ARGH I'm a bad friend! This is Mama Bird's Valentine that I didn't even get around to mailing this year, and then yesterday my computer started acting up (by which I mean my cursor wouldn't move), so I didn't get around to posting this thing either! But it's here now, and I hope all of you enjoy!

Dedication: MAMA BIRD!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, as per usual.

All My Valentines

"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you ... I could walk through my garden forever."

―Alfred Tennyson

Hazel was sitting on her bunk, legs dangling over the edge. She'd finally worked up the guts to challenge Rebekah, this really mean legionnaire that had stolen the top bunk from Hazel in her first week in the cohort. Since she was finally settled into her life without the constant fear of being sent back to Asphodel hanging over her head, she'd decorated her newly-won bunk too. Annabeth's dad had been teaching Hazel about history, so she had cut out newspaper articles and pictures he had sent her and pinned them up. There was also a picture of Nico, Reyna and the Seven that had been taken before the Legion left Camp Half-Blood, and little stars that Hazel had cut out of tin foil- mostly because she was amazed that the stuff was so easy to get your hands on, now that it was used for more than wrapping chocolate bars and Life Savers. She was drawing in her notepad, trying to capture Arion and Hannibal grazing in the fields of Mars together.

"Hey," Jason said.

"Hey!" Hazel said sitting up and leaning against the bars of her bunk. "I didn't know you were coming this weekend!"

"Bit of an emergency, all better now," Jason said. He smiled. "Can I come up?"

"Yeah," she said- so he did.

"I'm glad you got your top bunk back," he told her.

"Honestly, it's actually more complicated not to be on the ground floor- I mean, the bunks aren't short-person friendly- but it's a matter of principal, so I had to."

Jason laughed, and Hazel reached out to pet her cousin's hair.

"Are you letting it grow out? Nico's going to freak."

"No, I'm not," Jason said. "Gods, you and Reyna are both obsessing. I'm going to make Piper cut it when I get home, but I wanted to drop by and see you first."

"Aren't you sweet."

"Also, I thought I'd fill you in on something- since Halloween took you by surprise and all."

Hazel hadn't at all. Thankfully, she was crafty enough to turn her denim shirt and a red bandana into a kickass Riveter Rosie costume that she'd looked fly in. She didn't think that she understood the point of it all, and the haunted house they'd made for the kids of New Rome in the Fields of Mars had been a horrible idea, but she'd managed to keep up.

"Valentine's Day is coming up," Jason said. "It's on February 14th…"

"Valentine's Day I know about," Hazel cut in.

"Yeah?" Jason asked.

"Yeah," Hazel said. "We used to make Valentines. Ms. Howland released her Valentines' Day cards in store ages before I was born."

"What, 1850?"

"1847," Hazel said. "That way they didn't have to import them from Europe. But we still made them, mostly- at least in my part of town. I've already started mine!"

"Really," Jason said.

"Yeah," Hazel said. "Want to see?"

She fished a shoebox from under her pillow. When she opened it, art and craft supplies came bursting out- pieces of ribbon and lace, buttons galore, glitter and yarn, red and white construction paper, brand new pens with black and gold and silver and red ink…

"I haven't started yours yet because I need to get East Coasters done first, so you can look," Hazel said pushing her hair back. "Okay, so this is Annabeth's- I wanted it to be clever, but none of my science is up-to-date so I just decided to make the card cool instead. I read that Athena's a weaving goddess, so I just embroidered the card shut- but when you pull the string it opens up for the poem…"

"Cool," Jason said.

"Percy's I made a bit different, so he takes it out of the envelope and it looks like a box, but then he opens this flap and stars and these little hearts come out, so it moves and stuff…"

"Yeah, that's his type… How many people are you making Valentines for?" Jason asked.

"There are seventeen people on the list," Hazel said. "Well, eighteen, because Nico told me not to make one for Will but that's stupid so I'm going to do it anyways."

