Shadows Chasing Shadows

by AelysAlthea

SEQUEL to A Series of Firsts - Nico and Will had it all. Since leaving Camp, life had settled. It had eased, become comfortable, even if in many ways that comfort was slightly manic. But of course it couldn't last long. Peace never did, not for a demigod. When a quest goes wrong, Nico finds that his perfect life hangs by a thread, the likes of which can only be maintained if...

11. Chapter 11 - Settling

A/N: I feel like this chapter should have been posted at Christmas *sigh*. But I'm not that cruel. I won't hold out that long :)
After what felt like a very, very big explosion of the last few chapters, I hope you don't mind that this one tapers down a little bit. Sort of a come-down. Hope you still like it.

Chapter 11: Settling

Snow was falling but Will didn't mind. If anything, he found that it added a nice sort of ambiance to the winter scene, the road ice slick and the air spotted with light sprinkles. Yet it was devoid of a sharp wind that would turn the pristine perfection of the surrounds, of the snow-heaped sidewalk, into a freezing ice brick. It was just cold enough to instil a chill despite two jackets, a scarf, a hat and gloves.

But Will didn't mind. He didn't mind a lot of what would usually irritate him these days.

Two weeks after the battle against the Colchian Dragon, after Scylla had been defeated, Will was still riding upon something of a high. A high that had absolutely nothing to do with Christmas, though for the first time in years he found he could almost get into the festive season. It didn't even have all that much to do with defeating the monsters with barely any injuries, for in reality they had been substantial – there had been more on his team than he'd realised, what with Jason suffering a concussion, Reyna's arm fractured in three different places and Kayla succumbing to multiple broken ribs and muscular strains from falling from her tree.

That was to say nothing of those in the other team. Annabeth had downplayed their severity, likely as a means to avoid worrying him when she had graciously taken the time to message him as to their friends' status. Hazel had been unconscious for a full two days, Leo's broken wrist had actually been a brutally broken arm, while each of the rest of them appeared to have accumulated their own range of injuries and afflictions, alongside a newfound fear of water – Percy wasn't the only one who would be set to challenging himself in such a regard in future as he had struggled to so many years before. Thalia hadn't had a shower for a whole week after the fight.

But they'd all survived. They'd survived and little the worse for wear, all things considered. Injuries were patched up and their healing accelerated with ambrosia, and little more than the shadow of a bruise or the cuff bandage that Will no longer insisted Leo wear but he continued to anyway remained of the incidents.

Will's joviality persisted, and it was all because of Nico.

Things weren't as they had been before Nico had left. They weren't picture perfect – if Will's and Nico's relationship had ever been so in the first place – and it wasn't all an easy breeze. But it was a sure sight better than what it had been. So vastly better that it was almost unrecognisable. Nico wanted Will, he wanted to be with Will, and Will would be damned if he'd let any misguided hesitancy on Nico's part stop them from fulfilling that being.

Yes, Nico was still reluctant to be touched at times, but he'd never been all that fond of it before. Yes, they still argued, Nico still called him an idiot, but when had he ever not? And yes, at times he seemed to fall into melancholy when he looked at his friends, or at Will when he thought Will didn't notice, and seemed to struggle to bite back words of fear, of weariness and pleading that they just leave because it was too dangerous. As if such an argument would ever sway any of them.

But Nico had said he'd loved him. It had been in the heat of the moment, in a burst of uncontrollable emotion that Will had never witnessed from Nico before, but he'd still said it. And though he hadn't yet repeated it, Nico hadn't rescinded his words. Will didn't really expect to be told again, but he didn't need to be. Nico loved him, and he would always remember the exact sound of those words, the ring of his voice as he'd uttered them with absolute sincerity.

Things were certainly better in that regard. Even better still because finally, finally, Nico seemed to accept that he couldn't make Will leave. Things weren't perfect and they likely never would be, but they were certainly drifting close in Will's opinion. Even if the looming presence of the Echidna's children still hounding after Nico and Hazel was a constant reminder of the danger to their very existence.

But not now. Not at this very moment, Will thought, and he was content in that fact. He was almost entirely confident that Nico and Hazel were not, at that very moment, being chased by monsters. Even if they were, even if a threat did arise, they had support. Annabeth and Percy, Jason and Piper, Leo and Calypso, his brother and sister and Thalia, Frank who he had barely seen leave Hazel's side in weeks, and Reyna who appeared to have become something of Nico's shadowing bodyguard. If Will and Nico went out on a scouting mission, shadow travelling to a speculated site of monster activity, it was almost always with Reyna in tow. Far from becoming disgruntled for the additional accompaniment, Will was quite happy to have the extra support. Reyna was a demon with her spear and dagger. Who wouldn't want the ex-praetor at their back?

Still, content as he was, Will would like to be back to Silverwater as soon as possible. He'd taken a flight to New York, resisting Nico's attempts to shadow travel him there directly because why push him to weary himself when he didn't have to? Will had never and would never like the idea of Nico shadow travelling. Even if it did cut about an hour and a half out of his travel time, to say nothing of that to Burlington and thence from JFK Airport in New York to the hospital. And to make a side stop along the way, of course.

Will skirted around a pair of women leaving the Lou Ellen's Golden Nectar café and stepped into the warmth within with a sigh. The dark walls and the crackling fireplace seemed to emit heat as readily as the closely pressed bodies. It was crowded at midmorning, as was fairly customary for the little café, but Will found he didn't much care that he had to wait in a queue of idling patrons for a kick of caffeine. He nodded towards Mina at the register who was apparently working the morning shift that day as he fell into line.

