Life Changes, A Percabeth Future Story

Chapter 18: Welcome to the World

Annabeth's POV:

"Hello, little one," I whisper to the tiny baby in my arms.

Percy comes to sit beside me, a grin on his face. "He looks just like you, wise girl," he mumbles as I gently pass the baby over to him.

I laugh. "But he drools in his sleep like you, seaweed brain."

Percy rolls his eyes, but doesn't argue. Instead he says "my mom will be here soon with the girls."

"Good." I whisper.

Soon enough, there's a knock at the door. Sally comes in, two excited toddlers in tow.

"You ready to meet your new baby brother?" Percy asks the girls, passing the baby back to me and standing up to take Callie and Cleo's hands.

"Yeah!" Callie yells, and Cleo repeats it a second later.

All of us adults gently shush them as the baby squirms and opens his eyes. He doesn't cry, though, just coos and looks around.

"His name is Loukas," I whisper when Percy places both of our daughters on the hospital bed so they can get a closer look at their brother.

"Loukas?" Callie attempts.

Cleo mumbles "You-kas" a moment later, then repeats it again, frowning, like she knows she isn't saying it right, but can't figure out how to fix it.

"He's so little," Callie whispers, voice full of awe. She reaches out and gingerly pats the baby's stomach.

"He yittle," Cleo repeats solemnly.

I nod. "He's pretty small now, but he'll grow up quickly and in a couple years he'll be a big kid like you both are."

This makes both girls giggle.

******

A few days later, once we have brought Loukas home from the hospital, Cleo comes up to me. "Mama, when you gonna take Loukas back to the hospital?"

"What do you mean, baby?" I ask.

"When he gonna go way?" she pouts.

I put the baby into his bouncy seat and sit on the couch, pulling Cleo into my lap. "He lives with us now, sweetie, we're not sending him away."

"But he loud, and he stinks, and he boring."

I can't help but laugh at that, earning myself a fierce glare. "That's how babies are. You were pretty much the same when you were a baby."

"Nuh-uh, I a big kid!" She yells, causing Loukas to startle awake with a yell of his own.

I swiftly put a pacifier into his mouth and bounce him for a moment to calm him down as I say "You are a big kid now, but you were a baby once, too."

She looks dubious, so I go grab a photo album and come back flipping it open. I show it to Cleo and point to a picture. "Do you know who's in this picture?"

"Daddy... and Mommy... and a baby... and another baby," Cleo mumbles slowly, questioningly.

"You're right!" I grin at her. "That one is Callie," I say, pointing to her in the picture, "and this one is you, when you were a brand new baby, like Loukas is now."

We flip through the album for a while longer, and Callie joins us to look at it too after a bit.

Eventually, Loukas is fussing, so I tell the girls "You can keep looking at the pictures, but I have to feed your brother now."

They keep flipping through the album at random, chattering about the pictures. At one point, though, they stop. They show me one of the pictures, and Cleo asks "What baby is this?"

At the same time, Callie asks "Why do you and Daddy look sad?"

I look at the picture and my breath catches when I see the baby in the arms of my past self, even smaller than the baby now in my arms, but otherwise nearly identical.

I force a smile and say "That baby's name was Penelope. She was your big sister..." I trail off, trying to decide how best to explain to the girls what happened to Penelope.

Then, Callie asks again "Why are you sad, though?"

"She had to go away," I finally say. "And Daddy and I were sad that we had to say goodbye to her."

"Where she go?" Cleo whispers, eyes wide.

"She went to Elysium, sweetie." (I'm not actually sure what part of the Underworld a stillborn's soul would go to, and actually since she would never have had a chance to do anything good or bad, some part of me actually thinks she would have gone to the fields of Asphodel, but I also kinda don't like that, because it makes me sad, so we're going with this for now. I may change my mind eventually. We'll see. But I am saying right now that if there's ever a contradiction to this in the future of the story, y'all are not allowed to call me out on it, okay? Okay.)

"Like Uncle Jason?" Callie asks.

I nod. "Like Uncle Jason.

The girls consider this for a minute, before Callie says "Can we go visit them?"

I shake my head. "Not for a long, long time."

By this time, Loukas has long since finished eating, and fallen fast asleep.

Percy arrives home from work soon after. "How are my favorite girls?" He starts to ask, but stops, face falling flat, when he sees our somber faces.

"The girls found out about Penelope," I explain.

Percy frowns but nods. "And what about this little man?" He asks, taking the baby from my arms.

"Asleep," I reply with a pointed look that says so don't wake him up.

Hey guys! I have finals literally next week, but instead of studying or working on my projects, I wrote this... so just know that y'all are that special... or that I was procrastinating... one or the other.

Anyway, I had another little chunk that I was going to add on that would mention Loukas' middle name, and address the whole Loukas->Louk->Luke thing (the real world explanation for that is that I found the name Loukas, fell in love with it, and had already attached the name to the look and personality and such of this child before I finally made the connection, and couldn't find another name that felt right after that. I did not intentionally name Percabeth's child after Luke, and would not, for several reasons), but I didn't like the way it flowed with this, and it isn't anywhere near long enough to be a chapter of its own, so I probably won't end up including it, so... yeah.

Also, I know this is kinda an abrupt jump from the last chapter, but I don't care. That story line will be woven in throughout, but I honestly wanted this chapter to just be cute and fluffy, okay?

So... yeah, meet Loukas Alexander Jackson. Hope y'all enjoyed!

💖💖💖💖Cam