It's the Frazel story (finally)! With Blood of Olympus just around the corner, I'll hopefully be churning out quite a few stories over the next few days, so stay tuned! (And now, back to your scheduled shameless fluff.)
Disclaimer: I don't own PJO/HoO.
"We're out of rice."
Frank glanced up from the kitchen table. "I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow."
"Can you go earlier in the day? It's Daniel's back to school night." Hazel shifted the snack boxed in the pantry.
He leaned back, squinting at the refrigerator. "Is that on the calendar?"
"Yes – wait, no. I didn't get around to printing out the new version." She pulled out a bag of egg noodles.
Frank sighed. The calendar used to work. Sort of. But now with Jared and Evalyn's playdates, Angela's tae kwon do classes, and Daniel's school activites (first grade oh gods), forms got mixed up, Saturdays were occasionally double-booked, and Frank and Hazel spent at least half of their time alone arguing about whose job it was to do which task.
"Mommy!" Three-year-old Evalyn rushed into the kitchen, her curly hair bouncing. "LookatwhatIcando!" She scrunched her face in concentration just as Daniel barreled into her from behind.
"Hey! I was gonna show Mommy the new trick!" Evalyn's face flushed bright red, and Frank quickly stepped up from the kitchen table to mediate.
"Daniel, you need to be more careful about where you're running," he said.
The six-year-old ducked his head. "Sorry Daddy. But guess what? I can change my hands – watch!" He held out his palms and charged around the room. "You're going down!" Daniel lunged playfully at Frank, his hands now transformed into furry paws with unsheathed claws.
"Careful!" Frank shouted. "Dan, you can't practice transforming if you can't be careful about it."
"Hey!" Evalyn stomped her foot. "Dan always gets a turn!" She flopped down on the ground and started to cry.
Hazel set down the measuring cup she was holding and scooped Evalyn up off the ground.
"Hey now," she smiled. "We know you're just as good as Dan at transforming."
"Better," she declared.
Hazel sighed, raising her eyebrows at Frank. He shrugged helplessly. One might think that managing four kids would be easy after years of negotiating with senators, filling out paperwork, and getting into shouting matches with the legionnaires, but when their fights started really getting going he sometimes caught himself longing for the days when he could just call for order or assert his authority as praetor and war hero and stuff would get done.
"Dinner'll be ready in fifteen minutes. Dan, go find Jared and make sure he's getting cleaned up. Evalyn, you get Angela." When the kids scampered off, Hazel leaned back against the countertop and closed her eyes.
"I wish they'd stop competing with each other," she murmured.
"I know." Frank slid up next to her and gently kissed her forehead. "Evalyn's our little ringleader there. It's natural that she'd want to be better than Jared – I think it's a twin thing – but then Daniel's powers are similar enough to hers…"
"It's a good thing we don't have to worry about Angie," Hazel joked, but there was a note of concern in her voice. Their second born hadn't shown any signs of inheriting either the blood of Pythos gift or Hazel's connection with precious metals.
"Angie's so dedicated to everything she does," Frank said. "I hope she'll lighten up soon."
Hazel didn't say anything for a moment, and then she turned back to the stove. "I've got to finish up dinner." She waved towards the sink. "Wash hands, then you're chopping peppers, mister."
"Hazel?"
"What?" she groaned, lifting her head off the pillow. "I was almost asleep."
"Sorry," Frank whispered, sliding in under the covers. "Jared wouldn't settle down."
"Mmm. So what is it?"
"Just…" he swallowed. "We don't really seem to get a lot of time to ourselves any more. We didn't have that much time when the kids were younger, but it just keeps getting worse."
Hazel buried her head in the pillow and sighed. "Look, can we – " Yawn. " – talk about this in the morning?"
He tugged the comforter up to his chin, closing his eyes. "Okay."
Unfortunately, they didn't get more than five minutes alone the next day, unless you counted the break between the principal's talk and visiting Daniel's teacher. (Frank didn't.) He had been either running around town on errands, Iris Message teleconferencing, flipping through the bills, driving Evalyn to a friend's house, or paying the babysitter.
