Hello everyone! I'm here with another chapter for you. It's a bit on the short side and is really just a filler, but it's pretty cute and I hope you like it. Things will be getting more interesting soon, I promise.


Summer ended, like it always did, far too soon for the kids' liking. With less than a week before they would be returning to school for another year, all three of them, in a rare show of tolerance, were out in the back yard together. This time of year, the sun remained in the sky long enough for daylight to last well past seven o'clock and the yard was still brightly lit at half-past five. I stood on the deck, manning the grill where tonight's dinner cooked, and watched with half a smirk as Logan and Nicholas practiced hand-to-hand combat with each other. Having only been home from camp for a few days, the boys were still gung-ho about the new skills they'd picked up over the past months. Most of this they couldn't possibly practice in the back yard, especially with Carly present, but combat training was essentially glorified martial arts and would draw little unwanted attention should one of our neighbors notice them. Their sister, too, was safe to observe as she pleased.

Carly alternated every few minutes between watching her brothers practice, often asking them to teach her, to wandering off to do cartwheels in the grass. The boys, as a general rule, were very good about keeping the secret from her, though it was surely only a matter of time before she'd find out for herself one way or another.

Currently she was content with tumbling around the back yard and the boys were taking turns attacking each other, both obviously and necessarily pulling their punches. Nicky charged Logan and the latter, after a beautiful block and feint, locked his little brother in an arm bar, pulling him closer and bracing himself against him, before following through with a flawless judo-throw. It ended with Nicky flat in the grass, surprised but unharmed, with his brother's knee planted firmly against his chest.

Annabeth had wandered outside while Logan was mid-flip, closed the sliding door behind her, and stopped beside me now as our oldest stood up and reached down to help his little brother to his feet. "Who's that remind you of?" I asked, smirking, watching with her.

She chuckled lightly. "I'm never going to live that one down, am I?"

I laughed. "You're lucky the Romans didn't declare war the second you attacked their Praetor."

She snorted, smirking and staring out as Carly grew bored once again with her gymnastics and wandered over to watch the boys wrestle as Nicky tried to hold Logan in a headlock on the ground. The latter still had a several inches and more than a few pounds on his brother, but if the moves were done right, the size difference didn't matter much. "Their Praetor deserved to be attacked." She shook her head. "Gods, they're going to need showers tonight."

"Thanks," I snorted, ignoring the second half of her statement.

She smiled but said nothing as she continued watching the kids. I looked down and flipped the meat I was grilling. I closed the cover to let it cook some more and stepped back, watching now as Logan tried his hand at teaching his sister a simple wristlock. Annabeth's hand snaked up my arm and settled on my shoulder. She rested her chin casually atop it. "Carly asked for a puppy again today," she informed me, still comfortably close.

"Yeah?" I asked, "What did you tell her?"

She sighed. "Same thing I've been telling her. She swears up and down that she'll take care of it every day when she comes home from school, the boys too, and maybe they will, but eventually she's going to be away for the summers just like they are and the responsibility will fall on us."

I considered that for a second. "Would that be so bad?" I asked finally, turning to look sideways at her, "I know for a fact that you were dead bored the last few weeks without the boys."

She sighed, straightening. "Don't you start in on me too," she said but didn't sound all that annoyed.

"Come on, babe. It didn't make sense when the kids were little, but they aren't anymore. I think it'd be fun to have a dog."

She shook her head but appeared to fight a smile while doing so. "You're impossible," she said. She looked at me dead on then. "Don't you dare let the kids know we're actually considering this."

I raised my eyebrows. "Are we?"

"Well, you seem to be at least."

"I just think it might be fun."

"Fun for who?"

I sighed, surrendering. "Point taken."

Carly's laughter drew my attention then. She was on the ground, having had her legs swept out from under her by Nicky, who'd been showing her how and had taken her by surprise upon demonstrating.

I felt Annabeth's eyes on me as I watched and turned to look at her again. She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. "See if you can wrangle the hooligans," she said, stepping away, "I have salad to toss. Don't let them track grass inside."

"Yes, ma'am."

I watched her retreat back inside and then turned back toward the kids. With the food still requiring a few more minutes, I left it to cook and padded down the steps and out to the yard with them. Carly ran over as I approached. "Daddy," she said, "Do you know combat like the boys?"

Behind her, Logan snorted, but covered it quickly with a rush of breath as Nicky swept his leg and he went down. I smirked. "Yeah, I know some stuff."

"Does Mommy?"

"Yes, she does," I told her, picking a blade of grass from her brown hair. I turned to the boys, still wrestling with each other on the ground. "Reign it in, guys. Logan, you're pinned. Stop struggling."

"Yes!" Nicky laughed exuberantly before rolling off his brother.

"Wash up for dinner," I said, "The table needs to be set."

