Chapter Text
What we had to lose –or what Maria had to lose– was a full bottle of whisky she found in the cellar.
The thought of having a cellar with wine and other liquors alone had made me roll my eyes. She’d had the face to call her family’s home not ostentatious.
I already knew it was a lie. She’d let me wander about the first couple of days, before she knew that my father was the god of thieves –amongst other talents–, and the place was incredible. I didn't really understand the need for such a big house, specially since Maria had told me it had only been her parents and sister when she was little –and a brother who had died before she could really remember him–. But regardless of whether it was fair for a family of four, and an army of servants, to have that house or not, it had been fascinating to explore.
The house had been mostly abandoned since the 70s. Maria’s parents must have lived a million years, as if trying to regain the lifetime their daughter didn’t have. But it had been relatively well cared for ever since their deaths —by Hades, or hired hands, or the Holy Spirit, who knew—, and still held an air of the glory it had enjoyed way before 1970. There were empty decanters where fancy drinks had been served, and those subtle cords to call the staff from the common rooms. There were hidden hallways for maids and footmen to use without being seen, and rooms with tall windows that let in the light so beautifully it was mesmerising.
I knew if Annabeth saw that place, she’d go wild with excitement. She’d be asking questions left, right, and centre about when it was built, and when it was expanded and remodelled, and what material was used for this and that, and who had designed what room…
Annabeth was a painful topic, though.
I didn’t know how to feel about her at all.
I’d betrayed her, hurt her, and manipulated her. I had hoped she’d joined my side when I first left Camp, but after a few years I’d come to realise I’d been foolish to accept Kronos as an alternative for a fairer leader.
I wanted to apologise, to explain, and to hope she’d find it in her heart to believe everything I did had been an attempt to give her, and other young demigods, a better world, one where they didn’t have to be pawns to the Olympians. I’d been blinded by hate and —Maria was right— resentment, and that had made me an easy target for another unjust mythological bastard.
I’d been stupid, and naïve, but my hurt pride hadn’t given me the right to treat her the way I did. I’d been stubborn and had felt angry that she didn’t see things my way, and in my hurry and persistence to make things right –or better, at least— I’d endangered her as much as, or perhaps even more than, the gods had.
I just wanted to tell her I was sorry. If she stabbed me afterwards, that was all right, I’d deserve it, but I wanted her to hear those words properly.
I am sorry.
Not as a deathbed confession of a man grasping at straws, but face to face, consciously and rationally.
I am sorry.
“Luke?”
Maria’s voice made me snap out of my reverie. Her expression was worried, and I realised my eyes were moist.
I was leaning on the doorframe of the backdoor –which opened to the servant’s hallway– with my arms crossed. My shoulder had been pressing against the wooden frame, making it sore.
“I was thinking about somebody,” I said.
“Was it one of the people you hurt?” She asked, in another display of undiplomatic honesty.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Not the girl Hades almost killed, I hope,” she said. “The one turned into a tree?”
“No,” I replied. “Thalia, she won’t… I’m not sure she’ll ever forgive me.”
Maria shrugged. “You don’t know that.”
You don’t know what I did, I wanted to say.
“The last time I saw her she told me I had fifteen seconds to disappear from her face or she’d shove an arrow so far up my ass I’d vomit it,” I told her. Maria would be disgusted. Despite her being surprisingly tolerant of some things, she still considered many others to be unnecessarily vulgar.
“She sounds lovely,” Maria deadpanned. “At any rate, you won’t experience the joys of throwing up arrows unless we try this offering… thing.”
She waved vaguely at the beginning of a fire we had managed —I had managed, Maria didn’t like boy-scout activities— with some old, dry wood. She picked up the newly-rediscovered whisky bottle.
“It’s one of those things my father got when he visited Scotland,” she told me. “He didn’t drink much, but he liked offering people food and drink when they made social calls.”
“Did you get many visitors?” I asked, if only to keep my mind off my old acquaintances.
Maria nodded. “My father was very sociable. He loved entertaining. My mother she— she was more like my son. She liked a selection of people, but strangers made her feel uneasy.”
