Child of Time

Chapter Thirty-Six: Watermelon...

i hate the heat. i am done. so i'm moving to Antarctica. toodles.

LUKE

"Hey, Mother." She smiles down at Percy and opens her arms for a hug. I can see him hesitate for a second before he walked into her embrace.

"Hello, Perseus." He sighs and steps away from her. I slowly move over to the other demigods so I could clearly see both Rhea and Percy.

"Mother, why are you here?" I can see the hurt in her eyes at Percy's words and his neutral tone.

"Perseus, I'm your mother. I just wanted to know you were okay."

"I'm perfectly fine." His voice was tired, as if he hadn't slept for days despite being mostly asleep for two weeks. "You don't have to stay here and pretend to care."

"But, Perseus, I do care."

Percy nods with her statement. I wasn't sure if he was nodding out of belief or something else. "Okay."

"Perseus, what's wrong?"

Percy hesitates, "Nothing. I'm fine."

"Perseus." Rhea reaches her hand over to Percy, but his flinch causes her to stop and look at him in confusion.

"Go away, Mother. If you want to go and play good mom and pretend that we're one big happy family then you've come to the wrong place. Go to your better children and cry to them about how much of a caring mother you are, but don't come here and pretend that you actually care about me. I want no part of it. So just leave me alone." He says all that in a low and steady voice. Rhea looks at him in shock and confusion as Percy finds new interest in the floor.

"Perseus, wait! I can change it, I promise."

"People don't change." I frown at that.

"You did." Rhea says. Percy stares at her with a frown creasing his face. "You changed so much since you've been up here. Down in Tartarus, I remember you being so cruel. You hated everything that had to do with the gods. You said you were going to kill all of them, not one of them would be spared." I frown in confusion and I see Percy glance at us.

"But you weren't going to stop there."

"Please stop, Mother." He whispers quietly, I could barely hear him.

"People change, Perseus. You changed because you no longer want to kill the demigods anymore. That was your plan, right? Gain the demigods' favour and then you were going to kill them after you caused the gods to fade."

"Mother, stop."

"No." Rhea's eyes harden. "You can try to say that you were the good guy. That you were going to revive your grandmother so she can get rid of everyone else and only the titans and primordials would be on this earth so we could start over. Isn't it."

"Mother—"

"Isn't it." She repeated.

"Yes." He whispered. "I was going to kill them."

Me and the rest of the demigods were staring at Percy in shock and disbelief. If he really was planning on killing us, he did a very good job on making sure that we never found out. He was always saying that he had talked his dad into letting them spare the demigods...but how much of that had been true?

"And now?"

Percy looks back to us. "I couldn't kill them even if I tried."

"See? People change. You just have to give them a chance to."

"You want me to give you a chance to change? Change what?"

"I can't fight with you against them." Rhea states firmly, "But I can't fight against you either."