Chapter Text
He didn’t look angry, exactly. He looked as if he’d been hit in the gut not just once but so many times over the course of so many years that he was beginning to lose perspective on what it meant to be in pain. He swayed on his feet. He blinked. Then he flinched, jerking his hands away from Meg’s as if he’d just remembered his own touch was poison.
“I…” he faltered. “Scusatemi.”
He hurried down the steps and across the lawn, his bare feet leaving a trail of dead grass.
Nico’s heart didn’t break. He actually stopped being sure he had one. There was no pain, only a foggy, unreal numbness, like the one time he’d broken his arm as a kid in Venice and they’d put him on ether to set it.
He wasn’t sure where he was going, only that it was away. He blacked out as he started across the green.
When he woke up, it was dark outside. He was in Cabin One, in Jason’s old bunk that didn’t even smell like him anymore because the asshole had gone off to Edgarton months before. Nico refused to ask himself why he was 1) in his dead friend’s bed, and 2) wishing it still smelled like him.
It took three days for him to feel anything at all. Then it took him three days to stop crying. Then he paid his father a visit.
“Give him back.”
His dad raised an eyebrow. “Give who back?”
“You know who.”
“I can’t just resurrect people because you miss them. You know that.”
He used his dreams to visit Hades for three weeks to argue his case. He was sure he got dangerously close to getting blasted to cinders.
“He’s Hera’s champion. Doesn’t she want him back?”
“Hera is quite happy that his heroic accomplishments have made him a legend and earned him Elysium. She would not see him brought back.”
“What about his dad?”
“Zeus does not easily forgive impudence. He carved out Jason’s death as a warning to other demigods not to mouth off.”
“The minor gods—”
“New Rome carries on Jason’s work. The minor gods don’t care whether it’s him or someone else who ensures their recognition.”
Finally he said, “Orpheus and Eurydice.”
“What about them?”
“You made Orpheus a deal. Make me the same one.”
Hades rubbed at his temples. “You weary me. Come in person tomorrow and we will discuss.”
“It is not possible, under your own willpower, to not look back. If you were capable of not looking back, you wouldn’t be trying to do this in the first place; you’re here because you can’t let him go. So there are two options for you.” Hades tapped his fingers on the armrest. “You can take your eyes out to keep yourself from seeing him. It’s symbolic, you know — the only escape from grief is to forget, the only way to not look back is to go blind. Or you can complete a set of three labors, after which I can lend you the godly mental fortitude required to not look back.”
“I don’t remember this from the myth.”
“The poets don’t write everything. Orpheus’s fatal flaw was arrogance. I told him his options, he insisted that he wouldn’t be weak enough to look back, we argued about it until I got annoyed and sent him on his way so that he could learn from his failure.”
Nico had been raised Catholic. He was not unfamiliar with the concept of If thine eye should cause thee to stumble, gouge it out and cast it away. Still, blindness seemed like a massive pain in the ass. “What are the labors?”
“First, because this is a labor of love, you must visit Aphrodite’s home in the Ancient Lands.”
“I’m not in love with him.”
Hades rolled his eyes. “I have no patience for your denial. Do you want him back or not?”
Nico wanted so badly that his bones ached. He nodded.
“It’s an island called Kythera. You need a jarful of sand and two fully formed pearls.”
Nico took a tiny notebook out of his pocket and wrote it down.
“The second labor is because his godly parent is Lord of the Skies. You must find and collect a jarful of a mineral that is not from this earth.”
Nico scowled, thinking. “So like, metal from a meteor?”
“Metal. Stone. Crystal. Whatever, as long as it’s not from here.” Hades sighed. “Seriously, why is it always another troublemaking child of the Big Three with you? Can’t you fall in love with a normal demigod? What about that Apollo boy you’re always hanging around — Bill Solstice, is it? He’s sweet. He could be good for you.”
“Will Solace, and I’m not— whatever. What’s the third labor?”
