Disclaimer: I am not the owner of anything that can be traced back to the Percy Jackson series.

Grammar/Spelling: I did want to get this beta-ed, but I got home from a very long, very tiring vacation about six hours ago, and still hadn't written the last half of this, so I'm afraid I'm the only one who's had a chance to bata this.

Idea: I just always wondered why Nico never really showed any anger towards Artemis.....

Artemis: I used the idea from The Last Olympian that gods can show scenes of the past to demigods. I'm hoping that wasn't just a Hestia thing.

Contest: This is a one-shot for WindowChild and ShadowPalace's annual contest. Go check out their prompts!

Into the Darkness

~For what we do not know, others must explain~

When he collapsed ten miles from camp, the first thing that ran through his mind was Oh, shit. He was exhausted from shadow travel practice, and his forehead was throbbing from where he'd made contact with the Great Wall of China.

Getting up, he brushed himself off and sighed. His goal had been to spy on camp before returning to the abandoned house he'd been living in. Now, he'd be lucky to make it to camp, let alone the house.

"Need a ride?"

Snapping his head up, the young demigod's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates when he saw the silver sled that had pulled up in front of him.

"Lady Artemis," He bowed respectfully, trying to keep his balance and at the same time, hold his temper. The goddess before him was his least favorite Olympian. It was she who had taken his sister away from him. And he hated her for that.

Artemis' forehead crinkled momentarily before she pushed her frown off her face and managed a small smile. "How are you, Nico?"

"Fine." He was anything but, really. He was to proud to admit the truth, however.

"I need to talk to you," Artemis said simply, dropping the reins to the seat and turning around to face him dead-on.

"I thought you didn't talk to boys," He said, crossly, his left eye twitching. "Only girls."

Artemis sighed, and her frown stayed on her face this time. "Boys," She said, brushing hair out of her face as she spoke. "Are so simple minded."

Nico refrained from glaring at goddess by glaring at the deer harnessed to her sleigh. If anyone had asked him, he would have denied being frightened of the almost child-like goddess. However, on the inside, he was scared. He wasn't like Percy, he couldn't just mouth-off to anyone he wanted without having the brains to realize it probably wasn't such a good idea. He wasn't Thalia, who held a rank close to Artemis' for simply being another daughter of Zeus. And he wasn't his sister. Who, despite her shyness, had been able to let go of all fear and spring for an entirely new life.

"What do you want?" Nico finally asked, braking the silence between them.

Shifting her form to that of a girl Nico's age instead of one Percy's, Artemis jumped gracefully down from her sleigh and faced the demigod. "I want to show you something," She said simply, letting the tiniest hint of a smile dance across her lips. If he was ever going to believe her, then first he would have to recoil his resentment. Even if only for a few brief minutes.

"What?" Nico asked, suspicious.

Artemis didn't answer immediately, and instead, looked to the sky, as if expecting the answer to leap out at her from the clouds above.

"I want to show you why your sister joined my Hunters." She said finally, not looking at him. Mortals and half-bloods had never put her at such unease before, but something about the small, dark boy before her that so desperately wanted his sister back troubled her.

"Why?" Snapped Nico, his tone harsher then he had meant it to be. "Why do you care? You have tons of other young, virgin girls you can recruit."

Artemis lowered her silvery-yellow eyes to meet his dark ones, and her voice leveled. "That may be, but she was you're only sister. You don't have 'tons' more."

Nico mulled over what she'd said. She was the first one to acknowledge the fact that to him, Bianca was irreplaceable. She was the first to even hint that she might be irreplaceable to others as well as himself.

"Fine." He whispered in monotone. "Show me."

And when his eyes and hers locked, instead of her wide eyes that portrayed her as so much more innocent then she really was, he saw a flash of colors, and a scene he hadn't known had been in his past appeared before him.

"Bianca! Come look!" Nico grabbed his sister's hand and dragged her away from another girl her age and pulled her towards the game he was playing.

"I beat my high-score!" He told her proudly, motioning with the plastic orange gun he was holding in one hand to the screen.

"That great, Nico!" Bianca said, enthusiastically.

He hadn't noticed before, being to wrapped up in his game to watch her, but his sister's brown eyes drifted back to the girl she had been talking with before he had pulled her away. There was a look of longing in her eyes, but instead of following that longing and returning to the potential friend, she stood with her brother and played his shooting game with him.

"Bianca! I've been looking for you! Come play with me. Please?"

Bianca sighed and said something in an apologetic voice to the boy she had been talking with before Nico had burst in. A moment later, Nico was happily leading Bianca away from the boy and outside, towards his favorite spot in school.

He hadn't known then, but the boy rolled his eyes and turned to his friends. The laughter he'd assumed then had been over some joke, was actually about his sister. And beside him, the second time 'round, he notice a single tear slide down her cheek.

"Bianca!" Nico cut into his sister's conversation with the silver-clad Hunter. "Can you believe it? Isn't it awesome? We're half god! How cool is that?"

Bianca's smile faltered, and she glanced over her shoulder back at the other girl. The blond Huntress had already turned away and was talking to another follower of Artemis. She didn't turn back around when she felt Bianca gazing longingly at the back of her neck.

"Yeah, Nico," Sighed Bianca. "Its awesome."

He was so caught up in his own enthusiasm to realize that she was playing with her floppy, green hat. A sure sign that she was upset.

Nico jerked backwards, and almost fell over when his foot caught on a stone. He stared at Artemis with a fear-like emotion in his dark eyes. Tears threatened to spill over the edges of those eyes, and his shoulders slumped forward in regret.

"She didn't have any friends," He whispered. "I didn't let her."

The goddess of the moon didn't reply. The boy before her was to smart to be comforted by lies, and confirming the truth would only hurt him more. And she hadn't come to hurt him.

When his sister had died, she had lost a warrior. Granted, not one she knew well, but she still had lost someone that she wished she could have gotten to know better. Now, she would never have that chance. He might not value Bianca the same way she had, but he would understand the sadness that came of losing her.

"She wanted friends," Artemis said simply, not looking at Nico. "And she thought you were old enough to look after yourself."

The anger towards Artemis that had dulled, flared up again. "And that's your fault!" Nico snapped, losing his fear of the goddess before him to temper. "If you hadn't made her the stupid offer to join the Hunt, then she wouldn't have even thought I might be able to take care of myself!"

A spark of anger touched the moon goddess' eyes, but then quickly faded as she quelled her displeasure.

Looking the son of Hades straight in the eye once more, she repeated something that she told herself everyday. The same thing she had told herself since the day her twin brother excitedly announced that one of his lovers was to have his first half-blood child.

"There is always an adventure of someone's that we cannot join."

Nico did not take refuge in her words, and instead, glared at her. "I don't care!" He snapped. "She was my sister! Not some pawn, my sister! And now she's gone! And she's never coming back!"

He sunk to the ground, devastated by his own words. "Never coming back," He repeated, burying his head in his arms. "Never coming back."

After a minute or so of careful deliberation, Artemis sat down beside him and rested her back against the wood of her sleigh.

She didn't hug him, or speak to him. Instead, she sat there, staring at the sky, while he stared at the ground. And after even more thought, and strange feeling in the pit of her stomach (which she ignored) she gently placed her hand atop on of his.

And so they sat there until the dawn. Nico, with his head down, and his legs drawn up, one arm wrapped around his knees, and the other on the ground beside him; and Artemis. She with her legs on the ground and tucked sideways so her knees were facing him, pale eyes fixed on the brightening sky, and a slender hand on his, giving him silent strength.