Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Rick Riordan, Greco-Roman mythology, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Long chapter today! I hope you enjoy it, as well as the changes I did with one of the characters. Rereading the book in order to do this...yeah, I remembered why I hadn't been as impressed with this particular story as much as a kid lol.

Anyways, until the next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~The Finding Home Saga~

~Finding Home~

~Chapter 111: Winter Break, Interrupted Yet Again~

Look, all I wanted to have was a good winter break.

Of course, it wasn't really a "winter break" for me when I wasn't going to school in-person; I was still going to have to do my schoolwork over the break, unlike Callie, Silena, and all my other friends. And without Luke, it was going to be hard for me to think of it as all that "good." It certainly wasn't going to be great.

But I wanted to have a good winter break, if it really was possible. I was melancholic, in a way I had never been before around this time of year, sans the winter after Luke had left camp, and I needed some cheering up. An injection of holiday spirit straight into my veins seemed like the best way to go about it.

My mom, Silena, and I started the traditions besides putting up the fake Christmas tree and all the other decorations the night after her last day at school for the calendar year, the 19th of December. We were making my mom's Christmas Spritz cookies, a recipe which her uncle had taught her, colored blue, as always. And we were making a bunch, because Katie and Alabaster were coming over tomorrow to spend the holidays with us, and the Blofises and di Angelos had been invited to spend Christmas Day with us again this year, plus Annabeth and the Stolls.

Annabeth...yeah, not gonna lie, I wasn't too enthused about her coming to celebrate with us, having been on a quest with her or not.

Really, I wasn't too excited to be in the same room with her and Bianca again, period. Bianca hadn't been happy when I'd told her that I'd need some time to think about the offer she'd made the last time she'd been here, because taking on the Curse of Achilles...it was said to be dangerous. Crazy dangerous. The kind of dangerous where my kids might grow up without their mother.

But, I was willing to put my irritation with them for now. 'Tis the season and all that.

And anyways, I digress.

The radio was going on in the background, playing the version of the White Christmas song that appears on Home Alone: "May your days, may your days, may your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be – "

"I don't think we're going to have a problem with that this year," I remarked dryly, staring outside. There was snow absolutely covering the ground outside.

"No, I don't think so either," my mom said. "Percy, why don't you give Silena a turn with the press? The trash needs to be taken outside."

I stared at her, and then at the baby monitor on the counter. I knew what she was trying to do. Since Luke Jr. and Rose had been born, I hadn't ever been that far from them, and...maybe the reason was because I didn't like it. Because being apart from them made my hands sweaty and my body jittery and all sorts of other things.

Knowing that this wasn't going to be an argument I was going to win, however, and maybe that she was trying to do me some good, I sighed. "Yeah, okay." I handed the cookie press to Silena. "Just don't do too many more without me."

She winked. "Sure thing."

I grabbed the baby monitor and headed out into the main hallway, where my coat was resting on the coat rack. I put on my coat and stuffed the baby monitor inside the right pocket. Then, going back into the kitchen, I took out the bag full of trash, put the new one in, and carried the bag outside. The outside trash bin was next to the garage.

My breath appeared as a white puff in front of my face as I walked over there, that's how cold it was. When I reached my destination, I opened the bin and put the trash bag inside. The lid closed.

"Hey, Percy."

"Μὰ θεούς!" I swore, nearly jumping out of my skin. "Bianca? Thalia? What are you doing here?"

Both of them were in winter clothes – Bianca was wearing a long, green coat over black pants, while Thalia had the silver parka and jean combo that all of the Hunters had had when I'd first seen them. The daughter of Zeus' black hair was a bit longer than it had been back in August, but her silver circlet was still tucked in it.

For a moment, dread filled me. Why were they here? I knew Bianca wasn't like that, wouldn't do something like that, but a not-so-small part of brain wondered if this was another attempt by her to convince me to go down to the Underworld and to the River Styx with her, if she had roped Thalia into her and Annabeth's plans.

But then, somebody from behind me said, "They are here, because Lord Hades has a problem. He needs your help."

I whirled around.

Now, I'd never seen her in-person before, but I knew that she had to be Persephone, my third and final half-sister whose mother was Demeter.

