A Bump in the Night

Summary

The war's been over for ten years. Percy's settled in his teaching job and Annabeth's architectural company is wildly successful. They have one child and another soon on the way. But after a picture is published in Olympus Weekly Annabeth's cabin mates start disappearing and it appears that an old foe is back to haunt them.

A.N.

This story might be a novel but I'll probably keep it to a lengthy novella. It's written from Percy's POV…I might do some swapping later on but probably not. And the moment Percy and Annabeth are in their late twenties and they currently have one daughter named Ariadne (Addy).

P.S. If you don't remember Kayla, she's a daughter of Apollo that was in, like, one sentence in PJatLO.

Chapter 1

The playground of Primrose Primary was occupied solely by the super-moms (or mom-sters as Annabeth liked to call them). They stood, carrying their chilled coffee drinks, in tightly-knit circles so I stood awkwardly away from them, hovering at the gate waiting for the bell to ring.

'Hello, Percy.' Kayla tapped me on the shoulder and I turned round to face her. She looked frazzled and worn out; there were distinct bags under her eyes. It wasn't surprising considering Malcolm had been in Amsterdam for the past two weeks with Annabeth (finalizing the designs for some museum they were building) and had left her alone with their nine year-old, Michael, and the triplets; Margaret, Harriett and Cassidy).

'Hey, Kayla. How you holding up?'

She grimaced. 'How do you think?' I laughed, 'I'm just thankful that Mal's flying in tonight. But Perce…the thing is…Nancy was supposed to be watching the triplets but she's jetted off to Australia on some photography job for National Geographic and Mal and I are taking Michael to camp for the first time. So could you please pick Mal up from the airport and then keep Peggy, Hattie and Cass at yours tonight?'

Kayla's big, blue Apollo-eyes eyes grew to the size of saucers and her lips formed a small pout. I sighed. That night was supposed to be the first time Annabeth, Addy and I had spent any time together since Addy's sixth birthday last month—Annabeth had been working overseas non-stop since then.

I groaned, 'Fine!'

Kayla grinned, 'Thankyouthankthankyou!' she squealed and jumped up and down on the tarmac. She stopped looking like the worn mother of four and suddenly looked much more like the fourteen year-old who had played bass in the Apollo cabin's band.

'But tell Mal that you guys owe me big time…I'm talking school-run every day for the next month!' I said loudly over her thank-yous.

Before either one of us even realised the bell had rung the playground was suddenly filled with small, hyper-active children and Kayla was swept away by the sheer force of her personal three identical menaces.

'Thanks again, Percy!' She yelled after me before Peggy, Hattie and Cass dragged her out the gates.

'Daddy!'

Addy, my six year old daughter ran towards me and I scooped her up into my arms. 'Hey, sweetie. I missed you today; how was school?' I kissed her on the cheek but she wrinkled her nose and tried to swat me away.

'Ewww…gross, Dad.' Addy furiously rubbed her cheek where my lips had been. 'School was good. I got twenty out of twenty on my spelling test.' She grinned and tiny little dimples appeared in her cheeks.

Addy was so much like Annabeth in her nature—kind, almost as stubborn as I was, and a real smartie-pants. But as far as looks went, she took after me. Although she had Annabeths curls her hair was my black and her eyes were a spitting image of mine. It's like she took the best features of both of us to make this perfect little ball of amazing-ness.

Annabeth had her multi-billion dollar company and I saved the world. But we both knew the best thing either of us ever created were our kids.

After trying (and failing) to make Addy dinner I ordered us in some Chinese and waited for Jesse—the kid downstairs who baby sits for us.

Honestly, I had never really liked Jesse. He always seemed like the kind of kid who had always picked on me at school (in other words; he was super cool and had abs). But Annabeth really liked him because he studied Classics at nyu (Who makes a career out of Classics?) and was willing to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic with Addy for hours on end. Plus he lived just downstairs and was almost always available during school holidays.

'So, I'll be back from the airport in about two hours, give or take.' I said and Jesse nodded, 'Remember; Addy has some Math homework and she'll tell you that it's not due tomorrow but make sure that she does it before any tv .'

Jesse rolls his eyes in the classic, petulant 'I know.'... I'm not an idiot' way and I found it hard not to scowl.

'And if she gets hungry give her a snack from the kitchen but check that it has no nuts. Even a trace is a huge no. Her EpiPen and piriton are on the table as well as all the numbers you'll need; mine and Annabeth's cells, Annabeth's work cell and my mum's place is there as well. Any problems?'

