I'm hoping to remedy my disappearance from the internet and general inactivity with weeks of Christmas vacation and a whole lot of stories. It's been killing me not to write, and this was a lot of fun!

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters used in this story, or the Christmas carol lyrics used as an epigraph. My favourite rendition of "I Saw Three Ships" is the Barenaked Ladies, for the record. Spoilers for The Blood of Olympus, though I guess that's old news.

I Saw Three Ships

I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day, on Christmas day
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day in the morning

*o*o*o*

An' all the bells on earth shall ring
On Christmas day, on Christmas day
And all the bells on earth shall ring
On Christmas day in the morning

Leo's lips were cracked from the wind and the cold typical of a 6 500 foot altitude, and the wind had ruffled his hair. Still, this had become his default mode so he hadn't bothered to fix himself up when he landed in Camp Half-Blood.

The boat's anchor was safely dropped in the lake and Leo slipped the Argo II's keys in his back pocket (over the years he'd had to take a few precautionary measures to keep the vessel safe). It was ass-o'clock in the morning, as Leo had planned. He didn't want to arrive out of the blue at camp and disrupt its activities. He acknowledged that seeing him alive would be what they called a "shocker" back home. He'd wanted to talk to Chiron before breakfast and then see his friends again before going for his siblings.

Calypso had told Leo to go back to Camp alone. She'd said that she wanted to run around the world on her own for a bit, and that Leo had better tell someone he was still alive quickly. She'd meet him up at camp in two weeks, and Leo had vigorously trained her in the art of phone calls, Skype, text messages and Iris Messaging beforehand just in case she got in trouble. Secretly, he was glad. He had a feeling that Hazel might kill him on sight and if so, he rather keep the next logical target to Hazel's wrath out of her way. Even with death as a possible (probable) outcome, he couldn't wait to see Hazel. And Frank. And Jason and Piper and Annabeth and Percy and Jake and Nyssa and, and, and.

Camp was gorgeous. Powdery white snow covered the ground and sparkling, magically fabricated icicles hung from every rooftop, and even the tusks of Cabin Five's stuffed boar head. A satyr was standing by the forges, his tongue stuck to the metallic walls. Thalia's tree was frosted like a cake and the lava on the rock climbing wall had frozen in mesmerising spirals.

Truly beautiful. Just like Leo remembered camp. His stomach crawled up and sat up on its hind legs like a dog anticipating a treat.

He knocked on the Big House's front door politely- which was of course when everything went wrong. He'd always known that manners were never a good idea.

For starters, Chiron didn't answer. Jason did. Or… at least… Leo didn't know who it was but his first instinct was Jason. But it wasn't Jason, it was a grown-up dude. Even taller than Jason had been. Blond like Jason, with eyes like Jason- except with tiny folds in the skin by the corners, and with a different frame on his glasses. But the worn jeans and the tattoo poking out from the rolled up sleeve of a grey thermal shirt? That rang a bell.

Leo's face seemed to be familiar too because fake-Jason paled.

"Leo…" he said. He stepped out onto the porch. "Saturn's shit… how are you?"

"Jason?" Leo asked.

"Yeah," he said looking at Leo as if he wasn't sure if this was a miracle or a sick joke. "How are you here?"

"Long story," Leo said. "Physician's cure, Festus, lots of long stories. And you… how long have I been gone?"

"Close the door before Mr D goes off again about how we're heating the outdoors," someone just behind Jason said. That's when he saw Piper stalking down the hallway and peaking over Jason's shoulder. He recognised her hair and her features, but she seemed older too. More grown up, taller maybe, and definitely more polished. Even her hair had grown out, and it was slick and nice and even instead of chopped, without any feathers or beads hanging.

"What's up buttercup?" Leo grinned. He didn't care that his friends looked dusted with grey and wrinkled like prunes. This was great! He'd missed them more than he'd anticipated, and more than he realised now that they were back together. The three musketeers and all that jazz. But now everything could go back to normal: Gaia was seven feet under and Leo had taken care of business and had kept true to his promise. They could be Leo, Piper and Jason again.

"Leo," she breathed out.

"In the flesh," Leo said proudly extending his arms.

Jason stepped aside and Piper stepped forwards gingerly. She examined Leo for a full five seconds. Before sucker punching him.

"Where the hell have you been?" Piper demanded.

"Owe!" Leo choked out. She'd learned how to make a proper fist.

"Seriously," Piper said. "Where the hell? Come on, give me an answer. Make it a good one, because I will hit you again."

"Pipes," Jason said trying to take her arm.

"Stay out of this," Piper said.

