Hey guys! Sorry again for the delay. Unfortunately until the semester ends I'm not sure how frequent updates will be. I will try to keep up as best as I can!

This chapter relates back to Climbing Mt. Everest more than most of the other chapters so far. It can be read without having read CME, but I would highly recommend reading that story at some point too! Not much happens overall but I've tossing around this particular idea for a while now and I finally put it to words.

Enjoy!


"New neighbors are moving in next door," I announced, closing the front door behind me. Annabeth stopped at the foot of the stairs, a basket of laundry on one hip. Summer had just started for the kids. The boys were heading off to camp in a few days and she'd enlisted everyone's help to clean the house up before they did.

"Did you talk to them?" she asked.

"No. There was no one outside when I was, just the moving truck in the driveway."

She hummed in acknowledgement, looking behind me out the front door's glass. "Think we should go over and introduce ourselves once they settle in?" she asked.

"That would probably be a good neighborly thing to do," I replied. The elderly couple who had previously lived across the street from us had moved in with their daughter a few months ago, and their house had been vacant until now.

Annabeth nodded, looking back at me now. She noticed the mail I held in one hand, my reason for having gone out in the first place. "Did the kids' report cards come?"

I flipped through the small stack of bills, advertisements, and junk mail until I found the three envelopes we'd been waiting on. The school district had started mailing report cards home a couple years ago. Apparently there had been issues with the way they'd previously done it, sending them home with the students. Logan in particular had been waiting on his for a few days. He was always overly zealous about his grades, even while he never brought home anything lower than an A-.

I handed them to her and, placing the laundry at her feet, she opened the first one and read over its contents.

"What's the damage?" I asked causally, coming to stand beside her.

"Straight A's for Logan," she answered, pride in her tone. "Again."

"Of course," I said, smiling.

She handed the paper to me to look over while she opened the next envelope. Some of his teachers had enclosed comments on the back, all along the lines of him being a great kid and a pleasure to have in class. I read through them and smiled.

Annabeth handed me the next sheet of folded paper. "Carly's," she said by way of explanation. I looked over this one too, at the three A's and two B's she'd received.

Logan's voice beat him around the corner then. "Mom, I finished the bathroom." He stopped when we came into sight and his attention immediately refocused. "Did report cards come?"

"Yup," I said, holding his out to him. "Good job."

"Yes!" he said.

Annabeth smiled at him. "Finish looking at that and then go help your brother dust in the living room."

"Okay."

She met my eyes over Logan's head then, the last report card, Nicky's, clutched in her hand. I raised my eyebrows, asking. Her expression was answer enough, but she handed the page over to me. Nicky had managed three C's and two B's, which was not at all bad compared to the previous year's grades, but would not make the kid overly excited.

Logan, satisfied with his assessment, handed his report card back to me and moved to obey his mother's wishes and help Nicky in the living room. She caught him as he passed, wrapped him in a one-armed hug, and planted a kiss to the top of his head. It was something my mom had often done to me growing up and it always brought a smile to my face to see my wife do it with our own children. Logan smiled and allowed it, and then continued toward the living room, leaving us alone.

Annabeth stepped closer to me and looked over Nicky's grades again over my shoulder. She sighed. "He won't be happy."

"He's getting better," I said, "He gets B's now."

"Yeah but he so badly wanted an A in history. The dyslexia is still a problem."

"He'll get there," I said and then smirked, "He's just too much like you."

She gave me a playful look, "Motivated?" she asked innocently.

I gave a laugh. "I was going to say too hard on himself."

She snorted and grabbed the laundry basket again before turning the corner and heading with it toward the laundry room. I followed her, stopping to drop the mail on the kitchen table to be dealt with later. Carly found me there. "Daddy," she said, walking into the room.

"What's up, Peanut?"

"The vacuum isn't working."

"What do you mean it's not working?" I asked, turning to face her.

"I was cleaning the floor for Mommy but then it made a loud noise and stopped working."

"Did you suck up something too big?"

"…No," she replied in a way that made me think she absolutely had. I raised my eyebrows. "I don't know," she amended.

I chuckled. "Show me," I said.

