Hello! Ok...I'm sorry you guys! Really, I am. I want to take a second here to thank you guys. You have been so amazing and understanding and it means a lot to me! =) Anyway so, here's the chapter, I hope you enjoy it! And also, there's an important A/N at the bottom. Please read it! =)

Disclaimer: Lulu halulu does not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or its characters. I also don't own any stores or brands used in this fanfic.

Chapter 12

Month four: continuation
Week 18
December 23nd

Annabeth, Thalia and I planned to go shopping today and since Rachel stayed the night, we invited her along as well. She's going back home after. I've already bought everyone's presents but they don't know that so in order to keep it a secret, I've decided to go along with it.

We pulled up to the parking lot of the Manhattan Mall and walked inside.

"Okay Seaweed Brain, we're going shopping for your present now so..." Annabeth pointed in the other direction. "Go away!" I raised an eyebrow.

"Why did you make me come then?" I asked. Annabeth, Thalia and Rachel just laughed and I rolled my eyes and sighed.

"Fine..." I walked away in the opposite direction, shaking my head in the process.

"Bye!" I turned back to them just as Thalia yelled and she, Annabeth and Rachel waved goodbye to me. I turned back around and continued walking.

"Stupid girls..." I grumbled as I walked through the mall, my hands in my pocket and my head down.

"Percy?" I stopped at the mention of my name and turned to the source of the noise.

"Percy!" I turned my head to the right as the person said my name again and I finally noticed who it was.

"Travis, Connor, Katie!" I yelled as I walked up to three of my old demigod friends from Camp Half-Blood. They were standing in front of Aeropostal, waving at me. Travis and Katie, who had been dating for a few years, were holding hands while Connor was standing to their right.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. They lived in Boston so it was strange to see them in the Manhattan area.

"We were just visiting camp." Katie said, "How's Annabeth?"

"She's good, Thalia is actually staying with us right now so Annabeth doesn't get angry all of the time." They laughed as I smiled. It was always nice to see old friends.

"So are you guys still dating?" I asked to Travis and Katie due to their interlocked hands. They nodded in response.

"I guess you still haven't come to your senses." I said to Katie who smiled and laughed while her boyfriend glared at me.

"And you're still single?" I asked Connor, though I already knew the obvious answer.

"Of course! I don't want to get married until I'm forty anyway. There's plenty of time." Connor said, grinning.

"He goes on dates all the time but he never goes out with anyone more than once and the ones he does go out with are all insanely hot." Travis said, earning him a glare from Katie and a slap in the head with her free hand.

"Ow!" He yelled as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Obviously there's no one as hot as you though." I laughed. A little too late Travis.

"Steal anything good lately?" I asked, mainly to the brothers and not so much to Katie.

"Yeah man! Just yesterday we stole an entire pack of hot and spicy jalapeno sauce from that new Mexican place and we plan to put it in a sandwich and give it to Jake Mason, that kid in the Hephaestus cabin." Travis said, his face lighting up as he explained the story.

"Speaking of hot and spicy..." Connor said, looking straight past me. I turned around and Travis and Katie moved over to see what Connor was looking at. Of course, a girl. He was looking at a redhead with blue eyes. She was wearing jeans and a purple American Apparel hoodie.

"Bye guys!" Connor said, not even bothering to look at us as he waved goodbye and walked over to the redhead.

"Hey babe..." I sighed and Katie rolled her eyes while Travis chuckled.

"So what are you guys doing for Christmas?" I asked, turning back to face the couple.

"Nothing yet," Katie said

"Why don't you come over?" I asked

"Are you sure? Maybe you should ask Annabeth first; don't pregnant women have weird mood swings? She could get pissed at you for inviting us without talking to her first." Travis said

"Its fine, she won't mind."

"Well alright, we warned you though..." Travis said, shaking his head.

#&8&#

After saying goodbye to Connor, Katie and Travis I met up with the girls again, hoping that they had found my present so I could resume walking with them instead of by myself. I found them exiting the mall's only maternity store with enough bags to make me worry about whether or not I would need to ask my boss for a raise. They spotted me and walked over. I coughed nervously.

"So..." Annabeth laughed and shook her head.

"Relax Seaweed Brain, not everything is from the maternity store and not everything is mine." I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. I offered to carry some of her bags like the wonderful (and modest) husband that I am and she smiled and handed me a few.

"Are you finished buying all of the presents?" I asked Rachel, Annabeth and Thalia. They nodded in response and Annabeth sighed.

"I had to buy maternity clothes because I'm getting too fat for everything." Annabeth said, looking a little sad. Wow, her baby hormones really are making her act different; she would never say something like that.

