Like Mother, Like Daughter

Disclaimer: Rick Riordan owns PJO and HOO, not me.

A/N: Thanks to the Kane Chronicles and Percy Jackson crossover stories, this story is definitely AU, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. It is only a one-shot. I have no intentions of ever continuing it. It is just a plot idea that I wanted to explore a bit, see if it is even possible. Please, r & r.

"Percy?"

Percy looked over to see Annabeth staring at him, perfectly still except for her hands which were worrying the hem of her shirt. He knew her well enough to know that she was nervous, scared, even. That scared him, but he kept his voice even in an attempt to help ease her nerves. "What is it, Wise girl?"

She began to fidget even more, bouncing her knee, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. "Do you remember when I told you how I was conceived and born?"

Whatever he had been expecting her to ask, it wasn't that. That threw him off completely, mostly because he did not see how that awkward conversation from years ago could have her so worked up, but he held his confusion in check. "Yes, I remember. You're a brain child, conceived by the intelligent ideas and ingenuity of your mom and dad or something like that, and you were just thought into this world by Athena, and I thought we weren't taking that conversation any further because, you know, it's just weird."

Percy shot her a smirk and was rewarded with a small smile. But it faded almost as soon as it appeared, and her nerves took back over. She was now squirming in her seat, gazing at her lap, twisting her hands, and practically quaking all over. He didn't know where Annabeth was intending this conversation to go, but he was beginning to worry that she was going to stroke out on him before another sentence was uttered. He scooted off the couch and crouched in front of her, gently grabbing her hands and ducking his head to meet her gray eyes. She looked terrified and completely out of her element, a look she only had when she didn't know the answer to something or couldn't come up with a plan to get them out of some mess they had managed find themselves in.

"Annabeth, what's wrong? Talk to me." His voice was barely above a whisper. No smirking, no teasing, just concern.

Suddenly, Annabeth was on her feet and stepping past Percy in one smooth movement. She paced the floor, shaking her head, wringing her hands, and rambling. "Percy, there's no precedent for this. I don't even know how it happened. It's not supposed to happen! How could the gods let this happen, especially my mother? It's probably stupid Hera's stupid idea, that cow…"

Annabeth began to just rant and ramble. Percy still wasn't sure what she was going on about, but whatever it was, he was pretty sure it was going to turn his world upside down. As little as he wanted that to happen – again – he had to know what his girlfriend was so upset about, so he stood up, and caught Annabeth by the shoulders as she paced across the floor. "Annabeth. Tell me plain. What is going on?"

She went perfectly still, looked him right in the eye, and deadpanned, "I'm pregnant."

Percy was wrong. His world froze. His mind froze. He froze. He didn't even breathe.

Somewhere through a fog, he heard Annabeth talking. "Percy? Percy? Are you breathing? Take a breath. Come on inhale. Seaweed brain, breathe!"

Percy gasped, and everything went on hyper drive. "Wait…What? How? That's not possible! Wait…Is it? We've never…Did you…Who…?" He could feel himself starting to hyperventilate. His head was spinning, and he was pretty sure he was shaking now.

Annabeth grabbed his face. She was standing so close to him that he could see nothing other than her. "Percy, listen to me. Look at me. I didn't cheat on you. Do you hear me? I haven't ever…I'm still a virgin, Percy." She was looking him right in the eye, willing him to believe her.

"No, that's not how it works. I'm no genius, Annabeth, but even I have a basic understanding of the biology of human reproduction. That's not how it works." He had pulled away from Annabeth, running a hand through his hair and desperately trying to not give in to the anger and sense of betrayal he felt. Something told him to hold it together for just a few more minutes, to hear Annabeth out.

Annabeth took a small step towards him. "I know, Percy," she whispered. "I know that's not how it works. But it's also true that water doesn't respond to the command or emotional state of humans, yet you defy that law of nature every day. Listen to me, please. You know I love you. You know I would never cheat on you. Let's just sit down, and I'll try to explain as best as I can." She tentatively reached for his hand. He let her take it and guide him to the couch.

They sat down still holding hands but with a good eighteen inches of space between them. Percy took his hand back, set his elbows on his knees, and wearily rubbed his face. "Okay," he sighed. "Explain. Please."

Annabeth took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "I don't…I don't understand it fully myself. This has never happened before, not with demigods. With Athena, sure, but not with her kids. Somehow, though, you and I, we…Well, we conceived a brain baby."

Percy struggled with his anger and impatience. He wanted to believe her, but she would have to give him a better explanation than that. "How, Annabeth? How did we do that, especially me? I'm the brawn of this relationship, not the brain."

