Hey guys! I just had a school Christmas activity today. Potluck lunch- woohoo! Christmas is coming! Personal glitch right now is that my Fanpop account got suspended (I don't know why!) and I'm stressing out because if it's not back by Friday I won't be able to post. But that's me.

11 days until Christmas!

Disclaimer: I trust that due to the fact that this would be my tenth disclaimer, you guys are catching on that I'm not Rick Riordan.

10

Santa Baby

The whole Big House smelled warm and spicy the second Travis walked in.

Oh yeah, he thought. Gingerbread was the all-time Christmas token for him- his mom made the best. Well, he'd have to call it the second best, because no way was he going to rank Katie's second. Not to her face anyways.

He walked into the kitchen they'd found (and hoped was abandoned) and saw Aggie mixing something in a bowl, and Katie holding the bowl with one hand, the other wrapped over Aggie's to lend strength.

"There we go." Katie said. "Good job Aggie!" She said offering her hand for a high-five. Aggie hit Katie's hand as hard as she could.

"Now we're going to roll it out, okay? That takes muscle too- think you can handle it?" Katie asked seriously. Aggie nodded right away. Travis just stood there, watching them roll out the brown cookie dough with a rolling pin, and resisting the urge to swoop in, grab as much cookie dough as he could, and run like Hades.

It was all extended on the table when Aggie saw Travis.

"Hi Travis!" She said. "Look at our cookies!"

"They're not done yet Aggie," Katie said turning around to give Travis a smile.

"Well, I noticed. Smells good." Travis said.

"The first batch is in the oven. Hope you guys like it with a lot of ginger in it," Katie said. "There's no other way to make it."

"It's legal to have just a bit of ginger in it?" Travis said in mock surprise. Katie made a face and turned back to preoccupation 1.

"Okay, so you have the cookie cutters?" Katie asked Aggie. Aggie waved hers.

"Okay, so remember, press it hard, hard, hard like before." Katie said. She turned to face him. "Travis, did you want to make gingerbread men?" She offered nearly mockingly.

"I'm just waiting for the decorating stage." Travis said.

"Strange; that's just what Poppy, Packrat, Connor, Josh, and Mariah said. And what I think that Shoelace was trying to say. You candy hogs." Katie said.

"There's also the involved icing!" Travis said. Katie was unimpressed and she tossed him a cookie cutter.

"Wash your hands," She said.

And so Travis was cutting out gingerbread people from the cookie dough too, just as the oven dinged.

"Keep going, I'll get that." Katie said. She pulled on some old looking oven mitts and pulled out a batch of gingerbread men; the place smelled even better.

"Wow Aggie, look at the first batch." Katie said putting the cookie sheet down. Aggie ran over to the counter, and Katie gave her a boost so she could see.

"Can I have one?" Aggie asked.

"Nope; you want the icing and candy on it first." Travis said. "Trust me on this."

"Let's put the ones we're working on in the oven and then we'll decorate them, okay?" Katie said. Aggie nodded. They picked up the floppy and raw cookies trying not to rip any ginger limbs, and flopped them down on cookie sheets covered with parchment paper.

Katie didn't trust Travis around an oven so she put them in, as he took out the candy from the drawer of no return. Aggie's eyes became wider at each bag Travis took out.

Katie took a pan covered with plastic wrap from the fridge.

"I already made the icing," Katie said. "What?" She added when she saw the way Travis' eyes must have been bugging out.

"You made icing?" He asked.

"Yes," Katie said like it was obvious. "I'm a daughter of Demeter. I don't use stuff already made with artificial colouring and preservatives- that's disgusting. You should know this, Travis."

"Okay sure," Travis said. "So this is like- sugar, water, butter."

"No water; and its confectioners' sugar. You know: the fluffy white stuff that goes on pastries all the time." Katie said.

"Oh…"

Travis helped Aggie squeeze some icing onto her gingerbread man cookie, but she was overly protective when it came to putting the candy on.

"No!" She said. "I can do it by myself!"

So Travis just ate the handful of smarties he'd picked up.

"Travis!" Katie said. "That's for cookies, not for idiots!"