“Two of your friends walked through Tartarus to close the Doors of Death because they understood that the dead are not supposed to return. To prove that you understand the gravity of making an exception to this rule, you must make a trip to Tartarus. There is someone there who needs your help anyway — Iapetus, or Bob, as he now calls himself. I’ll send a prophecy to the Oracle soon. Bring back a jar of volcanic glass from the banks of the Phlegethon and a bottle of Phlegethon firewater.”
Nico’s body was numb and frozen with disbelief. He swayed on his feet as the words sank in.
Hades noticed his trepidation. “You do not need to do any of these alone. You are allowed the normal two questing companions for each labor, as long as you take the lead.”
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t go back to Tartarus. He absolutely could not do this.
“I’ll do it,” he said. “What’s the deadline?”
His father narrowed his eyes in thought. “Well, you can only bring Jason back as long as you’re also alive, so I suppose the deadline is your death.”
“Gee. Thanks.” Nico tried to distract himself from his impending heart attack by scribbling every single detail onto the pad of paper.
“You have to do what?” Will demanded in disbelief.
They stood in the infirmary kitchen, loading medical instruments into the magically-augmented sterilizing dishwasher.
“I have to go to Greece,” Nico repeated. “To an island called Kythera. And I need questing companions, and you’re one of the only people I trust.”
“No. Absolutely the fuck not. You’re insane. The Ancient Lands, Nico?”
“Will, please,” he found himself begging. “It’s for something important. I’ll do anything you want, just— help me.”
That piqued Will’s curiosity. He paused in their shared task to look at Nico with narrowed eyes. “Why is this so important? What is it for?”
Nico gritted his teeth in frustration. “I can’t tell you.”
“You’ll do anything I want?”
He began to regret his words. “Yes.”
“I want you to tell me what this is for and why it’s so important, and then I will consider helping you.”
Nico scowled at him.
Will held out a hand with his pinky extended. “Pinky promise.”
Nico linked pinkies begrudgingly and explained the whole conversation with his father — omitting, of course, Hades’ bullshit theory that Nico was in love with Jason.
Will stared at him wide-eyed. Then he rubbed his eyes and dragged his hands down his face. He sighed. “What exactly is your travel plan?”
“Shadow-travel. The same way I got the Athena Parthenos here. Jumps of a few hundred miles each.”
“Di immortales. You almost dissolved. You’ll end up joining Jason in Elysium instead of bringing him back.”
“Okay, well, what exactly does the oh-so-smart Doctor Solace suggest?”
“Learning to grieve and accepting that he’s gone, like every other demigod has had to do when we lost friends and siblings.”
“No.”
Will turned back to task. “Well, if you’re going to destroy yourself trying to bring back a hero who chose his death, you’re doing it without me. I can’t watch this happen. I won’t be party to it.”
“Fine,” Nico snapped. “I’ll find people who will.”
Piper was a no-go.
“I’m done with demigod questing,” she told him over Iris-call. “And like… not that I wouldn’t like for him to come back, because I did try to convince Apollo to resurrect him, but I also think we should respect his choices, you know?”
“He’d still have a choice to stay dead if he wanted. He doesn’t have to come back with me.”
“He doesn’t have a choice. Not if it’s you.”
Nico frowned, confused. “Just because I’m the son of Hades doesn’t mean I can compel any spirit to follow me out of the Underworld.”
“That’s not what I meant. He is compelled by you.”
“I don’t understand.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Good luck, Nico.”
She swiped her hand through the Iris-call, ending it before he could probe further.
Leo was a different matter entirely. “Hell yeah, man, I love cheating death. Give me a week to finish the school year and get back to camp. We are so getting Jason back. Hey, have you called Piper about this? Is Will onboard?”
“Piper says she’s done with demigod questing and Will thinks I’m being self-destructive.”
Leo shook his head in mock disapproval and said fondly, “Will Solace is the CEO of self-destruction. Actually, no, that’s me, with how I defeated Gaea and all, but Will is like, vice-president of the company. He’ll come around.”
Will did not come around.
