So before you guys get to the story we need to go through two things. First off, I know that I vanished from the face of in November. Blame NaNoWriMo. You guys don't need to know about my life but December has been craaaazy busy. Point two: this was written on a laptop with French settings so there will be so many grammar and spelling issues, I am so so sorry. Merry Christmas!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters portrayed in this story- which was, by the way, conceptualised before House of Hades came out so keep that in mind please.

Not a Creature was Stirring

6:34, December 24th

Within twenty seconds of his birth, Hayes Jackson had been on his first adventure.

The adventure being of course that the entire hospital had been on lockdown because a stray cannibalistic trio had wandered into the maternity ward and had managed to locate aforementioned legacy, giving Percy a great mess to explain to the nurses and Annabeth nightmares for the next three weeks- which were sleepless anyways thanks to Hayes' powerful lungs. Later someone bothered to mention that the birth of a legacy always released a similar amount of energy in the world, which acted sort of like a scent on steroids. Therefore, very careful planning had taken place this time

And it was all revealing itself to be useless when Baby Number Two decided to pop up a month too early, on Christmas Eve.

"Your bed's all ready, sweetheart," Sally said patting Hayes' back. "Everything's all set for you."

"Exactly," Percy agreed. "Listen to Grandma and Grandpa, okay?"

Hayes nodded and Percy gave him a quick hug and hair-rub.

"Love you daddy."

"Love you too, Hayes," Percy said.

"Call us when, alright?" Sally said hugging him.

"Sure Mom," Percy said. He rubbed Hayes' head again before closing the door behind him and rushing back down to the car, anxious to beat New York's constant traffic and the upcoming storm.

6:35

"Looking good Grace," Reyna teased. He made a face as she dusted the snow from her shoulders and took her coat off.

"You clean up pretty good yourself."

Jason was overcompensating because he knew how much she hated being in a dress. He didn't feel any better, being all dressed up in a monkey suit that was just the right shade of grey for him (or so Piper's sisters had said), but it was worst with Reyna. She felt incapable and restricted in an evening dress such as the red nightmare she was wearing, no matter how good she looked, and therefore she ignored him.

"Did you call the elevator?"

"Of course I did." Jason said.

"Good, it's gotten even slower over the years. The only good thing about it is that the speakers are broken now."

"Annabeth should work on replacing it," Jason said.

"I think that Annabeth's been a bit busy."

"Well I didn't mean now," Jason said. "Gods, don't I know it? I live here after all- I get the play-by-plays. Besides, I'm one of the hospital guards for when the baby's born."

The elevator arrived with a dim 'ding' and they walked in.

"Yeah, let's talk about that before we're swarmed by duty and gods filled with the holiday spirit," Reyna said. They were representing the Veteran demigods, a.k.a. the war survivors that hadn't been killed out in the open yet, at Olympus' Christmas ball. "How's life treating you?"

"School's fine," Jason shrugged. "But I'm not into it anymore. I'm not… I don't know. The interest isn't there."

"The year before you're eligible to write your doctorate thesis you decide that you're not interested in international politics anymore?" Reyna asked with a grin. "Really?"

"I've talked it over with Thalia and Lupa. It's too… It would be difficult to get involved in politics or any high up position in the government. I can't prove that I'm an American citizen born on American soil without bringing up the fact that I'm supposed to be dead. I don't know which would be the bigger issue."

Reyna smiled. "Depends how good you are."

"Suppose so," Jason said. "I was talking with Paul- I don't know, he was correcting the other day and he said that even if he hated doing that, it was worth it for the time he got to spend in the classroom. I'm thinking of going back to that degree in physics and get a license to teach."

Reyna groaned. "Only you would get a PhD, turn away, and become a high school teacher in a domain other than your PhD."

"What? I think I'd be good at it."

"Of course you would," Reyna said.

"Plus nothing's set in stone, right? About jobs and stuff. I mean, I remember turning on the TV and watching you in that ring not so long ago."

Reyna nodded. "I didn't like that though."

"I know," Jason said.

She had hated her brief but brilliant MMA career for the same reason that she hated how her hair was pulled up in something pretentiously called a chignon and how jewellery was pressed against her throat. It was such a show. Reyna loved the rush and the sport of fighting… But in the streets or after matches, guys would literally inform her that it was 'hot' to watch a Puerto Rican beat up other 'chicks'. To her face, sometimes drunk and sometimes sober. And they weren't the ones that she was allowed to punch, which had only just stopped her more than a few times.

"I'm glad you're happy now, though. Plus the traveling is doing you good. But I swear, if you do something sketchy like elope with a marathoner in Switzerland without me knowing…"

Reyna laughed. "I would not. He'd be an opponent. But hey, speaking of marriage…"

"Oh not you too," Jason groaned.

"Of course me too," Reyna said. "I've been hearing stuff Saving Grace- don't think that I'm out of the loop."

"What stuff?" Jason panicked.

"Nothing. But you were sweating there, so you've got something to hide. Come on, spill." Reyna said.

Jason's hand curled around the pocket of his suit jacket.

"No way," Reyna said.

"I didn't tell anyone," Jason said. "Not yet. She's super busy on Broadway and school's big for her right now, so don't get mad…"

"I'm not mad, I'm excited."

"I hate how you always know," Jason said. By starring at each other long enough, they could get the other's attention. Even after nearly ten years away from the senate and the legion, they still had that connection.

"Unfortunately for you, I do. Show me the ring; I won't have you giving Piper a crappy one."

Jason rolled his eye, took the ring box out of his pocket and popped the lid.

"Yeah, it's okay I guess," Reyna said, examining the intertwining metallic bands. He'd figured that it was elegant yet simple.

"Okay?" Jason said. "Just okay?"

"I'm kidding," Reyna said. "She'll love it. No stone, though?"

"No stone." Jason hesitated, shy for only a second. "They're too flashy for her."

"You're right, she'll love it. Have you talked to her Dad?"

"Do I look like I want to be killed in my sleep?" Jason asked. He was pretty sure that Tristan McLean liked him well enough, but Jason wasn't willing to find out in any hard way whatsoever.

"You don't, that's why I'm checking," Reyna said. "So when are you popping the question?"

"Don't know," Jason said. "We were doing to a New Year's Eve party that she was pretty excited for so I thought that maybe then… Or her birthday's really early in January after all… I'll find the right moment. Eventually. In the meantime, you shut up. Especially once we get on Olympus. If her mother finds out I'm dead meat."

6:36

Percy slammed the car door.

"One down," he said buckling his seatbelt.

Annabeth leaned back in her seat and nodded. What had started out as flurries this morning were now the heaviest snowflakes that Percy had ever seen shower down on New York City.

"One to go," she said. Percy gave her hand a squeeze before starting the car. It took a few tries.

"You got through to Grover, right?" Annabeth asked as the car sat in the miserable weather and the miserable(r) traffic.

"He's coming, and he'll find a few more people to keep watch at the hospital with him." He squeezed her hand. "Everything's going to be okay."

Her spine stiffened and her features were scrunched up.

"I know," she said squeezing his hand back, a smile on her face anyways. "I just… This is early. I hadn't expected to be here on Christmas Eve. This kid's got your sense of timing."

6:45

"Grandpa was going to make spaghetti for supper," Sally informed her grandson, putting her arm around him. "Is there anything you'd rather have?"

"Cookies?" Hayes suggested.

"That's a dessert, silly," Sally said giving his nose a squeeze. Usually that made Hayes giggle uncontrollably, but he was quiet tonight. Sally passed her hand through his hair. He'd unfortunately inherited Percy's wild and thick mane, but a few shades lighter.

"What's going on, sweetheart?" She asked.

"It's just… Mommy said that the baby was going to come in January," he said.

"You're right. But sometimes things change," she explained.

"So… nobody knew that I was going to be here before right now?"

"That sounds about right," Sally said cautiously. Hayes' features melted in a panic.

"Does that mean that Santa Claus won't know that he has to bring the presents here?" Hayes asked.

Uh oh.

They were going to have a problem.

6:47

"And?" Hazel asked. Frank shook his head.

"All flights are cancelled in and out of New York," he said. "Not just ours."

"So we're stranded?" Hazel asked.

Frank nodded and Hazel's shoulders slumped. She was absolutely terrified of airports to begin with- they were big, scary, full of people-usually angry and unpleasant people at that-, and everything in them beeped or blooped. Not to mention that even if she wasn't a child of Neptune, she still didn't feel so good in the air… But there was never a good time to road-trip from Vancouver to New York, particularly not in December, and so they didn't really have a choice if they wanted to be home for the holidays. She'd accepted on the grounds that ever since she'd come back from the Underworld, Hazel had been on a quest to make every single Christmas perfect to make up for that childhood of hers. Frank's mission was to help her.

"Hey," Frank said sitting on the bench next to her. "It could be worst. We could be, like…"

"At a busier airport?" Hazel suggested slyly. Of course not. They were in Toronto's international airport.

"We could not have been traveling together," Frank suggested. It was really rare that his presence at home mirrored any holiday, and sometimes it seemed that he missed every important event too. He was a social worker for the army, and he'd been spending time in Africa recently. Hazel had been thrilled to have him home for her birthday and for Christmas, like one giant present from the universe. He'd made sure to make both occasions big.

And sure it kind of sucked to be stuck in an airport with tons of weird and sometimes smelly strangers, but hey. They'd texted everyone in New York so that they knew, they may call later, the airline was giving them coupons so that they could get free food around the airport and it was Christmas one way or the other.

"Yeah," she said cuddling up. "We could have."

6:50

Okay, so maybe Grover had panicked.

He'd gotten the call from Percy, announcing that the baby had decided to emerge from a womb a month earlier than expected out of nowhere, and so he had to get to the hospital with some heavily armed demigods to avoid a repeat of the whole cannibal-in-the-ward incident.

His resources had been low, however. The plan was for Clarisse, Jason, Chris and Reyna to stand guard. That was a good, steady and reliable idea. However Jason and Reyna were on Olympus and Chris was visiting family in South America for the holidays.

Now came the part where he panicked and grabbed the closest available demigods and stuffed them in his hybrid to get to Manhattan from Camp Half-Blood, from which he couldn't quite see the horrible snowstorm ravaging the roads yet but he could feel it in his bones and Juniper had kind of told him not to go.

