CHAPTER FOURTEEN: I Got You

ALEX.

Issa and Chiron spoke for a long time. When the sun finally disappeared down the horizon, bringing all its striking oranges with it and leaving them in a coat of navy blue, Nico walked into the Big House and walked out almost ten seconds later. Issa was heard shouting at Nico before the door closed behind him, and he just shrugged.

"Amazons," he said, rolling his eyes. Then he started walking towards Alex.

When Mags had walked away, Riley shifted and fidgeted for two whole minutes before Alex pushed him to get up and follow her. Riley and Mags had had their disagreements before, but nothing they couldn't get over with a proper conversation. They'd all disagreed before - and she knew she would have to talk to Mags soon as well, but she wasn't feeling it right now. She was too tired to argue, so she sent Riley to go first. She had everyone else to talk to anyway.

And then everyone else (but Nico, surprisingly) disappeared too. Riley and Mags had been gone for less than ten minutes before Piper left without a word, looking busy, and Leo went back into the Big House (the back way), and Calypso had gone to check on Festus, so -

Alex tried her hardest not to be intimidated by the scary eighteen year-old.

"Hi," he greeted, doing a short wave.

Alex offered a smile. "Hey."

Nico arched an eyebrow. "You do realise the irony in having supposedly the most powerful warrior of all time be scared of me, right?"

"Didn't you say you were Hades' son? That's pretty powerful to me." She didn't really know what to think of Nico. He'd looked almost evil when she first saw him at the Myrmekes' Lair, but maybe that was just stereotype talking. Hades had a big evil stereotype too, right? Was Hades even a good guy in reality?

But she told herself to relax. Anyone whose second-language was sarcasm was someone she could deal with.

"Can I say, though…" Alex cleared her throat, puffing out her chest and making her arms akimbo, trying to live up to the 'scary powerful warrior' moniker for once, "what you did to those Myrmekes...I don't know exactly what you did but that seemed pretty unnecessary and too OP."

"Too OP?"

"Over-powered."

"Oh, I know," Nico said with a knowing look. "I just had to make sure you actually said that."

Alex snorted, rolling her eyes with a smile.

"But now can I say…" Nico pointed at himself. "I'm having a tough time trying to figure out why you're so protective of them. They're basically gigantic cockroaches. But worse."

"They didn't seem that way to me. They're more like...really rowdy pets," Alex shrugged, but her bragging stance deflated. "Speaking of…" she kicked at the grass a little, "you said you have all the answers to my questions. We…haven't really spoken about that yet. And my grandfather…"

"Right, sorry," Nico nodded. "I did say that, didn't I?" He rested his hand on the handle of his sword. "I can speak to ghosts. Not all of them, of course, I can't reach everyone. But while I was in the Underworld, I strolled past Elysium and someone at the fence spoke to me. He was…a champion, I think?"

"Boxing," Alex added with a short nod. Then her eyes widened. "Wait, Elysium? That's heaven, right?"

"Sort of. It's not that simple. There's tiers -"

"Or, no, it wouldn't really be heaven it's just where all the heroes go, right? And then there's the one before that, the Asphalt Fields -?"

"- Asphodel -"

"What's the one after Elysium?"

"Isles of the Blest."

"Right. So, generally, Elysium and those Isles...are…" Alex paused for effect, "the Good Place?"

Nico stared at her. Then he groaned, hanging his head.

"…ever since Will paid that Netflix thing - if I hear one more Good Place/Medium Place/Bad Place joke, I'm going to throw someone into Chaos -"

"Sorry," Alex laughed. "But - Will? Is that Will Solace?" The Apollo kids had been missing their ex-head counsellor ever since they fumbled the healing of Paolo Montes' missing ear. None of them realised that it'd been missing until halfway through the next day and Leticia screamed at the hole where his ear should have been.

"Look, I am hole-y," Paolo joked. Leticia screamed again.

"Yeah," Nico smiled. It was so startling seeing such a soft smile on his face that it made Alex grin again. "Anyway, Elysium..."

"So if that's where all the heroes go...does that mean my grandfather's a hero?" She liked the sound of that.

"Yep. Whatever he did, he's there. He seemed like a really nice guy when I spoke. He was a little pushy, though. He psst-ed at me for like five minutes and I legitimately thought there was a gas leak in the Underworld before I looked to the fence." He paused. "Most people in Elysium don't want to deal with the rest of the Underworld."

"Fair enough. But…does that mean everyone gets to the Underworld? Even people who don't believe in the Greek gods?"

"No, you go to wherever you believe in."

