Hola, I now have 4 people on my back about not killing Sarah... Yeay... So if Sarah dies- I do too. Oh, and one knows karate and the other does wrestling. Am I dead meat or what? (if Sarah dies- tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh)
It's been one year since the Lost Hero came out. Woo-hoo! So this is, like, a celebration chapter even if it's not a party-worthy-chapter. Oh, just read!
Disclaimer: If I'm writing one, I'm not RR
X
December 5th
Doctor Squirt knocked soon and Percy was with him. Nico figured that he must've kept his cousin waiting in the parking lot, and he'd finally come to check on him.
Very delicately, as to not wake up or disturb Sarah, he got up. He quickly ripped a page from his math notes (hopefully a page whose content he'd already been graded on), wrote 'Everything's going to be okay, don't you cry', folded it, and left it on her bedside table.
Nico nodded his goodbyes to Doctor Squirt and he and Percy were silent as they left.
Once Nico and Sarah had been lying down together near the forest, and Percy, Connor and Travis had snuck up on them, yelled 'ROAR' and thrown buckets of pineapple juice (to this day- no idea) onto them. Percy seemed to understand this time; he didn't laugh.
"She had a Styx day." Nico confessed. "A girl died, one of her friends. She wasn't even terminal, but just like that, lightning fast. It's making her nervous for… Whatever. She's been sick all day; she's been stuck in bed with her thoughts and nothing else. Her mom came over after 2 years of nothing, and they had a fight."
"Ah," Percy said although it sounded more like 'ouch'. He squeezed Nico's shoulder, "It'll be okay."
"No," Nico said, "It won't."
Percy didn't try his luck with Nico for the whole ride home, seeing that his cousin was in a bad mood and Nico locked himself in his room after saying hi to Annabeth and making a face at Thalia (who was back for some reason) that'd come up with a new nickname for him. He even forgot to congratulate Annabeth on the wedding.
He opened a random binder from his bag and took out a ruled sheet of paper. He scribbled down 'Be back shortly' on it and stuck it on his bed. That's when he realised he'd taken it from the 1 1/2 inch binder.
"Oh common!" Nico said in frustration. He kicked it across the room, same motive.
Nico was ticked off because of the stupid jocks at school, Miss Padma's constant reminders for her stupid emotions essay, Simone Barclay making everything collapse on Sarah just because she had to ease a conscience that should be guilty as Hades... The little things were starting to bother him, like bee stings. They didn't hurt that bad, but you still hated bee-kind for it.
He took a deep breath. He was going to go see gods –maybe the most powerful gods; he didn't know how touchy they'd be, and he didn't want to find out.
He shadow traveled.
He was near Thanatos' cave again, except the god wasn't there. Some of his coal black butterflies were still hanging around, perched on the cave's lip. Nico paid no attention to them.
He didn't actually know how to get where he needed to go. He just crossed his fingers that it was here, and that he'd figure it out before Hades or Percy or anyone could find out about it.
He closed his eyes, hoping that he'd be able to visualise where he had to go. He'd often done that to find his way in the Underworld. Not so much now, but when he'd been 10 years old, completely lost and had just… Shadow-traveled himself somewhere safe, somewhere where he could hide and not be found by Percy. His father had quickly found him and explained; but later on while Hades was busy, Nico had roamed. He knew the Underworld well enough for a mortal- too bad he'd never gone where he needed to now.
"Son of Hades, you can't go where your mind is set!" Someone called after him. He spun around and saw Hecate, the goddess standing behind me, her hands pulling the hood of her cape off her head.
"What do you mean 'I can't'?"
"Where you seek to go is veiled to even immortals, if you come you will come out but never leave!" Hecate said.
"I have to, Lady Hecate." Nico said.
"It is madness."
"Then I have to do something mad." Nico said. "You won't stop me, will you? Unless you go to my father."
Hecate sniffed with disdain.
What people didn't get about the magic goddess was that she'd been there for longer than anybody else. Unless she felt like it; you weren't getting anything out of her. She knew that, Nico knew that, and the gods knew that- so Hecate being told to go suck up was like telling Annabeth to stop reading.
"I will do no such thing. Nico, I don't want to see you get burnt by a flame whose heat you do not comprehend. I don't want to see you standing in the lines to the judgement pavilion right now."
"Well, nobody seems to care about other people standing in that line, so I'm going to do something about it." Nico said briskly. Hecate shook her head.
"Nico, you are so young but so old at the same time. You have been through things that children should not, and grown into a man that no man wants to be, but that they all do at the same time. Nico, you are unique, maybe unique enough for your plan to succeed." Hecate said.
