"Piper, what is going on? Who was that guy?"

They were walking back to camp, and Alex was interrogating the daughter of Aphrodite the entire way. The elder demigod had no answers. She kept shaking her head and saying, "I don't know," like she was in a dream. Her eyebrows were furrowed in confusion and worry, and she was thinking intently.

Alex threw her hands up. "Am I going to get answers from anyone, or am I going to be in the dark forever?"

Piper opened and closed her mouth, unsure of what to say. Then: "I don't know. I'm sorry."

Alex cursed and looked up at the sky as they continued to walk through the woods. She took a deep breath to calm herself. Alex did what any legacy of Athena did in a moment of crisis: she started to think.

The guy was obviously a demigod. Not only did he have a Celestial Bronze sword, he had a powerful aura around him unlike any mortal. His eyes told her that he was a son of Poseidon, but Alex quickly waved that off. The guy seemed to be around his mom's age and no son of Poseidon could survive that long unknown to Camp Half-Blood. Maybe a minor god? Alex knew he wasn't Roman because she saw Greek writing on his sword. She couldn't decipher the text, but it was definitely Greek letters.

And the biggest question of all: how did he know Annabeth's name? Her mom was definitely shocked at his appearance, but maybe she just didn't expect a man to come stumbling out of the Labyrinth? It wasn't exactly an everyday occurrence despite how strange their lives were to begin with.

But that still didn't answer the question of how he knew her mother's name. Alex knew her mom had a lengthy history so maybe the guy knew her mom, but not the other way around? Maybe he fought against her at some point, and learned who she was. Maybe he actually was Roman, but just had a Greek sword?

All of these question swirled through Alex's head. She pulled her hair up into a messy bun; she always thought better when her hair was off her neck.

They arrived at the edge of woods, overlooking the dining pavilion. Hephaestus and Athena campers were already working to repair the damages. Most of the cracks were already fixed, much to Alex's relief.

Alex looked at Piper next to her as they continued to walk towards the pavilion. "Aunt Piper." She made a sound of acknowledgement. "Do you know who the guy is?"

Piper stopped walking and looked at the ground. Her hands wouldn't stop fidgeting. She finally looked up into Alex's questioning eyes. "Alex, I-"

"Piper!"

Travis Stoll of Hermes came running over to them. "I've been looking for you everywhere. Chiron called a Council meeting in the Big House right away. We're waiting on you." He looked between Piper and Alex. "Was I interrupting something?"

As Alex was about to open her mouth to say that yes, he was absolutely interrupting something, Piper shook her vigorously and said quickly, "No! Perfect timing. Let's go Travis." She took Travis by his arm and pulled them away before Alex could retort. Piper looked over her shoulder at Alex as they walked away. "Go back to Cabin Six, Alex. Wait for your mom to come and get you, okay?" She didn't wait for a response, turning forward again to head towards the Big House, leaving Alex still more confused than she had ever been.

/

In Alex's defense, she really did try to wait. She read a chapter from Harry Potter, she ate some ambrosia to heal up her torso, she sang a song, she brushed her hair out, she laid in her bed, only to check the clock and see that ten minutes had passed.

She groaned and threw herself face down on her bed. Her curiosity was eating at her and all she could think about was the man. She wanted to do something, anything, to get her mind off of the afternoon's events. Unfortunately, all of the day's activities were canceled while the leaders of the camp tried to figure out what the hell was going on so that plan was a bust.

Most of the other Athena campers were in the Cabin, working on projects or research, but Alex didn't have the mental energy to join them. Her fingers wouldn't stop twitching, and her mind was moving too fast to sleep and way too fast to focus.

All she wanted to do was be in that meeting.

Alex would blame her next move on her genetics, since she got her crippling curiosity from her mom and her irrepressible impulsivity from her dad.

She stood abruptly from her bed and left the cabin, slamming the door behind her. Her hair blew in the afternoon breeze as she marched to the Big House.

One side of her brain was saying that this was a bad idea, and that she should just wait for the answers. The other side, which was speaking louder in that moment, was saying that Alex deserved answers after all the shit she has gone through.

She stomped up the steps, ignoring Argus who was reading a book on a rocking chair. His eyes glanced up at her, but quickly went straight back down to his book when he saw her anger. Opening the front door, Alex made a beeline for the Council room. She could hear some objections from people in the room, but there was no stopping her at this point. She quickly knocked on the door to signal her arrival and barged in before anyone could stop her.

