Nico

"What was that about?" Will Solace asked Nico di Angelo as he walked down the hill. Will was looking up at the gawking Percy and the cackling Annabeth.

"U- Uh. Nothing. Percy's just an idiot."

Will nodded in understanding. "Ah, makes sense." He proceeded to turn around and head for the infirmary entrance, "Coming?"

Nico sighed to himself, "I just sold my soul to Kronos."

He took a step forward and felt a sharp pain shoot throughout his whole body. A wave of nausea, fatigue, and pain crashed over him as he struggled to stand.

"Woah, are you okay?" Will asked in concern as he reached out to steady Nico.

Where Will's fingers touched Nico he felt sparks. Not the same sharp pain he felt in his back and legs, but an electrifying sort of feel.

He didn't like it.

Nico scowled and withdrew his arm, "I'm fine."

Will glared sternly but not harshly like Nico did, "No, you're not. You're shaking and wincing, you can barely stand."

"I can barely stand you," Nico grumbled.

"Haha. Now let me help you."

"No."

"Nico-"

In response, Nico took a defiant step forward.

The ground rushed to meet him.

Will

"Nico-"

The ever-stubborn Nico di Angelo decided to further demonstrate his protest by taking another step forward. It didn't end in his favor.

Nico collapsed on the spot, and Will rushed to prevent him from getting a bloody nose. He has a cute nose, I'm sure that wouldn't ruin it, Will thought to himself.

Stop that. There's an unconscious boy in your arms and you're over here fawning over him. Get this boy to a damn stretcher!

Will picked him up bridal style, shocked to feel how light he was in his arms. He carried him into the infirmary and placed him on a cot. Will quickly checked his pulse and, much to his relief, it was there. Although, it was slow and irregular, but the first time Will caught his wrist he noticed it was the same. Will followed through with his normal procedure to treat unconscious patients (yes, it happened a lot.), and once he was convinced that Nico was stable enough to stay alive without supervision, Will stepped out to take care of his other patients.

A few of them were in worse shape than others, but no deaths yet.

It's only the first day, his thoughts crept up his neck. He rubbed them away. He loved being the head medic at camp—he got to save so many lives—but it was also so incredibly taxing. There was only so much loss a person could take, especially a 15 year old kid.

Will shook the thoughts out of his head as he approached his last patient before he had to go back to check on Nico.

"Hi, Lauren."

Lauren smiled weakly at him.

Lauren was a daughter of Demeter. She had tan skin from the days she spent out gardening, and brown hair. Her smile lit up the world and her laugh was sweeter than the nectar of anything she could plant. She was just 12 years old, but she had so much to give to the world.

She saw beauty in everything. Her favorite plants weren't flowers, but roots and even weeds. She always said that they deserved love too. She helped everyone she could—her little siblings Talys, Karen, and Corey; the bullied Hecate child Karisma, the insecure Aphrodite kid Margie, the pacifist son of Ares Alex—the list goes on. She was often mistaken for an Apollo camper because of how bright she was. What gave it away were her sparkling green eyes that held every evergreen forest in them.

Not anymore.

She lay on the bed looking sickly pale, even her hair was drained of color. Her smile was weak and she didn't have the air to laugh. Her eyes were a murky green, like algae in a swamp.

She had been hit with a poisoned arrow right in the chest, straight through her heart, during battle. Will gave her as much ambrosia as he could risk, and some Hecate campers cast spells on her to keep her stable, but she was slowly slipping away. She'd been fighting for a day now, but her situation had not improved. Really, the only thing he could hope to do was keep her stable until her body could fight off the poison.

That's a one in a million chance, he thought.

"How are you feeling?" He asked her.

"Better now," she barely whispered.

His heart clenched.

He checked the heart monitor, fed her ambrosia, dressed her wound in nectar, and let her drift back to sleep.

He got up, but stopped when he felt her hand grip his with more strength than she should have been able to muster.

"Will." Her voice was teary and weak, but filled with determination. She seemed to look Death in the eye and say, "Not yet."

"I'm right here, calm down. Your blood pressure is spiking," he warned her.

