As you probably know, in order to write this story, I have to read it over. I swear to god, the amount of times I winced through the first few sentences is horrific. I think my brain died.
Anyhow, enjoy. And watch Rise of The Guardians n o w.
I was also a bit of a bitch at 11. I mean, wow:
"DISCLAIMER: I REALLY DONT OWN POJ. If you were idiots to belive that I did, sheesh."
Three months had passed since my dream. Since I realized that I was destined to die. I didn't dare go to Annabeth for support, worrying that she would feel fear as I had for those days and weeks and months. I hadn't had a proper night's sleep in ages, and with Annabeth having a baby on the way, I needed to make sure she stayed well rested. One idiotic slip and our baby could be born unhealthy due to overboard stress. Not exactly something I was prepared for.
She was due any day now, so I was on guard. I had kept by her side since the week before she was due to pop, taking a one month paternal leave. I couldn't risk not being home anymore. I kept my phone in my pocket constantly, as I did have to go grocery shopping occasionally.
I heard her calling my name, a whine, like she always sounded nowadays. It was the sound of a bored and restless Annabeth; an Annabeth that could do almost nothing but bathe herself and eat. It was horrific, really.
I chuckled and walked into our living room, to see her munching on popcorn as she lazily through the channels on our television. "Yes, 'Beth?" I called, standing over her stretched out and bloated figure.
"Bored," she said, picking up her dagger. "Bored," she muttered, taking aim. "Bored!" she cried, throwing her dagger at the wall. Even bloated and lazy and stretched out on a couch with The Bachelorette in the background, she had deadly aim.
I looked back at the area where she had thrown the dagger. It was there, large and bronze, among several kitchen knives, stuck in the wall in the form of a smiley face. There was yellow spray paint marking the area, as well. I saw the spray can only a few feet from the couch and sighed.
"I can see that. Our landlady's going to kill us," he said.
She scoffed. "Mrs. Hudson can deal. I need you."
"What do you need, O Wise One?" I said teasingly, picking up the People Magaizine off the coffee table and flipping through, noticing all of the mens faces had x's through them and all of the women were cut from it. Geez, I thought, someone's hormones are running rampant today.
"Chicken. KFC. Lots of it. Get the bucket shit," she said, smiling at me sweetly, but it was threateningly menacing at the same time.
I grinned. Yes, this was the woman I was married to, and how I loved her so.
After nearly throwing up at the the thought of watching this gorgeous woman gorge on chicken and not share, I ordered two buckets, so we could both be pigs together.
We cuddled and ate our KFC together, just like your all-around American family. I fell asleep to no dreams, just the feeling of warmth and comfort.
"Shit shit shit shit. Shit! Percy! Percy!" I heard Annabeth screaming.
"Hunnngagah," I groaned, but before I could get up, metal slapped my face, making a strong jingly sound. Keys. Our car keys.
"Hospital. Baby. Coming," she groaned, taking a deep breath.
I jumped from the couch in an instant. We had gone over this drill about a hundred times. What to do, where everything was. I led her to the car, my brain going on overdrive as I drove her to the hospital.
Shit shit shit shit shit.
Annabeth screaming as she gave birth was an experience I would never voluntarily repeat. If I hadn't experienced hell itself, the squeezing of my hand (the damn squeezing), I would have easily put the experience on the bottom of my "do again" list.
It was all worth it, though, when the nurse came in with my son. My son, whom I had named when I was drunk out of my mind, and Annabeth loved the name so much it stuck.
Rory Jackson, the boy with the tuft of blond curls and tightly shut eyes. Slowly, they opened. They were a startling blue.
"They'll change," the nurse said fondly, handing the baby over. "They almost always change."
The nurse was a stout woman, with kind, but startling, mismatched eyes. She has grey hair and dark skin, and a bounce in her step as she grave the baby to Annabeth. She had a light in her old eyes as she looked at Rory that told me she was a mother.
