Chapter Text
“I don't even know if I'd rather it be positive or negative at this point...”
Annabeth sighed from her position, perched on the side of the bathtub
“Come on Percy, the test won't eat you...it's just a piece of plastic, turn it over!”
Percy bit the inside of his cheek, looking at the pregnancy test that seemed to look back at him maliciously on the edge of the sink.
“Grover, turn the test over!”
He shouted, bringing his legs to his chest.
The satyr, standing in the doorway of the bathroom, with the expression of someone who had seen far more of his best friends than he ever wanted to, swallowed loudly
“What exactly does this have to do with me?”
He complained, starting to head for the sink, knowing full well that no matter what result he read, his friends would be disappointed either way.
A silence so suffocating it could be cut with a knife expanded over the bathroom of Percy and Annabeth's New York apartment.
For something like three minutes at least no one dared to say a single word and then Grover said, uncertainly and with his heart in his throat
“It's positive...you're pregnant, Beth...”
Silence immediately returned; all three people looked at each other and Annabeth felt as if she just wanted to cry.
She was pregnant, at the age of 29, with the best boyfriend in the universe who was not her husband just to spite the gods, with a successful job and an apartment with enough room to accommodate at least two children, if not more.
She should have been the happiest woman in the world, and truth be told she had been...three miscarriages ago....
She and Percy had always wanted children, it wasn't something they had necessarily discussed, but they had known each other for so long and so well that they knew it was simply a fact; they were going to have children, children of their own.
That is why when Annabeth accidentally became pregnant during her senior year of college the two had celebrated, albeit cautiously.
They knew it would be difficult to raise a child when the daughter of Athena still had a few exams to finish and had already been flunked back in the first year, but at the same time Percy had already been working for three and then well...they loved each other.
They were twenty-three years old and felt ready to become parents.
Just like that time they had taken the test in their bathroom, although being in their much smaller New Rome apartment Annabeth had gone in alone.
Percy and Grover, as omnipresent moral support, were just outside the door waiting.
“Are you finished?”
Percy asked, fiddling with Riptide.
Annabeth merely shouted in frustration
“No! Bring me another bottle!”
Grover approached the refrigerator only to find it empty
“There's no more!”
He shouted toward the bathroom
Annabeth looked at the graveyard of empty bottles at her feet and wrinkled her nose
“Then bring me a glass of water!”
Percy sighed
“Don't you remember they turned off the building's water today to fix that problem with the plumbing!”
Silence and then all three young adults burst out laughing, because obviously of all possible days they had chosen the worst one to take the pregnancy test.
“I don't understand how you still need water anyway.”
Grover commented, when they had all calmed down
"You drank how much already? Eight bottles?"
“Ten”
answered Annabeth practically.
“She can't pee because she's too used to holding it for four hours at a time like when she's in class!”
Percy added, teasing her.
The door was opened just wide enough for the girl to throw one of the empty bottles at Percy, who immediately sent it right back
"I'm just holding it so I don't miss pieces of class, for the record! It's not my fault that professors don't understand the meaning of the word break!"
Grover found himself sighing, though internally amused and resigned to his fate he took Percy's wallet from the table
“All right, all right, now get it over with, I'll go down to the supermarket and get you another bottle, okay?”
An hour later all three were staring at the small plastic contraption with surprise
“I'm pregnant...”
Annabeth said under her breath.
She didn't know exactly what she was feeling; she was definitely surprised, excited, terrified, maybe all those things at the exact same time, somehow.
Both Percy and Grover were holding a hand on each of her shoulders
“How are you feeling?”
The satyr asked.
The daughter of Athena did not know what to say, but with her best friends words were not needed; they hugged for a long time, and she and Percy continued to do so once Grover was gone.
They told all their friends and Percy's family the news; Annabeth still wasn't sure whether to tell her father.
Everyone was happy for them
"Weird only that it took you so long! I thought you would have reproduced years ago!"
Clarisse commented when they told their friends at camp, causing everyone who had known the two to nod.
In fact, Percy and Annabeth found out very quickly that there was more than a betting pool on when the two would act out their desire to have a child.
The daughter of Athena did not even pretend to be angry, but she still got half the profits from the Stolls.
“We have enough for a crib!”
She said that night to Percy, as the two of them slipped under the covers of his cabin.
The son of Poseidon smiled like a fool
“A baby...wow!”
