Hermes had been through some pretty dark times in his life. All gods had. Pain practically defined them. Which, in hindsight, explained a lot about them.

It took him a while to realize that most, if not all, humans had too. To live was to struggle, even if one had the best worldly (and some more-than-worldly) comforts. That really was more of a minor perk of being a god than anything. Maybe it would be a major perk to a human who had to eat and drink and sleep, but in Hermes' opinion, luxury didn't make up for some of what they had to go through as gods.

Being in two places at once? Great, now you do twice the work. Four places? More deliveries! Oh! And you still need to watch the roads for travelers and thieves and athletes and shepherds (which had not diminished like many seemed to think)… and every other domain he had. No, seriously, why did he have so many domains? WHY?!

Okay, he knew—he'd been there after all—but he hadn't been born with this many domains! They'd just kind of… happened.

Stealing cattle from Apollo had been the (accidentally) best idea for his first interaction with a god other than his mother because Apollo was more forgiving of his half-brothers (well, when it didn't come to Artemis… or one of his nastier whim moods) than, say, Ares, and once they'd gotten to know each other, he'd been able to go to Apollo for help. It helped that Apollo had just about as many domains as Hermes did. Between the two of them, they managed to figure out ways to keep up and still have aspects that had some free time to themselves.

Most of Hermes' growth in the last thousand years had been towards allowing himself to be in as many places at once as he could.

And then, finally, he'd found he had enough. Well, when it wasn't a major holiday or the Olympics were held in North America. For once, his newest aspect (copy, he needed to be real about it) found he didn't really need to rush around like the rest of him had for thousands of years.

Boredom and gods have never mixed well.

His cabin in Camp Half-Blood had seen quite the boom recently. He'd always considered that a blessing.

And then Luke happened.

And Chris.

And Marta.

And Eloise.

And Jerry.

And Peter. (Though, he'd been Mercury's, but it still counted.)

He'd lost so many children to the Titans, many of them traitors. And he… didn't get it. Realizing that had been a blow to his pride because he'd always been closer to humans than most other gods, having to overlook athletes training, sweating, and pushing themselves to the brink just to play a game or run a marathon, having to watch the roads and what humans had to resort to to keep themselves entertained, watching over thieves of every kind and seeing the desperation some can fall to (also seeing the insanity from those who did it for fun). He'd watched, and interacted, and… yet he didn't get it.

Once he'd started having more children, he'd even tried to allocate more time to stay around for them, despite the rules against it. What his father didn't know wouldn't hurt him. Domains or not, Hermes wasn't the strongest god and everyone knew it. He didn't mind. He'd never really wanted power. Not like that. Well, not anymore. Too much work and frustration and having to maintain an image, both with other gods and with humans. So he focused on his domains… and his children in a way he'd never been able to before.

He knew he'd been a better parent than the others before he'd gotten caught and punished (having his wings taken away but still having to maintain the same amount of packages had not been fun), but that just seemed to make more children leave him.

Which was what Zeus had pointed out to keep him from making the same 'mistakes' again, but Hermes couldn't help but feel they were going in the wrong direction.

Not that his father listened to him.

He wasn't sure Zeus listened to anyone besides Athena and sometimes Hera or one of his brothers—and those two only out of sheer necessity.

In any case, it was a huge mess, one that had caused him to build more than a little frustration. But that was fine. He could deal with frustration. He had before, so he could again.

Or, so he'd thought.

It seemed everything had gotten to him more than he'd realized. He didn't even notice until Ares brought up Percy Jackson right before that meeting, describing him as 'the brat that killed yours, remember?' When he thought about it later, Hermes couldn't help but think it had been a calculated move, though likely not by Ares himself. Ares was good at combat and battle strategy, sure, but anything that got too complicated or had long-term effects went to Athena. So likely someone else had pushed Ares at him, because Luke was still a sore spot. Probably would be for a while and everyone knew it. The problem was, he couldn't be angry at the people who deserved it. Kronos was, well, Kronos and had already been punished. The Titans and gods that joined him had been punished or exonerated due to one Percy Jackson. That had annoyed him. People needed to be held accountable.

(Yes, on his good days, he realized the hypocrisy in that.)

The final person he wanted to be angry at but couldn't was Zeus himself, for making the ridiculous laws saying they couldn't be with their children (among others). And he was angry, but that was dangerous. So he directed that emotion elsewhere.

And who had been right there when Luke was killed? Who was an easy target on his particularly bad days? Normally Hermes liked the kid. He did. But they'd brought him up in the meeting and Zeus was right there, going off about how they couldn't trust him and all the messenger god could see was the prophecy kid who had watched his son die and then got everybody involved who had survived exonerated; who had made a choice to preserve Olympus and destroy Luke.

Normally, he'd think that was fair and grumble a little before moving on, but that day…

Most gods had issues with pride and anger. Hermes wasn't an exception, he knew. Oh, he'd gotten better, but he still had his points and his days and… he was pretty sure his father and brother made that day one of them, because once he made a decision, like every other god, his first instinct would be to double down and defend that decision.

So he'd voted for Percy's banishment.

Almost immediately, he'd regretted it, but he couldn't show that in front of everyone else who would take it as a weakness.