"Thank you," Annabeth said, taking our son from the nurse and cradling him in her arms. She froze. "I don't know how to hold a baby."
The nurse chuckled. "You never took the courses, dear?"
"I thought they were stupid and a waste of time," Annabeth said. "I thought work would be much more important than learning how to change a diaper."
"It's fine, dear. You're doing well, just make sure to support the head, never shake, and never squeeze, okay?" she said.
"I got it, thanks," Annabeth, sighing in relief.
"Just call if you need anyone," she said, gesturing to the red button on the wall.
"We will," Annabeth said, dazed by her child.
The nurse left, but not before giving us both a warm smile. For a second, I believed that one of her eyes were of a moonlight color, or seemed to be made of the moonlight. I could have sworn...
"We're parents," Annabeth breathed, holding Rory carefully. "Actual, mom-and-dad parents."
"Yeah," I said, a grin dancing on my lips. I was still fear-struck, as so many things would be coming to this child's, my child's future. But for now and the next twelve years I could enjoy being a dad as much as a demigod can. "There's just one problem."
Annabeth rose an eyebrow. "And that would be...?"
"Who the hell is gonna change his diapers and deal with the screaming menace we know he'll be," I said, laughing. I touched my finger to my nose. "Not it."
"I think we both know that it'll be you changing his shit-filled diapers, and no 'not-it-nose-game' can change that," she said. Annabeth rolled her eyes, but they still sparkled with joy. "But as for how he'll grow up..."
She moved a lock of golden curls from Rory's head, and smirked.
"I think we always knew he was a reckless born."
Annabeth wanted to sleep, and I was getting fidgety in that room, so I gladly left her to the nurses' care. I may have loved her wholeheartedly and would never leave her side, yada yada yada, my hand still fucking ached, and I had to make sure she hadn't damaged my sword arm.
After successfully making sure it was just a bruise and getting some painkillers for the constant ache, I headed out back of the hospital, where there was a stream of sunlight falling through the top of the alleyway. I looked at the ground of the alley and saw a broken bottle, most likely for some alcoholic beverage. It was glass and clear, and that was all I needed. I held the strangely broken glass up to the light and pulled a drachma from my pocket and thew it into the rainbow to conduct an Iris Message.
"O Fleecy, do me a solid, and show me Chiron at Camp," he said.
The rainbow shimmered for a moment, only to show the conference room where cabin meetings were held. Chiron and Dionysus were playing a game of pinochle. It looked intense, because Chiron glanced at the Iris message then raised his hand to signify silence. He then put down a winning hand and grinned. "I believe I have won again, Mr. D," Chiron said, voice calm.
"Oh shut up. One day I'll get you, you old horse," Dionysus fumed, crushing his empty coke can in his hands.
Chiron only smiled. "Ah, Percy!" he said, turning to the Iris Message as if it was his first time noticing its existence. "How did it go? I'm assuming well, the odds have been in your favour, considering the circumstance of your child's birth."
My brow furrowed. "Yeah, about that, Chiron, I don't understand."
"What could you possibly not get, you dimwit. In twelve years, you'll die, rather than your son. Shouldn't that comfort your Fatal Flaw a teensy bit?"
"Well - Wait, you know my Fatal Flaw...?" Percy said, surprised. He didn't tell many people about something so personal, and he certainly didn't tell Mr. D.
"You admit a lot when asked. Especially when you're intoxicated," he said with a smirk.
I sighed, and said, "Whatever, it's not that big of a deal. I was just wondering, Chiron, what does the prophecy mean?"
Chiron shuffled uncomfortably in his wheelchair. "My boy, I've put much thought into that prophecy, and yet... I do not believe that it will be an easy task to fully comprehend the intensity of the situation. Would you mind repeating the prophecy for me?"
I took a breath, and recited the prophecy that had haunted my nightmares for so many weeks.
"Reckless born to reckless sea and bright and stable mind,
Brings only light but only dark with the constant tick of time,
Reckless live or reckless die, Olympus will stand still,
But reckless dies and the King will fall with chill.
