ix: lucia

Will was sitting in Nico's office with pencils in his mouth making walrus sounds.

"Listen," Nico said. "Just because you work 48 hour shifts doesn't mean that when you get home I have to drop everything and pay attention to you."

Will made whale sounds, nodding his head.

"What even is that, Will?" Nico asked.

"Narwhal," Will said, though it came out jumbled because of the stupid pencils in his stupid mouth.

"A narwhal has only one horn," Nico said.

"Nuh-uh."

"Yes they do."

"Nuh-uh."

"Yes they do Will, don't fight me on this."

Will let one pencil fall from his mouth and resumed the whale sounds.

"Jesus Will, what can I do to get you out of the way- sex?"

Will laughed and the other pencil fell too. Nico threw an eraser at him, and Will tossed a pencil.

"Hey- that was actually dangerous!"

"I thought you, the Dark Lord, laughed in the face of danger?"

"Heal me this," Nico said throwing a pair of scissors at him.

"Before this escalates more, let's try to patch this up," Will said throwing a roll of tape back.

"You are so annoying."

"But we're so attached," Will said throwing a paper clip.

"Minus five for poor punmanship."

Will kept peltering him with paper clips and Nico ignored him so diligently that he nearly didn't notice the pair of eyes that materialised in the doorframe.

"Hey," Nico said. "Come in Rosh, what's wrong?"

Roshanak pushed the door open a bit more and came in. She stepped carefully and she was wearing pyjamas covered in polka-dots and a ratty t-shirt with the Coca Cola logo on it.

"Can't sleep?" Will asked her.

"No, it's not that," Roshanak said. "I was just waiting to talk to you two alone."

"Okay," Will said. Roshanak stood before them, hands folded in front of her. Her nails were painted midnight blue- the latest colour Nico had bought her. Where Teresa was obsessed with earrings and needed to be able to tug on them to think things through, Roshanak needed her nails painted to feel whole.

"It's about the adoption hearing," Roshanak said. Nico's heart fell right through his also-freefalling stomach. No way. Was she having second thoughts?

"It's not that I want to cancel it," Roshanak said. "At all. It's just that I want to modify it."

"Could you elaborate?" Will asked.

"Well," Roshanak said. "It doesn't take a genius to figure it out, but all the kids have an Italian first name and your last name. You know, to make them both of yours…"

"Right," Nico said. "But Daniel had a name before he came to us and he kept it, Rosh, it's not a problem…"

"No, that's the thing," Roshanak said. "Roshanak's not even my real name, I just picked it for Camp. I want you two to name me like the others."

Nico was a bit too stunned to reply and judging by Will's silence, so was he.

"I know that you guys are busy and have a thousand things to do and that the hearing's only in two days, and this is really petty after all…" Roshanak said. Her voice caught in her throat and tears sprung up in her eyes. "But my first dad didn't even tough out the first year of my life and now I get two good ones and I really, really can't believe it. And I wish I'd been here for even longer, and it doesn't make up for it but if you could name me like I was really yours, that would… that would mean a lot."

Will held out a hand and pulled Rosh into his arms instantly. She sat down on his knee and curled up against him as if she was a little girl, or as if she'd picked up the habit when she was. It was a far cry from when she'd come back from Camp with Teresa. She hadn't trusted Nico and Will farther than she could throw them (in typical child-of-Athena fashion). She'd been skeptical of everything and so overly polite that Nico thought he'd dialed a 1-800 number every time they had a conversation. She accepted the minimal ammount of food and clothes and literally anything from them, as if she were counting her debts. She hadn't fully unpacked her camp bags for weeks, and when Nico had told her that he knew she was doing that in case she wanted to leave... well, he'd apparently poked a sore spot, since that escalated into one of the worst fights he'd ever had with a kid. Still, Nico hadn't been angry at her when she'd told him that she was here for Teresa and Teresa alone, that Nico and Will could never be her real parents, that they shouldn't even pretend to just care, that they were wrong about being able to make families out of nothing and bits and pieces, that she didn't want to pretend that they could, or that she needed them... How could he be angry? He'd bitten and flared whenever people had tried to reach out to him as a kid. It couldn't be Rosh's fault that she'd been made to feel terminally unwanted. It was a happy kind of miracle to see her now, curled up with Will.

"Rosh, you don't need to cry," Will said. "It would be our pleasure to name you."

"It'd be an honour," Nico said. "And we don't need to do anything to make you our daughter, because you already are, Rosh."

"You are ours as much as Teresa and Catalina and Francesca and Daniel and Emilia are," Will said. "I promise. All that that paper's going to do is change our taxes."

Roshanak laughed and wiped at her eyes. Nico took her hand.

"It doesn't matter that we only met when you were a bit older," Nico said. "It doesn't change a thing."

Roshanak nodded again.

"But you are going to be harder to name, because we know you more than we knew the babies," Will said. "Alright, let's brainstorm, Nico…"

"Well, we nearly named Teresa 'Sofia', so that's out," Nico said.

"Raffaela was always one of my favourites," Will said.

"But then my initials won't change," Roshanak said.

"True," Nico said. "Edita?"

"Super pretty," Will said.

"Actually, no. Too… polite," Nico said. Will laughed, but it was true.

"Beatrix has some spunk to it," Will said.

"Liliana?"

"Clara?"

"Alessandra?"

"Juliette?"

"I got it," Nico said. "Lucia."

"Lucia," Will said. "Lucia Solace. Lucia and Teresa. Lucia, Emilia, Daniel, Teresa, Francesca and Catalina… Lucia Roshanak Solace?"

"I think that works," Nico said.

"I like Lucia too," Will said. "Roshanak, what do you think of that?"

"I don't think I want you to call me Roshanak anymore," she said with a smile splitting her face.