A/N: This chapter is rated PG because, well, they're headed for the Underworld and Tartarus. That's scary stuff!

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VIII

WILL

As their borrowed Ford Mondeo wound its way south, Will wondered what he'd gotten himself into.

It wasn't his first road trip. He'd taken many as a kid with his mom, back when she still did music tours. Most recently, he'd gone cross-country in Leo Valdez's camper-dragon from New York to New Rome. In terms of size and reliability, the car Annabeth had borrowed off her dad fell somewhere in between Naomi Solace's tiny Chevy (old and beat up, but incredibly dependable) and Leo's spacious but insane contraption (prone to—literally—flaming temper tantrums). It was one of those solid suburban models, great for a college professor and his family of five. Maybe a bit on the squeezy side with three grown boys in the back seat. It was just as well the Roman demigods had stayed behind. If Frank Zhang had been in the group, Will didn't think they would have fit.

Anyway, the car wasn't the problem.

It hadn't been so bad when Annabeth had been at the wheel, but then she'd traded with Thalia—who drove like a maniac, weaving in and out of traffic like an F1 driver negotiating a race track. Sure, they were in a hurry, but a little caution probably wouldn't be amiss.

On Will's left, Nico grumbled, 'I don't see why Jules Albert couldn't have driven us. At least he used to be an actual race car driver.'

'I heard that,' Thalia said.

Will considered Nico's zombie driver. He'd only encountered the dude once, but he remembered two things about him. One, the guy was really steady at the wheel. Two, you could smell his rotting corpse all the way from Olympus.

That might not have been such a great idea on a six-hour car ride.

'Well, I guess it would've been a bit of a squeeze with five of us as passengers instead of four,' he pointed out instead. 'You wouldn't wanna be squashed up all the way to L.A.'

'I don't want to die on the way to L.A., either,' Nico muttered. 'I could have shadow travelled.'

Will rolled his eyes. 'With all five of us? We've talked about this, Death Boy. Unless you've learned how to transport large groups on your own without dissolving into shadow, we're doing this the long way.'

Nico glared at him, though Will wasn't sure if it was targeted at his use of the hated nickname or the aspersions he'd cast on Nico's abilities.

Probably both. Not that Will cared. Nico was cute when he got mad.

On Will's other side, Percy had been staring out of the window with his chin propped on his hand, gazing at the sunset over the Californian mountains. Now he turned to watch them, his eyes darting between Will and Nico as he followed their exchange.

'Who's Jules Albert?' he asked.

'Long story,' Nico said.

'It's a long trip,' Thalia called back. 'You may as well spill.'

Will zoned out as Nico told them the story of his undead ex-F1 champion chauffeur. It was one of those tales that always made Will curious about the different parenting styles of the gods. You wouldn't imagine the Lord of the Underworld to be a concerned—albeit behind-the-times—parent, but there you had it.

Will's dad, on the other hand, was pretty much the opposite. Apollo was nothing if not current. You probably didn't get to be the god of music and poetry and that sort of stuff if you couldn't keep up on what was trending. On the parenting front, though, his record was more flaky: fickle with bestowing gifts (unlike Nico and his inheritance of a full spectrum of Underworldly powers, being an Apollo kid was like a lottery for godly skill) and attention (Apollo wasn't always great about remembering who his children were, let alone communicating with them). Though he'd been better since his enforced stint as a mortal. He'd even sent Will a birthday card when he turned eighteen, which might have been a first for any godly parent. The quest Apollo had recently undertaken must have given him a new appreciation for the trials his children went through.

Was about to go through, in Will's case.

In Tartarus.

What had he been thinking, volunteering for this quest? It wasn't like he had a ton of experience with this sort of thing. Sure, he'd played his part in two wars, but he wasn't one of the front runners for the dangerous quests. He wasn't Annabeth, leading a team of demigods on a heroic air/sea voyage. He wasn't Thalia, who'd basically signed her life away to hunt monsters for Artemis.

He wasn't Percy, hero of the Battle of Manhattan, saviour of Olympus twice over, a demigod with credentials longer than most minor gods, whom even Will's own father respected (and Apollo didn't hold that many people in high regard).

