**Author's Note: Sorry this took so long! I was busy for a little while, and I'm also on a new laptop, but I should be posting more regularly after this! Thank you all for the wonderful feedback and for reading, you're awesome! Enjoy!**

Leo crumpled to his knees, grabbing at the basin as though his mother might still be there somehow. A torrential wave of emotion washed over him without warning, as though every pang of sadness he'd ever felt his entire life was now being released all at once, and there was no stopping the downpour of tears. "Mama, mama," he wailed in a voice someone only uses when they've lost something irreplaceable, "please don't be gone. Please don't be gone."

This was about the time that Nico began to regret this more than ever. Heaving out a sigh, he knelt down a few feet away from his friend. "Shh," he murmured, "Leo, look at me."

Still sobbing, he turned around. Like a small child who'd gotten himself hurt on the playground, he looked up at Nico expectantly, as though he wanted him to give him a Band-Aid or something. Unfortunately, Dr. Nico was all out of life-fixing magical cures.

"Uh…" Nico shifted uneasily, blaming himself for causing this. 'I shouldn't have been so stupid! Leo isn't a child of Hades! He wasn't able to handle this! He'll never be okay! Look what you did, look what your powers did! You made everything worse,' he told himself.

Leo blubbered out some incoherent words, slowly making his way over to where Nico was.

Nico cursed under his breath. How do you stop these kinds of things? The last time he saw Bianca, he was nothing like this. But then again, the last time he saw Bianca, he didn't know it would be the last. "Leo, it's okay," he tried to say, but it didn't sound convincing. "Let's go back to your room, okay? You can… sit down on the bed. Or something."

'A+ advice, Nico,' he chided himself. Leo might've said he wasn't good with people, but surely, he was better at comforting them.

Half-heartedly, Leo dragged himself off the ground, but his vision was blurred with tears. He could barely stand, and looked about ready to fall over, before Nico swiftly got up to help steady him.

"Don't worry," he muttered under his breath, but he wasn't sure whether he was speaking to himself or to Leo. With an arm around his weeping friend, they walked very slowly back up to the bunks. "Shh," he whispered when they got there. Even if the other slept like rocks, surely they could hear him crying. "Leo, be quiet!"

Leo swallowed down his sobs and nodded, and for a while he seemed to quiet down. 'You should have made these rooms soundproof,' he told himself, which seemed like a pretty stupid thought considering the thousands of other things he should have been thinking about at the time.

Nico shifted uneasily in the room, before finally going over to sit down next to Leo. "You know... your mom reminded me of my sister," he mumbled, not exactly sure what it was supposed to accomplish.

"D-Did sh-she?" He was barely able to speak, still racked with tears. Something in the back of his mind told him he should be embarrassed, sobbing like this in front of Nico, but he couldn't muster the energy to care.

"Yeah," was all Nico said, before glancing over at Leo. Biting his lip, he inched a little closer and sighed. "They seem to have a bit in common." He wanted to comfort him, but kind words and rambling about how things will be get better just wasn't exactly his style.

Leo just nodded, and everything was silent other than his occasional sniffling and whimpers. 'That was the last time,' he told himself, but he couldn't believe it. He wanted to believe that somewhere, somehow, he'd see her again. 'Yeah, when you're dead,' was all he could think of, which wasn't very reassuring.

Still, he felt the need to say, "Thank you, Nico."

"Thank me? Thanks for what? All I've done is hurt you. I should be apologizing," Nico muttered, shaking his head miserably. He couldn't clear his mind of the sight of Leo on his knees, like he was begging that stupid pot of dirt to bring his mom back. "Don't thank me. You should hate me."

"What?" Leo frowned. "No, no, I mean—sure, I-I'm a litle sad..." Understatement of the year. "But I needed that... I-I needed to... you know, hear her voice again. To say goodbye. I could never hate you for that." he trailed off, feeling the words catch in his throat.

"A little sad?" Nico sighed. "Fine. If you say so." It would be no use to argue, so he just crossed his arms and sat there, wondering if that time had to be the last time. Technically, he could summon his mother's spirit any time he wanted to, right? But that was dangerous—it tricked people into thinking that they had power over death, when they don't. It tricked people into thinking they could act as though nothing ever happened. And he didn't want for Leo to become like that.

Shaking his head to clear it of his thoughts, he got up. "I'll go watch over the ship. Get some rest."