Leo got up, rubbing his jaw. "Nice to see you again too."

"Nice to see us again?" Piper said. "I'm sure it is! Mostly because you weren't 100% certain that we were dead."

"Piper, you don't know the full story…" Jason said quietly. "Let's take a second and…"

"Oh I do," Piper said. "Your shirt's ironed. You hate ironing; you were with someone. And judging by the lipstick stain on your face, it was with a girl. You went back to Ogyjia didn't you? We couldn't even find your body or your stupid dragon to give you a decent funeral and all along you were frolicking around with Calypso- who, by the way, we all know about no thanks to you!"

Leo didn't hear anything but they both looked over their shoulders, back inside, as if someone had called them.

"I'll go," Jason said. "Please don't hurt him."

Jason quickly went back inside, shooting Leo strange glances, while Piper just fumed.

"Will an apology make it-"

"No."

"What if I…"

"No," Piper said gunning him down with her eyes. She was wearing a soft grey sweater, old jeans and bright orange Toms, a relaxed and careless look. Just like Leo remembered. But this anger? This wasn't usual. He'd pissed her off a ton of times, especially when he'd called her Lois Lane for the entire week after she and Jason's first date, but she'd never… it wasn't anger, when you pissed off a friend. It wasn't the same.

"Okay," Piper finally said. "Maybe you could try an explanation."

Leo gave her a quick run-down of what had actually gone down during the fight with Gaia- both from what he remembered and from Festus' blackbox and emergency camera.

"I'm sorry," Leo said. "Piper, I went to Ogyjia and came right back."

"And you can't send Iris Messages from Ogyjia?" Piper asked. "Hermes never stops by? It's impossible to use the emergency phone incorporated into Festus? Oh- how about this- it was impossible to tell us that you weren't actually going to kill yourself in the battle. Frank was insomniac for three years after that battle Leo- three years. Hazel still hasn't forgiven herself and we don't say your name around her. Percy and Annabeth's PTSD was a thousand times worse than it was after Tartarus and they still haven't shaken it off. It was already like living, breathing hell after that and I…"

Her voice caught.

"That was a douche move," Piper summed up in her quietest voice yet. Leo had chills- and no, it wasn't because there had been no snow in Ogyjia.

"Wait- Frank didn't sleep for three years?"

"He still has bouts of insomnia but it's not chronic anymore," Piper muttered.

"Three years…." Leo said. "Wait a second, how long have I been gone?"

"Let me show you," Piper said, turning around and darting into the Big House.

It was pretty much like Leo had remembered it, with maybe a few board games more in the rec room. A fresh coat of pistachio green paint had been thrown over the walls, which looked disgusting, and a stuffed bear head was now hanging next to Seymour the leopard. Both had been outfited with Santa hats, probably thanks to some brave child of Hermes. Piper led Leo past the infirmary and in a room that screamed out hospital and chilled Leo's blood.

There was a bed with cold, metal bars at its sides in the center of the room, surrounded by no shortage of medical equipment. There were pictures and colouring book pages hanging around the room, as well as colourful block letters spelling out JESSICA over the headboard- not that it brightened anything up. How could it? There was a big machine by the bed that Leo thought looked like the dialysis machines that his abuela had had to use once her kidneys started failing. There were IV's and different heart monitors and wires littering the bed, including two that shot from an oxygen tank and snaked up to a little girl's nose. Her straw blond hair was spread around her head and she was sleeping soundly. Jason sat next to her, stroking her hair softly.

"Who… what..?" Leo swallowed hard.

"Our daughter," Piper said painfully.

"How-"

"She's four," Jason said sharply.

"What's…"

"Wrong with her?" Piper finished.

Leo swallowed. Was that a wrong thing to say?

"When demigods have kids…" Jason said. "Like- like Percy or Annabeth who had Eden and Ezra."

"They have kids too?" Leo asked.

"Leo," Piper said quietly. "We turned 30 this year."

Leo felt his entire body freeze. Oh shit.

He knew that time progressed differently in magical places, but this much? He was starting to realise that he'd fucked up. Badly.

"So this kid…" Leo asked. "She's yours..."

The idea of Jason and Piper being old was weird enough. The idea that they'd had to plan a wedding (how had he missed the rings?), joust over baby names and that they probably had stable jobs and, gods, maybe even a mortgage now- those were all terrifying notions to Leo. And, maybe, it was also scary that Leo had missed all of that. That he wasn't worrying about a cubicle and learning how to change a diaper and shit, did he even want kids? Leo didn't know. Leo was a step behind his best friends- who were here with their kid.