"Got it," Jason said. "So… everyone you know."

"Yeah…" Hazel said slowly. "Why, isn't that… isn't that how it works?"

"No, no," Jason said. "It's great. Really, these are so beautiful Hazel…"

"So that's not what people do anymore?" Hazel asked. "Now it's love love love?"

"Well… it's all love," Jason said.

"But is Frank going to think it's weird if I-"

"No he won't," Jason said. He smiled. "This is pretty in-character for you."

"It's part of being the superior cousin."

"That's a hot take," Jason said.

"Is it?" Hazel said, cocking her head to the side. "Okay, so if Valentine's Day became this love love love thing, what are you doing for Piper?"

"I'm not going to tell you, you'll tell her," Jason said.

"Will not!"

"Okay, so you'll tell Annabeth and Annabeth will tell Percy and Percy will let it slip," Jason said.

"That's rude," Hazel said. "I showed you my cards!"

"Okay, fine," Jason said. "We split the day in two, so I'm in charge of morning. Her father's letting me borrow his car, so I'm waking her up early, feeding her breakfast in the car, and bringing her to Descanso Gardens. They've got a bird sanctuary and all these gardens, and I'm bringing a picnic and pray extra hard that we don't run into monsters and that Camp and the Legion don't run into any Valentine's Day drama that needs urgent mediation."

"That sounds so nice," Hazel said. She chewed her lip. "Valentine's Day is on Sunday, right? So… so even legionnaires can plan things, right?"

"Yeah," Jason said. "Yeah, you can ask Frank."

"But you're not telling Piper," Hazel said.

"We decided to surprise each other," Jason said.

"But what if Frank is also a fan of the whole surprise thing?" Hazel asked.

"Ask him, Hazel," Jason said. "He's sweet. He'll get it."

"I know, I know," Hazel said. "But… these are things that everyone knows. Everyone but me."

"Hazel, the man spent half an hour showing you how to use an escalator in the Berkeley Mall," Jason said. "Frank doesn't mind. He knows you and he knows where you're from and he gets it. Piper had to show me how to use a toaster because I'd never needed to use one at Camp Jupiter."

"What is a toaster?" Hazel asked.

Jason put an arm around her.

"I'll show you when you finally come over, I'm an expert now," Jason said. "So, what are you drawing?"

Reyna had finally decided that she had run out of energy to care, so when she and Frank worked late in the principia Hazel was allowed to sit at the other end of the table and draw or read the books Dr Chase sent her or catch up on all the comic books that had come out since she died. She had a lot of reading to do. Sometimes to stretch she got up and went to get coffee- Frank was telling her that her focus issues might be related to ADHD, which was a thing you could diagnose now.

"That looks really good," Frank said, putting a hand on her back and looking at the card she was making. It was for Piper: she'd layered sheet after sheet of paper to make a 3D forest with painstakingly detailed hearts instead of leaves.

"Thanks," Hazel said. "Do you think Piper will like it?"

"I think so," Frank said. He looked handsome in his armour, with the purple cloak draped across his shoulders. It was a good look.

"Is there anybody in the Olympian world not getting a card?" Reyna asked.

"As far as my brother knows, Will Solace isn't getting one," Hazel said. She picked up a card from her shoebox. "But really, I made him one with a funny limerick about love being the cure for anything. It's funnier than I'm making it sound."

Reyna grinned before turning back to her work.

"Am I getting one?" Frank asked.

"You are," Hazel said. "I'm just hiding it."

"Where?" Frank frowned.

"I have my ways," Hazel said. Jason's advice came back to her. Just ask. "Are we doing anything for Valentine's Day?"

"I will be," Frank said. "I hope you'll come too."

Hazel grinned.

"You guys are cute," Reyna said. "Zhang, it'd also be pretty cute if you could initial these forms to order new roofing materials?"

