Hey guys!
Here's an update for you. It's a little random and is basically just a filler chapter, but I love the opening scene and I think its good sometimes just to have a little bit of nothing going on, you know?
Dreamless sleep is hard to come by as a half-blood. It's even harder to achieve when you're a half-blood who happened to survive a few wars and a trip through Tartarus. Add three children to the mix and forget about it.
Granted, the kids were old enough now not to wake us up at the crack of dawn just because they could, but teenagers came with their own issues. In either case, a night of completely uninterrupted sleep was a rare treasure, and it was something I was immensely enjoying prior to the choked scream and Ancient Greek curse that sounded next to my head before five AM on the Tuesday following spring break.
I was far conditioned enough after all this time that I was awake instantly. I opened my eyes in time to see Annabeth vaulting over me to the other side of the bed. "Oh my gods, kill it," she said, all but hiding behind me now in the small space between my body and the edge of the mattress. "Percy, kill it."
My heart thundering in my chest at the prospect of an attack, I quickly scanned the dark room, only the earliest traces of dawn lighting it enough to barely make out objects and shadows. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I turned quickly to look at her and found her eyes, bright in the dimness, focused on her bedside table. I followed her gaze, squinting at the piece of furniture until I could just make out the small black shape atop it. I released my breath in a rush, relief flooding through me at the fight I would not be having.
I relaxed back into the pillow as my heart rate began to slow. "Gods, Annabeth, give me a heart attack, why don't you?" I thought I heard vague barking from down the hall and hoped Ollie wasn't about to wake the whole house up at her cry.
The spider had been stationary until this point, but began slowly crawling closer to the bed now. My wife's hands were like claws in my bare shoulder as she shied further back and simultaneously shoved me closer at the movement. "Percy Jackson," she said with conviction, "Kill that thing right now or I swear to all the gods, I will divorce you right here."
After nearly eighteen years of marriage, I knew the difference between Annabeth's sincere and idle threats. I wasn't all that worried about her words, but I made to move anyway. She kept a box of tissues on the nightstand behind the eight-legged culprit, and I complied in grabbing one and ending the spider for having the nerve to enter the house of a child of Athena.
Annabeth watched, perched stiffly on the opposite end of the bed, as I got up and carried the squished arachnid into the bathroom and tossed the wadded up tissue into the trash. It would have been funny, had they not affected her so strongly, even after all this time. She'd never done well with spiders, but since encountering Arachne herself in the catacombs beneath Rome years ago and falling into Tartarus as a result, Annabeth's phobia of the spider's descendants had only worsened. I'd seen her cut down hordes of monsters without batting an eye, but anything worse than a Daddy Long-Leg was enough to stop her dead in her tracks. She could force herself, with great effort, to violently end them if she had to, but if I—or anyone else capable—was around, she quickly and forcefully passed off the task.
"Is it dead?" she asked as I fell back into bed and buried my face in the pillow, in her usual spot since she was still in mine.
I turned my head enough to answer, opening one eye. "Aren't you supposed to be a big shot hero of Olympus?" She only didn't answer except to narrow her eyes slightly, waiting. I sighed and closed my eye again, "It's guts are no longer inside its body; it's very dead."
"Thank you."
I hummed a reply and then, turning to look at the display of her alarm clock, groaned. Sunrise was still almost two hours out. "What were you even doing up this early?"
"I got up to go the bathroom, and came back to that." Had it not been quarter to five in the morning, I probably would have laughed. With the window shades closed and barely a trace of oncoming dawn outside, it was still almost completely dark in our room. She'd probably spotted the spider by the dim light of her alarm clock alone. I doubted anyone but a child of Athena would have seen it, and even then, probably just her.
"You're lucky I love you," I mumbled.
"Yeah, 'cause you're such a knight in shining armor," she said sardonically, lowering herself down beside me now.
"You should be nicer to me," I said, half-asleep again, "I could make you kill your own spiders."
"Shut up, Seaweed Brain," she murmured, curling into my side now, "Go back to sleep."
Thirty seconds of quiet passed and I was teetering on the edge of unconsciousness again when a knock sounded on the bedroom door. I sighed deeply. "Come in," Annabeth called to the unnamed child waiting in the hall.
The door opened to reveal Logan, pajama-clad and hair rumpled. "Um, I heard a yell and Ollie was barking. Are you guys alright?" he asked, probably fearing the same attack I had minutes earlier.
"Everything's fine, honey," Annabeth told him, "Go back to sleep."
There was a very short pause, and then, "Okay. 'Night," followed by the closing of the door again. I was asleep a minute later.
"What was that noise super early this morning?" Nicky asked over his cereal bowl a few hours later, while I brewed coffee. Carly stood before Annabeth in the doorway, having her hair braided. "It sounded like a scream, and Ollie was barking his head off."
"Yeah, he wouldn't stop for like ten minutes," Carly complained, "It was still dark outside." I met Annabeth's eyes overtop her head, trying not to smile, "Was it a monster?" Carly piped up, as if remembering that was a possibility.
