Annabeth,
I felt like puking, and I couldn't blame it on the baby.
I had been planning on dropping by Henry's hotel to tell him where I could scream without worrying about people noticing, but I knew that I would need secret caffeine if I was going to handle this day of telling Henry, my first ultrasound, and hearing Hera's news.
So, I went to my favorite coffee shop and ordered my usual. They remembered me and asked why it had been a while since I had come in, and I shrugged and told them that I had just been busy.
But, as I was turning away with the secret cup of coffee, I dropped it to the floor and gasped at who was sitting at one of the tables.
Reading the entertainment section of the newspaper, he was sitting with only a latte for company.
He looked like he used to when we lived together in California. He always woke up before me, and, when we first started dating, he would make this amazing giant delicious breakfast. Eventually, it became a normal size breakfast and us walking to get coffee. But, every morning I woke up, he would be sitting on one of the barstools with the LA Times and a mug of steaming black coffee.
It's weird how everything can change but some things stay the same forever.
Like how I am about to marry Percy in three months and have his child in eight. But Henry will still be sitting with a cup of coffee and a newspaper about what all of our LA neighbors were doing but probably shouldn't.
I had to admit that we had fun together. We had the best date nights. We could just got on a plane and spend the weekend in Paris for a trip to the Louvre and the best French cuisine. Our wedding was going to be the gala of a century in snowy Connecticut, where his family was from.
And then it all ended…
I didn't regret it. But I wished I had done it in a better way.
I decided against ordering another cup of coffee, and I started towards his table, where there was an empty seat.
No fighting, I warned myself, No fighting.
"Henry?"
His brown eyes looked up to me and widened.
"Annabeth," a small smile spread across his lips, "Sit down."
I nodded, biting my lower lip as I sat down.
"So, what are you doing here? I thought Percy didn't want you to have coffee," Henry tried to be nice. He tried not to stir me up too much, and I admired the effort.
"Sneaking in some. Long day ahead."
I decided against telling him that I had taken the week off to go look at beaches around here for the wedding. And I decided not to tell him about picking out a cake with Rachel next week or picking out my bridesmaids this week either.
I didn't have much time until the wedding, and I needed to squeeze it all in.
So, the wedding took up most of my thoughts.
But I couldn't find it in myself to tell him that after how much I hadn't been in to our wedding.
Yes, I had chosen the perfect winter-wedding dress. I picked out flowers and cake designs. I made the invitations, and I paid for my seven bridesmaids to be fit into a crème winter wonderland dress that was gorgeous but wouldn't upstage me. And I even cried with my dad when I first showed him my dress.
But I just wasn't really into it.
Somewhere, where I wouldn't admit, it had felt like a gala I was planning for the business.
It had always made me feel guilty as I watched Henry get ready for the wedding, acting like a real groom for a real wedding.
"So I heard you were with Rachel last night?"
I took a deep breath.
Now or never.
Henry froze.
Before I could say anything, he put his head in his hands.
"Oh gods, the baby's not mine, is it?"
I shook my head.
"It's not."
He looked out to the window, trying to get it through his head.
"H-How did you know it wasn't yours, Henry?"
Henry could tell anything about food. He could tell you when to eat something, where it grows the freshest, and what it is best paired with. But women?
It just wasn't his domain.
"You and Percy knew when you would have conceived. That night you got back together. B-but…" Henry closed his eyes, "I didn't know when we could have. I mean, we had both been out of town so much during that busy season that we only spent a handful of nights together. And maybe we forgot once. But…"
Henry shook his head, stopping for a long moment and deciding to ask something else.
"Did you miss me? I mean, honestly? Don't lie to me, Annabeth."
I wanted to be cruel after all he had put me through in the last week, but I couldn't do it.
"Yeah, I did for a while. I missed sharing a bed with someone. I missed coming home to the smell of delicious food instead of picking up pizza on the way home from work."
"But you didn't miss me," Henry leaned back in his chair.
I couldn't deny it.
"I missed you as my best friend. But…" I trailed off.
"That's my problem. I missed you. Maybe it was that you got to leave and I was still there, but I was just stuck with this routine. I woke up early in the morning. Took a quick shower to save hot water. Made coffee and started with the entertainment section. And I had to remind myself that you weren't going to pad out of the bedroom and steal my cup of coffee."
I smiled weakly at the memory.
"And when I started dating Blaine."
"Blaire, Henry."
"When I started dating Blaire, I tried it again. And this girl didn't get it…" Henry shrugged, "She would steal the paper instead of the coffee, eat half a slice of toast to go off of the entire morning, and she would constantly use Twitter. I mean, how many times can you say, Reading the paper with Hen! Luhv him!"
"Maybe that's what you get for dating a girl nine years younger than you."
"Seven actually."
"It was nine, Henry."
"Seriously?"
I nodded.
"Maybe I should have read more of her twitter."
I let out a weak laugh, and he nodded out.
"Move out, Henry. You can't stay there."
He nodded, pursing his lips as he thought it over.
He looked up to me and smiled weakly.
"So, when is it?"
I would have asked what he was talking about, but his gaze lingered on my hand where I was wearing the ring that Percy had given to me only a few weeks before.
It felt like a lifetime…
"January. I like the tenth, but we are waiting to see what's open to pick an exact date," I nodded, and Henry hesitated.
"I just want to know, was it always about him? I mean, was he always on your mind? Or was there a while when you were really mine?" Henry asked, and I hesitated.
"I was yours for a while, Henry," I smiled weakly, "I would have married you and had kids with you without another thought. I would have always thought that thinking about him came from growing up with him. But…"
I smiled to myself.
"Then I went shopping online for a Christmas present for Sam, and there he was. AB. And, once I had him back, though I didn't know it was Percy, I just couldn't go through with it. I couldn't marry you and pretend that I was all yours. Because I've really been his since I was twelve years old."
Henry nodded.
He had known about AB a little bit.
Well, he had known that I was talking to someone online named AB, and he had been a little jealous.
I guess it wasn't a stretch for him to think that it was Percy…
"We weren't right for each other, Henry. I mean, you liked Star Trek when Star Wars is the obvious choice."
Henry let out a little smile, and I nodded.
We would never be friends.
Not after this.
But she took some sort of comfort that she knew he would be alright. Once he got back on his flight to LAX and tried paying attention to his new girlfriend and moving out of our old apartment.
"Go back to LA," my voice was gentle, friendly, but he knew that it was also forceful, "That's your place.'
"This was always your place…" Henry smiled weakly as he looked around, "New York City. It's too depressing for me. Too cold. I miss the sun."
"You and that sun."
Henry hesitated, and he smiled.
"I'd say see you around, but I won't."
I nodded.
"Domestic life. Soccer dad. Pre-school. Kindergarten. Babysitters. Bake sales," Henry shook his head, "Not my cup of tea. But, if anyone can make it look good, you can."
We used to be the same on that.
I didn't want to become one of those moms who wore mom jeans and drove a minivan. I wanted to continue with what I was going, getting on a plane for a new place whenever I wanted, and having the flexibility to go at the moment I decided it.
And while mom jeans and minivans were still out of the question, I found myself liking this all.
Chasing Noah around to get him to put on his pajamas. Picking him up from school and embarrassing him by planting a big kiss on his cheek. Cheering for him at soccer games. And teasing him about Kate and this new Tabitha girl.
"I may be able to make it look good, but I don't want the whole world to watch and wait for a bump. Don't tell."
"Why would I do that?"
I stared at him with my arms crossed.
"I get no benefit from it. Neither do you. So what's the point?"
"What are you going to say about your week in New York?"
"Who says they'll ask?"
"Thanks to you, we're the big story right now, Henry."
"Alright, I'll say I came to beg for your forgiveness. But I saw that you were happier with Noah and Percy than you had been with me, and I went home to let you live your new life. No mention of the giant ring over there or the baby. Promise," Henry raised his hands in surrender.
"You will leave us alone, right?"
"I'd prefer to stay alive, and your new fiancé packs a punch. He definitely didn't let himself go," Henry felt at his nose, and I rolled my eyes.
Percy, Percy, Percy, I shook my head, Why didn't you do that sooner?
"I've got to go," I stood, and Henry nodded.
So this is it.
Walking out of a coffee shop.
I expected more from the moment that I would tell Henry that the baby wasn't his, but I was in no place to demand a big scene.
"Bye, Henry."
He let out a weak wave.
"LA beckons," he smiled playfully, but it felt weak and wrong.
I held up my hand for a gentle wave, and I found myself stopping at the door to get a last look at Henry.
We had done this before, said goodbye and gotten on a plane for the other side of the country. But this felt different. Back then we just expected it to be permanent. We didn't know what came next for us, and we didn't know if our future would lead us together.
Now we knew that it didn't.
That our future led me to marrying Percy and raising little Noah and our own little baby.
And that our future led Henry to find someone who wasn't obsessed with Twitter and who he actually knew the name of.
It was always tempting to hold on to the past because you knew it. You knew what happened, and you knew what would happen. But the future always had a mystery that sometimes you didn't want to figure out.
My past had Henry. My past had LA, jet setting, and expensive gowns for expensive galas.
My future had Percy. My future had New York, being a mom, and a wedding gown to marry the man of my dreams.
Today, I was more than happy to walk out of the coffee shop and into my future.
Percy,
I looked to Annabeth, who was biting her lower lip as she waited for her sister.
"Its okay, Annie. If there was really bad news, she would have told us over the phone," I tried to comfort her.
I had told her this a million times since getting off from work to come to the appointment, and it had been met with the same result every time.
A weak smile. A kiss on the cheek. Her saying, "You're probably right," and pretending to be fine for a minute or two before biting her lip and worrying again.
This happened again, and I was beginning to give up on comforting Annabeth.
We rode in the same cab to the doctor's office, and she had told me everything that happened with Henry, including him promising not to tell anyone about the baby or the engagement. She told me that she was having Rachel as her maid of honor but Thalia still in the wedding because she was in Arizona right now. And we agreed to go look at a possible venue for the wedding on Saturday.
Annabeth seemed to be excited for the ultrasound, and things were going fine until Annabeth made a prayer to Hera and began to think of the goddess.
"Hera just never has good news," Annabeth shrugged apologetically, not being able to control her nerves.
"I know. I know," I kissed the top of her head, and she let out a small smile.
"If it isn't the two lovebirds."
"Hey, Ansley," Annabeth shook her head at her older sister, and Ansley just smiled.
"So, Percy, I hear you banned coffee. Annabeth must really love you if you're still alive," Ansley smirked as she took her seat on the little rolling chair thing.
I know it is just a chair or maybe it has a real name, but I call it the rolling chair thing.
"So, are you two ready for what I have learned from Hera?" Ansley got straight down to business, looking at the two of us, and Annabeth nodded quickly.
We were as ready as we'd ever be…
"Well, if I thought Athenian pregnancies were weird, pregnancies where both parents are demigods are just the twilight zone," Ansley began, smiling at learning something knew.
Definitely a daughter of Athena trait…
We kept staring.
"They're shorter, especially if there is a descendant of Poseidon because of the short pregnancies of fish or something like that. It's kind of a tactic to protect the baby. Given your parentage, your pregnancy should have only been seven months. Maybe six."
"Wait, so I only have seven months?"
"No, that's what Hera called about. Since you pissed her off so badly but Aphrodite loved you guys so much, Hera couldn't do anything about your love life. But your pregnancy is in her domain."
"What did she do?" Annabeth's voice squeaked out as she placed a protective hand over her stomach, which she had been trying to hide adamantly even though you couldn't really tell she was pregnant.
"Oh no, the baby is fine. Perfectly healthy from what I can tell. And normal. That's what she did."
"She made our child human?" I asked hopefully, and Ansley shook her head again.
