I don't own PJO. Any resemblance to any real places is purely coincidental.

SoHo

Percy Jackson wasn't exactly sure what he was doing here.

Was it to get some sort of sick satisfaction? To simply torture himself more, because all those years hadn't been enough? Or maybe to understand that strange instinct that had been bugging him for weeks.

Percy stood on the sidewalk of a side street in SoHo, looking up at the building in front of him. It was one of the old cast-iron facades that were common in the area. Metal vines decorated the arches and columns surrounding the windows that glinted in the midday sun. Black and white banners hanging on the second story were puffed out in the wind. The words were hard to decipher, especially with the crimson script rippling with the breeze, but Percy was eventually able to read them: The Ian Carp Gallery of Contemporary Art. He had come to the right place.

He trudged up the stairs and came to the front desk of the gallery. He purchased one ticket for himself and quietly asked, heart pounding, where he could find the piece he was looking for. The stout woman stationed at the desk pointed him towards the back left corner of the room.

Percy walked across the large, open gallery, screaming at himself inside. Why bring back all those memories? Why couldn't he just let the past be? This little journey into self-torture would most definitely come back to haunt him. But, the annoyed voice in the back of his mind whispered, isn't this the reason you're coming here? To stop the uncertainty, never again to worry about what ifs?

He considered turning back thirty-seven separate times during that walk that was so short in reality, but felt so long. He should just stop right in the middle of the floor, turn on his heel, and march straight back out the door. It would save him a lot of regret, anger, pain. But he knew that if he retreated now, the idea would always lurk, taunting him, in the back of his mind.

As he came to the back corner, he started to pay more attention to his surroundings, searching now. He looked only at the names; he somehow knew that if he saw the name first it would be easier. No, not that one. Definitely not that one, either. He stopped at the last plaque in the row. Sunlight glanced off the bronze blindingly, but Percy could still make out the words: The Poker Player.

Just those three words nearly tossed him over the edge. His hand clenched in a fist around Riptide, itching to destroy, to annihilate, to punish. He was trembling. He took a deep breath to steady himself, and looked into the petrified face of Gabriel Ugliano.

Percy was almost surprised at the fiery hatred than coursed through his veins at that moment. The statue seemed to be tinged with red. It was all too familiar. The enormous paunch, the drooping cigar in his mouth, the ridiculous hairs on his flaky scalp, the all-important cards resting in one pudgy hand on the table. And, possibly the worst of all, the slightly raised hand, as if he had been intending, once again, to strike the woman who had been, for all intents and purposes, his slave.

Years of hatred, torture, and neglect washed through him. No, washed wasn't the right word. It was more like a tsunami, chaotic and destructive, taking him by storm. He was rooted to the spot, helpless, as all the waves of memories he had so carefully suppressed came flooding back.

Gabe throwing an empty beer bottle, smashing it against the wall. Gabe towering over him, fist raised, only stopping because Sally came home at that moment. Gabe dragging him roughly down the narrow hallway to his room. Gabe leering at his mother. Gabe punishing him for something they both knew he didn't do. Gabe and his poker buddies laughing and swearing while he cowered in his closet.

As he stared at the frozen face of the man—no, the monster—that had made his life hell for countless years, Percy thought of a million different ways to torture him. But none of them would ever work. Smelly Gabe was only a concrete statue now, his despicable soul somewhere in the Fields of Punishment.

Without realizing it, Percy had drawn Riptide. It would be so, so easy to bring the bronze blade down on the statue, to shatter it into minuscule pieces and utterly destroy it. No one would ever have to look at that horrible excuse for a human being again. So wonderfully tempting. His sword inched upwards, preparing for the strike that would annihilate the last remnant of that terrible era. The last reminder of Gabe Ugliano could be gone in a single instant.

But something stopped him. The sword hovered in the air, practically screaming at him for hesitating. But he paused.

Destroying the statue wouldn't erase all those years with Gabe. They would still live on in the lines of his mother's face, in the memories that would haunt Percy for the rest of his existence.

In a way, the statue was monument to the suffering they had both endured, and their triumph over the monster they were forced to put up with. It was the last remnant of Gabe's torture, yes, but it was also the symbol of Sally's victory. She had finally gotten rid of her own personal tyrant, had finally been free, had finally been able to live the life she always wanted.

Destroying the statue would destroy the sign his mother's triumph as well. Sure, it would feel great at the moment. To bring the great sword down, to release all the anger and hatred penned up inside all these years… his own version of anger management. But he would only want to do it again and again. Eventually, the hatred and longing would consume him, and Percy would be lost in a world of pain.

The weapon fell to his side. No, he couldn't erase the memories as easily as swinging a sword. What sat before him was only a physical reminder of Smelly Gabe, when the person who had tortured them for so long was boiling in cheese fondue somewhere in the Underworld. Gabe was being punished already.

And for now, all Percy could do was cap Riptide, turn around, and walk out of the gallery.