Percy, who couldn't remember why everyone admired him.

Thanks to a potion Will had administered—yeah, okay, it was to save his life—and maybe screwed up so that he was now dying slowly from an empousa's curse.

Annabeth blamed herself, but Will knew some of it had to fall on him, too. He was the healer, after all.

That was why he was here.

If Will were the jealous sort, he might have been concerned that Nico was with them, too. Will was fully aware of the crush Nico had once had on Percy. (Not that Will could blame him. He'd be lying if he said he'd never had at least one dream about those brilliant green eyes and roguish smile.) But jealousy wasn't really Will's style. He preferred to think of it as Nico accompanying him, helping him atone for his mistake.

Besides, Will was the one who had volunteered them both. It wasn't entirely selfish. There had been something in Nico's face that morning, a flicker of the shadow that never quite left his boyfriend's soul. Nico never spoke much about his time in Tartarus—not to Will, not to anybody. All Will knew was that Nico had been there at some point during the war, and judging from certain hints he'd picked up from Hazel and Reyna over the years, it hadn't been a walk in the park. But everyone seemed to think Nico had just shrugged it off and moved on by now.

Except recovery from a traumatic experience wasn't quite so straightforward. People often thought healing was always about getting better, but Will knew that there was always a part before, where you had to get worse. The same way a fever raged through the body to expel the germs inside, you often needed a psychological unravelling to dislodge a trauma. Will had seen it happen to Percy and Annabeth in the fall after the Giant War. He'd watched them go through the painful process of falling apart and coming back together.

Nico, on the other hand, seemed to have buried his time in Tartarus deep inside himself. Maybe his friends couldn't see it. But Will wasn't Camp Half-Blood's best healer in a century for nothing.

And that morning, Will had sensed Nico's need to tackle his demons, to face whatever he had encountered head on and beat it this time. He needed to return to Tartarus, whether he knew it or not. And Will would be damned if he let Nico do it without him.

Although he'd be lying if he said he wasn't scared shitless about what they might face down there.

To calm his nerves, he ran over the provisions he'd packed for their journey: nectar and ambrosia, naturally, but also all the specialised healing supplies he could get his hands on. A jar of Lemnian mud. A tincture of Moly. And of course, Gatorade, because Nico was bound to try something stupid at some point with his Death Boy powers.

It was nearly midnight by the time they pulled into West Hollywood, a time that seemed eerily apt for approaching the Underworld. The dark didn't seem to faze Annabeth, who navigated Thalia expertly through the winding streets.

'It was dark, too, the last time we were here,' she said, shrugging.

'That was what, ten years ago?' Thalia said. 'Your memory's insane!' Then she abruptly clamped her mouth shut. In the rear-view mirror, Will saw her biting her lip in consternation.

Annabeth frowned out the window as they passed the only shopfront still lit up, a crooked neon sign flashing 'CRUSTY'S WATERBED PALACE' over its door. 'Some things don't change much.'

Thalia pulled up by the kerbside of a black marble building with tall glass doors. Golden letters above them screamed 'DOA RECORDING STUDIOS.'

'We're here,' Annabeth said. She opened her door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The others hopped out as well. There was a sign on the building door that said:

VALET PARKING AVAILABLE

CARS NOW ACCEPTED AS COLLATERAL

'What does it mean, collateral?' Percy asked.

'Payment for passage, probably,' Annabeth said. 'Though I'd like to get the car back to my dad eventually if possible.'

'We already blew up his car once,' Thalia said. 'What's another?'

Annabeth sighed. 'Let's just go.'

Inside the building, the hallways were lit with lava lamps shaped like ancient torches. Rows of plastic fold-up chairs lined the walls, all filled with dismal-faced people who looked like they might not be entirely solid. Bluegrass music belted out from a speaker box in the corner of the ceiling.

At the end of the hallway was the most ostentatious desk Will had ever seen. Made of polished mahogany and embedded with blood-red jewels, it stretched in front of a plain silver elevator with a single button: down. In an ornate armchair behind the desk lounged a man in an expensive Italian suit. He was kind of handsome, a bit like Nico, with his olive skin and finely chiselled features.