"She's not that nice. She gave you a normal pregnancy, Annabeth."
Annabeth knit her eyebrows in confusion.
"Athenian pregnancies are dulled, which is why it takes them so long to learn about them. And demigod couple's pregnancies are shortened. You have neither of those."
Annabeth raised her eyebrows.
"So normal pregnancy means…"
"Morning sickness. Change of taste. Weight gain. Cravings. Mood swings. The works."
Annabeth's jaw dropped.
"You're telling me the one good thing about being a demigod was taken away from me by Hera?"
"Afraid so," Ansley nodded, and Annabeth crossed her arms, steaming now.
I began to go over what Ansley had just said while Annabeth's anger began to simmer as she and Ansley began to talk about symptoms of Annabeth's pregnancy and what she should expect.
Cravings?
That meant waking up at two in the morning to get weird foods with her using the, "You got me pregnant in the first place!" card or, "But the baby is hungry, Sweetie," something I had heard from all of my friends who had children.
Mood swings?
That meant more of the Hades I was already enduring.
The works?
Did I even want to know what that meant?
"So," Ansley painted a smile on her face as she finished the last thing on her clipboard, "Annabeth, are you ready for the ultrasound?"
Annabeth smiled, though it wasn't as wide as it had been earlier because she was still thinking about what she had just been told about Hera.
"Alright then, lay back, and pull up your shirt," Ansley stood from her chair and came over to the two of us as Annabeth pulled up her purple shirt to show a slight bump starting to form.
This began to remind me of the first ultrasound when JoJo was pregnant with Noah, or the first ultrasound that JoJo let me come to.
I could still remember the worry for my child I felt when I first took a look at JoJo in the lobby. Her leather pants were meant for someone two sizes smaller and many years younger. Her floppy tee shirt was for some band. And, despite her strict orders, she had died her hair blonde again and was sneaking in a shot of Redbull.
Knowing everything JoJo did, it's a miracle Noah came out okay.
"I'm going to warn you, this is cold," Ansley smiled as she put the jelly on Annabeth's abdomen and began to turn the ultrasound on.
Annabeth kept smiling as the little monitor turned on, and she wrapped her hand around mine as Ansley looked for the baby.
I don't think I had ever seen Annabeth smile that wide.
She was absolutely glowing. This was the first time in her pregnancy where she could just be… well, pregnant. No crazy exes or gods with a grudge or too much love.
It was just the three of us, or maybe I should say four, looking at the first picture of a baby.
My smile kept widening as I watched the monitor and Annabeth's happy expression as she waited to see her child.
"And there it is," Ansley smiled, "Just the size of a little blueberry."
I squinted to see what she was talking about, but Annabeth found it immediately.
"Oh my gods. There it is," Annabeth stared at the monitor, her eyes watering as she began to laugh with joy.
"Its growing right on schedule," Ansley smiled as she looked at her niece or nephew.
I had been through this before.
Seeing the baby and realizing that it was actually there, that there was a person with half of your DNA growing inside of someone else.
Of course, with Noah, I began to pray that the pregnancy would just get over with because I was scared of what would happen with JoJo and everything.
But, this time, I had no crazy mothers to worry about. No syco exes stalking us. And no prayers that this pregnancy would just get over with.
Well not yet on the last one…
This time, I just felt happiness seize me and the sudden fatherly instincts kick in.
Annabeth's about to give up a lot more than coffee, I mentally told myself, and I made a mental reminder to pick up pregnancy books on the way to pick up Noah from school.
"Thanks," Annabeth whispered to me as she looked away from the monitor for the first time since it turned on.
"I love you," I whispered, and Annabeth seemed to beam as I kissed the top of her head.
"That's our baby," she smiled, a tear streaming down her face with joy.
"Still mad at me for forgetting something?"
"Mad? No. Use it against you for the rest of your life? Yes."
I rolled my eyes and looked back to our little baby.
It was worth it, I knew it was.
But I had a feeling that these nine months of The Works wouldn't pass fast enough.
