Hello dears (no clue where that came from...)

I'm much happier with this chapter, as it's plenty longer than the past few

Also, I've founded this WAY easier to write after reading The Lost Hero and The Son of Neptune over the past two days. I'm about halfway through The Mark of Athena right now...and I STILL don't like Jason! Can anyone out there convince me why he's a good character? Any Jason fangirls/fanboys out there that can explain the whole thing to me? I don't get it...

But I have plenty of feelings for the books...um, I like Reyna, Leo, Hazel, and Frank. Piper's okay, but I just don't like Jason at all really. So yeah, enjoying them immensely and breezing through them in a day each!

Rambling aside, hope you all enjoy the new chapter :)

Percy looked down at me dumbfounded, raised fist still positioned as if to bang on my charred wood door.

"Oh. I, uh, didn't think you'd open the door," he stammered.

I rolled my eyes and shrugged, walking over across the room to block the view of my open suitcase while leaving the door open as if inviting him in.

After he entered, Percy didn't say another word, just stood in the center of the room, looking around. It occurred to me that he'd never even been in here, only seen the outside. Well, it isn't anyone ever really wanted to be around the cabin, it radiated this aura of bad luck and death. Hazel was the only one brave enough to stay the night, and she'd only done it twice.

But standing right in front of me, bathed in an eerie green light, I couldn't help but stare at Percy and what he'd become.

Part of me had wanted to believe that Percy would be alright if I left, it's not like I mattered anyway. I'd thought that Annabeth would be able to hold him together, that over the weeks he'd get better with sleeping and eating and functioning like a semi-normal human being. I thought that maybe he'd be getting better by now.

I was wrong.

It was obvious that he still wasn't eating right, probably from loss of appetite (a worrying sign of depression). His orange Camp Halfblood t-shirt, which he'd once filled out so effortlessly with his lean muscles and broad shoulders, drooped on his now scarecrow-thin frame, and the green light cast off from the Greek fire torches only served to deepen shadows on his face, elongating it and highlighting the newly sharpened features. He reminded me of Octavian in a way, only his eyes (only slightly less manic than that damned teddy bear murderer) and hair (still the same deep black, but now straw-like without that windblown quality) ruined the image.

And oh Gods, his eyes were still the same. Still blank and tired, rimmed in black circles. Still swirling with pain, blanketing the underlying fierceness which had become a permanent fixture after his time spent with Lupa and completely blacking out the beautiful sparks.

Nothing changed.

It still hurt seeing him like this. Pale. Thin. Haunted and shadowed and broken.

He looked like a corpse, like the haggard ghosts that roamed the Underworld. It worried me a lot, actually, he was almost as thin as me, but his height made him look worse. Gods, we could even pass as brothers right now. Same skin, same build, same shadowed, painful eyes.

I was supposed to be like this though. I'd always been scrawny and short, even when I was young. And my skin, even if it'd once been olive, had faded to this pale white so many years ago that it was normal now. My blackened eyes had held pain for a long time too. Most people could scarcely remember me when I was a little kid, all bright brown eyes and hyperactivity. Percy and Annabeth were probably the only ones. That innocent little kid was in the past though, he'd been gone a long, long time. I was used to being this way, feeling this way.

But Percy wasn't.

Percy was supposed to be the golden boy of the camp, the guy all the Aphrodite girls giggled about in secret. His muscles were supposed to flex and flow elegantly as his lithe frame pulled off complicated swordplay maneuvers like he'd been born with Riptide superglued to his hand. His skin was supposed to glow like a god's, his already enviable complexion tanned evenly from time spent outside. His eyes were supposed to shine like the sea, like perfect little turquoise gemstones sparkling with mischief and a confident defiance. His brilliant white teeth were supposed to flash in the sun with each laugh and goofy, lopsided grin.

Percy wasn't supposed to look like a son of Hades, but he was definitely not supposed to feel like one. He wasn't supposed to feel like me.

He'd always been so happy. The optimist. Always joking, always smiling...Tartarus had changed that though, war had changed that. Shattered him like glass and stolen the warm smile I'd always loved.

He still wasn't supposed to be hopeless, lost and drifting unanchored like myself. He wasn't supposed to be depressed. He was supposed to be okay.

He'd been through hell, sure, both physically and mentally. And literally, come to think of it. But this still wasn't his element. He'd always managed to stay bright in the past, despite all the pain.

I tried to understand what was different this time around. I tried to figure out what'd changed.

I understood the physical side clear as day. I knew all about the monsters he'd fought and the battles he'd won, having witnessed many myself and at the very least listened to the stories the others told. I'd seen first hand his warrior side, the wolfish glint in his eyes as he knocked back foe after foe like the night of his first war games at Camp Jupiter. I'd heard the shouts of unsettling laughter that escaped past parted lips in the midst of battles in Manhattan. I'd seen him in his glinting bronze battle armor, tall, imposing, and undeniably terrifying. I'd even seen the jagged scars that spanned his body, crisscrossing his tan skin in both faded white and bright pink.

But physically, I felt like Tartarus was no different than the other hordes he'd faced. He'd crossed the country time and time again, facing monsters and gods. He'd spent months homeless, traveling aimlessly with only Lupa and her wolf pack by his side. He'd been hurt before, he'd been starved and exhausted and scared. Tartarus was worse, of course. There was the added poison air and fiery rivers and glass shores and increased gravity. The physical pain had worn him down, but not bad enough to cause this.

He was a warrior after all, you could see it on his skin and in his eyes. I'd seen his pain on the outside more time than I could count, been witness to countless cuts and bruises before he bore the Curse of Achilles and after he lost it. The physical couldn't possibly bother him anymore, not like this.