Only to have his name called from behind the counter in an overloud shout. "Will!"

Glancing upwards, Will caught sight of Lou Ellen half standing from what he had come to recognise as being the 'staff table' seated behind the counter. In actuality, it was as much for Lou Ellen to sit at herself and invite particularly close friends for a drink and a chat when they visited her café as anything else. As Will smiled and stepped from the queue towards them with a wave, he noticed Cecil Markowitz already seated across from her, the typical fedora he'd worn for years perched atop his head instead of the more practical beanie that most sane people wore in winter. He turned a smile with a slight milk moustache towards Will as he approached.

"How you doing?" Lou Ellen asked, rising fully to her feet and offering him a hug. "I feel like I haven't seen you in ages. That's rude, you know, not coming to my café when you work just around the corner." She scolded but when she drew away from him she was smiling, , the indignation of her tone absented from her expression.

Will grinned, noticing only detachedly that she blinked as though in surprise at his response before broadening her own smile in return. "You know your coffee's the only thing I'll drink, Lou. I've just been busy lately."

"Not too busy to hang for a moment, are you?" Lou Ellen asked, starting around him and across the room to make a grab for one of the few remaining free chairs. "Hang ten, have a chat?"

Will shrugged. "Yeah, why not."

"Swell. What can I get you?" Always on the move, dropping the chair and chattering away at a million miles an hour, Lou Ellen swept towards the counter. "Cappuccino, yeah? You still taking it with soy?"

"If you've got it handy," Will said to the ponytail swinging from the back of her head.

"Of course I do," she called over her shoulder, dancing around Mina and setting about with her usual efficiency.

Shaking his head at his friend's antics and ever-present bubbliness, Will dropped into the seat beside Cecil and finally turned his attention towards him. "Hey, Cecil. How've you been?"

Holding up a finger as he finished half of a cream biscuit, Cecil gave Will a beaming smile. "Good!" He said through a swallow. "Really good actually. Yourself?"

"Oh, come on, you can't just leave it at that. What's happened?" Will had always been closest to Cecil and Lou Ellen out of the rest of the demigods besides his half-siblings. He regretted in that moment that he hadn't had a moment to spend more time for them over the last few weeks. Or months. Or years, even. When he really thought about it, Will realised he hadn't spent all that much time with them at all since… well, since what had happened with Nico.

Then that's just one more thing I have to remedy, Will thought decisively, nodding to himself. Then he turned his attention back towards Cecil. His friend was very obviously fighting to hold back his spreading smile and failed completely when he finally continued. "I'm officially a fully certified pilot!"

Will stared at him blankly for a moment before his own grin spread widely once more. "Seriously? Gods, Cecil, that's fantastic!"

Cecil was practically wriggling in his seat. "You have no idea, I'm so happy right now."

"When did you find out?"

"Just this morning."

Will couldn't help himself. Rising from his seat he leaned towards his friend and wrapped him in a tight squeeze. Cecil gave a small, startled sound before his enthusiasm returned with a chuckle and he returned the embrace. Drawing away from him, Will clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm so happy for you. Gods, that's –"

"Terrifying, truly," Lou Ellen said, returning with unnatural speed and a quickstep to slip around behind Will and drop his coffee onto the table before him. Her own smile was fond, however, and she reached across the table to press her fist into Cecil's shoulder in a jostle that looked like she'd done it several times that morning already. "You, flying planes? With actual people inside?" She shook her head. "What happened to my destructo-friendly counterpart, exactly?"

"Oh, he's still around," Cecil replied. "Comes out every now and again when I visit Camp Half-Blood to stir up the mischievous streak in my descendants."

"You don't have any descendants. Unless – have you been fooling around less carefully than usual?" Lou Ellen raised a pointed eyebrow.

"Alright, apprentices, then," Cecil corrected, ignoring Lou Ellen's suggestion entirely. "Speaking of, you know that Hephaestus kid, Spaniel?"

"Spaniel?" Will asked, with a faintly incredulous snort.

"I know, poor kid, right?" Cecil brushed aside the thought with a wave of his hand. "Anyway, he's taken a liking to Greek Fire and has apparently made a self-fuelling contraption to store live flame. Apparently he carries it everywhere, wreaks havoc wherever he goes. Apparently Chiron wants you or me to come out and have a look at him, talk to him and convince him that 'destruction isn't the be all and end all'."

"Why would he think we could help?" Lou Ellen asked with a smirk. "I distinctly remember you sleeping with your bottled Greek fire for years."

"That's what I was wondering," Cecil replied. "Maybe as a role model, suggest that we grew out of it a little bit or something?"

"You grew out of it maybe. Spaniel sounds like my kind of kid."

"Pretty sure he's more mine."

"Pretty sure you just said he was a son of Hephaestus," Will pointed out, smiling at it friends' banter. "Not to throw sand in your eyes or anything."

"That's splitting hairs," Cecil said, stuffing the second half of his biscuit into his mouth. "He's more closely related to me, anyway. We're actually cousins, unlike you, Lou."

"That's discrimination!" Lou Ellen exclaimed, as always rearing her hackles at the reminder that her mother, Hecate, was technically one of the lesser gods. "I object."

"I notice you don't deny it, however."

"I just said I object. How is that not denying?" Lou Ellen turned towards Will. "Do you see what I have to deal with when you're not around?"

