"What??? Nooooo, and I missed it?" As if he could have been there. "There's a pirate who trades citrus for foods from other worlds. Look, I know your Percy doesn't know me, but do you think I could get the guy to send a wedding gift along anyway? What's their daughter's name?"

The exhaustion hasn't left him and he'd just been crying, and it's still the most animated she's probably ever seen him. He feels a little like he's catching up with someone from Punx, flung far but not so far, seeing them in Pittsburgh and asking how they've been, what's changed since the last time he was there. Change, isn't it such an novelty?