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Percy hasn’t been on the subway in a long time.
So long in fact that he can’t work out if the carriages have always rattled this much or if the force of his leg bouncing up and down is just that strong.
He’s nervous.
He hasn’t seen his mom in over seven months. Last night, he spoke to her for the first time in that long, in a teary Iris message from Camp Half-Blood. After the fighting and the healing and the burning of the fallen’s shrouds, he’d returned to his cabin alone and the once-familiar gurgle of the salt-water fountain in the corner of the room had sent a shock through him. Despite his memories having been fully restored, some small details about his life still come as a surprise to him.
There was a pile of drachmas gleaming in the basin and he didn’t even think before tossing one into the rainbow spray and saying his mother’s name.
Chiron, with a heavy gaze, had allowed him to journey into the city today to see her, and Percy and Annabeth had agreed that this was something he needed to do alone. He wishes his girlfriend were here now though; her presence would help calm the restless energy boiling in him.
He’s not sure why he isn’t just excited – it’s his mom for gods’ sake. The thought of being back in her arms, in the apartment that they’ve been fighting the world together from for his whole life, fills him with a warmth he can’t even describe. Still, there’s a niggling fear in the back of his mind that the last seven months will have left an awkwardness between them too big to fill, no matter how normal their brief conversation seemed last night.
He reaches his station and gets up, patting his pocket to feel the comforting shape of Riptide resting there as he takes the stairs back to street level two at a time. Pulling his skateboard from his backpack, he opts to skate the short trip back home – home – letting the familiar feel of the rocky sidewalk under his board, the turns he’s taken so many times it’s instinctive now, settle his jittering nerves.
He stops short outside his apartment building, gripping his skateboard tightly as he walks inside, choosing the stairs over the elevator because even though the latter would be faster, just the thought of having to stand there and wait for it drives him crazy.
He has a key, one he keeps in his bedside table at camp, but somehow it doesn’t feel right to use it. This is his home, but he isn’t the same person he was when he was last here. Pocketing the key, he raises his hand to knock.
His fist has barely touched the door before it swings open and Sally Jackson is standing in front of him.
Her eyes are wide. Her hair, brown and curly, falling loose around her shoulders, is streaked with grey. She’s wearing a light blue shirt and a dark blue skirt that falls down below her knees. There are the same smile lines around her eyes, but the worry lines etched into her forehead seem deeper.
She looks even more beautiful than he remembers.
“Hey, mom,” he says, voice thick.
Sally lets out a breath, grabbing him by the shoulders and crushing him into her without a word. The door closes behind him as she wraps her arms around his shoulders, his automatically circling her waist as he presses his face into the crook of her neck.
He’s not sure how long they stay like that, he just knows that they’re both shaking and crying, and when they eventually pull back her left shoulder is dark with tear stains and he’s sure the right shoulder of his T-shirt looks the same.
She places her trembling hands on his cheeks and wipes away the tears still leaking down his face with her thumbs.
“Hi, baby,” she says through a watery smile, and the sound of her voice brings a fresh wave of tears to his eyes. He hugs her again and breathes out what feels like seven months of tension as he lets himself be held by his mom. He can’t remember a time in his entire life when he felt this safe.
*
A ding from the kitchen breaks them out of their bubble. He stiffens, pulls back slowly, “Mom…”
She smiles wide, “Hungry?”
His stomach audibly growls in response, and Sally bursts out laughing. Percy thinks that not even the Muses on Mount Olympus could make music as beautiful as the sound of his mom’s laugh. He grins as he rests an arm around her shoulders, walking beside her into the kitchen. She pecks his cheek and unwinds herself from him as she grabs her oven mitts and takes two fresh trays of blue cookies out of the oven, setting them on the stove.
Percy has to physically restrain himself from eating them all, right then and there. He thinks his mom can tell as she glances at him with a knowing smile and her eyes gleaming. They slip so easily back into intimacy that Percy almost laughs at his past self for being so paranoid. She pulls out a plate to stack the cookies onto and he grabs the milk from the fridge, pouring some into two, wide mugs for them both.
