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Thalia tilted her face up, letting the light rain clear away all the grime and the aches from the past few days.
Apollo seemed less than pleased at the weather as he followed her to the clearing, a little ways away from the hunter’s camp. They had stopped for the evening, and he had agreed to help her with her archery for a bit.
The rain started to pick up as they practiced, the clouds darkening until they were in the middle of a full on thunderstorm.
Thalia didn’t mind storms. She could still remember what her mother told her, about her father telling her- and Jason- that he loved them. They’d since become more of a reminder of her own powers, but she’d never really forgotten that first storm.
Thunder rumbled like a drumbeat. The sky was lit up with colors, lightning dancing underneath the clouds. Thalia didn’t flinch, but Apollo-
His whole body seized up for a second in a violent shudder. His brilliant blue eyes were wide with terror.
Thalia felt her blood go burning cold. There were more than a few hunters who were scared of storms. It was far from an uncommon phobia. But Apollo was a god.
Why would an Olympian god be afraid of storms?
“Apollo?” she asked hesitantly.
“I’m fine,” he assured her, even as his voice trembled from fear. Her disbelief must have been obvious on her face. He held his hands up, as if to placate her, and his sleeves slipped down his arms.
Thalia felt like the sky was falling down on top of her at the sight of his bare skin.
Zig-zagging lines, like veins and arteries, the violent gold color of ichor. They looked harsh and angry and unbearably painful.
She knew how someone would get those marks. She’d given them out to her enemies, and occasionally her allies or even herself, enough times to be familiar with the patterns that lightning made.
And there was only one reason an Olympian god would have those.
She’d known that Zeus wasn’t, necessarily, the best of fathers. She’d known that. He had left her with a mother that didn’t know how to be a parent and wasn’t prepared for the reality of it, who washed her feelings away with the drink and the drugs and the reruns of her golden days on her washed-up television show. He had come back, and then he had left a second time, leaving Beryl to drown herself harder and Thalia to take care of a baby brother as well as herself. He had let Hera take her brother away from her, so he could be raised as Rome’s picture-perfect soldier boy and never get the chance to be a child. He had let Jason die, at the hands of that sorry excuse for a god, despite saving her from his own brother so many years before.
She had always resented him, a little. Maybe a lot. As much as- maybe even more than- any other demigod did their godly parent.
But at the same time-
He hadn’t been entirely terrible. He’d had his moments, where she’d thought that maybe-
He had saved her, on Half-Blood Hill, refused to let her die even when Hades demanded retribution for what had happened with the di Angelos decades before. He’d set up the border then, too, to protect the camp she’d died trying to reach and keep her companions safe when she couldn’t.
He had stayed with her mother for a little, after she was born. Something she didn’t think any other god did, really ever. She didn’t remember that time, of course, but Beryl had always talked about it with more longing than anything else she ever talked about, even her days on television. And then there were those too short months, just before Jason was conceived and for a tiny little while after he was born.
She’d finally got it, then, why Beryl longed for those days with him so badly. Those months had been the best she’d ever had in that house. He’d doted on her, and then on his son, giving them gifts and telling them stories and flooding them with affection. (She still had the stuffed goat he’d given her, tucked inside her hunting pack, which in hindsight made her think maybe he’d already known she would see Amaltheia. She also had the little cow Jason had gotten, that he’d held on to all through his training with Lupa and then with the Twelfth Legion, the thought of which she’d hated when she learned just whose sacred animal it was. After everything, though, she was unspeakably grateful to the stuffed animal, for bringing her brother some comfort when she couldn’t). They’d lived in more comfort than Thalia had ever known, Beryl had gotten clean, the house had been bright, filled with love and light and warmth. It had only lasted as long as a lightning strike, but it had been amazing for those few, fleeting moments, before everything went back to the way it had been before and Thalia had a baby brother to take care of all on her own.
Despite everything, Thalia longed for him in nearly the same way Beryl did. She wanted her father to be her father again. She wanted his attention, his affection, his love, everything he could afford to give her. She wanted it, as much as any other demigod wanted to make their godly parent proud, as much as they wanted an actual parent.
