The Ties That Bind

Chapter 3: Calling You

I will keep calling you to see
If you're sleeping are you dreaming and
If you're dreaming are you dreaming of me

- Calling You (Blue October)

Someone was banging on my cabin door. Nico and I groaned almost in unison. It was dark outside when I blinked my eyes open – it was still the middle of the night. So whatever or whoever it was, it had to be important. Either that, or it was something very hungry. But somehow I didn't think a monster would knock, given that it had even managed to get past Camp Half-Blood's magically-protected borders. So more likely it was just someone who really, really wanted to talk to us.

I pushed myself up, sliding slowly off the bed as I realized we'd been so tired that we'd fallen asleep in our clothes. My t-shirt was wrinkled and creased, but I guessed that was better than having to search for a clean one on the floor.

The banging continued. "Open up, Seaweed Brain!" came the call as I was halfway to the door, and I hurried the last few steps of the way to pull it open. Annabeth was standing on the other side, her fist still raised in mid-bang. I imagined she didn't want to be caught out of bed after curfew, so this must be important, whatever it was. There was something small and glowing clutched in her other hand, and she looked pretty disgruntled.

"What is it?" I asked, as the thing in her hand was suddenly shoved into my face. I went almost cross-eyed trying to focus on it before I realized it was her cell phone.

"It's for you," she said shortly, striding past me into the cabin before turning to stare at the wall. "And Nico, you'd better be dressed too."

"I am," came the muffled reply from the bed; Nico had pulled the covers back over his head, apparently in an attempt to go back to sleep. "Nice of you to stop by."

"Hmph," Annabeth huffed, but she turned back to me. I was still standing there dumbly, holding her phone. She sighed and reached up, pulling my hand toward my ear to press the phone to it. "Well, talk already. You're using up my minutes and I'm not supposed to have this thing on, anyway. I have no idea how she got my number and you'd better make it quick."

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I figured I'd better do what she said before she really got angry. I adjusted the phone against my ear and said, "Uh… hello?"

"Percy! Thank God – or, well, the gods, whatever… You have to listen to me. It's really important."

"Rachel?" I asked. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me," she said. "Look, I know I'm not supposed to have this number and I know you told me how dangerous it is for you to use cell phones and all that, but this is really important. I swear," she insisted, even as I was still trying to process that it was her. I mean, why would Rachel be calling me? And on Annabeth's cell phone? I guessed it was probably the only way she really had to contact me, and she said it was important… I felt my stomach drop somewhere into the vicinity of my feet (it seemed to be spending a lot of time there, these days) as Annabeth stood there in front of me, her arms crossed and one foot tapping impatiently.

I'd better get on with it, then. "What is it?" I asked.

"It's about Nico – Nico di Angelo," Rachel said quickly, speaking all in a rush. "I don't know why – I mean, I don't even know him that well, but I just had this dream... It was so vivid – so real. Percy, something terrible is going to happen, and he's the one who's going to cause it."

"Whoa," I said, trying to make out all her words at once. "Slow down – you had a dream about Nico?" Sure, Rachel had met Nico before – not exactly under the best circumstances, of course. We'd been running for our lives through Daedelus' Labyrinth at the time. I didn't think she knew much more about him than his name, and vice versa. So even if he was suddenly at the center of the prophecy, why was she dreaming about it?

I mean, when a half-blood has a dream like that, you pay attention to it. But Rachel wasn't a half-blood – she was a regular human. Well, okay, maybe not regular human – she could see through the Mist like it wasn't even there. In fact, she could see through it better than I could, as a rather embarrassing incident at Goode High School at the beginning of the summer had proven. I guessed that I did know her well enough to realize that if she was having dreams like this, they might be worth paying attention to regardless of why she was having them.

Across the cabin, the bedsheets rustled and Nico stuck his head out, looking at me. "Who's having dreams about me? What?"

I held up one finger as Rachel kept talking into my ear. "Yes," she said. "I know it sounds crazy, but it was definitely Nico. I mean, he looked older somehow, but I knew it was still him. And somehow it was happening right now, even though I know he's still a kid. I don't know how, but – "

"Actually… that would be about right," I murmured. Of course, the fact that she had dreamed him older was less than reassuring, since it meant that maybe…

"Huh?"

I shook my head, even though she couldn't see it. Now really wasn't the time to explain. "Long story. Sorry. Go on."