It wasn't that he and Hazel didn't have free time exactly – it was more that they didn't have free time that overlapped. Between work and kids and chores and – gods, he couldn't even keep track anymore.
"You're turn to tuck the girls in," Hazel called to them as they corralled the kids through cleaning up and teeth brushing.
"Right."
Evalyn was tuckered out from her playdate (which was a small miracle because that child rarely got tired), so she curled up in a ball on her twin bed and was asleep within minutes.
Frank had just kissed Angela goodnight and was tiptoeing towards the door when she called, "Daddy?"
He turned. "Yes, sweetie?"
The black-haired girl had propped herself up on her pillow and seemed to be thinking about her words before speaking.
"Am I ever going to be special?"
Oh.
It took Frank a few seconds to process before he quickly walked forward and sat on the edge of her bed.
"Angie." He squeezed her hand. "What makes you think you're not?"
She shrugged. "I just wanna know when I'll be like Dan or 'Lyn or Jared. What d'you think I'll be able to do?" Her voice was full of tentative hope, and it crushed Frank's heart.
"Frank?" Hazel was standing in the doorway, peering in. "Daniel and Jared are in bed…" She trailed off. "Everything all right?"
Frank chewed on his lower lip. "Maybe you should come in for a moment."
Angela's eyes widened. "Is something wrong?"
"No, no," he reassured. "Just…maybe she should hear what you have to say."
The little girl frowned. "I was just asking when I'd be special, too."
Frank heard Hazel's breath catch in her throat. "Oh honey…"
"What?" Now there was a genuine note of fear in her voice. "Am I never going to have powers?"
Hazel sat down on the other side of the bed and tucked a strand of Angela's hair behind her ear.
"I'm gonna tell you something, and it's really important that you remember it," she started. Angela nodded slowly, and Hazel leaned forward and whispered, "Powers aren't what make you special."
Angela's face scrunched like she was trying to add two numbers together but it just wasn't clicking in her head. "But-"
"I know Daniel and Evalyn and Jared like to show off," Frank added, "but being able to turn your hands into paws or make Mommy's jewelry move from across the room doesn't make you a better person."
Hazel smiled. "You know, I have a friend who has never had any flashy powers. But she knows how to use her brain, to be creative and clever and come up with a plan to save the day. And most importantly, she never lets her friends down when they need her. And that makes her a hero."
Angela narrowed her eyes, evaluating Hazel's words. "But you and Daddy are heroes too, aren't you?"
Frank and Hazel shared a look.
"Many people consider us heroes," he said. "But it's not because of the extra abilities we had. Your mom has always been really brave and stood her ground and done the right thing even when it wasn't easy."
Hazel smiled, reaching across the bed to squeeze Frank's hand. "And your dad was willing to stick himself out there in order to help other people."
"Really?" Angela appeared to be tentatively considering their words.
"Sweetie, I know it's hard because you think you're different from your siblings," Frank added. "And you know what? You are. You're special in your very own way because you're smart and you work really hard at tae kwon do, and you are a very thoughtful little girl, and you're honest."
A slow smile spread across Angela's face for a moment, but then she bit her lip.
"But are you…are you going to send everyone else off to the special camp and not me because I don't have powers?"
"First off, we don't know whether or not you'll have powers. More importantly, even if you don't we are not ever going to separate you guys like that." Hazel kissed Angela's forehead. "I promise."
This time Angela smiled for real.
"I can't say I didn't expect that, I just…I'd hoped that everything would be okay," Hazel sighed.
Frank wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "It is okay. I think she understands."
"We just need to make sure the other kids understand, too."
"One step at a time." Frank paused. "And it all got me thinking…I know we're thinking that we need these large chunks of time to spend together, but…not everything has to be a huge deal."
Hazel nodded slowly. "Maybe we can just take a little time to work out a schedule at the beginning of the week so everything's not so chaotic? And we have a few moments when we know we can relax. Especially with the kids' activities – gods there's never been so many…"
"Absolutely." Frank kissed her cheek. "We can do it. We're heroes, after all." He nudged her with his shoulder, and she rolled her eyes.
We're also family. And family sticks together.