Hey guys! I hope you had a fabulous Christmas!
As you can see, I am continuing with this story. The amount of feedback I received was awesome, and you all seem super excited, which is great!
Thanks for all your reviews. They were super helpful. Most of you seemed to agree with my thoughts on not including Percy's sister in this story, which is fine. I'm not sure that everyone has read The Hidden Oracle anyway, so I don't think it's a big deal. After I post this I am going to start editing CME little by little as well too, just so it matches up with this a little better.
Since I am planning to continue with this, I thought it might be helpful for me to give you the current ages of all the characters so you can keep track of them. Percy and Annabeth are 36. Logan is 12 and in 7th grade. Nicholas is 9, going on 10, and in 4th grade. Carly is 6 and in 1st grade. It took me way longer than it should have for me to figure out all that math based on the ages they were when CME left off, but I believe that ages and grades are all correct. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
This chapter is pretty boring. It sets up a few more plot lines I want to address in the future but does little else. Even so, I hope you enjoy it.
Some things never change.
It was for this reason that I rounded the last corner of our street in a dead sprint, breathing heavily, with Annabeth on my heels. Our driveway, serving as the finish line, was about three hundred feet away now and we had been quickly closing the distance to it since our morning jog had turned into a footrace five hundred feet earlier. She'd started it, but I was determined to win.
Annabeth and I had been married now for almost fifteen years, but this had done nothing to rid us of our competitive nature.
In the years since we'd stopped training at camp regularly, we'd made it a habit of still working out often whenever possible. It had always been a point that was heavily stressed by Chiron; that it was impossible to effectively fight monsters without the training to do so and the stamina to keep up. I'd fought the Minotaur at twelve with neither, but I'd also been lucky to get out alive and was unconscious for two days after, so there was probably some wisdom in that.
We'd mapped out a three mile circuit in our neighborhood shortly after moving in and ran it regularly, though rare was the occasion lately when we were able to do so together. Today, when the opportunity presented itself, we'd taken it.
We were at the edge of our front yard now and Annabeth had gained on me. I was ahead by inches. Maybe. I pushed myself even harder for the last few steps. She, of course, did the same. It was outrageously close.
"I won," I insisted a minute later as we stood at the edge of the driveway, catching our breath.
Annabeth shook her head. "That was way too close to call."
"Yeah, okay," I replied sardonically, and then, after a few seconds added, "That's not as easy to do as it used to be." As a teenager, I sprinted like that all the time and barely broke a sweat doing it. I couldn't decide whether I was grateful or not that I couldn't do that anymore. On the one hand, I was getting old; on the other, I'd lived long enough to get that way.
Annabeth, still breathing heavily, shook her head, agreeing. "We're not sixteen anymore."
"We put on a good front though, right?" she laughed and started walking toward the house.
We were a few feet from the front door when it opened to reveal Thalia, Daughter of Zeus and Hunter of Artemis, standing in the doorway. She looked exactly as she had the day before her sixteenth birthday, but was dressed more normally than she usually did, wearing a band T-shirt and a pair of jeans with only her silver circlet, symbolizing her status as first lieutenant, to show her affiliation with the Hunters. She was barefoot and held Annabeth's cell phone in her hand. "Oh good," she said when she saw us, "You're back. Your dad's on the phone," she told Annabeth, holding it out to her. "I figured you wouldn't care if I answered,"
"No. Thanks, Thals," Annabeth said, taking it from her. The daughter of Zeus stepped aside and allowed her in before following. I brought up the rear, closing the door behind me.
The Hunters were staying nearby for a few days and Thalia had gotten permission from Artemis to stay with us for the weekend, on the condition that she checked in with them daily. She'd offered to keep an eye on Carly for us while we'd been gone. The boys were spending the weekend at camp. I'd dropped them off late yesterday afternoon after ensuring all homework was finished.
