Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson Series or any of it's characters. I will hint around some of the events that have transpired in the books but anything I write will be my version of events.

AN: In my version, Percy knows who his dad is because he's met him once when he was little, saw him a few times with Sally and has had more practice with his powers. So the events at school will be a little different and when he gets home the entire plot will differ from the books. I hope you enjoy, favorite and review please!

I wasn't an idiot contrary to popular belief, I knew that Nancy was hurting Grover to get to me because she wanted a fight. She wanted the attention because she didn't get enough of it from everyone else, so by fighting with her I would give her what she wanted. Even trying to protect him would give her what she wanted, she purposefully made her sandwhiches out of the weirdest and grossest combinations to hurl at kids. Today it was ketchup and peanut butter. "I'm going to kill her if I ever get the chance, Grover I swear to the gods..."

Grover tensed as he heard me mention the gods as he always did though I had no idea why, he was a mortal and as far as I could tell a complete atheist. He didn't make that face whenever someone else talked about them..."You'll get in even more trouble than you already have, you need to relax. Besides, I like peanut butter." He tried to smile but it was hard to be happy with sandwiches in your hair.

I was quiet the entire trip to the museum as Grover begged me not to start any fights. I was quiet when Nancy made inappropriate jokes about the art in the Greek Exhibit, I answered Mr. Brunner's question when he asked and I stayed quiet as everyone else gagged over the mustard and wine comment. I was quiet when we went out to eat on the steps even though it was hot and no one wanted to be outside, I was quiet when Nancy started calling insults our way. But when she dumped her lunch in Grover's lap, I had to keep my breathing steady. I glared at her when she made some comment over how I was too scared to fight for him, a coward. "You're the one who's a coward, the only reason you target me is because you know you won't get in trouble. Why don't you pick on someone else and see where that gets you?"

Nancy snarled at me in anger even though her and her friends knew I was right, the other kids snickering when they say the redness in her cheeks like she'd been slapped. "Is that right? You're the one who's scared of getting in trouble then, not standing up for your weirdo cripple pet."

My therapist for anger management said to count to ten. My mom told me to think about how my reaction would reflect on Tyson, what it would teach him. But none of that mattered as a familiar feeling in my gut appeared, the fountain we were sitting on suddenly breaking. A wave of water drizzled over Grover and I while dousing the girls next to us, a smirk appearing on my lips as they screamed in annoyance and shock. I could feel Mrs. Dodds eyes on me, narrowing in suspicion as if I could have had anything to do with the random breaking of the pipe that pumped water out of the top so it would splash the people pissing me off. I didn't understand how she could possibly think that.

"Perseus Jackson, come with me." It was almost funny to see confusion in her eyes, as she moved up the steps at a slow pace while I followed behind her. She might be an old woman but years with Tyson steering me away from children, old people with walkers and that one guy in a wheelchair told me that no one was over suspicion. I walked with her as slowly as possible, ignoring her snaps to keep up. I had seen the worried glance Grover sent Mr. Brunner and I just hoped that they figured it out soon enough if she really was a monster. She disappeared into one of the exhibits, her patience running thin as she finally paced around me. "You have been an exceeding pain in my side, Perseus Jackson. You hid yourself well when you first came to school, it took months to track you down. But you forget that when you use your powers...your scent is stronger. And just so obvious."

I wanted to make some snarky comment about how her old age must be making her blind, or how maybe she was just stupid...but I knew Grover at least was going to be looking for me and I couldn't admit to knowing what I was. "Mrs, I have no idea what you're talking about. I thought this was about Nancy."

She growled low in her throat as her eyes turned red, giving me only a second of warning before she dropped the mist surrounding her to reveal just who she was. I was screwed, no matter what had had taught me or what I'd practiced with Tyson. They dehumidified the air, it was freezing in this area so I wasn't sweating and there were no water fountains close to this area. I had nothing. And yes, I did mention sweating because in an emergency you use whatever the hell you got. "You will die today, son of the sea god. I will relish in the feeling of your blood, not even telling me where it is will save you." She attacked, diving and slashing with her claws, screeching as she went. My reflexes kicked into gear just in time to keep my head from having a rough breakup with my body.

"What ho, Percy!" I blindly grabbed whatever Mr. Brunner threw at me, swinging the sword into a defensive position out of instinct. I had never held a sword in my life, Mom wasn't too big on weapons and Thalia was a terrible sword fighter, but this one felt like it was made for me. A deadly extension of my arm.