All eyes in the room fell on her, and Alex started to have second thoughts on her decision. Chiron's mouth was open, undoubtedly in the middle of talking before her sudden intrusion. The room was filled with all of the elder campers, who were all around her mom's age: Piper, Travis, Grover (looking healthy but tired), Clarisse, Connor Stoll, Will Solace, Nico DiAngelo, Chris Rodriguez, and of course, Annabeth. They all stared at her, except her mom, who wouldn't meet her eyes.

Alex cleared her throat and stood taller. "I want answers," she demanded, much bolder than she felt. "I don't want to be kept in the dark. Whatever is going on, it involves my mother so I deserve to know."

Slowly, all eyes shifted from one Jackson to the other.

Something was definitely not right; her mom had obviously been crying, she looked disheveled, and she was sitting. She never sat at meetings like this.

But she looked… happy, even relieved. Her eyes were shining, her shoulders looked relaxed, she was grinning, which made Alex even more confused.

Pushing back from the ping pong table, she stood and walked to her daughter's side. Taking Alex by the shoulder, she wordlessly started to pull her daughter from the room.

Alex looked back confusedly at the table to see everyone looking happily at her. Piper and Grover were both smiling and dabbing their eyes with tissues. Even Clarisse gave her a warm grin from under Chris' arm.

Her mother led Alex towards the infirmary and they walked through the doorway into the pristine room. It was empty except for a single person in the middle cot. Alex also noticed immediately that the lights in the room were dimmed. There was only one child of Apollo on duty and Alex was relieved that it was Sierra. She smiled at the two, her eyes lingering on Alex for an extra second before going back to her work. She was writing down the patient's vitals onto a clipboard. Quickly done, she excused herself and left the infirmary. Alex tried to smile at her, but it probably came out more like a grimace. She quickly turned her attention back to the patient in the middle of the room.

Alex and her mom moved closer, and Alex realized that it was the man. His beard had been shaved off and his black hair had been cut down to a long buzz cut, giving him a completely different appearance. His skin was also clean, no longer brown, red, and grey, but milky pale in the dull light. Paler than a child of Hades. If he were to stand on the beach for even a minute, he would definitely get sunburned.

He didn't appear too injured, most of his wounds healed by ambrosia and nectar. He had a few visible bandages on his upper body, but nothing life threatening. He was sleeping peacefully, and his thin face was relaxed.

They sat down on either side of the man on chairs. Alex looked at her mom expectantly.

"So?" she asked quietly.

Annabeth looked at her daughter. "Alex, what do you remember about your father?"

Alex furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Why are we talking about him?" She shook her head. "Mom, this doesn't have to be some family-bonding moment. I just want to know who this man is."

Annabeth signed and looked at the ceiling like she was saying a silent prayer. "This man is a son of Poseidon, Alex. He's been missing for years, searching for us." She was dropping clues, obviously wanting her daughter to put the pieces together.

Alex froze. Son of Poseidon, went missing shortly after her dad did when everyone was going on rescue missions, searching on behalf of their family.

"Holy shit," she said, looking at the man, "Dad had a brother?"

Annabeth closed her eyes, slightly disappointed in her daughter's detective skills. She looked at the man in front of her, and reached out and gripped his hand. "Gods, you are as obtuse as your father sometimes," she said, never taking her eyes off of him.

Alex looked between her mother and the man.

Oh.

Oh.

Alex's eyes widened and her stomach flipped. "Wait…what?" Her head was hurting.

Annabeth chuckled at her daughter's expense. "Alex, I don't know how or why, but this is your dad."

Bewildered, Alex looked at her father.

She didn't know what to expect. Fireworks? Balloons? Confetti? What do you do when the being behind half of your DNA just suddenly drops back into your life after twelve years of being dead? Be scared that a ghost was in front of her or cry like a baby into his arms?

Alex's posture relaxed and she perused the man, trying to find some familiarity. Their hair was the same color. Their mouths and lips were similar. That's all Alex could notice.

"Okay," she said evenly.

Annabeth looked at her daughter curiously. "'Okay?' That's it?"

Alex shrugged her shoulders and pulled her eyes away from her father to look down at her lap.

This man in front of her wasn't her dad.

In Alex's mind, that title belonged to her Uncle Grover. In fact, when she was younger, she often introduced him as such to her friends when he would pick her up from school. Of course, he would always correct her in the car, but she would simply give him an adorable smile before doing the same thing the next day.

But can you blame her? Grover was there when she first rode her bike, on her first airplane trip to San Francisco when she was six, at her first swim competition. He danced with her at every Daddy-Daughter Dance, went to every parent-teacher conference when her mother couldn't attend. He held her as she cried for her mom who was on yet another quest to find her father. He held her as she cried in her room after a homophobic slur was hurled at her at school for the first time and her mom was at Camp Jupiter for business. He comforted her when she admitted to not remembering her father.

