Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson.
Litney tiptoed down the hallway. Her home in New York was easy to sneak around.
She stopped by the cracked open kitchen door. All the adults were still in there. She continued on.
When she reached her father's study, she slid the door open, making no sound at all. Usually she heard the door creak when Dad opened it, but not her. She was a pro.
She crawled onto his comfy spinning chair and spun once or twice around. Usually she snuck in just to spin, but today something caught her eye.
An old photo album, covered in dust. She'd never noticed it before.
She pulled it out from under the desk and opened it to the first page. It was a picture of her mom, her dad, and one of their best friends. Litney had been told all about him, but she'd never met him. He was always somewhere around the world. In the picture, they seemed to be at a summer camp. Mom was holding a Yankees baseball cap, Dad had a ballpoint pen and was brandishing it at the camera, laughing, and their friend held some sort of small wind instrument. How random, Litney thought, flipping the page.
The next was a picture of her parents with her grandparents: her mom's dad and step-mom, and her dad's mom and step-dad.
Halfway through the album, the pictures became drawings, sketches, paintings, and pastels. One was a young boy, smiling up at her, three or four years older than her. Another was her dad, wielding a sword and backed by a wave. They looked so real, Litney could imagine her parents fighting monsters when they were teenagers.
But they were only drawings, right?
The door creaked, and Litney gasped, looking around. Leaning against the doorway was her father's cousin, Nico di Angelo. Litney didn't know why he looked nothing like her dad, but he was pretty fun to hang out with, anyways.
"Hey, kiddo," he grinned. "Snooping?"
"Nico! No, I was just-"
"Prying?"
She rolled her eyes. At six, she was a little drama queen with a pretty big attitude, but it was all for laughs. First-graders adore that stuff. She also had a huge vocabulary.
"I was not! I was just spinning, and I saw this thing of pictures. There's a whole bunch of drawings in the back, too. Do you know who drew them?"
He took it and glanced at each. "Rachel..."
"Who's Rachel?" Litney demanded.
"Old family friend," he murmured. "But I don't think they've seen her in a while."
"What is it with all these people I haven't met? Grover, Tyson, Thalia, Clarisse, now Rachel!" she exclaimed exasperatedly. "No one can make time to visit their best friend?"
"What am I, chopped Fury?" he smirked.
She scowled. "You never explain what a Fury is," she snapped. "Nobody tells me anything, because I'm six, and Mom and Dad always tell me I'm too little to know." She sighed. "Daddy's way too overprotective, too."
He walked over, scooped her up, and sat down. She snuggled against him, wondering why he never seemed to be as warm as anyone else.
He flipped through the pages absentmindedly.
"Maybe there's a reason your father is protective," he said finally.
"If there is, I'm not going to find out," Litney pouted.
"Not necessarily," he shrugged.
"Well then, you tell me," she snapped.
She thought he would refuse, but he nodded. "Why not?"
Litney smiled. "Storytime."
"WHen your dad was a kid, he didn't have it easy," he began. "He was always getting kicked out of schools, and he was...kind of a trouble magnet."
The little girl giggled, green eyes sparkling. "Why?"
"He always seemed to be facing something, choices. When he turned sixteen, he made the biggest choice of his life. I guess he wants to protect you from that kind of decision, and he doesn't want you to feel the same heartbreak. But he knows he can't protect you forever."
"Why not?"
"Because you're too much like him. You've got ADHD and dyslexia?"
"Mild dyslexia," Litney corrected.
"Then it's only a matter of time." He smiled at her. "I'm sure he'll tell you everything soon."
Litney shrugged. "You never said why he was a trouble magnet," she accused.
Grinning, Nico leaned down to whisper in her ear, "Because he smelled funny."