Chapter 2: I Watch an Episode of "How I Met Your Mother"

A/N: Hi! Thank you to everyone who decided to visit my story and review.

Lily Yellow – Thank you so much for reviewing! I worked really hard to try and get a similar style to Riordan without making my characters literal Percy 2.0s, so I'm glad my style definitely came across that way. As for Andy's parents, that's a mystery for down the line. I'm really glad you liked the names I picked out. It took me ages and I kept juggling and switching pretty much all of them before settling on these ones. Hope the rest of the series is just as fun.

Once again, thank you for reading! The universe belongs to Rick Riordan, but the characters and plot are my own.

I was still clutching the letter when I got into the car. Andromache pulled next to me in the back, she was clutching a backpack. Technically, I could sit in the passenger seat, but I'd never had the urge. That seat belonged to my mother.

Andromache gave me a look when she spotted the empty seat, but thankfully didn't ask about it or take it. "How far away is this camp?"

"About an hour or so," my father replied. "Depending on traffic. It isn't too far away to be difficult to reach. That's part of why my wife… my wife and I chose this location."

"What happened to her?"

An awkward moment of silence.

"Oh," Andromache replied. "That couldn't have been easy."

My father swallowed.

"She was killed by a monster, a hydra. If it weren't for Nora, I would have hunted it down to the ends of the earth killing it as many times as I could before it finally killed me. The official story is a car crash, but you need to know what you're getting into."

I hadn't remembered that.

"Oh," Andromache said again. "Wait? Did you say as many times as you could? Can't you only die once?"

"Monsters are different," my father's voice sounded controlled like when he got emotional. "Killing them only banishes them to Tartarus, sort of like a prison for them. Only, it is very escapable. Depending on the monster, they can escape within centuries, decades, years, and even days."

"Fun."

"Yup. They track demigods by smelling their aura of power. Those get stronger the more a demigod knows. We hid Eleanor for so long by keeping her hidden from as much as possible. Considering we were planning on being able to protect her for so much longer than this, until she grew past the age where monsters might actively search her out, it was supposed to be a good plan. Plenty of demigods are able to live normal lives without truly realizing what they are. This wasn't an issue until you showed up."

I saw Andromache bite back saying something. Probably something along the lines of 'Glad to know I'm appreciated.'

We made it about fifteen minutes before we were attacked. I couldn't tell what it was, except it looked like a massive and frightening dog.

"A new record," Andromache exclaimed. "Over thirty seconds of not being attacked."

"What did you do to get such bad luck?" My father asked.

"I don't know," Andromache admitted. "I was born, I guess?"

My father visibly swallowed. "When we turn around the next corner, I want both of you to jump out. I'm going to do my best to lead the hellhound away from you."

I didn't even have a chance to respond before Andromache grabbed me, unbuckled my seatbelt and we leapt out of the door.

It hurt. If anyone recommends jumping out of a car going even five miles an hour, I'd have to recommend not to listen. It felt like a miracle that we didn't get seriously hurt at the thirty miles we leapt out at.

When we stopped rolling, we found ourselves rolling in one of the small patches of trees. I was amazed I hadn't hit any with my head.

"Well, that was exciting." Andromache brushed herself off. "Now where are we?"

I slowly pushed myself to my feet. How in the world was Andromache so calm and in control? She didn't even get phased by leaping out of a car!

"Hey look," she smiled. "A grocery market. Let's shoplift."

"I-" I was never very good at confrontations. "We're not going shoplifting," I replied.

"Well, then," Andromache shrugged. "We're going to starve."

"We can still head back home and pick it up there…"

"Home," Andromache calmly reminded me. "To a father who kicked us both out and we have not even the faintest clue as to how to head there."

She was right. I was hopelessly lost, and I had lived in this area all my life. The only thing remotely familiar was the strange mansion on top of some building. The mansion that my father had insisted we never go to, whenever I pointed it out. "We're pushing out limits living here as it is," he'd explained, though never really explaining that statement. "There are some borders we're not meant to cross."

