A/N: Happy International Womens Day Everyone! Not a very female empowering chapter, sorry, I did not plan for this. However, I hope you guys like Emma's character and that you can relate to her on some level. I like her because she thinks for herself. She never lets anyone tell her what to do and she will stick to her morals above all else, but she has her flaws and wants to work on them bit by bit. Thank again to Harmony and SPQR-Alan for the reviews! See you again next week. ~ Emma


Rory watched as Emma stumbled out of the building breathing heavily. Her hair hung in her face, matted with what looked like blood and another thick black liquid. She was wound tight as a spring, balanced on her toes and ready to run. She looked each way and, despite Julian telling him not to, he leapt out of their hiding place and ran to her. As their eyes met he watched the tide of emotions that crossed her face. Relief. Confusion. Annoyance.

"I told you to run." She muttered, her eyebrows pulling together.

He surveyed her face quickly and, deeming her not to be mortally wounded, replied, "Then let's run."

He dragged her past the alley where Julian was still hiding and he sprang out to follow them. They sprinted back to Julians hotel, their feet pounding on the New York streets. He kept a close eye on Emma, watching as her hair came almost completely out of her braid. It blew around in the wind as strands started to stick to the blood that was seeping through her coat. Crap. He decided it was best not to mention it until they got back.

As they approached the hotel they slowed to a walk. They couldn't just run into a high end hotel, Emma looking a mess, without any questions. Rory lightly put his arm around her to hide her blood soaked arm beneath his coat. She jumped in surprise but didn't protest, leaning into him.

When they got back to Julian's room Rory pulled away from her immediately. He didn't think he could go another second that close to her without kissing her hair and telling her it would be okay.

"Emma your arm." Rory gravitated back toward her. "Take your coat off, get it under some water."

She looked down in shock. "Oh." She held complete composure as she tried to examine it through the coat. "I suppose you're right."

She grunted as she tried to take it off, so he and Julian helped her peel it back. From there she walked into the bathroom and pulled off the long sleeve she had been wearing without bothering to close the door. Julian silently moved away from the bathroom, but Rory couldn't take his eyes off the blood oozing out of her arm.

"We have to stop ending our nights like this." She smiled faintly, picking bits of dirt out of her wound.

"You have to stop saving me from being kidnapped then." He grinned back, trying to keep the mood light.

"We both almost got abducted this time actually." She corrected him before turning back to the mirror. "Can you pass me a flannel?"

"I'm guessing you don't mean the shirt?" Rory grimaced. He was acutely aware that this was not the time to be oblivious to the words she used.

"A, ur…" Emm said before sighing and staring at the ceiling as if the word would be printed up there. "Face cloth thingy."

He wasted no time handing one 'face cloth thingy' to her. She soaked it in water and held it to her arm, washing the wound.

"Aren't you going to heal it?" He stuffed his hands in his pockets, trying to shake the feeling that he was in the way.

"I don't know how this works." Her jaw was tense as she spoke. "I thought it best to clean it before I heal it."

He couldn't stop staring as she winced in pain. He wanted to comfort her but he didn't know how. All he could do was watch as she washed away her blood revealing the wound. It wasn't a gash, like he had been expecting. Instead, it was a series of little puncture wounds.

"Holy crap." He jumped out of his skin. "Please tell me you're not going to turn into a vampire or something."

Emma gave him a hard glare. "This isn't Twilight."

"Oh I'm sorry." He threw his hands up in surrender. "I'm meant to accept the existence of creatures of all kinds, including ones who eat people, but I'm meant to draw the line at people being turned into monsters through a bite."

"Only the gods can turn people into monsters." Emma said bitterly, as her skin started to stitch itself back together under faucet. "And they do it at will without thought for consequence."

Fifteen minutes later, Rory and a fully clothed Emma sat on the edge of the bed across from Julian. He sat twisting back and forth on the desk chair.

"What are you going to do about your coat?" Rory glanced down at the brown jacket that lay in her lap. He knew she would be upset about it. She wore it almost every day.

"Try and mend it I guess." She shrugged.

