A note about the timeline: this fic assumes that Nico's birthday is January 28th, 1932.

"The Gods called your name
and the seas turned dark;
the earth quaked with power.

You looked up at Olympus
screaming at the gates;
"What will I become?"

The Gods fell silent, then-
with a thunderous roar replied;
"Who are you now?"

~ Achilles ~

Autumn, 1941

Nico and Bianca sat side by side on the train. Nico huddled against her side, as close as he could possibly get. He was cold and lonely despite his sister's presence, the loss of his mother still aching in his chest.

The boat ride across from America had spooked them both with the waves tossing the boat back and forth, wind howling, and rain pounding on the decks. Neither child said a word as the train trundled along.

Across from them in the carriage sat two other boys and a young girl. Like Nico and Bianca, their coats and bags looked new and well cared for. A small trunk was stowed above each in the luggage rack and a small canvas bag sat on the ground at the eldest girl's feet.

The girl sat in the centre of the group, one boy flanking her on either side. Both appeared to be younger than her; the eldest boy looked to be around Bianca's age. The younger one fiddled with a small figurine that Nico couldn't quite make out while the other was content to stare out the window. The girl held a book in her lap and perused it quietly, pausing every so often to brush a particularly stubborn brown curl behind her ear.

The train ride seemed to pass quickly to Nico in comparison to their travels by ship, and all too soon the conductor's whistle was blowing, announcing the arrival at the station. Bianca clambered up to stand on one of the seats to pull down the trunks and the older boy in the carriage helped her fetch them down.

Once the luggage was dealt with, Bianca grabbed Nico by the hand. His palm was sweaty and slipped from Bianca's clutch in several heart stopping moments of panic as they wormed themselves through the crowd on the busy platform. They battled their way through the swarm of people to the exit, practically tumbling down the station steps to the street beyond.

Bianca hauled Nico out of the way of the bustling pedestrian traffic to a nearby bench to gather her surroundings. Nico obediently allowed himself to be pulled this way and that, knowing full well that even he, in all his nine-year-old wisdom, would have difficulty navigating such a situation.

Bianca hastily tightened a loose fastening on Nico's trunk and buttoned up his rather dishevelled jacket. Then she sat herself on the edge of the bench, back ramrod straight, legs crossed at the ankles and tucked neatly to the side, just like she'd seen her mother do. She patted the bench beside her to get Nico to sit next to her then folded her gloved hands in her lap.

Nico sat down far more clumsily, his spine slouched into a C against the back of the bench almost immediately. Still, he shuffled as close to Bianca as possible, nestling himself back into her side.

Nico wanted to spend as much time with his sister as possible before being separated. He drank in every detail of her face. The curve of her small nose, the spray of freckles over her cheeks. Her short eyelashes and arched eyebrows. The way her hair hung against her cheek as if shielding her from the rest of the world. Even the red spot under her chin that she scratched at absently when her mind wandered and the small mole hidden behind the curve of her ear. Nico studied it all. He didn't want to forget a single detail.

They weren't permitted to attend school together. Their grandfather was of the opinion that Bianca was too old to attend a co-educational school. At the age of nine, Nico was barely old enough to be sent to an all-boys school and nervous about striking out on his own. He was barely old enough to question why he was being sent away, only understanding that he had lost his Mama and his father wouldn't be coming back.

They had initially been sent to their grandfather's home in Washington only to be quickly turned out with a small bundle of tickets and banknotes to send them to Italy to be with their aunt. In turn their aunt had stubbornly insisted that she was too old to care for two children and enlisted the help of their grandfather to send them to school. They had weathered one abandonment after another together and now they were to be separated. Nico had never felt so alone. So hopeless.

Nico wasn't sure how long they sat there watching the flood of people pass by. He was just on the edge of sleep when Bianca hopped neatly off the bench. Her shoulder caught him briefly on the chin, jerking him back to alertness. A tall man dressed in a dark suit and a cap was standing over them. He had a stern face but his eyes were a kind grey. The harsh lines of his clothes were softened by the wrinkles in his face. He smelled strongly of cigarette smoke and when he smiled, his teeth shone yellow.

"The di Angelos?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Bianca answered primly.

