Chapter Text
Artemis was sitting at her desk doing […] homework like any other weekday. She savored the quiet; it was rare for the house to be this calm with all her family living there. But everyone was either busy or out, so she was taking advantage of this time to focus.
Eventually, the peace was shattered by the sound of the front door slamming into the wall followed by unintelligible shrieking.
Artemis sighed and rolled her eyes, reaching for her headphones to drown out the latest fight between Apollo and their dad Zeus. But right then, she heard footsteps pounding down the hall until they stopped right in front of her door. This was shortly followed by banging on the door.
“Artemis!” Apollo cried. Confusedly, she got up and opened the door.
Artemis woke up and glanced around. Her current room was nothing like her childhood bedroom, something that both settled her and left her feeling hollow.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she sat there in thought.
The same dream. Always the same one.
After some time, she pushed herself to her feet and trudged to the bathroom to get ready for the day.
As Artemis did her routine, she found her eyes drifting to the photo taped to the mirror. It was of two teenagers, a boy and a girl, smiling at the camera and holding bunny ears behind each other’s heads. She remembered this moment.
Their older brother Hephaestus was holding a pool party to celebrate the 4th of July, and Apollo wanted to remember it with his new film camera. It was the summer before their senior year of high school, the last summer they spent together before everything went horribly wrong.
Carefully, Artemis brushed her fingers over the photo, lingering slightly on the image of her brother. The grief still hurt, still agonized her, but these days, it felt like it was all she really knew.
And after what she failed to do, it was honestly deserved. What she felt was only a fraction of how Apollo probably felt when he was unwound. She quietly finished getting ready.
Someone rapped on the door. “Come in,” she called out behind her.
The door swung open and her lieutenant, Thalia, peeked her head in before walking into the room.
“The new arrivals are here,” Thalia said, nodding at her in greeting.
“Jason checking on them?” Artemis asked as she tied off her braid before reaching for her bag. It was expected that he’d be inspecting it as one of the pilots on this trip.
“And Annabeth and Percy.”
The redhead hummed in acknowledgment, checking her bag for everything she needed. She slung the bag over her shoulder and headed towards the door. “Let’s go join them and meet the new group.”
The pair made their way through the Waystation, being greeted by the residents along the way in some nod or wave before continuing their duties.
Artemis had left her home the same day Apollo was taken from it. She couldn’t stand the idea of living with the man who chose to sign that order and take her twin away from all of them, from her.
Ever since she left, she worked tirelessly to make up for what happened, even just a little bit. She established the Hunters, an underground group that smuggled and protected unwinds until they were 18 and no longer bound by the order. It was everything she wished she could have done for Apollo.
It was possibly wishful thinking—and would never make up for her own failure—but she liked to believe that Apollo would’ve been happy to know that other kids were being saved at least. He was warm like that.
…Another reason that he should’ve never been unwound.
Eventually, they reached the plane that had dropped the newest group off, and Artemis shook herself out of her thoughts to address them.
Percy, Annabeth, and Jason had managed to corral the kids into an organized blob by the time they got there, though they were still somewhat rowdy.
Percy saw them first and waved them over.
“Anything?” Artemis asked the trio.
“No casualties this time,” Jason answered. “Nothing that needs an immediate trip to first aid either.”
She nodded, sighing inwardly with relief. The last group lost 5 members after said 5 were put into a crate together and suffocated to death. After that incident, she made sure to notify her Hunters to put 4 kids in a crate max, no exceptions.
“That’s good to hear. We can start now.” The trio nodded at her before turning back to the restless crowd of kids. Percy cupped his hands and shouted at them to quiet down. The others smiled at each other in amusement as his yell seemed to rattle the group into silence.
Artemis took over after that, stepping forward and looking over the group. “Congratulations, you made it to the Waystation. I’m Artemis. Welcome to your new lives for the next few years. I expect you-” She noticed a strange commotion in the crowd, a kid shoving his way towards the front. “-guys to be working. This isn’t a free vacation. This is your new home that you will take care of-” The woman paused when the boy finally made it to the front.
Despite not doing much, the boy was panting like he had run a marathon, and he was staring at Artemis with a desperate expression.
“Can we help you?” Percy asked. It was a good question; she had no clue what this boy wanted.
He answered with his own question, “Artemis?” The kids behind him began talking to each other, glancing at the boy.
Before she could even respond, the teenager continued on and completely flipped her world upside down: “Artemis, you have to stop Dad. You have to make him break the order, please-”
His words sparked a connection in her mind and stole the air from her. Artemis’s chest suddenly felt tight, like she couldn’t possibly ever get enough air in herself. “Apollo?” She managed to choke out.
