Well, hi there. This Christmas story is brought to you late by Timing. This is first and foremost my Mama Bird's Christmas present- so she had to open it and read it before anybody else. The good news is that it still got published before Christmas, so no complaining! In all seriousness, I hope you enjoy the story.

Disclaimer: Still don't own anything.

O Tannenbaum

And now would the rosy-fingered Dawn have arisen upon their weeping, had not the goddess, flashing-eyed Athena, taken other counsel. The long night she held back at the end of its course, and likewise stayed the golden-throned Dawn at the streams of Oceanus...

-The Odyssey, Book 23 (translated by A.T. Murray)

On her first real date with Frank, he'd had the (honestly, very good and very sweet) idea to bring her to the shopping mall in Berkeley where there was a video store, so that she could pick out movies to watch at Camp and catch up on the last sixty-or-so years of cinema. Hazel had never seen a film in colour before. She had never seen a film legally either -she and Sammy used to sneak into the cinemas when they could- so he was also going to bring her to a real theater. It had all been going really well until they checked the directory and realized that the store was on the second floor, and Frank had brought her to an escalator- which Hazel had never seen or heard of until that very specific moment, when she was still on edge from the War with Gaia and overall terrified of being in public.

Ever since that date and her first successful ride up an escalator, rewarded with frozen yogurt and a kiss, Hazel liked to think that she was pretty flexible. The real world was big and complicated, and Hazel always ended up missing things. She knew about chicken nuggets, but had no idea what dipping sauce to order with them and had no idea what to answer when the lady at the counter asked if she would like to supersize it. Also she wasn't very good at using the new paper bills and coins. She would watch Harry Potter without realizing that Dame Maggie Smith was a big deal. She would eat toast all the time at Camp, but stare at the toaster at Percy's house in complete confusion when she actually had to make it. One day Piper had punched someone who called her 'Pocahontas' and Hazel had then asked her for a crash course on racial slurs because, well, lots of things had changed and Hazel didn't want to offend anyone. None of this had never been a problem. Hazel was flexible. Adaptable. Quick on her feet and eager to learn.

She was not flexible when Nico cancelled their Christmas plans.

"Only if you're sure you don't mind," Nico said. "It's… it's really time for me to meet Will's family and he's got such low seniority at the hospital, he's never gotten Christmas off before and probably never will…"

Her brother was nervously toying with his engagement ring the whole time, and so Hazel plastered a smile on her face and said: "Of course it's okay! When are you heading down to Birmingham?"

It was not okay.

Nico and Hazel typically held an orphan's Christmas. They would crash at one of their houses, order Chinese food, and rewatch all the Friends Christmas episodes- or Doctor Who if their lives had been simple recently and they were in the mood for something a little bit more emotionally straining. They would wear sweatpants and exchange presents and eat piles of baked goods and drink tea and fancy peppermint liquor that Will got from patients but didn't drink. Well, one year they did, and it wasn't good. Regardless, she had anchored the month of December around eggrolls and laugh tracks, and she had no idea what to do without.

"I can… I'm sure you can come," Nico said. "I mean, you're my bridesmaid, they should meet you too…"

"No, no," Hazel said. "No, that'd be weird. I'll be okay Nico, don't worry about me."

But he did, and he went out and told Percy about it. Actually, it had probably worried Frank that Hazel had no place to go for Christmas- which she hadn't been panning on telling him, but had let slip during their weekly Skype calls. So what probably happened was that Frank told Percy that Hazel had nowhere to go, and Percy reached out even if Hazel didn't want to be any trouble.

"I already told Annabeth you were coming," Percy said. "Would you really want to disappoint Annabeth? Now especially?"

No, she did not.

"I'll bring food," Hazel resolved.

So she did. Hazel showed up on Christmas morning, a mac'n'cheese that need only be baked in her hands, and a bag of gifts over her shoulder. She was wearing leggings and the oversized sweater -black with snowflakes around the collar- that she always wore on Christmas because it usually still smelled like Frank, plus a couple of layers because New York was a lot colder than Vancouver.

Percy opened the door for her, hair still unbrushed and in his pajamas, smiling brightly. Estelle was clinging to his back like a little monkey, and she looked just as mischievous as one with two missing front teeth and braids.

"Hazel!" Estelle said.

"Hello sweetheart," Hazel smiled. "Merry Christmas…"

"Here, get off Stella," Percy said. "I've got to give Hazel a hand… Why don't you bring this to the kitchen for her…"

When Estelle had walked out, Percy gave her a huge hug.

