He assumed the sun rose and set but he never saw it. He wasn't conscious often but occasionally he would hear the sounds of camp life outside his cabin. To be honest he didn't even know what day it was and he didn't care. It all bled together –the mornings, afternoons and nights. He'd wake, maybe drag himself to the shower, but most often he would just roll over and go back to sleep. Chiron had come to check on him twice and both times he'd grunted out the same responses –no, he wasn't hungry, no, he wasn't injured, there was nothing he needed or wanted.

It was all a lie. Yes, he was injured, but it was something ambrosia and nectar couldn't heal. Yes, he was hungry but didn't have the strength or energy to leave the cabin in search of food. And what he needed –wanted—was something no one could give. What he hated most were the memories. Percy smiling at him as they sat in the Amphitheater, the way he looked after slaying that boar, the warmth in the pit of his stomach when Percy asked to date him, the feeling of Percy's hand in his –so solid and real—and then it was ripped away.

He kept finding tears, to his dismay. He should have been out of them due to dehydration, if nothing else, but a few would slip out every now again. Sometimes he would wake up and find his pillow wet. It would have been kind of Aphrodite to wipe his mind too but he supposed that would defeat the purpose of her little lesson. He also cried for Silena because now he'd known her. He didn't have many people he considered true friends but Silena had become one of them now and in this time stream she'd been dead for over a year. So, he was mourning two dead people –Silena and the version of Percy that had developed feelings for him.

He should have left but his body ached and he'd become too accepting of his bed and the solitude of having a cabin to himself. He missed Hazel but at the same time dreaded any type of company. Percy and Annabeth had probably left for New Rome at some point in the few days he'd been isolated. Whenever that thought crossed his mind a fresh stab of pain would hit him and he would grab at the sleep that was always just at the edge of his mind.

He was asleep, lying on his stomach, when he felt the hand on his back. Normally he would have jumped, yelled, pulled out his sword, but now he just blinked until his eyes adjusted and stared at Favonius. Maybe if he'd had it in him he would have jumped or screamed but he didn't. He just blinked at the winged god who bent over to look down at him.

"Hello, Nico," Favonius said quietly, as if Nico would shatter if he spoke too loudly. Nico didn't respond even though he wanted to tell him to go away. He'd had enough of gods.

"Lord Cupid would like me to tell you that he is appealing to his mother on your behalf."

Nico stared at him for a second longer and then closed his eyes and buried his face in his pillow. He heard Favonius's wings rustle as his settled on the bed across from Nico's.

"Nico, do recall what I said to you in Croatia?" he asked. No response.

"About how you were in danger of having a fate sadder than mine? Well, I'm sorry for it."

Favonius must have been waiting for him to say something but he was trying his best to slip back into oblivion.

"In this alternate history you put your own feelings and aside and tried to help Percy. Your anger didn't consume you and you didn't push people away. You did everything right and that is what Lord Cupid has acknowledged."

Even if he'd wanted to talk he wouldn't have known what to say to that. He heard Favonius sigh.

"I understand what you've been through is painful. I don't think there are very many who would understand like I do, but is there none of your old fire left in you? Lord Cupid will try everything to make Lady Aphrodite change her mind, but what about you? Have you no more fight left in you, Nico di Angelo?"

He heard another sigh and then a warm breeze blew through the cabin and he knew Favonius was gone. He wished he could have argued with him but there was no point. His fire was gone, or whatever it was that had kept him going before. His fight had dried up and blown away like dust. Besides, what could he do? More specifically, what could he do that Cupid couldn't? And he hadn't asked for that jerk to step in and appeal to Aphrodite.

Not that he would ever ask. Not in a million years after what Cupid did to him. The only person who he would have ever trusted to speak to Aphrodite for him was Silena. She'd offered her help but he'd refused her thinking he would go home if he just played along with whatever her mother had planned. Now Silena was gone.

Nico jerked his head up from the pillows so hard that it hurt his neck. He grunted as he pushed his achy body up into a sitting position. It was like Zeus had sent the idea on a lightning bolt to his brain. There was something he could do that Cupid couldn't.