"No—wait," Leo said quickly, "don't... uh, don't go." He inwardly cursed himself for speaking up, but the fact of the matter was that he was scared to be alone in his own dark, cramped room. "The ship's on autopilot. Just stay here. Humor me, please?"

Nico raised a brow. "Okay?" he answered, not really understanding Leo's logic. For him, being alone was just a way of life. He didn't need other people to be there for him, to comfort him. Companionship was nice, but it was never necessary in his eyes. "But I do think you should get some rest."

He grimaced, because he had a sneaking suspicion that any sleep he got that night would be plagued with nightmares. "Aw, c'mon," he mumbled nervously, "you know me, I don't need sleep."

"I barely know you, first of all," Nico said sternly, "and second of all, you do need sleep." He leaned over and pushed him gently, so that he landed in the pillows.

"Hey!" Leo exclaimed, even almost smiling. "I'm fine," he muttered, but the night was taking its toll on him. He felt exhausted from crying so much, and figured he probably didn't look that great either.

"No, you aren't," Nico told him. Summoning spirits always made people tired—well, not exactly tired—no, it was more like it sucked the life out of them. He figured (with himself as an example) that hanging out with the dead all the time was not the best thing for someone's health. "Seeing spirits drains people of their energy, me included. So sleep."

"Well, if you're included, aren't you tired, too?" Leo asked, putting his hands behind his head nonchalantly. Without realizing it, he shifted his positiion so that there would be enough room on his bed for two people to lie down.

"I'm always tired. It's kind of a side-effect of being dead for a week," he muttered, but he didn't sound like he was being very serious.

"Then lie down," he said, gesturing to the space next to him. He wasn't sure if he was being nice, or if he just felt awkward because he had to look up at Nico while they spoke. "I still have that promise to your sister, you know. Taking care of you and all."

Nico scoffed. "You? Taking care of me? No."

"Hey—your sister's idea, not mine," he answered. The atmosphere lightened up a bit, but Leo still felt a lump of sadness and fear and loneliness and every other bad thing he could possible feel settled in the pit of his stomach. "Just lie down, buddy," he said, but it sounded more like a plea than a command.

Grumbling half-heartedly something about Hazel being too caring, he gave in and flopped down in the space next to Leo.

Although he knew he was going to have nightmares as soon as he fell asleep, the mechanic's eyelids grew heavy against his own will. "Nico?" he mumbled softly, nearly falling asleep. 'Stop it, stay awake. You're supposed to be taking care of the ship and making new weapons and watching over Nico and...' he listed the number of things he could have been doing, but it didn't stop him from closing his eyes and letting out an exhausted sigh.

"What?"

"Do you ever get nightmares?" Leo asked. He knew all demigods got nightmares, and he knew they were never just dreams, but it didn't mean that he didn't feel embarrassed talking about it. Nightmares were for little kids. Not people who were supposed to be saving the world from certain doom.

Nico shifted uncomfortably a bit, before finally answering, "Yeah. Everyone does." But Nico knew his nightmares were nothing like Leo's. Because when you come out of Tartarus, nothing about you is ever really the same as anyone else.

"Do you miss your sister?" Leo knew it was a touchy subject, but the whole night had been full of touchy subjects, so he figured that one more wouldn't hurt.

"You know," Nico said, "I used to be a lot like you. Asking pointless questions, most of which I already had the answers to." He thought about the first time he met Percy, and although it was a happy memory, the wave of nostalgia that came with it was overwhelming. "Yes," he finally answered, "of course I miss her."

"Are you going to stay here the whole night?" He silently prayed that he would say yes, because the idea of facing the night alone was still a daunting one.

"Do you want me to?" Nico countered. He didn't want to be there, lying down on a cramped bed against his will next to the annoying Supreme Commander of the Argo II, but he also couldn't bring himself to leave. Something about the pain in Leo's voice, the look in his eyes. It reminded him all too much of a stupid ten year-old kid who lost his sister some years before.

"Kind of," he admitted.

"Then I will." He swore to himself he wouldn't sleep, gods forbid Hazel or any of the other demigods walk in on them—or worse, Coach Hedge—but he would stay.

And he did stay, listening the entire night as Leo fell in and out of consciousness, occasionally shifting in his sleep or kicking the blankets away, even waking up screaming from a nightmare at one point. As the sun rose outside of the bedroom, Nico got up and stretched. It was a long night, but a night well spent.