Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dear Calypso, 

I don’t know if you’ll get this, but I’m hoping that you will. If this summer has taught me anything it’s that hope can carry you pretty far. There’s definitely less rules about it than prayer. (I did also sacrifice my dinner to Hermes for the best chances since it’s his delivery service, but I’m banking on hope.) 

To the surprise of everyone, I’m alive. 

Most people I’ve met thought I’d be dead by now, some have tried to make it happen. When I landed on your island, I thought they were basing that prediction on my poor life decisions but turns out there was a seventy year old prophecy that basically said “percy jackson will die at sixteen”. 

Yeah, I was pretty messed up about that. It’s not that I thought I’d be the demigod to beat the odds and live a long life, but my mom had named me Perseus in hopes that I would. The chance of me dying was always a possibility long before I turned sixteen. I’ve literally seen two of my would-be funeral shrouds. The prophecy just made a possibility a certainty that I couldn’t avoid. It made me think of you, of what would’ve happen if I stayed. But just because I’d be free from that burden doesn’t mean everyone else would be free from the consequences. You know this, it’s why I left.

Okay, I don’t know how to say this gently, for all I know someone’s already told you, but Olympus hasn’t been answering me back for a while now and my luck’s always been piss poor when it comes to getting answers. I’m rambling. What I mean to say is that after Kronos was defeated, I was given a gift for leading the demigods against him and being the prophecy child. I asked for a few things and the king of the gods agreed. One of those was to free you from Ogygia. 

You’re free, Calypso. No more heroes washing up on your beach and no more being stranded on that island. If no one comes for you, build a raft? I’m honestly just spitballing here. I’m sending some drachma with this letter and once you’re in the mortal world, send me a letter or Iris message and I’ll pick you up on Blackjack. He’s my pegasus friend, the coolest guy you’ll ever meet. Or I can pick you up with a car, I got my learner’s permit a while ago! 

My mom’s been helping me grow your moonlace on our window sill, it’s not as big of a garden as you deserve, but I’ve been helping Grover, my best friend and the new Lord of the Wild, on his whole save the earth mission while I prep for my junior year of high school. The world has changed a lot, but I’m still your friend and want you to know that even though I couldn’t stay with you, I want to be there for you. 

Love, 

Percy

PS: I am not going to die because of a prophecy, it’s already passed and the next one, fingers crossed, shouldn’t happen for another lifetime. 

—

It’s all fun and games joking about dams when you don’t see who’s being damned in the process.  

He blinks at another fishway-less dam and has half the mind to hack at it with Riptide. He doesn’t listen to the horned figure on his shoulder that resembles a satyr more than a devil, that advises him down with private dams! Let the wild be wild! And instead plots another course along the Saugatuck River, because at the end of the day he’s not equipped to deal with an ecoterrorist warrant. 

The river used to be host to a large variety of fish, once it was known for its brown trout, but dams as he’s learned through impassioned speeches from Rachel, Grover, and a ridiculous amount of river spirits, have bad side effects that include destroying biodiversity. Fishways, little fish steps that are made in dams to let fish migrate, aren’t always a one size fits all solution and aren’t even included into every dam. 

He swims at a regular pace, not wanting his passenger to get discombobulated, and taking the chance to feel the flow of the river. Only one third of the world’s longest rivers are free running. He wonders if this is a topic of conversation in his father’s court. Somewhere below post-war reconstruction and before the top ten reasons of why Zeus sucks, they’d talk about the wild being bought up by business men and private citizens as if it doesn’t have a spirit. 

The Saugatuck River has a spirit. He had introduced himself alongside Grover who’s taken to know every nature spirit that’s ever sprouted like a new boss making the rounds with employees. She had been bloated, skin a greenish brown and hair a rushing stream as she told them of the groups of brown trout she used to welcome before they stopped making the trip. 

Contrary to what Clarisse would tell you, he’s not a sucker for a sad story, but when she introduces them to Bela, a brown trout who wants to have her babies in the first place she ever laid her fingerling eyes on, Percy can’t not help. 

So here he is navigating dams while his best friend chats up a bloated river because it wouldn’t be Connecticut without a flood.

Are you sure you know where you’re going?

Is he ever? 

“We’re going to get there soon,” he reassures. She dropped the “my lords” somewhere along the third time they’d been redirected. He gets that too much to even pretend at being offended.

Before or after I lay my eggs?

Percy rolls his eyes. If it was all as simple as going from point A to point B, Bela would be carried in a water bubble as he jumped over dams to her nesting ground. But she’s a migrating species, she needs to know the way as much as she needs to get to her destination. It’s not like riding the MTA where worse comes to worst you can use Google or just ask someone which train to take. There are things people need to do for themselves. 

He follows the rush of the river, avoiding the stifled currents. This water empties into the Long Island Sound, but the movement of it is halted in a way that makes him feel sick. Like if the river was an artery, it’s one that’s been treated for coronary bypass. 

He remembers how weak Pan was before he faded and how gods are half idea and half energy. Grover won’t give up on the wild, the same way he never gave up on Pan. If his beating heart is now linked to the wellbeing of this planet? Well, they already called him a terrorist for something he didn’t do, at least he’d earn the ecoterrorist label fair and square. 

Percy guides Bela through the last current as they land in their destined pond, the Saugatuck and Grover pause their conversation to watch the fish swim in glee at her new territory. 

Thank you, lost one! Thank you! Even though we took the scenic route, we made it!

Percy snorts, “Don’t mention it, Bela. Good luck with the kids.”

He swims up to Grover and holds a hand out that the satyr takes without hesitation to pull him out onto the marshy earth. He can feel the mud stick to his feet, he wiggles his toes. If he really tried, he could lift this dirt. 

Grover raises an eyebrow at him and he returns it with a shake of his head and a smile.

“It’s a pleasure to see her kind reach my waters. I used to host so many,” the river’s mouth is long like a whale shark’s. Seeing human words come from it instead of aquatic bellowing keeps his eyes on her tadpole eyes rather than risk staring. “What was is often forgotten in favor of current events.”

Percy blinks. Did she just- 

He locks side eyes with Grover, both of their mouths already open as if to ask “was that a pun? Did she really just do that?” And they close in muted amusement and understanding. No need to point out low hanging fruit. 

Grover speaks, “I won’t forget. Things might not revert to what it once was, but we can build a future to be proud of right now.”

He speaks with the confidence of conviction. He’s grown in their years of knowing each other, but he’s always been one of the bravest people Percy’s known, doing what he believes in even when it scares him. 

