Nico was often alone at night. He had few friends and even few siblings. That is to say, none, except for Hazel, who was at New Rome. He would Iris message her, until he got the feeling she would much rather be spending more time with her friends and Frank. In his heart, he knew he was just making excuses to leave her alone, but he couldn't help himself. It was just his nature.

"No," he sighed, trying to eat his dinner away from everyone else. "I am perfectly fine, Percy. Stop worrying about me already." Percy, Annabeth, Piper, and Jason- who chose to stay at Camp Half-Blood- took a special interest in the Ghost King's mental and emotional health ever since the Giant War.

The older demigod looked at Nico with worry one last time, testing weather or not to push him any further. Deciding it was best to give him his space, Percy left the Hades table, ignoring the disproving looks from the other campers and Chiron.

Just as he was about to retreat back to his dark cabin, Nico was once again interrupted by not only Percy, but Jason as well.

"Hey Nico, come with us to the sing-a-long," Percy smiled his thousand kilowatt smile that drove the son of Hades mad with want. "You know it's not the same without you!"

"Yeah," he scoffed, remembering the last time he went along with Percy's failed attempts at becoming closer with Nico. "Because it's normal to accidentally summon more skeleton warriors when you almost get burned by the fire."

Percy frowned, not wanting to give up, but unsure of how to combat that argument. "You were younger, without much training. I know you can control your powers now."

"And if you get scared," Jason intervened, "Percy and I will bee right beside you."

Nico was about ready to send the son of Zeus down to his father for putting obvious emphasis on Percy's name. Was he trying to make his life a living hell? Because it would be much easier to walk into Hades's throne room and spend two seconds with his stepmother. It would be slightly more dignified to be a dandelion that admit his true feelings for Percy. At least he could "grant wishes" and have the word "lion" in his name. Then again, he didn't resemble much courage, in his opinion. Nico thought that he was more like the lion from the Wizard of Oz- scared, even though he was supposed to be the intimidating one.

"Okay. I'll go... But I won't stay until the end." That was progress.

As expected, Nico left after the third song around the fire. Despite what he might has wanted to admit, the son of Hades liked it. For once, he was beside the closest thing he had to a friend, Jason. And, he was next to the love of his thirteen year old life. Even if the love of his life was holding hands with a very pretty daughter of Athena who's name shall not be mentioned.

He didn't hate Annabeth. Not at all. He liked her as a friend and could see why Percy liked her. It was just that these feelings he held for Percy were preventing him from fully liking her.

She is like cake, he tried to rationalize on his way back to his cabin. And I am ice cream. We are both blue, so Percy likes us both just fine, but he if he had to choose between cake and ice cream, he'd take the cake. He shook his head. No, that's not right... I am just confusing myself more. It was then that Nico decided to never try to use food to make an analogy ever again.

His lonely nights were spent either daydreaming or thinking about Percy. Or his eyes. Or his bravery. Or his... everything, really. Or, on special occasions, he would throw himself a little dance party. The universal truth is that even if people can't dance, they want to. Even if it's just moving their hips around very softly, he told himself, justifying why a boy couldn't dance alone in his room. No one would see. And if they did, well that's not a big deal. I'm already the biggest freak at camp.

These "parties" were secret for about a month before Jason, ever present in Nico's life, entered his room one night.

Nico was slow dancing to a song he used to listen to when he was a child, living in his own era. It was a love song. Of course he thought of the one and only Perseus Jackson. When he noticed Jason, his fantasy ended immediately. His happiness turned to rage. "What are you doing here?" He yelled, trying his hardest not to punch the older half-blood.

"I-I," for the first time it seemed as though Jason was at a loss for words. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

Nico's attention went into hyper-focus, not letting his guard down, but much more calm than he was. "For?"

"Trying to convince you to tell everyone your secret, or at least tell Percy. It's not my place and I shouldn't have been as pushy as I have been the past few months."

Remembering what Bianca told him about the dangers of holding grudges, he sighed. "It is okay. Don't do it again."

"Am I forgiven?"

"Not yet. I need time."

Jason nodded his head, giving Nico his space again.

Jason kept true to his word, not pressing the "matter" any further. He still tried to push him to be more social, but that too died down too.

It took about a year, but Nico and Jason's friendship grew stronger. It was to the point that Nico even allowed Jason to come over to his cabin and join in on the dance parties. Instead of having a one man party, it was a two man party. Still dull from time to time, but it was always much better than being alone.

If there was one thing Jason taught Nico over the course of one year consistently was that there is a silver lining. You can have friends and you can be accepted. Maybe not everyone will like you, but not everyone matters.

"Hey Jason?" He said one night, realizing this.

"Yeah?"

"You're my best friend."