Chapter 3 – Back to Sally

Percy would've asked how Apollo knew what size clothes he wore, but then he remembered that he was a god.

It's hard to wrap your mind around, he thought, as he got dressed and left his room.

"My dad's a god." He whispered quietly to himself. My dad's a god. My DAD'S a GOD. He continued chanting in his head.

My dad's—

"PERCY!" Apollo tapped his head like he was a coconut as he entered the kitchen. "Earth to Perce, are you there?"

"Loud and clear." He grumbled. "Unfortunately."

"Hey! You made your first joke!" Apollo grinned.

"Nope, I was telling the truth."

The sun god playfully frowned before handing him a bowl and utensils. "Okay, eat up, kid."

The son of Poseidon took the bowl and sat down at the kitchen table, before he stared blankly at Apollo. It was empty.

"Oh," Apollo laughed. "Say what you want and it shall appear, young grasshopper."

Percy shook his head at all the weird nicknames before he began to think about what he wanted to eat for breakfast. "Oatmeal." He finally said.

Magically, wet oatmeal appeared in the bowl and he smiled, impressed.

Apollo gave him a strange look before digging into his own breakfast consisting of eggs, toast and ambrosia. "You could have anything you want for breakfast—ice cream, cookies—but you choose oatmeal. Fantastic."

Percy wondered if he could just keep piling things in his bowl, so he asked for some carrots, and lo and behold, it appeared just the way he imagined it.

"You're eating all of that."

Percy didn't eat all of it. He hated carrots and he hated it on his oatmeal and so in the end, Apollo fed it to the rabbits that lived in Demeter's garden.

Afterwards, Apollo decided to show Percy around on Olympus. However, to not get spotted, both of them put on cloaks—Percy insisted on sunglasses too, claiming that it was so bright outside—that covered their faces and made them look like inconspicuous, unimportant minor gods.

"Do all these people really live here?" It seemed to Percy that there were so many minor gods—hundreds, or more—and they seemed to roam around aimlessly, doing trivial and ungodly stuff. It's not to say that they weren't important, because Percy thought they were (everyone was, in his eyes), but they surely didn't act important.

"Yup, some of them share households, or have their own, but they all live here like a human community." Apollo explained. "Very humanly of us, I suppose, eh?"

They left the farmer's market (Apollo got annoyed at all the naiads offering a free sample of ambrosia on a stick) and arrived at an amphitheatre where a group of characters in old, ancient clothing were putting on a play.

"That's Shakespeare, y'know." Apollo pointed to a man in a royal dark red robe sitting near the stage, looking absolutely bored out of his mind. He didn't look like much. "His colours look a bit faded but oh well, that's probably because he's rented out of the Underworld so much. I don't even know why he still does it though; he lives in Elysium for gods' sakes."

Percy took this all in stride and nodded in agreement.

For the rest of the day, Apollo showed Percy around Olympus and all the different and wonderful places that existed and activities that the gods did in their free time.

Finally, it was 7:13pm and the sun was beginning to set. Percy and Apollo walked through the streets of Olympus, with bright green Greek fire lamps lighting up the scenery in a kind of eerie sense.

"Apollo," Percy asked as he twiddled with his thumbs. "How come you aren't making the sun set? Doesn't that contradict your role as the sun god?"

'Contradict?' Apollo mouthed to himself with a surprised look. How did a ten year old know such big words? "Well, I can put my sun chariot on auto so that it drives itself, since I can't be driving for all 12 hours of the day—that'd be boring."

"So you don't have to do anything?" Percy raised his eyebrow.

Apollo smirked. "Ah, but Zeus prefers me to ride it when I can because it's a lot more accurate and if a mistake is made while setting the timer, it could spook or confuse the mortals."

"Oh." they walked in silence for another five minutes. The gods and goddesses of Olympus began retreating into their homes to party or attend to their duties.

The day was for doing activities and the night was for partying in the gods' books. It was extremely fun, especially for the newer gods, and there was less responsibility involved then many people thought.

But sometimes, when he had partied for the 34th night in a row, and sweet-talked minor goddess after minor goddess (none of them he'd actually taken seriously—they were minor after all), Apollo felt tired. On those nights, he felt a longing for something, but didn't know what. Perhaps Hephaestus was right; they were becoming too human. He didn't have these kinds of pesky emotions back in Ancient Greece.

"Apollo?" Percy's quiet voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah?" he murmured.

"How does a person get off this place? How do we get back to New York?" It was posed as a simple, innocent question, but Apollo could feel the underlying stress.