So now he had Connor sandwiched between Katie and his brother in the backseat, with Clarisse and her armoury in shotgun (no pun intended) as his window wipers scrambled to get rid of the snow.

This definitely wasn't his best idea.

7:15

Rosy-cheeked and just about frost-bitten, both of them were focusing on how it was at least warm in the hospital room.

"How are the contractions going?" The nurse taking Annabeth's pulse asked.

"Fine. Pretty far apart." Annabeth said. "Feels like last time."

"Oh, this isn't your first?"

Annabeth shook her head as the blood pressure monitor tightened around her bicep.

She was bracing herself for an insane mix of pain, boredom, nerves, and repetitive questions by nurses that just wouldn't go away. This wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind for Christmas Eve, but she supposed that anything was better than That Christmas When They Were In College.

She'd survived that, so bring it labour pain.

7:17

"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…" Connor started.

"If you sing I kill you." Katie –out of all people in the car, Katie- said.

"It's Christmas, he can sing if he wants to," Travis said.

Connor made a small whimpering sound along with a meek "no it's really not necessary let's all shut up."

"Just because it's Christmas doesn't mean I have to endure something I don't like," Katie said. "Don't you think that there's enough going on?"

"Maybe that's why we need music," Travis said sarcastically. "It heals the soul."

"Goddamnit it's your attitudes that need healing," Clarisse said.

Travis and Katie crossed their arms and rested their heads against the windows.

Grover looked around anxiously. He'd thought that maybe keeping those two together on Christmas Eve may help them feel better about having to be shipped to New York on guard duty, so what was going on?

"By the way, since you've been away on business so much…" Clarisse whispered to him. "You missed the bit where Katie and Travis have been arguing so badly recently, they'd on the verge of breaking up."

Grover paled.

Schist he did not need this.

7:30

"Do you have a birth plan?" The nurse asked.

Of course I have a plan. I also have a back-up plan, which comes with two back-up plans depending on the weather, she thought. That was the pain talking- turns out, it made her cranky.

"As long as this guy stays with me all the time, and the baby's never taken out of my eyesight once she's born I'm okay." Annabeth said to sum it up. Percy squeezed her hand, as if he could promise on the universe's behalf that no monster would pop out of the blue and try to kill all of them right there in the maternity ward. Which, of course, he couldn't and wouldn't. Before they'd left the appartment she'd caught him starring longingly at the spot where the hidden door for their stash of demigod supplies was hiding.

The nurse nodded as she installed the herapin in Annabeth's arm and got the fluid IV started.

"And so it begins," she said shifting her eyes towards Percy who was sitting next to her.

He nodded and kissed her hair (which was good because she got another contraction and may have punched him if not).

7:45

"I can list about twenty ways a tie could kill a man," Nico said.

She had to dig deep into her roots as an ex yoga teacher to stop herself from smacking him.

"Maybe," Rachel said. "But the only one you should be concerned about is that your girlfriend may get so pissed at you for being difficult, she'll strangle you with it."

She tossed the tie over to Nico and he put it on half-heartedly. She was surprised that he knew how to tie it, but whenever Nico did something domestic or remotely useful Rachel just figured that Persephone had to have had some kind of influence on him after all this time he spent brooding in the world's basement.

"There," she said. "You look at least somewhat presentable."

It wasn't as if Rachel would ever admit to anyone's face (especially not Nico's) that he looked pretty good. Putting aside the fact that he refused to wear pants that were not black skinny jeans, Nico was wearing a classy white shirt, a black tie and a jacket that had nor blood nor stain on it, and wasn't even made out of leather. He still looked gruffy, like a kitten put through a garborator, but at least he'd cleaned up a bit. There was only so much that could be done.

"Let's go over the story one more time," Rachel said leaning over her wardrobe to clip earrings on.

"Christmas Eve is the biggest Dare family reunion because you're ripping off a French tradition called Waking-Up or something-"

"The Réveillon," Rachel corrected as nerves settled over her. Great, she was totally screwed. Why had she picked Nico di Angelo out of all people to lie with her?

True, her options had been limited. Grover's environmentalist spark would surely start a fight in a Dare family reunion setting, and if Jason even so much as opened his mouth to say hello Rachel would be forever tormented about not marrying him. Percy was the married father of 1.5 children ergo she couldn't borrow him for her cause, and Frank was in the Canadian army which meant that the lie she'd have to weave was just too complicated. Whereas Nico lived with her and couldn't refuse a favour to his girlfriend on Christmas- or so she'd talked him into.

"Right," Nico said. "And for some inexplicable reason this year you're bringing me-"

"Because my father thinks that I am a lesbian and so you're my desperate attemps to keep the rumour mill from spinning out of control."

"Right. And your family thinks that you're a med student-"

"Exactly, and you too. Where do we study, Nico?"

"Harvard."

"Exactly."

"And they think that we met in class and moved in together."

It wasn't that far from the truth- and Nico, little snot that he was, should be able to manage this lie pronto come to think of it. They had met while they were studying (Monster Fighting 101) and they had moved in together (after Hazel had forced Nico to move out of Cabin 13/the Underoworld/sketchy alleyways in foreign countries).

As long as he remembered what the Réveillon was, they were going to be a-okay.

7:50

Her phone rang.

"Who in the world is calling?" Annabeth said.

"To be fair, it's not like anyone's expecting you to be in labour right now," Percy said reaching for her purse. He took out the phone. The caller ID proudly displayed a picture of Mom and Paul at some kind of book award ceremony.

"Uh oh," Percy said.

"Who is it?" Annabeth asked.

"Mom," Percy said.

"Go out and answer it," she said.

"But-"

"I'm not going to pop while you're in the hall," Annabeth said. "Go."

He answered the phone and Mom had Hayes on the phone explaining the whole Santa-Clause-won't-know-my-exact-location problem.

"Daddy, what if Santa forgets me? What will they do with my presents?"

"Hey little guy, Santa won't forget you. I'm sure that he knows where you are." Percy said.

"But Google Santa Tracker says that he's already in China. What if he left the North Pole before anyone could tell him?"

"Santa is magic, kiddo. He has an emergency telephone line on his sleigh so that someone can always tell him these details. He knows where you are, okay? You'll see." Percy said.

"Promise?"

"Promise. Do you feel better?"

"Yeah. Magic."

"Aha," Percy said. "Okay. But listen, Santa won't come if you don't go to bed anyways right? No trying to stay up and capture Santa Clause like last year, okay?"

"Okay."

"And if you don't leave him cookies, he may not be so generous next year."

"I know."

"You wouldn't want that, would you kiddo?"

"Nope. I'll even leave a carrot for Rudolph."

"That's a good idea. I'll talk to you real soon Hayes, okay?"

"Okay. Love you Dad."

"Love you too Hayes. Can you give Grandma the phone?"

"Uh-hun."

"Percy?" Mom asked a few seconds later.

"Yeah. Okay, listen- the presents are at our apartment. I'll get someone to pick them up and drop them off." Percy said.

"Alright," Mom said. "How is everything?"

"I don't know," Percy said. "Nurse looks satisfied."

"Call us when, right? The time doesn't matter, just call."

"I know, Mom."

"That's what you said last time too, yet I'm pretty sure that everyone knew before we did."

"It's not our fault that there was a demigod mess. I have another call to make and I can't stay out here too long."

"Right, I shouldn't even be talking to you. Love you sweetheart."

"Love you too, Mom."

He hung up and went through Annabeth's contacts. He had very little time to form a perimeter and set up various lines of defence. Once he'd sent a few super scrambled texts everywhere, he had to scroll some more until he found who he was looking for.

Leo Valdez.

7:52

The car stopped with a thump.

"What was that?" Katie asked, concerned.

"Car's stuck," Grover said unbuckling his seatbelt. Clarisse released a powerful swear word and got out of the car too.

After wondering how to get the car started again for a long time, mostly due to Katie and Travis contradicting each other at every opportunity, it took a while to determine that Clarisse and Connor would push (since Katie hadn't wanted to sit if Travis pushed and Travis didn't want to sit if Katie pushed and Clarisse's strength was nonnegotiable, etc, etc) and Grover would turn the ignition.

About an hour later they were moving again.

Twenty minutes later the car got stuck again.

7:55

They were lucky that the subway was working, or else they wouldn't have gotten to Percy and Annabeth's apartment. The roads were so bad thatLeo had taken one look and said 'hell no', and had spent the last half an hour muttering about how this kind of crap didn't happen in Texas.

They stomped their feet in the stairwell to shake the snow caking their boots and Piper ran her fingers through her hair to melt the snowflakes.

"Did he tell you where the presents were hidden?" Piper said.

"I didn't ask," Leo shrugged.

"What do you mean you didn't ask?"

"It's not a huge brain buster," Leo said. "Parents always hide presents under their bed."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Leo said. "Relax Beauty Queen."

Piper produced the spare key that had been left in her charge ever since Percy and Annabeth had gotten married and unlocked their door. The entire appartment was dark except the Christmas tree- which was garnished with ornaments that Hayes had come back from preschool with, hand-me-downs from Sally, and blue lights.

Piper unzipped her boots and wandered into the appartment, flicking lights on as she walked by various switches. Stockings were hung on a book case in the absence of a fire place. The entire appartment had "Annabeth" written all over it in the form of crisp, modern funirture, and "Percy" kind of just thrown here and there in the form of dirty laundry and scattered dishes. Hayes' toys were laying on the floor and his artwork turned the appartment into a gallery, as it had been framed and displayed on bookshelves and coffee tables or pinned on the fridge.

"You know, for all the trouble that we give them, they really are great parents," Leo said.

"Yeah, they'll be good to their baby girl," Piper said.

"Boy," Leo said.

"Girl," Piper insisted.

Since Percy and Annabeth had opted not to find out the gender of the child, the window had been opened for Leo to start a betting pool about it- which he totally had about twenty minutes after the pregnancy had been announced. Camp was pretty much split in two over the issue, with a clear minority of people declaring that the child would be born without a gender. Most demigods in New York were participating in the poll to Annabeth's great annoyance- including Chiron.

Piper's fingers knocked against a pastel blue Baby's First Christmas ornament wiht Hayes' name, weight and size scrawled on the back in her handwriting.

"We should've gotten them another one," she said carressing it. It was probably hanging so low on the tree because Hayes had insisted on hanging it himself.

"Baby wasn't due till January," Leo said. "How were we supposed to know?"

