Chapter One

MARILYN'S POV

I have come to a conclusion.

It's a very enlightening feeling, coming to a conclusion. It feels as if the weight of the world has just been plucked from your shoulders, leaving you gasping in relief. Not quite so overly dramatic as that, of course, but still enlightening, nevertheless.

Coming to a conclusion is a skill. One must evaluate all the facts, think about plausible evidence clearly and calmly without emotion, and then weigh in the occasional bout of emotion to add vigor and passion to your conclusion. I must say I am a bit guilty of adding more emotion than necessary, but then again, I was never one for rationality. It is much easier when you have the red haze of anger to obscure you from the verisimilitude of a situation.

Part of making a conclusion is being honest with oneself, and, after giving it much thought (twelve hours, to be precise, as I spent all night thinking) I am very certain that I may have actually achieved rationality this time. Perhaps I was not the most straightforward, or logical, but in my brain overridden with pent-up emotion, I think I achieved rationality assuming my position on the matter.

So. Yes. I think I have come to a conclusion, indeed.

I could, of course, ramble on for a while longer with all the thought processes that ran through my demented, deranged brain in serious need of medical help, but then of course that would be very tedious and most likely take another twelve hours. I do have things to do- surprisingly enough.

So. As I see it, my conclusion stands thus far-

I, Marilyn Jackson, well and truly hate my father.

This is a conclusion that has come to me over time. And, regardless of what my inane trains of thought have led some to believe, I am not some whiny girl protesting her father prohibiting her from watching television until three a.m. I will admit to being whiny, but I'm not about this situation.

It's not as if I haven't tried, either. I have. Really. I try to smile into his cold eyes overtaken by some hardship I know nothing about. I try to crack jokes at our dinners thick with awkward conversation; try to percolate some degree of humor into the situation.

The only thing I get from him is frowns.

Grimaces and dismay at me. Glaring at me sharply, cracking his crab with the utensils with vehemence. I honestly don't know what I've done to cause his hatred for me. It's simply not fair.

When I ask my gran about it (she did raise the boy, after all) she just shakes her head sadly. She's so unlike Father- so full of life, happiness, and just a general aura of energy. Her blue eyes have permanent crinkles around them from the countless times a smile has breached her lips.

Gran is really my only family, now that I think about it. Whenever Father goes away for some odd business meeting, the instant answer is 'go to Gran's house'. Gramps is excellent, too. Though he's not Father's dad (not hard to see why not, with all that kindness radiating off of him) he treats me like a grandchild by relation.

The sick thing is, I do believe I may have reached another conclusion.

Conclusion #2: I like my grandparents more than my immediate family.

Conclusion #3: When you would much rather spend time with your extended family that you know and love far better than your Father, you know you have a problem.

I'm going to stop with the conclusions now. They're giving me a headache and I really don't appreciate the sadistic turn they've taken.

As my brain goes on this torrential rain of thoughts, I stare at my ceiling mindlessly until a knock comes at my door.

"Hmm?" I mumble, sitting up straight.

"Miss Jackson, your family is waiting in the parlor. Are you ready, or shall I tell them you aren't ready?" I groan and curse under my breath as I lean my head against the wall. Crap. Just lovely, really. I completely forgot that today was going-out day.

I suppose it's a tradition of sorts, going-out day. Ever since I was around five years old, Gran got into a rather heated argument with Father. I still remember eavesdropping, crouched into the dumbwaiter in our three-story brick colonial.

"Honestly, Percy. I understand you're hurting, but it's been three years, for gods' sakes," Gran said heatedly.

"You don't understand!" Father shouted. "You don't get any of it!"

"Or do I," Gran said coolly. "From my understanding, I raised you alone for a very long period of time. You don't even manage to take Mari out once a month."

"You knew he was still alive, Mom." Father's voice broke. "Anna- she's gone. Forever."

"That does not change the fact that there is a girl in this house, Perseus Jackson!" There was a long pause. "I don't think that Mari has ever even been to the museum. She's a good girl, Perce. Full of energy. Give her a chance."

"Fine! You say I can't even take her out once per month?" Father challenged, his voice disputatious. "I can. Just you see."

