Sam POV

"It's the baby, my niece or nephew", I confirm, in Odin's secret office at Valhalla. "Surt wants the baby dead, and is willing to kill Alex to make it happen."

"The baby...very disturbing. Why on earth does Surt want a mortal, as we must presume it will be, child? I cannot imagine his motivation, but if he's willing to empower Loki in Muspellheim, it must be pretty important. This child will be a threat to Surt somehow. Very disturbing", he repeats. "Alex Fierro must move back into the Hotel Valhalla. I will set every protection in my power upon the building, and she will be surrounded by thousands of my finest warriors. I'll warn the other gods as well. And there's the father. Has she told him yet?"

"Uh, no, actually no..."

"As far as safety goes, it makes little difference, a son of Frey is no fighter", he pronounces, and I wince, even though it's common knowledge. Magnus is a nice fighter to have around sometimes. While early Scandinavian society most highly valued warriors, and so they treated the Aesir as deities, they also knew not everyone wanted to go kill people. Peace, love, joy, beauty, art, sex, the natural world, all that stuff existed too. The Vanir had their place as well. But there was no way the King of the Aesir was going to see it that way.

"I'll send Thor himself to sweep the building first, make sure no demons are hiding", Odin says, and I try not to show my disappointment. After Thor prevaricates and farts around Hotel Valhalla for hours, the warriors will have to do the sweep themselves.

"Perhaps Frey can offer comfort and advice to the boy though, and to Alex also", Odin observes, "It's a pity the ergi doesn't have a better support system, a helpful godly parent..."

"Uh, er, um, Lord Odin, Alex doesn't care for that term..."

"Parent?"

"Ergi or argr. It meant "unmanly" to the Vikings. And she does have a support system."

Odin waves me off. "Move her in in a few days. I'll send Thor tomorrow." Great.

Later.

"Sit down, Alex", I say, coming into her room.

"No good conversation ever started that way", she moans, crashing onto the bed.

"Dad went to meet Surt. They're after the baby..." Her hand flies protectively to her stomach.

"My baby?! Why?!"

"We don't know yet, but presume the baby is destined to be a threat to Surt, so he wants you both dead."

"And mom?", she asks. "Why is Loki involved?"

"Seems to be assisting him. I'm sorry, I'm..." She holds up a hand. "You okay?" I ask.

"Just processing that my parent has not only been willing to murder me in the past, but is willing to kill both me and his own grandchild..." She swallows. "Fine, they're coming. They're NOT getting my baby."

"They won't get either of you. Odin wants you to move back into the Hotel Valhalla..."

"But that's the first place they'll look!" she yells.

"Odin is putting special protections on the building, alerting everyone, and even the gods are keeping an eye on the place. Thor is going to sweep the building himself before you move in..."

"Well, it will smell great..."

"Alex..."

"I think I should go. Run. I mean...I can keep one step ahead of them, but hunkering down in the first place they'll look sounds suicidal to me..." she says, and I can see the green fire in her eyes.

"Sis, you're not alone anymore. You have all of us, the crew, and a thousand of Odin's best warriors, and the gods themselves. It's time to tell Magnus."

"F...", she whispers.

"Let's get you packed up today. Amir will take your pottery wheel back. We'll move you back into your room day after tomorrow", I tell her. At least it looks like she's been eating in my absence. Her body is changing a lot. It must be very confusing for her.

"Did you keep your doctor's appointment?", I ask. She looks away.

I hold open my arms and she walks into them.

Hotel Valhalla

By evening, Alex is moved in, and standing around in the hallway in loose black yoga pants and a big black sweatshirt, with a big black cardigan covering that. Our cohort, which knows all about her now, are keeping their distance.

"It's okay, don't lose your temper, give him room to be shocked, okay? Just keep calm for the baby's sake. I know he loves you..." I advise.

"Magnus", she calls out, swallowing hard.

He comes out of his room in a plaid flannel shirt and loose jeans, barefoot, long blonde hair hanging to his shoulders. He, on the other hand, has not been eating.

"Alex!" He rushes over to her, but stops short inches away. Clearly he wants to keep his head. "Are you okay? I've been so worried about you! You look..."

"Yeah, let's go in my room and talk", she says.

Hunding comes zooming around the corner. "Magnus Chase, you have a visitor. And Helgi says to tell you to tell your visitors not to come when it's so busy, we're still cleaning up from Thor messing around here, I mean doing a security sweep here, yesterday..."

No, no, no, bad timing.

"Hunding, tell his guest we'll be down in a bit...", I order.

"No can do, Miss Valkyrie, it's a girl...and she says it's an emergency."

"I better go", Magnus says.

"It can wait, Magnus", I instruct.

