Annabeth's P.O.V
This morning had been really tough morning sickness wise. And we had Thalia coming over for her birthday dinner any moment.
Percy was in the kitchen and I was sitting on the porch swing with Nightshade under a blanket with a cup of hot chocolate. Chocolate settled my stomach or at least had been the past couple of days. I was really hoping I could hide how nauseous I was feeling from her.
"How are you feeling?" Percy asked leaning against the frame of the back door watching me.
"At little, do I look better?" I asked, I did feel better just not 100%, more like 80%.
"Yes, you have much more colour in your face than you did earlier. Why don't you come inside? Thalia will be here any minute now." He said.
"Yeah I know, I hope she doesn't notice." I replied getting up and Nightshade followed us inside.
It had been three days since we found out we were expecting, three days of trying to come to terms with the fact I was going to be a mom, that I was responsible for this life growing inside of me. We hadn't told anyone, we wanted to wait until the twelve week scan make sure things were okay. The twelve week scan, gods that wasn't that far away I still needed to get Will to book us in or we had to get it done in the city. Percy and I had been debating whether or not to ask Will to do it or whether or not to go to a mortal hospital. On one hand Will had experience with demigods and would know what to do on the other hand he'd be the first person to know and we wanted to tell our parents before we told anyone else we knew. Percy had suggested New Rome, they had legacies there children of other demigods were born there all the time. It was a good suggestion but I didn't know how I'd hold up to Pegasus travel with all the symptoms I was already experiencing, it did seem like the best option though.
Thalia arrived at six as she planned too, I knew she hated that we made such a big deal about celebrating her birthday but Percy's mom had insisted since the giant war with both of our birthdays so we carried it on to our friends birthdays too.
"Hey Thals, happy birthday!" I said giving her a hug.
"Hey Annie, thank you, hey Kelp Head" she called into the kitchen.
"Alright Pinecone Face?!" Came back from that direction, honestly what was I going to do with them?!
Nightshade's tail was wagging furiously, she went and said hello to Thalia as she normally would which I was really relieved about. I had been really worried that she'd stand by me being protective but I guess because she'd know Thalia before we got pregnant she knew she wasn't a threat to the baby, at least I hoped that was her thought process.
I shook my head lightly and said "come on, he's done your favourite" I said leading her into the kitchen where Percy was hard at work still cooking the melt in the middle burgers that Thalia loved so much.
"Happy birthday" Percy said when Thalia entered the kitchen behind me.
"Thanks, I hear melt in the middle burgers are the flavour of the night" She said.
"They sure are, hopefully they live up to the hype." He said.
Thalia's P.O.V
Dinner was incredible as it always was whenever I visited Annabeth and Percy's.
"So we thought quite hard about what to get you this year," Percy said.
"Wow, don't hurt yourself Kelp Head" I teased.
"Didn't know you cared so dam much, Pinecone Face" he teased back.
"Like I give a dam" I teased and we laughed it was rare we had an inside joke that Annabeth wasn't a part of but she knew they story behind it she just didn't find it funny like we did, guess you had to be there. She did smile and roll her eyes though in a friendly fashion.
"So go on then what did you get me?" I asked.
"Patience Pinecone Face it'll be here in a few minutes." Percy said and I frowned what needed to be delivered after I arrived, what could it be?!
"Okay?" I said but it sounded like a question.
"Don't worry Thals" Annabeth laughed clearly I looked worried though I wasn't I was just trying to figure out what it could be. I didn't have to wait long before there was a knock at the door and Annabeth went to answer it and Nightshade followed, her tail was going crazy, she was excited.
I heard Piper's voice and the next thing I knew Percy had covered my eyes.
"Kelp Head! What are you doing?" I asked.
"Well you're gift isn't exactly wrap-able" he said, "okay, ready three, two, one" he lifted his hands and in front of me in Piper's arms was a Puppy, the colouring was different but I could tell the bread was the same. They'd bought me a dog.