She looked just like her. She had milady's long and loosely-curled chocolate brown hair, her facial features. Her eyes, I could tell even in the faint light of the night, were a dark green, not the golden-green color that I was used to. Yet, besides her slightly younger appearance, that was the only difference I could make out. She was wearing a dark purple dress, with had a rich green leaf trim from which embroidered red fruits were blooming from – pomegranates.

"Lady Persephone," I said. "Erm, it's nice to meet you."

"Yes. Mother said you were much smarter than most gave you credit for; I can see that she was right," she replied.

"What do you mean that Hades needs our help?" I asked. "And, uh, no offense, but how are you here? 'Cause, um – "

Persephone gave a small smile. "It is true that I must spend my winters in the Underworld – although, really, that implies I have a problem with it. I don't. Why wouldn't I want to spend time with my husband and children?" She sniffed. "But, from time to time, while I am supposed to remain there for the entire season, some allowances can be made, at my discretion, and I have decided that this is one of them. The matter concerns Hades' sword, his sacred weapon."

Bianca frowned. That was when I figured out that she and Thalia hadn't known why they were here. They'd been just as much in the dark as I was, no ulterior motives on their part involved. "My father doesn't have a sword, or a sacred weapon. He's one of the few gods who doesn't. He uses a staff in battle, and his helm of terror."

"He did not have a sword, or a sacred weapon," Persephone corrected. "He does now."

Thalia was alarmed. "Does Zeus know about this?"

"War with the Titans is almost upon us," Persephone said. "My lord Hades must be ready. He needed a weapon which he will never be able to fight at his best with."

"But Zeus and Poseidon would never allow Hades to forge a new weapon!" Thalia protested. "It would unbalance their power-sharing agreement."

Bianca made an interesting face. I was sure I wasn't much better.

War is war, after all. Sometimes, exceptions have to be made...

Persephone shook her head. "You mean it would make Hades their equal? Believe me, daughter of Zeus, the Lord of the Dead has no designs against his brothers. He knew they would never understand, however, which is why he forged the blade in secret."

She pointed to an area off to the side. There, an image flickered to life: it was a sword with a blade made of Stygian iron, like the sword that I knew Bianca had. Something strange was set in its base – not a gem. More like...

Bianca made an interesting noise. "The keys of Hades?"

"Wait," Thalia said. "What are the keys of Hades?"

"My father has a set of golden keys that can lock and unlock death," Bianca explained. "At least...that's the legend."

"It is true," Persephone said.

"How do you lock and unlock death?" I asked.

"The keys have the power to imprison a soul in the Underworld," Persephone answered. "Or to release it."

Bianca swallowed. "If one of those keys has been set in the sword – "

"The wielder can raise the dead," Persephone spoke, "or slay any living thing and send its soul to the Underworld with a mere touch of the blade, making it much more powerful than a typical Stygian iron sword."

Stygian iron, just for your information, like royal silver with sea deities, can only be handled by chthonic ones or their children. Unlike celestial bronze, it can work on both mortals and immortals, as well as prevent monsters from reforming by absorbing their essences. Not a good way to go.

We were all silent. I could hear some cars driving on the road in the distance, and the breeze running through the trees, and perhaps some chatter going on inside. I was sure my mom and Silena were wondering what was taking me so long.

"That's a wicked sword," I said at last.

"It would make Hades unstoppable," Thalia agreed.

"So you see," Persephone said, "why you must help get it back."

Bianca stared at her. "Did you say 'get it back?'"

Persephone's eyes were both beautiful and deadly serious, like poisonous blooms. "The blade was stolen when it was almost finished. I do not know how, but I suspect a demigod, some servant of Kronos, a child of chthonic deity. If the blade falls into the Titan Lord's hands – "

"You allowed the blade to be stolen?" Thalia demanded. "How stupid was that! Kronos probably has it by now!"

She summoned her bow into her hands, and her quiver onto her back. But, as I watched, her arrows sprouted into long-stemmed roses. Then her bow melted into a honeysuckle vine dotted with white and gold flowers.

"Take care, huntress," Persephone warned. "Your father is Zeus, and you are the lieutenant of my sister's Hunt, but you do not speak to me with such disrespect."

Thalia gritted her teeth. "Give...me...back...my...bow."