Will smiled easily, if a little guiltily. He had been neglecting his friends, and now that he could really see it he felt badly about that. He paused to take a sip of his coffee. "Sorry. I'll strive not to abandon you so much from now on." He hoped the light-heartedness of his tone was coloured too deeply by actual sincerity for them to hear it.

Lou Ellen's faintly curious gaze suggested she hadn't overlooked it entirely. "You'd better. Now spill."

Will raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Yeah, what?" Cecil mimicked. "I thought we were talking about me? I haven't even prevailed upon Will the sheer awesome-ness of my certification. You know, Will, I've only got to get up my experience, clock my hours and then I can –"

"Shush, shush," Lou Ellen interrupted him with another fist to his shoulder. It looked definitively harder this time, more like a physical punch than a gentle, friendly nudge. Cecil grumbled as she turned her full attention back to Will. "Tell me."

"Tell you what?" Will repeated, though he had a very distinct suspicion he knew what she was talking about.

"You," Lou Ellen said, jabbing a pointed finger towards him. "What happened?"

"What happened with what?"

"Don't you play dumb with me, Will Solace. You've been practically glowing since you stepped through my door."

"Oh, is that what it was?" Cecil pondered aloud, turning a smirk towards Will. "I just thought that you might have finally decided to get some decent lighting in here, Lou."

"Oi, diss my café and you can take yourself out."

"No thanks. I'm done."

"Damn straight you are." Lou Ellen turned back to Will and her expression actually softened a little, the round ruddiness of her cheeks seeming to flush with more affection. "You look happy, Will."

Will buried his nose in his coffee but more to hide his smile than his bashfulness. "Aren't I always? You used to label me 'Mr Happy'."

Lou Ellen shook her head, dropping her elbow onto the table and chin into her hand. Her eyes sparkled slightly. "Not lately you haven't been. Not after… what happened before." She didn't describe what she referred to but Will knew to what it was anyway. All of his friends and siblings referred to the 'Nico's Absence Situation' as simply 'that' more often than not. "Something's obviously changed. You actually look like you're smiling now."

"Hey, I always smile."

"No, you pretend to smile," Cecil said, leaning back into his seat and folding his arms across his chest so his shucked-up woollen sleeves bunched at his elbows. "There's a difference.

Lou Ellen nodded her agreement. "I love you, Will, and I'd put up with a lot of shit from you if I had to, but I'm going to come out clean here: you've been miserable for years. We all know it."

Will winced more for show that anything. "Jeez, you really kick a man where it hurts, don't you?"

'It's my forte," Lou Ellen said. "So tell me, who's the lucky guy? Or is it a girl? I didn't think you were bi but never can be sure with you Apollo kids. Most of you seem inclined to taking after your dad in that regard, I reckon."

Will lowered his coffee, startled and blinking. "What?"

"You've obviously met someone," Cecil said with a knowing nod. "To be honest, I'm surprised it's taken you so long. Lou and I – look, we'd never think badly of him or anything, I'm sure he had his reasons, but we've sort of been waiting for you to get over –" He bit himself off with a yelp that it didn't take much for Will to was sourced from Lou Ellen. She was turned towards him with wide eyes, piercing him with a hard glare that loudly exclaimed "Shut up!"

When she glanced back towards Will, however, it was with her smile reaffixed. "What my moronic comrade-in-arms meant to say was that we're happy for you. You seemed like you needed someone. Not to 'get over' anyone," she quoted Cecil's words with a scrunch of her upraised fingers and a skewing of her tone that made her sound just slightly daft, "but just for yourself."

Will glanced between his two friends. They were both turned towards him with open faces, smiling expressions and fond encouragement. As though they truly were pleased he had 'moved on' and supposedly found someone. Will bit back the urge to correct them both, to exclaim that he wouldn't get over Nico because he never could, and this supposed person who had made him happy was literally the only person in the world who actually could. That Will was wholly and completely committed to his love for Nico and that had never changed, that it never would changed, and that their time apart to subsequently be drawn back together had only reaffirmed his understanding of that fact.

Will's friends didn't understand. Lou Ellen and Cecil had liked Nico in their years at Camp, and even after that when they'd caught up as friends, but they had never been close to him. They had never really known him, not like Will had, or Kayla and Austin, of Percy, Annabeth, Jason, or the rest of them. And when Nico had left, leaving Will heartbroken and hurting, they had immediately risen to his defence in the most offensive of fashions.

Will hadn't stood for that. He wouldn't sit by and listen as his friends, those who stood so loyally beside him, said even the slightest bad word about Nico. Will could if he wanted to, just as he was allowed to get angry at him, was aloud to curse his disappearance and rage over his loss, but no one else could be infuriated on his behalf. Will wouldn't allow anyone else to hate him on his behalf, because throughout it all he'd still cared for Nico. Even with the damage that was wrought upon him, Will had still wanted him back, had desperately wanted to be with him, and that had never changed. It had never wavered, not once over the years. It never would.

Lou Ellen and Cecil, they didn't hate Nico. Not really. They were protective of Will, angry at Nico for the impact he'd made on Will regardless of whether it was intentional or circumstantial, but they didn't hate him. Over the years, he'd become a taboo topic amongst them, and evidently they had been holding hopes that, as Nico faded from their minds, so too would he pass from Will's.

