There's been a recent outcry in my reviews for the story of Hylla and Reyna's parents. It took me a while to conceptualise this, but I've been working on this since Thursday and so I hope that you appreciate it! Also please keep in mind that they're probably speaking alternatively English and Spanish depending on the scene throughout the story.

Dedication: lostinthought1304

Disclaimer: I don't own Reyna, Hylla, or the basis of the PJO universe.

Fun and Games

Juan had been watching the woman sitting at the other end of the bar for a few minutes now. She was tapping her beer bottle against the table and had been for a while now.

"Hey," he called. "If he isn't here yet, he isn't coming darling. Very sorry about that."

She turned to look at him and smiled. Her hair fell across her neck and shoulders in brown curls, her face was regal and proud. She had a strong nose and a very shy smile, nearly as if she were in on some inside joke.

"I'm not waiting on anyone," she said. "Only my brother, and I doubt he counts."

"I've been told that they're not often human," Juan said shuffling the cards in his hands- the ones he kept in his pocket at all times to keep busy. She laughed.

"I daresay, mine in particular. He probably forgot about me, to be honest. Went chasing skirts, I suppose. That's his usual."

"That's unfortunate. May I save your evening with a game of cards?" Juan asked holding up the pack.

"Sure," she said. He limped down the bar to stand in front of her and shuffled the cards.

"Go Fish? Bullshit? Blackjack? Crazy eights? Solitaire?" He asked shuffling the cards.

"Blackjack," she said pushing her hair over her shoulder, leaning against the counter.

He gave her two cards and kept shuffling.

"Business must be slow if you get to play Blackjack," she said.

"Oh yes," Juan said. "Well, look around. The bar next door is closing. Cheap booze attracts the masses, what can I say?" He dealt out the cards. " A five and a three."

"Hit," she said. Juan dealt her another card- a joker.

"Joker, ooh. That's a ten. You're at eighteen." Juan said.

"Hit," she said.

"You sure? Darling, you're flirting with disaster here."

"Give me another card, I'm not going to bust." She smiled.

"Okay, suit yourself," he said tossing another card on the counter. An ace.

"I'm counting that as a one," she said.

"Nineteen it is," Juan said before dealing two cards to himself. A queen and a king.

"Now that's ten plus ten, that's twenty. Sorry darling, you lose." Juan said.

"Best two out of three," she demanded.

"What is this, rock paper scissors?"

"That I could beat you at," she said as Juan picked up the cards and shuffled the deck.

They played the whole evening, chatting as he shuffled or dealt. He kept beating her and so she demanded that they change games.

"What are you good at?" Juan said. "I'll give you a standing chance."

She shot him a look. "War."

"So be it," he said. "Watch this."

He showed her his fancy shuffling trick- springing the cards from one hand to the other.

"Impressive. But not as much as this," she said before snatching the cards. With just one hand she managed to cut the deck at three places and move the different piles around each other.

"Triple cut. I've seen that done before," Juan nodded.

"As if," she said.

"Oh yeah. I can even do it."

"No," she said shaking her head.

"Oh yeah," he said. "Watch." He repeated everything in front of her and she groaned when he succeeded. He pulled his tongue out- being mature and all.

"Now that isn't fair."

"Alright, if it makes you feel better know that you can do it much faster and that's cool," Juan said.

She raised her hands as if a cop had his gun pointing right at her. "I have nothing on you."

"Unless your skills in War are as miraculous as you say," Juan said dealing the cards.

Her eyes glittered. "You are about to get smoked."

"Am I really?" Juan said.

It turned out that he wasn't. A man with a crew cut and a tough posture burst in and called out, "Bell."

She looked over your shoulder. "It's about time you showed up."

"Yeah, the Big Guy is pissed right now. Someone did something and he wants all of us around, even you. We have to get… home." He looked at Juan. "Right away."

She hissed and turned towards him.

"When's the bar next door closing?"

"Friday."

"So can we call a rain check and I can serve you your ass tomorrow?"

"I'll bring the cards," he said.

"No way. I'm bringing my own pack. I'm 99% sure that nobody can be that good at cards without a rigged pack."

"Suit yourself."

She smiled and hopped off her bar stool to go join her brother, a very uninterested looking man.

"Wait- can I get your name?" Juan called out.

She turned around and smiled slightly.

"Bella. Bella Hadid."

So it turned out that she was pretty good at War. She beat him seven times in a row and couldn't be coaxed into playing something he might be decent at.

"Like Go Fish for Dignity?" She suggested innocently.

"Okay," he said. "Now I have to absolutely pummel you."

She giggled and proceeded to pummel him again. He didn't mind. He loved card games –or any game for that matter- and liked talking to her. She could talk about things like politics and current events just as much as she could stand her ground in a debate about the existence of aliens.

"Why don't you come around," Bella said. "Sit down."

Juan shrugged and limped from behind the counter. She took notice of his prosthetic leg, looked just long enough to register it, and looked away very casually. And with that they resumed to dominating the game (if your name started with a B) or getting owned (if your name ended with Uan). No pity whatsoever, no awkward stares or new found tension. He liked it. She didn't even pity him enough to grant him a game's victory. It was awesome!

He met a lot of people at bars and had gotten used to seeing and forgetting. But he had this feeling that maybe he'd actually mind forgetting her.

At some point they switched back to his pack because he swore that she'd rigged her own pack somehow. They both had a beer, although he was technically working.

"Uh oh," Juan said when he finally looked up from the table.

"What?" Bella frowned.

"It's an hour after closing time," he said running a hand through his hair. "Geez, how late is it?"

"I should get going," Bella said getting up and picking up her cards.

"Hey, since this game went unfinished, can we just assume that I am the unquestionable victor?" Juan said.

Bella laughed at him, said goodnight and dismissed him when he asked if she was okay with walking this late before leaving the bar.

He was sweeping the floor when he noticed that she'd dropped a card- the Queen of hearts.

And it had a phone number on it.

"Hello?" Bella answered at the other end of the phone.

"Yes, excuse me for bothering you ma'am but you dropped your phone number," Juan said. "On my card. In my bar."

She scoffed.

"Terribly sorry. Should I come pick it up?"

"Yes. And we could possibly go out to diner afterwards," Juan said.

"We could," Bella said at the other end. He could nearly hear the smile in her voice. "We should."

The wait for the food was long, and Bella wasn't in a chatty mood. So Juan unwrapped his cutlery from the napkin, opened it up and materialized a pen.

"Hangman," he said clicking the end of it. "You cannot and will not beat me at Hangman."