'Group of five?' he said. His accent was vaguely European. 'What was it, a car accident?' He pulled out an iPhone and brought up an app. 'No alerts from Thanatos. How many times do I have to tell Death to update me when he makes a delivery?' He swiped across the screen to a time display. 'Never mind—you'll have to wait. I have a crossing scheduled now.'

He shoved the phone back in his suit pocket. 'Tickets for crossing thirteen-oh-eight-one!' he announced to the room at large. Then he turned back to the five of them. 'Have your fare ready when I get back. Prices are on the chart.'

He indicated a sign on the wall, where a list of fare prices and timings were printed:

Standard passage—1 drachma; wait time: 10 years

Expedited passage—10 drachma; wait time: 5 years

Shorter wait times by negotiation only.

All bribes accepted.

Check PlutoXE for latest exchange rates.

Children over 12 pay full fare.

A bunch of ghostly people shuffled forward, tickets in hand. Most of them were pretty old, but Will thought he spotted at least one young face that looked vaguely familiar. Before the group could get to the lift, Nico stepped between them and the Italian-suit man.

'Hello, Charon,' he said, crossing his arms.

Charon did a double-take. 'Oh, it's you. Don't you have better ways of visiting your father than clogging up my ferry?' He looked suspiciously at Will, Annabeth, Percy, and Thalia. 'And which part of the no-living-allowed rule don't you understand, kid?'

When Nico still didn't answer, Charon said, 'Fine. They better pay up, though.'

Nico tapped his finger on the expensive mahogany desk and gave Charon a pointed look. 'Who helped you argue for your last pay raise with my dad?'

Charon sighed and shook his head. 'Okay, okay. This lot isn't going to be happy to be bumped, though. Celebrities,' he grumbled. 'Always so demanding.'

With a jolt, Will recognised the familiar-looking kid as an actor who'd OD'ed last summer. And some of the older faces in the group had that vague, seen-them-on-TV-but-can't-name-them feel of TV personalities from his mom's generation.

Charon sent the actor kid and four other spirits back to the waiting line, silencing their complaints with a threat to bump them further down the list if they gave him any more lip.

'And don't even think of changing the music channel when I'm gone,' he warned.

They filed into the lift with Charon and the rest of the celebrity group. As soon as the doors closed, they found themselves descending in the darkness, landing with a splash on the surface of a black river. When his eyes adjusted, Will saw that they were in a cavern lit by gemstones studded in the volcanic rock. The lift had expanded into a barge, which Charon poled towards a shore of black sand. He let them off on the beach at the bottom of a rising path that led up towards a foggy grey meadow.

'My next annual review is in a month,' he said to Nico.

'I'll keep it in mind.'

They hiked up the path with the other souls. At the top, they entered an enormous screening area like the kind you saw at airport security: a long winding line marked out by post-and-rope barriers, except the posts looked like they were made from femurs and the ropes from sinew. The end of the line split into ten security checkpoints, all manned by ghouls in pale green uniforms. They were frisking the spirits that passed through the metal detectors, except at a smaller, separate line on the end marked 'EZ DEATH', where the spirits passed unmolested.

'They've…upgraded,' Annabeth noted.

'Luckily for us,' Nico said. 'Come on.'

He led them to the other side of the rope-barrier line, where a roped-off channel had been marked out 'SECURITY PERSONNEL ONLY'. Nico lifted the barrier and they all ducked under it. The nearest security ghoul turned to them, but when he saw Nico, he gave a sharp salute and returned to his duties.

As they got closer to the entrance marked WELCOME TO EREBUS, Percy yelped and stepped back, treading painfully on Will's toes. A moment later, Will saw what had startled him and nearly jumped out of his skin himself. An enormous three-headed Rottweiler had appeared out of nowhere, so big that it spanned the entire row of checkpoints.

'Cerberus,' Annabeth said.

Three heads leaned towards her, their tongues lolling out. Will ducked to avoid being splattered by monster dog drool.

