason treats you well,” he tells her a few moments later, tilting his head in an awkward direction to send her a grin. She grins back at him, playfully nudging him in the ribs. The motion sends a shooting pain up her arm to lodge in her chest and she gasps shakily.
“Yeah,” she whispers, her eyes chasing the trailing end of a comet. Her eyelids are surprisingly heavy; she wants to sleep, here in the quiet dark, Leo a comfortable presence beside her.
“Piper,” he says, and she blinks awake.
“I’m okay,” she tells him, but her voice sounds slurred even to her own ears.
He flips over onto his stomach, red dust clinging to his shoulders, and peers at her. His arm is lolling at a strange angle. She wonders if it hurts as badly as his fingers had, wreathed in fire, and pressed against the gaping wound in her belly.
“You really aren’t,” he whispers in a soft voice, and it’s that that makes her heart speed up, her breath hitching in her throat as fear wraps its way around her chest.
“I don’t want to die,” she says miserably, too tired to even think of crying.
“You won’t,” Leo goes, voice gone hard and sure. It reminds her of Jason, making promises that he couldn’t keep. “They’ll get here soon, Pipes. You just gotta stay awake, okay?”
She doesn’t respond, her eyes fixed on a constellation that she thinks might be Perseus? She used to go stargazing with her dad, but her vision’s gone hazy all over.
“Piper,” Leo says again, urgently. He’s shaking her, she notes absently. It’s so cold. She barely feels it when he tugs her into his lap, shushing her softly and petting her hair with shaking, bleeding fingers.
“This is stupid,” she mutters, but it comes out in garbled not-words, something half-gurgle. The failed words make Leo suck in a sharp, hitching breath that sounds wet.
She’s so very tired and the stars are so pretty above her, the dark quiet peaceful. She wants to close her eyes, but Leo’s voice keeps her grounded, urging her to keep her eyes on the stars.
Piper stares at them for what feels like an eternity, until Leo finally lets out a relieved shout, breaking the stillness, as something that looks like Festus settles next to them.
“You’ll be okay now, Pipes,” Leo whispers, his face little more than a blur. “You’ll be okay.”
