**Well guys. I've been working hard. Here's another chapter already :) It should be  a fairly long one. I apologize if this chapter is kind of corny, but... enjoy! Also, the spacing has been kind of weird when I upload this to Wattpad, so sorry if that is messed up but I don't know what it's doing. Anyways. The story."

Chapter Four : I Kill Some Flowers

ANNABETH

Annabeth had been all prepared for a screaming, crying, kicking, biting baby girl what with all of the parenting books she’d read before hand, but what the books hadn’t accounted for giving birth to the Goddess of Peace. To Annabeth’s and Percy’s amazement, they were both able to continue getting a full night’s sleep. Little Serenity was living up to her name.

Sure, she needed to be cared for. But she ate when she was fed without protest and sat still as they changed her diaper (although, Percy still wasn’t thrilled with that task; after he heard that Calypso had removed that particular function from Caleo’s crib, Annabeth had overheard Percy asking to borrow it from Leo. She didn’t let him). When she did need something, she’d make the cutest little baby sound that melted Annabeth’s heart every time.

Maybe Annabeth was just imagining it, maybe it was just because they were all gods now and had little to worry about, but she felt almost as if Serenity’s birth had indeed brought peace. Not that all of the monsters were gone, or that wars abroad had stopped being fought, but there seemed to be less bickering in their house when Serenity was around. She had even given Piper the child to hold when she was feeling crabby, and quickly her agitated mood had been replaced with content.

Of course, that could also be attributed to the frequent mood swings Piper had gained with her pregnancy. When Piper had first found out that she was having triplets, she had come bursting through the door with  joy, exclaiming to all of them that she was going to be having three babies, not one. Only about a half an hour later had Annabeth found in her room, crying, wondering how she was going to deal with three babies.

Once, as a sort of experiment, Annabeth had put her baby in a little stroller and walked past the sword-fighting arena of the camp. Two kids were arguing about whether or not the shot one had taken was fair, and it was beginning to look serious; they were each still holding their weapons, looking menacing. Annabeth could only imagine what she looked like to them as she pushed a baby along in a little white stroller past the fighting arena, but despite their strange looks, they seemed to soften and quickly resolve the argument. Similar things happened multiple times.

While Annabeth knew that one goddess alone couldn’t achieve world peace, couldn’t stop all of the wars and the political fights and the bullying that went on, there was no doubt that she had an impact on those near her. There was no doubt that Annabeth was raising a true goddess of peace.

She noticed things about herself, too, now that she was a goddess. For one thing, to her amazement, she hadn’t even needed to try to get her pre-pregnancy body back. It seemed no matter what she did, her body would always stay in it’s prime. That was something she could get used to; while she ready to settle down and live a fairly peaceful life, she was glad that she didn’t have to completely give up her strength and fight.

Being a daughter of Athena, Annabeth had always been more tuned in to the architecture of things than the average person would be, but being the Goddess of Architecture took it to a whole new level. She’d find herself wincing unconsciously every time she stepped into a building with unsteady foundations or incorrect measurements. And then there was her hubris again, taking over in any building that was not designed perfectly as she mentally cursed the architects and corrected the mistakes in her mind. She was even amazed at her own errors when she had returned to her project of redesigning Olympus; in fact, she deleted everything she had done so far and started over from scratch.

The most evident side effect of being named the Goddess of Strategy was that Percy had refused to play board games and card games and even video games with her ever again. Everyone else quickly followed his lead.

That night, however, Percy surprised her. When she returned home from her walk and a quick stop at the “Children of Demigods” store, she came in to find the house surprisingly quiet. The lights in the hallway were dimly lit, and the kitchen was dark as well. She saw a candle flickering on the table, and she almost jumped out of her skin when Percy stepped forward out of the darkness. He was blending in so well, he could’ve been the God of Shadows rather than Nico.

She was almost as equally frightened when she saw that he, Perseus Jackson, was standing there in a full, black and white suit.

“Hello, dear Annabeth,” Percy said mysteriously.

“Did someone die?” Annabeth replied.

Percy chuckled. “Wait to ruin the moment, Wise Girl.”

“You’re in a suit, Seaweed Brain. I think I have the right to be frightened.”

“Oh, shut up. This was supposed to be romantic.”

“How could it be romantic without your stupidity?”

“And your wise-girlness?”

“Something like that.”

“Hey, lovebirds,” a voice came floating out of the other side of the kitchen. Annabeth made out the form to be Piper.

Annabeth raised her eyebrows questioningly at Percy. He’d planned a romantic evening with Piper included? He hoped she hadn’t planned some kind of cheesy-Goddess-of-Love’s-daughter thing. But then again, Piper wasn’t your average cheesy-Goddess-of-Love’s-daughter. Really, it was Percy who was the cheesy one. Hopefully he hadn’t put her up to anything. The best times between her and Percy were just that: between her and Percy. Of course, now she had a baby to care for. As amazing as her little child was, as well as she accepted the nectar or ambrosia she was being fed, it would still be difficult to have a calm, romantic night with a baby that needed to be fed and cleaned. And…

Annabeth really needed to stop thinking. The baby would be a small distraction from their romantic nights in comparison with her overactive thoughts.

But still, the baby…

“Can I take your little one for you?” Piper asked, as if reading her mind. Although, she knew she hadn’t been reading her mind; she was positive that Percy had put her up to this. “I can babysit, just for the night, and you guys can enjoy yourselves. Plus, it can’t hurt to get a little experience, right?” Piper looked down at her own stomach. She was still only a week or so pregnant. Even if she was having triplets, she wasn’t showing yet.

