There was nothing worse than starting at a new school in the middle of the year. The more Percy thought about it, he realized it might've even been worse than moving into the group home. At least at Delphi, everyone was used to people coming in and out. That was the nature of the place. With school, there were a whole myriad of changes. A bunch of new teachers had to learn his name, and he had to learn theirs. There was always trouble with his IEP, and of course, there were the new social circles.

The social circles were his least favorite part, but no matter how much he tried to convince his mom of it all she would always laugh. And no matter how much Percy loved his mother, nothing was funny about starting a new middle school.

Percy tried not to be too negative as he followed Annabeth, Jason, Leo, and Piper into the building. While the other kids were all in the same grade Chiron had called him and Annabeth into his office that morning to show that the two of them had similar schedules, and had even humiliated Percy by telling Annabeth to help him out at school with whatever he needed.

Of course, Annabeth wasn't actually being helpful, or maybe she thought she was in her own weird way as she zipped in and out of the morning crowds of middle schoolers. Percy just did his best to follow her box braids to their homeroom.

Not wanting to seem desperate, and even slightly annoyed, Percy scanned for anyone else to sit with, besides Annabeth, eventually choosing a seat next to a boy with shaggy blonde hair and a painful-looking chipped tooth. Annabeth didn't look to confirm he was even there and Percy decided from then on he wouldn't need her help with anything else. If Annabeth wanted to diss him that was fine.

The boy next to him didn't stop his conversation when Percy sat down. Just kept side-eyeing him while talking with his friends. Not that it was anything he wasn't used to. Being the new kid always meant he got stares. The boy kept talking to his friends and stealing glances.

"You new or something?"

"Yeah."

"How come?"

"I moved," Percy said simply. He hadn't turned his head to look at the kid but he sat up straighter. He didn't wanna seem scared of this guy. The kid seemed satisfied with his answer, leaning back into his chair, and asking Percy his name.

"Mines Matt, and these are my friends." Matt introduced Percy to the kids at the desk behind him who now that he really looked at, were really huge for eighth graders but Percy just figured they'd been held back a grade or 10. "So, you skate?"

Percy grinned, momentarily forgetting that his old board was definitely back in his apartment. But not that it mattered. For the first time in his life, he was easily making friends at a new school. It felt like nothing could go wrong.

For the rest of the day and eventually the week, Percy fell into a simple routine. Get ready at Delphi, head to school, and hang with Matt and his friends, and come back and press Chiron for news about his mother. Annabeth still acted like he didn't exist the moment they crossed the borders of the middle school. It wasn't normal for him to see the other three kids from the house during the day but when they did they'd always speak, although he'd caught Leo and Jason making a face when they saw who he hung out with. Percy had noticed it, both of the younger boys had done it a few times, but whenever he'd asked Leo about it he'd get a, "Nah man, if you're cool I'm cool."

Matt and his friends weren't really the kind of people that Percy saw himself hanging with but they were cool enough. The boys didn't seem to care much that Percy avoided a lot of their questions, or that he didn't even have a board. Matt was content enough to let Percy share. But, something he did notice was that whenever Percy would land a trick faster than Matt could he'd snatch his board back.

His first week at middle school went a lot better than he'd expected. And the luck extended into the majority of the next week until Friday. He always got pulled aside during the study hall period for a meeting with his counselor. Which was frustrating, no matter how secretive adults tried to be it was always obvious what he was really getting called away for. But the lady was nice if not a bit patronizing, so Percy didn't mind much when the meeting ran into his lunch. He stopped in the bathroom on his way to the cafeteria and found Matt and his two friends standing in front of the last stall holding the trash can.

"Oh hey, Percy."

"Hey Matt." Percy pointedly looked at the trashcan Matt was holding, his laughing friends, and the fact that someone was in the bathroom stall. It was practically forbidden for a boy to actually be in the stall in middle school. "Whatcha doin'?" Matt snickered like it was the funniest thing in the world as the slightly bigger of his huge friends sprayed his water bottle into the stall making someone inside yelp.

"Hey man, I already told you I don't swing that way, and you're still trying to make me wet." Recognizing the voice Percy rushed over, pushing Matt and his trash can out of his way. Leo was standing in the corner of the stall, clothes ruffled and soaking wet. His smile wavered when Percy appeared but was quickly replaced.

"Hey, Percy." In the two weeks Percy had been in Delphi he noticed that to a lot of people, Leo could be a lot. He moved a lot and talked twice as much. And half the things Leo said were so out of pocket it made Percy understand a bit more why he went to church on Sundays, but despite all of that Leo meant well, and he was actually nice to Percy, compared to others in the house.

"What are you doing?" Percy asked, not responding to Leo but placing himself between the two boys. Matt's smile didn't waiver as he gestured to the trash can as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, his chipped tooth making his smile look a bit more feral.

"I'm teaching that freak how to watch his mouth." Matt's two friends laughed to themselves in the background, like they had even done anything. In the same way that Percy was familiar with moving schools, he was familiar with bullies. A burning shame washed over him as he realized who he'd befriended.

"If you throw anything else at him I'm going to kick your ass." He quickly glanced behind him at Leo who was looking at him like he was insane.