They didn't understand. Neither of them did, because neither of them had really been in love in quite the same way before. Oh, Lou Ellen had her mortal on-again-off-again boyfriend that she was always bemoaning the existence of, and Cecil had recently begun to date Ai Miyagi, daughter of Athena, but in love? Will might be out of line in his presumption but in this case he didn't think he was incorrect. And neither of them would understand that Will wouldn't just 'get over' Nico, no matter how long they were apart.

It wasn't their fault. They were just… wrong.

Clearing his throat and composing himself, Will took another sip of his coffee. "I'm not seeing anyone new." No one new at least.

"Liar," Lou Ellen immediately declared. "You're such a liar. You so are."

"No, I'm not. I haven't met anyone new and I don't intend to."

"You have," she persisted. "I've seen just this same thing happen with my sister Olly hundreds of times."

"Hundreds? Really?"

"She gets the same glow, the same sparkly eyes and everything. And," Lou Ellen leaned towards Will and prodded his cheek. "She can't stop smiling."

As much to taunt her as because he couldn't help himself, Will let his smile spread forth, ignoring the pointed "See? Look what I told you" on Lou Ellen's face. She was right in that regard, at least. Will had found himself smiling more in the last month than he had in the entire year before that. And it felt good, not forced in the slightest.

Shrugging, Will leaned back from the second prod towards his cheek. "I don't know what to tell you, Lou. You're wrong."

"I can't be wrong. It's so obvious – the happy glow, the abrupt turnabout from your moodiness –"

"No, don't beat around the bush, tell me how you really think I've been behaving," Will said with a shake of his head.

"You know what I mean," Lou Ellen sighed. "There's no other explanation for it. Unless… is there?"

Will shrugged. "Maybe."

Lou Ellen's eyes lit up. "Really? Oh, juicy gossip, tell me, tell me, tell me!"

"Since when have you been a gossip monger?"

"Since now and since it's you," she said. "So tell me. What is it? You were involved in a delicious coup d'état that ended favourably for your party. No, you got a pay rise."

"How are those two possibilities even within the same realm of comparison?" Will said with another shake of his head. "And no, I haven't. To either of those. Besides, I'm doing my residency, Lou. I'm not looking to get a pay rise any time soon."

Lou Ellen clicked her tongue, frowned and drummed her fingers on the table thoughtfully. "Okay, how about this. You performed a surgery but you found out that it was actually a dead body who'd been mutilated beyond repair and…"

Will listened with half an ear, smiling into his coffee as Lou Ellen's speculations became more and more outlandish. A sidelong glance at Cecil showed he wore a similarly amused expression, leaning back in his chair with arms still folded and eyebrows raised. He did glance towards Will when he felt his eyes upon him, however, and there was an almost knowing light within them that made Will pause. Lou Ellen might be oblivious but surprisingly… maybe Cecil wasn't? Was it possible that he'd guessed the truth?

They spent nearly half an hour together before Will made his excuses and rose to leave. He didn't particularly want to be away from Nico – from any of his friends at Silverwater – any longer than he had to be, even with his new resolution to afford more time to his friends. He had to visit the hospital and then make it back to the airport for his return flight; he didn't quite have the luxury of dallying. With a wave over his shoulder to Lou Ellen and Cecil, he stepped back into the cold morning air.

It wasn't far to New York Presbyterian from Golden Nectar, which was one of the reasons that Will demonstrated such loyalty in his taste in coffee. Only one of the reasons, anyway. It was not more than a short walk before he was striding through the doors to the hospital beneath the luminescent red and white sign that stood like a beacon over the main entrance. He nodded at the receptionists, though he didn't recognise the two currently in attendance, and made his way to his chief resident's office. He didn't have an appointment, and Dr Malkins already knew he was taking leave, but Will felt the need to explain himself even a little better than he had hastily done so over the phone weeks before. In person, too. He owned Malkins that much. It was the reason he'd felt the need to come to New York in the first place.

It felt strange walking down the familiar halls of the hospital when he wasn't working. Even stranger to view them through eyes that, as Lou Ellen had claimed them to be, felt physically brightened. The entire world felt brighter to Will, and he hadn't even realised just how weighted down he'd been in the past years until that weight was alleviated some. He could view the white walls and bustling nurses, the doctors striding along carpeted hallways and the patients wandering with varying degrees of mobility, with new eyes. The smell of sterility, of cleanliness, wasn't a biting reminder of his duty but that of his passion, of his drive. It posed new prospects with markedly more positivity that it previously had. Will had always wanted to help people, but over the years it had become almost a chore. He loved his job but… it had very much become a matter of stepping the paces.

Now it was different. He almost wanted to jump back on the floor, wanted to put his knowledge into practice and do what he'd been trained to do, what he'd been born to do.

Not yet, though, Will reminded himself, though he hardly needed reminding. Soon, but not yet. There are more important things to handle first.

Turning a corner, and starting along that which lead to the chief's office, Will found himself pausing in step. He stopped just as Naomi Solace, idling before the chief's door, pushed herself from the wall and turned towards him. After a blink, an uncertain step, Will started towards her in turn.

He'd told his mother that he would be visiting the hospital that day to check in with the chief. He'd mentioned it just in a passing message, just to reassure her so that she could be eased from her concern as to his wayward behaviour and worries that he was dropping his work. Will hadn't expected her to wait around all morning for him to arrive, however.

"Mom," he said, frowning as he approached before that frown naturally eased. It was harder to maintain these days, he'd noticed, and felt strange to wear at the same time that his smile simply… didn't. "What are you doing here?"

