****I am back!! SOO sorry for the wait, I know it's not the first time. You should probably kill me right now. Although, that would mean that I could never update again...

This chapter's probably gonna be kinda corny, it's mostly fluff and stuff, but I really don't have any other ideas so... I hope that's okay! And it should be kind of funny. I hope.***

Chapter 18: I Get A Surprise

CALYPSO'S POV

When Calypso woke up in the morning, she was greeted by a tremendously sore body. Everything soon came back to her.

She had given birth to her baby boy, Caleo Aidan Valdez. Leo, now her fiancé, was on the chair next to her hospital bed, eyes skimming a magazine for mechanics.

"Morning," she said softly and Leo put down his magazine instantly and rushed to her side.

"How do you feel? Are you okay?" Although she knew she shouldn't, she laughed at Leo's overly concerned face.

"I'm fine," she smiled. "Do you think you could get a nurse, though?"

"No problem," he replied and hurried out of the room.

Calypso placed her hands across her now flat stomach. It was weird feeling her body without the bump that she had carried for nearly nine months. As a goddess of sorts, her body had already returned to its normal state. She preferred the baby to the bump, though.

A nurse came in and asked Calypso how she was feeling. The nurse handed her a glass of nectar, which she was thankful for. The drink flowed through her veins and strengthened her, numbing the pain as she sipped.

"Could I see my baby?" she requested to the nurse, and she nodded and left the room.

She came back two minutes later pushing a metal cart sort of thing with her baby Caleo nestled inside. The nurse picked up the baby and gently handed him to Calypso.

"Thanks," she smiled as the nurse left the room.

Last night, she had been so tired that she hadn't looked over her baby very closely. But today she noticed something odd.

"He has my hair, but... brown eyes. Aaron had green, and I have blue. They... they look like yours, Leo," she looked up at him strangely.

"Remember yesterday, when I had to go talk to Aphrodite?"

"Of course," she replied.

"Well, because we had a "good story" or something, she granted your wish."

"My wish?" she knit her eyebrows together, confused.

"The wish that you would have my baby instead of Aaron's."

Calypso's eyes widened and a smile spread across her face.

"Oh, Leo... that's amazing!" she exclaimed.

"I know," he said in mock arrogance. "You were just dying for the baby to have my smashing good looks."

"Yeah, that's it," Calypso rolled her eyes.

***

The doctors released Calypso later that day, and she followed Leo home with the baby in her arms.

"Calypso!" Piper greeted her as she walked in. "Oh my God! He's so cute! What's his name?"

"Woah!" Leo yelled as everyone began to surround them, cooing at the baby. "Give the girl some space."

They all piled into the living room and Piper looked expectantly at Calypso, awaiting her story.

"Well," Calypso began. "This is baby Caleo. As in, the couple name for Calypso and Leo."

"Oh!" Piper blurted out. Calypso raised her eyebrows. "Sorry. It's just... that's so sweet!"

Calypso nodded and continued on with her story. "I got pregnant with a guy named Aaron. He was a son of Oizys, minor goddess of misery. He was horrible. He... he made this wave of misery take over me whenever I wouldn't do what I want. So, he'd do that constantly to me until... I agreed to sleep with him," she shuddered at the memory. She brightened up as she said the next words,"But then Leo arrived with his dragon, and he helped me escape. And he proposed to me. And then I had to Caleo," she gazed lovingly down at her newborn son.

"Maybe... Leo should show you around the city a bit," Hazel suggested and Leo looked at her quizzically.

"I'm kind of tired," Calypso admitted, but when she made to get up and go upstairs to Leo's room (which they would now share), Piper tried to stop her.

"Could I hold him?" she asked.

"Um... okay," she was hesitant to let anyone else hold her little treasure, but she knew that Leo's friends would never hurt him.

Piper took the baby in her arms gently and rocked him back and force, sweetly singing a little lullaby about a baby falling from a treetop or something. Calypso wondered why anyone would write a lullaby about something like that; it wasn't exactly what she'd want to hear right before she went to bed.

Still, it's not like baby Caleo could understand the strange words Piper was singing. He fell asleep quickly, softly in her arms. Calypso still wanted to go up to nap, but she wasn't sure that she felt comfortable leaving her baby alone for that long. If she didn't have a cradle yet, though, she'd have too.

"Can you take care of Caleo while I go take a nap?" she asked Piper.

"Oh sure, but..."

"What?" Calypso demanded, sensing that they were all hiding something from her. Although, it didn't seem like Leo was in on it either.

"It's just..."

"Go on," Calypso urged.

"We got rid of Leo's old bed and were planning to get a new one, but we haven't gotten to it yet. We thought that you might be at the hospital tonight, too."

"Oh. I mean, thanks."

"You can go in the spare room, though," Annabeth offered. Calypso looked over at her. Annabeth hadn't spoken a word since Calypso came back from the hospital; she figured that Annabeth still felt a little awkward around her, after the time that Percy spent with Calypso.

Calypso couldn't say she wanted to be best friends with Annabeth, but now that she was with Leo it really didn't bother her hanging out with Annabeth.

"Thanks," Calypso gave her a small closed-mouth smile and headed up the stairs. As she settled into the spare bed, she couldn't help but wonder why the others couldn't have just told her in the first place about the bed instead of making excuses trying to keep her out of the room. A bed didn't seem like that big of a deal; she wondered if there was more too it than that.

