undoing [percy jackson]

sisters by chance

When Cassandra Mills and Andromeda Yoshino first met, they hated each other.

It was most unusual for Cass. She normally got along well with all of her foster siblings. It wasn't exactly unusual for Andi. She'd been in enough foster homes to know better than to get attached. But in truth, neither girl really knew why they hated each other. There didn't seem to be a reason behind it, and yet they couldn't stand each other. It certainly didn't help that they had to share a room and had such similar school schedules that they couldn't go two class periods without seeing each other. Most nights, the halls of the Mills home were filled with the echoes of arguments over the littlest of things. Cass's moms tried to intervene every time, but it never quite stuck. Cass and Andi simply loathed one another. And maybe, in another timeline, that would be all there was to it because, in another timeline, Carol and Dinah Mills would realize there was no place in their home, in their family, for Andromeda Yoshino.

That was not this timeline.

In this timeline, Carol and Dinah were able to chip away at Andi's walls until eventually, she let them in, and soon after, they realized they couldn't bear the thought of not being in Andi's life. So, in this timeline, rather than contact her social worker and ship her off to yet another foster home, Carol and Dinah decided to adopt Andi. It was then, at the dinner table just moments after hearing the news, that Cass and Andi realized their current arrangement of the past six months wasn't going to work. There was no longer a question of whether or not Andi was truly a member of the family. There was no longer that hesitation of getting close, getting attached because there was no longer the possibility of being kicked to the curb as Andi had been time and time again.

That night, as the girls got ready for bed, they were unusually quiet. Normally at this time, they'd be arguing because of something or other, but instead, they silently pondered where to go from here. Luckily for them, they didn't have to ponder long, because the next day, Dinah brought them both to the mall. The intention was to shop for clothes since Andi had few and Cass had outgrown hers as well as decorations for Andi's side of the room because now that Andi was officially getting adopted, it was time to personalize and plant roots. They were never even going to go into Barnes and Noble because both young girls disliked reading (a side effect of having dyslexia), but then Dinah remembered out of nowhere that they still needed to replace their set of the Chronicles of Narnia that got damaged thanks to a flood years ago.

While Dinah tracked down a full set of the books, Andi and Cass aimlessly wandered the children's section, still not talking to each other but for a different reason than before. A woman who worked there noticed them and approached, asking how she could help.

"We're good, thanks," Cass had said. "We don't read."

That piqued the woman's interest. "Really? Neither of you? Why is that?"

"We have dyslexia," Cass explained. Even though the girls didn't get along, Cass never hesitated to speak for Andi because she knew Andi didn't really enjoy talking, especially not to strangers.

The woman, whose name tag identified her as Nina, immediately grinned. "Follow me. I know just the books for you."

Cass and Andi reluctantly followed Nina until they reached a section packed with books all by the same author: Rick Riordan. Nina's glittering gray eyes searched the shelves for whatever she was looking for. Then, she plucked a graphic novel out from between two other copies and passed it to Cass.

Cass squinted at the cover. "The Lightning Thief?"

"It's about a boy named Percy Jackson," Nina explained. "He thinks he's just a normal kid, but then he finds out he's actually a demigod, like from the Greek myths. That's the first book in the series, and then there's actually a second series coming out now, and there's a spin-off series too."