The river hums, “Perhaps we can.”

They part ways and pick their path into the surrounding forest. The silence is comfortable and punctuated by bird whistles and crunching leaves. 

“Are they saying anything interesting?” 

Grover snorts, “The robins are debating which group will migrate since this forest isn’t big enough for all of them. They’re arguing in circles since there’s a group that wants to stay and another that wants to go, but they’re so involved in their points they don’t realize they’re not disagreeing.” 

Percy huffs, reminded of the way the Athena and Ares cabins tend to argue when picking teams for Capture the Flag. 

He trips over a rock and waves off the shoes that Grover’s been carrying for him. “Our clearing is nearby, let’s just sit down for a bit.”

The fatigue from the curse hasn’t hit him yet, but it’s good practice for the cover Paul helped him sort out with his school. Accommodating for narcolepsy was easier for the administration to understand than “an Ancient Greek Curse that causes me to crash” or Sleepy boy disease as the Stolls called it.

He leans against a rock while Grover sits cross legged in the grass, panpipes pulled from his crossbody. The world seems to flourish around the satyr. The grass seems just that bit greener and the air just that much clearer. It reminds him of meeting Artemis, where the world seemed wilder under her silver gaze. 

If Percy called out via their empathy link, he doesn’t doubt Grover would hear it. Is that so different from prayer?

Emily Osment’s Lovesick gets a wind instrument rendition by the Lord of the Wild and Percy doesn’t even wince once. Over the years his playing has grown better and in turn Percy’s music repertoire expanded from Nirvana and the Pixies to include pop hits.

As the last notes linger in the air, a thought that he never had the guts to acknowledge comes out of his mouth, “Did you feel it when I was in the Styx?”

Grover pauses, lips centimeters away from cajoling another melody, and startled like a deer in headlights. 

The wind rustles the tree leaves. 

The smile Grover offers is pained, “Not as much as you felt it, but yeah.”

The implications twist his mouth, his voice is strangled as he asks, “What did you think would happen on my birthday? Why would you—Everyone thought I would die.”

When he was thirteen and the first friend he ever had asked if they should destroy the bond between them, the answer was always going to be no. There’s a desperate, selfish thing in him. It gets so overjoyed at connection that it’ll ignore all consequences if someone asks him to stay. He’s a bad kid, a product of a broken oath, and is full of so much power that does nothing but destroy. He loves Camp, but he remembers those first weeks as an official child of Poseidon. A place filled with people like him and he was still the worst one. 

No matter how many times he’s put his hoof in his mouth, the only person who has Grover beat in caring for him the longest is his mom. 

“Why did you think I could find Pan?” Grover retorts.

“That’s not the same thing!”

He shrugs, “I placed all my bets on you a long time ago, Percy. If anyone could defy the Fates, it would’ve been you. I wanted it to be you.”

The sincerity of it rises in the back of his throat. “You can’t just do that. You could’ve died, people have already died. I wouldn’t survive it if you did too.”

He scratches his goatee, “Well, you’d be dead already. And if I died for you, that would defeat the point so I definitely won’t be doing that.”

“I’d die for you first!” Not really sure why they’re arguing this.

“Please don’t do that.”

“Then don’t do it to me.” 

“Deal.”

“Good.”

They stare at each other for a beat and Percy can’t tell who starts laughing first but they’re laughing together. It’s stupid, as stupid as the robins’ argument jabbering above them. Grover isn’t a regular satyr and Percy isn’t a regular demigod and for once they’re living without the odds against them. He tries to forget Grover’s unconscious body under the grip of Morpheus and focus on the now, when it hits him then that he has two mortal spots and Annabeth already protects them both. 

If he wasn’t so selfish, he’d feel bad about putting that on her. 

“Does this count as a suicide pact?”

Grover bleats, “Dude, no! It’s like…it’s like that Death Cab for Cutie song!”

“I’ll follow you into the dark sounds like a suicide pact to me.”

“Well it’s not. Stop saying that, think of how Juniper would take it. Don’t do that to her.”

He raises his hands in surrender, “I was just saying.” His mind drifts to the new school year. “Are you sure you don’t wanna enroll at Goode for old times sake?”

Grover laughs, “It can’t be worse than Yancy.”

“Exactly, all the more reason for you to come.”

Grover scoots over so that they’re shoulder to shoulder. “You’ve faced the Lord of Time, you can make it through high school.”

“It’s crazy that I have to though, can’t Apollo do me a solid or at least give me my homework in Greek. I bet that’s what Luke pitched in his recruitment speech.”

Grover tenses, before giving a shaky laugh. “For some reason I don’t think he was concerned about future curriculums.”

All the more ways the guy was short sighted, he thinks bitterly.

“Are you still visiting her?” Grover asks cautiously.

“You know that I am.” 

It’s not his favorite pastime, if anything he always leaves that house feeling a little worse than when he came in, but he can’t just leave her.

Not when her worst nightmare has come true.

“Just…take it easy, Percy.” 

He grins, “When have I ever chosen the hard way?”

Grover snorts, fidgeting with his panpipes. “You know I’m just an IM away.”

“Don’t forget concerning dreams, you’re good at sending those.”

“I’m still waiting for you to return the favor.”

“I’m saving it for a special occasion. If I’m ever kidnapped.”

“Oh gods, please don’t jinx yourself.”

He knocks on a neighboring tree and jumps at the stink eye the emerging dryad sends him. His apology is ignored in favor of fawning at Grover. Percy’s nose scrunches, “He has a girlfriend.”

The dryad’s attention returns with full ire, but at Grover’s awkward insistence she returns to her tree.

Percy claps, “Well that’s enough nature for me today. Take me back to civilization.”

“City boy,” Grover shakes his head fondly.

“And don’t you forget it.”

They walk together until they reach the paved path to Westport, Connecticut. It’s the sort of place you’d envision when you think white suburban town by the water. It’s become familiar to him in the way that he can handle a trident but will always prefer a sword. 

“I’m heading West.”

Percy raises an eyebrow as he accepts his bag back, “More meet and greets or…?” Unease and curiosity rise in equal measure like the beginning of a tummy ache through their bond. 

“The earth has been feeling a little weird. It might be the after effects of Pan fading, but it feels different from what I’m used to. Somehow older than his magic.”

Percy frowns, “Keep me updated?”

“I will.” He looks down the street that Percy will eventually travel and pulls him in for a hug, “Take care of yourself, Percy.”

