And the Temples of His Gods

The baby is born healthy, a good weight with his skin a glowing pink and his eyes already a startling grey. Those are his mother's, so it's the tiny tuft of black hair that appears after a couple of weeks that initially marks him out as his father's son.

In those early days, he gets a name – Daniel – with no root in Greek mythology, and as much love as his mother has to give.

After all, he's all she has left.

Annabeth does everything in her power to keep her baby safe. She cuts off almost all contact with the Greek world and raises Daniel together with her parents-in-law and occasional input from her own father. They live in a building full of mortals, and she makes sure that the boy spends as much time around ordinary children as possible, to mask his scent as much as it can be masked.

She allows visits from their old friends from camp, of course; she's not completely heartless. But she limits it to one or two guests at a time to minimise the chances of monsters noticing, and though she'd never actually throw them out, they all know that she doesn't like people staying the night. Some of them, like Thalia, laugh it off, while others, like Grover, give her a sad look like they understand but aren't cruel enough to make her stop. Piper's the worst, though, trying to have a serious talk with Annabeth about grief processes and healthy coping mechanisms.

She doesn't understand that Annabeth isn't doing this out of some fear that her son will meet the same fate as his father, though. It's almost the opposite, in fact. She's doing it so that Daniel can have the childhood his father had, the one with a loving mother, undisturbed by the world of Greek gods and monsters.

The one that was nothing like Annabeth's.

She goes shopping one day, leaving Daniel napping while she goes to pick up food and baby-care essentials. The mindless task is relaxing, in a strange way, and she comes back in a semi-good mood that evaporates as soon as she sees the living room window open, the curtains billowing inward as they do in movies when someone's just jumped out of them.

In this case, of course, it's exactly the opposite that she fears: that someone – or something – has come in. "Daniel?" she says, as if he'll respond.

There's a happy burbling noise from the cradle, but it does little to assuage Annabeth's fears as she drops the bags in the hall and dashes over to make sure that he's safe.

There, clutched inside two hammy little fists, are a pair of snakes. Poisonous snakes, she can tell by the markings. But dead snakes, dead snakes. Their tails dangle through the bars, moving only when Daniel shakes them. Grey eyes meet grey, and Annabeth sweeps her son into her arms, stupid with relief and swearing never to leave the flat again, even for five minutes, without calling someone in to watch over him.

She remembers Sally telling her a similar story about her own son, years ago, and armed with that memory she finds it in herself to smile slightly.

Maybe Daniel has inherited more from his father than just his hair.

It doesn't take as many years as she'd hoped for before Daniel starts exhibiting some demigod characteristics. She counts herself fortunate that there are no powers – yet – but she doesn't need a doctor to give her the reason why her son can't sit still for five minutes at a time, or why the basic reading to which she's been trying to introduce him won't take hold: ADHD and dyslexia.

She'd hoped that if Daniel had inherited some of his parents' divine blood, he'd get the powers for survival and be spared the aspects that would make him an outcast among mortals, but as ever, luck is not on the Jacksons' side.

Annabeth is beginning to wonder who it was that had annoyed Tyche so badly.

The dyslexia isn't so bad, to be fair. It'll make things difficult for him at school, but the two of them sit at the kitchen table together and struggle through story books to keep him on course, and it's not something that makes him difficult to be around.

The ADHD, on the other hand, drives her up the wall. She knows it's not his fault, and knows that she was probably just as bad if not worse when she was younger, but that didn't make it any easier having a child who would disappear when her back was turned, couldn't seem to listen to what she was saying, and when she finally got him in one place, wouldn't stop fidgeting on the spot, which drove Annabeth's own brain crazy with the sense that things were going on in which she should participate.

She puts up with it, though, mostly because this is her son, and what kind of a monster would she be if an (honestly, comparatively mild) attention disorder could make her give up on him? But also because it reminds her of his father, who, much though she loved him, had given her pretty much every problem his son was now.

At this point, it's more endearing than irritating, especially when he pulls out a worryingly familiar baby seal look on her.