“Oh,” Annabeth said. “That’d be great. Just keep her safe.”

“She is a goddess…” Percy pointed out.

“Still,” Annabeth said firmly.

“Of course,” Piper said. “You really don’t have to worry about anything. I’ll treat her like my own.”

“I know,” Annabeth said softly. She knew she was sometimes a little hard on Piper, what with the charmspeak and her mother and everything. But when it came down to it, she knew Piper would never do anything to hurt her. She’d trust her with her life, and more importantly, her daughter’s life.

As Piper walked away with her little bundle of joy and Percy, clad in his suit (which Annabeth know realized was actually a deep shade of blue) pulled out a chair for her at their candlelit table, Annabeth actually sighed in contentment. She’d resented the rigors of life as a demigod many times over, wishing she could just be a normal girl with a normal husband (still like Percy, of course) and a normal job and normal friends and heck, a normal life. But there were times like this, when her husband prepared a whole romantic dinner for her just because life had been busy for a while (and then made her light the candle when it went out because his hands kept spewing water) that she realized she wouldn’t have had it any other way. Sure, they’d gone through hardships, but in a way, that had brought them all closer.

There had been bad times, but it just made the good times that much better.

* *

NICO

Nico tried to bring flowers for Rachel. He brought a dozen dark red roses, full and in blossom when he left the store, but his agitated mood and new godly powers had wilted them all by the time he made it to the Big House where Rachel resided as the Oracle. It was supposed to be one last romantic gesture to her, because none of this was her fault. But even his lame attempt at reconciling what he was about to do had shriveled up and died like everything else in life. He cursed as he tossed the flowers aside.

Rachel was waiting for him, perched on the edge of her bed when he arrived.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he replied, avoiding her eyes.

“I think we need to talk.”

He looked up, surprised. She had stolen the words right out of his mouth.

“I think we do.”

“Sit down,” she offered, waving him over to the spot on the bed next to him. She smiled at him sadly. “I can’t let you do this anymore.”

“What?” Nico was shocked. Did she know, somehow? Know that he hadn’t been completely truthful, that his eyes had wandered their entire relationship? Was that another part of being the Oracle. “How did you know?” he asked.

“How did I know?” she seemed confused by the question. “Well, I have the prophecy.”

“The prophecy. Of course. The prophecy.” How could he have possibly forgotten about the prophecy? Here he was planning on ending their relationship because he had feelings for someone else, and Rachel was ending their relationship because she didn’t want to endanger him.

This was not helping his conscience in any way.

Rachel looked at him strangely, as if she could tell he was keeping something from her. Oracle or not, Nico knew his little mess up there had been pretty obvious.

“Anyways,” she continued. “I am breaking the rules. I never should’ve done any of this in the first place. I knew something would happen… and I was stupid to think that it would only target me.”

“You would target yourself to be with me?”

Rachel didn’t answer. He took that as a yes.

He was really starting to feel like a horrible person.

“I have a feeling we’ll still need to whatever quest they have planned for us,” Rachel said, “but I don’t want to risk anything more. I knew what I was getting into when I took on this job and…” Rachel stopped. He thought he heard a little cry in her voice. He wanted to comfort her, but he was always so awkward. And while he definitely didn’t like seeing Rachel like this, he didn’t want to tell her that they could keep going on with their relationship or something. That wouldn’t work, for multiple reasons.

He wished he wasn’t so selfish. He could see why Will had shut him out the first time around. And still, all these years later, something had made Will come back around…

“I’m so sorry, Rachel,” Nico couldn’t stand watching her cry, couldn’t stand sitting here awkwardly with someone else on his mind while she was upset that she had to let him go for his own sake.

“It’s not…. you’re fault,” she sobbed. “Ugh, I hate having you see me this way. I just… didn’t realize what I was signing up for with this Oracle thing.”

“I need to tell you something,” Nico muttered.

“Go ahead.”

“I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

She looked up at him, questions in her eyes.

“I haven’t… been completely honest with you.”

She just watched him.

“There’s… someone else that… I never really got over.” He avoided her eyes.

“Not… Percy still?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Nico snapped. He regretted his tone immediately, but he wanted no lingering doubts in anyone’s mind on whether or not he still liked Percy.  “Someone else.”

“Do I get to know the lucky girl or-” she stopped herself. “-lucky boy that gets my boyfriend?”

He still refused to look at her. “It’s Will Solace. It seemed like something might have been happening, you know, right after the war, and it sort of did, but then he just… shut me out. I guess you could say I got over it, it’s not like I was just using you or something… but he’s started talking to me again and I just… I hate to do this to you but… it’s better than the alternative, isn’t it? Living on a lie?”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned being an Oracle, it’s that everyone needs to know the truth, n matter how harsh.”

“That’s deep,” Nico smiled sadly. He was glad she was taking this well.

He wouldn’t have.

“Yeah,” Rachel returned his melancholy grin.

Slowly, softly, she reached up and kissed him. It was gentle and melancholy, different from other kisses.

Nico knew that it wasn’t a holding-on kiss, or an I-love-you kiss.

It was a goodbye kiss.

***Hope you guys liked it! Please tell me what you think and if you have any suggestions :) I might not respond to all of you personally but I do read each and every comment, and they've helped me improve the story and it's literally my main motivation to continue writing. 

QOTD: If you could be the god/goddess of any one thing (taken or not), what would you choose?***