Hades had warned him that some deaths shouldn't be stopped but he hadn't listened. At the time, Nico had had too much hope, too much confidence, too many heroic thoughts. When he chose to save Leo Valdez's life, the end of the world began.

Through the help of Kronos after so undeniably earning it, Nico must go back in time to fix his mistake, to let Leo Valdez die so all of them can live.

But Kronos has his own plans and his own game, and Nico finds himself waking up to Bianca's face in the cold snow of Maine.

(or wherein Nico tries to keep Leo from dying during the final battle against Gaea and ends up fucking up the entire timeline and causes the end of the world so he has to go back in time fix it)

(lots of gore, pretty dark, this is your warning)

Nico di Angelo gasped back into life with a fluttering heart rate and a flurry of fear. Every cell screamed at him to jump up and fight, to kill kill kill, to make up for whatever time he lost when he so idiotically fell into the temptation of sleep.

But he couldn't. Not when Bianca di Angelo's dark eyes were above him. And only when he saw them did all the memories come roaring back.

"One demigod against all mortals to decide the world's fate. I'll promise it on the Styx, son of Hades. If you win, my son will send you back for one last chance." Gaea's eyes were wide open. The blood of his friends already stained her skin. Her smile was made of all their bodies. "Give me a show, young hero. You were always my favorite."

"Nico di Angelo, you dare ask my help?" Old Kronos's voice rang through the old chasm of Tartarus. He never was put back together, but his mother's awakening reawakened his consciousness. "If you go back, you will lose the world to me."

"Better to you than to Gaea."

"Nico, are you okay?" Bianca was eleven or twelve again, with her dark hair falling down her back and her green hat flopping on top of her head. She was above him, and passed her head he could see a dark sky rumbling with an oncoming storm. It smelled like snow. "You passed out. Please tell me you're okay."

It had worked. Holy fucking shit, it had worked. Either that or he had finally fallen to his hallucinations.

Nico blinked a few times, took in the state his body was in. He could feel every last injury he had gotten down there, the burns and bites and missing organs. The pain was still there, which meant he was still alive. He was alive and fucking breathing and he could smell fucking snow. It had worked.

"Bianca..." he reached up and touched her face, remembered that he would have to be the big brother in this universe. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"I think we can both agree on that." Kronos wanted it just as much as Nico did. The son of Hades could read anyone he came across, even when it was just the voice to listen to. "But you will need to understand why I've never sent a demigod back in time before."

"Matter cannot be created or destroyed. If you go back, you will be replacing the you from that time. You will be the age you are now, the maturity you are now. Bianca's mind will easily accept it as she was so fragile after the Lethe. But gods, titans, we'll know you're a time changer. We'll see it on your very skin."

"What will they see?" Nico questioned. He was already covered in blood.

"A red aura, so much like what you wear now." Nico could hear the excitement in the titan's voice. "You will be complicating everyone around you and I will have the advantage. I will win the game this time, son of Hades."

"I'm not going to let that happen," Nico swore. "I know now to follow fate. I'll let Leo Valdez die."

Kronos laughed. But Nico had been through too much for the cold sound to affect him. And they both knew it. They were standing in Tartarus, after all. And both could call it home. It was now the safest place to exist.

"It isn't so easy as only one death."

"Yeah, I know."

Nico sat up and looked down at himself. Everything was the same as he remembered, with the blood-covered skin and tattered clothing and crudely sewn injuries. Weapons still coated him. "What do you remember, Bianca?"

Bianca sat back with a little escape of breath. "You got hurt and you passed out. We just got off the train, remember? Our new school's not too far."

Nico looked over Bianca's shoulder, and sure enough, Westover Hall arose in the distance. Memories wanted to reenter his mind, but all he could think about was pain and the taste of Phlegethon in his mouth.

"Are you okay?" Bianca asked again. "You're really hurt, Nico."

"I'll be fine." Nico buttoned her coat up despite the dread sinking into his stomach. This girl he so desperately wanted to protect would be dead before she reached thirteen. But this was his sister, and she would be reincarnated. And he needed to save the world so that she could be reincarnated back into it.

Save the world...old screams and fires and storms raged through his mind. The world really had fallen, just like the prophesy said. But instead to storm or fire, it was both. And more.