She gets called in to see the principal when Daniel's ten, because of a fight. She's been in before, of course, but this is the first time it's actually been something she thinks might be worth worrying about. She sits outside, giving only half her attention to the chatty secretary talking at her while the other half of her mind wonders what it is he's done.

She fortunately only has to wait for a handful of minutes until she's called in. Daniel's sitting in a chair to the side, swinging his legs back and forth beneath it and steadily looking anywhere but her eyes. The principal – Jonathan Asamoah, the plate on the door had said – had come in at the start of this year after his predecessor Mrs Becker retired, so Annabeth hasn't met him before. He's younger than she'd expected, probably about her own age. He's got kind eyes and gives her a welcoming smile when she walks in, but she'd probably be better disposed towards him if he hadn't put her son in detention.

"Thank you for coming in," he begins. "Please, have a seat."

"Thank you," says Annabeth, placing herself opposite the desk from him.

"Daniel, why don't you come and join us?" asks the principal, not unkindly.

The boy in question moves from his spot against the wall to take the chair next to his mother, but subconsciously leans slightly away from her. She knows too that he's probably inherited sufficient instinct from both his parents to feel deeply uncomfortable with his back to the only door in a room.

"As you know, Daniel was involved in an… altercation with another pupil," begins Asamoah.

"You mentioned it when you called me in," says Annabeth. "What happened?"

"Well, it's hard to be entirely sure," is his diplomatic reply. "Your son says that he stepped in to stop Toby Cage from bullying another pupil, but Toby says Daniel was upset that he wouldn't give him his Pokémon cards. A couple of other pupils have weighed in with their… opinions of what happened, but it's still very much a case of 'he said, she said'. I'm reluctant to punish a student who may only have been standing up for one of his classmates, but at the same time, I'm sure you can understand that I can't be certain that that was the case. And what I can be certain of is that this incident ended up with Toby rolling on the floor in pain, and whatever the motivation, our pupils have to understand that violence is never the answer to the problems."

Annabeth can think of a few times in her life when violence has been the only answer to her problems, but she knows that any fuss she kicks up will reinforce the principal's idea of Daniel as a problem child, and at best it would make her a story for his wife or whoever he went home to, the 'nightmare parent', who 'can't accept that her child is in the wrong', and how Daniel 'will be trouble in the future, mark my words'. She's seen it happen with enough demigods to understand how this situation plays out.

Instead, she nods her head understandingly, reassuring Asamoah that yes, of course I'll have a word with Dan at home, and agrees that it's fair that further incidents will be dealt with much more severely. Then she takes her son by the hand and guides him back to their waiting car while he sulks in silence.

"So, the Principal's told me what he thinks happened," she says, as conversationally as possible.

There's nothing but silence from the shape in her passenger seat.

"Do you feel like telling me what you think happened?" she asks.

"I didn't hit him," says Daniel, almost as soon as she closes her mouth, as if he's just been waiting for permission to tell her.

"The principal seems pretty sure that you did," she points out.

"I didn't," he insists.

"So what did happen?"

"He pushed Daisy because she didn't have as many Pokémon cards as he did and I told him to stop and then he fell over and then I got told off even though I didn't do anything because he said and it's unfair."

She's silent while they wait at a light as she processes the mixture of illogical sentence structure from her son and illogical actions from his classmates, glancing over at him as she does so. There's a resentment in his steadfast glower that she's pretty certain isn't an act, besides which the Pokémon cards are clearly involved somehow, and she's not sure it would occur to him to weave them into a false narrative. Still, she isn't sure she's got the whole story.

"And how did Toby fall over?" she probes.

"You wouldn't believe me," he grumbles. "It's weird."

Her stomach twists itself into a strange shape. Trouble at school is fine; weird trouble at school is more of a problem. "Believe it or not, your Mom has had some pretty weird experiences in her time, and some of the things she'd believe might surprise you."

Like the existence of Greek gods.

"I told him not to push Daisy, and he told me he wasn't allowed to push me because I was stupid…" he says, and trails off.

"And then?" she prompts, as gently as she can.

"And then, like, the ground wobbled. And he fell over. And it wasn't me."