And she disappeared, like an IM being cut, leaving Nico with those puzzle words.
Nico closed his eyes.
I need to find them… Klotho, Lakhesis and Atropos. I need to find them more than anything…
He would've settled with instincts flaring up, or his feet to just bring him on one side, but he got a voice that he'd never heard and said;
"Open your eyes, brave boy, open your eyes." It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up straight.
He did and he realised he was standing in a circular room- made of stone. It was completely closed in, like a cage with no holes, and had a claustrophobic feel to it that Nico didn't mind. Standing in the centre of it was a stone basin, with white smoke pouring out like liquid nitrogen. It swarmed around the feet of the three women standing around it.
They were all ancient. As old as time itself. Their faces were wrinkled with too many wrinkles to count, and pale, but somehow they still looked very, very much alive. Their gray hair was tied back and they wore long white dresses, and cloaks. Nico's throat tightened. He'd known what they looked like; he'd known who they were and what they did. But they still made him feel to small and tiny and insignificant compared to them. Technically he was.
"Are you the fates?" He asked. They nodded.
"You're all-knowing then." They nodded again, as if speech must be avoided at all costs.
"Then you know why I'm here."
Nico noticed that the smoke wasn't smoke like he thought, or liquid nitrogen. It seemed to be a thousand figures. Letters –either English, Greek or from some language forgotten-. numbers, Roman numerals, symbols that Nico had never seen, animals, happy children, newborn babies, sick old men, sleeping grandmothers, grown adults holding hands and sitting at tables, dripping weapons, monster heads, trophies and…
"Look up, or you will get lost. Humans can never keep up, brave boy. Your brains are not made for knowing everything, your eyes not ready to see it all…" When one fate spoke, all three voices rang in Nico's ears.
"Right- sorry- but you do know why I'm here?"
"Of course we do," one said.
"We're the reason you were here in the first place, remember?"
"So can you save help her? Help me?" Nico said his voice low.
"We have helped you Nico,"
One fate waved her hand over the stone basin and figures appeared over the top. A short boy with shaggy hair sitting at the foot of a big and ancient tree with branches crooked like wicked witch fingers. He held a small toy soldier –no, a figurine of some sort- in his hand and with a groan of frustration, threw it. It came rushing to Nico and he caught it- his fingers closing over something solid even if he saw smoke. It was a Mythomagic figurine- the last one he'd ever collected; his father.
A new figure jogged into scene, stopped nearby and extended her hand.
"We've sent you Sarah." A fate said.
Nico's stomach seemed to collapse on the spot and he suddenly felt very tired of this. Very tired of cancer, tired of always being worried about her, tired of always having ghosts waiting in line to harass him…
"Then help me help her. Help Sarah, save her. The world deserves to have Sarah."
"How do you know? We've created the world. Maybe the world of tomorrow would be better off if she died tonight. Maybe the world tomorrow wouldn't be a place for her, maybe the world tomorrow wouldn't deserve her like you think.
"Because everyone deserves Sarah," Nico whispered. "Because everyone deserves to fall in love with someone who's their best friend. Everyone deserves to have kisses that sweet. Everyone deserves to laugh and smile until they think it's frozen on their faces."
The same fate as earlier waved her hand above the basin and the smoke reformed, but Nico passed the scene in his head, remembering the colours and breezes and background noises.
Nico had been cooped up in the Hermes cabin and sent on his merry way, to fend for himself, learn how to play poker on the spot, and figure out how to separate the truth and lies in what the Hermes kids told him (for instance; demigods did not spit gumballs).
What you've got to know is that being at camp when you're under the average age- especially now that small, untrained half-bloods were most often shot down- was very lonely as 12 year olds can be scary, or jerks, or something.
Sarah was 10 too, so it was natural that they eventually ended up together.
"Hi. My name's Leela Caldera." Sarah said in a total lie.
"Nico di Angelo." He said. "Are you a daughter of Hermes? Do they just not know where to put you? Can you teleport?"
"Yes, no, I tried. Sometimes I close my eyes and I moved places but it's usually because Connor threw me in the canoe lake or something like that."
"Can you, like, read minds?"
"No."
"Can you control snakes?"
"Can you make yourself transparent?"
"No."
"Then duck!" Sarah pushed Nico down just as an empty can of spray cheese flew across cabin 11 at 4:49 in the morning. Nobody had slept yet.
"Thanks Leela! You have, like, super reflexes!"
"You get used to it." Sarah shrugged. "And my name's not Leela."
"I thought you said it was?"