Bianca took her scarf off and wrapped it around her brother's neck. "I can't believe you lost your coat. It's freezing! You can't just go around without a coat, stupid."

Nico's lips twitched but he couldn't smile. Not when he had to stand up and feel the pain, the raw sharp ache of his right leg, the fire running through his veins. Bianca stood up beside him without another focus on his injuries, her eyes instead on the castle in the distance.

This was it. He'd have to relive his life all over again to make sure Gaea would never rise. But nothing would be the same, not when he was years older than Bianca and every god would look at him and know he came back from the future. Things would change. Kronos might actually win.

But as he once said, better Kronos than Gaea.

"Let's head up," Nico pulled Bianca close. "I don't want you to freeze to death out here. Besides, they're expecting us."

Bianca shivered against his side. "Will we be okay here, Nico?"

He nodded. "We'll be okay here. Just enjoy it while you can."

Nico was fourteen years old when he watched Camp Half-Blood fall. He had just saved Leo Valdez, had stopped Octavian from going up in a cloud of smoke and fire. For forty seconds, he felt relief and pride in what he had done.

Then everything went to hell. Gaea was there, she was awake, and she escaped Leo Valdez in time to land on the ground again. Mother Earth met earth, and every chance they had at winning evaporated.

They lost ninety percent of the Greek demigods that day. Nico could still hear the vibrations in his ears from each death, the soft ones and loud ones and the explosion of his loved ones.

Percy Jackson had his last stand in the debris of Hestia's firepit. Seconds before he died, so did she, and the Last Olympian became the first to die.

The death stopped most demigods in their tracks. Nico went deaf for a whole two minutes, and when his hearing did come back, it was forever replaced by a constant ringing.

Demigods started their retreat to Camp Jupiter only about two hours after the start of the battle. It was that much of a blood bath. Nico shadow traveled most of them, but others took Roman eagles or Mrs. O'Leary.

The last image of Camp Half-Blood ever seen by demigod eyes was Percy Jackson's broken body on that deserted hearth, the way the blood stained his hair. His camp shirt was in ruins on his open chest, and ribs stuck out where that claw racked him open. It was a sight that would forever plague Nico's dreams, but it wasn't the worst.

Because after Camp Half-Blood, Camp Jupiter was the next to fall. And that end was one of the bloodiest of them all.

Nico was separated from Bianca quickly after their entry into Westover Hall, their policy restricting genders from meeting despite family relations. Nico soon found himself in the first shower he had had in years, washing off layers of blood and guts and something that resembled the liquid inside an eyeball. Where it had come from, he couldn't quite remember.

He still hadn't registered exactly what had happened. Kronos had indeed sent him back, earlier than expected but not too late. He was standing in a shower, hot clean water was running over his body, Percy Jackson was alive somewhere and Bianca was in the same building as him. He had a couple of months with her again, and years after that before he would have to come close to old horrors he'd never forget. And even if they lost again, it was all worth it to be standing under this running water.

(Clean wasn't a strong enough word to describe how he felt. He could see the paleness of his skin again. The scents of blood and Tartarus were finally leaving his nose. He got the blood out of his fingernails)

Despite knowing that nothing was going to attack him, once a minute he'd pull the shower curtain and take a good look around the bathroom, behind anything possible and in cupboards and under the old sink. He was used to being attacked once every ten minutes and killing every other. This peace was something he didn't think he could ever get used to.

When the blood was finally down the drain and his injuries were covered with the new clothes the school provided, Nico let himself stand in front of the mirror and look at himself, actually look at himself without wincing or flinching or being fearful that a monster was standing in front of him. His hair had gotten long and was hacked apart in every direction. He threw it up in a small bun, hoping to be able to actually get it cut soon. But that was the least of his priorities.

The bags under his eyes were as dark as his pupils. His skin was as pale as ever, slightly hued red from the old stains of blood. An old scar ran from the corner of his eye to where his ear was slit apart, the missing half somewhere on the floor of Tartarus still. But he could still hear, could still notice every noise of every disturbance. Because he wasn't going to let himself get killed. He hadn't slaughtered thousands of mortals just to die here in the easiest part of life he could think of.

Nico put a hand on the mirror just to make sure it was really his reflection he was staring at. Mirror Nico did the same, confirming that those dead eyes really were his own. But what could you expect after all he had gone through, sights seen that "weren't able to by mortals or gods", eyes wide open through Night's mansion?

