Well here's Chapter 7. I've been keeping it from you for so long cause I was trying to figure out how to end it... well I ended it! so here it is for your reading pleasure!

~Chapter VII~
Pasta and pondering.

Nico

Jason said he'd once lead the 12th Legion against the Titans, fought Krios with his bare hands, slain the Trojan Sea Monster (even though none of us know WHAT that is, it still sounds impressive!) But something that always shatters his hunky Herculean/Teen-Heart-Throb mystique is this little cut on his lip, girls think it's sexy but I bet none of them realize he got it chewing on a stapler. I wonder if anyone at Camp Jupiter knows? Hmmm. Jason should add that to his battle cry 'I am Jason Grace. I slew the Trojan Sea Monster, killed the Titan Krios with my bare hands and fought the vicious Bic $3 Stapler grrrr'

"Ah Nico? Now what?" damn you Jason bringing me back to reality, I was happy being off in lala land.

'What were we doing...? Oh yeah that's right!' my brain slowly clicked back into life. "Um, now you strain the tomato's juice out for the sauce, leave the chunks for the base." I rattled off instructions for Jason on how to cook Maria diAngelo's famous Spag Bowl... She just loved filling the stereo type ok?

"Sweet." Jason carried out my orders with prime efficiency.

I wonder if Jason learnt how to follow orders from the Romans at Camp Jupiter... Maybe it's time for Connor to get to know his Roman side... Hehehe. I must say though, the Jackson's cabin is rather... odd. The kitchen is closed off from the rest of the cabin and almost totally sound proof. I suppose the cabin is a place to escape to, so kitchen should be its own sanctuary, and it felt like one with all retro fittings, plates and colour scheme. I felt more, at ease here than I had anywhere else besides camp.

"Nico is that burning?"

"What?" I blinked back to reality to see the pasta water boiling over the side of the pot like one of the torture pits in Tartarus. "Oh damn!" I attempted to rescue the pasta by flicking down the heat and basically pulling out all the cooking tricks I knew.

Yes

I saved it.

Moving on.

"You ok?" Jason asked, placing his manly hand on my shoulder.

"Yeah why wouldn't I be?" I chuckled as I strained the excess water off the pasta.

"You've been spacing out a lot." He remarked. Which, in fairness, is totally true. I've been acting a bit like a space cadet I think, keeping my head so far in the clouds I could see Olympus without binoculars. "You did it again." Jason's brow furrowed.

"Sorrrrrrryyyyyy" I moaned playfully.

"What's up?"

"Nothings up." I shook my head defensively.

"Yeah, nothings up, you're just acting like I was the other day..." Jason, unbeknown to me, slipped behind me and assumed 'attack positions.' Minds out of the gutter please.

"I am not!" I protested playfully, turning around and springing Jason's trap. He advanced, pushing me back against the bench, his hands pinned to the bench either side of me... We were pressed close; I could feel his bodily heat, including a large amount of heat down there... It's just a plutonic observation... Hahah get it? Ya know; I'm the son of Pluto… so everything I do would be plutonic… Tough crowd… the real word's platonic ok? Moving on!

"You don't get to move," Jason's eyes narrowed. "until you tell me." he smirked, his breath smelt almost of garlic.

"It's, um ah..." I tried to avoid his gaze, but his nose was almost touching mine so it was completely impossible.

"Think, then speak." Jason's lips were pink and perfect. Oh no... A change in blood flow. Shit.

"Ah... Oh..." I began to feel the results of the blood flow, and from the surprised look on Jason's face he did too.

"Um, nice. But you're not moving." he blushed.

"Gah ok!" I raised my hands in defeat. "I'm missing Connor." I confessed and a weight was lifted from my chest, literally. Jason backed off and smirked.

"Knew it." Jason smirked as he crossed his arms over his purple tank top. "It's cute."

"Hey," I protested the use of the word 'cute'. "Of course I'm gonna miss the guy who took my virginity less than a week after he takes it." I protested.

"Too. Much. Information." Jason said word by word and sighed. Hmm maybe that was a bit too much detail in hindsight, mind you it's not like I told him how we did it behind the stables or that it was the reason I skipped 3 days of sword practice... Ok maybe that was too much info even for YOU!

"Sorry." I rolled my eyes and set about mixing up the famous diAngelo Pasta Sauce.

"It's all good." Jason chuckled one of those kinda disturbed chuckles.

"Right, now get the thyme." I snapped my fingers, hurrying him along.

Not long after that it was all ready to be served (after about 7 close calls of Jason almost either dropping the pasta or burning it. But that's irrelevant… well until I need black mail material! We got the pasta to the table complete with cheese. Cheese is awesome.

"Ok dinners ready," I announced to the almost empty cabin, only Rachel was inside, texting away on her smart phone. Luckily for their stomachs, William and Malcolm heard me and came on as well.

"Where's Percy?" Jason asked.

"Skinny dipping last time I looked." Malcolm said it like an offhand remark no one would care about... But people did care. Will almost tripped on nothing, Rachel almost dropped her phone and Jason went BRIGHT red. It was all kind of adorable, albeit HILARIOUS. As if scripted by the Fates, Percy barged in before anyone could say anything; sure enough everyone was awkwardly looking at him.

"Smells great!" he smiled and walked over to the table. "Guys?" he looked up from his seat at us all standing around the room.

