Apparently, there was nothing that broke the ice quite like complaining about school; Percy's second morning there was more relaxed than the first, and before long everyone was sharing their opinions of the facility and what to expect.

"I was mad at my friend at first too," Leilani confided in Percy. She'd eventually revealed that she'd come in for more or less the same reason as him, only she'd had a plan and everything. "But it's not so bad here. It's kind of a relief to take a big tangled knot of trauma and cut it up into a lot of little problems."

"It's still a lot of problems," Jet muttered.

"It's still a lot of problems," Leilani admitted. "It just feels simpler this way, you know? I'm not so trapped in my own head anymore."

"Leilani's week ten," Alfie explained to Percy. "So she's a lot better than she was."

"I don't want to die anymore," Leilani said proudly, and then amended, "Mostly. I want hormone treatment and a GED and maybe a job in horticulture. And boobs."

"And your parents are gonna let it happen?" Amna asked.

"I'm pretty sure," Leilani said. "It was tough at first, but family therapy went really well for the most part." Percy winced. "I know, right? Like, 'please come talk about things we both hate talking about because otherwise I might kill myself.' Talk about awkward. But it's hard to fix the whole 'I'm scared my foster parents won't let me go on hormones' issue without actually talking to my foster parents about going on hormones." She stuck out her tongue. "Turns out normal parents don't refuse things just to keep you from being happy. Who knew?"

"How far along is everyone else?" Percy asked, leaning against the table curiously.

"I'm week five," Jet offered. "I'm pretty sure the only progress I've made is that I'm not being so much of a contrary little shit, but they tell me that's better than nothing." He snickered. "I'm still not convinced I can actually be fixed, but hey, a patch job is good enough for now."

"Week three," Rose sighed. "This is fucking exhausting and I'm so sick of it. My guardian says she can tell I'm getting better though."

"She used to nap through most meals," Alfie whispered to Percy. "Then she started matching Amna bite for bite and now they're both eating better."

Amna smiled sheepishly. "It feels kind of like a game," she said. "I'm in week eight, so I was already pretty far along when Rose got here. And if I'm thinking about tricking Rose into eating, I'm not thinking so hard about what I'm eating."

"You're not tricking me," Rose said, though there was a trace of a smile on her mouth now. "I'm tricking you."

Amna giggled and held out her fist, and Rose bumped it casually.

"Food," Amna said wisely.

"Rose and I got here at the same time," Alfie added. "But honestly I think you getting here is gonna help more than anything."

Leilani's brow furrowed. "Why's that?"

Alfie froze. "Uh!" His breath stuttered, then picked up as he looked away sharply, covering his mouth. Percy thought fast.

He elbowed Alfie gently and said to Leilani, "We've got family in the same military program. It's kinda secret, but it brings a lot of baggage home. But I'm more directly involved, so I know a bit more."

"That's super vague and suspicious, thanks," Leilani said, but she didn't look bothered. She kicked Alfie under the table. "It's alright. You can just say it's secret."

Alfie was still struggling to catch his breath, hand pressing over his mouth as his chest heaved raggedly. Percy reached over and pressed his hand over Alfie's, giving him a reassuring grin when the boy looked up.

"You're not gonna get in trouble, you know?" Percy said quietly. "No one's listening. Seriously." Pause, and then Percy lifted Alfie's hand to press it against his chest. "Come on. Breathe."

It took Alfie a few minutes to calm down, shaking himself off with a shudder. "Thanks," he whispered, and then cleared his throat and pulled away. "Okay. Yeah. Military program."

The amusement in everyone's eyes clearly said they didn't believe it for a moment, but none of them pushed. Rose poked impatiently at her food, raising an eyebrow at Amna, and Amna rolled her eyes and took a bite, the silent signal for Rose to do the same.

"I've only been here two weeks," Elliot told Percy quietly, scratching his fork back and forth through his oatmeal. "But my therapist says I've been doing really well, and I get a lot of practice here – um, m-my social anxiety got so bad that I, uh, couldn't even really talk to my family." He scratched his head, flustered. "They're visiting this weekend. Cassia promised we'd do lots of practice before then."

"It's gonna go great," Percy told him seriously, and rubbed his cheek with a sheepish smile. "My mom's gonna be visiting too, maybe they'll run into each other. It's gonna be awkward; she didn't know I was... having problems until my camp counselor referred me here."

"Oof," Amna said sympathetically.

"Week seven for me," Kieran threw in, frowning down tensely. "I'm getting better at dealing with stuff, but I dunno if I'm gonna be ready to go by the time I'm supposed to leave. Even the vegetable patch still fucking sucks."

"Agoraphobia," Alfie explained to Percy.