"Maybe not know, but we definitely should've seen it coming," Piper said getting up. "Speaking of which, did you text Jason to let him know that the baby was..?"

"Yeah, he and Rey know," Leo said. The new demigod-friendly cellular technology that Malcolm had developed in recent years came in handy for times like these and ugly-selfie-wars.

"Come on, let's just find their stuff and go," Leo said. They walked into the bedroom and Leo lay flat against the floor to gauge how many trips up and down the stairs they'd have to make to get everything done. He swore instead.

"What?" Piper asked. "That bad?"

"No," Leo said. "Nothing's there."

Something very important occured to Piper that moment. Unlike what Leo's childhood memories recollected, Annabeth wasnt just a mother hiding Christmas presents from her son.

She was Annabeth Chase hiding presents from a spunky and worryingly clever legacy gifted with his fathers perseverance and impatience.

This wasn't going to be as easy as they'd thought.

7:56

"Who has wifi or service or whatever it's called?" Grover asked.

"In this weather?" Connor asked. "No one."

"Well I don't know," Grover said blushing. He was already nervous about Percy and Annabeth's baby being born without any kind of escorte or guardians or whatever you wanted to call the four half-bloods in his car; there was no need to add his technological cluelessness to the mix.

"I do," Katie said triumphantly.

"How?" Clarisse asked. "My phone froze during the drive."

"I don't know what he did, but Malcolm fixed it up for me last time I was at camp," Katie said.

"Malcolm fixed it up for you," Travis echoed meaningfully.

"Oh for the gods' sakes," she flushed.

"Whatever, text Percy to tell him that he's on his own for a while longer," Grover said. "Actually, just text whoever is possibly in New York."

"Will do," Katie said. "I can't guarantee that everyone will get the text though."

"I suggest calling a towtruck too," Travis said.

"Well I don't have a number on my phone, and I doubt that I'll have Internet access," Katie said as her fingers raced over her phone's tiny keyboard.

"Didn't Malcolm fix that up for you too?"

"For crying out loud, now you're accusing me of cheating on you?" Katie said spinning around in her seat to face him.

"Don't even start arguing about that I'm going to shoot you both," Clarisse said. "Trunk is full of weapons! Just text Jackson."

8:00

Olympus was beautiful on any day, but decorated for Christmas? Reyna hadn't seen anything quite like it in a long time.

Ice drooped from the rooftops and porches in the form of icicles or thickly coated tree branches Delicate patterns frosted the windows. Candles lines the roads, their light gleaming off the golden pavement. Heavy fluffy snowflakes fell and peppered the hair of godlings left and right.

"Beautiful," Jason said. Reyna nodded vigorously and Jason held out his arm.

"Shall we?"

"We shall," Reyna said. "Wait- did you turn off your phone?"

"Oh- no, I'd forgotten. Thanks," he said slipping the phone out of his pocket and turning it off. "Think they'll be okay without us for a night, right?"

"Should be," Reyna said. She took Jason's arm and they followed the sound of music and the lights to the throne room.

8:05

Things had gone from bad to worst.

Nico didn't know French, okay? He could kind of bullshit his way through the language on the semi-anual occasions during which some underworld deity would screw with his shadow traveling and he'd end up in France because sometimes it sounded vaguely like Italian, but deep down he was utterly clueless. Especially when it came to written French.

Long story short: when he was asked to order an appetizer from a menu of French dishes he was so lost it wasn't even funny. Rachel had to order for him and tell her parents that he'd lost his contact lenses at work.

"Of course, it happens," Mr Dare said compationately. "Where do you work Nico?"

Wherever I can plug a laptop, he wanted to say. It was true; writing horror movies and selling the scripts to various producers and studios (mostly indie) wasn't too hard of a job for a son of Hades. It was actually pretty fun- epsecially when Sally invited him over to her house and they worked with their laptops back to back and argued about music and laughed about Percy's baby pictures and ate a bunch of fresh baking, or when he got to tour studios and meet actors.

However he wasn't about to go say that because then he'd have to talk about critters with lots of legs and sadistic ghosts and that Ouija board tattooed on his shoulder blades that Rachel was surprisingly fond of- all of which were things that her parents probably didn't want to hear about. Particularly the last one.

"Well, of course, to pay off what my scholarship doesn't cover I do a bit of everything to try and get as much workplace experience as I can," Nico said taking a sip of whatever-was-in-his-glass-but-thank-gods-it-was-alcoholic. That was the kind of answer you'd get from a well-rounded young man who'd had a normal middle-class childhood, right?

"Really?" Mr Dare asked as Mrs Dare, interested for a second, stopped drumming her painted nails on the table.

"And how much would you say that you make Nico?"

Nico took another sip and muttered something noncomittal that probably wasn't even a number.

Rachel leaned in towards him as a bunch of fine cuisine type appetizers landed in front of them. Her tone was sulry when she said: "I owe you one."

He wasn't pissed enough to reply "I know", he just smiled goofily.

8:07

Hayes was curled up between Sally and Paul on the couch and Paul was reading one of Percy's old Christmas books out loud to him- a children's adaptation of A Christmas Carol. At least that seemed to make up for the sudden change of holiday plans- Paul's various voices for the different characters, the cookies set on the coffee table, the hot chocolate that had given Hayes a moustache...

"Grandma, did Ebenezer Scrooge get Christmas presents?" Hayes asked.

"Probably," Sally said. "I suppose that there just weren't enough pages in the book to show it."

"Oh that's good," Hayes said. "If he got some, then I should too."

Sally and Paul exchanged a look.

"Why don't you go find your toothbrush in your backapck?" Sally said patting him on the back. Hayes nodded and ran off.

"Where are Piper and Leo?" Paul asked quietly.

"I don't know," Sally whispered back. "Maybe they're waiting until after bedtime?"

8:12

Annabeth fell back against the pillows and shot Percy a look.

"Just so you know- I'm never doing this again," she declared. "I said so last time but now I mean it."

"Okay," Percy said- which he'd said last time. Oops.

"So if you really wanted a girl, start crossing your fingers," Annabeth said. "And name it something you really like."

"Okay," Percy said again.

8:30

When Travis Stoll had to pop open your car hood and fix it, you knew that you were done for it.

He came back in the car, rubbing his hands together and trying to warm up.

"It's no use," he said. "Everything's frozen, the wheels are stuck in the snow, and it's coming down hard."

"We have to get to New York," Katie said. "For the baby's sake."

"I know that but it's not going to make the stupid car work," Travis said.

"Don't call my baby stupid," Grover said.

"I never said it would now did I?" Katie said.

"No, no, no, no, no," Connor whined. "Guys, guys, guys, guys, don't, don't, don't, don't..."

"I'm going to strangle boht of you if you don't stop," Clarisse said.

"She started it," Travis said.

"Did not!"

"We're trapped in a blizzard!" Grover said. "Things are bad enough without you two arguing. This is no weather to make an Iris Message in... Does someone have a phone?"

They all did, but the weather had escalated and now they had no signal.

"So what do we do?"

"We wait," Clarisse said. "The Olympians have a party tonight. They're all in a good mood: this won't last."

8:38

As it turned out, the reason for the snow storm all over New York was the Olympian party itself.

Zeus, filled with the Christmas spirit, had lifted the ban on Dionysus' drinking for the next four to five hours. The jubilant god may have gone a bit overboard in his excitement, and most of the gods were too distracted to do anything about the monster storm outside.

He was not fun to deal with sober and he wasn't any better drunk, as Jason and Reyna discovered over dinner. Or maybe he needed to get more drunk? One way or the other: damn the assigned seating.

"Have I ever told either of you that your hair smells good?" Dionysus asked them.

Somehow he managed to be a mean drunk, a happy drunk, a sad drunk and a violent drunk all at once.

"Yes, Lord Bacchus," Reyna said patiently.

"That was a lie. It smells of cow turds."

"Thank you Lord Bacchus," Jason said.

Dessert couldn't come quicker.

9:10

"Timmy's Run number 258," Hazel said, sneaking up on Frank at the payphone. Hazel had lived in Canada with him long enough to understand that whenever things were looking grimm and you were freezing or sleepy or hungry or any combination of the above, you had to go to Tim Horton's and get coffee to help yourself out.

He took the cup of coffee from her gratefully and mouthed a 'thank you' as the buzzing of the phone stopped. Finally- the first call that had gone through!

"Joe's Pub how may I help you?" Leo answered. Frank wasn't too surprised to hear him even though he'd called Percy and Annabeth's place.

"Hey Leo, it's Frank."

"Hey, hey big guy," Leo said. "You need a ride from the airport yet?"

"Actually, we're kind of stranded," Frank said. Hazel stomped her feet around and sipped from her coffee cup, eyes turned down. She was pretty adorable even when she was annoyed. "Can I talk to Percy or Annabeth?"

"No can do," Leo said. "They're a little occupado. Well, Annabeth is, Percy's watching."

"You're serious?" Frank said when he put one and two together.

Hazel perked up, frowned and mouthed 'what?' Frank ignored her.

"Yup," Leo said.

Hazel poked him and repeated herself out loud.

"But it's only December," he said.

"We're aware," Leo said.

"What?" Hazel insisted. Frank covered the phone with his hand.

"Annabeth's in labour."

Her jaw dropped. "Baby's only due in January!"

"Yeah, they know," Frank said before talking into the phone again. "So are you babysitting Hayes?"

"Nah, he's with Sally. Pipes and I have spent the last two hours looking for his Christmas presents so that he gets them on time and keeps believing in Santa."

Piper muttered something in the background that made Frank glad that Hayes wasn't around.

"Two hours?"

"Annabeth's good at hiding stuff, what can I say?" Leo said. "We checked under the bed, in the closet, in the kitchen cupboards, in the pantry, in thier wardrobes..."

The woman in line behind Frank coughed impatiently.

"Okay, that's great- listen, we're stuck in Toronto and we probably won't get moving for a while longer. We'll call you when you get to New York."

"Super. Later Zhang."

"Yeah, later," Frank said before hanging up and turning back to Hazel.

"Their baby boy's coming?" she asked excited.

"It's a girl," he said grabbing his bag and coffee and going back to the terminal in which they were waiting.

9:11

"Okay, PUSH!"

Right after Grover said it, Travis pointed out that that was the stupid reason why they were driving out to New York in this kind of weather, and Katie hit him.

