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: Alright, after I was very, very evil, here you go! Here is the reaction y'all have been waiting for! Will say, nobody got Luke's specific reaction correctly in their theories, which is making me a little nervous, but...lol?
Also, sorry if this chapter seems like it ends kind of abruptly. These past two chapters and the next one all kind of go together and it was hard for me to try to figure out where to stop one and begin the next. That being said, any guesses as to what's gonna happen based off of the next chapter title?
As always, I hope you enjoy. Until next chapter,
~TGWSI/Selene Borealis
~The Finding Home Saga~
~Finding Home~
~Chapter 82: Honey, Honey~
Luke stared at me. "You're...what?"
"Pregnant." I said. Some – okay, so maybe a lot – of my anxiety bled into my voice as I next spoke, "I know, it seems ridiculous. I swear, I'm not joking. And I also swear that I had no idea that this could happen! If I had, I wouldn't have agreed to...erm...have sex without a condom." The hesitation there came from how my mom was watching us intently, ready, I'm sure, to intervene if she thought necessary. I wasn't going to admit to all of the sex we'd had that weekend in front of her. "And I understand if you're freaking out, I was freaking out when I found all of this out. And I'll swear on the River Styx to all of this if you want me to, if you don't – "
"Percy," my mom piped up.
It took everything in my power to glance over at her. "Yeah, Mom?"
"Breathe."
Shakily, I took in a deep breath, before I let it go. Then again. And again.
In, out. In, out.
When I looked back at Luke, I didn't know what to make of his reaction. He was kind of just...sitting there. His face wasn't pale, but nor was it flushed. He was breathing okay, unlike I had when I'd found out, however I knew that didn't necessarily mean anything. Besides his anger, he was usually pretty good at regulating his emotions and his body's reaction to them. Much better than me, at any rate.
"You're pregnant," he stated.
"Yes."
"And you're not joking about this." Another statement.
"No."
"You're absolutely serious."
I didn't comment on how that was basically the same thing as he'd last said, just with fewer words. "Yes."
Now, some color did leech from his face. Just a little. He swallowed thickly, and asked only one question: "How?"
I told him what I had already told Callie and my/our friends, what had been told to me. He listened intently, not saying anything.
This made me even more worried. I went back to wringing my hands. "Can you tell me what you're thinking?" I asked him. "Please?"
"I'm thinking that..." he said, trailing off. He looked away from me, down at the floor, and that alone was like a punch to the gut. Or a poisoned knife to the hip. Take your pick. "I can't believe this."
That was said much softer than the first half of what he'd said, yet it increased everything that I was feeling a hundredfold. I opened my mouth, willing to swear right then and there on the River Styx that I was telling the truth, when –
But then –
I almost couldn't process what I next witnessed.
The left corner of Luke's mouth twitched. He brought up his hand to try to hide it, but it was of no use. Soon, he was grinning, and then after that, he was...laughing?
Was he seriously laughing?
Yep, he was.
"I'm sorry," Luke said. "I'm sorry. Just – "
His laughter cut him off.
I ogled him, not having any idea of what the hell to do. Naturally, I hadn't accounted for this. What kind of person accounts for their partner laughing at them when they tell them that they're pregnant? Like, was he having a nervous breakdown or something? Or...?
"Are you – are you laughing at me?" I asked, trying not to let my feelings get hurt until he answered. It was hard not to.
Luke's laughter died at once. "No, I'm not. I promise, I'm not." He stood up from the couch and crossed the distance between us, until he was crouched down right in front of me. His icy blue eyes stared up into mine. "I'm just trying to figure out what I did to deserve someone as perfect as you."
My breath caught.
Μὰ θεούς, how could he just say things like that?
"You – you don't mind?" I squeaked out. "You're not...mad or anything?"
"No, I don't mind, and I'm not mad. You just told me that you didn't know that this could happen, and I know that if you did, you would've told me," he said. He shrugged. This was followed by his expression to concern of a certain kind, but one that was impartial one way or the other. "You are...keeping it? If you don't want to, I completely understand, it's your body and your choice, but – "
"Yes, I'm keeping them," I interrupted him. "That's the other thing I was gonna tell you...it's twins. A boy and a girl, I think. I had a dream about them, and that's how they appeared to me, anyways.
