The Man with Eyes Full of Sky

The cottage by the sea only has a knocker. The doorbell fell off and, having no visitors, the man saw no need to fix it.

I am not familiar with the man who stands before it, although I know well enough who he is. He is tall, muscular, with blond hair that looks as though it was once in a very military cut but has been left to grow out until the next haircut, which may well be very soon. He wears a thick coat, with his hands in his pockets and a truly ridiculous pair of teddy bear earmuffs. He stands straight, but relaxed; this is how he usually stands, with quiet confidence.

What are most striking are the man's eyes. They are eyes full of sky.

The door opens, very slightly.

A dark eye peers out.

Jason – the blond stranger, unless I am very much mistaken – smiles a little unsurely, but when the door opens further to reveal the man inside the smile solidifies into something sure and relieved and fond and somehow also slightly exasperated, all at once.

"Nico?" he asks, making no move further to enter, respectful of the man of the cottage by the sea's boundaries. "Nico di Angelo?"

For his part, Nico looks shocked. He grips the door handle with one hand and the wall with another, in a semi-futile attempt to hold himself steady. Nevertheless, he sways on his feet.

"Grace?" he asks, incredulous.

Jason nods, smiling reassuringly, but less strongly than before; gentler. He makes no move to touch Nico, but looks as though he very much wants to.

"May I come in? If you don't want to see me, I can go, but I've been looking for you for a long time. I'd like to talk, if it's not too much."

"I…" Nico swallows, and straightens. "No, come in. Can I… I mean, should I get you something to drink? Eat?" He pokes his head out a bit further, like a tortoise emerging from its shell, and checks the weather. "It's snowing! I mean, it's snowing; I can get you some coffee if you want."

Jason nods thankfully, and holds the door for himself as Nico disappears into the cottage. He looks around, taking in the neat but interrupted organisation of the various books, knick-knacks and other flotsam and jetsam in the front hall. Doors open off in all directions; the cottage is small, but it is open and free for a wandering visitor to explore without feeling as though he is intruding.

He moves into the living room, looking through the books with idle curiousity. Nico returns shortly, waves him into a chair, and sits down. It does not escape Jason's notice that Nico chooses the chair farthest away from him, judging by his quick glances towards the couch and little stool near the coffee table.

"Why are you here?" asks Nico bluntly, having had time to gather his composure and return to his more normal, straightforward, demeanour.

Jason hides a smile behind the mug of coffee; Nico hadn't asked how he wanted it, but the café latte is actually very good. Just the right amount of caffeine and warmth to spark him up again, but not enough to stop him from sleeping for the rest of the week.

The frank question, and the fact that Nico didn't beat around the bush at all, brings back memories. Jason sets down the mug to answer.

"You've been missing, for all intents and purposes, for seventeen years," he says.

Nico nods. It's a simple admission of fact.

"We, that is, pretty much everyone who knew you, thought it was high time you re-joined us, or at least gave us some indication that you're still alive." Jason looks Nico straight in the eyes; the earth meets the sky. "I know you said you were going disappear forever, but Piper and I, and Hazel and Frank – even Leo agreed –, we all think you should come back."

"I sincerely doubt that," says Nico flatly. He looks down at his own little espresso cup, then towards the flames of the hearth. "Hestia tells me that Hazel's going to have another child."

Jason's eyes widen minutely, and he follows Nico's gaze to my flames. "Yes," he says, seemingly unshaken by Nico's continuing connection to his family. "She and Frank are ecstatic."

"They're going to need a bigger house," Nico says, putting down his cup and picking up his notepad. He tears off a page, and Jason watches as he writes a reminder to himself to find Hazel and Frank a new house.

"Wait," Jason says slowly, events clicking into place. "So it was you? You were the one who bought them that house when they got married?"

"Hazel is important to me," Nico says quietly. "She deserves everything that I can give to her."

Jason looks around. He doesn't ask how Nico can afford it, out of tact, but it's evident that he's thinking it. He changes the subject.

"She deserves you. Don't you want to meet your niece?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Nico says. "I can't. I…"

Jason nods. "That's okay. You don't have to go to her. I'm sure, if you'd let her, Hazel would be able to come here."

He doesn't say: she misses you.

He doesn't say: she's desperate to know you're alive.

He doesn't say: she'd come regardless of anything.

Those things and more remain unsaid, but not unheard.

Nico's face is unreadable, but he is silent for a long while. Jason busies himself with his coffee and leaves Nico to his thoughts.

"Maybe," Nico says. He looks around at the cottage walls, slowly, thoughtfully.

Jason nods. He won't push Nico for an answer. "Do you have something to eat? Just a snack, even a muesli bar or something. It was a cold flight over, and long, and I'm running out of energy."

Nico stands up and points Jason towards the table. "I'll make something warm. Sit."

Jason protests a little but eventually relents as Nico ignores him completely and takes his empty coffee mug. He agrees, but on the sole condition that Nico lets him do the washing up afterwards. With only one person in the house, Nico doesn't have a dishwasher, so Jason's offer is grudgingly accepted.

As Nico unfreezes and warms up a thick vegetable soup, Jason updates him on seventeen years' worth of news, which could probably be considered olds by now. Piper and Jason were married when they were twenty-seven, and had a son just four years ago and a daughter just last year. Piper hosted a large party on her thirtieth which was made famous by the number of pranks that she and Leo pulled on the guests; surprisingly, Calypso has turned out to be something of an evil genius when it comes to distracting people, so much that at one point, Leo and Piper both separately managed to scare poor Frank witless with dinosaur costumes while Calypso kept his attention.

