'Praetors work closely together. It's common for them to become romantically involved.' -Reyna, The Son of Neptune

Blue

"What are you doing?" Reyna asked, an amused lilt to her tone as she watched her fellow Praetor carefully pick out the blue jellybeans from the huge pile in the bowl in front of him and place them into the other bowl next to him.

Percy didn't look up from his task as he replied, "What does it look like I'm doing?"

Reyna raised an eyebrow at his tone. It was flat, a sharp contrast to his usual cheerfulness. "Why so glum?" She asked, lowering herself next to him. Both were on the sofa in the living room of Percy's Praetor house, Reyna having come to check up on him when she realised that she hadn't heard anything from him the whole day.

He looked up for a moment, green eyes cloudy, "It's my mom's birthday today." He offered no further explanation as he went back to his task, and Reyna pursed her lips together in annoyance.

"For Zeus' sake, what is the matter with you and blue food? You even refuse to eat unless the aurae bring you something in the appropriate shade!" She said, annoyed at being ignored.

"It's a long story," Percy said with a shrug, still not looking up from his task.

Sensing the shift in mood, Reyna tilted her head to the side, looking at her black-haired counterpart carefully, "I've got the time." She said softly.

He studied her for a few moments, his green eyes churning with a dozen different emotions before he finally spoke. "My mom is the best person in the world. She's brave, beautiful, kind, understanding. She never got angry at me, even when I kept getting kicked out of school. My dad- Poseidon- called her a Queen among woman," he said, expression faraway, remembering, "And she was. She is." He paused for a moment, and then his eyes darkened, expression twisting into something very dangerous, "She married a man named Gabe Ugliano- Smelly Gabe, I used to call him," Percy spat out his name, and Reyna almost flinched at the amount of hatred in his tone. "He was scum.

"He was nice to us for a bit, but the moment Mom signed the marriage papers, he became a world-class bastard. He treated us- treated her like shit. But I never realised-" and here, his fists were clenched so tightly together his knuckles turned white, "I always thought she was just clumsy. That was what she told me, and that was what I believed. Now, looking back on it, I was so fucking stupid. I should have known that there were only so many times you could hit your head on the cupboard, or cut yourself on a letter opener. Fuck, he didn't even let her read letters before he 'screened' them for her." His upper lip curled into a snarl.

"I had no idea why she stayed with him. It wasn't for the money- Zeus, the bastard didn't even go to work! All he did all day was bum around at home and gamble with his poker buddies and buy cigars and beer with the money she earned. Whenever I asked her, she would just change the subject, or make up some stupid excuse.

"It wasn't until I was 12 that I found out. Grover- he's one of my best friends, a Satyr. A Greek faun. He said Gabe smelled so bad that it covered my demigod scent, that the only reason she stayed married to that- that thing was because she was trying to protect me." He laughed a laugh that was bitter and more full of self-deprecation than anything she had ever heard before. "And look at how I repaid her. She probably can't even enjoy her own birthday properly, worrying herself sick about me right now. Personally? I think she should have just tossed me to the monsters. I wasn't worth it- I'm still not worth it."

"Don't say that," Reyna, who had been silent throughout his whole recount, couldn't hold back the lips from spilling past her lips. She continued, her voice soft but intense, "Don't ever say that you weren't worth it. Don't ever even think that. Your mother loves you so, so much. So much that she was willing to put up with that bastard for all those years because she loved you. And I have no doubt in my mind that she doesn't regret any second of it."

Percy's eyes were anguished as he looked at her, and Reyna could feel her heart breaking, "How do you know that?" His voice was rough, "How are you so sure?"

"Because," Reyna said, and she reached over to take his larger hand in her smaller ones, made him look her in the eye. Because I would do the same for you, would endures dozens of Gabes, would follow you into the deepest depths of Tartarus, spend the rest of eternity in The Fields of Punishment if it meant that you would be safe.

Aloud, she only said, "Because I would do the same for someone I loved." And hoped that her eyes were saying what she could not.

He looked at her, just looked at her, and then, "I didn't answer your question," his voice was soft, "My mom got into an argument with him- he said that there was no such thing as blue food or drink. From then on, she went out of her way to make everything blue to prove him wrong. Blue pancakes, blue candy, blue cookies. Everything. That was the only sign I ever had that he hadn't sucked all the life out of her, that she was still capable of rebelling against him. That she was something like me."

Reyna noted that he had been careful not to speak Gabe's name again. Instead of voicing this out loud, she just said, "I would love to meet her one day. If you would let me."

The sides of his lips quirked upwards.

"I'd like that."

Guys I don't even know ohkay. It wasn't supposed to turn out like this gosh I can't even go back and re-read it.

Urgh. Anyway, I apologise for the delay in chapter but I've been super busy with my upcoming exams. (they're in less than two weeks what am I doing writing fanfiction) And I don't know. I hope you guys like it. And the next update probably won't be until I finish my exams, so… Uhm. Yeah. Do leave a review and let me know what you guys think!