I'm overdue to update, so here you go! This one's a pre-series Thalia fic, but be warned: LOST HERO SPOILERS! Just saying.
Disclaimer: I'm not him. Sucks, doesn't it?
Thalia knew her mother didn't care about her. It was a fact that she had accepted a long time ago. It was hard at first, but Thalia was a strong girl and had learned to just cope with the situation she was stuck in and tough it out. But this- this was the last straw.
Her mom never woke her up for school. Thalia had to get ready every morning in that dark and quiet apartment room all by herself, save Jason. And then she'd have to step out into the bitter-cold streets of New York and walk two miles through snow sludge to get to her school. With a baby strapped to her back. And after dropping her little brother off at the daycare center next to the school, she'd have to grind through the whole learning-with-dyslexia ordeal.
The burden was far too heavy for an eight year old to bear. She was truly living on her own, dreading the moment her mother barged through the door each evening. Somehow, Thalia had managed it until this day- but now she was done with it. The day Thalia slept through her alarm because she had been up until 2 the night before rocking little Jason to sleep. The day her mom slammed open the door and 6:00 that night and found her daughter still asleep in her room.
"I'm sorry!" Thalia screamed through her tears. "But I was so tired the night before- caring for Jason- that I-,"
"Oh, you were tired? You were tired? I'm the one who has to wake up at five every morning for work to pay for a place for you to live, to pay for food that keeps you alive! But you can't wake up for school in the morning, and I get a call saying you've committed truancy!'
"I get up at five every morning too! Because I can't have a normal parent who gives me a ride to school! And I'm the one taking care of Jason, even though you're supposed to be the mother, the one who takes care of him!" Thalia sobbed.
Her mother's face colored and contorted with fury. "Shut up, you ungrateful child! How dare you speak to your mother like that!"
Thalia swallowed her sobs and stood up, now righteously indignant. "You're no mother of mine! You have never, ever been there for me! Jason and I don't need you!" Her mother lashed out and struck her daughter's tearstained face. With a shriek, Thalia jerked back in terror. This was it. She couldn't take it any more.
"I'm leaving!" Thalia screamed, snatching her baby brother from the couch and grabbing her backpack as she ran towards the door. She ignored her mother's yells and fumbled with the door knob. Shoot. It was locked. Her shaking fingers turned the latch, and by then her mother was upon her. But as her mom grabbed her arm, a sudden bolt of electricity zapped her at the touch.
Thalia's eyes widened. How did she do that? She had just-
"You freak child! How could you- how did you-,"
Thalia gritted her teeth and slammed the door in her mother's fuming face. And then she started to run. Tears were pouring freely down her face, but she ignored them and continued to sprint down the icy sidewalk. Where am I going? What did I just do? What was I thinking? A million panicked questions flooded Thalia's mind, but she pushed them back and thought simple. I need a place to think. I need a place to think. I need a place-
Of course. The Catskill mountains. They loomed over the part of New York where she lived, about a mile away from her apartment. Thalia ran harder, not pausing until she reached the trailhead. And then, without further ado, she secured Jason in her special backpack's pouch and began to climb.
The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon by the time Thalia reached the top of the cliff. She sat down, oblivious to the icy wind and darkening landscape, and put her hands in her head.
She was screwed. She possessed some strong power that she had no control of, she had no food or money, and had no home to come back to. Her mother had hit her once, who knew what she would do next time? Thalia cast a despondent eye on Jason. What had she gotten her little baby brother into? He was the only thing she cared about, the one one she loved, and now she was screwing up his life as well. Thalia felt the tears rise up, against her will, but she fought them back.
No more crying. This was the real world now. She pulled Jason out of the backpack and held his sleeping form in her arms. Together they watched the sun subside into a bleak dusk. Suddenly, Jason's eyes fluttered open and the child wriggled in her grasp.
"Jason, stop it! Careful, Jason- Jason!" Her little brother slipped out of her grasp and fell off the cliff, swallowed by the darkness below. Thalia's mouth opened in a silent scream as she watched the only thing she cared about fall out of her arms, out of her life. Thalia was about to jump herself when she heard a giggling noise sound from below. Jason came floating back out of the darkness back up to her, turning about in the air. Thalia started to laugh, but it came out more like a strangled scream as the little boy soared right back into her grasp.
Sobbing and laughing at the same time, she picked up the little boy and twirled him about in her arms. "J-Jason, holy crap! What just happened? Don't ever, ever try anything like that again, y'hear?" she cried out through her tears. And then she glanced down at cliffside that almost took her brother away from her. The crumbling land that gave way to darkness...Thalia fled from it. She needed to get to the ground, off from the mountain.
Leaving her backpack behind, she scrambled down the steep slope, the wild fear of the cliffside overtaking her mind and all rationale. The heights had almost taken her brother away from her. And so she, from that day forth, feared them above all else.
Author's note: just clearing this up, this is not the actual time Thalia runs away. I envisioned her coming back after this, only to run away later after Jason is kidnapped. This story was just an explanation for her profound fear of heights. What did you think? Review, pleeeeease(: