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: I am officially hiding after this chapter lol. I'm looking forward to you guys reading it, don't get me wrong, but, erm...well, you'll see.

Anyways, as always, I hope you enjoy. Until next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~The Finding Home Saga~

~Finding Home~

~Chapter 86: I Get Some Shiny New Bracelets~

I gazed at myself in the mirror, trying not to cringe as I twisted my torso from right to left, and then from left to right. I was naked, but the counter of the sink was just high enough that everything from just below my waist was hidden from view. All I could see was everything above that.

"I look like a girl," I muttered.

To me, it was undeniable: just as Lee had said it would, my pelvis had shifted, and at my last appointment with him he had said that it was progressing just as he'd wanted it to. There would be no bedrest for me in the immediate future (yet). But as an unexpected side effect of this, again to me, not only had my hips shifted, but also my waist, to the extent that...

...Yeah, I looked like a girl.

A completely flat-chested girl, to be sure. But a girl nonetheless.

My belly wasn't doing anything to help these matters. At twenty-two weeks with twins, it was obvious that I was pregnant. The babies had been active for a while now; I'd been able to feel them moving in the first trimester of my pregnancy, trying to get up under my ribs and the like – which can I just say, had made it hard to breathe. The two of them had definitely inherited their dad's mischievousness.

But I'd felt them kick for the first time at sixteen weeks, and ever since then, it hadn't really stopped. I'd lived the past two months constantly feeling like popcorn was going off inside my stomach, although the pressure was becoming steadily pronounced as they got bigger and bigger, as their kicks became stronger and stronger.

All of this being said, I wasn't quite ready for things to end yet. I hadn't quite reached the barest point of viability yet, there was still another month to go there, and moreover I did like being pregnant. I liked knowing that I was carrying mine and Luke's children, that we were going to have children.

Yet I couldn't deny that it was beginning to take a toll on me.

With a sigh, I turned away from the mirror, not willing to stare at my reflection anymore. The shower that I went over to and turned on was not the one back at mine and my mom's apartment, because we weren't living there anymore. This past weekend, we'd moved out and had officially moved in with the Beauregards.

The bathroom was nice, as was my room, which the former was directly connected to instead of separated by a hallway. As I've already mentioned before, Jean and Silena lived in a five-bedroom Tudor house in Queens, so everything was definitely a lot more spacious than I was used to. The tub in the bathroom was bigger than almost any other I'd seen before, the one in the penthouse being one of the exceptions. The shower was connected to it.

As I waited for the water to get hot enough, which I had already learned wouldn't take nearly as long here as it had back in the apartment, I made sure to get a towel out of the linen closet and hang it up on the rack next to the shower/tub.

When the water was hot enough, so hot that I could feel the steam coming from around the edges of the shower curtain, I moved it aside long enough to step into the shower. I made sure to be careful about it, since the lip of the bathtub was much higher than the one I'd gotten used to back at the apartment.

The water felt good as it ran down my body, rejuvenating me. I smiled lightly to myself, knowing that I could spend a longer time in here than I had back at the apartment before the water ran cold, thanks to less people using the hot water tank here than at that large building.

Not that I was bothered by a cold shower, thanks to me being a son of Poseidon. But still, a hot one was nice.

Grabbing my shampoo off of the shelf, I squirted some of it out onto my hand before putting the bottle back and beginning to lather the liquid through my hair. My thoughts wandered as I ran my fingers over my scalp, drifting. A little bit of everything and nothing filtered in and out, turning my mood from grumpy about my body's transforming shape to one much happier.

A song popped into my head. I couldn't stop myself from singing to it, albeit I fibbed with the lyrics a bit:

"...No one knows how I feel, what I say unless you read between my lines. One man walked away from me, first he took my hand, then he took me home..."

