A/N: Maybe this is just proof of how insane I truly am, but I am on a real roll right now, and I credit it to/blame it on just one source right now, and that is Em. She/He currently inspires me, if only because her reviews prove that, even if her words are exaggerated (which my insecure brain assures me they must be), the fact that she at least reads my story and she, for whatever reason, wishes me to continue to keep writing them are not. As such I currently have a decent idea of where the next 10-15 chapters of this story are going to go. I'm in inspiration-ecstasy-mode right now, so I'm writing like crazy at the moment. So I can promise you at least another ten-or-so chapters over the next ten-or-so weeks. Good news for those of you who just wanted more of my own brand of writing, but also bad news for those who were hoping for a quick resolution to this story, because I'm going to be keeping you on the hook for just a few (dozen) chapters more. :)

Also, the ideas I have now are no longer 'let's keep writing even if I have nothing more to say right now' types of ideas, they're 'hey, here's something awesome I could be writing at least one or two chapters worth of story about, if not several more' kinds of ideas, so prepare for CHAOS for a LONG time, whoever is still reading at this point, because 'the plot' has finally arrived, and it's not planning to leave anytime soon, from what I can tell. Haha.

Anyway, long A/N which few of you even care about at all, so let's get back to the story XD

9.

They say that whenever something terrible happens, like a car-accident or someone getting murdered in front of your eyes, time seems to slow down.
I've seen car-accidents and though I've never seen anyone getting murdered, I was there when my grandfather had a fatal heart attack, so I'm guessing that's pretty much the same thing.
Time didn't slow down then.
It was just him grabbing his chest with a pained look on his face, him collapsing, falling down to the floor and him not breathing anymore.
It was over in a few seconds that felt like a few seconds.
Because of that I had always thought that the rumor about time slowing down was just that, a rumor.
But now I know that's not true.
As I watch the door open, watch everyone's heads turning to see what's going on, watch the police-officers bursting into the room and hear them yelling things like 'everybody freeze!', time runs just the way it's supposed to.
One second per second.
But as I watch one of them grabbing Alex' arm and another one trying to take Elizabeth from Artemis' arms, time really does slow down.
And that's not the only cliché I'm living today.
As I hear Alex cry out in pain when one of the officers pulls him towards the door I see red.
Literally.
It's like the entire room is bathed in a blood-red light.
And I realize that the 'I didn't know what I was doing' defense murderers sometimes use when they're put on trial – which I'd always thought was the stupidest defense ever, since how can you not know what you were doing? You were there, weren't you? – might, in some cases, have been the truth.
Because one second I'm standing there, watching in horror, the next I'm watching one of the officers falling to the floor and I'm standing there, a heavy book in my hands which I guess I used to club him over the head with.
The other officers now realize that I'm 'a threat', so they focus their attention to me, but like I go crazy when someone puts their hands on my babies, H and Pollo go crazy when someone puts their hands on me.
And Artemis and Hera go crazy when someone puts their hands on their twin and sons respectively.
In just a few minutes an all-out war has started with us on one side, the police on the other side and Alex holding Elizabeth tightly in a corner of the room, trying to stay far away from the books and chairs that are being used as weapons.

I guess one good thing came out of this madness.
This is the first time I've ever gotten any actual undeniable proof that the people on my side are not normal human beings, that they're not delusional or playing some elaborate prank on me.
They just might be actual gods.
Ares is fighting several police-officers at the same time and while they're all getting tired, he's still happily punching and kicking away, not even breaking a sweat.
Hera gets hit with two tasers, but she doesn't even flinch as she rips them off her and keeps fighting – though Zeus spends a little extra 'effort' in taking care of the guys who shot his wife – and Athena isn't even fighting, yet she's still winning.
She's up against two of them and she makes a lot of small, strategic moves that basically makes the two of them fight each other.
And if that wasn't enough proof that these guys aren't human, one of the police-officers decide he's had enough of losing this battle and he pulls out his gun, instead of a taser.
He shoots at Ares, in his eyes the most dangerous one, since he's the one who took out most of the police-officers single-handedly.
Ares gets hit three times, one of the bullets hitting him right in the throat even, but though that must've hurt and it would've killed a normal person, Ares doesn't even blink and just keeps punching and kicking.
By the time he has taken out two more officers I can actually see the wounds starting to close right in front of my eyes.
I'm so distracted by that that one of the police-officers manages to slip past me and he starts to go for the kids.
Out of nowhere I'm suddenly completely calm.
I don't know why, maybe the whole 'fighting with the police and there being a threat to my children and the knowledge of these people being actual fucking gods finally really hitting me' fried my brain so much that I just lost it, but whatever the reason, I instantly calm down.
The red light disappears and time speeds up again, though it's not completely back to normal yet.
I turn around to look at the cop trying to take Elizabeth from Alex.
One of the other officers shoots me in the shoulder and I can see the wound starting to bleed, but I can't feel any pain.

