To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in all its power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow. ~Maya Angelou

Percy doesn't have a key. He isn't sure whether he's more surprised that he has no idea what happened to his house key – Hera, probably, a side effect of the switch – or that he's standing in front of the door of the apartment he's lived in his whole life and he has to ring the doorbell like any passing stranger.

He wonders if his mom is even home. She might be with Paul at his mother's house. Percy's step-grandmother. Did you have to send cards to your grandmother on Mother's Day, too? Or—

Right. Doorbell.

He presses it once, listening to it echo inside the apartment. Then he hears chairs scraping.

He wonders whether his mom will be mad at him. Disappearing for over a year – even if it was Hera's fault – and leaving just one message on the answering machine would probably piss her off pretty badly.

Sorry Mom. I had to take a quick trip to Greece to save the world and got stuck in Tartarus for a while, you know how it is.

He should have IM-ed her. Or had Grover send her updates. Or something.

Yeah, his mom is going to kill him for this.

He hears voices from inside:

"Sally—"

"No, let me get it. I'm okay."

"But—"

And then the door swings open, and his mom is standing there, with Paul a few steps behind, and her eyes scan his face – taking in his new scars, no doubt, or that his green eyes have a new darkness behind them – and instead of filling with rage or happiness like he'd expected Sally's eyes are full of concern.

"Hey," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say.

And then his mom is hugging him, except he's a good six inches taller than her now so it's her head resting on his shoulder, instead of the other way around. Percy's not sure who is supporting whom.

His mom's body shakes with a sob and then suddenly he's crying too and all he can do is whisper, "I love you," over and over again, like repeating the words enough times will make up for all the months he hasn't said them.

Eventually she steps back, wiping tears on the back of her hand, and then she's dragging him into the kitchen and all but forcing him into a chair.

"What do you want for lunch?" she asks, grabbing pans from the cabinet like the world might end if Percy doesn't eat something in the next five minutes. "I have some leftover Chinese in the fridge, or I can make something— Lasagna? Chicken? Pancakes? Did you have breakfast this morning? Are you—"

"Pancakes sound great," Percy says, and it's almost like he's twelve years old again, back from his first summer at camp. He ignores the lump in his throat and adds, "But can you make them blue?"

His mom starts tearing up again while grabbing ingredients from the fridge – eggs, milk, butter – and while Paul moves to comfort her Percy heads over to the pantry to grab chocolate chips and food coloring. He places them on the counter next to the bowl his mom has set out and—

"Perseus James Jackson, what is on your arm?"

There is nothing more terrifying than hearing Sally Jackson use his middle name. Percy actually considers going back and defeating Gaia again, if only to avoid the terrors he knows are about to come.

"Uh, nothing," he hedges.

Paul looks like he's trying to hold back a smile. Sally looks murderous.

"Is that a tattoo?"

"Well, actually, it's a symbol of my status as a centurion and temporary praetor of Camp Jupiter and—"

"What did I say about tattoos? Don't give me that look, young man. You are grounded until you turn twenty, do you hear me? No more quests, no more running off to save the world," she throws her hands up in exasperation. "A tattoo. Honestly."

Percy smiles. "Okay, mom."

Frank kneels in front of the grave, placing a wreath of flowers in front of it, just last year at the funeral. This time, though, his grandmother isn't here with him.

"Hey, Mom," he says, feeling stupid for talking to a rock, but his grandmother had always made a big deal about respecting one's ancestors, so he does it anyway. "Happy Mother's Day."

Hazel had offered to come with him, but he'd told her to wait at Camp Jupiter with Nico and the others. He has a flight to San Francisco booked for tonight.

For now, it's just him and his mom.

"We saved the world," he says. "I got to see Rome. The real one." He takes a deep breath. "I had a growth spurt, kind of. It was Dad's— yeah. And I—I miss you. A lot."

He closes his eyes to hold back tears. He imagines his mom standing there.

Frank, she'd say. There's no shame in crying.

"I've got a girlfriend," he continues. "Hazel. You'd like her."

No dating 'till you're thirty, she'd say, but there would be laughter in her eyes, and she'd ask when he was bringing her over so she could meet her.

"We met at Camp Jupiter," he says. "Her dad's Pluto."

Kids of War and Death. Huh. Who'd have thought?

"Yeah. You'd think we wouldn't be so happy. But she's nice. And sweet. And—"

As long as she makes you happy.

"She does," he says, whispering around the lump in his throat. "She really does."

How's school going? He imagines his mom asking.

"They don't have a normal school at New Rome," he says. "They have, like, a university and stuff. But we learn sword-fighting and mythology and Latin."

Latin? she'd ask, eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Yeah," he laughs. "I know French was a disaster for me in grade school. But I'm not terrible at it. I'm better at archery, though."

So was your dad.

"Yeah," he says. "I know. God of war and all that."

And after you're finished with all this Camp Jupiter stuff? What are you going to do then?

"Actually, Mom," he says, "I've been thinking about joining the police or something. I don't think— I don't think I could join the army."

Not all heroes are made on the battlefield.

He's not sure whether she would actually say those words or if he just wants her to, but he hears them in her voice, regardless.

"I love you, Mom," he says. "Always."

He imagines her arms wrapped around him in a hug. I love you, too, Frank, she'd say. I love you, too.

Leo looks up at the ceiling, eyebrows raised. "The bulb burned out."

"I knew that," Calypso says, but Leo smiles despite himself.

Over the past few days since the quest has ended and he and Calypso have been back at camp she's been becoming more accustomed to things like air conditioning and electricity, but some things still confuse her. Like, for instance, the fact that the light in her room at the Big House would no longer turn on. She'd come running to his cabin, claiming that Apollo must have cursed her lamp because something was very, seriously wrong with it.

