The Chill upon the Air
The man of the cottage by the sea maintains the metaphorical radio silence for two weeks. He goes up and down from the Underworld, works diligently and for longer hours than normal, and spends as much time away from the cottage as possible. He does not go into town on Mondays. Perhaps that is to be expected.
Sometimes, if he arrives back at the cottage by the sea early after working, he will hear a knock on the door and a worried voice call out, "Nico?"
On Mondays, he makes sure to busy himself elsewhere.
One evening, he returns to find a thermos and a note set on the doorstep. He eyes them warily, then picks them up, reading the note aloud as he opens the door and moves in to stoke the hearth.
"Nico, I don't know what happened, but you can talk to me," he reads. "Hazel has been freaking out lately and I think you might have something to do with it. Please, I want to help both of you but I can't if neither of you will talk to me. Jason."
He scrunches the note up in his hands and tosses it into the fireplace. "Yeah, thanks a lot, Jason," he says bitterly. "None of this would have happened if you weren't such a stubborn, loyal, idiot."
It would, I think, have been wise for Nico to seek out Jason before assuming the situation. However, Nico di Angelo has always been one to run from his problems, which I am positive will end in his undoing, and therefore there is only so much that I can say to make him feel better.
I leave him to his despair and search for the only other hearth that I have frequented recently: that of Jason and Piper.
It is quarter past seven when the hearth glows in the Grace and McLean household.
Jason doesn't appear to be present, but Piper is sitting on the sofa with her laptop on her lap, frowning at the screen and reaching for her phone. She doesn't look up, instead answers the call and begins to argue heatedly with the person on the other end of the line. She continues working on the laptop, presumably drawing up facts and statistics and leaving the person on the other end a sobbing mess by the time she hangs up.
There comes a cry from upstairs, and she gets up, a resigned expression on her face. Her kaleidoscope eyes are very expressive, and the expression is belied by the amount of fond love and care in them.
I do not like to meddle in human or demigod affairs. As a general rule, I prefer to allow them to proceed of their own will, because I vastly prefer to be surprised by their ingenuity than force events.
So I sit and watch, waiting to see what Piper and Jason intend to do.
Piper returns downstairs twenty minutes later, having put little Rebecca to bed. She is joined shortly by Jason, who comes into the living room with an exhausted sigh.
"I swear, I don't know why I do it," he says, rolling his shoulders and collapsing back onto the couch. "I thought being a training instructor would be a temporary thing."
Piper laughs. "You say that every time a kid beats you. Who was it today?"
"Flora, one of the Ares kids. I can't feel my arms anymore." Jason turns to look at Piper's screen. "What are you dealing with at the moment?"
"Some idiot politician," Piper says, waving a hand dismissively. "They never look up their facts, it was easy. Oh, and I heard from Hazel earlier."
Jason sits up straighter. "What did she say?"
"She's dealing with it. I talked to Frank as well, and it turns out that she bumped into Nico – literally – two weeks ago. She'd been looking for a possible demigod, but it turns out that the town she was searching in was one where Nico was."
Jason freezes. "That's not possible."
Piper nods, leaning her head on the palm of her hand and frowning across at her phone. "I was surprised as well. I mean, it's possible, but I'd never think… of all the coincidences."
"What happened? Wouldn't Hazel be happy?"
"Nico fled." Piper looks angry. "Hazel said that at first she barely recognised him, and then when she did he made a break for it."
Jason drops his head into his hands. "Nico, you idiot."
"How could he do that to her?" Piper asks. "He has to know how much she misses him!"
"I don't know," Jason says. "I thought he was warming to the idea. He was scared, I think. But… I don't know. Hazel's okay, though, right?"
Piper nods, gathering her hair up into a ponytail. It would appear to be something of a nervous tick, as she continues to play with a braided strand as she thinks. "I think she'll handle it. Hazel's strong. Just… why would Nico run? How could he do that to Hazel? I don't know much about him, but I remember that he really did love his sister. Why would he run?"
"I don't know. I don't understand Nico. I might go talk to Frank, though, over at Camp Jupiter." Jason frowns. "He and Nico got on well, or at least well for Nico's standards. I'll see if he has an opinion."
"You just want to go hang out with Frank," Piper teases, although she continues twirling her braid.
"I plead the fifth."
"When are you going?"
"When's best for you?"
Piper consults her schedule. "I'm travelling from Thursday to Monday, so Tuesday would be the best. I'll be back to look after Brendan and RaRa."
"Alright. I'll take Tempest over there in the morning and be back for dinner. I'll ring Frank, see if he's free. If Hazel's okay with it I might speak to both of them."
Piper shakes her head and sighs. "I'll be glad when this business is over with. I just want you and Hazel and Frank to be happy."