“Right back at you,” he murmurs. 

—-

It was at a campfire, after Luke betrayed them and before finding out that Silena did too (in other words after the beginning and before the end) that Drew Tanaka told him a story about a lioness. 

After the loss of her cub, the lioness adopted an oryx, some sort of goat-antelope that under normal circumstances would be prey. She protected the oryx, hunted meat that it couldn’t eat, and cared for it like her own. One day when she went hunting, her lion mate tired of the charade killed the oryx to eat. When the lioness came back to the murder, she attacked the lion, blinding him and chasing him out of the territory. And then she ate the carcass of her adopted oryx.

Drew was mean in a way that Percy understood. Her bluntness was only 35 percent ADHD and mostly just her personality. Worst of all, she’s kind of hilarious. He had asked her why she told him the story, she seemed disappointed before answering that Love is complicated.

At first he couldn’t stop thinking of Kronos and his kids, but now, at the doorsteps of a two story colonial house in Westport, Connecticut, he thinks of May Castellan.

“Luke, honey! I missed you!”

Thin arms wrap around him and he returns the embrace. “Hey, it’s been a while.”

“Come in, come in.” 

He’s braced for the smell and manages to smile through the strong aroma of burnt cookies and peanut butter sandwiches. The hallway is still filled with candles and mirrors, he catches a glimpse of beanie baby Medusa through them on the way to the kitchen table. 

“I got you something.” He tells her, pulling out the sandwiches and cut up fruit he had bought on his way, before she can offer food past its expiration date.

She gasps delightedly, “Look at you, taking care of your mom. You’re such a kind boy.”

He bites the inside of his mouth and misses the grounding pain from before the curse was in effect. Now he has to rely on pure emotional regulation, how fun. “I get it from my mom.”

May smiles softly and starts picking at the fruit. “I’m glad you’re home. You’re always traveling, you get it from the both of us.”

Percy hums, “Do you mind if I pack some food to go?”

Her grey eyes brighten, “Of course, baby! I made it for you. There’s Kool-aid in the fridge if you’re thirsty.”

Discretely, he pulls out a trash bag and cleaning supplies from his bag. He starts by throwing the inedible food into the bag and then moves to replace her water filter. He’s reminded briefly of cleaning the apartment that they had with Smelly Gabe. How each thing thrown away was like scrubbing the man’s influence from his life. 

He’s not sure what cleaning here means aside from fighting mold poisoning. 

May’s pleased voice is recounting a painting she made while pregnant. Something about a snake eating its own tail around the earth. He only interrupts her to ask about the lunch he bought, prodding her to eat more. She indulges him each time. 

He’s seen some of her paintings. There are canvases propped against a lot of the walls and undoubtedly more upstairs. Not only are there paintings, but sculptures. He stopped looking when he got to the surprisingly good children’s drawings.  He wonders if it’s a prerequisite of potential oracles to be able to create haunting pieces of art. Knowing Apollo’s Blue period, it probably is. 

“How did you meet Hermes?” He asks before he can think not to. The house has evidence of many talents, from finished art to language books to sport medals to travel souvenirs. Before she was cursed, May Castellan lived a full life. He wonders who she was then. 

May laughs fondly, “Oh my sweet Hermes. He’d run around everywhere with his cute feathered helmet. I wish he’d still wear it.”

He makes the executive decision not to mention that he does…when he goes to war.

“He didn’t know I could see him and tried to steal my sculpture.” A smirk cuts through her face and for a moment he can picture her before everything. “I sold it to him for four times the set price.”

Percy snorts. Hermes would be the kind of god into that. 

“We ran into each other a few more times, I invited him home, and next thing we know I have the sweetest boy in the world.” She looks at him with such love that his heart aches. It’s like looking at his own mother, who despite everyone telling her her son is doomed, she asked for a sign that he’ll be home soon. 

He clears his throat, “You used to sell your art?”

She waves a hand, “I dabbled in a bit of everything. Have I ever told you of when I was a tour guide in Madrid?” He shakes his head. “I was seventeen, finished high school early, and had a knack for languages. I didn’t want to be in one place forever so I got a passport and flew out. Madrid’s not a hard city to understand, I took a few walks to familiarize myself and then stationed myself in front of an art museum, Reina Sofia, with a sign about tours. I was serious about it at first, but when it got boring I would make things up.” Percy smiles, slightly awed at how coherent she is. She leans in as if telling a secret, “You have to start off small, say things that sound right and can’t be easily refuted. A personal memory, how you felt the first time you visited, even if you’ve never visited before. And then you can build up, treat it like a rumor, facts can be proven but gossip sticks.” May laughs, “They banned me from offering tours in front of the museum around the time I was convincing tourists that ostriches used to roam the city square.”

He huffs a laugh. “What did that have to do about your art?”

“Everything is an art,” May says serenely, the fog in her eyes returns briefly, like the sun behind clouds. She hums a song beneath her breath staring at the shadow of Hermes formed from the light hitting the Hermes cutouts taped on the kitchen window. 

Percy goes back to cleaning. In the two times he and Hermes have crossed paths since the war, it’s always about Luke never May. And yet, she still talks about him like he’s her lover. There’s a celestial bronze snake hanging on the wall and the bills to this house are always paid, but it’s Percy who had sat the woman down two weeks ago to wash her hair in the water basin. 

He has half the mind to ask for the Ancient Laws written up so that he can understand what in the world direct intervention even means. It’s like finding out that before Thalia’s treeification, Camp was protected by the same demigods who needed protecting. 

He hands May a glass of water when she clutches his forearm in a vice grip. The water spills over them and Percy has to breathe through the adrenaline and instinct to break the hold. Her grey eyes are oracle green as that familiar smoke pours from her lips, “ Beware the earth, a mother’s curse rises from below. Foes or friends, gamble trust or triumph you forgo”

He flinches, staring at green that won’t stop coming,  his heart beating in tandem with the sirens in his mind. Her hands are still on him, white knuckled and on any other person, bruising. He waits for the rest of the prophecy but she never continues, so he pulls the woman into a one armed hug, glass still in hand as he lowers them gently to the floor. 

The green smoke is reflected by each of her mirrors, enshrouding the whole room in endless smoke. It’s terrifying, but not as terrifying as the sky on his back, not as scary as lava thrown onto his skin, not as frightening as a titan staring you down through the face of someone you once wished would be your friend. 

