Life Changes, A Percabeth Future Story

Chapter 16

Percy's POV:

The girls have been asleep for a couple hours, and Annabeth and I are getting ready to go to bed ourselves when we hear one of them cry out. Annabeth sighs, but I kiss her on the forehead. "I've got this, you go to bed," I tell her.

Since we moved them to a different bedroom to be able to prepare what was once their nursery for the new baby, they have woken frequently throughout the night.

I get into the girls' room and see Callie, fast asleep in her bed, then on the other side of the room, Cleo, standing in her crib with tears streaming down her face. "Daddy?" she mumbles around her thumb.

"Shh, baby," I hush her, scooping her out of her crib. I take her downstairs and sit with her in the rocking chair, talking softly to her until she starts to fall back asleep.

Suddenly, though, as Cleo is almost asleep, someone knocks on the door. She groans as I stand up, carrying her on my hip, but leans her head against my shoulder.

"Let's see who it is, little one," I say, reaching the door. I open it to find Piper standing there, holding her own toddler on her hip. "What's going on?" I ask her.

"Can we stay here tonight?" She asks. She tries to hide it, but I hear her voice shaking.

"Of course," I say, ushering them inside.

Cleo pops her head up at the same time. "Auntie Piper?" she mumbles, then a moment later, "Zer?"

"Hi Cleo," Piper says, with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes, then turns back to me. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake up the girls."

I shake my head. "She was already up."

Then I hear another voice behind me. "Percy? Piper? What's wrong?" I turn to see my 6-month pregnant wife coming down the stairs.

Piper and I quickly explain, and Annabeth responds "Of course you can stay. We'll set up a pack-n-play for Zephyr, and you can have the guest room."

By this time, Cleo, having realized that Zephyr is asleep and will not play with or talk to her, has fallen back asleep on my shoulder, so I hand her off to Annabeth who puts her to bed while I go to get out the pack-n-play. Piper follows as I take it to the guest room and set it up.

"Is everything okay?" I ask her.

"Yeah," she says shortly.

"You sure?" I ask, not trying to hide the concern in my voice.

"We're okay," she mumbles, smoothing Zephyr's hair.

I decide not to press the issue further just then.

Hey y'all! It's been practically forever since I updated, huh? Sorry about that! I've been super busy with classes (don't go to college, kids, they take all your money and then make you work so hard you barely even have time to sleep, and make you take a public speaking class with a professor who has literally 0 public speaking skills..... I suppose I should say that this is not really true. Go to college if that's what's right for you. It's a great experience, but yeah, it's tough sometimes).

Oh, and another reason this chapter took so long is that there is a particular plot point that I debated with myself for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time about including, but if I included it it had to happen soon, so I couldn't publish anything new until I decided about that. But I finally decided... and you guys will find out my decision sooner or later 😜

Anyway, sorry for kinda leaving you on a cliffhanger. I will try my best to be able to publish the next chapter Saturday, but I make no promises, and if it's not published by then, it will probably be quite a while before I can publish it, because the semester is only halfway over (...save me). 

Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I certainly enjoyed writing it (though that probably has as much to do with the fact that it's been 4 months since I've worked on this story at all as it does with this chapter being a fun one to write).

💖💖💖 Cam