They had neared the front of Olympus so Apollo decided to point out the entrance to him. "Over there," he pointed to an obscure elevator that was the height of an average person. "It's hard to see because we mostly just flash down, instead of taking the elevator. It's usually reserved for demigo—"

"Can we go?" the son of Poseidon blurted out as his fingers flicked nervously. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth at how stupidly childish he sounded. "To, uh, to my mom's apartment? She... She, ah..."

Apollo put a gentle hand on his shoulder and felt sad when the boy instinctively shirked back. "Let's take the elevator down." he said.

Together, they rode down the elevator (awful music that made Apollo cringe played), and caught a cab to the apartment in silence.

The apartment's door opened up and Sally Jackson appeared. She looked years older from when Percy last saw her, and he felt guilt-ridden because he was probably the cause.

It took a couple of seconds for Sally Jackson to recognize who was standing at her door, before she broke down into sobs and squeezed her son into the tightest hug yet. Percy relished this as he missed it sorely—the days of hugging so tight you couldn't even breathe much.

"P-Percy, my little boy!" Sally cried as she held him tight. Percy tried not to cry but his eyes felt a little wet anyway.

"SALLY!" somebody shouted from the kitchen, and Apollo saw Percy stiffen up. Was this the Gabe he had heard about? Percy's mother quickly dried her tears and composed herself before giving a small smile to Apollo.

"Please, come in, Lord Apollo." She said.

The sun god gaped for a quick moment before entering. How did a mortal recognize a god that they didn't even meet before? Poseidon had picked a smart woman, that was for sure.

They entered the kitchen and Apollo tried to hide his disgust as he smelled the man's odour. So this was how Percy was hidden all these years, he thought.

"Sally, who's this?" he muttered gruffly as he sat at the kitchen table.

"Gabe, this is Apollo. He brought Percy back, isn't that great?" Sally tried to smile.

Percy scrunched up his face as a show of detestation, but otherwise acted as if it was normal to be missing for a week or two, and then come back without so much as a welcome back. Percy casually drank a cup of milk before going to watch TV.

Apollo was disgusted. These were the people who gave guys a bad rep. These were the people who his sister hated with a passion; ones who treated people horribly for no reason.

"So the brat's back," Gabe drawled sarcastically. "Fantastic."

Rage coursed through the sun god's veins and without even thinking about it, he had Gabe against the wall, his hand around the man's stubby neck. It did not take much strength at all, this mortal was slow and sluggish. "Shut up. Shut. Up."

He had only been in Percy's presence for a short amount of time but Percy didn't deserve this shit, if anything.

Gabe sneered. "You have outstayed your welcome. Get out."

"No," Apollo gritted as he tightened his hold on him. "I think you have outstayed your welcome. I will send you to the Underworld in the fields of Asphodel where you will stay there for eternity, doing nothing; thinking nothing. And even that, is merciful."

Gabe could not say anything before a blinding gold light surged from Apollo's hands and engulfed him. There was a loud buzzing sound that came with the strong use of power, and then it disappeared, as did Gabe. It was silent, and there was a faint mark on the ground from the heat. That was the end of Gabe Ugliano making trouble.

"That's not fair." Apollo whipped his head around to see Percy staring at him with swirling sea-green eyes. He was sitting on the couch, the National Geographic channel on in the background. "He was just a mortal and you are a god and that is not fair." Percy stared at him with an unreadable face for a moment before deciding to turn around and continue to watch TV.

The sun god thought that Percy would have been grateful; Gabe must have treated him like crap for a long time. Why was he not grateful?

Sally went over and softly led him to a kitchen chair. Apollo did not realise he was shaking. He had, of course, killed mortals before and sometimes for petty reasons, but Percy's look resonated with him. He didn't know what it was, but did he see fear and disgust in his eyes? Apollo did not know, but he let the thought float away and settled on the present again.

"Thank you, and I am sorry about Percy. He's different." She sat across from him and gave him a small, but surely warm, smile. Sally didn't seem as disturbed as Percy did, and maybe, she didn't view him as a monster.

Apollo nodded distractedly. "He sure is."

The two adults looked at each other, glanced at the son of Poseidon, and then looked at each other again. Apollo could see that Sally Jackson was young, maybe in her mid-thirties, and yet she had faint wrinkle lines on her face as if she were holding a cumbersome burden. Her dark brown hair and ocean blue eyes differed greatly from Percy's—his were basically a carbon copy of Poseidon—, but he could distinguish some features that both family members possessed—it was more subtle than colour, but still there. Their nose was the same build, as were the angles of their chins, and he could go on.

