It was Tuesday evening. Percy was walking Annabeth to her train to make the short trip back to her Berkeley dorm room. Sometimes she stayed at his, but with roommates it didn't always work out. The night was cool, and she'd sweetly manipulated him out of his sweatshirt when he'd been distracted on the phone. She was checking the train schedule on her phone – there'd been a delay – when he broke their silence.

"Can I ask you something?"

Annabeth looked up quickly. His tone made her immediately on guard. He was walking slightly away from her, his hands deep in his pockets.

"Yeah?"

He looked at her, steady, straight on. "Do you want kids?"

She felt something in her stomach twist, as though she'd studied for the wrong exam.

"W–what?"

It was stupid of her to be caught off guard. It wasn't like they hadn't discussed different aspects of the future. They were only freshman in college, but moving across the country with someone called for a few conversations, some assurances of intent. (Okay, more like him telling her a few too many times that he wasn't going anywhere.) But – this was the one she'd always avoided. Kids. Her role in relation to them.

He just looked at her for a long moment – her flushed face, her general unease – and looked away, his face hard to read.

"That was my mom on the phone, before. Estelle's got some kind of fever – she's fine, but Paul had to go out and get her medicine. It's like, 2am there. I was just thinking about how hard it'd be. And then…I don't know. About how we've never been very clear on that subject, I guess."

Annabeth stared at the black horizon as they kept walking silently. She felt herself biting down on her own lip, hard. There was a reason the topic had remained unclear, that she'd avoided it as much as possible.

Once, less than a year ago, she'd read an article online. It was about the top few reasons for divorce across the country. Religion, finances, kids. Disagreeing on any of those, in no particular order. She'd seen that last one, and something inside her just shut off.

It wasn't that she hated kids. She liked plenty of the ones she'd met, especially the babies. She loved Estelle.

But you could give those kids back. Yes, in a deep, secret place, she'd always yearned for the stability and comfort of family life. But she'd never grown up pining for babies of her own. When she'd imagined her adult life, she'd dreamed of going to sleep with her cheek on a blueprint, waking early to work on her next design – not feed a screaming baby.

Falling in love with Percy had complicated all of it. She'd simultaneously been given everything, and gifted with the sight of how it might all be taken away.

"I don't –" she faltered, unsure how to say what she needed to, in the manner that she needed to. She hated feeling so inarticulate, inept. She took a deep breath.

"I don't see why – I mean…do we need to figure all that out now? We're only, like, eighteen."

Her voice cracked at the end. They both knew that age meant very little anymore.

He was quiet for a few seconds, then glanced over at her, saying only, "Aren't you the queen of planning?"

She couldn't argue with that.

"Do you want kids?" She asked, trying to get the attention away from herself, knowing he saw through it.

Percy sidestepped a trash can, hands still in his pockets. If he was cold in his black t-shirt, he didn't show it. Somehow they'd drifted slightly further apart as they walked. "I mean, gods – not now. Not till we're like, old. Older." He paused. "But, yeah. Someday. I do."

The silence stretched between them. She could feel him looking at her, but she didn't turn her face. She had that loose, awful feeling of being on the verge of tears.

She knew he wasn't some idiot. He didn't need to read an article about divorce to know you shouldn't marry someone without discussing children, without determining that you were on the same page. And of course she knew he'd want kids. Anyone who didn't know him well might not see it, might think it'd be the other way round for them. But she'd seen him working with the younger kids at camp, in the sword fighting arena. She'd seen him with his baby sister. And it made her heart do insane gymnastics routines every time.

She crossed her arms, hugging herself against the light wind. He was still waiting for her to speak.

"It's not like I had such great family role models." She said finally, her voice a little desperate. "I just feel like – I don't know the first thing about being a parent. It's not like, like something you can train for."

"Seriously?" He said, frustration filling his voice. "Look, I know I had a good mom, but I didn't grow up with any kind of dad, at all –"

"Percy, I know that–"

"–and that doesn't mean we're never supposed to try to do anything, just because we didn't have it ourselves!"