"Challenge accepted," she said stealing the pen from him, drawing a gallow on the napkin and some short lines underneath.

One thing led to another and when Juan dropped Bella off, his own number was on the hangman napkin that she carried home. He had the Queen of hearts in his wallet himself.

He didn't go to his apartment immediately, he crashed at Ian's townhouse right next door to the building.

"Hey cuz," Genesis said when he walked in. "How did your date go? Haven't seen you this excited for one since you came back home, Juan."

"Very well, actually," Juan smiled.

"Oh, you should see your face," Genesis squealed.

"I think that the poor girl's got her priorities all jumbled up," Ian said walking back into the room tossing chips around a bowl.

"I think it was sweet," Juan's cousin jumped in to defend him- ever the romantic, she was.

Maybe it was all his fault- Juan had brought Ian along to Genesis' quinceañera back when they were teenagers. However it was not his fault that Genesis thought that dating Ian was a good idea, nor was it that she did, and definitely not his responsibility that she also stayed in the very small townhouse that Ian was technically supposed to be house sitting for his businessman bastard of a father and not offered up to people. Then again, Juan shouldn't be complaining. When he'd been sent back home after the original rehab for his leg, he had needed a place to stay. Ian had done that for him.

"What's her name again?" Ian asked offering the bowl of chips to Juan.

"Bella," Juan said taking a handful.

Genesis patted his back. "Hear the way he says her name, Ian? You better remember that name."

He didn't know how things happened exactly. It was all blurry- the important memories usually were. But he knew that suddenly he and Bella were showing up at each other's apartments, at the bar, he swung by the martial arts center at which she taught self-defense classes…

Eventually Bella met Genesis –boy did they hit it off- and Ian and a handful of other friends. And now she had been annexed into Juan's group board game events- the ones that he imposed on everybody else.

"Ian," Bella said. "I propose an alliance."

Juan groaned.

"I'm listening," Ian said crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair.

"Juan's controlling far too much of Europe and Asia," she said pointing to the RISK board. "He has too many options. He has a thin path so that he can crawl over to Northern Europe, Africa, Australia or further into Asia. If we join forces, we won't even have to spread our armies thinly to stop him."

"But he's not doing anything," Ian said.

"If he decides to, he has too many options. He'll be a wildcard." Bella affirmed.

Ian looked confused but he nodded. "Alright, sure, alliance it is."

Juan shot her a look.

"Screw that," he said.

Bella smiled sweetly and that's when it hit Juan that for a woman who'd worked jack-of-all-trade jobs, she was quite the strategist or thinker.

Genesis even asked for Bella to be there at her birthday- which was always a small event because of her remarkable and also worrying shyness. Among the party guests, Juan counted other than himself: Ian, Bella, their other cousins Layla and David, her sister Angely, and her best friends Maya and Sophie.

Ian, Bella and he stayed after everyone else and were probably going to spend the night by the looks of things. Ian was stretching like spandex to try and put his right hand on the yellow dot during a game of Twister that had Genesis laughing so hard, it was a miracle that she was still standing.

Juan was sitting this game out- which felt like an outrage.

"Right foot, blue," Ian dictated.

"Forget it," Bella said getting up from the game. Juan frowned- it wasn't in her nature to ever abandon a challenge. She was too competitive, prideful and capable. She came and sat down next to him.

"You can't play, can you?"

"Rather not," he admitted. He'd been walking without crutches for only seven months now- and the progress he'd made had been called remarkable by most. He was still in physical therapy. He still couldn't run with the prosthetic. Playing a game like Twister? Forget about it. And so he sat on the couch and watched them play, bored out of his mind, wishing that he had a pack of cards to shuffle. Maybe play solitaire with, too.

She nodded. "What happened to your leg? Were you in an accident?" She asked.

"No, I was at the U.S. embassy when it was bombed in Iraq," Juan said. "I used to be a marine, see."

"Oh," Bella said.

Juan nodded. "I was on my third tour overseas. I pushed someone out of the way, shielded her –still don't know who she was, some civilian- and got most of the impact. There was some shrapnel that caused some serious nerve damage and soon enough infection spread. It wasn't pretty; they amputated as soon as I got to a major hospital."

Bella squeezed his hand. "War is brutal."

Juan nodded. "Yeah."

She kissed his cheek. "Why don't we play something else, then? It doesn't feel astrologically right for you not to be playing a game while other people are."

It was two in the morning and Juan couldn't even roll the dices onto the table anymore, they flew around the floor and onto his lap and hit Bella.

"Look, I know that this probably goes against some kind of samurai code you live by," she sighed. "But we've been playing for hours. Can we give it a rest?"

"Are you forfeiting, darling?" Juan said.

"Hell no," Bella snarled.

He laughed at her competitiveness.

"Okay, fine. But I get your point. Can we just… Let's leave the board here, all set up and everything, and just finish the game later."

"Sure thing," Bella said pushing off the couch and passing a hand through her hair. "I've got to shower. Don't you dare touch the Monopoly board."

His door opened. He was expecting it to be Ian looking for company or Genesis making sure that he was eating, but it was definitely Bella who called out: "Juan, it's me."

He heard her coming down the hallway and managed to sit up and register how indecent his room looked before she came in. Bella smiled.

"Morning, sunshine. Genesis told me that you weren't doing well," she said.

Juan registered one more thing. He wasn't wearing his prosthetic leg. It was leaning against the end of the bed. That made his heartbeat double in speed- it was a bit creepy to see a guy with under half a leg, and so usually he liked to keep it on when people were around.

"How are you?" She said smoothing down his hair and kissing his head.

"Fine," he said.

"Clearly not," Bella said. She put her hands on his face to check for a fever.

He may as well tell her, he realised with a sigh. "Have you ever heard of phantom pains?"

"Yes," Bella nodded. "Is that what's going on?"

Juan nodded. He couldn't explain it, it was the strangest thing. But sometimes he felt temperature, pain, sensation, or tingling where his left leg had used to be, just about mid-thigh and down. Of course, he had a stump and sometimes a prosthetic there usually, but it was still completely foreign and bizarre.

She sat down next to him and laid his head against her chest. She played with his hair and tried to help him out.

"Do you have a doctor's appointment soon?"

"Yeah, in two weeks," Juan said.

"Are you writing all your symptoms down? You should; they'll appreciate it. What kind of pain is it?"

"It's been persistent for a while now, but it's acute now and I have trouble walking and even focusing." Juan said shaking his head.

