CHAPTER 3

Percy's POV

I coaxed my eyelids into staying open as I stood in line at the 24 hours convenience store that was a couple of blocks down from our house. I felt as if Hypnos had popped in to give me a little early gift for the baby. Annabeth woke me up at different times throughout the night, and the first few times I actually panicked.

*Flashback*

(Phone ringing)

"Oh, sorry, I'm sure she wouldn't call unless it was something really important. Jones," I tell my assistant director. "Take over for a second." I check my phone and I see Annabeth's name on the screen. I frown; she usually never calls, especially when I'm in the middle of a shoot.

"Honey, what is it?"

"Percy, come quick," she wails.

"Annabeth?" Silence. "Annabeth? Wise Girl? Come on, tell me what happened?" Her breathing was coming out short, sharp and shallow, worry creased over my features. "Monster attack?" I ask urgently. "Something wrong with the baby? Okay, take a deep breath, tell me what's happened." After a couple seconds of hearing her breathing slow down again, she takes one final deep breath and says, "Percy, it's noting serious, it's just, we've run out of ice cream." I let out a sigh. Irritation crept into my voice as I tried to remember that Annabeth wasn't really herself right now, she was hyped up on medication and hormones (Athena's children's births were kind of tricky, you know, considering that she gave birth through her head or whatever). "Honey, listen, I'm kind of in the middle of a shot right now bu-" She cut me off immediately, wailing again, but this time full of remorse and self-abasement. "Oh my god, I'm so stupid, you can't just leave your shoots in the middle if the day to get your wife ice cream." She sniffed. "I keep forgetting that even though I don't have a job to go to, you still do." I sighed again, "I know what you're doing, and it's not going to work." I could practically picture her sitting in the comfy new bed we bought last month (She needed to be comfortable) watching TV and the flat screen we moved into the bedroom (Otherwise she'd be bored), grinning like a Cheshire cat. "I'm not doing anything," her smile came through in her words. "Baked Alaska, yeah? Love you!" I grinned ruefully and hung up. Yelling to Jones that I had somewhere to be and that he could handle today's schedule and I grabbed my keys and went to the nearest supermarket. Annabeth Chase had me hook, line and sinker.

*End Flashback*

"That'll be $4.99, sir."

"Huh?"

"$4.99, sir." The cashier repeated. "Rough night?" He grinned at me. I nodded, but it was definitely not the kind of rough night the college-kid was thinking of. I tried to go to the gym, work out a lot, and keep a clean-shaven face; I guess some people might say that it makes me look a little bit younger than I actually am. It certainly annoys Annabeth when girls about 5 years younger than me try to hit on me, not that she looks old, though, we both have pretty good figures from all that monster fighting and Mother Earth destroying. Well, had, anyway, Annabeth's been putting on some baby weight, a fact which irks her to no end. I'm still the same though, I think, my boss thought that I was fresh out of college when I applied for my job, just last year. Anyway, I smiled at the eccentric looking guy at the till, giving him a five-dollar note and shuffling out of the shop with my baked Alaska ice cream tub. Deluxe. I swear, if we get a letter from Ben and Jerry's telling us we are their biggest customers, I won't be surprised. Not in the least. It has become one of Annabeth's 'baby foods' ever since I banned her from coffee. (I didn't even know I was supposed to do that until Juniper and Annabeth went out for coffee and she told me afterwards. Very loudly.) Oh, I remember when I banned her from coffee, she cried, she pouted, she yelled and she ranted. (That wasn't meant to sound like a line from Dr. Seuss, (: sorry!) She almost broke me too, but I'm proud to stay that Annabeth hasn't touched a drop of coffee in a month, or was it a week? Anyway… That doesn't matter, much.

"Annabeth? I'm home."

"I'm SO happy to see you!" She yelled, running towards me. I rolled my eyes, knowing by now that her outstretched arms aren't for me. Sure enough she picked up the ice cream tub from my arms and headed back to the bedroom, where some movie or the other was playing. She paused at the doorframe and looked back over her shoulder. "Oh hey, Percy. Thanks for getting her." I looked at her weirdly, and she nodded at me. "Yes, her." She wrapped her hands around the ice cream protectively and I rolled my eyes. I stood there for a minute, thinking, before I marched into the room.