She blinked, trying to compose herself. In truth, she felt completely off track. She didn't know how to say what she really meant.

"My family–"

"Here we go again."

"What? I didn't have a good, happy upbringing–I wasn't safe–"

"Yeah, so you say."

She stopped walking. "Excuse me? Why would you –"

He stopped too, facing her from several paces away. The anger between them was palpable, now. "You go on and on about your pitiful childhood and crazy abusive family, when some of us went through real abuse. I've met your family, Annabeth. I get it, okay? They didn't do things right. But some demigods were homeless not by choice, or faced actual danger at home. How does this have anything to do with you just wanting to draw all day instead of taking care of someone other than yourself?"

Blood rang in her ears. She could not believe he'd just said that.

"I get to choose," she said, voice rising, "What I want to do with my life. If you think I'm such a selfish liar, maybe you should find someone else to hook up and have babies with. And you know what? I'm not stopping you."

She'd already started moving away from him, toward the train station. He was shaking his head, looking away from her, also backing up in the opposite direction. They both knew in some self-preserving place that they needed to distance themselves now, before they said anything more.

"I'm going back to the city." He said shortly, turning his back on her. He meant New Rome.

She hesitated for just a single moment, watching him walk away from her, her blood steaming with anger and indignation. With no idea what else to say, she screamed after him, "I'm still wearing your sweatshirt!"

He slowed down just slightly, half turning his head to shout back.

"I don't want it."

She put her forehead against the cold train window, feeling exhausted as all the anger dissipated from her veins. She knew he hadn't meant what he'd said. Although – well. There had been truth in all of it. But they both tended to lose control when they got angry. She was sure he'd barely processed her own weak retort – "Find someone else…I'm not stopping you…" It was fairly ridiculous, considering her history of possessive behavior.

This fight hadn't been without precedence. They'd been slightly rocky for a while, lately. School was stressful for both of them, living in a new place was hard, and so was being so far away from camp and his family and Olympus, where she was still trying to manage a complete redesign. And she'd just taken on an internship in Berkeley. It was unpaid, long hours, and involved a lot more answering phones and getting coffee than anything else. Percy had been making a lot more effort to see her than she had him. The "selfish" insinuation had not been at all unfounded, and truthfully, had likely been on the back burner for a while now.

She knew she was all over the place with this relationship lately. She would accidentally stand him up because she hadn't put a reminder in her phone, put her phone on silent for hours while working on a project and miss all his calls without checking in first, bring her work with her when they met up and find herself tuning him out while she caught up on things. And if he went silent with her for a while, she became despicably insecure, almost clingy – at least, that was how she perceived herself, and she hated it. It always seemed to end in him reassuring her, or being the one to make things better by apologizing, even when he wasn't necessarily at fault.

So if Percy was reaching the end of the line by now, he really wasn't to blame.

She swiped at her eyes with a frustrated, resigned sigh. She valued this relationship more than anything. She'd just been taking it for granted lately, letting him pick up all the slack. She wondered if he'd asked the kids question on purpose, if some part of him wanted to goad her off the edge. Or maybe, a voice whispered in the back of her mind, he just wanted to ask you a direct question about the future of your relationship, which you haven't seemed very present in lately. She sighed again, looking down at her messenger back she'd intended to work out of on the train ride, before flipping it closed and sliding it under the seat.

It was Thursday evening. Wednesday had stretched between them, a long span of classes and work and radio silence. But they had agreed, earlier in the week, on Annabeth staying over at his apartment Thursday night. If there was one thing they had learned early on in their near three year relationship, it was to resolve conflicts as soon as possible, before they turned into something bigger, something potentially unfixable.

So here she was, brushing her teeth in his tiny bathroom, wearing a baggy old t-shirt and waiting for him to get in. She wasn't mad anymore. Everything he'd said still hurt, but she knew where it was coming from. She had to trust that he wouldn't be mad either, that they could be calm and reasonable.

