PARENTHOOD // PERCICO

chapter two - guilt.

Today Zoella hit five weeks old. She has been with us for five whole months now. That's over a month- granted he didn't realize it was over a month until literally five seconds ago when Percy said it. It's not that he didn't know five weeks = a month and one week, he just didn't think about it. All his days had been blending together recently anyway.

"I got her," Nico said, sitting next to Percy who was basically asleep on the couch, the girl in his arms.

"Hmn?" He asked, opening his eyes. "Oh," He said, looking around. He slowly sat up and carefully handed Zoella to Nico. "You sure you got it?"

"Yes, Percy," He said, slightly rolling his eyes. "I appreciate you caring, but I'm fine, truly- you on the other hand, you need sleep,"

"Rude,"

"Not like that," Nico laughed, rolling his eyes at the taller males comment. He adjusted Zoella in his arms to make her more secure.

Percy smiled, standing up. "I know." He leant down and gave Nico a peck on the lips. Which, no matter how many times he did it, Nico always got shocked, he wasn't really sure why, it was just he always got so shocked that Percy would actually want to kiss him. "You're cute," He laughed before rubbing Nico's head and then stumbling off to bed.

Nico was left in the living room with a goofy flustered smile on his face. He wasn't too sure what he did to deserve that boy, but gods, was he so fucking grateful. He smiled down at the sleeping baby in his arms. How did he get so lucky?

He sat down on the couch and turned on the TV, watching whatever he could find on a low volume. He just wanted some background noise, he wasn't too interested in what was playing. He looked down at Zoella's face and brushed some of her hair out of her face.

She was still only five weeks, but she already had some hair, dark black and little curls. She truly was the most adorable thing Nico has ever seen, even when she kept him up all night. Though, the sleeping thing had gotten easier. They found a system that worked, and even just these few weeks, Zoella got better about sleeping longer, and crying less. She still hated to be left alone, not in someone's arms, but she wasn't sleeping for thirty minutes, eating for another, crying for 15, then sleeping for maybe 20- And Nico was so happy about that.

Looking down at his sweet baby girl's face, slowly a feeling of extreme guilt washed over him. How could he have almost given up on his baby? He was going to basically kill his baby. He started thinking about how much different right now would be if Zoella wasn't here, if he signed the papers, if Annabeth hadn't saved the day the way she did.

He was going to murder his child.

He tried reasoning with himself. He tried to tell himself that she was in pain, and that god-like medicine was what had to end up saving her- but what if he signed the papers a little faster? What if they decided not to think about it as much as they did. They would have killed her. How could he have done that? How could he do that to her?

"Shit," He cursed to himself. He was emotional during his pregnancy, sure. However, it was nothing like this. Ever since he actually gave birth to Zoella, he felt so touchy to everything. He didn't want to compare it back to when he was depressed, because he knew he should be happy, but sometimes he had felt so empty... and everything was sad sometimes.

He wiped his tears away. "Why am I crying?" He asked himself, wiping his other eye with his sleeve. He now had watery vision as he gave a shaky smile to his baby. "You're so cute, pumpkin, and I'm so sorry," He said. He knew Zoella didn't understand what he was saying, considering she was asleep and a baby, so he thought maybe apologizing would maybe make him feel better.