"Do you want to go to the ER?"

"Nah, they're useless. They don't know how to deal if it's too specialised- but they can deal with, like, an OD or something."

"What helps the phantom pain go away usually? Lying down, sitting down, pressure, no pressure, heat pads, cold packs…"

All these examples kind of blew Juan away. She sounded like the nurses he'd talk to whenever he showed up at the clinic. She knew too much about this.

"Usually lying down helps, but not today. Cold helps but I… I can't get to the freezer. I've been trying to sleep it off."

"I can give you a hand," Bella said gently. "Freezer you said?"

"Yes," Juan said. He usually felt miserable when anyone but Ian helped him. He felt pathetic and dependent and freakish. That poor soldier, God bless his brave soul, America's finest et cetera. But Bella had a way of talking, of making the problem natural, factual, casual and important all at once. It helped a lot.

Bella had cold packs with her when she came back. She helped him set up a sitting-up position that helped before materializing a paper bag of McDonalds and two plastic battleship grids.

Juan smiled. Two of his favourite things. Disgusting commercialized burgers and battleship.

"When you come for moral support, you don't play around do you?" Juan said patting the spot next to him on the bed. She crawled to it and kissed his cheek.

"Not when it comes to someone important as you," she said.

Of course being a bachelor meant that he could easily live off of take-out if he wanted to- but Juan loved good food. He really did. What he hated was the approximate 2.3 tons of dishes that came with making a simple can of spaghetti sauce and some pasta to go with it, and maybe some salad if he felt like being borderline healthy. Bella also hated this, and so they had a problem.

"You work a late shift tonight," she said waving her finger. "Swallow that excuse, Mr."

Juan chewed his lip.

"Rock, paper, scissors?" He offered up. She rolled her eyes and then presented her fist.

"Rock, paper, scissors," they said in choir. She had scissors. He had paper.

"Best two out of three?" He offered.

"Nice try," Bella said. "Get washing, Dish Boy."

Because Bella had a car and he couldn't afford one, she drove him to the clinic and even came in with him- an extra pair of ears couldn't do any harm.

They were stuck waiting in the clinic waiting room for a while- they were running behind on appointments. Juan was glad that he worked at night.

He and Bella were scribbling Tic Tac Toe grids on the corner of a draft for next year's proposed class schedule at the martial arts center. Soon various victories were covering it like paint on a wall.

She was horrible at Tic Tac Toe, which made him quite happy. She kept falling for his trick in which he could win in two different moves, and so she was screwed no matter what.

She stuffed the paper back in her pocket very quickly.

"Screw it," she muttered. "We're playing War again- find your cards."

Juan was still laughing when they called his name.

So it turned out that the sock he wore over his stump to help cushion it was made out of cotton. Cotton didn't breathe and Puerto Rico had a hot climate, so that's what the irritation had been about. He was going to get some wool socks soon.

As for the phantom pains becoming acute at times, he was going to start taking pain management medication. He asked a lot of questions about that and Bella asked the ones he would've wondered about ten minutes after getting home.

Yet another reason to be glad that she was by his side.

A few things were starting to make Juan curious.

First off: he knew that just because someone had no post-secondary education, that didn't mean that someone wasn't educated or intelligent. Contrary to that, his favourite people had lived in the real world and out of school books. But Bella knew details of thousand year old battles, the every twist and turn of historical wars better than a history book might. Even more, she knew exactly how the US military worked and operated, what the lifestyle was like… And she insisted that she didn't know soldiers.

Second off: she knew too much about too many specialized things. Phantom pains? Nursing? Right up her alley, even if she insisted that she didn't know many soldiers or veterans. Martial arts? She was an expert in twelve.

Third off: she just… she had an odd set of skills. She was extremely physical, extremely strategic, very stoic… She made him think of a soldier, all in all. She could have been any of the older veterans that Juan had met through support groups, hospital stays, ear to mouth… But she insisted on having no ties to any army when he asked. No cadets or scouts or anything as a little girl either.

It was as if she'd just come to the world that way, according to her. Juan wasn't convinced. He knew the effect that being in the army, even just basic training, had on you. He'd lost a leg on the outside, but he'd lost and gained a lot in the brain area as well. He'd become more mature. More reliable as well. After spending time in Iraq and helping civilians, he wasn't materialistic. He was a bit more relaxed now, not so strung up about small or first world problem, very laid back. That had cost him a few friendships. He was better at working with people- like the waitresses in the bar.

So he was convinced that Bella had done some kind of work with the armed forced, somewhere, sometime, somewhere.

"When in the world are you two going to clear that coffee table?" Ian asked nodding his head towards it.

"Soon. We're nearly done our game. See," Juan replied nodding his head towards the unfinished Monopoly game, "she's nearly bankrupt."

"No. She's still got a few bills, she'll collect two hundred when she passes go on her next turn, and she owns two thirds of the properties and has hotels on most of them," Ian said.

"We'll finish it!" Juan insisted.

"Let's play a game," Juan said.

"Well that's different from what you usually want to do," Bella said turning a page in a book in Arabic.

"It's a new one," he said. "Called Twenty Questions."

She put the book down, unclipped her hair and ducked her head against the sofa. "Explain the rules."

"The idea is that somebody asks Twenty Questions to get the answer to a question. The person who's answering isn't allowed to lie- it's all about honesty." Juan said. He wasn't worried about it; he didn't think that Bella knew how to lie. She didn't do mind tricks.

"Alright," she said with a sigh- the 'I'll try this one game this once for your sake' sigh.

"Sweet," Juan said. "The Question is: What were you doing before you came to Puerto Rico and taught?"

Bella's spine stiffened. Juan gave her a second to walk out angrily, but she didn't.

"Question One," he said. "Were you in Puerto Rico?"

"No," she said.

"Question Two," he nodded. "Where were you?"

"Italy," she said.

He nodded. "Do you speak Italian?"

"That's not relevant," Bella snapped.

Juan grinned. "Sorry- sorry. I had to know."

Bella rolled her eyes. "I do. And that counted as one of your twenty questions."

"No," Juan complained.

"Yes," Bella said in that that's-that tone of voice. He accepted it.

"Question Four, do you speak any other languages?"

"Yes. English, Arabic, Greek, Italian, French, Latin."

"Latin?" He frowned. "Question Five, why do you speak Latin?"

Bella blinked. "My family did."

What kind of family spoke Latin? Were her parents scholars of some kind?