The simple utterance of his name seemed to make him more frantic. “Please,” the boy—her brother—spoke tearfully and stepped closer, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t want to be unwound. I’m sorry, please, Artemis, you have to talk to Dad. I’ll do anything. Please, don’t let them unwind me.”
Listening to her brother begging for his life almost killed her. She reached out and snatched him up in her arms, desperately trying to communicate as much of her love to him as possible. For a moment, she achieved the impossible; she got her brother back.
“Of course, Apollo. I’ll go find Zeus and tell him off until he breaks the order.” The boy sobbed violently, and she gently cupped his head. “I won’t let him or any of them unwind you. You’re safe now.”
These were the words that she never got to tell him, the ones she constantly wished that she had the opportunity to say, and now, she had it.
Then the reality set in, and she never hated herself more than she did at that moment. This was the confirmation she already knew and never wanted. Up until his final moments as Apollo, he was waiting for his big sister to come save him. And she failed.
Because this boy in her arms wasn’t Apollo. Apollo’s hair was impossibly long and golden, not short and brown. His skin was much tanner than this.
…Plus, unlike this boy, Apollo would always be 16.
“I’m sorry,” the boy sobbed helplessly, barely able to get even just those words out.
Artemis closed her eyes in a hopeless attempt at alleviating the burn in her eyes. “Don’t apologize,” she said softly to avoid choking up, “You never have to apologize. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
It was Zeus. It was the Juvie police. It was the damn people who signed the Bill of Life that allowed this.
It was her.
Her twin needed her, and when she failed, it cost her everything.
“I love you, and I’m so sorry,” she gasped out in a sob as the tears finally overcame her. They cried together, twins reunited across life and death.
When Artemis opened the door, Apollo didn’t even bother to greet her before barreling past her. He slammed her door shut and locked it.
“Apollo? What are you-?” She was cut off by her brother as he grabbed her by the shoulders, a wild look in his eye that she’d never seen before.
“Artemis, I need you to talk Dad down.” There was banging on the door, and her brother immediately let go, backing up to crush himself against the wall and staring at the door in terror. He glanced over to the window and slid it open immediately.
Snatching up a pair of scissors off her desk, the blond stabbed the window screen and started cutting through it frantically.
“Apollo!” Zeus’s voice roared from behind the door. “Artemis, unlock the door.” The girl hesitated, watching blankly as her brother tore through the screen instead.
In the end, it didn’t matter what Artemis did as the door crashed open anyway. Her heart dropped when she saw the Juvie police standing in the doorway. It was at that moment that everything clicked.
Artemis stepped forward and blocked their way. “What are you doing? Get out of my room.”
“Sweetheart, we need you to move. It’s against the law to protect unwinds,” one of the Juvie police in what he probably thought was a soothing tone.
These officers weren’t seeing her twin. They were seeing a threat, an unwind. It hit her then, what they called him. Betrayal flooded her veins, and she saw red. Artemis pushed at them when she was suddenly pulled out of their way.
“Let go of me!” She shouted angrily, struggling in Zeus’s grasp, but it was like the man was a statue. He wouldn’t budge.
Artemis could only watch helplessly as the Juvie police stormed over to the window and ripped Apollo—who was halfway out the window—back into the room. Her heart seized as her twin shrieked and was mercilessly pinned down to the floor on his stomach.
Apollo was on the ground, sobbing. She fought viciously in Zeus’s arms to reach her brother to no avail. “Call them off. CALL THEM OFF.”
“You have to let the Juvie police do their job, Artemis,” the older man told her. She could barely hear him though when she only had ears for her brother’s sobs. Artemis continued to struggle viciously.
“Dad- Father-” Apollo gasped, gazing at Zeus with open horror and betrayal.
“I warned you, Apollo,” his voice sounded pained, as if he was actually sorry for signing the order, for hurting his own son like this.
“I didn’t think you meant it! Dad!” He sobbed harder when one of the officers planted more weight on him to keep him from moving so much. “I’m sorry, please, I’m sorry. I’ll be good. Please-”
“Apollo,” Zeus interrupted. “I’ve given you plenty of chances. Aren’t you tired of all this fighting? I am.”
Her brother let out a painful wail, “Please-! …I don’t want to die.” His voice petered out to a soft whimper. Artemis wanted to push the Juvie police away from him, to hold her brother in her arms and protect him from the world. Apollo was sensitive. He shouldn’t- He wasn’t supposed to be treated like this. They shouldn’t-
“…Apollo,” Zeus’s voice gentled out, and Artemis wondered for that moment if the man had changed his mind. That they could put this horrific moment behind them.
“You aren’t going to die. Unwinding doesn’t kill you. You’ll still be alive, just…separately.” Despite everything so far, she was blindsided by the intense wave of betrayal that seized her. “You will live on, Apollo. Just not as you expected.”
