AN: Strings of Fate was updated on Wednesday, the latest chapter being Fairytale!AU with plenty of Frazel if anyone is interested. I'm starting university on Monday (!), but despite the predicted immense increase in workload, since this story is finished, updates will continue as usual. If anyone can guess my intended major, I'll dedicate a chapter to them!

Frank was on cloud nine.

He and Hazel had been together for about a month.

They'd been on a handful of dates.

He'd tripped over, sat on, broken, and even once, memorably, almost swallowed, a lot of objects.

He'd stuttered and fumbled his way through a dozen conversations.

And yet, she was still around.

Soulmate or not, he couldn't quite believe it.

The more he knew about her, the more he knew her, the more he admired her and the further she rode into his heart.

Hazel was really, really strong.

She'd had a difficult past, to say the least. The fact that she was still generally cheerful, optimistic and kind demonstrated her strength.

She was the product of an affair. Her father had abandoned her and her mother before she was born, leaving them all alone in New Orleans. Over time, her mother had become more and more bitter, more and more tangled in gang stuff, and colder and colder towards Hazel. When Hazel was 11, her mother had tried to make amends. She'd tried to get out of the gang activity, and tried to improve her relationship with Hazel. Then, she'd died. Hazel implied that it'd had something to do with the gangs. Frank was smart enough to connect the dots. As such, Hazel had been taken in by her father, and moved to Olympus.

She was herself. She didn't try to be what she wasn't, and stuck by her beliefs, values, preferences and persona, regardless of what others thought.

(Peer pressure was terrible, everyone knew that. Yet, somehow, she never really seemed to about appearances.)

At the same time, she was kind and sweet.

He'd known that from the first time they met. She brought her brother's things to his school because he forgot them.

He could see it in the way she treated him. She didn't seem to care that he was klutzy and a bit shy and awkward and silly and generally all-round hopeless. In fact, he thought that she might just like him that way.

He could see it in the way she coaxed Nico to try and socialize more, to move out of the shadows, even just a little bit. Gently, but firmly.

She was loyal and valued her friends and family (or rather Nico; her father was a sore spot for her) greatly. Frank was convinced that she'd do pretty much anything for them.

He'd been very confused when he realized that she had no friends at Olympus Middle School, none at all. Apparently, no-one wanted to be friends with a girl who'd appeared in the middle of a school year, dressed a little more conservatively than her peers, took no notice of fashion and was related to the di Angelo family. Apparently, they gave off some sort of creepy aura. Frank didn't get it. Sure, Nico was a loner and could be a bit intimidating, but he seemed to be a decent guy. He certainly didn't project an aura of creepiness, more an aura of brooding lonesomeness, if anything.

She'd been quickly welcomed into his friendship group, and rapidly became good friends with Leo, Jason, Percy, Annabeth, Piper, and even the most aloof of his friends, Reyna. Piper in particular seemed to be taking her in as a little sister.

She'd comforted Leo over the latest girl he'd been mooning over, Khione or something like that.

She'd baked a blue cake for Percy after he'd won three gold medals and captained Olympus High to victory at the most recent swim meet.

She'd helped Piper and Percy stage an intervention for Annabeth and Reyna when they got a little too buried into their studies.

And just the other day, she'd admonished Drew Tanaka for some very racist words about Piper's Cherokee heritage.

She was incredible.

No, that wasn't accurate.

She was freaking incredible.

Frank knocked on the front door of Hazel's house.

Surprisingly, it wasn't his girlfriend (his heart still did a funny sort of kerthump when he said, heard or thought that word) and soulmate (even more of a kerthump) who answered the door.

It was her brother (or, as he'd discovered, half-brother, but Hazel considered that to be pretty much irrelevant, so he did too).

'Oh...hi.'

The shorter boy simply nodded at him.

'Hi. You can come in, Hazel's just finishing getting ready.'

Frank acquiesced, slightly confused. Hazel wasn't one of those girls who fussed over her appearance; she'd never been not ready when he'd come to pick her up before.

He and Nico stood in the entrance hall in awkward silence for a moment.

It wasn't as if he didn't know him, not really. They did go to the same school, and he was Hazel's brother. Hazel had half-coaxed, half-dragged him into hanging out with their friends a couple of times over the last month and a bit.

It was just he never really knew what to talk about around Nico.

They were in different years, so he couldn't really talk about school work.

Nico didn't really seem to care about any of the school gossip, and Frank only knew what he picked up from Piper, who was much more into that sort of stuff, about that anyway.

No, the only two interests that Frank thought he had in common with Nico di Angelo were Hazel and Mythomagic. (He only knew that Nico enjoyed the latter as a guilty pleasure, much like he did, because Hazel had told him.)

He wasn't about to talk to his soulmate's brother about her, so Mythomagic it would have to be.

Anything beat this awkward, awkward silence.

However, Nico beat him to the punch.

'So, Frank, you know how special Hazel is, don't you?'

Gulp. In hindsight, he should have known this was coming. Frank changed his mind. The awkward silence was better. Way better.

He nodded resolutely.

'Of course. She's-'

Nico interrupted him, dark eyes boring into him.

'Good. Hazel is amazing. She's wonderful. Having her as a sister is one of the best things that's ever happened to me. She's the only good in my life right now. She deserves nothing short of what she is; good. In fact, I think she deserves amazing. With me?'

Scared (Nico was kind of intimidating even when he wasn't trying), but agreeing whole-heartedly with his words, Frank nodded firmly.

'Good. We have an understanding. But if you ever hurt her, Zhang...remember, I've got very, very little to lose.'

Frank nodded again.

(Privately, he thought, Nico wouldn't have to carry out that threat. Frank wanted to never, ever do anything that could hurt Hazel. And if he somehow did, he probably wouldn't be able to live with himself.)

'Nico, I've searched everywhere, but I just can't find your...'

Hazel's voice trailed off as she reached the bottom of the stairs and saw the two boys.

She crossed her arms.

'Nico, are you threatening my boyfriend?'

He didn't respond.

Hazel glared at him. A moment of realization flashed across her face. She glared harder, and poked him in the chest, hard.

'Nico! You haven't actually lost your Africanus Extreme expansion pack, have you? You just wanted me to be out of the way so you could...you scheming, sneaky-'

Nico smiled sheepishly.

Frank stared.

He didn't even know Nico was capable of that expression.

'Sorry, Hazel. But look, he's still in one piece! I didn't damage him.'

Frank pouted.

'I'm right here! And I'm not a vase or something!'

Hazel laughed and shook her head, looping her arm through his, before kissing him softly on the cheek.

(Frank ignored Nico's resultant glare.)

'I know you aren't.'

He grinned back down at her.

Nico shook his head (with an affectionate sort of manner that Frank only ever saw him display towards Hazel) and went upstairs, muttering about sickeningly sweet couple stuff involving his sister making him sick.

Hazel just smiled and steered a still-slightly-stunned-from-everything-that-had-just-happened Frank out the door.

Nico's words, in particular, swirled around his mind.

'She deserves nothing short of what she is; good. I think she deserves amazing.'