Hey!

Turns out, hurricane closures allow a lot of time for writing. The power hasn't gone out yet, so I'm posting this before it does! I have been waiting to write this part of the story for so long and I'm so excited to have finally reached it. Originally, I didn't plan to have this update work out the way it did, however I really enjoyed how it came out and I hope you do too! The next chapter, pending the availability of internet access during the coming storm, will hopefully be up within the next few days. I will do my very best. Thanks everyone for sticking around and please enjoy this update!


The door of my parents' apartment needed a new coat of paint. I studied the familiar faded green of it, warped and peeling in places now where I knew it definitely hadn't always been, waiting to be let inside.

My mom and I first moved in back when it was just the two of us, shortly after I returned home from my first summer at camp. I was thirteen. Smelly Gabe had no longer been an issue and we had the freedom to go wherever we wanted. In the end, we'd only moved a few blocks over, but the building was newer and the apartments were nicer, and neither of us had ever looked back.

Paul moved in a few years later and, a few years after that, I'd moved out, first to attend college, and then for good a few years later when Annabeth and I got married. It had been almost seventeen years now since I'd called this apartment home, but it still held a special place in my heart and, at least until my mom and Paul moved out, it probably always would.

Pending trips away from the city for rescues or the like, I usually spent my days in Manhattan for work, and as such, I tried to stop by to see my mom at least once a week during my lunch break. Annabeth sometimes came with me on days when she went into the office, but I was alone today. It also wasn't lunchtime, but later in the day. I'd just got off work.

The door opened now to reveal my mom, wearing a questioning expression—I normally just walked in. "My key's in the car," I told her, grinning, by way of both explanation and greeting. I stepped inside and wrapped an arm around her once she closed it behind me.

She smiled and shook her head before stretching to kiss my cheek. "How are you?"

"Good. Did Paul leave yet?"

She nodded. "You just missed him. Thank you for doing this, honey."

"'Course," I smiled, "It's not like we don't have extra rooms right now anyway."

Courtesy of the occupants of the apartment above theirs, the ceiling of my parents' kitchen and living room was severely water-damaged and at risk for mold and structural compromise. It needed to be replaced and the landlord was having it done this week. But the project would take a few days and my parents couldn't exactly live in the apartment while it was happening. Conveniently, Paul had signed up months ago to chaperone a 2-day field trip to Washington D.C. with his freshmen class that happened to fall during this same week, but this still left my mom with nowhere to go. Rather than force her to get a hotel room, we'd invited her to stay with us. With the kids on spring break this week, it was hardly the least we could do. I had come to pick her up and take her home with me.

She smiled. "Are the boys at camp already?"

I nodded. "I dropped them off last night. It's just Carly and Annabeth at home."

"Sounds quiet," she replied with a smirk.

"Don't speak too soon," I joked. She laughed. "Do you have everything?" I asked, "I was hoping to beat the worst of the traffic."

"Yup," she answered, pointing beside us to a bag waiting by the door. "Ready when you are. Are you sure you don't need me to bring anything? Food?"

"Mom, no," I said, "Seriously, just bring you. We're fine."

She eyed me for a second but conceded with an "Alright."

I smirked and turned to pick up her bag. Shouldering it, I asked, "Ready?"

"Yeah, let me just grab the lights." She turned and flipped a handful of switches throughout the kitchen and hallway, and then returned, purse in hand. "Lead the way," she said with a smile.

I stepped to the door and opened it. She walked with me out into the hallway and, after locking the door behind us, we were off.

"Are you all still planning on coming over for Easter next week?" my mom asked when we reached the parking lot.

"I think so," I answered, "Unless you and Paul change your mind about having all of my kids over at once."

She scoffed playfully. "I raised you, Percy. The three of them are angels by comparison."

I gave a surprised laugh. "Thanks, Mom."

She laughed with me as we reached the car. She climbed in the passenger seat beside me and said, "Yes, I want you all over." Her tone turned playfully serious then. "Do you know how long it's been since I've seen my grandchildren, Perseus? Almost three weeks. Three. That's two and a half weeks too long."

"Has it been that long?" I asked, "Carly's birthday…"

"Was almost three weeks ago," she supplied with a grin as I pulled out onto the street

I considered that for a second. "Wow."

Mom laughed. "Welcome to my world." I shook my head, stopping at a red light. "I've found the older you get, the faster time seems to go by."

"I believe it," I said. I shook my head again, accelerating as the light changed again, "I mean, Logan is fifteen. How is that even possible?"

