As the river approached, the wind stole the air from his lungs. He didn't have time to have any deep, contemplative thoughts before he hit the water.

Everything became muted as he was submerged, an explosion of white bubbles surrounding him. It hadn't hurt. It felt like falling into his bed at Hogwarts. He sank slowly through the murky water.

The pain of the Chimera's poison was gone, the fire put out. Taking a deep breath, Percy smiled to himself a little. He was breathing. Just like the night of his sorting, and that day by the lake with Luke. He should be dead at this point for a multitude of reasons. But he wasn't.

He imagined a woman's voice in his head, one he liked to think was his mother's. 

"What do you say, Percy?"

"Thank you...Father."

There was no response. Only the slow drift of garbage through the water, turned the colour of butterscotch by the light of the setting sun on the river.

Percy didn't know why Poseidon had saved him. He knew better than to assume it was anything like actual parental feelings for the son he'd fathered many years before. He felt a bit guilty. Here he was, save in the river, what if Echidna had turned around and set her son on the mortals once he jumped? Demigods were supposed to be heroes and while he had never claimed to be one, there was a part of him that had hoped that maybe... But now? He was no hero. He had half a mind to just stay there at the bottom of the dirty river.

As a riverboat passed above him, the small bit of light passing through the dirt and grime caught on something metallic a little ways away from him. It was his sword, stuck hilt up in the sand.

"Take the sword Percy, your father believes in you."

This time, he knew it wasn't in his head, and it definitely wasn't his mother. A woman came into view, seeming to partially blend into the water, her pale hair floating around her lending an ethereal aspect to her appearance only emphasized by her ocean green eyes that matched Percy's own.

"Who are you?"

"Simply a messenger. Go to the beach in Santa Monica."

"And why should I do that?"

"It is your father's will. Before you descend into the Underworld, you must go to Santa Monica. Please, Percy, I cannot stay long. The river here is too foul for my presence."

"But-" Was this not exactly what he had asked about when the symbol of power situation was explained to him? He didn't want to become one of those kids desperate for approval from a parent who was never there and never would be.

"I cannot stay, brave one," she said, smiling gently at him. "You must go to Santa Monica! And Percy, do not trust the gifts..."

Her voice faded faster than her image.

"Gifts? What gifts? Wait!"

Her mouth moved but no sound came out as she disappeared in the murk.

Percy practically growled, floundering for a moment.

'Your father believes in you' she had said. How the bloody hell could he? It seemed his father had... looked down on him from time to time? That didn't mean anything. Poseidon didn't know anything about him, god or not.

Gritting his teeth, Percy moved to his sword, gripping the hilt. Pulling it from the sand, he decided to cap it and put the weapon, now pen, in his pocket. The Chimera and its mother could be waiting to finish him off or the mortal police could be waiting. The attack did, after all, create quite a bit of destruction.

Looking around the river once again, he sighed. 

"Thank you, Father."

Kicking off from the muck of the riverbed, Percy swam to the surface.

<><><>

He came up beside a floating McDonald's. About a block away was what must've been just about every emergency vehicle in St. Louis, surrounding the arch. A crowd of onlookers had gathered, a sea of chaos kept back by yellow tape and law enforcement. A little girl looked back as Percy pulled himself onto the shore, completely dry.

"Mama! That boy walked out of the river."

"That's nice, dear," her mother said, ignoring the child in favour of craning her neck to watch the ambulances.

"But he's dry!"

"That's nice, dear."

A news lady was talking in front of a camera.

"Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation. The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We're trying to get to some of the survivors, to question them about eyewitness reports of someone falling from the Arch."

Survivors. Percy felt some of the tension drain out of his body. The park ranger and the little family of three must have survived and he couldn't be more relieved. He never would've forgiven himself had something happened to them because of him. Just to be sure, Percy started pushing through the crowd to see for himself.

"...an adolescent boy," another reporter was saying. "Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras show an adolescant boy going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that's what we're hearing. Again, no cofirmed fatalities..."

Percy backed away a bit and kept his head down as he moved around the edges of the police barrier, looking for Castor and Annabeth while avoiding all the reporters hanging around.

"Percy!"

Castor tackled him in a hug, quickly followed by Annabeth.

"We thought you'd gone to Hades the hard way?" the blonde boy said, readjusting his shades.

When the girl in the group let go, she punched him in the arm. Hard.

"What in the name of Merlin was that? We can't leave you alone for five minutes!"

"I sort of fell."

"You sort of fell? Six hundred and thirty feet?"

Before he could respond with anything other than a sheepish look, a stretcher was brought through with the mother from the observation deck by a couple paramedics.

"And then this huge fire-breathing Chihuahua -"

"Okay ma'am," one of the paramedics said. "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."

"I'm not crazy! This boy jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared."

Then, she looked over and saw Percy.

"There he is! That's the boy!"

With expertise born of evading his relatives and nosey Hogwarts students, Percy turned and, pulling his friends with him, disappeared into the crowd.

"What's going on?" Annabeth hissed as they moved through the swarm of people. "Was she talking about the Chihuahua in the elevator?"

Percy explained what had happened with Echidna and her son before also adding the message he'd received in the river.

"Whoa," Castor said, his mouth hanging open slightly. "We've got to get you to Santa Monica! You can't just ignore a summons from your dad."

"Why not? Why does he get to just summon me when he feels like it?"

"Percy," Annabeth said gently, "As a father, you're right. He has no real right to treat you like this, expecting you to come when he calls. But as a god, there isn't really much you can do but listen to what he wants."

The son of Poseidon sighed but nodded. Together, they snuck back to the train as quickly as possible, ignorant of the woman who caught a glimpse of them. Her curly brown hair was tied up in a ponytail and her soft blue eyes watched as the three children disappeared. She made a mental note to contact the MoM once she got back to the office.

With one last look up at the severely damaged Arch, Sally Jackson disappeared with a small pop.