Percy/Audrey
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Percy's eyes ache immensely, and his back complains for the heavy hours of work. He removes his round glasses from his eyes for a moment, to ease the pain, drops the quill on the desk and leans back on his chair. He has not finished, but he finally admits to himself that he cannot take one more minute of it, not tonight at least. He just isn't as resistant to long hours of work as he was only years ago.
He closes his eyes for moment, and before he can settle in the silence of the room a sound manages to trespass the walls that have been excluding him from the rest of the house for the last hours. He hears a loud, girlish giggle coming from the other side. Another giggling follows, belonging to another girl, he can tell their laughs apart. He relaxes in his chair and closes his eyes again, giving into the beauty of those small but wonderful laughs.
But now he hears running steps, echoing through the wooden floor. He frowns, for he is not sure if the running is due to innocent playing or another one of their fights. But his frown softens when he hears another laugh, this third one belongs to a grown up woman. Percy cannot resist the curiosity, so he puts his glasses back on and walks out of his study.
He enters his bedroom, the place where the noise is born and finds his wife, spread on their bed, with two identical red head girls attacking her. But Audrey doesn't look upset, she is laughing just as hysterically as her two twin daughters. Molly and Lucy are tickling their mother, reaching for every inch of her skin.
Percy Leans against the door frame silently and a smile is born in his lips. Audrey's long, silk black hair is beautifully spread on the bed, and the girls step on it accidently at times, but she doesn't complain. She is too busy crying with laughter, trying to put resistance.
He admits he's fond of the sound he is hearing, very fond. Her spontaneous, child-like laughter was one of the things that unexplainably attracted him from the beginning, and she passed it on his two girls.
It isn't long before one of the girls notices his presence.
"Daddy!" yells Molly, who is grabbing her mother's stomach. "Come! We're attacking mum!
"We're winning!" cries Lucy.
Percy shakes his head, staring deeply into Audrey's grey eyes, which are also fixed on his.
"Dad's working, sweetheart..." explains Audrey plainly when the girls release her, allowing her to breathe properly. She is almost used to the fact, but the girls are too young to be used to their father's obsession with work –an obsession he refers to as mere dedication-.
"You know...sometimes I'm not sure if you're their mother, or their oldest sister," he teases through the tired smile that is taking over his lips. His work and his two girls have not let him rest properly for the last few days.
"Mock me all you want," she replies, filled in security. "But you wouldn't last a week if you had to handle these two without me." She stares at him brightly, and he knows she is right. He wouldn't last a week. A day, sure; two days, he can control them; after three days he'll lose his patience; by the fourth day they will be climbing on the walls or blowing up the house.
But what Percy knows well is that he wouldn't survive a week without her not because of her skills for controlling the twins. It isn't about that at all. He wouldn't last more than a week, because he can't consider his life without her in it.
And he knows she is very different than him, and he remembers how that interfered between them more than once when they were going out. But he thanks god for putting her in the way, and for being so different, because that's exactly what he needed when he met her, and it is still the thing he needs now.
He wouldn't last a day without her; he knows, she knows, the two earthquakes that steal his heart know.
He smiles widely, still tired but tranquil, satisfied. He walks towards the bed and Molly's petit body stands on the mattress.
"Daddy works too much," complains Lucy.
"I know! I know how to get him to stop!" says Molly brightly, and before Percy can anticipate it, the sharpest one of the twins removes his glasses from his head and runs for it. Lucy jumps off the bed and follows her in two quick moves.
"Lucy!" he yells, breathlessly, and immediately looks at his wife, who is biting her lower lip now. "Would you mind?" he says as if she were the one who has to put order in the situation.
"They are your glasses..." she shrugs innocently and half smirks, because she always encourages him to spend as much time with his family as he can –even if that involves him chasing his daughters around the house-. He turns around, tired as he is, and runs after Lucy and Molly –whose small but clear giggles are once again taking over the house- to retrieve his glasses.
He knows he wouldn't last a week without her, and he is thankful for that because if it weren't for her he wouldn't have those two little earthquakes to begin with.
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A/N: A little different than the previous ones...the idea of Percy's daughters being twins makes sense to me. If you want to read a bit more about Percy and Audrey after they met then you can visit my fic 'the thing that matters'. Your comments are highly appreciated so please leave them!