Cerberus's tail wagged. One of the heads barked. It was deafening, but it sounded…joyous. Another dog head made a low, pleading sort of whine.

'He…does he remember me?' Annabeth said in amazement.

Nico shrugged. 'Possibly.' He raised his hand to scratch Cerberus's left head. The dog was so big, it was unlikely that Nico's small hand could have made any difference, but Cerberus seemed to be pleased by the attention nonetheless. Annabeth copied him on Cerberus's right head. The middle one whined and gave Will a hopeful sort of look.

Will hesitated. Pat the monster guardian of the Underworld? Well, sure, why not. In some weird way, it was kind of like visiting his boyfriend's home and meeting his pet dog.

After passing Cerberus, they followed Nico through a gigantic field filled with glassy-eyed spirits. These parted naturally before Nico, leaving them an open path to walk through, but closed the gap behind them once they passed.

'Is anyone else as freaked out as me?' Percy whispered.

Will nodded. It was like being in a crowded room at an insane asylum: every spirit chattering away to itself with no apparent awareness of anyone else.

'Well, it's not the first time we've been here,' Thalia said.

'Don't tell me.' Percy sounded resigned. 'I've been through this before and I just don't remember.' He turned to Will. 'I would've thought this wouldn't be your first time, though.'

'What makes you think that?'

'You're dating Death Boy here, aren't you?'

'Don't call me that,' Nico said sharply, shooting Will a look that said plainly, This is all your fault.

'We haven't actually done the meet-the-parents thing,' Will said.

'Sure we have,' Nico said. 'I've met yours.'

Just as he said this, they reached the gates of a magnificent palace built of glittering obsidian. It was silhouetted against a backdrop of craggy volcanic mountains. Its grounds stretched across the Fields of Asphodel to reach the edge of the only bright spot in the gloom: a gated community surrounding a tropical island. A low parapet made a ring around the palace grounds, marking out the sector of the Underworld that was Hades's personal territory.

Standing at the edge of it, Will was reminded of the first time he had brought Nico home to Schoharie and they'd stood in front of his mom's tiny house. Nico had given him a terrified look, like a caged animal about to be led to slaughter. 'Are you sure about this?' he'd asked.

'Relax—it's just my mom,' Will had reassured him. 'She'll like you.'

Looking at the black obsidian palace, he imagined the situation in reverse. It didn't match, though. You could fit ten of Will's houses into the courtyard of this palace. And Hades wasn't just Nico's dad. What demigod wouldn't have a healthy amount of respect, if not fear, for the Lord of the Dead?

Then again, that kind of applied ot all the gods. And Nico had met Apollo, though the fact that the god had been a mortal kid barely a year older than Will himself at the time probably reduced the intimidation factor.

Nico seemed to sense what Will was thinking. A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. 'Maybe I should invite you over to stay. See how you like meeting my parents. Fair's fair, right?'

'Ha ha.'

'Seriously, I do have a room there.'

'Let me guess, decorated with skulls and stuff?' Will said dryly.

'How did you guess?' Nico shrugged. 'My dad thought it was funny. I think. Hard to be sure, with him.'

'Guys,' Thalia said, 'back to the quest? You can get past the meet-the-parents hurdle when we make it back. If we make it back.'

Annabeth pointed to a path leading off to the right of the palace gates. 'That way, isn't it?'

'That would be the shortcut, yet,' Nico said, his face sober again. The shadow of Tartarus flickered across him again. He looked like he had more to say about the route, but he just pressed his lips together and started down the path.

It led into a dim tunnel that smelt of earth and minerals and something else that Will couldn't quite put his finger on. It reminded him of the smell of ancient magic, the way the soil of Lemnos, with its healing properties, gave off a different scent from commonplace mud. The tunnel narrowed and sloped downwards. The air took on a chilly, metallic quality. Will could smell iron in the walls now, like they were made from the blood-soaked earth of a battlefield or the stones of a sacrificial altar.

They emerged into a dark cavern. The path beneath them sloped steeply towards a sharp drop-off: a cliff overlooking a pitch-black chasm. The whole cavern churned with a deep, coercive magic. It snaked out of the chasm and wound itself around Will, a compelling force drawing him to the edge like it was a magnet and Will a hapless steel nail.