"Tell Alex that I'm gonna see his mom soon, and that I'll take care of her. He doesn't have to worry anymore. And tell Margie I'll tell her sister that she loves her. Tell Talys to take care of my mushrooms, and Corey better not kill my weeds again."

Will began to panic. Her grip tightened and her heart monitor began beeping faster, but not in a good way. "Don't talk like that, you're gonna be fine."

Lauren kept talking over him, "Karen can borrow my shorts any time she likes now, tell Ron to give Karisma my notebook so she can grow her poisonous mushrooms herself, tell my dad that I love him and that I'll see him on the other side. As for you, love is love, and that boy needs a lot of it. You know who I'm talking about."

A whole group of the Apollo cabin doctors crowded around her bed and rushed to stabilize her.

"And I'm sorry. I know you'll be upset you couldn't save me, but no one could. It's not up to you, it's my time. So don't beat yourself up over it, like I know you will. Goodbye, Will. Tell everyone I love them."

She spoke without pause, trying to get out as many words as she could before the final steady, high pitched beep of the heart monitor. All noise and sound vanished, just to be replaced by the deafening silence that muffled the monitor. The entire infirmary, the entire world was staring at where her pale hand lay limp beside his.

Which body was more hollow was impossible to tell.

Nico

Nico was awoken by the sudden drop in temperature. His eyes shot open when he felt a stark coldness shoot out through the universe, like a shock-wave. He was no stranger to this feeling, he's felt it many times before.

He was no stranger to death.

The worst part wasn't the death, but the coldness that filled the world after. Every person who mourned added to it. Every sob and scream made the world colder for both him and the spirit. This was one of the coldest deaths he'd ever felt. He weakly pushed himself up from his cot, and straight ahead he saw the departed soul leaving the body of a girl. Many people were surrounding her bed, and one of them was Will Solace. The sunshine-y, happy Apollo kid was staring at the body, mouth agape. His hand lay by hers. Even from that distance Nico could hear his shaky breath. It wasn't right. Beautiful, loving people like Will weren't supposed to look like that. He looked, in that moment, so much like Nico himself. He was staring into a mirror, and it broke his heart into a million glass shards. No, he would not let Will feel the unbearable, unrelenting pain Nico felt.

Nico got up and walked over to the group of mourning people. None of them noticed his presence. He looked at the spirit of the girl, who was hovering over the body. She looked like a child, no more than twelve.

"What's your name?" He asked.

The spirit slowly looked at him. "Lauren."

She looked back down. "They are all so sad. I don't want this. I lived my life trying to make them happy. That's all I ever wanted to do, and they are killing that along with me."

How could someone as pure as her die so young?

"Would you like to make them smile again?" Nico asked her.

Lauren nodded, "More than anything."

Nico took that as his cue. He grabbed her spirit, who shrieked. He slammed it into her body. The body's eyes began to roll back into her head, and her spirit shrieked louder. No one else could hear, they only saw his hand slam onto her chest. They tried to pull him off, but lacking the strength to explain, he put whatever little strength he did have into holding his ground. He began his incantation, "Vita ad vitam. Animam pro anima."

From every pore in his body, black smoke unfurled. It wrapped around her body and spirit, binding them.

"Vita ad vitam. Animam pro anima."

The smoke crawled into her mouth, nose, and ears. Everyone else had begun backing away.

"Vita ad vitam. Animam pro anima."

Suddenly, a gasp. The room stilled.

Lauren began coughing and gasping. The whole room watched in awe.

A moment later, "Nico... you saved her!" Will laughed and hugged him. This was how Will should be, happy and wonderful. Not a care in the world.

So carefree that he didn't notice, at first, that his arms went right through Nico.

Nico cupped Will's face with his smoky hands. "I love you."

And the world turned black.

Lauren was now returned to the people who loved her. Will hugged him as if he were some hero, but he was just sensible. If that were him lying dead, no one would've gathered around his cot. No one would've cried or mourned his death. He was the freak Son of Hades. He was better off dead anyways, and at least this way a kind girl was returned to her loved ones. She was the real hero.

When he next opened his eyes, it was dark, but familiar. His father's voice echoed, "Welcome home, Son."