Alex wraps her arms and black cardigan tightly around herself, hiding as much as she can. "It's okay sis, clearly this is important to Magnus", she barks.

Magnus, who has as much experience with women as I do with launching the space shuttle, doesn't pick up on the charge on her comment.

"Great, thanks, I'll be back in a minute", he says.

"He's coming back", I assure her.

"Maybe he's seeing someone new", Alex comments, sweeping her verdant hair with major black roots out of her face.

For everyone's sake, this has to get settled between them. I take off after Magnus, and Alex follows me.

Magnus POV

I take the stairs two at a time, I have to get back to Alex. And yeah when Hunding said it was a woman, the idea of my mother flashed through my mind, like it always does.

A short, good-looking blonde is waiting impatiently.

"Annabeth!" I rush to her and throw my arms around her.

"Magnus!"

"What are you doing here?" I ask.

"I had to check with you to make sure everything is okay. Things are going crazy out there! The Roman emperors are becoming more violent. And we saw a fire demon, asking questions about Norse gods. Percy heard all about it from the cyclopes. If anyone would know about that, it's you", she says.

"I don't know anything about it, I'm sorry, I...am kind of out of the loop..." I say.

"Asking among demigods for somebody named Alex, I wondered...", she adds.

"WHAT?!" I yell.

"Magnus, I'm sorry..."

I stare at my cousin and wonder, for just a moment, if my life would have been easier if I'd loved someone simpler than Alex. A regular girl. So what would my life be then? Boring?

"It looks like I need to have a conversation with my cohort. I may have been left out of the conversation for like...months. Sometimes I feel like I got stuck in something I didn't sign up for. Anyway, I'll meet you in Boston tomorrow when I know more", I say, irritated. They've been keeping information from me and I'm going to find out why.

"I have to get back to Percy. I can't hang around, I'm sorry. Things are so bad, I just..."

We throw our arms around each other again. "Love you, cuz", she says, wiping her eyes on my shirt.

"Love you too", I say, holding her small warm frame against me. She heads out the front door.

I turn to see Alex and Sam watching us carefully. Alex looks...furious. Violent. She spins around and runs away.

"Wait, Alex, wait!" I run, crossing the distance between us in a few strides, and grab her. I must be suicidal.

She spins around, garrote in hand.

"Get the hell away from me! I can take care of myself, I can take care of this, I can protect myself, but not here! Not here! I'm leaving!"

"Alex, stop!" I grab her...she's... different. Her body is different. I let go from shock, but I see her register it as rejection.

"Yeah, I'm a freak, just let me go!"

"She can't leave the building!" Sam yells.

"I'd like to see you stop me, sis!"

"Your life is in danger, you stubborn fool!", Sam yells.

"Alex!" There are tears running down my cheeks and I grab anything I can to hold her here, to keep her in front of me. In this case, it's her hand.

"Stop! Tell me! Alex, tell me!"

"I'm pregnant!"

I stumble back, but manage to keep a hold on her hand. And then I scoop her up...and am grateful for my einherji strength because she's not the twig she was before.

I don't stop mumbling to her and kissing the top of her head. "It's going to be okay, it's going to be okay..."

We disappear alone into an elevator.

LATER.

Alex POV

"Three months!" he yells. "No one told me for three months!"

I nod, after telling him the full story.

"And you were going to run away! And risk your life and the baby's?! You're so stubborn! Do we know yet why Surt and Loki want the baby?" he asks. The way he's simply accepted that this is possible is almost mindboggling.

"No, not yet. Listen, this is more than you bargained for. I get it. You're still too young for this, to suddenly find out you're a father. Right now I have a target painted on me. Get as far away as you can. I can protect myself and the baby. Maybe I'll go back to my father's house. To protect the baby I'll try anything..." I start.

"Have you ever tried just being quiet?", he asks, clearly exhausted, and I feel bad, like knowing me has clearly worn him out. "It's late", he adds, "I'm exhausted. Let's go to bed."

"If you think for a second you're staying in here with me, you have another think coming..." I insist. Isn't that just like a guy?

"Arms up", he orders quietly.

"Magnus..."

"Do it", he says. I huff and puff, but take off the cardigan and pull the sweatshirt up over my head. I down pull my loose black yoga pants.

Beneath is my new body. As if I weren't confused enough. A belly that looks far too pregnant for three months. And now everything else is getting big too, I have hips, a butt, thighs...and breasts. None of which I had before, along with everything I did have before. It's...horrific I presume.

I look at Magnus and he's crying for the second time today. "You're so beautiful", he says, "Bless the gods, you're so beautiful."

He takes me in his arms, naked, and I...can't take it anymore. I erupt into sobs. Is he really accepting me? This child? This body? This confusion? Could he really?

