Only one review? All well.

Chapter 2

Hello Raymond

Well, note to self: don't ever not-listen to a girl when they're wearing high heals, pointy toes, or hard shoes. But, I am getting ahead of myself. But, because I don't feel like explaining everything, I will only summarize what happened when we got to Colorado Springs. Almost as soon as I stopped –somewhere near the Garden of the Gods- I got kicked in the stomach, soft spot, and I got my foot stomped on several times, punched in the face, arms, and slapped. Now, she was just about to punch me in the face, when two people –a man a little older then May and an elderly women- called out to May. She paused, her fist about an inch from my face and turned around.

"You're here early!" the older women exclaimed happily.

"Dad was asking about you all night! He wouldn't stop saying "when's May gonna be here, you slackers!"" the man said. The way he said "When's May gonna be here you slackers" was in some old man/country kind of a voice you would hear on TV. Neither of them noticed me yet –I was on the ground, waiting for pain to go away- when they reached May, both giving her a hug. The elderly women –whom I heard May called her mother-, got a confused look when she spotted me on the ground.

"Who's he?" she asked May, pointing at me as I pulled myself off the ground, rubbing my arm and grumbling.

Now look at what you did, Aphrodite! I have a huge bruise on my arm now, and have to put up with this abuse! I snapped at her.

Don't act like you don't like her, Hermes. I saw the way you looked at her.

Shut up.

May glared at me, like it was my fault they saw me.

"He's…..just some guy who helped me get here earlier." She told her mother.

"What's his name?" she cocked her head to May, and for some reason, I started to think of puppies.

"Raymond." May said. "His name is Raymond."

What annoyed me was one, one of my kids name was Raymond and he had worked with the police for a while until he was shot in the line of duty –the guy who shot him was punished by me in the worst way I could think of without showing who I really was-, and that they were talking about me like I wasn't even here.

"What a nice name. Does he like peanut butter?" She asked.

"Mom, I don't think that's something people ask very often…." May replied, shooting me a questioning look.

"Im allergic to peanut products. Well, not allergic, but they make me sick most of the time…." Well, that wasn't a lie. Im not allergic, but I do get sick when I eat too much of any peanut product.

"Come on in, im sure Frank would like to meet someone new!" her mother grabbed my wrist and started dragging me along, while May just hid the fact that she was laughing on the inside. I could tell by the way she was smiling. Same with one who looked like her brother. I wanted to say I was busy and couldn't stay, but then I saw why she had asked such a random question. She had a kind of disease. Not really a cancer, but more of something that affected her brain. She had some mental disease, the one so many people make fun of. I can't think of the name of it though….

I couldn't bring myself to say no to her. Anyone immortal would be able to tell that she isn't going live much longer. Im such a softy.

I nearly fell over when I saw May's father. His hair had fallen out, he was terribly pale, one eye was covered with cataracts, and he had a bunch of blankets over him. Why I nearly fell over was half-way because I felt bad that anyone should have to go through that, and half-way because I had a daughter who had gone through almost the same thing a few years back, before they had any power to help her. She died only five weeks after being diagnosed with several different kinds of cancers.

"Is that my May?" he rasped. I was actually surprised he could get that loud. Really, it was loud. Like someone raising their voice to talk to someone across the room.

"Hi daddy." May smiled and sat next to him, trying to act happy for his sake, but you could tell she wanted to cry. I don't remember much of that day. It was strange, like going back in time and seeing my daughter struggling to breathe for so long until she finally couldn't fight anymore. But this man seemed so much stronger. He laughed and talked and acted like any other man would. But everyone knew he would be sore tomorrow. Everyone knew he was slowly slipping. But I sat with him and May for a while, and listened to the stories he told. He had some pretty good ones.

"You were quieter then you were earlier." May stated as she brushed her sandy blonde hair. Much to her dislike, we had to share a room in her parent's house. Her brother had the other room. I said I could just go home or get a hotel, but her mother insisted that I stayed for a while. Apparently she had some prediction that me and May would become friends. As far as I can tell, May would want nothing more then to forget she ever met me.

"Why does it matter?" I asked plainly, trying to get my hair –which was still wet from the shower I had before dinner- to get out of my face. That's the bad thing about my hair: when it's wet, it flops down and hangs in my face until it dries and get curly again.

"You don't seem like someone to be that quiet. And you looked like you were hiding something." She stated, now taking her make-up off.

"It was just an old memory….." I wasn't sure I wanted to tell her. As I said, I can be a big softy sometimes, and I care more for my kids then most of the others….even the ones who had died –one of the Argonauts was my kid- I would still occasionally break down thinking of them. Call me a wimp and cry-baby if you want, I don't care.

"What was it a memory of?" she asked. I told her.

