Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Rick Riordan, Greco-Roman mythology, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Sorry for the day-late update, I was in a bad mood all day yesterday for no real reason (to me), and I don't like to post when I'm feeling that upset. But I am back now!

Not much to say about this chapter. As always, I hope you enjoy. Until next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~The Finding Home Saga~

~Finding Home~

~Chapter 91: We Go Into The Labyrinth~

As the saying goes, I was not a happy camper.

"Seriously, Lee, I'm fine," I said as I tried to swat his hand away.

He was not amused. "May I remind you, you ditched your appointment with me earlier for whatever reason, and now you are saying that you have to go on this quest with Annabeth, which will undoubtedly be dangerous for both you and your children, for reasons that you won't quite explain. Forgive me for being a little concerned about your sanity and your overall health."

"You can be concerned, but I'm not crazy."

"I'll be the decider of that."

Lee did the exam that he'd meant to do earlier, which confirmed that everything was still going along swimmingly for me and my babies, before he did a very thorough examination of my health overall, making sure I wasn't concussed, showing signs of suffering from poisons or hallucinogens or anything else like that, and etcetera.

By the time he was done, I was tired and cranky, wanting nothing more than to go back to my cabin and my bed.

Especially since tonight would be the last night I would get to enjoy it – or any other bed, really – for a while.

Just as he was done, Chiron entered the infirmary. "Well?" he asked. "What is the diagnosis?"

Lee was frustrated. "He appears to be in good health, but I'm not convinced," he said. "I don't think anyone who is voluntarily signing themself up for a quest while pregnant is of sound mind."

"I told you, it's not exactly 'voluntarily,'" I grumbled back.

"Well, you won't tell me what exactly you mean by that, so what else am I supposed to believe?"

Chiron raised a hand before we could argue any further. He probably had some right to be worried about that. "Since your exam is finished, Lee, would you mind giving us the room?"

"I need to go to bed anyways," he said. But he gave me a glare before he left, letting me know that even if Annabeth, Travis, Katie, and I left for the quest before he could try and somehow stop me on the basis of my health tomorrow morning, our conversation wasn't over. Deep shit was to be in my future, whether it was tomorrow or a few weeks from then.

After he'd left the infirmary, Chiron gazed at me with no small amount of concern. "Percy," he began gravely. "Please, tell me all that you can."

So I did. I didn't leave much out. I told him about how my patron had told me that I had to go on this quest, carefully only calling her by "milady" so he would assume that it was Demeter and so I technically wasn't lying. I told him about how she'd said it was my destiny to go on this quest, and how she'd promised that no "severe harm" would come to me or my children during it. I was worried that, if I didn't, he would even find some way to force me to not go on this quest.

Granted, I still didn't want to go on it.

But better I did than what would happen otherwise.

At the end, Chiron was troubled. Deeply troubled. "Like Lee, I do not like this," he stated baldly. "But if Demeter has consulted Apollo, and it sounds like she has, then she knows that Ananke must have decided this must happen, for whatever reason."

Somehow, I was able to not give myself away on the spot like that. I do not know how.

"Since you have said that you must go on this quest, Travis and Katie have agreed to do the same," he continued. "You three and Annabeth will go into the labyrinth tomorrow at daybreak. I trust that you find this agreeable?"

"Basically, yeah," I said.

It wasn't really an attempt at humor, more of a remark of how I did not actually want to do this, but Rhea – and Ananke – were making me. Still, Chiron gave me a smile. It was lackluster. "I wish you luck on this quest, Percy. You, Annabeth, Travis, and Katie," he said. "I hope that you will not need it too much. But, before I let you go, there is one thing I must ask: do you intend to tell Annabeth and Travis that you are pregnant?"

I frowned. For some reason, it hadn't yet occurred for me to think about that. "I don't know. Why?"

Of course, I knew the answer as soon as I asked the question.

Chiron told me it anyways. "As much as I know you do not see it this way, the pregnancy does make you a liability, Percy. Guarantees of no severe harm aside, there are still many other things that could happen to you. The selection of the companions for a hero are generally based on a high degree of trust, too. Bad things could happen if Annabeth and Travis find out that you are pregnant on the quest without you telling them and rightfully feel that you do not trust them."

"Rightfully."

I shifted in my seat.

I didn't like him calling me out like that.

But Chiron was nothing if not sympathetic. "I'll give you some time to think on it," he said. "Now, I think you should go back to your cabin and try to get some rest before tomorrow morning. Good night, Percy."

