nice

Part 1

chapter 2

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Excerpt:

“Percy, we’re still fighting for our lives. Yes, we’re not in the war anymore but we can barely make rent every month and I’m still a nobody architect in the mortal world and you hate your job in the research lab and we’re starting to get monster attacks daily again and I just…I just…”she stuttered. Tears were breaching in the front of her eyes. Her breathing was coming in short, quick pulses. The beginnings of a panic attack.  

“We saved the world twice. We went to Hell and survived. There isn’t anything we can’t get through together.” He looked at her with such earnest and conviction her heart stopped. His hands were now braced on her arms, gripping her with vigor. “I love you, okay? We can raise a child in our world, no matter how fucked up it is. If anyone can, it’s us. Plus, we’re already married—saves us from more Olympic scandal and whatnot,” he threw her a wink.

She held his gaze for a little longer and finally nodded. Maybe not because she believed him, but because she wanted to believe him. The tears finally rolled out of her eyes as she blinked, tracking down cold trails in its wake. Percy pressed his lips to her forehead, and they stood there in the kitchen entwined like that for so long the sunlight had moved out of their apartment.

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Part I

chapter 1

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Life had its trade-offs. To make it to their twenties, they had to sell their childhood for swords and quests. They sold endless summer days for blistering battles and clay beads that said you made it another year. They sold sanity for prayers falling from coarse lips fast and unbidden, holding loved ones after loved ones in battered arms. It was waking up every day from nightmares of endless darkness just to remember that they were the lucky ones to have even survived. But it’s not like they had a choice in the first place. Their lives had been trade-offs that were made for them the moment they were born.

She’d never been opposed to the idea of having children—just not anytime in the near future. Every time Sally had brought it up Annabeth would simply shrug and say “yeah sometime much, much later” and Percy, squeezing her shoulder, giving his mom his best apologetic smile, would look away to hide the longing in his eyes. They were only 25 and still recovering from the aftermaths of two wars and Tartarus, not to mention trying to financially make it as young twenty-somethings in the ever-costly New York City. There were days they still couldn’t get through without a flashback. There were years of therapy ahead of them and careers to be made. Bringing in another human life right now was simply out of the question.

But as Annabeth flushed the toilet and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand after another round of vomiting nothing, she knew. Percy rubbed her back as she sat there on the floor of their bathroom for the second morning in the row. His eyes were lined with worry and searching her face, trying to gauge where she was.

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SO