Nico had another short nap well they waited for the sun to set, Toby curled up next to him and slept as well. Reyna woke Nico up carefully when the sun started to set, then Nico woke up Toby so he wouldn't react violently. Toby was up in a second and they started to pack up. Nico was feeling better than he had in a while, but he felt distant.

When Toby and Reyna talked to him, it sounded like they were coming from distance. He was slow, he did his best not to let it show. He felt fine.

When the sun set he harnessed himself to the statue. Reyna and Hedge climbed up onto it but Toby stayed next to him. "Okay." Nico agreed when Toby wrapped his arms around Nico. "Just hold on tight." Toby nodded firmly.

Nico sighed and then closed his eyes, pulling them all back into the shadows. He focused on the place he had started to think of as his home. It wasn't hard somehow. When they landed he looked around in confusion. He could feel the ground under his feet, he could still feel Toby's arms around him, but what he was seeing didn't match. Everything was so dark; it was like he hadn't left the shadows.

"Ghost!" He heard… Jeff? shout but it sounded like it was miles away. The dark was stealing his other senses now as well, and he was losing feeling in his body. He couldn't tell if it was happening quickly or slowly because he couldn't track time. He couldn't feel when he collapsed, swallowed by the darkness he felt had followed him out of the other world.

(Pov change idk)

Toby caught Nico when he collapsed. He had seen before that Nico's eyes were completely black again, but now none of it was leaving his body. Instead it seemed like his body was falling apart. Toby has seen this before, some of the ghost creeps did it when they ever exerted themselves. BEN did it when he was really depressed.

Jeff was shouting at Nico for scaring them but it didn't seem like Nico could hear. He collapsed and Toby was glad he hadn't let go. He cut the harness with one of his hatchets, no time to untangle it.

"Eyeless!" Toby shouted." Reyna slid down of the statue. She didn't know what Eyeless meant, but obviously the creeps did because the white faced one shut up and someone opened and slipped out a second story window. They ran across the roof and then leapt off, landing cat like, and sprinted across the yard to Toby. Toby passed Nico into the grey skinned man's arms. He bent his head over Nico sniffing and then his head snapped back.

"Proxies!" The grey skinned man shouted and two other men burst out of the house. "Bring me a human." The two didn't say anything but sprinted off into the woods together. "What did you let him do?!" He shouted at Toby but didn't wait for an answer instead turning and jogging towards the house. Toby waved for Reyna and Hedge to follow and ran after him.

"That's eyeless Jack. He's like the doctor for all of us. He knows how to deal with things like this." Toby explained and Reyna nodded. She hadn't really seen what had happened to Nico, but she nodded. Hedge followed behind her yelling something she didn't pay attention to. They were lead into the house and up a set of stairs.

Eyeless Jack gave Nico back to Toby once they reached a pair of double doors. Toby ducked through and eyeless turned back to Reyna and Hedge.

"You can come in." He told Reyna after sniffing the air again. "You smell a bit like him, I'm guessing you're related?"

"Distantly." Reyna agreed. Very distantly. But she didn't want to argue. Eyeless nodded.

"That smells like a barnyard." Eyeless said pointing at Hedge. "I don't want it in my operating room."

"I'm a satyr!" Hedge snapped sounding offended. "What are you, blind?" It was Eyeless's turn to look taken aback, but then he slid off his mask revealing empty eye sockets slowly oozing some black gunk.

"Did you think eyeless was a cute nickname." Eyeless snarled. Reyna resisted the urge to gag. "I don't care what you are. If she and Toby are coming in you are not and no one else is either. I need space."

"That's fine." Reyna said giving Hedge a threatening look. Eyeless nodded firmly and swept into the room, Reyna followed. She blinked at the sterile white room. Toby had already laid Nico down on a table. Eyeless bustled over and started to examine Nico. She noticed that he kept leaning over Nico and breathing deeply. She wondered how much of his view of the world came from smell. Toby had grabbed a cloth and now and then wiped some of the black ooze off of Eyeless' face so it couldn't fall on Nico.

"WHAT'S GOING ON?" A voice asked. Reyna looked around but she couldn't see where the voice came from. Toby looked up and at a… camera in the corner of the room.

"Ghost over extended himself. He's doing the thing you do when you get depressed." Toby explained.

"SHIT. I'M GUESSING HE DOESN'T NEED TO BE PLUGGED IN. SOMETIMES I'M JUST LOW ON BATTERIES." The camera said again, or whatever being was in the camera Reyna guessed.