She could see the exact moment the hopelessness of the situation hit her brother. Apollo just…stopped fighting. He quit struggling against the officers and seemed to sink into the floor, tears silently streaming down his face.
Noticing him give up, the officers hauled him to his feet. For Artemis, however, it was like a fire was lit beneath her, and she struggled with more energy than before.
“At this rate, I might have to sign a second order,” Zeus grunted, only pissing her off even more with his blasé tone.
“Do it,” she hissed. Zeus stiffened, and she pressed further. “I’d rather die than live in a world without Apollo.”
“Artemis.”
She paused at the watery sound of her twin’s voice and looked over. The officers stuck by Apollo’s sides, but he paid them no mind. The twins locked eyes, and for a moment, it was just the two of them.
Apollo smiled weakly, mouth wobbling with the effort to not cry even as tears continued to slip down his cheeks. “I’ll really miss you, all of you. I love you.”
With those words, the officers marched him out of the room and out of the house. In one last desperate burst of energy, she thrashed in Zeus’s arms, “No, please! Take me instead! That’s my brother, you can’t-”
But the Juvie police merely ignored her, and eventually, she heard the sound of a car driving off. Only then did Zeus let her go.
“Artemis-” The girl quickly turned around and punched him in the face before running out in time to see the car leave.
She quickly rushed over to her own car. There was still time.
Ignoring Zeus’s shouts as he caught up to her, she hurriedly pulled out of the driveway and drove in the direction of the car.
She never did find that car again.
Artemis sat up, oddly breathless. She wiped at her cheeks furiously, her hand coming up wet with tears. The memory of yesterday hit her.
That boy. Lester, he had told her later when everything had calmed down. Thalia and her trusted three took care of the other kids, leaving the two of them to talk.
Deep down, she knew that he wasn’t Apollo, yet she was still left feeling cold when he confirmed it for her. Some part of her, frozen after that day 6 years ago, still wanted to believe. Believe that Apollo could be back, that if she had all his parts-
It was a thought she used to fixate on in her early days on the run. The idea that her brother was gone just like that was too impossible for her, so she would daydream sometimes that it could be like Humphrey Dunfee. If she just asked for her brother’s parts nicely, maybe she could put him back together again. It was a kid’s dream, but it helped her through the darkest times.
She had called her sister Athena once, after she heard about her new position as the director of a harvest camp. It was mainly to yell at her; she couldn’t possibly imagine working for the people that did that to her own brother.
Then, Athena offered to tell Artemis the inner workings of a harvest camp. She didn’t say it was an apology, but it was something.
It made Artemis sick.
Apparently, kids that were sent to harvest camps weren’t unwound right away, could be weeks, months before they’re unwound “-just as long as they don’t reach 18.”
It haunted Artemis. If she hadn’t been so stupid and impulsive in leaving, there was always a chance that she might have been able to find him.
Artemis had dreamed of Apollo laid out on the operating table, terrified out of his mind as he watched himself be meticulously ripped apart from the feet up until there was nothing left on the operating table. Sometimes, she wanted to ask her sister for the list of who received Apollo’s parts, but she knew even then that it would’ve been too much for her.
She couldn’t remember the last time she properly talked to her siblings after that, but she still tried to keep up with their lives nonetheless.
She had no idea what Zeus did these days, and she hoped that she never knew.
There was a knock on her door. This time, she opened it herself.
On the other side was Thalia, looking concerned and sad. “Are you okay? Yesterday was…rough.”
“I’m fine,” she responded instinctively.
The other woman’s expression didn’t change. “It’s fine if you aren’t. I know if anything happened to Jason, and it was brought up to me like that…” Thalia trailed off and looked away.
Thalia Grace was never an unwind, but she was terrified for her brother who was designated to be a tithe. She did what a proper big sister should do and took off with her brother when she was 16 before anything could even happen.
Somehow, they found themselves at the Waystation, and since then, the Graces had become very welcome faces for the people around here.
Artemis was grateful for the help. Truly, she was. Still, she was only human, and she struggled to see the two siblings and not be reminded of her own failures. Like now.
“Lester isn’t Apollo. I won’t disrespect either of them like that,” she responded evenly.
“But there’s a piece of Apollo in him,” Thalia shot back.
“And you heard what that piece of him had to say,” she snapped before taking a deep breath. “…I don’t want to hurt him.” More than she already had, to either of them.
“He sought you out for a reason. You’re not hurting him.” The younger woman sighed sadly. “You’re only hurting yourself. I wish you saw how much good you’ve done. Jason and I definitely could agree on that much.”
“It’s what he deserves,” Artemis murmured.
“Because you’re a good woman, Artemis. Come on, you should know better than to do the whole ‘I will only hurt the people around me’ act around these kids.” Thalia said, raising a brow.
