Title: Stuck In Her Nightmares

Chapter: 11 (approx. 3255 words)

Rating: K

Characters/Pairings: Nico di Angelo, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase | Nico/Rachel, Mild Percabeth

Summary: Rachel's worst nightmares come true, and it is up to Nico to save her. Will true love conquer all, or will Rachel die in the hands of evil?

Disclaimer: lol would be good if I owned PJO I would buy so many things

Author's Notes: more detailed author's notes at the bottom


For the next few days Rachel resolutely ignored Nico, and he was trying not make her any angrier. He knew that he shouldn't have doubted her, and he was trying his hardest to make amends and to appease her. He had tried everything – buying chocolate (her favourite) for Rachel, letting her watch whatever channels she wanted on the television, cooking gourmet dishes for her every day, but Rachel refused to budge.

Nico sighed as the water from the shower head above him splashed down on him. He had tried to confront Ruby about what Rachel had told him, but she was busy at the time. Ruby had invited Nico to her apartment to have dinner, and Nico had accepted. Why not, he had thought. They could talk like normal and civilized people while they ate. But when he had finished classes an hour early and had bought Thai takeaway and some wine to Ruby's apartment, he had let himself in and came upon a sight he didn't ever want to remember again.

He had seen Ruby and another man kissing. Just like Rachel had said. On the couch. Half naked, He still remembered what exactly happened after that.

A flash of anger had come over him, and he spitefully spouted, "Having fun?"

Ruby and the man jumped apart in shock, and Nico recognized the guy as Brian from his Greek class. Ruby's eyes widened when she saw Nico standing there. "Nico, it's not what it seems-"

"What? Seems to me like you were having a lot of fun with Brian chewing each other's faces off," he threw both Ruby and Brian a dirty glance. "Half naked, I might add."

Ruby looked a little desperate. "No, Nico, stop, please="

Nico had thrown down the food he was holding on to the table, and held up his hands in surrender. "You know what? I'm done with you, Ruby. I can't believe I ever even risked jeopardizing my relationship with Rachel just for you. Man, I wish I had believed her when she told me about you and him. I'm out, Ruby. We're over."

Ruby had tried to stop him as Nico marched out of the apartment, but Nico had shoved her hand of his arm. He heard Brian saying something to her as he left, but he didn't care. Ugh, he should have believed Rachel when she told him. He kicked the lamp post at the side of the street angrily. He wasn't upset or sad or even remotely heartbroken at being cheated on. He was really angry at Ruby for cheating on him, but most of all, he was angriest at himself for hurting Rachel.

Nico turned off the shower, and quickly dried himself and his hair off before putting on some clothes. He looked at the clock on the table at the side of his bed. It was already 11 pm. He hung the towel on the back of his chair, and was walking out to the kitchen to grab some leftover takeout , when he overheard Rachel on the phone in her room.

"What?" Nico heard as he stood outside her room.

A pause from Rachel, and Nico watched as her face fell into a tortured expression. She swallowed, and nodded, before seeming to realise that the person on the other line couldn't see her and saying, "All right, thank you," before hanging up. Rachel's knees couldn't seem to support her body any longer, and she crumpled to the floor in a heap. Nico immediately walked in.

"Rachel, what happened?" He asked as he crouched his tall and muscular body next to Rachel's petite one. He hesitated as he was about to put his hand on Rachel's back, but decided to go for it in the end. He could hear sobs coming from Rachel, and he was getting a little worried. He internally sighed in relief as Rachel didn't shrug his hand away from her back.

Nothing much ever made Rachel cry. Not when any of the campers from Camp Half-Blood died, not when her mum separated from her dad, not when she had been dumped by a boyfriend (she had told him about her first boyfriend when she was 11) and she certainly never ever cried in front of Nico. This was first time she did caused by reasons other than her nightmares, and quite frankly, Nico had no idea what to do.

He tried, as comfortingly as he could, to gently pat her on the back, but did nothing further. Rachel was probably was still angry at him. She might be distraught, but she still had sense. He decided to wait a little while to let Rachel calm down enough to speak to him.

When Rachel's sobs finally died down, she spoke. "Daddy's in the hospital."

"Why?" Nico replied.

Rachel sat up a little straighter and wiped her eyes using the back of her hands, and Nico tucked a strand of her mussed up hair behind her ear tenderly. "He got into a car accident, and he's in a coma. A-and he might never wake up. Ever." Rachel's lower lip trembled slightly as she was about to start crying again, and Nico pulled her in towards him, enveloping his long arms around her.

He placed one hand on the back of her head, murmuring, "It's going to be okay, Rach. He will wake up soon." Nico couldn't bear to see Rachel so upset. She might not show it, but she really did love her father. And she wouldn't ever want anything bad to happen to Warren. He held her tightly against him until Rachel stopped crying, but she had already fallen asleep. Nico picked Rachel up bridal style, and Rachel unconsciously cuddled into Nico's chest. He put Rachel down as gently as he could on her king-sized bed, and brought her duvet up to her chest, like someone tucking a child or a baby in.

Perhaps he was a little too noisy, or Rachel was a really light sleeper (which she was), because as he was about to walk to the door of Rachel's bedroom to head back to his own, Rachel's voice drifted from the back of the room. "I'm still angry at you, you know."

Nico started, and winced as he heard what Rachel said. He should have known. "I'm really sorry, Rach. I broke up with Ruby, after I walked in on her… with the other guy. I shouldn't have doubted you, and I shouldn't have said those stupid things to you. I'm really, really sorry. Will you forgive me?"

Rachel remained silent. Nico continued speaking. "And if your nightmares are bothering you, you can come to my room and sleep with me in my bed. If you want, I mean. But not in that way, though." Rachel continued to remain silent, and Nico cringed at what he just said, mentally slapping himself for not thinking this through before saying it. He quickly cleared his throat, before leaving the room and shutting the door behind him. He groaned once he was outside Rachel's room and thought about how he was going to nickname himself Stupid for the rest of his life as he headed towards his own room.

Nico took off the t-shirt he was wearing and threw it down on to the floor at the foot of his bed. He crawled into bed and rolled to the left side of it. For some reason he had never been able to sleep as well on the right sides of beds as compared to when he slept on the left. He shut his eyes. His mind started to nag at him about what he said just now, and he was trying to get it to shut up, until he finally fell asleep.

Rachel didn't know what to say to Nico after he revealed that he had broken up with Ruby, and she was just utterly speechless when it came to Nico offering his bed to her. IF she wanted, he had said. With much emphasis on those three words. She decided to think about it in the morning, and luckily for her, she was exhausted for the day, so the worries about her father didn't stop her from falling asleep.

Her being exhausted didn't stop her from having nightmares though. She had been having the same dream repeatedly, but phobias were phobias, and you would never truly be unafraid of them if you had horrible memories of what caused them embedded deeply into your mind. There were a few special elements sometimes if Rachel had something on her mind, and this time Warren Dare appeared in her nightmares, being dragged away by a hooded figure into the fiery pits of the Underworld. The tortured screams of the billions of burning souls were getting louder and louder, and Rachel could stand it no longer.

Rachel's eyes snapped open as she felt her body and hair drenched in cold sweat. Her heart was pumping so hard, and she was biting on her lower lip so hard to stop herself from crying. She tasted the rust and saltiness of the blood from her lips, and got out of her bed. She gingerly padded her way down the corridor to the second last room along it, and gently pushed the unlocked door open. She stood in the doorway for a little while, hesitating. Should she do this? But every single time she closes her eyes, she gets all these images flashing through her mind-

Rachel whimpered as she remembered what she saw in her dream just now. She quickly walked forward, and she stood at the right side of Nico's bed, and gingerly put one leg on the bed, before slowly putting her entire body weight on it. She slowly lay down, as gently as she could, so she wouldn't wake Nico up. Hope it helps, she thought. It had once before, maybe it will again. She tried to cling to the side of the bed as far as she could, but it felt uncomfortable, so she moved in a little closer, and continued to take deep breaths to calm her still palpitating heart, before closing her tired eyes to try and get some more sleep.

