Chapter Text
Annabeth sucks in a deep breath, gathers her courage and knocks on the pale blue door. In the moments she waits for someone to answer she unclenches her teeth and feels her mask of hardened leader slip away. Here she can let her exhaustion show, she no longer needs to put on an act of a leader with everything under her fine control. Here she can be the girl worried about her boyfriend and cry about how much she misses him, she reminds herself of this as the woman who makes this all possible opens the door.
Sally Jackson is a saint of a woman, she has gone through more hardships in life than Annabeth can imagine, has raised - alone and against all odds a powerful child of the eldest gods, into a wonderful man and suffered through the fate his birth had wrought upon them both. A fate that continues to test her - them both, as the defeated teary expressions on both their faces make abundantly clear.
Annabeth’s boyfriend and Sally’s son had disappeared without any trace from his bed a little more than a week ago and yesterday Annabeth had finally discovered where to. He had been abducted by Hera and placed in the Roman Camp in an attempt to bridge centuries old divide and allow the Gods enough stability to fight another returning old threat of a world ending magnitude.
Annabeth was sick and tired of world ending threats returning to exact revenge on the gods, that their neglected children end up dealing with.
She relays the news of Percy’s whereabouts, the new Great Prophecy coming into effect and the upcoming war. Sally has tears in her eyes that she doesn't let fall and they remain there through her recount of the events of the past week and the recent quest that revealed Hera’s plot. A tear finally escapes and makes its journey down her cheek when Annabeth finally musters up the courage to tell her that almost definitively Percy’s memory has been wiped and is going to be going through any upcoming ordeals in that state.
They cry together and try reassure each other of Percy’s health and wellbeing. None of them sound convinced of their own words.
Eventually the tears subside and Sally brings out tea and her famous Blue Chocolate Chip Cookies. The conversation moves on to them reminiscing about Percy’s antics and their past misadventures, carefully skirting around any mentions of godly related incidents which is difficult and eventually fails. Leading to Annabeth finally unburdening herself and going on a rant that’s been building and evolving since Percy’s disappearance.
“… and we don’t even have much of a blueprint on how war will go. This is totally unprecedented, the gods are unable to function much less battle foes, what if a threat on the scale of Typhon rises how are demigods supposed to fight that? Even if we forget that how are we supposed to defeat the titans who can’t be killed without a god working together with us?”, she takes a deep breath and gets up up from the couch her nervous energy becoming to hard to contain.
She starts to pace, “I don’t even understand how Roman Gods exist. And if they exist why are they not completely different beings? I know other Pantheons exist Percy and me met those Egyptian… umm somethings,” she turns and starts to tread the path back to the couch.
“… and my aunt is always going on about Norse teachings. So why is it, that its our parents that just hold two different beings in one self. It’s not logical. What happened that every time the Flame shifted they became new gods, created a whole new Pantheon? I…”
She stops suddenly as her eyes fall on Sally and registers the expressions on her face. She looks sympathetic but in a way that is eerily familiar to Annabeth. Because she has worn that look many a times.
“You know something.”
It’s not a question.
Annabeth has always known that Sally as a clear sighted mortal knew a lot about their world. Probably more than any mortal parent of a demigod she had ever met, (not that she had met a lot of them, most mortal parents didn’t even know about existence of gods and were as fooled by the mist as any other mortal) more than her father. But sometimes it felt like she knew more than maybe even her.
Sally schools her expressions but its too late. Annabeth’s already caught up, and she is very persistent when it comes to squiring knowledge on things she wants to understand.
Sally must know this. She lets out an audible sigh and gestures for Annabeth to sit down.
“Know please, that what the only reason I’m able to tell you what I’m about to is because the gods are in the state they are in and because of the blessing of protection Poseidon granted after the last war.”
“Protection? Poseidon granted a blessing like that to Percy?” Annabeth is slack jawed, she knew Percy was Poseidon’s favorite son but this was…
“Not to Percy, he wouldn’t have been allowed to do that. To me, to my dwelling.” Sally looks entirely too fond even if its tinged by a little exasperation.
“He made some excuse to Zeus about how the mother of the hero of Olympus deserved the gods’ appreciation for birthing such a child. But he probably just wanted an excuse to build me that stupid palace of his.” Even though Sally says this Annabeth can see the blush rising to her cheeks.
“Anyways I talked him down to just giving my already existing perfectly good apartment a blessing. He went a little overboard, Percy once cursed Zeus when he was here and there was no thunder. Thank gods that boy was too distracted to notice or he would definitely start doing it constantly. I don’t want to test how long the wards would hold.”
Annabeth is awed and a little jealous. Athena never showed such considerations for her father. She can’t think of a time when Athena had ever mentioned her father in a conversation (not that she’d had a lot of those with her).