"No," Sarah said shaking her head, "Leela is the girl with the missing finger over there, the one strangling Connor- yes, that one. Don't worry its okay. It's easy to confuse people here. My name is Alex."
"Okay, Alex, got it." Nico said. "How long have you been here?"
"A few months."
"Why are you here if you're only 10? The Orientational film says that demigods arrive at camp between the ages of 12 and 14 usually." Nico asked. Sarah shrugged.
"My mom and I got into a fight. She's always bossing me around and she doesn't care. 'Don't do this, study harder, study first, not an acceptable grade, Anika that will stain!' Like that's not the whole point of redecorating!" Nico laughed but froze.
"Anika?" He asked. "You said Alex."
"What? No, Nico, I didn't. My name's Anika. Alex's the one with the long black hair over there, the one strangling Travis- yes, that one. But don't worry, it's easy to get confused here, there are always a lot of people." Sarah shrugged like it was no deal. Nico looked at her sceptically.
"What's your real name?" He asked.
"Anika Caldera. Are you feeling okay Nico?"
"You said Leela, then Alex, how did Anika happen?"
"No Nico, I said she was Leela, that was Alex, and I'm Anika." Sarah said, enjoying the different ways Nico's eyes were squinting and how rusty the wheels were turning. She loved confusing people.
"Hey, Nico, can you do me a favour?" Sarah asked.
"Sure, do what?" Nico asked eagerly. "Polish a sword, scrape monster guts off armour?"
"No," Sarah said. She slipped something out of her pocket; a photograph folded in two and slapped it in Nico's hand. "I want you to give this to Travis Stoll. Give it to him, and run, kay Nico?"
"Why?"
"Just do it." Sarah said. "He dropped it and my knee hurts from Capture-the-flag."
"Sure," Nico said. Sarah loved this kid- he was so gullible and innocent! She hoped he'd stay in cabin 11 for long. But not long enough for him to catch on or for him to go to the Titan side of everything.
He walked over to Travis, handed him the slit of paper and ran back as Travis yelled 'WHAT!' He stalked over to them.
"Nico, where did you find this?" He held up a picture of Katie Gardner, horseback at the farm her dad owned. She wore blue jeans, a light top and a bandana to cover her rich brown hair.
"Anika gave it to me." He said. Sarah nearly lost it and started laughing right there.
"Anika? Who the Hades is Anika?" Travis said, suddenly very loud.
"Her." Nico said pointing towards Sarah. "You mean… It was Alex?" Travis started laughing right there.
"Nico, that idiot is Sarah Barclay." Travis said mid-laugh. "Don't trust anything she ever tells you." A few other kids were laughing, and eventually Nico did too.
"Sorry Nico, it's like a second nature to me." Sarah apologised, laughing like heck.
"I'm never listening to anything you tell me ever again."
"You'll miss the parties if you do."
"Parties? I mean- no, not falling for that one." Nico said crossing his arms.
The figures evaporated.
"That?" The fates asked.
"Yes," Nico breathed. "Everyone deserves that to happen to them."
"But if everyone strikes gold, resources will run out." The fates said.
"That wasn't my point," Nico said. "Please. Save her."
The fates were quiet for a second.
"We can't."
"Take my life," Nico said. "Take my life and let her live hers."
"We can't."
"Why?" Nico asked. "Why not? Nobody will miss me. But people will miss Sarah. They'll cry for her, they'll curse fate, they'll put flowers on her grave and they'll remember her forever!"
"And you honestly believe that nobody would for you?"
"Well maybe but…" Nico's brain had gone fuzzy. He couldn't say no to them, he knew that some people did care about him, but he didn't want to lose Sarah.
"We do not work with soul for a soul." They said. "It never prevails, as I'm sure you know."
Nico felt even worst when he had to remember Bianca too. He remembered the confusion, the sorrow, the grief, the pain… The hunger for revenge, the thoughts inside of him that blamed Percy and the gods… Yeah, he wasn't proud of those but they'd been there, shouted loud and clear, as if in Caps Lock. Nico wasn't ready to go through those emotions again. He wasn't sure he was over the first set yet.
Nico looked at the ground.
"There's nothing I could possibly do? I don't care what it is or what the risks are. Just something." Nico said.
"You plead to the fates to go back on their words. You are a brave boy. A strange boy. But still brave."
"I'm willing to do anything," Nico said. "I'd travel the world if it could save her."
"What if nothing could save her? What would you do then?"
"What I'm doing now," Nico said. "I'd keep trying. I wouldn't give up on her."
"It's not giving up. When she came to you in the Hermes cabin 7 years ago, that was picking up something. But this; this isn't giving up."
