Thalia was dreaming. Well, she was hoping she was dreaming. She dreamed that a familiar blonde girl was standing over her yelling "Thaaaallliiiiaaaa!" at such an ungodly hour that Thalia was going to have to have a serious talk with her.
"MMPH," she grumbled, burying her face in her pillow. Wait, this wasn't her pillow. Was it? The events of the day before came rushing back. She and the Hunters weren't tracking any particular game, and a giant storm had come up, and what with Artemis off at the Winter Solstice Olympian Council, Thalia made an executive decision and took a vote. They could trek a couple hours south and spend the holidays at Camp, or rough it out where they were, in Canada, in a blizzard, waiting for Artemis to come back so they could sit around some more.
When she put it like that, the vote was almost unanimous. The Hunters packed up and headed to Camp.
They'd gotten in late on the night of the Winter Solstice, and basically said a few hellos before crashing in the Artemis cabin. Thalia said hi to Percy and Annabeth and managed to detach her brother from Piper long enough to get in a hug hello before heading to her cabin and falling asleep. Thalia was also eligible to stay in the cavernous, temple-like Zeus cabin, which, with her brother around, was a much more pleasing option than it used to be. Jason had gotten a few renovations done, since construction crews were already running around building cabins for the Roman demigods, anyway. He'd removed the giant statue of their dad and stuck it out back, and actually constructed a pair of bedrooms and a living area from the giant space the statue left behind. Thalia would've been comfortable there, she was sure, but she liked to keep an eye on her Hunters while they were at camp. Some of them still acted up around the campers.
"Thaalliiaaa!" the girl said, sing-song. "Up and at em!"
Thalia groaned. "That had better not be you, Annie."
"What? You aren't pleased to see me?" Annabeth asked teasingly. She plopped down on the bunk and bounced like she was a little kid again, effectively ruining Thalia's chances of getting back to sleep.
"Not at this hour," Thalia moaned.
"It's ten am!"
"Exactly." Thalia fumbled around for her pillow and chucked it in the vague direction of her friend. "Now go away."
"Aren't you forgetting something?" The smile was evident in Annabeth's voice. Thalia sighed and rolled over, propping herself up on her elbows to glare blearily at Athena's daughter. "What am I forgetting, exactly?"
Annabeth was grinning. She seemed to glow when she was happy, but Thalia knew exactly how much pain hid behind those grey eyes. Annabeth's hair was longer and tied back, and she wore jeans, her camp shirt, and a blue sweater. Her eyes danced and she had her sword strapped to her belt. Annabeth was a much better morning person than Thalia was. Thalia's hair was probably spikier than usual, and the oversized black shirt she slept in was so rumpled you could barely see the "I EAT LAISTRYGONIANS FOR BREAKFAST" spelled across the front in white letters. It was always weird to see how much her friends had grown. Annabeth was probably taller than Thalia now, with a lean, athletic form that just kept getting tanner. Thalia still looked barely sixteen, but she made up for it in attitude.
"You're forgetting the date," Annabeth said, sounding a little exasperated.
"No, I'm not," Thalia said automatically. "It's December 22nd."
Annabeth gave her an exasperated look. "And the 22nd is…"
"The day after the Winter Solstice?" Thalia guessed, sleepily. Annabeth threw the pillow at her. She had much better aim than Thalia had, but then Annabeth was awake.
"No!" she exclaimed. "For Zeus's sake, Thals! Do you always forget your birthday?"
"Oh, that." Thalia yawned, stretching. "Given as how I'm not actually aging anymore, the date's officially irrelevant. I'm going back to bed."
'No, you're not."
"Yes, I am."
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am."
"No, you're not. Do you need me to come in here and get Percy to drench you?" Annabeth asked in an exasperated tone.
"NO!" Thalia yelped, leaping out of bed at this, the Ultimate Threat. Thankfully, the cabin was empty, which was pretty typical. Thalia's hunters pretty much all woke up before her.
"Good," Annabeth said haughtily, lifting her chin. "Well, whether or not you want to celebrate, we do. How old are you, anyway?"
"I told you, I stopped aging," Thalia said listlessly, rifling in her bag for clean-ish clothes.
"Yeah, but you're still counting the number of years you've been on this planet, right?"Ananbeth pointed out.
"Well, yes," Thalia admitted. "Are we counting the years as a tree here?"
"Sure, why not?"