Besides, Apollo said himself that just because a prophecy is spoken doesn’t mean it’ll happen soon. He ignores the voice that points out that May’s only ever seen the Great Prophecy in her visions and that this was not that.

He zones out, tracing cracked tile with his eyes as his fingers tap an absent beat on May’s arm. It’s that song she was singing, it’s only now that he recognizes it and mutters along. “ There must be some word today from my baby so far away. Please Mr. Postman, look and see, is there a letter, a letter for me.”

Softly, May joins, “ I’ve been standing here waiting Mr. Postman. So-o patiently for just a card, or just a letter, saying he’s returning home to me”

Her grip relaxes into a firm hold, she has calluses on the side of her fingers that he never noticed until now. Lee had the same—artist’s hands. 

He’s never been much of an artist himself, only joining Rachel as more of a medium to her art than co-creator, his biggest art collaboration came from leaving Medusa’s head on his mom’s doorsteps and stepping aside. 

“May?”

Her hand tightens as she corrects him, “Mom.”

He looks to the ceiling and wonders how strong a belief has to be to create something from it. “Mom,” he corrects himself. “Do you think you could teach me how to paint?”

She straightens, her eyes clearer in her excitement, “Of course, baby! You stopped wanting to paint so long ago, but you were so good.” Obviously she hasn’t seen his arts and crafts projects, but he hands her the forgotten water glass at the sound of her voice. She finishes the glass with a fond eye roll. “We’ll have to go buy more supplies, but I should have enough brushes for sure.”

He blinks slowly, his fatigue catching up to him.

She huffs, “I know you hate to hear it, but you’re so much like us. Always trying to do so much.” She holds his face in her hand and traces a scar that he doesn’t have. “Let’s get you to bed, Luke.”

Percy nods, stumbling towards the cot he set up in the living room rather than the time capsule that was Luke’s bedroom. May follows him, easing him down with a strength that still takes him by surprise. 

“You know, I only started painting after high school. After the tours fell through in Spain, I painted in France.” She laughs, it echoes like her glass windchimes, “Don’t believe your father, I made an honest living there…”

Any interest he had in that story was weighed down by Clovis’ dad tag teaming with his curse to drag him to much needed sleep.

Percy opens his eyes to his family’s apartment. He’s sitting on a couch, a comfortable navy blue piece that his mom bought after that first summer at Camp Halfblood when he chose to come back. The couch is old but the apartment is new because it’s no longer the two of them.

He can’t make out the photos from here, but there are English books from Paul’s grad school days interspersed with his mom’s books. Pressed between the pages of an old library book on myths and legends whose borrowing history is inscribed with the jaunty cursive of Jim Jackson, are the remnants of a wedding bouquet featuring blue thistle. 

On the coffee table there are letters sent to Mrs. Blofis, abandoned coasters, and a scythe. 

Faint snuffling catches his attention to the arm chair where his mother sits cradling a blanket. 

She looks content in a way he’s not used to seeing her. Even on Montauk, there’s a wistfulness to her eyes. Looking down into her arms, gone are the worry marks between her brow and there’s certainty in her smile. She looks happy. 

Something lodges in his throat. 

“This one is mine,” His mom breathes out, gaze still caught on the bundle in her arms while Percy is stuck on her. “I’ll save this one.”

He tries to move closer to her, his throat clicking instead of speaking when he tries to ask her to come. But somehow he manages to see the baby in her arms. The child isn’t him. It has dark brown hair and long lashes like his mom and a nose that looks like Paul’s. 

He blinks and his mom is dressed in an earthy green veil, the child is made of clay. He blinks and his mom wears a goat skin cloak and the child is blond. He blinks and his mom has his eyes and the child is a rock. He blinks and wants to close his eyes forever. 

“The thing about children is that you never get it right on the first try,” His mom tells him like a secret between them both. “It’ll be different this time.”

For most of his life, the only place he felt safe was in his mother’s arms. There is no space for him there. The walls seem closer all of the sudden or maybe it’s the roof coming down. 

“Mom,” he croaks out. 

And his mother looks at him chidingly, reading the request on his face. “You’ve already had your turn. Let it be different this time.” 

There’s a scythe in his hands. It’s very different from a trident, he’d rather hold his mom’s hand. 

The roof isn’t breaking down, but the floor is caving in from his seat as his mother watches sadly from her armchair. He falls, further than Icarus did, further than St. Louis’ Arch and there is no water to greet him. There is nothing but the open earth. 

He wakes up to the taste of dirt in his mouth. 

Chapter Text

The school year starts decently all things considered. It would have been better if Grover took him up on his offer. It would have been great if Rachel didn’t actually transfer to Clarion in exchange for her last minute helicopter ride into Manhattan last month. But instead, he and Paul carpool to Goode, earlier than most students with the key exceptions being those in advanced classes that take place before the official first block of the day or clubs that meet in the morning like the National Honor Society and the JROTC. It’s ironic comparing the order and structure of the latter, preparing to prepare for war as though it hasn’t already happened in their city, to the newly christened veterans of Camp.  

The pegasus stamped hood of Paul’s Prius sits under the comfortable shade of their preferred faculty parking spot. September’s leaves are still hanging on to their branches, a casual reminder that summer technically isn’t over yet. Like with everything, it lingers.  

“This year will be good,” Paul proclaims, determination in his eyes like he’ll personally give detention to anything that tries to make him a liar–Percy’s terrible luck with schools included. The thought is honestly heartening, even his mom is choosy about definitive statements like that. 

“You sound like the orientation leaders.”

Paul chuckles, grabbing his traveller’s mug. “I’ll need more than coffee to get that cheery this early.”

Percy snorts and gathers his book bag.

They’d already sorted the ins and outs of Percy’s recent “narcolepsy” diagnosis and in a lucky coincidence, Goode is already accommodating a student with the condition. Going over the accommodations that he’ll actually get is such a difference from every other year of schooling that he had where at most he’d get an extra ten minutes on tests for his dyslexia. Hope is a tentative flutter in his stomach easily mistaken for indigestion. What does it say about him that he gets antsy when things go well for him? Maybe it’s a cultural memory of the Trojan horse or just his sixteen years of lived experience that things fall apart, but there’s no trio of old ladies following him that he can see and that’s not just because he avoids the knitting circles at libraries now. 

When they reach Paul’s classroom, he helps connect his stepfather’s laptop to the projector only to be met with his own smiling face projected back at him. Of all of the wedding pictures, Paul chose the one where Percy and his mom stand on either side of him, beaming with the same crooked grin. No matter how many times the man insists that he’s marrying into the family, Percy is always caught a little unawares by him actually showing it. 