"Think they'd let us go on walks?" Percy wondered. "Or is that a stupid idea?" At Kieran's look, he shrugged, smiling sheepishly. "I go stir-crazy really fast, so I was wondering if it would maybe be easier to go places if I was with you. No pressure though."

"...Maybe," Kieran allowed grudgingly. "I'll give it a try, anyway."

"Anyway, this is a good place," Amna said to Percy, firm and decisive. "It's like they really care."

Percy smiled a little, thinking of Letitia and Chiron. "Benefits of being a passion project, I guess."

To Percy's surprise, Raine let him walk with her around the vegetable patch during the second session too.

"No one really wants to go to therapy," Raine explained to him. "It's like a doctor's appointment. You go because something is wrong, not because you want to. Does that sound about right to you?"

"Uh-huh."

"I bet you've been to the doctor's enough to know what to expect from it," Raine continued. "They'll check your weight, height, and blood pressure, ask you about your symptoms, your lifestyle, make some educated guesses and work with those... with me so far?"

Percy glanced up at her, wondering where she was going with this. "Yeah..."

Raine gave him a serene, slightly sheepish smile, and clarified, "But therapy is new to you. What do you expect us to do?"

"Um." Percy pushed his hands into his pockets and considered. "I guess... I'm supposed to talk about stuff that's happened to me and how it made me feel, and you tell me how I'm wrong and what to think instead?"

"No wonder you're not interested," Raine said ruefully. "You're close, but not exactly. A lot of therapy is about examining the underlying assumptions that make you think certain things, why you have those assumptions, and whether or not you really believe them. In this case, it sounds like you're assuming that there's a right and a wrong way to feel about your past. Does that sound right?"

"If there wasn't a wrong way to feel, I wouldn't be here," Percy pointed out, frowning at the cherry tomatoes.

"There's a harmful way to think," Raine clarified. "Your feelings are always valid, but we'd like to encourage you to think about your life in a way that won't hurt you. Right now, I'm trying to convince you that there are no wrong answers in therapy. I'm not grading you or correcting your work, and I don't want you to be afraid of these meetings- or me."

"O-kayy..." Percy said, not completely convinced, which was probably the first sign that she was right. "But if I get out of here and I still think I should probably die, isn't that failing therapy?"

"That would be my failure," Raine corrected gently. "If you go to a doctor and they misdiagnose you, or give you the wrong treatment, that's the doctor's mistake, not the patient's. This is the same."

"Huh. Does that happen?"

"More often than you'd think," Raine admitted. "If the therapist isn't a good match to the patient, then not a lot is going to get done. You, for example, almost necessarily need a therapist that's clearsighted, because a regular mortal won't understand enough of your life to help you."

"I guess that makes sense," Percy said, as both of them turned around a row to walk the other way. "Sounds better than my idea, anyway."

"That's what we're aiming for," Raine smiled. "How do you feel about discussing your feelings with me now?"

"Uh." Percy slowed down, frowning as he thought. "It still doesn't sound great. My feelings are kind of garbage sometimes."

"Can you tell me what you mean by that?" Raine asked. Percy shrugged uncomfortably.

"I'm meaner in my head," he said plainly. "Kinda spiteful, sometimes, or judgey or whatever. It's not nice. I don't want you to think that that's what I'm really like. I'm not. I just get mad."

"Most people do," Raine reassured him. "Even I do sometimes, and I'm trained to know better. Don't worry about that."

Percy hummed discontentedly, but he nodded.

"I think I just don't want to," he said frankly. "I shouldn't need help with not wanting to hurt myself. That's really, really dumb, even for me."

"There it is," Raine said softly. They turned around another row. "Percy, what do you think of the other patients here?"

"Huh? Oh." Percy caught on to what she was getting at pretty fast. "That's different."

"How so?"

Percy thought about it. "Okay, it's not different," he admitted grudgingly. Except that Percy was still pretty sure he was right, and didn't understand why no one else agreed. "Sorry. I guess I just don't know why I don't want to."

"I have a theory," Raine said. "May I share it with you?"

"Sure."

"I think that you don't like asking for help," Raine said. "It's easy – for anyone, but especially for young men used to taking on too much responsibility – to view asking for help as a weakness."

"But everyone needs help sometimes," Percy argued. Raine granted him a smile.

"That's very true," Raine agreed. "Think about it for me. What are you comfortable helping other people with?"

Percy did think about it, and they'd turned into another row before he finally replied. "I dunno. Whatever people need, I guess. I've guarded the door while Tyson was getting changed before, and stood up to bullies for Grover. I've helped Annabeth calm down from exams. I can't think of anything that I've outright refused to help with."

"And what are you comfortable asking for help with?" Raine asked.

Percy frowned. "Stuff I know I can't do," he said at last, confidently. "I can't shoot straight, so I prayed to Artemis and Apollo for help. I've prayed to Dad when I was worried my powers wouldn't be enough. I ask people to read stuff for me sometimes."