I clapped my hands loudly "Right everyone take a seat." Everyone complied with my orders as I fished out a bottle and a silver bowel from my bags and returned to the table. 'Yeah that's right, do as you're told.' I smirked internally

"Nico?" Will looked a little perplexed as he sat down between Malcolm and Rachel.

"Oh just something I picked up." I placed the silver bowl on the table; it was about the size of our plates. Everyone gave the bowl an odd glance as they dished up with food. Malcolm seemed to notice the bowl was inscribed with Greek all the way around that read, "To our parents so divine we offer this to you." All of them seemed to click and placed a spoon of food into the bowl and said the name of their parent.

*POP!* The unmistakable sound of a champagne bottle being opened rang out. Yes I brought some alcohol with me.

"For our mothers and fathers." I poured a splash into the bowl and placed the wine down on the table. I poured the pasta-wine bowl into the roaring fire as an offering "di immortales". The fire roared up the fireplace. I turned back to the group who still looked a little shell shocked. "Dig in." Everyone started munching away like I told them to, who wouldn't do what I told them? No one, that's who. I dished up my dinner quickly and everyone began to tuck in.

"This is good Nico!" Rachel managed to get out her compliment in between uncharacteristic mouthfuls of pasta.

"Rachel's right, this stuff's great!" Will loaded his pasta up on cheese and salt, heart attack in the making for a normal demigod, perks of being the son of the healing and sports god.

"It's delicious." nodded Percy as he twirled up his pasta on his fork and munched it. "Good job Jase." Percy cracked Jason a smile, the first time I'd seen him interact with Jason since the 'schism'... All bets were off as to how Zeus's son would reply.

"Thanks." Jason said sheepishly. "Nico did most of the work." he blushed, aimlessly moving his pasta around his plate. Jason looked pretty pathetic... A war hero acting like a half worth yellow belly. My blood pressure was on the rise.

'Calm down Nico, it's not your place to hold their hands.' I could hear Bianca's voice in my ear, literally, another thing about being a son of Hades is certain ghosts get a direct dial line to your head.

'Ugh I know Bii, but it's just... RAGE' I sent back.

'You never could handle things like this well.' her voice giggled.

'I was a little kid when you were alive.' I rolled my eyes, both internally and externally.

'You're right but I've seen you grow, and ya haven't changed at all.' I could hear her laughing. 'Well I better stop distracting you, good luck little bro.' Bianca's voice vanished. Talk about quick calls.

After dinner we put Rachel and Malcolm on dishes duty, Jason and I had cooked, so our 'chosen two' got to do the dishes. A very democratic system. Percy and I took some time out to go chat, we had some stuff to sort out, pronto. To keep his seaweed infested brain on topic I took Percy to one of the hills in the area, far far away from distracting water spirits.

"Sooo..." We lay back on the hill side.

"Yeahhh..." Percy replied awkwardly.

"I have something I wanna ask you." I lay back and put my hands behind my head and looked up at the stars. It was a pretty warm night, so Percy and I afforded to just be in our shorts and T-shirts.

"What is it?" Percy was lying on his side facing me; behind me he could see the water.

"Your Dad… Poseidon I mean, do you get along well?" I asked, blushing a little.

"Yeah I suppose." He shrugged. "Why? Don't you and Hades?" I'm sure Percy knew the answer, but he wasn't good at talking about feelings, hell I wasn't much better.

I grumbled out my response and looked around nervously. "Not really. It's gotten a lot better recently. Like when Connor and I got his blessing last year, but it's still a bit icy." I sighed. Percy didn't need to say anything and he didn't, he just lay there and listened. "I know he wishes I was Bianca, she would have been a better Child of Prophecy than me." I let out a little sniffle. Still Percy remained silent. "I really miss her…" my hands moved around my head to cover my face, I sighed and let out a few more sniffs. Still without saying anything, Percy shuffled closer and put his arms around me and pulled me in tight.

"I gotta say, I think he's wrong." The beginning of a pep talk… "Bianca was a great fighter, but that way you stood up to Khronos in the final battle. Right after you and your Dad came out of the ground." I had to admit his recollection made me seem a lot more BAD ASS than I felt. I remember trembling wholesale, I was almost about to puke my guts out when the ground broke open and Hades told me to lead the charge…

"Thanks Percy." I sighed happily.

"So what brought all this on?" he asked, rather untactfully.

"It's just that Bianca popped into my head just before at dinner, and well it got me thinking. Remembering… I don't have a lot of memories of her, but I still miss her." I sighed, wiping my eyes on Percy's shirt.

"Man," he pulled me in a little tighter. "I gotta ask Nico, where do you go when you're not at Camp?"

"What do you mean?" I wriggled out of his grip at little so I could look at him in the eyes.

"You always seem to be either at Camp or in the Underworld." He remarked.

"Well I don't have a home up here you know." I rolled my eyes. Ya think he'd have gotten that by now.

"That's just strange." He whispered. I wasn't sure how long Percy and I were on that hill for… we weren't hugging the whole time cause that would be weird. We had a heart to heart about a few more things, laughed, mucked around and did the things guys our age do. Walking back down the cabin I slimed to myself, tomorrow was another day, deal with its problems tomorrow.

Well ther'es chapter 7... Really long gap I know. But oh well its assignment time down here in NZ. So the next chapter should be up soon.
Thanks guys!