"officer, if you don't get away from my children this very second, I'm going to do something only one of us will be able to regret. And in case you're too stupid to know what that means, let me ask you this: have you ever wondered what it would be like to sleep in a body bag?" I ask, not raising my voice or anything, but making sure he realizes I'm being perfectly serious.
The officer turns around, releasing Elizabeth, looking surprised, confused and more than a little bit terrified.
Apparently I'm not the only one that realized these people aren't quite human.
In the corner of my eye I can see the other officers having that same look in their eyes.
They're desperate to get the hell out of here.
Alex, still holding Elizabeth tightly, immediately runs away and hides behind Hera, who is no longer fighting.
"these two children, Alexander and Elizabeth Virou, have been reported missing by their mother two days ago," he says, watching me warily, probably expecting I'll do some weird 'goddess or monster-stuff' if he says the wrong thing.
Behind me I can hear the fight slowly winding down as all the officers start to realize that not all is what it seems in this situation.
For one, they came in expecting this to be easy, not for a second thinking they'd be up against freakin' supernatural beings.
Even with their guns and their training, there is no hope of them winning this fight, so it's in their best interest to try to resolve this peacefully now.
And while these people have been assaulting police-officers in function, they just might've been doing it because of a misunderstanding, trying to defend their family.
It's not like they came in here and calmly explained to us why they were here, they just went right ahead trying to take the children away.
Any mother, supernatural or not, would've reacted the way I did when someone tries to 'steal' her children, even if that person is a police-officer.
And when they raised their fists at me, it makes sense that my friends or relatives – which I'm guessing they think Pollo and H are, since most people wouldn't come to the conclusion that I just happen to have two boyfriends – would come to my defense.

"well, maybe, if you were any kind of investigator, you'd have realized that that is impossible. How am I supposed to report my two children missing when I'm the mother of only one of them and sister of the other? Alex is my brother, not my son. Besides, Alex might be 'Alexander Virou', but you'll find Liz in the American birth registry as 'Elizabeth Rosa Agetor', not Elizabeth Virou," I say.
"you registered her as 'Agetor'?" H asks, sounding happy about that, and I laugh.
"well, that's the last name you gave me back then and since most children take their father's last name, I figured I'd just go with that," I explain. "although, I might have to change that, considering the whole...you know, that thing with the names."
H laughs and shrugs.
"we almost always use that last name and it's the one on my drivers-license, so it's fine," he says.
"now, officer, I suggest you go back to the police station, call up my files or whatever – my name is Leila Liarosa Virou – and check to see that I do, in fact, have one child and her last name is 'Agetor', not Virou. My other child here, Alex Virou, is my brother, Alexander Virou, son of Rebecca Mara and – don't laugh – Prometheus Virou," I say.
"your father is Prometheus?" H, Pollo, Artemis, Athena, Ares, Hera and Zeus all simultaneously ask, most of them sounding utterly shell-shocked, and I can't help but to laugh.
"I'm pretty sure he's not the actual titan god of forethought and crafty council – whatever that means, I just read about it on wikipedia – but yeah, that's his name," I say, shrugging. "we just called him Theo, though."
"you all need to come to the police-station with us. You'll be charged with assaulting police-officers in function," one of the officers says – a ballsy move, all things considering – and I laugh again, but this time with far less humor.
"actually, no. While I have no problem coming to the police-station with you, I won't be charged with anything, considering in this situation all of you are considered to be 'breaking and entering' and we have a right to defend our home and our family in that situation, at least in America we would, and I can't imagine Greece's laws would be much different. Everything we did here will be considered to be self-defense," I say.
"you didn't have any reason to believe there was anyone in danger in this house, nor did you (clearly) do nearly enough research into the identity of these children to be able to say you have a sufficient reason to believe they were victims of a kidnapping. I'm guessing you don't have a warrant, as you didn't even bother to try to show one, but even if you did, you would be legally obligated to state your business here before entering this house, even if we wouldn't by law be allowed to deny you access. In other words, none of you have any right to be here right now at all, and anything we did to get you to leave this house is well within our right of self-defense by any western county's laws that I know of or could reasonably envision. If you try to press charges at us for assaulting you, I WILL however 'unreasonably' be pressing charges at all of YOU for breaking into our home and trying to kidnap my brother and my daughter and for assaulting us. And I don't have to keep up my police force's (international) good reputation, please remember that," I say angrily, the others agreeing with or at least silently humoring me.