He hugged his girlfriend tightly
“Now that we've told everyone it seems so...real...”
Annabeth giggled
“Now let's wait to see how real it will seem to you when my belly swells.”
Percy gently traced the mark of a vein zigzagging on his girlfriend's stomach and she smiled; it was strange to feel her body change day after day, especially considering she disliked any kind of change, but the way her boyfriend looked at her and touched her made it all better.
The son of Poseidon was not trying to protect her unnecessarily, he did not condescend her and was not afraid to touch her as everyone else seemed to do; really if she had another boy refuse to spare with her just because of her pregnancy she would actually explode.
But at that moment she was happy, content in Percy's arms, while he scratched her stomach tenderly.
“We should think of names”
He said suddenly, because although silence was comfortable it was definitely not his style.
Annabeth nodded as she yawned
“Yes...but not now, I'm terribly sleepy, let's think about it tomorrow, we have time after all...”
She had no idea how right she was.
Annabeth did not immediately understand what was going on.
She remembered waking up that morning in Cabin 3 at a very early hour with excruciatingly painful stomach cramps and deciding that the best way to take her mind off of it and perhaps make herself want to sleep again was to jog through the woods.
He had kissed Percy's sleeping form on the forehead and retrieved her invisibility hat.
She was also sure she had been in the woods at some point, but she couldn't remember going back to the cabin, which didn't make sense, because she was there at the moment, lying on...wait, the bed she was lying on at the moment was not the soft, familiar one in Percy's cabin.
It was hard and the sheets were all scratchy and...the damn painful cramping had only gotten worse than what she could remember from that morning.
Suddenly she felt a rush of nausea so violent that she immediately tried to get out of bed; a hellish noise filled her head and she ended up vomiting in the corner of the room that she realized at that moment was definitely not Percy's cabin.
As she got to her feet she heard a door slam and suddenly two women entered the room, they were nurses.
Wait, that meant.
Annabeth looked down: her pants were soaked with blood down to her knees.
Percy did not enter the room until a few minutes later; it was clear from the look on his face that he knew.
He helped her back to the bed and the nurses checked her vitals to make sure she was okay, as okay as she could be considering the situation, and then left her alone with her boyfriend.
The son of Poseidon immediately sat by her bedside and took her hand
“Beth...how are you?”
“What happened?”
She answered with another question.
She was absolutely terrified to feel, she knew all too well that if she let even one emotion come in at that moment she would fall apart and she couldn't let that happen because she had already fallen apart too many times and even though she didn't know what the upper limit was for a few broken pieces to be reattached she was pretty sure she was reaching the limit.
Percy bit his lip and shrugged in his shoulders
“Nothing...the doctor said that up to twelve weeks the risk of abortion is as high as 12 percent...”
She was discharged from the hospital that same evening.
She immediately decided that she could not afford to think too much about what had happened.
She was fine! Absolutely fine!
It had been just an accident, something that could happen and would never happen again.
She immediately realized that Percy had taken it a lot worse than she did, or perhaps simply given his close work with children it was easier for him to be remembered of the event.
Annabeth had to admit that it made her just a little bit intimately happy, because taking care of Percy, finishing studying for her last exams, breaking the news to everyone, and preparing her final project were enough activities to keep her mind off how she felt.
She was fine!
She had to be okay, because Percy was not okay and there couldn't be two of them who were not ok, otherwise everything would fall apart and she couldn't allow that.
She graduated with excellent grades, though far from the best in her class, and immediately began working for an architecture firm in New York.
For the first few months she worked remotely, and really the plan was that it would stay that way, however one night as she and Percy laid in their bed he asked her
“Beth...do you really like it here?”
She had to think about it: they had moved to New Rome because it seemed like the best idea, the safest place for demigods like them, but the small town had already become incredibly boring after only six years, there were always the same things to do, the same people to see, and most of all security.
Annabeth knew that the her child self would spit in her face for daring to complain about having stability and security, but in her defense her child self had not faced Tartarus and begun to regard any other kind of danger as a trifle in comparison
“It depends...why do you ask?”
Percy huffed a little, massaging his face
“I don't know...it's just that, now that you've graduated I...I was thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to move back to the mortal world...I know it sounds crazy, we've always wanted a place like this, but...”
“...we're not really Romans...”
Annabeth concluded for him, causing him to nod.
“Exactly...”
