When Percy is five, he wants to grow up and work in the candy shop with his mom.
She brings him home treats sometimes, red and orange and green and blue jellybeans, and they eat them together, and his mom puts on Lilo and Stitch.
"Ohana means family," he tells his mom seriously, who always smiles back tiredly. "Family means no one is left behind or forgotten."
She'll hug him then, ruffle his hair, and tuck him into bed.
When Percy is seven, he wants to grow up to be an astronaut.
It's what everyone wants to be, an astronaut or a race car driver or a pirate. Even some of the girls, but Percy doesn't talk to them because eww, cooties.
His best friend Ben told him about cooties, that he had to stay away from them or he'll get infected. Percy doesn't really understand, but Ben is really smart so he must know what he's talking about.
When he told his mom about it (Percy had asked - Ben said moms didn't have cooties), Gabe had snorted. Percy didn't like Gabe all that much, but his mom told him to be nice to Gabe, so he didn't say anything about it. Or about the strange, foul way Gabe always seemed to smell.
Seven was the age Percy was when he decided to become an astronaut. It was also the age he was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia.
"There's nothing wrong with you," his mom told him, holding him close and smiling her same old tired smile. She still brought home jellybeans from the candy shop, but now they were all blue after an argument she and Gabe had. It was okay though - Percy's favorite color was blue. "You just have to work a little harder than the other kids."
Percy nodded and hugged his mom tightly so she wouldn't see his tears.
When Percy is twelve, he wants to grow up normal.
He's moved from school to school, always being labeled as the stupid one, the punk, the troublemaker. He can't learn as fast as the other kids, and the words swim off the page and he can never sit still. He has a friend, but Grover is just as alone as he is, and he's more vulnerable.
Percy is tired. He just wants to be with his mom.
And then his world explodes, and Grover is half goat, he's the son of a Greek god, and his mom is dead.
Annabeth is his sort of friend, even though she might hate him, but no one else will talk to him except Luke, and now Percy is a weirdo in a camp of weirdos, the son of a god who wasn't supposed to have kids.
He's a little angry about that - How is it his fault for being born?
So he gets a sword, a prophecy, a bunch of pressure to stop a war and then he goes on a quest. He fights a monster, blows up a monument, travels to the Underworld and then to Olympus. He returns Zeus's master bolt but he didn't save his mom, and somehow feels like he failed even when the rest of camp is in celebration.
Luke betrays him and he almost dies, and not for the first time he wonders what it might've been like if he'd been a regular kid. But this is his life now, like it or not, and at least he's got Grover and Annabeth to watch his back.
(Annabeth is kinda pretty, don't tell anyone)
When Percy is fourteen, he wants to grow up and become a hero.
The last couple of years have been weird, yeah, but he's got a (half) brother and a lot of friends, and he's used to be the hero of the Great Prophecy, which scared him before, but now that he isn't anymore, now that Thalia's here, he can't help but feel a little unneeded.
They told him for two years he was going to be a hero and now that he's not he's feeling a bit bitter, sue him.
And Annabeth (Who is getting to be all kinds of beautiful. And smart, and sarcastic, and kind, and really really athletic - Um. Where was he?) is missing and then he's not part of the quest to save her, so he sneaks out. And is almost immediately caught.
So he wants to be a hero. Isn't that what every demigod wants? A chance to save people and make a difference?
(No, a little voice says in the back of his mind. Most just want to stay alive.)
Before he leaves on the quest, he makes a promise to Nico di Angelo that he isn't sure he can keep. And then he can't keep it, and Bianca di Angelo is dead.
Honestly, he feels kind of numb. Bianca is- She's the first one- Percy wasn't able to save her. He's dealt with death before, seen it, but this is his fault. It's too real, too personal.
He carries the weight of the world (Well. Sky.) on his shoulders and can't save Zoe Nightshade either. It's not any easier.
Thalia is a Hunter of Artemis now, and Percy is the hero of the prophecy again, but it feels less then it did before. Percy feels empty, and tired.
(When he looks in mirror he sees his mother's tired smiles from when he was young.)
When Percy is sixteen, he is not the hero of the prophecy, and most of his friends die.
Too many. It's too many, and the King of Olympus is telling him he could be made immortal, his father's lieutenant, and there's a funny look on Annabeth's face, and -
"No."
Percy thinks of Luke Castellan, of Ethan, and all the unclaimed kids in the Hermes cabin. He thinks of the demigods who still live in the mortal world, running from monsters because there isn't a cabin for them at Camp Half-Blood.
Ohana means family, and family means no one is left behind or forgotten.
Percy wanted to work with his mom when he was five, and he wanted to be an astronaut when he was seven. He wanted to be normal when he was twelve, and a hero when he was fourteen. Percy is sixteen now, and to save a friend he would destroy the world, and his life is darker and brighter than he ever thought it would be.
It isn't the end of his story. In a few months, he'll be whisked away to sleep among the wolves, and the son of Jupiter will wake up on a bus in New Mexico. In a little less than a year, he'll be the hero of two Great Prophecies and more scarred than he's ever been. But for now, he'll give a home to kids who've never had one before, and he'll give them a family too.
Maybe that's all he ever really needed to do, anyway.
I don't know. I wrote this, thought why not, and now I'm posting it. I'll probably regret this tomorrow, because if this isn't a crappy piece of 2 am writing then I don't know what is. Enjoy. Comment if you can. Okay.