Longest chapter so far, yay!

Nico's POV

The next morning, Nico didn't wake up. You can't wake up if you haven't slept. Worry for Will had kept him up all night, tossing and turning. The son of Apollo was his best friend. Nico wouldn't be able to bear it if something happened to him. Yet, Will was prophesied to die. No, Nico didn't sleep a wink.

Nico forced himself to get out of bed, to wish Piper and Will good luck if not to start the day. Nico headed straight to Half-blood Hill, but the usual crowd of campers come to see the heroes off was missing. Nico didn't pay much attention to the fact. They were probably leaving that afternoon. In that case, Nico had time to say goodbye personally, rather than being a single wave in a crowd of well-wishers.

Nico walked to the Apollo cabin and knocked on the door. "I'll get it!" a voice from inside sang. Nico nearly cringed when he recognized the voice as that of—

"Elise," Nico greeted. He tried to work up a smile, but decided she wasn't worth the effort.

"Hey, Nico," she answered in her usual, cheery manner. Something about her was off. Nico decided it was the dark circles under her eyes. She looked like she didn't sleep well either.

"Are you feeling alright?" Nico inquired, though he didn't particularly care. "You've kind of got…" Nico gestured to the shadows under his own eyes, thinking she might get it.

"Oh, dark circles? Figured I might. Would you believe these guys? They get up at the crack of dawn!" Elise laughed, but Nico detected something in it that was less than genuine.

"I came to say goodbye to Will," Nico announced.

Elise's face fell. The shadows under her eyes seemed more in place. "You what?" she choked out.

Olympus, as much as Elise thought she Nico were friends, she couldn't expect that he would want to see her instead of Will, could she? "I came to see Will off," Nico repeated. "No offense, but I wasn't here to see how you settled in."

Elise twisted her little finger nervously. "I figured you wouldn't. I mean… I just expected that you would've known…"

The way Elise was acting made Nico anxious. What wasn't she telling him? "What would I have known?"

"It's just… Will already left," Elise announced sympathetically. Nico felt his stomach sink. Gone? Will couldn't have left. He knew he wasn't going to come back. Nico didn't even get to say goodbye. "If it makes you feel any better," Elise continued. Nico had the feeling she was not going to make him feel any better. "It was kind of a shock to everyone, how soon they left. But Hermes was pretty demanding about the whole—"

Nico interrupted, his eyes beginning to sting. "Hermes? What does Hermes have to do with any of this?"

"You didn't have dinner last night, did you?"

"Answer the question, Elise." Nico demanded. "Please," he added as an afterthought.

"Hermes is the thief of the prophecy," she stated.

Nico was getting a headache. He couldn't tell if it was from the sunlight, talking to Elise, hearing all this ground-shaking news, or a winning combination of all three. "This is bad."

Elise sighed. "Yes, I know it's bad. The whole camp knows it's bad. The gods, if they even know, know it's bad." He had never heard Elise admit anything was bad before. He doubted this pessimistic side of her would stay around for long. "Hey, I would love to talk longer, but I have to give Jason his shot. If you want to come, you can. I'm sure Jason would be happy to see you."

Nico wasn't thrilled at the idea of voluntarily spending more quality time with Elise, but he had wanted to check on Jason earlier. It might distract him from the thought of Will… well, dying. "Alright, fine," Nico agreed and began to follow Elise to the infirmary.

Elise blabbed the whole way about things that didn't matter. Nico wasn't listening. He was trying so hard to fight the thoughts that made him want to crawl back into bed and never come out again. Jason was dying, Will was dying. His two best friends were the victims of the Fates. Wasn't it enough that he had lost Bianca?

"Hey, man," Jason greeted Nico when he walked in. Elise immediately got busy filling a syringe. "Wasn't expecting to see you here."

Nico managed a brief smile. "Came to see how you were doing."

"Ah, well, y'know. I'm just getting started with treatments and stuff, but it's not too bad yet. What about you?"

Nico shrugged. "I'm fine." Out of the corner of his eye, Nico saw Elise smile just a little bit.

"How's that shot coming, doc?" Jason asked Elise.

Elise laughed. "Please don't call me doc."

"Okay, Elise. How's it coming?"

"I haven't found the medication yet, but—oh! Here it is." Elise grabbed a small vial of clear liquid. "Oh, wait. No, this is adrenaline. That could've been bad." She picked up another vial that was close to it. "This is it." She filled up the syringe and injected it into Jason's arm. "That's it. Everything is done."

"Until tomorrow," Nico muttered.

"At which point, all we have to do is repeat the same simple process," Elise reminded him brightly. Her optimism was back and as annoying as ever. "Breakfast will be in about five minutes," she continued. "You should probably stay in bed, Jason, but I'll bring you something back."

"Thanks, Elise, but I'm not really that hungry," Jason yawned. "In fact, I'm a little too tired to eat anything."

Nico raised his eyebrows. "That serum works pretty fast."

Elise nodded. "So it does. We'll leave you alone now, Jason," she said, backing out of the room. Once they left the room, she turned to Nico. "I'm going to go get some food," she announced. "Do you want to come?"

Nico shoved his hands into his pockets. "No, thank you. I'm going for a walk."

Elise hesitated, twisting her little finger. "Will would probably want you to eat something."

That made Nico angry, but he did his best not to show it. "I'm fine, Elise. You can go by yourself." He left before she could say another word.