"I will," Gran replied, her voice full of challenge.

Thus began the Jackson going-out days.

Gran, Gramps, Father and I all pile into Gramps's old BMW. Which, by the way, is a very cool car. Very vintage, exceptionally awesome. Fantastic.

My nursemaid, Jenny, waits for me. I sigh exasperatedly. "I forgot, sorry. How- how bad is-" I ventured, afraid to say the word 'Father'.

Jenny chuckles. "He looks like he might chop off someone's head today, Miss Jackson."

I grimace. "Just- give me a moment, please."

I scramble quickly. Ah, here's the pair of jeans from Friday. I barely wore them for the whole day, anyway. My t-shirt from my pajamas- yes, that'll do. It's not like Father cares about my appearance. Where are my Nikes? Ah, here they are.

That's about how my dressing went.

I put my hair up in a sloppily made bun, cursing my blonde curls for the millionth time. Honestly. I really don't know where I get this reckless hair; though I think it's from my mom's side- Father never said. I always look at his somewhat tame dark hair and sigh wistfully. If only, if only.

I race down the stairs, a bundle of ungraceful limbs. I curse loudly and vehemently, knowing my grandparents would be appalled.

"Marilyn Jackson!"

Sometimes I surprise myself.

I turn towards Gran with a wince in my face. The evidence of a stream of very nasty words is written all over my face, I know, and I grin sheepishly, trying unsuccessfully to tame my hair.

"Yes, Gran?" I ask sweetly.

"Language, young lady!" she reprimands, and I sigh, properly scolded. Honestly. I'm not that bad. Besides the fact, of course, that I pick up the swears from her son.

"Sorry, Gran, really," I mumble, ripping my hair out of its unorthodox ponytail and attempting for the tenth time to tame it.

After a while of watching me struggle, Gran sighs. "Stop, Lynnie. Please. You're destroying that lovely head of hair that you have."

I quirk my mouth in distaste. "The hair may be lovely, but it hates me. I mean it, Gran, I really do. It has it out for me. I'm pretty sure it's leading a conspiracy with my growth." I'm only five feet. And I'm also in eighth grade. I don't want to be a midget, really, I don't. It's just the conspiracy of my body parts.

Gran just sighs. "Alright, drama queen."

"I mean it!" I pronounce indignantly. "My hair has it out for me! It is killing me, slowly but surely, and you're standing there- OW, Gran, that HURT! - brushing the living life out of it, only making it angrier!"

Gran stops, turning to face me. Her eyes hold a bemused expression. "Marilyn."

I scowl. "Please don't call me that, Gran. I really hate the name."

"Lynnie, then," she dismisses with a wave of her hand.

"What?"

"You're screaming at your grandmother about your hair, who apparently has a conspiracy with your height."

Oh.

Um.

You see-

-Nope. Not going to try and explain that mess.

I really question my mental sanity sometimes.

"Sorry, Gran," I say sheepishly.

Gran just smiles. "You're so much like her, sometimes."

"Who?" I query, flabbergasted.

My grandmother gets a faraway look in her eye. "No one."

"Gran," I protest.

"Enough of that," she smiled, nearly ripping out my whole hair with the brush. Evil killing machines, brushes. "We're taking you into Boston today."

Ah, the live of Marilyn Jackson. Filled with evil hair (/brushes), sadistic grandmothers, wisecracking grandfathers, and, of course, thy hatred's name is father.

Hmm.

Rather busy, isn't it?

WILL'S POV

Bash. Bash. Bash.

This is the sound my head makes as it collides painfully with the wall.

Bash. Bash. Bash.

"William Grace, stop banging your head on your wall this very instant!"

Thanks, Mom. Love you too. Mean it.

I continue to bang my head against the wall anyway. My life is an unpleasant dilemma of various paradoxes, none of which are even remotely pleasant. With my parent's new 'startling' revelation, I must admit I am thoroughly incandescent.

"Omigod, just stop it, Willie! You're being so annoying!" My younger sister, Janie, called from her room.

