A/N Hey there everybody!
Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to read/favourite/follow this story! It really means so much for me.
As is mentioned in my profile, don't hesitate to ask to translate this in french!
J'insiste aussi sur le fait de me demander si vous voulez une traduction en français de cette histoire, même si cela ne devrait pas tarder.
So without further ado, here is chapter two (that rhymes!)
Disclaimer: I own the plot, the rest clearly belongs to Rick Riordan.
Piper's POV.
Beep! Beep! Piper's alarm was ringing. There seemed to happening something with her and alarms lately. They were always ringimg.
Yesterday afternoon had finished in a nice comfortable walk around Central Park. It also includes a lengthy stop at a playground and weirdly yummy applle ice cream. Rose had insisted on it even though a) snack time had already gone by and b) what sort of flavour was Apple. But Rose was happy. And that's really all that mattered to Piper.
There had been one small thing that nudged the back of her mind at 6:30 on Monday morning, knowing she had exactly two minutes before a certain little monkey would come climbing all over her ed.
Rose had been in the playground when a little boy came and joined her play in the sandpit. Eventually the little boy had to leave as his parents were calling.
"Daddy! I wanna stay!" Had cried the little boy. And then Rose had looked at him funny but continued playing. Piper sat there smiling, content when her daughter ran up to her. She had a worried look in her eyes.
"Mommy, why don't I have a daddy?"
"A what darling? I didn't hear."
"A daddy. All of my friends at nursery have one."
Piper was completely taken aback by the simple question. She silently laughed at herself. How could she have been so stupid to think the girl would never ask. But it was surprising that the girl would ask the exact date of their dating anniversary. She braced herself for a difficult answer.
"Your daddy did bad things, darling. And if he knew you, he would maybe be bad to you too. You don't want that do you?"
"Oh," the little girl had her mouth open in a perfect circle. One could observe the information slowly processing in her brain. "Ok!" And then she smiled and hopped off, returning to her game in the sandcastle.
She sighed a little, hoping that the subject wasn't going to come back, but her daughter was rather empathetic and knew whenever something upset her mother. She probably wouldn't push the subject, already so intelligent for a little girl, only 4 years old.
Sure enough, she heard light footsteps plodding down the hall and tiptoeing into her bed.
"Hey there darling!" She whispered as she grabbed the little girl and started to tickle her.
"Mommy! Mommy!" She laughed with glee.
"Alright let's get breakfast shall we? How about some pancakes!"
"Yaaaayyyy!"she shouted. Piper grimaced at the other great sugary idea she had just had. Gods knew she was giving in to her daughter's sweet tooth! She knew it was bad to spoil a child, but sugar didn't count a spoiling did it? And her smile was soooo cute.
Monday morning. Piper had to go and work. She was running an organic restaurant which she had started herself from scratch. Entirely funded by herself. Well, that was a lie. She did have a little help from her father in the beginning because property in New York is expensive. She generally was a waitress because she was naturally very sociable, but as she was also the boss, she did all the paperwork, managed the money, designed new recipes, hired employees. That economics course was useful! The restaurant was quite successful and she was thinking about opening another one in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, the money earned was invested in a brand new aisle of organic makeup. Her mother had insisted on that one, and Piper agreed to it, mainly because she too thought it was a good idea.
But today was going to be a little different than the usual holidays. It was autumn break at the nursery. And though one might think that surely day care would be an option, Piper had never yet found someone to take care of her child. Well, that was competent enough. She also couldn't hire a nanny, not enough money. But thankfully, the girl was wonderfully patient and independent. So, Piper, like almost every other holiday decided to take her to work.
"Alright Rose, how do you feel about going to my restaurant?"
"Yay! I love going to the restaurant!" The little girl shrieked. "Can I to drawings again like the last time?"
"Of course darling, now come on. Grab your coat. It's getting chilly outside."
The employees at the restaurant sure didn't mind when Rose came over. Actually, they loved her! They had been a bit surprised when she'd brought her over for the first time, when she was only an annoying toddler, barely 2 years old, and already walking around, bumping into everything and anything. They said she brought life to the restaurant.
She was 10 minutes early, as usual. She liked being early, it was a moment in the day when there were no customers and the room was oddly silent, but peaceful silence. Also, if the boss wasn't early, what sort of example was she to the others. Rose was a little intimated and clung to her leg, a worry that would disappear in less than five minutes, her mother knew.
