Chapter Text
If Sally Jackson had the opportunity to go back in time, back to the day she met Poseidon on that beach near Montauk during the most windy day of the century, just about every single sane mortal in the safety of their own homes but for Sally who had stuck her foot on the ground - or the sand - and refused to abide to the weather’s moody hurricane warnings because that was her first free weekend in two fucking years and she was going to enjoy the beach if it costed her life and Poseidon, who wasn’t a mortal at all… she’d have punched him in his annoyingly handsome face.
He probably wouldn’t have smote her own the spot for it; the god had confided that he had fallen on the spot for her, a few days after feeling Percy’s small essence for the first time and frozen for one hour before disappearing into nothing to panic to his wife Amphitrite, who was ten times more sensible and strong-armed him back to the small cabin a few hours later. After a moment of tense and life-dreading silence where Sally had to swallow multiple mundane fact like Poseidon being married and not telling her and also the fact that he was.
A god.
Just the usual stuff the father of your newly discovered child dumps on you after knocking you up. At least Amphitrite had ripped him a new one when she realized her husband had told the mortal absolutely nothing before hand; the three of them made a strange group as the two literal lords of the ocean met up with her for those first months of pregnancy to help with unexpected things and explain others.
Amongst them had been both the short and the days-long informations about just how danger Sally was. How much danger her son would be… it was one of those days that Poseidon had rested his check on her belly, the littlest of creatures in the womb too small to kick, listening to Sally and Amphitrite talk shit about him, that he asked with more seriousness, more sad acceptance than she had ever ever possible for such an admittedly selfish god, if Sally wanted an out.
If she wanted to go forward with the pregnancy… and Sally knew he would accept her answer, whatever it is, even if it meant disappearing with the baby before it could reach any level of consciente.
Sally wanted to say she had refused on the spot, that she had thrown off the god’s head a mile away to protect the unborn nameless child with the fury of a new mother.
Truth is, her heart had stilled in her chest as she processed those words. It froze with the sudden chance of just… going back to her shitty job, going back to her unfinished novel that she worked on late at night, to her monthly me-time where she’d buy the junkiest foods and watch the corniest movies.
Going back to the safety of ignorance, the relief of not having something precious and fragile depending on her every move, every mood and decision; because as much as having Poseidon and Amphitrite was a blessing on its own against the solitude of her life, she knew these two gods would soon let her on her own the moment her kid started stinking with the divine essence that attracted so much attention.
The threat of laws she had no real idea of and yet so much hate over, was too big over these powerful beings to risk being at her side once. Sally would be on alone, with a nothing-years-old kid that would grow into a monster conduit. They’d be at danger at every turn, and she’d have to find a way to keep him safe and healthy in-between her shitty jobs, and she’d have to start motherhood on the hardest settings - what if she messed up, what if she couldn’t protect this child, what if she couldn’t give them the love they’d need to deal with the shitty consequences of his father’s heritage?
There were too many what-ifs, too much a risk of dying or worse, seeing her baby die.
A sensible person would have taken the offer. Maybe. But Sally Jackson had stood against a hurricane, which had been the consequences of a moody fit of the Sea God himself, simply because it hit it on her free day.
After all those years, Sally had thought she knew what she was getting into, but the Fates seemed to screw with her yet again, because waking up in the middle of nowhere during a thunderstorm worse than the time Hermes made his father breath helium gas during a meeting - Poseidon’s words - was not on the list of shit she had signed up for.
Or it might have been. It was long ago and the contract contract, which to this day Sally had no idea if it was an actual thing or just an elaborate joke, had faded after she signed it.
Not that she regretted having Percy. Not in a million years she’d go back to redo that part, but a good punch to Poseidon’s perfect nose should have been a part of the package deal of having his child.
Still.
Sally Jackson would like to have punched the bastard, because waking up under torrential rain with her back drenched in mud and little Estelle kicking up a fuss - probably what had woken her up, really - sucked. At the very least she was still early on in the pregnancy, because being round-bellied and transported to nowhere would certainly be an experience.
