Chapter Text
Piper betrays her friends.
She dreams of her father—kidnapped, bound, tortured. She dreams of a face rough-hewn from stone, dead-white eyes crinkling above a fanged grin. Purple flames. A voice like a rockslide:
Lead your friends here instead of their true destination. Be at the summit by noon on the solstice, and you may collect your father and go in peace.
She’s haunted by flashes in the blade of a bronze knife. Flame, smoke. Blood seeping down her father’s matted hair. She doesn’t want the weapon, but she stands in the dusty shed, sees his heaving chest and shallow breaths, and she can’t leave that proof behind.
She’s haunted by ghosts too, real ones, resurrected and angry. By Medea’s sickly-sweet pity, your father could go free, and how Jane smiles blandly to the woman’s will.
She’s haunted by how easily her friends drop the topic when she asks them to—
And she doesn’t want to. But Piper betrays her friends.
Aeolus can’t tell them where the Wolf House is. Neither can Piper. All she knows is…
The Bay Area, she says, the top of Mt. Diablo. It’s built in the wilderness up there.
They believe her. (Of course they do.)
Aeolus looks at her with something like pity in those cloud-wisp eyes. She grits her teeth and ignores it. She doesn’t take the photograph he plucks out of the air and offers to her with trembling fingers—she doesn’t need it.
How do you know? Jason says, squinting. She makes herself smile when Leo replies come on, you’re doubting nerd girl extraordinaire here? I bet her dad’s about to be in a Jack London biopic.
When it all goes south, the sweet air nymph who cushions their fall sends them where they need to go—no. Where Piper said they need to go.
She leaves them outside a cafe overlooking the San Francisco Bay.
Piper wakes from a dream of her mother’s face pulled taut in disapproval, warnings that even if her father survives this she should not let him remember it, that Piper is playing into an ancient enemy’s hands, that Aphrodite understands being pulled by love but her eyes flash red and she says not all love is kind my dear and you cannot do this—
But she can.
And she does.
Even though her mother dresses her in red, bright and angry as a blaring warning sign, as the blood Piper’s about to have on her hands—
Her friends still believe her.
And she still betrays them.
It’s the worst thing she’s ever done.
Jason squints the whole walk up the mountain, nervously tapping the end of his shining gold javelin against the earth. He digs his teeth into his lip, and the scar above it pulls sideways. They step into the clearing—Enceladus is grinning—fire burns and burns and burns—
He breathes "This isn’t the place. Piper, what—”
“I’m sorry,” she croaks, sick to her stomach, sick, sick. “I’m so sorry.”
Leo’s face crumples—the worst part is, he doesn’t even look surprised.
His hands blaze to life, but the monster sprouts up behind him out of nowhere. No, out of the earth itself.
And he looks like he’s finally letting himself believe something he’s known all along.
It’s the worst thing Piper’s ever done. She’ll live with that knowledge for the rest of her life.
But Enceladus beams.
“Well done, little hero,” he tells her.
She’s sick, sick, bile burning her throat.
The giant spreads his hands wide, still beaming, and monsters melt away from the stake where her father hangs. She can’t see his face behind the curtain of his matted hair—but his feet spasm. She tells herself it means he’s alive.
At least he’s alive.
“Piper, don’t,” Jason yells from the arms of one of the monsters. Keeps shouting even as muddy fingers creep to cover his mouth. “Piper, it’s a trick—mmph!”
Enceladus shakes his head.
“I promise you, my dear, it is not. Why would I bother?” Flames flicker and Piper’s heart hammers and she takes a step closer to her father and nothing happens. The earth stays solid beneath her feet.
Enceladus still grins, wide and horrible.
“What do I care about one mortal, or one daughter of Aphrodite?”
Jason thrashes in the arms of the monster as it drags him towards Enceladus. She can see electric-blue sparks crackling down his arms—but they just sink uselessly into muddy flesh.
Leo doesn’t fight, doesn’t struggle. He just stares at her. His mouth is uncovered.
He doesn’t bother speaking.
Piper’s stomach churns. She takes another step. Another. Close enough to hear her father’s rasping breath.
Hair flutters over his lips, in ragged time with the gasps. Flies swarm, buzz. There’s soot worn into the seams of his clothes, and blood. (Flies swarm. Buzz.) Red soaks fabric everywhere the ropes dig in, keeping him upright on the stake. His feet are swollen and going purple as they twitch.
Piper is sick, is sick, is sick—
“Cut him down, child,” Enceladus says. She can hear his smile even though she can’t look away from her dad. “My lady and I have sworn you may go. It is worth far more to us to keep our word, so that you know the value of our promises—greater than those of the gods.”
