A/N: SERIOUSLY IMPORTANT HERE, PEEPS!

I am participating in the contest/challenge/thingy-ma-bopper, Project PULL

Here's the link to the creator's profile for more info.

Now, here for my chapter.

I've had this idea for a while, but since I seem to have an aversion to the words "regular" and "updations" put together, it hasn't been presented till now.

Of course, there were some...kinks to work out, as this first came to me as a I'm-seriously-hyper-and-there-are-aliens-in-this-so-it-sounds-good-plus-Aliexia-is-messing-with-it-so-that-Sally-goes-crazy-and-kills-everyone-with-a-baseball-bat type of idea. We ALL know those...

Anyway...

The title is A Mother's Job.Here's the...the...the word escapes me, but you know what I mean.

When will he come home? Will he be ok? These are the questions she asks herself daily as Percy is gone. Without warning, he just...disappeared. Chiron even dared to suggest he was...dead. Her job was to fuss over him. She was his mother. But when he was off on these crazy quests practically designed to get him killed, what was she to do? He was gone.

This is actually rather short. Set during Percy's stay at Calypso's island whose name also escapes me. Something like Ogigia. Nih, just can't catch a break today! More on that later.

ONWARD!

Just another summer.

Just another time for him to slip away.

Sally wasn't sure she could handle much more. Percy went missing on a monthly basis these days. It was driving her insane. It wasn't too bad when she knew he was at camp, but when the camp's number showed up on their caller I.D., she would always panic. Chiron would be on the other end, telling her that Percy and Annabeth and whoever else were on another gods-forsaken quest that they probably wouldn't return from. And she would say ok and hang up and cry. She was so worried for him. Now that she had Paul, it was a little better, but back when she was still single, it was the worst. If he died, she didn't know if she would ever be the same. He had been all she'd had for so long.

Now, Chiron had called and told her that there had been no contact from him for two weeks. After the explosion at Mt. St. Helen's, (which he apparently caused) no one had heard of him. They were burning his shroud today at camp. Annabeth would be giving a speech.

Poor girl. She must be every bit as worried as she was. Sally was so sure the two of them would end up together. But if he was...

No. He couldn't be. She would know. She was his mother. She would know.

That what she told herself every time she almost thought the horrid defeat of her will for him to live. He had to be alive. She would have felt it. Poseidon would know. He would tell her. No message from him had come, so Percy was fine.

But if he wasn't...

Maybe she should be there, at the burning, for him. She was sure Chiron would let her across the border for this. She grabbed her keys and stuffed them in the pocket of her jeans. She was about to grab her purse when there was a knock at the door. Hoping it wasn't anyone who would waste her time, she crossed to the door and opened it.

And she heard the words that she most wanted to hear.

"Hey mom, I'm home."

A/N: Yeah, I know, it was really short. And PULL requirements require it to be at least 1,000 words. But this was all I could come up with. So, to make up for the other...631 words, I'm going to update another story. I win!

I also know that that might not be what he said when he got home. Sadly, my BOTL book is currently MIA, so I just kinda made it up.

Reviews?

S2-Ailat