"You can do this."

"I know I can do this."

Unconvinced Thalia paused and took in the ruinous house, with its jungle of vines that might have looked artistic if not for the dangling shutters, peeling paint, and crumbling sidewalk. She almost found it hard to believe that someone still lived there.

She crossed her arms. "Then why are we still out here?"

Luke exhaled and stepped forwardly towards the door. When his companions began to follow, he thrust a hand out to stop them.

"Stay out here with Annabeth," he told Thalia firmly. "I don't want her to see this." Thalia nodded and stepped back, wondering if maybe he didn't want her to see either.

"He'll be back." She told Annabeth as the little girl nervously watched him slip through the door.

Luke moved cautiously through the house, doing his best to dismiss familiar objects and the memories they were tied to. He kept his head down, narrowed his gaze. He sifted earnestly through drawers, willing the universe to let him find what he was looking for before she found him.

But to no avail.

"Luke?"

Her voice came quiet and timid, the kind of voice one would think to have little power, but still somehow managed to break him so that his hands fell limp like forsaken puppets and his head hung forlornly over them.

He turned.

"Luke…" she said again, with more certainty this time. She stepped forward from the shadows, her green eyes wide and glassy, hair wild and unkempt. She touched his face tentatively, as if he were made of glass that would shatter if she got too close.

"You came home." She grinned up at him with such rapture that something inside of him did in fact shatter, just as it had seven years ago when he'd looked up at his schizophrenic mother and realized that there was nothing he could do to help her.

"I'm just visiting, mom." He said gently, lowering her hand.

"Oh." She whispered with heartbreaking disappointment. Her frown quickly morphed back into a smile as she reached back up and softly touched his hair.

"You've grown up." She acknowledged. She cocked her head, nostalgia brewing in her gaze. "You're so handsome. Just like your father."

Luke's jaw clenched.

He looked away, his gaze landing unfortunately on the framed photos hanging on the cracked wall behind her. His eyes flitted over them, apprehensive but unable to tear themselves away. One pictured himself in his toddler years, a wide grin frozen in time as he slid down a blue plastic slide. Another showed him around Annabeth's age, his arms slung around a pair of boys he didn't recognize, their faces dirty and brows sweaty as they stood in matching soccer uniforms. There was a photo of him at a restaurant, in a pool, holding a fishing pole, dressed up for a school dance. In some he was even with his mom, back when her eyes weren't sad and her smile wasn't broken.

Some photos he remembered, others he wished he could.

Like a nightmare come true, May Castellan jerked back as if his skin had been laced with acid. Her adoring smile melted into a look of pure horror, a look he remembered all too well. Her jaw dropped, her eyes glowed.

"You will betray them!" she screamed. "Kronos will have you…"

He turned and resumed searching more frantically than before, yanking out drawer after drawer only to come up empty-handed. He had to hurry before Thalia came in to check on him.

"The atrocities…" she wailed. "The prophecy will be fulfilled!"

Finally he found it: a makeshift First-Aid kit consisting of an old Tupperware container stuffed with bandages, gauze, needles, and stitching. He snatched it out and tucked it protectively under his arm.

His mother was sobbing now, having sunk to the floor in a pathetic heap of despair. He blinked back tears and hastily, painfully, kissed the top of her head, whispering his love and apologies before starting towards the door.

He'd barely reached the doorknob when he heard it.

"Son."

It only took one word, one syllable, and Luke knew without a doubt who the voice belonged to. It was the same voice he'd imagined for so many years, the one he'd longed for all the times he'd been afraid and had prayed for his father to save him.

"No."

"Luke…"

He whipped around, anger flushed in his cheeks, fire in his eyes.

"Where have you been!?" he bellowed. The man's familiar features hit him like a brick; everything he had never recognized between his mother's face and his own, he saw before him now.

The man took a deep breath, blue eyes fixed, jaw set. "Just listen, son, I am Hermes, God of-"

Luke scoffed bitterly. "Abandonment? Flaking out?"

Hermes pursed his lips as if he'd been expecting this kind of reaction. He opened his mouth to speak again, but Luke cut him off.

"Don't tell me to 'listen'." He seethed, stepping forward. "I've been 'listening' for sixteen fucking years."

He moved forward still, pleased by the pain ebbing its way into his father's expression.

"And you've never answered."

He stared Hermes down, his jaw clenched so tightly he thought it might break. Despite having sixteen years to prepare for this moment, the god was silent, merely looking back at Luke with an expression of both sorrow and pity that only deepened Luke's disgust. His mother wept softly behind him, and he barely noticed the front door creaking open until Thalia placed her hand gently in his. He swallowed and looked to the floor, squeezing it gratefully.

"Let's go." He turned and started once again towards the door, halting when his mother reached out a shaky hand and clung to Thalia's bloodstained jeans.

"She's hurt." May trembled, looking up at them with a tear-stained face. "I—I can help."

Thalia bit her lip as Luke gently removed his mother's hand. "No, mom, it's okay…"

He looked up at Hermes, his expression hardening. "I can take care of them." He said firmly. "You," he took in his father one last time, his anger rising. "take care of her."

He made sure to shut to door behind them.

….

Luke didn't speak the whole way back to the safe house.

Thalia told Annabeth not to worry, that he just had a lot on his mind. The little girl observed the tension in his shoulders, the furrow in his brow, and decided he probably wouldn't be in the mood for that pillow fight he'd promised before bed.

After Annabeth had fallen asleep (Luke had in fact called a rain check on their pillow fight), Thalia insisted upon cleaning and dressing her wound herself to give him some time alone. He agreed both reluctantly and gratefully, disappearing into the night.

Thalia was still awake when he finally returned; his angry and rigid form now slumped with tiredness and despondency.

Silently he fell into her lap, wrapping his arms around her waist and letting his head fall dismally on her thigh. It pained her to see him so dejected, and she swore she hated his father as much as he did.

But she loved Luke, so she sighed and ran her fingers through his hair and down his back until his breathing slowed and his arms loosened around her, his hands falling and brushing the floor. She turned over his palm and frowned at the blood on his knuckles, knowing they'd be badly bruised by morning.

She glanced over at Annabeth, sleeping soundly with Claudia encircled in her arms. Luke loved that little girl, and she wasn't even his.

"You're better than him." Thalia whispered, quietly turning off the lamp.

Obviously I altered the scene with Luke's mother and Hermes a bit, mostly because I couldn't get a copy of the demigod diaries (or wherever the original version is) and the internet wasn't super helpful with all the details. So I apologize if that bothered anyone. I am a little curious as to how it actually went down though, if anyone would like to share