When Percy woke up, the first thing he noticed was that the room he was in was annoyingly bright, particularly for someone who had just woken up. Then he noticed that he was in the infirmary at Camp Half-Blood. The thought When did I get here? crossed his mind. The he didn't see the final thing he noticed, he heard it.
"Half-Bloods are healing, thank's to Apollo's power, they fought Zeus deftly." Percy gowned a little.
"Ah, your up," Apollo said as he turned around.
"What happened?" Percy asked.
"That water trick took a lot out of you. Nearly killed you and your friends. Had you not tried to direct it at father and Uncle Poseidon showed up any later, your friends would have drowned," Apollo said.
"I mean what happened to Zeus?"
"Your water trick pushed him into the central hearth," Apollo said, "That thing is all Greek Fire now, with how many arguments threaten to blow or douse it out. And he hasn't done all so well in water since he and Uncle started fighting a few thousand years ago. The Greek Fire combined with that water you summoned sent him right down to Tartorus. Uncle Hades made sure that he would stay down there for a while.
"You've been out for a week and a half, your friends have been waking up over the past few days. I've been patching you guys up, you got everyone pretty bad. If your father hadn't showed up to calm down and drain the waters when he did, the rest of your friends would have drowned."
"What happening on Olympus?" Percy asked.
"Well your father has taken over as leader for the time being, and Uncle Hades has come up to take over the extra seat.
"The Ancient Laws had been modified to fit the times. Immortals still have to do their duties, but they can stop by on holidays, birthdays, games, etc. if they manage their time right. They're also changing the leadership procedure: Every couple of decades or so, we choose a new leader. That one was Athena's idea actually," Apollo told Percy. "You should rest some more. You had some of the worst of it. Besides being dashed around the room like everyone else, the massive amount of energy and life-force it took to summon that much water overtaxed your systems. Invulnerable skin only goes so far towards protecting you from internal bleeding, especially with the close calls you probably had about hitting your mortal spot. Now try to get some sleep."
"I'm not tired though…"
Apollo touched the teenaged hero's head and he immediately went off to sleep.
oO0Oo
"Percy!" was the first thing he heard the next time he woke up. He looked over and saw Grover. Immediately he felt guilty. He hadn't thought about his Satyr best friend since Kronos had been defeated with everything that had been going on.
"Hi G-Man. What's up?" Percy said.
"Did you know that Zeus sealed the camp the day after the war ended? None of us could get out. We couldn't even get a good Iris Message. We only survived off the strawberries. I don't want to know how Mr. D will react when he notices," Grover said. His words made Percy feel even guiltier. While he had been off on his own adventure, his effort to contact Grover, who he had an empathy link with, had been even worse than his effort to contact his mother.
"Anything else happen when I was gone or out?" Percy asked.
"Yeah," Grover said, "The mist has disappeared. At first mortals were freaking out with seeing Greek monsters and creatures everywhere, but now that their realizing that most aren't directly attacking unprovoked their calming down a little. Some have taken to sitting on the top of the hill and just watching us with binoculars."
oO0Oo
Percy was let out of the infirmary later that day.
He decided he was going to talk to the mortals that had congregated up the hill at Thalia's tree. Then thoughts of his cousin crossed his mind. What happened to her body? Was it washed away, or was it recovered? When will the funeral be, or did it already happen? Will she even get a funeral? I don't know why not.
The hike up the hill was a little more grueling than it normally was, but not overly so.
Percy was surprised at how few people were at the top of the hill. From what Grover had said, he was expecting a small crowd at least. Instead there was one mortal woman who appeared to be in her mid to late twenties with a pair of binoculars meant for birdwatching.
"Hi," she said when he was maybe ten feet away, "I'm Melanie."
"I'm Percy," Percy said. He was a little surprised. Growing up in New York, he wasn't really used to highly friendly mortals, particularly ones friendly towards people that they knew could be potentially dangerous.
"I can't get through, do you know why?" Melanie asked.
"Only demigods and people who have their permission can get through," Percy found himself telling the woman.
"Demigods?" she asked.
"Kids of regular people, or mortals, and the Greek gods. Poseidon, Hermes, Athena, and the likes," Percy said.
"Like Hercules?" Melanie said.
"It's Heracles and no, not him. He was only a demigod."
"But he still became a god though, tight?" Melanie asked.
"No, not really. His image was put in the stars. Easy mistake to make," Percy said. "Why are you so interested?"
"A lot of people are angry," Melanie said. "A lot of people are scared and confused. Demigods have been confirmed as a species, it's been all over the news, but people aren't really sure what they are. People think they're dangerous. I don't think they are."
"How do you know we're not?" Percy asked.
"Because if you we're dangerous, I'd probably not be standing here right now," Melanie said.
A/N: Sorry for the OC at the end, I hope she wasn't to bad. I really wanted to put in the perspective of at least one somewhat reasonably opinionated mortal that never knew about it all before, and I couldn't do that without an OC.