"That's really inconsiderate," Katie snapped. "That's not what giving birth is like, and you shouldn't make fun of it. Especially not about Annabeth, can you imagine how stressful it is since the baby is early?"

"I'll apologise to Annabeth later."

"Don't you ever even tell her that you made a joke, she'll kill you," Katie said.

"Well then what do you want me to do, Your Majesty?" Travis said throwing his hands in the air.

"Guys!" Clarisse said. "Keep pushing the stupid car!"

Grover leaned out from his window. "My car is not stupid!"

"Well then push the very nice car!" Clarisse said, shouting to be heard over the blowing storm.

"It's not even working and that's why I got into trouble in the first freaking place," Travis said. "That's it. I'm going back into the car. We'll just turn the headlights on and wait for a snowplough to come by."

9:12

When Tyson had gone to Percy and Annabeth's house a very irritated Piper had told Tyson that Percy and Annabeth weren't home, that the baby had come early, and so forth. Leo had asked Tyson if Tyson knew anything about Hayes' presents, but Tyson had only known that Tyson had built Hayes a miniature Argo II and a temple with movie pieces and a secret passage for Christmas. That didn't really seem to be what Leo was looking for, so Tyson just left and went to the hospital, wondering if Percy, Annabeth and the baby needed extra guards for the Baby.

Tyson walked in and went to the counter to get directions because Tyson didn't really know where to go.

"Hello?" Tyson said to the counter lady.

She looked up from her Very Important Paperwork and her eyes sprawled.

"Oh my! Sir- are you alright?"

"Tyson is okay," he frowned. "Tyson only looking for..."

The woman grabbed her intercom and spoke into it, talking about codes and how much she needed doctors in the ER right now that minute.

The lady came around the counter and put her hand on Tyson's shoulder. "Sir, everything will be okay, you just need to calm down and listen to the doctors okay- how about you sit down here with me?"

"Okay," Tyson said. The dotors came in and put Tyson on a stretcher, slapped an oxygen mask over Tyson's face and started talking about blood loss and a missing eye and all kinds of facial wounds and infections...

"Tyson not got any infection!" he said. Because of the mask it sounded like mrrmrrmrrbrrbrrmrr.

"We nee to get him hooked onto an IV pronto!" one of the doctors said.

"Tyson no need IV pronto!" Mrrmrrbrrmrrmrrbrr!

Then Tyson realised that none of these doctors could see through the mist, and so Tyson's face must look awful...

9:30

"I got it!" Piper said.

"Oh good, again," Leo said sarcastically.

She ignored him. "Annabeth's fond of hiding things in plain sight- remember when she took our X-box and put it behind the TV?"

"Yes," Leo said bitterly. He had barely forgiven and definitely not forgotten her for that. But in Annabeth's defence, Jason, Leo and Piper had been being cheeky.

"Okay- so Hayes' presents would be somewhere where Hayes would spend all his time," she said dragging him towards all the bedroom.

"His bedroom?" Leo asked.

"No, not his bedroom. The baby's room."

Piper pushed the door open. The room was painted yellow and a big yelow sun shone over the changing table in the corner. Stickers of savana animals were spread on the walls. Primers and picture books were lined up on the shelf neatly and over the baby's crib, a trident and an owl had been painted on the wall. For good luck; Hayes had had the same (and he'd turned out alright).

"Check the closet, I'll look under the crib," Piper said.

They searched every corner of the baby room. Behind the books on the shelf, amongst the stuffed animal wall erected in the crib, behind and under the furniture, on top shelves everywhere, behind the curtains...

"So turns out you don't got it," Leo said running a hand through his hair.

Piper smacked him. "We are not going to be the reason why a little boy stops believing in Santa Clause and we are going to find those goddamn presents."

9:34

Connor was freezing but his options as to warming up weren't great. He was bundled up in as many clothes as he'd thought to bring with him (hint: it wasn't much, which was why nobody had left the car to look for a gas station) and he was rubbing his hands together to try and keep them warm (gloves were not part of the clothes that he had) as well as rocking himself back and forth because he'd read somewhere that that helped maintain body temperature. The next step would be huddling with other human beings, but his options were limited to Clarisse in shotgun (a.k.a. certain death), Grover (who was at least fuzzy but very nervous), and the two loverbirds that he was sandwiched between; Travis (who would shoot him) and Katie (who would shoot him twice).

As a matter of fact, the Lover Birds were currently shooting each other dirty looks and snarky comments about a fight that Connor had been 89% sure they'd forgotten about over his head. As if Connor wasn't there at all, couldn't feel awkward or targeted or out of place. Or even lonely. Yeah, definitely lonely.

Even when they weren't trying to suck each other's vocal chords out for once, the Travis-and-Katie unit were still making Connor's presence or mere existance awkward.

The way that Connor saw it, at least they had each other to be angry with. Grover and Clarisse had each other to whisper strategy and what-if scenarios with. Connor was sitting unwanted in the least favourite and most suckish seat in the car. He was always the third wheel, which hurt even more since before Katie had hit puberty and started smelling good, he and Travis had been inseperable. Now Connor always had to check if Travis was busy with Katie before making plans, writing stuff on the calendar, making teams during Camp drills or whatnot. And most of the time it didn't matter because Travis was a freaking airhead, and his plans would flop around like a dead fish.

Most of the time, Connor was just freaking lonely.

Except now. Now he was cold and lonely.

9:35

"That's it. I'm calling Annabeth," Leo said pulling his cell phone from his pocket.

"Don't do that! She's giving birth!" Piper objected.

"Not yet, don't you have to push for a while?" Leo asked.

"Yes, maybe, I don't know. I don't think she wants to get your call one way or the other." Piper said.

"We're not finding the stupid presents," Leo said. "I am so done looking for these things, and if we don't find them soon we never will and Hayes will be destroyed and so will we once Percy finds out."

Piper seemed hesitant. "There has to be somewhere we haven't looked," she said uneasily.

"Of course there is," Leo said. "But I'm not figuring out where that is anytime soon and neither are you."

His cellphone was in his hand.

"Okay," Piper said. "Okay, fine. Do it. But for the record, I tried to stop you."

"Yeah," Leo said scrolling through his contacts with wide sweeps of his thumb. "You put blood, sweat and tears into it."

Piper crossed her fingers and pursed her lips as Leo pressed the phone to his ear. He sighed and nearly threw the phone across the room.

"Voice mail," he said. "Why in the world would she turn her phone off at a time like this?"

"No idea," Piper said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She took her phone out. "I'll text Jason. He's good at hiding stuff."

"Haven't found that engagement ring anywhere yet?" Leo asked.

"Don't go there," Piper said as she typed out one simple text.

Valdez and I are looking for Hay's X-mas presents at Percy and A's. Where are they?

She sent in and looked up at the appartment. She'd been in this appartment so many times- babysitting Percy and Annabeth's little monstrosity of a lineage, eating take-out around their coffee table, pulling all-nighters with Percy and being quiet so that Annabeth (who didn't pull all-nighters thanks to her three-agenda college-coping strategy) wouldn't find out... It shouldn't be this hard to find the presents! She should know this appartment's nooks. How many square feet was this place, even?

"Come on, let's go light one of those scented candles people keep getting Annabeth and sacrifice something to the gods. Maybe they're available."

9:36

Katie was flushed red.

Since last summer, she and Travis hadn't been as... well, steady as she -well, either of them really- would have liked.

Of course, that was nearly always the case because of the constracting personalities that usually helped to bind them together (take a shot for everything in their relationship that made no sense and you'd go into alcohol poisoning within the minute)- but nowadays that wasn't even part of the perks of their relationship.

Everything Travis did was irritating right down to the way that he breathed (on her when they slept), walked (dragging his feet as if his spine was actually a rubber hose) and ate (with his mouth open as if the muscles in his jaw had been surgically removed by a clumsy surgeon).

Still, she didn't want it to be that way. She tried to only nag him about the things that really bothered her -chugging straight from the coffee pot early in the morning, singing in the shower when he got back from an early morning shift, leaving dirty laundry in the living room, not sorting the recycling properly- but somehow she ended up overdoing it. She didn't want to make him mad, to make that smile dissapear and she didn't want to be mad either because once upon a time he'd liked her smile too.

And now he was accusing her of cheating and she was being irritable as Hades and everything was collapsing and they had bigger problems like the fact that they were stuck in a snowstorm and that Percy and Annabeth's baby was being born without protection and that she wasn't sure if her phone had or had not managed to send its various texts...

She'd hoped that this Christmas, they'd be able to reconnect. She had been prepared to bake every single cookie he'd craved during the year, she'd gone out of her way to get him the perfect present, she'd busted out all the albums from Christmas pasts, gotten her hands on all of their childhood Christmas movies...

And now they were sitting in a car in the middle of a snowstorm.

She may as well admit defeat and ship the How the Grinch Stole Christmas DVD back to Mrs. Stoll.

9:47

"Is Hayes sleeping yet?" Paul asked when Sally crept out of his bedroom.

She shook her head. "No, but he isn't trying to build a cage out of K-Nex big enough for an obese beloved holiday figure either, so that's good."

"Poor kid," Paul said.

"Everything will work out," she said sitting next to him and resting her head on his shoulder.

"I'm sure it will," Sally said. "I mean, they're all scrambling to make Christmas happy and safe. With that many demigods on the job, what could possibly go wrong?"

9:50

"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" Nico scrambled. Mr Dare had asked him to pass the salt and so of course Nico had been pulled out of a reverie so hastily that he'd tipped one of the candles sitting on the table.

Mrs Dare screamed. Her one high-pitched cry managed to stretch out for the duration of the little fiasco.

Rachel was thankfully less panicky and nervous to be at the Dare house than he was and she threw the entire pitcher of water down onto the table's funky little wood-evergreen-branch-cranberry centerpiece which was blazing. There was a loud tsss sound as the flame was choked and a thin trail of smoke and a large puddle of water replaced it.

Mrs Dare was shaking like a chihuahua and gasping and saying 'oh dear' over and over. Waiters scrambled over like penguins on espresso to clean up and quickly switch their table and clean up as Nico shot apologies out. Mr Dare escorted his wife outside for some fresh air and Nico barely had time to give his girlfriend a sheepish look before she declared:

"Oh thank gods they're gone for a second," Rachel said as she pulled her foot out of her shoe. Red indents marked her skin. Nico tapped his lap and Rachel swung her foot up for a foot massage. She was dressed extremely nicely, strappy glittery shoes and a long green evening gown that pluunged down her back to reveal more freckled skin. Her hair was done up in a chignon and sparkling barettes pinned everything strictly in place. She was nice and all, but he kind of missed untamed curled Rachel in her paint splattered jeans who'd gone through gods-knew-what and her baggy pajama tops from various charitable walk-a-thons.