Five minutes later, I was on my hands and knees on the wood floor of the dining room, removing the bottom part of the vacuum to free the sock that Carly had somehow managed to unknowingly vacuum up and get stuck.

"I didn't see it," she insisted for the third time, even as I'd only asked once.

"I know," I said, pulling the sock out of the hose and putting the thing back together. "It's okay." I stood up, dusty sock in hand, "Just be more careful, okay? I don't want to buy another vacuum."

"Okay," she said, moving to finish her chore. I watched her began maneuvering the machine around the room again for a second, amused. I shook my head, smirking, and then left her to it.

"Here," I said, walking into the laundry room where Annabeth was pouring detergent into the machine. I held out the sock I'd rescued. It was one of the boy's. "Carly tried to vacuum this up."

She turned and looked at it, and then snorted, taking it from me and throwing it in with the load. "It's so nice having them home all day," she said sarcastically.

I laughed. "Well they are cleaning the house," I said, "And they're not complaining yet."

"Don't speak so soon," she replied with a smile, pressing start on the washing machine. "I need to get started on something for lunch soon though or they'll start rioting."

"I can throw some hot dogs on the grill," I suggested, "That's quick and relatively painless."

"That'll work," she said, "I think we have salad in the fridge too."

"Should I run that plan by the heathens?" I suggested, "Let them at least think they have an opinion?"

She laughed. "Works for me."


"How's it going in here?" I asked, walking into the living room where the boys had been dusting and organizing the bookshelf that lined one wall. Carly had joined them and currently it looked like all three of them had gotten a bit sidetracked. Nicholas held a large book in his hands but seemed to have forgotten it was there. He and Carly, who stood on Logan's other side, were looking at something in their older brother's hand. Logan looked puzzled. All three looked up at my words.

"Logan found a picture of one of us before we were born," Carly informed me.

"Well," the former said slowly, looking down at what I assumed was an ultrasound picture, "I'm not sure…"

"How do we know who it is?" Nicky asked.

"There's usually a date on it somewhere," I answered, stepping forward.

"Well, there is," Logan replied, "But… it's weird."

"Let me see," I said.

"Also, it doesn't look like a baby," Carly put in helpfully from beside him.

"That's just how babies look before they're born," Logan explained to her, handing the picture to me.

I took it and examined the image before squinting at the small print with the information about the appointment it came from. The source of Logan's confusion became clear pretty quickly once I found the date, almost a full two years before he was born. My heart jumped to my throat. "Where did you find this?" I asked.

"It fell out of this book when I took it down," Nicky supplied, gesturing to the text in his hands.

"Is it Logan?" Carly asked.

"No," I answered, aware that my voice sounded suddenly hollow, "It's not any of you."

It wasn't that we'd kept the baby we'd lost a secret from the kids as much as it had just never come up. Life was busy with the three of them and the miscarriage had happened so long ago. While the thought of the son or daughter I would never know did cross my mind every once in a while, we had a lot of other stuff going on and Annabeth and I had long since moved on. The kids had never had a reason to know before now and, in the heat of the moment, I had no idea what to tell them.

"But it has Mom's name on it," Nicky said.

"What has my name on it?" Annabeth asked, walking into the room. She stopped a few feet from me, looking expectant. "I thought you were getting opinions on lunch?"

"I was," I answered, "But then they found this." I handed her the old ultrasound picture. "Look at the date."

I knew the moment she saw it. Her expression shifted. There wasn't sorrow like there might once have been, but she looked pensive at the reminder of the first real dark time our marriage had seen. "Where did this come from?" she asked, looking up at us.

"It fell out of this book," Nicky answered her like he had me.

"Are we in trouble?" Logan asked warily, looking between us.

"No, Honey," Annabeth said, "Why would you be in trouble?"

"I dunno," he answered, "You're acting weird, like we did something wrong or something."

"We're just surprised," I told him.

"Why? What is that picture?"

"It's from the first time I was pregnant," she explained.

"With me…" Logan supplied slowly.

"No," she said, "Before you."

He looked astounded. His younger brother and sister watched the exchange in rapt silence. "What?"