“I don’t think Goode needs to see me in my Sunday best,” Percy drawls despite the warmth in his chest. 

Paul looks up from one of his lesson plans, amusement glinting behind his glasses. “Are you embarrassed for people to know we’re related?”

Percy snorts, if he claims the Olympians as family, he doesn’t think a mild mannered English nerd who makes his mom happy can even scrape the level of embarrassment that some of his divine relatives do. If anything it improves his street cred, he had spent his last year alternating between being a loner with the exception of Rachel and having students come up to meet ‘Mr. Blofis’ new kid’. The association made it easier to forget him as the kid who blew up the band room. “I should be asking you that.”

The teacher’s lips twitch downwards, “You’re the coolest kid I know, Percy. I’m proud of you.”

“It was just a joke, Paul.” He doesn’t linger on the affirmation, but he doesn’t deny it either. He looks back to the image they make. His brain pinpointing all the features that he and his mom share like the first time someone accused them of not being related. Aside from their matching grins and darker complexion especially when compared to Paul, there isn’t much similarity in a static photo, but he’d rather be his mom’s son in action rather than looks. 

Paul hums and suggests, “Get better jokes.”

–

He’s paying attention to his physics lesson when he smells warm milk and poppies drift his way. He looks to his side and a familiar sight greets him with sleep ruffled hair and a cow eyed gaze. After meeting Bessie, Percy thinks he has some authority when he says cow eyed, big round and shiny eyes framed by long eye lashes. 

Without this guy, Percy wouldn’t be able to be here—in class taking notes while his body is knocked out in a school provided sleep room. And since the curse sanctioned nap times, there are few people he’s hung out with more than this son of Hypnos. 

Clovis huffs settling in the seat next to him, “You have the world in your hands and you choose to go to high school.”

Percy shrugs, it’s not like he didn’t already make this choice when they offered him godhood. 

Clovis chuckles, “the heart wants what it wants, I guess.”

“I can’t have the most boring dream you’ve seen.” 

“Not even close,” Clovis confirms. “It’s just a little funny that people often dream of what they don’t have in the waking world and you’re dreaming about going to school without interruption.”

He doesn’t point out that this counts as an interruption, more glad for the company than he’d like to admit. “What are you dreaming about now?”

Clovis raises an eyebrow at him, looking around the room. 

He raises a skeptical one back, “All of your consciousness is here right now in my dream?”

The guy gives a slow nod, amused. “Dad says I shouldn’t play god too much. Might lose myself like one if I do.”

“What does that mean?”

Clovis rests his head on crossed arms, “You already know what happens to demigods who overuse their powers, they burn up.” 

The memory of Nico shadow travelling to his apartment rises to the forefront of his mind, the edges of him blurring in darkness like the gloom didn’t want to let him go. He tamps down the echo of hurtling towards lava, of calling for water and having his own body respond. In the distance of his dream classroom, a volcano erupts. 

He looks across the room and for a moment his classmates are all dog faced sea lions staring back at him. A warm hand settles on his shoulder and he’s looking into Clovis’ round eyes. 

His heart calms, everything always calms down around Clovis, panic is subdued under his sleepy gaze. 

“It’s your world, Percy.” Clovis reminds him without an ounce of chastisement. 

“I’ve never been that great at making things,” he responds wryly. Even with May’s encouragement, what he makes seems more of a waste of canvas rather than works of art. 

“Don’t sell yourself short. You made a promise and I got a pretty comfortable bed out of it.” 

He ducks his head with a huff, “You're welcome, I guess.”

Clovis hums contentedly. 

One of his classmates is chosen to answer their practice question on the board while the rest finish on paper. He conjures the paper for himself to work through while Clovis plays around bending dream matter. 

He’s hoping it’s not a fluke, but physics isn’t actually that hard. Maybe it had been algebra’s abstraction that made it hard even without a Fury as a teacher, but he finds himself actually following along in his science class and pre-calculus isn’t so bad as he dreaded. With Paul and Annabeth helping him with his humanities classes and ceramics being a class already offered at Camp, he can see himself actually doing well this year. 

He spares another glance towards Clovis. They’re the same age, but he had been a Camp veteran far longer than Percy had and a year rounder at that. Although Percy would put a decent bet that he spent more time awake at camp than him. Not like he can judge him for staying in his father’s realm. He had explained it to him before, the power of the sleep realm. How it’s possible to live lives here in one night, lives that you’ll bury into your memory until reminded of them again. 

Sometimes when Percy catches him, it’s in the aftermath of a dream. The demigod would look at him as though it’s been years since they’ve seen each other, like he’s not sure if he’s really seeing him or just a trick of his imagination. It’s easiest then to believe what he says about feeling like a god here when his eyes look so old.

“Something on your mind?” Clovis asks amusedly. 

Percy blinks and looks around. They’re sitting in his living on that navy blue couch. His mother isn’t there, but that scythe is glinting at him from the coffee table. “I didn’t mean to bring us here.”

He shrugs as if to say well we’re here now. 

“I had a dream the other night that my mom had another baby,” Percy says instead of explaining the scythe or the women or the ground opening up below him. He hasn’t told the dream to anyone. Not May Castellan packing an art kit for him, not Annabeth when she IM’d him later that night, and definitely not his mom. It just sat there, never coming back, but never leaving his mind. It doesn’t mean anything. 

Clovis’ eyebrows raise, “Cool?”

You’ve already had your turn. Let it be different this time.

Percy doesn’t reply for a moment. “How do you tell the difference between a demigod dream and a nightmare?”

“A demigod dream?”

Percy shrugs, “Y’know the weird dreams about what happened in the past or the cryptic messages about what’s going to happen.”

Clovis blinks slowly, “Give me an example.”

Percy fidgets feeling weird about more than just the scythe on his coffee table now. “I had dreams that my dad and uncle were fighting before I even knew that the gods were real.” He still remembers it, the crashing waves and thundering skies as an eagle and horse faced off. The same scene in different iterations plagued him that summer, but the first had been at Yancy. “And while we were travelling the labyrinth, I kept on dreaming about Daedalus’ first life.” 

“Huh.”

“What do you mean, huh?” 

“I mean your dreams are not universal,” Clovis laughs incredulously. “I’d get it if it was one of my siblings or maybe even Nico since he’s an underworld kid–our half-brother was on the Titans’ side so I don’t know why he’d be giving you crashcourses like that, but let’s be honest, why does he do anything?” He looks at Percy curiously, “What dream made you ask that?”