"That's very good," Raine said firmly. "Plenty of people struggle to ask for help at all. But what about things that scare you? Things that you know you can technically do, but that you simply don't want to?"

Percy shrugged. "I don't really need help with that stuff. I can deal."

"You didn't ask Tyson to 'deal,'" Raine said. "Do you ask your friends to distinguish between the things they need help with, and what they want help with?"

"...I guess not," Percy said reluctantly.

"Can you try and practice doing that for yourself?" Raine asked. "Figure out what you don't need help with, but might want it anyway. Ask three different people for help with those things before we meet tomorrow."

"Oh, this is homework," Percy complained. Raine chuckled.

"Yes, this is homework," Raine admitted, a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. "Some things have to be practiced, I'm afraid."

"I don't want to bother the others," Percy protested, tucking his hands behind his back. "They're busy dealing with their own stuff."

"That's what we're trying to work on," Raine said gently. "Would you be bothered if one of them asked for your help with their therapy homework?"

"...No," Percy sighed. "Okay, I'll try."

And Percy did try. They had outdoor work soon after individual therapy, where they were all working in the garden, and Percy spent almost half an hour working himself up to ask Alfie to help him prune one of the bushes; it had especially thick growth, so Alfie held the branches out of the way while Percy worked with the shears.

And then that was it. The entire rest of the afternoon and then the evening, there was not a single other time that Percy could bring himself to bother one of the others. He was able to find things he'd rather have help with alright: he kept forgetting the way to the bathroom and could've used a hand finding it, and he cleaned up the art room on his own. Group therapy that day involved some written work, and also some reading. But he kept making excuses to himself, reasons he couldn't bother anyone about it, and it was surprisingly difficult to push through it.

"It's weird," he said petulantly into the phone, bouncing his leg. "It's a weird problem to have and I don't like it."

Sally laughed softly, and he could almost feel her fingers brushing through his hair. "I know, guppy," she said, quiet and fond. "It took me a long time to unlearn too. Independence does have its downsides... and forced independence has more."

"Yeah," Percy murmured unhappily.

"The truth is, Percy, no one minds," Sally added, an oddly wistful overtone to her voice. "Most people aren't Gabriel. They won't be angry with you just for the asking. Even if they say no, they'll have forgotten you asked within a few minutes. More likely, they'll say yes and you'll both feel good about it."

Percy wrinkled his nose. "Why would they feel good about helping me?" he asked dubiously. As soon as it came out of his mouth, he realized what a stupid question that was. "Shit."

He heard Sally stifle a laugh, but when she spoke, her voice was rueful. "He really did do a number on you, didn't he, guppy?"

"I'm starting to realize that," Percy grumbled. "Someday I'm gonna follow through and actually ask Nico to find out what happened to him."

"Don't tell me," Sally requested. "I'm having too much fun making things up."

Startled, Percy let out a laugh. His mom was the best. "Gotcha. Guess I'll have to suck it up and get used to it, huh?"

"There are worse things to get used to," Sally said warmly.

"I don't know why I couldn't do it," Percy said, kicking the ground irritably. "Sorry. That should have been really easy."

"If I thought it would be easy for you, I wouldn't have asked you to do it," Raine told him. She didn't look angry or disappointed, but then, Raine was good at holding her expression fairly steady. "Can you tell me why you're so angry?"

Percy plopped himself down on the ground to rock and clap his hands instead, scowling as he tried to answer. Raine's questions took a weird amount of concentration, considering they were all about feelings.

"I'm mad at myself," he said at last, decisively. He looked up at her as she was shifting to sit down beside him, getting dirt all over her clothes. "I should have been able to do that and I don't understand why I didn't. I found lots of times when I could have asked people for help. I just didn't."

"Did you notice how you drifted from 'couldn't' to 'didn't' as you spoke?" Raine asked him. Percy furrowed his brow. "The distinction can be difficult to make, and it's not as meaningful as you might think. Regardless of how physically possible it was, you found the assignment incredibly challenging. You worked very hard to complete as much as you did."

"...I don't know where you're going with this," Percy admitted, sinking his hands into the dirt to lean back and scowl at the ground. "That just means I tried really hard and still sucked ass."

"It means you tried very hard," Raine said firmly. "That's the part that matters most. We can build the skills to help you succeed, but you didn't have them this time, and that's okay. You still tried."

"What skills?" Percy asked bitterly. "All I had to do was talk."

"Social and emotional skills have to be developed just like any other," Raine said. "And that can be especially difficult for children from abusive backgrounds. Asking for help isn't really about the words; it's about trust. It requires a certain willingness to be vulnerable. It opens you up to the possibility of rejection, derision, or retaliation, and once you've learned to expect those things, it can be hard to overlook the risk." Raine tapped his hand, and smiled gently when he looked up at her. "What we need to do is rebuild your sense of trust."

