PJ 16. Stars

16. Stars

Althea’s POV
“Percy, I’m back!”I yelled through our shared apartment the moment I walked through the door with grocery bags in hand. Mrs O’Leary barked happily as she welcomed me back home. Thanks to a special collar made by Derek and some of his siblings, the hellhound now lived with us in New York and got confused for a Rottweiler thanks to the Mist.
“Hey girl.”I told her as her tail wagging continued. Carefully I bend trough my knees to get to Mrs O’Leary’s level which was a bit hard thanks to my slightly swollen stomach. It was our first baby and so far we already knew it was going to be a girl who’s demigod blood would lean towards Poseidon, we already decided on who the godparents were going to be, we even had decided on the design for the nursery. A name however… That was our main problem for the moment.
“Gills?!”I called out again since my husband still hadn’t replied. With a deep sigh I put the ice cream I bought in the freezer before I abandoned my other groceries in order to find out in what kind of trouble the almighty Percy Jackson had gotten now.  
A frown settled on my forehead when I came into the hallway where the bedrooms where. The door of the nursery stood open. We NEVER let that door open for the simple fact that Mrs O’Leary thought the crib for the baby was a very comfortable basket for her.
“Dear Demeter, please let the blue blanket with wave pattern that Sally made still be in one piece.”I shot a silent prayer to my mother.
“Okay Gills, how big is the dam-…”I stopped midsentence when I walked into the nursery. The pale blue colour of the walls were now extra decorated with happy, fun and colourful beings of the sea swimming around the room. Above the crib hung a mobile of crystal stars, each of them twinkling thanks to the sunlight that entered the room through the window.
But the thing that made me momentarily forget how to breathe, were the glow-in-the-dark stars that were painted on the ceiling.
“Do you like it?”Percy asked nervously while he descended the ladder, a paintbrush covered in glow-in-the-dark paint in his hand.
“They’re… Like the ones my dad painted on my ceiling when I was a kid.”I muttered with my eyes still glued on the painted stars.
“I know.”he told me. “I’m not going to lie to you Petal, becoming a dad… It makes me nervous as hell. My dad wasn’t really around when I grew up so I have no clue how to be a good dad. But then again… I have your dad to look up to, to have as my example. You told me once how he had painted stars like these,”he pointed upwards to the ceiling, “on your ceiling because you were afraid of the monsters underneath your bed. I figured, with our bloodlines, we can’t really tell our daughter monsters don’t exist. But I don’t want her to be afraid all the time. And so I called up Sita and Amaya who sat together and drew out this map of the stars and…”.
“Perseus Jackson…”I started on which he cringed since I only used his full name when he was in trouble. “You’ll be the best dad ever.”.
“You really think so?”he asked with a small grin.
“I know so.”I assured him. “The fact that you worry about being a dad and do all of this for our unborn daughter… That’s proof for it.”.
“I hope Percy Junior thinks the same about that.”he commented with a smile as he placed his hand on my stomach.
“For the last time, we’re not calling our daughter ‘Percy Junior’!”I said and slapped his arm causing us both to laugh.