Together, they walk to the living room and settle themselves on opposite ends of the couch, legs crossed and facing each other, mugs of milk in their hands and the plate of still warm cookies, blue as the cloudless sky outside, between them.
They’ve eaten cookies like this since they very first time she made them blue, after Gabe Ugliano had suggested it was impossible. As they each grab one, clink them together like they’re glasses and say “Cheers!” before dunking them into the milk and taking a bite, Percy thinks that if he had died during the Giant War, this is what he’d be doing in Elysium.
Percy’s never been a big talker, but after his mom asks him to tell her everything, sparing no details, he finds he can’t stop.
He doesn’t try to water it down for her like he once might’ve either. He tells her the good, the bad and the ugly: waking up to a wolf staring down at him; losing his Achilles Curse as he crossed the river into a camp for Roman demigods; meeting Frank and Hazel and travelling to Alaska with them; seeing Annabeth again; travelling across America, then across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, then back to Camp Half-Blood; the final fight with Gaea that he didn’t end up being a part of; the fight between the Greek and Roman demigods that he did. He tells her about each of the five demigods of the prophecy that she hasn’t already met. He tells her about Coach Hedge and Reyna and Nico. He tells her about Annabeth’s quest for the Athena Parthenos, and he tells her about Tartarus.
His mom has never been good at hiding her reactions to his…adventures. As Percy talks, he watches her face transform from interested to worried, proud to terrified, until he gets to Tartarus. Sally’s face remains tense but unreadable during his recount of those almost three weeks. He doesn’t shy away from things exactly, but he leaves out some of the memories he isn’t quite ready to revisit, like his fight with Akhlys or the battle with the arai.
By the time he’s finished, the sun is setting and the living room is washed in golden light. Sally sets the near-empty plate of cookies and their mugs on the coffee table and pulls her son to her. He follows, resting his head on her chest and closing his eyes as she starts running her fingers through his hair. He feels lighter, peaceful even. He’s not sure how long it will last but decides to enjoy it while it does.
After a few minutes of silence, he tells his mom about New Rome: how he never thought he’d have a chance at a long life until he saw it. She hums, says it’s a wonderful idea.
“Why don’t you build a ‘New Athens’ near Camp Half-Blood?” She suggests and Percy’s eyes snap open.
He sits up, turning to face her. “What?”
She looks confused at his reaction. “Well, why should the Roman demigods be the only ones with a safe haven for adults?”
His mind is whirling. The thought had never occurred to him.
“Annabeth could design it,” his mom continues, “Once she’s finished with Olympus, of course. And that way you wouldn’t have to leave me for San Francisco again.”
She’s joking, he knows, but it’s true, and the weight of it hits him like the brick that knocked Jason unconscious in New Rome.
“Mom,” he starts, “That’s brilliant.”
She smiles softly and pulls him back towards her, “Don’t think about it now. Now, you need to rest.”
As excited as he is about the idea – a place for older demigods at Camp Half-Blood? It seems too good to be true – he allows the thoughts to fade into the background as he focuses on the fact that he’s hanging out with his mom again. He reaches out for another cookie and chuckles as some of the crumbs fall on her shirt when he takes a bite.
He asks her about Paul, (at a teacher’s convention for the week, but doing well) and her novel (progressing slower than she’d hoped, but she’s happy with it nonetheless). As the last rays of light fade to dark, they talk and joke and tease and laugh, and Percy feels like he’s twelve again: before he knew who his father was and about the whole other life he was to be part of; back when he knew he was different, but still felt somewhat normal.
After everything he’s gone through since he found out he was a demigod, Percy wasn’t sure if he’d ever feel even vaguely normal again. If there’s one thing Sally has taught him, though, it’s not even bad situations last forever. There isn’t much that Percy wants to thank the gods for these days, but he’ll make an exception and thank Poseidon for choosing Sally as his mom.
Before long, the soothing lull of her voice and warmth of her body are lulling Percy to sleep right there on the couch.
His head is on his mom’s chest, her arms are wrapped around him, and Percy Jackson is finally home.