Thalia leaned against her bunk and did some mental math. "How old are you again?"
"Seventeen and a half," Annabeth supplied readily. She was on winter break from her senior year of high school with Percy. Last night Thalia had picked up the two had had a monster-infested fall with periodic visits to camp to oversee construction and attend the Greek and Roman Official Council. The Council was a meeting of every senior counsellor from Camp Half-Blood and every senior officer plus the praetors from Camp Jupiter. It was a good way of keeping the peace, keeping up with news, and having an excuse to throw giant parties once a month. Thalia was invited when she was in the area, to represent Artemis. So far the meetings and her visits had only coincided once, but Thalia would never quite the erase the image of Grover, drunk on nectar, bellowing "FOR PROM DRESSES!" and leaping off the dock into the icy lake. Percy had been laughing so hard Annabeth had to whack him so he'd concentrate enough to fish their satyr friend out of the lake. Thalia had decided then and there to attend as many meetings as possible.
There probably would have been more parties if Leo Valdez was still alive. It had been four or five months since his death and Thalia still saw grief written all over her little brother's face. It damn near tore her heart out. She hadn't really known Leo-he'd hit on her briefly in a cave and then went on a heavily-prophesied quest to save the world along with Piper and Jason and the others-but the guy had meant a lot to the seven of the prophecy. Sorry, six. They'd gotten through the worst of it, but Thalia doubted the grief would ever really go away. That kind of loss was something you didn't forget.
"Right," she said, jerking herself out of her own thoughts. "That makes me 23, I think."
Annabeth choked. "Gods, you're old!"
Thalia grinned as she pulled on some clothes. "So are you! Wow, can you believe we've known each other ten years?"
"No," Annabeth said, crossing her legs.
"I can." Thalia grinned. "I am, like, so sick of your face right now."
Annabeth yelled but grinned. "Thals!" She chucked the pillow but Thalia managed to dodge, shrieking with laughter.
"All right, all right," Annabeth grumbled. "Hurry up. You have presents to open."
"You got me presents? Aw!" Thalia grinned again, pulling on her silver combat jacket over her punk-rock clothes. Ripped black jeans, her battered but serviceable Death to Barbie t-shirt, her various heavy jewellery and punk buttons, and of course, her usual thick black eyeliner. With much more respect than she usually paid to her clothes, Thalia slipped on the silver circlet that marled her as first lieutenant to Artemis, and checked to make sure her charm bracelet/shield was still on and that her mace can spear was in her back pocket.
"Scary," Annabeth commented with a grin. The two looked like polar opposites, the last people you'd expect to be best friends, but Thalia was pretty sure that whole opposites-attract thing was true. Like, Annabeth was a daughter of Athena dating a son of Poseidon, for Zeus' sake. That was pretty opposite-like.
"Perfect," Thalia said with satisfaction. "Well, I'm awake now, so let's go."
They bounded out of the cabin. Outside, the clouds were pearly white, the air cold and frost was thick on the ground, but it wasn't actually freezing. Thalia wished she had magic like that. Campers were scattered across the green, heading to their various activities, laughing and carrying Celestial Bronze weapons. A few nature spirits were attempting volleyball in the frosty court, while a chunk of the canoe lake was thickly frozen over and some campers skated around on it's surface. Given that it was school holidays, there was a fair number of campers around, enjoying the break from school and monster-fighting. Some would go home for the actual day of Christmas if they were lucky enough to have steady families, and others would stay here, with their friends. That had always been Thalia-the girl with no family, until she found Jason again.
Basically as soon as she thought of Jason she looked up and saw him, leaning easily against the porch rail of the Big House, looking like a son of Apollo with his blonde hair and tanned skin. Thalia and Jason were also basically opposites. Reyna had told Jason about her encounter with thalia, saying that she'd always thought of Jason as the All-American guy, and that his sister looked more like the girl who beat up All-American guys in back alleys. Jason had thought that was so funny he'd relayed the comment to Thalia in an Iris-Message, and she had to admit it was the truth. Next to Jason, leaning casually against him, was Piper, her hair braided with a festive bright red harpy feather, her eyes shifting colours as she laughed. For a daughter of Aphrodite, Thalia had to admit Piper was pretty cool. In terms of girlfriends, Jason could've done worse. In fact, he'd be hard-pressed to do better.
