Thalia Grace

I was laying in bed, in my pajamas (because I could wear those now since I actually have a place to change) and about to fall sleep.

And then I heard my cabin door open, followed by the sound of labored breathing and the door closing once again.

Who was here past curfew?

"Where..." And from my bedroom, I couldn't make out the voice. I grabbed my knife just in case and threw a shirt on. "Are they emptying the place out? Where did the statue go?"

It was silent for a second.

"Whatever, that's not... Important. Where..."

I opened my door to the main atrium, prompting the intruder to freeze as he was crouched down in front of a box that I hadn't even noticed had Luke's handwriting on it.

The intruder was older than me, but not by much— maybe two years? He was taller with a slightly toned, kind of average build. He was blonde and on his left side, a scar ran down his face. Seemed pretty nasty. With the angle he was at, it was hard to get many other details. I could barely see the scar from where I was.

"I'm just grabbing some old stuff to decorate with," he promised me, but his voice hit me before anything else did. "I don't know why you're in here, but—"

I dropped my spear.

Turning to face me slowly, the intruder's voice stopped dead in its tracks, shock hitting him.

And after the shock hit him, it almost looked like he was... Afraid of me or something. Like I was going to hurt him, even though I'd dropped my weapon as I processed what was happening.

It was barely a whisper as his emotions started to take over.

"... Thalia?"

I nodded my head, feeling a wave of overwhelming emotions start to build.

The intruder was Luke.

Stumbling over to the son of Hermes, I fell to the ground in front of him, allowing him to reach out and cup my face.

"Are you really...?" He started, losing his voice again. "You're not a ghost, are you? You're not going to disappear or... Or..."

I put my hand over his.

"I'm real," I promised the son of Hermes, leaning in to rest our foreheads against one another. "I woke up on the hill this morning. I'm really here, I promise."

His lip quivered.

"I missed you."

And, in a move that I only thought of as risky in hindsight but obvious in the moment, I cupped Luke's face and kissed him ever so gently.

"I missed you, too." I responded, the kiss at least helping his breathing steady. "do you want to sleep over and we can catch up? It seems like there's a lot I've missed."

Luke nodded his head.

"If it's okay with you," he said. "you aged regularly? Or did you die and get revived with your age just... Adjusted?"

"I was never dead," I promised the blonde, helping him stand up. He's grown a few inches, but I had as well, so our height difference stayed. "It was basically like a coma— I don't remember much, but I was definitely poisoned."

I gave him a knowing look.

"Do you know anything about that?"

"I mean you're here. Annabeth and Percy told me about it last week since they were leaving on a quest. So it definitely happened."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Luke?"

"Getting our parents to pay child support is a lot of sneaky, underhanded work," Luke insisted, which I couldn't help but smile at because he's always had stuff against his dad. Fairly so. "The person that I'm working with wanted to like, destroy camp and get rid of the border but I didn't want you to die so I might've done a shit load of research to figure out where the Golden Fleece was. I had no idea it'd bring you back to life, though."

"No idea?"

"I refused to let myself be disappointed."

I rolled my eyes.

"And yet here I am." I squeezed his hand. "Who are you working with?"

"I'll get to that," he insisted. "But I think I should probably catch you up on stuff a little older than that: I don't know if you've seen her yet, but An... Andy came out as trans a few years back. She goes by Annabeth now— long blonde hair, counselor for Cabin 6?"

"Grover told me right away," I said, sitting down next to Luke on the bed. "the first three people I saw besides some Apollo healers were Grover, Annabeth, and then Percy, who seems cool. Poseidon's kid, begrudgingly."

"Percy's a cool kid, he's one of the few people that I have to put in a real effort in with when we'd spar. I still teach the kid in the off season— don't tell Chiron."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Don't tell him? Why?"

Luke sighed.

"The old man and I don't really see eye to eye anymore," he explained, leaning into my touch. "on some matters we will, but the more I learned, the less I agreed with him. He like, refused to look for your little brother or to send a searcher out last summer and the summer before when I suggested we try and find him for like, a lot of reasons. And then Percy came along and we've disagreed about almost everything since then."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Chiron just wants to shield him and act like there's no heightened chance that he's going to be at the center of a major prophecy and probable war in two years time." He started, which Percy did tell me about. "and it's not because he thinks the kid will live— and I get that he doesn't want Percy to try and avoid the prophecy or try and change it, but it's still insensitive. Also, he sent this kid on a death quest with a week of training and his expectations of Percy are just so high that it is destroying Percys relationship with him. But also, Percy is one of a few demigods that are working with me on the child support plan— Annabeth and Grover are not apart of it."

"They're not?" I responded, intrigued by something that Luke would do that Annabeth wouldn't try and follow him with. "Tell me more."

