It was dead night and freezing above the Italian hills but Nico stole up the crow's nest anyway, wrapping his aviator jacket tighter around himself.

The only place to sleep was Percy's room, which he didn't much feel like doing. Or Annabeth's.

He didn't feel like doing that either.

So he spent most nights since they left Rome keeping watch and talking to any ghosts he could manage to communicate with for company.

He wished Hazel was there. He wished he could pour his heart out to her, cry, confess, do anything to make everything less painful.

But he couldn't. If she found out he was even more of a freak than she knew…

Like he said, he didn't want to lose his sister.

He closed his eyes and tried to forget but the gentle lull of waves in the Mediterranean wouldn't let him put Percy out of his mind.

He sighed, half in pain half in frustration with himself.

As much as he tried to convince himself it wasn't true, as much as he tried to change his feelings, there was no getting past the truth.

He was in love with him.

Completely and totally in love with him. And always had been.

He groaned into his hands. It was just his luck one of the few times he felt something positive toward someone, it only made him more of a reject.

He had tried to hide it. He made everyone believe he liked Annabeth, but lying only made him feel guiltier.

Lying to Hazel was the worst. He knew she was worried about him. Even if they had known each other for less than a year, she knew him well enough to see something was eating away at him.

He couldn't let anyone know how he really felt. So he was stuck, trapped, backed into a corner.

He did the only thing he knew how to. He closed himself off.

That was fate for the children of Hades. They couldn't rely on anyone else. They sat quietly in the corner, suffering alone, living or dying alone.

Without realizing it he had absently drew out his old Mythomagic deck, still in his coat pocket.

Memorizing the stats on the cards had always calmed him. And it was a way to forget and pass the time.

So he went through the deck, glancing over Zeus, Dionysus, Apollo…

Until he came to a completely different card, stuffed in with his deck.

His ADD made him pretty disorganized. Ever since he was a kid, he had random scraps of paper wedged in the deck: homework, notes he and Bianca swapped, chewing gum wrappers, lose one dollar bills.

He had forgotten he had this.

It was his old school ID. A ten year old boy in a military uniform too big for him flashed a silly grin from a square of the right hand corner.

They were passing over the ocean now. Nico caught a glimpse of his pale face, the rings under his eyes, his heartbroken expression.

"Nico?"

He jumped at his sister's voice. As he hastily put the cards away, Hazel was at the top of the ladder, crawling into the crow's nest beside him.

"Nico, it's almost dawn."

"Already?"

She didn't say anything. She just leaned against him and squeezed his hand.

He squeezed hers back. He had almost forgotten how nice human warmth was.

After sitting like that in silence for a few moments, Hazel whispered

"Why won't you tell me what's wrong?"

Nico smiled.

"I'm okay, Sis."

"No. You're not."

He kissed her on the cheek.

"I am. I promise, Hazel."

She looked at him and she seemed so at a loss that he almost wanted to spill everything right then.

But he didn't. He just wrapped her in a hug as they watched the sun rise together, enjoying the feeling of having a sister.

It made him feel like the little boy on the school ID card again, if only for a moment.

A/N: Requested by Faith and totalyteamleo!I hope you like it and thank you for reading/reviewing! Man, my heart broke for Nico this book, thinking everyone even Hazel would hate him and Hazel: she just desperately wants to help her brother and she doesn't know how. I hope she finds out in the next book so she can help him and he knows she loves him