“Nothing in particular,” Percy lied and knows by the easy way Clovis accepted it that he knows that he lied, because otherwise he’d play his favorite game of dream interpretation. It’s a skill only one Hypnos kid is rumored to have and it’s certainly not Clovis. 

“Demigod dreams,” Clovis muses. “I could try asking my dad, but he really lets my half brother deal with the minutiae of it.”

His sixth grade Latin class with Chiron pops up like it does sometimes: minutiae-late Latin for smallness or trifles. 

“Aren’t dreams your brother’s whole thing?” 

“Well yeah, but it’s like how C-section guy is the god of healing and medicine like his dad.”

“Who?” Percy asked, baffled, wondering how a god got an epithet like that and unaware that Apollo even had godly children to begin with. He tries to imagine the cherry red Maserati driving, young adult as an active father and comes up short.

“Asclepius?” 

“That didn’t help.” He tells him bluntly.

“His dad performed the first C-section to get him out of his mom’s burning body.”

“Why in the world would you expect me to know that?” He asks instead of ‘why didn’t Apollo help his burning mother?’

“You have the most piecemeal knowledge of Greek myths.”

“I usually study up on things that try to kill me after they try to kill me. Knowing about them beforehand feels like begging to set off Chekhov’s gun.” 

Clovis snorts and Percy internally high fives himself for using the literary term in a casual conversation. “How’s that working for you?”

“We were talking about your half brother?”

The demigod laughs before a rueful expression settles on him, “We haven’t spoken since the war started, but I might be curious enough to ask anyways.”

Percy’s face scrunches, his own curiosity isn’t actually ‘put myself on a god’s radar’ level big. “Keep my name out of it.”

Clovis hums, his attention already floating elsewhere as he schemes. Too used to him nodding off in conversation, Percy just shakes his head. As he tries to imagine his class again, Clovis slips out of his dream as though he was never there.

Percy blinks and the Goode hallway blurs in the corner of his eye in his distraction. He barely has the chance to acknowledge that his dream is slipping from him before he’s transplanted elsewhere. It’s like walking down the street only to be teleported mid-step, a minor kidnapping that you’re too jarred to fight.

“This is not pre-calc,” Percy informs the open ocean before him. The waves, energetic like bounding hounds, lick up his legs. It’s then that he realizes that he’s standing on water like a discount Jesus. Or his dad. Even when his dad does it, some part of Percy’s mind is aware that he’s talking to the sea just as much as he’s talking to his father. The domain too ingrained in himself to truly be separated from it. Personally, he’s never tried to stand on water outside of stupid dares taken on the Long Island Sound. Telling rushing water to be still, itches at something under his skin. Especially bodies of water with spirits. He’s had a lifetime of teachers telling him to hold still, that it’d be hypocritical of him to ask anyone else to. 

He spots a small rowboat in the distance, it comes to his attention like a sixth sense just as it did that summer traveling through the Sea of Monsters. It’s a rickety boat, too far away from shore to be safe for her passengers, in that grey space of courage and stupidity that he recognizes as necessity. 

It feels like threadbare peace. It’s an absurd thought, but if he was asked to describe the boat–he’d remember Camp before the labyrinth. Campers disappearing either to defect or die and pretending that there’s a way around the war. They laughed around the empty spaces of kids they grew up with and sang campfire songs without the soon to be familiar sound of war drums and cries. It’s the silence before a storm, or a string ready to be cut, of a kindling about to spark. 

Then he notices another vessel. A raft. He knows the craftsmanship, but can’t place his finger on it. It’s humble, but sturdy. Determination is written into its wooden base and desperation in its woven sail. 

He watches both vessels, they’re all small in the might of the ocean. But what is a comfort to him is not mutual to them. As the water rises like something inevitable, his heart lurches in foreboding.

Diverting the wave in one direction will cast waves in the other. Maybe if they had ships, actual sea worthy ships it wouldn’t have mattered, but they all look like future victims to the tide. 

“Dad,” Percy calls out. The god had implied that they’d see each other soon. Their interactions were steeped in implications, only blunt for heavy truths about how his life was going to suck. But he cares, usually cares enough to listen, to send help. “Dad, I need your help.”

The wave rises higher as if determined not to be the only thing to break. 

“Dad,” Percy pleads as he pulls. The adrenaline of the sea teeters into anxiety. The boats won’t survive without his intervention. One of them might not survive with it. He pulls at the wave, its desire to reach even further is like an iron to his skull. This is the heavy swell that welcomed Icarus, this is the tower that tried to reach the sky, this is— Percy drowning in the Styx lost from a harbor.

He thinks of his dad who ruled the sea for so long that he became it, he’s the man in a fisherman’s hat and he is the rushing currents. He is the high school student and he is the wave and he will evaporate before he hits these boats.

.

.

.

Percy gasps awake in the same bed he stumbled in earlier before his Curse kicked in. Orson, a senior and his fellow narcoleptic who had peered bleary eyes at his tape recorder and fidget toys in lieu of hand written notes and said, “Pick a struggle.” is already unconscious in his corner of the room. 

He pulls a hand down his face, trying to make sense of his panic. Physics, Clovis, the volcano, and the scythe. It was more discomforting than he realized if the way his hands shake means anything. 

Fuck. He needs to move. 

He debates finding a fountain to call Annabeth, but she’s one of the few demigods allowed on Olympus and again he really doesn’t need his problems on a god’s radar. He holds his face in his hands in mock-prayer form so that his index and middle fingers can massage his nose bridge.

The nap somehow took more out of him than staying awake would. Even his lucid dreaming is subjected to his ADHD so he wanders into every stray thought like a tangent. He once experimented with Clovis in taking a nap in a dream which just led to a series of dreams within dreams that left him unsure if he was actually awake. 

There’s supposedly no science behind dreams, but then again there is a science behind stuff like the stars. That science, he’s pretty sure, didn't account for a moon goddess breathing out the essence of her friend to the sky to make a constellation. 

He’s at lunch, eating sancocho ordered from their neighbor who he sometimes makes deliveries for as a side gig. With his mom focused on finishing her bachelor’s and him and Paul starting their own terms, they’ve ordered a week's worth of food to keep the burden off of all of their minds. If he plans to abuse the fact that Paul lets him use the teacher’s lounge microwave, that’s no one’s business but his own.

