Chapter Two
"I wish I could be dancing now
in the arms of the girl I love"
-Jona Lewie (Stop the Cavalry)
"Did you just wake up?" Annabeth asked, feigning a stern expression and putting her hands on her hips. She looked down at Lydia, who stood in the doorway to the kids' room, still in her pyjama's and her teddy bear still in hand. Lydia looked up at Annabeth and giggled.
Annabeth rolled her eyes and picked the little girl up, sitting her on a chair in the kitchen as she started searching around for the Cocoa Puffs Percy had bought with them. "I was sleeping," Lydia giggled as Annabeth began to pour her a bowl of cereal.
"What did you dream about?" she asked, smiling at her best friends' daughter. It was only eight o'clock, so it wasn't exactly late, but everybody else in the house had woken up rather early due to so many people in the house, the Christmas spirit and one of Emma's tantrums, the whole house had woken up hours earlier.
"I dreamt about Harry Potter," Lydia told Annabeth, who handed her a small breakfast and left her to her own devices, watching over her to make sure she didn't spill cereal all over the kitchen.
"Was it a good dream?" Annabeth asked.
Lydia shook her head. "Hagrid burned Ron's pants on fire and cooked Harry," Lydia said sadly, as if the memory was tragic. Annabeth knitted her eyebrows together and cocked her head. Sometimes kids had the weirdest dreams.
"Is that so?" Annabeth mused. "Mommy and Daddy are outside in the snow. If you want to join them after breakfast, I'll have to get you dressed first."
"Where's Lukey?" Lydia asked.
Annabeth looked out the window to where her son and Reyna were ganging up on Jason with snowballs. "He's out there too," she said. "And baby Emma's asleep."
Lydia looked angry. "If Emma is allowed to sleep forever, why can't I?" she demanded.
Annabeth smiled at Lydia. "Because you're getting big now sweetheart," she said. "You have to start behaving like a big girl. One day, Emma will have to do the same." She sat with Lydia as she finished her breakfast and took her back into the kids bedroom to get dressed. She wrapped her up in a coat, hat, scarf and gloves before sending her outside to play with Jason, Reyna and Luke.
"We better get started," said a voice behind her. She turned to see Percy, carrying a large trunk that she only saw at that time of year. It was full of tinsel and stars a ceiling decorations and baubles. "Should we start with the tree?"
"No, we'll leave the tree and do it this evening with the others," she said. "Let's start by getting these paper chains up on the ceiling."
With only five days left until Christmas day, they were left in charge of decorating the beach house. The Christmas Tree had always been something pretty special for the two families, so they decided to wait until they finished to even start on the tree. In the meantime, Annabeth stood on the ugly metal step ladder as Percy passed her press-pins and paper chains.
"You're really cute when you're concentrating," he said, looking up at her as she tried to tediously hard task of pushing a press-pin into the ceiling. She could stab cyclops' in the feet when she was seven, dagger a bunch of monsters and help save the world, but stabbing a simple press-pin into the ceiling was near impossible. "You bite your lip."
Annabeth side, finally pinning the paper chains into the ceiling. "What have I told you about ever referring to me as 'cute'?"
"It's a compliment," he said.
"It's degrading," she corrected. "Cute is for kittens, or puppies, or Luke when he went through that phase of banging his head against things."
"Fine," Percy said. "You're hot."
"Objectifying."
He paused, rolling his eyes. Every time Annabeth smiled, a feminist was born. He bit his own lip, trying to come up with an adjective that perfectly described the love of his life, but alas, after knowing her for almost twenty years, she was still tongue-tying. "Phenomenal," he decided. "You're phenomenal."
She smiled before descending the little ladder, biting her lip until she was at eye-level with him. "You're perfect," she replied. Percy responded by pulling out a clump of mistletoe and holding it above their heads.
"Oh, look at that uncanny surprise," he said.
Annabeth rolled her eyes before slinging her arms over his shoulders and kissing him. Percy wrapped one arm around her waist, the other still holding onto the mistletoe.
Flashback – June 16th, 2017
The night before their wedding was terrible. They both stayed in the same hotel room but they weren't allowed to see each other for even a second. Percy was being guarded by Jason and Annabeth was being guarded by Reyna and the Roman power-couple were keeping them apart. Percy managed to convince Jason to drink himself unconscious and Annabeth did the same because the two of them sneaked out in the middle of the night to meet at the bar.
They didn't talk about the wedding the day after, or each others nerves, they talked about the little things. "You can't tell Jason," Annabeth laughed.
"What, that Reyna got drunk and made out with a stripper?" Percy said, laughing at the stories from Annabeth's bachelorette party. "I didn't think she was the type, to be honest."
"We dared her!" Annabeth said. "You know that girl can't resist a dare."
They sat in their pyjama's with messy hair on barstools as they laughed. And elderly woman, who's hand was linked with her husbands, smiled at them. "You two make a cute couple," she commented.
"Thank you," Annabeth beamed back, getting a little giggly on the night before her wedding.
"How long have you been together?" the woman asked.
Percy remembered the blue cupcake, the underwater kiss. "Seven years," he said, feeling like it was just the day before.
"But you're so young!" she said.
"High-school sweethearts," Annabeth said. "Turned into an epic love." Percy remembered when that phrase 'epic love' was first used on them, and silently thanked Reyna for giving them that title. "It's actually the night before our wedding."
"Well you shouldn't be seeing each other then," the woman's husband said. "It's bad luck!"
Percy and Annabeth exchanged a look. "Well, I guess, after knowing each other for eleven years," he said, "we couldn't spend one night apart."
"Congratulations," the elderly couple said before walking off.
Annabeth turned to Percy. "Don't go second guessing yourself," she said. "I'll take it the wrong way."
Percy smirked. "Wouldn't dream of it. I don't think I can fall asleep knowing what day it is tomorrow. It's finally happening."
"I expect to see you there," she said. "I'll be the one in white."
The night somehow managed to pass, the couple managed to sneak back into their own rooms and magically found sleep. The next morning was... well... epic.
The DJ spoke, bringing the crowd to a quiet stand still. Everybody was dressed up in suits, long or short dresses, everybody with fancy hairstyles and champagne flutes in hand. Most were demigods, so the Gods had put several protection spells on the building to assure their safety from monsters. Even the Gods of Olympus were passionate about this event.
"Now, I ask you," the DJ called to the massive crowd, "to join Mr and Mrs Jackson in their first dance as husband and wife."
Percy lead Annabeth onto the dance floor, their friends and family cheering them. John Legend's All of Me came on through the speakers and Percy wrapped his hands around his new wife and lead her into a slow dance, his favourite of the couple's dances.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his mother crying by the buffet and Paul's arm around her. He saw Jason getting ready to lead Reyna onto the dance floor. He saw Thalia, wearing a dress for the first time in her life – her maid of honour dress. He saw his oldest friend, Grover, wearing a best man suit, his collection of grooms-men, Tyson, Leo, Frank, Jason, Nico, all talking to Annabeth's bridesmaids, Reyna, Rachel, Piper, Hazel. He saw Annabeth's parents in the corner, Chiron, some of the Gods.
All powerful, all incredible people were at his wedding, supporting them, and he didn't care about any of them. In that moment, he only cared about his epic love, the blonde in his arms. A meteor could have hit the Earth and wiped them all out, but he wouldn't care. All he ever wanted was to spend his life with her, and that wish was coming true.
Jason and Reyna joined the dance floor shortly after. Soon followed by Sally and Paul, Grover and Juniper, Frank and Hazel until everybody was dancing with Percy and Annabeth.
Percy also danced with his mother, Reyna, Rachel, his mother, Thalia, Athena (surprisingly), his mother, and Hazel. He watched Annabeth dancing with her father, Poseidon, Jason, Reyna and a bunch of others.
