A/N: This is a heavy chapter. There is nothing particulairly triggering (except of course that they talk about the grief of losing a loved one), but I still wanted to give a warning ahead.

A Minute Maid grape juice box appeared right in front of me. I might have been able to ignore it and continue on with talking to the others at the Apollo table, if Dionysus had not made direct eye contact with me. It was a lucky thing that I had already eaten my breakfast, because my appetite was gone.

After everyone was done eating, Will softly stroked my back while the others got up. 'Just call me when you are done. I'll be there to comfort you.'

'Thanks.' I am going to get you so much Italian food this weekend, just you wait.

When everyone was gone, Dionysus walked over to me. 'Good morning, Nico. Do you feel like you are in the right mindset to talk about your sister right now?'

I took a deep breath. Not really, but can you ever really be in the right mindset? 'As good as anytime.'

'Alright. If it gets too much, you need to tell me.' As always.

'Yes.'

He moved his head around. 'Alright.' Neither of us said anything for a moment, until I slowly opened my mouth: 'So… ehm…' It went through my head that he had probably waited to see if I would start myself. 'I still miss Bianca,' I managed to muster out. Then I looked back at the table.

'That is a start and that is always more than nothing.'

Usually it helped me, but today that comment annoyed me. It felt like I was under pressure.

For about five minutes, I was silent, but it was not like I was doing nothing. I was wrecking my brain trying to find the right way to begin talking about this. I tried breathing exercises, but those did nothing to calm me down. 'Bianca… she…' My mouth closed again.

Dionysus slowly shook his head and stood up. He left the juice box on the table. 'Come back to me when you feel better,' was all he said before he walked away.

After lunch, I gave Dionysus his juice box back. 'I am feeling better now.' He gave me a concerned look, before putting a hand on my shoulder. For a second, I wondered why, until he teleported us to… some other place. I had never been there before and it was black. The walls were black, the floor was black and the ceiling was black. The two chairs that were standing in the room were black and the small table that was standing between them too. I saw it all, but I was too far into my own head to find it weird.

I sat down on one of the chairs before Dionysus told me to. He smiled a sad smile when he saw me do that. 'This here is the mind zone. It is designed to look like what makes you the most comfortable to talk. I have no idea why that room would be black, but it has decided.'

Interesting. Strangely enough, I did feel compelled to talk. I took a deep breath, while Dionysus sat down on the other chair and handed me the juice box. I pushed the straw into it. 'Alright. When…' another deep breath, 'When we were younger, my sister took care of me a lot. It was not like my mother wasn't there at all, but more often than not, my sister would look after me. I… that is probably also because my mother… She had to work. Single mom, you know, and… and that in Fascist Italy… I mean, I think Hades might have given her resources to live off of too, but…' Already, my head was feeling heavy. I was veering off topic. Usually, I would go with what came to me, but today I was determined to talk about Bianca. I would talk about my mother some other time, but I did notice that I missed her even more than I thought I did.

'And… that responsible feeling… I think… grew when mom…' I shruggedand held up my hands. A few tears rolled down my cheeks. My mind told me to take a sip of grape juice, so I did. It made me calm down a little. 'She used to stick by my side in the Lotus Hotel, and even more so while we were in military school. She would listen to my ramblings, sit with me during most breaks, comfort me… She… she wanted to take care of me. Because it felt like it was us against the world.' You destroyed your sister, Nico. Did you ever love her back? I tried to ignore the voice. More tears came. 'Then… we were found. But… before we were taken to camp half-blood…' I sobbed a few times. It felt like an arrow pierced through my heart. '...We… Artemis,' I peeped. Well, now you know how hurt your sister felt all the time. I noticed that I was putting too much pressure on the carton with grape juice. Some of it was spilling over my hand. I quickly took a sip and I could feel my shoulders relax.

'Shall I take it from here for a moment?' I nodded, while I wiped my hands on the chair. It was black anyway.

'Your sister used to take care of you, probably because your mother often couldn't. Then suddenly, she joined the hunters of Artemis. Did that make you feel abandoned?'

I stared at my hands. 'I… I guess. Yes, it did, even if it was more of a growing feeling than a big wave of loneliness, because she was still in camp, and, well, I think I thought…' I stopped. I didn't know what I thought all those years ago. But I did know what I was thinking now. 'But… I feel like I cannot blame her.' It was nothing more than a whisper, combined with my sight growing blurry with tears. The room was too black, too black… and then it became white. I was so confused that my stress dropped. 'What…'

'Yes well, as I said, the mind room is built so that it always looks like what is best for your mind. You needed the black before, but now what you need is this. Or you just needed to be suprised.'