After rinsing the shampoo out of my hair, while I had to wait for my hair to dry just enough that I could put the conditioner in it (I didn't feel like using my powers to accomplish it), I washed my body with my soap and loofah. Again, my mind went on to a new topic, finishing the rest of the song – I'd only gotten as far as "...He asked me for my love, and that was all..." – no longer taking a priority.

I wondered if Luke was going to come visit in the next few days, now that my mom and I had moved. He knew that we had moved. He knew that he wouldn't be unwelcome here, since while Jean wasn't exactly approving of hm, he knew better than to try and separate us.

The last time I had seen my boyfriend, he'd seemed...worried. More worried than usual. His face had been paler, there'd been bags under his eyes. I'd tried asking him what was wrong, but he'd refused to tell me.

"Just...tired, Perce," he'd mumbled. "Don't worry about it."

I knew that it had to do something with Kronos. That much had been obvious just by looking at the expression on his face. But I also knew that I was being benched for the foreseeable future because of my pregnancy, and that was probably why Luke had refused to tell me anything.

As I debated whether or not I would be able to convince him to tell me the truth the next time that I saw him, after I'd already rinsed off the soap, gotten the conditioner combed through my hair, and rinsed that off of my hair afterwards, I absentmindedly got out of the shower.

This was my fatal mistake.

In my attempt to get out of the shower, my foot got caught on the lip of the bathtub. Twenty-some weeks ago, this wouldn't have been a problem, because I would've been able to catch myself easily.

But now, with my center of gravity shifting along with my growing belly, I couldn't stop myself from falling. A startled, "Holy shit!" fell from my mouth as I realized that I couldn't.

Just like that, my instincts kicked into gear, instincts that I didn't even know I had. My body turned, attempting to get into a position where I would be able to fall on my back rather than my front. My arms flew to my stomach, cradling it. My eyes squeezed shut.

Time seemed to slow down. I waited for the moment when I would fall to the floor and my head would smack against it with a sickening crack! I waited for the moment that I would lose consciousness.

And yet...

It never seemed to happen.

It didn't happen.

A part of me recognized that too long had passed for it not to, even with adrenaline slowing things down. Slowly, my entire being feeing like it was filled with dread, yet not for the reason I was about to find out, I opened my eyes.

What I saw made my mouth drop open in shock.

There on my wrists were two golden bands. They weren't physical, at least not in the sense that they were tangible. They were holograms, maybe. Like the signs that appeared above us demigods when we were claimed at camp.

Not like that mattered.

They were golden bands. Ones that I had seen before.

As if things weren't already bad enough, the golden bands multiplied and went down my wrists. The humming noise that I had heard before came from them, but that wasn't the only source that it was coming from. The noise seemed to be coming from all around me, from within me.

Vaguely, I was aware of a sharp, almost painful tug from behind my navel. It was like the tug that came when I used my powers, and yet it was...different, at the same time.

Before I could think much about any of this, there was a flash of blinding gold light.

When I opened my eyes again, I was standing upright in the tub. The shower head was still going; then again, I hadn't turned it off in the first place. I stared at the tile on the walls of the shower for several long, hard seconds.

There was then the sound of someone knocking – no, pounding – at my bathroom door. I always locked the door before I took a shower; call it a nervous habit from before I found out I was a demigod. "Percy?" my mom's voice called out, absolutely frantic. "Percy, are you alright?"

No, I decided.

No, I very much wasn't.

All things considered, I think it was pretty impressive that I was able to contain my panic attack long enough to put the clothes that I'd set out for myself – some sweatpants and an overlarge t-shirt, because it wasn't like there were maternity clothes made for guys and I'd already surpassed the point of being able to wear jeans – and open up the door for my mother.

She was completely flabbergasted as she took in my face. "Percy, what's wrong? What happened?"

"I'm fine," I assured her, because I felt like that was the first and more important thing to say. But then I was panting as the reality of what had happened, the shock, began to set in. "I'm – I just – Mom, I – "

My mom wasted no time in leading me down the stairs and to the kitchen. She sat me down at the breakfast table as Jean appeared in the room, his face worried. Silena was at school, the only reason why she wasn't there along with the rest of us. "Sally?" my sort-of-stepfather asked, his accent lilting even more with his concern. "What – ?"