"Sorry," he muttered again.

"These shoes were killing me," Rachel said. "Purify yourself of your sins by getting the circulation back in these puppies before they come back."

His next script would have Le réveillon as the main antagonist. Boyfriends everywhere wouldn't sleep for weeks. Like, what the heck, the Dares weren't anywhere near French, why was he here?

"Just one thing," Rachel said. "We're telling them that you're going to pursue your education as an oncologist, and not a neurosurgeon."

"Sounds good," Nico said. "What's an oncologist?"

9:46

As was to be expected at any Olympian party, the music was fantastic. People were dancing left and right, swinging each other around and changing partners halfway through songs.

"Want to dance?" Reyna said offering her hand. She pulled it back and clucked her tongue. "Oh, right. I forgot you were basically a married man."

"Don't. Say. That. Here." Jason hissed. He scrambled like a meerkat, looking left and right to make sure that not a single immortal had heard her. Reyna laughed.

"If you ever do that again..." Jason said. His shoulders dropped. "I swear on the Styx..."

"Back straight," Jupiter said walking by. Jason scrambled to straighten up and nearly had a heart attack judging by the way his eyes popped out of their sockets. Reyna was killing herself laughing and even if her mother was to walk by, she wouldn't stop.

10:03

"Why don't we just get Reyna to pull some strings with Hylla and get some new presents ordered for Hayes by Christmas morning?" Leo said.

Percy and Annabeth's appartment was in a state of total chaos. They'd given up on being clean and were now tossing throw pillows, towels, and whatever else was possibly hiding Christmas presents to the ground. Annabeth would kill them, but hey. This was for her son and caused directly by her child not being able to count up to nine.

"I don't think even Hylla could get us anything that fast," Piper said. "Besides, we don't know what Percy and Annabeth got him."

"She'd kill you for underestimating her."

"No she wouldn't I'm a lady," she said stretching the syllables.

"No you're Piper," Leo said.

Piper tossed a towel at him and Leo threw something back. And so it went on until they were both laughing and covered with various household supplies.

10:16

The poor guy at the Customer Service counter looked exhausted, but Frank wasn't about to turn back after waiting in line for a thousand hours.

"Hi," Frank said. "My wife and I are supposed to go to New York. Is there somekind of estimate on when there'll be a flight available?"

"As soon as the snowstorm stops and JFK airport cleans up their runways," the guys snapped. Frank was startled.

"Okay," he said. "Merry Christmas, then."

"If the customer's always right," the guy sighed.

10:24

Katie finally had the courage to talk again.

"There is nothing between Malcolm and I," she said.

"Don't start," Travis said. Or at least he said something like that from behind the scarf and toque wrapped around his face.

"Why not?" Katie said sitting up in her seat.

"Oh, I have a bunch of excellent reasons why not," Connor muttered.

"See, that's your probem," Travis said sitting up. He pulled the winter apparel from his face. At least he was looking at her. "You never let things go. Everything has to be a big deal to you. Everything needs to be perfect."

"If you're going to accuse me of something, I have the right to defend myself and clear the air," Katie persisted.

"Maybe in society but right now we're about two minutes away from resorting to cannibalism so I suggest you shut up," Clarisse snapped. "Grover's going to have a panic attack and I'm one of your stupid Christmas carols short from throwing you outside and making you walk to the nearest gas station. Shut your traps, all of you, and start praying."

Katie sunk back in her seat, tears prickling her eyes.

10:30

"We're not wasting any time, now are we?" the doctor said when he came in to check on Annabeth.

"Thank gods," Annabeth said. Hayes had been the product of three days of labour, so really Annabeth deserved this kind of short labour. Especially since the pain medication wasn't as strong as she'd have liked it to be.

"You're at a nine, dear," the nurse said helpfully. "At a ten you start pushing."

Percy whistled and Annabeth gave him a look. He kissed her in retribution.

10:32

Tyson didn't like the bandages all around Tyson's face. Tyson felt like Tyson was choking, but the doctors wouldn't let Tyson take them off or go home.

"Can Tyson call someone?" he said. Not Percy, because Percy was busy. Not Annabeth, because Annabeth was busier. Not Mom Sally because Hayes was sleeping at her house. And definitely not Piper and Leo because they were grumpy...

"Sir we're afraid that if you move you'll aggravate the bleeding," a doctor said. "However we already called someone for you- her picture was in your wallet? She has red hair?"

"Ella," Tyson said relaxing. Then Tyson froze. Ella looked odd to mortals without the mist too. "No, no, no- Ella can't come."

"That's what she told us, sir," the doctor said. "She said that she was at... camp? And that the storm couldn't help her?"

"Oh. Okay." Tyson said.

"But she knows where you are and we've updated her on your condition."

Uh oh. Ella would be worried. The doctors must have told Ella that Tyson was missing an eye and that Tyson's face was badly scratched up and that Tyson had suffered from blood loss even though Tyson knew exactly where all of Tyson's blood was. Shoot. Ella would be mad.

The doctor talked to him some more but Tyson didn't listen. He looked at the side table where they had put Tyson's wallet and the screwdriver in Tyson's pocket and Tyson's cellphone.

Tyson had an idea.

10:57

They probably shouldn'tbe hogging the restaurant table while so many people were around, but technically the two drinks resting in front of them gave them a right to the space.

They'd crossed fork over each other and had stolen little cream cups and sugar satchets from baskets on the table and were playing Tic Tac Toe. That was how bored they were.

11:03

Jason ended up at the refreshment table with the one person he wanted to see less at the Olympian party- which, surprisingly, wasn't Bacchus.

It was Aphrodite.

He tried to be discreet about running away, but of course she spotted him. Or maybe she smelled fear like a bloodhound.

"Jason dear!" she called out, ecstatic.

He plastered on a smile. "Hello Lady Aphrodite."

She opened up his mind and she gave him a hug and kissed him on each cheek. That should have been enough but then of course she told him what a nice suit he was wearing and he had to tell her that she looked fantastic as well, and she waved her hand even though she soaked up compliments like a sponge.

Jason was keenly aware of the bulge in his suit pocket and suddenly wished that engagement ring boxes were smaller. He would have left it at home, but he was afraid that Piper or Leo or whoever else was currently crashed at their house -maybe Frank and Hazel if their flight was early- would find it and blow it all. Of course Aphrodite may blow it all too.

"How is everything, Jason?" she asked. Aphrodite looked too keenly like Piper for Jason to ever feel comfortable talking to her. The very subtle differences in her -the make-up she always wore, the particular way her eyes shone, the way she held her shoulders- were eerie.

"Everything's great," Jason said. He wasn't much of a conversationalist but Aphrodite always managed to get things out of him.

"School too? Oh good. We're all rooting for you to live long enough to graduate, I hope you know that."

"Great," Jason said. "Thank you."

Aphrodite beamed and then she got serious. "But come on Jason, I don't care about your education."

Jason's stomach sank.

"You and my daughter have been going fairly steady since that little spat with the giants."

He nearly choked on his drink. Little spat?

"Careful, dear, don't hurt yourself," Aphrodite said.

"Your dress is really nice," Jason said in a desperate attempt to free himself. Her silver dress fit her figure well and pooled around her feet as if the metal had been melted all around her. Her gauzy straps slipped off her shoulders like princesses in Hayes' movies.

"Flattery won't get you anywhere dear," Aphrodite said. "Have you or have you not?"

"We have," Jason said. He drank a lot of punch but Aphrodite was patient and just kept looking at him until he finished. He ran out of punch.

"So what are you waiting for?" Aphrodite said. "Put a ring on it."

He should have saved his punch.

"I..."

Someone should have spiked the damn punch.

If he told her now, Piper would know right away and any romantic type plan that he hoped to come up with would be dead right away. Every single god would know before his girlfriend would and that just didn't seem right. Aphrodite would insist on butting in and helping with the proposal and this was something that Jason had to do on his own. They had gotten so much crap about their relationship being based on a lie engineered by Hera and a fair bit of mist, the sincerity and authenticity of their relationship was always in question one way or another. Well, enough of that. It couldn't go on.

But if he didn't tell her, he had to lie on the spot. To a goddess. His girlfriend's mother, at that.

"Well, you know, neither of us are finished school," Jason started, "and..."

"Oh, yeah right," Aphrodite said. "The daughter of Athena married when she was still in university- I'm sure Piper would too if the right boy asked. What's the matter dear? Do you not think you're the right guy?"

"I..."

He spotted Reyna who was talking with Phobos. He starred long enough for her to lift her head and when Jason mouthed an SOS, Reyna smiled, shook her head and went back to her conversation after registering who he was talking to.

He might just kill her once they got out of here.

"Well if we got married, it would be even more awkward for Leo to live with us," Jason said.

"Dear it couldn't be more awkward, you're going to have to produce some better arguments," Aphrodite said.

11:04

They walked back into the terminal but their seats were now occupied by a businessman who'd decided that he was important enough to lay down across five benches, arms dangling across both sides.

"Great," Frank said. Apparently everyone and their dog was trying to get to New York on Christmas Eve, the terminal was packed to the brim.

"Well, there's somewhere else we could do. Do something else to kill time," Hazel said snaking her arms around his shoulder.

"Go where?"

"I don't know," Hazel said. "Someplace quiet would be nice..."

The search was short and sweet, fueled by the best kind of motivation ever.

11:10

"Tough times call for tough measures," Leo declared solemnly as they sat in the middle of Percy and Annabeth's kitchen -back to back, surrounded by household items that had had to be moved in the hopes of finding any kind of Christmas presents, eating ice cream from the pot.

"And what's that?" Piper asked sucking her spoon clean.

"A human sacrifice to appeal to the gods of finding."

Piper was struck by an idea before she even had a chance to smack him for that.

"Hey!" she said. "Grover got his searching license, right?"

"Right."

"If he could find Pan, then he can find the stupid presents, right?" Piper said.

"Theoretically," Leo said. He took his phone out and sent a text to Grover. "Huh. That's weird. 'Message not delivered'."