I disregarded her as well. All three of my siblings could come in and bellow at me to stop being a bitch, but that didn't mean I was going to comply. Jason was away on a business trip, leaving Piper Grace to deal with four children with the aid of a nanny. Who, at present, was on her day off. You could say many things about this situation, ranging from full veracity to complete falseness imagined by only Piper herself. For example, if one wanted to lie, you could say that Piper was handling it exceptionally well.

But, of course, if one were to actually speak the verity of the situation, you would indeed find that Piper Grace was doing a horrible job with Caroline, William, Janie, and Reid Grace. Disastrous, catastrophic- those words were closer to the verisimilitude.

"Gods, William Lucas Grace, stop it this very instant or I am CALLING YOUR FATHER!" Piper screamed from down in the kitchen, where she was trying to instruct their new cook on mac n' cheese, a food that children would eat (as opposed to Chinese duck. Piper and Jason found it delicious, the children found it distasteful. They were caught trying to sneak potato chips out of the safeguarded kitchen at midnight the evening of the unpalatable meal).

I stopped, considering this. Piper didn't scare me. Second-oldest out of the children in the family, he was outranked only by his sister; Caroline, and she was too absorbed in her iPod to really notice much of anything. A typical sophomore, actually. My younger sister, Janie, was a brat in all ways possible- the third grade teachers actually voiced a complaint about her wisecracks in the middle of class. And Reid, youngest, still a kindergartener- well. He was innocent yet.

I was in eighth grade, tall and brown haired, with that Native American look from my mother. Though I looked most like Piper, my personality was somewhere in the middle. Janie joked that I had an identity crisis.

The sad part is, it was actually true.

Though Piper didn't scare me, as I had the proper strapping conduct of any boy my age, Jason certainly did. Though Jason Grace was the perfect image of a blonde, joking, kind father, he had a dark side that showed when his children went to the dark side. Darkness fought with darkness. And, needless to say, Jason Grace won twenty times out of ten.

I groaned, stopping. "FINE!" I shouted, punching his wall.

I immediately groaned in pain. "Ow, ow, shit, shit, owww…" I chanted, looking at his drywall with chagrin. Shit. Naturally.

There lay a jagged hole in his wall. My mom was going to kill me.

I looked at my knuckles with a sort of regret, seeing the faint crimson splurge up. A faint whiteness of exposed bone disgusted him, and I resisted the urge to retch. Danger, Will Robinson. Work on calmness.

Needless to say, I failed when Carrie finally decided to take her stupid head out of her music.

"What the hell?" she shrieked, storming into my room. Her bright kaleidoscope eyes were livid, and her normally calm blonde hair flowed out all around her. "William, there is a shitting dent in my wall!" Her eyes looked to my knuckle, and her expression changed from irritation to concern. "Oh, my gods, Will, what did you do to your hand?"

I averted my eyes. Leave it to Carrie to master hormones in the mood swing of all mood swings.

Comprehension flooded her face as Caroline took in the register of the broken wall and my crushed bones.

"You punched the wall," she said flatly.

I scratched the back of my neck. Well, yes, but I preferred to think of it as the wall was a target, and I punched. Probably not the best target in retrospective, but still a target, nevertheless.

"You punched the wall," Caroline echoed dubiously.

Again, I kept my gaze riveted on the floor. I know I punched the wall. It's just- you see- I had this pent up anger, and then my mother decided to not let me use my head to bang against the wall. So, I improvised. With my hand. Again, was it the most intelligent idea? Absolutely not.

"You punched the wall," Carrie said again, running a hand through her long, straight, white-blonde hair.

"Yes, Caroline, I punched the wall," I said exasperatedly, sucking my knuckles. Surprisingly enough, punching a wall really hurt.

Caroline turned an appraising look to me, a smirk on her face. "You do realize we're trying to sell the house, not keep it, right?"

"Of course I do," I snapped. "I wasn't planning on running my hand through the wall, for gods' sakes!"

Carrie just grinned, and then turned her eyes down to my hand. She sighed. "C'mon. Mom can heal it."

"She's gonna kill me, Carrie," I complained.

