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: Hello, everyone! Sorry about the lapse between updates. Got sick with a really bad cold and then was fighting to catch up on the schoolwork I hadn't been able to do. Good thing is, I'm caught up now and it's spring break! Woohoo!

As always, I hope you enjoy. Until the next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis


~The Finding Home Saga~

~Finding Home~

~Chapter 85: A Very Special Birthday~


Over the course of the next month or so, nothing changed more than it had to.

Luke kept on coming to visit me at mine and my mom's apartment, but of course that was a given. He couldn't manage too many visits, really only short ones once or twice a week, but when he did come he came with other simple gifts – more flowers, chocolates – and he was nothing but polite and cordial with my mom. He also made sure to place his hand on my still-mostly flat stomach or talk to it before he left, the love in his eyes so infectious that sometimes I thought I was going to burst.

Although my mom didn't say anything about it, not like she had with her disapproval before, I could tell that he was slowly winning her over. She smiled when she thought that we weren't looking, and she always made sure to put the flowers that Luke got in a vase and took care of them until they were too wilted and had to be thrown out. It made me happy.

Finally, after everything that had happened since January, there had come to be some peace in my life.

It wasn't perfect. My mom and Silena had decided to tell Jean that I was pregnant, without me there. His reaction, or so I'm told, had been rather...explosive.

"Lots of cursing in French," Silena had told me, the grin on her face and her tone being the only things that had informed me this wasn't inherently bad. "I've never heard him curse that much before in my entire life, Percy!"

Jean had had a lot of questions, many of which I'd later had to answer. About how it was possible, who the other father was (he was told it was Luke, as none of us had felt like we'd had another choice, which had led to even more cursing in French), what my plans were for the future (I didn't really know, but I knew a high school diploma at the very least was important, as was college, and I was going to be doing my damnedest at my homeschooling for "mono," as was the excuse given to Goode High School, to ensure the possibility of that path), and etcetera.

In the end, after a few days to cool down and what I'm assuming was much deliberation, Jean sat all of us down at his house: my mom, Silena, and me.

It was our first family meeting.

"I'd like for you two to come live with me and Silena," he'd said, his hands clasped together on the tabletop.

My mom had frowned. "Jean, that's sweet of you, but – "

"It makes the most sense," he'd interrupted her. "Your apartment has only two bedrooms, Sally. What will you do as the children get older? What happens when Percy goes off to college and needs childcare during the day? What will happen when you need more money for the expenses besides those – diapers, formula, clothes?"

This had been my turn to protest. "Luke will help us," I'd said.

Jean had looked at me, his dark green eyes murky. "I know that is what you think," he'd replied. Before I could open my mouth: "I am not saying that to imply that he won't, Percy. I am saying it because I would rather all of you have an extra safety net than none at all. And it's not like we don't have the space."

Silena had nodded exuberantly in agreement.

It had taken my mom and I more than a week to do the same. After all, it hadn't been so long ago that we'd had to deal with Gabe. Jean didn't seem to be like anything less than a nice guy, but –

What happened if he was? What happened if we would have to move, get another apartment? It was hard to give up the freedom we'd had the past couple of years, just on principle alone.

"I could get a job," I'd suggested hesitantly.

My mom had smiled sadly at me. She'd reached out to cup my cheek with her right hand. "You know you're not going to be able to do that until the twins are born, Percy. Probably not even for a while after then," she'd said. "And what matters to me is your three's safety, more than anything else. It is paramount." She'd shuddered in a breath. Her eyes had darted away before coming back to mine. "Just...promise me one thing?"

"Anything," I'd sworn.

"If anything happens, if for any reason you feel unsafe, you will tell me," she'd answered.

If I hadn't known better, if I hadn't seen with my own eyes the lack of knowing behind hers, I would've been afraid that she did know. Probably, it would have even made me come apart at the seams.

But she didn't, and it was with a heart heavy like lead and a mouth that tasted like ash that I'd said, "Yeah, Mom. I promise."

We hadn't moved in yet with the Beauregards by March 21st. The plan was for us to by the end of May. My mom still had to get her affairs in order, and we both still had to wrap our heads around that we were actually doing it.

And March 21st was a very important date, you see. It wasn't simply yet another day.

It was Luke's birthday, to be precise. His nineteenth birthday.

Now that the truth was out about us with my mom, I wanted to make sure that this was a birthday that would be special to him. He'd never really had a good birthday before, not in his entire life. Since I wasn't attending school anymore, either, this gave me a lot of time on my hands.

That morning, I spent my time doing two things. The first was decorating the apartment: blowing up balloons, making a HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LUKE! banner to hang up on the wall along with those balloons, and setting out the miscellaneous decor I'd gotten.

As for the second thing, it was baking a cake.

What else did you think it would be?

My mom came home around three and caught me in the middle of icing the cake. "Oh, that looks nice," she commented as she walked into the kitchen.

I wasn't as optimistic, as I said with a grumble, "It looks like shit."

"Percy, no." She was trying to hide her laugh, which she wasn't being very successful yet. Hence the usage of the word "trying." "It looks lovely. You put the time and care into making it, that's what matters."

Chewing my lip thoughtfully as I stepped away from the cake, thinking about what she had just said as well as surveying my work, I supposed that she had a point. It was a simple cake: a vanilla cake made from a boxed cake mix that my mom had told me how to spruce up to make it better, and a couple tins of cream cheese frosting that I'd used food coloring to dye blue. After the two cake pans had finished cooling, I'd put them in the freezer like my mom had said to make them easier to ice. That had certainly made it easier, although I'd had a fuck-up one side, and had had to glue a patch of cake back on with even more icing.

But Luke wouldn't care about how simple or Frankenstein-looking it was. All he would care about was that I made it.

"Why don't you go take a quick nap?" my mom suggested. "Let me finish it up. I promise I won't change too much."

"...Yeah, okay," I decided. My eyes were drooping; who knew that pregnancy could take so much out of you despite you not really doing anything? Who knew how much worse it was going to get down the line? "Are we still okay for ordering a pizza?"

"I've got that covered," my mom promised me. "Is it still just the three of us tonight?"

"If Luke doesn't bring his sister, yeah." I loved our friends, but I knew that Luke wasn't exactly an extrovert. Sometimes the most special birthdays were the ones that you spent with only the closest person in your life – and his mom.

Well, it's not like I could do anything about that last part. I couldn't bully my mom out of the house. And while the damage of us being alone had already been done in me getting pregnant, I knew that meant little to her.

Yawning, I said, "Alright, Mom. I'll take a nap for like an hour or so. Wake me up if I'm not up by four-thirty."

My mom chuckled. "I will."


I woke up at four, so my mom didn't have to wake me up. Feeling more refreshed and less like the world was going to end because of a single cake, I took a quick shower to feel even better. Then I rummaged through my closet and dresser to find something suitable to wear, settling on a blue sweater (it was cold in the apartment, okay) that covered the small pouch that my stomach was forming and a pair of khaki pants (which Silena didn't know I had, and a good thing that she didn't, because otherwise she would flay me alive).

The cake looked better when I came out of my room, though it was clear that my mom had stuck to her word and hadn't done much. I thanked her anyways.

At five o'clock exactly, the doorbell rang. As like before, I was the one to go and answer it. Also like before, it was only Luke on the other side. He or Mia must've decided that she wasn't going to come after all; I wondered if that was for the sole reason that they didn't want to give my mother a heart attack from having to deal with two children of Hermes at once.

I resolved to ask him about it later.

"Happy birthday," I singsonged before pulling him into a kiss.

A muffled noise escaped from his throat. I felt his arms briefly encircle my waist, before he brought them away. "Thank you," he said afterwards. "'Sorry I didn't bring anything this time." He sounded utterly chagrined.

Rolling my eyes, I flicked him on the nose. "It's your birthday. What kind of person brings something to their own birthday dinner?"

"A polite one."

"Shut up." I pulled him into the apartment. "The pizza isn't here yet, but, um...I hope you like everything else."

Luke's eyes grew in size as he took in the decorations of the apartment. "Percy," he breathed. "You did all this?"

"Well, my mom helped."

"I did nothing of the sort," my mom said. "I only helped a little bit with the cake."

I stuck my tongue out at her. "You paid for everything."

"But you did everything else."

"Okay," Luke interrupted us, laughing. He smacked a kiss to my cheek. "Thank you, Percy. And thank you, Sally."

My mom smiled, her eyes crinkling at the edges. "You're welcome, Luke."

The pizza came about five minutes later. Once again, my mom had gotten some wings and cheesy bread on the side. And once again, I worried that it wouldn't be enough, which made me wring my hands nervously underneath the table.

Luke had taken me out on all of these wonderful dates ever since we'd gotten back together. He'd gotten me all these wonderful gifts. Sure, we were both acutely aware of the monetary dynamic between us, that he would always be able to afford more because of the money he was able to have access to through the Titans, but what if this was too...lame, even for that?

...Maybe this all was from the pregnancy hormones talking.

Probably, it was from them.

Because Luke had a fun time, he never acted like he didn't. He smiled and laughed at the stories my mom had to tell between her job and college night classes. He complimented the place where we'd gotten the pizza from, saying he'd never been there but the food was really good (no disagreement there). There was no discussion of the gods or anything else like that.

It was just a simple birthday dinner all around.

When the time came for the cake, I uncovered and picked it up from where it was on the kitchen counter and brought it over to the table – not a long walk by any means. Luke's entire expression softened as soon as he saw it.

My mom got out the candles we'd bought from one of the cabinets. I was the one to stick them in the cake, making a solid ring first and then putting the rest in the middle.

"Are you sure nineteen candles is really a good idea? Doesn't this go against fire code?" Luke asked incredulously.

"Probably," I said with a grin. "I don't care. It's not like I don't have the ability to stop a fire as soon as it starts."

Luke sighed. "Percy."

"Don't give me that. We're doing this whether you like it or not."

My mom got out the lighter as well, one of those with the nozzle at the end. Somehow, I still managed to burn myself once or twice anyways. This was quickly remedied by running my hand underneath the kitchen sink faucet later, thanks to my powers.

But first:

"Happy birthday, to you," my mom and I sang. "Happy birthday, to you. Happy birthday, dear Luke. Happy birthday, to you.

"And many more," I finished off by myself.

Luke blew out his candles. It was no surprise that he was able to blow them all out in one go. My mom cut the cake and served it out.

"This is really good, Percy," Luke told me. "You did amazing."

My cheeks flushed red. "Thanks."

After we finished eating the cake, my mom shooed me and Luke off to my room so that she could clean up. "Make sure you leave your door open," she warned me. Loudly.

"Yeah, Mom." I felt like I was going to die.

In my bedroom, the two gifts that I'd gotten Luke were sitting on my nightstand, already wrapped. He glanced at them when we walked in, but I quickly led his attention elsewhere. "First gift's first," I said. "Nineteen kisses for the guy who's turning nineteen."

Luke scoffed. "Is that a thing?"

"It is now," I answered, smirking. I pecked him first on the lips, then peppered the ones between that and the nineteenth all over his face. He was laughing by the time that I came back to his lips, unable to stop himself.

"You're really something else, you know that?"

"So I've been told before."

We sat down on my bed. I grabbed one of the gifts off of the nightstand and handed it to him, very careful about making sure which one went first.

He took the time to open it, undoing the wrapping by lifting the tape rather than tearing into it. When he opened the small box that the gift was in, a smile spread across his face as he took it out. "A pocket knife?"

It was a mortal pocket knife, just to be clear. A carbon steel blade instead of celestial bronze or one of the other sacred metals. Its handle was polished wood.

"Yeah," I said. I sniffed. "I heard it's something that every guy should get for his birthday at least once."

I didn't speak about the reason why I'd gotten him the knife: to show that I trusted him, wholeheartedly and unequivocally. He didn't speak about it, either, but I knew that he knew why I had gotten him it. He put the knife back in its case, snapping it shut. His eyes didn't look at me as he spoke quietly, "Thank you, Percy."

"Mmhmm," I hummed. Then I cleared my throat, reaching back over to my nightstand. "Alright, time for your last gift."

This one, he took a similar amount of time to open. It was smaller than the other one, but in a lot of ways more important. As he took it out of its box, his eyebrows furrowed. "What – ?" he murmured.

"Open it," I encouraged.

His fingers fumbled with the clasp, but he did. Once he finally saw what it was, he looked up at me, his eyes filling with tears. "Percy," he whispered again.

It was a locket, made of celestial bronze – I'd pulled a favor and asked Beckendorf to make it for me, though I hadn't told him who it was for and he'd known better than to ask. It looked like a compass from the outside, so I was hopeful that nobody would think too much of it.

Because inside, inside were three pictures in the carefully-crafted leaves: one of me, and one each of our babies from the latest ultrasound. Alabaster had shrunk them down for me, rather than me or one of our other friends shrinking down the picture in Microsoft Paint or something like that.

My vision blurred; I wasn't much better off than him in that regard. Damned hormones. "I wanted you to have something of us, a reminder of what we're fighting for," I told him. Sure, the other ultrasound pictures he'd gotten could do a similar thing, but it wasn't the same. It just wasn't. "You can hang it from your camp necklace." He was still wearing it, even after all this time, proving it was the gods who he had beef with, not Chiron (exactly) or our fellow demigods. "I doubt anybody will think much of it if you do."

He chuckled wetly. "Like I need a reminder."

Luke pulled me into a hug, and it and the kiss that followed it were magnificent and grand. Afterwards, my back was hurting from sitting without something supporting it (the woes of pregnancy), so me and Luke shifted so that we were laying on my bed as best as we could manage. Not exactly easy, but somehow we made it work. His hand was splayed out against my stomach. In the background, from the main area of the apartment, we could hear my mom still doing the dishes.

"We still need to decide on baby names," I murmured to him.

I felt Luke grimace into my hair. "We're not naming the boy after me."

"Oh, come on," I protested lightly. "Your middle name is not that bad. It's not as bad as mine."

"That's not a very high bar you're setting."

I turned my head to blow a puff of air into his face. "Jerk." He laughed. "But seriously, Germanus is not that bad. It means 'brother' in Latin."

"But we're not Roman demigods. We're Greek."

"Still..."

He groaned. "You're not going to give up on this, are you?"

I raised an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

"Fine, then." He moved his hand away from my stomach to hold my hand. "I'll give you a deal: we can name the boy Lucas, and we can call him Luke for short. That way, he'll have another name to fall back on if he winds up hating the shortened version of his name because of me."

"He's not going to hate you, Luke," I said with a scowl. He stared back at me. "But, fine. I'm fine with naming him Lucas."

"If," he continued then.

I socked him in the arm. "You didn't tell me there was going to be an 'if!'"

"You didn't let me finish," he returned smugly.

He had a point with that. It was my turn to make a face. "Alright. What's your protasis?"

(Don't think I'm too smart in using that fancy word. The only reason why I knew it was because of ancient Greek lessons with Annabeth.)

Luke nipped at the shell of my ear. It made me shiver. "We can name the boy Lucas, if we give him the middle name Perseus," he said lowly.

It took a second for his words to register in my brain.

Once they did –

"Come on, no," I replied.

He cocked his head. "Why not? If we're going to name him after me, why shouldn't we name him after you, too?"

"Because – " I flailed for a reason. Surely, there had to be some reason that I could say for why we shouldn't name our kid Lucas Perseus Castellan? Maybe that it was too many "s" sounds? The "as" and the "eus" in the first and middle names sounded too much alike?

Unfortunately, I didn't think I would win those arguments if I tried to make them.

And I knew that our son's name was going to be Luke, or at least that he was going to be called that. I knew it in my heart of hearts. I knew it because of my dream where I had seen our children.

"Alright," I relented. My eyes slipped shut, though I wasn't thinking of sleep yet and I'd literally had a nap earlier. "We'll name him Lucas Perseus. You win."

"I knew I would."

"But we still need to talk about the girl's name..."

"Well, I do have a few ideas about that..."


Word Count: 3,552

Next Chapter Title: I Get Some Shiny New Bracelets