AN - So another finished chapter done and I'm nearly finished. I hope I've taken into account anything that was previously mentioned if not please do let me know. As usual I don't own any of the material.
It was a few hours later that Percy and Poseidon came back into the house, discussing the pros and cons of using an earthquake in a battle situation. Poseidon was valiantly defending the technique but seemed to be losing to Percy's more logical opinion of 'any damage you do to them, you will also do to yourself. Making your point invalid'. The discussion and obliviousness to the world around them proved to be a great source of amusement to both Zeus and Thalia. It took them a few moments before the two realised that they were being laughed at.
Percy smiled at the juvenile argument between the two and accepted that it was, for the others, quiet funny. Though he stressed that himself and Poseidon were having quite a serious discussion. Nodding his head Thalia walked up to him a gave him a small kiss on the lips before telling him, "Your son has been waiting patiently for some time with you, I suggest going out to the clearing and playing some boyish game or going down to the beach and practicing with him."
Percy smiled and nodded his head. "Okay, I'll go down with him now." He walked over to the fridge and picked up two bottles of water, one half the size of the other. Only moments after he exited, he returned with an excited Dylan on his shoulders. "Say goodbye to everyone buddy," a mummer of goodbyes reverberated around the kitchen before he yelled back into the house, "We should be home in a few hours!" And with that they were gone, leaving Thalia, Poseidon, Zeus and Abigail in the kitchen.
Zeus smiled and stood exclaiming, "I claim granddad rights to Abi! We are going to go for a walk," He went over to the young girl and picking her up he placed her on his hip before turning to Thalia and inquiring "Does she need anything while I'm gone?"
Thalia smiled at the change in her father "No, but she needs to be back in about 4 maybe 5 hours max. She'll be getting grumpy by then because she'll probably want a snack." Zeus nodded his head and took off in the other direction towards the beach, talking happily to Abi as he went.
Thalia looked at Poseidon, other than muttering goodbyes the God hadn't said much since he came back in, whether it was because of her and Zeus's reaction to the discussion or something else she didn't know. So she went on a different approach than she normally would.
"You know, when Percy got the news that we were all being forced to come back here, and that we had no choice but to talk with you, he was beyond pissed." Seeing the regretful face that Poseidon had, she continued, "but after the war and your ensuing argument and the metaphorical 'abandon ship' that followed, Percy was different. He wasn't reckless anymore, most of the time he was serious about everything and it took us getting married and having Dylan for him to realise that being without his demi-god life style was not the end of the world."
Poseidon was looking at her by this point, obviously curious about what his son's life had been like in the years he was absent. "But when we came back here and you two fixed things and started talking again. It came back." Poseidon was uncertain what she was talking about, was she saying he had caused Percy to revert back to his depression? He didn't think he'd been that bad to Percy in the couple of days that they'd seen each other.
Thalia caught the look that was on Poseidon's face and quickly corrected him. Sitting down firmly next to him she took the gods hand in hers, forcing him to look at her. "I mean his smile, the one he had as a kid. When we were living in Hawaii before we came back, he smiled but it was forced and fake. He mainly did it for the kids and I, but I knew that he was… I don't know… haunted, by his past, things he never quite let go of. We both knew that you were one of them." She released his hand at this point and returned to the kitchen to finish cleaning up, but this time Poseidon followed. "Now he's fixed things with you, he can only get better from here." He smiled back at her and the two worked in a comfortable silence until the finished, to which they then grabbed a cold bear from the fridge and sat out on the beach and listened to the waves.
It was later when Poseidon asked Thalia, "I thought children of Zeus hated the seas."