"Hey Piper, what's up?" A friendly voice asked. It was Henri, a nice half-French half-American chef she had hired right at the beginning. He had been there longer than all the others. His hours always started early so that he could start preparing for the day.
"I'm fine thank you."
"And who's that behind your leg?"
Rose giggled a little and remained hidden behind her dark blue jean and leather boots.
"Why, if it isn't little Rose who desperately wants to be tickled!"
She giggled even louder and ran up to give Henri a hug. Piper left the two, seeing as they were really good friends. Henri was really good with children. If he wasn't such a fabulous chef, she probably would have asked him to be a waiter so that he could handle the children. The restaurant was very family friendly.
The young woman walked over to behind the kitchen where there was the clothing room, her desk and the toilets. She pushed the door to her desk and hung her coat up on her peg. She carefully placed her bag on her desk so that she wouldn't accidentally knock something off. After flicking through the day's mail, she grabbed her apron, a colourful blue checkered thing which one tied around their waste and checked her pad and signature purple pen were in the pockets before rushing back into the kitchen.
Henri and her daughter were still giggling when she suggested some drawing. Rose immediately accepted the idea and Piper hoisted her up on one of the tall chairs near the bar. She grabbed a piece of paper and some crayons and left her daughter, who was quietly humming to herself.
Next, Piper followed her daily routine and went outside to start setting up the tables. She decided not to use the parasols nor the heating lamps. It was a beautiful autumn day and you only really needed s nice woolly jumper whilst outside. She too hummed a little something as she set to her daily chores, waiting for 8 am when the clients would start streaming in, anxious to get their healthy organic smoothie in the morning.
Jason's POV
Jason had woken up feeling sad.
His dreams often influenced his emotions. And he had just had that same recurring dream for the third time that month. It always began really sweetly. A little girl was playing on a swing, her blond hair flying in the air and she was giggling with all her might. The child couldn't have been more than 4 or 5. He was pushing her higher and higher, so that she could fly up into the air. The park was deserted apart from them. And then suddenly, the dream got dark. A monster climbed out of a bush and started to attack them. The dream always finished with the girl's piercing cry.
He groaned and got up to go to work. Jason worked in a weather forecast channel. Though his dream had been to study meteorological conditions, he had messed up his studies pretty badly, and then those sort of jobs didn't running to streets all that much. So right now, he focused on writing the weather forecast that the presentation would eventually read out or learn off by heart. Maybe he would have liked present sting, but wasn't that just the best way to tell the entire monster population "look, I'm here!".
Off he trudged, doing his normal morning routine, going for a run, shower, quick breakfast, walk to work and do everything the same everyday so blandly. The most interesting things in Jason's life were probably when there was a natural catastrophe, though that just depressed him even more.
Later that day, he went out to lunch, because, once again, he had been to lazy to bring his own. He went down and made small talk with the secretary.
"Hey Linda, if anyone drops off something for me, could you put it on my desk please?"
"Of course Mr Grace," she replied, twirling her hair and giggling, "like every day."
Jason ignored her blatant flirting and stepped outside. It was a beautiful sunny day, with a lot of fluffy white clouds slowly moving with the gusts of wind. Jason loved this weather: sun and wind, though he did prefer thunderstorms, this definitely cam second best. He was roaming the streets of New York, wondering what he was possibly going to eat today when he inadvertently bumped into someone.
"Jason! How are you? How you been?"
The young man Jason had bumped into was no other than Percy Jackson. One of his closest friends he hasn't seen for some time.
"Percy, dude! I'm great, and you? I haven't seen you in a long time." That was true. They generally met every so often and had lunch together, but Percy had been gone for a month or two now. It was nice to see his friends at other moments than camp, though they were always extremely careful not to attract too many monsters. But he had to admit that he did like the adrenaline rush it brought him, making him forget his monotonous life.
"Crazy story with my sister! You'll never guess what she did this time."
"Lucy, is what, 10 now?"
"Yeah, she dared a boy to jump off a 5 meter high rock. When he refused to do it until she showed him it was possible, she did and broke her leg and wrist."
"Gods! Sally must've freaked!"
"Yeah, but she's fine now, and hobbling off in her crutches ready to pull some more dangerous stunts. By the way, Mom says you're welcome to pop over whenever you want. You know you're always welcome."
"Great! Thanks."