All that Juan knew about Bella's family was her brother, Marc, and he didn't even know Marc really well. It was a sensitive subject, and so he wasn't about to waste more questions hitting dead ends about her family.

"Question Six," he said. "Have you ever been in the military?"

"Indirectly," she said.

"Question Seven. What in the world is that supposed to mean?" Juan said.

"I've been involved with the military- but never as a soldier." Bella said.

"So your family?"

"My brother and a half-sister, that's it."

"Question Eight- how was your brother in the military?"

"Same as me. Indirectly." Bella said.

"Question Nine," Juan said. What did he want to know? What could he ask without getting shut out? "You have Arabic roots, so where is your family from?"

"Everywhere," Bella shrugged.

"That doesn't make sense." Juan said.

"Not for you it doesn't," Bella said.

"Well explain it," Juan said. "You can't be omnipresent, can you?"

She didn't.

"Question Ten," Juan said. "When I met Marc and called him that, he didn't reply right away. Why?"

"He's not used to being called Marc," Bella said.

"Question Eleven- what in the world do you call him?"

"Mars."

"Question Twelve- why?"

"It's his real name," Bella said.

"He was named after a planet?"

"The planet was named after him."

Juan frowned deeply. "The planet's been named for ages."

Bella nodded. "I know."

This was starting to worry him. Bella was completely serious as she told him all of this.

"Question Thirteen," he said. "Do you have any other family?"

"I have an enormous family," she said.

"Question Fourteen, where are they?"

"A bit everywhere, and sometimes I don't even know to be honest. I think that right now they're mostly in New York."

"Not in Italy anymore?" Juan asked.

"They're probably there too."

"Are you trying to tell me that your family can be at more than one place at once?" Juan asked.

"Yes."

"And you're going to count that as a question?"

"What you just said as well," Bella said.

Juan shot her a face. She grinned.

"Question Nineteen," Juan sighed. He thought of it for a second. "If your brother goes by a different name… do you? And tell me if you do."

"Yes," she said. She hesitated for a second. "Bellona."

He'd heard that before. He wasn't sure where, but he had.

However he knew where he'd heard Mars before. And he knew what it had to do with Latin and war. And maybe even…

"Question Twenty," Juan said. "When's the last time you were in Italy?"

Bellona rolled her eyes and chewed her lip, trying to recall an old memory.

"September 4th, A.D. 476," she said.

Juan's eyes sprawled. "What happened on September 4th, A.D. 476?"

"The resignation of the last Roman emperor, Romulus Agustus." Bellona said.

Juan didn't say anything. He was either getting played, or he was being educated. He was leaning towards the latter in a strange, strange way.

"Have you solved your original question?" Bellona asked.

"I think so," Juan said. He was scared of saying it out loud and sound insane. But there weren't that many ways to connect the dots, surely…

"So what was I doing before I came to Puerto Rico?"

Juan looked up at her and examined her face for a second, as if it may change. But no. It didn't. It didn't look any different, she'd just been this very unique and different person all along.

"Goddess."

She nodded.

"What kind?"

"Roman."

"Of what?"

"War," Juan said.

He pulled a wooden block out of the Jenga tower and dropped it down on the pile.

"You've been distant," she said reaching for a bloc. He watched her slide it out.

"Yeah," Juan said. "I guess."

He pulled another out.

"Care to explain?" Bellona asked looking up.

Juan chewed his lips. "Your turn."

She pulled a bloc out quickly and threw it down on the coffee table.

"Your turn to talk," she said. "I acknowledge how hard this is for you to process. Not everyone can. But I'm still here, you know. And if you want me to leave-"

"I don't want you to leave," Juan snapped.

"Well what do you want?" Bella asked crossing her arms and looking at him exasperatedly.

Juan opened his mouth and shook his head.

"Nothing?" Bella said. "You don't want an explanation? No proof, no story, no nothing. You're acting very strange for someone who has everything they want."

"I don't want anything, I'm just trying to figure out how I'm dealing with this," Juan said getting to his feet, slapping the game of Jenga down, and walking around the living room, hands in his hair. "Listen- you're the goddess of war."

"Yes, I am. I admit to it. I can prove it to you if my word…"

"Your word is more than enough and that's the scary part," Juan said. "Your word is enough for anything to me. I trust you infinitely. And you're the driving force behind my missing leg, my nightmares, my friends' death, millions of orphans and widows, dead people, bodies never… bodies never recognized or even sent home. You are a goddess of Olympus- do you understand how frustrating that is? You start battles and march through battlefields and fight for the pleasure of it- like it's fun and games. Well for me it wasn't. For me it was my job, it was a job I put my soul into and cannot do anymore. How seriously can you take me then? How seriously can I take you for turning war into a game after seeing the things I've seen?"

Bellona didn't take her eyes off of him. She waited a while to make sure he had nothing more to say before replying.

"First off, you need to remember what was going on before we played Twenty Questions. Did I ever treat you as a joke? Did I ever make you feel like you were a wave in the ocean? I didn't. I didn't because I respect you and I understand that you did a very good thing. I admire you for it. You were ready to do more for your country, for a random woman on the street, than I could do if I wanted to," she said. "Second up, You need to read up on who I am in stories. What I stand for- really, it's more complicated than war. I'm not my brother. I am the goddess of war on foreign land. I've held crying, homesick soldiers. I've saved letters lost in the mail, letters who were destined to be a father's last hugs and kisses to his children. I look at soldiers and see death dates in their eyes, the shape of the bullet that will be the end of them. I've fixed faulty weapons in the dead of night to minimize damages. I've woken up lousy guards who slipped at dawn. I see it when the battle is over too. In many ways I am the soft side of war, the human side, the side that sees all these things on the faces of men twice my size. So do I treat war as a joke? No. No, I do not. Although I will admit that I have had cameos in many of history's great battles. "

Juan didn't say anything. It was scary. He didn't believe her.

"I understand that this is hard to take," Bellona said. "How about I give you a few days?"

Juan's blood froze in his veins.

"I think that that would be a good idea," he said.

Bellona nodded. She snapped her fingers and disappeared.

Juan's stomach had felt upset for nearly a week now. Genesis and Ian were starting to get worried- they were trying to talk him into sleeping over at their place, like they had when he'd originally come back from the veteran hospital and had gotten nightmares.

He rolled the coin around in his hand.

"Heads I call," he said. "Tails I don't."

The apartment was empty and he felt the lack of answer like the weight of the world on his shoulders. He flipped the coin and it landed on tails.

He reached out and turned it around before grabbing the phone. She'd barely answered when he said:

"I'm so sorry, I really need to talk to you in person. Oh, by the way, it's Juan."

