This particular fic doesn't really have a point. Nor will it be going further than this. One of my favourite parts of the last book was the the dynamic between Hades, Persephone and Demeter. Their bickering genuinely made me laugh out loud. It also meant that, during the first night of what has been more than a week of insomnia, the dinner conversation below would not leave me alone. It was hounding me until I put it down on paper and I thought I'd share it, given the time not sleeping has given me.

Enjoy, don't enjoy. I don't mind. I only wrote this to get it out of my head. Flames will only go towards reducing my heating bill; so far it has been an unusually cold March.

When you've slain the Minotaur, lopped off Medusa's head, leapt from the top of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis to escape a Chimera and narrowly avoided being dragged into the deepest pits of Hades by an imprisoned Titan all before you're a teenager, you would think there was nothing that could scare you. Well, that's not strictly true. Despite having seen monsters that would have had many grown men fleeing in terror Percy Jackson, demigod and son of Poseidon, was terrified almost out of his wits. The time had come; there was absolutely no turning back now.

Today was the day he took his drivers' test.

Being the son of the sea god had its perks; usually moisture of any kind was not a problem for Percy. He could stay completely dry underwater if he had to. Not to mention the whole amphibious thing. Yet today, beads of nervous sweat kept rolling down his sides, paying no heed to deodorant or the fact that the day was cool and so overcast it looked like it was about to rain any second. His palms were also covered in sweat, making the steering wheel slick and sometimes hard to handle. At least the intense nausea he had felt when the driving examiner had climbed in the car with him was slowly fading now he was moving and driving along in traffic. He had not killed any pedestrians, not even the insane, suicidal New Yorkers making mad dashes against the crosswalk lights. He had not mounted the sidewalk and accidentally driven down a subway entrance, either. Which had to be a plus in the book of the dude sitting shotgun with the clipboard, surely?

A crack of thunder suddenly broke way above the city and Percy winced instinctively as the noise clamoured around the tops of the buildings. When your uncle Zeus was the Lord of the Sky and a master at nailing targets with lightning bolts from six hundred floors up, and was often not pleased with you to boot, then you kind of developed a natural fear of thunder and lightning. It seemed, however, that that particular lightning bolt had not been intended to Kentucky-fry Percy, and so he drove on, flicking on the windshield wipers as an enormous rain drop shattered on the glass right in front of his face.

See, Mr. Clipboard? I can even drive in the rain. I'm the model driver and you want to pass me right now.

He glanced sideways at the examiner, who was watching the road and making notes impassively, then flicked his eyes around his mirrors, purposely moving his head so the examiner could see that he was checking them. The traffic slowed and Percy braked with it, chewing on his bottom lip.

Hey, Dad, he prayed silently. Listen, I know that attempting to get that steak offering to you by turning the stove up real high didn't go so well, but if you're listening now I'll totally find a way to make it up to you if I can just pass this test…

As the traffic moved off again Percy accelerated gently, feeling guilty for first of all even bothering his omnipotent and extremely busy father with such a tiny favour as a pass on his driving test, and then feeling doubly guilty for all those mortals who didn't have a divinity for a parent to give them a hand on their test. He sighed inwardly, despairing at the lengths he would go to just pass. Annabeth had already passed her test with the flying colours he had expected of her, and she'd never let him live it down if he came back without a license.

The rain was coming down much harder now. Percy increased the speed of the wipers to max and gripped the steering wheel harder, ignoring the slightly gross squelch he felt his sweaty palms make against the leather. There was a garbage truck in front of him kicking up a lot of spray from surface water, making it hard to see. The storm was getting so bad that Percy reached down and flicked his own lights on. That should impress Mr. Clipboard. As soon as the lights flared to life on the front of the car a small patch of rainbow appeared in the spray the truck was kicking up, which immediately begin to wriggle and form into a pale, thin face with brown eyes rimmed with purple rings. Shaggy, unkempt dark hair swept across the forehead.

"Nico?!" Percy yelped, squinting at the image, which was staring back at him.

"I'm sorry?" the examiner asked, eying Percy strangely.

Being a mortal, Percy knew it was impossible for Mr. Clipboard to see the face, so he just cleared his throat and murmured tersely, "Nothing." He felt his shoulders hunch with nervous tension as he diverted his attention between his cousin and the road.

The younger demigod waved uncertainly from the Iris-message with a hand half-submerged in a long black sleeve and opened his mouth to speak.

"Not a good time, Nico," Percy hissed out of the corner of his mouth, jerking his head sideways at Mr. Clipboard sitting shotgun.

Nico winced apologetically and vanished.