She hadn't stayed without us that first day at camp, but had requested to be driven back two days later, where she'd stayed the last few days of spring break with the boys in the Poseidon cabin. She'd seemed amazed upon returning home Sunday morning that life was just expected to go on as usual with this new normal she was now privy to.
"No," Logan answered her before either of us could, looking between his siblings imploringly in a way that made me wonder what he thought his mother and I did alone in our room at four-thirty in the morning.
"There was a spider," I explained, both to answer the questions and assuage the rather embarrassing train of thought I'd just boarded. "It was on your mom's bedside table and it scared her."
The kids, aware, to varying extents, of their mother's feelings toward the children of Arachne, accepted the answer without issue. Annabeth didn't speak and looked slightly embarrassed as she tied off the end of Carly's braid. But none of the children were very fond of the creatures either, genetically predisposed as they were, and, if the understanding and slightly agreeing expressions now on their faces were anything to go by, they did not blame their mother one bit. And in all fairness, had I rolled over to find a spider inches from my own nose, I probably wouldn't have been exactly pleased either—I found empathy a far easier task with the slightly later hour of the morning.
"Did you kill it?" Carly asked with surprising savagery, moving toward the table now to pour her own breakfast.
"Yes," Annabeth said with a small smile now, walking farther into the kitchen herself and accepting the mug of coffee I held out to her. The ambiguity of her answer was intentional. I quirked an eyebrow. "Shut up," she muttered under her breath, but her gray eyes sparkled as they met mine. To my own credit, I didn't laugh.
Her hair was down, curling slightly past her shoulders. She wore jeans and a beige sweater, foregoing the business attire to work from home today. On the mornings she went into the office in Manhattan, she typically drove Logan, whose school started earliest, on the way. I was able to go in to work myself a little later those days in order to drop off Nicky and Carly. We swapped kids on the days she was home.
Annabeth gripped the mug in both hands and turned back toward them again. Logan, finished with his breakfast, stood with his bowl now and brought it to the sink. "You almost done, Nicky?" she asked as our oldest left the kitchen in search of his shoes, "Hannah will be here soon. You need to get dressed."
Nicky nodded, tilting his own bowl to his mouth to sip the milk from it. He was running late this morning and had yet to don a shirt.
With three kids in three different schools, mornings were a bit chaotic, getting everyone where they needed to go. At the start of the school year, Hannah had opted to carpool with us over taking the bus, when given the option. She and Nicky went to school together and one of us drove him every day anyway. Her parents were grateful. Hannah hated the bus, but they worked early and were not able to drive her themselves. And Nicky loved any opportunity to be with his best friend.
He hurried to finish and then left the kitchen. He could be heard ascending the stairs a minute later. Annabeth looked at me now. "You should probably get going soon."
I nodded, finishing off the toast I'd been munching on. Since Logan had switched schools the previous, we needed to leave a few minutes earlier to accommodate the longer drive. It was a worthwhile sacrifice. With better programs than his old high school and a fellow half-blood not only on the inside but running the place, I'd never been happier to drive an extra fifteen minutes. Annabeth and I planned to send both Nicky and Carly to Northridge when the time came as well. "You ready, Logan?" I called out of the kitchen.
"Yeah," came his reply from somewhere in the house, "Be right there!"
"Don't forget to schedule an oil change for your car," Annabeth reminded me across the kitchen as I moved toward the table where Carly sat, alone now, picking the marshmallows out of her Lucky Charms. I nodded, coming up behind her chair. "I'll call after I drop Logan off," I promised, and then bent to kiss the nine-year old's cheek. "You've got to eat the actual cereal too, you know," I told her.
"I know," she informed me around a mouthful of sugar, "I just eat the best part first."
I chuckled. "Okay. Have a good day, Peanut. I'll see you later."
"Bye."
Nicky walked back in, fully clothed now. Annabeth reached out and attempted to smooth down the back of his dark head, which stuck out in wild angles. He ducked away and attempted to finish the job himself. "Do you know where my science book is?" he asked her.
"Probably still on the coffee table where it was when I told you to put it away yesterday," she answered wryly.
"Oh yeah," he said, turning to go again. She watched him leave and then breathed a laugh, shaking her head.
"He would lose his head if it wasn't attached to his body," I commented, reaching her.
Annabeth turned a raised eyebrow on me. "Where do you think he gets it from?"
"Hey, I have my moments." She just smiled and rolled her eyes. I gave her a quick kiss. "See you later."
"Have a good day."
"Bye, Dad," Nicky said as I turned from the kitchen, emerging from the living room with his textbook in hand.
"Bye, Nick. Have fun at school." I grinned at the look he gave me in response before smiling himself. "Or at least try," I amended.
He laughed. "Okay."
Logan appeared now, backpack slung over a shoulder. "Ready?" I asked him. He nodded. "Let's go," I said, grabbing my own bag from the office and shouldering it.
I followed him out to the driveway a minute later, the brisk morning wind cold against my face, and I thought absently that it probably wouldn't be long before Logan was the one driving me around. The thought was a sobering one. But I climbed into the driver's seat beside him and started the engine. Life was busy and wonderful, and mornings like this one, busy as they always were, were just one of an incredibly long list of things I had to be thankful for.
Thanks for reading!
