=Chapter Thirteen=
•*•
Deep clean day!
=

Sunday, 8th of September

(Dates have been added to past chapters now to help me remember the correct flow of time lol)

"Alright. Talk to you later wise girl."
My hand swiped through the iris message and cut the image off, Annabeths face disappearing.

I had IMed her to let her know about the attack, which unfortunately meant Gotham wasn't completely safe, at least for the children of the big three. There might still be hope for other demigods, ones of minor godly parents. But the theory just wasn't worth testing right now.

My main goal was to try to find a life here, visit my mom, and try to do my best to live without influence of the gods.

Cutting off my usage of my cellphone was a good first step, seeing as it still works well as a beacon, regardless of how long it takes for powerful monsters to break through.

It really did suck to get to excited for nothing, but hey, that's life for you.

Nobody had ended up coming forward about my mysterious appearance back in my apartment, so I chose to forgive and forget. For now.

Liz and I had decided on what items for decoration we wanted to purchase, and my goal for today was to buy them and then hopefully deep clean the shop for a fresh week.

I heard the oven beep, signaling the cookies were ready and I quickly put on my glasses and hurried over to pull on an oven mitt.

Putting on the glasses first appeared to be a bad plan, because the moment I took the cookies from the oven, my glasses fogged over.

"Oop.." I put the cookie tray on the stove and took off my glasses, rolling my eyes at them in defiance.

"Should've made them anti-fog.." I commented offhandedly as I scooped the cookies off the tray onto a rack to cool.

I hummed a tune I heard from gods know where as I packaged up the cookies and put them in the basket, the same ordinary routine I've been doing for months.

I heard music playing downstairs signaling May had arrived, and I took my basket and headed down the stairs.

"Good morning May." I smiled as she sung along to a song while putting money in the drawers at the register.

"Hello Percy, how did you sleep?"

"Pretty well." I replied. And it wasn't even a lie. Aside from most nights with nightmares and foreboding dreams, this night had only faint memories that didn't really come into full vividness. (Idk if someone has a better term for that lmk lol)

So overall, sleep as of late has been very good.

"Glad to hear, dear." May smiled.

I set the basket on the counter and put the tongs in.
"How about you, May?" I asked tying on an apron.

"Oh fairly well dear. These days I come to miss my husband more often."

I nod, the mood a little more somber. May had lost her husband five years ago due to Cancer, sometime in the fall. And as that season was approaching, I knew May would need that time to grieve properly, I knew very well how long mourning could last, especially if you really loved the person who passed.

"Feel free to take a day or two off, May. You know I've got it covered here." I offered in concern.

May shook her head with a small smile. "I'll be fine. Don't worry. Besides.. I only have a couple weeks before I go help Jessica."

I nodded. Family time would be good for her. "Alright. But you know Liz and I care about you, and we want you to care for yourself too, okay?"

"You two are too good for little old me." May smiled adoringly.

"You're hardly old, May."

"67 is old, Percy. Don't flatter me."

•*•

"THE FUN HAS ARIVEDDDDDD" Liz posed as she walked through the front door, throwing a hand up in style, a stack of mail in the other.

"Hi Liz." I grinned.

"Please tell me you got that reference." Liz begged, walking over to the counter.

"Can't say I did.." I admitted

"You've never watched Disney's Tarzan??!!" Liz gasped in offense.

"Liz I've only seen finding Nemo." I grinned sheepishly.

Liz' mouth hung open. "This can't be.."

I rolled my eyes.

"No.. why.." Liz continued to lament.

"Percy you wound me.." she threw her hand against her head, tossing it back dramatically.

"You poor thing had no childhood.." she fake sobbed.

"Cut it out Liz.." I watched her with a raised eyebrow.

"Okay okay.. but this IS a serious offense. We will be having a movie night someday." Liz threatened.

"Alright, Liz, I promise we will have a movie night, 'kay?" I shook my head in amusement.