She got more than most, she knew. Most other demigods wouldn’t have had any time with their parents growing up, let alone as much as she had had. And she knew for a fact that she had made him proud.
He’d even given her a piece of his Aegis, something which, according to Artemis, only two other gods had ever even been allowed to touch.
One of whom was the god in front of her, eyes wide with terror at the storm she had summoned, golden lichtenberg figures stretched across his bare skin.
She hadn’t thought-
She’d known that Zeus wasn’t the best of fathers. She’d known. But he hadn’t been entirely terrible. She’d thought he’d been almost sort of decent, as godly parents went.
She hadn’t thought he’d be outright abusive.
But there was really no other explanation for what she was seeing.
She felt sick to her stomach.
He’d pulled down his sleeves a heartbeat after they’d fallen, but she’d still seen them. And she knew he knew she’d seen them.
She didn’t know what to ask first. She didn’t know if she was allowed to ask anything. She wanted to cry.
There was another crash of thunder, and a violent flash of lightning moments later. Apollo made a tiny whimpering noise.
Thalia wrapped her arms around herself, digging her nails into her arms hard enough to bleed. “Father- he- he did that, didn’t he?”
He screwed his eyes shut and nodded. She’d already known, but having him confirm it- she didn’t know if she felt better or if she felt more horrible. Both, probably. She felt like she was in free-fall, weightless and terrified.
It took her a second to find her voice again. “Does Arte-”
“Don’t,” he said sharply, though the sharpness was slightly offset by how much his voice was shaking. “She doesn’t know. She can’t know.”
Thalia held her hands up placatingly. “I won’t tell her,” she promised. She desperately wanted to run to Artemis, to tell her what was happening and have her Lady take care of the threat with the terrifying protectiveness Thalia had learned to take comfort in. But Apollo clearly didn’t want her to, and she was a little afraid he would bolt, like a scared animal, if she didn’t do this right. So she needed to do this right.
He studied her for a moment, then nodded, seemingly satisfied with whatever truth he’d seen in her.
“Why don’t you want her to know?” Thalia asked carefully. “Your sister- she loves you more than anything. She would do anything for you.”
Apollo shook his head miserably. “I know she loves me. I know. That’s why I can’t tell her. She wants to think she can protect me. If she knew how much she hasn’t been able to protect me from-”
Thalia thought about her calls with Jason, before communications had gone down. About the few things he’d told her, about growing up in Camp Jupiter. Knowing she hadn’t been there for him for everything he’d been through always broke her heart all over again.
“I don’t want to hurt her,” he continued. “And I don’t want her to get herself hurt doing something stupid. I’ve managed to keep the lightning off of her so far, but she’s mostly stayed out of trouble on her own. I don’t know if I could keep it up if she went after him outright.”
She winced. She’d seen firsthand how Artemis got when Apollo was hurt or in trouble. She wanted to have faith in her Lady, but considering how badly Thalia herself wanted to head to Olympus and do something stupid-
She wouldn’t blame Artemis for losing it on their father. She kind of wanted her to. But Apollo was probably right, it was a bad idea.
“Still,” she said. “She would want to know. You should talk to her. At least think about it.”
He hummed noncomittally. Thalia figured that was the closest she would get to his agreement.
“And you can always talk to me. You know that, right?” Suddenly, she was desperate to make sure. Maybe it was selfish of her, but-
Here was a brother she hadn’t entirely failed yet. She needed to make sure it stayed that way. She needed to be there for him, like she couldn’t be for Jason.
“I know.” He smiled at her, nowhere near as bright as they normally were, but somehow more real. “Right back atcha, little sister.”
Thalia let him pull her into his arms. He held her tightly, like he was afraid the storm would flood the clearing and take her away from him.
She made a silent promise to herself. She would do whatever she could to protect her brother. Whatever she could do to stop him from getting hurt, she would do it.
And if that meant making an enemy out of her own father, then so be it.