Over the next three weeks the two of them made an exhausting amount of lists of pros and cons and finally decided that the best thing for them was to move back to New York: Percy would find work there easily and Annabeth already had one, plus it was just a bonus that their new apartment was only a quarter of an hour from Sally's.
As icing on the cake it was a pet friendly apartment, unlike the one they were staying in in New Rome.
That's why in December Annabeth made his boyfriend find a puppy under the tree, or rather behind the couch, because as not big fans of Christmas their tree was a sad plastic thing left on the coffee table in the living room.
The eyes of the son of Poseidon opened wide immediately upon seeing the puppy; she was a small mettle, with short black fur, long ears, and in no time she was on Percy to lick him.
"Thank you, Wise Girl! This is great!"
It was the first time he had called her that in a while and it made Athena's daughter smile to no end.
Percy would have liked to call the puppy Zeus for a variety of reasons that Annabeth had no intention of entertaining, so they decided on Fish.
The girl looked into the little dog's big black eyes and sighed, scratching her head
“I'm sorry your father has to be so dumb.”
Both she and Percy froze as soon as those words came out of Annabeth's mouth and she looked down
“Sorry...I didn't mean to...”
He shook his head, recovering immediately
“No, it's okay, it wasn't intentional…”
For the following six months, the daughter of Athena tried not to think, ironic, she knew, but really, she was trying to keep her head as busy as possible: she worked, she went out with her friends, demigods and from work alike, occasionally Percy and she went to visit his parents, and during the summer they went back to camp.
It was there, lying in Percy's bed, that Annabeth moved forward an idea that it was clear her boyfriend had been thinking about for quite some time
“I was thinking that maybe...we could try again, to have a baby I mean...”
The son of Poseidon merely squeezed her tightly
“Are you sure, Beth?”
She nodded
“Yes...I think so...”
So they began to prepare; there was already an empty room in their apartment, they had thought of making it an office at first, but Percy was incapable of preparing lesson plans everywhere but on the couch, in front of the TV, and they both knew that Annabeth spent most of the night awake sketching directly in bed, courtesy of her ADHD.
So the empty room became a nursery, nothing exaggerated for the moment, just a crib, bought with the money from the betting pool, a changing table, some horrible green wallpaper that for some reason had seemed like a good idea when they had seen it, and an armchair given to him by Sally.
Athena's daughter took the second pregnancy test of her life in the bathroom of a tobacco shop, with Piper that time, because Percy was taking his class on a field trip and Grover was leading a march against the destruction of a forest in Massachusetts.
The daughter of Aphrodite seemed to be more concerned than the girl who might have actually been pregnant, who in fact sat on top of the toilet while Piper paced back and forth worriedly.
“How can you be so calm?”
She asked Annabeth confused
“You're the one who might be having a baby and you're not even a little bit flustered!”
The girl shrugged her shoulders
“Percy and I have been trying for this, if that test is positive things will only be going according to plan!”
Internally she was actually absolutely paralyzed with fear, but she had no intention of telling Aphrodite's daughter, she did not want to be treated like a poor scared girl, she was a woman now.
The test was positive and the daughter of Athena merely smiled; Piper hugged her and she smiled back, only with a little less enthusiasm, because inside a horrible feeling she could not really put a name to settled over her lower stomach.
Percy was much more protective of her during that second pregnancy and as much as Athena's daughter found it a bit frustrating she understood her boyfriend's point of view after what had happened last time.
So she let him do her share of houseworks as well and went back to working remotely, spending her days projecting whatever her clients asked of her on the couch, scratching at Fish curled up next to her and probably sleeping too little.
It was extremely boring if you asked her, and after the first three months it became torture, but at least she got a promotion just for the frightening speed and unprecedented complexity of her designs.
She was pleased that she was probably the first woman in New York to ever receive a promotion while pregnant, but she had little time to rejoice, because that evening she and Percy went out to celebrate with ice cream at an ice cream parlor not far from their apartment, and as they walked Annabeth felt a little cramp.
She immediately tried her best not to let Percy know what was going on, but they knew each other far too well.
He squeezed her hand tighter, but they still took their ice cream and went home without talking about what happened.
Nor did they speak when they found the bloodstained sheets the next morning.
They went to the hospital and everything happened exactly as it had a year earlier.
This time Percy seemed less broken, or perhaps he had learned to mask it better; Annabeth simply continued not to think about it.