Emotional then.

I didn't understand the emotional though.

Well, I did, kind of. I understood what it was like to lose people, and I understood what it was like to be afraid. They were normal demigod problems though, he had more specific things to worry about. But I even understood, to an extent, what it was like to be a prophecy child. I understood what it was like to be despised by the gods just because I exist.

He put up a good front for most people, hiding his mental pain to an extent. To them, he was the ever-loyal goofball that played down his own intelligence and cracked jokes, who just so happened to be the camp's fiercest warrior. People envied him, thought he was perfect. But he was just as cracked up as me, especially after going through Hell. Most people had just never seen the pain in his eyes until recently, until Tartarus.

I'd seen the pain though, it was hard not to. Misery was kind of my domain after all.

But there was a lot that I didn't, and probably never would, understand about Percy.

He wasn't really one for sharing much about himself. His emotions, his troubles, his life before coming to camp. Not many people knew the real Percy, the battered mind locked inside the equally battered warrior's body.

He carried guilt, that much I could tell. More than the average halfblood. It weighed him down sometimes, like the world was perched on his shoulder. You couldn't see it all the time, but I knew it was there, even if I didn't really understand it.

I'd tried to understand though, many times. I tried to piece it together, but a lot of it alluded me.

I could tell he felt guilty about something in his past, probably something to do with his mom, which I honestly didn't know much about. Nobody knew much about his time before coming to camp, for that matter. He kept a lot of it secret, only vague mentions of some guy named Gabe (who apparently was a real asshole) slipping out every once and a while. Only Annabeth and Grover seemed to know what was going on, but I suppose it was Percy's right to keep secrets.

And I couldn't help but feel guilty. I'd blamed him for Bianca's death (which I still hated thinking about) for so long, I can't imagine what it was like to be held responsible for something like that. I'd seriously hated him, and he hadn't deserved it at all. He must've felt guilty though, only he would. Any normal person would ignore the way I felt, but of course Percy would never be able to do that. I knew he felt bad for screwing up and letting Bianca die (even though it was in now possible way his fault). But things were different now...I had complete and total closure. No bringing her back, no seeing her again. Not ever. I guess it was a good thing, it was all finally in the past, the string was finally cut. I could move on.

But Percy...he didn't feel guilty about just Bianca. There was Beckendorf and Silena and so many others that he'd lost along the way because he wasn't smart enough, fast enough, strong enough, good enough. He carried all that unnecessary guilt. Nobody blamed him for the deaths, but he blamed himself.

I guess that was part of the problem. But it still didn't make sense.

They hadn't lost that many people in the war with Gaea (causalities were unavoidable, but they hadn't been devastating to either side), and none of them had been overly close friends. The seven had made it through without too much damage, both camps survived and flourished with newfound friendship.

It...it was like all the strings inside him had broken. Like getting thrown into Tartarus and pulled back to war had been the scissors to cut the bands already frayed by war and guilt and pain. He'd held on by the tiniest of threads until the war was over, then he'd just...unraveled.

Tartarus was just one hell too many, just providing new fuel for his nightmares.

The soldiers lost just more in the endless line of ghosts that danced at the back of Percy's mind.

I couldn't think of a way to fix the strings though. Was there even a way to repair someone so broken?

Maybe...maybe I'd made the wrong decision in leaving. Maybe I should stay now. I might have been able to help him get better before, kept the strings together and woven the almost broken strands back together. I mean, I did understand him. Could I still make it work? Could I fix this?

There was a glimmer of hope there, in his eyes. It was tiny, but still there. A glint in his eyes, a tether to the old Percy hidden in his eyes by pain and ferocity. Maybe the strings weren't broken...maybe I was back in time. Maybe I could fix it.

"Uh...Nico, you okay?" his voice broke the tense silence, and my eyes widened as I bit my lip and looked away. I'd been staring at him way too long to be normal.

"Fine," I replied shortly, turning my back to him and shutting the old black suitcase with a sharp click. Maybe I could stay...maybe.

"It's just that you were staring at me and you didn't show up to breakfast..."

"I said I'm fine!" I practically shouted, stopping him mid sentence.

"Jeez, sorry I asked," he replied, shifting uneasily. "I was worried about you, that's all."

"No, I-I'm sorry. Not your fault, I just wasn't hungry," I mumbled, still not up to facing him.

Silence followed, the room only filled with the sounds of our shallow breathing. Not good. I sighed and turned around, eyes flitting up.

His face was an even paler white, and he seemed more solemn than before.

I followed his pained eyes with my own. Oh, great. He'd seen the suitcase I'd been trying to hide in the shadows. I looked at him, stared at him for a second longer. I wished I hadn't, in those fleeting seconds it was like that tiny spark in his eyes was gone. Gods, I'd screwed up badly. I opened my mouth, as if to explain myself.

"No...no, I get it. Don't even bother, I know I won't be able to stop you or anything. I'll just, um, leave you to your packing then," he stammered, already backing out the door.

"Percy, look," I started, already moving to grab his shoulder and pull him back into the cabin.

He shrugged me off though, "No, just...just go if that's what you want. I'm fine," he replied bitterly, but catching my look, added, "I-I'll be fine. No need to worry about me."

The pale, tremor-wracked seventeen year old walked off without another word, leaving me in the doorframe.

I'd screwed up big time.

Let me know what you think please! (And maybe help me understand why y'all love Jason so much...he just seems like a less interesting Percy, in my opinion)

Until next time my friends! And thanks a million for all the follows and favorites, I think I'm up to forty-something already :D