They continued chatting about their lives while walking down the street. Stories about Percy's little sister were always entertaining. She was lucky to have a great older brother to take care of her. Much like Thalia had been to him when they were younger.
Suddenly, Percy suggested something, "Hey, me, Leo and Frank are meeting up at this cool organic restaurant we just found. Would you like to come?"
"Of course."
Score! Jason had just found his lunch, and what better way to spend it than with his closest friends! Especially since he didn't see them that often. Frank had moved to New Orleans with Hazel and wasn't that often in New York. Leo on the other hand, still hadn't settled and was still visiting the world with Calypso, though he suspected the pair of them often hogged Percy's apartment. They didn't see each other that often, mostly at camp during the summer, and it was always a great time, when they could become annoying teenagers once again instead of mature adults.
They trodded down the streets, for what seemed an infinitely long amount of time to Jason, and he desperately tried to memorise his way around, so that he wouldn't be late when he tried to return to his office. Percy, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly what he was doing, which was rather strange, considering the fact that he was constantly getting lost. All was explained when Jason saw the phone in Percy's hand.
Finally, they arrived. The restaurant was a pretty little thing, with a wooden terrace and colourful plastic chairs and oak table. The sign was a bubbly multicolour one which indicated the name: "Cornucopia, only the best organic foods". He glanced at the menu that was carefully positioned in front of the terrace and saw a family-friendly menu, with tasty looking dishes, expertly photographed.
Percy led him to a table in a sunny spot where he saw Frank and Leo quietly talking.
"Hey guys!" He announced himself.
"Jason! Good to see you man!" Replied Leo.
"What's up?" Enquirer Frank.
"Good to see both of you too."
And the four of them settled in a friendly conversation while visually imagining every tasty dish on the menu, and discussing whether or not salad actually was considered a healthy diet choice. Because, one had to admit that salad sauce wasn't exactly the most healthy thing out there.
"I swear that if I eat more meat, I will be healthier than anyone on this table." Declared Leo.
"And what does Calypso say about that?" Smirked Percy.
"I swear that woman is singlehandedly responsible for over half the salad homicides in this country!"
"Do salad homicides actually exist?"
"Have you seen the way she looks at does things while mixing them with cucumber, tomato and other disgustingly healthy thing! Thank goodness this place has hamburgers!"
"Yeah who knew that meat could be organic?" Mused Jason.
"Well," butted in Frank (while Leo joked about him being Mr-I-Love-Animals), "the animals are fed an exclusively organic diet, and are generally kept in better conditions than other animals, with more space and air."
Jason nodded, impressed.
"There's a whole page about organic food at the beginning of the menu. I read it while trying to ignore Leo. It really is quite interesting. And in the other side, there is the restaurant's owner's bio, but I didn't have time to read."
"Great, thanks for the explanation, Frank."
Jason flipped over to the beginning of the menu. The first page had basically been summarised by his friend and therefore, he began to read the bio :
This young woman proudly shows her American-Indian heritage by preserving nature's way of bringing food and cooking it. The owner of this restaurant, the dashing-
His reading was cut short by a little blonde girl who was desperately tugging at his, with a very intent look in her eyes, a piece of paper in her hand.
"Will you look at my drawing?" And without waiting for an answer, she slammed the said drawing down on the table and began to explain her incoherent scribbles. Jason didn't really understand why she had come over to him, but her sweet little pigtails encouraged him to listen to her, as all of the other customers she had bothered before had done."
"So this is my mommy, and this is me, and this is daddy, who I don't know, and who mommy says is a very bad man." The sweet child pointed out the different people in her life with a chubby little finger.
"And those are flowers, and there are clouds, and that is the wind, and those are my 15 puppies-"
The little girl was warbling off, describing everything, while the others cooed at her drawing when suddenly a voice cried out:
"Rose, where are you?"
A waitress came over and stood behind the little girl, placing a protective hand over her shoulder, as though she could protect the younger one from all the harm in the world with her motherly affection.
"Oh there you are darling, now come on, let's stop bothering these men."
She then proceeded to take her pad from her apron still without looking at them. Jason was still looking at the little girl's drawing, as if mesmerised by the childish scribbles.
"Alright, what can I get you to-"
He looked up. Their eyes met.
It was Piper.
A/N Thank you so much for reading!
I have to admit, the end of this scene was totally predictable, but I just love the concept of this story.
Please review! I'd love to here your opinions and critics!
See you (hopefully) soon for chap 3,
Butterflies765