She had begun to occupy a large part of her thoughts not thinking about it...a funny paradox, but just as a year earlier she forced herself to help Percy pick up his broken pieces before she even began to consider doing the same with her own.
They did not dismantle the nursery, but locked it and hung a picture on the door.
Life returned to normal.
The third time was an accident.
Annabeth remembered nothing about the third time, seriously, there was only and only complete emptiness if she tried to think about those months.
At that point the two demigods decided it was time to see a doctor; Athena's daughter had not had a proper medical examination that was not completely gynecological or conducted in an infirmary in years, but all in all it went well.
The doctor said it was strange, there was nothing wrong with either Percy or Annabeth, their health was perfect.
To be completely sure they also played a visit to the hospital in New Rome, but they told then the same thing, adding that no, Tartarus had not made them infertile.
So the two decided that perhaps, it simply was not in their destiny to have children and instead they adopted a cat, although according to Percy it was Penelope who adopted him.
Annabeth always snorted when her boyfriend said that, however if she had to be honest, she couldn't be sure he was lying, because Penelope was a frighteningly smart kitty.
Not surprisingly, she became more of the woman's pet than Percy's; in fact, if after a long day Fish always snuggled on top of Percy's lap Penelope would coil around Annabeth's neck like some kind of meowing scarf.
They did not need children; their family was complete like that.
And then they discovered the truth.
The pair of demigods had immediately snorted in annoyance when they found Poseidon on the threshold of their apartment.
“Fish bite!”
Percy immediately exclaimed, holding his little dog with her snout in his father's face, who nevertheless merely licked his nose playfully.
"Come on son! I'm just here to invite you and your girlfriend to lunch with the whole family!"
“This is about a quest isn't it?”
His father looked at him with pleading eyes.
That Saturday morning the two of them showed up at the Empire State Building still in their pajamas just to prove a point, they greeted no one and just sat down at the long table the gods had set.
They did not even pretend to touch the food, because as if the demand for the fulfillment of another quest was not enough, those absolute nutjobs who called themselves gods had had the bright idea of serving tacos at 9 a.m.
Annabeth was quite out of it all and simply exhausted: of the stupid gods who understood nothing about mortals and kept making them clean up their messes and more generally of everything that was not part of her routine...she liked the routine she had created for herself, it was comfortable and allowed her not to think too much except about what new building to design and now the gods were ruining it, as they had ruined every single thing in her life.
She only came back to reality when she heard someone laughing; she looked up as soon as she saw that it was Hera.
"What's up with the little heroine? Is she distracted?"
Annabeth took a long breath and remained in perfect silence; arguing would only make the lunch longer; she was 28 years old now; she was no longer a little girl willing to play in the sick little games of the gods.
The queen did not take it well
"Lost the will to fight, daughter of Athena? You should have just told me that a couple of miscarriages would make you so docile I would have done it sooner!"
Everyone set their eyes on Hera and the gods began to talk over each other, but Annabeth did not care because she felt as if someone had literally ripped her heart out of her chest.
It was Hera who had ruined all her chances of becoming a mother...she was the one who had put her through days of interminable pain and constant post-miscarriage bleeding...she was the one who had hurt Percy.
Fuck being the buffer person, she began to draw her dagger from the belt she had nevertheless put over her pajamas.
Her boyfriend stopped her in time, hugging her from the side
“It's okay, Beth...now we're off to get a real breakfast...”
For once the gods took a step back and the quest they were to accomplish was never spoken of again.
About a month later Apollo appeared in their home; he did not knock, appearing instead in the middle of their living room as if it were normal and did something incredible: he apologized for what Hera had done.
“She has really gone too far this time...Poseidon is on a rampage...she will be punished...”
Annabeth would have been happy like that, really, but the sun god continued
“And...well...she was made to swear by the River Styx that under no circumstances is she allowed to fuck with you or your future children...not even by mistake…”
That night for the umpteenth time Percy and Annabeth found themselves in their bed making a decision.
“Now that we know it will work...do you want to do it?”
Athena's daughter asked, lying upside down with her hair brushing the floor.
Percy bent his head unconvinced
“Beth...are you sure, I mean...last time you were...you were scary, Wise Girl...I've never seen you so out of it...”