“I’m taking care of campers with actual quests and training injuries and stuff. Y’all think your grief is unique somehow, and you’re being reckless about it. Leave me out of your bullshit.”
“Okay, whatever, Solace,” said Leo. “We’ll do it with or without you.”
“Without me. One hundred percent without me. Matter of fact, buy your own Kit-Kats. I can’t and wouldn’t refuse you medical supplies, but damned if you don’t get your own candy.”
Percy and Annabeth were getting ready for college, Frank and Hazel had Praetor stuff going on, and nobody else had really known Jason like the Seven did. Nico and Leo found themselves at a loss as to who else they could bring.
“Piper turned Festus sentient when I was on Ogygia,” Leo mused as they were sprawled out on the floor of Cabin Thirteen planning strategy. “If we flew on him, he could be the third quest member.”
That made Nico remember something. “Hey, where’s Calypso? How’s Calypso?”
“We broke up. I thought I was bisexual, turns out I’m just gay. She’s at band camp for the summer.”
“Oh.” Nico wasn’t sure whether to offer condolences for the breakup, congratulate Leo on figuring himself out, or what. He didn’t seem upset about it. “That’s good, I guess. Uh, anyway — I can’t do air travel, remember?”
“The Argo II flew sometimes.”
“Zeus was too schizophrenic to smite me out of the sky at the time.”
“Huh. True.” Leo hmmm’d in thought. “I guess we’ll find someone.”
The next words out of Nico’s mouth surprised even him. “Were you in love with Jason?”
Leo propped himself up on an elbow to stare at Nico incredulously. “That came out of nowhere.”
“I mean.” Why had he said it? “People keep accusing me of being in love with him because I’m trying to get him back. But if you’re not, then that’s… that’s proof that it’s not…” Nico’s face burned.
Leo laughed and laid back on the floor. He was laughing for awhile before he collected himself enough to say, “People who aren’t in love don’t need to prove it, Neeks.”
“Don’t call me Neeks.”
“And no, I wasn’t. There was a time on the Argo II, I thought, maybe… but I had a crush on a guy back at camp who looked — looks — kinda like him, so I think it was just like, misdirected pining.”
Nico sat up in interest. “Who?”
Before Leo could answer, the cabin door opened without knocking and Will walked in without invitation.
“I need help in the infirmary, please,” Will said. He was red-faced and breathless, like he’d run all the way there. “The lava rock wall just fucking exploded and the entire Ares cabin is on the way.”
Connor Stoll approached Nico after dinner. “I heard you’re still looking for a third.”
Nico regarded him carefully, looking for any sign he was joking or pranking. “The Ancient Lands are dangerous, Connor.”
“And yet none of you died until you got back to America. Word on the street is that this is part of some bigger plan to get Grace back, right? He was my friend, too.” Connor broke into a grin. “Plus, I’m a Hermes kid. Helping steal a soul back from the clutches of the grave? Heist of a lifetime. Career highlight.”
Despite the light words and goofy grin, Nico found it in himself to trust him. He rolled his eyes and reached out for a handshake. “Welcome aboard.”
Nico was a lot better at knowing his limits these days. He planned the jumps out carefully — each one no more than three hundred miles, with a full rest day after each one, except the first one across the Atlantic, after which he planned three rest days. Reyna had let him keep the magical camping tent they’d gotten from the Amazons, the one that collapsed to the size of a handkerchief and contained an enchanted buffet table with an endless supply of fresh water and healthy food, so there was no question of adequate shelter or nourishment.
“Rest days” excluded the time he spent knocked out after each jump. To be a full rest day, he had to stay awake and alert long enough to eat three meals, and then sleep at least eight hours. Will had spent the last ten months at camp bullying him into being good at taking care of himself.
He missed Will. They had become fast friends last fall. He’d been distant since saying he wouldn’t “be party to this,” and then this weird tension had sprung up between him and Leo when the latter had arrived at camp that made the whole thing even worse.
