Some days she played his message on repeat for hours. Weeks later she still feels terrible that she missed his call, that she couldn't just fucking be there because maybe she would have been able to convince him to just come home. But of course not; she had to be out grocery shopping of all things and she missed Percy's call.

When she gets back to the apartment, Paul is already there and he's crying, which he hasn't done the whole time her son has been missing. All he says is, "Sally, it's him," before playing the message and then everything else fades away except the sound of Percy's voice and real, tangible proof that he is alive. That night she doesn't know how many times she replays the message or how the groceries get put away or when she eventually falls asleep.

The next day, Paul brings over a friend of a friend who copies the message onto two separate voice recorders. It makes her love her husband more, and fill in the hole in her chest just the smallest bit. She makes dinner that night: a simple beef stew and homemade bread she hasn't made since before Gabe came into their lives. And throughout the night she replays Percy's message every so often, overjoyed to know that he's okay.

Annabeth IMs a couple hours before midnight, which isn't all that surprising or unwelcome. Sally has been kept up to date about the progress to get Percy, so she knows that Annabeth and a few other demigods are leaving soon. But they're shipping out first thing in the morning, so she wanted Sally to know that their waiting might be over soon. There is so much excitement between the two of them.

"Please be careful," Sally asks as the call nears its end. "I don't know what we would do without you." And it's true. Despite the fact that Annabeth was probably similarly as worried and anxious about Percy as Sally was, she'd done well keeping herself together, having stayed in school and supervised the preparations for this quest. Of course it was probably her way of coping, being busy so she didn't have to focus too much on anything else.

"Thanks, Mrs. Jackson," she replied, ending the call a few moments later. Sally was excited and giddy because her boy would be home soon and then she would never let him out of her sight again.

It didn't take long before the excitement faded, only to be replaced by anxiety. Weeks passed and she didn't hear word from anyone, and she began to assume the worst. She tried to write to take her mind off her worry, but nothing came out. The possibility that all those kids might not make it was sometimes too much, even if she didn't personally know them all.

Weeks turn into a month of Sally using the recording of Percy's message as a way to stay calm. He's coming home soon, and they'll all be okay, and it's all a lie because they've been gone too long and something has gone horribly wrong. Her mind is all over the place and she wishes she could just think clearly. She takes to jogging after reading an article online about how it can help relieve stress. In her case it's really just a way to take her mind off things for a while because when she's running the only thing she can focus on is her next breath. Or how much her knees ache. Or how she wants to stop but if she can just make it a little bit further then she won't have to think for so long that day.

Paul spends a lot of the summer working. Not writing, but preparing for the new school year. He rereads the books on his curriculum even though he's read them all at least half a dozen times. Every few weeks he writes up a new syllabus just so he won't have to sit still and do nothing. If he's not working, he sits on the couch and stares at the wall and tries not to think.

That's only when Sally isn't around. He does everything he can to be everything she needs, even if it can never be enough. And every so often he will listen to the message his step-son left, wishing that he would just walk through the front door alive and well.

It's not until a few weeks before the end of summer that Paul is driving through the city that he notices something… different in the skyline. A blue light. He tries to think back and remember why that's familiar before it suddenly clicks and he races back to his apartment, trying to get ahold of Sally and hoping she isn't out jogging again.

After what seems like way too much time, Paul finally bursts through his front door to find Sally passed out on the couch in her workout gear. And he can't help but be disappointed because he thought, he really thought, that the blue light meant Percy would be home and safe. That's what it meant last time. So it's too much. He wakes up Sally and she asks him what's wrong because he's crying, which he's tried to avoid the past 7 months.

Their lives are so unfair, so cruel, to have to exist in a world without Percy Jackson. While he's telling her these things she already knows, there's a soft knock at the door.

"I'll get it," she says, kissing him on the cheek before getting up. Paul tries to compose himself; he gets some tissues to wipe away the tearstains on his face and blow his nose. When Sally opens the door, he turns his face away to get a few more seconds to readjust.

He hears Sally's soft "oh my god" and turns to see what's going on, probably getting whiplash in the process. She looks to be hugging the life out of someone right now, and he only knows of two people in the world whose appearance would elicit death by hug. Tentatively, he stands up and sees Percy's distinctly messy black hair before he rushes over to put is arms around the both of them.

They're all crying and telling each other how much they were missed and Paul thinks he's never been happier to be a father in his entire life. It takes a few minutes for them to disentangle and move to sit down at the kitchen table. Neither he nor Sally can stop themselves from asking what happened, and Percy tells them.

As he talks, Sally holds on to one of his hands, which most teenage boys would not allow their mothers to do. Then again most teenage boys aren't Percy. So as he told them about how he was essentially asleep for months, training with Lupa, the Roman camp, and his quest to get the Roman eagle, he held on to his mother's hand. Nothing he said seemed any more dangerous than the things Percy had already faced, though Sally was immensely proud of him.

"But there was this thing I remembered, before I started getting my memories back," he started a bit apprehensively. "Well, um, just one person really. Annabeth." Percy looked like what he said was offensive, but Sally only smiled and patted his cheek.

Paul hadn't even thought of it before then and wanted to slap himself for it. Where was Annabeth? Before Percy's disappearance, they spent as much time together as their schedules permitted. The lack of Annabeth's presence was disconcerting and the look on Percy's face when he mentioned her name suggested something had happened. Sally started along the same line of thinking as Paul, smile disappearing.

"Is she okay?"

"Oh, um, I think so…" At the looks Sally and Paul were giving him, Percy realized what it sounded like he was saying. "She's alive, she's not hurt or anything! It's just something that happened to us that I haven't gotten to yet." Sally took a good look at her son. He was leaner, more muscled, more… aged, even though he wasn't that much older from the last time she saw him. There were dark circles under his eyes and there was something forced about the way he was acting, like he was trying to be himself.

"Where is she, Percy?" Paul asked.