He was still trying to wrap his head around that when Piper came up with a next level of fuckery:

"It's why she's sick," Piper said.

"Like I was saying," Jason said. "When a god and a mortal mix, the child's half god right? So when a demigod has a baby, half of that half goes to the child."

"A quarter," Leo said. "A child of a demigod is a quarter god."

"Right," Jason said. "And usually that's thin, so even if both parents are demigods, the kid ends up okay."

"But Jessica's half Greek demigod and half Roman," Piper said. "That threw off the entire equation, not that we could know- the camps were seperated for so long, there was never any way for this... Chiron didn't know, Lupa had no idea. The repercussions…"

"Are bad," Jason finished for her. "The roman ichor is trying to overpower the Greek ichor and vice-versa. It started small, you know. We realised she could charmspeak and harness wind, cause minor thunder showers. Then she became moody and temperamental- like the gods did when they were locked away on Olympus. After that she became reckless, dangerous, aggressive… and she was so young. We found out that her godly blood was trying to consume her mortal blood, and it was destroying her."

"She nearly died," Piper whispered.

"She has to live at camp, where Chiron and the healers can keep an eye on her. Having us close makes it worst but… well, it's Christmas. She wanted to see us, she even asked Apollo when he came to check on her. We were invited."

"It's Christmas?" Leo asked.

"If you make a joke about being a gift to us all, I swear to god," Piper said.

"I- I wasn't," Leo said. "Wow, she… She really looks like you…"

Piper looked at Jessica herself, as if she hadn't memorised her face already, and smiled.

"She looks more like Jason," Piper said.

"No, we've been over this…" Jason said.

Piper smiled and sat on his lap, and that's when Leo first noticed how tired she was.

"Is she- I mean, is Jessica in any..?"

"Danger?" Jason said. "We don't know. She's the first baby Chiron's ever seen like this and Apollo… well, that's someone else's quest, but things are shaky on Olympus. He hasn't been able to monitor her progress like we'd hoped he would."

"She's on an oxygen mask right now?" Leo asked.

"Mmm-hmm," Piper said. "Gods don't breathe. Jessica needs oxygen but she doesn't have the instinct to breathe when she sleeps."

"Holy hell," Leo said. "And the dialysis..?"

"To try and get the ichor out and get some mortal blood in," Piper said. She pulled her hair out of her face. "Dad's donated so much blood…"

"Is she always like this?" Leo asked. "Can she walk or talk or..?"

"Yes," Jason said. "She can. She does. She likes dancing, when she's not hooked up to anything."

"We had a dance party last night," Piper smiled, eyes closed, leaning her head back into Jason's chest.

"Cute," Leo said.

Piper's eyes shot open and she scowled at him.

"Nuh-uh. You don't get to sit here and say that, call her cute and beautiful and try to mooch your way into the good books. The fact is that you don't know her, you barely know us anymore, and that's entirely your fault."

"My fault?" Leo asked. "We were trying to save the world! I was panicking!"

"Not panicking enough to omit saving the girl from the equation," Piper said. "Not panicking enough that you didn't have the kind of meditation necessary to get Hazel and Frank involved in this fake sacrifice of yours. Jesus, Leo, what if Jason had been stabbed and I'd have tried to use the physician's curse on him? No, you isolated yourself like you always do, you got scheming and heroic and finicky with this master plan of yours. Don't try and feed me bullshit."

Jessica stirred and Piper immediately perked up and her features became softer. She wasn't angry anymore, she was a Mom. Leo didn't know which was scarier, but both filled him with... shame?

"I'll…" Leo swallowed. "I'll step outside."

Jason stepped outside soon too. Thankfully time hadn't made him any less diplomatic. He was calm and cool and collected as he leaned against the railing of the porch. They watched the sun rise over the frosty lake.

"We didn't know if Jessa was a girl or a boy until she was born," Jason said. "She's Jessica Reyna McLean Grace now, but she could have been named Leo Julius just as easily. Maybe even more."

"I'm sorry," Leo said. "I... it wasn't fair to you. I wasn't expecting it to take that long for me to come back."

"That's not the problem," Jason said. "Or at least, for me it isn't. What hurts is that you didn't tell us you were leaving, Leo. What hurts is that... that you did it on your own. Were we not good enough for you? Did we not listen and cry with you and stay up all night on bad days and scheme and joke and plan our entire lives and trips around the world with you?"

"You did," Leo said. "I guess that's why I thought you guys were too important to risk. Because you were the first to really, really do that. That was so new to me, I didn't know how to manage it. Well, I did. I'd seen it done. I guess it just wasn't my first instinct and we were a bit short on time. I'm sorry."