"Maybe you should've thought of that before you ran your hand through the wall." Seeing my look of outrage, words on my tongue, she stopped me. "Whether it was planned or not, Willie, you did it anyway."

Technicalities, all of it. Minor technicalities.

"C'mon," Caroline said, grabbing my unharmed wrist. "Mom will be really mad, but you can expect that anyway. I think Reid's driving her crazy. He's down there trying to make chocolate-chip cookies." She shook her head ruefully. "Five-year olds, raw eggs, sugar, and cookie-dough-" she shuddered- "not a good mix. Not at all a good mix."

"Then let's refrain from going down there, yeah?" I suggested, but Caroline ignored me, hauling me along as if I were a pack pony. Yes, I said it. A pack pony. William Grace was not a pack pony.

At least, I hope not.

Carrie pulled me down the stairs, ignoring my fruitless protests of indignation and incredulity.

Piper was sitting in our huge kitchen with Reid, flour all over her face and clothes. The situation was almost comical, because Reid actually had an egg all over the front of his shirt.

Now, a word about our house- just addressed to all the people who don't know the awesomeness of it.

We're not poor, and we're not middle-class, either. In fact, you could say we're rather clear of the rich side. All our houses (I think we've had about fourteen with transfers since I've been born) have been huge monstrosities. This is no exception.

It's the sort of really old, beautiful, gilded house that you could find secret stairwells in. It has this really nice musty smell from books and such, and we each have our own suite. We have a nanny, a housemaid, and a chef. Our kitchen is huge, we have a parlor and even a ballroom (granted, it's on the small size, nothing like in castles or anything, but it's still a respectable size- Jason and Piper host business parties in there).

This is my favorite house and neighborhood, as we live in Lincoln Park, right by Chicago. It's really wonderful, really pretty, and has the best school and parks of any place we've lived in.

Our kitchen, to put it straight, is huge, I'm not going to deny the fact. Top-grade stainless steel, cement/granite countertops, top-of-the-line everything.

And right now, it's a huge, disgusting mess.

Flour and sugar is everywhere, spread in all directions. Eggs run down the front of my little brother's shirt, and my mom is shouting. Bertha, our cook, is screaming, as the Kitchen Aid® mixing machine is whirring away, splattering goop that slightly resembles cookie dough all over the walls. Kiki, our housemaid, is running around in circles frantically, and my mom is trying to charmspeak them all.

Because of her obvious distress, it's clearly not working well.

Carrie and I couldn't help it. Really, we tried. Sort of.

We fell onto the floor, laughing.

I mean collapsed in howling fits. We were guffawing so loud, they all stopped to look at us in our chortling seizures. Our stomachs ached from how much we laughed, and when Piper stood over us, her hair dusted with flour, we just started sniggering even louder.

When we finally managed to stop, Piper raised an eyebrow at us.

"Are you quite done?" she asked, a grin twitching at the corners of her lips.

I nodded, heaving. We still giggled manically.

Piper crossed her arms, rolling her eyes dramatically. "Thank you, Mister Will and Miss Caroline, for putting on that lovely show. Why are you down here? I'm assuming it's not to satirize all of us?"

"No," Carrie heaved between gasps of ragged laughter. "It's- it's just- Will- he punched his arm into the wall-"

"You did what?" Piper said, eyes widening. She whirled on me. "Really, Will?"

I nodded, instantly sobering. I rubbed my hand sorely. "I'm sorry, Mom. Really. I can explain, it's just- I was so angry, and then…" I gestured helplessly.

Piper sighed. "It's fine, Will. Come here."

I followed her to where Kiki was waiting with a roll of bandages. Piper wrapped my fingers meticulously, rubbing the top of my head. I sighed in relief, looking at the scratches.

"Better?" Piper asked with a smile.

"Much, thanks," I said with a lopsided grin.

"Oh, and Will? One more thing?"

"Yeah?" I queried earnestly.

Piper grinned. "I hope you know this is coming out of your allowance."

Now it was everyone else's turn to laugh.

A/N: End of chapter one. I hope you enjoyed it! Please comment- I want to know what I messed up on. Anything from grammatical errors to canon mistakes or writing techniques is appreciated. Thank you!