Hey guys! I had a blast writing this- Nico di Angelo holds a place very close to my heart. I hope you have even half as much fun reading this as I did thinking it up. :) Sorry though- no Solangelo.

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He is lonely fellow, to be sure. Even surrounded by all of his friends, Nico di Angelo is an outcast. No wonder, since he's the offspring of Hades himself, through he often forgets that he couldn't have possibly chosen his origin any more than anyone else could have.

He has a habit of walking quietly, which happens when your life is made of sneaking from place to place, and he has learned to listen quietly from the shadows and not speak up- which has saved his life more than once. But even now that he's back with people he trusts, those habits stick around. His friends often jump when he says something from the corner of the room, having forgotten he was there. He flinches every time they jump. He knows that his presence disturbs them, and that his abilities are, to be blunt, creepy. But somewhere inside he still wishes that they would accept him for who he is. Little does he know that for that to happen, he has to accept himself first.

Sometimes at night he lays awake, afraid to fall asleep. He knows that as soon as he does the nightmares will come back. Memories, almost. You see, Nico had fallen into the depths of Tartarus, but unlike his friends Percy and Annabeth, he had been all alone. Now every time he goes to sleep he sees it. The monsters, the darkness, the endless abyss. He feels it, too. A dull throbbing pain, just a ghost of what he'd felt when curse after curse had been mercilessly piled upon him. And the cold… the places he'd gone had been so cold. He often shivers under the blankets in memory. He was driven to the brink of insanity, and sometimes voices still haunt him in the back of his mind. But he fights it. Bravely, but all by himself. Sometimes I wish he would realize that he doesn't need to do it all by himself. He's so afraid to let people in, though. He's used to being alone.

He's heartbroken too, underneath his shell. The one person who he's ever had strong feelings for is with someone else, and Nico has no doubt that what they have together is true, genuine love. But maybe there's still hope for him. There's a girl who he's found himself staring at from time to time. Every time she turns to him and her blue eyes meet his brown, he swiftly turns away, but all he's found himself wishing that he'd have the courage to hold her gaze a little longer. He admires her spirit, her recklessness, her undaunted disposition- everything he wishes he had. When he looks in the mirror, all he sees is a shade. He is constantly reminding himself that Thalia Grace would never love him back.

Even through all of that pain, Nico di Angelo is a kind soul. He'd do anything to help a friend, but he doesn't let it show very often. There's joy left in his heart, but he hates to expose it. I guess he's just afraid he'll lose it. What he doesn't know is that his friends will always remember that time in the House of Hades, when they were fighting for their lives and winning. When everyone was doing things that they never thought they could. When new abilities had been unleashed, and the adrenaline level had went up to one hundred. Something amazing had happened that day.

Nico had smiled.

He had smiled, bright and joyful, purely delighted that they were winning and would live to fight another day. It was a bit unnaturally quirky, that smile, but I suppose that's because his face just wasn't accustomed to moving like that anymore. I always wish that I'd have been there to see that smile on his face. It must have been an amazing reminder that there's always hope, no matter how dark things can get.

Nico has been through way too much for someone his age- no, for anyone in the universe.

He has such a hard time being around people that people automatically think that he's hard to be around.

He's lonely, but they call him creepy.

He's scared, but they call him dark.

He's different, but they call him disturbing.

But the truth is? He's still half mortal. And mortals can only take so much before they break.

But Nico di Angelo's still hanging on.