Nolan made room for her at the table, giving her his seat since she had food.
Rory looked meaningfully at her, her gaze hard and questioning.
Echo gestured that everything was more or less fine.
Rory nodded sharply, then went back to listening and mocking Sammy, in a good-natured way.
Echo found herself listening to Mercury Stoll, James Pace, Nolan Jackson, and Melina as they talked about their friends from camp.
It was the turn that Nolan took it on that caught her interest, though.
"Hey, Merc, wasn't your Uncle Travis supposed to come today? With your cousin?" He asked, leaning against his sister's chair. He had his Dad's laid back vibe, but his mom's intense gray eyes and blonde hair. Melina mostly had the laid-back vibe as well, but sometimes she had such an intensity to her that it made everyone around her try harder.
Mercury was thin as a toothpick, and while he had spent most of his life shorter than Echo (which was saying something since she wasn't exactly tall) he was finally starting to stretch out and shoot up. He was just a smidge taller than her now. But right now, he seemed to shrink as he sighed, "He was supposed to. But Riley got hurt a while back, and has to have surgery on his knee. He had it last night, he's okay, but Uncle Travis thought it might be a little much."
"It's been forever since I've seen him, I don't think I would remember what he looked like if it wasn't for your dad." Echo said, shaking her head.
Mercury looked a little troubled, "Well, from what I hear, Uncle Travis doesn't like coming to Westfield very much."
"Oh no, what did Papa do?" Echo took a bite of the enchilada, dreading what her fathers could have done.
Thankfully, Mercury laughed, "Nothing of consequence. No, it was more because he married Riley's mom here, and a lot of his life with her had been here. He couldn't bear the reminders and wanted to be able to focus on Riley, that's why he moved back to Michigan." He shrugged.
"I remember that time." Melina said softly, frowning at the table. "Megara, wasn't it?"
Mercury nodded, "I think so."
Aunt Meggie. Echo closed her eyes a moment, barely able to picture the woman, and only then because of the photos in the album her fathers rarely brought down from the top shelf. "She…she was the one…" Echo stopped herself, realizing that it was kind of awkward.
Mercury nodded a bit, "Yeah, your mother, technically."
"Genetically, too. Technically." James pointed out.
Nolan and Melina nodded.
Echo shook her head, "I don't really remember her."
"Neither do I and she was my aunt." Mercury said, shaking his head, "We have pictures, and Dad will tell me about her if I ask enough questions. Usually to shut me up so that I won't ask Uncle Travis. Apparently Riley has started asking the questions, though."
"Yikes, that's hard." Melina shook her head.
"How do you know?" Nolan teased his sister.
"Because I remember the looks on our parents faces when I kept asking them about my little sister." Mel almost snapped.
Echo winced. She did remember that funeral. She had gone home and not let her siblings out of her sight. And Dad and Papa had let them all sleep in bed with them. That had been six years ago.
Nolan's gaze dropped.
James cleared his throat, "Not that this conversation is totally light and fluffy, it isn't, but can I just say that I love when we get together because we can talk about the things our parents never want to talk about."
"Like how two guys a baby cannot make?" Echo shook her head, remembering the awkward conversation that she had had with her fathers about puberty (begging all the gods to please make it stop) and the human body (Stop! Not move on to something more awkward!) and then the burning question in her mind as she tried to figure out how the heck she existed and actually saying it out loud for the first time at school when they had to write something on mother's day and then share with the class.
Her teacher had been clueless about the situation.
Echo had gone up, the piece of paper in her hands with her writing and looked at her class and said, "I have no idea what a mother is like, I have two fathers. I'm not sure how I exist, because…I thought you needed a girl and boy to make a baby, but…here I am. And I have siblings! So if I have a mother…is it one of my fathers?"
She had been sent to the principals office, the teacher taking it as a joke since the whole class was laughing at Echo. And lucky her, the clueless secretary was working and the vice-principal had no clue as well and requested a meeting with her teacher and her parents.
So both of her fathers had shown up after school, Daddy still partially in scrubs and Papa with paint on his T-shirt and jeans, and they went into a very awkward meeting where the teacher ended up asking Echo to repeat what she had said to the whole class.
She also remembered her Daddy looking at Papa and saying, "I thought you said you would tell her?"
James grinned at her, "Exactly."
Even Mel was smiling again, "Or when things are actually wrong with our siblings. Like seriously, why do none of the adults think we can't see that Valerie has some serious anxiety issues? Do they not realize that if we weren't aware of these things that we could exacerbate the situation?"
Echo shook her head, glancing over at the now her brothers were running interference. "She probably got her Mom's abilities."
Mel nodded a bit, "Max seems to think so."
Maximus Temple, Valerie's older brother and Reyna and Eric's oldest child, was a lot like his Dad. He was protective, amiable, and just generally well-liked. He also had a knack for diffusing intense situations and putting a stop to fighting. They still weren't sure if he had any abilities from his mother, but it didn't matter to him.
"Or when things are going really bad and they try to hide it, but they really can't. But we have no problem talking about it." Mercury added, shaking his head. "Think they'll ever trust us to be part of those conversations?"
