The Jackson household was quiet that morning. It was the first day of school, but Jase wasn't up making pancakes like every other year. There was cereal. Annabeth had tried to make pancakes but nobody wanted the reminder. Not that anybody had actually remembered that they were out of pancake mix anyway.

A knock on the door echoed through the house. Percy was helping Adora get ready for school and Annabeth was feeding Oscar, so Casey answered the door. The police officer at the door had already taken off his hat and placed it over his chest in a sign of remorse. Casey thought it was a sorry way to apologize for something like this. Jase had done so much in his life; he meant so much more than a simple hat over this mortal's heart.

"What do you want," she asked dryly.

"Good morning Ms. Jackson, are your parents available?" The officer politely tipped his head.

Casey scowled. "No, they're not. But I don't think they need you to come here and remind them of what happened to my brother. We know you don't have any leads, you don't need to come here every week and tell us. So maybe think about that you bigoted twat!" And with that, she slammed the door in his face. She'd had enough of police officers after they'd interrogated her a few weeks earlier.

"Casey, was somebody at the door?" Annabeth asked as she walked down the stairs with Oscar.

"Just another crummy mortal policeman."

Annabeth sighed and gave her daughter a warning glance before re-opening the door. "I'm sorry," she said and stepped aside to let the shocked man in. "Please, come inside."

"I'm sorry to bother you and your family, mam'."

"It's really no problem. Now please, what is it? We're quite busy today," Annabeth tried to sound as polite as she could without telling the officer to hurry the fuck up and get out of her house.

"We know it's the first day of school, and our department is offering to position an officer at the school if it would make your children feel more comfortable," he said.

Annabeth glanced back at Casey. "No, thank you. I think that at this point having an officer there will just be more of a reminder. It might be time I try and at least let my kids go back to a semi-normal life. But thank you for the offer," Annabeth turned the offer down. The policeman gave her an almost suspicious look and nodded respectfully.

"As you wish. If you change your mind, feel free to call." He slipped another card into her hand. The family already had many of these cards lying around the house-mostly in garbage cans. Annabeth closed the door, then immediately turned and hugged Casey.

"I'm sorry, honey."

"It's ok Mom, not your fault they keep coming." Casey pulled away from the hug and shrugged her backpack on. "I'm headed to school."

Annabeth frowned. "Walking? No, I'll give you a ride. Your father can get the littles ready by himself." She left no room for argument. Casey wanted to roll her eyes and act reluctant to go, but she was happy. Her parents hadn't really made any alone time to spend with her since it happened.

"Did you get your summer homework done?" Annabeth asked.

"Yeah."

"How are you and Nathan?" Annabeth said with a knowing smile.

Casey almost reacted in anger, but she didn't know why. She felt defensive. But instead, she involuntarily smiled. "What do you mean?"

"Casey, I'm your mother. I'm not clueless. Katie is also one of my best friends, she tends to tell me things like when her son is head over heels for my daughter."

Casey blushed and fiddled with her fingers. "I told him I wasn't ready for a relationship right now," she said.

"I understand. And what did Nathan say to this?"

Casey blush deepened and she bit the inside of her cheek. "He said he understood. He was really nice about it."

"That's good. Want to stop for coffee before I drop you off?" Annabeth offered. That's another thing Percy and Annabeth did as parents. When one of their children was particularly upset, they'd bring them out for coffee or hot chocolate; just them. It was hard to make time for each individual child when you had four kids, so it didn't happen all that often.

"Sure," Casey responded. Annabeth smiled warmly and patted Casey's hand.

When they arrived at the small coffee joint, Annabeth ordered a green tea and Casey ordered a large coffee. Annabeth wasn't sure about all that caffeine, but she let Casey get it anyway. They sat at one of the tables on the small outdoor patio.

"Are we going to have a funeral? Like one in the mortal world that all his other friends can attend? And Sally and Paul and Estelle, I'm sure they'd want to go too." Casey mumbled. She hated talking about Jase's death so casually but her family, everybody in her life, had come to accept that he was dead.

