Praetor's legacy

Chapter 3

Gwen ran over to Reyna, her purple toga flying behind her. Percy sprinted over, as well. At Gwen's request, Percy lifted Reyna bridal-style into his arms, and jogged her to the infirmary. Percy carefully laid her onto the cot, and held her hand. Reyna kept rubbing her now bulging stomach.

Now all there was left to do was to wait.

After a few hours of sitting in the infirmary and watching Reyna's stomach grow considerably larger, they hooked up the machines for the ultrasound. Gwen, who was trained as a healer, rubbed the cold substance over Reyna's stomach. Reyna winced at the temperature. Percy squeezed her hand. Gwen, in a calming voice, said, "Reyna, I think you're going to be happy. You and Percy are having a baby boy!" Reyna and Gwen started squealing like only girls can squeal, while Percy sat there, staring at the ultrasound picture showing his baby boy, with a goofy grin on his face.

For the next two hours, Percy switched his glances from Reyna, to Reyna's stomach, to the ultrasound picture. He pictured an older him playing catch with a 6 year old boy with a heart-shaped face, rosy cheeks, dark chocolate brown hair, and his eyes. He yearned for that vision to be true, or to become true one day. Reyna's cry of surprise and pain snapped him out of his vision quickly. Reyna whispered, "Gwen, I think my water broke."

Percy would like to think that he was the one that calmed Reyna during the pregnancy, didn't flinch when she screamed, or didn't look away when the baby was born, but the truth is, he was the one that Reyna needed to calm down, he flinched every single time her scream broke the silence, and he didn't even look when his baby boy was born. He, of course, looked right after he came out. And he felt like he was floating on air.

He was perfect, in Percy's eyes. He had a dark mop of brown hair on his head, thick already, with green eyes, his eyes, looking up at him when he held his baby boy. And when he smiled that toothless little smile and cooed, well you couldn't blame him for crying. He only had to wait for him for 7 and a half hours, which is usually nine months too early, but he still thought 7 hours was too long. He hugged him to his chest, and hoped that he never had to let go.

But of course he did when Reyna asked him to hand their baby boy over. The baby was theirs, not just his. Reyna asked, "Percy, what should we name him? I don't want to keep calling him baby, you know? I want him to have a name, a beautiful name that shows how special he is to us."

Percy stared at his boy and thought hard. Which name would show how amazing he is? How much they cared about him? And it came to him.

"What do you think of Aidan?" Percy asked Reyna. The look on her face said everything.

"Percy, that's beautiful! Handsome, actually. Aidan Joseph Jackson has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

Percy stuttered, "Aidan Joseph JACKSON? Are you sure Reyna? He's as much yours as he is mine! We don't have to use my last name, if you don't want to."

Reyna replied, "Percy, I want to. I really, really want to. It's a beautiful name." Percy smiled, grabbed Aidan from Reyna, and spun his baby boy around.

Gwen walked into the room with her hands full of legal documents. "Shall we start filling these out? We need two birth certificates. One for the camp and one to sneak into a hospital in San Francisco. For the one for the hospital when it asks about the father's biological father, put N/A, and for mother's biological mother, also put N/A. Everything else, answer truthfully. Well, except for the address part. We don't want to put the camp's address. Maybe we can put Percy's New York address instead. Is that alright with you Percy?" Percy nodded to show his agreement.

And so, for the better part of an hour, they filled out many legal documents, and two birth certificates for a handsome baby boy named Aidan Joseph Jackson.

And Percy couldn't have been happier.