Hi guys! I know I have basically fallen off the face of the earth for over a year, and I am so sorry for leaving you hanging for so long with this story. Life has been crazy and honestly the desire to write just hasn't been there. However, I recently graduated from college and suddenly found myself with a lot more time on my hands, especially with this crazy quarantine stuff. I recently picked up fanfiction again and finally found the inspiration I needed to continue this story.

I'm not sure how many people are even still interested in this fanfic, but I've seen the recent reviews from those of you who are. Thank you all for your incredible patience. Hopefully this update and the promise of future ones to come (in a reasonable time frame) will start to make up for my ridiculously long hiatus.

That being said, I am excited to get this first chapter up for you. It isn't the most exciting thing I've ever written, admittedly, but it does set the stage for chapters to come and I hope you enjoy it. :)


*6 Months Later*

The passenger door of the car stopped in front of me closed and the blue sedan drove off, leaving me up next in Northridge High's student pick-up line. I shifted into park and got out into the biting January cold as Logan appeared and wheeled himself toward me. I walked around and opened his door for him, waiting while he slid himself from the wheelchair and into the passenger seat. When he was safely inside, I slung the backpack hanging from the chair over my shoulder and folded it up to be neatly slid into the back of the car, Logan's backpack following after it, before making my way back around to the driver's side, the eyes of the driver parked behind me on us the entire time.

It was the same routine we employed after every school day, one we'd perfected in the three months since the first day of Logan's sophomore year. There had been some debate, once he'd finally been given the all-clear medically just before the start of the new school year to return, as to whether it wouldn't be worthwhile for Logan to be homeschooled for a bit while he adjusted and healed, using one of those online homeschool programs we'd seen advertised everywhere. It had been his idea, and we had considered it, but ultimately decided that while he was certainly more than responsible enough to handle it on his own, leaving him alone all day while everyone was gone, while he was still recovering, did not bode well. Annabeth had also believed it was best for him to be back in the environment he knew, with his friends and Jasmine, and with the capable Rick Harris overseeing things should something bad happen while we were still working out just exactly how Logan was to properly defend himself if the need arose, with so little function still below his waist.

And despite our hopes, he still had very little function indeed. The inflammation around his spine had slowly started to resolve itself in the months since the quest, and there was still some remaining even now, six months later, but even with the steady healing, Logan had seen little improvement.

He'd regained some feeling in parts of his legs, but his motor abilities were still severely compromised. Even with rigorous physical therapy with one of the Apollo campers, progress had been frustratingly minimal. At one point, about 3 months after the accident, he'd managed a slight twitch in one of the toes of his left foot, which had had all of us riding a wave of tentative optimism that he might indeed overcome his paralysis. But in the three months since then, Logan had put in endless hours of work, all of which he hated, and had little to show for it. It was beginning to look like this would be the new normal.

We'd gone and acquired all the necessary, expensive equipment he needed to make everyday living more tolerable for him – since it became very obvious very quickly just how fully his paraplegia affected many areas of life that had barely required a thought before. The wheelchair, the stool for the shower in the bathroom, the lift on the stairs to bring him up and down from his bedroom on the second level of our house. All of it he needed, and all of it he utterly abhorred. With each day that passed, he seemed to draw further into himself.

It was hard not to view the situation as hopeless sometimes. When it had first happened, I had been tempted to march up to Mount Olympus myself and beg Apollo to intercede personally in the situation. I hadn't because Annabeth insisted there were some injuries even a god couldn't fix, but sometimes I was still tempted to try anyway. There was nothing worse than being able to do nothing while my child suffered. I'd take every horrible thing that had happened in my life a hundred times over if it meant I could take this burden from my son. He wasn't even sixteen yet. It truly wasn't fair.

I pulled the car out of the pick-up line now and navigated toward the school's exit. "How was school?" I asked.

"Fine," Logan answered quietly.

"Did you take that geometry test today?"

"Mhmm."

"How do you think it went?"

"Fine."

Okay, so it was going to be one of those conversations. Gone, apparently, were the days when school was one of Logan's favorite places. He still made good grades, poured himself into his work, maybe to distract himself from everything else happening, but I knew he didn't love having to be there, parading his injury around in his wheelchair and dodging stares and questions from people. I didn't blame him.

And I'd thought I had it rough at his age.