"Just calm down. I'm trying to explain." Annabeth brushed her curly hair out of her face and began again. "Look, children of Athena are conceived through great works of intellect and ingenuity between Athena and the men she favors. But it's more than that. There has to be real attraction there, too. Love. To this day my dad still loves my mom. I've told you that. And, she must have loved him in her own way, too, just like how Poseidon loved Sally. It was fleeting like the love of all the gods, but it was genuine. Are you following me?"

Percy nodded. He didn't understand entirely, but he understood enough to get the gist of it. "But what does that have to do with you and me? Olympus knows that we've never created some 'great work of intellect and ingenuity' together. You've pulled both of those off, but me…Never."

Annabeth gave him a hard look. "First, you are intelligent, Percy. No matter how I and others may tease you, you're much smarter than you're given credit for, and everyone knows it. Second, you've come up with plenty of ingenious plans through the years – off the wall and highly dangerous most of the time, but ingenious. Never doubt yourself.

"As far as your question, I think we may have met the requirements for brain baby conception when we fell into Tartarus."

Percy jerked and stared at her. "Yes, because falling into the pits of Greek Hell just screams intelligent."

Annabeth looked back at him and quietly replied, "But that's just it. In that moment and those circumstances, it was intelligent, ingenious, and an act of the strongest of loves."

Percy rubbed his face, again. His head was starting to hurt from trying to wrap his mind around this whole thing. "Gods, why is my life always so complicated?" he muttered. "Keep going. I'm still not understanding."

She sighed. "Okay. Look. Do you remember what you told me a few days after we got out? About how you knew that the doors had to be closed from the inside. How Nico had explained that to everyone before you got to Arachne's lair. You knew someone would have to go into Tartarus."

"Yeah, so I knew. What does that matter?"

"It matters, Percy, because when we were dangling from that cliff, you had one of your genius moments. Using your ingenuity, you came up with a plan to close the doors of death. Like I said, off the wall and highly dangerous but ingenious. And you did that right on the heels of the intellectual high point of my life: tricking Arachne into weaving her own trap and beating the tasks before that with only my wits."

Percy nodded and smirked a bit. "Don't forget my genius plan to blast a hole in the ground with the ballistae to get to the lair in the first place."

Annabeth's eyes sparkled with humor. "Don't get cocky, Seaweed brain."

Percy half-snorted and shook his head. "Whatever. So we both were having super smart moments. How does that equal a baby?"

Annabeth scooted closer to him and grabbed his hand again. "The last ingredient, Percy. Love. You let go of the cliff so I wouldn't have to go alone. And I put aside my pride and sense of independence, not arguing with you when you suggested it. We both did the hard thing, Percy, to stay together through it all because we love each other. Great acts of intellect and ingenuity, as well as a great love for one another."

Percy looked down at their hands. She was softly rubbing her thumbs over the backs of his hands. Her hands were rough and calloused from years of leading the demigod life. They were scarred, but they were beautiful. The most beautiful hands in the world, and they fit just right into his larger ones. Fewer things ever felt as perfect as her hand in his. Ever since he was twelve, heading into the Underworld on Charon's ferry, her hand in his had grounded him in reality and given him the courage to face whatever demon stood before him, whether literal or figurative. Holding her hand gave him strength, a will to keep going forward, and made him feel more protective than almost anything else.

He still felt like his brain had suffered a nuclear bomb attack, but he held her hand and plunged forward. He had to see this conversation through. His green eyes met her gray ones. "But shouldn't there be a baby here, now? Your mom doesn't go through pregnancy, does she?"

Annabeth shook her head. "No. No, she doesn't. We, her children, just kind of appear. She clothes us and whatever, then takes us to our fathers' front doors, places us and a birth certificate in a golden cradle that she makes appear, rings the bell, and leaves us as a gift to our fathers. No pregnancy, no labor, no birth."

"Then, I'm still confused."

She squeezed his hand. "I don't totally understand myself. I've tried asking her, making sacrifices, but I've gotten no answers so far. The best that I can come up with, though, is that while I'm a demigod, I'm also a demi-human. Apparently, though I can do the unprecedented and magically conceive a child, I can't magically give birth to one. I've got to go through the whole pregnancy thing, just like any other woman."

Percy leaned back on the couch, dropping his head back to rest on the top of it. He was quiet for a minute trying to sort through the mountain of information he had just been given. He wasn't getting very far. He let out a chuckle. "So, you're saying that, once again, you've managed to do what no other child of Athena has done before."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "It takes two to tango, Seaweed brain. Don't forget that."

Percy really did snort, then. "I didn't realize that I was tangoing. I was pretty sure I was just trying to not lose you, again."

