Katie turned over again. She seemed to do that a lot while sleeping. I lay beside her on the bed, occasionally twisting my ring. It was the same skull one that I'd worn when I was younger. What was I supposed to do now? I dug a hand in my pocket, and pulled out a couple drachmas and several denarii. I could go and Iris-Message Chiron and let him know that we'd be back soon. It was still light out, so I probably could. Hopefully he wasn't too busy. I nodded to myself; that's what I would do. I eased off the bed so as not to awake Katie, and headed into the ensuite, pleased to find a window facing the sun. Adjusting the shower head and removing it from the wall, I turned it on. A fine mist spritzed the window, as a small rainbow glimmered on it. There the rainbow was, so I threw the drachma into it.
"Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering." And with that the drachma disappeared, so I finished opening the message with the person and place, "Chiron, Camp Half-Blood."
This was exciting. I was grinning ear to ear, and could see it appear in the mirror. It was nerve-wracking too. We weren't prepared to raise a kid. What were they supposed to eat? What if she got injured? Well, she'd be alright if she got injured, she'd have Will as her dad. I kept thinking. Will would still be working in the infirmary. That meant that I'd be the one with her majority of the time, what if she then realised that she didn't like me? Just as my smile dropped, the Iris-Message connected. Chiron's bearded face sprung to life before me, and he looked up, slightly startled. He was in his study again, I could tell by the snarling Seymour in the background.
"Good Heavens! How are you, Nico, my boy?"
"Fine, Chiron. Fine."
"Have you and Will picked up the child?" He leafed through some papers on his desk, "Katelyn, was it? And how is she?"
"Yes, Chiron, we've got her and she's fi-"
"- Vince, not now, the counsellor's meeting is at 3 o'clock. Yes, that's in two hours."
"We're just at Jason and Piper's right now, but we should be back later this afternoon."
"Well, okay. Do say hello to them for me, and don't feel that you have to rush back. We will see you soon."
And with that, he sliced through the image, cutting the connection. I headed back into the room, only a little surprised that Katie had managed to turn herself upside down on the bed. It was hilarious how much she acted like Will already, even though they weren't blood-related.
Hm, what was I supposed to do now? I imagined that Katie would be out for another half an hour at least, so I headed back into the kitchen, surprised to see only Jason. He was still covered in icing, and had started scraping a bowl full of pink marshmallow goop into a piping bag.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"You and Pipes seem really happy. I'm glad for you."
"You and Will look really happy too. You'll make great parents. And Pipes and I are here if you ever need a couple of babysitters, okay?"
"We'll remember that. Nearly everyone we know has said that: Hazel, Percy and Annabeth, even Clarisse. I think she misses having Hedge's son to play with. And the whole Aphrodite cabin. They seem more eager to look after Katie than we do!"
"Huh, you guys must really like it at camp. I'm surprised that you didn't move to New Rome like we did. "
"Nah, Will's the main medic back at camp. And it does seem a bit more laidback than here."
"Mm, I can understand that. So how is everyone at camp? I know it's only been, what, a couple weeks. "
"It's alright, we've still got a lot to fix back up, and it' definitely been gloomier and quieter than usual."
Jason nodded, twisting the piping bag, a small blob of marshmallow dropping onto the first cupcake. Slowly he spread it out with a butterknife, and cleaned the edges. He picked it up and presented it to me.
"Cupcake?"
"Sure," I said questionably. I didn't think Jason would've been the baking type. But then again, it was Jason.
"Piper's been trying to teach me how to make the little flowers and stuff, but it gets really hard because you have to have a tonne of focus. Which is something that neither of us have."
"Yeah, ADHD sucks sometimes."
We just kind of stood there for a bit, me eating the cupcake which was great. It was soft and fluffy and tasted a bit like strawberries. And Jason worked on marshmallowing the rest of the cupcakes. Once he'd done the pink, he set the piping bag in the sink, and got out a sandwich bag. Placing it in a cup, and folding the edges down around the rim, he filled it with the blue icing. Once it had been filed, he twisted the top closed and sniped a tiny hole in the corner.
"Are you sure everything's okay?" He asked, putting down the icing, "There haven't been any problems?"
The jeers, hostile looks and petty jokes flashed in front of my eyes. There was no need to worry Jason with those. He had enough to deal with. But he had noticed something on my face and narrowed his eyes.
"Neeks, what are you not telling me?"
"Its nothing."
"Why do I get the feeling you're lying?"
"It's just people at camp, it's nothing really."
"Neeks, that's bull and we both know it. Come on, you can tell me."
"It's just not everyone thinks that I should have brought Will back, or that I should have tried to bring others back. I tried to explain to them that I physically couldn't bring anyone else back, and they called me selfish, to just save my, uh, boyfriend."
"What do they do?"
Jason's voice was quiet, but held bridled anger.
"Just little things, I'm serious. Walk on the other side of the pavilion to avoid me. Leave little notes about the people they've lost where they know I will find them. They call Will zombie-boy when they think we can't hear them."
