Work Text:
Hades came out of a shadow on Camp Half-Blood's beach, and saw his favourite (it was a no-contest) brother a few meters in front of him.
Looking at Camp, he saw the daughter of his younger brother and her friends going towards her table, having sacrificed half her food in the fire.
While he would have come see him immediately, he knew that doing so would have resulted in a war declaration sworn on Chaos. Thus, he had let him calm enough to at least get heard.
He took off his helm, and walked carefully towards Poseidon.
"Have you come here to gloat?" he heard him ask in a steely voice.
"No, brother. I've come to give you my sympathies. Your son wasn't my target."
"And yet, he was the one who perished."
"Unfortunately, yes. I sent my Furies to chase down his friend. She was their target."
"Then the Minotaur?" Poseidon asked.
"Was not sent by me."
"So, our… dear… brother?"
"Most likely," Hades nodded.
His brother looked resigned. "As I assumed. Then the armies of Atlantis will not be knocking on your door. I hope the tyrant will enjoy his last days."
The god of the Underworld contemplated the situation. While he had a lot of justified grudges against their brother a war would overwhelm his domain. "If I may, brother," he finally said. "Your son isn't in my domain. I don't know how, but maybe one day, he can be brought back."
Poseidon froze. "So I should be able to transform him back to his human form?"
"No. If you did so, he would still have the injuries that he had. Maybe someone could one day convince Asclepius to give them something. And he would be allowed to craft it. Your son being not technically dead means that he would craft something less powerful than the Physician's Cure. That would not upset the natural order of things."
"But Asclepius is in the Ancient Lands. Demigods are forbidden to go there."
"Yes," Hades conceded. "However, Olympus will not forever stay in America. The Camp, and the tree, since its barrier makes it a permanent fixture, will move with it. And when it will move back to Europe, you could start a quest to heal your son."
A sad but resigned smile slowly formed on Poseidon's face. "Thank you, brother. I will call off the war. hope that Zeus will be thankful to you. I have a request, however."
"Whatever you need, if I can provide it."
"Stop targeting the girl. I do not know what you are settling with our brother by doing so, and I do not mean to pry, since it seems personal, but it will cease, and you will find another way to get revenge. While you didn't kill her, you broke her. Moreover, she has vowed that she will have my son live through her. Since we don't know if I will ever have my son back, at least let me see him live that way."
Hades thought it over for a few seconds. He could understand. If he accepted, he could ask Poseidon to protect his two children when he would take them out of the Casino. There were no real downsides.
"I swear on the Styx, brother. As long as she doesn't attack me personally, I will leave her alone."
For a month, all Thalia did was eat, sleep, and train.
Every meal, she sacrificed half to Him, then a bit to her father, and a bigger part to His father, like He would have done.
She wouldn't talk to anyone, not even Luke nor Annabeth. They were distractions that prevented her from making Him proud. From getting stronger, so she could go announce to His mother about His demise. That’s what Luke had told her He wanted, so that’s what she had to do. She would talk to them when she would be back.
Amphitrite was in her bedroom, trying to comfort her husband.
While she hadn't appreciated that her husband had had another son with a mortal, she wasn't glad that the demigod had died either. After all, he was of the Sea, and the Sea looked after their own. So, she had taken to observing him once in a while, and had been looking at him when had fallen.
Talking to Poseidon, telling him that she agreed that children should be able to see their parents, no matter the rules, it had made her realize something.
Kymopoleia.
Her daughter couldn't see her parents.
They had to fix this.
The family needed to be together, to mourn the loss of one of their own.
Sally Jackson had been cooking dinner for herself in her when she heard a knock on the door.
It had been months since she had opened it to federal agents, who told her that her son had been pronounced dead in a bus explosion, and they had found his backpack, smeared with blood, but no body. Considering that there were no survivors, and her son wasn't the only one who didn't leave any remains, she had concluded that he had most likely passed too. Most likely a monster attack, she deduced.
She had divorced Gabriel, and had decided to go back to school to get a diploma.
She had gotten a new apartment, the one she had wanted to buy if Percy would have still been there, and had erected a small memorial on the window sill of what would have been his bedroom. While something told her that he was dead, she would still hold out hope until she got a real confirmation.
She opened the door of her apartment, and saw a young goth-looking teenager she didn't know.
"Hi, are you Mrs. Jackson?" the girl asked.
"Yes," she answered with a maternal smile. "How can I help you?"
"It's…" the teen faltered, looked like she was about to cry, then recomposed herself. "It's about your son, Percy."
Oh.
"And you are?" Sally asked, dreading the answer.
"Thalia, daughter of Zeus."
Oh, no.
Knowing that this conversation would likely take a long time, she invited her in. She still had to finish preparing dinner, after all.
"Do you want to stay for dinner?" Sally asked. "I'm making way more than I need anyway."
Thalia accepted.
When the meal was served, the girl told her everything. Well, almost. She knew that there were things that the teen didn't want to talk about, but it didn't matter. She could feel that the girl needed a mother figure she could look up to, and Sally was happy to provide it.
When she got to her son's final moments, neither of them could hold back the tears.
"I'm sorry, Mrs Jackson," the girl finally told her.
