Poseidon tells Sally himself, and sometimes Paul wishes he could have seen her slam the door in the god's face. Because even after she shares the news with him, Paul still has a hard time grappling with the fact that his son and Annabeth are in Tartarus. He's been on the outside observing since coming into the Jacksons' world, but this is the thing that feels like too much. The kind of thing that kicks his surprising amount of dad-instincts into overdrive because Percy isn't even seventeen. He doesn't even have his license. There's too much of the world on his shoulders.

All he can do is hold Sally and wait. The both of them wait, as they have so often in the past, but the air is heavier now than it's ever been, and Paul wishes more than anything with the weight of it that he could do more than just wait.

Paul can't decide if it's worse than the months of radio silence. Each day that goes by without word from anyone makes the air even heavier, even if he and Sally never mention it out loud. They don't need to, though. Tartarus whispers invisibly in every room, but most of all in Percy's, where the emptiness and abandoned mess from last winter are suddenly more painful. Sally can't bring herself to close the door entirely, leaving it open a crack; Paul catches her sometimes, stopping in front of it and peering inside, but he never closes it, never says anything, just takes her gently by the hand and presses a kiss to her forehead.

She'd go inside every other week, to dust, and she starts to go in every other day now. Because Percy is going to come home, and her absolute belief fuels Paul's own.

"Today is Annabeth's birthday," Sally says over breakfast. Paul looks up from his cereal, to find his wife staring out the window. "She's seventeen."

She is seventeen. Paul finishes chewing, sets the spoon down in his bowl and reaches out to rest his fingers over Sally's. Her gaze shifts to his, and she smiles at him. "I'm going to bake a cake." She doesn't say when, but there's no need to clarify. "With trick candles," she adds on, amusement dancing in her eyes.

"Don't let Percy cheat and douse them when she can't blow them out." He wins a genuine laugh, and his lips quirk up in a genuine smile.

"I'll lay down some ground rules. I need to buy balloons, only a handful."

She continues making her plans for a small celebration, and Paul contributes; for a few moments, it feels like they're just waiting for her and Percy to get in from Camp.

Grover contacts them. Paul doesn't think she's ever seen Sally look so steadfastly hopeful.

He doesn't explain it in detail, though they're used to that by this point – but the satyr does tell them Annabeth sent a message. He blabbers on, run-on sentences and bleating included, but it's the first good sign that her children are okay. He accidentally eats a plate, but Sally couldn't care less, and her hand is squeezing Paul's tight enough to hurt.

"They're going to be okay," Grover says resolutely, vocalizing everything else they need to hear at the same time. His voice is hard, hurting, but determined. He can't stay long, though, and he vanishes from their apartment not too much later.

Sally collapses against Paul, her arms snaking around him and pulling him close. His response is instant, arms holding her tight.

"They're going to be okay," Sally repeats, with the same tone as Grover. It's not much, not at all – just a note sent from the pits of hell, but Paul clings to it just as desperately as she does.

The note, the brief visit from Grover, it's all they get throughout the rest of July into August. It's such a tiny spark of hope, but it hangs in the air alongside the silence, a fragment starred like a very important memo.

Paul counts the days until Percy's birthday, each day one less (each day one more without knowing if either of them have made it out), but unlike Annabeth's, this is one date Sally doesn't bring up. He thinks she might, a handful of times, but instead she abruptly changes course. But there are new lines on her face every morning, and sometimes she wakes up more exhausted than yesterday.

Not for the first time, Paul feels powerless in a land of gods and monsters, where teenage boys and girls are the heroes. But not the kind of hero held at arm's length to be looked at with reverence only when the occasion calls for it – the kind of hero where death looks them in the face every day, tries to dance with them, and they have no choice but to play along. It's been too long since Paul has seen his son, and he wants to rip the hero away to leave only the teenager behind.

But as they've done for the last few months, all he can do is continue work, continue school, continue loving Sally and make sure the light in the living room stays on.

All in all, it's a rather normal sweltering summer day. They've got the air conditioning turned on, but it needs to be inspected, so it's not as cool as they'd like for it to be comfortable.

Sally's idly flipping through a book on the couch, with a notebook beside her for the research, and Paul's working on a proposal at the kitchen table. He hums thoughtfully, then gets up and heads for the living room, wanting to ask her opinion.

He gets halfway through the sentence when the handle on front door turns, and it starts opening – tentatively, slowly. Both Paul and Sally's eyes move upward and lock onto it instantly; they leave it unlocked most days when they're both home, despite living in Manhattan, but it doesn't stop either of them from tensing up.

Except when the door opens, it's Percy Jackson who shuffles through the threshold awkwardly. He catches Paul's eye for a moment, but his attention falls to his mother right away.

He can hear the way she sucks in a breath of air, sharply, and for a long few seconds, it feels like everything freezes in place. Sally's watching her boy, almost like she can't quite believe he's there.

And then Percy shuts the door quietly behind him; his shoulders slump, his fingers twitch, like he wants to rush forward, but there's something holding him back.

"Uh," he starts, and his voice pierces the apartment in the warmest way, despite it barely even being a real word. It's a sound that hasn't been heard in months, beyond a brief message on the answering machine. "Hi, mom, I –"

He doesn't get to finish, because Sally's on her feet the moment the Uh leaves her son's mouth, and they reach for each other at the exact moment. Paul doesn't think he's ever seen a hug so all-encompassing before in his life.