"Estelle is here, am I early?" Hazel asked, worried.

"No, no, no, not at all," Percy said. He kissed her hair. "Usually we go to Mom and Paul's for Christmas breakfast but Annabeth was having this killer morning sickness, so they came over instead. Come in, they'll be happy to see you…"

They were more than happy to see her. Sally had a tin of dainties for Hazel, telling her to share with Nico next time she saw him, and Paul had brought Hazel a book he thought she'd like because it was set in New Orleans and also Estelle had drawn Hazel a picture when she'd found out she'd be coming that morning. It was a bit overwhelming, but one of Hazel's favourite Christmas movies -Elf, which Nico categorically refused to watch with her- was playing. Parts of it had been filmed in Vancouver.

"Where's Uncle Frank?" Estelle asked looking up. Out of the seven, Frank was the only one to be considered an uncle- and they had no idea why. They had never called him that around Estelle, but she had just always associated Frank with her uncles. Probably because he was taller and carried her around a lot and sat down with her to colour or read so much.

"He's at work," Hazel said. "There are some people who need to work even when it's vacation time, because their jobs are really important and someone else might need them."

"Remember how we said that Uncle Frank was a military doctor?" Paul asked Estelle, flicking one of her braids. "How he's a doctor that has to work far, far away in case somebody gets hurt far, far away?"

Estelle nodded diligently. Sally brought out fresh cups of tea for Hazel and Annabeth and asked Hazel about work to move along.

Percy's parents slipped out to take a breather before spending Christmas dinner at Paul's parents' place. Sally put something in Annabeth's hands at the door.

"Raspberry leaf tea," she told Annabeth. "Every morning, every night. I know you drink your tea and your coffee black, but sweeten it heavily- or else it won't work. I can't explain why or how, but it'll help."

"Okay," Annabeth smiled. She looked tired, but genuinely happy as she leaned against Percy a little bit, with one hand resting on her baby bump. "Thank you, Sally."

It was so domestic, Hazel could cry. She felt like a perfect intruder and a complete voyeur.

This was all just before Jason and Piper arrived with Leo in tow.

"Feliz Navidad, my dudes," Leo said throwing tinsel everywhere.

"Leo Valdez, you may not throw tinsel in my home until I am able to bend over and pick it up," Annabeth said. "And then you may not throw tinsel in my home because it will be a chocking hazard."

"Right," Leo said gathering up his tinsel.

"Finally," Piper said. "He's been doing this all day."

"I told you we should have dumped him at Jake's," Jason said. "You should listen to me more."

He grinned and put his arm around Piper, which gave Hazel a nice view of his wedding band- glittering and new. She played with her own wedding ring self-consciously.

Hazel had gotten married young. She had known this. She had gotten married before finishing her legion service, and had had to petition the senate to do it- but she'd had a good reason. Well, two good reasons. One was for the Canadian citizenship, which made it a lot easier to have a significant other in the Canadian armed forces. The second was that that way, Frank could put her name on the deed to Zhang Mansion as well when he inherited and rebuilt it. That house was at the heart of the situation really: to keep it, Frank had had to use the college money his mother had left him, which meant that having the military pay for his tuition and trip to medical school was really useful.

Hazel didn't regret it. She liked being married to Frank Zhang. If she went back in time and told her teenaged self that she married Frank Zhang, she'd blush then too and smile. Honestly, if Hazel hadn't married Frank Zhang, something would have been seriously wrong with her- he was Frank. She'd grown up in the Second World War- she liked to think that she'd become thoroughly modern and changed since then, but marrying a soldier and synchronizing her life with postings overseas made sense to her, and ultimately it felt right. She didn't mind being alone most days, she'd become a lot more independent that way- settling her various disputes and qualms with household electronics, and navigating the world to bump into delightful things like sushi and biodegradable laundry detergent. Sure, when she told Frank about her discoveries he usually was more excited for her than he was about her findings (which had actually been around for years, typically)- but it made every day an adventure. She had built a nice life for herself in Vancouver- between managing the Zhang estate, now a demigod sanctuary, her nice circle of calmly mortal and modern friends, and plunging herself in the new and exciting world of cinema by working odd jobs on sets and writing critiques, Hazel was happy. Christmas was the exception, because Christmas always was.