Julian raised his eyebrows. "A monster literally tore through it and you still want to repair it? Is that even possible?"

The corner of her lip twitched. "We'll see."

"You really are not the person you let everyone think you are, Emma Turner." Julian narrowed his eyes at her.

Rory scoffed. "Are you really in a position to be saying that Jules?"

Now the danger had passed and Emma's arm had been seen too, Rory could finally let his mind drift to what he had learned about his friend. He'd known Julian since forever, but he had never known about this. They had never talked about Rory's visions, or sightings more accurately.

"How did I not know… about you?"

"I think the more important question is how are you seeing all this?" Jules looked at Rory as if he were seeing him for the first time. "I would ask if you were Greek demigod, but then you would have fought with us back there. I know you and you weren't being a coward, you were being smart. So what are you?"

"A Human." He pulled Emma's knife out of his pocket and brought the blade down on his arm and it passed straight through. "But I have the sight."

He tossed the dagger back to Emma who slid it in her boot.

"And you're a Roman demigod." Emma stated. "Like Jason, Frank and Hazel."

Rory could vaguely place the faces of the people she had listed. They were the ones who had saved him in LA.

"Someone has friends in high places." Julian chuckled and turned to Rory. "They were all praetors of New Rome at some point or another. Kinda like the co-presidents of New Rome."

"Right." Rory nodded, amazed to finally have someone willing to explain all the shit going on.

Julian tilted his head at Emma. "and I take it by your question, you're a Greek demigod. Very like Percy Jackson."

"You know my brother?" Emma chewed on her lip.

"Not really. I was in New Rome when he showed up before the Giants War. He was the fifth cohort though, so we never really spoke. His presence wasn't the kind of thing that would go unnoticed, though. We didn't even know Greek Demigods existed until then."

Emma looked confused. "Cohort? Who's your godly parent?"

"Mars, but that's not how cohorts work. Cohorts are like sports teams that you get on by having important family members instead of actual talent. I was in the second cohort because I had a semi-decent recommendation letter. It's a really messed up system."

"Clearly." Rory pushed his hair back. Just as you get used to the Greek gods being real, the Roman ones are too. Julian explained the whole thing. The split personalities of the gods. Their similarities, their differences. He kept trying to look for how it all made sense, but it just seemed too much to take in.

"I feel like I don't even know you Jules." Rory shook his head. "Do you even do boxing or is that just your cover for every time you had to do something with your cohorn."

He knew he had not pronounced it right, but he didn't care.

"No, the boxing is real, though maybe a little exaggerated." Julian looked away as he spoke. "I never went to boxing camps, that was Camp Jupiter, our version of Camp Half Blood. Oh, and my dad's not dead... obviously. Those were the only lies. Either way I am the same person you grew up with. My parentage doesn't change me."

Rory looked at Julian for a long moment, weighing up his words and trying to match them with memories. He wanted more than anything to find a link that meant he didn't have to question his trust for his oldest friend.

"How is this any different to Emma?" Julian asked.

"Because when we got close I already knew she was the daughter of Poseidon! I spent years as your best friend and I never knew. You never told me." Rory felt his anger flare.

"Look, on the top ten list of things not to tell your friends 'my father is the Roman god of war' is pretty high up there." Julian slumped back in the chair.

Rory crossed his arms. "So the tie pin you said your dad left you?"

"It is the only thing I have from my dad, yes. It's my spear and it is still the most precious item I own." Julian's eyes were filled with a desperate worry as he leaned forward again, his arms resting on his knees.

"I don't know what to say." Rory signed. "This is gonna take some getting used to. Can literally just one part of my life be normal?"
Emma laughed gently beside him. The sound was like a golden arrow shooting through the chaos and bringing a bit of light to his heart. She squeezed his arm.

"I think you're in too deep for that, McKenzie."

Rory said goodbye to his friend. He hated not knowing when he would next see Julian, especially with how they left things. He just wanted the chance to get to know Julian again, now that he knew everything.

As he drove Emma home they didn't speak. He could help analysing every situation, wondering how he could have missed something so big.