"Is Carly up yet?" I asked, following Thalia inside and leaving my shoes by the door. She'd still been asleep when we left, but it was well after eight now. We'd been gone for maybe half an hour, and Carly wasn't as fond of sleeping in as her brothers were.
"Yup," Thalia answered, walking toward the kitchen, "She's in here. I made breakfast. You can have some too, if you want." She looked back at me with playful wide-eyed innocence, "I promise I didn't spit in it."
I laughed, walking with her into the kitchen. Annabeth had disappeared somewhere with her phone call. "I'm sure the Hunters are disappointed you didn't."
"Oh yeah. They couldn't believe I wanted to spend the weekend at a man's house." She grinned.
"I know. Us men are just terrible."
"Mmhmm," Thalia agreed sweetly, sitting down at the table with a pajama-clad Carly, who was eating scrambled eggs and playing with a Barbie doll. As Thalia had promised, a lot more food waited on the stove, hot and ready. She'd clearly made enough for everyone. First priority, however, was water. I pulled a glass from the cabinet and filled it, downed it, and filled it again. My daughter, meanwhile, was questioning Thalia about her opinion of the blue dress for Barbie over Carly's favorite, the red one. "That one's pretty," Thalia said of Carly's choice, "But look how long it is. Barbie wouldn't be able to run in it. She'd trip. The blue one is shorter, see? She could run around no problem in it."
"But you don't run in dresses," Carly argued.
"Says who?"
"Mommy."
"Oh, well that must be true then, cause your mommy's the smartest person I know," Thalia said, "So you know what Barbie needs, then?"
"What?"
"Pants. Then she can run and jump and do all kinds of stuff and it won't matter."
"No!" Carly laughed.
I watched the exchange while I scooped myself some of the breakfast Thalia made, and couldn't help thinking that it was a bit of a shame that she was an eternal maiden because she would have made a heck of a mom. She was really awesome with kids. All three of mine adored her, especially Carly. But then, given what I knew about her upbringing with Jason and later with Annabeth, I supposed it wasn't really that surprising.
Carly looked at me as I sat down across from her, her conversation with Thalia apparently forgotten. "Daddy, can we get a puppy?" she asked out of nowhere.
I stopped, a forkful of eggs halfway to my mouth. From the corner of my eye, I saw Thalia's amused smirk. "Um, no," I answered and raised an accusing eyebrow at her.
"Don't look at me," the daughter of Zeus said, raising her hands defensively, "I had nothing to do with this."
"Why?" Carly asked me, unwavering.
"Because Mommy and I work all day and there would be nobody here to take care of it," I told her.
"But Mommy's home most days."
"But not everyday. A dog would need someone everyday. And she's still really busy, even when she's home."
"Oh," Carly said sadly, "Can we still ask Mommy?"
"Ask Mommy what?" Annabeth asked, appearing in the doorway and crossing the kitchen to us.
"If we can get a puppy," Carly supplied hopefully.
"No," Annabeth said quickly, and then glared at me.
"What?" I asked, "I already said no." Frankly, I thought my argument had been pretty sound, considering I hadn't thought about a response beforehand. The question had been pretty out of the blue, and it wasn't one I'd had to answer before. Logan had asked Annabeth for a dog shortly after Carly was born, but had been refused and dropped the issue shortly after. We hadn't heard anything about the subject since. Until now.
Annabeth just looked between Carly and me and turned, with a sigh, toward the stove. I shrugged at Carly. "Sorry, kiddo." The six year old looked sad for a moment, but went back to picking at her food easily enough and seemed fine after a minute.
Thalia, still wearing an amused smirk, looked between us. "How was your run?" she asked.
"Good," Annabeth said, sitting down next to me, "I beat Percy."
I looked at her. "Uh, no. You said it was a tie."
"Only because you definitely didn't win."
"I beg to differ."
Annabeth snorted. Thalia was shaking her head. "You two amaze me," she said.
