So this is a one-shot I've been toying with for a while now. It's a future-fic of Percy and Annabeth trying to figure out a name for their kid. I hope you all enjoy, even though it's a bit of a short read.
Percy POV
"Annabeth," I called into the apartment as I got back from work, "I'm home."
"Obviously," she pointed out from in the living room.
I walked in to find her sitting on the sofa with a book in hand. Noticing the bulge in her stomach that had been there for a few weeks now, I couldn't help but grin. I still couldn't believe my child was growing in there. Glancing at her book, I read the title. HET GID BOKO OF BYAB SAMEN. Even after so many years, my dyslexia still acts up like crazy. I wasn't even entirely sure how Annabeth was reading the book with such ease.
She caught me trying miserably to read the title and handed it to me, "It says The Big Book of Baby Names. Juniper gave it to me since I told her that we didn't have any ideas for names yet."
"Oh," I replied, "But we agreed we didn't want to know the gender."
She shrugged, "We can look up possible names for each gender. Then we have one either way when the baby's born."
"Okay," I sat down next to her and started flipping through the pages.
I kind of liked the name Michael for a boy until I realized his name would've been Michael Jackson. I decided to not even bring that up with Annabeth. We sat there for a good half an hour looking for names until we finally just decided to come up with them ourselves.
"I like the name Daisy for a girl," Annabeth pondered aloud.
I shook my head, "I'm not naming my child after a flower."
"Why?" she asked in disbelief. "That's a common name. Your male pride is just getting in the way."
Looking at her questioningly, I asked, "My male pride?"
She nodded.
"Whatever," I said, "Can we just try to come up with another name?"
"Fine," she didn't seem happy at her suggestion being shot down.
"Why don't we try naming her after someone?" I suggested and she agreed. After a few minutes of silent thinking, I asked, "Why don't we name her Rachel if it's a girl? That's a pretty normal name and it would just be like we were naming after the Oracle."
She rolled her eyes, "I'm not naming my child after your ex."
"She's not my ex!" I protested.
"I don't care," she shut me down, "I'm not naming it Rachel."
I grumbled under my breath, "Then we are definitely not naming our child Luke if it's a boy."
Sadly, she heard me, "I wasn't planning on it. Besides, that's completely different."
I scoffed, "How?"
By this point she was glaring at me, "First of all, I never kissed Luke. Second, he was like a brother to me and helped me survive until I got to camp. Third, he may have betrayed us but in the end he was as much of a savior of Olympus as you were. Lastly, I never kissed him!"
Not wanting to get my head chopped off, I decided to drop the argument.
"What about Sally?" I prompted. My mom was always a great person in my life and she loved Annabeth too. Sometimes I felt like she loved her more than me even.
She sighed, "I have no problem with naming our child after your mom, but I don't think she would want us to. She's such a modest woman."
As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. My mom would be crying with joy for hours and probably would tear up every time we called upon our child.
"We could name it Charlie if it's a boy," Annabeth told me.
I shook my head, "Chris told me that he and Clarisse were probably going to name their boy after Beckendorf."
"And they already named their girl Silena," she pointed out. Clarisse had a baby girl about two years ago that she named Silena and now she was pregnant with a boy she planned on naming Charlie.
"Why don't we name it something unique?" I proposed, "Something cool and mysterious. What about Shadow?"
She looked at me like I was from another planet, "I can't even respond to that without insulting your intelligence in some way. You want to name our child Shadow?"
"Yeah," I told her, "It would be such an epic name. Who wouldn't want to have a sick name like that?"
"I'll tell you what," she offered, "If our child allows you when it's grown up, you can nickname it Shadow or Flame or Ocean or whatever other ridiculous name you want. Until then, we need an actual name."
"Fine," I grumbled, "Then what do you suggest?"
She thought for a moment, "I kind of like the name Roseanne."
"What did I say about naming our child after a flower?" I pointed out.
She glared at me again, "It's different, but you're not going to give it a chance."
I suppressed the urge to start arguing. She was carrying my baby and it was probably just the hormones getting to her. So I took a few deep breaths and then asked her if she had any other names in mind.
"What about Millicent?" she suggested.
Looking at her like she had five heads, I asked, "Isn't that the name of like a dragon or something in one of those Disney movies?"
She face-palmed, "That's Maleficent."
"Oh."
She groaned and slumped back on the couch, "This is hopeless."
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About five months later, Annabeth and I sat in the delivery room with our new baby boy. Annabeth had just been in labor for ten hours and looked like she just wanted nothing more than sleep. The nurse had to go get me an ace bandage for my hand that Annabeth crushed. She tried apologizing, but I just laughed and said it was fine. Our child didn't have hair to tell what color it was yet, but his grey eyes reminded me so much of his mother.
We sat there snuggling with our baby, neither of us wanting to point out that we still didn't have a name. We hadn't had this discussion since that argument months back. So our child was nameless. Finally, the nurse returned, wrapped my hand, and took our baby so Annabeth could be moved to a recovery room.
Before she left though, she turned to us, "Have you decided on a name yet?"
"Shad-" Annabeth clamped her hand over my mouth and politely told her that we hadn't chosen one yet.
After thinking silently for a few minutes, I pondered aloud, "You know maybe we shouldn't name our child. How awesome would it be if we just referred to him as No Name? I mean-"
She cut me off again with a face-palm (since she does that almost every day around me, I was beginning to wonder how she didn't have a concussion), "Please, just stop talking."
Stupid book of baby names.
So the couple still couldn't find a name for their kid. I had fun writing this and once again I hope you all enjoyed. This is my first one-shot, so I hope I didn't screw it up too bad. Anyway, please review.