The woman looked down; she still hadn't had the courage to confess to Percy that those horrible months had been completely removed from her brain, because she preferred to pretend they had never existed, but to her boyfriend's say-so it had been as if someone had turned her off.
She barely spoke, did things on autopilot, and he had not once seen her laugh or cry or express any kind of emotion other than utter apathy.
She didn't want Percy to have to deal with that version of her a second time, but...perhaps because she didn't actually remember those months or because she was a truly bad person and her desire to make the queen of the gods pay for it outweighed everything else, she nodded determinedly
“Yes, I want to do it Percy, do you?”
He kissed her temple softly
“I’ve been wanting to for years, Beth…”
So there they were, to that day, Annabeth was pregnant and neither she nor Percy knew how to feel.
That night they were on the couch watching each other.
“I'm afraid this was a bad idea...”
Whispered Athena's daughter, terrified.
Percy nodded in a similar state, but terrified in his own way to see his girlfriend slip into the same state she had been in during her last pregnancy he took her hands and looked into her eyes with determination
“Maybe...but we have to make the best of it, the gods can't touch us for once, this is our chance!”
The woman nodded, her boyfriend was right, the gods had already taken so much from them, she could not let them take away that dream she had had since childhood as well.
Things began to get worse as early as a week later.
During the two previous pregnancies, she could remember, the daughter of Athena had not come so far as to have a point of reference, but she was pretty sure she was vomiting way too much for it to be healthy.
She would vomit in the morning as soon as she woke up, without even having eaten anything, like clockwork, and she felt like her throat was completely on fire.
She did not even have time to recover that breakfast sent her back to the bathroom immediately.
She literally could not stomach anything but crackers and water and dry cookies if it was a good day.
Percy was obviously worried out of his mind and had immediately taken to looking up recipes that were technically supposed to help with the nausea.
“Bullshit!”
Annabeth found herself shouting one evening, tossing an empty plastic cup that had been until moments before filled with some strange ginger herbal tea to the floor and sprinting toward the bathroom as she now did over and over again each day.
Percy was immediately behind her holding her hair
“All right...we'll try some more herbal teas...”
But Athena's daughter was too busy holding back tears to really listen.
She felt really gross.
Nausea continued to torture Annabeth for other endless days until finally the time came for her first gynecological examination.
The doctor was...kind, really, but the daughter of Athena was only interested in knowing why her body was in such a state of decay, at the moment.
To her surprise, she received what was a genuine response that she blindly believed at the time.
“Congratulations”
Said the gynecologist, all smiles
“You are having twins!”
Suddenly all the stiffness in Annabeth and Percy's shoulders melted away; the gods had kept their word, it would simply be a slightly different pregnancy because they were having twins.
The two demigods were so over the moon that for a couple of hours they did not even rationalize the fact that there were two children in the equation now.
Even when they realized it that night their joy was at such levels that they did not even have one of their usual difficult conversations.
They told all their demigod friends and Percy's family the news and made up for their mortal friends an excuse about how the doctors had finally figured out the problem they had had before, but no, we can't explain it, it's a bit technical.
Annabeth began working from home because dragging herself out of bed in the morning after vomiting robbed her of every ounce of energy was simply impossibile, not to mention the speed with which she was losing weight because of her inability to keep anything down; her boss had actually offered her an early maternity leave because she was literally the most productive employee he had, but being herself the daughter of Athena has refused.
Truthfully, she had planned to work right up until she gave birth, after all, it’s not like her job was physically demanding.
But even those plans were quickly derailed…
Sally started visiting Annabeth whenever Percy had a staff meeting in the afternoons, sometimes she even brought Estelle along.
The daughter of Athena cherished those moments.
She liked how Sally reassured her that everything would be fine, that it was normal to feel a little off during pregnancy, and even though Sally didn’t have all the answers, Annabeth always felt more at ease after she left.
But what she loved most was when Estelle came too; the little girl was a whirlwind of positive energy and unfiltered joy, and just having her around, babbling about what happened at school, the last book she read, or the most recent movie she watched, was enough to distract Annabeth from the fact that her body felt like it was falling apart.
Most of the time, though, she spent lying in bed, with Fish curled up against her slowly growing belly and Penelope draped around her neck while she worked on her tablet.
It was during one of those quiet moments that it happened for the first time.
The daughter of Athena felt a sudden wave of dizziness and shut her eyes tight, looking away from her tablet for just a second. When she opened them again, everything had gone black.