Speaking of Calypso, Jason briefly tells Nico of Leo's quest to get her off Ogygia, and his eventual success. He got fed up after the first three years of his mechanical attempts failing, and instead he went straight up to Mount Olympus, got an audience with Zeus, and demanded that he set Calypso free.

"Valdez is going to get himself killed one day pulling stunts like that," Nico comments darkly.

Jason shrugs. "He wouldn't be Leo is he wasn't reckless, hare brained and short sighted. He apparently made an oath to get her off the island; swore on the Styx."

Nico is pale already, but this revelation causes him to go even paler. "He did?"

"I'm not kidding."

Nico purses his lips and shakes his head, but the hand stirring the soup shakes a fraction. "How is Reyna?"

Reyna has been doing very well for herself. Jason describes the efforts she's gone to in smoothing out the relations between Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-blood, and says that she's also been doing guest lectures at the University of New Rome in leadership and management; all under the umbrella term of politics. She's still regal and commanding, but she's beginning to find that she can still have friends outside her role as praetor and leader.

"Good," says Nico, pouring the hot soup into bowls. "I can see her and Annabeth being good friends."

Jason deliberately has not been mentioning Percy or Annabeth, unsure whether or not Nico is comfortable talking about them. That Nico lives next to the sea has not escaped his notice, either.

"They are," he says. "It was the two of them who really worked out the politics and logistics of keeping the two camps running without having them at each other's throats."

Nico moves over to the hearth with a plate of toast and tosses one in, murmuring something under his breath. He does this twice, then sits down and begins eating. Jason follows his example, muttering "Jupiter," under his breath, and they eat in silence. The soup is good and hot, and the flames from the hearth are warm, and if you look closely, you can see the exact moment that Jason begins to feel at home.

"What have you been doing, or is that private?" Jason asks.

Nico shrugs. "I've done a lot of different things." He hesitates, then plunges on. "I travelled for the first few years. I made some money doing odd jobs here and there; I wrote some tourism articles, which bought me this cottage. Once I moved here I worked for my father. There's a little entrance to the Underworld near here."

"Hazel asked your father where you were several times and he always said that he didn't know."

Nico sighs, rubbing his eyes. They still have dark smudges beneath them, which may just be because it's eleven-thirty. "I begged him not to tell anyone anything about me. It was part of our deal."

Jason doesn't know much about Hades (or Pluto) other than what Hazel and Percy have told him. Hazel can really only speak for Pluto, though, and Nico's father is Hades. The Greek/Roman distinction is wide. All he knows is what Percy has told him.

Jason likes Percy. They can rub corners a bit, but on the whole they get along well for children of the Big Three. He likes Percy's company, and he can see that Percy's a good guy, but sometimes he can be incredibly untactful. He's heard Percy's take on the curse of Achilles and the debacle surrounding that, but he's never felt as though that did Nico or Hades justice; Percy is, to say the least, biased.

"What's your father like?" he asks. "What sort of things do you do for him, if you don't mind me asking?"

At first, Nico looks a little reluctant to answer. "Father is…" He trails off, searching for the right words. "Father is intense. He feels things very strongly, which can lead to him becoming very bitter or holding grudges for a very long time. But it works both ways. He loves very passionately, too, even though he mayn't be able to express it freely. Him and Persephone… well. But what other demigod can say that they have a relationship with their godly parent, let alone a relatively good one?"

Nico motions with his hands as he talks, illustrative gestures that remind Jason that beneath the introvert, slightly awkward exterior, Nico is still Italian. It strikes him about then that this is the most he's ever heard Nico say all in one go.

"I help him with a lot of logistical work, too, which always makes him friendlier," Nico continues. "One year, we even got enough done that he could take an afternoon off. Can you believe that? I think that was the first time we got everyone to help, too; normally Persephone doesn't do much and Demeter always protests that it's not her job, but I convinced them to help."

There it is. Nico's smile. It's rare, but beautiful. He has Hades' expressive, intense eyes, and with the slightest heartfelt smile they will light up like a firework.

I can remember when he used to smile all the time. He would come up to my little fire in Camp Half-blood and smile and talk to me, making sure that I wasn't lonely and showing me his toy game cards. That was twenty years ago, now.

I am very grateful to Jason that he managed to make Nico smile like that again, even if it is small and accidental and a little insecure.

At nearly twelve-thirty, Jason stands up and collects Nico's bowl before going and washing the dishes as promised.

"How long will it take you to fly back?" Nico asks, drying the plates.

"An hour, maybe."

"Stay the night and leave in the morning. I haven't got another bed but I can give you some blankets and a pillow for the couch."

Jason looks surprised at Nico's offer disguised as an order, but accepts gratefully.

"Just do me a favour," Nico adds. "If you notice that the fire's gone out, relight it."

Jason nods. They can both hear the crackle of the fire from the kitchen, and they let it fill the silence until Nico goes to bed, the door to his room shutting with a quiet click of the latch.

Jason lies awake for a few minutes before getting up and making a piece of toast. He coats it liberally with strawberry jam before kneeling down in front of the hearth.

"Lady Hestia, this is an offering for you," he says and tosses it into the flames. "Thank you for looking after Nico and keeping him up to date with Hazel's life. I know you didn't do it for me, but I greatly appreciate it. Thank you."

I smile, and just briefly, I let the flames glow brighter.

Between the two of us, and Hazel, we may yet get Nico to find a home among his family again.