It had been the only way he knew how to find Kronos. His grandfather had been scattered forever, never able to form again, torn apart to mere molecules to forever float in the old air. But you could find anything in Night's mansion, the Fates told him so.

Chaos was right below him as he stood on that cliff overlooking the mansion. He could sense how ancient it was, how old and never changing, and part of him was tempted to go over the edge. At least down there, there'd be no more pain. There'd be nothing. But no amount of pain could stop him now, for he already felt the extent that pain could ever reach. His throbbing right leg reminded him so.

"Even Tartarus had to rise from somewhere..." Akhlys was behind him, one of the last goddesses to exist merely because what she stood for was now his every breath. "This is the edge of the earliest darkness, which was my mother. Below lies the realm of Chaos, my father. Here, you are closer to nothingness than any mortal has ever been."

He almost jumped, he really had. His foot had hesitated over the ledge for some time before he pulled it back.

"I can't." Nico looked around for the third time to make sure they were alone. "You know I can't. Nothing can stop me now."

"You have more misery than even myself." Through her wails, he could hear her pride. And beneath it all, some sort of old motherly instincts were kicking in. Leave it to him to be taken in by the goddess of misery herself. "I know you can't jump, but I just hoped you would. We could both go together."

Nico shook his head. "You've been kind these past couple days, and I thank you for aiding me. But you know this is the only chance I have left. This is what all these years down here have been about."

"Misery is inevitable. No matter what, you'll always bow to me." Misery's knarled fingers grabbed his biceps and pulled him into the first hug she ever gave, and the first and only she would ever have returned. "Come to me in the next timeline, son of Hades. Tell me about how I once felt love."

Nico never would have thought he'd be hugging the goddess of misery, or being told he was loved by her, but surprise wasn't much of a thing anymore, and he could care less about where he had come from.

"You're sure you would not wish to jump?" she asked.

Nico nodded. "Goodbye, Akhlys. May Gaea never reach you."

Nyx's chariot arose from the abyss, then, made of the same stygian iron of his old blade. He could still remember the day it broke against Gaea's leg.

"I am the mother of all terrors," she exclaimed, "of the Fates themselves! Hecate! Old Age! Pain! Sleep! Death! All the curses! And now you, son of Hades, for you are the end to all you meet!"

Akhyls disappeared from Nico's arms in a bloom of poisonous smoke. It burned like acid but nothing worse, and with one drink from his pouch of Phlegethon, he didn't have to worry about it killing him. "Night, Nyx, whatever you're called. You know why I'm here?"

"Such foolishness, no fear or respect," Nyx hissed. "But my daughter has told me of you. I've heard rumors of what you plan to do."

Nico had been holding his sword up for the past year. Now he raised it higher, but no fear struck his heart. "Will you aid me in my quest? There are no mortals left living. The earth is poisonous to the touch, Tartarus is the safest place to exist. You and your children have no one left to feast on but me, and I refuse to let that happen. Will you let me into your mansion so I can try to change it all?"

Nyx cackled. "You think you will survive it, son of the fallen? Not even Zeus himself would have entered. And even when, you will need to keep your eyes open if you plan on navigating it enough to find who you search for. Listening can help you find your way through and out, but only sight will send you further in. And no sights in my mansion are meant for-"

"Mortal eyes," Nico finished.

"Or the eyes of gods," she continued. "Hades never entered, nor did Thanatos. Not even Tartarus dares to look upon the many rooms!"

Nico's dead expression never wavered. "Will you give me a ride to it?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Bravery or want of death, I'm not sure. But you have something in you that I like, son of Hades."

"Your daughter says the same."

Nyx's lips twisted into a smile. "Come along, son of Hades. I'll take you to your worst nightmare, to the place you leave your sanity."

He looked around one last time to make sure there was nothing ready to attack before jumping onto her chariot. It felt like ice.

Nico's roommate was named Philip Tinders, a boy with brown hair and green eyes who could never keep himself still. When Nico had first been introduced to him he had been playing football with another boy, and now he was kicking a hackysack all over their shared room. His feet were always bare, something Nico didn't quite understand, and his clothes were preppy but dirty.

"Finally out, huh?" Philip asked, the hackysack continuing to bounce bounce bounce off his pale foot and knee and ankle. "Long shower. Got all that blood off though, huh? What was that from?"