She swallows. It sounds like it definitely was him: he just doesn't realise it yet.

"Well, it sounds like you were right to try and stop him from pushing Daisy around," she tells him, trying not to let dread too obviously into her voice.

"Really?" he asks cautiously. "Toby said I was going to be 'spelled."

"No, you're not going to be expelled, Dan. You just need to remember not to get too angry, even if people are being mean, okay?"

"Right," is the short answer she gets, and she sighs mentally.

"You know, your Dad was expelled a few times," she tells him. The second the word 'Dad' leaves her lips, she can sense him mentally uncurling in his seat. She's told him as little about his father as she can, the memories just being too painful to speak aloud, but she knows in this moment that Daniel needs him more than she does. "So it does happen to the best people."

"Why?" he asks. She isn't sure which part of the sentence that's directed at, but she decides that now isn't the moment to tackle the subject of life being unfair.

"Mostly, he was just unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time. When he was a bit older though, when I met him, he was very brave and always stood up to bullies, even if it meant putting himself at risk. And that was one of the things I loved most about him, that he would always try and come to other people's rescue."

She looks over at him as they pull up to another light, and her heart warms to see that he's smiling now. "And I think he'd be very proud of you for standing up for that girl today, just like I am. It's something that he would have done too." She knows she has to stop thinking about this now, otherwise she won't be able to see the road through the tears, but she manages to get one more sentence out.

"You're very like him, in that way."

Then the light turns green and they're moving again.

When he's fourteen, the Minotaur finds them.

They're watching a movie, happily collapsed on the sofa at the end of a long day, when there are a series of bangs and cracks at the door. Annabeth leaps to her feet – she knows Daniel thinks she's got over-developed reflexes, but this sounds like the real deal – and turns to see their front door in splinters and a hulking arm pushing through its remains.

"Get in your room!" she tells Daniel. "Lock the door!"

"Wha..."

"GO!" she shouts, and to his credit, he moves quickly across the room, almost fast enough to reach the bedroom before the monster has muscled its way fully into the hall.

Almost.

As it is, the bull-man charges forwards as soon as it shakes off the remaining shards of the door, aiming for Annabeth, who only just dives out of the way in time, and blocking Daniel's route to the bedroom as it reaches the centre of their apartment. "Stay back!" she orders Daniel, "Keep something between you all the time and let me deal with him," she tells him.

"Mom-"

"Do as I say!" she shouts, wrenching the drakon-bone sword off the wall where she's kept it, disguised as an ornament. The beast moves for her again, but hesitates, growling when it sees she's armed.

She swings the weapon experimentally. The sword has never felt like such a natural extension of her body as her old knife had, but it's still served her well over the years, and will certainly do to dispose of the Minotaur.

The monster in question, though, seems to have other ideas, and turns towards Daniel. In the cramped space of their small apartment, and even with the couch between them, the Minotaur only has to make a couple of steps to reach her son, so Annabeth shouts to get its attention – "HEY!" – and runs at it.

The beast grabs the nearest thing to it – the sofa, in this case – and swings it at Annabeth, who's bowled over backwards by it.

"MOM!" shouts Daniel, desperation in his voice.

That's very touching, but really she's fine, and to be honest, she's more worried about him. At least, until the sink explodes.

And the sprinklers go off.

And there's a worrying clunk in the bathroom that probably indicates hundreds if not thousands of dollars' worth of damage.

She's not too worried about the bill right now though, because the Minotaur has appeared in front of her again, and she's only halfway to her feet. She holds the sword out, but is still unsteady after the blow from the furniture, and isn't quite so certain now that she'll be able to fight it off.

The Minotaur growls lowly, reaching for her – and then grunts and stumbles as Daniel appears on its back, hanging on for dear life to its horns with one hand and punching it in the head with his other. It bucks and roars, an awful bellowing sound, trying to throw him off, but Annabeth is there in an instant, jamming her weapon into its leg so as not to risk injuring her son. It bellows in pain and drops to a knee.

"Get off," she says, as the beast crumples, and Daniel slips sideways to the floor. A swing of the sword, and all that's left is a scattered layer of fine dust, a broken sofa, and puddles of water beginning to eddy and swirl along the nice lino floor.