His unease doesn’t fully leave him, he half expects a monster attack to come out from it, but besides some odd lingering looks and giggling when he meets the gazes of his classmates, he’s in the clear. He toys with the idea of visiting Brooklyn where the monsters wouldn’t be his problem. He knows that Drew lives in that borough, but never actually asked if avoiding monster attacks was just a matter of jurisdiction. Another godly treatise that he’d love for someone to explain to him if he ever got the nerve to admit to knowing a non-Greek pantheon. 

After being threatened execution for the past four years, he’s almost wrong footed not having the crime of being born levered against him. There’s a chance that what gets him killed now will be his own decisions rather than the fact of his existence. If he wants to run a Greco-Egyptian experiment of how far a pantheon’s bullshit can travel, it might have him in front of a council that doesn’t have the looming threat of war to vote for or against him. It’s a free fall kind of feeling, technically freeing, but also terrifying because now they’re in uncharted waters. 

He brings it up to Thalia and Nico the following week. Their vague plans to hang out since the whole debacle with the Sword of Hades earlier this year had been put on hiatus with the war reaching its breaking point. A part of him hadn’t expected another hang out outside of the battlefield for that exact reason. His fifteenth year was a whole lot of coming to terms that a lot of his firsts would be his lasts, but suddenly that’s not true anymore and he’s eating dumplings in Central Park.

Sheep Meadow on a fall afternoon is still well populated, picnic blankets laid out and dogs chasing frisbees. They blend right in with Thalia and Mrs. O’Leary playing fetch with the celestial bronze discus that Beckendorf made last summer when Percy came to him with Annabeth’s concern that he’s not giving her enough enrichment. Even when they were in that tense period of snapping at each other every other word, her care for Mrs. O’Leary threw him back to that same fondness from that first summer when she played fetch with Cerebus. 

“On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst,” Nico says, watching Thalia send a Track and Field worth throw across the green. “Where would being hit by a flying discus land on the worst ways to find out you’re a demigod?”

Percy almost chokes on his dumpling and narrows his eyes at Nico’s innocent look. He totally timed that. He rolls his eyes, but imagines it anyway, being hit with the casual force of Thalia Grace before being told by the way there are monsters that will try to eat you and gods that might screw you over if you’re rude to them. But hey at least you missed the war. “Eight if you survive, six if you die.”

Nico nods. The boy still has a paleness to him that speaks to too much time spent in the underworld and away from the sun, but his hair has regained the jubilant curls that he first knew him by. That, Percy knows, was a result of his mom being around the kid’s rumpled appearance and asking is anyone going to care about this kid, or should I? The rest was curl cream and his mom’s research on what kind of legal documents a kid from 1930s Italy needs to have a future outside of the underworld. 

It's the sort of support that Percy believes every demigod should have. Imagine a system that worked with you, for you to succeed. If every demigod has dyslexia and ADHD wouldn’t a school accommodating that be a worthwhile project? But then again the way Paul talks about standardized tests and Board given curriculums, their subjects would probably be poorly hidden propaganda that Luke would’ve still raised an army about. 

Mrs. O’Leary tackles Thalia and the huntress is able to cradle the bounding bundle of dog that she is with a laugh. She comes their way, still holding the hellhound like a baby with the dog’s legs on either sides of her hips and head over her shoulder. 

“She’s the sweetest hellhound I’ve ever met,” Thalia sits cross legged across from them. Mrs. O’Leary lets out a joyful woof, dropping her discus in between them. She trots one time around the trio before running freely around the field. 

“Not the hardest bar to top, but she is the best,” Percy agrees. 

Thalia nabs his dumplings, her skill with chopsticks something he’s still jealous of. Go figure the two things he’s absolutely shit at, the bow and chopsticks, she takes on like second nature. 

“So what have you nerds been up to? You smell weird.”

“Have you been sniffing us?” Nico asks, face slightly mortified. 

Percy’s own face scrunches. Ever since becoming a huntress, the daughter of Zeus developed a keen sense of smell. She says the stuff Grover’s usually too nice to mention. 

“It’s called breathing.”

“Don’t be mean to her, Nico. Having a nose again is still a novelty.”

“Just for that,” She swipes his last dumpling. 

He flips her off. 

“Not in front of the baby,” Thalia scolds with a barely suppressed smirk that breaks at Nico’s scowl. “But honestly, you reek of the Hudson. And you smell sweet like honeysuckle.”

“She thinks you smell nice,” Percy offers a fist bump to the twelve year old who leaves him hanging. 

“And you smell like a polluted river.” Nico wrinkles his nose as if the scent is palpable to the regular nose. He eats another dumpling, his food left alone from the vulture grip of Thalia’s chopsticks—her own show of care for how thin this kid’s gotten since they’ve met him. 

“Don’t let him hear you call him that, he’s sensitive.” Percy snorts. “I’ve been trying to pick up trash from the river.” He pulls out this mesh bag that he’s been using to sift the waste from the water. The sand dollar had definitely helped, but centuries of pollution can’t magically disappear from one shell. “It’s easier than finding someone to spar with when I get restless.”

Thalia nods and looks at Nico who shifts under her gaze. He always wonders if the two of them ever drop in on each other like they do to him, Nico’s grudge of Bianca had been mostly at him and while they settled that, the boy had admitted that a part of his anger was at Artemis for getting his sister to join the same order that sent a barely trained twelve year old on a quest where two people were prophesied to die. He pushes away the ache that reminds him that Nico is the age that Bianca never got to live past. 

“I’ve been practicing my shadow traveling and landing in a lot of flower fields.” Nico answers.

Percy frowns, he wouldn’t think flower fields had much shadow. But then again didn’t Hades take Persephone from a flower field? “I hope you're taking enough breaks. We need more food for the energy we use, especially when we tap into our parent’s domains.” Percy tries his best not to nag, but Clovis’ reminder of how demigods burn up when they use too much of their powers like how the body starts burning muscle when there’s not enough sugar or fat. 

“Worry more for yourself,” Nico retorts like he doesn’t have the diet of a twelve year old with free range of his own diet—which y’know, he is. Gods he should’ve ordered the kid more vegetable dumplings, when was the last time he ate a vegetable? “What about you, Thalia?”

Thalia’s eyes dart between them, an amused smirk lining her lips but shakes her head. “Same shit, different day. We’re hunting the stragglers from the Titans’ army.”

Evidence of the war isn’t as obvious as it should be in the mortal world. The damages and moved statues all reverted to their original state that sometimes it feels like a bad dream. He had taken to visiting the maple tree that used to be the Titan Hyperion just for the proof of it. 