Jason nodded, and he watched the sun rise and bounce off the snow a bit more.

"Jessa wanted to know why we were making so much noise," Jason said. "She wants to meet you. And then she wants to open Christmas presents. Come on."

Leo's heart dropped, and it started up again as the smile sprawled across his face. Hell, maybe it even grew three sizes.

Jason and Leo went to go grab breakfast for the four of them, leaving Piper to pick up the wrapping paper and colourful tissue paper laying on the floor and on Jessica's sheets. Now Piper was braiding Jessa's hair and chatting with her, which was by far one of her favourite things to do in the whole wide world. Except when her four-year-old went all metaphysical and existentialist and deep before 9:00 AM.

"Mommy?" Jessica asked.

"Yes baby?"

"Why don't I know Uncle Leo like Uncle Percy and Aunt Annabeth and Uncle Frank and Aunt Hazel and Aunt Reyna and Uncle Nico and Uncle Will and Aunt Gwen and Uncle Dakota and Uncle Bobby and Uncle Mitchell and Uncle Malcolm and Aunt Lacy and all them?" Jessica asked.

Leo's omission from that list was painful enough, but having to justify that to a four year old child? Then again, Piper had held Jessica during nights when she'd been sick and trembling until the early morning. Piper had had to tell Jessica that her blood was sick and that it was a bit their fault. Piper had to leave her daughter every time she saw her, and Jessica always, always cried as Jason and Piper pulled each other away from the Big House (because if it wasn't for each other's sakes they'd be holding their little girl and screaming and crying too). Piper had had to tell Jessica that she may die if she didn't take her medicine or wear her oxygen mask or let Chiron and the medics give her injections and work their magic.

There were much, much worst things to have to tell a child- and Piper had found that the truth was always the best. Even when it sucked, the truth was mostly around to stare you straight in the eyes. Even when she was dressing Jessica in her pretty Christmas dress - a red and black checked shirt with a soft red top- she'd come across scars on Jessica's belly and ports for IVs and bruising from dialysis. There was no point in lying.

"He's been away," Piper said.

"Is that why you're angry, Mommy?" Jessica asked.

"I'm not angry with Uncle Leo," Piper said.

And that was the truth. Piper was... dissapointed, in a way. Well, it wasn't the entire truth. She was a little angry. And the fact that Leo hadn't expected that... Maybe that was dissapointment again, however? She'd thought she knew this boy and that he knew her back. She'd thought they were friends. Friends knew each other. Friends didn't leave each other. Friends didn't miss the biggest, baddest parts of each others' lives.

"That's good," Jessica said as Piper tied off her braid with a red elastic. "Chiron read me a story about how Christmas is magical and about love and joy and being with people and forgiving. That's what he said it was about."

"What was the story called?" Piper asked. She felt as if a thousand boulders were shifting across her stomach.

"How the Grinch Stole Christmas," Jessica said. "Can you read it later to me Mommy?"

"Absolutely," Piper agreed.

The door was pushed open. Leo came in holding plates all over his arms like a waiter.

"Daddy Jay said you liked waffles, Jessica," Leo said. "Is that true?"

Jessica sat up in bed happily and clapped her hands, a smile across her toothy face.

Piper smiled a bit too, and she didn't stop as they spread a picnic blanket on Jessica's bed and set up breakfast. This was how they always ate their meals with Jessica, and Leo seemed to fold into the routine as if he'd been an ingredient all along. It calmed Piper down a bit, to see him so naturally... at ease with Jessica, despite the wires and tubes and pills that Jason portioned out with her meal. He passed the syrup and offered to cut Jessica's second helping of waffles so that Piper could eat and he teased Jessica about how Santa Claus wasn't above return policies and so she should really eat her fruit... It gave Piper a bit of hope, too. Even if he'd been away for so long, even if he wasn't perfect, even if he was still a little bit selfish and a whole lot of awkward, even if he'd missed the hardest moments of Piper's life and of Jessica's diagnosis and treatment and medical scares... maybe there was hope for all of them yet. Maybe it wasn't too late for Leo to be in their busy, tumultuous, agitated lives. In their little broken family, held together by sheer willpower and pure love.

Hope. That was something else that Chiron had forgotten to tell Jessica that Christmas was about.

Piper would have to tell her later, when they read the story. Perhaps if Piper made a Grinch voice, that Jason read the bits about the dog- maybe Leo could sing like the whoos in Whooville and make Jessica laugh.

She'd like that. They all would.

"Thank you Leo," she said.

Let us all rejoice again
On Christmas day, on Christmas day
Let us all rejoice again
On Christmas day in the morning