Alex looked puzzled. "But our entire family's been Catholic."

Nico's eyebrows rose slowly. "Apparently, not all. It's funny, too because…he'd said that he was staying with family."

Family? She couldn't think of a single person in her family, dead or alive, who believed in anything else but God and heaven. Unless, it was someone who died recently and she didn't know about it...

No, no way.

But even then…

Alex's face suddenly fell. She wasn't even sure whose side of her family was the line of Achilles. Her mom, or her dad? All this time, she'd thought it was her mother because of her athletic background, but Lolo Etto was from her father's side of the family.

She groaned, covering her face with her hands. She continued to make groaning, complaining sounds until Nico finally cleared his throat.

"Uhh...should I do something?" he asked.

"No, it's fine, it's just...I thought you were supposed to give me all the answers, not more questions."

"Part of the job," he shrugged. "But, okay, how about - any question you have, I'll answer. To the best of my ability," he added quickly, like she might sue him if he didn't add that disclaimer.

She first asked how he knew about her.

"Your grandfather. I didn't even mean to go to Camp Jupiter at all until he told me. Spirits and gods have a way of being super vague…I think it's just an old people thing. They want you to learn, or whatever. But anyway, I was visiting my dad while my boyfriend was studying for exams and while I was just checking the surrounds, I heard him calling to me from the top of the wall of Elysium. He said he'd seen me walking around and figured out I could go between the Underworld and the Overworld. So he wanted me to look for you. Just to make sure you were okay. And…"

Nico pursed his lips to the side. Alex waited, shrugging her shoulders as if to remind him she was still there, waiting.

"And I usually don't do that…" he said carefully, like this wasn't what he intended to say at all. Alex narrowed her eyes. "But I thought...I might as well." When he noticed how she was looking at him, he raised his hands lazily in surrende.r "Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out how to say the next bit without overwhelming you."

"Consider over-overwhelmed. I don't think I could get anymore overwhelmed than I am already. My ancient ancestor is the guy with the weird heel. My other ancestor tried to deal Greek demigod genocide. They were both, supposedly, white when as far as I know I'm Filipino as hell."

"Flynn Stockett was...not white, I think."

"Okay, that's one mystery solved. And now the prophecy says I'm someone's heart's desire with a fire or something. Yippee-skippee," she rolled her eyes.

"You mean - rally, shall men, to their heart's desire / worship the one who starts the fire?"

"Right. That. Whatever."

He looked at her like he was about to tell both a bad joke and a horrible truth, but then stopped himself at the last minute before he did.

"The thing about prophecies is that you never know what the real answer is until it happens," Nico continued. "We can guess all we want but something unexpected can happen at the last minute. Only when you look back does everything make sense."

Alex didn't answer. The sarcasm was getting to her. It was her perfect defense against having to take something seriously, and to hide that she was actually taking this seriously already. Too seriously, maybe. Maybe the sarcasm was only hiding the anxiety she was starting to feel. Screw prophecies, she wanted to say. Screw everything.

She crossed her arms over her chest, a frown on her face now as she looked at the ground.

"Can I ask you something? And you give me a no-bullshit answer?" she asked.

Nico didn't say anything, he just nodded.

"What happens if I just walk away?"

"Everything."

"What?" Alex asked, baffled.

"I'm serious," he said, the seriousness showing on his face. "Everything will happen anyway. If it's the end of the world, that's what'll happen. If someone's going to die, that's what'll happen too. Even if you take yourself out of it, the world's gonna find a way of bringing you back into it. And even then…" Nico tilted his head. "Prophecies know things about the people they're made for, even if the person doesn't know it themselves. They wouldn't choose someone who gives up. If you get what I mean."

He paused. Then added: "Do you actually see yourself walking away?"

Alex thought for a moment. "...I don't know."

"There's your answer."

She pulled a face. "I thought only old people gave vague answers to make you 'learn'."

"Technically, I'm eighty-nine years old-ish."

"You're what?"

"Never mind, what I mean to say is...you're not alone. Does it help you to know that a dozen demigods go through this all the time?"

"Sort of." She paused. "Yes."

"Then just think about that. Because that also means, that there's dozens of remedies and solutions, because people have gone through what you've gone through already."

"You're a little too wise for an eighteen-year-old."

"Eighty-nine-ish."

"Of course, sorry. Eighty-nine-ish." Nico smiled again. "So we can get started any time you like. And anywhere. While Chiron and Issa talk, and…" he looked around, "everyone's gone to who-knows-where. I can help you. Do you have anymore questions?"