"Oh, it's possible," she smirked.

"I'm not old enough to have a fifteen year old."

She smirked. "You're going to be forty this year, you know."

I groaned. "Don't remind me. You know Annabeth found gray in my hair the other day?"

"You're telling me," my mom said, lifting a piece of her shoulder-length hair, which by now contained far more gray than brown.

"She laughed at me for a solid hour," I added, "I'm pretty sure it made her whole week."

Mom laughed. "Her day is coming. It's just more obvious in dark hair."

"Yeah, I know…"

Still smirking, she went on, "You've been pretty lucky actually. Most men gray well before forty. And more than just a stray hair or two. Paul did."

"I'm not complaining," I said lightly, stopping at another intersection as a handful of pedestrians stepped out onto the crosswalk in front of us.

"Its probably your father's genes in you."

"I thought it was the mom's side that determined most of that," I said, glancing over at her, "Annabeth and I had that conversation when she was pregnant with… Nick, I think. She looked it up."

"I've heard that it is," my mom allowed, "but my father died at thirty-three and he was already nearly bald, so I think it's safe to say Poseidon's genes were dominant with you." She said this last part with a smirk, eyeing my dark hair, which, admittedly, was still nearly as thick and unruly as it had been in high school.

I grinned. "Well, in that case, I'm glad they were."

Her smile grew to match mine. "So am I." She grew quiet after that, and when she spoke up again half a minute later, her tone was much more serious. "There was a day when I didn't know if you'd live to see sixteen, Percy," she said, her eyes on the road and traffic before us, "You can laugh and complain about getting older, but I honestly can't wait to see you become gray and wrinkled, honey. Because it will mean you survived long enough to get that way, to live." And then, with half a smirk again, she added, "Even if I'm even grayer and more wrinkled than you are."

I gave a small smile, my eyes on the road as we inched ever closer to the highway entrance. "I tried to keep the worst parts from you back then."

"I know you did."

My smile grew and I cast a sideways look at her. "I'm guessing now that you knew most of it anyway."

"Of course I did. I'm your mother. I knew everything."

"You never told me."

She shook her head. "It helped you to think I didn't know. You were always trying to protect me."

"I didn't want you to worry."

"I know. But there was no avoiding that, honey. Every second you were out of my sight, even if it was only to go to school, I worried."

"It was probably naïve to think that just because I kept everything from you, you didn't know what was going on. At least with the first prophecy."

"I did. I knew about the first Great Prophecy before you were even born. Your father told me after he found out I was pregnant. With the second, I was kept pretty well in the dark until your detour in Rome. Chiron came to let me know where you and Annabeth were and he told me everything then." She allowed a small smile to grace her lips and she glanced at me. "If I hadn't been so worried about you, I would have wrung your neck for not telling me."

I smiled at her words, but what she said resonated with me. "You went my whole life… for sixteen years you knew what would happen… that I'd probably die." I shook my head, merging onto the highway at last. Once we were in the lane and moving smoothly along with the rest of the traffic, I glanced at her. "How…?"

"How did I not go crazy?" my mom said wryly, "There were times when I came close, trust me. When your father first told me, I was only a few weeks along. I was absolutely devastated. I didn't know what to do. He left it up to me to decide. I thought it would probably be best for everyone if I just ended the pregnancy right there, but I couldn't even think about that. You were alive—you had a heartbeat. And I already loved you so much. Even with the prophecy, I couldn't just kill you." She paused, her eyes faraway. I listened in silence. This was the first time I was hearing any of this. She continued, "So, I decided to keep you and raise you, and to love you for as long as the Fates allowed me to have you.

"When you were born, even though I was on my own and nearly broke, I knew I'd made the right decision. You were so perfect. I was in love, and I would have done anything to keep you safe." She swallowed hard against the sudden emotion in her voice.

"You were four when I met Gabe." My grip on the steering wheel tightened slightly at the very mention of him, but I stayed silent, listening. I knew this part of the story, but I didn't want to interrupt as she went on. "That incident in preschool with the snake during naptime had just happened and I knew things would only get worse if I didn't do something. I had to find a way to protect you." She gave a short, unamused laugh. "He didn't know it, but Gabe was the perfect man for the job. I got stuck standing next to him on a crowded subway one day on my way home from work. He was absolutely disgusting. So I led him on and he took the bait almost too easily. We eloped after a few weeks." She shook her head. "You despised the man. And I was absolutely miserable but you were safe. For a while, nothing more happened and I knew my plan was working." I reached across and took her hand in one of mine, continuing to drive with the other. I would never be able to repay my mom for everything she'd done for me.

