A little tratie oneshot for the holidays :) I might do more, cuz I probably had waay too much fun doing this one!

Oh, and- DISCLAIMER: ME NO OWN PJO. And I hope I won't own any fruitcake this month …;)

Three hours and twenty one minutes.

Three hours and twenty two minutes.

Three hours and twenty three minutes.

Katie picked at her nail polish in the darkness. It had been green, she remembered, with little flowers that Miranda painted on (Katie sucked at painting her nails. She always got the polish all over her fingers, so it looked like some crazy animal attacked her fingers). After managing to scrape a small piece from her left thumb, she put the scraping in the pile of nailpolish chips between her and Travis.

"I'm so hungry," Travis whined, and Katie gritted her teeth. That Travis. If he hadn't roped her into helping him find a stuffed bird in the attic ("Wait, why do you need a stuffed bird?" Katie asked when he told her. "Just do it," he hissed and shoved her into the attic), she wouldn't be here, stuck in the dark, with NO FOOD OR WATER OR ANYTHING!

Three hours and twenty eight minutes.

It also happened to be, like, twenty five degrees outside. Her butt was freezing.

"My butt's freezing," Travis informed her.

"Because I really just need to know the status of your butt every five seconds," Katie muttered, chipping away at her nailpolish.

"Now, it's like, gonna have to be cut off because of frostbite," Travis updated her two minutes later.

"Can I do the operation?"

"Oh, you so like me." It was kind of an ongoing thing. Ever since they were teeny weeny little twelve year olds and first met each other, Travis's delusional brain somehow always thought that Katie liked him. Katie wasn't sure how he figured that, because she always tried to make it publicly known that she hated him. Although, she had to admit, maybe she didn't hate him. He was a Stoll. Everybody liked the Stolls. They were Stolls; and they were fun, and everyone likes a fun person. Without him, she would be so…un-fun. Nobody to harrasss. Nobody to complain to. Nobody to smack, hit, or maim violently. Or harpoon (which, unfortunately, did happen. On accident. Duh). Come to think of it, Travis was pretty much half her identity. To everyone at camp, she wasn't just Katie Gardner; she was Katie Gardner Who Hates Travis.

That sucked. That really, really, sucked. Because why hadn't she seen this for the last three years? Why hadn't she seen that she and Travis were practically joined at the freakin' hip?

Oh, this was so bad.

"You know, I think it's around dinner time in here," Travis said, nudging her so she'd get the hint.

"You know, I think it's about time that you shut up," Katie replied, trying to keep her voice level. She didn't want to talk to Travis now…

Three hours and thirty minutes.

"Sooo…been doing any drugs lately?"

"WHAT?"

"Once I read this magazine in the dentist's office-"

"You go to the dentist?"

Travis narrowed his eyes at her in the darkness, and ignored her question. "Anyway, I was reading this magazine in the dentist's office and-"

"Wait, you were reading a magazine in the dentist's office? Don't they usually have, like, girly magazines and stuff?" Katie asked.

"Tsk, tsk, Katie. No gender stereotyping!"

"I wasn't 'gender stereotyping'! I was just saying. I can't imagine you reading, like, People or whatever."

Three hours and thirty something minutes.

"I have a weekly subscription to People, Katie."

"Really?"

"I just love finding out who cheated on who."

"Fun, fun. Considering you cheated on Whitney."

"I didn't cheat on her. It was her fault. You know, if she didn't have to be so nosy and always be poking her head in other people's cabins-"

"She's a counselor, Travis. She was on clean up duty this morning. She was supposed to poke her head in your head cabin."

"Well, she could've, I don't know, knocked?"

"You shouldn't have cheated on her…" Katie trailed off, because she really had nothing left to say. On one hand, she knew that what Travis did was wrong, most certainly wrong. And the horrible part was that Travis Stoll got away with cheating on her, because he was a Stoll, and player was probably his middle name. But on the other hand, Katie didn't even like Whitney that much anyway. She looked kind of anorexic. Or maybe that was Katie just being jealous of her.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, Katie thought, Why do I even care about who he dates?

Hey, why did she?

WHY DID SHE?

WHY DID SHE?

The hunger's getting to me, Katie decided as she scooted further away from Travis. Beating around the bus, Katie-kat, one side of her self scolded. She was beating around the bush, and she knew it deep down. Because every time she got too close to the truth, she'd quickly jerk herself back to the lie. And in this case, the lie was more comforting than the truth.

As she scooted further and further away, her hip bone happened to bump into something. She felt it. An old box maybe? But it didn't feel boxish. Wait…there was a plastic covering. In the dark, she clumsily pried it off, and felt some dense object make a thud as it landed on its side. Oh God. What was it?

"Um, what was that?" Travis asked, scooting up closer to Katie.

"A brick?" Katie guessed. Before she could do anything, she felt a hand reach over the shoulder and poke the thing.

"I think it's…bread?" Travis guessed, "Hold on, let me taste it."

"Ew," Katie said, but didn't object as Travis reached over her shoulder again, this time to pluck a piece of the bread and eat. She felt his hand retreat back to his mouth. She held her breath.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!" Crumbs flew everywhere, including on Katie, who did a one eighty so she was now facing Travis, whose eyes were as wide as saucers as he tried to spit everything out onto the floor.

"What?!" Katie asked urgently.

"It's, like, fruitcake!"

"What?! Let me taste."

"…"

"AUGH! How old is this thing?"

"I think it might be molded."

"Fruitcake doesn't really go bad since there's alcohol in it, usually," Katie told him, "Even if it is molded, I guess that's kind of good, since you're supposed to give fruitcake to people you hate."

"Hmmm."

Three hours and…she couldn't remember the minutes.

"Huh?"

"Merry Christmas,Gardner," Travis whispered/said. And all of the sudden he was holding her hands. Holding her hands. And then he opened them…and…and…and put a piece of fruitcake in them.

Katie laughed. She should've known.

She tore another piece off, and placed it in his hands. She didn't even try to lead him on, she just shoved it at him. "Merry Christmas, Stoll."

Travis laughed. He should've known that was coming , too.

"Soo…wanna eat your piece?" Travis asked, breaking the kind of awkward silence. She could feel him staring expectantly at her.

"Ladies first," Katie smirked at him. He couldn't see it, but she knew he could feel it. Travis laughed softly.

"Okay, okay, let's eat it together. At the same time. We've both been kind of assholes to each other this year. I guess we deserve it."

"Sounds good to me," Katie agreed.

"One, two, three…EAT!" But the thing was, the fruit cake never made it to their mouths. Because there they were, in the dark, moving closer and closer and closer and suddenly, there was no more beating around the bush. It hadn't been just Katie. It was both of them. Going around the same bush for years on end, crossing each others paths, but never actually bumping into each other. And now they bumped, and they were…well, here.

Who cared what time it was now?

Fruitcake always tasted sweeter with two.

That's the end everybody! :D Well…this was an interesting oneshot to write. Definitely a lot more emotion and deep-ish stuff than probably anything I've ever done before. ANYWAY, have any of you ever gotten a fruitcake for Christmas? I haven't, although if I do, I'll be sure to use it as a seat booster like Junie B. Jones ;) (get it? Wait…you haven't read that book, have you? He. Nevermind…)

Hope you enjoyed that little five-days-before-Christmas oneshot! Remember…REVIEWS ARE MAGIC! :D