Aftermath-Percabeth

Chapter Sixty-Three

"Ms.Chase, I have a call for you," one of the interns said in a timid voice as they approached Annabeth's office.

"Who is it, Jefferson? Tell him our conference call is for tomorrow and that I'm swamped today," she snapped back as she briefly peered up to face the intern.

The intern, who was red in the face, simply shook their head. "No, it's your son's daycare, actually."

Then Annabeth stood up abruptly. "Wait, what? Is everything okay? Are you sure?"

"I don't know, ma'am, as they couldn't tell me as I'm not the parent or guardian," they responded. "I can tell them to call back if you'd like."

"No, put them through," Annabeth said as she sat back down and stared at her phone. "Now!"

The intern skittered out as Annabeth picked up the already ringing phone.

"Hello?" she answered breathlessly. "Is Charlie alright?"

The woman on the other end spoke calmly, but Annabeth couldn't stop bouncing her leg. "It's your son, Charles Jackson? Well, he was playing and an accident sort of happened."

Annabeth frowned, her expression hardening. "An accident? Tell me exactly what's happened."

"He broke his right arm," the woman explained, causing Annabeth to gasp. "He's at the doctor's now, if you'd like to meet him there—"

"I'll be right there," Annabeth assured the woman. "Which hospital?"

Annabeth closed off her computer and grabbed her coat as the woman gave her the address. She was already half way through her office when she finished.

"And we alerted your husband already. And he's on his way as well," she said.

"Uh, thanks," said Annabeth. "Bye."

After breaking several traffic laws and speed limits, Annabeth arrived at the aforementioned hospital.

"Hey, what room is Charles Jackson in?" she immediately asked the front desk woman. "Please, quickly. This is an emergency."

The woman, who looked well into her eighties, put a finger up and ushered to the phone between her ear and shoulder.

Annabeth's eyes narrowed as she leaned forwards on the desk. "Hey, you can hang that up as my son is in there! Now, if you don't, so help me—"

"Annabeth!"

Annabeth turned to see a frantic Percy running towards her.

"How is he?" Annabeth asked as she ran over to him. "Is he alright? Scared? Is he asking for me?"

"He's....alright," he said cautiously. "They've already patched him up, he's almost ready to go home now."

"How did you get here so fast?" she asked as Percy led her to Charlie's room. "And I suppose getting past that awfully slow woman took a while."

Percy frowned. "Annabeth, she's right there!"

She rolled her eyes as the woman glared at her. Then the door opened and she ran in to see Charlie with his arm bandaged in a blue cast.

She instantly ran up to him and pulled him into a gentle hug and kissed the top of his forehead. "Are you alright? What happened?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, mommy. I just fell. Far."

"The doctor said we could leave now," Percy told her. She nodded and helped Charlie down.

The three walked very slowly and cautiously to the car, much to everyone in the hospital's annoyance.

"Are you sure he's alright?" Annabeth asked as she buckled him into his car seat. "Does he feel warm to you?"

Percy led her away from Charlie. "He'll be fine, Annabeth. But if you're really nervous I suppose we could take him to camp to get looked at."

She nodded. "Yeah, that sounds....good. What about Marina? Crap, it's three! She's out of school now, and probably waiting—"

"My mom's getting her," he assured her. "I already talked to her. And she's taking her home with Estelle so we can make sure Charlie's okay."

After a few more minutes of convincing Annabeth Marina was fine (this included a phone call to Sally to confirm), she allowed him to drive her to camp.

And although Annabeth kept telling herself everything would be okay, she wasn't so sure. Even camp couldn't fix everything....