Her heart started pounding wildly. Her head spun.
It was happening again: she was back in Tartarus with that stupid curse from the Erinnis that was making her go blind.
She immediately tried to get up, but her legs felt like jelly, and she collapsed to the floor.
She could feel it under her feet, her mind had been right: she was back in that literal hellhole.
The heat was suffocating, and she could feel the rocks beneath her.
She began screaming desperately for Percy; she couldn’t die, not now, she didn’t want to die, she was only seventeen and had a war to stop, she couldn’t let Gaea win…
She managed to get to her feet again, and that’s when she felt hands on her shoulders.
She screamed, thinking it was the end, but, to her surprise, it wasn’t.
Instead, she heard voices, she couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they were clear english words which meant they probably weren’t monsters.
After what felt like hours, her vision finally began to return.
Everything around her was still a blur, but at least now she could tell she was in her apartment and not in Tartarus.
Slowly, it all came back to her.
She was in her living room, she was twenty-nine years old, there was no war looming on the horizon, and Gaea was sleeping beneath their feet, harmless for at least another million years.
“...okay?”
Only then did she realize someone was still holding onto her shoulders.
With some effort, the daughter of Athena recognized her neighbor and she nodded awkwardly, staring at the floor.
The girl in front of her let out a sigh of relief; She was barely eighteen, her face frozen in terror.
“Okay, thank God… my girlfriend called an ambulance because we thought you’d gotten hurt. Do you need me to call someone for you?”
“T-the daycare…on…the Sixty… Sixty-Eighth Street…”
she stammered, voice trembling
“My…boyfriend works there…he… doesn’t…have a…a phone…”
Her neighbor raised an eyebrow, confused, but nodded.
About four hours later, in a hospital room with Percy holding her hand, a doctor explained the situation.
“It was just a case of temporary blindness. Your vision will be blurry for a while, and you’ll probably need glasses, but nothing serious, it’s something that can happen during pregnancy.”
The son of Poseidon took her to buy a pair of glasses the next day.
She hated the pair they chose.
The lenses were so thick they made her look like a complete idiot, and the gold frame was simply the least hideous of the options, but it was the prescription, and unless she wanted to spend the next four months seeing the world as a blur of colored blobs, she had no choice but to suck it up and wear the hideous glasses.
“I’m sure you’ll be able to switch to contacts soon!”
Percy tried to reassure her, but the truth was, it wasn’t the glasses that bothered her, it was the fact that not having perfect vision made her feel terrifyingly vulnerable.
The two decided it was best if Annabeth no longer stayed home alone, in case she had another episode of blindness, so, every morning, she’d ride in the car with Percy and spend the day working from Sally’s couch while the older woman worked on her books.
Even though this arrangement was far more comforting than being alone, Annabeth’s health only got worse.
Her legs began to swell, clearly from edemas as she still couldn’t keep down any food without immediately throwing it up.
Nearly every night, she cried from the unbearable headaches she now had; given her lifelong erratic sleep schedule, she wasn’t unfamiliar with migraines, but over those months, they became borderline maddening.
Her skin broke out in acne everywhere, her gums began to bleed, and her hair started falling out in clumps…
She thought she could handle it…
And then three of her fingernails fell off, and she vomited so much that the capillaries in her eyes burst, leaving her looking like a hellhound.
Then the fever hit, so high she couldn’t work, couldn’t read to distract herself from the feeling that her body was crumbling.
All she could do was shiver and cry.
She realized how bad it was when even Sally could no longer explain what the hell was happening.
When things got really serious Percy took her to the ER.
For three weeks, they went every other day only to be told that everything was ‘normal’, that things like this could ‘just happen’ during pregnancy.
They prescribed Annabeth every painkiller known to man ‘to shut her up’, but it didn’t matter, she couldn’t keep them down anyway.
She begged her OB-GYN to do something, literally anything, but the poor woman had even fewer clue than Percy or Annabeth.
She always tried to be supportive, forcing a smile that Annabeth had grown to loathe, and told her she’d just been unlucky, that pregnancies with multiples were hard, and even more so after one or more miscarriages.
Things got so bad that Annabeth prayed to Asclepius and Apollo, and, more surprisingly, to her own mother.
As expected, no one answered.
Eventually, they had to face the truth.
