The beeping of the machine would have driven Percy insane had his entire focus not been on his mother.

She lay in the bed almost motionlessly. Except for when Percy spoke, then her finger would twist or her hand would squeeze. The doctor said that it was all normal. That was because it was a medically induced coma that wasn't too deep, and she was set to come out of it any day now.

He really hated how she looked in the bed so still. His mom was like him, always moving. When he'd tap she'd hum. When he'd drum she'd be right next to him trying to match his beat. His mom never made him feel weird or alone for his fidgeting, but now she was unconscious and he was all alone.

The doctor said that talking to her would help. So of course Percy did, filling her in about all the different people that stayed in Delphi and the adults there. He tried to assure her that they were all nice and that he wasn't too scared all by he liked the new school, and everything was going pretty smoothly.

He decided he wouldn't tell her about the fight in the school bathroom. If no one else knew there wasn't any need to stress her out about it either. But he decided that he could tell her about the letter.

"I told them not to, but Chiron said it's protocol and they went and found my father…he sent me a letter." Percy could see her eyes moving wildly beneath her eyelids. "I haven't opened it. I don't know what to do. I just want to go home with you." Her reactions were stronger at the mention of his father than anything else he'd said. He wanted to know what it meant, what he should do. He could have even sworn that she was about to open them, but Argus knocked on the door, gently motioning to his watch that it was time to go.

The house was still bustling with energy when Argus dropped him back off at the house. Thalia and Piper were trying their hardest to pay attention to whatever historical stuff Jason was talking about. Luke was hunched over his computer like he was pissed at it and at the other end of the table was Leo and Annabeth working on their model. Annabeth had the decency to still look a little guilty, enough to leave him alone for the evening but Percy didn't really care. He was still pissed and had a lot more than her attitude on his mind.

"Percy you wanna check out the mechanical part I added? I used the scraps Chiron allowed to make the doors and windows move." Percy could see the intricate system the two of them had created. But the visit with his mother had zapped his politeness for the day.

"Not right now Leo-"

"Oh that's cool. I can wait till you feel better. It was really hard and Annabeth even helped correct my math so it would work better." At the sound of her name Annabeth actually looked up at him before her eyes darted away. Leo kept rambling and Percy shook his head trying to get away.

"I'm just gonna go upstairs for a minute." Leo didn't seem to mind, waving Percy on and continuing with his talking to himself.

"Percy-" He heard his name being called as he reached the wooden barrister. Annabeth stood awkwardly, like she didn't know how to actually speak to them. He felt the eyes of some of the other kids watching them but he still didn't care, turning his back to Annabeth and going up to his room.

The letter stared at him from his desk before he could even walk into the room. What he wanted was a clear path. An answer that would make everything make sense. Of course he wanted to open it but at the same time Luke was right. He didn't want to give the deadbeat the satisfaction of acknowledgement. Not after years of nothing.

The more he and Luke had talked the more the anger made sense. The older boy had even told Percy about his old parents, and the hatred all made sense. The only thing Luke couldn't convince Percy on was being angry at his mother. Luke said that she'd played a role in all his pain too, that it was her fault too. But Percy couldn't get with Luke on that. No matter what he said.

Despite all the junk on his desk the letter still jumped out at him the most, and he figured he'd be better off burning steam outside than staring at paper.

On Monday Percy found that the older kids were unsurprisingly right about school being hell. The moment he walked into school he could tell something had shifted. Not everyone, but the majority of the student body was staring at him, whispering and pointing between him and the other kids that stayed at Delphi.

"I heard he doesn't have a mother-"

"Or any other family."

"Probably nobody wanted him around."

Percy sighed, feeling disappointed, but not surprised. He should have known anything good at school wouldn't last. The stares and points were obvious as he walked through the halls this time. He wasn't sure if it was worse than his first day of school but the stares made the back of his neck itch.

He figured he had to just wait until the meeting with his counselor. And then he'd get a break from the relentless starring. The door to his homeroom seemed heavier than usual as he pushed it open. Immediately he regretted his decision to take longer in the hallways . Everyone was seated already, his seat next to Matt was the only empty one and the rest of the kids did their best not to stare too obviously. Which surprisingly included Annabeth with her head slightly down in one of those special font books Chiron kept.

A couple of kids, a group of girls equally obnoxious as Matt, started snickering and Perc figured he'd take his chances in the empty seat doing his best to act like he didn't give a shit about any of it. Matt and his friends' small brains were probably too shocked to object. But it didn't last long enough before they started running their mouths.