"Casey, let's not talk about that. If we only talk about the negative, then we will never remember the positive," Annabeth urged.

Casey huffed and nodded. "Yeah, ok. What kind of positive things are there?"

Annabeth smiled. "You are officially becoming a high schooler today. That means you can start drivers ed. Your father and I signed you up already, class starts next week."

Casey's eyes widened. She'd been waiting to drive since she was a little girl. "Seriously? Mom, thank you!" She rushed forward and gave her mom a hug. Annabeth laughed and rubbed her back. "Make sure to brag to your sister. Adora has been whining all week that she has to wait," Annabeth joked. Casey couldn't wait to be the one to brag. Because Jase was the oldest, he always got to do things first.

"Now, we should probably get you to school. Try to make some friends, reach out."

Casey stopped smiling as soon as she got to school. Nobody paid her much mind, until they found out who she was.

"Casey!" Somebody called. Casey turned, not sure what to expect. One of Jase's school friends, Jared, was waving her towards him. She turned and pretended not to notice. Jase was supposed to be the one to show her around on her first day of high school. She didn't need his friends to remind her that he couldn't. School had started about 2 months ago, but the Jacksons started late this year. Everybody else knew where they were going, so nobody stopped to help Casey.

"Casey! God, you're fast," Jared huffed. "Hey, where's Jase? I heard on the news that-"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh," Jared deflated a bit. "Anyway, uh, need help finding your class?"

"I got it." In fact, Casey did not have it. She had no idea where she was going.

"Ok, cool. Hey, if you want somewhere to sit at lunch, we got room at our table?"

"No thanks."

"Uhh, ok… We're at the far corner of the room by the windows if you change your mind," Jared offered awkwardly. He stayed for a moment longer, then waved and bolted when Casey remained silent. If Jase were here, she wouldn't have had to be invited to sit there. All of his friends knew Casey by acquaintance. They'd met her a few times at sports events or when they came over to study.

Eventually, Casey found her class. She made her way to a seat in the back of the class seconds before the bell went off. The classroom was littered with sticky notes and little scraps of paper and lots of books. In the front was a small podium and whiteboard. The teacher was short and quite stout. He reminded Casey of professor Flitwick from Harry Potter. He tapped his pencil sharply against his podium to get the class's attention.

"Good morning everybody! Today we will be going over paragraph structure in a synthesis essay with our table groups. But first, stay in your seats so I can take attendance," the teacher said. He had a high squeaky voice, a non-threatening voice. He began to call out the roll. Going down the list of names, he nearly skipped Casey.

"Carter Jackle, here. Casey Jackson, absent," he muttered past her name.

"Here," Casey called dully. The entire class turned around to look at her. They sat in a moment of shocked and rude silence. "What?" Casey snapped. They all shuffled anxiously back to their seats and strained to ignore her.

"Casey Jackson, here," the teacher said. "I'm Mr. Johnson, it's nice to meet you dear." Then he continued attendance. After he finished, he sent the students into their work groups. Casey didn't move and waited for him to hobble to her desk.

"It's nice to meet you Casey, I've heard a lot," Mr. Johnson said. He smiled politely and handed her a few papers and a workbook. "Since you did most of the classwork over the summer, I've managed to worm your workload into something a bit smaller. Hopefully that will help ease your stress when you're trying to catch up. At the moment we're going over paragraph structure, which you'll find on page 112 of your workbook. Don't bother with finding a group quite yet, I'd like you to spend this week taking your time to catch up and going over the course."

Casey was unsure what to say. She hoped all the teachers would be this polite. "Uh, thank you," she finally croaked.

"Of course. I'll be up front if you have any questions. Next week we'll get you back on track with the rest of the class."

((AN: Thanks for all the support, I really appreciete it. Also, I've been thinking about doing anther Percy Jackson Avengers fic, except actually finishing this one. Please comment if you like the idea or have any suggestions. Thank you!)