'Wake up.'

'Lisa, wake up.'

Lisa sleepily opened her eyes, to see Achilles staring moodily at her from the passenger seat of the car. She remembered falling asleep however, it was now bright outside.

'Good morning.' Lisa looked up at Achilles. 'How long was I asleep?'

'All night.' Aster chimed in from the driver's side.

'We're nearly there.' Achilles looked pointedly at Lisa. 'At my parent's house.'

They sat mostly in silence until they turned into a secluded lane. The turning was nearly completely hidden in the trees and Lisa was expecting to see a small, modest house, however, when Lisa looked out of the car window, she was surprised to see a long lane which lead down to quite a big house. It was surrounded mostly by forest and Lisa could see that it bore resemblance in location to Achilles's house.

The car slowed to a stop and Lisa was suddenly terrified. Both Aster and Achilles got out of the car however, Lisa stayed firmly put.

The car door opened.

'Why aren't you getting out?' Achilles was looking blankly at her.

'I'm scared.'

'It's not my parents you should be scared of.' He said rather coldly.

'Achilles, I'm so sorry for what I've done.' Lisa looked pleadingly at him but his expression didn't really give any clue what he was thinking.

He leaned over her. 'Can I have my jacket back?'

Lisa's attention was suddenly drawn to a jacket that she hadn't realised was sitting over her shoulders. He must have put it over her while she was sleeping.

'Sure.'

She climbed out of the car and followed Achilles to the door. Right before they caught up with Aster. Lisa asked Achilles something.

'When's the last time you saw your parents Achilles?'

'A few years ago.'

'Are you okay?'

'What kind of question is that Lisa?' He answered, completely monotone.

She stood in front of him.

'Are you guys coming over?' Aster shouted from the porch.

'Just a second.' Lisa yelled back.

She looked Achilles in the eye. 'Look, I know you probably hate me right now and I'm probably the last person you would want to talk to about anything, but if you do want to, you can with me, okay?'

She grabbed his hand and then suddenly a jolt of something passed through her.

She watched him smirk as he walked past her. 'I guess you're not the last person I would want to talk to.'

Lisa tried to shrug off what she had just felt and put it down to this weird energy that was between them at the minute. As she joined them on the porch, Aster rang the doorbell. They waited for a few minutes and there was no answer and finally Aster spoke after sighing.

'They knew we were coming, I phoned them.'

'You did what?' Achilles growled. 'Have you any idea how dangerous it was telling them about Lisa and I over the phone?'

'Thanks Achilles, I wasn't born yesterday. I just told them it was urgent and I was coming over. They don't actually know you're coming.'

'Oh hell you're going to give them a heart attack Aster.' He walked off the porch and around the side of the house, Lisa followed, calling after him.

'Where are you going?'

'They're probably outside, gardening or something, who knows.'

'In this weather?' Lisa shivered. 'It's freezing.'

'It's not that bad.'

'Well maybe because you're an incubus and you're not doing everything for two, that's what you're not so cold.'

'Fine, take my jacket if you must. It's not my fault you didn't wear enough layers.'

They walked around the side of the house and Lisa watched as Achilles froze, and she caught up with him. There was a woman in the garden, and she seemed to be watering plants. She didn't seem to have seen them yet but as she turned and eventually did see them, all Lisa could hear was a gasp and the clatter of the watering can hitting the ground.

'Achilles.' The woman shouted and ran over towards them. Throwing her arms around Achilles, Lisa watched him stiffen and inhale shakily before slowly putting his arms around her.

'Hello.' His voice changed slightly and Lisa could have sworn she saw his eyes flicker back to their regular grey again, but it was gone too soon and suddenly she pulled back.

'My son, you're here, how are you here? I thought I would never see you again.'

Achilles took a moment to compose himself and breathed out softly;

'Well, Ma, this is Lisa and she's pregnant, and the child is mine.'

Lisa swallowed and offered her hand. 'Lisa Farrow.'

'May Starling. If your name is Lisa Farrow, you have a family name, you're human.' May smiled softly.

'And that is precisely why we are here, Ma' Aster spoke softly from behind them. 'Lisa's eyes have turned red and since Achilles and I are both clueless, we thought you and Dad would be the best people to ask.'

'I've never seen that before I'm afraid, you'll have to ask your father, speaking of, he's going to be so shocked to see you Achilles.'

She disappeared briefly and then around the corner came a man who was undoubtedly older than both Aster and Achilles but he did not quite look like the father of two adult children.

'I can't believe it.' The man said, throwing his arms around Achilles. 'You're here. You're here and you're alright. I was so afraid that something would happen to you. I've missed you. We've missed you.'