I don't know how she got so stupid, but at the sight of the blade she hesitated. That was all I needed, swinging my sword in a deadly arch over her body. She howled angrily as her body turned to dust, the air temperature dropping again. I was alone with a pen and the feeling of her eyes on me, like her ghost was still trying to kill me. That did just happen, right? I wandered back outside to give Mr. Brunner back his pen, hoping he would tell me I could leave school now. He simply told me to bring my own utensils next time. Nancy asked about some teacher I didn't know, the mist working it's magic. I almost asked who she was, but Grover looked ready to die he was so nervous. So I kept my mouth shut. I was getting really good at that.

I had dealt with monsters before, or at the very least I had seen Thalia deal with them and felt the fear of seeing a claw get too close or teeth grazing skin just before the monster disappeared. But fighting Mrs. Dodds left me with the lingering fear I couldn't shake, nightmares that left me sitting up in my bed holding back screams as cold sweat dampened the sheets. That wasn't helping my mood with how crazy the weather was being, "Grover, get out!" I had to drag him out of the room at one point when our windows blew out from the wind, a few days later there was the biggest tornado ever seen in the Hudson Valley that touched down only fifty miles away from our school. "Grover, it's like these storms have a personal vendetta against our school."

"That's completely and utterly ridiculous, you know that's the silliest thing I've ever heard." Grover laughed nervously before immediately changing the topic, like he knew something I didn't about these storms. It wasn't my dad, I knew that much. Maybe.

At that point my grades had slipped from barely passing to literally failing, I stopped avoiding fights with Nancy and I was almost always went out into the hallway. Between the nightmares, the distance from Tyson and my mom...I was a irritable mess most of the time. I didn't think my dad would be upset with me for that. The hypocrite if he was. But the one thing I think he would have laughed with me for was when my teacher Mr. Nicoll was yelling be about being lazy and I called him an old sot, Thalia taught me that one. It meant old drunk. Though I was right and he ended up getting fired later for it, it was still disrespectful to a teacher so they sent a letter to mom saying I was not invited back next year. I missed mom, I missed Tyson and that was just fine with me.

But when school started coming to a close, I realized there were somethings about Yancy that I would miss. Grover and how he would make funny jokes how even with screwed up legs he would fight someone over enchiladas. How he didn't question my nightmares, simply woke me from them when he could and brought me water from the tap. I would miss Mr. Brunner and his sword play in class...his sword from class.

"Holy shit." When I was sent into the hallway that time, I just slid down the wall as how I defeated Mrs. Dodds came back to me. "The sword is the one he uses in class..." I wasn't imagining that day, it wasn't just some weird demigod dream like Thalia had warned about. It was real, I had picked it up once in class and I don't know how I didn't recognize how right it felt. I decided I would talk to Mr. Brunner after exams.

That talk never happened. I ended up walking down to the faculty offices to talk to him about the test and ask some questions about it. I was ready to at the very least apologize for the grade he was going to have to give him, was there such thing as an F-? I was almost to the door handle when I heard Grover speaking inside. "...worried about Percy, sir. The nightmares are getting worse..." I moved closer. "...alone this summer. I mean a Kindly One in the school!" Grover knew about monsters and he was talking to Mr. Brunner about it?

Mr. Brunner made some comment about how rushing me was a bad idea and I almost wanted Grover to make a joke about my maturity. "The summer solstice deadline will have to be resolved without him. I know you are worried for your friend, but the Mist over the staff and students will have to be enough to convince him she was just his imagination."

Grover made a choked noise as he reminded Mr. Brunner of his duties, whatever that meant. "And I can't fail Percy, sir. I keep getting attached and I can't lose him, not another one." My mind was racing as I tried to process what he was saying, my brain drawing on the little information Thalia and my mom had told me. They said too much would make my scent too strong to mask at school, but they told me that there was a camp and that beings called Satyrs collected demigods. Beings with horns, wispy beards and..goat legs. Hidden by a limp.

"Now it's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall..." It was too much. The Latin book I had carried with me slipped from my fingers, hitting the floor with a thud. I didn't stick around to see Mr. Brunner look around the hallway for me, I suspected he wasn't human. Neither of them were and neither was I for that matter. Not all the way.

Grover came into the dorm soon after I returned and I tried to make it look like I'd been there all night, a tired expression and a weary smile. "You look awful, are you okay?" I wasn't sure if I even knew the truthful answer.

