AN: Hello and welcome to my newest story! I hope you all enjoy it! This fic does not take place in the same universe as "The Phone Call" just fyi. Enjoy
The knock on the door came late one Saturday afternoon. Paul and Sally had just finished cleaning up their lunch dishes. Sally immediately felt a rush of hope and anticipation flood her system, as it had done every time someone had knocked on their door or rang their bell since Percy had called her from Camp a few weeks ago. She didn't understand why he couldn't have come home immediately, but she was sure there must have been a good reason.
She's closest to the door so she's the one to answer it and finally, finally, her hopes are realised. Percy is standing on the other side of the door with a sheepish smile on his face and bunch of flowers in his hand.
"Hey mom." He says.
She doesn't reply with words, rather she surges forward and wraps him in a tight hug as tears begin to fall down her face. He freezes for a moment but quickly reciprocates the hug, squeezing her with much more strength in his arms than she remembers him having before he went missing so many months ago.
They stand there for many minutes, just holding one another as they cry, soaking in one another's presence.
Finally Paul clears his throat and says, "Hello, Percy."
Percy sniffs and looks up from where he had his head buried in Sally's shoulder, "Hey, Paul." He says; his voice gruff with emotion, his arms still wrapped tightly around Sally.
"Why don't you two come inside and I'll make us all a cup of tea, alright?"
Percy finally pulls away from Sally, now smiling at Paul, "Sure," he says, "There's just one thing I need to do first."
With that Percy hands the flowers to Sally and moves forward to give Paul his very own hug. Sally watches with tears still ever present in her eyes as the two most important men in her life embrace. She smiles too because for the first time in close to 10 months she finally feels whole again.
A few minutes later the small, reunited family finds itself situated around the little table in the kitchen, each with a steaming cup of tea as Percy tells Sally and Paul everything that has happened since his disappearance.
Sally pays rapt attention, not only to the story, but to Percy himself. She can tell he's not himself, she can see in his eyes that something horrible happened. She doesn't push it, though, because she knows he will talk about it when he's ready
She's pretty sure she knows what it is when he glosses over his and Annabeth's fall into Tartarus so much so that the topic gleams. She's about to protest when he stops her with a look that clearly begs her not to say anything, to let the topic lie, that he's just not ready to talk about it yet. So she clamps her mouth shut, shoots Paul a look to make sure he does the same, and allows Percy to continue.
As he talks Sally keeps taking in as many physical details of him as she can. He's changed so much over the past months. He's grown more muscular and even taller than he had been before. He even has a tattoo on his forearm! Although she assumes it must have something to do with the Roman Camp, a concept she was still trying to wrap her mind around, when she sees the letters 'SPQR' and a trident on it so she lets it slide for now.
It's close to dinner time by the time Percy finishes his story so Sally jumps right into cooking. She sends Paul out to grab a few groceries and while he's gone, she and Percy just talk and things feel almost the way they used to before. Percy is as hungry for details about what she's been up to over the past months as she is for details about him. So they make a deal to take turns. She tells him how her novel is going, then he tells her about how Frank caught him and Annabeth in the ship's stable after they had accidentally fallen asleep together, and so on and Paul easily joins the conversation when he returns with the groceries.
Soon they all sit together to enjoy a meal consisting of mostly blue food, the first blue food Sally had made in months. Percy doesn't eat as much as he usually would, which worries her, but Percy promises that he's fine, that his appetite just hasn't been as big lately. He promises that he still eats though, and Sally can't exactly say that he didn't eat enough, just that he didn't eat as much as usual, so she lets it go and gives him a blue chocolate chip cookie which he gratefully accepts and practically inhales within five seconds.
Finally Percy announces that he's really tired, he's going to take a shower and then head to bed. It's while he's in the shower and Paul is busy taking the trash out that Sally begins to really think about the little things she had noticed throughout the night; the way he flinched and reached for his pocket every time there was an unexpected sound or movement. The way his eyes seemed to constantly wonder to the windows, as if looking for an enemy. The subtle hint of something she couldn't quite place in his eyes.
Something was definitely wrong with her child, and she resolved to find out exactly what it was.