"My name is Arlo Moretti. Your aunt hired me to collect you and transport you to the school grounds."

Bianca nodded and reached for Nico's hand again to pull him off the bench. Nico allowed it, if only because he knew she was looking for the comfort of her strong brother. Obviously.

Nico's school was made of dark red brick and seemed to extend forever behind the wrought iron gates. Nico looked up at the gates and gulped. It towered over him. The iron lettering of St. Dismas' School for Boys glared down at him.

A kindly looking woman stood on the other side of the gate. She was plump and wore a pale purple apron over a grey dress.

Nico glanced back at the car where Bianca watched from the open back seat. She nodded in encouragement and he took another step forward toward the gate.

The woman smiled down at him. "Hello." She looked like one of the cakes Nico's mama used to bring up from the bakery and sounded just as sweet, enough to make Nico's teeth ache and his stomach curdle with sugar. "My name is Madam Belloni," she continued, pushing the gate open wide enough for him. "I'm the matron here at St. Dismas'. You must be Nico. Come on through and I will take you up to the school."

With one glance back at his sister, Nico reluctantly slipped through the gap. As he did so, Bianca pulled the car door closed and Arlo steered the car carefully away down the hill. The siblings' schools were near enough to each other that they could attend the same church and Nico had been repeatedly assured that he would see Bianca on the coming Sunday. It didn't appease him. The week-long wait already seemed to stretch out endlessly in front of him.

The gate slammed shut behind Nico, making him jump. Madam Belloni put an arm around his shoulders to guide him up the long driveway to the school entrance. The drive was lined sparsely with trees. Nico shied away from them as if they would bite. He ignored the gardens and sports fields, keeping his head down and resolutely staring at the ground. Gravel crunched under their feet, small stones rolling away from them with each step.

The school soared over-head. An enormous flight of white stone steps loomed before Nico like a mountain. The doors at their peak were a solid green wood, each with an fist-sized knocker far above Nico's reach. Madam Belloni urged him up the stairs, lifted the curled, black door handles, and pushed the doors wide. She ushered Nico in ahead of her and he crept into the hall, butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

Nico's first impression of the inside of the school was how big everything seemed. The hallway was gigantic, the ceiling so high above him. Everything appeared to be made of an unforgiving stone, brick, or concrete. He noted the silver pipes that ran all around every wall. The building must have some kind of heating system but it was nothing at all like the newest update that ran inside the walls of his old home in Washington.

Some twelve boys were darting about the hall. They talked over each other and rough-housed, looking all too comfortable in the unfamiliar environment for Nico's taste. Each boy wore a mix of what looked to be the school uniform. Grey slacks or short pants with white shirts and grey sweaters, under which the blue and gold of the school colours winked out from their ties.

Perhaps sensing Nico's wariness, Madam Belloni explained in a low voice, "The other boys arrived a fortnight ago. Not to worry, I am sure you'll make friends soon."

She lifted her voice to address the hall at large. "Boys?" she called, and although her voice wasn't harsh it still carried an air of authority that stopped the boys in the hall dead. "That's better. Really, is this any way to behave? You're all quite lucky that I was the one to walk in and not Professor Lecce."

The boys exchanged glances with one another, and Nico took note. Apparently, Professor Lecce was not someone he should cross.

"This is Nico di Angelo," Madam Belloni continued. "He will be joining our school as a year four student. I expect that you will all make him feel welcome." She offered Nico a kind smile. "I must be off now, but..." She paused, her eyes carefully searching the group of boys. "Pietro, would you please show Nico his dormitory and help him settle in?"

A small boy with a shock of light brown hair and dark eyes stepped forward. "Hello, Nico," he said, offering his hand. It reminded Nico of the way he had seen his grandfather introduce himself at parties.

Nico narrowed his eyes, was the other boy making fun of him? "Hello," he said, shaking the proffered hand.

Madam Belloni beamed at them. "Good. I will see you boys at supper." And with that, she disappeared down the hall.

Pietro stood at Nico's side, facing the rest of the boys. A few offered Nico a small smile, one or two glared with open hostility, but most seemed uninterested, if not mildly curious, about the newcomer. At some invisible, inaudible signal they all began to introduce themselves at once. Nico didn't remember a single name except Pietro's and he was stunned by the sudden influx of people and voices. Pietro didn't seem to notice and practically bounded through the crowd, tossing lines into conversations as he passed, Nico scrambling to keep up with his heavy trunk.