There was something about this Nico guy. Everything about him screamed emo kid but everything else also screamed 'most sensible person you will ever talk to ever'. She felt like she was in the hot-seat. Alex thought about it. "I dunno, I guess…I could ask about why I'm so tired. Is that a common thing?"

"Demigods using their powers for the first time do get really tired. Apollo got completely knocked out when he used his powers for the first time as Lester."

"...what?"

"Never mind."

"I've been using my abilities forever, though. I mean, it's not the first time I used them." She scratched her head. "Then again...Riley suggested that maybe I only got tired when I fought for vengeance, or just in anger."

"That would make sense. There's always a trick to these things too. Curses in disguise, or the other way around," Nico tilted his head from side to side. "My sister can summon gold and jewels from the ground, but anyone who tries to use them gets cursed."

"Fun."

"Anything else?"

"Dreams. Everyone gets dreams, right?"

"Yep. We hate them."

The bluntness of his comment made Alex laugh.

"We hate them, but -" Nico added, "they can be helpfuls sometimes. Are yours helpful?"

"Sometimes? I have two common ones. The first is complete shit. It's this woman-spirit tormenting me and making me feel like crap all the time. The second does nothing but help. He's like my second dad at this point."

Nico looked amused. "Okay, we can look through the books on that."

"And then there's just the general thing about like…why am I even that important? I don't get it. Percy sounds like he should be the greatest warrior of all time. Or Annabeth, or Reyna, I've heard so much about them - I just feel…I feel like a mistake."

After a whirlwind of questions, excitement, and Nico's chill demeanour balancing her out - she was back in the spiral of confusion again.

Nico opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. He clasped his hands in front of him and then sighed, giving up with trying to be prepared. He swung his arms along his sides, shaking his head. "…I probably shouldn't have said I have the answers to all your questions. I have practical demigod knowledge, and the prophecy, and some knowledge of Achilles' legacies that you probably already know about." Nico sighed. "Otherwise, all I really have to offer is a conversation with your grandfather. And most of the time, he told me about how I should cut my hair shorter."

Alex only gave a half-smile, disheartened.

"But…" Nico said slowly, "also to tell you that you'd have to be strong. And to remember that your family's looking out for you. Always. Which is a pretty nice sentiment for anyone to hear."

They'd been standing this whole time and Alex suddenly wanted to sit down again. She didn't, for fear of being rude to Nico, who, in the pale moonlight, suddenly looked as tired and sullen as she always felt. Maybe being the son of Hades wasn't as cool as she thought.

She looked up at the sky instead, the one thing she used to do as a kid to make her feel small but in a good way. Like she was part of something. Important, but an important speck in a universe of other important specks. Belonging.

It was much simpler when she was younger. When her parents asked her what she wanted, more than anything in the world, she'd say a toy or a bike. But now? She just wanted peace.

And still. Nico's story about her grandfather actually helped.

"That…that's actually okay, that calmed me down a little," Alex admitted, hugging her arms around herself. "My family always believed in just…letting things happen and dealing with it. Together. No use in trying to manipulate the universe, you know?"

"Every demigod's hard lesson to learn."

"You think it's too late to get claimed as a daughter of Ares? Ellis is still trying to get me to stay with them."

"Probably a little too late." Nico smiled again, before sobering up. "Like I said, you're not alone. You got Ellis. You got Clovis, who can probably help you with your dreams and identifying everyone. And he could probably give you a sound sleep whenever you need it."

"All demigods have a tough time sleeping?"

"Doesn't take a demigod to know an insomniac," he pointed out.

"True. And...yeah, that's a good idea. About Clovis, I mean," Alex nodded. "We can…ask him at dinner?"

As if on cue, both the dinner announcement and her stomach rumbling happened.

"Jesus, you guys really do run on fate and coincidence here, huh?" Alex said.

"You get sick of it."

Just then, Riley and Piper appeared from the direction of the cabins. Together. They seemed to be deep in the middle of something, but it was too dark to be able to see their facial expressions. Alex managed to catch only a few sentences:

"…don't tell her…" from Piper,

And "…she deserves to know…" from Riley,

And then "…tell mine, if you tell yours…" from Piper again.

They sounded annoyed at each other.

And then they stopped immediately once they were within her hearing range. Alex sighed. Of course Riley would know when to stop, he'd been the one who tested her hearing all those months ago - stealing a measuring wheel from the engineering department at the university.

Piper stopped walking as soon as she noticed Alex.

"Hey," Alex waved, showing a lopsided smile. Piper waved weakly, and then gestured that she was heading to dinner, without another word or a look. She turned on her heel and disappeared towards the Dining Pavilion.