The four of us set off back toward the house. Carly walked beside me while the boys stayed two steps ahead, laughing and brushing grass off themselves as they went. Nicky, whose hand-to-hand combat skills had improved greatly over the summer, seemed extremely pleased with his victory over his brother.

"Did you learn to fight at camp like Logan and Nicky?" Carly asked, looking up at me as we neared the steps.

Yes. "We learned self defense," I told her, "Which is what the boys were doing. That's different from fighting." It was true, for the most part. In reality, it was more complicated than that, but Carly didn't need to know beyond that right now.

"When do I get to go to camp?" she asked.

"Soon," I answered. There was no question about that. She was already eight years old. If we were lucky, she had maybe two more years, but we usually weren't.

"Next year?"

"Maybe."

"Please? I'll be good," she insisted, her green eyes wide and earnest, "I promise."

I sighed lightly and smiled wistfully down at her. "I know. We'll see."

She looked less than satisfied with that answer, but nodded as we continued toward the house. I wanted to give Carly everything she wanted, but her safety was more important. I didn't know how we'd managed to go this long without her learning the truth, especially with the boys so actively involved in everything now, but I was happy to play it out as long as possible.

Logan and Nicky led the way inside, greeted by Annabeth's commands of "Wipe your feet!" Carly followed after them while I stopped to take the food off the grill and bring it inside. I left it on the table and joined my family in the kitchen. I was met with my wife's smile. Her gray eyes sparkled and I knew she was happy to have noise in the house and all three kids under one roof again.

She set the boys the task of setting the table after ensuring their hands were clean. Breakfast and lunch were generally eaten in the kitchen, but with all of us together for dinner, there was more space in the dining room. When they had disappeared around the corner, Annabeth looked at me while supervising Carly as she helped stir something on the stove. "Sue called before," she informed me, "She and John are taking Hannah to the zoo tomorrow and wanted to extend the invitation to Nicky."

"That was nice of them," I said, "Did you tell him yet?"

She shook her head. "Not yet. You're okay with it, right?"

"Sure. Are you not?"

"I'm fine with it. He'll love it."

I smirked. "I doubt there's much he wouldn't love as long as Hannah's involved." If those two had been inseparable before, in the days since both returned home, they'd been all but joined at the hip.

She laughed. "You're awful."

"I want to go to the zoo too," Carly said, looking between her mother and me like a great injustice had occurred.

"Maybe we'll go soon," Annabeth told her.

"No, I want to go tomorrow with Nicky and Hannah."

"You can't, honey," she explained to her, clearly realizing her mistake in bringing up the subject in our daughter's presence. "Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence didn't invite you. Hannah is Nicky's friend."

"She can be my friend too," Carly protested, her eyebrows narrowed stubbornly.

"It doesn't work like that, kiddo," I said.

"We'll do something else tomorrow," Annabeth told her, "You and Logan both need some new clothes for school. Want to go shopping?"

The eight-year old shrugged unenthusiastically, obviously feeling gypped.

Annabeth sighed but turned away from her now. "Here," she said, turning off the stove and handing me the pot of rice that had been cooking atop it, "Can you bring this to the table?"

"Sure."

Logan and Nicky had finished with their task and sat in their regular spots now. Logan was grinning and laughing lightly as he watched his brother, who was in full-blown hysterics. I stopped in the doorway and raised my eyebrows. "What's going on in here?"

"Nothing," Logan said, smiling. Nicky laughed harder.

"Nothing must be pretty funny," I said, smirking and continuing forward now to set the food on the table.

"I told Nicky the story you told me in the car the other day," Logan explained, glancing sideways at his brother, who was still in stitches, "About your first day at camp, with the Ares cabin."

"I can't… believe you—did that," the twelve-year old managed between peals of laughter. It seemed the harder he tried to calm down, the more he snickered.

I laughed a little myself now. "Yeah, well. It probably would have been cooler if it was on purpose."

"You soaked them," Nicky gasped, "with t-toilet water!" He collapsed in giggles once more, and his laughter was contagious.

"Shhh," Logan managed, prodding his brother's arm. I saw why a second later as, behind me, Carly walked into the room, followed by Annabeth, who carried a bowl of salad which she placed on the table with the rest of the meal.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"Logan told Nicky a funny story," I explained, and added, "About me," which narrowed it down to only a few hundred possibilities, but she seemed to understand.

"Tell me!" Carly insisted, taking her seat next to Logan.

"When you're older," I told her as Nicky chuckled again.

Carly made a face. "I hate being little," she grumbled.

"I'm sorry," I said, and then made a face at her until she smiled. With every day that passed, the kids got older and things grew more and more interesting, but for now, all we could do was take things one day at a time and deal with each obstacle as it came. And I was personally glad for the time Carly still had left, short as it probably was.

"Okay," Annabeth said, sitting down next to me, "That's enough. Let's eat before everything gets cold."

The boys in particular had no issue with this plan, and the topic shifted to mundane things as we made it though another day of life at the Jackson residence.


Thanks for reading!