Besides for the few odd quests from Hermes and Apollo, Percy hasn’t had much run-in from the gods. A part of him thinks they’re avoiding him as if he’s the proof that they went to war and almost lost. Out of sight, out of mind, and their promise lives in the distance between him and the 600th floor. That’s a lot of floors to fall from. 

He thinks of an eyepatched face that actually made the fall. 

“I had a dream that my mom had another kid.” He doesn’t know what compelled him to say it, but it sits between them now like Mrs. O’Leary’s slobbered discus. 

Thalia and Nico blink and tilt their heads in sync like birds. 

Thalia’s brows pinch in confusion, “with your stepdad?”

“Paul,” Nico chimes in and Percy wonders how much of that respect is because the man knows the rules to mythomagic. 

“Who else?” He makes a face offended on his mom’s behalf. 

Thalia shrugs, fiddling with her milkshake’s straw. “S’not the first time a god went back for seconds.” 

His eyes dart to Nico, he coughs. “Well that’s hard to forget when the Stolls exist.” 

Thalia’s mouth tilts wryly, obviously not meaning them. 

“Are you going to ask her about it?” Nico says over the Bianca shaped elephant he tried to sidestep. 

He makes another face, “I’m not just going to ask my mom if she’s pregnant.” 

“Why?” 

“Because it’s a weird thing to ask. What if she is?” 

His head tilts in curiosity, “Do you not want her to be?” 

“It’s not like—if she wants another kid she deserves a normal one. I’m not mad at her for that.”

Thalia snorts, “sounds like you’re messed up about it.” 

“I can’t even help on escort missions unless I’m playing bait.” He gets it, ever since he was a kid there’s been something punchable about him, or so he’s been told. This is maul, stabbed, slashed inclusive–he’s catnip to anyone with average to above average aggression levels. Still, he tries to articulate the dread about that dream. About the letters saying Blofis instead of Blofis-Jackson. Of falling without a hand outstretched catching him because you need two arms to cradle a child. It’s being in a two bedroom apartment and knowing that your room isn’t yours anymore. His mom would never turn him out, he knows that. No matter how much she’s sent him away for his own good, she’s always opened the door like her day is better for having him in it. 

And yet…

“I don’t think Sally cares about normal,” Nico says carefully, fingers fidgeting with a chopstick. “I don’t think any kid of hers can be normal.”

“Hey-“ His head getting hot in the way it always does when someone talks about his mom. 

“I’m just saying,” he raises his hands up. “She chose to get with your dad and have you while she was clearsighted. She did everything with her eyes wide open. You’re your dad’s kid, but you’re also your mom’s.”

Thalia barks a laugh, “you don’t pull your punches.”

Percy exhales through his nose, the kid’s trying to be helpful and he’s doing it in the most annoying way possible. He tries to just take the good intention as it is rather than an insult on him and his mom. “I appreciate you trying to make me feel better.”

Nico scratches his cheek, “I was just saying-“

“Your mom loves you,” Thalia cuts in. “She wouldn’t try to replace you. She wouldn’t abandon you to the wolves. She’s not gonna pull a Mr. Chase on you.”

“I know that,” Percy insists.

“You just don’t believe it,” she says not unkindly. 

He doesn’t believe in a lot of things. Things he’ll keep in his mind because it’s blasphemy to do otherwise. He didn’t believe he’d make it this long, living on bartered time that he got from trading bruises, good friends, and a knife. 

“It was just a weird dream,” Percy breathes out. Thalia’s blue eyes are the same electric blue as her father’s, but he’s never seen such understanding in his uncle’s eyes. 

“Right,” Nico says around his last dumpling. “Well siblings aren’t the worst thing to have.” 

“You already have Tyson too,” Thalia agrees. “And he loves you.”

Percy tries not to cringe remembering how badly he first treated the cyclops after his dad claimed him. He finger combs his hair out of his face, “Besides Tyson, you two are the closest thing I have to siblings.”

Nico’s face becomes hard to read except for his mouth that purses with displeasure. Thalia straight on flinches, which okay, ouch, let’s name something his Achilles’ Curse won’t protect him from. It’s whatever, no one ever died from unrequited siblinghood, probably. The air is weird between them until Mrs. O’Leary comes bounding back to them.

He wonders if he should break the silence with a Psych! You thought, Ashton Kutcher is right behind this tree and you just got punk’d–no Green Day!

To his surprise it’s Nico who breaks the silence, “Despite how it turned out, I’d rate my introduction to demigod life a solid five because of you.”

Percy does not respond with thanks that was the worst winter of my life. He smiles sheepishly, “I didn’t mean to ruin the mood.”

“You didn’t,” Thalia defends for all that she refuses to look him in the eye. 

Nico, doesn’t even try to lie, just shrugs, “It is what it is. I’m going to go run some errands for my dad. See you later.” It’s not the most elegant exit, but it’s better than him just melting into the shadows of a tree without a word. Something that he has done in the past. 

Rather than being allowed to dwell on this, Percy’s brought back to the present with his cousin who can’t teleport. Or at least he thinks she can’t. He’ll pray his dad a letter if he’s the only forbidden child who can’t speed travel like a video game character. 

“I had a brother once,” Thalia says, her hand absentmindedly stroking Mrs.O’Leary’s flank. “He was my full sibling, around yours and Annie’s age.” 

Percy stares at her wide eyed, no quips about Zeus breaking his own rule twice or teasing on the nickname Annabeth refuses to answer to unless it’s Thalia calling her that. Instead he thinks about Mellinoe and the ghosts she could conjure. 

“I was ready to run away at seven when Beryl somehow got my dad’s attention again. Then I had a brother I couldn’t leave.”

The unspoken isn’t left unspoken for long, Thalia’s good for that. 

“Beryl did that for me. She told me to grab our picnic basket from the car while she held Jason. And I didn’t like to leave them alone together but she had been getting better.” She says it like a well worn justification that’s long since lost its comfort. “When I came back Jason was gone and Beryl was crying about how she had to do it. He was two, almost three and they used to say how that forest had wolves. I searched for weeks.” She rubs at dry eyes, smudging her eyeliner even more. “Before Annabeth, I didn’t think I had it in me to care about someone like that again. I can’t apologize for letting you take the prophecy, it’s the only reason we’re all alive. But I give a shit about you, Percy.”

He barks a laugh, surprised. “I give a shit about you too, Thalia.”