AN: I want to thank everyone for their reviews first, and apologize for the long wait. Here is the next chapter, it is sort of short but we'll be getting into the more interesting parts next chapter. She'll be meeting Luke soon and eventually Annabeth. I hope you all enjoy this chapter, and I'll try to update a little quicker.
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Chapter 4: Mommy Dearest.
It was like hitting the rewind button, or accidentally erasing an important file. Only Percy was unsure if it was on accident or not.
Her mother had back slid so badly Percy actually got to the point she was afraid to leave the twins in her mothers care long.
By the second month Percy was doing most the smaller things. By Christmas her mother might be sober once every other week. She was just barely sober enough to take care of the twins herself.
Percy tried to always be there when she could. It was sad but she couldn't trust her mother. But had she ever truly trust her?
But time waits for no one, and despite the hardships and Percy's struggle to protect her siblings, even from their mother, months turned into years.
During these two years her mother hit all time lows and then all time highs. By the time Percy was nine she was unsure what to think. Her mother had been jumpy since Jason and Clio's second birthday in July.
Despite her better judgment she had let it go. Thinking it was simply the fact her mother hadn't truly drank more then a few glasses every other day for the last four months. A new record even for her mother.
"Sissy," Jason said, holding up his arm and Percy laughed and picked him up.
Clio was sitting on the blanket close by and glanced up when she heard her twin speak. She looked a bit unsure of what she thought seeing her big sister paying so much attention to Jason and not her. Clio was a lot like her brother, but she didn't particularly like sharing.
"Percy, stop playing with your brother and go get the picnic basket for me," Sally said, smiling almost sadly as she finished straightening out the picnic blanket.
"But mother..."
Sally sent her a stern look and Percy sighed.
"Fine," she said, and turned to go when her mother interrupted her.
"Proserpina, leave Jason here," she said.
Percy felt a strange sinking feeling in her stomach and heart but shook it away, thinking it was just the usual anxiety of leaving her siblings alone with her mother. She sighed, realizing her mother wasn't going to drop it from the look in her cobalt eyes and placed Jason on the edge of the picnic blanket.
"I'll be back," she promised and took off in a run across the park area and to the parked car.
Salane watched her daughter run off with a look of cold regret before turning back to the twins who had crawled over to one another. It was only a minute before she stood up and gathered the twins into her arms.
Golden Gate Park was rather large and she'd nearly reached the edge, away from prying eyes when the wind blew and there was a sudden flash behind her.
Turning Sally saw the beautiful woman standing, her face hard and cold as brown eyes met her blue ones. Sally wasn't all that kind with her looks either, nearly glaring at the Queen of Olympus. Though she tried to fight the urge knowing this woman could smite her without trying.
That if she didn't go through with this Hera would not only harm her and the twins but do everything in her power to kill Percy as well.
Sally was a educated woman, she remembered the stories of what Hera had done to Zeus' mortal chilren. Escpcially Heracles, and dispite all her faults Sally could not allow that to happen to her daughter.
"I see you came," Hera said, walking closer. "Good."
"Why?" Sally asked and Hera raised an eyebrow.
"Why what, mortal?" Hera asked.
"Why my children?"
Hera shook her head.
"Because it hurts you," Hera said. "It's not called tough love for nothing, think of it this way, you're doing Jason and Clio a favor in the end."
"What will become of them?"
"They''ll go to the Wolf House, be raised there by Lupa and then when they are older they'll go to Camp Jupiter with other Romans like them. Jason shall be Juno's champion, and Clio shall be mine."
Sally blinked.
"I don't understand that, Clio is Roman as well."
Hera rolled her eyes at the nosy mortal.
"So she is, but I've never had more than one champion in either form," she said. "Everyone will assume it's only Jason, but I shall keep an eye on her while Juno watches Jason."
Sally fought back a bout of anger and nodded, hesitantly handing the now sleeping twins – having been put to sleep by a very, very small amount of sleeping pill in their juice – over to Hera.
"Don't assume to be forgiven, but live with this until your dying day," Hera said and Sally looked away as the goddess flashed away with the twins.
Sally stayed there silently, a single tear falling before she left the area empty handed. By the time she returned Percy was standing at the picnic blanket, the basket on the ground on it's side and she was looking around vigorously.
When Sally's eyes met the bright electric blue ones of her daughter she felt the regret and grief hit her.
"Mom?" Percy began, and she looked around for the twins. "Where are Jason and Clio?"
"Gone," Sally said, her voice void of much emotion.
Percy stared at her blonde mother and darted forward, looking around and everyone close enough that maybe Jason and Clio could be hiding. Her eyes filled with tears when she realized they were nowhere to be seen, her mind went numb, and she turned, seeing red.
"Where are they? What did you DO!" she screamed, her hands sparking with lightning.
Sally shook her head and ignored the stinging feeling of her daughter banging her fist into her stomach in anger. She knew Percy could hurt her in she'd really been trying but she was loosing that anger which reminded Sally so much of the girls father and falling against her in grief.
"Why did you do them? Why?"
Sally could answer. She barely even moved to rub her daughters back when Percy shot away from her with a sharp glare.
"You...you'll pay for this!" Percy said and ran off back to the car, crying as she ran.
In Percy's mind there was only one thing that could have happened. Her mother had killed the twins and she'd failed. She'd promised to protect them and she'd failed.
xXx
A MONTH LATER: NOVEMBER 1996.
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Percy yelled, slamming her door shut and locking it. "I hate you!"
A month after the horrific picnic outing and Percy had once again began a fight with her mother. After that day her mother was never sober, and when she was it was like she was a zombie. Percy thought maybe it was guilt, but her anger and hate for her mother blinded her from caring.
After living with an alcoholic, after making sure her mother was taken care of and that her brother and sister weren't overly neglected like her, she'd snapped. She'd had enough.
The fight had started like usual, but this time over her missing school again, and the principles threat of expulsion for her grades.
She wasn't going, she'd had it with everything.
Running over to her closet Percy grabbed a backpack from inside and stuffed it full of clothes and junk food she'd stashed in her room – the less time she had to see her mother the better – and made sure she had her sword and spear on her person.
The last thing she grabbed was a picture frame with a picture of her and the twins.
Percy waited long enough to hear her mother hit the couch with as much alcohol as she could drink and then snuck out to the kitchen for the phone. Once back in her room she shut and locked the door and called 911.
"Please, my mom killed my brother and sister," she practically whispered once the operator answered.
She knew it was probably not smart to stay on the line longer than to say that and she was pretty sure the cops could trace the call back to the house so she hung up and tossed the phone on her bed, slung her pack over her shoulder and darted over to her window to open it.
The window faced into the back yard. Once open she kicked the screen out and slowly eased her way out. It wasn't a long drop but far enough that if she landed wrong she could break or spring her ankle.
As Percy ran off, headed in no sure direction
It was probably fifteen minutes into her runaway that she passed a speeding police car. She smirked, though she wasn't sure if they'd be able to do anything. There was no bodies and no proof, only the fact her siblings were gone, missing.
Right now she couldn't think of the past, she had to keep moving. She was more vulnerable than ever now that she was on the run. Monsters could attack at any moment, she couldn't afford to stop moving.
She decided as she ran she'd head for Los Angeles, her father had met her mother there so maybe it had some importance to being a demigod.