"No, but something similar I think." Eyeless murmured. "BEN please let me know when the other proxies get back."

"WILL DO DOC." BEN said and then the light on the camera went off, then flicked back on again almost right away. "IS THE GOAT MAN IN THE HALL SUPPOSED TO BE THERE? HE JUST BROKE ONE OF MY LIGHTS."

"He's supposed to be there. He came with Ghost." Eyeless informed BEN. "Tell him not to break things if you want or leave him alone." The light on the camera turned off again. Eyeless started to assemble things, bandages, a few bottles of things. A bowl.

"By the way some demonic magic is about to happen." Toby told Reyna. "You can go out if you want.

"Why." Reyna said blinking in confusion.

"That's how I know to bring people back from this state." Eyeless said, his long tongue flicking out of his mouth and catching some of the black stuff before it could fall on the things he was working with. "Sally's done this once or twice. BEN too, Lost Silver does it all the time. I know what I'm doing."

"Okay." Reyna said swallowing hard. She hadn't noticed the way Nico's edges were starting to come apart, slipping away in wisps. Reyna had a feeling that if she tried to give Nico unicorn draught, it would fall right through him.

"THE PROXIES ARE BACK" The camera informed and Reyna ducked out of the room. She found coach Hedge pacing in the hall. She ignored his mumbling and watched as the two fairly large men she had seen earlier dragged a struggling person up the hall. Before she could say anything to them they disappeared into Eyeless' operating room. The one with light brown hair and Toby came out again quickly. The big one with the dark brown hair didn't come back out.

"This is Hoody." Toby said waving at the new man and sliding down the wall to sit against it. "He probably won't say anything. He doesn't talk much." Hoody nodded at them and sat down next to Toby crossing his legs and sitting up straight. Reyna nodded back.

She flinched when a short scream came out of the operating room. Hedge gave a distressed bleat, neither Hoody or Toby reacted at all. After about ten more minutes the dark haired one came back out. Toby had curled up into a tight ball and rested his head on his knees. He was shaking slightly. Reyna didn't know what to say, Hoody had started rubbing his back slightly but it didn't seem to be helping.

When the other one came out he grabbed Toby's wrist and tugged him to his feet. He wrapped Toby in a tight hug. Toby hugged him back and burst into tears. The dark haired one seemed to be older than Toby, an adult where Toby was still a teenager.

"If I lose him again." Toby whimpered and the dark haired man shushed him.

"You're not going to. He's going to be fine." He snapped, he sounded almost angry.

"How do you know Masky?" Toby whimpered.

"E.J.'s brought back Lost Silver when he was worse than Ghost is now. He'll be fine." Toby whimpered again and rested his head on Masky's shoulder. "Come on I'll stay with you until he wakes up. You're my brother after all." Toby quieted suddenly and he pulled away from Masky a little.

"You've never called me that before." Toby pointed out softly. "I thought you hated me. You never wanted me, you liked it when it was just you and Hoody."

"I stopped hating you a long time ago." Masky sighed. "I thought you knew that." Toby shook his head and sniffled softly, a fresh wave of tears coming on. "Okay now, it's getting soppy." Masky grumbled and pushed Toby away. In an instant Hoody had stood up and gathered Toby into a hug instead, letting Toby cry on his shoulder instead.

"Is he really going to be okay?" Reyna asked Masky. Masky seemed surprised to see she was there.

"Ya he's going to fine. He needs to sleep for a few days probably. How soon do you guys need to keep moving? I'm sure we can find someone to take you." Masky asked. Hoody was watching him closely over Toby's shoulder.

"We have three days." Reyna said softly.

"We can find you rooms if you want. We have at least one spare and Toby will want to stay with Nico, so one of you could use his room I'm sure." Masky assured.

"We can camp. I have a tent." Reyna offered. Masky glanced over at Hoody who shook his head slightly.

"Safer for you to be inside." Masky said. "I'll go tell Slenderman you're here." He said and strode off down the hall. She looked at Hoody and he shrugged. She knew he knew what was happening but couldn't tell her, or maybe wouldn't. She left it alone.

It was nearly an hour before E.J. came back out. Throughout that entire time Hoody let Toby cling to him. When E.J. did come back out he looked tired and there was blood on his hands and on his clothes.

"Take him to bed now." He told Toby. Toby pulled away from Hoody quickly wiping his eyes. He rushed into the operating room and came back out a moment later carrying Nico. The parts of Nico's arms Reyna could see were wrapped in dark red bandages, but he didn't seem to be coming apart anymore.