"Do you have his new number?" Piper asked.

"Oh, that's right- he changed recently, didn't he? Do you have the new one?"

"Nope."

"I'll text Jason, he should have it," Piper said.

11:12

"Don't cry," Travis said. For a second it sounded tender and caring, like he was sad to see the tears swelling in the corners of her eye. "It'll freeze to your face."

"Of course," Katie drawled.

"See what I mean?" Travis said launching himself back into his seat too.

"No I don't actually!" Katie said. "Maybe that's the problem."

"That's your problem," Travis snapped back.

"Your problem is that you're snapping at me!" Katie said.

"For the love of Aphrodite and all things pure and sweet," Connor said getting to his feet and turning towards them. "Stop it you guys! Stop, stop, stop it!"

They were both stunned into silence.

"Don't you remember the day that you two got together?" Connor asked. "On the battlefield, once the last giant crumbled into the biggest pieces of monster-dust ever after Gaia went back to sleep? Everyone was so shocked and still and waiting for the next orders, but you guys just grabbed onto each other and to this day, neither of you can recall who kissed the other first. Everyone was still stunned after the fight, but when you guys kissed everyone started chearing. The entire battlefield just stopped blasting out war cries and started clapping and hooting. Greeks and Romans alike were celebrating- even clutching each other. Don't you get it? Your weird relationship is annoying as fuck and it disgusts me to no end. It baffles everyone profoundly. But it's always made people happy and hopeful that anyone can be happy and that love can always survive and cross weird cabin barriers. You two included. What are you guys going to lose that relationship over? Some stupid fight in a car on Christmas Eve? Hades no. So for the love of all things good, check yourselves and stop arguing because you have each other and that's all that ever mattered."

He slumped back into his seat, feeling just as cranky and pissed off as before. And also lonely now because he didn't have that kind of relationship.

Katie and Travis just looked at him stunned, and then they looked at one another as if they'd never seen each other before.

11:17

"Okay Mrs. Chase, you're going to have to start pushing now," the doctor said.

Percys stomach did a backflip and he prepared himself for his hand to get crushed between Annabeth's fingers.

Sure enough she probably broke it (and told him that she hoped that she had).

11:25

"I spy with my little eye something... black."

Nobody had told the businessman to get himself together, so Frank and Hazel sat on the floor for their game of I Spy. Hazel was sitting on his lap and he was playing with her curls.

"A suitcase."

"Yeah," Hazel said.

"I spy with my little eye something..."

"A suitcase."

"Dang it Hazel you'd promised not to do that again," Frank complained.

11:27

Nico was starting to suffocate. The top button of his shirt had been buttoned up for too long and ties... ties were just an overrall bad idea.

"So what are your tuition costs, Nico? I know that Rachel gets a discount because of my long friendship with the Harvard dean..."

Maybe that was why Nico got snappy.

"Can't we talk about anything other than money, Mr Dare?" he asked.

Honnestly, he'd hung out with a lot of mortal parents. Notably, there was Sally Jackson. He'd spent a lot of time trying to appease Grandmother Zhang too when someone he got stuck on Grandma duty and had to visit her in New Rome's nursing home when Frank was away. He'd endured lectures that had a 50/50 chance of appealing to him on Mr Chase's behalf and been the guinea pig for many of his wife's new vegetarian cuisine recipes. He'd spent time with Tristan McLean who, even though he probably made double Mr Dare's annual income, never talked about money and was only ever interested in looking at YouTube videos or old movies and going over everything from the acting to the lighting to something called the mise en scène. But Rachel's parents he couldn't stand.

Mr Dare looked surprised to hear Nico suggest that the topic change.

"That's a strange thing to say for an oncologist in the making," he said.

"Don't you have any idea how long it will take you to repay your studies? Or what an oncologist's average yearly..."

"Okay, that's it," he said pushing himself away from the table. "I'm not an oncologist-in-the-making. I'm not even a medial student. I've never even been to college."

He pulled his tie off under everyone's shocked glares and slapped it on the table. The end flew into his soup.

"I write movies," Nico said. "I don't make a lot of money. I don't care about money. I don't even understand how the heck taxes work."

"Rachel-" her mother began, shocked.

"Isn't even a med student either," Nico said.

Her parents gasped.

"What your daughter is, Mr and Mrs Dare, is an art student," Nico said. "An artist. A really good artist, actually. Who has paintings and splatter-projects and photographs in all these galleries, and winning all these prizes, and inspiring so many people. Which is what she's always been doing, what she's always excelled at. What you should always have been proud of her for- or at least I know that I am. An artist is as good as a doctor, Mr Dare, because they both let us live."

Rachel had looked at him fearfully before, but now she looked at him with a smile on her lips and two more shining in her eyes.

"Your daughter is too good a person. She shouldn't be spending her Christmas in a stranger's skin, being somebody she's not to feel safe and fit in," Nico said. "So I thought I should let you know even if she doesn't want to, so that you could take it or leave it but know who your daughter really was and love her for it, or not if you don't care about the real Rachel Elizabeth Dare."

Rachel squeezed his hand under the table and they both surveyed the parents. Mrs. Dare looked like she needed to walk out for fresh air again. Mr Dare had a dangerous looking vein pulsing in his forehead.

"In which case maybe we should leave," Rachel said. Nico scrambled, surprised beyond measure, and took Rachel's coat from the back of her chair. He helped her into it and threw his over a shoulder. "Merry Christmas mother, father. Maybe we'll talk later."

Rachel turned away and Nico gave the Dares a little salute before declaring, "Joyeux Noël."

When he joined Rachel outside, about to ask her if she was okay and whether or not they were still together, she only looked at him with huge eyes.

"What?" Nico asked.

"I was calling a cab but I got a text from Percy -oh my gods, Nico- the baby's coming like right now!"

"Percy and Annabeth's baby?" Nico asked stunned.

"Yes! Oh, I should have known, I should have known- the Oracle felt unrested all morning, I was just so freaking worried about the Réveillon that I ignored it... I don't know who's currently at the hospital to help! Oh my gods Nico, we have to go right now!"

11:34

Piper and Leo were basically piled up one over the other in Hayes' blue bedroom.

"We can't give up," Piper said. "But..."

"But what are we supposed to do?" Leo asked.

"Poor Hayes," Piper said.

"Poor us, Percy and Annabeth will kill us," he said.

"No, poor Hayes. Poor kid's already worried about the new baby -he asked Annabeth whether or not she and Percy would have enough love for the two of them the other day, did you know that? And now we're ruining the magic of Christmas for him too."

"We're not... ruining it."

"Yes we are," Piper said rubbing her eyes. "Yes we are..."

11:40

Nearly as soon as Annabeth went slack, a tiny bundle of flesh burst into tears.

"It's a boy," one of the doctors said.

The nurses made quick work of snapping the umbilical chord and cleaning off the baby before bringing him back to them. Percy's stomach flip-floped around. Newborn babies weren't cute as a rule, but his newborn baby was cute. Another baby boy, Hayes would have a brother, another baby boy, Percy's entire brain was hotwired and buzzed as if he'd inhaled an entire Dunkin Donuts.

Panting and smiling, Annabeth smoothed back the baby's hair.

"Hey, you. Hey. Oh gods he has your hair too," Annabeth said.

"He's gorgeous. Gets that from me too," Percy said. Annabeth laughed and then she winced again. "Oh gods. I really don't feel good." She nearly screamed and the doctors rushed about her.

"There's another baby," one declared.

"What?" they both said at once.

"That doesn't make sense," Annabeth said. "There was nothing on any of the scans, I wasn't any bigger..."

"Oh, things happen," the doctor said. "This is rare but not unprecedented Mrs. Chase, it'll be alright."

The newborn was picked up by a nurse, much to Annabeth's displeasure, and the doctor got into position again. "You're going to have to push again, darling."

"I can't," Annabeth said.

"Sure you can darling, you've done it already," the doctor said. Percy was about to say something encouraging but by the look in her eyes, he could tell that something was wrong.

"Annabeth?" he asked.

"Something's wrong, I'm not going to push," Annabeth said.

"Mrs. Chase-"

"I'm not going to, something's wrong," Annabeth said. Percy had only seen her this close to hysteria once- when monsters had gotten into the hospital about two and a half seconds after he was born and she could barely sit up and he was still crying.

"We've got a compressed umbilical cord," the doctor declared after a few seconds of examination.

"What's that?" Percy asked.

"Fetus is showing signs of distress-" the doctor went on.

"What-" Percy said. 'Fetus' was 'unborn baby' and 'distress' was bad.

"Sir, we're going to have to ask you to leave," a nurse said putting her hands on Percy's shoulders.

"What? No I-" He was slowly backed out of the room.

"Prepare a room for ceasection-" the doctor ordered to nobody in particular.

"No, no, no," Annabeth said. She was looking at the little boy. "The baby-"

"Will be fine Mrs. Chase, it's the other baby we're concerned about."

What was complicated from the start got even more complicated and Percy was doing his best not to freak out and chase Annabeth's hospital bed through the hallway.

11:47

"That still doesn't look like a good reason," Aphrodite said. Jason was about to go into a nervous breakdown when he found another excuse to avoid answering Aphrodite's questions.

"Oh excuse me, my phone just buzzed," he said. He slid it out of his pocket and checked. Of course, he was bluffing- but it turned ou that he had dozens of text messages.

In no particular order:

Percy Jackson: Jason we're at the hopsitla the baby's comign early can yuo com?

Katie G: Our car's stuck in a snowstorm Grover, Clarisse, Stolls and I can't get to the hospital.

Pipes: Where would P and A hide gifts for Hayes?

Frank: Stuck at the airport.

Leo: send help piper trying to kill me

Katie G: We're not going to make it to the hospital on time, someone needs to get there to guard

Haze-Haze: I'm dying of boredom how do you stay entertained at the airport when you've run out of coins for vending machine crap?

Leo: send help more quickly!

Nico: How do you not kill your inlaws I need tips?

Katie G: Are you getting my texts?

Rachel: How do you not kill your parents I need tips?

Leo: Do you have Grover's number?

Tyson: at hospital because doctors think that tyson is hurt come free me they want to operate

Rachel: Did you hear about the baby? Get to the hospital now!

Percy: somethign went wrong idk what's going on what do i do?

He blinked twice.

What was going on down below?