So now that Hazel knew that Frank had a plan for Valentine's Day, she was anxious about a whole new set of factors. She knew that the days of chivalry were over because everyone had finally come around to the conclusion that everybody should be nice to everybody regardless of gender roles and dangling tidbits. Or, well, nearly everyone. Whatever, she was onboard with it and she knew that Frank was too since he wasn't a dick. So she had to make sure that whatever he was planning, she was planning something just as good. But how was she supposed to do that if she didn't know what he was planning? Or what anybody ever planned?

She didn't know. She spent a lot of time chewing her lip and thinking it over. The nice thing was that the girls at the bath, who were always in the same tub at the same time when Hazel turned up on Thursday night, all talked about Valentines' Day. So Hazel was trying to absorb as much information as possible on the subject.

People seemed to go out of their way a lot. All of the restaurants in New Rome had been booked for months. People were buying all kinds of things from jewelry to flowers to chocolates and all kinds of things that Hazel didn't really think were special to that day. For one thing, legionnaires weren't allowed to wear jewelry when they were on duty, which was all the time. Hazel personally ate chocolate as much as possible. Flowers were everywhere all the time, the first time that she and Frank had been on a date they'd made flower crowns out of the bouquet he'd gotten her.

The more that she heard people talk about Valentines' Day, the more she kind of thought it was silly. She liked the cards, but people seemed to be… well, making a regular amount of effort but all on one day instead of all the time. She wasn't sure that she liked that so much. It was like when the war broke out, when Pearl Harbour was bombed, and soldiers started marrying their sweethearts and sweethearts threw themselves at soldiers in case they died. It was cute, and Hazel was sure that a lot of them were in love, but shouldn't love last longer? Shouldn't love have deeper roots than one burst of intensity?

Hazel didn't know, really. She just really liked the Valentine she'd made for Nico, which had a skull with paper flowers bursting out of it.

When February 1st came around, there was a red envelope in Hazel's boot at the bottom of her bed.

Welcome to your first modern Valentine's Day

I don't really know how to do this either

But you'll get a clue a day and we'll try to make it good

So tomorrow your first clue will be waiting for you, where the legion keeps the wood.

Hazel tucked it in the waistband of her pants with a smile before going to breakfast.

"Good morning," she told Frank taking his hand. She tried to bite back her smile.

"Hey," he smiled.

"Somebody's in a good mood today," Dakota noted.

"I am," Hazel said. She looked at Frank.

"I had nothing to do with that," Frank said. But his ears turned pink like whenever he lied and he dug into his pancakes pretty quickly, so Hazel knew that she wasn't crazy.

Hazel had been chasing clues for five days now. She had rummaged in the principia's wood store, in the kitchens, under the barrack porch, in Pluto's temple… Every red envelope had a modern candy in it- red hot candy hearts (that Hazel loved), heart-shaped chocolates, specially-coloured Smarties, Hersey kisses… Frank knew her obsession with modern candy, and she was pretty sure that Reyna was helping him with his candy supply.

She kept all the envelopes tucked in her pillowcase, because Rebekah was starting to act up about the whole bunk-thing again and emptying Hazel's trunk on the floor all the time. Anyways she liked them, the little pile she was accumulating as the days added up.

On Valentine's Day, Hazel woke up extra early.

And when she hopped down from her bed to get dressed -she'd saved her sunflower headwrap and her red sundress for Valentine's Day. When she reached for her Toms, she saw that they were full of notes. It wasn't her last clue- it was Valentines from everyone. Percy and Annabeth, Piper, Jason, Nico (and Will!), Dakota, Reyna… Hazel grinned. Once she'd read through all of them, she tucked them into her pillow for additional safekeeping, grabbed her sunglasses, and went to grab breakfast. She had her last clue tucked in her pocket, but couldn't find Frank at breakfast. Reyna wasn't there either, so she figured that they must have work. She hoped Jason was going to get his morning off so that he could stay out of it.