"Right. Well, I don't remember a lot. But it just seemed really urgent. He was in the woods somewhere, and there was all this screaming. It sounded like a girl. It was hard to see what was going on, but I think she died. I think he killed her. I don't know," Rachel said again, sounding exhausted and wound up all at the same time. "I just know it's important."

Whoa, wait a second, my mind was saying. Rachel had had a dream about Nico killing someone? That was not what I'd been expecting to hear.

Okay. So Rachel had a dream about Nico killing a girl that she didn't know, and had felt the need to call me about it in the middle of the night. What did that even mean? "Was she… human?" I asked, wondering if maybe it had been some kind of female monster, if maybe –

"Yeah," Rachel said grimly. "I don't know who it was. I just… I just know she was dead."

"And he killed her." My mouth felt dry – was this really something I should be worrying about? It didn't make any sense. Maybe it was just a dream. And even assuming this dream could come true, I couldn't imagine why Nico would kill someone unless he had a really good reason. But even then…

Rachel just sounded so urgent. I mean, she was calling in the middle of the night. But how could it be so important? Nico was right here…

"Yeah," Rachel said again. "Look… I'm really sorry to bother you with this. Especially in the middle of the night and all. But it just seemed so important. I woke up and all I could think about was calling you…" She trailed off, and I suddenly realized that I'd pretty much left New York City without telling Rachel about it. She didn't even know about me and Nico. I hadn't really had time to hang out with Rachel since Nico had showed up on my fire escape.

"Wait – how did you know I was at camp?" I asked suddenly. "I mean… you didn't call…"

"I did," Rachel said, sounding chagrined. "Your mom told me."

I grimaced, thinking about Rachel calling my mom's apartment in the middle of the night. But that only underscored how important this must be to her – which only confused me more, in turn. It was almost too much to think about right now. My head felt fuzzy from having been woken up only a couple hours after I fell asleep.

"Right. Okay, uh, well… thanks, Rachel," I said. Annabeth was starting to look even more impatient, and I had to admit I wasn't sure I wanted to really think any more about what Rachel had said. If Nico really was going to kill someone in cold blood…

But how could he? Nico was still in his bed. His hair was all mussed from sleeping and he was watching me with a curious expression as Rachel said, "Yeah. Look, I'm really sorry to bother you with this. It just seemed so important, you know?" She paused. "Be careful."

"Thanks. I will," I promised, and hit END. I handed the phone back to Annabeth, who immediately shut it off and shoved it into her pocket.

"Well?" she asked – almost in perfect unison with Nico. They glanced at each other for a second before looking back at me.

"Well, what?" I asked – okay, so it was kind of low to play dumb, but it probably had something to do with the way my stomach was churning as I tried to imagine how the dream Rachel had described to me could possibly come to pass.

If Annabeth could have shot laser beams out of her eyes, I was pretty sure I would've been Roast Percy right about then. She just stood there glaring at me for a minute before she said, matter-of-factly, "My phone. So tell me."

"About me," Nico called from across the cabin. He sat up in bed, the blankets pooling around him. "I heard my name. So tell me."

I sighed. "Rachel just had a weird dream and it freaked her out, is all."

Annabeth raised one eyebrow. "A weird dream about me," Nico supplied.

I don't know why, but for some reason I really didn't want to tell Nico about this with Annabeth standing right there. Maybe I though she'd jump to conclusions – that she'd go right to Chiron and they'd lock Nico up or something until we could figure this out. Maybe I was worried that might be the right thing to do.

But Nico didn't deserve that – he hadn't done anything wrong (yet?), and no one trusted him in the first place just because Hades was his father. Becoming the child of the prophecy had only made him spectacularly less popular than he already had been – and trust me, he hadn't really been all that popular in the first place.

There was also a part of me that believed that I could stop him from doing anything like what Rachel had said he'd do. Part of me believed that he would listen to me – that I could keep whatever this was from happening. And so I said, "It was nothing important, really. Just a dream. A regular dream."

"That she had to call you about at three in the morning," Annabeth said flatly.

I shrugged. "I guess she was worried, since I told her my dreams are usually bad news. But she's not me," I said firmly. "She's not a half-blood like us. She's just a regular mortal."

"Who can see through the Mist," Annabeth pointed out.

"Well, so can my mom, but she doesn't have prophetic dreams, does she?" I knew it was pretty cold to say that, but it was the truth. Just because a mortal could see through the Mist didn't make them special in any other way. Maybe I was trying to convince myself of that as much as I was trying to convince Annabeth.