This Christmas was different. Percy and Annabeth, after adopting Hazel and realizing that Annabeth's poultry aversion would make producing a turkey dinner unpleasant, had come to a conclusion around the lines of fuck it, Christmas party it is, and put up lights in their apartment, thrown some chips and classy hors-d'oeuvres on their kitchen table, and called it a day. Hazel recognized at least half of the demigods there, and knew of the other half. It was a lot more people than her usual Christmas crowd -her, Nico, and the guy delivering the Chinese food. It was also a lot more food, since Hazel's mac'n'cheese had only been one dish in a bountiful potluck, and a lot more activity as they played silly mini games and swapped gag gifts and danced.

At some point in the night, Hazel strayed towards the window and sat down on a trendy, high chair to watch the snow fall, holding a mimosa.

"Hey," Percy said, coming to sit next to her. "Enjoying the view?"

"You know I love New York," Hazel said.

"You know you're always welcome here," Percy said. "We love having you."

"If I came to New York too often, it wouldn't be as special," Hazel said.

"I'm offended," Percy said.

"Don't worry, I'll visit more when I have my little niece," Hazel smiled. "Annabeth's so big."

"Don't say that too loud," Percy said. But he was smiling.

"Has she been sick a lot recently?" Hazel asked.

Percy nodded. "Children of Athena, as it turns out, do not usually have children. Family tradition and all. But she's happy, and that's enough. Or it's going to have to be…"

"I'm happy for you two," Hazel said looking back outside.

"And you?" Percy asked. "Are you happy?"

"I love Vancouver," Hazel said looking out the window. "I love my job, I love my friends, I love kayaking and skiing in the same weekend, I love Stanley Park, I love taking my bike to go everywhere, I love the art, I love this coffee shop downtown that my friends and I go to all the time because there's a poetry slam every Wednesday…"

"But today?" Percy asked. "On Christmas?"

"Christmas is different," Hazel said. "Which is why I always have to think of the other things. It's a twenty-four hour of sadness in a happy life."

Percy put his arm around her. Annabeth joined them at the window, also slipping an arm around Hazel.

"I remember the one Christmas I had to spend without Percy," Annabeth told Hazel. "When Hera took him. It was brutal, Hazel. I can't imagine what it's like now, but we're here with you, and for you."

"Thank you," Hazel said. "I just… I keep remembering this one story… A Christmas story, really, from when I was little. Well, earlier than that, from Word War I. Before the Americans joined, in 1914 on Christmas day. The Germans started singing in their trenches, I mean, can you blame them? If you're in a trench on Christmas day, you have to make your own happiness to go with it. And they were singing in German, of course, but they would sing O Tannenbaum to the same melody as the British wanted to sing O Christmas Tree to … And so they did, and eventually both sides realized that it was Christmas for everyone. They played soccer and put a Christmas tree up in No Man's Land and swapped buttons and tobacco and gave each other haircuts and held joint burials for soldiers who, in another few hours, would have been swallowed up by the snow and mud."

"The Christmas Armistice," Annabeth said. "My dad loves that story."

"It's a beautiful story," Hazel said.

"You don't talk a lot about when you were little," Percy said.

"Neither does Nico," Hazel said.

"But he was a toddler, and you were old enough to remember," Percy pointed out in that annoying cousin-who-knows way of his.

"I thought about the Christmas armistice a lot when I was little," Hazel said. "After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and all of that. Because they… There were posters everywhere and ads on the radio interrupting all the songs and the programs and the most dreadful rumours coming out of Europe, but I could never really believe that all the Germans were bad. Some of them had stopped fighting on Christmas day and given their buttons and tobacco to British soldiers, even if they'd had to go back to killing them on the next day. I remember feeling so guilty, so wrong and unpatriotic for it, but I wondered what the words for Silent Night were in German- because it's a German song, originally. I hoped that the soldiers at the time got a truce on Christmas too. I guess, I'm maybe a bit disappointed that Frank doesn't get to… that he's not either."

She kept looking out the window. Somebody behind them said, 'excuse me' very softly. It was Lacy, who was blonde with big green eyes. She was impossibly shy, so Hazel didn't know her very well, beyond being able to say that she was Piper's sister and Nyssa's girlfriend.

Lacy tugged on her hair. "My- my family is Swiss German, they fled Poland during the Second World War. I mean, we're Jewish, but I know the words…"

"Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute heilige Paar.
Holder Knab im lockigen Haar,
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!"

"That was my abuela's favourite Christmas carol. You must have heard this too," Leo said poking Nyssa and Chris Rodriguez.