"Sometimes magic is meant to be left undiscovered," my mother would have smiled at my father. They'd share a knowing look and then buy me ice cream. After my mother's death, I'd pretended to stop noticing.

Andromache noticed my obvious lack of response.

"So, shoplifting?" Andromache lifted her eyebrows suggestively.

"If we get caught, I've never seen you before in my life."

"Deal," Andromache grinned and calmly skipped towards the store. Something about it struck me as familiar.

As we got closer, I realized that the grocery store we were trying to rob was one of those chain stores that had recently popped up all over Brooklyn called "Hungry Shoppers". My mother had always warned me away from chain stores. "They're deceptively dangerous." I assumed she'd meant pricing, but as I'd never gone into one with her gone, there could still be another meaning I'd never gotten.

We walked into the front entrance and immediately the clerk zoned in on us like she could tell we had come in to shoplift. I smiled and waved at her. Andromache, on the other hand, paled.

"Let's go out slowly and hope she doesn't notice us," she backed away nervously.

"Fifty-Percent sales for nice demigods," the nice lady behind the counter called towards us.

Andromache froze, her eyes widened...

"Run," Andromache cried and bolted to the door. "It's Stheno!"

"Kronia!" the sales lady called after her. "So nice to see you again!"

I stumbled backwards into the shelving unit. It crumbled behind me, bananas scattering as well as bags of snacks. It felt so random that I just stood frozen. It also could have been that the sweet sales lady suddenly transformed into a monster-snakes for hair, claws for fingernails, silver wings sprouting from her back- kind of overloaded my mind.

"Euryale will be so happy to have you back," Stheno cackled and then swooped at Andromache.

Andromache looked terrified and I'm sure only instinct kept her from getting snatched.

I stumbled to my feet banging loudly into the knocked over shelf.

"Ooh, you brought home a friend?" Stheno cried spotting me. "For dinner?"

"Can we talk about that?" I squeaked. "I'm not sure I want to be your dinner quite yet."

"Cassandra, we have guests," Stheno called backwards. "Guess who decided to stop by?"

"Help!" I yelled. "Your assistant wants to eat us!"

I figured that if the desk clerk was a monster, then maybe we'd luck out and the manager would be human.

"Demigods?" a sweet voice came from the back. Something about that voice sent shivers down my back. Great. My mother was right, these chain stores really are dangerous. Then the monster came in from the back. I gulped. It had seven heads.

"Cassandra is a Hydra?" Andromache gulped, rolling over to avoid Stheno's claws. It dawned on me that a hydra had been the monster to murder my mother. That didn't help my paralyzing sense of doom. "Since when have you gotten along with hydras?"

"Times are changing," Stheno cackled. "Either you change with it, or you die."

She dodged back to avoid the shopping cart Andy had pushed in her direction.

"How about option three." Andromache leapt to her feet. "I skewer both you and little Miss Cassie over there like I did your sister, and you never reincarnate to bother me again."

Stheno screamed with rage and flew at Andromache. Andromache leapt over her and landed next to me.

"Take this," she handed me a banana, "And take cover."

"Thanks?"

Andromache grabbed the shelf and lifted it miraculously. She threw it at Stheno. It hit the monster in the head. I couldn't tell why she was ignoring the hydra. Maybe she expected me to take the hydra on myself... With a banana. Correction, a mostly squashed banana.

I tried to think of something to use as a weapon besides the banana. No better ideas to use, I tried to grab another shelving unit like Andromache. There was a part of me that believed me capable, the rest of me just felt scared. As I did so, I dropped the banana peel and it splatted to the ground.

The banana on the floor looked absolutely gross. It had been smashed enough that when I'd held it from the bottom, the rest of it had fallen to the floor. The banana peel had landed gently on top of it making a plop sound.