She didn't look very convinced, though. She mostly looked annoyed. And Nico was being strangely quiet.

"You know, if you really just don't want to tell me, all you had to do was say so," Annabeth huffed. And then she turned on her heel and stormed out of the cabin, slamming the door shut so hard behind her that I was sure the harpies that prowled camp after lights-out must have heard it.

I almost wanted to run after her – sure, she could keep herself from becoming harpy bait just fine, but now I just felt awful. The only other time I'd heard Annabeth's voice sound like that had been on our way back from Rising Star, Texas, when I'd been scared to tell her about how I was dating Nico and as a result of course she'd figured it out before I'd ever worked up the nerve to tell her. She'd been pretty pissed because of that. She'd said she could have handled it – that I should have had the respect to just tell my friends instead of keeping it a secret.

And she'd been right. My friends had deserved to know, and I hadn't told them. Annabeth and Grover were the two most important people to me, besides Nico and my mom, and I'd kept them out of the loop just because I'd been afraid of what they would think of me. This whole thing with Nico… well, I knew I'd kind of messed up with Annabeth. She was one of my best friends.

She'd even admitted to how much she'd liked me, and how jealous she had been when she'd figured the whole me-and-Nico thing out. It had kind of thrown me for a loop, but I'd had to admit that I always thought she was cute – way too much trouble, but cute. In the end it had only made me appreciate what I had with her – and with Nico – that much more. And now the fact that I'd pretty much just left her out of another me-and-Nico thing (well, sort of; I supposed Rachel being the bearer of bad news hadn't helped any, either) made the pit of my stomach turn to ice. But it was too late to go after her – she'd already be back at her cabin by now, and she didn't have the place all to herself. If I chased after Annabeth, I'd have to deal with the whole of the Athena cabin too and believe me, none of them would've been on my side.

And besides, there was the whole reason I'd kind of inadvertently kicked her out, still watching me from his place on the bed with his hair mussed and the blankets piled around him. Nico didn't say anything; he just watched me with dark eyes that asked the question for him: Are you going to tell me what this is all about?

I sighed, feeling frustrated and worried. I'd just kicked Annabeth out over this (well, she'd kicked herself out, but it had been pretty much my fault) and now I had to tell Nico what Rachel had told me. Somehow that wasn't something I was exactly looking forward to doing.

I padded back across the cabin, coming to a stop in front of Nico's bed. I wasn't sure if I should sit down, but he answered that question for me by reaching out and grasping my wrist to pull me down beside him. His face was oddly serious – not that Nico wasn't usually serious, because he was actually one of the most serious people I knew. But the look on his face was just… different, somehow. Intent. When I was seated on the bed next to him, all he said was, "Tell me," quietly.

"Rachel had a dream," I began slowly. "About you."

"You already said that much," Nico put in, just enough amusement in his voice that I actually started to relax, even if it was just a little. This wasn't just about Nico, after all – because anything about him was automatically about me, too, and maybe an ounce of prevention really was worth a pound of cure, or however that saying goes. Now that I knew, maybe that would be enough to change any possible future Rachel's dreams might have shown her, assuming they could even come true in the first place.

"She's the redhead, right?" Nico asked. "The one who threw her hairbrush at Kronos."

I felt myself smile at that – because, "Yeah, she did," I said. Nico nodded, and I guessed there was no more delaying it. So I went on. "She had a dream that you killed someone – a girl," I elaborated. "Not a monster."

I watched Nico's face as the words sank in. First there was confusion, then worry – but that was followed closely be skepticism, which wasn't odd at all coming from Nico. "And what makes you think her weird-ass dreams about me are exactly important?" he finally asked; I wasn't sure if that was anger I heard in his voice, but I kind of hoped not.

Honestly, I didn't know if I could really explain it to him. I shrugged. "I dunno," I admitted. "They're probably not. But Rachel's pretty… intuitive, I guess. She gets these feelings sometimes and they're usually right."

"But she's just some girl who can see through the Mist," Nico said, and I wasn't sure if he was trying to convince me or himself.

I shrugged again. "Yeah," I said. "I know. I just… I guess I'm just a little freaked out."

Nico snorted softly. "You're a little freaked out? I'm the one she thinks is gonna kill somebody." I couldn't help but smile grimly. He had a pretty good point. It was like reading the prophecy all over again – I was scared enough, but how could I ever come close to being as scared as Nico was, when he was the one the words were talking about, and not me?