'No, Mr Jackson. I think I got everything.'

I looked over at Addy who was standing in our little kitchenette, creasing her eyebrows (she looked so much like Annabeth when she did that) and trying to open a jam jar. I laughed a little. 'I'll see you in an hour, okay sweetie?'

'Yeah, 'kay Dad.' She waved me off. I sometimes worried that Addy was growing up way too fast. She was only seven and already acting how I did when I was eleven. But then wasn't really the time to worry about whether my baby girl was still my baby girl or not.

'Don't forget to do you homework! See you, sweetie.'

I locked the door behind Addy and Jesse and left to pick up Annabeth and Malcolm from the airport.

Generally Annabeth flew into jfk so it'd only take me about 10 minutes to go pick her up. But because she booked the flight at the last minute the closest she could get to home was Somerset—a good forty minute drive away.

The drive there was relatively boring—I got stuck in traffic, stopped for gas and coffee, listened to some ac/dc and got stuck in more traffic. But at the airport was where things started to go wrong.

I met Annabeth at baggage reclaim and as soon as I saw her I knew she was not in a good mood.

'Hey, Perce.' Annabeth sighed. Her shoulders were slumped, there were dark, purple marks around her eyes, her usual blonde princess-curls were tangled into a horrendous mess, her jeans were wrinkled and there was a small stain on the collar of her orange blazer.

I wondered if I should've called my mum and asked her to watch Addy and the triplets that night because Annabeth looked like she really needed a long nap.

'Hey, Annabeth. And hey Owen Jackson.' I knelt down to kiss her slightly distended stomach.

Annabeth gave me a stern look and replied, 'Or Orla; not necessarily Owen yet.' Annabeth has her sixteen-week appointment next month and were supposed to find out the sex of the baby then.

Until that date comes Annabeth and I have been in constant dispute—she thinks it's a girl and I think it's a boy. (I'm really just hoping it's a boy because ever since Annabeth built a dam in Ireland last year she's been obsessed with Irish names…and I really hate Orla, I just don't want to argue with a pregnant, hormonal wife.)

She only gave me a one-armed hug, despite the fact that her laptop bag wasn't even swung over her shoulder. 'Where's your laptop?' I asked as we began to move closer to the carousel that was starting to carry the very first bags.

Annabeth groaned and rubbed her temples. 'So we were about to do the presentation on the design changes—we were only really just telling the engineers about the tweaks in the basement wiring. So I left my laptop in the conference room and five minutes later when I come back from Starbucks it's gone!'

She gesticulated wildly with her arms as she grumbled and several people turned round to give us weird looks. Annabeth just completely ignored them. 'So, anyway; Malcolm had paper copies of the blueprints so the meeting went fine. But now I've to get a new laptop and recreate all my files.'

She sniffed and sat down on the edge of the carousel , just off the moving part. A security guard eyed her and started towards us but Annabeth noticed and glared at him with her hard—as—stone grey eyes. He quickly scurried off in the opposite direction, still trying to look casual about it.

'And on top of it all I have a cold!'

I knew it probably made me an awful husband, but the pitiful, melodramatic and un-Annabeth way in which Annabeth spoke made me want to laugh so hard. 'Aw, I'm sorry Honey. So where's Malcolm?' I scanned the swarm of people that was still surging out of the gate for that familiar tuft of white-blond hair

Annabeth's head snapped up and her eyes-brows creased, 'Malcolm?'

'Yeah, Malcolm…you know, yay high,' I held my hand only about 5 and a half feet off the ground and grinned, 'really blonde hair. I think you know him?'

'Percy, I'm being serious,' the grinned immediately slipped of my face, 'Malcolm came home, like, yesterday.'

'What?'

'Yeah, I let him go home early so he could help Michael pack for camp. His flight got in yesterday at around midday. He was going to call Kayla when he got into the city and surprise her.'

'Kayla hasn't heard from him…she thought he was coming in today. I'm supposed to pick him up now, Annabeth. What do I tell Kayla? I can't just say "Oops, I lost your husband, lol"'

Annabeth's eyes slowly start to light up with panic as her mind wakes up. I can practically see the little wheels turning in her brain, mentally running every possible scenario. Clearly she came to a conclusion because suddenly she jumped up and grabbed my hand, pulling me quickly to the departure gate.

'Wait, Annabeth? What about your bag?' I say, looking back at the carousel.

'Leave it. We've got to get back to Manhattan now!'