Sunburn- phoebus apollo

-- xx. rhea meets apollo and feels starstruck

RHEA COULD NEVER wrap her head around on how easily humans could wrap their minds around strange things and fit them into their own versions of reality.

According to the L.A. news, the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused by a crazy kidnapper (a.k.a. Ares) who was the same man who'd abducted the Jackson twins and the two other unidentified adolescents in New York and brought them across country on a ten-day odyssey of terror.

Poor little Percy Jackson and his sister weren't an international criminal, after all. He'd caused a commotion on that Greyhound bus trying to get him and his sister away from his captor (and afterward, witnesses would even swear they had seen the leather-clad man on the bus-- "Why didn't I remember him before?"). The crazy man had caused the explosion in the St. Louis Arch. After all, no kid could've done that. A concerned waitress in Denver had seen the man threatening his abductees outside her diner, gotten a friend to take a photo and notified the police. Finally, brave Percy Jackson had stolen a gun from his captor in Los Angeles and battled him shotgun-to-rifle on the beach. Police had arrived just in time. But in the spectacular explosion, five police cars had been destroyed and the captor had fled. No fatalities had occurred. Percy and Rhea Jackson and his two friends were safely in police custody.

The reporters fed them the whole story. They just nodded and acted tearful and exhausted (which wasn't hard at all), and played victimized kids for the cameras. 

"All I want," Percy said, choking back his tears," is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew... somehow.. we would be okay. And I know he'll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number."

The police and reporters were so moved that they passed around the hat and raised money for four tickets on the next plane to New York.

They had no choice but to fly. Rhea didn't relax until they landed in La Guardia.

The local press was waiting for them outside security, but they managed to evade them thanks to Annabeth, who lured them away in her invisible Yankees cap, shouting, "They're over by the frozen yogurt! Come on!" then rejoined them at baggage claim.

They split up at the taxi stand. Percy told Annabeth and Grover to get back to Half-Blood Hill and let Chiron know what had happened. He tried to get Rhea to do the same, but she wasn't having it. They were in this together.

It was hard to separate from Annabeth and Grover after everything they'd all been through together, but Rhea tried to be optimistic and convince herself they'd be reunited in a few hours.

She and Percy hopped in a taxi and headed into Manhattan.

******

Thirty minutes later, Rhea and Percy walked into the lobby of the Empire State Building. 

They must've looked like a pair of homeless kids, with their tattered clothes and Percy's scraped-up face. Neither of them had slept in at least twenty-four hours.

They went up to the guard at the front desk and Percy said, "Six hundredth floor."

The guard was reading a huge book with a picture of a wizard on the front. "No such floor, kiddo."

"We need an audience with Zeus," Percy said.

The guy gave him a vacant smile. "Sorry?"

"You heard me."