Persephone waved her hand. The bow and arrows changed back to normal. "Now, listen. The sword could not have left the Underworld yet. Lord Hades used his remaining keys to shut down the realm. Nothing gets in or out until he finds the sword, minus I and those I allow as his wife, and he is using all his power to locate the thief."

"Wait," I said. "I can't just go down to the Underworld again. I have – I have my kids to think about." I wasn't going to mention that my mom and Silena were waiting for me to come back inside. I knew better than to think that would be a viable excuse for any deity outside of the few I knew to be exceptions to the rule, even though Persephone was the daughter of two of them.

"They will be taken care of, I assure you," Persephone told me. "As will telling your family where you are."

I crossed my arms over my chest purposefully. "And if they need to be fed?"

"As I said, they will be taken care of."

"What do you need us to do?" Thalia asked.

"The search for the blade cannot be common knowledge," said the goddess. "We have locked the realm, but we have not announced why, nor can Hades' servants be used for the search. They must not know the blade exists until it is finished. Certainly, they can't know it is missing."

"If they thought my father was in trouble, they might desert him," Bianca guessed. "And join the Titans."

Persephone didn't answer her, though she did look nervous. "The thief must be a demigod. No immortal can steal another immortal's weapon directly – as you know, Percy Jackson. Even Kronos must abide by that Ancient Law. He has a follower down there somewhere. And to catch a demigod...we will use three."

"Why us?" I asked. "I mean, surely it'd be less work, in my case, to use my half-sister, Callie, instead?" She was definitely going to kill me later, if/when she found out about me throwing her under the bus. Oh, well. She'd hopefully understand, too.

"You are the eldest, or only, living mortal children of each of the three major gods," Persephone said. "Who could withstand your combined power? Yes, there are other choices, younger ones, but with you three, especially when one of you is the Champion of both my mother and grandmother, the message that will be sent to Olympus will be better-received. Zeus and Poseidon will not protest against Hades' new weapon if it is given to him by you. It will show that you trust Hades."

"But I don't trust him," Thalia said.

"I don't necessarily not trust him," I said. It wasn't like I had forgotten what he had done for me at the end of my first quest. "But I don't know milady Demeter's opinion about this, or Rhea's. I don't want to go against them, if they think this is a bad idea."

"You will not get into trouble," Persephone said. "If there is any blame, then I will take it."

Yeah, sure. That was convincing.

In fact, the only reason why I wasn't running right now was because I knew it would be pointless.

"Bianca," Thalia said. "What about you? What do you think?"

Bianca was silent.

Thalia made a face. "Bianca..."

"He is my father," she said.

"Oh, no way," Thalia protested. "You can't believe this is a good idea!"

"Would you rather the sword fall into Kronos' hands?"

...Okay, so she had a point there.

"Time is wasting," Persephone said. "The thief may have accomplices in the Underworld, and he will be looking for a way out. Moreover – " she focused on me specifically here " – the sooner you find him, the sooner you will be able to come back."

I frowned. "I thought you said the Underworld was locked, besides what you're doing."

"No prison is airtight, not even the Underworld. Souls are always finding new ways out faster than Hades can close them. You must retrieve the sword before it leaves our realm, or all is lost."

"Even if we wanted to," Thalia said, "how would we find this thief?"

"You will know the way," Persephone said mystically. She snapped her fingers.

A feeling suddenly came over me. I couldn't explain it, but it was pointing down. Like, really far down.

"Whoa," I said.

"Make sure you find the thief, before he escapes," Persephone spoke. "Otherwise...the results may be less than pleasant."

"On one condition," Thalia said. "If we do this, Hades will have to swear on the River Styx that he will never use his sword against the gods."

The goddess shrugged. "I am not Lord Hades, but I am confident he will do this – as payment for your help."

Then she snapped her fingers again, and the ground opened up, somehow without threatening the integrity of the structure of my parents' house due to its vicinity (good thing, that), causing Thalia, Bianca, and me to fall into darkness.