It didn't take too long for Jason to work things out and make a plan in his head because clearly they had very little time but everything was happening within the same frame.

"I'm sorry Milady," he said looking up at Aphrodite. "Something's come up..."

She asked if that thing was shopping but Jason was off. This time when he starred intensely at Reyna, she looked up and after one good look at him, she picked up her dress and chased after him.

Jason found Jupiter who was sitting with his brothers, wife and sisters. Seeing Neptune present relieved Jason- he'd definitely help.

"My Lord," he said kneeling. Reyna managed to show her respect with the dress which just showed how much better than everyone else in the world she was.

"What is it, Jason? Shouldn't you be dancing?" Jupiter asked.

"Something came up," he said.

"Are the camps endangered?" Jupiter asked.

"No sir, we're not quite on that scale," Jason said. "Annabeth Chase went into labour earlier tonight."

Neptune straigtened up. It was a subtle change, but the stubble on his chin seemed thicker and his eyes seemed lighter as he became Poseidon- the god who'd be concerned about Percy and Annabeth and their unborn child. About twenty thousand minor guards seemed to swarm around them at that second- including Aphrodite, who Jason had just escaped from. He didn't lose his focus.

"There seems to be some kind of complication at the hospital."

"What kind of complication?" Athena said. She wore a black cocktail dress -much less convenient than the other goddesses- and she was also armed. Her eyes shone with the Mama Bear instinct that Jason had only associated to Sally Jackson so far in his life.

"I don't know, Lady Athena," Jason said. "Furthermore there are no guards at the hospital to guard the infant once it's born because of that snow storm, one child's innocence is currently jeopardised, one Cyclops is facing unnecessary and invasive medical procedures that may end up killing him since it's one designed for humans, and two demigods are trapped abroad."

"What would you have me do, Jason?" Jupiter asked.

"The demigods I speak of are your veterans," Jason said. "Your champions, your heroes, your scapegoats, your protectors... Some of us are still in service even. Isn't the reason that Reyna and I were invited here tonight to celebrate the veterans of Olympus? There is a much better way to show your appreciation of us than to provide some very delicious five-course meals and dainties once a year."

Jupiter examined him before raising his hand.

"Very well," Jupiter asked. "You may give my council your commands and we will follow them."

Jason's heart was beating. Give commands to the Olympians? Holy Styx, he had to word this very carefully...

"For starters, my Lord," Jason said. "Something really needs to be done about that snowstorm."

11:59

Percy paced the hallway, worried sick.

A nurse approached but he didn't pay attention.

"When they say 'umbilical cord compression' they mean that the umbilical cord wraps itself around the baby in the womb. Usually by the time that the baby comes out, the cord has untangled on its own and the problem has solved itself. However if, say, this were to happen to a second baby trapped behind a twin, the cord may stay in place long enough to be a choking hazard."

Percy looked up panicking. Was this the gentle way to tell him that something had gone wrong? It may not have been long since Annabeth had dissapeared into an operation room, but he felt like it was ages. He hadn't gotten news from Annabeth or either baby since and he was about as terrified as he could get.

Then he realised that it wasn't a nurse at all. It was the last person he wanted to see here while Annabeth was having a baby and they'd been too rushed to pay the recomended/required sacrifices- Hera.

"Why are you telling me this?" he said angrily.

"So that you don't need to waste time asking questions," Hera said. She smiled, snapped her fingers, and walked away.

The door to the operating room flung open a few minutes later.

"Mr Jackson?" the doctor asked. "You can come in now."

12:01, December 25

Headlights suddenly shot through the snowfall and Connor nearly peed himself in excitement.

"Look!" Clarisse said. "Someone's pulling over."

The towtruck stopped right besides them and a guy hopped out. He was a huge monstrosity of a man according to his figure, and he limped towards them. Grover lowered the window and Lord Hephaestus stuck his head into the car.

"Has anybody got frostbite?" he asked.

"N-no," Grover said after a quick consultation.

"Good. I don't know how to fix that. The car on the otherhand, it's not that bad off."

"YES!" Grover cheared.

"But there's a faster way to get you lot to New York," Hephaestus said. He snapped his fingers and they were all in a hospital waiting room before they even blinked.

12:04

The doorbell rang in Percy and Annabeth's appartment.

Piper and Leo gave each other a nervous look.

"Who..?"

"Burglars don't ring," Leo said.

"Yes, but the doorman usually lets people up," Piper said. They opened anyways and in walked Lady Athena in a long trench coat, wearing high boots.

"As I understand it, you two are looking for Christmas presents," she said.

"Umm... Umm, yes. We are looking so hard," Leo said.

"But you clearly aren't using your wit, which my daughter clearly would have," Athena said. She walked into the appartment. "Close the door behind me, son of Hephaestus. Somehow even the hallways are cold."

"So you know where they're hidden?" Piper asked.

"Of course," Athena said. She swept the appartment with her sharp eyes.

"Where?" Leo asked.

She turned and looked at them. If Leo had thought that Annabeth had a dirty stink eye, it's because he'd never gotten one from her mother.

"I certainly will not just give you the answer," Athena said distastefully. She looked around as if appreciating Annabeth's decorating style but frowning upon the mess- which she was probably attributing to Percy, which was something that Leo could run with. It didn't really matter; with a snap of her finger, everything was at its place. The spoons they'd eaten ice cream with even transported themselves to the dishwasher. "There was a Greek philosopher named Socrates who taught by asking questions. He believed that every man knew the answer to their own questions deep down."

"Let me guess- you believe strongly in that theory," Leo said. Piper hit him.

"Yes, thank you Miss McLean," Athena said. She spun around to face them. "Clearly if you can't find these presents, my daughter wanted to..."

Her finger spun in the air to indicate that they were to finish that sentence.

"Hide them," Leo finished.

"Yes. How much?"

"Very much?" Piper risked.

"Precisely. Now. Association is a good way of solving any riddle. What else does Annabeth want to hide very much?" Athena said walking down the hallway that led to all of the bedrooms.

"The truth behind That Christmas When We Were In College," Leo said. Piper shuddered at the memory- why did he always bring that up?

"Let's narrow the search string. From who does Annabeth wish to hide the very well hidden presents?"

"Hayes," Leo said.

"Good. What else would she like to hide from Hayes?"

They backed up into Percy and Annabeth's bedroom- a bit less of a mess because Piper and Leo had been scared about what they may find in there and had therefore mostly left it alone.

"Olympus," Piper said. "The godly world. Anything that would take away their innocence."

"Good," Athena said. "And by association..."

"Those two things would be hidden at the same place," Leo said.

Athena reached out, a bobby pin in her hand, and opened up the safe in which Percy and Annabeth kept their demigod supplies- nectar and ambrosia, spare blades, drachmas...

And sure enough, there were Hayes' Christmas presents.

12:05

"Thank gods you're comfy," Hazel said as an announcement woke her up.

"I'm sure a bed in New York would be comfier, sorry," Frank said.

"Nah," Hazel said. "I've grown kind of fond of tic-tac-toe and I Spy."

"Don't forget Vending Machine Food poker, guess-the-song, Pictionary on napkins with random German backpackers and charades," Frank said.

Hazel laughed. "Games like that is how I used to spend Christmas as a kid," she said.

"Oh. Sorry."

"No, don't be," Hazel said. "I had fun. I guess it's all about taking the old and making it new"

They were still kissing when there was an announcement on the intercom.

"All passengers on AirCanada flight 213 to New York City please report for bording at terminal 21E immediately. Tous les passagers du vol AirCanada 213 pour New York veuillez s'il-vous-plait vous présenter au terminal 21E immédiatement."

"Already?" Frank asked looking up at the intercom, as if it would reply 'no, just kidding'.

"Don't question it- we'll be in New York in time for Christmas!" Hazel beamed, hopping to her feet and grabbing her bag.

12:17

They were sitting in the lobby, holding warm styrofoam cups of hot chocolate that Clarisse had brought down from the hospital cafeteria before going off to call Chris. Well, Katie and Travis were and so were Rachel and Nico who had arrived at the hospital shortly after they'd appeared, but Grover was eating the styrofoam cups. And Connor was peeing.

A woman that looked uncannily like Katie walked in, wearing a long silver dress under a long coat with fur lining the hood- which was very unlike Katie. Rachel got up from Nico's lap, picked up her torture-instrument shoes and dragged him to another corner.

"Travis," she said extending her arms. "Katie. Wow, don't you two look so sweet?"

"Lady Aphrodite," Katie said stunned. She got up hastily.

"Oh, no need to bow darling. You've been in the cold for so long," Aphrodite said.

"What, umm, brings you here Lady Aphrodite?" Travis asked.

"A few errands," Aphrodite said. "One or two small things really. First off, you two need some fixing up. Your relationship is my little pet project you see. I need you to stay together peacefully and since you two are so stubborn, I'm going to throw a little magic into the mix. You two cannot talk to anyone but each other until you've sorted out your little complications, understood?"

"Understood," Katie said.

Aphrodite squealed and clapped her hands together.

"If things weren't already good as new, you wouldn't have been able to answer that," she beamed. "Well done, well done! Oh, it really is the season!"

12:20

Connor froze at the waiting room door when he saw Katie laying down with her head on Travis' lap. Oh. They'd fixed things. Super. Great. That meant that he really shouldn't... not right now, this was probably super private... yes, most likely, he should just back away and...

SMACK

He backed up into a nurse who was walking around with a cart loaded with Christmas presents.

"Oh God, I'm sorry!" Connor said.

"Oh, no worries, no worries, I don't really, umm, watch where I'm going," she babbled.

"No problem. Here, let me give you a hand."

They picked up the packages.

"What's all this about?" Connor asked.

"Oh, just something we do for the kids in the paedeatric ward," she said. "We leave them outside their doors and tell them that Santa doesn't forget them."

"Oh, that's really sweet," Connor said.

"I think so too," she smiled. She was teeny tiny under her blue scrubs. She had blond hair cut into a bob that framed her face nicely. Her eyes were crystal blue. Cheasy of a description as that was- it was accurate. She had rosy cheeks and a kind, open expression and posture that made her look so approachable.

"I'm Connor," he said.

"Noelle," she answered with a smile.

He was captivated by that smile. She'd smiled ever since he'd met her. She'd smiled when being run into. That was an intense smiler, right there.