"That's because the baby is growing. That's a good thing." I said, trying to make her feel better. She just shrugged.

"Fine..."

#&8&#

Month four: continuation
Week 18
December 24th
Christmas Eve

"Seaweed Brain, you have to hurry up! We're gonna be late!" I groaned and yelled back down.

"I'll be there in a minute!" I can't believe she's making us do this! Last night at dinner, Annabeth came up with an idea.

Nico, Grover, Thalia, Chris, Clarisse, Annabeth and I were all sitting at the table eating spaghetti when she decided that all of us should go to the homeless shelter and give some presents to kids. I have no problem with that idea. It's always good to help the less fortunate, I'm happy to make these kids happy. What annoys me is what she said after that.

"And we should all dress up like Christmas characters! Seaweed Brain, you should be Santa Clause and I'll be Mrs. Clause and Nico, Clarisse, you can be elves and Thalia, Grover you should be reindeer! Chris, you have to be a snowman!"

Of course, at first we all flat out refused to dress up. Then Annabeth just smiled sweetly and nodded, saying that she understood. We were all a little confused but grateful that she had decided to let it go.

She hadn't.

She walked back in the kitchen a few minutes later with her hand behind her back, still smiling sweetly. So sweet it almost seemed bitter. She asked us if we were sure that we didn't want to dress up and we assured her that we were, in fact, absolutely sure that we didn't want to. She then moved her hand from behind her back and showed us what she had been holding. It was her dagger.

Still smiling, she walked up to us. She stood at the head of our wooden table and stabbed her dagger right in, her smile never faltering. She then asked us one more time, whether we wanted to dress up. We all sat there, wide-eyed, completely shocked. What were we supposed to say? Her baby hormones were making her crazy, if we didn't agree; I could pretty much guarantee that she would stab us. Sure, she might feel bad afterwards but the damage would have already been done and there was nothing we could do about it because we could risk hurting the baby.

So that's how I ended up in this red and white outfit with black leather boots and a brown belt on the morning of Christmas Eve. I trudged down the stairs, scowling. Clarisse was at the bottom of the staircase, scowling and laughing at the same time. She had flat out refused to dress up as an elf, nothing, not even being threatened, had changed her mind. Chris had agreed to dress up and everyone else had as well so Clarisse was the only one without a costume. She was still in a horrible mood though because after a long argument with everyone, she had been forced to dress up Jeremy as an elf instead. She seemed happier now though, probably because I was miserable.

Unfortunately, her happiness over my misery faded after a few minutes and she started complaining again.

"Honestly, making my poor son dress up like this." She said, trying to fix his elf hat so that it didn't obstruct his vision.

I groaned, "Stop complaining," I said, adjusting my belt so that it wouldn't fall down. "At least you're not wearing a stupid costume." Clarisse just shrugged and went back to readjusting Jeremy's hat. Suddenly, Annabeth walked in, looking pissed.

"What did you just say?" My eyes widened, understanding that she was talking about me calling the costume stupid.

"I said that this is a beautiful costume. I think I'm gonna wear this to work every day from now on." Annabeth nodded

"Yeah, that better have been what you said." Seriously, if I had known how scary Annabeth was going to be while pregnant, I would never have slept with her in the first place.

Well...never mind I probably still would have but I would have been more careful about it!

"I love my outfit!" Grover yelled, prancing happily into the living room. I rolled my eyes. Of course he loved the costume. He was a reindeer. He didn't have to wear fake legs because even if somebody could see through the Mist, they would just assume that it was part of his costume.

"This sucks," I looked up as Nico trudged in, looking depressed. I couldn't blame him though. He was wearing a strange green shirt with green tights and odd looking elf boots with a bell on the tip. His elf hat also had a bell on the tip.

I slapped my hand over my mouth, trying my best to not laugh though I did let a few snickers through. Nico looked up and gave me the worst death glare ever. Trust me, I'm not exaggerating. When you're the son of the death god, you can do death glares better than anyone.

"This is all your fault." Nico said to me. I raised an eyebrow.

"How is this my fault?" I asked

"If you hadn't knocked Annabeth up then she wouldn't be acting so crazy and we wouldn't have to do this." I opened my mouth to retort when Annabeth walked up behind Nico and slapped him on the head.

"Shut up," She said. I chuckled as he rubbed the back of his head, muttering 'ow' and scowling.

"If you guys want to get there before breakfast is over then we have to leave now." Chris said, walking into living room to join us, his snowman costume bobbing as he stalked over to us.

"Yeah yeah, we're coming!" I said, waving my hand, not excited at all about going out in public wearing this travesty.

We all got in our respective cars and drove over to the homeless shelter. We parked and Annabeth told all of us to wait for a few minutes while she went to talk to one of the people that worked there.