Nico frowned, his hand resting on a concealed knife as he watched the constant moving of that hackysack. He knew he wouldn't be under attack for some time, but nothing could stop the instincts that kept him alive for all those years. "Some guy tried to mug me and my sister."

"Oh." Philip kicked the hackysack up and caught it. "It's almost lights out. Anything you need me to show you before then?"

Nico shook his head. "It's been a long day." A long life. "I need to lay down and get some sleep." I haven't slept in three years. I'm not sure I'll be able to. But I don't have any more Phlegethon to keep me alive and awake if I don't. "I'm exhausted." Almost to death.

Philip laid on his own bed without a thought of Nico's inner monologue. "I can imagine. My first day here was pretty rough, as well. We have to get up at six every morning, even on the weekends. And you can only go out into the courtyard on Saturday's, and if they find out you do and you don't have all your homework done, you're screwed."

Nico couldn't care less, but he nodded along anyway. "Sounds harsh."

"It is," Philip expressed. "I can't wait to go home this summer. Dad's got his own island, now. I'll have a whole beach to myself and whichever friends I chose to bring."

Nico sat on what he assumed to be his own bed, sinking into it despite the fact that it was basically a wooden plank covered by blankets. He never slept in Tartarus, and whenever he did sit, it was on tumors and skin. He hadn't closed his eyes in three years...maybe he'd finally let himself...

He blinked for a little too long once, and then again, and suddenly his head was swimming in foggy peace and he could slightly notice that his body had fallen into a lying position. That was the last conscious thought he had his first night in Maine.

And for his first night, he escaped the nightmares. But only for the first night.

It took Nico about two months before he started to think that he was healing from his high levels of exhaustion. The only reason he hadn't died from it had been the Phlegethon, it's ability to keep you alive but also in as much misery as possible. He thanked the gods that the river existed every day he woke up. Because if it hadn't, he wouldn't be here now.

But keeping him alive was all it had done. Nothing more. He still had been utterly exhausted and felt it, his bones wanting to forever sleep beneath the earth for good. His eyes had always burned. Every breath had felt like the fire he ingested. But by his second month, he was getting better.

Nico woke up and trained every morning before school, making sure to keep his strength and abilities no matter what. Because he knew he'd end up in Tartarus again one day, and he'd need them to fight Dr. Thorn, and that Percy and Thalia and Annabeth would hopefully be here soon because it had been so long since he had seen Percy Jackson alive, and he just needed to know that boy was okay.

He still dreamed about how his ribs had looked outside his body, how red his blood had been.

"Percy!" Annabeth's screams had shattered the shocked demigods, and with it went all hope they ever had. Nico saw the daughter of Athena rush to the broken Hero of Olympus, but he knew he couldn't do anything to help. He hadn't even heard her scream, after all, just saw her mouth move. That explosion in his ears had been large enough to knock him to his knees.

"Percy..." He couldn't hear his own voice. He could still see Annabeth screaming beside his body, could see the monsters start to close in again. Percy Jackson was dead, and those were his fucking ribs he was seeing, and oh gods that giant is getting too fucking close to Annabeth's crying form-

He shadow traveled her away in time, barley, the two of them collapsing under the rubble of the old Hades cabin. He had his arms around her, he could still see her screaming, he couldn't even hear his fucking heart.

"Nico! Let me go!" Annabeth's hands were colliding with his arms and her hair was almost masking her mouth from sight. He had never seen so many tears, so much anger and hatred. "Let me go!"

He didn't, he couldn't, because he couldn't let her die, too. And he knew if he let her go, she'd be under that giant's foot or blown through with a sword. So he held onto her, keep her close despite knowing she'd forever hate him, soon shadow traveled her to Camp Jupiter because that was the only place that was left.

He could still hear her first words after his hearing came back, the anger in them. "I hate you! Let me save him! Let me avenge him! They killed him, Nico! They killed him!"

Percy Jackson wasn't supposed to die.

The Christmas season couldn't come fast enough. He could still picture the day that Percy had saved them back then, it that timeline, remembered how innocent he had been and the horror at seeing Annabeth go off that cliff. He could still remember his life changing.