The Underworld didn't get into the Christmas spirit, apparently. When we landed in the Fields of Asphodel, of all places, it looked pretty much like it had on my previous visit – seriously depressing. Yellow grass and stunted black poplar trees rolled on forever. Shades drifted aimlessly across the hills, coming from nowhere and going from nowhere, chattering to each other and trying to remember who they were in life. High above us, the cavern glistened darkly, with no proof that it had ever opened up in the first place.

"Well, this is just great," Thalia growled.

"Let's just get it over with as quickly as possible," I sighed, getting to my feet. "I wanna get back home to my kids. That thing or whatever she did is telling me to go that way." I pointed. "Are we in agreement?"

Thalia and Bianca concurred with me. The daughter of Hades led the way, since another perk of her Stygian iron sword was that it could clear a path through any crowd of undead. Me and Thalia stayed shortly behind her.

"How are they, by the way?" the daughter of Zeus asked. "Luke Jr. and Rose?"

"They're both rolling over now," I said, my irritation briefly bleeding away. Like a lot of parents, there was nothing more that I liked to talk about right now than them. "They're starting to try and sit up, too."

"That's good," Thalia said with a smile. It was strained. "And how are you holding up?"

"Oh, I'm okay," I said noncommittally. I could tell she didn't quite believe me. I decided to change the subject. "So, how's immortality treating you?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's not total immortality, Percy. You know that. We can still die in combat. It's just...we don't ever age or get sick, so we live forever, assuming we don't get sliced to pieces by monsters."

Or your immortal parent, I thought.

I knew better than to say it out loud.

"Always a danger."

"'Always,'" she repeated.

Bianca remained silent throughout this, wading through mob after mob of ghosts, driving them back with her sword. I thought about asking her what had been up with Persephone back there, because the way Persephone had looked at her was far different than how Demeter treated me, but...no, that probably wasn't a good idea. I knew that a lot of demigods didn't have a good relationship with their immortal stepparents like I did, if any relationship at all.

Plus, the fear that I'd had earlier came back to haunt me. I didn't think Thalia knew what Bianca (and Annabeth) wanted me to do now, on more reflection, and I didn't want to find out.

Thus, the three of us marched on in relative silence, except for the small talk.

I wasn't happy when it became obvious that we were walking towards the Fields of Punishment. I was hoping that we'd veer into Elysium so we could hang out with the beautiful people and party, and maybe so that I could go see Lee and tell him how sorry I was, since I knew he was there, he had died a hero's death. But, no.

We jumped over a lava stream and picked our way past scenes of horrible torture. I won't describe them to you because you'd completely lose your appetite, but I wished I had cotton wool in my ears to shut out the screaming and the country music.

The three of us came to a stop in front of a hill to our left.

"Up there," I said.

Thalia and Bianca were covered in soot from trudging through the Fields of Punishment. A quick look down at my clothes told me that I was, too. That was going to be a pain to get out later.

A loud grinding noise came from the other side of the hill, like somebody was dragging a washing machine. Then the hill shook with BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! and a man yelled curses.

Thalia looked at Bianca. "Is that who I think it is?"

"Afraid so," Bianca said. "The number one expert in cheating death."

Before I could ask what she meant, she led us to the top of the hill.

I looked down the other side, at the man. What struck me about him was how...normal he looked. I guess when you're in your pantheon's equivalent of Hell, you automatically assume that everyone there is going to be really ugly or something, because for some reason it was ingrained in us as kids through books, Disney movies, and the like, that bad people tend to be ugly people. Or really good-looking people. There isn't a whole lot of in-between.

But again, he was normal. He was old, old enough that his salt-and-pepper hair and well-trimmed beard were mostly salt, but he was also tall, with tanned, olive skin. The only thing that he was wearing was a loincloth, which allowed the muscles underneath his skin to be shown off. He wasn't big and burly or anything, but having to do his eternal punishment had definitely treated him well in terms of his physique.

Yet he, of course, wasn't happy about having to do it. "Damn you!" he shouted to nobody in particular. Then he launched into a string of swear words in several different languages. Which, you guys know I don't have much of a problem with them, it was just he said so many and so quickly, there's no point in me trying to transcribe them. He finished it up with, "I won't do it again! Not anymore! I don't care what you say!"

He started to walk away from the boulder, but after nine feet he lurched backwards, like some invisible force had pulled him. He staggered back into the boulder and slapped it several times with his palm, continuing with the obscenities.