The need to panic was thick her throat, but those small feet kicking up against the inner walls of her body reminded Sally why she could not allow herself to panic. Not now, when every instinct screamed to look around and get a better reading of the situation.
Letting go of her past mistakes, the ones that involved a certain god and admittedly violent methods of calming her ruffled nerves down, the woman had to stifle a groan as she rolled to support her body with wet and muddy arms, squelching the water-saturated earth as Sally finally, finally raised to her feet.
She had to give herself a mental shoulder pat for accomplishing it without groaning again; Sally certainly wasn’t getting any younger, if her back was anything to go by.
“Now to see where in Hel we are…” Sally said to herself and her daughter. Knowing that Hel was a person hadn’t stopped her from using the curse; her soul was Greek through and through, so it was highly unlikely that the Norse goddess would hear or care for that matter.
Where’s my phone?
Not in her front pockets. Not in the backpockets either. Sally looked around, protecting her eyes with one cupped hand over her eyes as she tried to visualize anything under the heavy rain, but her bag was nowhere near her.
Fuck.
“Things just got a bit messier.” Sally put her other hand over her belly, caressing the small, small bump like she used to do with Percy while doing a 360° turn around and- ah ha!
Not her bag, but the high canopy of green spoke of a forest, and forest meant protection from rain if Sally got lucky enough to be near any sturdy enough vegetation. It wasn’t a cellphone to check the GPS for the nearest gas station, but it was something. Despite the dangers that usualy lurked around the narrow passage of treelines, Sally knew it woud be better to take the risk than to stay under the rain in plain sight, a plain mcdonalds' signal for any starving beast that passed by.
Another point to her luck: those trees stood tall, taller than Sally had ever seen anywhere near Manhattan or quite literally any other place, as with each step towards it they grew more and more. She tried not to think of the many dark voids where everything could be hiding from view, waiting for the best moment to snatch her up and-
Sally stroke a hand on her stomach, wishing her kid could teleport to anyone else's stomach where she could develop safely away from the decisions her mother was doing at the moment.
Sensibly speaking, entering a forest without any prior knowledge of what hid behind its foliage wouldn’t be the best of decisions considering her utter lack of weaponry - even the bronze akinake Amphitrite had gifted her the day Percy was born, a breeze in the window with the briefest smell of salt and sea; she had left it in the bag along with her phone and other knickknacks, and try as she might, Sally couldn’t remember where she had been before waking up here.
Was I back home? That would explain the lack of anything useful… but I have my shoes. I wouldn’t use them if I was at home.
Maybe I gave Paul the bag…
But where is Paul?
Sally considered maybe praying to Poseidon, something along the lines of Where the fuck Am I or Please don’t let your brother make another flood, but one look at her belly made her opt out; the last time they saw each other was a few months ago, and the god had been weirdly obsessed with the kid inside her. Sally could understand to a certain degree his fascination, seeing as that would be Percy’s sister and thus in a way, connected to him by proximity.
But she was only half sure Poseidon wouldn’t pull some weird dna divinity and make himself her third parent and be connected by blood too. His possessive strike certainly matched, and with that Big Prophecy out of the way… he wouldn’t do that… I think.
Better safe than sorry.
Besides, if shit hit the fan she would pray for him. The god had a life-long debt with her for not telling Percy the worst of his myths.
The forest gave her considerable protection the moment she crossed into its narrow insides, the harsh projectiles softening into insistent droplets that passed the long filter system of metters upon metters of thick foliage. The plants were foreign to her, but the strong leaves kept most of the rain away from her face as long as she kept herself close to the trunks.
Each squelch of earth under boots made the storm raging outside a smidget softer, as if its violent lightning and screaming winds refused to disturb the peaceful safety of the world below those canopies; thick pill bugs roamed in relative peace the ground, each as big as her thumb, while some other weirdly big arthropod decomposers seemed to gather around mysterious lumps in the earth that looked disturbingly similar to human height.
The mud and the sheer amount of buggy creatures meant it was difficult to determine what those were, and Sally had little to no interest on closing in to inspect; she may not be squeamish about bugs, but when these creatures get suddenly the size of your hand you start wanting to keep distance as well.
