"I guess I could talk about when I came to camp?" Percy said, the end of the sentence tipping up like a question. He fidgeted with the paper he'd picked out, a rough and ugly parody of the Minotaur.

"If you're ready," Raine said. Percy hesitated, and Raine gave him an understanding smile and prompted, "How did you get to camp?"

"Mom drove me," Percy said, relieved to have a little guidance. The memory was so chaotic that it was hard to figure out how to explain it. "Uh, see, during the school year, I'd gotten attacked by a Fury, Mrs. Dodds – she'd been posing as a math teacher for months. I came out of it alright, but that was the first monster that I couldn't forget about, and it was strengthening my scent."

"You were attacked by monsters before her?" Raine asked. Percy nodded.

"I mean, not outright attacked," he conceded after a moment. "But they suspected me. They could smell me. I had a principal in third grade that grew fangs and started growling, and an art teacher in first that freaked me out because she kept telling me how good I smelled."

"How do you feel about those memories?" Raine prompted. "Knowing that monsters were around you when you were so young."

Percy grimaced. "I try not to think about it," he admitted. "To be honest, it's easy to believe. I've always put off a scent that drew monsters to me. The only difference is that now I know about it."

"But how do you feel about it?" Raine repeated patiently. Percy blinked. He hadn't even realized he'd dodged the question.

"I feel... tired," he decided. "Frustrated, and kind of resigned. The monsters were always on my tail, and they were always only barely being kept off me. Mom knew Gabe's scent would keep me safe – keep them from being sure." He huffed. "I'm bitter, I guess. It sucks that monsters were after me my whole life. But I can't do anything about it, and nothing really happened until Mrs. Dodds. I'm over it."

Raine nodded. "And Mrs. Dodds?"

"Gods, that sucked," Percy sighed. "Uh, the fight itself was pretty easy – she wasn't expecting me to be able to swing a sword, I guess, even when one was literally handed to me. But once she was gone, this lady Mrs. Kerr came in – I'd never met her in my life, and everyone was acting like she'd been our math teacher since Christmas. I felt like I was losing my mind for months." He shook his head. "So, uh, when I finally got home, I didn't tell Mom what had happened. If I had, she would've known to take me to camp right away, but..." He shrugged. "I was starting to think I really was just losing my mind. So I didn't, and she didn't."

"How do you feel about that now?" Raine asked. Percy blew out a frustrated breath.

"I wish someone would have just told me," he said. "I get that they were hoping the whole thing would blow over, and I'd get another year or two of peace, and like, I appreciate the thought and all. But they had to bite the bullet at some point, and 'cause it came down to the wire, everything sucked."

...He'd meant to be more articulate about that.

"What do you mean?" Raine prompted. Percy was grateful for the opening.

"My first journey to camp was confusing and awful and terrifying," Percy explained. "And it didn't have to be. I mean, it was the middle of the night, and we were being chased by a monster, and no one was answering my questions, and none of that would have happened if I'd been able to go to camp on my own terms."

"You wish your mom would have told you sooner?" Raine asked. Percy tensed.

"That's not what I said," he said sharply. Raine raised her eyebrows and made a note. "What?"

"I'm surprised," Raine explained. "That's an unusually strong reaction for you."

Percy scowled. "Mom did the best she could, okay?" he said, crossing his arms and sinking down in his seat. "She didn't have a lot to work with. She just didn't want me to go to camp and never come back."

Raine nodded. "So your mother drove you to camp," she said, returning to the story itself. Percy grimaced and nodded.

"We were at Montauk," he explained, "and Grover just showed up in the middle of the night, pants off and everything, so I could see his furry legs." He smiled fondly, but it faded fast. "And the Minotaur was right behind him." He grimaced. "I actually don't think I could tell you exactly what was said, I don't really remember. Grover was yelling and Mom was yelling and no one was making any sense. I had no idea what was going on, but I was terrified."

"Your mom was yelling?" Raine asked. Percy shook his head instantly.

"Mom doesn't yell," he said defiantly. "Uh, she raised her voice, 'cause she knew when she saw Grover that I'd been attacked by a monster and hadn't told her about it. She was just worried."

Raine made another note, and Percy scowled. "So Grover arrived, and everyone started talking. Then what?"

"Uh, they bundled me into the car and floored it," Percy said, eyes unfocusing as he thought back. "Mom and Grover were both panicking, so I was panicking too, and no one was answering any of my questions. Pretty much all I was able to figure out was that someone was trying to kill me, and that didn't make any sense back then. I was twelve. Who'd be trying to kill me?" He snorted bitterly. "I didn't know anything about anything. No wonder no one tried to explain."