But all the feelings of jealousy evaporate as the blonde observes the small smile on Sally’s face while her fingers fiddle with a pendant, Sally of all people deserves to be loved like that. Annabeth’s eye is caught on the necklace she has seen it before but never registered it until now. Even now as she concentrates on it she finds it hard to make out exactly what it is, it shimmers as if…
“It’s hidden by mist!”
Sally looks where Annabeth is staring and hurriedly tucks the necklace back, hidden beneath her shirt. The blush on her face is very apparent now, even the tips of her ears turning red.
“It’s a token of the sea. Holds the mark of both Poseidon and Neptune. It’s the reason why when Hades sent the Minotaur, kidnapped me he had to take me unharmed.”
Annabeth has so many questions but she settles on, “Poseidon and Neptune?”
The question wipes any levity that might have existed in the atmosphere as Sally steels herself. Annabeth realizes for the first time how young Sally actually is. She had always been so mature so maternal that the wisdom’s daughter had forgotten that the mother of the hero of Olympus was just in her mid 30s.
“The reason why I know what I know about the gods’ Greek and Roman aspects is because technically Percy is a son of both Poseidon and Neptune.”
Sally continues before Annabeth can fire any of the million questions forming in her mind.
“You have to understand the gods don’t always settle in one country one culture every time the flame moves. The flame itself has only ever settled fully in one place 3 times since the ancient Greece. First time in Rome, then in England during the Renaissance and finally in America in 1945.”
Annabeth can’t stop herself from interjecting here, “That can’t be, I know that the camp was here during the American Civil war.”
“Yes, a version of Camp Half-Blood existed even then but so did similar camps in other countries. In the 1700s when America separated from the British Empire the flame which had settled there sometime in the 16th century started fragmenting. After such a big part of its kingdom broke off from it, the flame while still primarily settled in England, began fragmenting into smaller scattered sections and settled all over. This happened in part due to the British Empire’s system of mainland and colonies preventing all the people of the empire to be united under a singular identity. The gods were active all over the globe even in areas the Britishers didn’t control but were connected with through treaties and alliances, which was almost all of Europe.”
Sally looked at her kindly and took a breath to steel herself, “When the flame first shifted, to Rome, it didn’t shift gradually. It fractured in two instead. The part of the flame that settled in Rome was much too big and existed separately with an equal or greater intensity with the other at the same time for a long time. Without a period of gradual fragmentation of the flame added onto the animosity that its new home showed the the former, the gods identities fractured and separated into two. A new self, born of a more militaristic ideals and feelings of disdain towards their conquered greek selves, that couldn’t coexist with the original.”
As she discusses this, the nerves slowly drain from her and Sally gets this excited gleam in her eyes.
She continues, “The roman empire expanded and the flame spread out, the gods essence was stretched thin. And then the new religions started gaining traction and the worship of the pagan gods became fragmented, muddled. They began being worshiped interchangeably with their greek counterparts. Now both their Roman and Greek selves were equally as active, existing together in one flame as two halves of a coin.”
The gears in Annabeth’s head start turning as she reaches at a conclusion. Which then Sally confirms.
“This was completely different from when when the roman empire weakened and broke apart over years into different territories from amongst which one emerged as a centre of culture and military. A single culture where the flame burned brightest beyond compare, became its new home.”
“Or when the flame was scattered after 1700’s all over the west.” The statement comes out of Annabeth’s mouth in a whisper.
She understands why Sally never talked about this before, why Chiron didn’t tell her this information. Any implication that the gods power was influenced by something as measly as mortal beliefs would get them struck by lightening. Annabeth shudders when she thinks of this conversation happening in a situation where the gods weren't in the state that they are in, if this apartment wasn't as protected as it is.
Sally nods as she continues, “And then when the world war II was coming to an end, there was no indication that the flame would settle in a new home. All the allied nations would have been equally influential. But then America dropped those bombs, and cemented itself as the singular symbol of power and the flame along with the seat of power of the gods fully settled in one country for the third time.”
It suddenly clicks in Annabeth’s brain and she can’t stop herself from exclaiming angrily, “Three is sacred to the greeks. The reason why the great prophecy was read why the Titans returned why now the Giants are returning, the gods must have known it was a possibility and they still didn’t act. Those bastards!”
She turns to Sally urgently, “When did you figure it all out? How do you know all this? All I knew, all I was ever told that the heart of the flame moved with the heart of the west. That gods moved to Germany, to France, to Spain for a while.”
Sally looks a little pink, “Posiedon told me about it a lot. He seemed to like breaking the godly rules.”
She mumbles the next part under her breath with a very heavy blush on her face, “And Neptune would let some details slip sometimes.”
At the last word the red in her cheeks deepens, if that even possible.
Suddenly Annabeth feels like she’s intruding on something very personal, but she can’t help herself she’s too curious.
“You said that Percy is the son of both Posiedon and Neptune. How? How is that possible.”
“That my dear, is a very long story.”