Liz rolled her eyes giving me a you better look and turned to May. "Sooooooooooo....." she drew out the O's like it was a who can sing the longest contest.
"What we doing today?" She turned to me, without giving May a moment to respond. "did you order the things yet?!!"

I shook my head. "Not yet, I'll do it in a minute."

Liz nodded and then paused, before passing the stack of mail over to me.

"Here. Someone forgot to check the mail for like.. a week."

I looked through it, my expression perking as I noticed an envelope with my name on it. "I almost forgot..." I smiled, opening it up. Inside was my new debit card.

"Oh a debit card?" Liz peeked over my hands.

"Mhm. Forgot about it to be honest." I flipped the card over to read the instructions. "Looks like I gotta call to unlock it."

"Well you can do that later, for now, order the goods!!" Liz insisted.

"Okay, okay. One second." I pulled up Amazon on my phone and started checking out my cart, using Mays card. "Okay.. and done. Should be here in a few days."

"Good. Now what?" She turned to May, who had been watching with an amused yet melancholy smile.

"Well.. I do believe Percy had an itinerary for today, why don't we go over it?" May offered.

"It's basically a bunch of cleaning." I hinted.

"Oh."

•*•

"So.. what do you do in your free time?"

I looked up, Jason sitting on a couch with a laptop in hand, coffee beside him.

I had been cleaning and organizing all morning, and too my surprise, Jason had came in again, choosing to order a cookie and sitting in our seating area for an hour at least.

"Read.. mostly." I answered, continuing to scrub the wooden floors.

"Anything interesting as of late?" He asked, putting down the lid of his laptop, giving me his full attention.

"I've been working my way through the Stormlight archive." I offered.

"It's like a science fiction fantasy kind of series." I added.

He nodded. "Interesting. Maybe I'll check it out. You have it here?"

"Yeah, all of Brandon Sandersons books are in shelf five on the left. He's got quite a good collection."

"..hm. Well thank you for the suggestion. Anything else you like to do or.. are you just a book worm." He grinned.

"Well, I do bake a little." I shrugged.

"You make all the cookies?" He asked, taking a look at the wrapper of his already eaten cookie.

"Yup. Freshly baked every morning."

"So you put a lot of work into these. They are surprisingly good." He compliments, setting the wrapper down.

"But I gotta ask.. why are they blue?"

I chuckle a bit, knowing how curious everyone has to be when they see the cookies.

"It's my mom's recipe. She and I love all things blue. My step dad and her got in an argument once about blue food so.. she went out of her way to make everything and anything blue as much as she could.." I sigh, missing my mom in that moment.

"And blue just makes everything taste better." I stated, taking my rag and dipping it into the warm water in a pail before wringing it out and scrubbing again.

"Interesting. Your mom sounds like a wonderful woman."

"She is." I nod.

We both fell into a silence while I scrubbed and he watched, much to my embarrassment.

After a couple minutes he turned back to his laptop and continued working on whatever it was he was doing, and I moved onto another section, finally relieved to be free from his analyzing eyes, which strangely reminded me of the way Annabeth would sometimes look at someone or something when she was trying to figure something out.

I wasn't really sure why he had picked this place to hang out, as coffee shops were probably better choice, but who was I to turn away a customer.

"Hey Percy, I finished dusting.." Liz said dejectedly, shoulders slouched as she walked over.

"Nice work, Liz." I grin. "Isn't this so refreshing?" I teased.

"So refreshing." She glared and rolled her eyes.

"Well now that you're done.." I wink.

"No." She violently shakes her head.

"You didn't let me speak." I said in fake surprise.

"I'm not cleaning anything else. I'm gonna sit at the register and you're gonna let me."

I laugh. "Okay."

"Alright well excuse me.. I'm gonna go.. far away from you.."

•*•

Hi everyone! Thanks for reading.
Hope you enjoyed, and if you have any suggestions for future chapters let me know!

Toodles!
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