He climbs into my bed, and pulls me down next to him, pulling those soft blankets Sam got me up to my chin.

"Shhh", he hushes against my ear as I scoot away. He scoots up behind me, spooning me, wrapping his arms tightly around me, my bottom flush against his groin. Though he's in pj pants, I can feel something pressing against me.

"Just leave me alone", I croak. It's not like me not to face things head on and...cut their heads off.

"Don't turn away from me now, please", he begs.

"This isn't what you signed on for. If you actually signed up for anything. I saw you. With Annabeth..."

"She's my cousin!"

"What I saw was a man attracted to women", I grumble. I will not cry, I will not cry. I cry.

"And what do you think you are?!", he booms, taking me by surprise. "Most of the time anyway. The rest of the time, I'm still wildly attracted to you. It doesn't matter. None of this ever mattered. It doesn't matter to me."

All I could hear was that none of this matters to him. I don't matter to him.

He cups my tummy, and while I try to suck in its blossoming roundness, between baby and falafels, there isn't much I can do about it.

"Stop that", he commands. I stop.

"You're my girl. And occasionally, you're my boy. But mostly you're my girl. My responsibility. And one I WANT. You're mine, that baby is mine. Mine. Do you hear me?" he insists.

"Way to go all dom on me, Chase", I snark, but nod.

"Never do that to me again! Never hide something from me, never run away...if something were to happen to you because you didn't trust me enough to tell me, I'd never forgive myself...promise me...", he insists.

"I promise, Chase, okay, give a girl a break."

"I will protect you both until the last breath leaves my body. I know we'll both...at Ragnarok. I can't think about it. Except that if the gods are half as good as they think they are, they will let me trade my life for yours when the time comes. I don't know what will happen to our child. That doesn't mean I give up. I choose not to give up. I choose you, Alex Fierro, and I always will."

I know he can feel me shaking, racked with silent sobs. I turn around to look at him. He wipes my eyes and kisses the tip of my nose.

"Who's the silvertongue now?" I snark. "Do you love me?" I ask. No jokes, no shields, no armor. I have to know the truth.

"How can you even ask that?", he smiles, "I love you. I adored you from the first moment I saw you. I was always so nervous around you. Heck, I would get excited if you'd say something like you'd be sorry if I was dead! Everything you said that wasn't harsh I hoped was something else. Some of the time I just hoped you weren't going to kill me yourself. And when I saw you in that wedding dress...well, I made a wish I'd see you in a gown like that again someday, but you'd be wearing it for me."

I know what it feels like to swallow the sun. I'm warm...all over. Warm and summery. "Now relax", he says, kissing my forehead. "Go to sleep." I could confess that I'd been seriously crushing on him from the moment I first saw him, but...eh, maybe later.

I roll back over, my bottom relaxed against his groin. I feel my shoulders sag and my entire body go soft. "That's it", he murmurs. "Mine, mine, mine", whispers, kissing the back of my neck between each word.

"I'm not going to stay relaxed for long, you keep that up", I joke. He wraps one arm around me tightly, holding me in place, the other hand he curves around my rounded belly. I won't be going anywhere without him knowing about it, even to the bathroom.

"Just...don't slip away in the night", I say. "Don't leave me. Please." I've never begged before. Not for anything.

"Never", he says. "I'll be here when you wake up. I'll love you when you wake up. I'll want you when you wake up. Now stop smirking like you've got me just where you want me."

"And stop saying you're trading your life for mine. You're not going anywhere without me, Chase, not in this world or the next, just FYI", I add.

He squeezes me tight. "We'll see."

"We'll see. But hopefully not for a few centuries. Millennia would be better."

"Millennia would be even better", he confirms, "I need a few thousand years to love you the way I want to."

In a flash, I feel my heart shatter into a thousand pieces, then come together again like molten metal, creating an organ that is better, stronger, fiercer than it ever was before and I feel strong, healthy, and healed. Every slight, every insult, every word, every time anyone stole my sense of self, rejected me, judged me, hated me...suddenly it all feels like it's in the past, a past that isn't important anymore. It feels like it's all behind me. What's important in life has his arms wrapped around me right now, and is growing inside me. My family. My father, Loki, my stepmother, they all seem so unimportant now. THIS is my family.

And it's so pleasant having the sun wrapped around me. I shiver.

"Cold?" he asks. "Wow, you are cold. What about you?" he asks the baby and puts his big warm hand flat on my stomach.

"Daddy will warm you up. It's going to be okay. Everything will be okay from now on."

And the girl who can't fall asleep, me, well I must have been out in seconds, exhausted. And I feel safe now for the first time in three months. And I know no one else could have done it, no number of Aesir, no number of swords and blades and spells, it was only the gentle, warm son of Frey who could have achieved it.