My sleep was dreamless that night, a rare mercy for a change.

That didn't mean it was restful. I woke up at about two hours before dawn, so I decided to go ahead and take a shower before I packed, creeping out of the cabin and somehow successfully evading the harpies. Callie was still asleep when I came back, and she still was by the time that I'd finished packing and it was almost time for me to go.

She'd told me to wake her up if she hadn't herself by the time that it was time for me to leave. She was undoubtedly going to be upset with me, as I had decided to go ahead and not do that, making it a second time now I would be leaving her for a quest without her being able to see me off. But I couldn't bear seeing more people being mad with me than absolutely necessary today.

(I couldn't deal with more people worrying over me despite what I knew from what Rhea had said, worrying because they weren't sure if I was going to come back alive, if my children and I would really be alright.)

As rosy-fingered dawn, as Homer or Hesiod would say, began to light up the sky in my distance in my quest towards Zeus' Fist, I heard a voice say, "Ah, Percy, wait. A moment, if you would?"

It was Quintus. Mrs. O'Leary was nowhere in sight, and I didn't know if that was a bad thing or not.

"Sure, Quintus," I said.

I allowed him to lead me a little off of the path of the forest, my bag slung over my shoulder. He didn't take long to get to his point. "I have a bad feeling about this," he told me.

To be honest, that didn't mean much, coming from him. I barely even knew the guy.

But when he looked at me, I saw real concern in his eyes.

"I don't like the idea of you going down there," he said. "Any of you. But if you must, I want you to remember something: the Labyrinth exists to fool you. It will distract you. That's dangerous for half-bloods. We are easily distracted."

"You've been there?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Long ago." His voice was ragged. "I barely escaped with my life. Most who enter aren't that lucky."

He gripped my shoulder. "Percy, keep your mind on what matters most. If you can do that, you might find a way. And here, I wanted to give you something."

He handed me a little silver tube. It was so cold I almost dropped it.

"A whistle?" I said.

"A dog whistle," Quintus said. "For Mrs. O'Leary."

"Um, thanks, but – "

"How will it work in the maze? I'm not a hundred percent certain it will. But Mrs. O'Leary is a hellhound. She can appear when called, no matter how far away she is. I'd feel better knowing you had this. If you really need help, use it; but be careful, the whistle is made of Stygian ice."

"Huh?"

"From the River Styx," he clarified. "Very hard to craft. Very delicate. It cannot melt, but it will shatter when you blow it, so you can only use it once."

I didn't know what to say to that. A part of me felt bad about not fully trusting him when I trusted Luke, who had gone against the gods, my boyfriend or not. But, at the same time...

He was my boyfriend. And I knew he'd do everything in his power to prevent me from being hurt.

Could I say something similar about Quintus?

After some internal debate, I decided to simply not fight him on it to his face. "Thanks," I told him. I slipped the freezing whistle into my pocket, even as I promised to never use it.

He scrutinized me for a brief, few seconds. "Come on," he then said. "The others are probably wondering where you are."

We met the others at Zeus' Fist: Annabeth, Travis, Katie, Chiron, and...Malcom, Bianca, and Connor, among some of the other campers who had come to see us off. I figured they each had to be there to offer moral support and say their goodbyes, like Callie had wanted to do with me.

Don't think about that, I told myself, my gut twisting.

It was a clear morning. The fog had burned off and the sky was blue. Campers would be having their lessons today, flying pegasi and practicing archery and scaling the lava wall. Meanwhile, we would be heading underground.

I noticed how a couple of tents had been set up by the rocks, undoubtedly for guard duty. Beckendorf and his siblings were working on a line of defensive spikes and trenches. Chiron must've decided that we needed to guard the Labyrinth exit at all times, just in case.

Silena and Katie both frowned at me as I approached. "Percy, where's Callie?" the daughter of Demeter asked.

There was no point in me hiding the truth. "Still asleep."

Silena gasped. "Percy! Are you – ?"

"Insane?" I supplied. I readjusted the way the right strap of my backpack fell on my shoulder. "No, but at this point, I'm kind of wishing that I was."

"That's not funny," Silena hissed with a scowl. "Callie deserves to be here."

I know.

Chiron trotted over to us then. "Well, it appears you are ready!"

...Which effectively ended the conversation.

He tried to sound upbeat, but I could tell he was anxious. It made me feel bad.

I did my best to give him a smile. "Yeah, I guess so."

Something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I turned –

– Only for my jaw to almost drop open.

Well, I guess that answers my question from last night.