The beam that returned to Luke's face was so great that I'm pretty sure its intensity could've easily blotted out the sun. "I love you," he spoke, before he gathered me up in his arms, bridal-style.
"Luke!" I spluttered out, even more acutely aware of how my mother was still in the room.
He didn't care about that. Spinning me around, he kissed me on the lips.
...And as he did, as addled as my brain was, and not to mention how it had been thrown for a fucking loop by his reaction, I guess it all clicked.
All Luke had ever wanted was to not be used as a pawn for the gods, to have a chance to be normal and to live a normal life, at least as much as "normal" could be for half-bloods. There were so many things that he'd been unable to experience at Camp Half-Blood due to being a year-rounder and the counselor of the cabin with the most kids for years to boot, of having to be a parent to them because their own godly parents couldn't be because of the Ancient Laws and all.
But that didn't mean he'd never wanted kids of his own. As I was just now realizing, even though he'd never mentioned it to me, he had. He did. But he'd never thought that he'd get the chance, due to camp, and then getting involved with Kronos and whatever was going to happen because of that down the line, and more.
Now here I was, though, telling him that I was unexpectedly giving him that chance. And we were both pretty darn young to be having kids, I won't deny that, but we were also demigods. With our survival rate, having kids now might as well have been just as good as any other time.
If there had ben any doubt left in my mind about keeping the pregnancy, there wouldn't have been anymore with this information I'd pieced together.
Even while our lips were still pressed together, Luke gently deposited me on the ground, and it didn't seem like I was going to pass out anymore. When he pulled away, he smacked another kiss to my cheek, and then turned around to look back at my mom. Immediately, his posture straightening, he became...sheepish? Was that the right word?
Rubbing at the back of his neck awkwardly, he said, "I'm sorry, Ms. Jackson. I know you, uh, must not like me very much."
My mom did not deny this. But there was something lighter in her expression: maybe it was simply because she was happy that Luke had accepted the news that I was pregnant so happily instead of what could have happened...otherwise.
"I told you to call me Sally," she replied to him at first. Before I could get my hopes too far up that that was all she would say, however: "You've hurt my son. You almost killed him once."
"Mom!" I exclaimed.
Luke winced. "I know. And I've regretted doing that ever since. I'll never stop trying to make up for it."
My mom wasn't willing to let such a statement rest. "I need to know – Percy needs to know," she corrected herself, "that you're willing to do what it takes to make sure that you survive this war. I know that – that a war is brewing, and I know that wars are dangerous even in the mortal world. I also know that...I can't really stop Percy from seeing you, given he's hidden so well that he has up until now." Her eyes flicked towards me. My face felt like it was getting closer and closer to catching on fire the longer that she spoke. "But children are a responsibility that you can't ignore. Whatever the reason for why you're fighting against the gods, he needs to know that he and they come first. That is how you can make up for it, as a start."
Her name this time came out of my mouth as a hiss. "Mom, stop!"
"No, she's right, Percy," Luke said with a shake of his head. He looked back at me with hopeful eyes. "I know we've talked about it before, but has...this – " he gestured to my general person " – changed your mind."
I didn't need to ask what he was referring to: Hyperborea. Biting my lip, then letting it go, I answered, "No."
And I'm sure you must think that this is very irresponsible of me, to not take the opportunity to leave the world of the gods now for the sake of my – ours, Luke's and mine – children. But I've explained my reasoning several times previously, and it hadn't changed just because I was pregnant now. My destiny to be a parent did not directly conflict with my destiny to be the child of the Great Prophecy in my eyes. I'd already promised myself that I would survive the war, no matter what.
As like in the penthouse, Luke had expected this answer. His lips thinned some, showing that he wasn't exactly pleased, but he knew that I was my own person. Unless he wanted to try dragging me kicking and screaming to Hyperborea, which he would probably be unsuccessful at, hence "tried," then he couldn't force me to go. I knew him better than to reasonably think that he would try something like that, though.
"Then I'll just have to do what I said I would," he said. "For both of us."
The unsaid: "making sure that we both survive."
I nodded, hoping that it didn't come off as too desperate.
"But we're going to have to talk about how this is going to change things, Percy," he continued. "You can't just fight in a war while pregnant."
"Then the war will just have to wait for me," I replied sweetly.
He groaned. "Percy."
A sigh fell out of my mouth. "I know." I looked down at the floor, then back up at him. "But...you are happy with this?"
His reaction had been too honest for me to believe otherwise. But I wanted to hear him say it myself.
Luke grinned again. "I am happy, Percy." A second kiss was placed on my cheek. "Please, don't doubt that. Never doubt that."
My fears were alleviated, and my happiness was so great, it felt like I was about ready to combust with it. "I won't."
Alabaster, Silena, and Katie came out of my bedroom almost directly after that, all of them wearing giant smiles on their faces and making their eavesdropping obvious. "Please, tell me that you guys weren't snooping in my personal belongings," I told them.
The son of Hecate and daughter of Aphrodite looked mildly offended at such an insinuation. "Don't worry, we didn't," Katie, meanwhile, reassured me. "I made sure that they didn't."
"Hey!" Alabaster protested.
Silena looked over at Luke, seemingly not interested in taking the bait. "So, just to double-check," she said, "you're happy with the news, and your meeting Percy's mom went okay?"
"Yes," I said.
"I want to hear it from Luke himself, thanks."
"Yes, Silena," he replied.
She inclined her head. "Good. And yes, you absolutely better make sure you survive this war, Luke. Otherwise, I'll go down to the underworld, resurrect you, and then kill you all over again myself," she said while playfully punching him in the shoulder. Despite how that made me flinch, she was smiling. "But congratulations to you both."
"Yes, congratulations!" Katie said, beaming.
"Congratulations, I guess," Alabaster tacked on. He made a face. "Just make sure you wear condoms the next time, okay?"
"Alabaster, what the fuck?" I hissed at him.
Luke only laughed.
"Hey, I'm just saying," Alabaster repeated himself. "Practicing safe-sex is always a good thing. And at least he took this so well. It could've been worse: he could've passed out."
"You two are going to need discuss some things," my mom interrupted us before the situation could get any worse. Almost definitely a wise move all around, because I felt like I was about ready to pounce on Alabaster and show him a thing or two, "which should be decided on fairly quickly. I know that Percy is planning on staying here until the babies are born." She paused, waiting for Luke to contradict her.
He didn't. "That sounds like a good idea," he agreed. "Here or camp will be the safest places for him."
"Us," I corrected him absentmindedly.
He beamed.
"Yes," my mom relented. "But there are other things to consider."
"Like names!" Silena squealed, her expression brightening. "Oh, Percy, Luke, what are you going to name them?"
Luke chuckled as he wrapped an arm around me. I relished in it. "We'll have some time to figure that out, Silena."
"Well," I said slowly. "I did get an idea of the boy's name in that dream I had about them. The girl, not so much, but him I did."
I thought about mentioning the rest of the contents of my dream besides that, i.e., the presence of Ananke.
Something held me back from doing that, though. Something that I couldn't explain, like Necessity herself was preventing me from doing it.
("This is something you will have to figure out on your own, until the time is right.")
Luke raised an eyebrow, and everyone else's reactions were similarly piqued. "Oh?" he asked.
"I think we named him after you," I revealed. "I was calling him Luke, anyways."
My boyfriend shifted uncomfortably. "I'm sure we can name him something better than that."
Alabaster cackled. "What, don't want somebody to be named after you, Luke?"
"It's not that," he protested. "It's just – " He turned his head from side to side. "Never mind."
"He doesn't want anyone to know his middle name, that's why," I teased.
He flushed. "Percy!"
Katie was interested. "Why, what's your – ?"
"That's not exactly what I was talking about," my mother hummed, interrupting her and saving Luke's ass. "Although, it is a start."
"Then what exactly did you have in mind, Mother?" I asked of her.
She didn't answer my question. Instead, she spoke, "Why don't you sit down, Percy? I don't want you feeling faint."
Over the course of the next hour and a half or so, we did start a plan for how this all was going to work. Luke understood that he was going to have to "step up to the plate" – his words, not mine – and come over as frequently as he was able to, without giving himself away or anything like that. He promised that he would work on getting most of the baby stuff, too, and whatever I needed. In turn, I reluctantly, very reluctantly, promised that I would be taking it easy this summer. No quests or something similar. Maybe even no going to camp period, unless I absolutely had to.
"It's not like Chiron's going to let you do anything, anyways," Katie reasoned. "He's going to put you on maternity leave, basically, as soon as he finds out. He's done it before."
"That's a comfort," I grumbled.
"He just wants to make sure you and the babies will be safe."
"I know, I know..."
Luke eventually saw the time, which made him grimace. "If I don't go back soon, I'm going to get in trouble," he said.
So Alabaster got himself ready to take him back. As he did, Luke crouched down in front of me again, kissing me once on the lips...and then on my still-flat stomach, through the fabric of my shirt. "I love you," he told me. "All three of you. Never forget that."
I didn't want him to go. Now more than ever, I wanted him to stay, stay, stay.
But, I knew that he couldn't.
Pushing down my selfish wants, I said back, "I love you too."
He and Alabaster vanished minutes later in a flash of that misty green light, and then Alabaster came back and did the same with Katie, except he took her back to Camp Half-Blood instead. When he came back, this time, he actually wastired, exhausted even, his eyelids drooping and everything. "Silly?" he mumbled. "Can I crash at your place?"
"Of course you can," she answered. "Dad won't mind."
Silena's dad (who still didn't know yet the truth about what was going on with me, and Silena and my mom had both agreed that it would probably be best to let him wait for another few days as we tried to get everything settled. I had a feeling that, if he had known, his decision to let Alabaster stay at his house probably would've been much different, but oh well) picked her and Alabaster up not too long after that, leaving the only people in the apartment as just me and my mom.
There was a huge grin on my face as I sat back in the armchair I'd been using, although I'd sat on the couch with Luke for the duration of our talk, all of the furniture back in its proper place. I felt like I was on Cloud Nine. Luke had accepted me. He'd accepted our babies. He was going to do everything that it took to make sure that we would all be together, when this war between our parents and Kronos was all over and done with, regardless of which side won.
Some of the other lyrics of Mamma Mia came back into my mind as I pondered all of this: "Mamma Mia, now I really know: my-my, I could never let you go..."
...Or, maybe the lyrics of Honey, Honey were more accurate, now that I got to thinking about it: "But I'm gonna stick to you, boy; you'll never get rid of me. There's no other place in this world where I rather would be..."
Really, there were a lot of ABBA songs that could probably apply to my relationship with Luke.
Yet my dwelling on my happiness wasn't long-lived, because as I unconsciously put my hand back onto my stomach, I looked over at my mom and saw that she was staring off into space, a deep frown on her face. "Mom? What's wrong?" I asked.
"What?" She blinked. Then she glanced over at me and gave me a lackluster smile. "Nothing, Percy. It's alright."
Despite what she'd said, she'd said it in that way, the way that told me that there really was something wrong. "Did you..." I hesitated, automatically making an assumption. "Did you not like Luke?"
She was standing behind the couch, which she leaned down in front of to fluff one of her pillows. That, along with her response of, "It's not that, Percy," told me everything.
Just like that, all my good feelings were gone. I felt my eyes begin to bead with water. "You didn't, did you?"
She exhaled, stopping her mission of fluffing the pillows just as soon as she'd started it. "I know that you said that he isn't a bad person, Percy, and I can agree with that...but what I can't understand is, why didn't he agree to stop fighting the gods now after you told him the news? It's the only logical way of making sure that he survives the war."
Anger rose up within me. "Things are complicated for him, Mom! It's not that simple. It wouldn't be that simple for me, either, if I was to do what you wanted him to – not that I'm going to," I added as her expression became alarmed. "I'm just saying."
"I understand that, Percy. Really, I do. But – "
She was cut off by a voice suddenly chortling. "You're starting to have another disagreement, aren't you?"
My head snapped up. Somehow, without either my mom or I noticing, a certain deity had appeared in the living room. She was dressed much of the same way as she had been the last time I had seen her, and her hands were clasped in front of her.
Relief washed over me at the sight of her. She was right about one thing: that start of a conversation with my mom had had all of the marks of another fight happening between the two of us, and I didn't want that. Now, the goddess was undoubtedly here to give me a way out of it, and I was going to take it as quickly as I could.
"Demeter," I breathed as I scrambled to my feet. "Milady."
Word Count: 3,537
Next Chapter Title: I'm Given Another Offer I Can't Refuse
