Okay, so this is my first my first attempt at a Fanfic of any type, anytime! This begins at the point in the trailer for season 2 (the last season it seems, unfortunately, unless there's a change of heart by the BBC), when Pasiphae finally tells Jason who she really is.

I'd like to know what folks think of it, and hopefully continue the story as and when I can.

Redemption

"I AM YOUR MOTHER"!

The words, flung in desperation and without thought, rang in his ears as they echoed and re-echoed through the warm summer night, the force of their impact like that of a hammer-blow to his chest. Abruptly he could not breathe, the very air seeming to choke him even as the torches mounted on the pale stone walls guttered in their holders. Arrested in the action of walking, he stared unseeingly out across the faint outline of the city below, the darkened rooftops contrasting with the tiny lights of the rush lit windows, the sounds from within the dwellings lost in the breeze that had seemed even to have silenced the cicadas, but yet could not silence the pounding of his heart.

I AM YOUR MOTHER!

His hands contracted into fists as the words hung before him, thoughts racing through his head as he fought to deny them, to push them aside.

For God's sake this is Pasiphae! She'll say anything to save her skin! How many times has she tried to kill you, to kill Ariadne? How many times? How can she be this?

In the space of seconds the thoughts became a tumult, a raging cascade of anger and confusion that threatened to pull him down even as the very ground beneath him felt as if it had given way.

This can't be! It can't! She's a monster, a killer, ruthless and ambitious!

Yet somehow, in some strange way, he knew that she wasn't lying at all.

I AM YOUR MOTHER.

In silence Pasiphae watched as the young man before her slowly turned, the torchlight playing on his finely-etched features and unruly hair, his eyes, so like her own, searching her face through the rough bars of the cage, and suddenly he was a youth no more, but a confused, dazed child, incredulous, frightened to understand and yet needing to do so. For a moment he was that little boy she remembered so well, and from somewhere deep within her, despite her anger, despite her pain and hatred and bitterness, despite it all, she felt an irresistible need to hold him close, to take away the shadows from his mind.

A need that she'd never believed she would ever feel again.

"What...what... did ...you ...say?"

His voice, normally strong and confident, now seemed to her to tremble, and, without realising it, she found herself responding to him, the defences and barriers that she had so carefully built crumbling in the face of her revelation as the feelings overwhelmed them like a flood tide, as unstoppable as the sea itself. For so long she had denied them, had steeled herself to keeping them as far away as possible from her heart, even to point of telling herself she could never again allow herself to accept the love of a mother for her son, and yet now, as Jason stood looking down at her, there was nowhere left to hide, no more bolt holes to run to.

Nor, she found to her surprise, did she want to.

A revelation indeed.

An indrawn, shaky breath, and then the words came, her tone much softer now.

"I am your mother"

Silence fell between them, broken only by the muted roaring of the torches. Still he stood, unmoving, his eyes focussed only upon her own, the thoughts and feelings racing through his head. For so many years he had wondered about the woman who had given birth to him, what she'd looked like, sounded like, felt like. For so long he had thought her dead.

And now she was here, in front of him, in flesh and blood.

His enemy.

Yet, he realised with a start, it was this enemy that had tried to tell him the truth. When he had been briefly her prisoner, when he had woken to find her staring down at him with a strange expression on her face that he hadn't understood at the time, she had tried to tell him. I am not who you believe me to be. He hadn't wanted to listen though, hadn't been ready. He'd only seen before him the woman who'd threatened his life and the life of those he loved, and when she had been close to telling him, he had let his fury explode, had wrapped chains about her neck, and then his hands.

He had almost killed her...

His own mother.

Without fully realising what he was doing, he knelt, bringing himself level to her, and when he finally spoke, his voice was hesitant, little more than a whisper on the breeze.

"I..."She watched as he swallowed hard, trying to contain his feelings, "I...know"

With deliberate slowness, Pasiphae reached out through the makeshift bars, her fingers outstretched, tips brushing the skin of his cheek with a touch that he barely felt, yet that seared into him like a firebrand. She felt him instinctively flinch, and the breath caught in her throat like a sob.

He fears me!

And yet, she reasoned, could she really have expected anything else? Blinded by her fury, her jealousy and ambition and unknowing of his lineage, she had threatened his life many times, wished him dead, had even used sorcery against him. For so long had he been a shadow at the margins of her life, his path inexplicably crossing with hers, and she had never understood, had never thought of the answer that had been staring her, quite literally, in the face.

She had done all of that to him, yet, touched by the Gods as she herself was, he had survived.

But at what cost, to both him...and to herself?