"Thanks E.J.. You're going to rest now too right?" Toby asked. E.J. nodded sighing.

Toby walked away down the hall and after hesitating for a moment. Reyna followed him and Hedge followed her. He went down two hallways and then pushed a door open with his foot. Reyna followed him in. It was a mostly plain room, there were a few paintings hung on the walls. She blinked at them they were very good. There was also the skeleton of a cat curled up on the foot of the bed.

"Bloody Painter and Clockwork gave those to him. They're quite fond of him." Toby said following her gaze to the painting as he tucked Nico into bed. The skeleton cat raised its head making her jump and gave a small little purrp sound. "Hey Ira, your person is back." Toby murmured to the cat. Ira stood and stretched then walked up and lay down on Nico's chest.

"Are all of the 'creeps' fond of Nico?" Reyna asked curiously.

"I don't know he hasn't met all of them yet." Toby said shrugging. "Most of us get along well with each other as a general rule. When the rest of the world doesn't, you get close to those who accept you." Toby said, he sounded like he was quoting someone. "That's what Nico said, he said it happens with the demigods too?" It was a question, he glanced up at Reyna.

"It's true." Reyna said. "But there are always exceptions like Octavian." She snarled his name. Toby nodded.

"There are with us too. Zalgo's been locked up for nearly a hundred years from what I've heard. He tried to start trouble. There's also this really old nameless sea monster that's one of us but not really. She doesn't care about anything. She would kill anyone of us as easily as a human if we landed in her grasp. Then there are those who just have fight with a few, like Jeff and Jane they hate each other but not the rest of us." Toby seemed to realize he was rambling and shut up.

"I heard that Nico was back?" A small voice asked from the doorway. Reyna turned to see a little girl with green eyes and brown hair.

"Ya Sally, he's here." Toby answered settling himself on the edge of the bed. "But he's resting. He started falling apart like you and Ben do."

"Okay I won't wake him up." Sally said softly and crossed the room and climbing up on the bed next to Nico. "Why is he doing that?" She asked. "He's not already dead like me and Ben."

"I don't know." Toby said shrugging. "I don't know how his powers work." Sally nodded and then looked at Reyna.

"Who are you?" she asked curiously.

"I'm a friend of Nico's. We've been traveling together the last few weeks." Reyna explained.

"Okay." Sally said and rested her head on the pillow and watched Nico. Reyna pulled a chair out from the desk and sat down on it. Watching as Ira started purring and Sally fell asleep. Toby lay down on Nico's other side. After a couple hours Hoody and Masky brought them food. E.J. came and set up an IV drip for Nico. A little later, a tall clown like creature came by to check on Nico and took Sally away to put her in her own bed.

A young looking boy with a green tunic and red eyes came in. When he spoke she recognized his voice as the one that had come out of the cameras. He spoke to Toby briefly, ignoring Reyna then left again by disintegrating into electricity and racing into a electrical socket. Reyna glanced at Toby to make sure that was normal, from his reaction it was.

"Should we bring Mrs. O'Leary to see him?" The pale faced man asked from the doorway, she noticed for the first time how wide his mouth was. "I think she can tell he's nearby because she's restless. It's upsetting the puppies."

"I don't know if she can be calm and the last thing Nico needs is to be nosed out of bed." Toby pointed out.

"I'll talk to her. She's smarter than a regular dog just like smile. She'll probably understand. Smile can look after his kids for a bit, he's been such a deadbeat dad." He said and left again. A few minutes later a big black dog Reyna recognized as a hellhound crept into the room. Reyna's initial reaction was violent and she tried to draw her sword.

"Don't!" Toby yelped. "That's Nico's dog."

"What?" Reyna asked hesitating.

"Her name is Mrs. O'Leary, she's Nico's dog. We've been looking after her and keep her out of trouble while Nico was away. We kinda failed considering Jeff's dog Smile got her pregnant." Toby said, the pale man, Jeff shrugged. Now that there didn't seem to be threat of attack Mrs. O'Leary lay down on the ground next to Nico's bed and started whining softly. Even making herself as small as she could she was almost half the size of the bed.

Masky came and lead Reyna and Hedge to rooms reminding them to look their doors before he left again. Reyna would have locked her door anyway but now she double checked that it was and put a chair in front of it to keep it shut. The she went to bed. It must be almost midnight now. It had been a long day, she fell asleep quickly.

A/N periodic reminder to go check out my beloved editors tumblr Salukinut and mine which has recently been changed to too-much-slender-stuff.

Sorry this chapter is a bit shorter I'm in the middle of exams.