"Prometheus, huh?" Zeus asks a while later, probably in an attempt to take my mind off this entire mess for a moment, while we're sitting in the police-station's waiting room.
We're being questioned one by one for some reason, as if we're all part of some mayor crime-syndicate or something.
Even the person who treated my wound was looking at me with maximum suspicion, probably because we were being treated this way by the other officers.
Probably no-one ever bothered to tell him what the person he was treating had done to warrant her getting treated for a gunshot-wound inside the police-station.
Or maybe they did and he was waiting for me to do something supernatural or something.
"yeah, well, like I said, we all just called him Theo. He loved it when my mom got angry with him, though, because she would go 'Prometheus Virou, if you think I'm going to stand here and let you...' and then he'd make me and Alex laugh by saying 'woman, I've had my liver torn out by eagles a thousand times and that was still more enjoyable than the sound of your voice' or something like that. And then he'd just ignore her completely and start telling us the story of Prometheus for the millionth time," I say, sighing deeply. "man, I miss hearing that stupid story all the time."
"he didn't keep in touch?" Hera asks, sounding sympathetic.
I shrug and shake my head.
"no, when he left, he really left. He just up and abandoned us. I know my mom is unbearable sometimes, but why would he just leave me and Alex like that? He loved us, I know that for sure. And he left on Alex' birthday even. That just doesn't sound like something he would do. And when my birthday came there wasn't even a card or anything, even though he never forgot my birthday. And he was so excited about me being pregnant, said he couldn't wait to see what his grandchild would be like, but when he left, I was only in my third trimester, so he never got to meet her. I've been trying to figure out why he would do something like that for all these months, but so far I'm coming up with nothing," I say, almost in tears now.

Then I smile a bit self-deprecatingly.
"even now I'm still just waiting for him to come back, you know?" I ask.
"I know he's coming back, because there's no way he would just leave us like that. Leave mom, sure, I've thought about doing that myself a hundred times, but leave me and Alex? No way. Especially not me. I know this is going to sound arrogant, but I was the best thing that man ever did. He said so himself and unlike when other parents say stuff like that, my dad? He meant it. Said I was his pride and joy and 'even when he brought fire back to man, he made less of a contribution to the wealth of humanity than when he got my mother pregnant with me'. And then he went and told me the story of Prometheus again," I say, laughing. "I know quite a bit about Greek mythology, but there is no story I know as well as that one."
"do you have a picture of him?" Athena asks.
She seems to be thinking hard about something.
I shrug and pull out my wallet, handing her a picture of me and my dad, after which she goes to sit with Pollo and starts talking to him, pointing at the picture a few times.
Pollo takes out a sketchbook from his bag and starts drawing something which seems to please her.
After a while Pollo is done drawing and she takes the paper from him, coming back to sit next to me and handing me both the drawing and the picture of my dad.
"look at this," she says, pointing at the picture Pollo drew.
"and then look at this," she says, pointing at my father in the photo.
Pollo drew a man who looks a lot like my dad, only less muscular and with longer hair.
"yeah, so?" I ask.
"this is your father," she says, pointing at the photo.
"and this is what the 'real' Prometheus looked like last we saw of him," she says, pointing at the drawing.
"seriously?" I ask incredulously.
"this is my dad," I say, holding up the drawing. "and he sure as hell isn't a god, I would know if he was."