Everyone thought he could just shadow travel to the Underworld whenever he wanted and the truth is, he could but he preferred not to. His shadow traveling was still inaccurate at best. It took a lot of focus and he could still end up in the wrong part of his father's kingdom. It wasn't something he wanted to risk because as achy and exhausted as he was it was possible he could end up too close to Tartarus again. He was tired already from shadow traveling to the city and then he had to sneak around and steal a radio from some picnickers in the park. If he'd been strong enough he would have shadow traveled to the entrance in L.A. but this was the best he could do. He headed straight for the pile of boulders with the stolen radio hidden under his shirt. Central Park was always too busy for his liking but that was New York.

When he got to the boulders he pulled out the radio. He didn't bother to look around because he knew the mist would kick in and the mortals would just go about their day. He turned it on some station –he didn't care what—and let the music play as he watched the boulders tremble. The rock split open and the fumes assaulted his nose. He was used to the smell but he hated this entrance. It was so much longer than the other one and it carried bad memories of the time he'd lost Percy's trust.

He entered the cave and started down the steep steps. On the way he tried to figure out what exactly he hoped to accomplish. He knew now that once upon a time there had been a chance for him to be with Percy but things didn't work out in his favor. Percy was with Annabeth and he was happy and it seemed selfish to ruin that. He almost stopped and turned around when that crossed his mind, but he hesitated. He couldn't stop reliving that night. He could still smell the gunpowder from the fireworks mixing with the smell of the sea. And without meaning to it felt like he was back there again, standing in the dark Amphitheater as the explosions went off and lit up Percy's face in different colors.

The way he looked so unsure and even scared when he thought Nico didn't like him back. And then he'd gotten angry when Nico told him that they couldn't be together. The worst was remembering how Percy's hand closed around his fingers. And that one moment when he'd allowed himself to think, "we're together". He'd felt so happy. Something sparked inside of him and suddenly he felt angry. Aphrodite had given him these feelings and wouldn't even take them away when it was clear Percy had chosen Annabeth. What was wrong with him being selfish this one time? He turned around and started down the steps again. He didn't know if he would succeed but he couldn't walk away from this chance either.


His father surveyed him from his throne. It made him want to grind his teeth but he knelt in front of Hades. If he was going to ask a favor it didn't hurt to be as polite as possible. Maybe it was the ADHD but he started to wonder if his father would ever consider redecorating. Nothing ever changed in Erebos and that had to be boring. He could at least build a new jewel garden for Persephone. It would give the place a lift.

"You've been time traveling?" asked Hades curiously.

"Not by my own choice," said Nico in an annoyed tone.

"Aphrodite?" Hades asked simply and he nodded.

"I'm guessing Zeus doesn't know but if he ever finds out, she'll be in trouble. Where did she send you?"

"Camp Half-Blood, the summer before Bianca and I arrived there."

"Ah, well you're back so no harm done, I take it?" he asked sounding a bit bored.

"I need to ask a favor, father," Nico said trying to sound calm and respectful.

"That is?"

"I need to speak to a soul in the Elysian Fields and then –if she's willing—I need you to allow her to speak to her mother."

"Are you being mysterious on purpose?" Hades arched an eyebrow at him. Nico cleared his throat and tried again.

"I need to speak to Silena Beauregard. She's a daughter of Aphrodite who died in the Titan war," he said.

"And you would ask her to speak to her mother?"

He was holding his father's gaze well but Hades' questions were probing in a sensitive area.

"Yes."

"It breaks the laws of nature and balance for a spirit to leave their afterlife and interact in the dealings of the world again," he said and Nico finally looked down in defeat, "…as far as humans are concerned, that is."

Nico looked up again and saw the familiar mad glint in his father's eyes. "What?"

"Well, you are my son so speaking to spirits is natural for you and since Aphrodite is her mother she could be allowed to communicate with her. But it is still a serious thing to disturb a spirit's paradise and bring them back into the worries of the world."