"You mean letting her die?"
"Exactly."
Nico took a deep breath.
"I've let people around me die forever. There has to be something to do about it. There just has." Nico said.
"Well, there's not." The fates said. "Lakhesis, show him."
One of the fates went to the wall and systematically, she pressed her palm to one spot. Suddenly blue strings –billions of blue strings- hung from everywhere, each labeled with a name written in black chicken scratch. Nico felt wrapped inside a sweater. He recognised the names of some famous people, some people on the news, demigods, people at the hospital… He must be in the New York residence section of things.
The immortal plucked one string off the wall and showed it to Nico. It didn't have that sort of glow like the others. It was nearly completely cut in half, and it was all bunched up against itself, lying flat in the fates' hand.
"That's… That's Sarah's?" Nico said, surprised that his words could pass through the mass taking over his throat.
"Sarah Maxine Barclay." One fate said, "Her thread was spun on November 21st 1999. A windy day with a shining sun none the less, she was born late afternoon."
Nico looked at his feet in the cavern. He wondered how the sun would be like when Sarah died.
"What do I do now?" He asked. "If I'm too much of an idiot to save her…"
"Nico, stop that." Someone from behind said.
Bianca di Angelo wore the silvery clothes of a huntress, had her hair pulled up in a ponytail, and Nico recognised her immediately. Her dark eyes looked a little sad, and the quiver on her back and the scabbard on her sides were loaded with Scythian Iron weapons.
"Bianca?"
"Stop that. You're blaming yourself for something that you don't have any control over."
"I'm the son of Hades, I should be able to do something."
"But you can't, Nico." Bianca said. "I couldn't stop death when it came to get me. Why would you be able to do any different?"
"Because I'm trained, claimed, I'm older than you were." Nico said.
"Nico, I already suspected my parentage by that point, because of the skeleton I stabbed. Trust me Nico; stop breaking your own heart. You can't do it."
Nico turned his head away from Bianca, away from the fates.
A hand was put on his shoulder.
"When I was inside of Talos," Bianca said, "I prayed to Hades. But not for him to save me, because no god can stop the inevitable. And I knew that. I prayed for my death to count. I prayed for it to save my friends. But you know what else Nico? You know what I prayed for first?"
"No." Nico said, not caring much either.
"I prayed for you to be okay." Bianca said. "For you to be able to deal with being a child of the Big 3 on your own, for you to find somewhere safe to be, to learn about yourself and who you are. I prayed for someone to take care of you. And I was granted it. Hades took you in, then Chiron, Percy and Sarah. Sarah helped you, but you can't keep people with you forever."
"I'm not asking for forever."
"But what difference does it make? For her to die now or in 20 years? She'll still die and you'll still have to face yourself."
"It seems stupid. To be scared of death." He said softly.
"But everyone is afraid of it. Ask the bravest heroes of myth, ask the new heroes of Olympus, ask Chiron, ask dad for that matter."
He spun around to face her. "Dad?"
"You have to leave Nico. Just… Keep thinking about everything that you've been told, the dreams you've had… They're always more than you think. I love you."
"I love you too." Nico said.
And just like that the fates transported him back to the apartment.
Nico dropped on his bed. He felt worse than he ever had. Worse than when Bianca died and he'd been such a 4 feet some of angst, worse than after he'd cast away Minos and realised how guilty he was, worse than when he and Sarah hadn't been around each other after their first kiss…
He trusted the fates- we all had to. But not in the way that we believed that they were fair and that they would make everything turn out alright; but he believed they wouldn't lie to him. Which meant Nico was officially empty-handed about this.
And everything else he'd ever been empty-handed about had ended in disaster.
There was a knock on his door.
"Nico, you back yet?" Thalia asked.
"Yeah." He said.
"Are you going to show any sign of life?"
"No, I'm good in here." He said.
Thalia would usually have teased him back but the girls had probably forced Percy to spill everything. Nico didn't blame him; Thalia and Annabeth combined should count as a force of nature.
He lied on his back for a long time, just staring at the ceiling and half-hoping it would collapse on top of him and take away the numbness of everything. He felt too disappointed to cry. He'd been sure the fates could help Sarah. Could help one person worth saving. After all; there had to be one person that was so funny, friendly, good and nice worth saving. Worth keeping alive, worth seeing the future and worth living their lives. If there wasn't; it made the world that much darker. Nico might now know the most, or have seen the most things; but if there were those people on the earth, he was pretty sure that Sarah was one of them.
He'd shadow traveled more than he should've, and eventually he just drifted off to sleep.