"There were incidents every few months," she said. "You had a hard time in school, but I had no reason to think you needed camp yet. I wanted to keep you in the dark for as long as possible. Poseidon told me it would get much worse once you knew." She glanced wistfully at me. "He was right." She took a breath. "I nearly had a fit when Grover showed up at the cabin that night and I found out things had happened and you'd kept them from me. I was so scared I would lose you even sooner than I thought…" She trailed off. I squeezed the hand I still held. "In the end," she added, "going to camp was the best thing for you. You were so happy there and you handled the truth so well. You were like a different boy when you came back after that first summer. And with Gabe taken care of, things were better than they'd maybe ever been." She smiled.

"Still, every monster you fought and every quest you went on, time seemed to stand still. You were all I could think about. I spent the days and weeks praying to the gods to bring my baby home again. But you were so good, Percy. And with your friends, with Annabeth, you were… you were amazing." She smiled sadly and looked at me. "I thought I had made peace with what I thought was your fate. But as your sixteenth birthday and the war grew closer, I dreaded it more and more. Because I couldn't lose you. Maybe it was selfish of me to have had you at all, but you were the best thing that had ever happened to me and sixteen years was not nearly long enough. Even if I had Paul, the thought of not having you anymore almost broke me."

She paused now and blinked back the tears that had begun filling her eyes. "But then you won," she said shakily, "You came home to me and I was so relieved. I didn't know what we were supposed to do now that it was over. And for those four months, life was absolutely perfect."

"And then I disappeared," I said when she didn't immediately continue.

"And then you disappeared," she repeated in confirmation, "And, Percy, I had never been so worried in my life. You always found a way to let me know where you were before, that you were okay, but this time no one knew anything. And I knew if you left Annabeth behind, something was very wrong." She studied the road before us. "I think I really did go a little crazy during those six months. I really scared Paul," she added this part with a dry smile. "And I'm not sure how much better it was after Chiron came and told me you and Annabeth had fallen into Tartarus. Because that was certain death if I'd ever heard it."

She shook her head and then took a deep breath and looked at me. "I don't know how I stayed sane through everything, Percy," she said, "I just never stopped loving you. I never stopped believing in you. And I just told myself over and over again not to lose hope until I knew for sure you were gone." She squeezed my hand still in hers. "And baby, you don't know how thankful I am that you always did come home again. That I got to see you grow up after all, it's the biggest blessing I've ever received."

There was silence between us then for the better part of a minute. "I don't think I could have done what you did," I said quietly, breaking it, "I didn't understand everything I put you through back then, but now…" I shook my head. I couldn't imagine knowing my child was destined to die his entire life. It would have killed me.

She let go of my hand and I placed it back on the steering wheel. "You could have," she replied softly, "You're a good father, Percy, and you absolutely could. I'm just grateful you don't have to." I felt her eyes on me for a moment and then heard her laugh. "Weren't expecting all that, were you?"

I gave a laugh myself. "No, not at all," I admitted. "Thanks for putting up with me, Mom."

"My pleasure." She smiled. "Now tell me how the kids are."


Fifteen minutes later, the conversation had turned far lighter and I was navigating the car through our neighborhood. My mom was laughing, recounting the story of Paul's failed attempt at cooking dinner a few nights earlier. "I'm telling you, Percy," she said, "I love the man to pieces and he really is so smart, but he can't follow a recipe to save his life. I've never seen broccoli so rubbery. I didn't even think that was possible."

"Poor Paul," I said, laughing myself.

"He amazes me with the things he knows how to do," she said, "But cooking is simply not one of them."

"You've got to give him points for trying, at least," I said, grinning, as I turned onto our street.

"I do." She was still smiling as I pulled into the driveway and parked next to Annabeth's car. I opened the door and got out. I could hear Ollie barking from inside, which wasn't too unusual—he occasionally barked at things outside, though he seemed more worked up than usual. I grabbed my mom's bag from the back seat and walked around to meet her on the other side of the car. Ollie was still barking as we started for the door. "Somebody's excited," my mom commented.

"Yeah…" I said. It was odd that he hadn't quieted yet. He wasn't typically obnoxious like that. It made sense a second later though when a scream sounded, unmistakably my daughter's. Muffled as it was, coming from inside, the fear in it was unmistakable. She sounded terrified. Something was very wrong.

I cursed in Ancient Greek and sprinted for the door now, reaching for Riptide as I ran.


Thanks for reading. Stay safe, everyone!