(It took him a while after Annabeth became Emma for him to realize how destructive that was—how destructive that mindset had been since the beginning.)

But he'd known. And he'd felt guilty for it despite doubling down and acting nonchalant about it. Which had been part of the reason he'd supported Annabeth's ascension. It felt like he was making it up to Percy.

He'd later learn that misplacing even good intentions like that was a common mortal thing and could be extremely detrimental—damaging even. He needed to learn to fix the actual problem that was making him feel guilty, not to try to skirt around it. That wasn't something he—or any Greco-Roman god—was used to, but was something they needed to get used to. For the sake of their own pantheon, if not the world.

He'd avoided talking to Emma after her ascension. Normally it would be easy for a much older god to take advantage of thousands of years of knowledge to avoid a younger one. But she was tenacious. Terrifyingly so. That was the first time he wondered if Zeus had made a mistake regarding her. It wouldn't be the last.

Eventually, she'd cornered him, and that had been an interesting discussion… (read, 'fight'). They'd both needed to rant at the other. Apparently, Annabeth had had issues regarding Luke as well and blamed it on Hermes. She wasn't entirely wrong about her assertions. That had hurt.

Then Hermes had gone off… and said a lot of things he really hadn't meant to, eventually blurting out about how he was angry at his father. That had actually startled him far more than it had her. She'd been more surprised at how viscerally he was angry at his father for his hypocritical rules and paranoia…

That was the first time she'd brought up the term 'generational trauma'. It wouldn't be the last.

She'd given him a lot to think about, and he was pretty sure he'd given her a couple of things to chew on, too. When they'd met up again a couple of days later, they'd managed to have a much calmer conversation. They'd both come to some realizations, her about the gods and their mind-set in general, him about some pretty deep-seated issues that needed to be addressed centuries ago. Once he'd voiced that, she'd helped him as much as she could, but there had been baggage there. Still was, truthfully. For both of them. That hadn't helped, but she took her domain seriously, so he could appreciate that.

He'd doubted then (and still did) that he'd ever really like her, but he could respect her, and at that point she hadn't been powerful. The whole encounter had been… surreal.

It still took him a while to openly change his mind on the issue of Percy, but once he did admit his regret aloud to himself and to Emma, he'd more or less fallen in behind her 100% and was more than happy to see his father ousted. Temporary or not, he'd enjoy the changes that followed. They didn't happen as quickly as he'd like (Athena had said they happened too quickly, he disagreed), but Emma insisted on going through each rule and examining it before seeing what had to change and what couldn't and how they could compromise when they had to.

Needless to say, they hadn't even scratched the surface and they'd already had meetings once a month every month since Zeus' banishment. The endeavor would take years if not centuries.

Still, after she and Poseidon had volunteered (he'd seriously doubted their sanity at that point) to go to Tartarus themselves to rescue Percy, and then seeing the kid in front of them, dressed in dirty rags he must have gotten from some monster somewhere (what happened to Aphrodite's clothing?), dirty skin (even after being in the ocean?!) and this sort of hopeless look in his eyes that hurt to see, Hermes had never regretted anything he'd done more. Or, well, very few things. But still. This was an innocent who had helped them and… this was what Hermes had supported?

Not to mention the kid felt different.

Hermes didn't think demigods should feel that powerful.

There had to be something else going on there… something to do with Tartarus and monsters, or maybe his divine side, Hermes didn't know. He wasn't Apollo. He had no idea what was going on with the kid… but whatever it was, they'd have to deal with it. Because it had been their decision to make him a prisoner out of fear. Their own fear. Irrational fear.

Zeus' paranoia had been contagious.

He continued to watch the kid from afar. Or should he say 'man'? Because according to his culture, he was no longer a kid. Hermes knew a decade and a half was a long time to mortals. It didn't feel long to him because, well, he was a god, but still… he knew it was like Hermes being locked up for 700-800 years. He didn't like to think about that perspective, but he would anyway. And he'd look out for the guy. Until he got the guts to actually talk to him face to face.

Then Percy left to go stay with his father (they'd finally addressed that rule) and Hermes had decided to keep an eye on Percy's family instead. From a distance of course. Because he knew in his heart that he'd never be able to make up for what he'd done.

And learning to deal with that knowledge was… probably something he should have learned to deal with a long time ago.

The Olympians weren't perfect. He wasn't sure they ever would be. And maybe—maybe—that was okay. As long as they learned to deal with their imperfection in better ways.

And why had it taken them thousands of years to understand that?

As he watched a teenager with unusual streaks in her hair walk down the streets, laughing with her friends on their way to school, he couldn't help but hope his family could get better—could end up laughing like that with each other again.

It wasn't a feeling he'd had in a long time, but it was one he was glad to have back.

xXx

AN: Sorry for the short chapter. Hope you like it.

P.S. Hubby's doing well, but this is going to take a long while to recover from. :/ I am thankful but thinking about the future is... overwhelming. So yeah. That's the update there.

Thank you to Berix, The Shadow Slayer, Asterius Daemon, Quathis, and the Chronomancer for helping me out with this!

Discord: discord. gg/xDDz3gqWfy (no spaces)