He's glued where he stands, as much as he loves Percy, too, because there's a part of him still flabbergasted with the overwhelming relief.

"I'm sorry," comes Percy's voice, soft and quiet and nervous and choked all at once, as he clings to his mother tightly. Her arms circle him, cradle him, and if she notices the new scars on his arms (Paul does), she doesn't pay them any mind. "I'm sorry, Mom." His voice cracks with the words, because he means it so utterly, like there aren't enough apologies in the world to make up for what he's put his mother through.

Sally's crying. Paul doesn't know when she started, but he doesn't really know when his own eyes started prickling with tears either. It's about then that he notices how much taller Percy's gotten – a few inches, for sure, but he stands higher over his mother in a way that's almost startling. Her forehead is pressed into his shoulder, tucked in as her body shakes just so from it all.

"Shh," she whispers, running her hand through his hair. "You're alive, I don't care. I love you."

Percy starts crying, though Paul's not sure if that's only the first he's noticed of it. His observational skills are too focused on the fact that his son is back standing in the living room. Safe. Alive. His heart hurts, but for the first time in ages, in the best way possible. Months of silence. Only the most minute of messages and reassurances. Over. He can't go as far to say it's irrelevant now, because Paul is suddenly just as mad as he is relieved – Poseidon might be Percy's father by blood, but Paul is his father, too (by love and by choice), and he's angry at the changes he can see, physical and otherwise, changes he wasn't able to be privy to, changes forced on his son and hardening him.

"I love you, too, Mom," he mutters, like he can't trust himself to speak it. But he holds his mother to him close, too close, like letting go would mean he'd get ripped away again.

"Annabeth?" is the next thing Sally inquires to the surprise of absolutely no one, the words muffled as her face is still buried in her son's shirt.

"She's okay," he says, with his own relief, with such adoration that Paul wants to hug the girl, wherever she is, for whatever she's done for Percy's sake. No one speaks like that about another person without reason or love. "We're both okay."

Sally starts sobbing harder, but it's with total happiness now. She starts rocking him in her arms, and he lets himself go with it. After a while, he looks up over his mother's shoulder, catching Paul's eyes again at last. He offers a sheepish smile. "Hey, Paul."

It's so simple. Hey, Paul, like he's just come home from a long day at school, quietly pleased with himself for avoiding another expulsion. "Hey, Percy," he says back, but there's no simplicity in the amount of feeling that comes out in it.

Sally pulls back after the brief exchange, though she keeps her hand at the small of his back, and almost as if she knew exactly why, chose the timing of it with reason, Paul sweeps in and pulls Percy to him tightly. There's something taut in his bones, almost something that feels like it's perpetually on edge, and Paul could speculate, but there's time for that later.

It's when he's holding Percy in his arms that he realizes Percy's gotten taller than him, too. It shouldn't be so noticeable, but they'd been roughly the same height, the last time he saw him. Too many months, stolen from all three of them.

But Percy clings to him just as desperately as he held his mother. His body is shaking a little, but it's so slight, and Paul only makes the realization because they're so close together. After – a minute? Two? He's not really sure – Paul pulls back, and it's definitely only a few seconds before Sally's got her arms around him once more.

There is absolutely no one in the world Sally Jackson loves more than her son. Her son – his son – who has been to hell and back and once again come home. Honestly, Paul pretty much never stops being amazed by this boy. But maybe boy isn't as applicable anymore. He's bridged the gap closer to adulthood faster than is comfortable in his eyes, and even though it hurts to see the effects of what he's been through, he'll never stop being proud either.

"I want you to invite Annabeth over," Sally says, pulling back and clutching Percy's face between her hands. "And we're going to have dinner. I owe her a cake."

His face breaks into a smile; it starts out small, but it widens as her words sink in. And then he laughs. "Blue?"

Sally laughs, too. "Absolutely blue," she says, and she leans up, pulling her son's head down to kiss his forehead. He wraps his arms around his mother a little more tightly again after that, letting himself relax in ways Paul's not sure he's had the opportunity to in ages.

There will be time for questions and explanations and stories later. None of that is important right now, though. Right now, Paul is going to bask in the fact that his son – and Annabeth – are both safe and home, and standing there in the living room, he considers for the first time the lengths he would go to in the hopes of letting both of them get well-deserved rest. The might of the gods would quake under Sally, though – maybe he can piggyback that.

Heroes, that's what they are. He doesn't even have to know the details, never will know all of them, doesn't even want to know all of them. There is glory in the word, but there's a flipside to be suffered, for both Annabeth and Percy themselves, but for the ones they leave waiting, too.

Sally finally pulls back, though she drags her hands down to take Percy's in her own. She looks over him carefully, and her brow furrows as she notices little details she'd ignored before, but the smile slips back onto her face. Because Percy is home. And it's time to celebrate that fact.

He smiles, at both of them, with such open honesty and relief to be with them again. Paul claps him on the shoulder, and he buckles a little under it. All things considered, maybe that means he hasn't changed as much as it seems. "Welcome home, Percy."

Sally kisses him on the cheek; Percy beams, squeezes her hand. And their apartment no longer feels empty.

paul is the best stepdad in the world and he'd be missing percy a lot too okay (originally on ao3)