Nico still looked sad at breakfast, brooding over his cereal, not really eating it, just stirring it round. 'Did your mother ever tell you not to play with your food Mr di Angelo?' Mr D asked him from the head table.

'My mother's dead and no-one else cares enough to tell me.' Was all Nico replied. Mr D sighed, it was going to be a long day if Nico di Angelo was being difficult, Jason just knew it would be and a lot of the campers did too, but Nico didn't care, he did what he wanted and everyone let him. No-one said anything after that and Nico got up and walked off into the woods. If anyone else did that, someone would probably stop them, to warn them of the monsters that would most probably kill them if they went into the woods alone, but not Nico di Angelo. Nico could handle a few monsters, Nico could handle a lot of monsters.

Nico came back about 40 minutes later, an actual smile on his face. He sat across from Jason ignoring Chiron's protest. Nico di Angelo did what he wanted. 'I talked to Persephone' He said. 'She told me I'm welcome there anytime.' By there, Nico meant the underworld. 'I'm glad to have things cleared up with her, I mean, I've been thinking about iris messaging her for a while and sorting stuff out because it was obvious she didn't like me and I wanted to know why and stuff and I'm glad I did talk to her.'

'Why did she not like you then?' Jason asked.

'Well, it's a long story really. Obviously there's the whole thing with Hades and my mom and how Persephone was jealous and stuff but then she can't have children of her own and she always wanted them and stuff and she just I don't know, didn't like me for that but it's all cleared up now.' Nico said cheerily. Bless that boy, he always tried, with everyone. Nico laughed. 'Sometimes I forget it's nice to be happy every once in a while.' His smile dropped. 'I need to remind myself that not all memories are bad memories.' Nico's smile turned into a sad, nostalgic smile. Jason didn't say anything, he didn't know what to say.

Nico got up shortly after that and went to train; he usually did his own thing when he was having a particularly bad day. After a long day training the younger demigods, Jason went for dinner and saw Nico sat at the Hades table. As soon as Nico saw him his face lit up in a smile and he went to join Jason at the Zeus table. 'I'm okay now.' He promised.

'Good' Jason said, and he proceeded to tell him about his day. Nico told him about his day too. 'Are you sleeping in my cabin tonight?' Jason asked Nico as they walked over to the cabins after dinner.

Nico shook his head. 'I'm sure I'll be fine.' He told him. That's what he said every night. Jason knew he wouldn't be fine. Jason knew that sometime between midnight and four Nico would wake up screaming and shivering and would try, try, try to get back to sleep but would eventually end up at his door, in his pyjama bottoms and an old t-shirt. He would crawl into Jason's bed and snuggle up to him, crying into his shirt. Sometimes he would tell him what it was about, sometimes he would wait till morning and sometimes he wouldn't tell him at all but Jason knew it was nightmare and he knew that Nico wouldn't be able to cope alone like he had for so long.

In the morning the tears would be gone and Nico would be okay (on most days) and they would go about their daily routine, but the next night Nico would say he was fine and that he could get through the night for once and the whole routine would start up again. Jason didn't mind holding Nico while he cried in the middle of night, sometimes even while he screamed but Jason did mind that Nico's mind was torturing him. Jason did mind that Nico wasn't okay and he was going to try and fix him, he'd been trying for almost three years now. He wasn't ever going to give up on his best friend.

That night was exactly the same as always. There wasn't really anything else to say.