I imagined Maria took after her father. After all, she’d taken me in fifteen seconds after meeting me, and not even after finding out I’d hurt people had she seemed any less homecoming.
“They lived long lives,” I commented. Then I realised it could be considered rude. “I mean, I think so. They lived until the 70s, you mentioned you had your children in the 30s, they couldn’t have been too young!” I was making it all worse. I shut up.
Luckily, Maria didn’t take offence.
“They were almost a hundred years old,” she said. She sounded a bit sad, but mostly nostalgic. “They died days apart. I doubt they could have lived without each other.”
I didn’t mean to sound cynical about love, but I had always assumed aristocrats back in the beginning of the 20th century had arranged marriages. That, however, was plain rude to say, even for me.
“How did they meet?” I asked instead, kneeling to fan the fire so it’d grow.
“Through my uncle,” she told me. “He was my father’s classmate in school. My mother’s family invited my father to spend a summer with them in their family home, and my father fell in love with my mother. Nobody took him seriously, of course. They were only thirteen.”
“It sounds like a fairytale,” I said. I hesitated for a moment. “The girl I was thinking about, not the tree one. Her name’s Annabeth. She was a little sister to me. When she was almost thirteen she met a guy, and I’m almost sure she fell in love with him that same summer, too.”
Maria smiled softly. “We’ll see her again. You can explain to her what happened, and make it up to her, whatever it is you’ve done.”
I appreciated her optimism. I tried to believe her, but I wasn’t sure I deserved it.
After all, Maria still didn’t know the extent of my wrongdoings. She probably thought I had accidentally run over Annabeth and Thalia’s hamster while learning to drive, or some sh*t like that.
“And,” Maria added as an afterthought. “You can learn whether she’s still in love with the boy or not.”
I snorted. “She is.”
“Is the boy all right?” She wondered. “Or are you going to get defensive of her virtue, as her big brother?”
That made me laugh. “I don’t think Annabeth would take it well if I tried to intervene in her relationships.”
I purposefully omitted my opinion on Percy. He’d been an okay kid, I supposed. He was annoying sometimes, too. Not particularly reliable in general. But he’d been brought up by a strong mother, which I could appreciate. I’d done my homework researching my enemies.
I studied Maria’s face as she read the little words printed on the whisky’s label.
She’d get along fine with Sally Jackson.
Or they’d kill each other. Sometimes, similar people didn’t get along.
Maria’s eyes went from the bottle to the fire. She then looked at me.
“Do I just throw the liquid into the flames?” She asked. “It’s not ideal to throw alcohol into a fire.”
I sighed. No postponing this.
I wondered what my father would do. What he would think.
I wasn’t an expert on keeping families together, but your dead son’s call must be a bizarre event, even as a god.
I knelt in front of the fire —which had an acceptable height now—, and opened my hand, stretching my arm towards Maria, who, in turn, handed over the fancy Scottish whisky.
I realised, a bit too late, that it would’ve been better to offer Hermes something that had to do with him. I doubted the whisky fell under his jurisdiction, and I really didn’t want to deal with Mr D at the moment.
I rummaged through my pockets for the item I knew I had. I’d had it on me since my first summer at Camp, and I’d never lost track of it, even after everything.
My fingers touched the cold beads at the bottom of my jeans’ pocket.
I brought out my Camp necklace, and studied it against the orange bonfire light.
Intact. The last bead was the black one with the green trident —symbol of Annabeth’s success in her first quest—.
I was reluctant to let go of it, specially since there was no guarantee this would work at all. If anything, I was expecting my father to be sitting up in his mighty floating mountain, laughing at my naïveté.
But I’d promised to help Maria get back to Nico.
Instead of New Year’s Resolutions, I was going for New Life’s Resolutions. And one of them was keeping my promises.
I took a deep breath, inhaling an unhealthy amount of smoke in the process.
“Oh, Hermes,” I prayed in Greek. “Please accept my offering.”
I poured some of the whisky into the fire —it grew less than I’d expected— and then threw my old necklace in.
There was a minute of silence, in which I stared intently into the flames.
“See?” I told Maria, turning towards her. “It’s not happening.”
Maria raised an eyebrow and pointed behind me. “That’s no way to greet your father after so long.”
