Sometimes, Sally doesn't even think that Percy has nightmares from Tartarus.

Of course, she knows better. She's his mother after all. He has bags under his eyes and he always looks tired.

He's become so good at acting, though. He never used to be able to lie to her. He can tell her that he slept great with a smile on his face that almost convinces her.

The scariest thing is that he never tells her about his nightmares. When he was younger, she could tell very easily when he had a nightmare, because she would wake up to him sleeping under her bed, to be close to her but to stay out of Gabriel's way. She would carry him back to his room and ask him what the nightmare was about. If they were normal little kid dreams, she would hug him and tell him, "No, Percy, the ice cream truck isn't trying to eat you." If it seemed like a demigod dream, she would make him blue pancakes as quietly as she could so she didn't wake up Gabriel, and they would eat them together.

As he got older, he stopped ending up under her bed, but he still told her about his nightmares hesitantly, as if he was slightly afraid she would laugh at him.

Then he disappeared.

And when he came back, he pretends like his nightmares don't exist. Before the Queen of the Gods kidnapped him– and gods, if that doesn't make Sally want to fucking kill someone– he would always yell out in his sleep. Now, he must have trained himself to scream silently. She assumes it's because in Tartarus, they had to be quiet.

But she wants to help him so bad. She feels so useless, watching the circles under his eyes grow darker and darker, and he grows more and more exhausted.

Finally, she can't take it anymore.

"Mom, I'm going to head out to camp. Thanks for the pancakes! We haven't had those in a while!" Percy says fake-cheerily.

"No."

He pauses, his brow furrowed. "I'm sorry?"

"You are not going to camp. You are going to sit down on this couch and talk to me."

"Mom, I'm fi-"

"Hayati, please."

She's not sure if it's the Arabic or the pleading tone that makes him flinch and sit down, but whatever it was worked.

She comes out of the kitchen and sits down next to her son. He sits too stiffly, avoids eye contact.

It breaks her heart.

"When was the last time you had a full night's sleep?" Sally asks softly.

"Mom, I don't want to talk about this-"

"No, Percy!" Sally cries. "We need to! You're always tired and you never tell me about your nightmares anymore." Tears fill her eyes involuntarily. She feels awful as Percy looks panicked, then scootches closer to her. She knows that whenever she cries, it makes her son want to make her stop. It makes her feel like she's manipulating him, which makes her cry more. But whatever her moral dilemma, it does make Percy soften towards her.

"It's not bad, Ummi. It's just some nightmares about- about Tartarus." The mention of the Greek hell makes him close his eyes and rub his temples.

"Habibi, I haven't seen you look well-rested since before Hera-akrahuha- took you. Please, stop telling me you're fine."

Percy's bottom lip quivers. He's about to cry.

"Oh, abni," Sally sighs, carding her hands through his hair. That breaks his composure. His face crumples and he falls against his mother.

"I- I scared her, Ummi. And it scared me, too. That's all I ever dream about. I don't think I'm a good person anymore. That's why I never told you- I didn't want you to think I was a monster yet- I didn't want you to hate-" he can't finish his sentence before bursting into tears.

"I'll never hate you, Percy." Sally looks like she wants to cry as much as her son.

"You don't know that!" he wails. "Estelle is so young! What if I hurt her? What if I hurt you? I hurt so many people, Ummi, how can I be good? How can you still love me?"

"Percy, I don't even know why you're suddenly thinking this. You saved the world twice, remember?"

"Luke saved the world the first time, and I almost ended it with my stupid nose bleed the second."

"No!" The volume of the normally soft-spoken woman's voice surprises them both. "Luke just gets all the credit because he did the last thing! You and Annabeth did everything leading up to that. He did the bare minimum. And if it wasn't your nose bleed, it would have been someone else's blood. Gaea rising was not your fault."

"Ummi, stop defending me!" he says desperately. "I don't deserve it, and I'm going to hurt you and Annabeth and Estelle and Paul and all my friends just like I hurt her."

"Hurt who, Percy?" Her son pales, realizing his Freudian slip. She speaks more softly. "Who did you hurt, hayati?"

"Akhlys," he whispers. "Goddess of Misery."

"Tell me."

"She had a thing we needed to get out of the Pit," Percy says quietly. "The Death Mist, to hide us from monsters. She had poison, and she tried to kill us with it, and then I made her mad and she tried extra hard to kill me." He swallows. "And I took control of the poison and almost killed her with it and I started to use her tears and snot against her and Annabeth was so scared-"

"Percy, tell me five things you can see," Sally interrupts. She's helped her son through enough panic attacks to know when one is coming on.

"Y-you, the kitchen, the coffee table, the door to my room, and my hands."

They count all the way down to one thing he can taste- blood in his mouth from biting down on his lips too hard.

"Habibi, I haven't heard anything that can make me hate you."

He stares at her, unbelieving. "I tried to kill a goddess with her own bodily fluids and you don't think that's wrong?"

Sally scoffs. "She tried to kill you first. It was self defense. And Annabeth was only scared because she didn't understand it. I bet if you two had a conversation about it, it would be smoothed over with minimal fighting. You did what you could to survive in a horrible situation, and I could never be mad at you for that."

Percy looks stunned. "I had never thought about it like that. Self-defense". He looks at his mother in awe. "I love you so much, did you know that?"

Sally smiles at him. "Not as much as I love you."

So, I kind of hate the ending of this, but that's okay.

The title is from the musical Come From Away, where a character repeats the phrase "I'm fine, Tom. I'm fine."

Just to clear up any confusion, I wanted to try to write an Arab Percy and Sally. They're speaking specifically Levantine Arabic, which is the dialect that I am learning.

Translations:

Hayati- term of endearment, literally my life

Ummi- Mother/Mom/Momma

Habibi- term of endearment, literally my heart

Akrahuha- I hate her

Abni- My son

Thanks,

ATOTALMUSICALNERD