Nico had felt the slight shift in weight on his bed, and he opened his eyes slowly. He saw Rachel's fiery red hair spread across the unused pillow on his bed, and he smiled slightly. So she had decided to forgive him after all. He knew that she had forgiven him, because if she hadn't, she wouldn't accept his offer even if it cost her her life. He watched as she tried to move as far away from him as possible, and then suppressed a grin as he watched her move closer into the middle of the bed when she failed to get comfortable at the side. When he heard Rachel finally settle down and take a few deep breaths, he shut his eyes too.

The next day, Nico woke up to a mop of red hair tickling his nose. He tried to bring his left hand up to his nose to attempt to rub it before he sneezed, but it was being weighed down by something. Rachel had moved in her sleep, and was now lying on Nico's left arm, her back to his chest. Rachel's arms were folded in towards her as she slept, but her right hovered dangerously close to Nico's left. Nico sighed and lifted his right arm to do the job instead.

Rachel moaned softly in her sleep, and her hand moved up just a bit, before grabbing and holding on to Nico's little finger. Nico breathed in sharply, and wrapped his other four long fingers around Rachel's small fist. He lifted his right hand again and smoothed Rachel's messy hair down into one thick lock, and gently pushed her long fringe away from her face, pushing it to the back together with the rest of her hair. She really is beautiful, he thought.

Rachel, a light sleeper, felt cold fingertips come into contact with the warm skin of her forehead, and stirred. She opened her eyes. She moaned a little as she stretched out her arms and legs, before she realised that she was holding onto Nico's pinky. She quickly let go of it, and embarrassedly turned around on the bed to face him. She looked up at Nico, who smiled. "Had a great night, Red?"

Rachel rolled her eyes playfully as she listened to what Nico said. She sat up on the bed, crossing her legs. "So I see it's back to my coloured nickname now, eh, Dead Boy? I haven't forgotten about what you said to me."

Nico sat up too, and leaned forward to look at Rachel. "You aren't mad at me anymore, right?" His face had a slightly worried expression on it, and his dark eyebrows furrowed together slightly, and Rachel laughed. "If I were, would I still be here talking to you?" Nico heaved a small sigh in relief, and watched as Rachel walked to the window in the room.

"It's snowing."

Nico looked out the window from where he was sitting on the bed. "Really? How come it didn't feel cold at all? We should have been freezing! The heater wasn't even switched on!"

Rachel turned around. "It was switched on, idiot. You forgot, the heaters here are automated; they switch themselves on to the default temperature when the thermometers sense that the temperature outside the apartment is below what it usually is."

Nico blinked stupidly. "Oh yeah. Right."

Rachel covered her mouth as she yawned. "We should have breakfast now. I want a nice warm cup of hot chocolate, and some scrambled eggs with sausage and bacon, please." She turned around and grinned innocently at Nico, who rolled his eyes at her (very obvious) implication as to what she wanted him to do.

He lifted his legs out of the bed and walked out to the kitchen, grabbing the shirt he threw on to the floor the previous night and putting it on. He opened the refrigerator and got some eggs, bacon, and sausages. He left the bacon and sausages to soak in some water to defrost, and got around to making the hot chocolate.

Rachel had followed him out of the room, and was sitting at the kitchen island looking much like a little child waiting excitedly for her breakfast. "Oh my god I've waited for this day to arrive for ages. Being angry at people is tough." She wrinkled her nose as she took a sip from the mug of hot chocolate that Nico had placed in front of her before moving on to frying the bacon and sausages. Nico turned around. "So you were pretending to be angry at me for so long?"

Rachel thought for a second. "Nah, I was truly angry at you. Don't exaggerate, Dead Boy. A few days isn't long. Besides, I never knew you needed me by your side so badly." She waved her hand around as she walked towards the stove at the corner of the kitchen where Nico was frying a few strips of bacon. She used two fingertips to grab a small piece of stray bacon in the frying pan, and quickly threw it into her mouth. She chewed it, and quickly swallowed.

"Ah, shit, I accidentally burned my tongue."

"You are so going to get throat cancer if you keep doing that every single day."

"Aw man. Then you've got to stop making your food so irresistibly good. Temptations are hard to resist."