"What was that?" he asks, and when she looks at him she sees that the adrenaline has worn off. He's shaking from the shock, wide-eyed and beginning to panic, his brain going into overdrive as it tries to rationalise the fact that a giant bull-man just muscled its way through their apartment and tried to kill him and his mother.

He's also bone-dry where Annabeth is thoroughly drenched.

"Dan," she says, as gently as she can and trying to give him some calmness of his own. "There's a lot to explain. It's complicated. So how about you sit down, and I'll make drinks, and then I'll tell you everything, because there's a lot that you deserve to know, and there's even more that you need to know. Okay?"

He's still shaking as he looks at her, as if he's heard her words but hasn't really understood them, so she crosses the room and wraps him in the warmest hug she can, nevermind that she's dripping wet. It's not as if it'll affect him, and in fact, when she steps back, her front is newly dry.

"Okay," he says, nodding slowly, trust in his eyes.

She smiles at him, but it comes over much more sadly than she intended. After all, his life is about to change, and as far as Annabeth can possibly know, this might not be his home anymore.

She might not be his home anymore.

But she manages to stem what water is still flowing, then makes them both a cup of tea, brings out a tin of cookies that had escaped the water (made from Sally's old recipe, no less), and goes to sit with him on the battered sofa he's tipped back over to be the right way up. When she hands him his mug, he wraps his hands around it and draws it in close to his chest, like its all he has left to hold on to.

"We've kept a lot from you, over the years," she starts. "And you'll probably be angry at that, and you have every right to be, but I need you to understand that we did it because it was the best way to keep you safe. Because… because I couldn't stand the thought of you suffering because of who your parents are. Because I couldn't stand knowing that if you came to harm, it was my fault."

She waits for a response, but there's only one part of the speech he focuses on: "We?"

"Me, of course. Grandma Sally and Grandpa Paul. Your aunts and uncles: Piper, Grover, Leo-"

"Was there anyone who wasn't in on… whatever this even is?" he asks suddenly.

She doesn't know how to respond, partly because of the abruptness of his interruption, but partly because there isn't really anyone in the shared part of their life who doesn't know about the world of Greek myths that he's been shielded from for over a decade. A handful of neighbours, maybe, and the couple of friends from his new school that he's been able to introduce her to without combusting from embarrassment. "Not really," she says. "Before you, this secret… I didn't have a life outside of it."

"And Dad?"

She nods. She knows that Dan's idolised his father far beyond reason, that he sees him as some kind of comic-book hero who would solve all the world's problems if he would only come back, and that's partly her fault from the little she's been able to tell their son, but here and now, that seems to be the thing tipping the balance towards him trusting her.

"So tell me," he says. "What's going on?"

So she tells him. She knows that just coming out with the blunt truth makes it harder to swallow, so she tells him to be patient because this will take a little while, and then she tells him how she came into this world. She tells him why she ran away from home and how she met friends, including Thalia and Grover, who helped her – and she promised to come back and explain how they helped her when she was younger than he is now when she appears so much older than both of them.

She scatters important details – like being Athena's daughter – throughout the story, hoping that will make them more palatable, and takes him through her own journey of discovery and acceptance, all the way to Camp Half-Blood.

"Is that… is that where you met Dad?" he asks. She's told him that they met at a summer camp; just not that it was a summer camp for the bastard children of the Greek gods.

"Yes," she says. "What I've told you about him was true, but there were… details missing."

"Like the fact that he was an ancient Greek god?"

"A demigod," she says, "not an actual god, although he almost became one. A son of Poseidon, which is why we hated each other at first. Our parents didn't – don't – get on, so I went into it assuming that we weren't supposed to either."

He frowns as though something doesn't make sense – aside from the fact that she's been telling him his life was a lie, that is. "So Grandma Sally…"

"Yes, it's true, Grandma Sally has better game than I or anyone else could possibly hope for."

He laughs at that, and Annabeth feels the tension drain away. He might still be adjusting, but he hasn't suddenly started hating her.