"Piper?" Alex called out, but her voice was too weak for Piper to possibly hear.

Alex's hand lowered awkwardly. She hugged her arms close around her again.

"What's going on here?" Riley asked, walking up to Nico and Riley.

Nico arched an eyebrow. "Just talking about the Underworld."

"Aw, sick."

"No. Not sick," Nico frowned.

Alex was still too confused about Piper to notice Nico's manner towards Riley.

Had she done something wrong? Had Riley said something?

"Hey…Riles…" she started, using his old nickname, "what did Piper say?"

Riley glanced at her, after pulling a curious face towards Nico. "Huh? Oh, you mean Piper? Mags still wasn't talking to me and Piper was there so we just started chatting. We, uh…" he sighed. "Talked about the new thing Chiron's suggested she does."

"What? What new thing?" Alex asked, surprised.

Nico watched the pair of them carefully.

"She's gonna go to Camp Jupiter. Not related to the whole prophecy-fire-apocalypse thing. It's for the storm-spirits thing. She's going to be adviser to the Prayer there, or something."

"Praetor," Nico corrected.

"Whatever," Riley rolled his eyes. "And I told her…wow, that's really cool but also, maybe she should tell you and us instead of just planning to disappear in the middle of the night…"

"She said that?" Alex's face dropped.

"That doesn't sound like Piper," Nico intervened.

Riley narrowed his eyes at the boy. "I'm sorry, and you've got an opinion because…?"

Nico matched his suspicious gaze. The boys engaged in an intimidating-stare contest for a few seconds before Nico broke it off, and he excused himself to go to dinner, telling Alex they would talk more later about their plans.

"What plans?" Riley asked, when Nico had left completely.

"Nothing. It's nothing," Alex mumbled, distracted now about all the anxious possibilities. "What did Piper say? Was she going, like...permanently? Or maybe she's just going to visit…?"

"I dunno, Al," Riley said, earnest. "She sounded pretty set on it."

"Oh."

Had she read too much into her friendship with Piper? Even just talking about friendship, right, friendship and nothing else. She was so naive to believe everyone would just stick around forever, of course people could leave whenever they wanted to. That didn't mean they weren't friends, it was just...they were just going their separate ways. Doing their own things.

"How did you guys start talking about that?" she had to ask.

Riley shrugged. "Nah, we just...started talking about what we were all going to do after this. Since you're going to the Amazons, and none of us are allowed to go with you…"

"Wait, no, they're still deciding on that, aren't they?" She felt like a little kid again, directionless, looking to the adults for decisions.

"I don't know, man...it looks pretty strict. But if we can't go, then Mags and I will probably head back home. And then Piper's going to Camp Jupiter." Riley sighed. "Dream team's breaking up."

Why did she even feel like Piper owed her anything, she was free to do whatever she wanted, and it's not like they'd known each other forever - of course, she would choose the mission that lets her stay with her old friends, and she should...

"Well, anyway. This is too much crazy to deal with over - what, just two weeks? Less than that?" Riley let out a low whistle, putting his hands on his hips.

When he saw how quiet Alex was being, his enthusiastic expression sobered into something more solemn, serious.

"Hey…we haven't had much time to ourselves, have we? Maybe that's it," he suggested gently. "Maybe that's why it feels so weird. We've had no one but each other, just the three of us, for ages and then you had Piper, and now we have an entire camp…"

Had Piper, had Piper…

She felt so stupid, how could she ever think…?

But then why should she care so much? No one had to change their lives for her. She wasn't that special anyway. The only special part about her was her abilities, and now that it was proving to be too dangerous and she had already offered to go to the Amazons, it wasn't 'special' anymore - it was a disease that needed to be cured.

She wasn't the 'cool' special anymore.

And she couldn't blame Piper, or anyone, one bit if they decided this was where their journey with her ended.

Couldn't blame her at all.

She'd have Riley and Mags, when the trial with the Amazons was done. She'd always have them.

But Piper was a little more difficult. Piper was going away.

Alex felt something hurting in her chest, that familiar ache in her heart, and she hated it immediately. She felt stupid. Immature.

She clenched her hands into fists, shutting her eyes and trying to relax.

"Whoa, whoa, I know where you're getting at, kiddo," Riley said, putting an arm over her shoulders and hugging her close.

"No, you don't," Alex muttered, her voice already threatening to break from a sob.

"Oh, but I do. Who's the one who always finds you eating at two in the morning because you can't sleep because you're feeling like complete crap?"

Alex sniffed. "You do."

