Reyna's Shock

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Annabeth



"I need you help." I'd said first of all. Being blunt always was my style. It was strange to talk to her again after so long, she was the first Demi-god friend that I'd seen in over a year. She stared at me for a while and as she did I could see the faint anger growing in her eyes, even with the shimmer of the Iris message in the way. Reyna stood up and began to ask her questions. I knew which one she'd ask first before she did.
"Where the Hades have you been?!" Argentum and Aurum seemed to become agitated at her feet. At least she'll know I'm not lying, was all I could think. I had angled myself to ensure that Reyna couldn't see Marina in my arms. Marina, somehow, Gods know how, knew that she should be quite to make sure her presence wasn't noticed and, therefore, didn't raise more questions.
"I have a reason but it's probably better, and easier, to show you rather than to explain."
"Fine then. Show me." She said with a deeply set frown. I knew that Reyna's intrigue would get the better of her. I was going to use it to my advantage.
"I have to show you in person because you'll have questions and... I need help." The desperation in my voice must have been extremely obvious, despite me trying to hide it. But, then again, when you ask someone for help after so long of doing it all on your own, how do you not have desperation in your voice? She understood that I needed her help because we were alike in the sense that we could disappear if we wanted to, be strategic when we needed to and when we asked for help we really meant it, mostly because we never asked for help.
Reyna sighed and shook her head, "You have a lot of explaining to do. You better have a damn good reason for leaving. You don't know what it's done to him..." She sighed heavily and rubbed her face but I barely noticed; a million questions swarmed in my mind like agitated bees.

I wanted so badly to ask about him, ask how he was coping but then I repeated Reyna's last sentence in my head. 'You don't know what it's done to him.' Worry and dread trickled through my veins like hundreds of icy rivers. How bad was he taking it? Was he taking it worse than me? Had anything happened to him? However bad it was there was only one thing I did know for certain; it was my fault. I remembered Reyna was there after a few minutes of silence.
"Fine," she said exasperatedly. "Where do I meet you? I'm gathering that you don't want to come here."
"No." I said quickly, "Definitely not. I'm in San Francisco. Go North across the bridge, then, as soon as you get to the the part of the bridge that touches the land, look left and a little way along the coast you'll see a beach. You'll find my camp a little way into the woodland behind the the beach. It should be too hard if you go by Pegasus."
She nodded. I could see the questions swimming around in her eyes but she merely said, "I'll be there in an hour. Sit tight until then."
I nodded and then added, "Thanks." Reyna smiled a sad sort of smile and waved her hand across the image, ending the message.

True to her word, an hour after the Iris message Reyna found me. "Sorry," she'd said, " I had to find a good excuse to leave camp." She was busy tying up her Pegasus to a nearby tree. I knew that she hadn't seen me properly by that point because if she did she would have seen Marina in my arms. She turned around and began to walk to the small fire I'd set up, near where I was. It was dark and the fire's light was the only light source around. Even then it didn't cast that much light. Reyna was the first friend I'd seen since I'd left. I couldn't help the urge to jog up to her and hug her with my one free arm. Tears welled up under my eye lids and one or two slipped free of my eyes. Reyna hugged me back with a sigh. A pitiful sigh with a hint of forgiveness. I pulled away when there became an imminent threat of Marina being crushed between Reyna and I. She frowned as if I offended her by pull away mid-hug. She looked at the fidgeting baby in my arms and froze.

It took a while but Reyna eventually came round. She looked kind of pale so I brought her to sit down by the fire.
"This is my reason." Was all I said. She'd already worked it out though. She sat stunned for a while, looking at Marina, almost without blinking. Her mouth hung open so wide it looked like it hurt. She was slumped as she stared and gaped, like she just had too much information all at once.
"You had a baby?" She looked up at me stunned, like a child.
"Well I didn't exactly find her on the floor!" My voice hurt from shouting because it was so unused. I became a little quieter and apologetic, "Sorry, I'm just beyond tired right now. And yes I had a baby, she's the reason I left." We were silent for a while before Reyna spoke again, I'm pretty sure she was gathering all the information that she'd found out in the few minutes she'd been at my little camp.
"Have you told him? Percy I mean?" The volume of her voice matched mine previously, as she looked from me to Marina again.
"Yes I know who you mean," I snapped; even the mention of his name made me want to crawl into a little ball and never get up again.

His name forced me to remember what I did. Reyna noticed this in my attitude. I could see the realisation spark in her eyes. She knew that I regretted and felt as guilty for leaving as much as everyone else, apparently, hated me for doing so, if not more. She could tell that when Percy's name came up, the guilt and anguish and self-loathing levels in my body sky-rocketed and turned the blood in my veins into slow, trickling streams of liquid regret. My voice became quiet again, "No, if he knew, everyone would know." I hung my head and closed my eyes. My mind flashed back to the naiad I'd seen earlier, this only made me shiver. I might be wrong; Percy could know by now, I thought. I felt feverish: nauseous and hot and cold all at the same time. Not unlike morning sickness, actually, of which I'd had my fair share. That wasn't the way I wanted him to find out, and deep down I really did want him to find out. Finding out that you have a daughter from a friend who accidentally saw her with your Ex is possibly the worst way to find out. I kept my eyes on Marina. At that moment I knew that, without doubt, I had done everything, over the past 13 months, wrong.

Reyna shuffled closer until she was right next to me. She put her arm around me. If we were in a different place, in a different situation I would have mocked her for how very un-Roman hugging me was, but in that situation and in that place, it was what I needed.

She looked down at my daughter in my arms and as she did so did I.

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