Chapter Text
'Oh. My. Gods.'
Uh-oh. That was never a good sign.
'Annabeth? What's wrong?' I asked into the phone. 'Did you find Percy? Is something wrong?'
'Um…yes, you could say that.'
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Whatever Percy was going through, he'd probably been through much worse. But this never got any easier.
'Okay, Annabeth, is this something the two of you can handle? Or do you need my help?'
'Oh, yes,' came Annabeth's voice. 'I definitely need your help. In fact, I think you're the only person who can help.'
Well that was strange. I figured it was a demigod thing – a monster attack or a quest – and usually, as much as I hated it, I had to leave the kids to it. Not that they were kids anymore. But what could have happened to Percy that only I could help with? He was an adult now - he could solve most of his own problems without his mom.
'Is Percy hurt? Injured? Do you need a ride to the emergency room? I can get us a taxi.'
'Oh…uh, no. He doesn't seem to be hurt. He's just…well, you'd better come and see for yourself, Sally.'
Oh, gods.
Whatever I'd been expecting, it hadn't been this.
I arrived at Times Square with Paul, who was carrying Estelle on his back. The three of us had enjoyed a lovely walk in Central Park - well, until Estelle complained about being tired and insisted that Daddy give her a piggy-back. I spotted Annabeth, but I couldn't see Percy anywhere. Instead, Annabeth was holding hands with a small child. A little boy. He looked like…
My stomach dropped through the warm concrete sidewalk beneath my feet.
'Percy!?' I gasped, feeling all the colour drain from my face. It was like I was being transported back about twenty years.
'Look, Mommy! Percy's like me!' Estelle exclaimed in delight. Paul placed her down and kept a firm hold on her hand. She and Percy were about the same size. Weird.
'Yep,' said Annabeth. 'I'm not entirely sure how this happened.' She glared down at Percy. 'Want to explain, Seaweed Brain?'
'It was that mean Hebe,' Percy squeaked. Oh wow. I'd forgotten what his baby voice sounded like. 'She made me like this.' He pouted.
'What in Hades were you doing back at Hebe Jeebies?' Annabeth demanded. 'You remember last time, we all got turned into eight-year-olds? We got attacked by killer chickens and then murdered a John Lennon song on karaoke?'
Paul and Estelle were looking bewildered. For me, however, that was not the weirdest thing I've ever heard concerning my son. I had a bizarre life.
'It's not my fault,' said Percy moodily. 'I was just going past. She doesn't like me because I helped Ganymede. So then we had a big argument.'
'I guess that makes sense,' Annabeth said. 'She did say that she couldn't wait to see him fall on his face and get blasted to ashes. Also, the fact that you embraced Geras probably doesn't help your case with her either.'
'It's not fair,' Percy whinged. 'Why is it always me?'
Why indeed.
Percy was drowning in a way-too-big t-shirt that came all the way down to the floor. I then noticed that Annabeth was clutching his jeans and sneakers in her other arm. I guess it would have been too much to ask that Hebe's spell would work on his clothes. Luckily, there was a solution to that. I hoped it would work.
'Estelle.' I bent down to speak to my little girl. 'Percy's only little, like you, so I need you to be a big girl and lend him some of your clothes. Can you do that?'
'Percy's only little so I need to be big!' She giggled. 'Okay.'
'Good girl.' I stood up again and faced the others. 'Okay…I guess we'd better go home and get Percy dressed. Then we'll work out what to do about this.'
It took a while to get back to the apartment, with Percy wanting to hold my hand and Annabeth's, and Estelle wanting to hold my hand and Paul's, which made us one big chain of people. When we finally got back, Paul and Annabeth stayed with the two toddlers while I rummaged through Estelle's closet for something not too girly. I smiled as I landed on her blue and white stripy dungarees and grabbed a green t-shirt to match. I then went and fetched Percy and got him out of the ginormous t-shirt and into the little toddler outfit. It gave me an extreme case of déjà vu helping him get his little arms and legs through all the right holes.
'Awww,' said Paul and Annabeth when Percy and I emerged. Estelle giggled.