Grover was there when her mother couldn't be, and Alex would forever be grateful for his place in her life. Someone's blood did not have to match in order to be family.

The man in front of her was Percy Jackson the hero, who happened to also share her DNA. When Alex thought of the word dad, he did not come to mind. Grover, and even Chiron, Leo, the Stolls, Will, and Nico all came to mind. Not Percy Jackson.

He was her father by blood, but not yet her dad.

/

Alex did not sleep well that night. She tossed and turned for hours before finally giving up, sitting up in her bed. She checked her bedside clock; the bright red 3:27 AM mocked her.

The cabin was quiet, most people exhausted from the day's events. Even if someone was up and saw Alex moving around, they were not going to say anything. People avoided her for the rest of the day like she had the plague. Alex was known to have a quick temper when she was stressed so no one wanted to cross her.

Taking a deep breath, Alex decided to go to the one place that always eased her mind. Slipping on the Yankees hat that her mom gifted her on her thirteenth birthday, she quietly left the cabin. She felt her shoulders relax slightly, relishing in that fact that this was the first time all day that no one would be looking at her.

Directing her path towards Cabin Three, Alex kept her head and eyes down in order to avoid stepping on something that would alert the harpies to her presence. Glancing over her shoulder to check for any onlookers, she quickly opened the door and slid into the cabin.

But she was not alone.

He was sitting on one of the bunks, facing the door. He had a Camp necklace in his hands, running his fingers over the countless amount of decorated beads. His deathly pale skin stood out against the darkness of the room. His head snapped up at the movement of the door, and his eyes scanned over her invisible form and the area around her.

"Take the hat off," he said, his voice soft.

Alex felt stupid. This was a bad idea. She should just turn around and leave, play dumb and say it was some Hecate kid trying to see the legendary Percy Jackson with their own eyes.

"Please."

Alex paused but felt her resolve crumble, and she slowly pulled the hat from her head, revealing her identity to her father. He may not have seen her in twelve years, but Alex knew he recognized his little girl grown up.

He stood but remained where he was.

"What are you doing here?" Alex asked with more anger than she thought she had.

"Couldn't sleep." He tilted his head at her slightly. "What are you doing here?"

"Couldn't sleep," she said. She felt defensive, like she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

They fell into a moment of silence, and suddenly Alex was overwhelmed with emotions and questions for the man in front of her. Her mind was racing and she felt her heart rate pick up.

She could have asked a million questions, but the first to fall from her mouth was, "Why did you go on that quest?"

She regretted the harshness of the question as soon as she said it, but it was at the forefront of her mind. It was the question she had wanted to ask as soon as she fully understood what occurred that day twelve years ago, the last time she saw him. Why would he just leave her and her mother behind when he knew the danger of taking the quest?

He winced, like he knew the question was coming. He took a step towards her.

"It's not that simple. I had to-" he started.

"No!" Alex cried out. "You didn't have to do anything. The only obligation you had was your family and you left us behind!" Alex wanted to hurt him, for him to feel all of the pain and suffering that her mother and her went through for the past twelve years because of him.

"I had to protect my family!" he retorted. He sounded tired. "I decided to put myself in danger to protect you two. And I would do it over and over again if it meant keeping you safe." He took a breath. His voice was quiet. "Someday you will understand. I didn't want to leave, but I had to." His voice broke slightly. "The thought of losing you and your mother is more terrifying than any form of death."

"Twelve years." Alex was crying. "You were gone for twelve years."

He took another step forward. "Tartarus wasn't really receptive to the fact that I had a wife and kid waiting for me at home." He stopped in front of her, looking at her face, still seeing his little girl from all those years ago. "I never stopped trying to get out. The punishments…" he winced, remembering the countless days of pain and torture. "They couldn't stop me. I needed to see my family again." He looked down at his feet. "Look, I know I've missed a lot. I understand your resentment. I know this isn't going to be as easy as I want it to be, becoming a family again-" he looked up "-but all I ask is that you understand. Understand that we are all feeling the effects of the past twelve years. Mentally and physically. Can you do that?"

Alex remained silent, tears continuing to fall.

This can't be real.

He tentatively brought his right hand up, and he cupped her cheek to wipe her away her tears. His hand, more rough than she remembered, sparked a million memories in head. Wiping her tears when she fell at the playground, playing in the living room as he blew raspberries on her cheek, kissing her forehead when she had a nightmare. The ocean mixed with lavender filled her senses and she knew.

She collapsed into his arms and he caught her, holding his daughter tight.

Her father was home.

/

Happy 2019. See y'all in six months.