A/N: Nico feels like he crossed a line.

I sat down on the porchchair. 'Do you already know what happend?'

'I can never be entirely sure, of course, but I have a hunch.' Dionysus made a vial of purple kool-aid and a glass appear on the table. It filled itself. 'I'll let you tell your story first.'

'So that you can scold me afterwards?'

'Just tell the story.'

'Okay then.' I steadied myself. 'I went to May Castelans' house. That's Luke's mother. You know, that Luke.'

'I do.'

'I talked to both her and her caretaker. From the impression I got she is still mentally in a bad place. I helped her bake a few cookies. She isn't allowed to do that alone, but she had began anyway.' I took a sip. 'At first, she seemed pretty happy, babbling about how Luke would come back and she liked that she saw one of his friends for once.' My cheeks flushed red. 'Eh…'

Dionysus nodded. 'Go on. You can explain later.'

'Okay. When we sat down for a second, May became sad. It was as if day suddenly turned to night. She began to cry and she wailed about how Luke would never come back.' I bit my lip. 'That's when the caretaker came in. She helped May settle down and told me how she came to be a caretaker. Hermes put her in that place, apparently.' I took another sip of Kool-aid. 'I asked the caretaker whether people had tried to cure May from her madness. She didn't know the answer.' I looked up at Dionysus. 'Eh… do you?'

Dionysus tilted his head. 'I am not sure. I think Hermes… It was Hermes, right?'

'Yes, it was Hermes.'

'He would have asked me, yet he did not. I don't know if he asked Apollo or Asklepius or any of my immortal children instead.' he thought for a second. 'He might have thought it is better this way. May gets to live in ignorance, under the illusion everything is fine, instead of having to deal with the burden of what happened.'

I opened my mouth, but Dionysus held up his hand. 'I am not saying what my opinion on the matter is. I am only saying what Hermes might have had in mind.'

'Yet, that makes sense, but then...!'

'We have someone else's actions to talk about.'

I angrily sighed and crossed my arms. 'Hm.'

'Sorry, Nico…'

'Don't pretend like you're sorry.'

'I won't, then.'

I sighed. 'I am not sure how I feel about it,' I muttered. 'Powerless, I think, and guilty, and sad. But mostly powerless. She is hurting, there, alone in her house, and I can't do anything about it. And I feel like I might have added to it.' I looked at my hands. My lip quivered. 'I kinda… I think I shouldn't have lied to her about being Luke's friend. It probably only confused her. What am I saying, I shouldn't have gone to her in the first place.'

'Do you know why you wanted to go to Mays' house?'

I tried to control my breath. 'I wanted to see how she was doing,' I mumbled. 'I wondered whether she was okay. I wanted to know if someone was helping her, if someone had done anything for her. I…' I shrugged.

'I am going to cut in, now.'

I solemnly nodded.

'Nico, you didn't mean any harm. Still, it wasn't a very well-thought out plan.' He raised his eyebrows and I nodded in agreement. 'This is going to be a horrible question, but why didn't you tell anyone?'

I stared at my glass. 'I know I should have talked about it, with you, or with someone else, but...' I sighed. 'I've got no but.'

'You should at least tell someone when you go on a trip like this. Better yet, you take someone along.'

I nodded. 'Yes.' There was a high chance I might do something like it again and he knew it. There was no use lying about it.

'All I ask is that you tell me your plans next time. If all you do is try, it will have been a step forward.'

'I tried this time. I mumbled something about being away on saturday.'

'In that case, I am going to need you to own up to it and tell me next time.'

'Tough love, this.'

'So?'

Yeah, so. I took a sip of kool-aid, knowing I would probably look similar to Dakota soon. 'To come back to what I said earlier, that I told her I was Luke's friend: I really, really should not have said that. I think she probably forgot it, but it was wrong. I basically knew that as soon as I had said it to her. Also, that caretaker, I…' I shrugged. 'I mean, I did explain her who I was, sort of, but maybe I should send her flowers, or something.'

'I can say you are probably right and May does not remember you. If the contrary is true, I think you'll find out soon enough. Now it is of importance that you do not make this same mistake again.'

I let my shoulders hang. 'It feels like the fifth time I try to get it through.'

'You shouldn't beat yourself up about what you did. You now it was wrong, now it is time to focus on the future, so you don't do the same thing a sixth time.'

I nodded. 'Hm-hm.'

Dionysus looked at me. 'I am not angry with you.'

He wasn't. 'Thanks.' I was quiet for a few seconds. 'What now?'

'You should go help with the beach clean-up. Poseidon will not be happy if remnants of fire work get into his domain.'

'Eh, yes.' There are probably people I know working on that as well. I got up and emptied my glass. 'Bye.'

'Bye.'

When Nico was gone, Dionysus made a phone appear. He stared at it for a moment. He could try to call Hermes. He could try to make him see what was going on. He could try to make him ask to let him cure the poor woman.

He could have tried if it had been any of his business. Dionysus sighed and looked at the vial of kool-aid. The unspoken rule between the gods was to never meddle with anything that didn't concern you. It only caused more trouble later down the line, when everyone was wrapped into feuds and relations.

Poor May Castellan, Dionysus thought, while he made the phone disappear. There was nothing he could do about it now.

A/N: Maybe I should explain why Dionysus doesn't get names wrong. It is because I think it is stupid. That's it, I don't have more.

I really had to dig through my brain what the Kool-aid arc was again when I saw it in my google drive table of contents. Then I remembered what I did.