Author's Note: Hey guys! So this story used to be a one-shot named Thunderstorm, but I decided I wanted to write more Sally one-shots because they're so much fun to write, and I love Sally stuff. I'm not the first to do this, and I know that. It's just something I think is very fun, and decided to give it a try.

This particular one-shot…well, I was debating whether to make Percy older or younger. I thought of how I would write it in each case, and decided that younger would be a little easier. And I like writing Percy younger. I think he's adorable.

I also wrote this partly because my cousin told me not to. The power of reverse psychology, huh? I have succeeded in annoying her. She told me not to only because she doesn't like reading sick-Percy stories. So I decided to write one.

I'm going to stop ranting now and let you read. More at the end, though.

DISCLAIMER: This is FANfiction. So obviously I'm not Rick Riordan.

Enjoy!

Sick

"Mommy!" Percy's face looked urgent, even for a six-year-old kindergartener. He held an envelope in his small hand as he ran to the car.

"Hey, kiddo," I greeted him.

"Mommy, Mrs. Ryan said this is for you." He handed me the envelope and got himself into the car. I buckled him into his booster seat and put the envelope on the passenger's seat to read when I got home.

"So," I asked Percy, "how was school today?"

He was bouncing a little in his seat, unable to keep still. I knew his demigod ADHD was almost impossible to control. "Good," he answered. The generic answer.

"Well," I prompted, "what did you do today?"

"I colored a dolphin," he said. Then he added, "And Andrew puked during naptime."
I frowned, resisting the urge to make a face. "That's not fun," I said. "Did he go home?"

"Yeah," Percy said. "Then Mrs. Ryan gave us those notes." He pointed to the passenger's seat where the note was resting.

When we got home, Gabriel was playing poker in the living room with Pete from down the hall. As per normal, the place smelled like beer and cigar smoke, and I tried not to feel too nauseated. "Hey, Sally!" Gabriel called. "Go get us some salsa!"

I wanted to ignore him. The best and worst thing I'd ever done was marrying that guy. He was the worst husband any woman could ask for, but he kept my demigod son smothered in his odor. In this case, the good outweighed the bad by a lot. But when I took more than two seconds to answer, he called, "Sally! You hear me?"

Rolling my eyes, I answered, "Of course, Gabe." I followed Percy to his bedroom, where he started playing with his sea-creature stuffed toys. I sat on his bed as I read the note from his teacher:

Parents:

As happens every year, there is an illness going around the school. This year, unfortunately, it is the stomach flu. Several students have fallen ill, and as a precaution, please warn your own children to cover their mouths when sneezing and/or coughing, and especially not to share food with other students.

We hope that our sick students make speedy recoveries, and that we don't get many more sick students!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Alicia Ryan

I frowned as I folded up the note. Percy looked up from his toy shark. "What's the note say?" he asked.

I told him about how many kids were getting sick in his class, and how he shouldn't share food with anyone.

"Not even cookies?" he asked, slightly dismayed.

I shook my head. "Not even cookies. But if you want cookies for snack time or lunch time, I'll pack you some, okay?"

"Okay!" He immediately went back to playing a strange version of The Little Mermaid.

I walked out of the bedroom, bitterly remembering Gabe's salsa. Better get on that before he gets on my nerves about it, I thought, scowling to myself.

In the front of my mind I was really hoping that Percy would be able to avoid getting sick for now.

The next day, when I went to pick Percy up from kindergarten, he looked a little tired. When I asked him how school was, he gave me another, "Good." It was when I asked more questions that I realized he hadn't followed the advice.

"Sarah gave me a cupcake today," he said.

I frowned. "I thought we talked about not sharing food," I said.

"But it was a cupcake," he defended. "I thought you said no cookies."

I sighed, but I couldn't help smiling just a little bit. "I meant even if it is a cookie, or a cupcake, you shouldn't share food. At all."

"Oh."

"What else happened at school today?" I asked.

"Um…" He paused to think about it, and then said, "Sarah puked during recess."

Uh oh. "Is this the same Sarah who gave you the cupcake?" I asked warily.