Nico's distraction meant that Percy missed the truck's taillights coming on as the traffic slowed again. The examiner let out a loud shout, or a curse, Percy wasn't sure which. There was no time to brake; Percy used his ADHD-enhanced reflexes to gun the engine and jerk the wheel to the left, shooting out into the next lane. He managed to get the car under control just quick enough to avoid a glancing blow from an oncoming bus. The deep bass of the bus's horn was accompanied by the tenor blaring from the SUV of the soccer mom he had cut off.

"Pull over!" Mr. Clipboard yelled shrilly, clutching the door-handle for dear life. "Pull over this instant!"

Percy, rapidly coming down from that oh-so-familiar adrenaline high caused by nearly dying, let his shoulders slump. Annabeth would never, ever let him forget this.

Annabeth was smirking. "You know, I never thought you actually had seaweed for a brain… Until now."

She was sitting at the foot of Percy's bed. Percy was lying on his stomach, his head buried deep in his pillows. He reached underneath his face and snatched up one of the pillows, rolling over to toss it at his girlfriend. Her ADHD-reflexes were just as good as his however, so she caught it easily and hugged it to her chest, mirth glittering in her grey eyes even as she tried to pull a sympathetic face.

Percy glowered at her. "It was Nico's fault!" He groaned miserably and threw himself back down onto his face.

Annabeth thought she heard something along the lines of, 'Can't believe that I failed' through the mouthful of pillow Percy was currently sporting and sighed, rolling her eyes. "Sure, blame the cute thirteen-year-old. Like that'll work in front of a jury." She smacked him lightly on the back of his thigh. "Percy, he didn't know that you were taking your test. Iris probably shouldn't have connected you, anyway."

Percy sighed heavily and rolled over again, propping himself up on his elbows. "I know," he admitted reluctantly, shoving a hand through his hair. Okay, so he couldn't totally blame Nico. He shouldn't have become so distracted that he had nearly rear-ended a garbage truck. Admittedly, that was not one of the hallmarks of a good driver.

Annabeth hugged the pillow absently, shifting so she was sitting Indian style and resting her chin on the pillow. "What did he want, anyway?" she asked eventually, frowning slightly.

"Nico? I don't know. I never got a chance to ask. What with nearly totalling the car and all." Percy saw her frown deepen and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Being the daughter of Athena, Annabeth could sometimes be a pain in the ass when it came to wanting, no, needing to know information. Despite the earlier control he had exerted over his eyes, he couldn't fight the goofy smile that came to his lips as she reached over to grab her backpack from the floor, looping that elusive strand of blonde hair, the one that the hairdresser had cut that little bit too short, behind her ear as she did so. Pain in the ass? Totally. But so was he, he reasoned. They were each other's respective pains in the ass, and he could more than live with that.

Annabeth began routing through her backpack quickly, spilling several rolled-up scrolls, a hairbrush and a pair of sunglasses onto the comforter. As she looked down, that too-short tendril flopped free from behind her ear. She finally found what she was looking for and handed a golden drachma and a piece of glass to Percy. "Find out."

Percy squinted into the glass. "What's this?"

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Uh, it's a prism? Duh?"

"Oh," Percy replied. "I knew that."

Annabeth smiled indulgently at him. "It's stuff like this that spawned that whole Seaweed Brain moniker, just so you know."

"Who's Monica?" Percy asked absently, heaving himself off the bed and walking to the window. The storm had long since passed overhead and the last of the day's sun was angling in through the window, staining the wooden sill bright orange. He placed the prism in the dying beam of light and immediately a rainbow appeared on the opposite wall. Percy moved towards the refracted light and gently pressed the drachma to the solid wall beneath it. The gold coin melted straight through the drywall and the rainbow glowed brighter. "Goddess Iris, please accept my offering and show me Nico D'Angelo, Camp Half-Blood."

Percy wondered how long he'd have to be recruiting Iris to send his messages before he could drop the whole offering thing. Well, maybe not the drachma, she worked hard for those after all, but the whole prayer/plea thing. It was a little too formal; would she not appreciate more something like, 'You, I, 'sup? I was looking for Nico?' He cocked his head, considering it, then immediately discarded trying to summon Iris that way. Ever. If she took it into her head, rainbows looked like they could stainso hard that he'd be dry-cleaning until he was thirty not to look like a tie-dyed seventies hippy.

Percy's mind had wandered, true to ADHD form, and he had only just noticed the connected Iris-message on the wall. In the Hades cabin, Nico was sitting on his bed, which was covered with black silk sheets and badly, hurriedly made. There was a chrome nightstand topped with a large disc of smoked glass next to his bed, with a lamp modelled after a flaming torch glowing green. The demigod himself had his knees, one of which was poking palely through a rip in his black skinny jeans, drawn up to his chest and was gently stroking a skeleton cat under the chin, which was purring in a way that set Percy's teeth on edge but seemed comforting to Nico.

"Hey, Nico?" Percy tried, shocking the son of Hades out of his reverie so fast that the skeleton cat fell to pieces, its bones clattering hollowly against each other as the slid off the slick sheets onto the floor.