Bianca and Annabeth were kissing. It wasn't a passionate kiss – barely anything more than a peck on the lips, really – but yeah. It said enough all on its own.

Bianca's eyes were worried as they separated, but there was an edge to them. One that increased when she looked past the daughter of Athena, towards me.

Annabeth didn't see it. She trudged over, and for once genuine gratitude played out on her features. "Thanks again for this," she told me and Katie. My step-sister gave her a very unimpressed look, which Annabeth ignored. "Are you guys ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," Katie remarked blandly. I still had yet to find out what had transpired there.

I nodded. My hand slipped into my pocket, where the ice whistle Quintus had given me was. I looked over and saw him watching me carefully. He raised his hand in farewell.

Travis came over to us as well. "Alright, guys," he said, slinging an arm around Katie's shoulder. Katie rolled her eyes at him, but a smile twisted at her lips. "Let's do this!"

"Take care," Chiron told us. "And good hunting."

"You, too," I said. For no real reason.

We walked over to the rocks. I stared at the crack between the boulders – it was as if the entrance was about to swallow us.

"Well," I said, unable to stop the nervousness from bleeding into my voice. "Here goes nothing."

"Yeah," Katie said. She still didn't sound enthused about the entire thing. I was sure that she was going to tear me a new one later.

Together, the four of us descended into darkness.

We made it a hundred feet before we were hopelessly lost.

The tunnel looked nothing like the one Travis and Katie had stumbled into before, which they both remarked on. Now it was round like a sewer, constructed of red brick with iron-barred potholes every ten feet. I shined a light through one of the potholes out of curiosity, but I couldn't see anything. It opened into infinite darkness. I thought I heard voices on the other side, but it may have just been the cold wind.

Annabeth tried her best to guide us. She had this idea that we should stick to the left wall.

"If we keep one hand on the left wall and follow it," she said, "we should be able to find our way out again by reversing course."

Unfortunately, as soon as she said that, the left wall disappeared. We found ourselves in the middle of a circular chamber with eight tunnels leading out, and no idea how we'd gotten there.

"Great," Katie remarked dryly.

"Just turn around," Annabeth said.

We each turned towards a different tunnel. It was ridiculous. None of us could decide which way led back to camp.

"Which way now?" Travis asked.

Annabeth swept her flashlight beam over the archways of the eight tunnels. As far as I could tell, they were identical. "That way," she said.

"How do you know?" I questioned.

"Deductive reasoning."

"So...you're guessing."

"Just come on," she said.

The tunnel she'd chosen narrowed quickly. The walls turned to grey cement, and the ceiling got so low that pretty soon we were all hunching over. Travis muttered something about having to crawl if things got much worse. He was a couple inches shorter than Luke, but that was still tall.

We kept shuffling forwards. Just when I was sure the tunnel would get so narrow it would squish us, it opened into a huge room. I shined my light around the walls and said, "Whoa."

The whole room was covered in mosaic tiles. The pictures were grimy and faded, but I could still make out the colors – red, blue, green, gold. The frieze showed the Olympian gods at a feast. There was my dad, Poseidon, with his trident, holding out grapes for Dionysus to turn into wine. Zeus was partying with satyrs, and Hermes was flying through the air on his winged sandals.

The pictures were beautiful, but they weren't very accurate. I'd seen the gods. Dionysus wasn't that handsome, and Hermes' nose wasn't that big.

In the middle of the room was a three-tiered fountain. It looked like it hadn't held water in a long time.

"What is this place?" I muttered. "It looks – "

"Roman," Annabeth said. "Those mosaics look about two thousand years old."

"But how can they be Roman?" I wasn't the greatest on ancient history, but I was pretty sure the Roman Empire had never made it as far as Long Island.

"The Labyrinth is a patchwork," Annabeth said. "It's always expanding, adding pieces. It's the only work of architecture that grows by itself."

"You make it sound like it's alive," Katie said.

A groaning noise echoed from the tunnel in front of us.

"Maybe let's not talk about it being alive," Travis suggested, his voice a little high.

"Alright," Annabeth said. "Forward."

That freaked out Travis a little more. "Down the hall with the bad sounds?"

"Yeah," she said. "The architecture is getting older. That's a good sign. Daedalus' workshop would be in the oldest part."

That made sense. But soon the maze was toying with us – we went fifty feet and the tunnel turned back into cement, with brass pipes running down the sides. The walls were spray-painted with graffiti. A neon tagger sign read MOZ RULEZ.

"I'm thinking this is not Roman," I said helpfully.