Besides, those were obviously not normal creatures. If the unaffected forest had inkled her suspicion with its impermeable quality over the storm, those not little bugs certainly confirmed it.
Sally just hoped the owner of this green sanctuary was away on some godly stuff, or not cared about trespassers. She couldn’t remember any Greek god of insects at the moment, but there were about a thousand and one minor deities out there.
Let’s hope it’s not another pantheon.
“We should wait the rain here, little s-”
Suddenly, a familiar curse met her ears.
One very familiar voice; Sally felt her shoulders drop in immediate relief at her husband’s continuous curses, his sense of preservation cut short due to the probable several bugs loitering his personal space. Never one to like bugs, your dad.
“Seems like dad’s in trouble.” Sally whispered to her daughter before resting her hand over her stomach and pressing inwards as she picked pace, trying to follow Paul’s voice as he ushered a steady stream of panicked words and ohh.
He woke up lying here didn’t he.
A tired giggle forced its way out of her mouth at her husband’s probable panic, and a few more jogging ahead revealed the man himself, dancing around with mud sticking to his clothes and several little creatures climbing up and down his body. Paul’s back was to her, so he hadn’t yet seen her watching his desperate dance moves to shrug off the things.
“You got some in your hair too.”
Paul’s soul almost jumped out of his body, if his yelp was anything to go, and Sally was treated to the vision of her husband turning like some possessed ghost as one or two finger-sized millipedes fell off his head.
“Sally! Thank God!”
“Don’t go thanking them, they’re probably the ones who put us here in the first place.” Sally joked, knowing most of the bitterness had come from Percy being stolen the last time for so long. A good portion of it was her son’s bickering nature rubbing off on her though.
He made a face at that, but her presence seemed to alleviate the panic that had taken hold of him, along with the fact that the last of the bugs were falling off now that their next meal decided to spring back to consciousness.
Sally thought about lying on the ground only to be met with hundreds of pinching small legs and things and promptly shuddered. Paul must have noticed it, because in the next moment he had closed the gap between them and was starting to shrug off his jacket, wet as it might have been. “You okay, honey?”
“No, no, dear. I’m fine.” Besides, she already had her own coat. Sally tugged on its zipper until the stubborn thing shot up, thankful the collar went all the way up to her shin.
“Is Estelle awake?” Paul pressed, stepping closer and leaving a kiss on her forehead, “You’re holding your belly, is she being fussy?”
“Kicking up some, but I’m not in pain.” Sally smiled, raising her hand and stealing a chaste kiss from her husband. “That's your only question? For someone who just got into the family, you’re taking things too well.”
Paul shrugged, looking around them; the trees groaned from the screaming winds that swished on the taller branches, but most of it was intercepted before it could get to the ground at their level.
“Not worse than the whole thing back in Manhatam… besides, Percy said he woke up pretty much in the same way.” He said, before looking back at the ground where the bugs had fallen and scampered. A noticeable depression on the ground just a few feet away from them, presumably where Paul had woken up.
Sally thought back of the mysterious lumps of raised dirt with their own batches of insects, and felt vaguely ill. Did some of those sleep here as well, or were they dead long before those things came?
“Minus the insects.” Paul added as an afterthought. “I’m just confused why we are here.”
A familiar figure slung on his shoulders drew her attention, and instead of answering she pointed to her bag. Paul turned to look over his shoulder before realizing what she wanted, and gave her the fortunately waterproof bag.
She wordlessly opened it to retrieve her phone - as long as Percy wasn’t near she had little problem using it, even if with age and strength her boy started using those devices anyway. Sally concluded that after facing off against titans and giants, the threat of a few hellhounds was worth the occasional google search for nearest fast foods.
Something she had realized only too quickly on her motherhood: demigods needed food. A lot of food.
The whole batch of Percy’s camp gathered in the wallpaper; Sally breathed in relief at still having some power on the device, having subconsciously thought that her son’s luck would have made its way into her bag and finished up with the battery.