"Why do you think no one tried to explain?" Raine prompted, surprising Percy.

"Because I was too stupid to understand it in time," he snapped. "We were barely ahead of the Minotaur, and they were both trying to get me to safety. They didn't have time to tell me what was happening."

"Percy," Raine said gently, "can you remind me of the difference between ignorance and stupidity?"

Percy deflated. "That not knowing something means that I was never taught," he mumbled, "and not that I'm dumb."

Raine smiled at him and nodded. "Can you apply that here? Rephrase what you said for me."

Percy took a deep breath and tried to rearrange his thoughts. "They would have needed to start from the beginning for me to understand what was happening," he said slowly, "and they... we didn't have time for that. They wanted to take me somewhere safe before they told me everything."

He looked to Raine for approval, and she smiled at him.

"Then what happened?" she asked.

"We were almost at Half-Blood Hill when lightning struck the car," Percy said, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. Raine cleared her throat, and he dropped his gaze to meet her eyes again. "Uh. Grover got knocked out, and the car landed weird so some of the doors wouldn't open. Mom had to help me drag him out of the car, and... when I looked up, I could kind of see the Minotaur, just barely. The outline of it."

Raine paused. "How much had been explained to you at this point?"

"Nothing," Percy said, surprising himself with his bitterness. "Grover had mentioned that the Lord of the Dead was trying to kill me, and that he was a satyr. And that was really it. That was all I knew."

"How do you feel about that now?" Raine asked.

Percy hesitated. "I don't know."

Raine hummed. "We have time."

Percy grabbed a spinner off the shelf and played with it for a while, thinking. He was pretty used to fighting monsters with only half the information he needed, but at least now he had his bearings in the mythical world. Back then, though, he was just a kid who still kind of thought he was hallucinating.

"Gods," he said at last, voice soft, and then laughed shakily. "Gods, that was a fucking nightmare, wasn't it? Everything was moving so fast that I didn't really have time to think about it; my blood was probably more adrenaline than water. It was dark, it was stormy, Mom and I were dragging Grover through waist-high grass uphill..." He rubbed his face. "Pretty quick after we got away from it, the Minotaur picked up the car and threw it. For a second, all I thought about was how much trouble I'd be in when my stepfather found out." He paused, realizing he still hadn't really answered the question. "Looking back now, I can't believe I didn't die trying to get up that hill. I don't usually remember how fucking scary it was while it was happening. I just remember the adrenaline."

"That's common," Raine agreed softly. "What happened next?"

Percy took a breath. "Mom and I split up, because she couldn't get over the border, and she took Grover. The Minotaur charged for me, and I dodged it the way Mom had told me to. And then, uh." He swallowed with difficulty, hyperaware of how his breath had suddenly gotten a little shallower. "Then it charged at Mom, and grabbed her by the neck, and she looked at me." He took a breath, a painful, labored thing that rasped in his ears. "And then she disappeared in a shower of gold light."

"What had happened?" Raine asked softly. Percy took another breath, painfully aware of the thin hiss of it.

"Hades took her," he said quietly, "as a bargaining chip. But I didn't know that. I thought she was dead. I thought she was dead for weeks."

"What were you thinking then?" Raine asked. Percy was grateful for the subtle change of wording; he didn't want to recount the feeling of his heart tearing open to reveal rage and hatred.

"I was mad," Percy said, reaching up to rub his face. "I still didn't understand what was going on. I didn't know why the Minotaur was there, or even how it was that it was real and not a fucking mythical monster. I didn't know why we were trying to get to camp, or why Grover had been looking for me, or what any of this had to do with Mrs. Dodds. All I knew was that Grover was all I had left, and I couldn't let the Minotaur kill him too." He pressed his palms into his eyes and muttered a curse in Ancient Greek. "I completely forgot how much this fucking sucked."

"You were likely trying to protect yourself from the memory," Raine said gently, "particularly with how much of a shock it was."

Percy gave a distracted nod. "Yeah, I guess. Maybe. Uh... then I baited the Minotaur into charging at me, because it was getting close to Grover. It was holding its arms out to catch me if I jumped aside again, so I vaulted off its snout instead – no idea how I did that – and landed on its shoulders. Snapped off one of its horns with the force of my rage, pretty much, fell off it, and stabbed it." He took a breath, feeling an odd release as he recounted that. "And then I grabbed Grover, dragged him down the hill, and passed out at the bottom."

