Fall Into The Sky

(a hundred moments, a single love)

8: weeks

"Everything will be an eye-opener to you. There's a thousand planets out there, a thousand races, and I'll show everything to you, soon as I learn my way around again. Maybe I can make up a little for everything you've done for me."

She didn't understand. It was just an old Star Trek episode, there was no reason for her to tear up like she was. Of course, there was also no reason to be up at three in the morning on a Tuesday – wait. Wednesday now. Oops. She sighed and brushed a tear out of her eye brusquely, annoyed with herself. I hate these hormones, she grumbled.

The bed shifted next to her and Percy rolled over to face her. His eyes looked up at her, filled with the fuzzy, sleepy look that she thought was absolutely adorable. He smiled, a long, lazy expression, and stretched, pushing himself up to sit against the headboard with her. She leaned into him as he gently wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"I can't go with you, Zefram."

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "You're crying over Star Trek?" he asked, his voice low and gravelly and still a bit muzzy from sleepiness. "Seriously?"

She made a face and gently poked him in the side. He flinched, more out of habit than anything else, and gently rolled her earlobe between his fingers.

"Yes, seriously," she groused, cuddling deeper into his side. "Shut up."

He actually did as she asked for a few minutes, settling back with her and watching the episode.

"Of course you can. You have to."

"My life emanates from this place. If I should leave it for more than a tiny march of days, I'll cease to exist. I must return, even as you must consume matter to maintain your life."

"You gave up everything to be human? But even if you stay here, you'll eventually die."

"The joy of this hour ... I am pleased."

"I can't just fly away and leave you here."

"You must be free, Zefram Cochrane."

Here Percy snorted. "Zefram…"

She huffed a sigh and gave him a half-hearted glare. "Come on, her one true love is leaving her behind and all you can think of is his name?"

"Well, maybe if I understood what was going on…"

"She's an alien who took control of the body of this woman who was dying so that she could learn the love. She's cared for this man and saved him from death, but she had no idea what love was. So she gave up her powers and immortality, and now he's leaving her, and – are you even paying attention?"

He looked up from where he was nuzzling her belly button. "Yes?"

She smiled and tugged on the lock of gray in his hair. "If I could control what he could do," she told Percy, "I would have had him break your nose."

"She," Percy emphasized, resting a hand on top of his wife's swollen stomach, "would never hurt her Daddy – ow!"

"His Mommy will," Annabeth said gleefully. She pinched Percy again.

He pouted and batted her hand away. "You are no fun."

"I'm plenty of fun. You just don't appreciate the kind of fun I offer," she replied with a smirk.

"And what kind of fun would that be, Mrs. Jackson?" he asked, resting his head on her belly and looking up at her.

"Oh, I think you know," she murmured, running her fingers through his hair. She flashed a sultry look from beneath lowered lashes. He got a decidedly bedroom look on his face.

"I like that kind of fun," he said, smiling.

"But Percy," she protested, her face a mask of innocence, "you told me you hated chess!"

He looked at her completely serious face for a moment before burying his face in her belly as she laughed at him. "You can't get my hopes up like that!" he complained, although the words were muffled due to his mouth being trapped beneath his head and her stomach. She giggled.

"Percy, that tickles!"

"Does it really?" he asked, coming up with a fiendish smile on his face.

"Um, no," she replied quickly, bringing her hands up to cover her neck. "No, it doesn't. Not at all."

"There's plenty of water here. The climate's good for growing things. I might plant a fig tree. A man's entitled to that, isn't he?"

"Well, I think you're lying, Annabeth," he growled, a predatory look in his eyes. He slowly raised his hands up from the bed, towards her neck. She squeaked and attempted to shimmy away.

"No no nonono!" she squealed. His hands suddenly dove down and exploited her ticklish and, unfortunately, expanded sides. "Ack! Percy – Percy – ha, aha, Percy, oh gods that tickles, ha!"

"Dost thou surrender, fair maiden?" he asked after a few more minutes of this treatment.

"I surrender, I surrender," she laughed, trapping his hands in her own. Their positions had shifted; they were lying side by side, nose to nose, across the width of the bed. The comforter was on the floor, and the sheets were in total disarray. She wasn't quite sure where the pillows were.

He gave her a huge grin and kissed the tip of her nose. Between them, their baby kicked gently out, tapping against Percy. His smile softened, and his eyes glowed with happiness, and all the breath that Annabeth had managed to regain was knocked out of her at the sight of him. I love him so much.

"I know that I love her. We'll have a lot of years together. They'll be happy ones. All the best."

"I love you," he whispered suddenly, and his eyes were locked with hers, and it was like they had a world all to their own, he and she and their little unborn child. She had never thought that life could be this perfect, or that she could be so happy.

She felt her nose tingling, and the familiar stinging in her eyes, but she did nothing to hold back the tears as they fell. He knew that they weren't tears of sadness, knew it, but it still rubbed up against him the wrong way to see her cry. So he kissed away her tears, one by one, and then he touched his mouth to hers until her lips ceased their trembling and smiled against his.

The baby stirred in its place, pushing out against its father again, as though trying to touch him through his mother's skin. Percy gently placed his hand against her stomach, and pressed back with tenderness, and she kissed the corner of his mouth just because she could. These have been the happiest thirty-four weeks of my life, she thinks, and then she adds, so far, because her husband has just looked at her with eyes full of adoration and happiness and promises. And if she knows one thing about Percy, it's that he keeps his promises.

"Well, I'm sure the Federation can find another woman somewhere who'll stop that war."

The Star Trek ending theme hums through the room, and Percy whispers sweet things against the skin of her stomach, and she lies back and is content. In two more weeks, there will be a tiny head to kiss, and little hands to hold, and baby toes that Percy will marvel over and play with. In two more weeks, there will be concrete evidence that she can hold that shows how much her husband loves her. In two more weeks, Percy will lay with her in her hospital bed with their baby cradled between them. Two more weeks.