But until that day came again, he had to stay at school, fighting PTSD every day, feeling like shit and a murderer and ending up skipping classes more times than he could count. Because at every sudden movement he pulled a knife and almost fucking attacked, almost killed, and all teachers and students alike knew not to touch him. Not at all. Not after Philip lost two fingers doing so.

Nico was slightly surprised they hadn't kicked him out after all the assaults but knew his dad must be using the Mist or large amounts of money. Yet his father hadn't spoken to him yet, but he must have noticed that his son wasn't the ten year old boy he should be.

That was a confrontation Nico wanted to save for as long as possible.

No thoughts of saving Bianca ever crossed his mind. He had learned the hard way to never save someone who should die.

Nico had been there for exactly three months when they moved him to his own room, away from Philip or any other boy he could potentially injure. The solidarity was nice, it was comforting, but he could never be truly at peace and he could never be truly safe. Not after three years of kill or be killed. Not after Akhlys and Nyx and that fucking mansion...not after seeing his dad die. Not after seeing Olympus fall.

Because it did. It fell. And that...holy shit...that raw fucking fear...

That was the most fucking scared he had ever fucking been, and the most scared he thought a human could ever be.

It had been a week since Camp Jupiter's fall. Gaea was moving fast, and there was nothing left to stop her. Nico fought alongside Artemis at the base of Olympus, but nothing could be done anymore.

His sword was pitch black in his scarred hands. His eyes had seen the death of Percy Jackson and Frank Zhang and Reyna Ramírez-Arellano. His shirt was nothing more than shreds somewhere where Camp Jupiter once stood, and his boots were full of holes from acid and splattered with blood. His feet sloshed around inside them as it pooled up.

And now the blood wasn't just red, but golden, too.

His back was against Artemis's. Her bow had broken with the death of her brother, and she was wielding one of Nico's knives he had handed over. Her hair kept getting in his face, leaving trickles of ichor wherever it went.

"This is the end." She said it for the fifth time, this time louder. "This is the end-" She split apart an empousa that came to close, coating them with monster dust. "Us gods will go down with Olympus. You, boy, need to promise me you will continue fighting on."

"Olympus isn't going to fall." Nico pressed his back against her's again as she regained her composure. "You need to just keep fighting."

"I will fall today, just as all my hunters did, just as my brother did." She jerked again with another stab. "Promise me you will continue your fight on, Nico di Angelo. Promise me."

Nico decapitated a rogue hellhound and used the head as a makeshift shield, his fist deep in its brains to hold it in place. "I'm going to fight until I can't, and then I'm going to fight some more. I promise you that, Artemis."

She didn't answer.

"You hear me? I promised, just like you wanted." Nico slammed the head into an oncoming monster, catching it off guard for a split second, long enough to hack it in half. "I promise I'll keep fighting, Artemis!"

Still no answer. He could feel her weight against his back, but something felt wrong.

"I PROMISE! FUCK, ARTEMIS, I PROMISE!" Nico screamed the words between each kill, and then through them as he continued on. "I'LL FIGHT UNTIL I HAVE NO BONES LEFT! I'LL FIGHT EVEN AFTER OLYMPUS COLLAPSES! I'LL FIGHT UNTIL WE BOTH DIE, ARTEMIS!"

His breathing was ragged. When he finally got the chance to glance behind him, he saw why she had never been able to answer him. A sword had been stabbed upward through her jaw, poking out above what once was her nose. Her face was covered in golden ichor, and there would have been no way she would still be alive if she was mortal.

But she wasn't. Artemis was continuing to fight on without a face, and when he looked, now without a knife. Her bare hands tore monsters apart, pushed them far enough aside, threw them into each other's weapons and clusters. She kept fighting, just like he had promised to do. But nothing in her showed that she would survive.

"I'm going to keep fighting," Nico whispered, now, his breaths ruining his words. "I promise, Artemis. So you can give up if you want. You can die. I'll keep fighting."

Something in his words took whatever energy, whatever soul she had. Maybe it was something in the Old Laws, maybe it was just her will disappearing. Whatever the case, the goddess Artemis of the moon and hunt died with only his words as comfort.

But he did as he promised. He kept fighting on, killed hundreds of monsters, even destroyed a giant or two. But that wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Because Gaea's forces were through Olympus, and the gates had fallen, and the whole ground shook when Zeus also died.