"Poor-seus Jackson, probably back to try and steal some more of my money cause I won't give him none." Scattered laughter could be heard and Percy decided to just try his luck with the teacher, put his head down and think about his letter.

"Probably can't even afford a bed to sleep in at the group home. Can you?" Dumbass 2 jeered.

The rest of the day went on like that. Only difference was instead of being late to class to catch the last seat he pushed to catch an early one. By lunchtime he'd stolen so many of his classmates' seats it felt like he'd become public enemy number one at the school.

He decided to skip lunch and waited in his counselors office. The wiry older woman didn't let him speak much and mostly just spoke about helping him manage his emotions. In between her run off he got a sentence about his letter thinking he could get some advice. But instead she was just too happy and wouldn't listen to any of his apprehension.

By the end of the day Percy was completely worn out and doing his best to not give an attitude to anyone. He'd gotten through the day alternating thinking about what the letter said and thinking about things to tell his mom. He stayed tied up in his thoughts hard enough that he barely noticed when it was time for closing the homeroom. Something he thought was so stupid. His last school had just ended when the last period did, but of course the fancy school upstate had a whole "dismissal" process.

This time he was late because he had to take a leak, but he just had to wait for the other boys to finish douching around in the stalls before he could do his business. Matt snickered as Percy drug himself in the room scanning for someone's seat to steal but all his classmates were rooted in theirs.

It was the end of the day, and even the quieter kids who usually didn't take part in any of this bullshit were watching hungrily. Percy figured they wanted to see the fight for themselves, and with the way Percy's blood was pumping in his ears he was ready for it.

Just as he was subjecting himself for another round a loud scraping noise cut off Matt's mouth. Percy's attention snapped over to Annabeth, where she had loudly nudged the empty seat next to her away from the desk. Everyone, including Percy, stared at her like she was insane.

Are you crazy? Percy knew he conveyed well enough through his facial expressions. But Annabeth was just as good with hers telling him to sit down with angry glares between him and the empty seat. He rushed over as the teacher walked in, trying to do her best to contain the badly hidden whispers.

"Grover had a flare up and had to go home early. He'll probably be in his wheelchair for a couple of days. Enough time to give Mr.W used to the change anyway." Percy nodded and sighed letting his head drop into his hands to find reprieve from the day. "You're tougher than you look at Jackson."

Coach Hedge said he couldn't keep going straight to his room for hours after school. Which really messed Percy's plans of staring at the wall above the letter. Instead he tracked around the house looking for Leo. He'd felt bad about pushing him off a couple of days ago and wanted to see what he'd been talking about.

"Hey, have you seen Leo around? I've been looking all over the house." When Leo or his noise hadn't been found in any of his usual spots Percy decided to just ask one of Delphi's other occupants. Thalia was sitting hunched over an electric guitar, somehow gracefully stumbling through different rock riffs.

"Oh dude, he goes to some kind of nerd club with Annabeth. It's like twice a week they won't get home till like six." She punctuated her sentence with a note that would have been ear shattering if the amp was any higher. "Dammit"

Percy lingered in the doorway not really knowing what else to do. Thalia didn't seem to pay him much mind as she played a song that sounded familiar. When she finished she looked up, surprised to see him still standing there.

"You play?" She asked, squinting at him like she was trying to finally get a good look at him. Percy blushed.

"Oh. No, I've never really been good at music." Thalia blew out a raspberry and waved him over.

"You listen to music?" Percy nodded. "Well then fuck yea, you can play."

Thalia spent the next couple hours explaining the bare minimum basics of guitar and teaching the easiest riff possible. She wasn't the best teacher and Percy wasn't the best student but she didn't let him quit, making him turn his frustration into progress. By the end of the time Percy could even play 6 notes consecutively, no hesitation. The only reason he stopped was because they were interrupted by Jason coming to tell his sister it was close to dinner time.

"Hey Thalia, you sound worse than usual today-. Oh. Hey Percy. Sorry." Jason blushed deep red when he saw who was holding the guitar and Percy rushed to take it off. "Sorry Percy, I wasn't trying to be-"

"All good Jace. You would probably sound just as bad if I could even get you to pick it up." Thalia crossed the room to put Jason in a headlock as she turned back to Percy. "You should check out some of the clubs the school has. I know when I went there were a bunch of options. Music. Sports. Nerd stuff."

She roughly housed a little harder on Jason bringing the pair to roll around on the floor.