We'd hoped having a couple weeks off for winter break would have been good for him, give him a break from all the attention. But when Nicky and Carly went off to camp for a week, Logan opted to remain behind, had pleaded to actually. Annabeth and I had been reluctant to let him isolate himself from what we believed the best place for him to be, but Chiron insisted he needed time. So we'd given it to him and he stayed home with us while his siblings went to camp. Nicky had offered to stay home with him, but Logan had heard none of it and the former had complied when his brother told him he wanted him to go without him, that it was okay.

That was perhaps the only good thing that had come out of this situation. The boys had always been pretty close. They were only a few years apart and they loved each other. But their experiences during that quest had formed a bond between them; they'd truly become best friends in the time since. It seemed like Logan talked to Nicky more than he did any of the rest of us nowadays. And Nicky seemed the only person capable of eliciting a now-rare smile from his brother.

I supposed I was grateful for that at least. At least Logan had someone.

A skateboarding accident. That's what we'd been telling people, mortal people, the cause of his paralysis had been. A freak accident, where Logan had fallen off and landed just right onto the edge of a ramp, injuring his spine. It had been the best we could come up with on short notice and, as I'd recently been informed, skateboarding was more dangerous an activity than I'd thought. Apparently it was possible.

"Any idea what you want for your birthday yet?"

"No."

"What about dinner that night? Mom needs to know if she has to go to the store."

A mumbled "I dunno."

"Okay, well you've only got a week and a half left. You're running out of time to decide, kid."

Logan only shrugged. I tried not to sigh and gave up trying. We drove the rest of the way in silence.

Twenty minutes later, I followed Logan inside the house, catching the door as he swung it open and holding it as he pushed his wheelchair through.

Annabeth was seated at the counter, still in her work clothes, the week's grocery flyers spread before her, cutting out relevant coupons and putting together a list for the shopping trip planned for the weekend. She looked up at our entrance, her eyes trailing Logan as he crossed to the table, an excited Ollie circling him, and dumped his backpack onto it to retrieve his homework for the night.

Her eyes cut to me then, the question clear in them. I shook my head. Her lips thinned a bit, but she did not look surprised.

Ollie crossed to me then, his tail beating hard enough to sting a bit against my legs. I pat his head in greeting, and then crossed to Annabeth and kissed her cheek. "How was your day?"

"Not bad," she answered. "How was your meeting?"

"Oh, you know, favorite part of my week."

She snorted. "Yeah." I grinned. "Your mom is grabbing Carly from school."

"Did she say why?"

A shrug. "Any reason to come over and see the kids."

I smirked. "You know, there was a time, once, when we were the bane of her existence. I'm not sure exactly when that changed."

Annabeth had returned her attention to the papers in front of her, but she was still smiling as she played along. "Probably the day I got pregnant."

I laughed, "Yeah."

I glanced over at Logan. He showed no sign of having heard anything as he flipped through a history textbook. Annabeth, of course, noticed. She caught my gaze and held it for a moment. Every ounce of worry I felt was mirrored in her gray eyes.

We'd had more than a few concerned conversations long into the night since Logan had returned home so different from when he'd left, in more ways than just physically. We'd yet to come to a conclusion about what to do, how to make the most of this, how to make him okay again.

Because we had to believe that he would, eventually, learn to be okay again, one way or another.

She'd read a lot of books, of course, because that's what Annabeth did. But when she gave me some that she thought were worth reading myself, I did not hesitate in picking them up. According to the authors, experts in child psychology, and teenagers, and trauma, it would take time. He needed time to heal, to adapt, to come to terms with his situation. And we could not push him. All we could do was make it clear that we were here for him, when he was ready to open up about it. Because, according to those books, he would, eventually, do so.

Unless he didn't, in which case, professional help may be needed. But everyone was different, so no exact timeline existed, and neither of us had any idea as to whether we were at that point yet or not. Or whether the situation was even the same for a half-blood teenager who'd fought evil, immortal Titans on a quest and jumped in front of a sword to save his brother's life and wound up paralyzed because of it.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much precedent for our situation...

"Need any help with dinner?" I asked now.

She shrugged. "Not yet. Pork chops are defrosted in the fridge. We can grill them, assuming one of us wants to brave the cold to do so. We have salad and we can see what else the kids want with them." There was a knock on the door as she finished speaking.

"Works for me," I said, moving out of the kitchen now to answer it.

It was Nicky. "I forgot my key," he said in explanation, before moving inside, school bag slung over his shoulder.