I wondered if Daedalus was starting to feel anywhere close to how he was, if he was already being forced on some level to do his punishment. Bianca had informed me, Annabeth (who had inherited Daedalus' laptop), Travis, and Katie of it – he'd been sentenced to the Fields of Punishment, because there was nowhere else he could go after millennia and millennia of cheating death. She'd said that he would basically be making highways for the dead for all of eternity, although he would have the weekends off so he could spend time with Icarus and Perdix. Both his son and nephew had gone to Elysium.

I was pretty sure that had only been done because it was more for their sakes than his, but whatever.

"One more time!" the man shouted. "That is all! No more!"

Bianca looked at me and Thalia. "Come on. We should go while he's between attempts."

We scrambled down the hill.

"Sisyphus!" Bianca called.

Oh.

So that's who he was.

The man looked up in surprise. His eyes hardened. "Furies," he said. "Here to torment me again, are you? Those disguises don't fool me!"

"We're not the Furies," I said. "We just want to talk."

"Sure you aren't," he said.

"Look," Thalia said. "We're demigods. We just want – "

"'Demigods?'" he laughed. "As if living demigods would come down here, to the – "

"We are," Bianca said, jutting out her chin. "I'm a daughter of Hades. My friends here are a son of Poseidon and daughter of Zeus."

Sisyphus squinted his eyes at her. "Prove it."

"I'll push your rock up the hill," Thalia offered.

I frowned. "Are you sure?"

"Now I'm even more certain you three are the Furies," Sisyphus said.

"I'm sure," Thalia said to me. To Sisyphus: "Just talk to my friends while I push up the rock."

She went over to the rock and put her shoulder against it, before she started pushing it very slowly uphill.

Sisyphus scowled at me. He reached out and pinched my nose.

"Ow!" I said.

All at once, he became amazed. "So, you really aren't a Fury. What do you want to speak with me for?"

"We're looking for someone," I said.

"Persephone!" Sisyphus spat in the dust. "You're working for her, aren't you? Or Hades? One of them. They're looking for someone else who managed to escape them, aren't they?" He leaned forwards, and as relatively normal-looking as he was, I got a whiff of a smell that can only be described as "I've been pushing up a rock for eternity." I nearly gagged. "Because I did it before, you know. That's why I'm here.

"First I chained up Thanatos, the reaper of souls, so no one could die. Not just me. Then he broke free, and he was about to kill me. So I told my wife to not do the correct funeral rites so I couldn't rest in peace. And when I tricked Persephone to let me go back to the living world and haunt my wife, I didn't come back." He cackled. "It took them another thirty years of me being alive before they tracked me down!"

Thalia was halfway up the hill now. She gritted her teeth, pushing the boulder with her back. Her expression said, "Hurry up!"

"So, that was your punishment," I went to Sisyphus. "Rolling a boulder up a hill forever. Was it worth it?"

Sisyphus sneered. "A temporary setback. I'll find a way out of here soon enough, and when I do, they'll all be sorry!"

You know, he didn't seem so normal anymore.

"How would you get out of the Underworld?" Bianca asked. "It's locked down, you know."

Sisyphus grinned, showing off his yellowed teeth. "That's what the other ones asked, you know."

My stomach tightened. "Someone else asked your advice?"

"Some angry young girls," Sisyphus recalled. "Well, maybe not angry. Determined. Not very polite. One of them threatened me with a sword. The other didn't offer to roll my boulder up at all."

"What did you tell them?" Bianca demanded. "Who were they?"

Sisyphus massaged his shoulders. He glanced up at Thalia, who was almost at the top of the hill. Her face was bright red and drenched in sweat.

"Oh...it's hard to say," Sisyphus said. "Never seen them before. But they were very pretty, you know. The one with the sword had blonde hair; she reminded me of my wife. The other...she was a Nubian. Strange eyes. She had a set of gloves on her hands, seemed loathe to take them off."

"Gloves?" I said. It was as if a stone had fallen into the pit of my stomach.

Bianca glanced over at me, surprised. "You know who he's talking about?"

I swallowed roughly. "Um, yeah...I think I do."

Word Count: 4,354

Next Chapter Title: I Reroute A River For Real This Time