The ride home on the Greyhound was stressful as Grover kept looking around like he expected another Kindly One to appear out of nowhere and attack us, which wasn't that far off if I was right. "What's happening on the summer solstice?" I didn't mean to ask, but it was the one thing I didn't understand from eavesdropping on them.

He freaked out on me, asking how I knew about that. I confessed to my crimes and he just looked more nervous than before. He finally just sighed and pulled out a card that looked like the one next to the phone in my apartment, except at the top it said, "Grover Underwood, Keeper" He claimed it was his summer address which made me want to laugh, if not for him being ignorant of my knowledge.

Before I could even decide what to say next, the bus broke down leaving us to scramble out of the hot black smoke smelling of rotten eggs. When I could finally see, I saw we were on a stretch of country road that no one would bother to notice unless they, you know, broke down. But somehow there was an old-fashioned fruit stand with things on sale that made my mouth water, I couldn't understand how they had no customers. There was just three ladies knitting a giant sock made of electric blue yarn, my heart tugging as I realized they were the same color as Thalia's eyes before a storm. The ladies were ancient, something that made me weary of who exactly they were. It wasn't helping that they were looking directly at me. "G-man, is this bad?"

"They aren't looking at you, please tell me they aren't looking you. It's only bad if they're looking at you." He was shaking like a leaf in a tornado which we had watched on the local news. He peeked only to see the middle lady pull out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver like a fancy pair of shears. "We're getting on the bus."

I would have argued about the heat but he was trying to pry open the doors, grabbing the driver's seat to lean on just as they cut the yarn. I could hear it over four lanes of traffic and I suddenly felt like I was in danger. I scrambled onto the bus after Grover, just as the driver yanked out a piece of metal and started the bus again.

"This isn't happening." I wish. Grover looked as terrible as I felt, shivering as if all his muscles were spasming at once. "Tell me what you saw, Percy. I need you to tell me what you saw. Even if it was nothing."

There was a part of me that wanted to lie to him, but there was a larger part that was screaming DANGER! DANGER! and was overriding any ability to lie. "There were three old ladies knitting a giant sock by the fruit stand. They finished knitting and so the one in the middle cut the yarn."

He made some gestures with his fingers that I didn't understand, taking a slow shay breath. "This is not happening, I don't want this to be like last time." He just kept muttering about last time until he finally paused to make sure I would wait for him to walk with me home.

"Grover...does this mean someone is going to die?" I needed him to say no, but he just muttered something about sixth grade and looked at me mournfully.

I ditched Grover as soon as he disappeared to go to the bathroom. I really was going to let him walk me but if I showed up at our apartment with a terrified kid muttering about death while I was looking like a panicked idiot...Mom would immediately start crying and I would have to tell her about what happened at school which would result in more crying. I just hailed a taxi as quickly as possible, using what little money I had to pay the driver. We'd moved from our place on East One-hundred-and-fourth and first a few years after we took in Tyson because Mom had gotten a big bonus with how well her books were selling.

Speaking of Mom, as soon as I opened the door to our apartment she was there to squeeze me into a hug. "Percy, I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!" She smirked like she knew something I didn't as she pulled me into my room after shutting the door, pointing to the bed where a bag of blue candies were waiting. "From that shop I used to work at, all your favourites."

I hugged her again tightly before almost diving on the bed to devour the bag. We sat on the edge of the bed together as she asked me to tell her everything I couldn't fit in my letters, how Grover was and all that. She didn't mention my expulsion as always, all she wanted to know was if her baby was okay. I told her she was smothering me and called for Tyson to save me, but I was really glad to see her. I put the best spin on Yancy as I had any other school, saying I had almost made it the whole year and I'd done well in Latin...Everything was great up until that trip to the museum...

"Is that where you got attacked?" Tyson was glaring at me from the doorway, his nostrils flared from the scent of something evil hitting him. He always said he could still smell them months later, but I was hoping this would have been long enough he wouldn't have noticed. "Percy, you still smell like her. Which means you were close enough when she died that you got dust on you and if you were..."

"Your nose is screwed. I'm fine, I promise. Are we still planning on going to Montauk?" I tried to change the topic as stealthily as possible but now my mom's eyes were on me. She knew I wasn't telling her something, something important. "Mom..."

