Look at that. I actually posted a chapter on time! Maybe I'll actually manage to have chapter 3 up next Friday morning too!
"P-pregnant?" Hercules stammered,
"Umm sorry… didn't mean to drop it on you like that" Meg responded, furrowing her brow as she realized saying 'I'm pregnant' before even saying 'hello' might have been too blunt.
"Pregnant?" Hercules repeated, looking at her with wide eyes. Before she could open her mouth to respond, Hercules grabbed her off the bed and spun her around, gripping her in a suffocating embrace.
"Oof…" Her eyes widened in surprise, and fruitlessly waggled her hands pinned to her sides, "Wonderboy… can't… breathe…" she rasped,
"S-sorry…" He set her down, his hands holding onto her shoulders. "I'm just excited! How do you know?" Megara didn't feel the excitement that her husband obviously did, but his joy at the news helped settle the anxiety that had been rising in her as she had spent the morning pondering how to tell him. She found herself wringing her hands again, an annoying nervous habit she couldn't rid herself of, and a habit that Hercules always recognized.
"I was planning on seeing the midwife today… It's why I wanted to go to the agora. When you insisted on going yourself I told you I'd stay here… but I left a bit after you did to go see Agatha, the midwife in town. I've suspected for a while… I missed a moon cycle, and I've been sick most mornings."
"Why didn't you tell me, I would have taken you?" Hercules let go of her shoulders, and took her hands in his, lifting them to stop her wringing.
"I wasn't completely sure… I know how much you wanted kids and I was afraid if I got your hopes up, then turned out it was a false alarm…" She ambled, uncharacteristically uncharismatic. She bit her lip in aggravation, "I wanted to be sure before I told you." Hercules could see her distress, and kissed her fully.
"Honey… I want to be there for you. This is something for us to do together." Meg nodded, guilty tears building up in her eyes, or am I just scared to have a baby? "Meg… we should be happy. Why do you look so sad?" Meg let a sob escape her throat, Guilt… it's definitely guilt
"I-I'm scared Herc. " She admitted, finally looking up to meet his worried gaze. "I don't know if I'm meant to be a mother. I'm not exactly a role model." Confused, Hercules just pulled her into a tight embrace, burying his face into her hair and breathed deep to take in the floral scent of her hair.
"What do you mean? You're strong, independent, the smartest person I know, loving. What could make you a bad role model?" He tried to laugh, to break the tension.
"But I never had a good mother figure; I don't know how to be one because I never had one." Herc rubbed her back, lost for words. He was never good at comforting her about her past; she spoke about it so little that he understood almost nothing about her when she was young. He recalled the only true conversation he ever had with her about it.
Meg was happily writing out wedding invitations, a list of names sitting before her. The list was filled with friends, families, and important people from the community that Hercules would have felt it an insult not to invite. Hercules sat with her, thinking of more names to add to the list.
"What about your family? You haven't written any to them." He noticed her flinch slightly, and give him a smile,
"You don't think this list is long enough? We must have half of Greece on here!" She tried to play it off, dodging his question. "Does Pegasus remember where Helen lives, or should I have Hermes deliver this one?"
"Aw come on Meg, its our big day, not just mine! I want to invite your family too!" He reached out to take the quill from this stubborn woman, forcing her to look up from her work
"Herc I served Hades. I doubt they want much to do with me." She wanted him to drop the subject, and reached out for the quill but Hercules jerked his arm back. Meg sat up, leaning forward over the table and made another swing for the quill, only succeeding in knocking over the inkpot on the table, spilling it over several filled out invitations. "Oh!" She growled, frustrated. "I just spent an hour writing those… Herc can you get me a rag?"
"What do you mean nothing to do with you?" Hercules asked, not letting her request derail him. He grabbed a rag from a basket they kept in the storage boxes near the sink, and started cleaning up the ink which was already sinking into the marble.
"I ruined the marble… I'm sorry."
"Stop dodging the question." Meg looked up, a bit startled at his conviction. He threw the blackened rag into the sink, pulling the inkpot away from her as well. Meg sighed, accepting defeat.