“Piper…” Leo says, finally. His voice cracks, and Piper can’t, she can’t—
She draws her knife.
She’ll never be able to go back to camp. She’s letting them down so badly, so so badly, this whole new world that was counting on her. (Maybe the whole world, if Gaea rising is everything they were all so scared of.) Goddesses and gods and Jason and Leo—
But.
“Dad,” she whispers. Grits her teeth, and—cuts him free.
He’s tied so tight the ropes snap the second her blade touches them. He topples down.
She drops the knife, (the stupid, cursed knife), and flings her arms around him.
He’s heavy. She buckles, and they’re both on the ground. His head lands hard on her shoulder. She wants to tuck her face into his neck and hide from the world but she can feel him shaking, flailing, whispering no no no no no—
“Dad,” she says, and listens to her voice break, the farthest from powerful it has ever felt. He smells so terrible she can taste it. Sweat and stale dirt and scorched flesh and blood. God, so much blood. “Dad, I’m here, it’s me.”
She grips the back of his shirt in her fists. The fabric is soaked and sticky. Her eyes sting.
“No,” he rasps. His hands are limp on the ground, not hugging her back. “No, Pipes, no, you can’t be, no, she’s safe, she’s safe—”
Enceladus coughs, and Piper forces herself to look up. His smile is gone, replaced by a boredom so thorough it makes her head spin.
But of course he’s bored. Her part in this is supposed to be over.
The traitor exits stage left, and the hungry audience stops caring because it’s time for a bigger tragedy, for the characters who really matter to have their day—
“I’d suggest you hurry on now. We have work to do here.”
Enceladus is flanked by the two huge mud monsters holding Jason and Leo. Leo’s still staring at her, not quite stricken.
Jason’s gone entirely still, eyes closed, muscles taut like he’s focusing. Gods, she hopes he has a plan—he’s a hero, right? A real hero? He’ll figure it out.
“Dad,” she says, one more time, and heaves them both upright. He stumbles, looks at her without seeing her. She forces herself to ignore it and drapes his arm across her shoulders. “It’s time to go.”
“Pipes?” he says.
“Yeah.” She starts walking. His head lolls. He’s so, so heavy—but his legs kick out, stumbling into some semblance of helping her. She ignores the little gasp he makes every time his feet touch the ground. “Yeah, dad. Come on. We’re going home.”
“Home,” he whispers.
Piper bites her tongue so she doesn’t cry, because he has never sounded so young, so fragile. Like someone she barely even knows.
Behind her, she can hear Enceladus starting to chant.
She doesn’t look back.
In the end, it’s her stupid fucking ankle that gives out. Again. Of course, of course.
She’d been ignoring the stabbing pain easily enough because she had to. Had to get herself and her too-silent father down the mountain. So she was ignoring the bile churning in her stomach and the tears threatening behind her eyes and the agony with every step—
She had her dad. They were going to be okay. They were going to be okay, they were—
And then she steps a little too quickly, and something snaps, and before she knows it she’s sprawled out in the dirt, gasping under her father’s weight.
Dust billows up around her from the half-maintained road. When she inhales on reflex, it scratches down her throat, and for a moment she considers just giving up. Someone’ll drive along here eventually, right?
Her dad moans. Piper bites her tongue. Okay. Okay.
There’s more of that ambrosia stuff in her backpack, and whatever else is in the little first aid kit with the stupid cartoon sun designs. Water, too.
That's definitely a good idea, actually. If they just take a minute now her dad will snap out of it. And then they’ll get off this mountain—
Thunder booms, chattering Piper’s teeth. She tastes sulfur, even though the sliver of sky she can see is still searing blue.
It’s a good sign, she tells herself, it has to be, Jason’s figuring it out. They’ll be fine, and she—
She can do this.
She chokes down another gritty road-dust breath, and rolls out from under her dad. Her ankle burns—she ignores it, and braces herself on her elbows. Pushes up, inch by inch.
By the time she gets fully upright and spins the backpack into her lap, her entire leg is on fire. Thunder roars again.
She doesn’t flinch, she doesn’t whimper. She doesn’t. Because her dad is spread-eagled and flinching as the clear sky crackles and she can be strong. She can—
She grabs the zipper. Pulls—fumbles it through her shaking fingers, has to try again—and the first aid kit is right at the top of the pack.
She tears open the ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, (ignoring the voice in her head reminding her that this didn’t work last time, the gods must know she betrayed them and why would they heal her), and gulps one down whole. Fever spikes immediately, searing the rest of her body as hot as her leg.
It still tastes exactly like her dad's black-bean soup.
She squeezes her eyes shut against the sudden sting in their corners. Breathes in through her nose, holds it—
“Pipes,” her dad mumbles. “Pipes, please.”