All demigods and monsters alike stopped in their tracks. No one dared utter a breath. It was like all air had been sucked out from around them, like they had not even a beating heart left to fight on with. Then Olympus started to crumble.

"FUCKING RUN!"

The day of that dance finally came. Nico made sure he had all his weapons, made sure Bianca was always in his sight and kept his eyes out for Dr. Thorn and Percy Jackson. Eventually, he found himself sitting on those bleachers, Bianca next to him as they caught up on everything they had missed the past week. They were only allowed to see each other on Sundays.

"I only need the figurine for Hades," Nico said as he showed Bianca a deck of Mythomagic cards he had swiped from Philip. He needed her to try and get that statue on her quest. He needed her to die how she was supposed to.

Sending his sister to die broke whatever he had left to fucking break inside.

"Maybe you'll get it for Christmas." Bianca smiled up at him, her brown eyes bright and happy, and holy shit she'd be dead soon. He could feel the aura of it around her.

Nico still hadn't smiled. He couldn't. He'd never be able to. "Yeah, maybe."

Bianca looked around the gym, her smile fading when she saw Dr. Thorn not too far away. "Hey, Neeks?"

"Yeah?"

"Does Dr. Thorn ever give you bad vibes?" she asked. "Because...I don't know what it is...but my instincts are telling me something's up with him."

Nico grabbed her hand and gave it a small squeeze. She was the only one he could stand to touch. "Just don't go anywhere alone with him, okay? Promise me."

She nodded. "I promise."

They sat in silence for another minute or so before she clung to his hand even tighter. "Hey, Nico?"

"Hm?"

"I know we don't have anyone...we only have each other...so you were just forced to take care of me and I'm probably a burden and I just wanted to say that I'm sorry," Bianca stuttered. "Because you're only seventeen and I go to you with everything because I don't have anyone else to go to and I feel horrible-"

"Bi, Bi, you're not a burden." Nico wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "You're my little sister...I'm thankful to be able to take care of you. And you don't burden me."

She wiped at her eyes. "Promise?"

"Absolutely."

Nico's blood seemed to run cold, then. He looked up to see that Dr. Thorn was closer than before, those cold eyes never leaving his new prey. It was kind of humorous, however, to think that anyone would send a monster as weak as Dr. Thorn to take him down.

"Bianca, stay close to me," Nico ordered. "I don't have a good feeling. But everything's going to be just fine."

His eyes trailed over the gym again, finally landing on Percy Jackson. The sight made his heart stop, those green eyes so innocent, that body no more than fourteen. He wanted to cry but didn't, not sure if he was even able to anymore.

"Mr. and Ms. di Angelo, come with me." Dr. Thorn was suddenly at their sides. He must have learned not to touch Nico, because he only grabbed Bianca's arm and forced her to her feet.

"Don't touch my sister." Nico yanked Bianca's arm back and tried to act like he didn't know what exactly the monster was planning. "Where are we going?"

"The principle needs to speak with you." A well-told lie. "Come on, there's not much time."

He started to steer them out of the gym, which Nico hesitantly let happen after some split-second thinking. This is what happened in his first life, and it was all for the better. He didn't want any mortals to get hurt.

They eventually came to the entry hall, where they waited by the wall while Dr. Thorn stepped out to "make a call". It was cold. he could feel Bianca shaking next to him.

"Nico, what do they want?" she asked, clinging to his side. "What do they want with us? Is he trying to kidnap us?"

"Just relax." Nico's heart was racing but not from fear. Instead, he was finally getting his blood pumping again after months of slow, nonreliable anxiety.

Then Percy Jackson barged into the room, his sword out in front of him. Nico stepped forward to hug the son of Poseidon but stopped himself, instead standing in front of Bianca as her personal bodyguard. His sister had seen the sword for what it really was, and had indeed frozen on the spot.

"It's okay," Percy said. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Nico didn't answer. He couldn't think of one thing to say to his old friend.

"My name's Percy," he continued. "I'm going to take you out of here, get you somewhere safe."

Nico saw Dr. Thorn come back into the room, saw how he almost attacked...

"Percy, watch out!"

Percy flung around and reflected the spike, and only then did Nico realize it had cut Percy in the first timeline. But he couldn't help it now, so he kept himself in front of Bianca and kept his hand on the knife in his pocket, because he was never going to let the world come to what it once did.