I could see sparks of electricity in his eyes, he was trying to straddle his anger. I set down the cupcake, and raised my hands in defeat.
"It's not a big deal, for me at least. I'm used to it. But, it's been a bit hard on Will, These are the people he's meant to help, and they just kinda ignore him, or show barely any gratitude. He tries to act like no big deal, but I can tell that is is."
Jason nodded, the sparks fading from his eyes. His mouth formed into a tight-lipped grimace.
"I'm sorry, Neeks. That sucks. People can be real jerks."
"Mm, yeah."
"I'm sorry. You guys could probably move over here. I don't think they'd be so rude here."
"We'd love to, but Will is attached to that infirmary."
"Well, the offer is always open."
Piper came through the hallway, followed closely by Will. She had a slightly red sheen on her face, no doubt lotion for her scars. Will looked around the room, raising on the tips of his sneakers and craned his neck to see if Katie was behind the counter. When he didn't spot her, he mouthed at me, still asleep? I nodded. His face washed with relief, and he glanced at the cupcakes.
"What're you planning to do with those cupcakes?"
"Nico has part of one there that you could try, let me just," Piper had returned to her place behind the counter, a hand slung around Jason's middle and other hand counting the cupcakes, "What do you know, we have some more leftovers. Try one."
Will thanked her as he took it and bit in to it, murmuring about how good it was. Jason had picked his blue icing back up and was concentrating hard on writing letters on the remaining cupcakes.
"So what is with the cupcakes? Do you usually make them or-"
"Oh, no, not really. It was meant to be a surprise, we didn't think you guys would be back until later, but anyway... " She stopped, eyes straining towards the hallway. "Since she's asleep, we're making 'welcome to the family' cupcakes for Katie. Do you think she will like them?"
"Aw, that's really nice and thoughtful, and I am sure that she'll love it," Will smiled, trying to warm the room with it.
"Yeah, but the thing is, would you guys happen to know when you have to head back to camp?"
"Uh," Will glanced at me.
"We had a counsellor's meeting at 3, but since we missed that, we'll leave at 5, so that we could just sneak back in. No need to keep everyone else awake."
"Papa? Papa? Daddy?" Crap. I jumped from the chair and headed straight to her. She looked very dishevelled; one of her pigtails had come undone and she had a red patch on her face from where she'd been sleeping on it.
"It's okay, I'm right here."
They hadn't finished decorating the cakes. I had to stall her. That wouldn't be too hard. She was like, 2.
"Would you like to get changed into one of your pretty dresses?"
"Yes, pwease."
"Which one? We have pink," I raised the dress to the little girl sitting on the bed, "Or blue, or green. Ooh, we have a sequinned purple dress. So many choices, which one, milady?"
She squealed and giggled, pointing at the purple one. It took a good 10 minutes to get her changed, and her hair fixed. I wasn't the best at braiding but I did end up leaving it in a thick plait.
"Are you ready?"
"Ready for what?" She raised her hands in a shrug and looked up at me, her big eyes were as green as forest vines.
"Jason and Piper have a special surprise for you?"
"A surprise?" She grinned. "What is it?"
I smiled and promised her that she'd see it. I took her tiny hand and together we walked out to see her surprise. I lifted her up onto one of the bar stools and she started to giggle again, pointing at the cupcakes. We sat down and ate them, with Piper wrapping a few up for us to take back to camp.
"Well, it's getting late, we better head home." We had our bags strapped to our backs, and Will held a sleeping Katie in his arms. Jason and Piper held open their door, trying to insist that we stay the night.
"Are you sure we can't bribe you? You could just go early in the morning," Jason tried one more time.
"No, it's okay. Besides, this one can't even wake up at a reasonable hour." Will nodded to me, chuckling.
"Okay, that's enough. Don't go spilling all my secrets."
I turned into the centre of the cul-de-sac and focussed on calling Mrs O'Leary. She grew out of the shadowy night, her heavy breath giving her away. She was getting really old. Some of her fur had started to gray, and she hadn't been barking as much. We waved our last goodbyes to Jason and Piper as they headed back inside, and we disappeared into the shadows with the old hellhound.
Reappearing inside the camp's borders, we farewelled Mrs O'Leary as she shadow travelled somewhere else. It was really late, so we snuck around to the back of the infirmary where our home was. We didn't need to flick on the lights since the moon cast a glow through the large window. I dropped the bags onto the dining table; we'd deal with them later.
"Where do we put her? We don't have a bed for her."
"Hm," I moved some of our books and replaced them with blankets and pillows, making the daybed a temporary nightbed. Will put her down gently, brushing some loose strands of hair out of her eyes. Thank gods that we'd put her in her pjs at Jason and Pipes'. She was fast asleep, and should hopefully stay that way all night.
However, I started to get a pounding headache, and my sight started to dim. I could suddenly feel the floor on my cheek, before I lost consciousness.