"Oh," Percy said meekly, quiet and uncomfortable. "Uh, I don't know how to do that."

"That's why you're here," Raine said kindly.

Percy was still thinking about that as he moved through the next few hours, rolling it over in his head and trying to make sense of it. It wasn't like Percy didn't know how to trust people – he'd fought side by side with his friends in New York, he'd given Luke the knife, he'd walked into the River Styx on Nico's word alone. It was just... this. This stuff. It should have been easier, it wasn't life-and-death. But for some reason, Percy just couldn't do it.

Group therapy on Fridays was dedicated to self-esteem building, and the other kids were all excited about it. Percy was, too, because it sounded like a welcome break from the heavy talk the other sessions had demanded, digging up the past for examination. That lasted until Cassia explained the exercise.

Self-advertisement: designing an ad for why someone would want to be Percy's friend. It might have been fun, if it didn't involve so much damn writing.

Percy was used to gritting his teeth and putting up with it, filling out worksheets with sloppy, misspelled responses just to get something on the paper. But it had been a messy, emotional week, a couple of months after the hardest summer of Percy's life, and he had already spent the whole morning trying and failing to convince himself to do simple shit. He was tired.

He folded his arms on top of the paper and put his head down, scowling.

Unfortunately, he only got a few minutes of peace before Cassia noticed his non-participation and came to wield the concerned-teacher voice at him. "Percy, can you tell me why you're not feeling up to this project?"

"Don't want to," he muttered, too moody to form a better response.

"Can you tell me why you don't want to?" Cassia asked patiently. "Are you feeling sick or tired? Or are you nervous about complimenting yourself?"

"I'm dyslexic!" Percy snarled into his arm, as if she didn't already know that and as if she cared. No one ever cared how much reading made his head hurt.

But Cassia inhaled sharply. "I'm sorry, Percy, I should have thought of that," she said, sounding genuinely distressed. "I'll make sure to screen future activities appropriately. Would a presentation work better for you, or do you want to sit this week out?"

Percy turned his head to look at her, and forced himself to take a breath to a count of five. When his head had cooled a little, he thought about it.

"...I can do a presentation," he muttered. He forced himself upright and rubbed his face. "Reasons someone would want to be my friend, right?"

"Exactly," Cassia said, with an odd tone of reassurance.

The next twenty minutes were taken up by that, most of the others scribbling on poster sheets while Percy sat up and just thought about it. He relaxed as he did; he was right, the assignment itself was kind of fun.

Rose went first; she'd drawn hers in a rough 1920's style, promising 'you'll never be lonely again!' and assuring them that she was easygoing when you wanted to chill and cooperative when you wanted to play. She presented it with the first full smile Percy had seen on her, even if it was bashful and embarrassed.

"Hell yeah," Amna called out, clapping twice when Rose finished. "Food buddy forever, baby!"

Rose giggled shyly, and Jet added, "Seconded! No one better when you want to hide in an empty office and hang out."

"Ten out of ten, would nap through class with," Percy said seriously.

Elliot had opted for something more like a movie poster, with a quote at the bottom calling him 'reliable, patient, and extremely cute!' He stumbled as he presented it and couldn't look at any of them.

"Check, check, and check," Percy said agreeably, leaning back to give Elliot a reassuring grin. "That makes bingo, I think."

"Makes you super calming to be around too," Alfie added. "I'll be your friend any day."

"Bold and accurate," Leilani asserted.

Alfie had designed a PSA poster for his, making an acronym out of his name: artistic, listener, fashionable, intelligent, and empathetic. He'd also drawn an omega prominently at the bottom of his poster, and he threw Percy a wink when he reached it.

"Now that's a PSA they should be handing out at schools," Jet said with a grin.

"I've seen five out of five of those, and I've only been here a week," Percy added.

After a few more rounds, Cassia gave Percy a concerned look, and Percy grinned and hopped to his feet, taking it as his cue. He shook his nervousness off of his hands, shoved them into his pockets, and grinned.

"My name is Percy Jackson and I'm the friend you didn't know you needed!" he said brazenly, pushing away the anxiety trying to slow him down. "Need help coordinating a project? I'm a really good leader! I'll never forget your favorite food, and I'm loyal to a fault, so you'll never be without someone to watch your back! And if that wasn't enough, my sense of humor will help you make the best of any bad situation! Will you be my friend?"

By the end of it, his cheeks were blazing, because it was, in fact, really embarrassing to gratuitously compliment yourself in front of a group. But most of them were smiling.

"Well, I'm sold," Kieran declared, and Percy grinned.