yet another percy's little sister fic

|chapter 14| communication is stressful

Percy sits down across from a glassy eyed Jessie, he'd come into the Livingroom after giving up on sleep to find her curled up on the couch. tear stains on her cheeks and a thousand mile stare on her face. her nightmares becoming more and more frequent. he'd heard her muffled screams nearly every night.

he asks softly "Jess?" she flinches at his voice and turns her focus onto him, he asks "hey, do you know where you are?" she blinks at him as if just seeing him for the first time even though he's been there for nearly five minutes, she asks in a heavy Scottish accent "Percy?"

he nods slowly, he's never gotten this far when she's like this, she never reacts or even knows that he's here. she asks him softly, "what if they are right?" the look of fear and venerability on her face makes his heart clench, he can't think of a time she's been this out of it around him.

he asks her "who? about what?" she looks away, her short hair only long enough to hide half her face. but he can still clearly see a few tears making their way down her face. he moves and sits down on the other end of the couch she's curled up on. he asks her again, using a soft tone "what do you mean?"

she whispers so quietly he can barely make out what shes saying "all my foster parents... they all told me I'm a worthless orphan who will only amount to being a burden... that I'm selfish." he can feel his blood boil with anger, how in Zeus's name could anyone tell this kind, sweet kid those horrible things?

he says in a firmer tone then he intended "no, it's not true, your not worthless or a burden, or selfish. your kind, and sweet, and they are wrong." she lifts her head to look at him, he can tell she's looking for any sign that he may be lying to her.

she asks him in the same quiet tone she used before but this time there's a tone of bitterness to it "do you know what happens to someone's mind when the one the they are exposed to is violence? when no one is there to contradict the abuse?" Percy runs a hand through his hair, he has no idea what to say or do. she's usually not... this. it's normally him that's glassy eyed, shell shocked and near delirious. saying things he'd never utter out loud otherwise.

she whispers "it's not even the worst part... wounds heal, and after a while you learn how to block the pain.." this catches Percy's attention, she rarely talks about the abuse she endured and never about the mental scars it left.

she continues in a broken voice, on the verge of tears "it's the fear, the not knowing what will set them off. it's that after a while, you start believing the things they tell you." he opens his arms, silently offering a hug. she accepts and wraps her arms around his chest and rests her head in the crook of his neck. he can feel her silently shaking as she cries. he feels his chest tighten painfully, he doesn't know what to do. he wants nothing more then to help her, but he's blind on where to begin.

she pulls away after a few minutes and says quietly "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." he quickly tells her "no, you have nothing to apologize for, I'm your big brother after all. I'm here for you, no matter what." she gives him a watery smile and says hoarsely "thank you... I'm going back to bed, I need to get some sleep, I think Sally is going to be looking into a dance studio today." Percy gives a nod saying "ok, I'll be here if you need me." she nods once more before going down the hall and into her room.

after sitting there for nearly half an hour he goes out to the fire escape and calls Annabeth, Leo made them all monster proof phones. he says "hey, Annie."

she responds, clearly having been woken up by the call "hey, Percy, what's going on?"

Percy sighs, running a hand through his hair saying "it's worse then we thought, Jessie hasn't slept a single night since she got here... it's only getting worse. what do I do?"

he hears her sigh and walk out of her cabin and sit on the porch saying "it's PTSD, we both have it, I'm nearly certain that Mrs. Anders was abusive, she's spent nearly her whole life running and scared, there is nothing you or I can do but be there for her."

Percy growls, at the situation or himself he isn't sure. he hate feeling helpless. "I just... she's my little sister, and she's in ten kinds of pain and I don't know what to do... she talked to me, gods, she looked so... broken..."

Annie hums but doesn't say anything for a long moment before saying "I noticed she has a lot of scars, but she covers them with makeup, it may be nothing or it's something bad."

he sinks down and sits on the platform, he asks her softly "what do you think?"

she scoffs quietly but he could still hear it. "like I said, it's either really bad or just habit, either way she probably had to cover them to hide abuse or..."

she trails off and Percy's heart drops as she says softly "self harm... I saw some scars on her wrists so it's not impossible nor is it for it to be both."

Percy asks, stress and worry clear in his voice "shit... what do we do Annie?"

she answers in a grim tone "we go to the one person who knows what she may be going through."

Percy racks his brain to think of who but comes up empty handed "who?" "Leo. he's been in the system and has ran away, when we were building the Argo two I saw he has scars on his back and arms. I'll bring him with me when I visit tomorrow."

Percy nods and says feeling better and relieved "ok, thank you Annie. now that we're done talking about that, I'll let you go back to sleep." she laughs quietly and hangs up, leaving Percy to his thoughts.

he'd seen the scars on her wrists but never had the guts to ask her about them. maybe he should've.

then again, he notices a lot of things about her that he should probably ask about, like her tattoos; three sets of a year, on her collar bone, '2004' and one of '2010' and half a heart on her wrist. he has no clue the meanings of any of them but he has a feeling its not good.