Behind the chatting couple, Percy and Grover were having some kind of a contest involving tin cans and swords. Grover would throw a can up in the air and Percy would try and uncap Riptide and slash it in half before it hit the ground, with varying levels of success. As Thalia approached she watched Percy nearly decapitate Grover in an overly enthusiastic swing. Grover let out a panicked bleat and threw a tin can at Percy, who yelled and threw the can back at him. They started throwing slashed tin cans at each other until they saw the girls and stopped, embarrassed.
"Happy Birthday!" Grover bleated, throwing his arms wide and whacking Percy in the nose. Percy yelled and whacked Grover back. Piper rolled her eyes. "Stop it, you two," she said in absent-minded charmspeak, then smiled at Thalia. "Happy Birthday!"
"Happy Birthday, Thals!" Jason echoed, grinning. Thalia flushed, a little embarrassed. "Thanks, guys."
"Happy Birthday," Percy added sheepishly, as Piper's charmspeak wore off. "Easy on that stuff, Pipes. I swear I stopped breathing and blinking, too."
"Oops," Piper mumbled, flushing. Jason grinned.
"Open your presents!" Annabeth commanded, grinning from ear to ear. She plunked Thalia down on the porch step and Jason slid in next to her on her left. Piper sat on the step in front of him and twisted around to watch them. On Thalia's right, Annabeth sat and handed over a small pile of gifts, as Percy slid in next to her and Grover took the top step.
"You guys really didn'r have to," Thalia mumbled, smiling a little. "But I'm glad you did."
Jason laughed and swung an arm around his sister's shoulders. "Aw, we weren't going to just ignore it! We would've sent these if you weren't around, but the timing worked out perfectly."
"Open mine first," Annabeth said contentedly, probably because Percy's arm had slipped easily around her waist and her head was resting on his shoulder. Percy had grown a lot since the winter he and Thalia had exchanged lightning bolts and creek water. Now he was someone she could trust to take care of Annabeth, and that made Thalia surprisingly happy.
"This one, right?" Thalia asked with a grin, holding up a small box perfectly wrapped in silver paper.
"No, it's mine," Jason quipped. Piper laughed out loud. "You can't wrap gifts to save your life."
Thalia arched an eyebrow and looked approvingly at Jason. "I like this girl."
"Thanks," Jason grumbled good-naturedly. Thalia whacked him playfully then opened her gift.
"Oh, yes!" she yelled. "This is awesome!" She held up the ear spike. It was shaped like an arrow so that it would look like an arrow had pierced the top of her ear. Perfect for a Hunter. "This is so great, Annie! I'm getting someone to put this in right away!"
Annabeth grinned. "I figured you were sick of the black one." Thalia's fingers went to her boring ear decoration, a simple black rod with round black balls at each end. "So true. Thanks, Annie."
"Mine next," Piper grinned. "It matches."
"Ooh, nice," Thalia exclaimed approvingly.
Piper's gift turned out to be a ring with the same type of arrow on it as the ear spike, which was really just perfect. Percy gave her a new knife, a small, easily concealed Celestial bronze blade Thalia very much appreciated. Grover wound up gifting her with a Green Day CD. Thalia could've hugged him if he didn't smell like goat. Finally, Jason gave her his messily wrapped box. Inside was a charm bracelet not unlike Aegis, only this one didn't morph into a shield, so she could put actually charms on it. There were already four there- a crescent moon, an arrow, a knife-shaped charm, and one shaped like a lightning bolt.
"This is so perfect!" Thalia exclaimed, almost getting misty-eyed. No one had ever given her a gift like this before, so thoughtful and so well-meant. Jason looked pleased. "Do you like it?"
"I love it!" She exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. She knocked him off balance and Piper wound up holding them up and nudging them back in Annabeth's direction. Annabeth laughed and out her arm around Thalia to steady herself. They settled in like that, Thalia with her arms around her two favourite people in the world, surrounded by friends and gifts, watching idle snowflakes drift down over camp. It was a beautiful place. Not a bad place to die for, she thought contentedly. If I could go back, and change what I did, I wouldn't. None of this would be here, not Annabeth or Grover, or even Luke. Kronos would've found some other host body and everyone would've died. So, no, I wouldn't change a thing. Not just because it would save the world, but because some things, like friends, are worth dying for.
With that thought, Thalia settled back against the porch, smiled, and enjoyed one of many blissful moments to come.