Nico felt guilty and he hoped Silena would forgive him but he needed to try.

"So," said Hades with a small smile, "you'd better explain to me what is so important that I should allow this. Tell me everything that happened."

Nico felt his stomach tighten and swallowed. He told his father everything while trying to make as little eye contact as possible. He didn't know if what he was revealing would change his father's answer but there was no way to avoid it. When it was over he looked at his father and tried not to appear nervous.

"Did it have to be him, Nico?" Hades sighed and rubbed his eyes with his right hand as if he were warding off a headache.

"What?" Nico said surprised.

"Percy Jackson. Why him? He's such an irritating little…" he let the sentence drop and Nico couldn't help the little smile on his face.

"I like him," Nico said softly and looked at his father, "I really do."

They stared at each other for a while and Nico didn't try to hide how sincere he was about liking Percy. Finally his father stood up.

"Go to the Elysian Fields. If this spirit is willing to speak to Aphrodite for you, I will allow it."


Elysium was the only bright, shining place in Hades' kingdom. It was on the other side of giant cliffs with a passage through the middle. Spirits walked through the tunnel-like pass to get to paradise, which is where the visions of tunnels come from in near-death experiences. He's been this way only once before to see Charles Beckendorf after he died saving Percy. No one else knew but Nico had come to thank him for that.

The smell of barbeque hit his nose and he could hear laughter. The light in the Elysian Fields was almost blinding after the dimness in the rest of the Underworld. As soon as he stepped on the grass he felt better. It always felt like the best day ever here. The sun was out and he looked around at the Temples and Roman villas. Spirits walked barefoot and everyone looked happy, but then they had no reason not be. He could see the glitter of water off in far distance where he knew the Isles of the Blest were.

He often wondered if he would ever make it here when it was his time but shook the thought from his head. It was distracting and he needed to concentrate on Silena. It would take a while to find her on his own so he tried summoning her with his thoughts. He closed his eyes and pictured her as he'd last seen her.

"I was wondering if you would ever come visit me."

He opened his eyes slowly and tried to smile at her but suddenly he wanted to cry again. Silena looked beautiful. She was edged in white light and wearing a cream colored tube top with denim shorts. Her lustrous dark curls were loose around her shoulders and she smiled at him effortlessly. She looked like she going to a picnic, which was entirely possible.

"You remember me?" he asked.

"Well, everything came rushing back after I died. There was no reason for me not to remember once I couldn't affect history anymore," she said.

"How are you and Charles?" he asked smiling faintly. Silena blushed even as she smiled harder.

"We're so happy," she said. "Do people…when I died did everyone find out-"

"You were a hero, Silena and that's anyone says or cares about, especially Clarisse."

She looked sad but happy but then she looked at him more closely and the smile slipped off of her face.

"What happened?" she asked walking closer to him.

He told her about the night of the celebration and the fallout that followed, along with what Favonius said about Cupid talking to Aphrodite. There were precious few times when he was grateful for being the son of Hades but he was now. Ghosts were just as solid to him as living people so he was able to cling to Silena when she hugged him. He was proud of himself for not crying but still felt guilty about what he was about to ask.

"I want to talk to my mother," Silena said pulling back to look at him. "What she did to you was so unfair!"

"I know I turned you down before, but would you?" he asked sheepishly. "If this doesn't work then I guess I have to let it go but I need to know that I tried everything."

"You're right. Now, how do we do this?" she asked even as she started to glow brighter.

"Oh!" she said looking down at herself in surprise.

"You'll go straight to your mother on Mount Olympus," he said.

"Nico, no matter what happens, will you come visit me again?" asked Silena hopefully.

"Yeah, if you want me to," he replied smiling. Silena smiled wider and disappeared.


When he got back to camp nothing had changed. Percy was still gone with Annabeth. He didn't really know how to take that so he tried to distract himself a little. Going to see Hazel was too close to Percy and he wasn't sure he was ready to tell her everything. He could feel his depression trying to lure him back into the darkness and was hard to resist but he did. Favonius's words kept coming back to the front of his mind, even though he didn't know why anything the god said would matter so much. Jason finally approached him again when he started coming out of his cabin more. Seeing Silena made him want another friend to talk to and Jason was the only one who kept volunteering. He apologized for snapping at him the last time and Jason accepted it easily.