Annabeth took a deep breath, then forged ahead.

Every few feet the tunnels twisted and turned and branched off. The floor beneath us changed from cement to mud to bricks and back again. There was no sense to any of it. We stumbled into a wine cellar – a bunch of dusty bottles on wooden racks – like we were walking through somebody's basement, only there was no exit above us, just more tunnels leading on.

Later the ceiling turned to wooden planks, and I could hear voices above us and the creaking of footsteps, as if we were walking under some kind of bar. It was reassuring to hear people, but then again, we couldn't get to them. We were stuck down here with no way out.

Then we found our first skeleton.

He was dressed in white clothes, like some kind of uniform. A wooden crate of glass bottles sat next to him.

"A milkman," Annabeth said.

"What?" I asked.

"They used to deliver milk."

"Yeah, I know what they are, but...that was when my mom was little, if not even before her. Like a million years ago. What's he doing here?"

"Some people wander in by mistake," Annabeth said. "Some come exploring on purpose and never make it back. A long time ago, the Cretans sent people in here as human sacrifices."

Travis gulped. "He's been down here a long time, then." He pointed to the skeleton's bottles, which were coated with white dust. The skeleton's fingers were clawing at the brick wall, like he had died trying to get out.

Annabeth sighed. "It's best if we get deeper into the maze. The faster we do that, the faster this is over. There has to be a way to the center."

She started to walk ahead.

"Wait," Katie said. She was looking at me. "Percy, are you alright?"

I'd placed a hand on my lower back as soon as Annabeth had turned around.

"...Fine," I managed to say. "'Think...'think I just need a sec."

"What?" Travis asked with a frown.

Annabeth wasn't happy, either. "We really should keep going. If there's monsters – "

"We can wait for just a few minutes," Katie snapped at her. She took off her backpack and put it on the ground, motioning for me to sit on it.

I didn't want to, but my body had other opinions about the matter. Really, we probably should've taken a break several paces ago. I'd felt my body wanting it all the way back in the wine cellar. But I'd told myself I could keep going on. I'd forgotten –

– My organs literally weren't in the same positions anymore, thanks to my children displacing them. Luke Jr. and my as-of-yet-still-unnamed daughter were seemingly kicking at my insides in agreement.

I sat down on Katie's pack. She opened up mine, taking out a bottle of water and a protein bar and giving them to me. "You need to eat," she said. "You're gonna get low blood sugar if you don't."

"Gee, thanks," I mumbled, but I did as I was told.

It took me two minutes at the most to wolf down the protein bar, and I tried to get up, but Katie stopped me, pushing me back down via my shoulder. "Three more minutes," she told me, her green eyes making it clear there was no room for argument.

From me, anyways.

"I don't get it," Annabeth said. She was frustrated. "He was fine until now. Why are you – ?"

"He was not fine," Katie snapped back at her. She placed her hands on her hips. "This is what I was trying to tell you last night, Chase: why it wasn't a good idea for him to be going on this quest, before he was told that he had to. Percy's...sicker than you think he is."

"Then don't you both think I should know what's going on?" Annabeth demanded, her grey eyes flitting over to me. "I can't plan on how to keep us alive if I don't know everything!"

...She had a point.

So had Chiron.

"Whoa, ladies," Travis said, stepping between them with his hands out as if they were horses or something. I couldn't necessarily blame them: they looked primed and ready to brawl it out, right here on the floor of the Labyrinth. "Look, I know it's not ideal, but – "

"Travis, don't get yourself involved," Katie growled. He backed down, because if there was one person he knew from previous experience not to mess with when they were angry, it was Katie. The whole incident of flowers growing out of his ears for a week and all. "And, sure, maybe you should know what's going on, Chase, but – "

"I'll show them."

Katie and Annabeth both stopped short.

The daughter of Demeter whirled around. "Percy, are you sure?"

I shrugged. It felt as good a time as any to get it out of the way now. I'd already been planning on it, and we were in a good spot at the time being.

I tried to get to my feet on my own, then grimaced. "Katie, a little help?"

She came over. Between her pull and my push, we were able to get me into an upright position.

The skin on my belly was itching something terrible. At least after this, I'd be able to scratch at it to my heart's content.

"Please don't freak out too much," I requested of both Travis and Annabeth. "Because if you do, it's going to make this quest even more of a headache than it's been already."

Then, without further ado, I took off my ἒνδεσμα as I said, "I'm pregnant."

Word Count: 3,731

Next Chapter Title: We Meet The God With Two Faces