"Who drove you halfway across the city just to let you drop off that girl's notebook when she dropped it in class? And she didn't even care about it, you just wanted to see her again?"

"…you did. God, that was so stupid."

"No, it wasn't. It was...you."

"…so I'm stupid?"

"Yes. But a good-stupid."

"Shut up."

"You're welcome. So who's the one who always knows how to make you feel better? Who always finds a solution?"

"Mags."

"Ex-squeeze me?"

"And you," Alex laughed. She took a deep, shuddering sigh and then turned to so Riley could hug her completely, burying her face in his chest. She didn't even hug him back, she knew that he wouldn't mind. This way, he could cocoon her with all his Riley-ness.

And he was right. Riley-ness was always the one thing that could make her feel better. Different from Nico's calmness. Riley was just...a living, talking, walking hug.

"But I hate being stupid. I hate being so - I just get carried away. With everything," she complained. "With trying to be too friendly, with trying to be just liked, with trying to get Piper to like me - and even when I try to control my fighting -" she whispered harshly, pulling away from the hug so she could look Riley in the eye, her own eyes watering from tears. "I can never do it. Something else in me gets carried away. That's why I need to go to the Amazons, maybe they can fix how out-of-control I am, and that'll fix everything else."

"Wait," Riley furrowed his eyebrows, "Alex, you don't need to be fixed."

"No, I do. That's the point. There's something inside me that is broken and I just need to fix it so I don't get hurt anymore. And I don't hurt other people too."

Riley was no longer smiling. He peeled his hug away from Alex, but he placed his hands on his shoulders. "No, Alex. That's not what we're trying to do here. We're trying to prove your innocence. We're not going to get you fixed, we don't need to do that."

Alex frowned, stepping back. "Yes. I do. You don't get it, Riles. You're fine now. You never had something like this, like - like a part of you that no one knows what to do with, and all that it does - even when I do good - all it does in the end is make people confused, and it makes people angry. And something like that is never good, so…" she said, her voice shaking. "That's why I'm going. I need to be controlled."

"Wait. Wait, Alex…"

"Let's go to dinner," Alex said, her mind racing now. She felt like a train pulling out of a station, she needed to go full steam ahead or else she'd break up and get stuck. "We'll go to dinner and then I'll plan out my defense." She started marching towards the Dining Pavilion. "You guys can help me, we'll stay up late, we'll -"

Riley ran in front of her and stopped her before she could get any further.

"Alex. I'm not letting you go to dinner like this. You're having another attack. Remember what we said? Just breathe? Lay out all your thoughts. Know what's real and what's not. What you can control, and what you can't." He started showing himself taking deep breaths - one, two, three - and Alex copied him.

Inhale, exhale - everyone was leaving -

Inhale, exhale - she was useless, ruining everything, just a burden -

Inhale, exhale - why did she even agree to this Amazon thing? -

Inhale, exhale - maybe she could just stay at camp and help defend it? She'd be useful then, right? -

Inhale, exhale - but still dangerous, they wouldn't want to even touch you, and the Amazons? -

Inhale, exhale - they were going to KILL her -

Inhale, exhale - she needed to get away -

Inhale, exhale - what could she control? herself -

Why did everyone get to go away to their freedom except for her?

She said the last sentence out loud as she hugged Riley again, flopping down on him, knowing that he could take her entire weight. Riley. Always there for her, always looking out for her. Her big brother, essentially. The one she never thought she needed.

"I want to go away," she said again, crying now.

Riley hugged her tight, stroking her hair with his hand and patting her back. "I know, I know," he said.

"I don't care anymore, I just - I'm just so tired of always - just always -" she sobbed.

"I know. I know…" he whispered.

Behind her, she heard the creak of the Big House front door opening. Riley's hand left her back, probably waving at whoever was coming outside. Riley called out to them, telling them they were heading to dinner, just chilling right now, just chilling - and then in a whisper only Alex could hear, he said:

"I'll figure it out, Al. You and me. I got you, kid. I got you."

A/N: 👀

there's a lot to unpack here so …. i'm just gonna leave this here. SundayPopTarts, i hope percy and annabeth's cameo will do them justice! and we'll see what happens with riley and alex. i'll tell you this though, whatever happens, he cares about alex a lot and will do ANYTHING for her.

lots of emotions in this chapter, and i hope it wasn't too overwhelming, but you can only imagine how alex is feeling. there's a lot that you miss when you get stuck in an anxiety attack...

so ! we'll see !

let me know if the emotional scenes work? sometimes i worry that i do put in too much, but i guess from personal experience, when a lot of big things happen at the same time...it really is an emotional rollercoaster :(