"I know," she said.

The doorbell rang.

Bella put a box down on the kitchen and crossed her arms over it.

"So I realize how hard… digesting, I suppose, everything has been. And it hasn't been pleasant, but I'm… I'm really glad that you did."

This was the most sentimental thing she'd ever said out loud. Bella may call herself the soft side, but she wasn't a soft person- far from that, actually.

"So anyways," she said putting her hands on the box. "I wanted to show you something from where I'm from that you may like. A common point, you know."

"Sure," Juan nodded. "Please don't tell me it's, like, a dragon."

"I wouldn't do that to you particularly, no," Bellona said. She opened the box. "This is a game. It's called latrunculi."

"Latrunculi?" Juan repeated.

"Exactly. It means mercenaries or robber-soldiers, roughly. You like chess, yes?" She said pulling out pieces made out of glass. The board was silver.

"I do," Juan said. "You cream me at it every time we play, though."

"Don't worry," Bella said with a smile as she set the board. "You'll be learning. I'll go easy on you."

He slid over the number 'two' on the score-keeping chart on the table and took a long drink of beer.

"Damnit Guerrero, you've been practicing," Ian groaned.

"No man, I've always been better than you," Juan said. Ian didn't look in a good mood, even for a guy who had just seen his death at foosball.

"Ian, you okay? You haven't looked good recently."

Ian shrugged.

"Are you and Gen okay?"

"I don't even know anymore," Ian said. "I mean… She's just… She's not even doing anything we just never get to be around each other anymore- and her kid brother got kicked out of home and I think that he's been telling her crap about me…"

"Joey's a brat," Juan said. "Take a shot every time crap comes out of his mouth."

"I'm nearly at that point, my friend," Ian said.

Juan laughed. "You know what; if Joey causes too much trouble just send him over to my place. He can sleep on the couch; Bella can give him the death glare. He'll learn."

"I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy, much less my best friend," Ian said.

"He's my cousin," Juan said. "I'm already genetically stuck with him. Nothing worst you can do."

"Hey you," Bella said leaning across the bar counter. Juan smiled.

"What are you doing here so early?"

"I had a bad day," she said. "You should know that most of the time when I have a word with my family, that happens."

"Drink?" Juan asked as she sat on the barstool.

"Stop marketing me," Bella said. "Shuffle your cards, will you?"

"Ah, I see," Juan said What are we playing?"

"Blackjack," she said propping her head on her chin. "I like Blackjack."

"Geez," Juan said with a smile. "Was I ever a lucky guesser or what?"

"No," Bella said. "You are the reason I like it."

Bella was reading a book when he sat down across her from the table and started dealing the cards. She looked up.

"What's this?" She asked.

"Exactly one year ago we played Blackjack for the first time and I tried not to be a totally obvious flirt," Juan said. "Time for a new game. And I will flirt openly and painfully."

Bella smiled and put her book down. "Alright, what are we playing?"

"President," Juan said.

"Oh shoot," Juan said as he moved his little plastic car to a red spot on the board. "I hate getting married this early on in the game. My game always goes downhill when that happens."

"Watch what you say," Bella said tapping his elbow. "You and I got together very quickly. It went well."

"I guess so," Juan said. He rolled the dice again and moved to a LIFE square on the board for The Game of Life. He picked up a tile and read it out loud. "'Write Great American Nobel- 150, 000$'- yes! Alright, looks like this game is pretty realistic."

He pulled her over and kissed her cheek.

"Not quite," she said looking at the board. She reached into the box of the game and took out two little pink pegs. She put one next to his peg, the driver's peg, and one in the backseat. Where the 'kids' you got by landing on the Baby Girl or Baby Boy space.

His blood froze and he turned to look at her, in shock.

"Are you trying to tell me that..?"

"I am," Bella nodded.

Juan moved his car to the finish line and pulled her into a hug trying not to let his brain explode.

"Oh, come on Juan. You're the Scattergories King, here. What's so difficult about finding baby games?"

"I'd need a letter for it to be Scattergories," Juan protested.

"Fine," Bella said, running a hand over the small bump that Juan swore had popped up overnight. "What about… H?"

Juan started right away.

"Hannah, Hilary, Hope, Heidi, Harmony, Harriet, Haley, Heather, Havana, Henriqua, Herminia, Honor, Honoria, Hermosa, Huguette, Harper, Harriette, Hattie, Hazel, Helen, Helena, Hesther, Hilda, Helga, Hilma, Holly, Hortense, Hedwig, Hylla…"

"Hylla?" Bella interrupted him. "What on earth is Hylla?"

"Whoops. That would be my mouth running and leaving my name behind. I guess that that's all that I have for that category."

"Hylla…" Bellona muse. "On second thought… That does sound nice. Hylla…"

She said it like she was tasting the word in her mouth.

"Okay, okay. Open your eyes," Ian said.

Juan did and he immediately smiled at the baby room.

Sure, he and Bella had taken care of most of it. But Genesis and Ian had made it even better- adding some framed family pictures on the walls, spelling out HYLLA with colourful wooden letters above the crib, and adding the carpet.

Bella laughed.

"We saw this and thought of you, Juan," Genesis said.

"That's priceless," Bella laughed.

A game of Shoots'n'Ladders had been printed on the carpet.

"Well there we go," Juan said to go along with their joke. "When she's wailing and refuses to sleep, at least we'll have something to do while trying to settle her down."

"So Ambrosia..?"

"The food of the gods," Bellona filled in.

"Right. Demigods can't have it?"

"No, see they can. Just not a lot of it, and only in emergencies when they need to heal from something huge or magic-related," she said.

"Oh!" Juan said. "Oh, now I get it!"

"Honnestly when I start explaining the Fort to you, you will be so lost..." she sighed.

"Juan Guerrero, I am not thumb wrestling you to see who goes and picks her up. I brought that child into the world; you can get up in the middle of the night." Bella groaned quite angrily into her pillow.

Bella readjusted Hylla in her arms. The baby was grabbing for her hair at all times now, despite having a blankie in her other fist. "Check."

"Hmm," Juan said studying the board. He held his arms out and she passed over Hylla. She looked a lot like her mother, even this young. Her hair was black and curly- supposedly it would straighten itself out as she grew older. For now they were black frizzles surrounding her face. She had a very shy smile that was worth the wait it took to see. Her brown eyes were very soft and they smiled more than her mouth, got angrier than her eyebrows and more scared than her screams during a thunderstorm.

