Percy would be lying if he said he wasn't nervous.
He'd always had a good – no, great relationship with his mom, but somehow as he sat on the subway, riding across his hometown, he couldn't help but feel agitated.
He hadn't seen his mom and Paul in a year. An entire twelve months of his life without his closest parent. How would she react? Percy was ninety percent sure she'd be furious, and then very happy. But he couldn't be certain.
He shut his eyes, gripping the bridge of his nose between two fingers. He'd get this crushing feeling in his lungs sometimes, when he was feeling tired or worried. A couple of the Apollo campers had said it was PTSD as a result of his time in Tartarus, and one of the Hypnos kids had given him and Annabeth some meditation exercises to do – not that he had tried them out, because Percy honestly doubted he'd have the patience or the attention span.
All too soon, the train pulled into the station and Percy walked slowly up the stairs, dragging his feet along the almost alien roads of New York. It's not that he didn't want to go home – in fact, he'd been dying to see his mom for ages – but now that he was back, breathing in the scent of his city, the traffic, the coffee, the hype of it all, he couldn't help but want to just sit and revel in it.
He pushed onwards, and wished that Annabeth was with him. She had offered to come if he wanted the company, but Percy had thought that this was something he should do alone. He was his mom's only kid. He hated to think of the nightmares she must have had; of a dead Percy, killed by some god, eaten by a monster, vaporised by an enemy…
If Percy was a dad, he would have gone ballistic by now.
When he finally turned the corner and arrived at his mom's apartment, he paused to stare. It was just as he remembered it: her flat was two floors up and even from where he was stood, he could see the potted plants in the window and the blue curtains on either side of it. His lip twitched, and he put his key, which he had found under his bed at Camp Half Blood, in the lock.
It was as if a spark of excitement had been triggered by him opening the door. He bounded down the corridor in two strides, taking the stairs three at a time and leaping over the landings until he came to a halt outside his mom's navy blue door.
He rang the doorbell.
For a minute, nothing happened. No sounds, no talking, nothing. Percy reckoned it would be just his luck that Paul and his mom were both out when he arrived.
Then, footsteps. Light ones, padding across the wooden floor and the welcome mat to the door. A pause – she must have been looking through the peephole.
The door flew open and whacked into the wall. Sally Jackson stood in the entrance, an indecipherable expression on her face.
Percy raised a hand. "Uh, hey?" He paused, wondering just how to go about this. "I'm back."
Before he could say anything else that was equally as stupid, he was enveloped in her embrace. She was just how he remembered: small, skinny, but warm, and with that sugary scent of blue jelly beans and fresh cookies. A lump rose in his throat, and he gulped to shove it down.
"Perseus Jackson," his mother began, pulling away just enough so that she could get a good look at his face. Her hands rested on either side of his head, searching for battle scars and cuts and gods knows what else. She took a deep breath. "Don't you ever, ever, leave like that again."
Another pause, in which Percy digested her words. A small smile appeared on his face, and soon it was a full out laugh. "Mom," he said, stifling giggles, "You sound just like Annabeth."
Ten minutes later, he was sitting across her at the kitchen table, clutching a mug of hot chocolate and beginning his long story. Paul was out, his mom had said, teaching. Percy had totally forgotten that it was a school day.
"So," he said, "Some new friends. A lot to take in. There's Jason, Hazel, Frank – all from the Roman side. Camp Jupiter."
His mom blinked. "Another camp. And you went there?"
He nodded. "And then Piper and Leo. Annabeth, of course."
"The seven."
He raised his eyebrows. He really had to give her more credit. "Yeah. So it all started with Hera putting me to sleep for six months…"
He began the tale. His mom barely flinched at the mention of Gaia and the giants, and was stone-faced throughout the entire 'no contact with the gods' part. She wasn't even phased by Jason being Thalia's long lost brother, Leo having fire powers, Frank shape-shifting or Hazel coming back from the Underworld.
She paced around the kitchen as he spoke, drinking in his words while spooning cookie dough onto a baking tray. Percy watched her movements with something akin to awe. He hadn't realised until now how much he'd missed her.
"I got your call," she said, when he came to a pause in the story.
"My call?"
"You rang from Alaska, I think," she continued, taking a seat across from him. "I got a voicemail."
"Oh, yeah," he mumbled. He felt awful for forgetting. He'd tried to Iris Message her a few times while aboard the Argo II, but the connection had always been terrible.
She smiled at him, and suddenly he was a little kid again, sitting next to her on the beach at Montauk and eating saltwater taffy and blue tortilla chips.
"Continue," she said, and he did.
The first time he saw tears in her eyes was, predictably enough, at the fall.
"You…you…"
"Yeah. We kind of went to hell."
"Percy," she sighed, and she leaned forwards to take his hand. He gripped it and tried to strengthen his voice as he talked about his time in Tartarus with Annabeth. He glossed over some bits and skipped ahead slightly, talking about the end. The final battle.
"But he's okay now? Leo?"
He almost laughed at the amount of concern in her voice. She really was the best person he knew. "Yeah, Leo's fine. He's at camp now, actually."
His mom nodded. "Good. So…what now?"
"Now we eat cookies."
She laughed, a sound like musical chimes and Percy wondered if he'd almost forgotten how that sounded.
She placed a fresh plate in front of him and the mouth-watering scent wafted up to his nose. He grinned. "Thanks, Mom."
His mom sat back opposite him and raised an eyebrow. "I meant what are your plans. Or Annabeth's," she added with a smirk.
"Hey!" He said in mock outrage. "I plan too…sometimes."
"She came to see me, you know," she said, her expression turning dark for a moment. "To update me on the search."
"She's good like that," Percy said, smiling fondly. "The plan is to do our senior year together and then go to college."
"College?"
"In New Rome," he said. "I'm pretty excited about it, actually. I've talked to Reyna and she said it's totally cool as long as I pass the tests."
His mom's face split into the widest smile he'd seen in a long, long time. "I'm so proud of you, Percy." She stood and moved round the table to hug him just as he finished his last cookie.
He rose from his seat and wrapped his arms around her. He wondered when he had gotten so tall, or maybe she was shrinking, because he towered over her now more than he ever had before and he was pretty sure that his arms were twice the width of hers.
As she hugged him closer and he breathed in the smell of the cookies and this flat, he knew he was finally home.
"You're all grown up now," she mumbled into his shoulder. "You've been through so much…I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" He repeated. "None of it was your fault."
"Yes," she said, and she took his hands. "But you never asked to be a demigod."
"I guess."
No, Percy had never wanted to be a half-blood. Sometimes, it really did suck. You could die pretty easily, and more often than not, you would. A god could curse you for no reason, you could get squashed by a Cyclops. You could even be trapped in a casino for sixty years without realising it.
Then again, he thinks, being a half-blood wasn't so bad. You made some really good friends who you would literally go to hell and back for. You learnt a lot more than your basic algebra, and sometimes you felt good about yourself. Especially if you had an amazing girlfriend who called you an idiot on a daily basis.
Being a half-blood was actually okay. Percy had been through a lot, but he had the closest family a son of Poseidon could possibly ask for. Even the death threats, the cryptic prophecies and the schizophrenic gods all seemed alright if you had a good group of friends to back you up that included a girl who could get BMWs for free just by asking really nicely and a kid who could summon the dead.
At the end of it all, Percy was happy.