•••
Gabe Ugliano-Jackson

"Sally?" I asked, walking into our bedroom not long after our dinner guests had left.

Looking up, Sally was sitting at the edge of the bed, visibly overwhelmed as she held her sleep shirt in her hand. She'd taken a shower after everyone left and by the looks of it, something came up in her mind between getting her pajama pants on and her shirt. She was currently in a sports bra and her pajama pants.

If it didn't look like she might go into crisis mode, it would've been a cute look.

"Sally, hey," I said, trying to pull her away from her thoughts. I placed one hand on her shoulder, moving a piece of hair from away from her view with my other hand. The second thing got her attention. "what's going on?"

She smiled, but it was far from getting to her eyes.

"It was nice to see everyone, but now I'm... Worried, I guess?" My wife explained as I sat down and wrapped an arm around her. She leaned against me. "I was always worried about monsters attacking Percy before he went to camp, but after learning that most of our friends were demigods that lived, I was relieved because it wasn't as severe as I thought it was, but now there's this prophecy that..."

She stopped herself.

"I told myself that it's not a death sentence, but... It's like, there's still going to be some battle or war that he's going to have to fight in and even if he survives that... Will he want to survive it?" Sally asked the million dollar question. "if he survives, how do we even..."

Her voice quieter for a moment, thinking to herself as an idea came to her.

"Did you ever have to fight in a battle that I never knew about? When we were younger?"

Being a tough pill to swallow, I sighed.

"Most demigods do— we were far from an exception." I told Sally about something that I don't think I've talked about, even with my friends from camp, since Percy was born. "Our main conflict never escalated into a war, but there were a couple battles. Do you remember when your uncle died? When I came to your apartment?"

"Yeah, of course— you were the first person I saw after it happened. Why?"

"I didn't go there because Eddy told me that your uncle died— none of us knew yet," I broke the news to her. "I figured it out when I saw a cororner was driving away with an ambulance that didn't have any lights on, but... I'd been there to try and say goodbye or maybe tell you that I loved you or something because we knew that we were going into battle with days of that. When I realized that your uncle had just died, though, I decided to keep it early subtle and to keep the love-y emotions out of it since you'd just lost your only family."

"You were going to..." Sally started. "Gabe, darling, we weren't... We weren't together when my uncle died. We didn't get together until after Percy was born."

I nodded my head.

"I know," I reassured her that my memory wasn't that bad.

"Did you... Did you know that long beforehand?" But since I've never talked about the fact that I was there for a different reason than Sally originally assumed, I guess we've never talked about this. "That you loved me?"

And even though I'm in my 30s, it's still embarrassing to remember the days when I had already fallen head over heels for Sally Jackson and she was so busy staying alive that she never noticed.

"Sally, I... Our friends bullied me profusely in high school when we were at camp because I wrote you letters." I broke the news to her. "I think the first time I realized it was when Ms. Jacobs paired us together as dance partners to learn how to swing dance."

"That's why you were so awkward the first day we did that!?" Sally responded, leaning back, looking surprised. "I thought you were just embarrassed because you had no sense of rhythm."

"Hey!" I responded, nudging my wife as she bursted into a fit a laughter. "That only made it worse. I promise that if we went dancing now, I'd be the tiniest bit better."

"Only a tiny bit?"

"I still have bad rhythm."

She smiled, giving me a kiss.

"You do," she confirmed. "We never did get to have a first dance at our wedding."

"Because we didn't have a reception," I agreed.  "Does that bug you? That we never had a reception?"

Sally shrugged.

"Not really, but I think it would be fun to have a really big, fancy party one day." She told me, giving me that look like she had an idea. "You know, our ten year anniversary is coming up."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Do you want to throw a fancy party for our ten year anniversary?"

"I think it would be fun."

I smiled, considering the idea.

It was a big deal when we officially decided that we weren't going to have a reception after our wedding because we just... Couldn't afford one. Percy was still young and it was either have a honeymoon or a reception, and we really wanted to get out of New York for a few days.

"Can we renew our vows if we do it?" I asked. "We don't have to— I haven't exactly been the world's most amazing husband, though I still you've been a wonderful wife. You didn't even leave my ass when you definitely should have."

"Hmm maybe, but I'm glad I didn't." Sally reassured me, letting me breathe a little easier. She gave me another kiss, the topic of Percy's possible death now far from her mind. "I wouldn't mind renewing our vows."

I gave her a kiss, moving my lips closer to her ear.

"How would you feel about being pregnant during this party?"

Wrapping her arms around my neck, Sally placed another few kisses around the edge of my mouth and near my ear.

"Now you're speaking my language, Mr. Jackson."

•••
cishet couple chapter :) they can be cute too