"Uh huh."

Major uh-oh. So this Sarah had been sick and had shared her cupcake with Percy. Hopefully Percy hadn't picked anything up from her, but I couldn't help dreading an illness.

We came home to find another poker-and-beer party in the living room, this time with more guys, most of whom I didn't recognize other than Gabe, of course, Pete, and Eddie, our building super. Percy made a face, wrinkling his nose. "It stinks in here," he muttered.

"Why don't you go to your room, honey?" I offered. "I'll be there in a minute if you want me to play with you."

He nodded and went to his bedroom. I could hear him making different voices for his different toys as he played.

"Sally!" I heard from the living room. "Get some bean dip in here, huh?"

I took a deep breath and held it for five seconds before letting it out, or else I might have hit something hard enough to break it. "Coming, dear," I answered sweetly. I went to the refrigerator and got out a jar of dip, filled a bowl, and brought it out for them.

Gabe scowled at me. "Is this homemade, or that cheap store-bought stuff?"

I shrugged. "Taste and see," I suggested.

I was about two steps from the door when I heard, "This is crap, Sally! I want real dip!"

The guys laughed. They looked a little hammered, as there were beer cans all over the place.

"Well, I'm making dinner," I said, trying to keep my voice light. "I promise I'll make up for it." Seriously, it was as if I were his French maid or something. I hated it, but I had to remind myself that it was for Percy.

I found Percy half-heartedly playing with his toys when I called him for dinner.

He shook his head. "I'm not hungry," he said.

"Why not?" I asked him.

He glanced at me, making a slight face. "My tummy hurts," he said.

Oh, man. I took his hand. "You sure you don't want a little bit of dinner?" I asked.

Percy looked a little conflicted, like he wanted to say no, but didn't know how to say it. "I guess…just a little bit," he decided.

So we walked to the kitchen and sat at the table. Gabe's friends were gone, and Gabe had taken his food to the living room to watch SportsCenter. He never ate with Percy and me, and that was totally fine with the both of us. Percy reluctantly ate a spoon of mashed potatoes as he told me how he had made a starfish out of blue Play-Doh.

Then he trailed off in mid-sentence and hugged his stomach. "Mommy," he groaned, "I don't feel good."

That set off a major uh-oh alert in my mind, especially when he turned a faint shade of green and groaned, "I'm gonna puke."

"Come on," I said, taking him by the hand and leading him to the bathroom. We barely made it to the toilet before Percy threw up. He was violently sick for a few minutes as I rubbed his back, looking at the tiles on the floor. I couldn't stand watching people vomit; I never could. But this was my son. I hated seeing my child so sick. It made me feel terrible. As a parent, you're really only happy when your kid was happy. I sighed. "Poor thing," I muttered.

Finally, Percy's body relaxed. His face was pale and beaded with sweat. "I feel gross," he croaked.

"I can imagine," I sympathized. Then I helped him to his feet and walked him to the sink. I lifted him so he was able to cup his small hands under the faucet and rinse his mouth a few times.

When he finished, I carried him back to his room, changed him into his pajamas, and tucked him into bed. He looked completely miserable. "I feel really, really bad, Mommy," he complained.

I ran my fingers through his dark hair. "I know, honey," I said. "But remember when I told you not to share food with anyone?" I didn't scold him or anything like that. I didn't want to make him feel worse than he already did. I just wanted him to know that he was learning an easy lesson the hard way, which pretty sucked.

Percy looked down. "But…it was a really good cupcake," he said.

I cracked a smile. "Yeah, it probably was. But now you're sick. That isn't fun, is it?"

"Not at all," he agreed.

I felt his forehead, and he was a little warm. His face still had a thin layer of cold sweat. "I'm going to get you some Gatorade," I told him. "What color do you want?"

"Blue," he said weakly.

As I went back to the kitchen, Gabe called me from the living room. "Sally, come here and get my dish! I've been calling you forever!"

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "Sorry," I said. I went and got his plate, then dumped it in the sink to wash later. My plate and Percy's were still pretty full, so I decided to put it in a plastic container to eat tomorrow. "By the way," I mentioned as I cleared the table, "I'm calling in sick tomorrow."

