"WHAT DO YOU THINK IT'LL BE? BOY OR GIRL?"

I met his eyes in the mirror in front of which I sat perched, the handmaidens combing out the tangles in my hair. He attentively observed me, his gaze admiring even as I stuck my tongue at him, giving him a cheeky grin.

He snorted in response, throwing himself back on the bed.

"Boy or girl, I'm sure they'll be just as good looking as their mother," I muttered. One of my ladies laughed.

"Oh, I see," Hades murmured. "You mean to say all women swoon over me for nothing? And men too," he added thoughtfully, scratching his chin.

I rolled my eyes at him before the ladies took our leave. Wrapping myself in a dressing gown of painted indigo and silver, I tied the belt. The sleeves dragged along the floor, leaving soft, gentle whispers in their wake.

Climbing onto the bed, I clambered up on top of him and settled myself unto his arms. He wrapped me into him, brushing my hair to the side.

"Do you think... do you think that letter stopped her?" I asked, fear coloring my voice. I had been hesitant to believe, but I dared to hope - to hope that she understood. That I had to stay here.

"Perhaps," he said. "My spies tell me that the plague is dying slowly, and the deaths are no longer piling up like before. But forget that. Boy or girl?" he whispered into my ear, his lips grazing softly across my neck.

"Hecate thinks it's a girl."

"Hmm," his arms enveloped me, crushing me to his chest. I flung my hands around him as he buried himself in the warmth of my neck. "I bet she looks just like her lovely mother. A miniature version of you."

I grinned, imagining it. A tinier, smaller version of me. I strained to see it clearly, but the image in my mind seemed blurred. As if obscured by textured glass. No matter what, I could not see it in my mind's eye.

"With your pink cheeks. And this long hair," Hades continued, twirling a strand of my hair around his finger. "And umm... my grey eyes maybe?" he paused to think, before breaking into a wide smile. "With her tiny little fingers and perfect pink toes," he sighed, lost in his daydream. "Our little peach."

Seeing him so lost in his happiness, I felt such contentment, such relief. "Or do you think her hair will be black? Long, like yours - but black. Like mine. And she'd have your exotic green eyes but my stubborn nose."

The quiet satisfaction hit me hard as I watched him in his joy - knowing that the poor man had hardly ever felt such emotion in his life before. Moisture welled up in my eyes, overflowing with overwhelming feelings. I could not wait for this. Could not wait to hold her in my arms, to kiss her tiny cheeks.

"Perse? Perse?" he shook me gently, face lined with worry. "Are you alright? Does it hurt?"

"No," I sniffed, stroking his hair. "No. But I know one thing for certain."

"What?"

"Our child will have the best father in the world, Hades."

If I had thought I had reached bliss before, I was wrong. This was bliss - in all its glory.

The days were not long enough to distribute my love among my people. The nights had not enough hours to fulfil my thirst for my wife.

I had been over the moon. Had been ecstatic.

It had taken all I had not to break out my oldest bottle of sangria and offer her a full cup - see her pink cheeked, rosy smile light up like an autumn fire. Instead, I picked her up in my arms, twirled her around till she was breathless from laughter. The grin of sheer delight refused to leave my face, and it was as if I had found the true meaning of happiness at last.

There were evenings when we spent hours sitting at the fire doing nothing, my head in her lap as she perched herself on the rocking chair.

It had but barely been a couple weeks, but I could not wait to have my baby in my arms.

My baby. Our baby. The one we made together. Persephone. And me.

I found myself pacing around the study like a fool lost in daydream, occasionally sauntering over to my desk to flick over a few pages off one of the books. Concentrated though we had been in trying to gauge how her powers worked, Persephone and I had been far too excited to get far along. Her skin had begun to glow as if something inside her had finally been lit alight - there was such vivacity in the depths of her ferocious green eyes that they made me want to drown myself in them.

There were mornings when I found her by the Archeron, toes dipping in the cool water, her face a landscape of something ancient, something far, far away. The evenings where she'd be perched on the steps of her throne, distributing the purest form of salvation to the disturbed and the suffering with Charon at her side. The times where she'd sit by the fire with Cereberus at her feet, listening attentively to Minos recounting tales of the old, the wicked, the damned. The countless dinners she'd spent trying to charm Thanatos into getting along with a grumpy Hecate.

