Work Text:
The nights are very long.
Sally Jackson gently cradles the crying baby in her arms, shushing him softly as she tries to get him to sleep. It is difficult, trying to take care of a child on her own, with no support or any safety net to fall back on. And there is the fear, that constant fear that every knock on the door or every smiling face is secretly a monster in disguise.
The nights are very long.
Bianca di Angelo stays awake sometimes, in the confines of the Lotus Hotel, trying to remember what it was like before, the last time she had stepped outside. Nico sleeps peacefully, unaware of anything that might trouble him. She draws the blankets around him, wondering whether, in some distant past too blurred for her to remember, her mother might have done it for her.
The nights are very long.
Thalia Grace tries to stop sobbing, smashing her face against the pillow as tears run down her face. It has been days since she saw him, her little brother, and her mother couldn't be less concerned. It doesn't matter that he is only two years old, or that the park is famous for wolves, or that he cannot find his way home alone. No. The only thing Beryl Grace cares about is that "It isn't my fault."
The nights are very long.
Hylla Ramirez-Arellano runs a hand through her sister's hair, gently stroking it as Reyna cries in her arms. It was one of their father's worse days, and for once Hylla wasn't there, having gone out on a grocery run, and as she gently presses the ice pack against the bruises and bandages the cuts on her sister's face, she feels, for the first time, from the bottom of her gut, hate.
The nights are very long.
Esperanza Valdez can't sleep a night, not after Hera herself sought her son and tried to train him from his very birth. No matter what, her little boy will have a hard life. It's easy to forget that during the day, while working in the workshop, as he chatters continuously with her and makes her laugh with his humor. He will grow up to be a fine man one day. If he gets to grow up at all. But for now, she can do her best to protect him.
It's all she can do.
The nights are very long.
Frederick Chase wonders sometimes, as he lies next to his wife, whether there was something he could have done, something he ought to have done, that would have stopped Annabeth from running away. Surely their home hadn't been worse than the streets, right?
Right?
The nights are very long.
Emily Zhang bolts up suddenly each night, jumping out of her bed and almost tearing the drawer out of the old wooden chest and shoving the box open as she reassures herself for the hundredth time that the stick of wood, tied to her son's lifeline, is still intact. Then she tiptoes down the hall to the room where he is sleeping, just to check that he is okay. How ironic, that her sturdy, strong little boy should have his mortality depend upon something as flimsy as a stick of wood.
But the years?
Oh, the years have been so short.
Sally laughs as her little boy, now almost a man, wraps her in a hug. She barely reaches up to his shoulder now, but when he asks her whether she has any blue cookies for him, she can still see her tiny Perseus in there somewhere.
Bianca smiles as she takes one last look at the teenager that her brother has grown into, all black eyes and dark hair and his mother's smile, and as she heads to the Lethe for rebirth she prays that life will be kinder to him than it has until now.
Thalia gives a wry smile as she sees her brother race after the Stolls in pursuit of his spectacles. He's sixteen. Sixteen, and he still has the scar on his lip from when he once tried to eat a stapler. He may be older than her now, but he's still her little brother, and he's alive.
Hylla can scarcely believe that the person in front of her is her sister. She is so strong, so composed, so suited to be Praetor that she can barely believe this is her baby sister. Then she goes to the Principia to bid her goodbye before leaving, and sees the large jar of jellybeans marked DO NOT TOUCH and laughs. Some things never change.
Esperanza decides to live out her life in Elysium, and she chuckles as she gets a rare glimpse of her son still making the corny jokes he always used to when he was little. It is a special favor she managed to get after much pleading, and she is a little sad when her window is over.
Frederick grins like a man possessed as he talks non-stop about his next project with his daughter. She looks so different from the last time he had seen her, and as Helen has to drag the two of them to eat something while they lose track of time bouncing ideas against each other, a part of him which had been frozen with guilt melts in happiness.
Emily finally meets her mother once more, in Elysium, and after the much-awaited reunion, she wants to know how her son is doing.
"He has grown up to be an excellent youth. Mark my words, that boy will bring glory to the Zhang name."
"Anything else?"
"He's still a mama's boy, if you can believe it. I blame you for that, Em."
Emily feels a little bit pleased with herself, to be honest.
The nights were so very long. But the years? The years have been so short.
Maybe that's not a bad thing.