Life Changes, A Percabeth Future Story

Chapter 10

"Your Auntie Piper had her baby this morning, Miss Callie." Percy was sitting on the living room floor, talking to his daughter (the adoption isn't final yet, so technically it should be foster daughter, but I don't care anymore, so we're going with this, because it sounds better than any other wording I could think of).

The 4-month-old sat propped up with pillows, smiling and cooing at her dad, a rattle clutched tightly in one tiny fist. She didn't really understand what he was saying, but he seemed happy, so it must be a good thing. Plus, she had heard her parents call her their 'baby' before, so that must be something good, and things about Auntie Piper were usually good. So whatever this was about, it must be really good.

"You ready to go?" Callie turned her head toward where the voice came from to see her mom standing in the doorway, smiling at the scene in front of her.

"Yep," Callie heard her daddy say, and then she was scooped up into his arms. She yelled in protest as she was buckled into her car seat, but she didn't really care that much. She was just excited to see Uncle Jason and Auntie Piper--at least as excited as she could be about it, considering her short attention span.

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When the car stopped and Callie was taken out of her carseat, she looked around, but they were definitely not at Uncle Jason and Auntie Piper's house. Instead, her parents were carrying her toward a building she didn't recognize. If Callie could read, she would have seen that a large sign above the door said "Half-Blood Hospital". Alas, she could not. She let out a cry, trying to tell her parents they were going into the wrong place, but they just cooed something about being excited to meet the new baby to her.

So, she decided to let them figure out for themselves that they were in the wrong place, and watched what was happening around her. They stopped to talk to a lady behind a big desk who smiled at Callie and called her a "little cutie" as she tapped at something Callie couldn't quite see on the desk. Then, she pointed to something behind her and said "Just take that elevator to the third floor, turn left when you get out, and the room you're looking for should be the first one on the right after that."

After that, they went over to, and stepped into a huge box that Callie guessed must be the 'elevator' the lady had talked about. The doors on the box closed them in, and Callie suddenly got a funny feeling in her tummy. After a minute, though, it went away, and the doors opened again. Not a minute later, they were stepping into a room with a bed with the head pushed against one plain, white wall. In the bed sat Auntie Piper.

To Callie, it looked like she was holding a bundle of blankets in her lap, but as Callie kept looking, she realized there was a little face peeking out of the blankets. Callie was amazed. Before now, she had never seen a person smaller than herself. But now, there was this little face that must belong to a person half her own size.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could hear Auntie Piper saying "Meet Zephyr Tristan Grace."

Then her mom, saying "Oh, Pipes, he looks just like you."

Callie didn't hear anything after that, as the tiny figure Piper was holding squirmed and opened his eyes. Callie continued to stare as her eyes locked with a pair that were the brightest blue she had ever seen. Slowly, she lifted one arm and moved it like she had seen other people do when they saw her for the first time.

"She waved at him!" Annabeth and Piper both gushed, and if Callie had been looking in their direction, she would have seen Jason and Percy exchange amused looks.

"I bet they'll be good friends when they get older," Piper said softly as Zephyr's eyes fluttered closed again and he fell back asleep.

So, as you can tell, I've been experimenting with 3rd person POV. Let me know what you think about that. I may keep using it from time to time if you guys want me to. This was a short chapter, really just here to introduce little Zephyr, and I wanted to keep going with it, but I couldn't figure out how to transition from this to what I wanted to do next without it seeming really awkward and unnatural, plus I'm not totally sure if what I have planned for the next part is actually what I want to do next, or if I should switch it with another event/chapter.

Anyway... Some news: I graduated! Of course, that doesn't really affect you guys, other than that I (theoretically) have more time to write right now, so slightly faster updates may be coming soon. Also, I got a laptop as a graduation gift, which lets me type a little faster than when I was only able to work on this on my phone, but also gives me new ways to procrastinate, so... ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that the first of the names for the contest has been revealed. Yes, Zephyr is Jason and Piper's son. As a refresher (or maybe a hint? I don't actually remember what I told you in the contest "chapter," and I'm not going to check right now), of the names I gave you in the contest (in no particular order), one is a Percababy (maybe even the one you learned of in the last chapter ;P), one is Frazel's, two are Caleo's (I couldn't decide which one to include, so I included both of them, lol), Zephyr is the only Jiper baby, and the last two are the children of other ships.

Anyway, I've rambled on enough. Let me know what you think of this chapter. Thank you to everyone who has commented, voted on, or read this story, or added it to a reading list, lol. It makes my day whenever I get a notification on this story, so please continue. :)

💖💖💖Cam