And then, there were the nights.

The nights where she'd look at me with raw affection in her eyes, more wicked and dangerous than the sharpest knife. The nights when our bodies could not contain the weight of our love for each other, releasing it bit by bit in soft gasps and whispered moans. The nights when we finally closed our eyes to dark, dreamless, painless sleep - me in her arms, she in my heart, knowing that she could not be safer anywhere else in this miserable world.

I sighed deeply, flinging down the quill after signing a few pending documents - sanctions for rebuilding, work for the gardens, repairs for the temples.

"Remember this?"

I turned around impatiently to find Hecate brandishing a positively ancient stack of papers under my nose, her face twisted in a triumphant grin. I threw my hands up with a sigh. Damn it - I'd forgotten to put those back where I found them.

"I was about to return them!"

"I - they were in the art section, Hades! My old scrolls! I haven't been able to get a hold of any hemlock for ages - I needed them to look up the next lunar cycle when they bloom!"

"I was just collecting some things for Perse. Since - you know... she can't exert herself?" I shrugged, shooting her a hapless grin, watching her sigh in relent, shaking her head like a mother hen.

"Fine," she huffed, puffing her chest to pat her hair nonchalantly. "But the next time you leave my things lying around, I'm giving you a piece of my mind."

"Aren't you doing that very thing right now?" I teased.

"So immature," she disapprovingly clicked her tongue, stubbornly crossing her arms. "You're worse than a child. Really, I wonder how that poor girl is going to put up with the two of you."

"You're no fun," I frowned at her. Her eyes widened, as if faced with a grave insult. "Even teasing you is boring."

She simply rolled her eyes, raising a well manicured eyebrow to shoot me a glare.

"Anything else?"

"Ah," she turned her head, as if remembering something. "I forgot. Lachesis came to me last night. That old hag never stops getting on my nerves."

I chuckled.

"And?"

"Ah. It is Tartarus, it seems. She thought she saw the gates open yesterday evening. Did you forget to lock them last time?"

I scratched my chin, frowning.

"No. That cannot be. Perse didn't open them again, and neither did I. I'll go check right now."

"It's fine," Hecate muttered darkly. "She probably did it to annoy me. But I'll go see, just in case."

"I'll go," I cut in. "I don't want you to go. Not after last time," my words were heavy with meaning. I saw a wave of confusion over her face before she smoothed it out. I was not having her die again, not anywhere near that wicked place.

"It is alright," she said, rather a bit too firmly. "I mean..." her voice trailed off as she looked a bit flustered. "I am alright. Just give me the key, I'll go lock the gates up."

I breathed deeply, looking her over. A slight sheen of moisture covered her cheeks, her eyes darkening under her hard brow. A few wisps of hair were flying out from her usually neat bun, but she seemed better. Not scared, at least.

"Well then," I murmured. "If you're sure," my hands reached out to take off the single chain around my neck, tucked under layers of silk and velvet. At the end of the chain hung a single heavy, ornate key, engraved with a chimaera right in the center with rubies for its deadly eyes.

Perse and I were the only people who could open the gates without the key, but I still kept it around my neck as a measure of extra precaution. If something ever happened to either of us... the gates couldn't keep the Titans locked in without the key. Not that I would ever let anything happen to her - but it was always prudent to have a backup.

"I can go with you if you like," I said cautiously, dropping the key into Hecate's hand. "After what happened last time."

"I'm fine," she snapped, her voice edging towards frost. "I'm... sure you and Persephone have work to do. I'll go lock the gates. I think I saw her in the east orchard, I think. Maybe in the Sanctuary. She was looking for you."

"Fine then," I whistled, my voice answered with a disgruntled bark from somewhere in the corridor. Cerberus pranced in, eyes questioning as I dropped to my knees, giving the bloodhound a good scratch behind the ear. "Let's go find her then. Fancy a walk, old boy?"