"What changed? Between you and Dad, I mean."

"It's a long story. I'll tell you the full version sometime, but we saved each other's lives several times, and he hadn't had people telling him he was supposed to hate me for years, so there was an open-mindedness there which probably helped a lot."

He nods slowly. "And so, that thing that came in here and…" he waves a hand at the wrecked apartment.

"The Minotaur. Like in the Theseus myth. Your father killed it on his way into camp for the first time. And that's why we – that's why I kept this world from you. As soon as you know who you are, who you really are, your scent grows stronger and more monsters find you. It grows stronger anyway as you get older, but once you know, your only real option is to go to camp, where they can train you to survive. You'd be in much more danger… and I'd have to say goodbye to you."

"Goodbye?"

"With powerful demigods, it's sometimes too dangerous for them to leave camp much. I can visit, but I have too much to do out here. And with your record, I can't be confident that you'll even be let out of your cabin in the mornings, let alone beyond the camp borders."

She tacks the light-hearted note onto the end of her explanation, feeling that the conversation has become uncomfortably solemn. It works, too, as Daniel cracks a smile and says "They won't know what hit them."

The smile is an achingly familiar one, just the right crooked angle and just the right amount of teeth to suggest a wildness under the good humour. It's that old troublemaker's grin that Annabeth's old lover showed so often. Dan's shown his own before, of course, but it's never made Annabeth want to cry before: it's the smile that forces her to realise that he's too much like his father in every respect to be safe outside camp.

Irony of bitter ironies, it's that same similarity that makes it so hard to let him go.

As hard as it is to lose her son, it quickly becomes apparent that Camp Half-Blood is the best thing that's ever happened to Daniel. He occasionally comes home, but more often she's the one visiting him; either way, he's always brimming full of stories of his exploits and adventures. He practically glows as he talks to her, and she doesn't know if it's because he finally has friends his own age or because his body is able to exercise to its full potential instead of being cooped up in a classroom all day or he just really likes canoeing – but it's infectious, and she finds herself smiling for the rest of the day every time they get the chance to talk.

"…so, why are you here anyway?" he asks, apparently realising as he finishes a lengthy monologue on the joys of the beach that he's barely let her get a word in edgeways.

"Do I need an excuse to come and see my son?" she asks. "Are you too busy and important for your Mom now?"

"Not even close," he grins – his Dad was never embarrassed about how much he loved his mother either, she remembers absently. "But aren't you working tomorrow? I figure there are more obvious times to come visit?"

She nods reluctantly. "I'll admit this is a flying visit. There's… something I have to give you." His grin disappears, and she hastens to reassure him. "Don't worry, it's nothing bad. It was just… it was your Dad's." Her hand dips into her pocket and brings out the item she's driven here to give to him.

He frowns. "That's your desk pen. The one you never let me use?"

"Like I say, it was your Dad's. And I should have given it to you when you first left, but everything happened all at once and I wasn't thinking straight, and… I don't know."

"Hey, Mom, slow down. What's up?"

She lets her mouth form a wry smile. It's only been a few weeks since he arrived at camp and he's grown so much that he's the one looking after her now. "Chiron gave your Dad this when he left on his first quest, one that I went on too. I'll tell you all about it when there's more time, if Grover doesn't first. The point is, this saved both our lives on that quest, and then again over the years that followed, more times than I can count. Hopefully it'll be as helpful for you. I hope you never have to use it properly, but I'd rather have you alive than innocent, so… here."

He's wearing a baffled smile. "Mom… it's a pen."

She sighs. "Let me guess. None of the weapons from the camp store seem to fit you well? They're all off-balance or too clumsy to use quickly?"

"How-"

"Your father was the same. Try this one. Take the cap off."

He takes it slowly, strangely unwilling, for someone who so readily accepted that the Greek gods were real, to believe that it could be anything more than just a pen. He flicks the lid off, and marvels at the gleaming bronze blade that grows before him, breathing a name that Annabeth hasn't heard in years.

"Anaklusmos."

"You know what it means?"