"Do you think she's right?" he finally asked.

I stared at Nico as he asked the one question we'd both been thinking but that I'd still somehow hoped wouldn't come up. I wasn't sure I had an answer, and somehow that made me feel worse than whichever answer I might actually give.

Nico, though, apparently took my silence as a 'yes'. "So you believe her," he said flatly, sliding out from under the blankets and groping around on the floor – presumably for his boots.

"No!" I said quickly, reaching out and grabbing one of his arms. He glared at me and I swallowed – I really was batting zero tonight. First Annabeth, and now Nico. I really didn't want him to misunderstand me, but how could I keep that from happening when I didn't really understand what I was thinking, myself?

"Well?" Nico asked, and I realized I'd just been sitting there grasping his arm for at least twenty seconds.

"Look, I – I don't know," I admitted, letting him go. He just stood there, but at least he wasn't trying to leave anymore. "It's just – look, it doesn't make sense. You know that," I said, and Nico just rolled his eyes and nodded, because of course it was obvious. "But I also know that she wouldn't have called Annabeth's phone in the middle of the night if she didn't think it was really important."

"They really don't get along, do they," Nico murmured, suddenly totally off-topic. It sounded more like a statement than a question, so I didn't give him an answer and after a minute, he went on. "It's all because of you, isn't it?" He turned to face me and I had to look up at him because I was still sitting on the bed. "They both want you, and neither one can have what she wants."

I really wasn't sure what Nico was getting at – okay, so I knew by now that both Rachel and Annabeth had been interested in me. Annabeth had told me to my face, and I'd pretty much gathered recently that Rachel might kind of be interested too (and crap, she didn't even know I was taken, unless she'd had a feeling or a dream about that; I shuddered at the thought). I knew I should tell her something, but really, how were you supposed to bring up a subject like that?

Nico was still standing there, watching me with dark eyes. It was the first time in months that Nico looking at me actually made me feel uncomfortable. And he was still waiting for some kind of an answer.

"I guess so, yeah," was the best one I could give him. I didn't know why it was important to him. I couldn't tell what he was thinking – the look on his face was completely opaque. It was really disconcerting, considering how well I thought I'd gotten at reading him. But suddenly he seemed almost like a completely different person. It felt like that afternoon a few days ago when Chiron had taken us to the Big House and showed us the prophecy Nico was supposed to fulfill.

Nico had changed so much in the past few weeks. But then, was it really all that strange that he seemed different almost every time I turned around? Maybe it was just that he was letting the mask slip more and more around me (well, except for now, when it was so flawless that even I couldn't see past it). Even though we were more devoted to each other than most people might be comfortable with, we still had a lot to learn about each other. I was just thankful that I was getting the chance.

"Do you think it's going to happen tonight?" Nico asked, bringing me out of my thoughts as I blinked at him, taking a second to process the words into a proper sentence.

I frowned. "I hope not. You're not feeling randomly angry, are you?" I asked a bit wryly, though the attempt at humor failed a little more spectacularly than I'd hoped and I probably just sounded concerned.

Nico's eyes were dark, but he shook his head. "Not really. No more than the usual 'why me, I don't wanna save Olympus or whatever' bullshit."

That was probably a joke too, but it was just as bad as mine had been. Instead of making me laugh, it had me standing up and pulling him towards me and slamming our mouths together before he could blink. His taste filled my mouth as I kissed him sloppily, hands slipping around his waist and into the back pockets of his jeans.

"You know I believe in you," I murmured when I pulled back just enough so that I could speak, our noses brushing and breath mingling (and neither of us had brushed our teeth before bed, whoops). "You know that, right?" Sometimes, with the way his voice sounded, the way his eyes looked – like they had just now, empty and hollow – I just had to tell him again. Just to make sure he knew.

Hands slid around my sides and under the hem of my t-shirt, and Nico's cool forehead pressed against mine. "You don't seem willing to let me forget," he said, but the words were soft and he wasn't angry. Not anymore. He just sounded a little blindsided. He always did, when I told him that. Like maybe he really did forget, until I reminded him again. Which in my book was all the more reason to remind him.

"Nope," I answered smugly, and dove in for another long kiss until we couldn't breathe and we had to pull apart, flushed and panting and skin prickling. "C'mon," I said, tugging gently at his clothes, "let's go back to bed."