'It's like he's my little brother!'
Suddenly I noticed that there was something in the front pocket of the dungarees. Percy grabbed it and pulled it out.
'Oh my gods,' I exclaimed, freaking out. 'I'd better keep that.' I lunged to take the ballpoint pen from Percy but he hung on tight.
'No way! It's mine!'
'But it's a sword! Perseus Jackson, you give that to me right now!'
'Don't worry, Sally,' Annabeth reassured me. 'It's not a problem. Riptide has a child safety setting.'
I raised my eyebrows.
'It does?'
'Sure. We found that out last time we got turned into kids. It didn't work for him as an eight-year-old, so it definitely won't now.'
Sure enough, when Percy uncapped his ballpoint pen and shouted, 'Take that, you bad guys!' it really was just a ballpoint pen.
I put a hand on my chest and took some deep breaths to try and calm my racing heart. Paul came and put his hands round my shoulders.
'See, it's going to be okay,' he said soothingly, making me feel instantly calmer. 'Percy, why don't you give Estelle a big hug for lending you her clothes?'
'Okay.' Percy went and hugged Estelle, and my heart melted from the cuteness. Maybe this wasn't so bad after all. Then Percy yelled 'Tickle fight!' and attacked his sister with wiggling fingers, making her squeal and knocking her over.
'Percy,' I reprimanded, panicking again. Paul stepped towards them, ready to lift Percy off, but Estelle had retaliated with tickles of her own. Percy shrieked.
'Just be careful,' I said as they went on tickling each other.
When they had calmed down a bit and were lying in a heap on the floor, giggling breathlessly, I asked:
'So…what now?'
I'd meant that to mean what are we going to do about this? but Percy had other ideas.
'I want to make blue cookies!' he declared, getting up off the floor. Estelle followed suit.
'Oooh yes, blue cookies!' she echoed, jumping up and down. I frowned.
'I meant that we should try and come up with ways to get Percy back to normal,' I told them. 'I don't need you both with a sugar high.'
'I don't know, it might be fun,' said Paul. I put my hands on my hips.
'Don't you start.'
'I'm staying out of this,' said Annabeth, backing away. Very wise girl.
Percy and Estelle both looked up at me with pleading eyes. Oh, gods. I couldn't say no to two lots of puppy-dog eyes.
'Okay, but you are all helping clean up if this is a disaster,' I said.
'Yaaay!'
So we all put our aprons on and got to work. Well, Paul, Annabeth and I got to work. We rapidly discovered that baking with two toddlers is not for the faint of heart. First we had to break up a 'flour fight' which resulted in them both looking like ghosts. Then Percy used way too much blue food colouring, making the mixture go too runny so we had to add more of everything else. And somehow, cookie mixture ended up on the ceiling. Don't ask.
It was utter chaos, but we also had a lot of laughs together. I knew that we'd all look back on this day with fondness, even Percy – if he remembered any of it afterwards.
Percy and Estelle got impatient waiting for the cookies to bake. Paul played with Percy, swinging him upside down like he often did with Estelle, while singing little snatches from Under the Sea. Percy loved this, squealing with delight and singing along, rather out-of-tune but very enthusiastically. I decided to get started on the washing up while they were distracted – which turned out to be a mistake. Percy got a little too excited when the oven beeped, and yelled 'THEY'RE DONE!' - causing all the water to explode in my face. I coughed and spluttered, spitting out soapy suds.
'Sorry,' said Paul, handing me a towel to get dry while Annabeth got the cookies out. 'That was my fault. I got him a bit too excited. I'm not used to having a toddler with water powers.'
'No, it was cute. You deserved to have some bonding time with little Percy. You're like a dad to him.'
Paul smiled.
'Really?'
'Of course. Let's try not to get him too excited though. We don't want him blowing up all the plumbing in the entire building.'
This was going to prove difficult now that the cookies were ready. Percy and Estelle could hardly contain their excitement, and we had to try and distract them to keep them from touching the hot baking tray. Luckily, Annabeth got them singing one of her campfire songs from camp, with lots of actions and handclapping, which Percy happily joined in with and Estelle enjoyed even though she didn't know it.