"well, think about it this way," Pollo says, sitting down on the floor at my feet since there aren't any more empty chairs near me.
"you can't swear in front of children, probably because you have the forethought to know that might lead to those children using the same swearwords in the future, which would be bad, since children shouldn't swear. And you almost always think about future consequences before doing anything. And you're highly intelligent, which is also one of Prometheus' primary characteristics. And Alex – also Prometheus' son – is good at lying without actually lying – which takes a lot of intelligence – and he's a little trickster. And sometimes, when either of you want something, you'll go just a bit too far trying to get it. And you both have the tendency to maybe risk putting yourselves in a bad situation to help other people, especially ones you care about. Sound familiar?" he asks and I sigh.
"look, I understand where you're coming from with this, but I'm telling you: my dad wasn't a god. If he was, don't you think he would've told me, at any time in the twenty-two years he knew me?" I ask.
"why would he need to?" Zeus asks. "most gods go out of their way to have some semblance of a normal life, choosing to live as 'humanly' as is possible while still bearing their godly responsibilities. It would make sense that he not tell his human family about his divine nature until something happens that makes it necessary for them to know."
"and gods can't stay with their human families for too long, because even if we know how to hide it for a while – by changing our hair or just 'letting go', gaining weight and losing muscles – eventually it becomes clear that we don't age, so we have to leave eventually, no matter how much we want to stay," Hera says, her voice soft and kind.
I sigh and shake my head.
"nah, not my dad. And even if that were the case, wouldn't he at least have given some excuse for his sudden absence? Even if he was just pretending he found someone smarter and nicer and hotter than my mom and was moving to Fiji with this person or something, setting that up would only take a few days at most. It's not like we would suddenly start to notice that he doesn't age in a few more days, right? And then he still would've been able to send me and Alex letters and Christmas/birthday cards, at least for another couple decades, until he 'supposedly' died of old age. But he just up and left, never looking back, never getting in touch again. So, I'm sorry, but you're wrong about him. He's not a god, he didn't leave by choice and he is coming back," I say, shaking my head and crossing my arms stubbornly.
None of them seem convinced, but they do realize I don't want to talk about this anymore, so they drop the subject.

Pollo starts interrogating Athena about the woman my doppelgänger was talking to so he can draw her; Hera and Zeus start talking about what they're going to do for their seventh millennium-anniversary, which is coming up soon – if you can call three years from now 'soon' –; Ares, Artemis and Dio are talking about the doppelgängers, trying to come up with simple, fast ways to figure out if everyone is who they're supposed to be, apparently asking simple questions isn't reliable enough for them and stabbing them with a pencil is a bit too dramatic; and H is with the officers in the interrogation room, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
My dad is not a god, he's not.
Just because Pollo drew someone that looks a bit like my dad, that doesn't mean they're one and the same.
Besides, I don't have any real proof that the person in Pollo's picture really is actually the titan god Prometheus.
He could've just drawn my dad looking a little different than he looked in the picture and said it was Prometheus.
He didn't start drawing until after he'd seen the picture, after all.
Why would Athena need that picture to ask Pollo to draw someone they both know very well?
I feel horrible for suspecting them of trying to trick me like that, but if my dad was a fucking god, I'd know it.
I mean, I figured these guys out after just a few days, how could my dad have hidden it for several years?
Then again, these guys went out of their way to hide it, however lazily, but my dad did the exact opposite.
He talked about the 'real Prometheus' all the time and – if he was the real god, which he really isn't – he even used his real name.
So even if I did figure out that he happens to share his name with a mythological figure, I'd just chalk it up to coincidence.
And by constantly telling me about the real Prometheus and making jokes about being him, he pretty much completely absolved himself from any and all suspicion.
Hiding in plain sight.
Of course, that would be if he actually was a god...which he isn't.
Really.
Now if only I could erase this seed of doubt these guys planted in my brain, the world would be perfect again.