Nico couldn't believe Elise. She was so pretentious. Acting like she was a doctor, acting like she was Will, acting like she was somehow in charge of Nico. First off, it was a miracle she remembered to check the label on the vial. She could've injected Jason with adrenaline and killed him. She was not Will, nor would she ever be Will. She could never replace him. Furthermore, it was none of her business whether he decided he wanted breakfast or not. She really got on Nico's nerves like nobody else could.

What was even more infuriating was the fact that he had no one he could vent to. Everyone that knew Elise was either at camp and loved her, on a quest and loved her, or asleep and loved her. He was alone in his opinions. Annabeth and Percy were the only ones at camp who didn't really know her, or if they did, they hadn't known her long enough to form an opinion.

Nico subconsciously began to make his way to the Athena Cabin, in hopes that Annabeth would be there instead of the dining hall. They hadn't talked much before or during the Giant War, but afterwards they had hung out enough to gain a mutual respect. That was enough to build a friendship on. If there was any hope that he could talk to someone about it, he could talk to Annabeth.

When he reached the cabin, he knocked on the door and Malcolm answered. "Hi," Nico greeted. "Is Annabeth here?"

"Yes," Malcom replied shortly.

Nico waited for Malcom to say more. When he didn't, Nico continued. "May I see her, please?"

Malcom opened the door wider, gesturing for Nico to come in. "I guess so."

Nico—while unimpressed by the son of Athena's poor hospitality—walked into the Athena Cabin. He was surprised by how quiet it was. There were twelve campers, but they barely made a sound. Some were reading books, others were on their laptops, and others were talking quietly. It wasn't a bad sort of quiet. It was peaceful. He rather liked it.

Annabeth was sitting at a desk, hunched over blueprints. She looked up when Nico walked in. "Hey, Nico," she welcomed, standing up. "It's been a while."

"Yeah, it has been," Nico agreed. "I was going to go for a walk. I was wondering if you wanted to come."

Annabeth sighed in relief and started out the door. "Thank the gods. I was looking for an excuse to get out." Once they were outside, Annabeth explained. "I was going over my old blueprints. They're only theoretical, but they have a few mistakes. I'm going to fix them and make them ten times better."

"What do you think you'll do with them, once you've finished?" Nico asked, carrying on the conversation.

"I'll bring them back to New Rome and see if I can pull together enough supplies to get started on one of the smaller ones as an extracurricular project for more credit."

"By yourself?" Nico question, incredulously.

Annabeth laughed. "No. I'll get some friends to help. I'll pay them if it comes to that."

"Do you have a lot of friends in New Rome?"

Frowning, Annabeth answered. "Not many. But I don't need that many. I'm good with Hazel, Frank, and Reyna. Percy would help too, of course, when he's not busy. What about you? You probably have a lot of friends by now."

Nico shrugged. "Not many here. I'm good with Will and Jason, though. There is this really annoying girl that won't leave me alone."

Annabeth grinned in amusement. "Oh, really? Who?"

"I don't know if you've met Elise Mosely, daughter of Apollo?"

She seemed surprised. "I have. Is she really that bad? She seemed nice enough to me."

Again, Elise had brought another totally innocent person into her little trap. "She does seem nice enough," Nico explained. "But she's too nice. If you hang around her long enough, you get sick like you swallowed a cup of sugar. She's pretty conceited, too. And she laughs too much. She has this really irritating habit of twisting her little finger. She forgets everything. I haven't even begun on what happened just this morning."

Annabeth smirked. "What happened?"

"I went to the Apollo Cabin this morning to say goodbye to Will. Elise answered the door, full of her regular sunshine and smiles," Nico said this with as much sarcasm as he could muster. "Only to tell me that Will already left on the quest he's going to—" Nico paused, wondering if he should tell Annabeth about Will's inevitable death. If he couldn't trust her, there were few people he could trust. "That he's going to die on."

Annabeth froze in her tracks and quickly turned to look at Nico. "What do you mean 'that he's going to die on?''

Nico felt his eyes sting again. "The prophecy said he was going to die. It was pretty blunt."

Annabeth furrowed her eyebrows in thought. "Just because it seems like there's no hope for Will," she began slowly. "It doesn't mean there's not any. Think. Will's probably lost all hope for himself. He probably thinks he's going to die. That means that if we give up hope for him on this end of things, all hope is gone. Prophecies are woven the way they are to deceive, to mystify. It could mean something entirely different."

Nico wished he could buy into everything Annabeth was saying. Unfortunately, he had heard the prophecy. He was glad that Annabeth still had a little hope for Will, and he prayed that she was right, but he couldn't convince himself.

"And as for Elise," Annabeth continued. "Maybe she's everything you said: annoying, conceited, etc. I wouldn't know. But from what I do know of her, she's strong. For all she knows, she's losing her brother. She could be hurting and putting on a brave face. Cut her a little slack."

Nico sighed, knowing Annabeth was probably right, but not wanting to admit to Elise being anything more than a giggly psychopath. "That doesn't sound like you at all."

Annabeth nodded. "I know. I had to think really hard about what Piper would say."

Nico laughed, which was unusual for him.

Annabeth smiled. "I was going to go get some breakfast," she announced. "Why don't you come with me?"

Nico nodded and walked to the dining hall with Annabeth.