"It's okay. I'm glad to finally know what happened. So, what will you do now?"
"I'll go back to camp." She hesitated for a few seconds. "Can… can I come back once in a while? Like once a month?"
Sally gave her a warm smile. "Of course you can. You can also tell the people at Camp that they will also be welcomed here whenever."
"Thanks a lot, Mrs Jackson."
Aphrodite watched Sally Jackson meet a high school teacher at one of her writing seminars. They were a perfect match.
What a shame that the woman's son was no longer around, he would have been pretty entertaining.
Annabeth was organizing a little celebration for Luke. He had been become head counselor of Cabin Eleven. Thalia would join her soon to help.
Dionysus could feel Thalia's sanity slipping, and her obsession with the dead son of Poseidon growing day after day.
While he couldn't have helped her and fixed it, he didn't want to. He was already cut off from his principal domain. Why fix her madness when her being so close to him was the biggest boost to his sphere of influence he could access?
If someone would ever ask him if he had accelerated her fall, he'd just ignore them.
Kymopoleia had difficulty to adjust to her new life. She had been welcomed back to Atlantis, and her mother was making sure to talk to her every day.
Apparently, it was because the death of her latest mortal half brother had shaken up her family. From what she had heard about the kid, she would've liked him.
She had waited for the other shoe to drop for weeks, but it never came.
When her mother had asked her if there was anything they could do to prove that they were sincere. She pondered upon it for a few minutes. Well there was one thing, she supposed.
"Help me get a divorce from Briares."
Annabeth was accompanying Thalia to Sally's apartment, like every weekend since the woman had become pregnant.
Mrs Jackson had remarried, but decided to honour her son by keeping her maiden name. Her new husband had been perfectly okay with it, after it had been explained who, or rather what, Percy was, and how he had died. Apparently, he had even suggested that they give their future child the last name Jackson, so that they could at least have one thing relating them to their deceased brother.
Athena looked over her daughter Annabeth. She had become the youngest counselor of Cabin Six.
Thalia was waiting in the hospital's corridor.
Soon, she would meet Percy's half-sister.
She would do everything to protect her, to be there for her, just like He would have done.
Hermes watched his son get back from the quest he had given him. It hadn't gone well. He had hoped that Luke would have been to be the first to get a golden apple of the Hesperides without inside help.
At least he was alive.
Kronos looked at his options.
His youngest son's daughter would be a perfect host. He just had to offer her more power.
If she refused, he would have her get disposed of, then look into bringing Perseus Jackson back earlier than planned, so he could be the child of the Great Prophecy.
If she accepted, he would still have someone get the Golden Fleece and use it on the tree, but when Perseus would be younger than his host. After all, either he joined the Titans' cause, which would give them a child of the Big Three (bunch of pretentious bastards), or the two demigods would kill each other, thus sparking a conflict between his sons.
The same applied with the di Angelos. And his oldest son's killing each other would take their father out of the conflict.
And if none of them joined him, the Crooked One would still have Luke to host him.
Estelle Jackson accompanied her parents to her brother's resting place for his birthday.
She didn't really understand why he was buried under a tree, but it didn't really matter. One thing she understood however was that he was really popular with the campers of the place where he slept, there were always about two hundred people watching him take a long nap when they came here.
Estelle absolutely loved the tales that Thalia told about her brother. Defending people against loads of monsters was really impressive, and when Annabeth chimed in, it was always funny.
While she liked Annabeth, she loved Thalia. Not only did they see each other every weekend, but also whenever her parents went out together.
With the tale over, she and her parents went to say a few words to Percy.
Like always, she told him that she couldn't wait for him to wake up, so they could play together. She would turn four years old, soon, and he had missed all of her birthdays!
Why was everyone looking at her like that? Why was Thalia telling her she was sorry?
Luke knew what he had to do. Steal the Bolt and the Helm.
He had promised Percy that he would do what's best for their friends, even if they didn't like it. And who knows, maybe they would understand and join him.
He would do what he needed to, so that demigods would no longer have to see their friends die, because a god didn't approve of their existence, so that there would no longer be avoidable deaths.
He knew Percy would have understood him, and agreed with him.
The winter solstice council had ended two hours ago, and the demigods had left an hour later, when Zeus heard someone making a video for his fifty-seven subscribers about how lightning storms were less spectacular than tsunamis.
He could not let this slander slide. He would show him.
He grabbed his Master Bolt and…
Wait…
Where's his Master Bolt?
He knew the culprit. Poseidon. It made sense, really. After all, his brother, for some reason, was still miffed about his demigod's son dying, while he had only done the right thing in sending the Minotaur after him. The boy had been fathered despite the oath.
Zeus knew that the boy was born when Poseidon saw the opportunity to be the father of the child fulfilling the Great Prophecy, after the Lord of the Sky's one-year-old child had inexplicably passed away. Who knew that a ten years old orphaned girl couldn't raise a demigod properly nowadays? Eh, at least she had been cute.
Also, Poseidon had tried to raise his armies against him, before deciding against starting a war for now, and instead decided to recall his most dangerous daughter to him.
If that didn't scream "I'm trying to get a better opportunity to take your rightful place as the king", he didn't know what it was.