"Oh, sorry," said Pietro, apparently noticing Nico's struggle for the first time. "Here, I'll help." He took hold of the trunk's handle with one hand and they pulled it along together. "Our dormitory is on the second floor," he explained. "The year fours share with the fives."

Nico nodded, struggling to keep up with the taller boy. The trunk skidded on the wooden floor as it was pulled around unevenly.

"You don't talk much," Pietro noted. "Cat got your tongue?"

Nico frowned. He supposed Pietro was right. Normally Bianca complained that he never shut up, but since... it happened he hadn't heard her complain once. He shrugged.

"I'll get you to talk," Pietro announced. He let go of the trunk; it thudded to the floor, nearly wrenching Nico's shoulder out of its socket with the sudden weight. "And smile, too."

Nico's mouth twitched slightly in the hint of a smile at that.

Pietro grinned. "See? You can't help it. I'll make you be happy, whether you like it or not."

They continued down the hall to a flight of stairs, Pietro chattering all the way. Nico didn't speak much, but he listened intently and Pietro seemed pleased to find that Nico was a good listener. He nodded in all the right places and, while he didn't completely smile per se, the corners of his mouth were liable to twitch upward in the ghost of cheer.

Pietro didn't even quiet as they hauled the trunk up the steps, lamenting how there was a caretaker who had assisted the boys arriving without fathers but that he was occupied cleaning the third floor hallway where some of the older boys had played a rather messy practical joke.

Nico was alarmed to hear that the school regularly implemented the cane as punishment; he had never been punished with more than a smack to the hand. His mother had maintained that hitting children while teaching them not to hit was "the lowest form of hyp-oc-ris-y", and if his Papa was ever witness to misbehaviour his towering figure and stern glare was enough to have Nico sending himself to bed without supper.

By the time they reached the dormitory, Nico had learned quite a lot about life at St. Dismas'. He knew that Professor Lecce was the headmaster and incredibly strict, that the older boys were technically forbidden from fagging but they did it anyway, and that Pietro had an older brother who mostly shielded him from such treatment.

Pietro offered the same protection to Nico who accepted immediately. He wasn't entirely sure what 'fagging' was but it didn't sound like something he wanted to be involved in. Pietro had also told him that they would be having a visit from Professor Lecce, the headmaster, in the next few days. Apparently he made a point to visit each of the dormitories every couple of weeks to personally lecture troublemakers in front of their peers (embarrassment was his favoured method of punishment) and to introduce himself to the new boys. The thought made Nico's stomach drop.

The dormitory was a long, thin room. Each of the longer walls housed a row of beds, identical in size and bedding. They were all neatly made, with a small set of drawers at the foot of each. Under the beds, Nico could see the lines of trunks pushed tidily away. Beside the door they had entered through, on one of the short walls, was a long counter full of cabinets. Several unmarked boxes sat neatly along the back of the counter. At the other end of the room were two other doors and a large wardrobe in the centre. The door on the left led to the boys' private bathroom and the other to a storeroom for extra bed linen and uniform pieces.

Pietro informed him, quite enthusiastically, that it was nearly time for supper and urged him to get changed into his school uniform so they would be ready to eat. He led Nico over to the storeroom and wardrobe and started digging through for something that might fit Nico.

His uniform consisted of short trousers ending just above the knee and a white shirt with a tie striped in the school colours of blue and gold. Pietro tossed him a sweater to put on over his white shirt and under the blazer if it was cold. He also pulled on a pair of black knee-socks and a sturdy-looking pair of shoes. He would be given another set of identical clothes later in the evening as well as a coat and hat for school excursions.

Nico felt awkward in his uniform. The shorts were just too short for his legs and the shirt hung off his thin frame in drapes. At least the jumper fit him well and disguised most of the ill-fitting uniform.

He soon discovered that he was to be known as number 495 from then on, his second name. The number was engraved onto the white metal number plate attached to the metal frame of his bed and a number tag was soon to be sewn into all of his clothes.