Naomi stepped towards him and made to engulf him in an embrace but paused with her hands upon his shoulders. She stared up into his eyes with a slight frown upon her brow, drawing wrinkles from the lines that peppered her forehead. Naomi Solace was a brilliant woman, an incredible surgeon and Will had always known her for her analytical, deductive mind. Yet even he couldn't have anticipated her response.

She smiled. Her smile was slow and wide in a way that crinkled her eyes with more joy than Will had seen on her face in… in years. His mother tilted her head to the side and reached up to pat his cheek. "You found him."

Will didn't know how she'd guessed. No, not guessed; how she had known. But she did, and just like that he felt his joy swell once more as it had been only growing every day for weeks now. His mother wasn't like Lou Ellen and Cecil. She didn't resent Nico for his disappearance despite how it had hurt Will. If anything, she'd hurt almost as greatly. At the same time, it was with her own delight that she practically glowed. Will's smile stretched across his face and he leaned in to wrap Naomi in an embrace of his own.

"I found him."

They looked liked a bunch of idiots. Or they did in Nico's opinion, anyway. Still, he couldn't quite withhold the small smile that tweaked at his lips, even when he turned around and looked in the opposite direction. His friends' laughter, their shrieks of excitement and cries of "You're getting glitter everywhere" and "Tinsel is supposed to be colour coordinated", were impossible to ignore.

Christmas was in the air. Nico had never been one to celebrate before, even when Will became enthusiastic and had bombarded him with festive joy and too many presents rather than leaving him to his usual quiet morning routine. Even the times when he'd visited Hazel and she made her muted yet fond expressions of affection through gift-giving, or the year he spent with Annabeth and Percy at Percy's mother's house in a whirlwind of endless feasting, too much wrapping paper and the sorry kind of Christmas songs that play three months in advance for that one day a year. Nico rolled his eyes when Jason encouraged him to make plans for 'the day', suffered Piper's kisses that she bestowed compulsively upon everyone's cheeks, withstood Leo's horrifying Christmas puns and commiserated with Calypso over the irrelevance of the celebration for people who were, by all rights, Greek or Roman inclined.

It didn't stop them, though. It never had. And while Nico had always found it largely unnecessary just how enthused they all became for that one day – Gods, it was only one day! – this year was different. Not Christmas itself but… it was different just being around them.

Nico could withstand just one Christmas without making a dispute about the general joviality. Even if it was just one. Anything was better than that Christmas two and a half years ago when he and Hazel had deliberately spend the day doing absolutely nothing without realising their resolution to do so. It had simply happened as they'd both been captured by the thought of what those they'd cared about were doing in that very moment. Nico had made a point of ignoring Christmas the following year, and the one after he actually had. He hadn't even noticed it had come until it was gone again.

This year was different and it wasn't bad for that difference. Not in the slightest.

The cabin in Silverwater, that which the demigods had assimilated, had become a riot of colour, glitter and dangling ornaments, lights flashing everywhere. Nico didn't know where most of the decorations had come from, nor who had put most of them up specifically, but they seemed to just be breeding, additional hanging stars and draperies of tinsel springing to life of their own accord. Colourful bulbs looped around every doorway, around all the windows, flashing and alive even at midday. Little clay and plastic figurines dotted every available surface, baubles hanging from door handles, wall hooks, simply scattering the floor where they'd fallen.

The hated sound of Christmas songs blared from someone's music player, Michael Bublé's rich, drawling tones resounding throughout the room. Nico had to admit that, though hated as the songs were for their very 'Christmas-ey' nature, they was probably the best of a bad lot when it came to renditions of the classics. Someone – Nico suspected Frank given the sap stains still streaking his neck – had dragged a tree indoors and the majority of his friends were currently clambering over one another in an attempt to dress the poor pine in the most decorations. Nico wasn't even sure where the tree had come from, though suspected from the brief flutter of shadow-travel he'd sensed an hour before when he'd been at the flat that Hazel and Frank had likely gone on a field trip.

All in all, it was mayhem. Christmas seemed to have crept up upon them, and the day before its arrival was filled with setting the scene, monsters entirely forgotten by at least half of their number. Nico spared many a glance in the direction of the fireplace next to which the rapidly outfitted tree sat, to Piper as she wrapped an eye-rolling but smiling Calypso in tinsel, to Austin as he blew away on his saxophone in harmony with the playing carols, to Jason as he chased a cackling Leo around the room as he clutched the over-large star overhead and crying that it was "Mine, I bagsed it! I'm the one who's putting in on top!" They'd originally intended to crown the tree with an angel but that idea had been quickly swept under the rug when Thalia had scrunched her nose up at the little cupid that Kayla produced from nowhere and said how it looked like a fat, gold harpy. No one could quite look at the angel the same way after that.

All in all, the atmosphere that predominated was… happy. Happy as it hadn't been for weeks. And more than that, as Nico glanced at his sister sitting cross-legged on the floor beside Frank, cutting out buntings in the shapes of snowflakes, it was genuine. Hazel was actually smiling, a real smile that Nico hadn't seen in years. Nico would put up with any number of Christmas carols to see that.