Annabeth was on the couch in their apartment, trembling under a heavy blanket, while Percy was in the kitchen washing the lunch plates, just his, when she suddenly went rigid.
She didn’t even have time to register what was happening before she collapsed to the floor, her limbs no longer obeyed her, her mind went blank, and everything turned white.
Percy looked at her in terror.
He had only taken one first-aid course, but he was sure she was having a seizure.
He immediately put a pillow under her head and ran to the neighbors to call 911.
At that point, the doctors could no longer hide behind platitudes and painkillers.
The OB-GYN finally figured out what was wrong.
“Eclampsia…”
Percy muttered the word over and over that night, turning it over in his mind.
His girlfriend laid in the hospital bed beside him.
They had sedated her, and for once, she looked almost peaceful.
He couldn’t believe it was really happening.
He was terrified he was going to lose her.
He let out a hysterical laugh, he’d imagined Annabeth dying so many times before, during quests, in the war against the Titans, in Tartarus…
But never had he imagined he would have to watch the woman he loved more than anything waste away, day after day, until she was unrecognizable.
He wanted to break something, but held himself back, because he had to be the strong one.
He had to be ready because he was almost certain that once he told Annabeth she had eclampsia, she would turn into that hauntingly vacant mannequin-woman she’d once been years ago.
In the middle of the night, he decided to head to the hospital cafeteria to get something to eat as ge had skipped dinner and it was there that he found her.
The goddess of marriage sat on a chair, smirking in her regal nightgown made of peacock feathers.
"You!"
Percy hissed.
"Me what, dear?"
Hera asked, with an infuriatingly saccharine tone.
The son of Poseidon pulled Riptide from his pocket, ready to charge at her as if she weren’t an ancient goddess.
“You’re killing Annabeth! You fucking bitch! You swore on the River Styx you wouldn’t hurt her again!”
The goddess laughed, a sound colder than ice and more irritating than nails on a chalkboard.
"Oh no, my dear, I know you demigods all struggle with semantics due to your dyslexia, but I swore not to harm your children, I never mentioned your little Annabeth.
And my darling Eileithyia made no promises to you at all.”
Percy’s heart stopped for a moment, he lowered his sword and looked at the ground, what was the point of fighting anymore?
He had to just enjoy the little time he had left with his girlfriend.
By some miracle, probably sent by a god from a completely different pantheon, Annabeth stayed strong when Percy told her the truth.
The theory made sense, and she remained her usual self.
The daughter of Athena nearly threw up when they told her to go home, there was nothing more they could do, just regular checkups...and all because of that stupid goddess she hated so much.
She cried harder than she had for anything else and tried to stay as close to her boyfriend as she could.
She was eight months along, and reality was closing in.
The daughter of Athena didn’t have much time left, the mortality rate for women with eclampsia was high and even if it weren’t what could she and Percy do against the literal goddess of childbirth and that bitch of a mother of hers?
The despair got so bad that Percy asked for time off from work so they could stay at camp for a while.
Annabeth hated that all their friends were there.
She hated how carefully they measured every word around her, terrified it might be the last thing they ever said to her, but most of all she hated the feeling of finality that hung over everything she did.
That bite of meat she was chewing might be the last one she ever ate, that limping walk through the woods might be the last she ever took, that Capture the Flag game might be the last she ever saw.
So she tried to make every moment count, even if she would never admit it out loud.
That day, for example, she was sitting on the steps of the Big House, feeling the wind brush against her face and smiling at being in the same spot where she had sat so many times as a child.
As she closed her eyes, she couldn’t help but imagine what would happen after her death...She was sure she wanted to be reincarnated, start a whole new life, maybe this time without the gods interfering.
A world without gods...how crazy, if only it existed…Wait.
The daughter of Athena’s eyes flew open, her face lit up with sudden realization.
“Percy! Percy! Come here! I have an idea!”
Three days later, the two heroes of Olympus and Grover were packed into Percy’s tiny blue Fiat.
Grover turned to glance at Annabeth, who was lying across the back seat.
“Are you guys sure this is a good idea?”
The daughter of Athena nodded, biting her lip as they hit the umpteenth pothole and her sore body was jolted around
“Yes. The gods have no power in Alaska!
It won’t matter if Hera or Eileithyia are against us, it’ll be...just a regular mortal gamble.”
For the rest of the drive, none of them said another word about whether the plan made sense, instead, they just sang awful songs at the top of their lungs and pretended nothing was wrong.
