Edited 11/14/18
It's December 13th when I got an excited call from Grover. It was about two in the afternoon when Grover called to tell us that Juniper was going into labor. The twins are four months old now and they are getting a little easier to handle. Luke and Ariana are the greatest help I could ask for.
The phone call started with Grover destroying my eardrum. "PERCY!" He screamed. I yanked the phone away from my ear. Jason glanced at me from across the room.
"Dude, what?" I asked.
"THE BABIES!!!! Juniper's in labor, man. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
"Where are you? Do you need help getting to the infirmary?"
"We're in our house in the woods. Yes we need help."
"Okay, we'll be there in three minutes. Wait, did you just say babies? As in plural?"
"Oh yeah, about that...we wanted it to be a surprise, but I guess now's as good a time as ever, huh?"
"Grover, spit it out," I said, "what surprise?"
"We're having triplets."
I'll admit, I spaced out for a minute there. Triplets?!? And they didn't tell anyone?!?
"Percy! Help please?"
"Oh, oh yeah. Be right there. Hang on."
I hung up the phone, made sure Piper had the babies, grabbed Jason, and ran out the door.
"Okay, what is going on?" Jason asked.
"Juniper's going into labor and Grover asked for help getting her to the infirmary. They're in their house."
Okay, so Juniper and Grover made a cute little house in the woods so they could live together in the wild without being too far away from her tree. We ran to that house now.
I got lost about two minutes into the woods. Then we heard screams and followed them. Upon entering the house, I realized that Juniper was indeed abnormally ginormous. She was squeezing Grover's hand so hard I was sure I heard bones break.
"Ugh," she groaned, "babies are coming. Right now! They're coming!" Jason dashed to the wall and grabbed the wheelchair set aside for this occasion. Juniper didn't want to move from her sitting position, so we worked around that to get her in the wheelchair.
Grover locked his eyes with me and a wave of panic passed through me. He was conveying the message that we wouldn't have enough time to get her to the infirmary. I turned to Jason.
"How fast can you fly?" I asked. Jason glanced at Juniper in the wheelchair, making calculations in his head. "Pretty fast," he said at last. Grover looked between the two of us. "Will it work?" He asked.
"I don't care how you do it, just get me to the godsdamned infirmary!" Juniper screamed.
"Yep," I said.
"Okay," Jason squeaked, pushing the wheelchair out the door. He grabbed under the chair and floated up, leaning back so the wheelchair was leaning against his chest, and shot off towards the infirmary. Grover and I sprinted back through the woods.
Juniper was already in a room with Will when we got there. Jason and I were pushed from the room, but Grover kept going. He disappeared behind the door and we headed outside to wait.
"Did she say babies?" Jason asked me. "Yeah, they're having triplets."
"What?" He sputtered. "Yeah, I only found out about ten minutes ago." He just nodded and turned back to watching the new generation of campers train and do all the things we used to.
I'm struck with nostalgia thinking about my teen years. Sure, they seemed pretty sucky all those years ago. I hated my life and all the things forced upon my shoulders. But believe it or not, those were the good old days. And I'm going to miss them. Especially since, through it all, Annabeth was always there for me. I think that's what I will miss the most.