A bell rang in the distance, echoing in from somewhere in the upper levels of the building. Pietro immediately jumped up from the bed he'd been lounging on and pulled Nico, now fully dressed in uniform, out the door. It was time for supper.

The dining room was the largest room Nico had ever seen. Mostly windowless with stone floor, the room was filled with long tables and benches with a serving table in the middle of the room. Twelve boys sat at each table with a prefect, identified by the blue and gold crest on their sweaters and blazers, at the head. Pietro tugged him along by the hand, babbling about how nice it was that they could come and go as they wished for supper on off-days rather than being strictly monitored as they were on school days. The dining room seemed cozy; the lights were turned on, filling the room with a golden glow and the tables were polished to a shine.

Pietro lead him over to the central table where they collected plates and loaded them with food. The table was laden with bread, bowls of butter, jam jars, and honey. At one end lay a huddle of plain and fruit cakes and bowls of apples and oranges. Pietro lamented that a common punishment for misbehaviour was being denied cake or fruit for a week. Nico soon understood why: the cake was delicious.

After supper, it was time to prepare for bed. Apparently, Nico had arrived during the boys' allotted free time during the afternoon and after supper there was no such freedom. He traipsed upstairs behind the rest of the boys, walking side by side with Pietro. The crowd of children split into smaller groups when they reached the second floor, each spreading out to their different dormitories.

The boys in Nico's dormitory were under the instruction of two prefects who directed them in getting ready for bed. They changed out in the open and took turns washing up in the shared bathroom. When everyone had had a chance to clean themselves up, a prefect called everyone to their beds for prayer.

Copying the other boys, Nico knelt beside his bed and said his prayers as instructed by the prefect. He tried to stumble along with the words of the other boys "...now I lay me down to sleep..." but it came out messy and jumbled; he had never been asked to pray before bed before. The words tasted unfamiliar on his tongue.

When they were finished, the prefects called for lights out and ushered everyone into their beds. One last walk down the row for inspection and the lights were clicked off.

The mattress felt cold and unfamiliar to Nico, the springs poked at his back in places and the pillow was lumpy. He couldn't seem to decide if he was too hot or too cold. The blanket scratched at him and his too-large pyjamas balled up around his ankles. Pietro's bed was on the other side of the aisle from Nico's and he felt more alone than he had all day without his new friend. Idly he wondered if Bianca felt as out of place and uncomfortable as he did. It wasn't home without her. It wasn't home without Mama. He tossed and turned for hours before he finally fell into sleep.


"Up you get please."

Those were the first words of the morning. All the lights were clicked on and curtains thrown wide. Nico pried his eyelids open to the room to the sight of a willowy little light-haired man in a white uniform striding about the dormitory. He carried a notebook in one hand and a jar of thermometers in the other. When he reached Nico, who was just barely sitting upright, he swooped in and jammed a thermometer in his mouth. With a spindly, spider-like hand, he felt for a pulse on Nico's wrist. After his surprise had subsided, Nico remembered that he had been warned by Pietro of this precautionary practice. It had been carried out for the first two weeks of term, and was administered to all newcomers.

When temps and pulses had been taken they were told to put on their socks, line up by the door and follow the prefect. Nico did so, falling into place behind the rest of the boys, vaguely wondering what the next strange experience would be.

Madam Belloni sat at the end of the hallway behind a table. The surface was laden with large bottles which looked to Nico to contain white chalk that settled to the bottom, leaving a watery grey liquid on top. The other boys seemed used to the sight and obediently stepped forward one by one to receive a small cupful of the substance. When it was Nico's turn he lifted the cup to his mouth apprehensively. It smelled vaguely like classroom chalk and as the liquid moved, little solid pieces of white lifted and swirled around. Madam Belloni nodded at him encouragingly and he drank.

He gagged.

It was by far the worst thing he had ever drunk in his life. It tasted foul like the smell of rotten eggs and the sound of fingernails on a chalk board. His whole body rejected it. His throat convulsed violently and his stomach lurched. He forced it down.

Beside him, another boy was being beckoned forward to take his turn and he was shunted aside. The powder had settled thickly onto his lips, teeth and gums. Cringing at the texture, he hesitantly licked it off his mouth.