"What were you thinking as you went into camp?" Raine asked.

Percy thought back and winced. "I wasn't," he said, a painful hollow opening up in his chest. "I was exhausted, and sobbing, and just kind of saying 'Mom' over and over again. I couldn't believe what had happened. I still didn't know anything."

"How did you feel about it in the days after?"

"I was unconscious for at least a day or two," Percy said. "I don't remember exactly how long. But when I finally woke up, I thought at first that it had been a nightmare. As soon as I realized it wasn't, I was miserable. I didn't care what else was going on, I wanted Mom back." He wiped his eyes, irritated with himself. "Damn it. She visited last weekend. She's fine. I shouldn't be crying."

"You can feel anything you need to as you recount your memories," Raine promised him. "That's part of processing them. What happened after you woke up?"

Percy shrugged. "Grover was there. That was a relief; I was glad he was okay. And then I pretty much got thrown right into camp life. That was probably a good thing, to be honest – I was too busy to grieve most of the time."

"Most of the time?" Raine asked.

"...I spent a couple of nights crying," he admitted softly. "The other kids were nice enough to pretend not to notice. And they did notice, 'cause I was in the Hermes cabin at that point, and that shit was so crowded that there were kids within a foot of me on every side."

"Did you let yourself cry?" Raine asked. "Or did you try to hush yourself?"

Percy shrugged. "I mean, I didn't want to wake anyone up," he said, faintly melancholy. "They didn't need that from the new kid." He scuffed his foot across the floor. "What does it matter now? Mom's not dead."

"But you thought she was," Raine said. "Your pain was still real, and you need to feel it before you put it away. What were you planning to do?"

"Well, I wasn't going to go home and live with Smelly Gabe," Percy said scornfully. "At first I wasn't sure, just, not that, you know? I figured I'd live on the street before I went back to him." He shook his head. "It wouldn't have come to that, though. Honestly... I probably could've lived at camp and been happy. Everyone expected me to stay year-round anyway, since my scent's so strong."

"Did you talk to anyone about what happened in the days following?" she asked.

Percy hesitated. "A little. Grover's a really good friend, so he tried to make me feel better even though he had a lot on his mind. Career stuff – getting his searcher's license was really important to him, and he was spending a lot of time worrying about it. I didn't want to bother him." He shrugged. "And I didn't have any other friends there. I was brand new."

"Did you grieve on your own, then?"

Percy shook his head. "Not really. You don't get five minutes alone in the Hermes cabin. We were always bustling from one activity to the next, and everyone was in each other's space all the time." He smiled ruefully. "I liked it, but it didn't exactly give me time to sit down and whine, even to myself."

"Percy," Raine said softly, "would you call it 'whining' if it were anyone else grieving their mother?"

"...I guess not," he mumbled. "But she wasn't dead. And, uh." He smiled, a little sheepish and a little painful. "To be honest, within a day of waking up, I was already kind of thinking about going to the Underworld and getting her back. It was pure chance that it worked out, obviously, but I was clinging to that idea for weeks before I was even given my first quest."

The corner of Raine's mouth twitched. "So you hit 'bargaining' and stopped there."

Percy snorted. "Yeah, pretty much. Everyone was telling me it was a stupid idea, 'cause I guess it was obvious why I kept asking about the Underworld, but nothing anyone said was gonna convince me to drop it."

"What would you have done if you hadn't been able to bring her back?" Raine asked. Percy made an involuntary noise of pain. "You'll feel better for resolving the thought."

Percy exhaled, slow and shivery. "Uh. Like I said, probably would've stayed at camp year-round." He swallowed a lump in his throat. "Quest would've happened whether she was really dead or not, and Annabeth and Grover became pretty much my best friends in the world while we were doing that. I would've been alright."

His voice wavered and broke unpleasantly. He dropped his face into his hands, frustrated with himself. His breath hitched, and he gasped quietly.

"I would've missed her," he whispered without looking up. "I would've lived the rest of my life knowing she died getting me to camp. That she lived her last years with Smelly fucking Gabe trying to keep me safe. I would've been just another bad thing that happened to her, and nothing more."

"And what happened instead?" Raine asked softly. Percy blinked, jostled from his apparently-stewing grief, and looked up. His cheeks were wet.

"Huh?"

"That could have happened," Raine explained. "That's what you thought would happen, before you were able to find her. What happened instead?"