"We were pregnant with a baby before you," Annabeth clarified.

"What happened?" Nicky put in.

"We lost it," she said, and then elaborated, glancing at Carly, "The baby died while it was still inside me."

The boys looked shocked. I wasn't sure how much of this Carly understood, but she looked appropriately sad so I thought maybe she was keeping up pretty well. "Was it a boy or a girl?" Nicky wanted to know.

"We don't know," Annabeth told him, "The baby was too little for us to know."

"So we would have had another sibling?" Logan asked, looking at her with wide eyes. She nodded solemnly. He looked thoughtful for a second and then breathed, "Wow." He held his hand out, asking silently for the photo again. Annabeth handed it to him and he and Nicholas examined it with renewed interest.

Carly, rather than join her brothers, came toward me. She was getting too big for it, but I picked her up anyway. She wrapped her arms around my neck like she had at two years old. "Daddy," she said softly, "Why did the baby die? Was it sick?"

"No, Peanut. It just happens sometimes." This was true, of course, though our case had not been so cut and dry. But then, I couldn't exactly tell my eight year old that the reason that unborn baby had died was because a spiteful goddess hadn't wanted it born. Maybe one day she could know that truth but definitely not today.

Annabeth took a deep breath and ran a hand through Carly's brown curls, meeting my eyes, before looking toward the boys. "Are you okay?" she asked them, "I know you guys weren't expecting that." Logan nodded, his eyes not leaving the picture. Nicky looked up and did the same. She sighed.

Silence reigned in the room for another minute. No one seemed quite sure how to break it. Finally, Logan looked up, handed the ultrasound photo back, and, surely remembering his mother's earlier words, said, "Um, were you supposed to be asking about lunch?" Knowing our oldest son, he saw the need for a subject change and took the opportunity.

"Yeah," I answered, complying, "Are you all okay with hot dogs?" Nicky and Carly nodded and Logan shrugged indifferently before nodding as well.

"Okay," Annabeth said, "You guys can finish up in here with the books and then be done. You've done a lot today. Thank you for helping." Both boys, nodding obediently, began piling the remaining books back on the newly cleaned shelf.

"What about me?" Carly asked as I set her back down on her feet.

"Do you want to help make lunch?" Annabeth asked her. The eight year old nodded. She smiled, "Go wash your hands then." Carly took off down the hall.

With a last glance at the boys, Annabeth left the room for the kitchen. I followed her. She stopped halfway there and glanced at the photo still in her hand. "Are you okay?" I asked, coming up behind her.

She glanced at me and then back down. "Yeah," she answered. She studied the photo for a few seconds and then looked at me again. "I mean, what Hera did will never be okay but we've moved on."

"But you still think about it."

"Sometimes," she replied, "But so do you."

I shrugged, not denying that. "It was a long time ago."

She nodded. "And we've had three beautiful kids since then."

I gave a small smile. "Yes, we have."

She smiled in reply. "I am curious as to how this ended up on that bookshelf though."

"The gods only know."

"Yeah," she said absently, looking at the image one last time. She slid it into her back pocket. "Come on," she said and started leading the way toward the kitchen once more. Carly found us as we walked in and informed us that she'd washed her hands like she'd been asked. Annabeth led her further inside and started giving her jobs to do ("Can you go in the refrigerator and find the lettuce?"). I started toward the back door to go heat up the grill but stopped and just watched them for a moment. And it struck me just how right she was.

Losing that first baby had seemed like the end of the world at the time and awakened a lot of worry and uncertainty about our future and the possibility that we'd ever have a family. But we had moved on and managed it anyway, and even on mundane mornings like this one where all we did was housework, it was true. The fact that we were all here at all really was beautiful.

The world had kept spinning even when it felt like it wouldn't, and everything had turned out pretty great in the end.

Which, after everything, as far as I was concerned, was only fair.


Thank you for reading! As always, reviews are very welcome. I love hearing your thoughts!

Also, if you have any ideas for a better title to this chapter, please let me know. I'm sitting in class as I'm posting this right now and can't concentrate enough to think of anything creative. Thanks!