April I

Annabeth still got a kick out of hitting Madison Avenue with Rachel. Granted, most of that kick was probably the buzz she got from the champagne that materialised on a tray at Rachel's elbow whenever she got her AmEx out, a tray which was followed shortly by a personal shopper, but still.

Annabeth would do just fine without the personal shopper, thank you very much, but the free champagne was just to die for.

"So what's Percy going to get you for your anniversary?" Rachel asked as they walked, arm-in-arm, towards the aforementioned Mecca for shopping socialites.

Annabeth shrugged. "I don't know. He's always really secretive about it."

Rachel telegraphed her disapproval with Annabeth's answer through a very-effective frown. "Ugh. Well, that's seriously boring. Where's the fun in that? Maybe you can guess. What's the traditional fifth anniversary gift?"

"How do you mean?" Annabeth wasn't really paying much attention; she was busy scouting out the crowd, wondering if everyone here knew that she didn't belong. Maybe there was some kind of sixth sense Madison Avenue boutique shoppers shared.

"You know, like paper is one year, silver is twenty-five years, and gold is fifty years blah blah blah."

The brusqueness of Rachel's tone was something Annabeth was totally used to by now and it didn't bother her. "No idea."

Rachel huffed a sigh at Annabeth's unhelpfulness. "I thought you knew everything? Fine, let me think… Well, for my parents' fifth anniversary, my father bought my mother our ski lodge in Geneva, so… oh! Wood. It must be wood."

Annabeth turned to Rachel with a slightly bemused look on his face. "First of all, wow you are rich. And second of all, something tells me it's probably not a ski lodge." Her tone was bone dry; it couldn't have been choked down with ten gallons of water. "Besides, Percy hasn't stuck to those rules so far. I don't think we're going to figure it out like this."

Rachel nodded in agreement; her mouth twisted in thought. "Mmm. Good point. Oh well. He's nailed it for three years out of four so far. I mean, I don't know what he was thinking the year he bought you a universal remote, but still, three years out of four is pretty good for a guy. So okay, what are you getting him?"

Annabeth was completely honest in her answer. "You know, I haven't thought about it yet. Normally, it just comes to me. Things have got in the way this year, though. Work and… other things. I'll get there. I always do."

Rachel smiled and elbowed Annabeth in the ribs. She leaned in, providing an air of conspiracy to the conversation. "I hear you loud and clear. So… you're thinking of getting him a big surprise, right?"

Annabeth wrinkled her nose, leaning back away from Rachel to get a better view of her friend's face in the hope that that would explain the sudden bizarre change in behaviour. It didn't. "What are you talking about, Dare?"

"Oh, nothing."

Rachel's face was the picture of innocence, although there was a slightly cross edge to her voice that Annabeth didn't understand; nor did she get why Rachel made a big show of ditching their interlinked arms and peeling off in what was clearly thinly-veiled annoyance. Annabeth blinked at the space Rachel had left behind and trudged after her, shoving her hands in her pockets in tired resignation as she made way through the crowd after Rachel's departing ponytail. Rachel had stopped to look in a shop window.

"So cute!" Rachel said, looking back at Annabeth as she picked her way through the crowd. "Don't you think they're cute?"

Rachel currently had her face pressed against the glass a window where tiny designer baby clothes were being modelled by tiny mannequins. Annabeth's eyes widened, suspicion giving way to genuine fear as her gaze slipped from Rachel's grin to the shop window and back again. Why had Rachel dragged her all the way over here to look at baby clothes? Perhaps all of the prophecies had finally sent her over the edge.

"Uh, I think dry clean only baby clothes are a little impractical?" Annabeth tried, scrunching her face. And that was true because, really, that was pretty much the worst idea in the history of forever.

Yet even over the fear that Rachel had pulled a May Castellan on her and gone rubber room nuts, Annabeth's stomach clenched as she looked at the mannequins, wadding up a tight ball of misery somewhere behind her breastbone. Her heart was taking serious liberties and bombarding her brain with images of a baby of her own making its way on its hands and knees across the living room carpet dressed in little clothes just like that. Her heart was paying no attention to her brain, which was trying to shout it down with a reminder of what the doctors had told her back in January.

"Well, of course," Rachel said. "But I mean, baby clothes! Babies! Cute! No?"

Given how much Annabeth wanted a baby to put in those baby clothes, she couldn't agree. Instead, she just about managed to give a weak shrug at Rachel's questions, which seemed to offend her for some reason. Annabeth blinked as Rachel turned her back on the window, her ponytail whipping behind her as she stomped off.

"Hey, Dare! Slow down, will you?" Annabeth surged forward to catch up. What was wrong with her today? What was up with these mood swings?

Rachel reluctantly came to a stop and let Annabeth catch up, although she wouldn't speak for a time. She seemed to be part annoyed and part deep in thought; Annabeth idly wondered if a steak had ever been so tenderised as Rachel's tongue must be right now, what with how hard she was chewing on it.

"So what about those storks, huh?" Rachel asked suddenly, focussing her gaze on Annabeth with all the accuracy of a laser but with an undercurrent of mischief twinkling behind it. A half smile had formed on her lips; Annabeth thought it looked anticipatory.