Percy blinked again, then exhaled, a long, shuddering breath.

"I got her back," he croaked. "She came home. I got to live with her, just her, for the first time since I was four, and two years later she married Paul."

"How do you feel about that?" Raine prompted, with a gentle smile.

"Oh gods," Percy choked out. He pulled his legs up in front of him, stifled a laugh of relief into his elbow, and cried anyway.

"I've lost other fights, but usually there's someone else there to finish it for me," Percy admitted, grimacing. They were outside again, following the path through the woods – Percy had been curious, and Raine willing to indulge him. "The chimera... there was no one else there. Just the mortals, and what could they do against the chimera? Even for a monster, that thing is awful."

"So what happened then?" Raine prompted. Percy was pretty sure he could hear that phrase in his sleep now.

"There wasn't anything else I could do," Percy said, clasping his hands behind his back. "I'd lost my sword. There was no water nearby. I could feel myself dying – chimera poison is nearly as bad as pit scorpion venom." He shrugged. "I jumped through the hole, six hundred feet down into the river, and prayed to my father for help."

"And did he?" Raine asked. Percy let out a short, choppy laugh.

"Ah, well, the prayer probably wasn't necessary," he said ruefully, "but he saved my life. Hitting the water didn't hurt, and it healed me pretty much instantly." He wrinkled his nose. "The Mississippi is filthy, it probably wouldn't be a bad thing to go back and clean it up a little as like, a gesture of thanks. That can't be a happy spirit."

"How did you feel once you realized you were healed?" Raine asked.

"I... huh." Percy frowned. "Well, I thanked Dad first, and then I immediately felt like shit. I mean, I'd left a powerful monster with half a dozen mortals, six hundred feet in the air. For all I knew then, it was going to kill them without me there." He grimaced. "I mean, they all got out alive, but I felt awful."

"What did you do then?" Raine asked.

"Nothing yet," he admitted. "Uh, Dad sent a messenger to talk to me, and she delivered a message. After that..." He frowned. "You know, I'd almost forgotten. But when she left, I, uh..." He unclasped his hands and crossed them in front of him instead, then returned them to behind his back. "I kinda wanted to kill myself. I remember I was annoyed that I couldn't just drown myself in the river."

"Do you remember what you were feeling right then?" Raine asked.

"I thought I was a failure of a hero," he said frankly. "It was the first fight I'd lost, and like I said, I'd left it with the mortals in the Arch. I was still pretty pessimistic about our chances of averting World War III. And, uh..." He cleared his throat. "I missed my mom."

"Of course you did," she said quietly. "How long was this after you came to camp?"

"Couple weeks," he muttered, voice scratchy. "The messenger Dad sent, she looked like Mom, and sounded like her too. And she was nice." He shrugged. "I think it just hit me. I mean, my confidence was at an all-time low, so I wasn't exactly convinced I'd be able to get her back. It just... I dunno. I guess I thought it would be easier to die." That wasn't quite right, but he didn't know how to explain the allure of the idea. Sometimes there was just so much.

"You didn't want to live without your mom?" Raine asked, somehow managing to make it sound like a genuine question. Percy only had to think about it a little before he came to a conclusion, and he shrugged self-consciously.

"Not really," he admitted, barely audible. "I mean... I don't think I'd've done anything. But back then, everything good in my life came from Mom. Every word of comfort and every encouragement and hug and promise came from Mom."

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked away, casting his gaze into the trees.

"I guess I never really thought about it before, but... when I was a kid, I don't think there was anything else that made my life worth living. I couldn't stand school, didn't stay anywhere long enough to make real friends, no one I liked lived nearby... I didn't even like being home, 'cause Gabe always acted like my room belonged to him, even when I was sleeping there."

"Do you feel that way now?" Raine asked. Percy shook his head instantly. "Would you mind another assignment?"

"Ugh," Percy said. "Sure, go for it."

Raine flashed him a brief, amused smile. "Take some time to list every good thing in your life. Draw pictures if you want to, or record yourself talking about it. Reflect on the good things in your life."

Percy wrinkled his nose. "Is this some count-your-blessings shit?" he asked warily. "Cause I'm seriously never in the mood to tell myself that other people have it worse."

"It's not that," Raine promised him. "It's more... reminding yourself how many more things you have to live for now than you did as a child. Even if you already know, it can be comforting to list them out. You'll feel more secure afterward."

Percy sighed and nodded. "Yeah, alright. I can do that."