Turned out that transporting just two people with no hurry and with pre-planned stops and rest days with a normal amount of monster fights, rather than transporting two other people and a forty-foot magical statue with various Gaea employees hunting them specifically, was a hell of a lot easier on Nico. They made it to Kythera and back in a month and a half with little incident, and Nico didn’t start dissolving even a little bit. Connor and Leo weren’t half-bad as travel companions, either.
“Do you think you could just, like, go to a gem show and buy everything labelled extraterrestrial in origin?” Leo wondered.
“Nah,” argued Connor, “mislabelling minerals to upcharge them is a classic swindle, and I mean millennia-old classic. Just ask my ancient brother Ea-Nasir. Famous peddler of shitty copper. We’d have no way of verifying until after we bought it.”
Nico sat up from where he was starfished on the cabin floor. “So how do we find minerals from outer space?”
“You find a list of meteor impact locations,” said Will, who was willing to be party to this, now that it was clear Nico wasn’t trying to get himself killed. “Collect the rocks and hope you chose right.”
Nico wasn’t a huge fan of the uncertainty. “There’s gotta be some way we can be sure that we’re actually getting something that came from space. Like space iron and not earth iron that happens to be near a meteor impact site.”
“There’s gotta be some stuff that only comes from space or is only made during meteor impacts,” said Leo thoughtfully.
“Hear me out, guys,” said Connor, “some meteors that’ve struck, or their craters, are probably maintained as tourist attractions or geology museums. We go at night, we chip off enough fragments to fill a jar, we call it a day. Absolute certainty that way.”
“That sounds easiest,” said Leo. “I vote for that plan.”
Festus had a metal detection spell that they’d used back on the Argo II to find scraps of celestial bronze. Leo found a handheld device in the depths of Bunker Nine that had a similar function — pinpointing and identifying metals.
Nico, Leo, and Connor shadow-travelled to the Barringer Crater in Arizona one night, used Leo’s metal detector to find dark pieces of rock heavy in iron and nickel, filled the jar, and came back.
After that, summer was over, and Connor had to leave for school. He urged them to call him the moment Jason was back.
True to Hades’ word, a prophecy came for the quest to Tartarus in late September. Technically it only called Nico, but Leo was hellbent on seeing it through, and Will had nothing to do since they were the only three in camp for the autumn, so he decided his place as a medic was making sure the other two came back alive.
Leo dug some more in the depths of Bunker Nine and came out with what he called “ye olde MP3 player” — a mere storage-and-playback device with no internet or radio connectivity and therefore no threat to demigods, loaded up with pre-2010 hits such as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Taylor Swift’s “Picture To Burn,” and Reba McEntire’s discography from the 70s to the 90s.
“Just in case Will is actually terrible at singing and can’t open the Door to get us down into the Underworld,” Leo said with a grin, slinging an arm over Will’s shoulders and leaning into him far closer than Nico thought the conversation called for.
Will slid out of the embrace and laughed lightly. “Fuck you, Valdez.”
Leo winked. “Your cabin or mine, Solace?”
Will stared at him, reddening, and then walked away without a word.
The only thing Nico wanted to remember from Tartarus was that Will kissed Leo in Damasen’s abandoned hut, and he only wanted to remember that for purposes of bullying them forever.
I remember their first kiss, he imagined saying at their wedding reception someday. We were trekking through Tartarus to rescue a reformed Titan and took shelter in the abandoned hut of a peaceful giant. I woke up from my nap to see them sitting by the fire with their tongues down each other’s throats. It was disgusting, but the rest of Tartarus was worse, so it was also the most beautiful thing I’d seen in days.
Nico didn’t want to wait once he had all the trophies of his labors. When Bob, Small Bob, Will, Leo, Nico, and the Cocoa Puffs emerged from Tartarus into the regular Underworld, Nico insisted that they drop him off at Hades’ palace.
Leo handed him the MP3 player while Will said, “Are you sure you don’t want to come back with us? Rest and eat before doing another thing?”
“No,” Nico said. This was difficult to justify; therefore, he did not attempt to justify it. He just gave each of them a hug in turn. “Thank you for all your help. Jason and I should be there in six hours, tops.”