"I've never smelled your type before," the hydra hissed at me. "Though, you remind me of someone I knew long ago." One of her heads sort of slithered in the air closer to me and took a long sniff. I whimpered very bravely. "Ahh, fear," the hydra hissed in satisfaction. "I think Lu- aaugh!" what she was going to say next got cut off by her somehow slipping on a banana peel I had nicely dropped. I dove to the side, landing on the apples and pears on a nearby shelving unit, barely dodging her. Some apples and pears landed on the floor. Right into the path of the zooming hydra.

"Andromache!" I cried. She was right in the way, still fighting Stheno - despite not having any noticeable weapon to defend herself- who was looking a bit woozy and shouting things like "twenty-five percent off pain-free death!"

Andromache turned and leapt out of the way. The two startled monsters collided into each other and exploded into a confetti of golden dust, leaving only their mess.

"That was brilliant!" Andromache cried.

We then took a deep breath and seeing as how the owners were now dead, we went with the logical option and decided to raid the store. I also took some time to relieve my stress and throw up.

After we cleared out the counter and left, the store shimmered and vanished.

"Well," Andromache looked despondent. "There goes our bed for the night."

"Right."

"We'll just have to forage," Andromache decided and headed into the park. "Those people look kind of nice. Wait, nope they look like monsters actually. Let's head in the other direction."

"What about there?" I asked, pointing in the direction of the park.

"No, while I'm sure the park police aren't literal monsters. There are still way too many monsters who wander the park looking for sleeping half-bloods to gobble up."

"Not in the park," I insisted. "There's a safe place here."

I ran into the park, certain there was some sort of shelter nearby. I had no idea where I was heading except there was someplace safe nearby.

"Are you feeling alright?" Andromache called after me, but at least she was following.

"There," I pointed at the ground.

"I don't see any-" Andromache started before falling into a hole that I hadn't noticed. "Good eyes. Looks like some sort of safe place."

"Right." I felt a bit of relief at having been right; I wasn't completely going crazy. I steadied myself and followed Andromache in.

Andromache and my instincts were right. The walls were covered in bronze weaponry, none came off the wall though. Or at least we couldn't figure out how to detach the various daggers, hammers, and crossbows off the wall. There were some golden coins piled in a stack on what looked like just the table portion of a picnic table. There was also a lot of canned food and a can opener as well as a couple of thin sleeping bags. There were also some wrapped bars that read Ambrosia.

Dear Demigod visitors,

I read the letter lying on the table with all the supplies.

Welcome to one of our safe houses. We're fellow half-bloods on the run.

"You can read Ancient Greek?" Andromache asked me.

"My parents thought it an important life skill."

"I'm not about to judge, but I'm also not about to tell you what mine thought was an important life skill."

I decided not to ask.

We built this safe place as a haven in this monster ridden world. Feel free to use anything here. May you be blessed by Hestia to have a safe visit.

Best of luck,

Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth

P.S. in the top left most drawer you'll find a map pointing out a few other safe houses.

I finished, feeling a slight buzz envelop me as I read the last line before the post script.

"They seem nice," Andromache yawned. "I wonder whatever happened to them."

"Maybe they found their way to safety and are living happily?"

"I hope so," Andromache sighed. "It would mean that I have a chance to find a home." That part was nearly silent.

We fell asleep.

My dream was exceptionally weird. I was floating in the air and watching a scene as if from afar.

There was a beautiful demigod holding a golden spear at a much younger demigod version of my father. I had a jolt when I realized I was watching my parents meet each other.

"Who are you?" my mother demanded.

"I'm Richard," my father told her. "Son of Hecate? A fellow half-blood?"

"Stacey," my mom told him, flipping her straight blonde hair behind her. "Have you seen my companions? We got separated and I'm-"

"Well, if you let me up," my father said calmly. "I might be able to help you with that. See, I'm missing my questing group as well. Have you seen a cyclops anywhere?"

"No…"

My mother slowly lifted her spear up. My father took that as an invitation to get back on his feet.