"I'm sorry." he finally murmured. Did they even want Gabe gone? It seemed like a rash decision now, and he had never really minded making rash, sometimes stupid, decisions—until now. Now, it felt wrong.

"No, no, thank you for protecting us and for bringing Percy back. Grover… Grover and Chiron, they told me…" Sally began tearing up before she composed herself again. "I didn't know what happened to him."

Apollo reached across the table and grabbed Sally's hand in awkward comforting—he was not used to doing these sort of things.

"Poseidon came to see Percy yesterday, but he's busy with some skirmishes in Atlantis at the moment," Apollo offered. "Although I'm sure he would have wanted to come."

Sally swallowed the lump in her throat, fiercely trying to push down her emotions at the mention of her dearly missed god.

"He... We were thinking of secretly raising Percy on Olympus, so we could train him. Something is stirring, Sally." Apollo frowned grimly. "Something very dark, and all my instincts are telling me it will revolve around your son."

Ms. Jackson couldn't take it anymore, she let out her tears, and Apollo felt awful. He didn't know what to do, so they just sat there in complete silence—sans Sally's crying—for a couple of minutes. Percy looked over a few times in concern, but thought it was best to not interfere. He seemed to become more jittery at the sound of his mother's woes.

Finally, she said, "With Gabe gone, he will not be safe here. And he will need all the training he can get."

"We will visit you when we can. Poseidon and I, we're gonna protect him, I swear, okay?" He would say anything to not see the same pain that he had often felt when he couldn't visit his own kids or be a normal parent.

Sally nodded slowly as her tears began to subside. She yawned loudly, and so Apollo led her upstairs into her bedroom and set her down. He went back downstairs and found Percy asleep on the couch, the TV still turned on. The little guy was drooling and he was sprawled all over the place. Apollo decided to take the kid upstairs and set him beside his mother. It was the least he could do for them, before they had to be separated once again when dawn arrived.

Out on the terrace, Apollo could see the never-sleeping city in all its night glory. Cars were still busily driving through the streets and lights were still on. However, down there was not what he came out here for. He expanded his godly aura so that it could reach farther places and be detected easily. Then, he waited.

"Apollo."

Apollo turned around and plastered on an annoying smirk. "Little sis, glad you could come."

Artemis put her hand on her hip and glared at him. Her silver hunter clothes glowed faintly in the dark and her usual auburn hair was fiery. Apollo remembered that she used to have silver-ish hair in a ponytail when she was younger. "Do you have something important to say, brother? I was in the middle of driving my chariot."

"What, I can't say hello to my little sister from time to time?" a smile was playing on his lips. Being annoying was fun, and whenever he was around his sister, his teasing side always seemed to just come out naturally.

The goddess of the hunt groaned. "For the last time, I'm older than you!" she paused and looked around, before scrunching her face up. "Are you... Did you seriously call me here at your lover's apartment?"

The sun god rolled his eyes before shrugging non-commitedly with a devious smirk. Inside though, he was annoyed that she would automatically come to that assumption. It wasn't even true, but if she wanted to think that, he would let her.

Artemis blanched at the thought. "If you haven't called me for an important reason, I'm going to take my leave now. Stop wasting my time, okay?" she grumbled irritatedly. She jumped with both feet onto the railing of the terrace, and then gracefully stood up, balancing easily.

"Wait." Apollo called out into the darkness. "Be careful...little sister." he added to keep up the playful demeanour. "Something's happening."

"I can feel it too, but it is a little ways off, I think." Artemis' eyes softened a fraction as she glanced at him sideways. "You be careful too, I don't want to waste my time saving your ass."

Hi guys! Thank you so much for reviewing last chapter, I read all of them and I am so thankful to you guys.

Just thought we should get more personal since this is fanfiction, not a real novel, and I want to get to know you guys better, so I've decided to come up with a CQD - Curious Question of the Day, which you can choose to answer in the comment, and I'll also add my answer too! Also, feel free to PM me and give in suggestions to what you want to happen, although I must want you, I already have a few future chapters written, since I'll be busy soon. Also you guys can suggest a curious question of the day too so that i can announce it to everybody. Just thought this might be a little fun :)

Winter break is almost over [which makes me so very sad], and I have exams and seminars to do over the break, so my Curious Question of the Day is:

What grade/education are you currently doing right now and do you have exams after the break is over, or did you already have it in December?

Please answer in the comments section and I look forward to reading your responses! Updates will follow asap, thanks!

P.S: Sorry this chapter might seem like a downer, but I swear, it will get happier and more action-packed later, just stay tuned. Also, pairings will be decided in the future with polls.

January 3, 2013