"We cleared it with Lady Artemis," Percy said "Mrs. O'Leary and Cerberus got a bit to friendly during Nico's last trip to see his dad and had two puppies. Nico and Will have one and we thought y'know seeing how much you love Nightshade that maybe you'd want the other." I could feel tears streaking my face. "Oh Gods, I'm sorry this was supposed to be a nice gift, Thalia?" He asked worriedly but I was happy.
"Percy, Annabeth this is amazing! Thank you so much!" I took the puppy and noticed it was a girl, what would I name her? I hugged her tightly and Nightshade looked at me like she'd lost my favour which of course would never happen. "Don't worry girl I'll still be visiting you lots, someone will have to show her the ropes huh?!" I said ruffling her head she nuzzled my hand affectionately like that would be great.
"So what did Death breath and Sunshine call theirs?" I asked.
"We named him hunter" a voice sounded from behind Piper that could only be my cousin, Nico.
"Hunter huh? Like the hunter's of Artemis?" I asked innocently.
"You wish" He replied and I smirked at him, it was so easy to wind him up.
"I'm going to call her Maze, what do you think girl?" I asked and she yapped at me affectionately and I took that to be a good sign.
Piper's P.O.V
Maze that was certainly a fitting name if the stories of where Mrs O'Leary had come from were true, and she looked like she liked it too, the puppy I mean. Will and Nico had bumped into me and Malcolm on our way here and I asked if I could carry her. She was so sweet, y'know for a hell hound crossed with the dog guardian from the underworld. Both miraculously only had one head, you'd think a three headed dog would sire puppies with more than one head but at least in that aspect they took after their mom.
Thalia was thrilled with her puppy and if you think about it, where better to raise a mythological puppy from the underworld? I bet Maze would be a really good tracker for the hunt. Nico seemed really excited to have Hunter too, I'd known for a while he had wanted a pet of his own and not just to share Mrs O'Leary with Percy, as much as he loved that. Mrs O'Leary was a bit like the camps unofficial guard dog too, so I got to see her a lot when she wasn't in the underworld or with Percy and Annabeth. I got the feeling raising a Hell hound cross puppy was not going to be an easy thing but I thought if anyone could teach them it would be Thalia and Nico.
"Thanks so much guys!" Thalia said again and she looked like all her birthdays and Christmas' had been rolled into one, and that she couldn't have received a better gift. Malcolm and I got her a collar and a Hellhound sized dog bed to so in her hunter's tent which she seemed really please with too.
"Thanks Piper, Malcolm, I'm sure she'll love them" She said putting the collar on, which had a tag on it with Thalia's mobile number, Leo had issued us all with early Christmas gifts of a year of free service on the rainbow network, so we were all getting used to having mobile phones. It was nice though having a line that I could call my dad on regularly that wouldn't entice monsters to attack me. Dad and I spoke at least once a week on the phone now and it was really helping our relationship, he still didn't know the truth about who my mom was but that was okay, we'd found away to talk about my problems if I had any as if they were normal life issues, it was nice having that little bit of normal back.
Percy's P.O.V
We celebrated Thalia's birthday until we heard the conch horn for curfew at camp signalling it was time for them all to go back to camp. Thalia insisted on going back to cabin eight but I suspect that that had more to do with her wanting to spend her first night with her new puppy in a place where the puppy would sleep. I wouldn't be surprised if she camped in the woods at camp in her hunters tent, if I'm honest but she promised as did the others that they would be back in the morning for breakfast which was nice but I knew Annabeth was worried. She was struggling the most with eating breakfast or at least keeping her breakfast down once she'd eaten if she had more than toast and when we all got together for a cooked breakfast she normally had much more that just toast. She was worried people would notice.
"It'll be okay Annabeth, I promise, we'll find a way to make it so they don't notice, I could just do a simple breakfast of toast with condiments, croissants, porridge and pancakes that way you've not got to try and struggling through a full fry up." I suggested as we lay in bed discussing her worries.