"Well, they're rampant around Brooklyn," My father waved his hands and a silvery sword appeared in his hand. "I think one lured my friends into a trap. Say what are you on a quest for?"

"The missing Sibylline Books," my mother sighed. "My father sent me to find them."

"Never heard of it," my father smiled at her. "I'm after the lost Tome of Eurydicean for my mother. What do you say we team up? Save our friends and save our missing books?"

My mother stared at my father.

"Who did you say your mother was again?"

"Hecate," my father smiled nervously. "Greek Goddess of crossroads, magic, the mist, and necromancy. You know the works."

"Not Trivia?" she asked.

My father shook his head confused. "No, that's her Roman form."

"You're really Greek?" my mother asked. "It wasn't a goose after all."

"Wait, you're Roman?" My father sounded just as startled as my mother.

To kill or to spare the Greek seals the future.

Then the scene faded around me.

"Nora," it was jarring hearing my father's current voice after seeing him as a teenager.

"Dad?"

"I can't maintain this dream for long. Dream magic was never my specialty."

"Dad!"

"But I need to give you something. A present, your inheritance." My father paused. "I'd hoped never to have to give you this, but here. Your mother gave it to me to give you."

I reached out and took the object.

"A bracelet."

"Look to the gem for answers," my father told me. "I'm fading. Day is coming. But Eleanor, I need you to promise me to do your best to stay out of trouble."

"But I-"

"Please believe me, it's for the best."

"Dad?"

Then he was gone, and I awoke. The bracelet he'd given me was clasped on my wrist, a beautiful bracelet made up of a gold, bronze, and silver swirled chain with a beautiful ruby as the gemstone. There was something about it that felt intrinsically right, as if it was always meant to have been on my wrist.

Andromache was already up and about. She'd gathered us a few backpacks. They'd been hidden in a back corner.

"I picked out the lightest food," she told me. "We've got plenty of water. The only thing I haven't touched is the letter your father gave you."

I looked down in my hand. I had completely forgotten about it.

To: Chiron of Half-Blood Hill it read.

"So?" Andromache asked.

"So what?"

"Are you going to read it?"

"It's for some dude named Chiron!"

"Are you kidding me? If I'd known you were going to be like that, I would have read it while you were asleep.

"Please?"

"It's not our mail to read."

"Listen, we're lost in Brooklyn. Your father expected us to get to camp safely to deliver this. It probably has important information about you or something. I'm sure whatever is in the letter concerns us. I'm sorry, but I'm not about to let anything that could help us lie untouched. I'm sure your father wouldn't mind."

I sighed and agreed. Andromache's logic was sound. We needed everything we could to survive.

I opened the letter. It sprung open in my hands.

My heart pounded loudly in my chest as I read it.

"Well?"

Dear Chiron,

I hope my letter finds you well. I write this only out of utmost need. I'm sending my daughter Eleanor along with the demigod, Andromache, in hopes that they find shelter. Please take care of both girls and watch over both of them. I gave this letter to Eleanor because I fear I won't be able to see both girls across the border. I only hope they will be able to rely on each other to make it there safely.

I suspect that Andromache is the daughter of one of the big three, most likely Poseidon. I'm well aware of the danger that places my daughter in, but I haven't been given any choice. I only hope that our friend downstairs doesn't realize who she is until you are safely reading this letter.

That said, the real reason I wrote this letter has to do with my daughter Eleanor. As you know I met her mother while on my quest. You warned me against marriage, but even the few years I was able to spend with her were some of the best in my life. By all logic, Eleanor shouldn't exist. She was allowed life because of the compassion of a goddess. I can never repay her kindness. Literally.

As it was, one of the few prophecies my wife was able to recover pertains obviously to Eleanor.

When the child who shouldn't exist meets the lost child of the sea

From longtime shelter and safety must they flee

Beware, for as the Lord of Time rises, the child of flames shall fall,

To the hand of the noble thief's thrall.

