Find my Seaweed Brain...

April 15th Part 2

I'm not sure why I went to Leo. I guess I needed to talk to someone who wont treat me different. That's the one thing about Leo, literally everyone else has treated me different since Percy disappeared. Whether they were scared of my temper tantrums or felt sorry for me, they all treated me like fragile glass that would be better left wrapped away on the shelf.

It's pushed me to the edge of the shelf to the point where I was at more danger of shattering than if someone was sharp with me. But that's the thing about broken glass.

It's fucking sharp.

I sit on Leo's bed as he paces back and forth.

"Shit man- I mean I already knew but- I guess a part of me thought it was some big joke... this is huge" he stops to look up at me.

"How do you want me to feel about this." He says to me with a serious look on his face. I shake my head in confusion and he continues,

"Well, I want to be happy for you, but I don't even know if you're happy for you. Will you keep it? If you do can I be Tio Leo?"

He grins a little trying to lighten the mood, and I can't help but smile at his enthusiasm. It makes me feel... I can't really place the feeling. Normal?

Wow. It's weird...

I kind of like it.

After seeing my reaction to his questions he lights up, like a child whose parents took special interest in his joke.

"What will you name him? Leo 2? Leo the second? Leo Jr? No, my kid will be Leo Jr. Leon? Loris? Leonidas? Leah? Leoette? Leirie? Just Leo?"

I laugh a little.

He raises his eyebrow, "Alright, alright. The little owl can be Valdezinator 2.0. But you'll owe me for it"

I go pale when he says that. "The little owl."

Shit. I'm pregnant.

I start to hyperventilate again and Leo's face drops into a panicky, stressy look. He jumps down from his ladder to sit next to me and puts his hand on my back. The kid has barely known me for three months and the first thing I ever said to him was a threat, yet he is already one of the best friends I've had.

After a moment I calm myself down and he looks at me nervously.

"What'd I say?" He asks me gently.

I hate this. He's looking at me like I'm fragile. But in this moment I guess I am, so I move past him and take a shakey breath.

"It just all got too real for a second."

His face drops a little. I don't think it had hit him that I might have to keep it against my wishes. But it's Percys life above my wishes right now and this is the choice I have to make.

"It's not a baby, it's just a cluster of cells." I say, partially to him but mostly to myself.

He nods attentively.

"If the baby dies then Percy dies. If Percy dies then we all die. But if I keep it then Percy will stop me from fighting and you all know I'm needed. If I wasn't i would have already been taken off this quest. So my only choice is to hide it; pretend it's not real and maybe I'll get a few happy months with Percy before he sees me as the loveless monster I am."

He just sits back with his eyes closed, like he's trying to find a scenario where I can be happy. There isn't one: I've already done all the possible calculations in my head. I'm not mother material, I'm barely girlfriend material.

"Percy will never see you as a loveless monster. I don't, and if he's even a fraction of the man people have told me stories about, he will love you and respect your decisions no matter what. You know that deep down too." He says confidently, "The Percy I've been told of loves his daughter of Athena more than anything else in the world. You are his world. The only thing you can do that would break him would be to give up on yourself. That... cluster of cells isn't his world, it will only become that if you want it to. Don't destroy his world by destroying yourself just to keep him alive."