She shook her head. "I'm still trying to get it out of him." To me: "Give me just a sec, sweetie..." She went over to one of the cupboards and got out a glass, filling it up with ice chips and water from the fridge before she thrusted it into my hands. The coldness of it startled me, causing me to blink as I looked down at it.

"Drink," my mom encouraged me.

Unsteadily, I did.

It took twenty or so minutes after that for me to calm down enough to tell them what had happened. I tried a few times before that, but each time was unsuccessful because I wound up panicking all over again.

When I was finally able to get it all out, my mom and Jean shared a very panicked, but also very grave, look.

"I'm going to go call Camp Half-Blood," he said, getting out of his chair. "Sally, you stay here with him."

My mom didn't try to protest this.

Everything then basically passed by in a blur. I remember Jean coming back and telling both of us quietly that Chiron was going to send somebody over, but it was going to take a bit because nobody at camp besides Chiron, Mr. D., I guess, Lee, and Katie knew about my pregnancy yet. We'd all decided that it would be best to keep it a secret for as long as possible, and Alabaster had been helpful with this. He'd come up with another ἒνδεσμα for me, but whereas the ones that most campers wore hid our scents, this one hid my stomach.

I wasn't quite sure of how that worked. When I was wearing it, I knew that other people couldn't see my stomach, they could even wave their hand in the space where my stomach actually was without a problem. But I could still see my stomach, I could still feel very much that I was pregnant, and seeing the hand-waving had been enough to almost break my mind because of that.

Anyways, I remember Jean then switching out with my mom, so she could go pack my bag – there seemed to be an unspoken thing that I would be staying at camp for a while now. I remember Silena coming back from school just before Argus came to pick me up, her eyes widening as she walked into the kitchen and took in the entire situation. "Dad? Percy?" she asked, her bottom lip trembling. "What's going on?"

Jean told her what had happened. In reaction to the news, Silena let her backpack fall to the floor. "I'm going with him, then," she announced. "Just let me go pack my toiletries. I already have enough clothes at camp."

In any other situation, that would have been a very weird thing to hear from her. Silena cared about clothes so much, the idea that she thought she had "enough" was paradoxical.

Jean frowned. "Silena – "

"No, I'm going," she retorted. "You can call out of school for the rest of the week, Dad; I already finished all of my finals. But I am not letting Percy go back to camp alone."

She and Argus helped me into the camp van when he arrived, all of his eyes incredibly somber. I remember Lee's likewise somber face when he came into the guest room in the Big House I'd been put into rather than the infirmary when we arrived at camp, since there were injured campers currently in there. Silena and Katie, who had come from whatever she'd been doing as soon as we'd come, were by my side the entire time, one of them always making sure to hold my hand.

Time only seemed to slow down once Lee had declared that everything was fine with me and the babies and Chiron came into the room. The centaur was in his wheelchair, so that we could talk face-to-face. "Silena, Katie, give me some time with him, would you?" he requested. Very reluctantly, they acquiesced to his request.

As soon as the door was shut behind them, he went back to focusing on me. "Now, Percy, I want you to tell me everything that happened."

I did. Since I was in this room, that ἒνδεσμα I just mentioned was off. Nevertheless, I fiddled with the one that was meant to hide my scent as I relayed to him what I remembered. The lines on Chiron's face became more and more prominent the longer that I went on.

"I – I just don't understand," I told him once I finished up the story, running my hand through my hair, making it even messier than it already was. "Is one of my children a legacy of Kronos?" "Legacy" was the term used specifically when talking about non-demigod descendants. "Descendant" could still apply, but it could also refer to demigods for us. I know, kind of stupid and complicated, but it was whatever to me in the moment. "How – how can this happen? Lee told me that it's possible that the babies could inherit powers from the gods in the mortal lineage, but he didn't say anything about – !"