"Percy!" Nico blurted, after he had got over the mini coronary he'd had on having Percy appear in the cabin. "Sorry about your test. I didn't know."

Percy glanced at Annabeth, who had one of her blonde eyebrows cocked at him, reminding him that they had just discussed Nico's lack of culpability. "Yeah, well," Percy muttered quietly. Then, looking over and discovering that Annabeth's other eyebrow had joined the first in her bangs, tried, "It's cool. You weren't to know. So, what's up?"

There was more rattling in the Hades cabin as the cat reformed midway through a leap back onto the bed. Nico inched forward towards the Iris-message and the cat began batting at the tassel hanging from his hoodie. He bit his lower lip nervously and scratched behind his ear.

"I… really, kind of, wanted to ask you a favour," he began tentatively, fixing Percy with puppy dog eyes without even realising he was doing it.

"Sure, anything," Percy promised evenly, folding his arms. It wasn't often Nico came to him, or anyone that matter, asking for favours. He was far too self-reliant for that, so Percy was expecting something major.

"Really? Anything?" Nico asked in a suspicious, disbelieving way that made Percy immediately wish he hadn't promised 'anything'. "Yeah, I'll need a Stygian Oath on that."

"On what…?" Percy asked, sounding more cautious this time.

Nico went quiet again for a while, absently flicking his thumb over the tip of the cat's tail bones. "I mean, you can totally say no," he said after a while. "But my dad apparently thinks that things got off on kind of the wrong foot with me and Persephone," Nico explained, rolling his eyes heavily. "I mean, my stepmother," he added, remembering what he had been requested to call her and adding as much distaste to the term as he could. "He wants me to have dinner with them at his palace to see if we can get things straightened out. Maybe prevent her from, you know, wishing me out of creation."

"Right," Percy said, not sure why this had required an Iris-message in the middle of his driving test.

"Dad said I could bring a friend."

"You want me to go to Hell with you?" Percy blurted out before he could stop himself. His last trip to Hades with Nico hadn't exactly gone well. It had ended with Hades taking him prisoner and a dip in the acid bath also known as the River Styx. Also, a massive skeleton army had tried to kill him.

Nico shrugged, aiming for nonchalant but missing. He sat back on his heels to distance himself from the Iris-message. "It's okay, Percy. I'll go by myself. Don't worry about it. It was just a thought."

Out of the corner of his eye, Percy caught Annabeth taking aim with the pillow, so he hastily backtracked. "No, Nico, it's not that I don't want to. It's just that last time I was in your father's realm… Well, I kind of knocked him out of his chariot and tried to slice him to pieces with my sword."

"But then he came and helped you save the world!" Nico reminded him enthusiastically. "I think things are cool between you and dad now."

Percy hesitated reluctantly. This was not going to end well. He could already tell. Yet between Annabeth spreading her hands, wordlessly asking him what he was waiting for and Nico's masked disappointed interpretation of his silence as a refusal, he couldn't exactly say no. Nico had slid his hands up inside his sleeves and was nodding slightly as if he had been expecting the answer, focusing on petting his zombie kitty and he looked so pathetic that Percy enquired grudgingly, "What time's dinner?" He hoped Nico didn't sense how reluctantly he was asking.

"I'll come get you," Nico said, blinking in surprise at receiving the opposite answer than he had been assuming."About seven-thirty. We can shadow travel there together."

The little pips started. Soon Iris would be asking for another drachma.

"Seven-thirty," Percy repeated, hoping he sounded more enthusiastic then he felt.

"Thanks Percy. I kind of needed the back up on this one," Nico admitted, offering a rare smile just as Iris started asking for another gold drachma and his image faded from sight.

Percy turned to Annabeth. "So, Wise Girl. What's the dresscode for a dinner date in Hell?"

"Do you have any clean clothes?" Annabeth asked in exasperation from somewhere within a maelstrom of apparel that was whirling around her, originating from the inside of Percy's closet.

Percy frowned and snatched a navy blue dress shirt out of the air, flattening it against his body. "These are clean." I think, he added silently.

The maelstrom ceased abruptly and Annabeth sat back on her heels, turning to stare accusatorily at him. "Then why are they all dumped on the floor of your closet?" she asked in exasperation, suddenly realising she had stopped tossing clothes around with a pair of boxers clutched in her left hand. She gave a little, disgusted shriek and threw them back down into the pile. "This isn't good for us," she said decidedly yet teasingly, getting up and dusting off her knees. "I think the dirty underwear alone is enough to kill this relationship."

"It's clean!" Percy persisted, sounding much more sure than he actually was. "It's just… hanger-impaired, that's all."

"Guess I should have know what your room would be like," Annabeth reasoned quietly, mostly to herself, as she crossed the room towards him. "Having inspected your cabin enough times." She leaned against him and kissed him gently just next to his ear.