As she rinsed her mouth, she heard the door opening. She heard his footsteps pause as he noted the light on, saw her things in the entry. She heard them resume, go towards the kitchen. She reached for dental floss. He was never still mad by this time. He always had his making up face on. She flossed her teeth a little harder than she meant to, lost in her thoughts, tasting blood on her tongue.

She almost didn't hear the door open behind her. He put his hands lightly on her waist, wordlessly kissing the top of her head. She closed her eyes at his touch, strong and gentle and smelling like him, like cold air and minty aftershave and seawater and something just beyond description.

"Hi." He said, his deep voice quiet, muffled in her hair.

"Hi."

His mouth moved to her ear. "I'm sorry."

She squeezed her eyes closed, feeling the tears coming. Her chest felt ragged, a hole there she couldn't ignore.

"I didn't mean what I said." He went on, moving to lean against the counter in the cramped space, so they could look at each other. "I should never have gone that far, Annabeth. I was being a jackass. I didn't mean to hurt you."

And now she was crying, really crying, and she let him pull her forward, into him, but she was shaking her head, needing to say her part. Because yes, he'd hurt her and his words still stung. But now here he was, doing all the making up, when it took two to fight.

"Percy." She pulled back, standing in front of where he rested on the edge of the bathroom counter, between his knees. She laced her hands through his large ones, concentrating on the pulsing warmth between them.

"I'm sorry, too. No – I'm more sorry. For – a lot of things. I've been a shitty girlfriend lately."

He was shaking his head, starting to speak, so she covering his lips with her finger.

"I've been beyond distracted and stressed out. I haven't looked outside of myself at all, and you're always making more effort for me, and I see that, okay? Gods –" She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I'm just…sorry. Really. Okay?"

He just looked at her, then reached up his thumb to wipe under her left eye. "Okay." He said quietly.

She sniffled, then leaned in closer, looking him in the eye. "And I want to have your babies."

He raised one eyebrow, his mouth twitching just slightly. "Really? You don't want me to find someone else to –"

She covered his mouth with her hand while he grinned, and she knew they were okay.

"Honest, though. I'm sorry I wouldn't talk about it before. The idea of being a parent just freaks me out, sometimes. But – one day."

"Annabeth." He was serious now. "You know I'm not trying to pressure you into a life you don't want. I just wanted inside your head. I like to hear what you think about stuff."

She felt like she might cry again. "I know," she whispered. "But…I do want it, Percy. I just – and this is not meant to be self-pitying – but I always feel like…I should be the best. At anything. Like I can figure anything out and get it done. But not…motherhood. I feel like…I'd be a bad mother." She was barely audible by the end, her voice mired in shame and self-doubt.

"Hey." His voice was serious, almost sharp. "Look at me – Annabeth." It turned gentler. "I've seen you, with my sister. I've seen you with the kids in cabin six. You think you know yourself so well, but I see you. If you want to be a mom, you're going to be the best at it, okay? The very, very best." He leaned his forehead against hers. "We're gonna figure it out. We've got years ahead."

She reached her hands around his neck, feeling his soft, messy hair, his warm skin. She nodded.

Slowly, he kissed her, hot and serious and sweet. She kissed him back, feeling a slow burn in her stomach. After a minute, she leaned back, eyes sparkling. "So…you definitely don't want kids now."

"Definitely, definitely not."

"So, I guess I should go get my birth control out of the trash, then?"

He growled, and kissed her again. "Don't give me a heart attack." He stood, suddenly, picking her up like she weighed five pounds, and carried her out of the bathroom, toward his bed.

She pressed her mouth to his neck, whispering three quiet words.

Author's Note: Reviews very welcome! This is my first post and first Percabeth fic, so if you'd like more, please let me know. Feel free to send requests/prompts for other Percabeth fics.