"Go flick the switch off," he says, reaching into his tool-belt for a replacement 40W bulb.

He sets the lampshade on the floor and reaches to unscrew bulb. Calypso rushes over to his side.

"Can you show me how to do it?"

And so he lets her twist the bulb herself ("Remember, it's righty-tighty, lefty-loosey." "That's a stupid rhyme." "Oh yeah," he says, "Very stupid. Especially since you're turning it the wrong way.") and answers her questions about why the light-bulb burned out in the first place, explaining circuitry and how the filament in the bulb gets worn out from expanding and contracting with heat from the current.

Then he hands her the new bulb and places his hand over hers, guiding her as she screws it back in. He watches her excitement as she turns the light on. She flicks the switch on and off a few times before stopping abruptly.

"What are you doing?" she asks suddenly.

"Hmmm?"

"With your hands," she clarifies. "What is that?"

"Oh," he says, feeling a blush rise to his cheeks. "It's something I used to do with my mom. Morse code. Each letter has a pattern."

"And what were you just spelling?"

Now he's blushing in earnest. He has to put effort into not setting something on fire.

"Um. Back in her garage, when she was working on stuff, we used to, um, tap something back and forth through the wall. Just, um, a message."

Calypso waits for him to continue.

"It means, um, well… It's 'I love you.'"

"So you were just tapping it now because…" Calypso says, a smile in her voice.

"No reason," he says, but he lets her step closer.

"Oh yeah?" she asks. "No reason at all?"

She's just a few feet away from him, so he closes the gap and kisses her.

His mom would be okay with him using their code for this, he thinks.

Jason knocks on the door of Cabin 8.

"What do you want?" comes the shout from inside.

"Thalia?" he doesn't know why he asks. He recognizes her voice. "Um, am I allowed to, like—"

She appears in the doorway, all spiked hair and dark clothes. If it weren't for her eyes – the same shade of blue as his own – Jason would never have believed they were related.

"Hey. No, you can't come in. Artemis would take your head off."

"Good to know."

Thalia steps outside, taking a seat on the marble steps outside the cabin. Jason sits next to her.

"What's up?" she asks.

"I just—" he hesitates. "I was thinking about, you know, Mom."

Thalia nods slowly. "Makes sense."

Mother's – and, for that matter, Father's – Day has always been awkward at Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood. Half the camp has mortal mothers or stepmothers left at home, always wondering whether their kids were safe. And the other half has mothers who are immortal goddesses who rarely (if ever) deigned to so much as speak with their children.

Thalia sighs. "She let it get to her head. She was borderline famous and then she finds out the father of her unborn child was, you know, a god, and not just any god, but Zeus, the king of them all. So she flipped out when he left her, went back and forth between alcoholism and trying to win him back."

"I know," Jason says, because they've been over this part before. "I was just…" he hesitates, unsure of how to phrase the question that's been poking at his mind since he first met Thalia. Now that the quest is officially over, he's had all the time in the world to think about it.

Thalia studies him. Jason wonders what she sees when she looks at him; if she's reminded of their mother. She's said before that their mom was blonde.

"She abandoned me," he says finally. "For Hera."

His sister squeezes her eyes shut, but her face doesn't register surprise.

"She wasn't herself," Thalia says. "When you were first born, and Dad – Jupiter, or Zeus, whatever – was still around… She got better for a while. They knew Hera was a threat, but she managed to stay sober through her whole pregnancy and everything."

Jason doesn't say anything, but Thalia must see something in his expression, because she says, in a softer tone, "She wanted you. You have no idea what she was like before, always sneaking drinks and stuff. She almost gave me a beer instead of a juice box once when I was six. For her to start up AA and stick with it when she found out she was pregnant… it was a big deal. For her to do that—She loved you, Jason. Really."

He nods, absorbing that. He's never spoken to either of his parents, never known what it was like to be loved unconditionally like that. From Thalia, maybe, but even she hadn't been a part of his life until the year before.

"Things fell apart again when Dad left. I don't think it was just the alcohol. She'd always been kind of crazy, but she went full blown… I don't know. Bipolar, maybe? Paranoid schizophrenia? She'd be fine one minute, and then the next she'd go into this dissociative state where she'd start talking crazy and acting delusional. She'd go off about how Hera was out to get her, that kind of thing."

"Hera was out to get her," Jason interjects, but Thalia shakes her head.

"Not really. I mean, don't get me wrong, Hera was mad, but it was at Zeus—sorry, Jupiter – more than mom. I mean, the whole pact between the Big Three was supposed to work out great for her, and here Dad couldn't keep it in pants and had not one but two kids." Thalia shrugs. "Mom blew Hera's anger way out of proportion."

He nods.

"She was sick, Jason," Thalia says. "She needed psychiatric care, or something, but the only person who was around to notice was me and I was, what, eight? Nine? She'd get her act together in front of my teachers and stuff, and I never knew anything different."

"I'm sorry," he says. He's not sure what he's apologizing for. Maybe that Thalia had to go through it all alone. Or that she was the one who had to live with the memories.

"It was years ago. It's fine. But you should know that. She did love you. She just wasn't mentally okay. If she'd been herself, she never would have given you up. She loved you too much for that."

He doesn't know how to respond to that, so he just sits there quietly while Thalia sits beside him. She should be close to 25 now, if she'd aged normally. An adult. Maybe a mother in her own right.

He wonders if maybe the prophecy wasn't the only reason she chose to join the Hunters.

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