I waved to Sue Lawrence across the street, shuffling Hannah, who looked to be petitioning her mother about something, inside. She smiled and waved back. Hannah did as well. With both kids attending the same middle school, we had worked out something of a carpool schedule with Hannah's parents. Either Annabeth or I drove them both in the morning on our way to work, and the Lawrence's picked them both up in the afternoon. Having three kids in three different schools tended to be a bit of a nightmare logistically, so anything we could do to improve the chaos even a little was much appreciated.

"You're going to get stuck outside one of these days if you don't start remembering it," I told Nicky now, following him inside. He's been given the house key at the beginning of the school year, since there were times now, when Annabeth brought Carly home and I was late getting back with Logan, that he was the first one home in the afternoon. He'd been lucky so far, despite the fact that he only remembered to bring it with him about half the time.

"I know."

Almost an hour later, I stood at the sliding door that connected the living room and the back deck, watching as Ollie traipsed around in the two-day-old snow, apparently undecided as to whether he wanted to come back inside or not. My mom had arrived not long ago with an excited Carly, and had spent the past several minutes discussing with Annabeth the merits of grilling versus baking dinner. She came to stand beside me now.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey yourself," she replied, smirking.

"How'd pickup go?"

"Oh, fine. Carly was surprised to see me."

"I bet she talked your ear off the whole drive home too."

"Of course." I grinned. "How's work?"

I shrugged. "I get to go diving and talk to fish all day. What more can I ask for?"

"So still the perfect job then."

I smiled again. "If ever there was such a thing."

My mom smirked in reply, but the mirth did not reach her eyes. "And how are you?" She asked after a pause. I knew she was not speaking casually anymore.

I took a breath and crossed my arms over my chest, watching as Ollie apparently heard something at the edge of the yard and grew still, his ears high as he turned toward it. "I'm... worried, honestly." I couldn't help the way my eyes drifted momentarily over her shoulder, to the teenager seated in the other room, his back to us.

She nodded. "I managed to coax two whole sentences out of him before. I think that's the most I've heard in a month."

"I know. I don't know what to do. I... we're at a loss, Mom."

She sighed and placed a hand on my back. "He needs time," she said gently. It was nothing I didn't already know, but the confirmation was nice, I supposed.

"It doesn't feel like we're doing enough" I admitted, "But I also don't know what more we can do. He doesn't want help."

My mom was quiet for a minute. Ollie has enough of the January weather and trotted for the door. I let him inside, but didn't move from my spot.

"Do you remember when you came home after the Giant War?" my mom asked then, her voice quiet. I looked at her. "After everything that happened?"

"Of course."

She shook her head, her eyes far away. "You were so different from the Percy I remembered. You and Annabeth. You were so broken." She met my eyes. "I knew you'd been through something unimaginable, and it left deep scars. It killed me not to be able to do anything when you'd refuse to sleep at night, when you'd drift off sometimes to some faraway part of your mind where I couldn't reach you, when you flinched every time someone walked into the room. You nearly jumped out of your skin when I dropped a pot on the floor that first week. I'm not even sure you meant to draw Riptide, it just happened."

She took my hand and squeezed it, maybe recognizing the guilt in my eyes, even though I knew she wasn't telling me this to make me feel bad. She went on, "I would have given anything for you to talk to me, to tell me about the demons you faced, even if I couldn't do anything to fix them. I wished more than anything that you wouldn't spare my feelings for once. You didn't know back then that as a parent there is nothing worse than seeing your child in pain and being unable to fix it."

"I'm sor-"

"But I knew it would take time. That you would open up and share what you could when you were ready." She gave a small smile. "And you did. And you got better, eventually. You both did. You learned to live with those demons, and the scars you had, and slowly you became the son I knew and loved again. You learned to live again."

She reached up to touch my cheek. "My point is, Percy, that sometimes simply being there feels inadequate when you're dealing with something huge like this. Especially when it's your child who is hurting. And it will never not be horrible. But as long as you are there, that he is not alone in this, you're doing more than you know. And things will get better." She smirked. "Any child if yours and Annabeth's is far too stubborn not to."

I hugged her, and spoke around the lump that had taken up residence in my throat at her words. "Thank you."

"Be patient," she murmured. "He'll get through this. You all will."

I hoped, maybe more than I'd ever hoped for anything in my life, that she was right.


Thank you for reading! And thank you again for your patience, your commitment to this story, and for just generally being awesome. I promise you will see more regular updates in the near future. I WILL see this story through to its end!

Until next time, stay safe and healthy!