Chiron held up a hand, interrupting me. "I can tell you a theory, if you would wish," he said. "But it is not one that I think you will like."

"Just tell me," I requested – begged. "Please."

"Very well," he replied. "As you already know, there was a mortal child of Kronos a little more than a century ago. She came to camp at the age of fourteen, like you. I knew when she arrived that she was a powerful half-blood, but I did not know how powerful she was until after her powers manifested here for the first time, which were exactly as you have described. She was never officially claimed, not that she needed to be. Despite being his first mortal child, it was very clear who her father was.

"After she displayed her powers, the Olympians ordered her to leave camp and never to return. I tried to appeal to them, but in the end I was forced to make her go. They were afraid that otherwise, she would rally her fellow demigods and try to usurp them."

At any other time, I would've said something like, "That's not fair!"

Because it wasn't. How shitty was it for your immortal half-siblings to be suspicious of you simply because you were a child of their father, too, just not lucky enough to be immortal?

...But, Chiron knew all too well what that was like. This past summer was only proof of that.

I let him continue. "After that, I unfortunately lost contact with her, so I have never known for certain what became of her. But I can tell you what I know of her life until her banishment: her name was Lilja Drífudóttir. Her mother's name was Drífa Seimsdóttir. She was born in – "

"Iceland. She was born in Iceland," I finished for him quietly. Then: "My mother's mom was from Iceland. She was Icelandic."

Chiron gave me no response.

My hands wrung nervously. "So...what are you saying, Chiron? Are you saying that my grandmother was a...descendant of this Lilja? Of Kronos?"

His expression became pensive. "Truthfully, I don't know. It does indeed seem to be the case. Do you know your maternal grandmother's name? I will see if I can do some research into the matter."

"Róska." My head went from side to side. "I don't know her patronymic. My mom never did, either. She was too young when my amma and afi, uh, died..."

Now I couldn't help but wonder if their plane crash had really been an accident, or if there had been something more to it. Knowing Zeus like I did, I wouldn't be surprised, particularly if he'd found out that my maternal grandmother had had powers. I couldn't see him wanting her to remain alive in that case.

Her – and me, and my kids – being a descendant of Kronos also made sense in another way. Hadn't Rhea told me that our safety was at stake "especially given my heritage?" If it was true, maybe she would know about that better than anyone else would. Maybe I should tell Chiron to ask her himself.

For some reason, I thought that wouldn't go down very well, though. At least, it wouldn't get us the answers that we wanted; Rhea hadn't seemed very forthcoming when she'd told me that I would only know the truth about my lineage "in time."

I cleared my throat. "My mom's uncle never told her much about them after that, either. She's said he never liked her mom. Hated her, really."

"That is alright," Chiron assured me. "I will make sure that I do what I can. In the meantime, Percy..."

"Is this going to happen again, while I'm pregnant?" I blurted out. Suddenly, it was all that I could think about, and it was likely that he would know much more about it than Lee would. "Is it going to happen with my baby, whichever one it is, after they're born?"

Just the thought sounded like a nightmare to deal with: imagine a time-controlling toddler having a tantrum. So much insanity could ensue because of that.

"And what about the Koskinen twins? They're descendants of Kronos too, right? How do they factor into all of this? Are they, like, my cousins or something?"

Those were all too many questions to be asking him at once. Yet Chiron was not disturbed, probably because his answers were mostly the same for each of them. "I do not know, Percy," he spoke, his visage darkening once more. "I wish that I did. What I can tell you is that I would like you to remain here at camp for the foreseeable future, even if it means that the other campers will have to find out about your pregnancy. I will relay a message to my brethren, the centaurs, to be even more urgent in finding the Koskinen twins than they have until now, in addition to looking into your mother's family. Hopefully, before your pregnancy is over, we will have more answers than we do now."

Word Count: 3,491

Next Chapter Title: Jig of Life Pt. 1