Will sat on the infirmary bed, his legs shaking too much to hold him up. Nico...Nico di Angelo...Percy had found Nico, in the woods...
"I'm not ready." Will croaked, sweat dripping from his forehead. "I'm not ready, Percy. This can't be happening."
"It is." Percy sat beside him. "I can't believe it, either. But it's really him. He's...he's different, but it's him."
"Different?" Will looked to him. "What do you mean? How different?"
"You'll see," Percy promised. "Just...don't freak out too much. You don't want to freak him out. And he looked like he didn't know how much time has passed, so there's that. I can...I can go get Almaji for you, if you want to deal with this."
Will nodded in gratitude. "Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Percy... Nico's coming now?"
Percy nodded as he got up. "Annabeth's bringing him. He looked pretty okay. Just talk to him, okay? It'll be okay."
Will took a deep breath and wiped his hands on his shirt. Nico, Nico, Nico... It felt like a dream come true.
"I'm going to go get Almaji now." Percy let him know, despite the fact that Will seemed to be in his own head now. As he left, he could hear Will whispering Nico's name to himself in the silence of the infirmary.
"Will," Annabeth walked into the infirmary soon, breaking the son of Apollo out of his trance. "Did Percy...?"
"He told me." Will stood up, his legs threatening to give out on him. "Where is he? I need to see him."
Nico took a step into the infirmary after Annabeth had, looking shaky but otherwise fine. His clothes, odd from what Will remembered, were covered in dirt and leaves. Will immediately looked into Nico's eyes, looked into the once dark eyes and saw sparks of green. Sparks of green that had never been in those eyes before.
"Nico..." Will took a step closer, his footstep echoing across the room. "Nico, is it you...?"
Nico smiled at him but it didn't reach his eyes. He was different, even if he didn't want to admit it. "Will..."
Will ran to embrace his boyfriend and brought him into his arms, felt the warmth of the son of Hades inside his arms. Nico, Nico di Angelo, he was hugging Nico again...
"I missed you, Solace." Nico murmured, his head laying on the other boy's shoulder. "I missed you. But it's only felt like a week..."
"Four years." Will replied. "Four years without you, thinking you were dead. But Hazel said your soul wasn't with your father. I was scared."
"I'm sorry..." Nico looked down. "I didn't choose any of this. I saved Almaji, that I chose, but I didn't choose anything after that." Nico sat on the bed, Will sat beside him, they were silent. Eventually, Nico spoke again. "How's Almaji? Find out anything about his godly parent?"
Will shook his head. "Not a thing. But I'm just going with it at this point."
"Is he healthy and everything?" Nico asked. "Happy?"
Will shrugged. "He misses you. That battle...really scarred him...but he'll be okay. Percy's picking him up from school, now."
"School..." Nico laughed. "Wow, things really have changed."
Will watched him, watched his love. "Yeah, you really did."
Will checked Nico over and from what he saw, the son of Hades had no serious injuries. No bones out of place, no extensive bleeding. Will noted to himself to do blood work because of the abnormally green veins but didn't touch them for the time being, not wanting to bother Nico too much. Just after ten minutes, the younger boy was sick and tired of being checked out.
"Does anything hurt?" Will asked, giving up on physically checking the boy. "Anything not feel normal?"
Nico rolled his odd eyes, those odd orbs of his soul. "Of course I feel different, Will. Look at these veins!" He held his hands up, showed off his new colors. "I hate the color green, you know."
"We'll do blood tests," Will promised. "That'll help us see if any diety had a part in...in..."
"My resurrection?" Nico finished. "Yeah, that'd be helpful. You can tell them to take this chlor...chlor...whatever Davy called it. They can take it all back."
"That was a joke. That's not what it actually is." Will sighed but held a soft smile. "I love you, Nico."
Nico smiled back at him. "I love you, too. Now, finish this checkup so we can go lay down."
Will got the clipboard he kept by him, looked over everything he needed to make sure the basics were covered. "Take your shirt off."
Nico blushed, his pale cheeks turning dark red. His hair had grown longer and his clothes were offputting, but he mostly looked like the Nico Will had remembered. The only thing that really bothered Will were Nico's eyes, that spark of green in those dark orbs. It wasn't the eyes he knew, wasn't the eyes he loved to look into. It wasn't Nico's eyes.
"It's part of the checkup." Will defended. "Just do it, Nico. Before Almaji comes back."
Nico huffed in annoyance but began to unbutton his shirt, his slender fingers twisting with the motions. As he did, Will eyed Nico's chest with a fear of what he would see, what he would see on the skin that had been torn apart four years ago.
What he saw was worse than what he expected.
As Nico let the shirt slide off his skinny frame, Will saw the marks left from Nico's gruesome death. His chest's skin was a dark purple where Nico's heart lay underneath and looked frayed and torn. Ragged, jagged, and coarse. In the shape of what stabbed him, in an unfriendly reminder of what had happened, of how he had died. Where his skin turned normal, however, was also changed from the experience. Green veins spread over his body just as they did in his hands, filling the entire layout of veins in his body. They ended up going into the dark purple of his heart, disappearing beneath the flesh.
"Damn," Nico looked down at himself, looked down at his so changed body. "What's with the green?"
"You ask about the green and don't look disappointed in the purple..." Will sighed. "It's all I could expect."
Nico chuckled lightly, a thin smile on his thin face. "I'm glad I'm back."
Will sat next to him, hugged him close. He smelled Nico's hair, smelled the dirt, smelled the earth that Nico had always smelled like before. He had his boyfriend in his arms, his boyfriend that had died four years prior. "I am, too."