"Do you..." he nearly stopped, but his splur of bravery went on for a few more seconds, just to get the rest of his question out. "Do you need help distributing the rest of these gifts?"

"Are you registered as a volunteer?" Noelle asked.

"No," Connor said.

"It's okay, we won't tell anyone," Noelle said putting the last package on the existing pile. "Want to drive the cart?"

"I'd love to!" Connor said.

"Okay, but no riding it," Noelle said. "Hospital staff frowns on that."

"What?" Connor said devastated. "How come? It doesn't matter if you fall, you're already in a hospital!"

"That's what I said!" Noelle replied. "Come on, let's go."

12:23

Hayes wasn't even feeling sleepy. The only reason he was laying in his room was that he hadn't heard Grandma or Grandpa go to bed, so he couldn't be sure that the cost was clear for him to come out. One false move could land him with a lullaby from Grandma. Then he'd sleep like a baby.

He was listening for Santa Claus, but he wasn't expecting to hear a knock on his window. He scrambled out of bed and went to the window when he did, his heart beating like a drum. Sure enough, Santa was standing on the fire escape, his red coat peppered with snowflakes.

"Santa!" Hayes said. He scrambled to open the window.

"Merry Christmas Hayes," Santa said. "Don't open the window too much, you'll catch a cold."

"Merry Christmas Santa," Hayes said. "Are you done your deliveries?"

"Of course, it's past midnight."

"Did you give everyone what they wanted?"

"I hope so."

"I'm sure you did a great job," Hayes said. "You always do."

"Well that's good to hear," Santa said. "But do you think that I'll get what I want this year?"

"I don't know," Hayes said. "What do you want this year?"

"I'd like it if all the children could get a good night's sleep so that they could be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when they open their presents," Santa told him.

"Oh," Hayes said. "Well, I'd like to help you get your presents but I really can't sleep right now."

"Why?" Santa asked. "Were you trying to capture me again?"

"No, Mommy told me that that was rude a long time ago. I only wanted to look this year."

"I'm afraid that your mommy was right," Santa said. "I'm glad that you've changed your mind, but now you've seen me. So what's keeping them awake?"

"I'm worried about Mommy and Daddy."

"Well I can tell you that they're fine," Santa said.

"And the baby? Is it born yet? Is it a girl or a boy?" Hayes asked.

"How about one of both?" Santa said.

Hayes' jaw dropped.

"You'll know more in the morning, and the morning will come quicker if you go to sleep."

"Okay. Goodbye Santa. Thank you for coming. Did you like the cookies we set out?"

"Of course I did, your Grandma's baking is delicious," Santa said. "Good night, Hayes."

"Good night Santa."

He closed his window and Santa dissapeared by magic. Hayes crawled into bed and the last thing that he thought of before falling asleep was that he'd never seen a Santa Clause with green eyes before.

2:30

"Rest," Percy said.

"I can't if my kids don't have names," Annabeth insisted. She had the little girl in her arms, Percy had the little boy. Both of them were fast asleep and absolutely gorgeous according to her unbiased opinion.

"John and Jane- super good for twins," Percy said. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "Sleep tight."

"We'd said Adonis for a boy and Clio for a girl," Annabeth mused.

"Great, we've got one of each- good planning," Percy said.

"Technically the sperm decides the gender of the child so it's all your doing."

"Well that's settled it, I'm a genius," Percy said. "Now rest."

"It doesn't feel right anymore," Annabeth said. "Besides, those aren't twin names."

Percy bit his lip. "So we need two names made for twins that were born on Christmas Eve specifically?"

"Right," Annabeth said. "And don't you say 'Santa Claus'."

"Of course not but what about Nick? As in, Saint Nick?"

"I'm not putting 'Nick' on a birth certificate."

"Could you live with Nicholas? Even though it kind of sounds like 'Nico' and the guy could get a big head?"

"I could certainly live with Nicholas," Annabeth said. She reached out and smoothed back the baby boy's hair. "Yeah. Yeah, you even look like a Nick, don't you baby?"

"That makes her Nicole," Percy said.

Annabeth shot him a look. "If you don't think that I can divorce and rock as a single mother..."

"Okay, okay," Percy said. "Not Nicole. Christmas names... Marie?"

"Too religious. What if she converts to hinduism or something? It's out of place." Annabeth said. "Also that's Hazel's mother."

"Holly is a Christmas plant," Percy said remembering that from a book Hayes had about Christmas Fun Facts.

"Holly sounds too... Porn star."

"Porn star?"

"Okay, no it doesn't, I'm just tired. I don't know, I don't like it. What about Angela? Or Gabrielle?"

"I thought you said no religious names," Percy said.

"Right. But it can't be too related to Christmas, it can't be a joke. They're names that they'll have to carry for the rest of their lives."

"Not if they get name changes."

"Percy."

"Sorry."

"Besides," Annabeth went on. "They weren't even born on Christmas. It was Christmas Eve."

She looked down at the baby girl in her arm. She was three pounds smaller than her brother, which was a lot for a newborn. Her hands were tiny, she was just so small and precious... Something like that couldn't have too big of a name...

"Eve," Annabeth said. "We can call her Eve."

"Eve," Percy said. "Yeah, I like that. And plug in our parents' names..."

"Nicholas Paul and Eve Sally," Annabeth said. "Mmm... Eve's name doesn't have the right ring."

"Add another name," Percy said.

"Okay sure. But then Nicholas is the only one with one middle name since Hayes has got Frederic Chiron," Annabeth said. "And I don't want to add one to Nicholas Paul, that's nice."

"But we need to have my mom's name in there," Percy said. "Imagine her face when she hears."

"She'll cry," Annabeth said.

"She'll bawl."

They'd been bawling earlier too, and not because of extreme pain.

"We could use your mom's legal name as opposed to her nickname," Annabeth said.

"You mean Sarah? That's short too... Okay, what about her mother's name?"

"Laura isn't any more syllables than Sarah, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth said.

The arguing lasted longer and was often stopped because one of the twins would wiggle and they had to freeze like meerkats and attend to the respective baby's every need, but finally they decided on something.

Nicholas Paul and Eve Sarah Jackson.

And then Annabeth gave in and Percy got her to sleep.

3:46

To give Travis and Katie some room, Rachel and Nico left after giving instructions to text them once there was news about the baby (even though Rachel had turned on her oracle superpowers back on so that she would know what was going on), and they'd gone upstairs to the cafeteria with their hot chocolate.

"I'm sorry that I blurted everything to your family," Nico said. "It was pretty uncalled for..."

"Nah, they deserved it," Rachel said. "Besides, it was... pretty sweet."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Rachel said. "Do you... do you really think that? About me?"

"It's ridiculous how you artists freefall from self-confidence to self-loathing," Nico said. He unclipped her hair from its tight black-tie restraints and fluffed it out before taking her hand over the table. They were warm from holding her mug. "I love you and I love your work and everything in between. I think you are a good person who does great things, and I'm glad that you're not mad at me about bashing your family for being stupid about it."

Rachel smiled.

"I did have a pretty good lie going..." she said.

"It will always live within you," Nico said. She smiled and leaned over the table to kiss him.

"Merry Christmas Nico."

"Merry Christmas Rachel."

7:30

"Always the last to know," Mom said shaking her head.

"Sorry Mom," Percy said. "They were at the hospital before I even stepped out to call you. Where's Paul and Hayes?"

"Oh, they're lugging Christmas presents. Hayes sent me ahead as a messenger."

"A messenger? Christmas presents?"

Sally smiled. "He's got quite the imagination- and don't even ask, he was no trouble at all. Didn't sleep very well, but he tried. He even wants to wait to open his Christmas presents because he wanted to do it with the baby."

"Babies," Percy corrected.

Sally's face fell.

"You better be kidding me."

"Yeah that's what Annabeth said too," Percy said putting an arm around her.

Mom kissed his cheek. "I'm so happy for you two."

"Daddy!" Hayes said when he walked in with Paul, both of them holding reusable grocery bags of parcels.

"Hey bud," Percy said crouching and picking Hayes up when he projectile-landed into his arms. "Merry Christmas."

"Where are the babies?" he asked excitedly.

"Hayes, how did you know about the babies?" Percy asked.

"Santa told me," he said simply.

7:45

"Hey, Leo told me I'd find you two down here," Piper said wandering into the hallway. Jason held out his arms and she swept in for a kiss.

"Merry Christmas," he said.

"To you too. And you Reyna."

"Back at you," Reyna said. "I have a place to be right now, I'll see you later."

Just like she'd done during the entire Olympians' party, she dissapeared. How convenient was she?

"Go to that place, then," Piper said. Reyna untangled her hair, using her fingers as a comb, as she walked out and Piper relaxed against his chest.

"Leo's walking around collecting and dishing out bet money based on the baby genders," Piper said. "Everyone who didn't guess one girl and one boy owes him five. So everyone besides Mithell, basically."

"I'll let him find me. Make him work for his five bucks," he said. "Tired?" Jason asked when she yawned.

"It was a bit of a crazy night," Piper said.

"So I heard. Your mother says hello."

"Oh goodie. How was the party?"

"Okay," Jason said. "Wish that I could've just been here as a guard instead."

"Nah. It wouldn't be a Chase-Jackson birth if there wasn't chaos thrown into the mix," Piper said. "Still, it's cute that they were born on Christmas Eve. It seems... appropriate."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Piper said. "Christmas is a time for new beginnings."

"Is it?"

"Well I've always thought so."

Well, everything else has happened, he thought. Why not?

"Then, I have something very important to ask you if you like new beginnings so much and if you think that many we should get one," Jason said. "After all this time..."

She didn't even see the ring. He got down on one knee and she said yes.

8:00

Percy snapped a picture on his phone of Hayes sitting with Annabeth, Nicholas and Eve.

New background for the next eternity, he decided. Check.

Hayes' Christmas presents lay open all around them, but he was more interested in the babies than in anything they could have gotten him. Go figure. If he'd have known...

Well, if he'd have known- he'd have gotten a second crib, but that was what boxing day sales were for, right? That and tons of girly clothes so that Eve could be dressed up- which would come from Hazel.

But that didn't matter right now. Not really. He had his three kids and wife all in the same room, his parents were there too, and most of his friends were roaming the hospital and would probably drop in halfway through the day- which had the added advantage of meaning no monsters to watch out for. Which meant that all he had to do was celebrate Christmas.

And catch up on his sleep.