Even so, he felt disinclined to actively participate. Percy had ceased his requests of it too after, in what Nico still argued was probably the most realistically accurate decoration yet, he'd urged an antlered deer skeleton from the snow outdoors and suggested it could be part of the nativity scene that Percy had erected out on the front lawn. Percy had quickly subsided, allowing that Nico no longer had to join them. Nico was quite happy for the fact, though deliberately feigned hurt that they didn't want to use his deer. What was a few remaining strips of flesh hanging from its flanks to detract from the merriness? It kind of made it look wreathed in tinsel. A grisly, morbid mimic of tinsel.

Which was how Nico found himself seated at what had become the Investigation Workbench of the cabin. More correctly it was the dining table, but it was so strewn in electronics, computer and phones, in annotated maps and scribbled notes, that it would have been impossible to find a place to put a plate. Nico found that he quite liked the overwhelming immersion in investigation. Especially when it made logical sense, regardless of what Leo said about how no one could find their own head in the mix of 'rubbish'.

Nico sat alongside Annabeth as they each jabbed and clicked away at their respective computers. Reyna was across the table from them, fletching some kind of arrows with strange white heads that he hadn't seen before and shaking her shaking her own at the antics of their friends. He barely spared a thought for that oddity, however. He was currently tracking what he could make out as being the route of the Caucasian eagle's flight, though it was just as likely to be a false alarm. They'd had several of them over the past weeks and though Nico suspected that the one he was currently studying was another mis-sighting, or perhaps a diversion of one of the eagle's children, he had to look. The images were terrible, however, and the satellites not much better.

"Shit," Annabeth suddenly swore at his side, barely audible over the sharp burst of laughter from Jason and Percy across the room. "Shit, shit, shit."

Glancing up from his screen, Nico leaned towards her, peering at her own. "What's wrong?"

Annabeth gestured at the screen before making a frustrated and largely useless jab at the keys again. "It's locked me out. Firewall. Just sprang out of nowhere. I don't even know why the files would need security; it was only of middling privacy and I've already cracked three passwords to get through this far. And now it throws this at me."

Nico didn't really care where she was looking that had such privacy. Or why. He wasn't unfamiliar with the situation, of monsters hacking into government or business files, leaving software paper trails that could be traced by anyone with enough knowledge of computer systems to be able to see the footprints where they stood. But Echidna's children were… he didn't think any of them would be inclined towards using a computer. Except perhaps for…

"Have you found something on the sphinx?" Nico asked.

Annabeth glanced towards him. She frowned, quirking her lips and folding her arms on the table before her. Then she sighed. "I thought I had. I'm not so sure."

"What makes you think that?"

"Just that some of this tampering. I found something that looked like a trail to Ladon, maybe, but I wasn't sure. This looks like a deliberate cover up."

Nico raised an eyebrow. "What would make you immediately think it was the sphinx, then?"

Annabeth shook her head. "It was just a thought. That, and the fact that two of the password questions were riddles. Not the neo kind but the more classical type, you know? And I've faced the sphinx before. It just reminded me of it. Of her."

Nico frowned. He recalled that Annabeth and Percy had once told him about facing off against the sphinx once upon a time. If anyone would be able to recognise the sphinx's tampering it would be Annabeth, and not only because she was universally considered to be the smartest of the lot of them, even without her daughter of Athena status. He turned his gaze back towards her computer.

The page posed to Annabeth was all too familiar to Nico. Blank of screen but for some sort of artful swirling and an overlarge padlock at the very centre, it lacked even the option to backtracking steps to escape the pitfall. Pursing his lips, Nico made to reach for Annabeth's keyboard. He paused. "You mind?"

Annabeth, still frowning at the screen, only shrugged and gestured a "Go ahead" with one hand. Nico turned the computer towards him, tapping on the keys to pull up the source code and beginning to run his fingers in practiced motions. His eyes flickered across the screen as symbols, letters and what could have been considered hieroglyphs to an outside observer for all the logical sense they made, sprung to life before him.

Barely a minute later and Nico turned the computer back towards Annabeth, the screen clearing into the plain, dry format of undressed web page. "All done," he said, before shifting his attention back to his own computer.

It took a moment for Nico to realise Annabeth was staring at him. When he did, it was to immediately feel his shoulders hunch in defence. "What?"

Slowly, Annabeth shook her head. A small smile tugged at her lips. "Nothing. Just that I sometimes forget you can do stuff like that."

"Like what?"

"Like break through a high-security firewall as though you were going for a walk in the park on a sunny day."

"Easier actually," Nico murmured, deliberately resisting glancing in her direction and flicking through the page before him. "Do you know how exhausting it is to walk around in the sun? Draining."

Annabeth only laughed, her tone abruptly lighter as she fell back to diving into her computer.

Nico was distracted once more a moment later by an incoming message on his phone. Slipping it from his pocket, he frowned down at the screen and the message presented there. Not from Will asking for him to pick him up from New York as he had half expected – and half hoped, because Will was such an idiot. Instead, the momentarily unfamiliar name of Josie Hoggs presented itself. Or at least unfamiliar until he read the message.

Report up from Fredricton that there's been an acid spill of some kind. No known cause, and still can't find any explanations for it. More importantly, though, everyone seems to just be forgetting it happened.

Mist?

Not sure if it's anything useful but thought I'd let you know if you wanted to check it out.

Ah, yes. Josie. Josie from New Brunswick, met by chance nearly a year ago. She was one of the token mortals that had the clarity to see through the Mist. She was one of the more perceptive of the bunch, too; her suggestions almost always led to a monster, even if it wasn't one of Echidna's children.