Well, Lester wasn’t an unwind, was he? Artemis thought inwardly but shrugged anyway.
“Besides, I don’t think he’s going home until he actually talks to you,” Thalia finally pointed out.
The older woman closed her eyes. “Alright. Alright, I got it.” She opened her eyes to see her lieutenant frown at her. “Hey, I…will be fine.” She posited as a middle ground.
Though Thalia still didn’t seem particularly satisfied, she dropped the subject.
It wasn’t that Artemis was trying to avoid Lester necessarily. Not actively at least. But with her second-in-command’s prodding, she finally found the time to talk to the boy again.
While she didn’t hang around him, she still kept tabs; the boy stuck close with another girl, Meg McCaffrey.
“She’s an ex-tithe too,” Jason had told her. It was usually through Jason that she got her updates on the pair. In fact, he was there when she decided to approach them.
“-go for a S’mores Pop-Tart right now. It’s been a while since I’ve had junk food like that.” The blond looked over and gave Artemis a mini salute. “Hey Arty.”
“Hello Jason,” the woman nodded back. She glanced over to the other two and saw Lester already flipping open his notebook, Meg peering over his shoulder.
Each time she saw Lester doing something in his notebook, it made Artemis’s heart ache a bit. Apollo used to carry around his own little notebook to write and draw in whenever he was particularly inspired. He would stop entire conversations if something struck his fancy.
She tried to banish the thought. It was unfair to both boys for her to treat Lester like another Apollo. Still, sometimes...sometimes Lester just acted so familiar, so Apollo.
“Can I ask what you’re writing, Lester?” She asked in what she felt was a very polite manner, but Jason still raised an eyebrow at her regardless.
The boy in question looked up in surprise at being addressed, and Artemis found herself staring into blue eyes. She was struck by the passing thought of Thank goodness, his eyes are too dark.
Then, she’d have to wonder if he had his eyes too. Not that it was something to hold against the poor boy, he was clearly already dealing with enough.
Lester looked over at Meg who simply shrugged and allowed the notebook to lay flat on his lap. It was just a bunch of simple doodles, the kind you would draw when you were bored of school.
The boy looked away and shrugged uncomfortably. “I’m no artist, but it’s not like I have much to say either.” He opened his mouth to say more but hesitated.
Meg leaned over him and flipped the page for him, revealing a bunch of messy sketches of what looked like a head with long braided hair. Lester protested halfheartedly before letting his hand fall to the side.
Artemis stared at the page spread blankly before it finally hit her. “Is that…me?”
He nodded shyly. “As I got closer to this place, I kept feeling this urge…I’m guessing Apollo loved to draw.”
Something possessed Artemis as she dug through her bag, frantically searching through it until she found what she was looking for and pulled out a tiny book, small enough to fit in her hand.
“Is that his…?” Jason trailed off as she nodded stiffly. Artemis cracked open the little book and allowed the trio to look inside.
“My brother Hermes gifted it to him as a joke, but he thought the size of it was so cute that he carried it around everywhere.” Inside the book, there was a designated drawing of a family member and some blurbs on the pages. She knew to flip past the sketch of Zeus, having long since memorized every single sheet in that tiny booklet.
She landed on a spread. On the left side, there was a sketch of herself, the one that Lester’s drawings were clearly based on. Her brother truly had an eye for things; he reflected her beauty in a way that only he could.
On the right side, there was a poem. It took years, but she was finally able to laugh without all the grief clouding it.
the fiercest hunter
is what she would want to hear
but she is just gross >:P
“He loved the arts, and he had a real talent for whatever he felt like doing,” she snorted, “except for maybe haiku.”
All three kids looked fascinated, Lester most of all.
“I…I remember that,” the brunet said unsurely. Artemis looked at him in wonder. “He knew they weren’t good, but he thought it was fun anyway.”
“Lester…” She spoke breathlessly. The boy tensed up until he saw her smiling. “Thank you.”
He tilted his head in confusion. “For what?”
Artemis looked down at the little notebook she held. “It’s been…so long since I’ve talked about Apollo with someone who knows him and was just able to…celebrate him.” And not be racked with grief.
She remembered herself and cleared her throat. “Not…that I’m trying to replace him with you, Lester.”
But Lester didn’t seem upset though. “I’m Lester…but I’m also a little bit of Apollo.” He looked down at the small book wistfully. “It’d be nice to understand a bit more.”
Artemis looked at Lester, then at Jason and Meg, neither of which seemed to disagree with the brunet.
She smiled softly and flipped to the section for Hermes, relating the stories that were in it and occasionally having Lester fill in the blanks when he could.
For the first time since that day, something in Artemis settled. Apollo would continue to live on. Not in his parts but in his stories. She was sure he’d have found something poetic about that.