"I don't know Percy, if you make Pancakes I normally have those, it's not that I don't trust them I do, I just-"
"-Wanted to tell our parents first, I know, you could always try pancakes without syrup see if that helps, were you sick the morning I went to hand in my last paper? Cause we have Pancakes for breakfast then." I asked.
"No I wasn't, I guess it's worth a try, I think my nervousness is making my sickness worse, because when I think about something other than the pregnancy my nausea seems to dissipate." She said and she looked down sadly.
"Hey, look at me; you don't need to feel sad about being nervous about it. I know this is scarier for you than it is for me at the moment and I know when I'm going to hit the same point your in now because I've seen it with mom and Paul. Well I saw Paul's reaction not necessarily mom's because we were on a quest to save the world but my point is, I will reach the Oh My Gods I'm going to be a dad moment. And if it happens like it did for Paul it'll be on the day our child is born because that's when it'll be really real for me. Whereas for you it's really real now – oh Gods, I mean-"
"I know what you mean Percy and you're right it does feel unbelievably real and I'm so afraid I'm not going to be good enough for the task." She told me.
"Annabeth you are more than good enough for the task, and I'll do everything I possibly can to help make you more comfortable and secure in that as we work through this pregnancy together." I said and I meant it, I would be there for her and our child every step of the way.
"Thank you Percy, I know you will, I feel so under prepared, like I should be reading up on what to expect and I've been thinking you're right we should book an appointment in the hospital in New Rome we can always transfer our care back to Will once we've told everyone." She said and I could see her settling a bit as if she would go to sleep if I comforted her a little more.
She was snuggled into my side with her head on my chest and I had my arm around her and my other hand rested on her stomach on our baby. Gods that was amazing to think, our baby, I'm still so excited three days on from finding out, it literally took all I had to dial down my excitement about it when everyone was around earlier. I'm rubbish at hiding things I'd have to really get a handle on my emotions especially around Piper, she was like an emotional radar, it was really hard to hide anything from her.
"Well first thing, once everyone has had breakfast I'll head into the city and I'll buy as many books on pregnancy and parenting as I can find and you can read up as much as you want then-" She cut me off with a kiss and I knew I'd said the right thing.
"Thank you Percy, you really are the most wonderful husband" She told me settling on my chest again.
"Aww that's Annabeth, you're a wonderful wife" I said but it fell on deaf ears as I noticed she had fallen asleep peacefully for the first time in a about a week.
I wished I could do the same but all I could do is wonder what we would call our child, tomorrow I would also pick up a baby names book and we could start looking at names we liked too. I wondered if there were any names Annabeth particularly liked, I knew it wasn't something she had thought about as some women do when they are younger. I knew she had always thought she'd grow up and be an architect, design the greatest monument the gods had ever seen, but I don't think she'd ever thought about this side of her future and she'd already achieved all her dreams on the career side of her dreams.
~Morning~
I woke up with Annabeth still sleeping on my chest which made a nice change to the last couple of days, as she had been awake before me because she had been being sick, so I was really glad that wasn't the case today. I gently untangled myself from her and pulled the duvet up to tuck her in so she could sleep in while I started breakfast. It was half seven and I knew people would be here in an hour and Nightshade would be hungry too as she normally ate earlier in the morning.
Nightshade had taken to sleeping in our room since Annabeth had been pregnant to we'd moved her bed upstairs so she could sleep on Annabeth's side of the bed, we weren't originally going to let her upstairs be she'd been so protective of Annabeth since she got pregnant that Nightshade had slept the first couple of nights on the floor near the door. Rather than push her out of the pregnancy, we thought that was how Nightshade would see it if we made her sleep down stairs, we decided to move her bed upstairs. As soon as I finished tucking Annabeth in Nightshade followed me out of the room, she knew breakfast was on its way.
