how much longer til your luck runs out?

It's been two weeks since she last saw Jason when she finds out she's pregnant. Six days since he last Iris Messaged her - long enough to be worrying, but not so long that people have started looking at her like she's a walking widow. It doesn't happen the normal way; she doesn't skip her period, get suspicious, and buy a test from a drugstore. Nico and Will are visiting her, and Will stiffens in her arms as she hugs him hello. Knowing someone with vitakinesis really speeds up the process of finding out.

(She apologizes to him, later, when he asks if she's sure she wants to keep the pregnancy and she nearly punches him in the face. Jason is alive, Jason is alive, she knows he's alive because Nico and Hazel have both reassured her that he hasn't passed through the Underworld, but if - if - if this baby is the last piece of him that she'll ever have, then she wouldn't give it up for the world. She's not sure she's ready to be a mom, but she and this baby are going to figure it out together.)

When it's been three weeks since she last spoke to Jason, she has to be physically held back from going to Mount Olympus and demanding that the gods give him back to her. Nico shadow travels Sally to her instead, and she cries in her mother's lap until she doesn't think she has any liquid left in her. They come up with a plan together: Percy takes some time away from New Rome University, and Sally and Paul and Estelle and Percy all move into an apartment in New Rome together. She leaves the dorm she and Jason were living in together but doesn't let it be reassigned yet. Being ex-praetor has some advantages.

It's been a little over six months since Jason left on that quest. He still hasn't passed through the Underworld. Percy's having trouble fitting his sweatshirts over her belly. Estelle is over the moon about being an aunt. She's alone in the apartment for once, napping on the couch because it turns out that growing an entire new person in your body is at least as exhausting as fighting a war, when she hears an urgent rapping on the door and forces herself upright to go see which of her friends has decided that actually, she's not allowed to be alone right now after all.

When she wakes up, she doesn't realize anything's wrong at first. She's in a bed, soft but supportive, tucked under a thick blanket. She's cuddled up against a warm body, her head pillowed against a firm chest that moves up and down steadily with even breaths. It's comfortable, and when she cracks her eyes open and sees she's in a (hotel?) room that's empty aside from her sleeping companion, no monsters (why would she be looking for monsters?) or anything else dangerous in sight, she almost shuts her eyes again to fall back asleep.

It's the thought that she doesn't quite remember how she got here that really wakes her up. Because: how did she get here? Where is here? It might be safe... ish... in that she might not be in immediate danger, but there's a lot of unknowns right now, including the question of who the frick is in bed with her.

It would probably make more sense to stay quiet and take in more of the situation, but the realization that she's in bed with a stranger causes her to flail backwards in a way that would absolutely have had her falling off the side of the bed if the mattress itself wasn't surprisingly large. Instead, she ends up tangled gracelessly in the sheets and slightly frozen in place, like the guy waking up won't see her if she's completely still.