"Jason..." She began, but her voice faltered, for faced now with the son that she had so grieved for, the great reserves of her iron will had now deserted her. So long had she been forced to wear her indifference as an actor would a mask, the depth of her loss an unspoken tragedy that no-one else could comprehend. From her earliest years the obligations of duty, to one's family, to one's position and to one's husband, had been taught and reinforced, forcing her to bury her own desires for life deep inside her, to lock them away in a place that only she could access them. Yet with the loss of her son had come the burning brand of her fury and her sorrow, the need to punish and retaliate, to push herself into a place that would be unassailable and from where she could never be hurt like that again.

Then, after so many years, she had found he had survived, taken by his father to some other place, and hope had briefly flickered once more, a small candle burning in the veil of what had been. She had bided her time, followed him, watched him, even killed one her own archers for him.

But, when it seemed that the fates had brought him into her hands, he had tried to kill her, unknowing of who she really was, seeing her only as an enemy. Deeply wounded and driven by the madness of revenge, she had ordered his death, but he had managed to escape, and soon after had come the news of his betrothal to Minos's daughter.

Seething at his treachery she'd vowed to take the throne of Atlantis, to wound him as deep as he had wounded her. She would take away all of his dreams as she'd had hers taken from her, and would leave him shattered and broken in her wake as she'd swept to power. The throne would have been hers, her armies all conquering and mighty, and he would have either had to bow to her, or to die, in the face of the truth of his birth.

A suitable vengeance for a mother scorned...or so she had thought.

But it had not happened as she had envisaged. She had won the day, but he and those loyal to Ariadne had fought back, and they had beaten her forces, forcing her niece and the others to flee. Captured and alone, she'd faced them, sword in hand and prepared to die, but it had been Jason that had stepped forward, Jason who had talked to her, Jason who had persuaded her to lower her weapon. He'd talked, her gaze holding hers, unarmed and yet unafraid and she had, perhaps for the first time, really listened to him. She'd wanted to hate him, to lunge forward and plunge the blade into his chest, and yet she had stood still, listening to his quiet voice, the voice that she had ached to hear so long ago.

And as she'd listened, slowly the madness had receded to leave her standing before him, no longer a Queen, but no longer blind.

Her nemesis, the Oracle had named him, the one to be feared. Yet, as she stared into his boyish face she could find little to fear in him. He was a fighter, agile and resourceful with the abilities that the Gods had blessed him with, but here, in this shadowed courtyard with no-one between them, he seemed more fragile than she had ever seen him before, and so terribly, painfully young, as she herself had been so many years ago.

My son.

A sensation startled her from her brief reverie, a drop of moisture on her cheek, and to her surprise she realised tears had come unbidden to her eyes. Where, she wondered, was the strong woman she had been? The woman unable to be touched by an outside emotion, her feelings sealed within a block of stone? How had he wrought this change within her, when she had tried so hard to harden her heart to him?

And yet, as the tears fell and could no longer hold them back, she no longer cared.

Kneeling at the bars, Jason hadn't moved, his mother's hand still at his cheek. So much had happened to him in so brief a time, his arrival here, his friends, the love he'd found, even the finding of his father. But behind it all had been the mystery of his mother, the enigma of his birth that even the Oracle had declined to answer. Had she known all this time, he wondered? Always she had been evasive whenever he'd raised the subject, as ever not quite telling all of the matter at hand, but only a little. Had she lied to him? Had she used her claim of the Gods only showing what they did as the ultimate shield behind which to hide, for who would dare to question one so revered as she?

His mind reeled from the truth, still unwilling to accept it. For so long he had learned to despise this woman, this hard-hearted Queen who had held herself above all others, a woman who had schemed and plotted behind the scenes, manipulating others like Heptarion and Telemon to do her bidding, biding her time until she could take the ultimate step and become sole ruler of all Atlantis. He had witnessed her temper, had seen her determination and iron will, but again he found himself thinking back to that cell, and her face above him as he'd woken. The look in her eyes then had been very different, softer, gentler...caring even.

Now, as he looked into that grime streaked face framed by a wild tangle of hair that was normally so bound so neat and tidy, he saw again the memory of that meeting, and with it a sorrow that could not be denied. With a trembling hand he reached up, and his fingers found hers, interlacing with them as he found his voice

"Mother...

Pasiphae heard his hoarse whisper, felt the touch of his fingers in hers, warm and strong, and slowly she drew him closer to her, he unresisting her gentle pull until their heads were almost touching through the bars, their tears mingling together.

"Son..." She murmured, closing her eyes as the emotions coursed through her, "My son..."

And around them, the world began to shake...