Nico didn't like dragging people into his mess. He didn't like the thought of endangering anyone else because of his actions or lack-there-of. But if he was going to deliberately call upon the aid of anyone, it was always better that it was a mortal. They at least were overlooked by monsters in much the same way that a carnivore bypassed trees. On occasion, chance would have them become unnecessarily involved, afflicted by the crazed behaviour of the monsters as they chased their demigod targets, but directly targeted themselves they most certainly were not.

Josie's words could very well be something. If could even potentially be Ladon himself, the hundred-headed dragon recalled for its acid-breath. Technically, Ladon should be unerringly loyal to the Hesperides, guarding the sacred garden and its golden apples like an unsleeping sentinel. But he wasn't. Not anymore, anyway. The compulsion of Echidna's orders had drawn him from his faithful station. Nico knew because he and Hazel had checked that garden long ago.

"What was it?"

Glancing up, Nico was mildly surprised to see Hazel at his shoulder. He hadn't heard her approach, hadn't seen her move from across the room and her sea of snowflake buntings. "What?"

"The message," Hazel asked with a gesture towards the phone in his hand. "Intel?"

Nico shrugged, handing the phone over to her. "Maybe. Not sure. It could be a lead but I don't exactly have high hopes about that kind of thing anymore."

"Yeah," Hazel murmured, eyes trained on the screen. Such was always their way, their exchange of intelligence and leads. Nico and Hazel had long since become open with one another about the messages that they each received from their respective contacts. It had taken time to become so aware, to admit that it would be easier for the both of them if they momentarily put aside their concerns for their sibling and keeping such knowledge a secret and instead pooled their resources. They worked faster, better, that way. "Are you going to head out?"

Nico shrugged then nodded. "Yeah, may as well check it out."

"Aren't you going to wait for Will to come back?"

Pausing with his mouth open to reply, Nico frowned. "Hey, what's with that tone?"

Hazel's frown appeared suddenly forced. No, not forced so much as concealing. Concealing of a spreading smile, Nico realised when it finally drew forth. "Nothing, I just thought you'd rather wait for him."

"And why is that?" Nico said, folding his arms. Hazel was right, of course. He would rather wait for Will, if for no other reason than to make sure he got back from the airport without difficulty. It had nothing to do with the fact that he always felt more comfortable with Will at his side where he could see him, where he was reassured that he wasn't doing something foolish, or reckless, or that he wasn't being hounded by monsters… Of course, Nico wouldn't tell Hazel that. Mostly because he was fairly certain that she already knew his stance on the situation, if for no other reason than that he knew she felt the same way about Frank.

Hazel shrugged nonchalantly in a way that Nico recognised as being more an attempt to mask her true feelings on the matter than true nonchalance. "You just seem to be spending a lot more time around him. Willingly, I mean."

"Is that a problem?"

"No," she said simply. "It makes me happy to see, actually. I'm happy that you're… happy." She reached forwards to tug at his fringe in much the same way that Will seemed inclined to do of late. In the moments before he caught Nico's hair in deft fingers and tied it with a band to draw all but his misshapen fringe from his face, that was. Nico didn't have any particular inclination to wearing his hair as such, but it seemed to make Will happy.

And making Will happy… it was certainly something that Nico was striving for. To make him smile, to make him laugh, to rid him of that Wrong Frown that had afflicted him. And largely, whether by his efforts or by simple circumstance, Nico felt that it was working. Will did smile more. He even laughed, seemed happier, and not only for being caught up in the festive season as the rest of their friends were. Will seemed to glow in a way that Nico had always seen him as doing yet somehow missed that he lacked in the first week that they'd collided their separate lives once more.

Things weren't perfect. They weren't, and Nico didn't expect them to be, and not only because Nico and Will had never been exactly 'perfect' in the first place. Their sort of relationship was the kind that flourished on banter and teasing, on silent acts of affection as often as open displays, on standing at one another's backs in a fight with the same intense loyalty and intimacy that they held one another in privacy. That was simply them, disjointed as it was. It wasn't perfect, not even on the spectrum of 'normal', but it was perfect to Nico. A strange kind of perfection.

They hadn't attained that yet. There was still the uneasiness, the tightly strung nerves that thrummed at the mention of a monster and forbade the casual ease that they by all rights could have assumed. Nico didn't think he could step into such a state, not with the looming threat of Echidna hanging over him, over them.

Maybe in time. In a long time. Until then…

But Hazel thought he was happy? Well, maybe he was? As happy as he had ever been, even, though that happiness was shaded by worry.

Hoping that Hazel didn't see his discomfort for her words, Nico shrugged and took the phone back from her. "I don't think I'll wait for him. Not this time, anyway. He's off with the fairies –"

"You mean the fairies that run his hospital and cure sick and injured people?" Hazel said with another slowly spreading grin.

"Yeah, them. And I am capable of being away from him, you know. Unlike some people I could mention." Nico turned a deliberate gaze towards Frank who was in the act of folding Hazel's buntings into neat piles. He hadn't missed the glances sent their way every few seconds, however, as though Frank still feared after nearly a month back together again that Hazel would disappear if he looked away for too long. It reminded Nico of how Will was sometimes.

Only sometimes now, at least, he reminded himself. I think he's gotten better with that lately. At least, I think he has. Maybe I've just gotten used to it.

Hazel's face flushed slightly at Nico's words and she cast a glance over her shoulder at Frank. The smile that spread across Frank's face as he noticed reminded Nico of a puppy whose master had finally seen to sparing it a moment of their attention. He could almost see the lolling tongue and frantically wagging tail. "I'm not that bad," Hazel murmured.