"I'm two years older and I'm still not part of those conversations." Mel rolled her eyes.
Nolan looked at Echo, "So, speaking of things being wrong, what's wrong with Declan?"
Echo sighed, "I wish I knew. Ever since the accident he's been showing the signs of the brain damage that the doctors said. That wasn't too bad, he just needed special attention, and a slower working pace. He seemed fine other than being a little slow, but a couple month ago he started getting…confused. He would forget things, where he was, what he was doing, sometimes he would forget things like who Papa was, or sometimes the twins. He'd get scared, because he usually knew that he couldn't remember and that he should. Today is the worst it's been. He couldn't remember how to get to the Valdez' house. We go there almost every other day. And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he grabbed onto me because I was the only person he recognized. Sometimes when he forgets, for some reason he can only remember me and Dad. Papa thinks it's because Dad was in the car and because I spent a lot of time with Declan while he was in the hospital. But so did Papa, and…" Echo made a vague gesture and let her hand drop back to her lap.
"I thought you were in the vehicle too?" James said, frowning.
She blinked, "Yeah, that's the part I tend to forget because I don't remember remember getting into the car or anything after that until waking up in the hospital." Thankfully that was the only thing she had been forgetting.
"I can't imagine Will would put off Declan getting tested." Mel said, giving me an inquisitive look.
I shook my head, "Tests are being done on Monday. Hopefully, whatever is wrong is easy to fix."
Melina nodded, "Well, I'll pray to some gods for him."
"Thanks, Mel." Echo heard a shout from over in the yard, and turned to look.
Everyone had frozen.
Echo got up, "Um, what happened?"
Ana turned around, "Rory just disappeared."
Echo's heart dropped to her stomach, "What!?"
"In the shadows, she disappeared!"
Echo vaguely remembered a chuckled memory from her Papa about his first time shadow traveling and ending up in China. "I'll be right back. Ana, watch Declan." She made sure her knife was ready, just in case, and ran out of the backyard and down to the Valdez house. She darted through the front door and out the back.
"Papa, Aurora just shadow traveled to who knows where." She called out, finally spotting him and Dad amongst the seated adults.
Papa's eyes widened, and he swore in Italian, "I better go see if my father has any ideas where to start looking." He gave Dad a kiss and then melted into the shadows himself.
Echo stood there awkwardly, then slowly backed up.
Dad came over, "I better come with you, Ana's probably freaking out."
"We all are." Echo said, her voice sort of monotone.
He hugged her, then went with her back to the house. Mel had managed to keep everyone quiet at least, though Ana looked ready to scream.
Dad talked to her softly, telling her that everything would be alright and that Papa would find Rory.
Gareth put a brotherly arm around Echo's shoulders, "You okay? I know how much of a mother hen you are."
She sighed, "It was only a matter of time before one of them showed what gifts they got."
"What about you?" He asked, squeezed her shoulders gently.
She shrugged, "Dad seems to think the music is my gift.I'm not particularly good at healing or archery."
"What about your mom's gifts?" He asked, his voice hesitant.
"I don't even know what they were. They don't talk about her. They were too close to her, I guess, but they've never seemed to think that our mother's abilities would show up. Maybe they've just forgotten. Or they think that the Apollo bit will overpower her parent's. Or none of us have exhibited any behaviors that would make them assume we inherited her abilities."
"What about the fact that Ana totally guessed that Mrs. Stoll is pregnant again?" Gareth whispered.
Echo frowned, "What do you mean?"
"Earlier when we were at my house, Ana looked at Mrs. Stoll and said congratulations on the baby. Mrs. Stoll looked at her in complete shock and asked how she knew because she hadn't even told her husband yet. She had wanted to wait until she was closer to her second trimester because of…"
The miscarriages. Ever since Mercury had been born (two months early, no less) Connor and Katie had been trying to conceive again, but to no avail. From what Echo had heard, they had stopped trying. Echo knew that Mercury tried his hardest to be the best son possible ever since he found out, working hard to get all A's in school and things like that.
"Anyway, Ana had just shrugged and said she had just sort of known."
Echo leaned her head against his shoulder, glad he was her friend if nothing else. She needed someone to lean on. "What about you, any godly gifts?"
"Well, they're the spontaneous combustion thing. But…also…" He seemed a little hesitant, "You can't tell them."
"I won't." Echo said automatically, "Unless your life is in dangers."
He nodded, "Fair enough. I, um, started learning magic last summer. And I'm getting pretty good at it."
Echo felt surprised, but also not surprised. "Maybe the little bit of Titan still left in your mom passed to you." She suggested.
He squeezed her shoulders again, "Don't know, but I'm really excited because it means I can be more than a legacy of Hephaestus. Not that machines aren't great. I've still got a bit of a mind for that too, not as good as full children of Hephaestus and definitely not as good as Dad, but I can get by. I just…I want to be able to explore it a bit before mom starts giving me pointers and dad starts cracking jokes."
"I get it," Echo wished she had some sort of ability. Her music was good, and she was good at it. But it wasn't a gift. She had to work at it.
And now both of her sisters were starting to demonstrate abilities…
Sometimes Echo hated being the oldest daughter.