'I've missed you too, Dad.' Achilles smiled and Lisa felt strange watching them interact. She felt like an outsider, trespassing on this intimate family moment. But in that moment, his father turned to Lisa and introduced himself.

'Hello Lisa, my name is Ezra, it's nice to meet you.' He looked into her eyes and nodded at her. 'Something's wrong here.'

'Let us all go inside before we sit down and talk though.' May added.

Lisa felt awkward sitting at the Starling family table. As they chatted, she looked at May and Ezra and she felt sorry for them. She wanted to shake Achilles and yell at him. Yell at him for never even checking in on his parents. Every time she looked at them, she could see different combinations of relief and disbelief in their eyes and she felt so bad for them. How awful it must have been to be missing someone that much, not even knowing if they were dead or alive.

She hoped it would never happen to her and she looked down at her stomach, which was barely starting to show and she placed her hands softly down on it. That was her baby and now it wasn't just her she had to protect. In the midst of this, she briefly looked at the people in the room and a thought which didn't feel entirely her own popped into her head.

You can't trust any of these people. You can only trust you.

She quickly pushed the weird thought to the side. That didn't feel right. Shaking her head slightly and tuning back into the conversation again, she looked up and saw Achilles was staring at her, and she stared back until he spoke

'My mother just asked you a question Lisa.'

It was then she realised that everyone was staring at her and then coughed.

'Gosh, I'm so sorry, I zoned out there, I-'

Achilles smirked, almost like he knew what she'd been thinking about. His eyes looked into hers as if to say I know.

'Oh, it's completely fine, I can imagine you're exhausted! I was just asking were okay, you looked a little lost.'

'Oh, I was just thinking, don't mind me.' Lisa laughed.

'What were you thinking about Lisa?' Achilles interjected, smiling.

'Nothing.' Lisa said, quietly.

'Achilles, how long have your eyes been red again?' Ezra asked.

'Well, since I did my second bout of time in the Hercules. It was pretty recently actually.'

'How? What happened?' May asked.

'Well, there's an interesting answer to that question, isn't there, Lisa?' Achilles looked at her. She didn't understand why he was kicking off. Well, she did, he very obviously wasn't in control of his emotions, but why did he have to kick off now? She understood that was definitely something they were going to tell his parents about but she had imagined it would have been in a lot more of a mature fashion than this.

Aster rolled his eyes. 'Not this Achilles. For crying out loud, why now?'

'You're making an awful lot of excuses for her, what were you two doing in that house by yourselves?'

'Achilles that's enough.' Ezra stood up calmly and 'Lisa, I was thinking that maybe you and I should go see what we can do about these eyes, what do you think?'

'That'd be great.' Lisa excused herself and followed Ezra.

It was just them two, in a room which Lisa assumed was some kind of office, but then it occurred to Lisa, what the hell would an incubus need an office for?

'So tell me Lisa, what exactly happened?'

'I don't actually know how it happened, It just kind of did, I suppose. I can't really tell you how.'

'But did you feel anything physically?'

'My abdomen really hurt and then it was like something surged through me and my eyes just turned red.'

He looked thoughtful for a moment. 'Strange. What happened next?'

'Well, I phoned Aster and he arrived back, but then that's when Achilles came back.'

'From Hercules?'

'Yes.'

'What happened that he ended up there Lisa? I'm not going to judge you.'

Lisa looked away. 'He ended up there because of me, Hercules took me in and tried to convince me that he was a bad person and then he came in to get me and he accidentally got in my head. I didn't know though and I thought he'd tried to control me, I was scared.'

'Then what happened?'

'I screamed, and they found him. I regret it so much, and he hates me for it.' Lisa felt ashamed telling him.

'Lisa, I think that this guilt that you're feeling is understandable, but it's impractical. You need to stop acting like Achilles getting caught by Hercules was a death sentence. He got out and he was always going to get out, also you have to remember that he made his choice by going into to see you and he knew there were risks, granted, he didn't expect what happened but it did.'

'See everyone keeps telling me this, and I understand, but he still won't speak to me.'

'Well that's because he's not totally in control Lisa, and that's exactly why I think you eyes are like that.'

'What do you mean?'

'He's not completely in control, his demon side is starting to take the wheel, if that makes sense. When he was Hercules, there's no doubt he had to do terrible things to get out, and that brings out his worse side. See, he's only young, so his demon side is very much like that of a young demon, it wants everything and it doesn't like being defied, so he acts out. It happened last time, and it took a while to get him back to normal, but he did, and he will again. Anyway, I think that him losing control is affecting you too, you're connected to him, since you're pregnant and some of him is starting to seep into you.'

'Well, that sure sounds frightening.'

'It is, but we can fix it.'

'How do you know all this?'

He laughed. 'When you've been around as long as I have, you know a lot of things.'