"Have you seen yourself?"

"I'm not that bad!"

"Mmhm," Nico hummed, hooding his eyes and shooting her a smirk. "But in answer to your question once more, no. I think I'll just be heading out myself. In fact," pausing only to click his computer into sleep, he rose to his feet. "I think I might just head out now. This Christmas spirit is giving me a headache."

"Killjoy," Hazel muttered, though she still smiled as she shook her head.

"That's me. I take pride in it too, thank you very much." Nico picked his scarf up from where it was draped over the back of his chair and wrapped it around his neck before adding the jacket on top of it. He didn't really feel the need to use it – true, it was cold, but Nico barely even felt the cold anymore – but Will had asked him to. Practically begged him to, really, when they'd returned from a scouting trip down in Buffalo the week before. He'd wrapped Nico in an embrace so tight that he could barely breath and declared that he wouldn't let him go until he swore he'd wear something more suitable to the weather from now on. Nico would be lying if he said he didn't maybe hold out on agreeing to as much for… particular reasons. Reasons that he was fairly sure Will guessed because he didn't let him go for the rest of the evening even after Nico had agreed.

"I don't think you should go by yourself," Hazel said with an abrupt frown. "Maybe I should go with you?"

Nico turned towards her with a raised eyebrow. "Seriously? How long have we been doing it by ourselves and you worry about going solo now?"

Hazel shrugged a little sheepishly. "Well, we don't have to go solo now, do we? We've got the support, whether we like it or not. We may as well use it."

Shaking his head, Nico pretended he didn't see Annabeth's sidelong glance, or that Reyna had paused in the act of affixing another pair of feathers to the timber lengths of her arrows. "You've finally caved."

Hazel scowled, though it was with that faintly sheepish flush still present. "You make it sound like a bad thing."

"I'm not. I'm just stating a fact."

"In the bluntest, most accusing way possible."

"True. But I'm an honest person. What can I say?"

"I'll go with you," Reyna suddenly said, dropping her half-finished arrow onto one of the few remaining spaces left on the workbench. She was already slipping her jacket on and rising to her feet. "Hazel's right. It's better to have back up if you can."

"You don't have to," Nico began.

"Would you like me to come with you too?" Annabeth asked, glancing up from her screen. "The more people that come the safer you'll be. I mean, I know it's harder to shadow travel with more people –"

"It's not that much of a problem, really."

"- but I think you can never have too many pairs of eyes and ears."

Nico shook his head. "No, it's okay. You just do your thing. Reyna and I are fine." He realised he'd already accepted Reyna's accompaniment without deliberate thought but the consideration. That was just how it was with Reyna.

Annabeth, as usual, didn't let an idea die when it had taken root, however. "I would like to come, but I am sort of in the middle of something…" Then she raised herself slightly in her seat and lifted her voice to bellow across the room. "Hey! Anyone feel like a break to go with Nico and Reyna on a scout?"

Nico rolled his eyes, dropping his head into a raised hand. "That's really unnecessary –"

"Oh dear Gods, please," Thalia said, already charging across the room and snatching up her bow from where it leant against the couch as she went. Her expression looked slightly crazed, as though the Christmas fever really was driving her up the walls. "I've stung myself on enough pine needles to last me a lifetime."

"I'll come too," Calypso volunteered. Nico wasn't surprised in the least in that regard. She hastily stripped herself of her tinsel adornments, much to Piper's grumbled objections. The glance she cast towards Nico was that of a drowning man towards a sailing boat. "Please."

Shaking his head, fighting back the surprising urge to smile, Nico turned towards the door. "Whatever suits you."

"Cowards! You're weak!" Leo called after them. "Caving under the pressure!"

"If you're not done by the time we get back, I'm challenging you all to a duel," Thalia declared. "Jason, you're in charge."

"Why's Jason get to be in charge?" Percy asked, poking his head out from around the tree. "He's put all of one bauble on the tree. We'll never get it done if he's our coordinator."

"There's nothing wrong with enjoying the journey rather than the destination," Jason said with a note of quotation in his voice. Who he was quoting Nico had no idea. "Besides, it's been two baubles…"

Their voices faded as Nico stepped out the door, turning towards the three young women – well, two women and one girl – that followed him. They were all smiling in varying degrees of relief, exasperation and amusement, Reyna offering a slight whistle to call Aurum and Argentum to heel. She never brought her two loyal guard dogs with them on anything but scouting missions, sending them away at the slightest sign of danger; their near destruction years ago had stuck with her fiercely and her worry had always persisted. "Ready to head off?" Nico asked.

"Anything just to get away," Thalia muttered, casting an almost fearful glance over her shoulder at the cabin. A bark of laughter – Nico thought it belonged to sounded like Leo's – echoed even through the closed door. "Where are we going, even?"

"Fredricton. New Brunswick."

"Joy," she said with a shake of her head. "Even colder." But then a slightly devilish smile spread across her face. "Good-o. I love to fight monsters in the snow. Let's go!"

Nico didn't need to be told twice. The second the trio of hands latched onto his arms, he drew them from the cabin-side and the general air of Christmas festivity. Nico couldn't say he was particularly sad to leave but then… not exactly as relieved as he had expected either.

Some things did appear to have changed that much at all. He'd never liked Christmas, but… he didn't really have to. There were more than enough people around him to make up it.