"Help Daddy win this one, okay?" He said adjusting her in the crook of his good arm. He moved his rook. "Check yourself, you."

Juan didn't mess around when Hylla cried at night. He didn't have time for the prosthetic when his baby girl was crying, and so he just picked up the crutches and walked off. There was a chair not far from her crib and so he could balance himself with the wall with Hylla in his arms, sit down on the chair, and then sit back down and fully start the back-rubbing-hair-patting-shushing routine that eventually led to her calming down. He rocked the chair with his good leg and held Hylla in the crook of his arms.

"A la puerta del cielo
Venden zapatos
Para los angelitos
Que andan descalzos

Duérmete niño
Duérmete niño
Duérmete niño
Arrú arrú

A los niños que duermen
Dios los bendice
A las madres que velan
Dios las asiste

Duérmete niño
Duérmete niño
Duérmete niño
Arrú arrú."

He also sang. Frequently. It helped her. Ian said that he'd caved majorly, but Juan didn't think so. He was ready to do everything for his daughter, falling a little more in love with her every day, and he saw nothing wrong with that.

Hylla grabbed a card.

"Grandma Peanut!" She wailed waving it around.

"Is that what your card says, Bright eyes?" Juan said trying to get a look at it as she moved her arms around like a windmill. "Yes indeed, very nice. Where does that mean your piece goes?"

"There," Hylla said with her fingers in her mouth.

"Daddy can't understand you with your fingers in your mouth," he said shaking his head and gently tugging on her wrist.

"There," she said pointing at the board.

"Good job," he said. Hylla moved her red gingerbread man -she always played red- across the board to Grandma Peanut's square on the board. She wasn't even upset that she had to go back a few squares- Juan doubted that she truly understood how the game worked.

"You two having fun?" Bella asked as she picked up some of the wrapping paper laying around the living room.

Hylla nodded and Bella knelt down next to her, picked up the Candy Land box and wrote her name on the inside in sharpie.

She was two, and this was her first board game.

"Hey baby girl," Juan said as Hylla got off the bus. She was three apples high, and Bella had braided her hair before disappearing for the day. Her backpack was nearly bigger than she was, and she looked upset.

"Are you okay? What's wrong, Bright Eyes?" Juan asked kneeling down in front of her.

"I'm in the red Daddy," she said pitifully.

"You're in the red," Juan repeated carefully. She nodded, looking close to tears.

"Okay baby, why don't you tell me more about it at home?" He said scooping her up in his arms.

He had her sat down at the kitchen table before a plate of cookies, a glass of milk and a half completed game of Trouble before he asked for details.

"So how do you get in the red?" Juan asked.

Hylla's eyebrows furrowed. "Mrs. Syms says that it's like a stoplight."

"Is Mrs. Syms your teachers?"

"Yes," Hylla said.

First teacher on the first day of school got this out of her, Juan thought. Super.

"She says that if you're good, you can keep going. So you're in the green light. If you're okay, you're in the yellow. But if you're bad, you have to stop, and you're in the red light."

"So she told you you're in the red light?" Juan asked trying to figure out the logic in this.

Hylla nodded. "Yeah."

He found no logic.

"Baby," he said reaching out to plop her off her chair and onto his lap. "That's horrible. Your teacher isn't allowed to call you out like that. I'll call and talk to her, alright? But you need to remember that being in the red isn't always bad."

"It isn't?" Hylla asked.

"Not at all," Juan said. "It takes a lot of judgement, but sometimes doing something that people don't want you to do can be good. It can change things up, move the world forwards. For example, a long time ago- Mommy and Daddy wouldn't have been allowed to love each other because our skins are different. Isn't that nasty? But eventually someone got in the red and said 'that's stupid'."

"But now you and Mommy are allowed to be in love, right?"

"We had you, didn't we?" Juan said.

She smiled and nodded. Juan kissed her hair.

"There's always going to be someone who thinks that you're doing something wrong. Don't let them rule your entire life because of it. Use your gut, alright baby girl?"

Hylla nodded.

"What's a gut?"

"That funny feeling in your stomach that tells you what the right thing to do is."

Hylla said "Oh," and pushed on the dice in the middle of the board. She rolled a six and moved her little red peg down the board and back home.

"I win, I win!" She chanted. "I like being in the red."

"That's not a word," Bella objected.

"Are you kidding? Queso means 'cheese'." Juan argued. "That means that I get a Q and a U on the board and –oh, look at that- word double."

"If you can use Spanish, I can use Latin," Bella argued.

"No!" Juan scoffed. "You speak Spanish, I don't speak Latin."

"And whose fault is that?" Bellona asked. She put down her alphabet tiles to make up a word ending in itus and was therefore probably legitimately Latin.

Hylla wandered in and observed the board.

"A-ppa-rel," she read off the Scrabble board.

"Wow," Bella said with a smile. "That's really good, hon."

"Mr. Valendez says that I'm doing really well in reading," Hylla said.

"I can see why," Juan said offering his hand up for a high five.

"I'm telling you," Ian ranted as Juan sat with Hylla who was trying to do her homework. Sure, she was just colouring in dinosaurs. But it was important for first graders to do that- what kids these days needed wasn't a complete history of the country or the ability to develop social justice skills. Nope: dinosaurs. Those helped.

"Work nowadays? It's atrocious. I hate it. It's just problem after problem, incompetent after incompetent, mistake after mistake… I deal with more bullshit than a toilet."

Juan raised his arms exasperated.

Hylla looked up from her work, her head turning to the side like whenever she heard a word or a sound that she didn't know. Ian's eyes widened.

"Hylla, I meant that like in the card game, alright?"

Bella had her hands folded over her knee as she talked to Mrs. Jenkins and Mr Darling, Hylla's fourth grade teacher and the school psychologist.

"So we are fairly certain that your daughter has ADHD," Mr Darling said. "However she still has a high potential to achieve- she's just going to need an extra push here and there."

"We're listening," Juan nodded trying not to flip out before understanding what was going on. At least they had an explanation for what was going on in class and on the playground.

"You both, of course, know what ADHD is," Mr Darling said. "I'd be willing to assess Hylla as soon as possible to determine what kind of medication she may be more suited for…"

"No," Bella said.

"Pardon me, Mrs. Guerrero?" Mr Darling said.

"Ms. Hadid, first of all," Bella corrected him. "And second off, I don't think medication is the right way to go. I would feel better knowing that Hylla could deal with her symptoms anytime, anywhere, autonomously. If she's ever on different medication that she desperately needs, a prescription for ADHD may complicate the whole thing. I just... I don't believe in medication for her own sake."