I knew the tirade would be coming, and well, he just about lost it. I got a whole lecture on all the reasons I couldn't take off from work, most of it boiling down to money. That annoyed me; I'd lived my whole life without enough money. I'd lived six years of that life with a son to take care of. Taking one day off wouldn't hit me too hard, especially if my so-called husband managed a store. But there was no way Gabe would hear any of it. "Why do you need to call in sick anyway? You're not even sick!"

"But Percy is. I need to take care of him," I tried to explain.

He waved his hand dismissively. "The kid's not sick."

"Yes, he is," I told him. "He just threw up. Come on, Gabriel. Let me take a day off to take care of my kid, will you?" I grabbed a blue Gatorade from the fridge and didn't wait for Gabe's answer.

Percy finished half of the bottle before it came back up. I held the trashcan under his chin and wiped the sweat from his forehead. When I took his temperature, it turned out he had a fever of one hundred and one-and-a-half degrees.

"Looks like you're staying home tomorrow," I told him.

"Aww," he complained. "It's my turn to feed Bubbles tomorrow." (Bubbles was the kindergarten's pet goldfish, so of course Percy loved him.)

I shook my head. "You're way too sick for school, kiddo."

"Are you gonna leave me with Smelly Gabe?" Percy asked warily, his voice hoarse.

I shook my head again, this time letting a half-smile cross my face. "I'm going to stay here with you, keep you company, okay?"

He smiled. "Okay."

That night was a pretty long one. I spent it in Percy's room. Percy couldn't sleep, which meant that I couldn't sleep. I tried to get him to sip on some Gatorade to get some electrolytes back into him, but he couldn't hold it down. Twice in the middle of the night I had to grab the trashcan for him to vomit. And I did stay with him the next day, while Gabe had no choice but to go in to the store to collect a bonus on his paycheck.

Percy and I were playing with his stuffed sea creatures when he started gagging. I managed to get the trashcan up to his mouth before he puked. When he was done, he let his head fall back onto his pillow. "Mommy, can I have some water?" he croaked. "My mouth tastes gross."

"Of course," I said. Maybe plain old water would settle his stomach. After all, he was the son of the sea god. Water would be best for him. Why didn't I think of that already? I asked myself.

He managed to drink the entire bottle this time. Immediately he looked better. Some of the color returned to his face. After about two hours of not getting sick, I gave him some crackers to eat, and he managed to keep them down. When I took his temperature again, his fever had gone down to a hundred degrees.

"Hey, good news," I told him. "Your fever's going down. You might be able to go to school tomorrow, if it goes down a little more, and if you don't throw up anymore."

"Really?" His green eyes lit up, glittering like the sea in sunlight. "'Cuz I don't even feel like puking anymore."

I smiled. "Good. So you think you can handle some Gatorade? You don't want to get dehydrated."

He frowned. "Huh?"

"It means you don't have enough water in your body," I explained. "So you need to drink so you don't get even more sick."

"Oh," he said. "Okay. Can I have blue Gatorade again?"

"Sure."

And he downed the Gatorade easily. His cheeks regained their rosiness. "Done," he announced, handing me the empty bottle.

I grinned. "Wow," I said, taking the bottle from him. "What a bounce-back you've made." And he really had. Percy was definitely feeling better. Not well enough to get up and run around, but enough to talk and laugh and have me play with his sea creature toys with him as he sat in bed. It made me feel better to know that he was feeling better. I guess that's what having a kid feels like—an almost telepathic feeling where you feel all of their pain and happiness, just the same.

At one point Percy said he wanted to watch TV, so I carried him to the living room to watch The Little Mermaid. We were on the part where Ursula the Sea Witch got the trident and grew into a giant, when Gabe came back home from work that night, grumbling about how annoying customers were and how lazy I was for taking the day off to care for my good-for-nothing son. He walked into the living room and turned off the movie, replacing it with ESPN.

"Hey!" Percy protested. "We were watching that!"