Several minutes later, she walked back out with a man, chatting animatedly.

"Mr. Anderson, this is my husband Percy and our friends Thalia, Nico, Clarisse, Chris and Grover." Annabeth said, pointing to each of us respectively.

"You guys, this is Mr. Anderson. He works here." We said hello and he led us into the building.

"Okay, the kids are in here." He said, pointing to the large pink doors in front of us. "They are so excited. Thanks a lot for doing this." We all smiled and walked in.

I grasped the door handle with my left hand while still managing to balance the very big, red bag in my right and walked in.

Let me tell you something. As adamant as all of us were to wear these costumes and as much as we complained, when we saw the looks on all those kids' faces, as cheesy as it sounds, we couldn't help but melt.

...

"Mr. Jackson, do you have a daughter?" I looked down at the cute little face of Sarah, the young girl in my lap. I smiled and shook my head.

"No but do you see that pretty lady over there." I said, pointing to Annabeth who was playing cars with some kids. Sarah looked over at Annabeth then back at me and nodded.

"Well, she's my wife and she's pregnant right now." Sarah gasped and smiled.

"Really? Is it a girl?" I was about to reply when someone's voice interrupted me.

"Yes!" Annabeth called over. I rolled my eyes.

"No it's not!" I called back.

"Huh?" I looked back down at Sarah.

"Sorry, my wife and I are having a little argument over the gender of the baby. I think it's gonna be a boy and she thinks that it's gonna be a girl." Sarah nodded and turned over to Annabeth and looked at her stomach.

"I think it's gonna be a girl."

"What? No! Why would you think that?" I could hear Annabeth and Grover laughing in the background.

"Nico, get ready to lose ten bucks!" Grover yelled. I turned to Nico and I could see him scowling.

"You guys were actually serious about that bet?" I said incredulously.

"You're betting on the gender?" Annabeth yelled

"Yup!" Grover said, gleefully. "Don't worry; I'm on your side!"

After passing out all of the gifts and reluctantly saying goodbye to everyone, we left. We were just about to get into our cars when I heard a small voice calling my name.

"Mr. Jackson! Wait a minute!" I turned and saw that it was Sarah, red-faced and panting, running over to us. She finally got up to me and grinned.

"Merry Christmas Mr. Jackson! And thank you so much for the present!" Sarah said, lifting up the silver necklace around her neck. I smiled and kneeled down to her height.

"Merry Christmas to you also." I said, playfully poking her nose. She giggled and wrapped her arms around my neck, giving me as big a hug as someone so tiny could. Through the corner of my eye I could see Annabeth smiling, her hand on her stomach.

I hugged Sarah back and gave her a kiss on the head.

"I'll come back and visit you again sometime." She gasped.

"Promise?" She held out her pinkie and I smiled wider.

"Promise." I said, wrapping my large pinkie around her small one.

"Sarah!" We both looked up to see one of the women who worked at the shelter running towards us. Sarah giggled and turned back to me.

"I have to go. See you later Mr. Jackson." She said. She turned to walk away and took two steps before running back.

"Oh, and Mr. Jackson?"

"Yeah?" I asked, still smiling.

"You're gonna be a great dad!" The smile melted off my face as I gasped, genuinely touched. I smiled again, softly this time.

"Thank you." I whispered. She grinned once again before running off. I stood there, kneeling for several seconds, unable to move before Annabeth came up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder. I turned to her, still shocked over what Sarah had said.

"You are going to be a great dad." I smiled and stood up, putting my hand on her stomach.

"I love you," I said. She smiled and opened her mouth, about to say something before I grabbed her face with my hands and bent down for kiss. This was definitely, the best Christmas eve ever.

IMPORTANT!

I feel so bad that I haven't updated in so long which is why this chapter was posted. This chapter literally took me eight months to write. No joke. That's how bad the author's block is. I have to say this though; this story is still on Hiatus. Think of this as a Christmas present to you guys for being so great and understanding about everything. Thank you for sticking with this story and I promise to try and end this Hiatus soon. =)

And! I'd like to thank Horseybella1197 for the idea of them dressing up and going to a homeless shelter. That was a great idea! I also want to thank everyone else who gave me a suggestion! I'll try and use most of them in the next few chapters, and even if I don't, still understand that I'm very grateful. Oh, and one of the most suggested ideas was Poseidon and Athena breaking out of their cages and showing up. Unfortunately, I guarantee you all that that won't happen. Sorry! I already have a plan for that. Anyway, thank you again for reading, I'll try and end this Hiatus soon and until then, please just know that I appreciate you guys continuing to read and review and that I really am trying my best. Merry Christmas! =)

Lulu halulu