"Herc… I don't want to invite my family because they all either died, or my memories of them are not what I would call fond. My mother died when I was young, my father walked out on us, and my older brother was an opium addicted drunk." Meg stood, gathering the ink stained invitations and throwing them one by one into the fire burning under the pot of stew. She grabbed a ladel, stirring their supper idly, watching the swirling liquid as her mind raced with memories she wished she could forget. Memories which, when thought about, had oft brought her to the edge of the River Styx during her enslavement, looking longingly at the lethe water it contained; looking at her foggy reflection wondering if forgetting it all would be less painful. "The few relatives I have would not be happy for me, or I would not want them there." She bit her lip, fighting back the tears building up in her eyes. A startled gasp interrupted the sob threating to break the silence that hung in the kitchen like a thick fog as Hercules' strong arms wrapped around her waist, and his gentle lips buried into her hair. "I don't want to talk about them" was the only response she could muster to reply to his affection, knowing that her fiancé would want nothing more than to comfort her.
"But I'll be here when you do…" He wasn't always good at reading body language or tone, but it was obvious this was a subject that trying to broach wouldn't lead to anything pleasant.
Hercules had respected her wishes, and to this day he wouldn't probe her about her past. There were things she had been willing to reveal, including the situation that lead to her incarceration in the Underworld. The day she had finally told him was full of tears, and the following week somber. He didn't want to see her depressed like that again, and he knew talking about her family would make her previous confession look like a comedy.
"Meg, you are an amazing woman, an incredible wife, a wonderful friend. You'll be a perfect mother. Have I ever lied to you?" Meg finally laughed, looking up at him,
"You really think so?" Herc nodded, kissing her again,
"I never lie to you, a hero is always honest and true!" Megara finally laughed, a full genuine laugh.
"Oh Gods Herc…" She struggled to regain her composure, "You and those Hero rules and philosophies."
"The Hero rules are important!" He protested. Meg tried to stifle her laughter, smiling at him sympathetically.
"Then don't forget the most important one," he looked at her quizzically,
"Number one, behind every hero is a woman holding him up." She smirked,
"Well yeah, who could forget that one?" They laughed together, Herc giving her another tight hug. "Come on, I want to celebrate! Let's go to Apollo's Balcony and get a nice meal to celebrate.
"Sounds like a plan wonderboy." She felt some of her anxiety melting away, and placed a hand over her thin stomach, "and if you're excited, then so am I" She let Hercules take her by the hand and lead her upstairs to the bedroom to get ready for an afternoon out together.
There was a persistent chill in the Underworld, penetrated only by the fire bursting out from Hades not infrequent bursts of rage over various events. His angry booming voice echoed through the damp darkness winding around the cavernous lair, slowly dimming as it penetrated deeper and deeper, until it was almost inaudible when it finally reached the trio of blind sisters.
Clothos stood before her loom, spinning a new thread for an infant soon to be born in a northern province of Greece. She inspected it carefully, looking at all events of this future life, but blind to the moment her sister Atropos would cut this thread. That information was dark even to her until Lachesis measured out the thread and determined this mortal's fate. Her sisters, Zeus, Hades, none knew what she knew. And none could spin what she could spin. In this, she was unique, and it filled her with a sense of power none could contest.
"How!" Atropos shouted, breaking Clothos from her much enjoyed silence. She turned, her single eye narrowing in frustration at her sister. Pain and Panic were fleeing from the room at the ancient crone's outburst.
"Found out about Hercules and Megara?" She worked the thread with a tenderness that was unexpected for someone who had been weaving the threads since the start of time. She sat back from her work, and prepared to spin the next thread when she felt a sudden pressure around her eye before she even saw the hand to cause it. "Lachesis! Let go! I need that you know!"
"Oh shut up you short old hag! You work has been had, to measure the thread my time is at hand!"
"I need to make sure it's perfect! The cosmos would collapse should it be defect!"
"Inspecting it is important, I cannot deny, but to measure the threat is the fate by my hands!"
Atropos took the eye next, while Clothos and Lechesis argued. "Important news we must not forget! The fate of the future may not be set... Megara and Hercules are pregnant you see! Our priority to learn, this news must be!"Clothos, sick of listening to everyone speak in verse finally groaned in frustration,
"Must you speak always in verse? Speak for once without a rhyme!"
"Says you in iambic pentameter."
"That won't be known for centuries now!"
"Then stop speaking in it!"
"Sisters!" Atropos shouted, causing her blind sisters to turn, "Stop arguing about speaking in verse, rhyme, or rhythm. Something has happened that even Clothos hadn't expected not long ago. Megara is pregnant!" Clothos, seemingly less concerned than her sisters shrugged it off
"We warned him 'bout what would result should he follow through with the demands he had!"
"I thought I told you stop speaking in iambic pentameter if you're going to complain about speaking in rhyme!" The three sisters resumed their arguing, pulling the eye between the three of them.