The way that mortals love is often as capricious and fleeting as the creatures themselves. There is that spark they have which most gods find so intoxicating, of course, but sparks are easily extinguished. And gods have perfected the art of sweeping the ashes under the bed.

Yet a part of Poseidon still loves Sally Jackson. Maybe because she is the mother of his favourite son. Or maybe because she is one of the few women who have ever refused him. He'd offered her a palace, after all, and she opens the door to him in a Sweet on America uniform.

She looks…tired. Exhausted, actually. Drained. Trying to decide on the correct synonym for the fact that his world is slowly ruining this woman helps distract him from what he's come here to do.

"Where is he?" Unlike the last time he turned up here, there's no shock, no stuttering. Her fists ball at her sides, and for a second it seems like she's about to launch herself at him, drag answers out of him with her fingernails if she has to. "Tell me he's all right, Poseidon, or so help me—"

Threatening a god. She isn't afraid of him, has never been afraid of him. Perhaps that is what drew him to her in the first place. Poseidon had planned on asking if she wanted to sit down, first, but one look at the fire roaring behind those tired blue eyes tells him that Sally Jackson will take this news standing up.

"I can't," he says simply, sadly. It sounds trite, really. But how do you tell the mother of your child that he's in hell? None of the Greeks are particularly skilled at parenting, but Poseidon is fairly sure there's not a book for that, even in their world. "Annabeth Chase fell into Tartarus. Percy—"

"Stop." Her fingers curl into the doorframe; she sways slightly, but doesn't fall.

No one knows Percy better than his mother. Not Poseidon, not even Annabeth Chase. That knowledge saves him from having to actually speak the words.

Those blue eyes of hers are a part (a very small part) of what drew him to this woman when no other mortal had prompted him to break his vow, before or since. Ever changing, as fascinating and deep as the oceans he rules over. But Poseidon has never ruled over Sally Jackson, and those eyes are as hard and grey as steel.

"Why are you here?"

Why is he here? It's not just that this is a task that could have been relegated to someone else, some messenger that wouldn't have felt all too mortal from the thrust of that piercing stare. Zeus has forbidden contact between Olympus and the mortals, and while others have bent (or snapped, or stomped all over) that edict, Poseidon has remained – begrudgingly – steadfast. Until now.

On the other hand, it's not like he hasn't broken oaths for this woman before. And there is a raw, bleeding place in his soul that tells him he will risk a confrontation with his brother to ensure she isn't forced through this situation after the hands of sound unfeeling immortal, or kept from the news entirely. She deserves that much. Percy, his son, deserves that much.

So that is what he tells her. "It's been months. And the reason for silence with regards to his whereabouts has passed. You deserve—"

"No, I mean why are you here?" Sally Jackson, it seems, doesn't care about what she deserves right now. She steps forward, over the threshold of her apartment. And Poseidon, who has stood firm against threats beyond mortal imagining, steps back. "Annabeth fell into Tartarus and Percy jumped after her, and you're here telling me about it?

His first reaction is confusion, maybe even a little bit of offence. What does she expect from him? Following Percy into Tartarus is out of the question—

To a god. But not to this woman. It's only now that Poseidon realises he may have made a mistake in coming here.

"The gods don't go to Tartarus, Sally." He tries to say it as gently as he can, impress upon her the importance of that.

She scoffs. "So you'll send your enemies there to be punished, and you don't even go to gloat? My son is in hell, and what I deserve, the only thing that you can do about it, is to tell me?" There are tears in those steel eyes, but they only serve to quench that blade. "You stand here on my doorstep, with all your godly power, and say that you can't save one sixteen year old boy and his girlfriend?"

Rage surges in him, as primal and powerful as the tides. "He is our son, and if you think there is something I wouldn't do, were it possible—"

"He's my son." The words cut across his, cool and crisp and like nothing he has ever heard before from this woman. "Because any real parent wouldn't let the gods, or hell, or the earth herself stop them from saving their child."

And just like that, the seas calm. Because what can he say that that? His eyes close briefly, a god somehow unable to face a mortal in this instant. "It's not my place."

One hand unclenches from the door frame, comes up to cover her mouth as though she can't trust her tongue alone to sit on what might slip out. Poseidon had watched as she turned the Medusa head on Gabriel Ugliano. And that same lack of forgiveness sets her expression now as she simply shuts the door on him.