The fire ebbs, leaving the back of her neck cool and clammy, but her leg is still scorched and aching. She digs her teeth back into her tongue. Opens her eyes.
He isn’t looking back at her. No, he's flat on his back, eyes squeezed shut and twitching under their lids.
Aphrodite’s dream-voice echoes in Piper’s head—it will shatter him.
She digs her nails into the dusty ground and pushes herself along the road until she’s even with her dad’s head. He flinches at the sound—“Mom? Mom, I’m sorry, I did my best,” he whimpers.
“It’s okay,” Piper tells him, lips burning and hoping it’s just the dust, because she can’t tell anymore whether she’s bleeding charmspeak. “You did good. You did so good.”
He just whimpers. She goes hastily back to her backpack. The first aid kit is kind of useless, for someone who can’t have ambrosia. Just bandages and gauze and a little spray bottle of saline, no advil or anything. But under it in the bag is a crisp white bandana, and two huge metal water bottles—okay. This will work. It will.
She sets the backpack down and slides her hands under her dad's head to cradle him into her lap, ignoring his little whimpers as best she can. (There’s blood in her mouth again, slick on her teeth. His hair is greasy and caked in dust and she hates this, hates…)
This close, she can see every detail. Sweat streaks through the grime on his cheeks and pools in the stubble above his lip. The corners of his dry mouth are pale and scabbing. Blood rusts down the right side of his face from a swollen, tarry cut at his temple.
She gives herself three breaths for her hands to flutter uselessly. For panic to rattle in her lungs, static to scream through her thoughts. Just three breaths, and then—
“I can do this,” she says, imagining for a wistful moment that the magic in her voice will work on herself. It doesn’t, of course.
It doesn’t matter. Her fingers won’t stop shaking, but she doesn’t need them to.
She cracks open the first water bottle, soaks the bandana. A few drops splash down onto her dad’s face, and he tilts blindly towards it—good, good, okay.
He’s going to be okay.
She dabs carefully at the worst of the blood. Not the cut itself, she doesn’t want to touch that, but the stain splashing down over his cheek and onto his neck…she can handle that. Just…just making him look a little more himself.
He leans into her touch as she brushes over his cheek, blinks—then blinks again. His eyes flutter open, find her face, and—and actually stay there.
He sees her.
A sob slips out before Piper can catch it.
“Pipes?” he rasps.
She swipes hastily at her eyes, tries a smile. “Yeah, Dad. Yeah. I’m here.”
“You…” he breaks off, coughs, and she spins hastily to her side, grabbing the still mostly-full water bottle.
“Here,” she blurts. He tries to sit up to grab it but his arms shake, and then buckle, and she loops hers hastily around him, dragging him to lean on her shoulder. Ignoring that it makes her eyes sting—
He takes the water. Agonizingly slowly, hands still trembling, but it gets to his lips. And he drinks in familiar careful sips, (slow down now, kiddo, you’re gonna make yourself sick), and suddenly she can see him again.
He’s alive.
She bites down on another sob, but she can’t stop it trembling through her shoulders. Her dad lowers the water bottle and looks at her—his eyes are soft. Nobody’s looked at Piper like that since…since…
She looks away, reaching hastily for the first-aid kit.
It doesn’t stop her ears from echoing the crash of waves against the rocky shore. The croak of bullfrogs, and whirring crickets, and a little fire crackling down to coals…
“Pipes?” her dad repeats. His voice is still hoarse, scraping and cracking, but it’s familiar again. As the sea, and the horrible fact of how much he loves her.
She wedges her thumb behind the zipper and scrapes it open as slowly as she can manage.
“What—what happened?”
It will shatter him, Aphrodite echoes in Piper’s mind. Her warm brown eyes turn storm-gray, bore in, scorch her down to the bone. She will break you.
You cannot do this.
“It, it was,” she starts—and then, to her horror, tears are splashing down onto the gauze in her hands. Words crack apart into a whimper. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
But that doesn’t matter. She didn’t know, but the monsters still came for him, just because of her. Because of the mother she didn’t know, the power she didn’t ask for, the prophecy she doesn’t want—
Her dad can’t quite keep himself from groaning as he moves but it doesn’t stop him.
He sets the water down, threads an arm around Piper’s shoulders, and crushes her to his chest.
“It was not your fault,” he says. “I don’t—I don’t know what happened. But I know that.”
She can’t answer. She can feel his breath, a steady rise and fall beneath her cheek. He still smells sour and oily and awful. His shirt is so caked with grime she can practically feel it scraping her skin raw.
But she’s so tired.
He’s alive.
She closes her eyes and lets the tears flood down.