"Even if I kissed you?"

"Even if." Katie said.

Travis kissed her anyways.

"Still a no," Katie said. "Even if that was a literally sweet kiss. You will not touch the candy anymore."

So he leaned back and watched Aggie show Katie her first cookie proudly, and his girlfriend praise Aggie back. Travis didn't get that. He loved Aggie –he really did- but sometimes it drove him nuts to have a five year old ridding coattails. Having to watch his language and jokes and every single word, making sure he wasn't being too horrible of an example, breaking any laws (she had to learn them before breaking them after all), no violence… Katie never seemed to be bothered by that- even if she was usually swarmed by a bunch of the 7-10 year olds too. Travis always knew she was something.

"Travis, Travis, Travis!" Aggie said showing him her cookie.

"Yeah, that's great Aggie!" He said. Aggie had pretty much just covered the thing in rainbow sprinkles for a dress (although it looked more like a pantsuit) and then stuck on smarty eyes. Aggie nodded.

"Can you make me one?" Travis asked. Aggie nodded and rushed back onto the little stool so she could reach the counter.

"Travis!" Katie said. "Stop taking advantage of your little sister like that- come make your own cookies."

"You said no touching the candy anymore." Travis said.

"Oh, so you listen to me now?" She asked, hands on her hips. Her hair was swept up out of her face and tied up messily- only because she was cooking. She had flour and bits of dough on her fingers, on an apron- and on her cheeks, which was just a danger of cooking with children of Hermes. She was still prettier than anybody who'd ever walked down a catwalk or posed for a magazine.

"Absolutely," Travis said. "Thanks Aggie." He said taking the cookie she was offering him. "Another pretty one, good job. Maybe we should call you the Ginger Master."

"Aggie is a prettier name." Aggie said. He ruffled her hair.

"Ginger master."

"Thanks for helping me clean up," Katie said, reaching far to clean the far end of the counter.

"No prob," Travis said. "You were entertaining my little sister after all; guess it's sort of fair."

"It was nothing." Katie said. Travis spun around, picked her up like she was a ragdoll and plopped her on the counter. She looked down at him and her leafy green eyes were sparkling.

"Stop saying that every time you help out with Aggie," he said. "It's not nothing, it's probably the only reason she doesn't profoundly hate half-blood kind."

"You know, you don't cut yourself enough slack. Not on this case anyways." Katie said. She pushed his bangs out of his right eye and kept her hand there. "You're a great brother. I don't know if anybody else in Camp would even try to do this for their little sister. I don't think so. And you're not horrible at keeping Aggie happy and safe either. You cut her food for her at meals, you tuck her in at night, you listen to her stories, tell her some, you wow at her little feats. That's small stuff, but it's big for her."

"I still don't know how we're going to pull off Santa." Travis said.

"You're giving her Christmas," Katie said. "You're basically Santa, baby." And then she leaned in and kissed him. Travis cupped her face and felt himself calm down and everything slip away, like whenever Katie kissed him and he felt 'yeah that's right world- I got her at the end of the day'.

"Oh superb," someone said lazily walking into the kitchen. "This is what happens when demigods have sugar- I did say to Chiron starving you brats would benefit to us all. Does he listen to me? No, of course not, what do almighty gods know?"

Travis separated his lips from Katie's and turned around. Mr D was rummaging in the fridge and he took out a slice of pizza wrapped in plastic wrap. Travis saw Katie wrinkle her nose when she saw plastic wrap- she had problems with wrapping food in plastic that you threw away anyways. Environmentalist's pet peeves.

Mr D was making his way out lazily, without even looking at them when he eyed the gingerbread.

Did you really ever believe that even gods didn't like that stuff?

"Did you make the cookies?" Mr D asked.

"Yes," Katie said, still sitting on the counter, an arm around Travis' neck.

Mr D took one of those too before walking out.

"So where were we?" Travis said turning back to Katie.

"The part where I was thinking that we should clean up and head outside before Chiron's the one that walks in," Katie said.

She had a point.

By the time he'd reached the cabin (it wasn't that big of a detour), he'd determined that he liked it better when Katie made gingerbread cookies.