Despite everything, the cookies turned out to be delicious, and didn't last long with five of us scarfing them down. Percy looked extra cute with blue crumbs round his mouth.
'So, what shall we do next?' I asked, knowing we wouldn't get anything productive done until they were both tired enough to take a nap.
'Let's watch a movie,' said Estelle, so we spent the next few minutes scrolling through Disney Plus trying to find something they could both agree on. This proved a challenge as Percy wasn't interested in any of Estelle's usual favourites. But then scrolling through all the princess movies gave her a different idea.
'Let's play dress up instead!'
'Do you want to play dress up, Percy?' Paul asked.
'Percy can be the Little Mermaid,' Estelle declared, giggling.
'I can't wear a dress,' Percy complained. 'I'll look stupid!'
'Boys can wear dresses too, Seaweed Brain,' said Annabeth. 'And a mermaid tail isn't technically a dress. You can say that you're a merman.'
Percy pouted, considering this for a moment.
'I guess it would be cool to be a merman.'
'That's the spirit,' said Annabeth.
Percy made a very cute merman. It gave me flashbacks to when I'd discovered I was pregnant and panicked that my child would be part fish (luckily the scans had showed that he wasn't). After a while, Percy discovered that he quite liked dressing up and forgot about being embarrassed about wearing dresses. He and Estelle tried on all of her different outfits, laughing and posing in front of the mirror.
Annabeth had snagged my phone and was busy snapping hundreds of pictures of them. I couldn't help but laugh, knowing we could use those to embarrass Percy when he got back to normal. Hopefully that would happen soon.
After about an hour of this, Estelle was starting to get grumpy. I figured she'd had enough of sharing her things with her brother. She'd never had to do it, after all. And I could tell their energy levels were starting to drop – it had been a while since the cookies.
'I'm tired, Daddy,' said Estelle, yawning.
'Come on then, Princess. Time for your nap.'
Paul picked her up, still wearing her Cinderella dress, and carried her off to her room. That just left a tired, cranky Percy.
Annabeth was leafing through Estelle's collection of toddler books, which we kept in a box near the TV.
'Maybe one of these will help.' She stopped and extracted one, and a grin spread across her face. 'Yep, this is perfect.'
She sat on the sofa and scooped Percy up into her lap.
'Come on, Seaweed Brain. Let's read a nice relaxing book.'
Percy giggled, as if he thought the idea of reading being 'relaxing' was hilarious.
'Okay Wise Girl.'
Annabeth opened the book and began to read.
'That's not my shark. Its tummy is too squashy.'
She got Percy to feel the book with his little fingers. I smiled. This was so adorable.
Percy snuggled up in Annabeth's lap, leaning his head against her chest, and my heart did a weird leap in my chest. I hadn't thought I was ready to think about grandchildren, but seeing Annabeth with a miniature Percy made something stir within me. Maybe one day, I'd see a similar sight to this, only it would involve adult Percy too. Not that I'd ever pressure them. I hadn't exactly planned to become a parent, and while I wouldn't change a single thing, I wouldn't force it on anyone. Especially parenting a demigod.
Annabeth finished the book and snapped it shut.
'There. Wasn't that fun?'
'Mmm-hmm.' Percy's eyelids were starting to droop. I knew just what to do now.
'My turn,' I said, going and choosing my favourite book from the box. Annabeth smiled when she saw which one it was. I sat next to her and Percy automatically crawled over into my lap.
'What's this book, Mommy?'
'Guess How Much I Love You.' This book was old and battered; one of the few things I'd kept from Percy's actual childhood.
'I remember this,' Percy murmured sleepily as I read it to him. I kissed the top of his head, on his jet-black hair.
By the time I reached the last page, Percy had fallen asleep, sucking his thumb. 'I love you right up to the moon – and back,' I whispered in his ear, rocking him gently.
Paul crept quietly out of Estelle's room.
'She's asleep,' he whispered. Then he caught sight of Percy snoozing in my arms. 'Aww. Cute.' He paused. 'So…what are we going to do now?'