Not to say that Percy gave bad luck but gods did her baby have it.
As things were, she had more than half of the battery left, which meant it could die between the next minute up until the next two days, seeing as the phone seemed to have a life of its own and decided when the battery would crash out. More than enough time to open the GPS and find the nearest town-
Oh shit. We’re out of signal.
Sally had chosen one of those fancy chips with expanded range for the sole need of finding her way back home if something of this magnitude ever happened, just for the thing to not work anyway. She turned to Paul, who had been staring at the bugs and the trees like they would have the answers they needed.
If at least those trees had their dryad near… but they hadn’t. Sally had realized the lack of spirits the moment she stepped onto the close-knitted forest.
It had a vague feeling of wilderness not in the way Percy’s friend gave, of the lands untouched by man or machine, but in the way of simply… being. No satyr or deity or anything other than the brute trees and the other animals. It felt wild in the way that it had nothing to reason with, no sentient life whatsoever.
It felt empty.
Aside from whatever divine being that protected the area, that was.
“Are you any good at using the sun for location?” Sally asked, knowing the answer anyway. Paul was a city boy, even if he knew how to use a sword - or the basis of it, at least. Sally had been trying to teach him a bit more, the few things she picked up on the daily basis of fending off for her godly smelly son before and when Gabe wasn’t doing the one thing his stench was supposed to do.
Later on Percy had even helped her train more, even if his knowledge of fighting with such a short blade like the akinake was close to non-existent; nevertheless, both Sally and Paul were likely too slow for most demigod- level monsters, and they had one single celestial bronze dagger between the two of them.
Her husband gave her one apologetic shrug, “We could ask Apollo?”
Maybe.
Paul’s experience with the divine, while mostly being at high-stakes like the battle of Manhattan, still had been positive towards the gods: he feared them enough for what they were, but he had no personal reason to despise or actually distrust them, as far as one could go towards such immensely powerful beings, but Sally knew the less they attracted the gods’ attention, the better.
While most of the Olympians had no reason to dislike her, she’d prefer to resolve things on her own… and if worse came to worst, they’d pray for Poseidon firstly.
“Let’s try doing this on our own first.” Sally said at last, watching as Paul nodded and turned to look behind her.
“It stopped raining.” Despite the thick foliage, you could see the very vague outline of a dark sky beyond the treeline; whatever they were, it was high enough for the horizon to shine with stars. Paul must have noticed the same, as he followed with another statement. “We could try and look for any city up here… at the very least we’ll see the outline for a road and follow until someone drives past us.”
“Backpacking at this age?” Sally smiled despite the sarcasm in her voice, laughing at the chivalry arm Paul offered. She snaked her arm around it and gave him a playful elbow to the ribs before continuing, “That’s courageous of you, a tad too unresourceful for a first date though.”
Paul pointed at her bag in answer as they sidestepped another suspicious lump that… looking closer, seemed to be a skull, picked clean off of any flesh and broken into from time and creatures. Both of them kept quiet as an enormous pillbug skittered inside the empty cavity, before simultaneously deciding to ignore the image and go back to getting the hell out of this forest.
“We have a bag.”
“We have one bag and no car, that’s not resourceful.”
“I’m sorry dear, next time I’ll ask Percy to lend us Blackjack.”
The memory of Percy trying to teach Paul whose ability to see through the Mist was equal to zero how to ride Blackjack made Sally chuckle at herself, uncaring of the hurt glare sent her way; sue her, she had promised to not laugh at him after falling for the tenth time, but the images accompanied her during the harshest days.
So busy they were with each other, the couple didn’t even hear the way bones crunched from the skull they had just seen; a long and silent shadow skittering down the taller branches as it watched with unseeing eyes the two mortals walk side by side towards the vast openness ahead of the forest.
The bug that had been busy eating the last scraps of brainmatter tried to scutter away, but disarranged rows of teeth swiftly closed up in a sickeningly easy crush around the now shattered skull, taking with it earth, rot and a good part of the too-small skeleton hidden underneath.