Reckless child with stable mind and power beyond reach,
Must be guided to the light before darkness is unleashed.
A destroyer and a savior will rest in reckless soul,
Curse unleashed will bring only grudges old."
Chiron took a moment to think. "The first line is clear; a child will be born to sea and mind, clearly you and Annabeth."
"I could tell that much," Percy said, his arm getting tired.
"The second line has implications that are a little harder to comprehend... Perhaps it foreshadows a future of darkness? Perhaps the child goes to the dark."
Percy felt himself anger. "My son would never-"
"Percy, I understand that, as a parent, you are protective, but being a parent never meant that your child would vouch for your side."
He wasn't talking about me. He was talking about Luke, the son of Hermes who hated his father so endlessly and thoroughly, he joined the side of the Titans and succumbed to the whispering voice of the Titan of Time. He was so angry that he allowed himself to become the Titan, a thought that still ran chills down my spine. To ever give yourself to such a cold, empty monster was something beyond my limited comprehension.
"What you're missing is that I'm not Hermes, Chiron," I snapped, clutching the glass harder. A trickle of blood came down my arm as the glass cut my palm.
"There were others, though. Silena Beauregard, Ethan Nakamura, Chris Rodriguez - all betrayed their parents."
"But they were good in the end, weren't they?"
"I can't say the same about all of those loyal to Kronos in the Second Titan War, but yes. Unfortunately, that hardly gives me hope."
"It gives me hope, Chiron. I remember you saying that hope was all one ever needed, no?"
I was trapped in the cave, the light, so small, so fickle, that I could barely see it. The water in which I was trapped, drowning, suffocating, was making reflections of a rainbow.
I had no drachma.
"Iris!" I screamed. "Fleecy! Please! Help! Send help!" I yelled, trapped in my own fear. Outside the Giant War raged on, and the Titan of Fear had trapped me in a cave of water, slowly filling the top.
The space hardly qualified as a cave, it was a hole, with rushing water, filling the already small space. The walls were black, making the space even smaller. My cries echoed against the perfectly smooth walls, bouncing back to my ears and giving me a migraine. A thousand times over, my voice screaming for help repeated in his ears. Crystals lines the walls, and a fragment of light hit the clear thing, showing him a rainbow.
The water was up to my mouth when gut wrenching sobs shook him, and I gave up, sinking to the bottom, letting the water go over my head. I was going to die drowning. Ironic.
Suddenly, light filled the cave, and I heard my mentor of five year's voice fill the small space, even the water, crystal clear, like the space was dry.
"Find hope. Hope is all you'll ever need. Find your hope, and you will find the power within you to escape. Be brave, Perseus."
Hope. I need hope. Hope. Hope. Hope-
Annabeth.
The cave exploded.
"You are stubborn," Chiron said, smiling, but his eyes were tired and he looked near ready to give up. "I suppose you could come to Camp for an afternoon, you don't live too far off, no? I suppose it will be more efficient than IMing."
"Yes, I suppose. I can make it like a business trip for Annabeth, so I suppose I'll be there in a month's time, Chiron."
"You realize you'll need to tell her, right?"
"Of course," Percy sighed. "But not now. She just had a child, and the amount of stress we're going to face adjusting to the baby life-style is enough in itself. I'll give everything some time to blow over before I tell her anything, Chiron."
"Then I suppose I will see you in a month's time?"
"Yeah, you will. Bye, Chiron. Give Grover and Juniper my greetings," I said. I gave him a tired smile, and dropped the glass, watching it shatter as my Iris Message shimmered away.
Wowow lots of lines.
Thanks for the reviews, really appreciated! As I said before, don't feel shy to Review, Fave, And Follow. Point out my errors, give me a cookie, say you want to watch Rise of The Guardians (dO IT) with me, t.
Yes, I like Sherlock.
And Doctor Who.
And Merlin.
Shhhhhhhhh they're very good shows watch them.
Adios Muchachos.