"Yeah, well now I'm watching this," Gabe replied, pointing at the screen.

Percy frowned and pouted, crossing his arms and scrunching up his nose, the way he did when he was annoyed. But he didn't say anything.

I glared at my so-called husband. "Gabe, can I talk to you for a minute, in the kitchen?" I made my voice sound as sweet as I could, but it wasn't easy.

Gabe didn't find anything fake about it, though. He rolled his eyes and lazily followed me into the kitchen. "What?" he asked, grabbing a beer from the fridge.

I narrowed my eyes. "You couldn't have let Percy finish his movie? He's sick, and all he wanted to do was watch a movie."

"Yeah, well, he can watch it another time. He's the kid; I'm the adult. He has no say in it."

"Oh, and I'm not an adult? Do I have a say?" I asked.

That's when he walked right up to me, putting his face two inches from mine. His horrible stench was hard to bear, but I managed not to gag, though I was thinking, If he doesn't step back in ten seconds, Percy won't be the only one getting sick in this apartment.

"Look, woman," Gabe sneered. "I'm gonna do what I wanna do. If you don't like it, you can leave anytime. The door's right there."

"This is my apartment," I reminded him. "Anyway, just let Percy finish his movie; it had five minutes left in it. Then we'll leave you alone, okay?"

He snatched up his beer can and stalked back to the living room. "You've got five minutes to finish that Disney garbage, kid," he told Percy.

"Fine," I heard Percy reply, and the movie came back on with Ursula's evil laughter.

Once the movie ended, I brought Percy back to his room. I made him drink another bottle of water before I tucked him in at bedtime. As he took small sips, he asked me to tell him a story.

"What kind of story?" I asked.

"Tell me about your mommy and daddy," he suggested.

A pang of sadness hit me. I missed my parents so much. But to tell a story…I had to think about it…I mean, my parents crossed my mind every day, bless their souls. But they had died when I was five; did I even have a clear enough memory of them that I could recount? "Well," I started, "my mommy had brown hair, just like me. It was curly, and she always had a ponytail. Her name was Laura." I pictured my dad now. "Daddy…he had dark blond hair, and a beard." I laughed, remembering how his hug would tickle because of his beard. "His name was Jim."

"Laura and Jim," Percy repeated sleepily, finishing the bottle. "Laura Jackson and Jim Jackson?"

I nodded, and I couldn't help laughing a little more. "That's exactly right." I told him about how my parents would always take me to the beach, and I remembered swinging between them as they each held one of my arms, and the waves would crash onto the surf, and they would pick me up and wing me over the white crests. I remembered laughing as the ocean sprayed me with mist.

"You went to that beach when you were little?" Percy asked. "Montauk?"

I nodded. "Yup. My parents took me every summer."

Percy yawned. "Cool," he murmured. Then he asked, "Will I be sick tomorrow?"

I shrugged, running his fingers through his hair. I noticed that he didn't feel too hot anymore. "If you're feeling up to it, and your temperature's normal, then yeah."

"Cool," he said again, and his head fell back against his pillow.

I pulled the blanket over him, kissed his forehead, and got up to turn out the lights.

Percy went to school the next day and fed Bubbles. He showed me the crayon drawing of the event when he got in the car. You'd never have known he was bedridden the day before. But hey, that was my Percy for you.

Looking back at this, it was probably very random. Oh well.

So I'm trying to challenge myself, and I want you to help. Would you mind helping? So I was thinking people could give me a ONE-WORD prompt along with a number 0-16. The one word would be the basis for the one-shot and the number would be Percy's age…although if you give me the number zero, could you be specific please? Like, 3 months, or something like that? For example, here's a prompt that PixieKindOfCrazy gave me a while ago: "Pancakes, 7." Another friend, TheJiangMei, gave me "Seahorses, 5." Like that. This one-shot wasn't a prompt; I just felt like writing it. But prompts are fun.

So if you want to, leave a prompt in your review. But please, don't make your review ONLY the prompt; I want to know what you thought of this one-shot, too!

Thanks so much, people!

~Mandi2341