'Do you guys feel that?' he whispered.

Annabeth shivered. 'It's Tartarus. The pull—once it latches on, you can't break free of it.'

'Like running from a black hole.' Nico's voice was hollow and echoey in the cavern. He stared down into the chasm and then turned to Will. The dim glow of the stalactites cast eerie shadows across his pale face. A thousand nightmares played in his eyes.

Will reached for his hand, although he wasn't sure if it was to offer Nico some comfort or take some for himself. Nico's fingers were trembling and even colder than usual.

'Well,' Thalia said, 'we do want to go in now, so…'

As if an unspoken signal had passed among all of them, they reached for each other's hands at the same time. And then, linked in a tight circle, they jumped.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

A/N: I realise the layout of DOA recording studios is not quite in keeping with the canon description in Lightning Thief, but where's the fun in repeating the books? Let's just say Charon redecorated a little. All those pay raises must have gone somewhere, right?

Thanks strawberrygirl2000, CupcakeQueen816 and Nuada Silverhand for your reviews-it was so nice to get feedback so soon after posting the chapter! And I hope you enjoy the double-post this weekend hehe. :)

strawberrygirl2000: Like I mentioned in my reply, I can promise there will be a Leo-PoV interlude somewhere towards the end. (Thought I'd just announce that here so everyone else who loves Leo can get a heads up too!) And yeah, Reyna blew my mind. She wasn't even meant to be in this fic when I started with it, and here she is commandeering a chapter. Ah well. The more I write her the more I love her!

CupcakeQueen816: Well, Hallowe'en is on the way ... ;) And don't be sorry, I'm always happy to hear your thoughts on the story whenever! PSATs are like preparatory SATs? (Sorry, all I know about the American school system is little bits of research for fic, lol.) Writing 'American' is a challenge, I must admit; even though I elected not to use American spelling, I did want to make the phrases and grammar more suited to the characters actually 'speaking'. It usually takes me about three rounds of editing to catch the Britishisms (though technically I'm not British; I just live there). I very nearly posted one chapter that still had 'mum' instead of 'mom' in it. And remembering to use 'gotten' instead of 'got' is something I have to actively remind myself of. Obviously I still miss some of it!

The UK and the US may be in the same boat at the moment since politically we're dealing with some of the same issues. (We're hiding our faces thanks to Brexit, the American friends I have are terribly embarrassed about Trump ...) I don't know about 'American' stereotypes since we do know that it's a huge country and different states are going to be very different (not to mention big city vs country life). 'Savage' doesn't come to my mind at all; 'conservative' springs to mind more readily. I think Europe just feels a lot more progressive in terms of accepting alternative opinions and attitudes. (Hopefully I haven't just offended all the Americans out there ...)

On the continuity error ... yeah, I have a bit of a headache there, because going by PJO canon, there's no way Reyna could have three years of service at the Battle of Mount Othrys seeing as that took place only two summers after Sea of Monsters, during which she and Hylla were both on Circe's island! Even assuming they arrived at Camp Jupiter (on the other side of the country!) immediately after Percy and Annabeth left them, Reyna would have earned her first stripe within Titan's Curse, and her second between BotL and TLO. So seeing as canon didn't add up very well, I decided to time it more reasonably and give Reyna and Hylla time to escape the pirates and make their way across the US. (Also can I just say I love your eagle eyes on these details? It makes me feel less geeky for all the time I spend trying to nail down the details myself!)

School's all right; the uni welcome week is over so my evenings and weekends are freed up again. The nice thing about being a postgrad research student is getting to plan out your own day, which means I can usually spend my evenings writing NoH (i.e. the next DoW) ... at least until I have to mark undergrad assignments.

Nuada Silverhand: Hey, all my Latin comes either from Harry Potter or Percy Jackson! I wouldn't have known the meaning of podex either if it hadn't come up in SoN. I've definitely brought in way more characters to play than makes for a tight plot, but we're back to the main cast for now.