Juan nodded. He'd grill her for her reason later.

"Alright, then we can take a purely psycho-therapeutic approach. I can start seeing Hylla twice a week in my office. We can talk about how to calm yourself in the moment and such."

"Perfect," Juan said.

They got some more lectures on the benefits and various therapies commonly associated with ADHD and so forth before Mrs. Jenkins broke in.

"Do you think that there may be outside factors that influence Hylla's behavior?" She asked sharply.

Juan frowned.

"Surely there must be," Bella said.

"Do you think that maybe instability at home may be one?" Mrs. Jenkins asked.

Juan frowned again.

"What are you possibly referring to, ma'am?" Bella asked.

"Well, I've noticed that you two are not married and in these times that can be very…"

"Ma'am, I appreciate the concern you show for Hylla," Juan said cutting her off as soon as he could. "I really do. But you've got to think before you open your mouth 'in these times'. I can assure you that Hylla's family life is exactly what she needs, and that she's better off living the way she is than living with one of us out of the picture."

Mr Darling put a hand on Mrs. Jenkins' knee and shook his head, as if recognising how full of it she was.

"Any other questions?" He asked to try and save the day. "No? Alright then, I think that we can call it a day. Thank you for coming out, folks."

"It was a pleasure meeting you," Juan said shaking Mr Darling's hand. Bella did, but she refused to shake hands with Mrs. Jenkins and instead just shot her a dark, dark look.

They signed the guestbook on their way out of the school and once in the car Juan put the keys in and leaned back.

"No meds because..?"

"Demigods have harsh lives. Especially as they get older, they don't have the assurance of access. And some drugs are known to react badly with nectar or ambrosia when it's in your system."

"Food of the gods," Juan said, remembering the labels on the Tupperware in the back of the fridge and the numerous crash courses he'd received on demigods while Bella was pregnant.

"Exactly," Bella said. "She may need them at a moment's notice as she grows older. It's not fit for her particular situation."

"I didn't know that about demigods," Juan said. "Huh. They're not just half god; they're a whole entire society with different functioning."

"They are," Bella said. "Even the gods can't fully comprehend it all."

Juan ran a hand through his hand, feeling a little overtaken by vertigo. "That's scary. How do I know that Hylla really is safe?"

"You don't," Bella said. "You hope."

"Hoping isn't enough when it comes to my daughter," Juan said. "I want the best for her."

"I know. She knows."

She took his hand and placed it on her belly.

"What about this one?"

Bella looked up and Juan carefully lowered her hair. She ducked her head back against the bathtub.

"Holy smokes," she said resting her head.

"I know," Juan said sitting down next to her and putting an arm around her. He offered her a stick of gum which she gratefully accepted. He took one himself and blew a bubble. She blew a bubble too, slightly bigger.

He blew an even bigger bubble and shot her a sideways glance.

"Oh stop it," Bella said whacking him. "This isn't a game."

He started laughing and Hylla wandered in.

"Can I have some gum too?" She asked. She frowned. "What are you two even doing in the bathroom?"

Bella elbowed him and shot him a pointed look. He shrugged.

"Come here, Hylla," she said scooching away from Juan and patting the tiles next to her. "We've got something to tell you."

They walked out of the hospital and she handed him the ultrasound picture.

"I'm not going to need this," she said. "You keep it."

"Sure," he said taking out his wallet. It was stuffed with more pictures than money. Hylla's class picture, a picture of Bella and Hylla at the beach when she was a baby…

"You still have that? No way, Juan…" Bella said grabbing his wallet.

"What?" He frowned. She slipped a card from where a credit card should be. The Queen of Hearts- the one she'd written her phone number on at the bar, what, ten years ago.

"Of course I still have it," Juan said. "I replaced it in my pack."

Bella smiled and slipped it back in. She rested her head on his arm.

"You're incredible," she said shaking her head. "The Queen of Hearts… who'd have thought."

They sat in the car and Bella suggested that they pull Hylla out of math class and bring her out for ice cream –just to be the best parents ever- and Juan agreed.

"Have you ever played poker before Hylla?" Juan asked.

"I hope not," Bella muttered as she zipped up her rain jacket. The weather had been cold and wet all week, and Hylla had caught a cold by playing in the awful weather with the other girls in the building. She was staying home from school with Juan who only worked by night anyways, presently curled up on the couch in a nest of blankets.

She shook her head.

"Why don't you and I do that until the cartoon network starts playing some decent shows?"

She nodded.

Bella kissed them both goodbye before leaving. She was hugging and kissing from a distance by this point in her pregnancy.

He moved the unfinished Monopoly game onto the couch and dragged the table by the couch, taking out his cards.

"Alright," he said shuffling the pack. "Before we start I need to make this clear- don't you ever play poker for money, okay? Don't you dare."

"So what are we playing with?" Hylla asked with a croaking voice.

"Animal crackers," he said lifting a pack. Hylla snickered.

She was a quick learner when she was interested, and poker fascinated her. She didn't beat him on that particular day, but they had fun. For the first time she asked him where that pack of cards he played with came from. He told her that a school group had sent it over to the soldiers in the Middle East while he was serving: they were the Iraq cards. She nodded.

"But the thing is that one of your cards has a different back. Like, it's older than all the other ones- the corner's chipped," Hylla said.

"Good eye," Juan said shuffling. "I had to replace it."

"Why?" Hylla asked.

"When your mother and I met she wrote her phone number on it," Juan said. "It was the Queen of Hearts."

"So are you going to name her something to do with queens?" Hylla asked.

That hit Juan like a punch.

"We hadn't thought of that," he said.

"What were you going to call her?"

"We had a few ideas," Juan said. "Stuff like Ariel, Juliet... Do you have a Queen-related name idea?"

Hylla shook her head. "There's a book at the school library though."

"Nice," Juan said. "If you can find something, I can barter with your mother."

She nodded at his promise, but looked a bit gloomier. He reached across the coffee table and took her hand, tipping her chin up.

"Hylla," he said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm sick Dad. That's why we're playing animal cracker poker," she said nibbling on a giraffe cracker.

"That's not what I meant," Juan said. "I mean, are you okay with having a little sister?"

Hylla shrugged and put her cracker down. "It's weird. My friends got their siblings ages ago. I didn't think I'd have any."

"It's a surprise," Juan admitted. "But you do know that we're not replacing you or anything, right? You're not losing anything by having a little sister. Not attention, not your room, nothing. You know that, right?"