"I had a daughter a few years ago….at least 50 years ago if I remember correctly, who was diagnosed with all sorts of cancers, and within five months of being diagnosed, she died. Only twenty three years old, and she had one of the happiest, cheery personalities I've ever seen. She was a mother of a one year old boy, and her husband was in the Air Force, and never home to take care of his son." I took a shaking breath, determined not to break down. Not here, not now.

"That poor girl! What happened to her son?"

"He went to live with his grandmother, and when she died, he went to a foster home. His father was shot down almost right after the grandmother died."

"That must have been hard for him. Having to watch so many of his loved ones die."

"A lot of the time people don't realize how much it really hurts. The more funerals you go to, the harder it is to ever care for someone. You start to get afraid to loose someone."

"You sound like you've experienced that."

"I have. I told you, im immortal! One of the twelve Olympians. A Greek god. I've seen so many people die, that it doesn't hurt as it should. And I'd rather it did hurt…are you done in the bathroom yet?"

"Almost. I just have to finish washing my face."

"Can you do that out there?"

"No. why?"

"I have to use the bathroom."

"You can wait until im done."

"But I have to pee!"

"You're disgusting."

"It's a natural process!"

"That doesn't mean I want to know when you have to!"

"Like you've never had to go and been stopped by someone asking where you're going."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I dunno."

A few minutes later, she got out of the bathroom and went in, did what I had to (brush teeth, attempt to towel dry my increasingly annoying hair, relieve myself, and few other things that all gods who aren't spending the night on Olympus do –it's a pill we take to keep from accidentally switching to our true form during the night). When I came out, May was already climbing into the bed. Now, I was pretty used to sleeping with other people in the bed, but most of those people liked me –some were forced to, NOT by me!- but I wasn't so sure about laying down any where near her. I had learned the hard way that she kicked hard.

"You don't kick in your sleep, do you?" she asked the question I was about to ask her.

"No, I don't. Well, for the most part. I've been told I sleep like a rock. And I usually wake up in the same position I was in when I fell asleep. But if you kick me, I'll kick back." I yawned and as I crawled into the bed, stayed as far away from her as I could get without getting to close to the edge incase I rolled over and fell.

The lights went off. We both lay there for a while.

"Do you have any Tums or aspirin?" I asked.

"I don't think we do. Why?" she answered.

"Stomach hurts." I sighed. I cant begin to count how many times I've had a stomach ache. Really, out of all the gods, I have really had some bad stomach problems…..darn.

"Why does it hurt?" she asked after a while.

"I don't know. I get stomach problems sometimes…..i guess that comes with age…."

"Old man."

"Im not that old! Only a few thousand millennia!" I protested.

"Yeah, that's not old in anyway." im pretty sure she rolled her eyes.

"No, no it's not old." I stated.

MAY'S POV

Something felt warm, and soft, and….wait, what? My blankets aren't that soft…..I opened my eyes to find myself pressed against Raymond (Hermes)….who was wearing pink pajamas with rabid purple bunnies on them? I tried to look up, but found my face buried in brown, curly hair that smelled like strawberries. I rolled away and smacked his back. He didn't even twitch. I guess he does sleep like a rock. I couldn't help but smile. This was funny. He snored quietly while I got out of bed and grabbed a marker. Using the light from my phone, I drew on his face and made it looked like he had huge Harry Potter style glasses, vampire fangs, tiger strips and the muzzle, and whiskers.

I heard his stomach growl and he shifted himself a bit and curled into a ball. I snickered, and took a picture before going back to bed.

When I woke up, around nine in the morning, I found him curled closer to me now. He was facing me, still sound asleep, snoring, and it looked like he could sleep all day.

"Get up. It's nine in the morning. We were supposed to be up at seven thirty." I shook him.

"Hmnnh, six more days…." He moaned, pulling the covers closer to himself.

"You're not staying here another six days, and you're leaving today." I stated, getting off the bed and going to brush my teeth.

When I came back after brushing my teeth, I found him still asleep, the tiger face I had drawn still there.

"You're going to get me in trouble. Now get up and wash your face." I said and slapped his back again.

"Aw, but im TIRED." He whined, rolling over.

"I don't care. Get up."

He rolled over onto his back and sat up, stretching.

"Do I have to?" he yawned hugely.

"Yes, you have to get up." I growled at him.

"What if I said I was tired and never got to sleep other then one week a year?" he asked.

"You still have to get up, now stop playing games." I snapped.

"Love you too." He grumbled.

"What?" he caught me off guard with that. I looked over at him, to see his blushing madly and looking small and nervous suddenly.

"Uh…i...um-I ment…uh…" he stammered, then just smiled sheepishly at me.

I slapped him. How dare he say that to me.

"Ow! Sorry! Geez, I was just thinking of someone else!"

"Who?"

"Um….my half-sister."

"What?"

"My half-sister…..um….i cant remember her name! It started with an 'A' I think…." His face was red. What a bad liar for the god of liars.