He told Nico to come to him any time if he wanted to talk but it surprised even him when Nico actually took him up on the offer. It was very early one morning when he was having trouble sleeping that he walked across the green and knocked on the door of cabin one. Once inside he retold the story again for Jason –who was sleep-drunk and kept looking at Nico like he thought he was making the whole thing up.

"You actually went back in time?" Jason asked for the fifth time. This time Nico only nodded.

"And Percy actually fell for you first?"

"Yeah," Nico said calmly.

"Well, at least we know where Cupid got it from…" said Jason petulantly. "And now he's trying to talk Aphrodite around?" he asked.

"That's what Favonius said," Nico mumbled.

"If it works I might be able to hate him a little less for what he did in Croatia," he said. Then Jason looked at him with an expression that was both sad and proud.

"And if it doesn't work…at least you'll know that you tried."


"Mother, look at him. We both know where this type of misery leads." Cupid gestured toward the image of Nico di Angelo floating in the mist in front of them.

"You're so bothersome in your Roman form, son, I wish you would change back," said Aphrodite as she sipped a glass of pink champagne and lounged on an expensive white chaise.

"I would feel this is the right choice in either form, mother," he insisted.

"Mom, please," Silena implored. "Nico is my friend and I saw the feelings between him and Percy. It's beautiful."

"Well, I have to admit it is one of my most compelling works," said the goddess haughtily.

"I believe it would be your best work if you would allow it to happen," said Cupid.

"I agree. Maybe you got in touch with a long lost part of yourself when you set this up," Silena said affectionately.

"My own children asking me to rip up a perfectly good happy ending and rewrite it," she scoffed. "And one of them is a god of love and should know what that will mean!"

"What does it mean?" Silena asked confused.

"It means changing several futures entirely," Cupid explained. "Percy and Annabeth will have children who will quest and fall in love and all of that will be undone if she changes this." He turned back to his mother. "But I believe the love between Percy and Nico would be worth it."

"It would!" said Silena.

"Who would I even pair Annabeth with? Or have either of you thought about her at all? Do you suggest I trade one broken heart for another?" asked Aphrodite as a bowl of cherries appeared out of nowhere.

"You know as well as I do that you considered pairing her with the daughter of Bellona, just as you considered pairing Nico with Percy."

"They would make a powerful couple…" she mused and ate a cherry absentmindedly.

Silena was about to open her mouth when a nymph walked in looking slightly frightened. She was a rose bush nymph with green tinted skin, and inky black hair that had blooming rose buds in it as if they grew there. It made sense that rose nymphs would serve in Aphrodite's palace since the rose was one of her symbols.

"A message from the Underworld, Lady Aphrodite," the girl said in a shaky voice and held out a black card.

"What? What does it say?" Aphrodite asked in surprise.

"Lord Hades requests that you grant a true love match between his son and the son of Poseidon. He reminds you of the fine work you did with him and his own wife, the lady Persephone, and says he would like to see his son so content. Umm…" the nymph stuttered nervously.

"Yes?" Aphrodite prompted impatiently.

"He also says that he would hate to inform Lord Zeus that you used your forbidden power and risked angering the Fates if it was all for nothing."

Aphrodite jumped up from the chaise and snatched the card away from the nymph who squeaked and ran out of the room. She read the message for herself and then growled at it. Silena and Cupid watched as the card caught fire and burned to ash in her hand.

"Dionysus he would have ignored," she muttered to herself as she paced. "I could have persuaded him it was just an exaggeration to look responsible so Zeus would relax his punishment and let him get back to drinking, but if Hades complains!" she stopped and stomped her stilettos on the marble floor.

"Fine! It's not like I have a lot of cute same-sex couples anyway and we're overdue for some," she said sounding more calm and pulling herself together.