She couldn't find Frank, but Carlina had been looking for Reyna and she said that they were busy. So, Hazel slipped a note under the door so he'd know where to find her and went to sit in the Fields of Mars to sketch. Every now and then she looked back at her last clue, to make sure she'd read it right.

You don't need to go to the dining hall tonight,

Just keep an eye out for all the light,

It'll be under your favourite tree,

And thank gods I'm nearly done with this poetry,

(But I'm really excited)

So she laid back in the fields and sketched some more. When the twenty-minutes-to-dinner bell rang, Hazel wandered back into the Fort. The lights were still on in the principia, but the doors were shut. Usually Reyna would leave them open for air to circulate, unless something serious was going on...

Still: Frank must have gotten her note. He would have sent word to her if something would have happened.

She went back to the barracks. She'd been hoping to run into Frank there, but he wasn't on the men's side of the barracks. His boots were at the foot of his bunk and his sneakers weren't, so Hazel took that as a good sign. Somebody was apparently seducing Rebekah today, because all of Hazel's stuff was still in her trunk- and it wasn't even locked with another lock or upside down or anything.

She took Frank's present from its hiding spot under her mattress, and straightened out the ribbons. She pulled a cardigan from her trunk, and went to grab the jacket hanging off the hook on Frank's bunk, just in case. She hugged the coats and the package to her chest and set off; Under your favourite tree… It was a little gutsy, wasn't it? But there was only one place that could be, even if it was outside of camp.

She crossed the River Tiber and ducked through the Caldecott Tunnel. When she and Frank had been newbies in the Legion, what with all the drama and confusion of Jason's disappearance and Octavian's constant attempts at political coups, Frank and Hazel had always, always ended up getting posted at the Caldecott Tunnel- a job nobody had wanted by that time since half-bloods never made it to Camp and it was just depressing. That was part of why they'd become friends. The safety of that routine had helped to soothe Hazel's nerves and start talking to Frank in the first place.

And there was one tree- that one tree that looked so cool- that one tree that they had always hidden under when the sun peaked in the sky. Hazel couldn't even explain why the tree was so cool- maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was because they were both so awkward yet lonely that they'd talked about the tree so much to fill the silence- trying to figure out what initials were carved into it and why, and looking at the one branch that on some days looked diseased, daring each other to count the leaves but distracting each other the whole time, Hazel climbing it because she hadn't gotten to climb trees in so long…

And there was Frank now. There were candles at the bottom of the tree and fairy lights strewn across the branches, and a spare sheet spread on the ground too.

"Hey," he said. He looked so worried when he came towards her and took her hands and kissed her cheek. "Hazel, I'm so sorry- some of our Pegasi went missing and we had to figure out if it was foul play or if they'd just gone to camp- I'm so sorry-"

"It's okay," Hazel said. "Honestly, it's okay!"

"I'm sorry, I feel really bad," Frank said. "I made a big deal about how cool your first Valentines' Day was going to be, and didn't come through…"

"What do you mean?" Hazel said. "Of course you did, Frank. I got fourteen days of treasure hunting and candy. And more than that, I get you all the time. That is so much more… that means so much. That means the world. And this is so beautiful, Frank…"

"Yeah?" Frank asked, grinning and looking around. "I kind of miss standing guard with you."

"Me too," Hazel said. "So you're my treasure?"

"I am providing you your treasure," Frank said. "Which is a basic Valentine's Day starter pack. Just to start you off, that way you have that experience that everyone else has. Fill in the gap, and all. We can get more creative later."

"Okay," Hazel laughed. Her heart skipped a beat when he said later.

"So you got a surprise, and also chocolate," Frank said. "And you'd have gotten flowers but I literally ran out of time, so put a pin in that because they're coming. And we're going to have dinner. And the girls I talked to, so basically Annabeth and Piper and Rachel and Reyna, told me that jewelry was also pretty classic and really should be in a Valentine's Day starter pack, but I told them that you didn't really like jewelry because of the whole gem thing, so we got creative."