"Uh… what?" Annabeth asked. "Is that, like, one of your attempts to convince me how into sports you are? Because you don't need to do that and I don't think the Storks are a real team in… any sport. Or at you talking about actual storks because, well… there aren't any? This is New York. Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

Are you sure you're not having some weird, Oracle-induced seizure? is what she actually wanted to ask, but she didn't think Rachel would appreciate it with the mood she was in.

Rachel's eyes darkened rapidly. Annabeth might even have seen green sparks flaring behind them briefly — the Oracle had been known to explode unpredictably out of Rachel whenever Rachel got angry or upset — but it could have just been the sun.

"There might be storks," Rachel said, with what could only be described as a glower on her face. "They're migratory after all. And, sometimes, they deliver… things."

Annabeth was becoming more and more convinced that she needed to take Rachel to see Chiron. Perhaps she'd spent too long with the Oracle in her. How long was one person supposed to live with that, anyway?

"Have you been at your mom's painkillers again? Seriously, Rachel, you're freaking me out a little."

"First of all, that was only because I had cramps, and second of all, well, that's nice, isn't it?" Rachel snapped, flouncing away from Annabeth yet again. "I thought I was supposed to be your friend." She strode towards a shop and disappeared inside. "By the way, we're going in here," she yelled over her shoulder before repeating her earlier vanishing trick.

Knowing Rachel could be quite the prima donna at times, despite the fact that she would deny it to the death, Annabeth rolled her eyes and followed slowly, her hands still in her pockets. This was probably just Rachel being Rachel. Annabeth decided to see if she could wait until Rachel calmed down before deciding whether or not they needed to take her back to Camp.

As usual, as soon as Rachel appeared in the shop, up popped a woman with a tray with two flutes on it. Except, this time, instead of champagne they contained—

"Orange juice?" Annabeth asked incredulously, taking hers and holding it up to the light. There was no fizz at all, which meant that it wasn't even a mimosa. Half the reason she went shopping with Rachel was for the champagne, and now she had to put up with plain old OJ instead? She took a hopeful sip, but couldn't even taste the tiniest bite of alcohol. Her shoulders sagged towards the floor.

"Yes, OJ," Rachel said angrily, her nostrils flaring. "I texted ahead. I thought I'd save you the trouble of having to lie about why you don't want champagne."

"What? You turned down champagne?" Annabeth hissed. "Have you lost your freaking mind? Believe me, I want all the champagne. I was good with champagne. I'm not a fan of shopping with you sober."

Somehow, a pair of shoes had been brought out to Rachel without her even asking to see them. Rachel set her orange juice down on the floor, sat down on a leather stool, and kicked off her own ratty Converse so she could slide her foot into the new pair of shoes. They were even the right size. Did the rich and their personal shoppers share the gift of telepathy or something? Just another question to add to the ever-growing list, although it would probably still fall somewhere underneath have you gone batshit insane?

Rachel cocked her head at Annabeth and narrowed her eyes. "You'd… you'd rather have champagne?" There was hesitation and suspicion in her voice; her eyebrows knitted together. She tried to stand but immediately wobbled dangerously and had to sit back down again. "Too high," she told the shopper, and the offending shoes were whisked out of sight.

"Than OJ?" Annabeth asked. "Is that a trick question?"

Rachel frowned still deeper, padding over to Annabeth in her bare feet and touching her arm, looking deeply at her face for a while. Realisation dawned on her features, and her mouth dropped open. "Oh, gods. Gods. Annabeth, you… you really don't know, do you?"

"Know what?" Annabeth demanded. "Rachel, you're being really weird. Even for you."

"Oh my gods," Rachel breathed, stepping back and putting her hand to her mouth. "I didn't think... I didn't think I'd tell you. This whole time I've been trying to get it out of you. I thought that you'd tell me. I've been waiting for you to tell me all day. I thought you'd have peed on the thing by now and—"

"Excuse me?!" Annabeth choked out, her eyes darting wildly around the shop. She stepped closer to Rachel and grabbed her arm, hissing: "Peed on what thing?"

"The pregnancy test," Rachel said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, as if Annabeth was one of those people Annabeth was always yelling at on TV quiz shows. "I thought you'd have taken one by now. Well, I didn't expect this…" She laughed, breaking free of Annabeth's grasp as her mouth curved upwards into a grin.

Annabeth closed her eyes, the memory of the doctor's office four months ago coming back to her. Since then, she'd tried not to think about the whole situation. Even though, logically, she knew she should be taking practical steps such as looking up adoption agencies, she was still very much feeling like she was in limbo with the whole thing. It was easier that way than to have to actually try and deal.

"I'm really not pregnant," she said. Her voice was low and hollow. "Woman with a scarred uterus over here, remember? I've got the ultrasounds to prove it, just in case you thought that couldn't get any more depressing. Just because we don't keep them stuck to the front of the fridge with novelty magnets doesn't mean they've gone away."

Rachel snorted, folding her arms across her chest and fixing Annabeth with her best bitch, please look. "Uh, woman possessed by the Oracle over here, remember? And yeah, Annabeth, you really kind of are."

The explosion of feelings this set off in Annabeth's chest meant she didn't even hear the glass of orange juice shatter on the floor.