“Oh, baby,” he whispers. “Sweetheart. It wasn’t your fault.”
She should argue. She tries to argue, she does—but she opens her mouth, and the inhale becomes a sob, becomes a wail, scraping everything out of her lungs, punching open her ribs. And then she can’t stop. It’s every tear she hasn’t cried since the first call, since the giant’s first grin, tearing its way loose now. And her dad—
His hands tighten around her. (She feels him wince at the effort, but he only holds her tighter when it passes). And then he starts to hum.
“Usdi yona,” he sings—and she hasn’t heard these words in years, but she still knows every one. “Usdi yona, osda klegi…”
This is the lullaby Grandpa Tom used to sing her, late nights on his porch, balancing her on his knee so she could look out at the Oklahoma stars.
This is the song her dad would sing on long drives and in motel beds, back before he made it big, when he couldn’t afford a babysitter and had to bring her along wherever he traveled for shoots or auditions. In those hazy liminal spaces when it was just the two of them, and the rest of the world was safe and unreachable behind glass fogged with their breath…
She winds her fingers into the tatters of his shirt and cries herself dry.
She knows her dad feels it when the tears peter out, leaving nothing but a cooling patch on his shirt and a faint tremor in her shoulders. He keeps singing though, fingers combing rhythmically through her hair, until the latest loop of the song is done.
There’s a single beat of silence—
He leans back, and cups a careful hand around her face. “Piper.”
That’s his serious voice. His trouble voice. His I-can’t-smooth-this-one-over-they’re-taking-you-away voice. Piper closes her eyes.
He’s going to ask her to explain again, and she isn’t going to be able to cry her way out of it this time. She’s going to have to tell him. Watch him shatter…
He wipes his thumb gently across her cheek, smoothing away the last of her tears. She tries to ignore how he’s still shaking.
“Three questions,” he says.
“Dad…”
“One. Are you hurt?”
Her eyes, ridiculously, burn again. There’s no water left in her to cry, the roof of her mouth desert-dry, but the tenderness in his voice...
She rolls her ankle, carefully, waiting for the agony. It doesn’t come—but there’s an ache under the skin like an old bruise.
“Maybe,” she tells him. She keeps her eyes squeezed shut, childish. “My ankle keeps—rebreaking. I guess. I don’t…”
“Okay.” His fever-hot hand leaves her cheek. The first aid kit crinkles and he grunts quietly. She can feel his fingers picking at the laces of her boot, working it slowly off. A moment of dizzy pain as he lifts her bare foot into his lap—
She digs her nails into her palms and forces her eyes open.
He’s holding an Ace bandage and squinting at her ankle, but the second her gaze lands he looks up to meet it. His black eyes are warm, and he smiles—not the gleaming crooked grin that they plaster across posters. The soft one, lips pressed together and only one dimple showing, that he saves just for her.
She swallows.
“Two,” he says, and carefully lifts her ankle to start spooling the bandage around it. “The…the…whatever kidnapped me.”
His voice wobbles. Piper bites her lip.
“The one in charge said he was going to kill your friends. Did he mean it?”
Her fingers tap and flex without her permission. She focuses. Forces them to reach for the discarded water bottle instead of the pointless fidgeting.
“It doesn’t matter, okay?” She flips the bottle over in her hands. And again. Spinning and spinning. “I did what I had to do. We’ll—we’ll be okay.”
“Hmm.” He flattens the Velcro end of the bandage down. “Wiggle your toes for me?”
“Dad,” she sighs, but obliges. The motion twinges a little, much less than it had. “My circulation’s fine.”
“Good,” he says, and starts tugging her sock back on. “Three.”
“Technically you already asked three,” she mutters, and takes a gulp of water.
“Mmm.” He’s exactly as unimpressed as she expected. “Three. If you went back right now, could you save them?”
“Dad.” Her voice cracks. She drops the bottle and digs her fists into her eye sockets. She isn’t—she can’t—
“Pipes.” He settles her foot gently back on the ground. She can feel his eyes on her, pressing down. “Could you save them?”
“I don’t know!” She clenches her fists tighter, but she can’t unburn the images from the backs of her eyes.
Jason, thrashing in muddy arms. Enceladus grinning.
Leo’s eyes slipping closed, face cold and set and entirely unsurprised.
“I just don’t, okay? The monsters, and I’m not—they’re both real heroes, I just—I just wanted you home.”
“Oh, baby.” His hands fold over hers. His breath trembles, but he holds on like he’ll never let go. “Look at me.”
She doesn’t want to. She never wants to look at anyone again—
She opens her eyes, and her dad’s face is the softest she’s ever seen it.
“I love you,” he whispers. “So much.”
And then he sets his jaw to steel.
“Could you save them?”