38. Suspense
It's not the worry that makes the wait unbearable. Or the panic. It isn't Piper and Jason's six-year-old daughter tugging anxiously at his hand without fully realizing what's going on. Marlie's innocence isn't what's causing Leo to shake uncontrollably.
It's the suspense.
The goddamn waiting. Because Reyna is in the hospital room in front of him and Percy- who lost Annabeth in the birth of their second child- is beside him.
And Leo is waiting in suspense to see if his wife and baby girl has made it- because when the nurses had to push him out of the room (when his voice was rising when he needed his wife to open her eyes, and why was her breathing slowing?) and he may not be as smart as Annabeth had been but he knew what it meant when the husband was made to leave the room right after the baby had been born.
He knows what that means.
But he isn't sure, and it's the suspense that's killing him.
Piper, who works here at the hospital as a nurse, left the room shortly after he did, leaning against the doorframe of Reyna's room door, shaking, with her hand covering her mouth and breathing deeply.
Leo took once glimpse at her on his way back from getting coffee at the cafeteria- because it had been ten minutes and he was trying to stay calm and normal- but had turned right back around and walked the way he had come, throwing out his cup of coffee in a passing trashcan.
It had only burned his tongue and tasted like dirt in his mouth anyway.
Now almost an hour later Piper is gone from the doorway- he doesn't know where she is, but Jason has also left so they might be downstairs in the cafeteria- and he is in the nearest waiting area and Percy is sitting beside him and Marlie- cute little six-year-old Marlie who is his best friends' daughter- is tugging on his sleeve with a worried face, not knowing what's going on and asking where Auntie Reyna is.
Now all Leo can think about is Reyna, and what's happening, and why isn't anybody telling him anything? All he knows is the image of Piper, shaking and covering her mouth from horror or fear, leaning against a door because she can't stand to see what is inside the room. He thinks about Percy, and if this was how he felt before the doctor told him that their youngest child had lived but his wife had died. He thinks about Annabeth, and about whether Reyna might be joining her soon. He wonders if that's what Piper is thinking too. If that's what caused her to nearly break down. Because she's seen this before.
He thinks about himself, and wonders if he's going to have to live without half of himself for the rest of his life.
And Leo remembers what Percy had been like for weeks after Annabeth's death. The kids had come to stay with Reyna and him, and then Piper and Jason, then Hazel and Frank and Grover and Juniper. Percy hadn't even been able to look at them.
Nico and Thalia had checked up on him and hadn't liked what they saw.
Was the same thing about to happen to Leo? Was it going to be him laying in bed, not finding the strength to move. Would it be him who would put all the pictures face down and neglect his own child?
He didn't know.
And the suspense was killing him.