He shakes his head, and the idea that he's able to read Ancient Greek runes but not translate the words' meanings is almost enough to make Annabeth laugh.

"It means Riptide," she tells him.

Their lives are absurd, but at least he's equipped to live his properly now.

Five years seem to go slowly while they're happening, but when they're over, she looks back and asks where the time went.

Daniel's grown into the leader that his father once was, leading several successful quests and winning the respect and friendship of everyone in Camp Half-Blood. He's the Poseidon cabin counsellor, one of only two residents with a daughter who arrived a week after his eighteenth birthday, and his mother knows that in every meeting he works hard to keep the camp running as smoothly as possible. He even called her in to help set up a Summer exchange program with Camp Jupiter that seems to be drastically improving Greek-Roman relations.

There's even a daughter of Hermes – Annabeth's pretty confident her full name's Andromache, but everyone calls her Andy – who is almost certainly interested in being more than just friends, although bearing in mind that it took the end of the world for Annabeth to get a serious relationship, she's willing to wait a little longer before taking her son's love life into her own hands.

Up until now, she's been grateful that he's never had to face the kind of evil that his parents fought two decades ago, but a few rushed Iris messages recently and reports of skirmishes within miles of camp have her worried that something large is brewing.

She tells herself that her son has enough to deal with without his mother poking her nose in and distracting him. She does her best to stay informed and in touch without being overbearing.

Thalia drops by to mention that she's worried about an army of monsters that's massing at the northern end of Jersey.

Storm clouds gather over the Empire State Building.

Annabeth, for her part, works frantically during the day and spends her evenings and weekends anxiously twiddling her thumbs and staring at a TV that never shows anything worth watching.

It's the week before Daniel's birthday that three dracaenae break into her apartment and try to take her captive. She kills them easily enough, but realises that she can't put it off for any longer: she has to return to Camp Half-Blood today. Before it's too late.

She makes the long drive there, her knuckles white against the wheel and her wheels spraying water head-high as the car ploughs through puddles on the road, desperate to reach her son before any news can justify the fear in her bones.

The rain pouring out of the heavens makes visibility poor, but she drives as fast as she safely can, and when that's too slow, even faster. Speed limits are just one more obstacle between her and her son. Long Island seems so much longer than it ever has been before, other drivers more numerous, and the roads narrower and twistier. Her hands are numb by the time she turns the engine off and stumbles out at the edge of Half-Blood Hill. The sea beyond is spasming as though trying to break out of the limits imposed by the beach, lifting and writhing in huge waves for as far as the eye can see. Annabeth sees this and remembers the last time the ocean behaved so illogically, flooding half of the Eastern seaboard in its grief.

She knows what has happened now, but she has to see for herself.

The walk up the hill is the hardest it has ever been. The mud and water running down it make the climb difficult enough, and she slips multiple times as she makes the ascent, and a glittering dust she recognises all too well coats the area, but worse than all those is the fact that she knows she does not want to see what the other side has to offer her.

Eventually though, she makes it, into the magically protected circle where the ground is firm and dry beneath her feet and the sun inexplicably shines from a blue sky above.

She doesn't stop to shake the water from her hair as she makes her way towards the small crowd of bloodied demigods that has congregated in the middle of the camp. Reaching them, she begins pushing through, but then they recognise her and part to give her a clear route to the body lying in their centre.

Andy, the daughter of Hermes, is squatting next to him, and looks up at his mother with tears in her eyes. "He saved us," she gasps out between sobbing breaths. "He was a hero."

In that moment, it all makes sense to Annabeth, though that sense is not strong enough to stop her from screaming herself hoarse at the lifeless corpse in front of her.

After all, he was so much like his father: from the colour of his hair to the way he never quite fit in with mortals to the way the Greek world burst unheralded into his life to the way he finally found a real home at Camp Half-Blood.

So it only made sense that Daniel would die a hero's death, because so did Percy, and it only made sense that Daniel would never see his twentieth birthday, because neither did Percy.

It only made sense.

And how can man die better

Than by facing fearful odds

For the ashes of his fathers

And the temples of his gods?

I Am Definitely Jeff Bridges and I am here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff.