Breath Of The Wilderness

Chapter 18: Pieces Falling Into Place

okay, so turns out i can't update twice a week... but i'm back! 

i guess my update schedule would now be once a week, and any extra chapters would be published in between

sorry for the long wait, i hope you like this chapter, shit is about to get real ;)

(also the long awaited pertemis confession hehe)

enjoy! 

~ kathy

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The days after Estelle's birth went by in a blur. Percy had never seen his mom this stress out since... forever really. It was like the addition of a baby suddenly added more chaos to the family, in the best way possible.

Percy had promised to stay for the first week with his mom, and Thalia joined him. Percy wished he could have captured the look on Thalia's face when Sally asked if she wanted to hold Estelle. The pure horror was definitely something he had never witnessed on the face of Thalia.

By the fourth day when Sally had more dark circles under her eyes than percy had ever seen her, he pushed her out of the house with Estelle resting on Artemis' arms, promising that she would be well taken care of. To be honest, Percy was sure his mom only agreed because Artemis was there. Which was a little bit offending, but Paul is taking Sally somewhere relaxing for the day, so at least she would get a day of rest.

Artemis laughed when Percy let out a huge sigh and leaned his back against the door the second his mom and Paul were out. Percy rolled his eyes, but pushed himself off of the door and took a seat on the couch instead. "I don't think I've ever seen my mom more overprotective or stressed out. Should I be jealous?"

"Maybe just a little bit," Artemis chuckled. Percy couldn't help but notice how Artemis seemed to glow as she held Estelle, like she was in her own domain. They still hadn't really talked about the elephant in the room, but he could tell it was weighing down on them with the way Artemis still seems to dance around him. Artemis glanced down at the child in her arms, who was thankfully still asleep. "But I wouldn't blame her, Estelle was born a little too early, so I know where the concern was coming from."

"I think today will do her some good. She needs to take a day to herself to just relax," Percy leaned back against the couch casually, watching as Artemis made her way across the room to take a seat on the other end of the couch. Percy sighed internally, so the distance between them was still there. "Are we going to talk about it?"

Artemis blinked, glancing up from Estelle to Percy, before glancing down at the baby again. "Talk about what?"

"The elephant in the room."

"What elephant?" Artemis glanced up again, her face freed of any emotions. Percy tried to maintain eye contact before he looked away again.

"The fact that you still hate me and we almost kissed but we're pretending we're fine because there's now a baby in our life. But the baby in our life postponed the talk we were going to have and now we're back to square one when we pretend everything is fine when in reality it is not," the words came out of Percy before he could stop them, and really, he was expecting it.

He had held it back long enough, it wasn't his fault if Artemis suddenly hated him for unknown reasons she won't talk about. If she wants to pretend everything is fine, then fine. But he couldn't stand the silence anymore. The silence was the loudest thing he had ever heard in his life.

"Can we not talk about it now?" Artemis looked away, absentmindedly stroking Estelle's short dark hair. Estelle made a noise of contentment before snuggling closer to Artemis and falling asleep once again. "I can't do this right now, Percy. We're currently watching this day's old child and I would prefer it if we focus our attention on her instead. We already pretended for so long, why not a few more hours?"