"This is really good, by the way," I told her, changing the subject.
"Of course it is," the daughter of Zeus scoffed, "I can be domesticated when I want to."
"Did the Hunters teach you how to cook?" Annabeth asked with a smirk.
"Yeah," she admitted, "Turns out archery isn't the only thing I learned from them. We cook in rotations." She paused and glanced down at the watch around her wrist, "Speaking of which, I should probably check in with them before it gets much later." She stood up. "I'll be right back."
"Everything okay with your dad?" I asked Annabeth once Thalia had gone.
She nodded, swallowing another bite of food, "Yeah. He called to let me know he and Theresa are going to be in New York next month. They want to get together with us. He's going to e-mail me dates."
"Grandma and Grandpa Chase are coming?" Carly asked. Annabeth nodded.
"Will they be here before the kids get out of school?" I asked.
"I don't know. Hopefully not. I know they'd like to see them."
"It's been a while."
She nodded. "I wish they lived closer sometimes. We could see them more."
"Are Uncle Matthew and Uncle Bobby coming too?" Carly asked.
"I don't know," Annabeth told her, "Aunt Brianna is having the baby really soon, so Uncle Bobby probably won't, but maybe Uncle Matthew can. We'll have to ask him."
"Okay," Carly answered easily, pushing her mostly empty plate away.
"Are you done eating?" Annabeth asked her. She nodded. "Put your plate in the sink, please."
"Can we go to the park?" she asked, standing to do as she was told.
"Maybe in a little while," Annabeth told her, "We have to go grocery shopping today though. And we promised Grandma Sally we'd go there for dinner tonight, remember?"
Carly considered this, and then asked, "Can Aunt Thalia take me to the park while you go grocery shopping?"
Annabeth looked at me, smirking, before telling her, "If it's okay with her, yeah, she can."
"Yay!" Carly cried, and Thalia had yet to set foot back in the room a minute later before she did, in fact, ask her. "Can you take me to the park?" she asked.
Thalia blinked. "Yeah, sure. If it's okay with-"
"It is. Mommy said I can. I don't wanna go grocery shopping."
"I don't blame you," Thalia told her with a smirk.
"Can we go now?"
"We can, but I think you should probably put some clothes on first," Thalia told her reasonably.
"Okay!" Carly said and took off. A moment later, we heard her thundering up the stairs to her room.
"I think you just made her day," I informed Thalia as she retook her seat to wait.
"You don't mind, right?" Annabeth asked.
"Of course not," she said, "I love that little girl." She smirked, "And I'm hoping to recruit her for the Hunters one day, so better to get on her good side now."
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," I told her.
"And it'll be up to her," Annabeth said.
"That's all I want to hear," Thalia said with a smile.
Annabeth and I finished eating and I was rinsing our plates off in the sink when Carly returned, dressed accordingly in a purple T-shirt and jeans. "Ready!" she declared.
"Awesome!" Thalia said, standing up, "Let's go." Carly led the way to the door, and a minute later, they were gone.
The second the front door closed behind them, Annabeth stood up. "Come on."
"Where are we going?" I asked, leaning against the counter.
"I was going to go take a shower and, since we have the morning off now, I thought you could join me. Unless you don't want to…?" She quirked an eyebrow.
I straightened, smiling and more thankful for Thalia Grace than I'd been in a really long time, I followed a smirking Annabeth out of the kitchen.
Thanks for reading!
The title for this chapter is super random. I found it online and liked it, but it has nothing to do with anything, really. If anyone has any better chapter titles, please let me know.
Also, FF is being super annoying at the moment and not saving the cover pictures I set for the last few recent stories I've posted. If you could do me a favor and let me know which picture you see with this story, I'd appreciate it. The picture I set for it is a silhouette of a family of five. What I think it's showing is my profile picture, which is a colorful rose, because it seems to think I have not set a picture. And if anyone knows how I can fix this, I would greatly appreciate your help!