"No way. Why don't you try and restrain yourself, Red?"

"How about no?" Rachel playfully ducked to Nico's right where the wall was, and started poking him in the ribs. She knew it was his sensitive spot; he couldn't stop squirming if you started to tickle or poke his ribs. Nico put the spatula he was holding down, and switched off the fire as he tried to avoid Rachel's incessant poking.

Rachel was giggling as she did so, and Nico was trying to swat her hands away from him with his own. "Oh gods, Rach, stop, damn it!" Rachel laughed, declared "NEVER" and continued to do so. Nico started to run towards the living room, and Rachel followed, tackling him on to the couch and straddling him, she begun a more rigorous round of poking. Nico, obviously much stronger than Rachel, managed to flip them around, and clamped her arms tightly towards the couch. Rachel continued to struggle a little, her smile fading slowly as she looked at Nico.

Nico was gazing intently into Rachel's bright green eyes, and Rachel into Nico's dark ones. Nico let go of Rachel's arms and pressed his arms down into his couch to support his weight.

Rachel was, needless to say, surprised, when Nico started looking at her so tenderly and lovingly. She had noticed the way Nico looked at her before, like he would just want to grab her and snog her sensually until she was senseless, but it was most likely just her imagination when she felt really sexually deprived, and having a fully grown male (albeit really attractive) for a best friend who lived in an apartment with you was no help at all. She had also noticed the small little actions he had done, like tucking her hair behind her ear for no apparent reason. Every single time he touched her, she had had a tingle go up her entire body, but she had always dismissed it as due to Nico's cold fingers. She realised that all those tingles up her spine weren't because Nico's hands were cold; they were because she enjoyed them. Yes, she, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, enjoyed the small but tender touches of her best friend, Nico di Angelo.

She never noticed those tiny little freckles at the top of his nose before. She never noticed how his eyes were a really dark shade of black but they had lightly-coloured speckles that sparkled, until now. Her eyes glazed over. Nico was still looking at her, and she hitched a breath. Oh gods, she couldn't do this. This wasn't allowed. She swallowed, and she lifted her head a little and-

She heard the loud rumble of thunder that rang throughout the sky, and she silently cursed the gods in her head. Damn Olympians. She closed her eyes, afraid of looking at Nico, afraid of what he would do. She had never found him so gorgeous before, nor had she ever felt like kissing him so badly. She didn't even feel this with Percy when she was what, 15? And that was the raging hormonal stage for her. Her heart was palpitating, and she started panting. What should she do? She couldn't just lie here forever under Nico. Oh gods, being in love with your best friend isn't-

The back of a cold hand gently caressed her cheek, and her eyes snapped open as the touch sent a wave of shock through her. She heard Nico breathe in sharply too, as he seemed to realise what he had done, and he quickly retracted his hand, before sitting up straight so he could allow Rachel to sit up too. The two of them sat there awkwardly for a moment, and Rachel was trying to calm herself down, trying to silently breathe in and out deeply to slow down her heart rate, before Nico stuttered.

"Uh, how about that breakfast now?"


A/N: hellooooooooooo! How's that for a chapter. One of the longer chapters, and Nico is now officially broken up with Ruby and has gotten together with Rachel! I don't know if I rushed into things a little since both of them weren't showing much feelings for each other, but I figured dragging it too long was worse (because 11 chapters) so I just thought, hmm why not? Besides, Nico had already broken up with Rachel for a few days, so it's ok? I suck at writing kissing scenes, sorry, I have the worst descriptions in the universe. But anyway, hope you enjoyed it, and reviews would be highly appreciated! Thank you! :D

EDIT: -AND THAT WAS AN ENTIRE PLOT TWIST D: wow I hate myself so much sometimes it hurts. I edited the story and I'M REALLY SORRY OK D: it'll be soon when they get together, it's just that my friend told me that Nico should develop feelings for Rachel and know about it and be sure about before they even do anything and I agree with this so I'm editing this chapter. Absolutely sorry though, they WILL get together, and I promise that. For now, just bear with me a little, and reviews are highly appreciated, thank you :)