"Get up." She almost seemed to freeze at my words. She sat there for a couple seconds, eyes glued to the screen, ice cream spoon in her mouth, burrowed inside about 50 blankets. And then she slowly turned towards me. Her steely gaze met my determined one and her grey eyes were widened. "Say that again." Despite her angry demeanor, I laughed. I'd faced way worse, I mean, Annabeth couldn't grow new heads or spit poison. I don't know what was wrong with me but I just stood there laughing in her face. I stepped closer to her, "Gladly." I replied. "Get up." "No." There came the classic, stubborn little Annabeth reply. "Come, on," I stepped closer, a wicked idea forming in my mind. "Get up." She shook her head, blonde curls flying. "No." "Alright then," I shrugged, "have it your way." And then I pounced. Annabeth is not the kind of person who likes to have weaknesses, I've learnt that by now. So, when I discovered the one spot, in the middle of her stomach, that she actually feels ticklish, you would imagine that I would leave it alone. HA! Nope, not a chance. Feeling like we were about 5, we fell on the floor, laughing our heads off. "I surrender, I swear!" I laughed and got off her, "Come on, you ready." She pouted, "No, I need a moment to think about how my husband sat on me." She mock-glared at me. "While. I'm. Pregnant." I grinned at her. "Oops, and I didn't not sit on you, just saying." She sighed at me, but pulled on one of her wrap around sweater-things and some comfortable boots. We walked around for a while, unable to decide on what we wanted to do today. I wanted to go to the amusement park while Annabeth wanted to go to this weird lecture thing by some world-famous professor. How were we ever friends? Anyway, we finally compromised on ice-skating, and we were having a great time… until I accidentally melted the rink. But honestly it was a complete accident. I was just thinking about how cool it would be if you could skate on water without it having to be frozen, and suddenly that's what I was doing. And everyone else was taking a nice swim. Well, Annabeth once forgot my birthday present at home, and now I did this, everyone makes mistakes, right? Not right. According to her at least. I swear Zeus was more forgiving when his lighting bolt was stolen. So after I dried her off, I surprised her with tickets to this architecture convention thing, I was planning on taking her after dinner, but I felt like she could probably use, and the tickets were valid for the whole day. After I gave them to her, she squealed. She actually squealed, I was so shocked, had she been spending too much time with those Aphrodite girls? Possibly. But I wasn't complaining; the convention was pretty high-end, with all these posh, famous architects and swanky canapés. Well, who cares about the architects, but the canapés were pretty frickin' amazing, they even had these little blue tarts. I was just happy that she was happy. For once. It's nice to see her grinning instead of glaring. When we finally got to the restaurant, we were laughing so hard about an old, well-past-his-sell-by-date architect whose glossy wig slipped off when he saw Annabeth and tried to flip his 'hair', that we lasted around 15 minutes before we were kicked out ('asked to leave') of the fancy restaurant and high tailed our way to the Chinese place around the corner from our place. She stole some of my extra spicy noodles and I accidentally dropped all her dumplings in the car. We were even now.

-LINE BREAK-

Annabeth's POV

"PERCY! PERCY! COME QUICK!"

"5 more minutes…."

"OMG! If you don't wipe that stupid drool of your face and get up and get me to the hospital, I will tell Artemis that you cheated on me!" Percy's drowsy face finally rounded the corner. "Annabeth why would you want Artemis to cheat on me? She's not even dating me! We're married, right? Or was that a dream too?" The idiot that I sometimes call my husband stood almost directly in front of me rubbing his eyes. I waited for about 10 seconds before Percy let out a loud yelp. "Ooohh, not a dream. NOT A DREAM!" His voice gradually got louder as he faffed around the room like a headless chicken. "Percy," I forced my trepidation out of words. "Percy I need you to get me off the floor and into the car and then I need to go to the hospital. I think something's wrong with the baby." Clear instructions seemed to get through his incredibly thick skull, and he picked me right off the floor and took me all the way to the car. He drove to the hospital only 5 minutes away whispering soothing words. Although whether they were meant for him, or me I'm not sure. I was more frustrated than anything, really, I mean I wasn't due for 3 months, so what was happening to me? And why did I feel like someone was repeatedly stabbing me in the gut? Percy carried me into the ER yelling for help, doctors rushing to help me, nurses getting a stretcher, someone injecting me with anesthesia. My brain tells me this can't have taken more than 5 minutes but to me everything seemed to be going in slow motion. I saw Percy yelling at some doctors who were refusing to let him past, and I knew if he hadn't thought that maybe they were important in the hospital, and for getting me better, he would have knocked them all to the ground in an instant. I wasn't sure what was happening, but I knew somehow, 3 hours later, that something was terribly wrong. And I wasn't even sure I could call it mother's intuition, because, well, I wasn't even sure I could call it that anymore. "Percy?" I croaked out, my throat dry and sore. "Percy? Excuse me, where is my husband?" Every word hurt but I had to see Percy and find out what was going on. "Right here," A deep voice spoke in low tones, immediately soothing my frazzled nerves. "I'm right here, Wise girl, you're okay, you're fine." I felt like breaking his neck, but I saw a doctor coming round the corner so I limited myself to verbal abuse. "I am obviously not fine you stupid kelp head," I hissed, feeling a little bit guilty for going off on him, but hey I'm hormonal right now. "Otherwise why would I be in a fudging hospital bed?!" I whisper-shouted at him. And… okay, you got me, I didn't really say fudging, sue me. Percy looked anywhere but me, causing him to see the approaching doctor. "Hey doc! Hey, yeah hi, um, Annabeth is finally up," he grinned at me as the doctor now stood at the end of my bed. "So do you want to explain what happened?" He looked at me through the corner of his eyes and whispered, "I thought it would be better for us to hear it together." I smiled at each other and the doctor coughed awkwardly. "I know this is probably an outcome you never expected, from this surgery, but um, I'm very sorry to have to tell you, Annabeth you never were carrying a baby…"

A/N: Sorry for the wait! Please fav/follow or review it would mean so much to me... I would even welcome negative feedback honestly I just wanna know what people think! Here was my first little cliffie/plot twist! Next chapter up soon much better and much longer (hopefully) than this one! THANK YOU :) PS- this is DOUBLE the words in my other chapters so...