"Noche de paz, noche de amor,
Todo duerme en derredor.
Entre sus astros que esparcen su luz
Bella anunciando al niñito Jesús
Brilla la estrella de paz
Brilla la estrella de paz… »

By the time they were done, Reyna and two other half-bloods who knew Spanish had joined in. Piper nudged Mitchell, and the children of Aphrodite chimed in, this time in French.

"Ô nuit de paix, Sainte nuit
Dans le ciel L′astre luit
Dans les champs tout repose en paix
Mais soudain dans l′air pur et frais
Le brillant coeur des anges
Aux bergers apparaît… »

Some half-bloods felt inspired, including Paolo Montes, and sang in Portuguese.

« Noite de paz! Noite de amor!
Dormem todos em redor.
Em Belém Jesus nasceu,
Rei de paz, da terra e céu.
Nosso Salvador é Jesus, Senhor. »

The Greeks demigod tried it out in Greek, choppy but still melodious for a first time…

"Agia nehta se prosmenoun
Me hara e hresteane
Kai me peste anemnoume
To theo dozologoume
Me ena soma mea psehe
Me ena soma mea psehe…"

It was incredible. Drew Takana could sing it in Japanese. Two demigods that Hazel had never seen in her life knew it in Korean. Annabeth's cousin Magnus knew it in Norwegian, somehow- and his friend the elf signed it too. Jason had learned a Latin version as a child. Polish, Romanian, Irish Gaelic, Inuktitut- the song was everywhere.

Hazel wiped at her eye with the sleeve of Frank's sweater- which most people didn't notice. Annabeth and Percy each squeezed a hand.

"You know he's right, because the baby's kicking," Annabeth said. "Neither of those things happen often, but when they do they coincide."

Hazel laughed, and she was reminded of something she'd known since the very first time that she'd opened up her mind and her heart to Frank and the world, when she'd brought him into a flashback with her. The last flashback she'd ever had, really. Peace was about what was happening on the inside, as much as it was about what was happening outside.

"Thank you," she said, leaning her head on Percy's shoulders.

The party trickled down eventually, especially since the Stoll brothers were hosting an after-party in this really sweet penthouse they were housesitting not too far from Times Square. Who had left them in charge of their home, Hazel couldn't say. She stuck around to watch old Christmas movie reruns with Annabeth who was wrapped up in a blanket with a cup of her raspberry tea, Percy who had received Reindeer slippers during the gift exchange (the nose, obviously, lit up bright red), Leo, Reyna, Jason, and Piper. They were eating Sally Jackson's baking, popcorn, watching It's a Wonderful Life, which Hazel loved, when Reyna got up to check her phone.

"I'm sorry, it's work," Reyna said. "I'll take it in the hall…"

She slipped out. And if Hazel had been paying attention, she would have realized that Reyna only opened the door without actually going anywhere. Or she would have heard the extra sets of footsteps accompanying Reyna back to the living room nearly immediately. But she was completely engrossed in the film, and was completely surprised when Frank appeared in uniform, Nico and Will in tow.

"Frank," Hazel said bouncing to her feet. She covered her mouth with her hands and took three steps towards him before she froze. Frank bridged the gap, and wrapped his arms around her in the tightest, warmest hug of Hazel's life- despite the snowflakes in his hair. She was still crying when she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist, as if that would bring him to her forever and ever.

"Hi," Frank said eventually. Hazel laughed, and she heard their friends laughing behind her too.

"Hi," Hazel said, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Merry Christmas," he said.

"Merry Christmas," she repeated. Frank laughed.

"I knew we'd surprise you, but is it that bad?" he said.

"It's the best," Hazel said. "I'm so happy to see you."

"Yeah, 'happy' is what we got," Nico said.

"I'm going to be mad at you for lying to me later," Hazel told him.

"Let's feed him to make sure he gets to 'later' and doesn't pass out from exhaustion or some similar nonsense," Percy said. "Frank, you want a plate too?"

"Yeah," Frank said. "Please. Nico told me Hazel made her mac'n'cheese?"

"I did," Hazel said, still not moving.

"I'll give you extra," Percy promised before disappearing into the kitchen. Hazel eventually let go, so everybody else could stay hello, but when they went back to eating in front of the TV, Hazel was sitting on Frank's lap. He balanced the plate on the couch's arm. She rested her face against the crook of his neck.

"What are you humming?" Frank asked her quietly.

"Stille Nacht," Hazel said softly.