Hylla hesitated a second, but caught her mistake by nodding vigorously.

Thought so, Juan thought. He sat down next to Hylla and hugged her.

"I love you, eh?"

"Yeah Dad," she said. "I love you too. Especially now that I just saw all of your cards."

"Dang it Hylla," Juan said. His daughter laughed as he moved his piece back on the board. He hated Sorry! It was his daughter's game- which felt like a backstab on behalf of one of his favourite games.

He rolled the dice and felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Really sorry to interrupt your game-" she said.

"Coincidentally you're interrupting a game of Sorry!" Juan commented.

She ignored him.

"-But we have to go," she said.

Juan frowned at her.

"Hospital," she filled in.

"But… It's not December yet…"

"Umm- hospital," Bella repeated. "Now."

He turned towards his daughter.

"Bright Eyes…" Juan said.

"I know," Hylla said. Her eyes were wide. She was clearly intrigued or impressed or worried or freaked out. Bella smiled at her with that once-in-a-million-years reassuring smile.

"We'll send Ian or Genesis over on our way out, alright? Make sure you go to bed at the same time, we'll tell him to make lunch. If he forgets there's five dollars in the drawer." Bella said.

Hylla learned. "Are you okay mom?"

"I'm fine," she smiled.

Juan slipped his pack of cards out of his pocket and gave it to Hylla.

"Entertain Ian with that," he said. "He likes Go Fish."

"Mmm-hmm," Hylla said. Juan kissed her forehead.

"Night, love."

"Goodnight," she said. "Are you going to call when Reyna's born?"

"Sure thing," Juan promised. "You'll be the first to know."

That made her smile.

Bella had Reyna curled up in a sling and they were holding hands as they walked back from the grocery store.

A few girls were jumping rope in front of the apartment complex. Hylla was waiting in line for her turn to jump in while singing with the others for the girl who was, Amy.

"Mi madre y mi padre
Viven en la calle
De San Valentín
Número cuarenta y ocho.
Mi padre le dice a mi madre,
Señora, toque el piso,
Señora, dé una vuelta,
Señora, coja sus maletas
y lárguese de aqui."

"That's a horrible song," Bella said shaking her head.

"It's just a rhyme," Juan said. He was counting up the last two weeks post-baby until her irritability cooled off, if history repeated itself.

"Baby," one of the girls said as they saw them approaching. Hylla leapt out of the line and beat her friends to them. The five girls were all trying to get a look at the baby.

Hylla looked up at Bella who nodded. She scooped her little sister out of the sling, holding her like a pro. Her friends all awed and told Hylla how lucky she was to have a little sister.

"You only say that because she's sleeping right now," Hylla said. She was playing it cool, but Hylla had caved big time for Reyna. She was protective and caring and an overall surprising worry-wart. She made the right call on the first try not to let her friends hold the baby, explaining that Reyna was super fragile. Said child woke up during the following 'aww'.

"Here, you girls can get back to your game," Bella said picking her up. "She's probably hungry and cranky by now. Be up for dinner, Hylla. Do you have any homework?"

"No mom," Hylla said. It was a clear lie, but they let it fly. She'd eventually figure out not to lie about that after a certain number of uncomfortably rushed mornings.

Upstairs, Juan unpacked the groceries and Bella fed and put Reyna to bed.

"I love it when she sleeps all day and is up all night," Bella said grabbing a cut pepper from his cutting board. She sat down on the counter and unclipped her hair.

"You're in the kitchen," Juan complained. She shot him a look and clipped her hair back up.

"I need to talk to you about something," Bella said.

"Talk then," he said sliding peppers across the cutting board. He slapped her hand away when she reached for another pepper slice.

"I saw a monster at Hylla's school today," she said.

His eyes widened. "A monster?"

"A monster," Bella nodded. "A sphinx, to be more precise."

He ran a hand through his hair and his heartbeat picked up the pace. "Does it know about..?"

"No. It's posing as a fourth grade teacher. Hylla's in the fourth grade and it's let her be in the other class. Clearly her scent is still weak, but…"

"But what?"

"I'm going hunting tonight."

"Bella…" He sighed.

"I'm a goddess. I recover from harsher things than pregnancy faster than this," Bella said swatting his arm. "It's just a little sphinx."

"Don't those have, like, lion parts?"

"Just the body," Bella said swatting her hand. "Seriously, it'll be fine. My brother and I can't even hunt together with just one sphinx on the line."

Juan took a deep breath. She slept curled up against him every night, she made him laugh, they argued over illegal chess moves. She was the mother to his children, he saw her talking Hylla through math homework, he saw her trying to repeat Spanish lullabies after him for Reyna. Sometimes it was hard to remember what 'goddess' and 'demigod' meant in the midst of a life that had become his normal.

"Alright?" Bella said. He nodded. "The problem with that is that I can't do that forever. I have very little power when it comes to intervention, and if the council hears that it's because of my daughter…"

"Alright," Juan nodded. "I understand. But the monsters won't keep coming back, will they?"

"Twelve is-"

"The key age," Juan said filling in the info. "The closer she gets the bigger her scent gets and the more monsters will come."

He was expecting to get some props for remembering that without looking at the cue cards he kept in the sock drawer for convenience.

"And now there are two of them," Bella said.

"Two demigods."

"Correct," she said.

"But Reyna's so young," Juan protested.

"That's the worst part," Bella said. "She has no defense, a scent that will get stronger more quickly because she's the second born, and the scent of a sister coming at her. Oh, and to top it off, a goddess is also under her roof. I'm the most harmful factor."

Juan leaned against the counter.

"When I heard you singing to Hylla for the first time and smirked," Bella said. "You told me that you were ready to do anything for your daughter. You've said it a million times, and you've always delivered. But when you've got two… are you still game?"

Then he realised what she meant.

He looked up, horrified.

"You're messing with me," he said. Her face didn't move- but that was normal so maybe… so maybe everything was still… "Bellona, you're not serious. You're not…" He wiped his hand over his eyes. He felt the panic building up in him, which hadn't happened in forever. "You're playing with me."

She shook her head.

"There's no other way to keep them safe is there? No alternative. No all-around happily ever after. None of that? Are you serious? No. No way. You are playing with me so badly…"

"Not this time Juan." Her face was dead serious and -maybe he was kidding himself- a little sad too. But she was a goddess who'd live forever and who'd live forevermore, so surely..? "For the first time since I met you, I'm not. This isn't even be close to a game."