"Percy you don't have to do this-" Leo tried, "Seriously man I'm-"

"You're really trying to protect this freak? I bet you haven't even heard what he did to his own mother." Matt sneered. He and his friends laughed harder, as Matt reached into the trash and threw a wad of wet (with hopefully water) paper towel at Leo, which bounced off Percy's shoulder and hit the ground.

The next thing Percy did was disappoint his mother. He lunged forward, knocking the trash can into Matt as hard as he could and swinging a fist at one of the other boys' faces. Leo yelled somewhere behind him, and quickly ran to join in the fight, colliding with Matt's friends.

They wrestled around for a minute until one of the goons slammed Leo hard into the paper towel dispenser. The clang made Percy realize how much noise they were making and how pathetic Matt was in a fight. He grabbed the back of Leo's shirt to pull him out of the mess but Matt kept screaming at them, his face red while he clutched his cheek.

"Yo Matt, do you want my fist down your throat again? Zip it." He didn't even get a chance to relish in the look on Matt's face before speeding out of the bathroom with Leo right on his heels.

Later that evening, when Mr.D had his usual mealtime pissy fit that Percy was finally getting used to, and the man left them to eat on their own, Leo whispered the truth behind his and Percy's scrapes to the rest of the table.

"You should have seen Percy man, he was all like boom boom, and like watch out, and he knocked Matt right on his ass." Leo dramatically reenacted the fight for everyone at the table, wildly bumping into a couple things. All the other kids look on excitedly, minus Jason who didn't look up from his lap other than moving stuff out of Leo's way. According to Leo, no one had gotten into a fight in ages, much less gotten away with it like they had. "And then that's when I jumped in fast too like BLAM"

Luke reached over to ruffle Percy's hair, the same way he did to everyone else, the action making him warm with acceptance. "How did the two of you even end up in a fight like that?" Leo's smile faltered, looking anywhere but anyone's face, and Percy knew he was trying to cook up a lie.

"A couple of the guys I hung with were douches. I didn't know though, I swear." Percy was fully prepared to be berated at least a little bit but instead was met with excited whoops.

"Dude you kicked your own friend's ass that's insane," Luke said, this time clapping Percy on the shoulder hard enough to hurt. "But school is definitely gonna suck for you on Monday. "

After dinner and its usual activities, Percy was ready to finally get his hands on the household Xbox. Just as he and Jason booted up the console Annabeth came to stand on the side of the TV, arms crossed with her stupid typical calculating look. "Chiron's looking for you."

Percy didn't even dignify her with a response, still not over being ignored at school. As he neared closer he wondered if Chiron had somehow found out about what happened at school, or if he finally had news about his mother. He really hoped it was news about his mother.

"Mr. Jackson, have a seat." Chiron sat behind his office in his wheelchair with a different jacket this time. Percy wondered how many the man had and how he never got hot wearing them. The older man looked slightly disheveled at his desk as he shuffled a few things around like he felt guilty about something.

"Well, there's no easy way to say this, and I know you won't be quite happy about this news, but we've come in contact with your father, Percy. He wants to see you." Chiron pushed a cream-colored envelope with an expensive-looking seal across the desk. "He is away from town as of now, he doesn't live too far from here either, but said it would take him a while to get back, but he had this letter sent to you, and in his own words said it explains everything."

Percy stared at the envelope. His name was written in a fancy script that he hoped the rest of the letter wasn't in, his dyslexia made it hard enough. Other than that and the seal there was no other detail. After never even seeing a picture of the man he had something from him, he had a letter. He wondered what was inside. Was there a half-assed excuse for never being there? Maybe the man had written to him to tell him that in the past 13 years, he'd moved on with his life, and to never contact him again, and that he'd only told Chiron he was visiting to be nice. Chiron cleared his throat pulling Percy out of his trance.

"Take the letter with you Percy. But you open it when you are ready for it. Not when anyone else tells you to. And you fully could decline any visit you don't wish for." Chiron pushed the letter a little closer and smiled warmly. "You do what you deem best for yourself." Chiron nodded at him as a dismissal and Percy finally picked the letter up. It was lighter than he'd really expected as if that fold of paper didn't carry the weight of his life.

Later that night as he was getting ready for bed Percy still hadn't been able to sort through the mess going through his head with the arrival of the letter. He figured Luke could give him advice, maybe even tell him to open it so that it wouldn't weigh on his somehow guilty conscience.

"Chiron got in contact with my father," Percy said, "He sent me a letter, said he wants to see me." Luke's posture straightened up stiffly from where he was moving around his side of the room.

"We're here for a reason Percy. Our parents don't give a shit about us. Don't let anyone try to fool you into thinking they do." Percy didn't make any noise, turning Luke's words over in his head. It confirmed what Chiron said, that he didn't have to read anything from the man who had left him and his mother with Smelly Gabe. That he didn't owe that man anything. But a small part of him wanted an explanation, some kind of reasoning that could help make everything make sense.

Luke didn't say anything else, getting ready for bed without any of his usual anecdotes about the house, the new aggressiveness in his actions being noticeable. Being good at picking up bad moods, and not wanting to make his roommates worse Percy mirrored him climbing into bed. Luke was right. His father didn't care about him then, and he didn't now. All Percy had to do was wait for his mother to get better.