Time to Meet Percabeth

Sally Jackson

I stand outside the apartment door.

My heart races. I take deep breaths. I try to stop tears from welling in my eyes.

I take this moment to brace myself. Annabeth had offered to come with me, but I knew this was something I needed to do myself. I can hear movement inside the apartment. Two voices muttering; a tenor and an alto entwined in thought. Footsteps echoed as they paced around the apartment floor.

I wish I were in a better condition. I wish my face weren't scattered with bruises, my back a pale papyrus ripped to pieces, my shoulder wrapped in a small brace. Since I've been gone, my left hand (thankfully not my sword arm) had developed a small tremor. Nerves, I guess. It acts up when I felt uneasy, on edge.

But this was my mother. Sally Jackson. The best person on the planet- in the universe. And I knew, with every aching bone in my body, that I had broken her heart by disappearing. I knew she'd spent every second of every day searching for news of her baby boy. Had anybody seen him? Had Chiron heard from him? Was he even still alive?

I have always made life hard for my mom. Expelled from school after school, all these demigod quests. I am scared she is going to be angry at me and I am terrified I'll have disappointed her. She was my perfect hero; she had truly been tested throughout her life and yet always stayed loving and kind and good.

And she was my mother. Good gods, Percy, I tell myself, get a grip. It's going to be okay.

I take one final breath, to still myself. I survived Kronos, I survived Gaea, I survived Tartarus, for Zeus' sake. I can survive whatever might face me on the other side of this door.

I raise my right hand and knock on the door. I tap a staccato line to the rhythm of Jolene, one of my mom's favourite songs. It was always a trademark knock for me. It started as a joke between my mom and I, after Smelly Gabe. Once he was gone, we were free to do silly little things like that, small inside jokes between us. As punishment for me forgetting to take my house key, my mom wouldn't let me into the house until she was able to guess the song I had tapped the rhythm of onto the door. Dolly Parton's Jolene was always my default.

The movement inside the apartment stilled. The voices quietened. The footsteps froze.

I knocked again. The exact same loop of Dolly Parton.

"Paul!" My woman's voice exclaims in what is almost a yelp- a cry of pain and despair. Her voice is shaky and unsure. The voice of a woman who is too afraid to get her hopes up, yet desperate to find out. The voice of my mother.

The footsteps hurriedly pace towards me and the door swings open. The man in front of me seems speechless, completely in shock. We watch each other in silence. My mom hasn't yet emerged from the kitchen, probably bracing herself for disappointment.

I feel his eyes tear into me and, for a moment, I'm almost afraid. I manage to stutter out, "Hi Paul, it's been-"

Before I can finish my sentence, Paul grabs me into a fatherly grip. Gods, I've missed this. With Poseidon being absent and having Smelly Gabe as a stepfather, I had never really had this form of father figure before. One who didn't just use me as their hero or their punching bag, but someone that would let me use their car at fifteen, sneak me a beer when mom wasn't looking, help me with my homework... basically somebody who just was there.

"Dear God, Percy. We've been worried sick, son." My heart warms. Son. My family. My home.

"Where's mom?" I ask him as I pull back. I look up and over his shoulder I see my mother's beautiful face, her eyes filling up with tears.