Jason presses a kiss to the top of her head. "Nico's slipperier than an eel. There's not much anyone can do if it's against what he wants."
"That's what worries me." Piper shuts her laptop and flops down to rest her head in Jason's lap. "I still think we should tell Percy and Annabeth."
Jason shakes his head. "Trust me, that's the opposite of what Nico wants."
Sometimes I wonder what reason Piper believes Nico left for, all those years ago. Which reason was the one that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Piper is a terribly perceptive woman, and although she was perhaps not quite as much when she was younger, she was by no means oblivious.
A cold draft blows through the house, and Jason gets up to investigate it. It is not often that the house is plagued by the cold, particularly not with my blessing, which makes me suspicious.
The hearth burns stronger, but my presence vanishes, and I return to the cottage by the sea.
Nico has not yet returned, but by eight-thirty he is sitting in his armchair, glaring at the hearth as though it had murdered his sister.
Then, he stands and moves over to the mantelpiece, where he takes down the bowl that Persephone gifted to him. He removes the contents and stares down at it, frowning. He seems to be contemplating something, although what precisely remains to be seen.
He runs a finger along the red glaze, then stands up and searches through the books on the bookshelves until he finds several on mythology. He places them on the floor, puts the bowl on top, and then heads off towards his bedroom.
Strangely, he comes out of the room at a little past midnight and begins pacing. His hair is mussed and his t-shirt stained with sweat. A nightmare, perhaps.
He prods at the flames of the hearth and sits down, head in hands and breathing erratic. He seems distressed, and preoccupied, so much that he is unable to remain in one place for any reasonable period of time, and shortly begins pacing once again.
Eventually, Nico collapses onto the couch and throws a pillow over his head. With a final sigh, he drifts off into a restless sleep, one hand stretched out towards the hearth. It comforts him, I think. From what I understand, Nico has no fondness for fire, but he does enjoy the warmth and the ideas and symbols it represents.
There is a chill on the air that night, and when he wakes he is shivering and almost certainly has a cold.
He is due to go down to the Underworld, but he continues to let out the most outrageous sneezes as he searches for his things. He buckles his sword belt on the wrong way, loses his coat twice, and ends up leaving his shoes untied because he cannot tie them without getting endlessly confused.
Persephone takes one look at him and wrinkles her nose.
"I was not aware that demigods could fall prey to such a pathetic excuse for an illness."
Nico looks up from where he is staring resolutely into the hearth, listening with half an ear to the reports of the dead. "Excuse me?"
"The common cold," Persephone says. "I was unaware it was common among demigods as well."
"I'm fine."
"Sue your face for slander."
Nico flushes. "I am. It's just a cold."
Persephone sniffs and turns, her white dress floating around her ankles and her hair trailing out, unbound. Persephone has always been a believer in the melodramatic. "If I see you sneeze, you are leaving."
Nico nods, looking back towards the multitude of papers, reports and renovation briefings waiting for his attention. They will take weeks to get through, and possibly months to implement, given the ineptitude that is the dead. However, Nico is nothing if not hardworking. He spends the entire day sorting through them, filing and sometimes completing those which have yet to be finished – from what Nico has told me, the dead are far to apathetic and lethargic to bother with fine details, which is why very few make it to the Panel of Judgement.
His work is interspersed with coughs and the occasional sneeze, which is actually amusing, although it really shouldn't be. At one point, Persephone comes back into the room, causing Nico pull the most bizarre faces trying not to sneeze.
"Oh, honestly," Persephone says. "Just go. I have eyes, I know you're trying not to sneeze."
"I am fine," Nico says, a little harshly, and Persephone gives him a blatantly menacing look.
"Either you leave now, or I send you to talk to Melinoë again," she threatens.
The speed at which Nico leaves is quite impressive, although he does linger a while to make sure that Persephone tells Hades the truth, rather than telling him that Nico was slacking off work. Not that it would be believable, but Persephone is… well, Persephone is unpredictable, which tends to bother people because it makes her difficult to trust, and Nico does not trust easily.
Honestly, I don't think he trusts Persephone at all, no matter the uneasy truce they have developed over the years.
He sits down directly in front of the hearth, wrapped in a blanket and still wearing his coat. He look ridiculous, but warm, which I suppose is the point.
A week passes, and then Monday rolls around, and Nico rolls out of bed and onto the floor with a groan and a sniffle. He is just reaching the tail end of his cold, one that had left him lethargic and unable to stand for dizziness, but he has made a new friend: the tissue box.
He is getting ready to go into town for the first time again for weeks when he hears a knock on the door. He tries to remain quite to deter the visitor, until they call out;
"Nico?"
"Frank?!"