I got filled Nightshade's bowl with her breakfast and then set to work on making hot chocolate ready for when people arrived but mostly for when Annabeth woke up, chocolate seemed to settle her stomach so I had been making a lot of it recently. But, I'd do anything if it helped her. Fortunately as we were two days away from Christmas we always had a special blue hot chocolate for breakfast the day after Thalia's birthday so that's what I set to making blue hot chocolate. I also got porridge, croissants, toast and pancakes ready to go.
Nightshade wolfed down her breakfast and disappeared back up the stairs to Annabeth, I hoped she didn't wake her, but I couldn't leave the food and hot chocolate now I'd started it. We had some personalised Christmas mugs for the hot chocolate and I was just getting those out as Annabeth walked into the kitchen.
"Oh I'm sorry, did Nightshade wake you up? I was going to leave you until the hot chocolate was done and then bring you a mug up." I said.
Annabeth's P.O.V
It was super sweet of Percy to worry if Nightshade had woken me, she hadn't. The smell of food had.
"No she didn't don't worry, the smell of breakfast stirred me, I actually feel hungry for the first morning in a week." I said.
"Well that's great news" He said walking over to give me a kiss, it was a quick kiss though because his special blue hot chocolate was cooking and he didn't want to ruin it.
As a camp we didn't always celebrate Christmas as it wasn't really an Ancient Greek holiday, but so many of us had grown up with it in the mortal world that Chiron did like to make the effort and even more so since the wars. Percy had always loved Christmas since the first summer that we met he had always made a huge deal about Christmas. Eventually that had spread to our friends and we had created our own little Christmas traditions, for instance after Thalia's birthday we'd have a festive breakfast with blue hot chocolate and snowman shaped pancakes which were of course blue and we exchanged gifts before we went home to our families.
My favourite part of the holiday since we moved in together was decorating our home and making it feel festive. We always had a tree in the lounge decorated with tinsel and lights and an assortment of decorations. I guess some of them were pretty odd, but it was our tree and we loved it. We bought a new decoration each year, this years was more traditional than some of the others on the tree, it was a glass blown snowflake, Percy had seen it while he was out one day and immediately phoned to say he'd found the new one for the tree. Normally we'd buy it together, but unbeknownst to me at the time my sick day was because I was pregnant and I had stayed at home. As it turned out, as usual Percy had found a really beautiful decoration and it was not sitting in pride of place in the middle of the tree.
We had stockings hanging up on the stairs, ready to be filled for Christmas day, we had an extra one this year for Nightshade, Percy's idea but it was sweet.
"What can I do?" I asked.
"You could get the door in about five minutes; they'll all be here soon." Percy said and as he was more often than he wasn't he was right.
Breakfast was a loud and noisy affair, and it was perfect, we had Thalia, Nico, Will, Piper, Malcolm, Hazel, Frank, Leo, Calypso, Clarisse, Chris and Reyna who had all made it out this year. We also had Nightshade, Hunter, Maze and Mrs O'Leary who had been in the garden playing.
Our Christmas breakfast and gift exchange went on until half eleven when people departed to return to either New Rome, or Camp to pack for their parent's houses or in some cases just back to their own houses in the village.
I loved every minute of our family tradition but what I did appreciate the quiet once everyone had gone home. I was so tired, I was only about a month pregnant and I was already more tired than I had ever felt on a quest. Who knew making a little person took so much energy? I decided to go for a nap while Percy went into the city for a few last minute things. I put on Percy's old high school swim team hoody and curled up in our bed. Nightshade jumped up and settled next to me, and I slowly drifted off to sleep.
~Author's Note~
Hi All, apologies for the slower updates, I've got a lot going on but I haven't forgotten this story and I'm not going to abandon it either so please bare with me! I'm reaching a part of the story that draws a lot from my own experiences in life so I really hope you all enjoy!
Kamrun Poole – Glad you loved it! Hope you like this one too!
Sahanya Ganegoda – I'm glad you're enjoying, I do update as much as I can please bare with me, I have a lot going on outside of writing these stories but I am very glad you're enjoying!
D Fun – I'm so glad I can help to alleviate some of your stress I hope this chapter also helped!
Happy reading all