Not gonna lie, that is kind of neat. I took a deep breath, and another sip of grape juice. 'I feel like I… cannot blame her. She was not supposed to be taking care of a younger brother and to sacrifice her entire life and childhood to that. She… she made sure I was in good hands, made sure she could still see me sometimes… I think…' I began to cry again. The room got a little darker.

'Yes, Bianca should not have to take care of a younger brother for her entire teenagehood. Yet, that does not mean that you are not allowed to feel like she left you on your own. Those feelings are more than justified.'

'I… I know she felt guilty about it.' I almost choked on the lump in my throat. I held a hand in front of my mouth while I sobbed and cried. I took a very shaky breath. 'I… she…'

'Take another sip.' Don't, don't, you don't deserve it after what you said. I took a sip and felt calmer again, or at least the lump in my throat went down. 'She… she died because she stole a mythomagic figure for me. From…' I sobbed a few times. 'From Hephaestus' trashdump. There… Ta-talos…'

'You can stop. It is alright.' I closed my mouth. 'Take another moment to put your thoughts in order.' I put the juice box on the table and closed my eyes. Alright, I had already said a lot. A lot of difficult stuff, and I… I felt guilty about some of it. I still needed to say that part, yes, it might be smart to tell him about that part.

'One of… one of the things that still haunts me…' I shrugged. 'I feel guilty about it. That… I felt abandoned. I… that feeling is just about me and not about how she must have felt taking care of her younger brother. And… and then she died… because she felt guilty about joining the hunters and she tried to do something for me to make up for it.' I looked at the ground. Dionysus was quiet for a moment.

'It is very natural that you feel guilty about that, but you should not. You are not a bad person for feeling left behind, but Bianca is also not a bad person for choosing for her own life after she made sure you were safe.'

I shrug-nodded. It sounded reasonable.

'I just have one more thing to ask, and then we have done enough for today: Where is Bianca now?'

I wrung my hands into each other. 'She chose rebirth,' I whispered. A few more tears rolled down my cheeks. 'But perhaps… perhaps that is for the better. It hurts a… a fuckton, but it might be for the better. It means I have to put it behind me and cannot be tempted to linger in the past anymore than I already am.'

'How much did it hurt?'

'...eh… I think I said it hurt a fuckton.'

'That. You are allowed to feel devastated about this. You just said something very mature and very true, but you don't have to always act like that. Sometimes, you are allowed to just let things be horrible, as long as you don't stay in that feeling of horribleness forever. I would say that it is a part of overcoming grief and you need to go through that. Nico, you never properly let all your emotions about it get out, until now.'

I did not know what to say about that. 'I mean, but...

'Or did you already tell you boyfriend about it, or miss Levesque?'

Not really, now that I thought about it. I guess I pushed it away. 'No.'

He did not reply. I sighed. 'Maybe you are right.'

'I tend to be.' That was something that I in my turn did not reply to.

'Perhaps… we should not stop. There is so much else, like stuff about my mother, and Hazel, and Jason, that all tie into my feelings about Bianca…'

'Yes, but that is all about someone else. This session was meant to be exclusively about Bianca, so that you could let everything you felt about her out. Now, you need to process what happened. It is good for today.' I picked up my juicebox and drank it empty. A wave of relief washed over me and I sighed. 'Then it's… it is done.'

'Yes. You get to pick what you want to talk about next.'

'I am going to think about that. And… talk to a few others.' He saw there was a plan forming in my head, but he did not comment on it. 'Alright, Nico. I trust that you know what to do next.'

A/N: Headcanon that Dionysus learned how to do therapy from Hestia, who talked to him when he was a demigod. Oh wait, I am the author. It's canon now. (Wait should I write a bonus chapter about that?)

Something I am trying to write into the story is that Dionysus is not exactly… the most moral god. He might do something that can be considered a bit off (like giving Nico grape juice that calms him down) because it will help with having good sessions. I mean... he is a god.

You know how I said that this might take a while? Yes that was before my body decided to overtire itself and I was stuck on the couch for a couple of days. Next chapter is almost done as well (But maybe that I'll save that for a few days, so I don't burn through all my content at once) and what it will be is a surprise. Enjoy, I would say.