Pietro soon found him in the hall and latched himself onto Nico's side. To Nico's disgust, despite the obviously horrific ordeal, he was still as cheerful and talkative as ever. He immediately started babbling about a rumour that the mixture, whatever it was, had been given to British troops during the Great War. That information confirmed two things in Nico's mind; the first, that the trenches were just as horrible as his aunt's Venice neighbour had told him, and second, that his Papa was right when he said how foolish the British were.

After they had taken their turn, the boys were ushered back into the dormitory where they were instructed to dress and prepare for breakfast. Again Nico pulled on his ill-fitting uniform. He tugged self-consciously at the hems of his shorts, wishing them longer, and awkwardly tucked his shirt into the waistband in a vain effort to make it appear smaller.

The sweater over top did help, he decided, and shrugged it on. He hadn't even washed his face when they were abruptly ordered out of the room by their head of year and marched down the hall in single-file. Nico found a place behind Pietro in the line and followed him closely all the way downstairs. The groups from other dormitories were apparently doing the same, as another group was already entering the dining hall when Nico's reached the top of the stairs.

When they entered the dining hall they filed toward the benches, most elbowing for places next to their friends and stood at attention behind their seats. At the front of the room, a severe looking man who Nico assumed was a teacher blew a whistle. The students, apart from Nico, said their grace in unison, "For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen." Nico stumbled along with the words, a beat behind the other boys, mumbling the lines quietly.

The man surveyed them over his spectacles. "A chi la vittoria?" he called. (To whom victory?)

The boys around Nico raised their right arms in saluto romano and gave a shout. "A noi!" (To us!).

The whistle blew again and everyone made to sit down, benches scraping against the stone floor. No one said a word as they ate. Nico opened his mouth to speak to Pietro beside him, but an older boy across the table from him shook his head furiously. Nico's jaw clicked shut.

A small troop of girls in pale blue uniforms scuttled about the hall with carts of food to serve. They placed a bowl and spoon in front of each boy and moved on without a word. Madam Belloni watched each of the girls carefully from her place by the door as they worked.

Nico looked doubtfully at his bowl. It was filled with lumpy grey grainy food. He had never seen something like it before — certainly had never been asked to eat it. Just looking at it made his stomach lurch.

"Eat it all," Pietro breathed from beside him. "You'll get a smack if you don't."

"What is it?" Nico hissed.

Pietro didn't respond. The boys across the table shot death glares at them. Nico ducked his head to avoid their eyes and stuck his spoon in his bowl with a plop.

After a quick trip to their bathroom for teeth cleaning and final inspection, Nico was sent off to the school building with the other boys. They followed a long path from the boarding house to the school house, lined on both sides by a lush green lawn and thin, towering trees.

Nico didn't pose a threat to any of his classmates academically. He had known that he wouldn't when he had first found out he would be starting at St. Dismas'. Not that he wasn't intelligent or even that he didn't enjoy school, but that he never seemed to have much luck with his professors.

His previous teachers had often lamented that he was a difficult child, not that his Mama had ever believed them, and that he refused to put in any effort with his books.

A common scene in a year four literature class was this: Professor would pose a question, Nico would be called, the strap would answer.

Nico's attention was called by a curt, clear, "Mr. di Angelo" and he looked up.

"Read the next paragraph if you please." He swallowed, stuffing his nerves deep down where no one would see, staring at the page in front of him. "Well, boy?"

A deep breath. "The- g-great days of... m-mo...dern Italy– er... b- be- buh–"

SLAM!

A ruler smacked down on the desk, square between Nico's hands. He jerked back from the book and stared, agape, at the Professor.

"Are you stupid, boy?"

"I–"

"Have you not learned to read?"

"Yes, I… the letters move!"

The class around him laughed. Nico's ears burned red.

"The... letters... move," Professor repeated. "That is enough from you. Out. Wait in the corridor and I will deal with your rudeness in a moment."

And so Professor, as Nico could not bring himself to utter the woman's name, would reunite either Nico's backside with the cane or if she was in a particular hurry, his palm with the hard smack of her ruler.