She moved away from me so she could grab my chin and look me in the eye. "Perseus Jackson, you tell me what happened on that museum trip and anything else. I won't even consider taking you two to Montauk if you don't." So I told her. I told her about the Kindly One, about how Grover seemed to know something I didn't. I told her about what I heard when I eavesdropped on Mr. Brunner and Grover, my suspicions on who they were. I told her about the three old ladies by the fruit stand. I told her everything. "Oh gods Percy." She was crying but not as hard as I thought she would have, she wiped them away with her palms and glared at the ceiling. "You two couldn't just let him have one more year!" She took a deep, shaky breath as she prepared herself. "Grover was a satyr sent to protect you from the camp. I don't know who Mr. Brunner was, but I suspect he was sent from camp as well. Which means, it's time for you to go."

Tyson and I stared at her in differing degrees of shock. Whatever I thought was going to happen when I told her, it wasn't this. I was unprepared for her to know about what was happening and to be ready to send me away. "Only for the summer right?" Tyson's voice was cracking from fear, he could barely handle not seeing me during the school year but if I was gone during the summer too...

I dragged him to sit next to me on the bed, ruffling his hair and forcing a smile. "You know you're mom's favourite anyway, just don't turn into a bratty only child on me. Okay?" Maybe it was the wrong thing to say, or the right thing. But suddenly he was crying too, hiding his face in my shoulder as he tried to gain control. I watched as mom started to pack for me while I tried to get Tyson to move before he suffocated. "I'm going to be fine. I promise."

"You suck at keeping promises. Just don't suck with this one, okay?" Tyson wiped at his face blindly, hiccuping. Mom had made the comment that I'd grown since Christmas, but Tyson was a never ending growth spurt. He was a year younger but he was a head taller than me, his shaggy hair pulled into a ponytail that he would refuse to let mom cut until the end of the summer. I was missing him growing up, I was missing having a brother.

Just as mom finished throwing together a bag for me, the door slammed open. "Sally! Please tell me you're still here and Percy hasn't convinced you to leave yet." Grover appeared in the doorway, sighing in relief before glaring at me. "If you ever ditch me again, I will kill you." Though I had my suspicions, it was strange to see him without pants on to reveal his fur and hooves. "We need to go, now."

"No one is going any where." Everyone was so worried about saving me from monsters, but Grover seemed to have forgotten to shut the door. So the worst of the worst slurred into the hallway. "Sally, we have to talk." Gabe Ugliano was kicked out of his family for his inability to find a wife and requiring money for bail too many times, he'd been almost stalking them for the last two years. I looked at Tyson, a rock in the hurricane that was our apartment right then. A silent understanding passed through us. I would get to camp safe, Tyson would protect Mom from him.

I hugged him goodbye quickly, kissing Mom's cheek and whispering, "There's a mortal knife under my pillow if you need it. I love you." I ran after Grover who looked like he he was just told Christmas was coming early since we left the apartment. "Mom's going to be okay, right?" he wouldn't lie to me, so he just said nothing as we raced down to the bus we would be taking.

When you wake up from basically a coma, it takes a second for the world to come back into focus and for your life to piece itself together. I don't know how long I stared at Grover for but it must have gotten awkward enough for my brain to realize what was happening. "Who died?" I wasn't sure if it was a poor attempt at a joke or if I was actually asking, but from his expression it was clearly the latter.

"The camp got a call from your brother, he was so frantic it was almost impossible to understand him. But apparently there was a fight to get Gabe to leave and Tyson was thrown into a wall...he wasn't able to stand fast enough to protect her. I'm so sorry Percy." I knew what he was saying, I knew that he was trying to tell me that Gabe had killed my mom. That if I called like I immediately wanted too, I would get either the answering machine or a monotone Tyson that would soon fall into hysteria. "I'm okay, the tree is okay and I don't know how but you killed that minitaur even after it threw us..." He handed me a shoe box, I didn't need new shoes. I had the ones Mom packed for me. Mom made sure I got to say goodbye.

I don't remember much about what happened after that. I know I recognized Mr. Brunner, she was right, and I met a god who looked like he was drunk just from the thought of a drink. I know there was a curl with princess curls and dangerous eyes, but she ran away for some reason. I remember Chiron, I learned that was his real name, was actually a centaur. It was too much and not enough all at once. At some point I learned Grover was in trouble, but all I could do was repeat, "It's not his fault. They can't blame him. It's not his fault."

Chiron brought me to cabin eleven, dropped me off with Annabeth. "Percy Jackson, meet your cabin. You'll be here until your parent is determined." If only they knew...