A/N: The title comes from a quote by Maya Angelou.

Despite all the places over the world the war against Gaea had taken him, there was still no place more calming for Percy than either the bank of the bottom of the river in Camp Half-Blood.

Things should have been easy. They were supposed to be easy. Gaea was defeated, and Rachel hadn't propecied another Great Prophecy yet. Everything was good.

Only, it turned out that Annabeth's and his time in Tartarus had more effects than simply violent nightmares. His time with the arai…just the thought of it still made Percy shudder. To know that so many monsters had wished him so much ill – and more than that, to feel all of that ill – it was enough to affect him in ways even more horrific than the curses he had experienced.

As for Annabeth…well, that was why he was here, staring across the lake, instead of at dinner with the rest of the campers. Annabeth hadn't experienced as much as he had, but the one curse she had-

Well, it was hard to continue a relationship when the knowledge that there was someone who resented it enough to wish that she would die completely alone hung over their heads. Calypso's curse, even though they hadn't known it at the time, had ultimately been the undoing of the two of them.

Even though the immortal was finally free of her punishment now and happy with Leo, the memory of the hatred she had once born towards her had been enough to drive Annabeth away from him.

"I can't be with you without remembering being abandoned," she had told him when breaking up with him. "I can't forget that, and it's not fair to either of us if we try and force something more out of this relationship when it's obvious there's nothing more either of us can offer each other."

He hadn't wanted to admit it at the time, but she had been right. Annabeth had been the one who the curse was aimed towards, but just knowing that the curse existed had changed some part of Percy had couldn't be returned to the way it once was. His time in Tartarus had made him face the fact that maybe he didn't know as much about the monsters he had destroyed as he had once thought. And he definitely didn't know much about the people he called friends.

The two of them just couldn't survive, not with the way they'd changed by everything they had been through during the war with Gaea.

When Annabeth had broken up with him, he'd thought that would be the biggest curveball she would throw at him at that moment. Of course, he should have known better than to underestimate the favoured daughter of Athena.

The two of them had known the break up was coming, so she had felt free to change subjects as soon as she had broken the news to him.

"You should talk to Nico," she had said. "The two of you would make a cute couple."

And that had been the piece of information that had truly thrown him, especially once she explained that she was certain that the son of Hades had had a crush on him since the moment he had battled Dr Thorn on that cliff, in what felt like it had been a lifetime ago.

At first, the thought had been laughable to Percy. Nico having a crush on him may have been difficult to believe, but once he started spending more time with the younger boy, it was glaringly obvious that Annabeth was, once again, right.

But the two of them, a couple? That had seemed rather impossible.

Honestly, Percy should have known better. Doubting Annabeth's insights was really something he should have grown out of, especially after everything they had been through together, and all the times said insights had saved their lives.

After the break-up – well, the two of them had remained friends, that much would never have changed. But they had gone back to spending as much time together as they had before they started dating, which was at least less than half the time they spent together when they were- well, together.

And while Annabeth spent all her newly freed time on various projects, especially the ones from the laptop Daedalus had left her (Annabeth being Annabeth, she had had back-ups made before she had left on the Argo II, so while she may have lost the original laptop, she hadn't lost all the information it contained), Percy had been left with time and nothing to fill it with. The rest of their friends had all paired up, or in the case of Thalia, were too busy hunting with Artemis. Nico, the only other single in the group, had been the obvious choice.

He had sworn to be a better friend to Nico, especially after the way the other had boy had unknowingly saved his life in Tartarus, through his friendship with Bob. This time that he had to spend with him had seemed perfect, a gift from Poseidon to help make up for how bad he had been at maintaining the friendship between the two of them.

He should have known it would turn into more.

So much time spent with Nico had meant getting to known the younger boy in a way he had never thought of before. Unlike the time he had spent as a friend with Annabeth, there was no Grover to divide their attention. It was just him and Nico, and it meant that the two of them had become closer that Percy had ever thought possible.

He could have told anyone any number of facts about the son of Hades by the time a month was up, and now, two months after he had started spending more time with him, Percy was certain that he could write a whole paper on Nico without his ADHD acting up – which meant so much more than it sounded like.

Somewhere in the two months since he had started spending so much more time with Nico, he had gone and fallen in love with the younger boy.

Which was what had led him here. He had no idea how to actually tell Nico about his changed feelings. Sure, intellectually (and that was another word he had learned from Annabeth) he knew that the other boy wasn't going to turn him down.

That didn't stop him from wanting to stutter every time he thought about telling Nico the truth. Knowing things intellectually was one thing – convincing his heart of it was another altogether.

He really couldn't help but remember his first audience with Aphrodite. She had promised to make his love life interesting, and it was obvious that two wars hadn't dulled her memory of that promise.

"Percy?"

Speaking of the devil…the voice behind him was the one thing that finally pulled his sight away from the river.

The boy was dressed in his signature leather jacket, and as handsome as he looked, he was still the last person on earth Percy wanted to see. But – well, he wasn't about to turn him away. Despite his reluctance to confront his feelings for Nico di Angelo, he wasn't going to give up any time he got to spend with him.

"Hey, Nico," he replied as the boy in question sat down beside him.

"You left rather abruptly," Nico said in concern. "Is it about Annabeth? Are you sure you're over her?"

"I'm fine," Percy replied. "Just – needed to think over something."

Nico was still looking at concernedly. "I'm fine, Nico," Percy said. "I promise. I was just thinking about everything that has changed since the Giant War – the way I've changed since the war."

"You know, that really isn't helping with my concern at all," Nico muttered. "You're the last person to think like that – what happened?"

"I just had to come to terms with a few truths, is all," Percy replied. "Like I said, nothing to worry about at all."

It shouldn't have been this awkward, not between the two of them, but having realised his feelings – well, Percy had never really known how to act around someone he cared for as more than a friend. Annabeth had taken the lead in their relationship, so being here, with Nico…it was odd.

"Hey Percy?" Nico finally asked, his voice sounding tentative.

"Yeah?"

"Are you really over Annabeth?"

Percy shrugged. There was no easy answer to that question. "She'll always be my first love," he murmured. "That's never going to change. And sure, I still love her." At that, he noticed Nico's face fall from the corner of his eye. While he wanted to comfort the younger boy, make sure he knew that Percy was in love with him and not Annabeth…well, it was easier just continuing. "But I'm not in love with her any longer," he said. "She's like my sister now, and that's exactly how I love her."

The light that shone on Nico's face for just a moment after Percy's words – it was something he would give anything to see again, even go through Tartarus once more. And then his face turned tentative once again.

Before Percy could ask him what had happened to him, the younger boy hesitantly leaned towards him and pecked him quickly on the lips. By the time Percy had recovered from the surprise, Nico had already pulled away.

He allowed a smile to curl over his lips as he reached out and wrapped an arm around the other boy, pulling him close. There was a lot they needed to discuss before they could decide where to go from here, but at the moment, Nico in his arms, there was nothing more that they needed to say.

There really was no place that Percy liked better than the lake at Camp Half-Blood, and the realisation that Nico was finally his – well, it only confirmed it.

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the actual conversation, it feels a bit lacking in banter...but apart from that, I'm rather proud of it :)
I hope you guys liked it! Please don't forget to drop a review on your way out - I'd love to hear what you guys thought of it! :)