Annabeth,

I powered off my cell phone and shoved it in my pocket.

It had been cute and sweet when Percy started babying me when he found out that I was pregnant. But it had taken no time at all until I found it annoying. Everyone had caught on, even my seven year old daughter Sarah. Everyone except for Percy.

Which is why my phone "died" every time I went to the drug store.

I love Percy. I really do. But I need some sort of time where I can do things on my own without someone saying that I can't do something because I'm pregnant.

It's not even the normal things he outlaws.

Drinking. Heavy lifting. Smoking.

That stuff makes sense!

But telling me that I shouldn't stay up after midnight is getting on my nerves.

Luckily, Percy had learned to calm down about rules. But he still kept asking almost every two minutes if I was okay, how I was feeling, and if I needed help with anything.

I understand that he's still thinking about what Hera said.

About my body not being strong. And about how I had been completely strong when I was first pregnant and still had some problems with Sarah.

I thought about it, too.

Especially with Sarah's birthday coming up.

It makes me worry that this new baby will never have an eighth birthday, or even a first birthday.

I pushed away my thoughts and checked out of the drug store with the candy I wanted, the vitamins I needed, and the coke that Percy didn't approve of.

As I left, I couldn't help but glance at the reflection of my growing stomach.

How far along had the doctor said I was?

10 weeks?

That was two weeks ago.

So, I'm already 12 weeks along?

It feels like yesterday that I confronted the evil goddess of fertility and found that I had just outsmarted a goddess.

I was surprised by how happy Hera was about my pregnancy. Whether she really was happy for me or she was happy that I would have to my first sleepless nights with a newborn, I was accepting that she was happy for me.

I had enough disappointment.

My mother had taken a lot to finally be happy for my new pregnancy, something that had only happened two days ago. I could have married Poseidon when he stood up against my mother declared how ecstatic he was to be adding another grandchild to his family. And I was lucky that the other gods, except for Aphrodite of course, had stopped being interested in me and didn't care about my pregnancy.

My family had already known about us trying, all except for my brothers.

But one brother was on a different continent and the other was on another coast.

So, by the time that I would next see the twins, their anger to Percy for getting their older sister pregnant again would have dulled.

When I had left the drug store, I untwisted the coke, and I was walking towards the subway when I saw a certain green friend walking through the crowd on the sidewalk.

"Juniper?" I stopped in the middle of sidewalk, and the green girl stopped to stare at me.

"Annabeth," the thin little girl ran to hug me.

I had lost touch with Juniper and Grover when I had broken up with Percy all those years ago.

When we split up, Percy got custody of them. And I got custody of Rachel.

When Percy and I had gotten back together, one of the best things to come was the fact that we no longer had to split up our childhood friends.

With people shoving around us, I led Juniper to a nearby park, which was my favorite since I had found out that I was pregnant there.

When the crowds disappeared, I hugged Juniper again.

"What are you doing here? I thought you couldn't leave camp?"

Juniper poked her stomach.

"The extra Grover blood in me," she shrugged, "let me leave Camp. After Tyler, I could leave a short distance. But with new baby here, I can at least go into the city?"

"Have you already found out if it's a boy or girl?"

"Last week. I thought Grover called you."

"He probably called Percy, but he didn't tell me," I shrugged.

"Well, I wanted to tell you in person anyway," Juniper laid her hand on her stomach, "We're having a girl! We're going to name her Willow."

I smiled at her, and I tried to imagine Grover with a daughter.

And it was easy picture to paint.

"Congratulations!"

"What about you? What are you going to name your little munchkin?" Juniper poked my stomach.

"I don't know. I was thinking about naming my son Theseus or something Greek like that. But Percy will barely talk about it because he swears that we'll be having a girl, not a boy."

"Sounds like Percy," Juniper laughed.

Percy,

I tried to smile at the client across from me, but I wanted to strangle them.

My days had been slow in the office until my wife got pregnant. As if they had sensed that, everyone suddenly decided that they needed new surfboards. Usually, I could push it off to someone else. But, when Ron Jon suddenly decided that they wanted to get a new boutique company so that no one else could have the same boards, I had to be here.

But, when Gloria from Ron Jon decided that today was the day to see me, I was in no place to argue.

Annabeth said it was fine, but I didn't think it was fine.

I had been there for the first sonogram.

But that was two sonograms ago. And I had planned to be there for her.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Jackson," Gloria shook my hand.

"Amazing to meet you, Ms. Orla. And I hope to be working with you in the future."

Gloria smiled at me one last time, and she smiled even wider at a picture to my right of me surfing when I was a teenager. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't happy to see her go. When I could no longer see her though the glass door, I collapsed to my desk chair.

I ran my fingers through my hair, and I pulled my desk drawer open and looked at the sonogram.

I was staring at the first picture of my soon-to-be-born child when the ringing phone broke me out of my trance.

I picked up the phone.

"Perseus Jackson, Rift Raft Boards."

"Hey, just got out of the doctor."

Annabeth.

"Hey, how'd it go, Annie?" I smiled as I closed my desk drawer, keeping out the sonogram.

"Good, I'm doing great. Everything's fine. I have about a month and a half until I find out if it's a boy or a girl, and I still feel like it's going to be a boy."

"I swear it's going to be a girl."

"But you don't know that, Percy!" she tried not to laugh, "And we need boy names in case."

"If it's a boy, we'll pick out a name then."

"But why not now? This is our only chance to be the crazy pregnant couple that goes crazy for their baby!"

"I thought you wanted me to stop being overprotective."

"I do. Of me. But I'm giving you permission to baby proof, and pick out a million names, and do all that stuff. Not stop me from drinking coke."

"Did you bring it up to the doctor? You're supposed to not have caffeine."

"I forgot," Annabeth's voice got small like a little girl who was scared of her father finding out she missed bedtime.

"You forgot?"

"That doesn't matter! The entire point is that you need to listen to me and help me think of boy names!"

"Did you ask her about how you were moving around stuff for the baby's room?"

"I was thinking Theseus, sort of to honor his father-"

"Did you ask about how the baby is kicking really hard recently?"

"Do you and Athena get along well enough to name a child after her? Like Atty or Minerva or something?"

"What about how tired you're feeling?"

"Or maybe-"

"Annie, did you talk to your doctor about anything?"

"I did, Percy. You can calm down."

"I'm sorry for not being there," I ruffled my hair.

"I get it, Perce. Now, if you miss the sonogram where I find out the gender, I will kill you," she laughed, "But this is fine."

"Still."

"Still nothing. The baby is going to be born if you went to a sonogram or not. And, when it's an annoying teenager, the baby won't scream, 'I hate you because you didn't come to my sonogram!' when they get really mad," Annabeth laughed.

"Thanks, Annabeth."

"I promise not to use it against you if you promise to pick up pizza on your way home."

"Breadsticks?"

"Definitely."