"Mom, thank you so much!" Silena said running to hug her.

"Go back to your much deserved paradise and be well, my darling," Aphrodite said, hugging her back and sounding defeated.

Silena's spirit glowed brighter and disappeared.

"I guess I have work to do," she said sounding irritated again.


It was around the end of week two that he started to lose hope and tried to accept that nothing was going to change. He'd started burying himself in his bed again and rejecting Jason's company. One morning he just went right back to his cabin after breakfast and went to sleep. There was a knock at the door and he got up with the full intention of telling Jason that he just wanted to sleep and he didn't care how unhealthy it was. But when he opened the door it was Percy looking at him with a horror on his face like he couldn't believe Nico was real.

"It was you," Percy said in shock. "Nico, it was you back then! Like you you and-"

"You remember?" Nico asked half amazed and half afraid.

In all this time he never stopped to think if this is what Percy wanted. What if he was happier with Annabeth and angry at Nico for trying to ruin it?

"I, yeah, I remember. I don't know why but all these memories of hanging out with you before we even met just came back to me. And you were older, like the age you are now. Nico, what's going on?"

"Do you wanna…?" Nico step aside awkwardly to allow him in and then shut the door. Percy turned to face him and his expression was still wide-eyed like he was just seeing Nico for the first time.

"It was Aphrodite," he said sheepishly. "She sent me back to time to each me a lesson. She wanted to show me that if you had met me before you developed feelings for Annabeth, then…" He shrugged and looked away.

"I remember…at the fireworks, I asked you out and you said-"

"I know," Nico cut him off before he could repeat the humiliating parts of that conversation.

"You said yes…but you knew. You said you might not be around and then she was there."

"I didn't know she was going to do that right then," said Nico. He could feel his face heating up.

"So she zapped you back here?" asked Percy.

"And whiped yours and everyone else's memories of me so it wouldn't screw up history," he finished.

"Oh gods, I think I hate her!" Percy said running a hand through his hair looking around like the world didn't make sense anymore.

"Percy, I'm sorry. I wanted you to get your memories back but I guess I just need to know if…I need to know if they compare to what you feel for Annabeth at all? You can tell me the truth and I'll just never bother you again. I know you loved her first."

"It has nothing to do with who came first and I'm not even sure who that is anymore. How do we know it didn't always happen this way and I just didn't remember you?"

"I don't know," Nico said helplessly. Percy looked at him and slowly started to smile.

"I was so jealous of Silena and the way she just hugged you like it was nothing. And you spent so much time with her. Even when you'd told me you two were just friends, I was still jealous," he laughed. Nico smiled too but it was only a flash.

"Do you still like me?" Percy asked directly.

"Yeah," said Nico and he knew he was blushing bright red.

"Have you liked me this whole time?"

"Yes," he said firmly. Percy crossed the room in two steps and hugged him.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't notice and that I forgot," Percy said burying his face in Nico's curls.

"It's not your fault," he said. His heart was hammering against his rib cage but he hugged Percy back just as hard.

"No, what I felt for you was stronger. It took me years to feel that way about Annabeth and it shouldn't have disappeared that easily."

Percy pulled back just enough to kiss him. Nico felt that familiar warmth pooling in the pit of his stomach and was surprised he didn't just melt into a puddle on the spot.

"I'm moving back to camp," he said smiling at Nico.

"What?" he asked a little dumbstruck.

"I'm coming back, unless you've changed your mind about dating me." His sea-green eyes gleamed happily and Nico felt his arms tighten around him just a fraction more.

"No, but what about Annabeth?" he asked apprehensively.

"We agreed that we love each other but we're not in love with each other. I know it sounds stupid."

"No, it doesn't. But are you sure? I mean this is technically still just Aphrodite pulling the strings," Nico said sadly.

"Maybe she's just finally getting it right. Nico, Annabeth can be happy without me –she can—but I know I can't be happy without you. Not anymore."

He felt his heart contract and smiled at the boy holding him.

"Me either," he whispered and kissed him again.


End. Really.