"Music usually falls under Nerd Stuff." Jason argued before being wrestled into a new position. Percy watched with amusement as all of Jasons's pathetic escape attempts were thwarted.

"I didn't know the school had sports and stuff. My last school didn't have anything like that. Just basketball, I think." As much as he'd enjoyed fooling around with Thalia music really wasn't his thing. And he couldn't imagine doing anything educational after school for fun.

"Oh hell yeah. They've got like basketball, soccer, football"

"Swim." Jason added, red in the face from where Thalia had twisted him into a new position. He didn't even seem to be fazed by his sister's aggression.

"There's a pool in that school?" Percy asked wondering how he could have possibly missed that. He'd loved the water from the moment his mother introduced him to it and just the thought of being back in the familiar pressure of the water sounded heavenly.

"No dummy, the kids get bussed over to the rec center for practice n stuff."

"Yes, it's a very well funded school, Percy." The way Jason said it while adjusting his glasses made Percy question how Matt and his friends didn't terrorize Jason more. Then he remembered Thalia was in the room and figured she had sorted all of that out.

Jason finally slipped out of his sisters hold and dusted his clothes off like nothing even happened as Coach Hedge banged something against the wall a room over yelling, "Nobody better be dead in there"

Jason flinched hard at the noises before trying to recollect himself like it didn't happen. It still caught Thalia's eye and she didn't even say anything to them before she stormed out of the room. Percy wondered what it was like to have an older sister like her, and what it would have been like having one with Gabe around. Jason turned back to Percy, smiling but it didn't reach his eyes looking more like a grimace instead.

That evening Percy had to lock in on his terrible homework. It didn't matter how burnt out he was, he didn't want to find out what happened when you failed a class at Delphi.

Before dinner he'd grabbed Leo to ask him about the project he and Annabeth had been working on. Percy didn't really understand what was happening but looking at it was pretty cool. The lights of the building turned on, howcasing something Leo said about harnessing electricity, and the windows and doors all reacted to switches that were activated by someone moving the little figurines Leo moved around. The whole time he talked Percy did his best to pay attention, even when he showed him the scratch paper work behind all of it and it gave his dyslexic brain a headache.

At the end of the rant when he looked over at Annabeth who had been lurking since it was her project too, and she smiled at him. It was a small one, but it was the friendliest she'd ever been to him so he grinned and she smiled back even harder. He figured whatever beef they'd had was officially over.

Luke had been being weird the past couple of days. During the day he'd have a pretty shitty attitude towards most people and after curfew he'd wait until he thought Percy was asleep to pull out a secret phone. Percy figured it wasn't hard to sneak stuff into Delphi, they weren't really strict about most things. But Luke would call this guy and they'd talk about stuff in hushed tones. It almost sounded like they were trying to plan something. The calls didn't happen often, maybe twice a week or so. The last time Luke had been on the phone Percy had tried to joke about it, asking Luke if he had a secret girlfriend. But the older boy hadn't found it funny, instead telling Percy to mind his own fucking business.

Tonight though, when Luke's phone buzzed, Percy could hear him shuffling around the bedroom, opening the window, and climbing out. Percy was shocked, but his roommate's sour attitude killed his curiosity. Instead, without Luke's presence his mind went straight to the letter under his pillow. He'd brought it up to bed with him to think about it more.

Even through Luke's bad moods he'd still taken the time each day to remind Percy that it was useless for him to open the letter, and that his parents didn't really care about him. All of that talk had gotten annoying fast. If Luke was allowed to keep his own secrets and do stuff like sneak out at night, Percy figured he could have secrets of his own.

Before he could change his mind, he whipped out the letter and mini flashlight he kept by his bed to help him find the bathroom at night and opened it fast before he could change his mind.

The first thing he noticed was that it wasn't in that fancy script on the front. The second was that the letter was shorter than he'd imagined.

Dear Perseus,

I'm terribly sorry that these are the circumstances in which we meet. You may not know much about me, but I have been well updated on you through your mother over the years. You've done very well and when I return from my work trip I cannot wait to meet you and answer any questions you have. Below I've provided an email and phone number if you would like to speak before then.

Hold fast Perseus, and brave the storm

~Poseidon

~~~~Author's Note~~~

Hey y'all, is officially halfway caught up to ao3 which is cool. And also just to let it be said because I'm not sure if I did, I write these characters with the implications that they look like the characters in the PJOtvshow

Enjoy, be safe, and let me know if you have any ideas or anything you want to see. Sooner or later I'm gonna post the prequel to this story