***

Calypso was woken up a lot sooner than planned when Piper came bursting into her room.

"Calypso!" she panted.

"What?" Calypso asked groggily, squinting at the light that Piper had just turned on.

"Sorry, but, um, Caleo's sort of... on fire."

Calypso laughed. She figured it was something he had inherited from Leo.

"Is he okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, he didn't seem to be getting hurt or anything, but... I thought you should know."

"I thought you were one of Leo's best friends?" Calypso checked, eyebrows raised in amusement.

"Yeah... why?"

"Have you never seen him light anything on fire?"

"Oh, all the time. But I thought it was that misery guy's..." Piper trailed off.

"Didn't Leo tell you that your mom changed the baby to be his instead of Aaron's?"

"Oh! Yeah. Sorry. I forgot. That would be why Annabeth told me not to worry..."

Calypso chuckled again. Piper was trying a little too hard at this.

"Where is Leo, anyway?" she asked.

"He's... at the store," Piper said vaguely.

"Buying what?"

"Stuff."

"Thanks for the details."

"Yeah," Piper said and rushed out of the room.

Now it was totally obvious that they were hiding something.

After Piper left, Calypso went back to sleep a little while longer before she woke up again around suppertime. This time she got up, ran a brush through her hair and proceeded downstairs by everybody else.

Annabeth was rocking Caleo. Calypso was thankful that Annabeth had been there while she was asleep, because, a mother-to-be herself, Calypso couldn't help but trust her despite their history.

***

When they were almost finished with dinner, Piper spoke up.

"We've got a surprise for you," she announced.

"Does this have something to do with the bed, and how Leo was at a store buying stuff?" she asked in amusement.

Piper blushed. "Possibly."

The others looked at them curiously, and Frank said, "What?"

"Nevermind," Calypso muttered.

***

After dinner, everyone disappeared upstairs.

Everyone except Calypso and Percy.

"Hi," Calypso said awkwardly when they were left alone in the living room.

"Hi," Percy replied a little too quickly and a little too shortly, carefully avoiding Calypso's gaze.

"Why aren't you up there with them?"

"I'm not into all of the mushy-gushy baby stuff," he replied.

"Frank and Jason are?"

"Well, Frank's a big teddy bear, and Piper probably dragged Jason with her."

"Shouldn't you be paying attention? I bet Annabeth's got high expectations."

"Annabeth's great," Percy said sharply.

"I didn't mean it like that," Calypso assured him. "I'm with Leo, you're with Annabeth, I'm engaged, you're married, I've got a child and you have one on the way. You left me for Annabeth and I found someone else. It's over, it's settled. I don't want it to constantly be awkward. I respect Annabeth, and I trust her. No hard feelings," Calypso gave him a small smile in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"You can't pretend that you didn't enjoy your time with me. And I can't pretend that I nearly gave in and stayed with you on that cursed forever."

Calypso sighed. "No, Percy, I can't, but what's done is done and there is nothing either one of us can do about it. I'm trying to pretend it never happened, but you're not making it any easier."

"Well-" Percy started but was cut short by Leo calling down the stairs for them to come up and bring Caleo with. Calypso was extremely relieved; that conversation was beginning to get super awkward.

Leo took her hand and Percy followed behind them awkwardly.

Leo opened the door to his and Calypso's bedroom and everything was still and dark for a second before everyone jumped out and yelled, "surprise!"

It was a classic surprise party.

The lights went on and Calypso gazed around the room. An ornate four poster bed with golden drapes was stationed on one side, with a fancy cradle surrounded by gifts wrapped in pastel colors on the other.

"Oh my gods..." She trailed off.

"You like it?" Piper asked.

"Depends what's in the boxes," Calypso said and everyone laughed.

She's sat down on the floor and examined the cradle. There was a whole panel of buttons with functions like "lullaby", "rock", "play pen" and... (oh, Leo) "change diaper."

"There is no way I am letting a machine change my baby's diaper," Calypso said in amusement, looking straight at Leo. It was obvious that he had made it.

"Well, I thought it might be useful..." He said, blushing.

"No."

"Do you like it, though?" He looked at her apprehensively.

"I love it," she smiled, "though I am still not letting it change Caleo's diaper."

Everybody laughed again.

Calypso began unwrapping her presents. There was something from everyone: a cute outfit set complete with socks, a onesie and a matching hat from Piper, a pair of pajamas with little boats all over them from Percy, a shirt with a shiny lightning bolt on it from Jason, a beautiful carved peridot (Caleo's birthstone; it was August 23) from Hazel, a huge pack of diapers from Annabeth, a Teddy bear from Frank, and the cradle from Leo.

Although she didn't know any of them real well, everyone's gift seemed to for their personalities pretty well based on what Leo had told her.

Calypso thanked everyone and Annabeth, Piper and Hazel promised to take her on a shopping tomorrow to get any other things she might need.

She had gone from pregnant and stuck with a horrible guy to a fiancée, friend, and mother of a beautiful baby boy within two days.

It couldn't have been better.

***Well, there you go! An update. Do you like what I did with the presents there?

In the future, I probably won't be updating as often as I used to but I'll also try not to disappear for as long as I did. Sorry bout that, and thank y'all for sticking with me.

Also, I posted some other books on my account, so if you want, check those out.

Thanks and love ya guys,

~Evelyn

****