Annabeth turned his head to look at her. "For a seventeen year old guy, who's never had sex before, and who just heard that he's going to be a father, you sure are calm. Or is this a denial phase?"

"I just don't think that part has sunk in yet. Talk to me about…about being pregnant. Maybe that will make it more real. How long have you known? How long until the baby is born? How do you feel? You know, all that stuff."

She leaned back beside him, mimicking his position. "Well, if I'm right, and I have a feeling that I am, then I should be about eleven weeks along."

Percy sat up abruptly. "Eleven weeks! Is that normal? I mean, isn't that long enough to have had two…Well, you know, that's over two months. When did you find out?" He felt his cheeks flame. He was sure he was going to fall over dead before the night was over either from straight up shock or from absolute mortification. Talking about his girlfriend's reproductive cycle was way down at the bottom of his list of ways he wanted to spend his time.

Percy's greatest consolation, at the moment, was that Annabeth's face was a red as his felt. She swallowed. "You're right, it's not normal for a woman to take that long to realize she's pregnant, but there is nothing remotely normal about any of this."

"Fair enough," Percy agreed.

"The thing is, we were in Tartarus for eighteen days, eighteen pain and horror filled days. That kind of trauma, physical and emotional, well, it has a drastic effect on the body. You know how much weight we lost, how we weren't able to eat a proper meal for at least a week. How tired we were. How our days and nights were all kinds of scrambled for days."

Percy nodded, his eyes darkening as he remembered those first days and weeks after leaving Tartarus.

Annabeth continued on with renewed fervor. "Well, when I didn't have my period when I was supposed to, I just assumed that my body was still trying to recover and get regulated, again. But the weeks passed, and I knew something else must be going on, especially since I have been so tired here lately, a little queasy, needing to pee way more than normal, and a few other odd little things. I couldn't make sense of it and was really getting worried about the whole missing period thing, but then last week, I had this dream. It was of you, holding a baby. You looked just like you do now, same age and all, and you were holding a baby with a look on your face that just radiated love and pride and protectiveness. I somehow just knew it was your baby, and that I was the mother. I couldn't get the dream out of my head, nor the thought of how my siblings and I came into this world. Then, on a whim four days ago, I bought a couple of at home pregnancy tests and took them. I've taken ten tests in four days, Percy, and every single one of them has been positive."

She stood and walked over to where her purse was hanging on the hook beside the door and took it down before returning to her seat. "Look," she said as she pulled out a plastic Ziplock bag. She handed the bag to Percy. It had several white sticks in it, and each one had a little blue plus sign in the window.

Percy's hands began to shake, and his heartbeat and breathing began to skyrocket. For the second time in an hour, he was hyperventilating. Annabeth stuffed the bag back in her purse and pushed Percy forward until he was leaning on his knees again. "Breathe, Percy. Come on, slow breaths." She rubbed his back, encouraging him to take slow, deep, calming breaths until his breathing finally evened back out.

He rubbed his face. "A baby…gods, Annabeth, what are we going to do? I mean, high school, New Rome, college, and the gods have us heading up the development and design of New Greece, too. And our parents….Oh crap…What are our parents going to say? I mean, no one is going to believe us, about this being a brain baby. Like you said, no demigod has ever had this happen to them. Why did we have to be the first?"

She snuggled up to him and hugged him close. "I don't know, Percy." Her voice cracked a little, and Percy pulled her tight, realizing that she was just as out of sorts as he was about this. "I'm scared and angry and worried…But dang it all if I'm not also excited, just a bit." She pulled back just enough to look up at him. "I mean, we did it. Two great prophecies, two wars, countless monsters, dozens of quests and missions, a whole host of other immortal beings, and Tartarus, and we're sitting here alive, in our senior year of high school, both of us with perfectly good jobs lined up already. We've got each other, and, though way beyond our control and nowhere near when we would have preferred, we're expecting our own baby. You weren't supposed to live past your sixteenth birthday, let alone get all of this. Heck, Gaea was supposed to kill us both on the ancient rocks of Greece just over a month ago, but she didn't. I'm terrified, but, despite it all, I know we'll figure it out. We've figured out everything else the gods have thrown our way. I don't see any reason why we should stop now."

Percy kissed her, sweet and soft but deep, full of promise and love and passion. Like the kiss they had shared at Athens as they had stood on the ancient ground where their parents had once competed for the city's allegiance. When he pulled away, they were both a little dazed and breathless. He leaned his forehead against hers, watching her gray orbs swirl with emotion. "I love you, Wise girl. And you're right; we'll get through this, just like we always do."

"Together," she breathed.

Percy smiled. "Together," he promised.