Percabeth: A New Beginning

The Biggest Mistake Part 1

Percy's POV

It was the eve before my oldest daughter's thirteenth birthday and there were a number of things I was worried about. First, setting up the house for her friends Sophia and Elise both of whom she'd met on the swim team, along with our classic group of friends: the Graces, Valdezs, Vanderbilts, Underwoods and the Zhang's. We'd rented tons of movies for the girls who would be spending the night, (Sophia, Elise.) I wanted it to be perfect for Zoe, this was her big day and I was determined to make it special.

I also kept Annabeth as far away as possible from Zoe because the dream from a few years back still haunted me. But now, it was becoming more recurrent and vivid as her birthday grew closer. Her and Annabeth's tension had only gotten worse as Zoe grew up, but for the last couple years it was not getting any better. They butted heads all the time, and I knew they both loved each other, but they never saw eye to eye on anything.

Since she'd gotten older, Zoe had also been spending more time with her friends and began to talk back to her mother even more now. They bickered constantly and Annabeth would either huff it off or cry about it at night because she didn't understand why Zoe was acting up.

She was our little rebel, I've always known that. It didn't help that her and Annabeth couldn't be more different. They thought differently and neither was willing to let the other walk away as the winner from their fights. They were both too stubborn to know when to quit.

The funny thing was, Zoe got along great with everyone else in the family and never acted up around any of us. But as soon as Annabeth came into the picture, Zoe turned all dark and had a sudden attitude she only had when her mother was near her. I never quite understood why Zoe acted like this. None of our other kids did this and neither did her two new friends around their parents, so I don't know where she learned this behavior. All I knew was that Annabeth hated it, so maybe that's why Zoe liked it.

On the evening before her birthday, Zoe, Luke and Charlie were playing a game called 500 in the backyard. The house had been oddly quiet without Lena or Taylor here and we missed them terribly. But our girls and Lauren had left for a quest a week before Luke turned fifteen, they'd been gone for over a month and their absence was beginning to take its toll on all of us.

Annabeth and I watched them from the kitchen window and listened to the shouts and laughs from our kids as they ran around in the backyard. Luke had turned fifteen last month and he was looking more and more like his mom every day that passed. He was taking some architecture and design classes at school, he was determined to become an architect like his mother when he got older. Zoe wasn't too sure what she wanted to do yet, she was only in seventh grade. Same with eleven and a half old Charlie, he wasn't sure what he wanted to do either.

As our kids had gotten older, they became closer than they've ever been. The girls had all grown much closer and so have the boys, but it was easy to see that Zoe was the loner of our brood. She wasn't as interested in the same things her sisters liked to do and because Charlie and Luke had been investing their time more into sports and friends, they didn't hang out with her as much as they used to. I felt bad for her, it also didn't help that all of her siblings were claimed by Athena and not Poseidon. Lena, Charlie, and Taylor had all been claimed last year. And with the four them sharing a cabin all summer Zoe was left out. She never complained about it, but you could tell it did bother her.

Annabeth's voice disrupted the peace and quiet from the house, "kids! It's time for bed!" Charlie threw the football once more, Zoe caught it and sprinted into the house with her brothers close behind her. "Before you all go upstairs is all your homework done?" Annabeth put her hands on her hips.

"Yep, I'm ahead in geometry too." Luke answered proudly.

Annabeth sent him to his room, before Zoe could answer Charlie butted in, "didn't have any this weekend."