“I feel like we’re twelve again!”
Percy exclaimed, his smile a little too tight.
Annabeth laughed
“Well, we’re going on a ridiculous trip to an unknown location that may or may not kill us, all because our parents are monsters… I’d say we’re right on brand!”
“And don’t forget we’re terrified!”
Grover added, munching on a bag of M&M’s Percy had bought and finished eating two gas stations ago.
Annabeth nodded.
“Exactly…”
The hospital they arrived at seemed less suspicious than expected, considering three panicked Americans had just shown up waving documents and begging for an emergency C-section.
Even more surprisingly, they accepted them in.
Percy raised an eyebrow, still a bit wary as Annabeth was hooked up to yet another monitor, but the nurse removed any doubts about their safety from their minds when she flashed them a clay beads necklace they all recognized.
“Ten minutes and we’re ready,”
the woman said with a kind smile.
The trio was left alone in the room.
Grover hugged Annabeth tightly first, eyes full of tears.
“You’re strong, Beth... I’ll see you soon!”
And with that, he left.
Percy and Annabeth were then truly alone; the room was cold, and the son of Poseidon could see tiny goosebumps forming on his girlfriend’s bare skin.
He sat beside her and held her hand tightly.
“I love you, Wise Girl,”
he said simply.
She smiled
“If I make it out of here alive, we’re getting married, Seaweed Brain. Even if I have to drag another pantheon into it!”
They kissed one last time, their foreheads pressed together until a doctor walked in.
Percy waited with Grover in the lounge for what felt like endless hours, the waiting was killing him.
He paced the empty hallways, went out to grab the bag of clothes from the car, and chewed on Riptide until Grover took it from his hands, then sobbed into his best friend’s chest.
Finally, a doctor came out with a tired smile and nodded.
“They’re alive. All three of them.”
The weight that had solidified on Percy’s shoulders suddenly vanished, and the son of Poseidon practically sprinted into the room.
Annabeth was in the bed, smiling through tears.
“They’re alive, Percy! They’re healthy!”
He immediately covered her face in kisses.
“You’re alive! You’re alive!”
They laughed and cried for a long time, then Annabeth motioned for him to come around to the other side of the bed.
Two tiny humans were sleeping in a crib that looked enormous in comparison to them, each wrapped in a small blue blanket they’d bought years ago.
“A girl and a boy…”
she said hoarsely.
Percy reached down, gently picking them up.
“They’re so small…”
he whispered, handing one to Annabeth.
She gave a bittersweet smile.
“I know…”
Percy adjusted the little cap on the baby girl’s head.
“I think it’s time we give them names…”
he said softly.
Annabeth nodded.
They had no doubts about the boy, they’d chosen his name a long time ago.
“Bob Charles Jackson…our Bobby…”
Annabeth said gently, brushing a finger along his cheek.
Now it was time to name the girl. .
That one had been harder; for a while they had considered Silena, but so much time had passed that Clarisse had named her daughter that, so using the same name felt wrong.
Percy looked at the baby girl with a soft smile, tickling her nose.
“Come on, little one, help your mommy and daddy out, what’s your name, huh?”
To their surprise, the baby sort of answered as a tiny silver bracelet materialized on her wrist.
The neo-parents stared at each other, wide-eyed.
“You don’t think…”
Percy started.
“Check your pocket!”
Annabeth urged.
Riptide didn’t appear.
Percy’s expression softened.
“Hello, little Zöe…”
Annabeth smiled at him.
“And for the middle name?”
“Alaska?”
Percy offered, half-joking, making his girlfriend raise an eyebrow.
“That’s not even a name!”
“The girl in that one book was named that!”
he defended.
“You read Looking for Alaska?”
she asked, genuinely surprised.
Percy laughed and shook his head
“At some point in high school it was between that and The Odyssey, and the tragic teen drama seemed better than reading about our parents acting like idiots!”
Annabeth burst out laughing, then shook her head, while Percy knelt beside the bed to be closer to her.
“Welcome to the world, Zöe Alaska Jackson!”
She whispered gently.
Percy smiled, kissing his girlfriend’s forehead.
“You did amazing, Wise Girl…now you can rest.”
The woman yawned, a smile still painted on her face, handing Bobby to his father so she could lie down comfortably.
“I love you too, Seaweed Brain… goodnight…”