He reached into his back pocket and opened up a jewelry box. There was a single pearl on a thin leather cord.

Hazel smiled.

"Oh my gosh," Hazel said. "Pearls are only for ladies."

"Well, you're pretty impressive," Frank said. "I think you count. And I checked with Nico and Percy and technically pearls are from the ocean, so they're not your problem."

Hazel smiled and she let him put the necklace on. She felt like a lady.

"I love it," Hazel said toying with the pearl with her fingers. It was so stupid, but she couldn't help but think of what her mother would say, seeing her wearing pearls.

"Yeah?" Frank asked.

"Yeah," Hazel said.

"Okay good," Frank said. "And I've wasted a bunch of you time, so you're probably hungry- which is where dinner comes in."

Frank said taking her hand and brought her over to the blanket.

"Okay," he said. "So: I realized that we were showing you all kinds of modern candy and chips and all that, but there's probably some food that you just… don't know about because it wasn't in New Orleans."

"Okay," Hazel said.

"And so Nico and I talked it over-"

"Of course."

"-and we were arguing pretty hard about it. So I just decided to get you Indian food, and a California roll so you can try sushi. Both are from New Rome, so if you really like it we can go to the actual restaurant later, I just didn't want to freak you out with new food."

"Indian food," Hazel said. "What… what is that even like?"

"Well, I'm glad you asked," Frank said taking Styrofoam containers from the bag. "There's a lot, but the lady at the restaurant and I settled on these things to start you out."

"It smells so good," Hazel said.

"It is so good," Frank said. "I think you'll like this. Sushi might be weird, but Indian food is pretty much an instant win."

"Wait, wait," Hazel said. "I have to give you your present too. This is your Valentines' Day too."

"Oh, okay," Frank said. So Hazel handed him his present and he was really careful when he unwrapped it. He looked at the book at first, turning it around in his hands.

"You made this, didn't you?" he asked with a smile.

Hazel nodded. "And you have to open it!"

So Frank unwrapped the leather chord that wrapped itself around the book three times and opened it up. Hazel relished in his facial expressions as he realized that this wasn't like any book; that it unfolded like an accordion, the pages unraveling like the ups and downs of a crossword puzzle.

"Oh my God," Frank said. "You did this. You made every page…"

"Yeah," Hazel said. She was trying not to smile too hard until she knew for sure that he liked it. She helped him unfold the book on the grass and Frank diligently looked at every page.

"You drew this," Frank said. "You drew all of this- and scrapbooked- and put all of this together…"

"Yeah," Hazel said. "I… I wanted Valentine's Day to be more than a day. I wanted it to be all our days leading up to today when we got to know each other, and all the days that were going to come after and all the things we were going to do."

"You have leaves from our tree pressed here," Frank said. "And… and a feather from the Eagles- that was our first lesson together, wasn't it? Is that Arion and Hannibal grazing in a field? Oh my God, they're so cute…"

Then he got to another picture.

"The bears here," Frank said. "The two bears and the cub… that's my family, isn't it? My grandmother, my mother, and I?"

"I didn't know how else to draw them," Hazel said. "But I wanted them to be here. Because they're part of... of you, of our story, of everything that brought us here..."

Frank looked up, this dumbstruck look on his face. Then he discovered the blank pages attached. "Is this for later? For the things to add?"

"Yeah," Hazel said. She smiled. "For next Valentine's Day when we get to be creative."

Frank shook his head. "You're amazing."

"Do you like it?" Hazel said. "Is this..? This is Valentine's Day worthy, right?"

"Hazel, I love it," Frank said. He stepped over a line of pages and wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head.

"I know I sent Valentines to basically everyone I know, but you're my favourite," Hazel said.

"You're my favourite too," Frank said. He kissed her on the lips this time. "I'm glad you get to be my Valentine every day."