I hope you'll understand when I beg of you to keep Eleanor safe. Don't let her ever go on a quest. Keep her from danger for I fear the precedent of what they've done to threats to their power.

Thank you for your understanding and caring for my daughter when I can't.

Richard

"Well," Andromache started "That certainly was important information to read."

I swallowed. It isn't every day you discover you weren't supposed to exist.

"No wonder he didn't like me," Andromache said looking at my startled face. "He knew it meant he could no longer protect you."

"Wonder who the Lord of Time is…" I mused.

"More importantly the Child of Flames. I mean they're the one who's supposed to die."

"Why did my dad even think this was about me?"

"No idea. Anyway, think positively," Andromache said. "I can't think of anyone who fits the bill of Lord of Time except Dr. Who and I don't think he's particularly scary."

"Right." I vaguely had heard of him. Something about the old tv series getting rebooted. My 'classmates', who actually were allowed screen time, claimed it was awesome.

"Hey, what's that?"

She pointed as something slid out of the envelope.

It was a golden bracelet made of chains. There was a piece of paper attached to it.

I bequeath my wife's bracelet to Andromache in exchange for my daughter's safety.

Andromache picked up the bracelet. "No offense, how am I supposed to keep this on? Also, shouldn't this bracelet go to you?"

"He already gave me one," I replied and showed her mine. "I had a dream and-"

I explained the dream just with my father. The dream about my parents' first meeting I kept quiet.

"Wonder what they do?" Andromache put her bracelet on. It glowed for a second and then seemed to settle on her wrist. On instinct, she tugged on the bracelet, and it suddenly grew into the golden spear that she'd used to fight the first gorgon. "Cool. Now how do I…?" She touched the side of the spear to her wrist, and it shrank until it fit her wrist.

"Hey, maybe yours does that too?"

I tried pulling a spear from mine. Nothing happened.

Andromache shrugged. "We'll figure it out."

I nodded, though a part of me was jealous. That was my mother's bracelet. Doesn't that mean that it should have gone to me? Why didn't my father even leave me with some sort of weapon to defend myself with? That kind of felt like a surefire way of ending up dead or getting into trouble. Especially since the more Andromache talked about the enemies she'd faced, the more being a defenseless half-blood seemed like the same thing as being dinner, literally.

"So, where to next?" Andromache asked.

"I don't know. My father said something about Camp Half-Blood and this letter is addressed to Chiron."

"Hey!" Andromache said excitedly. "How about we google it? Know any libraries nearby? You can do the reading! I'm not much of a reader."

I couldn't think of any reason not to, so I agreed. "We could check out some books as well and I can help you with learning to read."

"No, but deal."

So, we pushed our way out of our headquarters. There were massive wolf tracks all around the entrance but fortunately no wolves had managed to fall into our 'home' while we were asleep.

"Hellhound tracks," Andromache shivered. "I saw a picture of these before. We're not staying here another night if there are any of them hanging around."

"A hellhound was the thing that attacked the car, wasn't it?"

Andromache took a moment before replying. "Yes."

"Think my father is safe?"

"He came to you in a dream, of course he's alive. Also, he's an adult demigod, I'm sure he knows how to kill a hellhound in his sleep by now."

I didn't quite follow that logic but considering I didn't know what I'd do if I'd also lost my father. I accepted it.

A/N: A new chapter! Huzzah! Congratulations on making it through!

Something to note, this story is meant to be canon compliant, though that doesn't mean it can't occur at the same time as it (*wink*) Mwahaha!

What are all your thoughts? What are your thoughts on their odds at arriving safely to camp? What do you judge Nora's dad's survival odds? What about the prophecy? Also, can anyone figure out the chronological time this is taking place? (Hint: It's taking place during the original five books, though if I actually write everything it'll continue past Trials of Apollo) There's not too many clues here, but there will be more in like a chapter or two.

As always, thank you for reading! Let me know what you think! Comments, concerns, and conjectures of what's to come are always welcome!