It was unsurprising, then, that Nico's scores in maths, though not impressive in themselves, rose dramatically higher than his literature marks. Frankly, that was perfectly good enough for him. However, the staff of St. Dismas' did not share his views. He hung on the lower end of class lists and regularly received the strap for not following his reading as diligently as the other boys.

The only class that Nico truly excelled in was Latin. To the great surprise of his teachers, Nico thrived on the ancient language. He easily deciphered the assigned texts and outstripped his classmates in writing assignments. Nico attributed his unorthodox success in Latin was due mainly to the fact that his Latin professor did not write him off outright as a 'troublesome child'.

Professor Gentile was more than willing to give students falling behind his extra attention and to assist Nico in any way he could. As far as Nico could tell, he was the only student with a genuine interest in Latin which was likely why Gentile was so eager to encourage him.

Much to his dismay, Nico's success with the language only solidified his teachers' belief that he was purposefully mocking them in his other classes.

Outside of classes, all of the boys in Nico's dormitory were participants in Balilla, the troop of youth cadets. Each night after lessons, they would practice marching formations and learned how to shoot and care for weapons with imitation guns. Nico loved the practice, it was fun to be a part of a group. Almost as if he had an entire family of brothers.

When the boys were freed from practice, they congregated in the large playroom toward the back of the school building. Each student had a private locker in a small room off the main area. There was no furniture, only a football net at either end. The room was devoted to them running off their energy and enjoying themselves. In warm weather, a huge sliding door was pushed back, making the room an extension of the playground. Notices were pinned to the walls displaying 'games lists' for the school teams.

The school was divided into two alphabetically divided groups, one blue and one gold. Each group was called a house and the competing teams coming from each house accumulated an unofficial number of victories and losses for which the losers had to pay a forfeit at the end of term.

They would play or go for walks until it was dark, and then, after washing and changing from sports kit to uniform, they lined up in the common room once again and marched into supper.

Nico eventually learned to dread supper. He strongly suspected that they had only given the boys good food for the first few weeks to lull them into a false sense of security. From Nico's second week of school onward, all palatable food seemed to be reserved for off days. Although he was certain that the food delivered to the school kitchen was edible, what happened after its arrival was a mystery to him. During his third week, they were served small piles of yellowish grey slop that they were assured was risotto, but Nico had never eaten a slimy risotto before.

The dishes always arrived at the dining hall steaming but by the time they made it to the tables the food had cooled to the lukewarm of used bathwater. From looking at the variety of dishes provided for the students, no one could have guessed what they were.

If they were lucky, a single piece of fruit might have made it to the table on its own and could be swiped to slightly improve the food, but such luck was seldom witnessed. If any of the boys ever tried to skive off on their dinner, a sharp index finger in the back from Madam Belloni was enough to make sure they remembered to 'eat up every bite' and 'be grateful' for what they were given.

Nico was apparently not as good a judge of character as he had thought, as Madam Belloni was most certainly not the kindly surrogate mother he had anticipated. She had a sharp eye for unruly behaviour and a hard hand with the strap. And while a nagging voice in the back of his that sounded suspiciously like Bianca insisted that she meant well, Nico couldn't find it in himself to believe it.

Once the food was served, yet another blast from the all-powerful whistle was blown as the signal that the boys could talk quietly amongst themselves. Emphasis on quietly. Speaking too loudly was not gentlemanly, they were informed, and any naughtiness or rise in volume meant the immediate order to the wall for the rest of the meal, forgoing the remainder of one's food.

Privately, Nico thought that it might be a better alternative than eating whatever it was they were fed. However, such a position became remarkably less desirable if and when the headmaster entered the dining room to give some kind of address or to personally check on how things were getting along. If a student was standing against the wall at that time they were summarily sent to 'wait for me in the hall'. Most of such invitations ended with a trip to the nearest classroom and a short meeting with the rod.

Pietro advised Nico that it was best to cry out at the first smack as it cut down on the punishment. After trying his tactic the first time he was 'invited' into the hall during his first week, Nico decided that his logic was flawed.

When the whistle blew again, the time for talking had ended. The staff at large demanded silence while various lists and notices were announced. That was when the boys learned whether they were to leave class at any point during the next day to visit the dentist or doctor, or if anything from home had been delivered by the postman. The first time such a package arrived for Nico, he was eleven.