"she also understood there was a hole in her heart where her son should be, that she was a wicked, selfish woman for wishing him back."

~shannon celebi, driving off bridges~

The nightmares happen, and he rolls around in his bed, his screams echoing through the night. Paul, a heavy sleeper, is indifferent to the noise in the apartment. Sally isn't, though. She hears it all; the IMs with Annabeth in the middle of the night, the pleadings against a primordial even the immortal gods are afraid of, the sadistic screams. And no matter how much he scares her sometimes, every day she wakes up early in the morning and makes him breakfast, blue pancakes at the ready. He always tells her thank you. She always smiles and pretends not to notice the broken look in his eyes when he looks away from her.

She takes solace in the fact that she knows that even though she can't be there anymore for him, Annabeth is. Her little boy is in good hands, she knows that. But she doesn't want to let him go, because she's afraid that if she does he won't even try to hide the broken look. It'll just be there, drawing stares from both humans and not. Sally doesn't want that to happen. So she stays, and he stays, and they're all a happy family and they just can't stop lying to each other that it's alright even though it isn't, even though it never will be again.

He goes to his friends a lot, talking to them about what happened during the war. She thinks that they know more than she does and she feels bad that he thinks he can't tell her about what happened, Then she realizes that he's trying to protect her, because he thinks that she can't handle it. She spends a whole day crying and smiling at the same time over that. It's a mix of emotions and she doesn't know what to feel anymore because she thinks she's living two lives.

When he comes back from school he always kisses her on the cheek and grabs a blue cookie, because it's what they've always done. Then he goes to his room and starts his homework, but she's stopped going up to help him. He's either deep into his work or talking to Frank, Reyna, Nico, Annabeth, or Jason—all people he runs the rest of his life with. She finds it's very depressing when he discreetly tells her to go way while he talks battle strategies with his friends. Sally's listened to some of what he says and is surprised by his ruthlessness. He isn't the caring boy he used to be when he talks about fighting. It's kill, kill or be killed, and he's always the killer.

Sally remembers when she was always relaxed when he walked into the room, when he was twelve and thirteen and still a little boy who hadn't yet hit puberty. She remembers looking at him and not ever imagining that he could hurt something with the sword always in her pocket. She doesn't think like that anymore. Sometimes, when he's not smiling and he walks into a room, she grips something hard. He's a veteran. He noticed. He doesn't say anything though.

She's frightened to realize that she's scared of him, a little bit. Scared of the little boy who used to be her everything, but then again, he's no longer a little boy. He looks like a god himself when he walks sometimes, like he's completely in charge. She knows that's because he is, he's the 'leader of the demigods'. He can probably lead an army to overthrow the gods if he wants to. She shudders and closes her eyes at the thought.

Because this was never how it was supposed to be—Sally Jackson was never supposed to be afraid of her own family. She had always wanted a family because she has never had her own . . . but, she knows, be careful what you wish for. She has her family, and she loves her family. But she must take the good with the bad. Her first lover was immortal, never meant to be . . . her second wasn't even a lover, really . . . and her third one will stick around. She hopes he will stick around, because it is now that he is here that she has a perfect family. Maybe her son is broken, tattered, dark—but he is alive, and it is alive which matters, alive which fills her family-wanting soul with hope.

Percy Jackson is not a great son. He is the sun at dusk, ready to give in to the darkness. He is not the picture-perfect son that she dreamed about, but she would choose him over everything else in her life anyways. For he is her life—the reason she has kept on going after all these years of lost sun.

Maybe she is afraid of him, afraid of him and his large sword and the yells which come from his room in the middle of the night and (most of all) the blood on his hands but she will gladly wipe away the crimson as long as he holds onto her. He is a conundrum, a miracle of nature, not dead, not alive . . . he is half-god and half-human. But he is all hero. And when she sees him she is proud for making up half of the hero and all of his morality.

When he was young, she used to read stories of the heroes. She never told him, of course. But she knew all about Hercules and Jason and the other Perseus and she never wanted her son to be a part of the stories just like those people. She wanted him to be a different kind of hero, a hero that belonged to a story with no infidelity and no murder.

The first one? She succeeded. But the blood (that bright bright crimson) on his hands is still dripping. It's everywhere, his mouth his nose his eyes. He is the blood, and his blood scares her sometimes because some time ago it stopped dripping red.

It turned gold.

Because he is the hero and he is a god and oh, Sally knows, but it hurts sometimes to live in a different reality than her offspring. Sometimes she just wants to share everything with him. She knows that he's a war veteran, he's gone through Hell, she knows that he's a champion of the myths . . .

She knows all of these things, but she doesn't care. She is not a demigod. Whenever she looks at Percy, she doesn't see what everyone else sees. Not a hero or a friend or a savior or a god or a legend reimagined . . . she sees her son, and she will always see her son. He was her son before he was a leader, and he will be her son long after.

Sally makes blue cookies and goes away when he asks her to but she doesn't like it and she doesn't want to. She wants to hug him like she used too and she wants to cuddle with him late into the nights like she used too. But she doesn't and she won't because he doesn't want that anymore. He thinks it is his responsibility to lead, and he counts her as second priority to his people.

Which is logical and thought-oriented, but then again Percy Jackson was never known for his logical decisions. He was known for brash ideas and making life-threatening choices out of nowhere. He is a survivor, and he will always be one. It's his role as a hero.

Three thousand years in the future when people look at 'science' as if it is myth he will be the name that demigods whisper about. They'll compare everybody to Percy Jackson;

"He's so loyal! Like that hero, what's-his-name, Peter or something?"

He's just another Hercules, Perseus II, and she hates that. Percy is not just another hero. He is a good person, and that is what matters. To her at least.

But she never fails to notice that mothers never show up in myths. They're always background music, never important. She probably won't be important, either; just another sob story for everyone to ignore.

Whoever cared about the mothers, anyways?

Sally knows that she has not suffered even close to what Percy has, but it feels as if she has. He's gone through actual Hell, the one with the demons with swords. She's gone through a different Hell—the one with the demons with words. They tell her that she's not good enough, that she'll never be good enough,

She will fight back through love instead of hate.

Sally Jackson loves her his hate and his love and his leadership—she will always love him.

Always.

"'after all this time?'

'always.'"

~j.k. rowling, harry potter and the deathly hallows~

I hope you enjoyed reading it just as much as I enjoyed writing it.

-Dee