Annabeth through the bouquet which fell into Calypso's arms. She married Leo a year later.
There was more drinking and dancing until Annabeth and Percy ran out to their limo, ready to go to the airport for their honeymoon. Their family threw rice on them and Rachel and Piper had tied tin cans onto the back of their limo and painted 'just hitched' onto the back window. Percy leaned across the back of the limo and kissed his bride. "I love you, Wise Girl."
"I love you too, Seaweed Brain."
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After a while, Percy and Annabeth found themselves sat in the corner of their apartment, adding on to one of the lines of paper chains, which wasn't long enough to reach the other end of the room. The worked as a pair like a well-oiled machine, like they had since they met. The perfect partners.
When they finished, Percy stood on the step-ladder and pinned the stupid paper circles to the ceiling. He got down again and the couple moved on to tinsel, circling the mirrors, wrapping around the barstools.
"A little longer on the left," Annabeth said, directing from afar as Percy wrapped tinsel around the kid's bed post. Percy did as instructed. "No, now a little more on the right. Yeah, perfect."
"Great," Percy said. "So should we start pinning..." he trailed off. They had one tiny radio in the kitchen work top, purely so the could listen to music. It often lost contact and broke off, but more often than not it worked and the DJ played a song that made Percy stop in his tracks.
What would I do without your smart mouth, drawing me in and kicking me out...
His gaze met Annabeth's who had also stopped and was listening to the song. "This was the song we danced to at our wedding," he said. "Our first dance as husband and wife."
Percy paused before holding out his hand. Annabeth smirked at him before taking it. He pulled her into a dance in front of the fireplace. Similar to the one at their wedding except less meaningful and a little faster.
Percy spun her around and caught her in his arms as the chorus hit. Their foreheads touched and Percy was about to kiss her when they were interrupted by a high-pitched wailing next door. "I think someone's calling her mother!"
"Nice try, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth said. "Go and comfort you daughter; I have more tinsel to put up." Percy rolled his eyes and turned away from Annabeth. He walked into their bedroom, where Emma was crying in her crib next to the double bed.
She was getting a little big for her crib now. Percy picked up his one year old daughter and held her to him, beginning to rock her. She was almost one but she cried like a newborn, only knew a small collection of words and still couldn't walk by herself.
He started thinking about how to get Luke's old, tiny car bed, into Emma's room back home, moving her out of the crib. "What's wrong, sweetheart?" Percy asked as Emma's crying began to die down.
"Hungy!" she cried. Her father new that to mean 'hungry' and took her to the kitchen.
"You need to tell Daddy what's wrong instead of crying," he said. "Okay?"
"Lucky brudda!" Emma demanded.
Lukey brother, Percy translated in his head. "He's outside playing." That pretty much summed up all the words Emma could almost say. She looked like her mother, down to the same shade of blonde hair that just reached her ears. It grew straight but Percy had no doubt in his mind that it would eventually start to curl.
She had Percy's green eyes which contrasted beautifully with her hair. She always seemed to have a smile, showing off tiny teeth that were beginning to come through. He spent a few minutes feeding her but stopped when she started throwing cereal at the walls. It didn't take him long to clean it up and he scooped her up in his arms.
He noticed Annabeth watching them, leaning against the door frame leading to their bedroom, as Percy put Emma down on her play mat. "Shame," Annabeth smirked. "You look kind of hot holding a baby."
Percy raised an eyebrow before bending down to pick Emma up again. "Looks like we're staying like this for a while," he said. "Hope you don't mind, Em."
A/N: Hi! Really not used to updating everyday. I'll get the hang of it. Anyway, I can not believe it's the 20th today. I'm so excited! Wishing you all happy holidays! Oh and thanks for all of your reviews! I love reading them and I'm glad you like it. Please write one before you go! -Izzy