He walked her up to her apartment but hesitated after she walked in. Emma turned back to him in confusion.

"Oh right." She looked away shyly. "I suppose you need to get home."

"No." He shook himself out of his daze and walked into the apartment. "I'm just… thinking too much."

"I know the feeling." She muttered. She moved to turn on the kettle, but huffed and went to fill it up before putting it back on. As the blue light flickered she sighed and turned to him. "Urg. I'm sorry, do you want any tea or coffee? I should have asked."

"I'm okay, thanks." He smiled at how endearing she was when she got all flustered. "What's on your mind?"

"You really want to go down that rabbit hole?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I'll follow you anywhere Alice." He winked at her. Her cheeks reddened as she gave him a disapproving look that definitely held back a smile. She didn't say anything at first, she just looked down at the two mugs that sat on the counter. Sometimes she needed time to find the right words and he was okay with that. He usually just blurted out whatever came to mind and it landed him in some… difficult situations.

"Lamia wasn't always a monster, you know." Emma told him, filling the silence."Once she was just a girl who caught the attention of Zeus, the same way my mum did with Poseidon. Only Hera's a lot more spiteful and powerful than Amphitrite.

"When Hera found out about the affair, she made Lamia murder her own children and then made her eyes stay open so that she could not sleep. All she could do was grieve. Zues' solution was to let her take away her own eyes so that she could get some rest. She wasn't always a monster, but her grief drove her to do terrible things and Hera was behind all of that."

Rory watched as Emma's cheeks started to glisten. She never talked about the gods. She avoided talking about her father at all costs and though he knew Emma harboured no kind feelings for him or his extended family, the cold anger in Emma's voice still surprised him.

"Poseidon was her father. She was my sister as much as Percy is my brother and I could kill her over and over and it would never end her suffering. I know I'm not very good at it, but I want to help people. That's why I push everyone away. I want them to be happy. I want to make people happy the way I never could make my mum or my step dad."

Someone may as well have taken Rory's heart out of his chest and squeezed it, right before his eyes. Emma showed her pain so rarely that if you saw it you couldn't help but feel the tidal wave emotion that projected from her heart, and still be blinded by the bittersweet glimmer of joy that she'd chosen to share it with you.

"She vowed to kill me." Emma looked away. "But she'll never get the chance to, because by the time she comes back I'll be gone."

"Don't say that." He shot to his feet. "Don't say that because it's not going to happen, I'm not going to let that happen."

Her green eyes were wide as she looked at him, her lips parted in surprise. "You don't get to decide that. No one does."

He wanted to shout at her, tell her she was wrong. But he couldn't.

"When it's my time to go I will leave and you won't be able to stop me. I will leave behind a family that won't even know I'm gone and I've made my peace with that. I know I should fight it, but what if I don't want to? I can't harm anyone else. You wouldn't be in danger anymore."

Emma's face was made of stone. The air in the room felt cold and dry, as if the life had been sucked out. He couldn't believe what she was saying. He would lay down his life to save her and she would just throw her away so callously. But under it all, he knew the pain she was feeling. The pain that only family could cause. The pain of a father who didn't care at all and a mother who didn't care enough. He hated that she knew what it felt like too. He only wished she could heal the wounds in her mind from actions and words the same way she could heal any wound on her skin. If she could, he would take her to a lake where she could lie back and feel at peace, even if he drowned in the process.

"You don't mean that." He tried to keep the anger out of voice, keeping to a flat tone, and he almost succeeded. "I refuse to believe you mean that. You never hurt a soul before your quest to cut all ties with anyone of the human race. Then you started to hurt people left right and centre. You made mistakes, we all have. Running away, in whatever form, doesn't solve shit. You have a lot of making up to do, especially to Jackson. If you don't fight it with every last breath of air you draw then you've failed to do that and I will never forgive you. Not if you leave like that."

Emma's teeth grazed her lip, her hand raising to rest on her elbow. "I don't know what else to do."
"You don't have to know what to do. No one knows what to do. You just have to keep going until you figure that out."