Percy deepened the embrace, resting his chin on the top of her head which, thankfully, was low enough to be able to do now. Annabeth seemed to have stopped growing, whereas he seemed to have a few more inches left in him. "Hey, I've seen your unmade bed covered in Daedalus's notes," Percy countered. "Didn't kill any passion this end."

Annabeth smiled and broke the hug, resuming her previous seat on the bed. "Yeah, well, that's because you're a slob." She stretched languidly and led down on her back, craning her neck to grin crookedly at him. Percy returned her smile and began to walk towards her, oblivious to the shirt still pressed onto his torso. "Hey!" Annabeth said suddenly. "Why don't you wear that shirt? It's nearly black, which should please Hades, but not actually black so Persephone won't hate it on sight. Perfect!"

Percy shrugged and threw the shirt over his nightstand. "Fine by me. But I don't think it's me that's going to have to do the impressing. Looks like this time it's Nico's turn to be on trial down there."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Don't be so dramatic. You've never been on trial in the Underworld. I was with you the first time, remember?"

"Hey, I have had two audiences with Hades and lived to tell the tale both times, thank you."

"Gods know how," Annabeth mused. "You were nothing but a smart-ass to him the first time, and by Olympus you haven't exactly gotten better at that with age."

Percy turned around, stripping off his t-shirt and spraying on some deodorant before slipping the dress shirt over his head without undoing the buttons.

"I hate that that's all it takes for a guy to get ready," Annabeth grumbled, watching Percy try to smooth out the worst of the shirt's creases with his hands.

"Well, you don't exactly spend much longer on your appearance, do you?" Percy shot back mischievously, noticing Annabeth's hand shoot up automatically to flatten her hair.

"Are you saying I'm a mess?" she asked incredulously, cocking an eyebrow at Percy. "Because this mess can walk right out that door any second."

Percy grinned. "Well, you're no daughter of Aphrodite, are you?"

Annabeth lurched to her feet and punched him, hard, on the bicep, then added an open-palmed slap to the same spot when he burst out laughing. She raised her hand again but Percy caved.

"Okay! Okay. We'll compromise! You're a hot mess."

Although Annabeth was glaring at him, she was smiling too, so he wasn't overly scared when she grabbed him by the shirt collar.

"I'd like to see a daughter of Aphrodite put up with you," she muttered darkly, leaning forward and kissing him on the mouth. She broke the kiss to add, "You're insufferable. I hope Hades turns you into… into…" She stopped, not entirely sure what exactly Hades penchant was when it came to transmogrifying mortals and demigods that ticked him off. "Well, something Hell-related."

"To be honest, I'd say me and Nico have got more chance of getting turned into geraniums by Persephone than we have of seeing dessert…" Percy said darkly. He brightened and chirped falsely, "Hey, why don't you come along? Persephone will probably turn you into one of those mouse-eating plants."

Annabeth sniffed and exaggeratedly wiped a non-existent tear from her eye with her knuckle. "Oh, Percy. I'm so proud. Who knew that forcing you into watching the Discovery Channel would actually teach you something?"

He bumped foreheads with her and murmured a genial, "Bitch."

"Seaweed-for-brains," Annabeth returned, standing on tiptoes to kiss him again.

The noise of someone clearing their throat sounded from the long, diagonal shadow the open closet door was throwing across the room. Both of the demigods turned to find Nico leaning casually against the wall, one knee bent so that the bottom of his foot was propping him up. His arms were folded and his eyebrows were raised amusedly.

"Interrupting something?" he asked airily, smirking through the half-light at them as they both tried to conceal blushes.

It wasn't that the cutlery was made from small bones fused together that disconcerted Percy; it was more that there was so much of it. Like, how many knives and forks and spoons could one demigod need to make it through a meal? He glanced nervously sideways at Nico, who had picked up a fork with extra-stubby tines to dig into his course with, and did the same. He realised he had never actually seen a god eat before, either ambrosia or mortal food, but Persephone and Hades were both eating the same food as him and Nico, albeit in total, awkward silence. Demeter was also there, although the way she had materialised in a shower of grain and had had to conjure her own place setting and seat at the table made Percy think she hadn't actually been invited. Every time she lifted a forkful of food to her mouth it changed into a different kind of cereal.

The silence was starting to put Percy's teeth on edge. Nico was sat next to him, hunched over his plate, doing less eating than Percy had first thought and instead shoving the food around.

"The chicken's really good," had tumbled out of Percy's mouth to break the silence before he could stop himself.

Persephone looked up at him. "It's not chicken," she informed him, as if it was painful for the Queen of the Underworld to be thought of as dining on such a mortal dish. "It's Stymphalian Bird."

Percy blinked. "The… the crazy pigeons that dive-bombed our chariot race at Camp that one time?"

"What do you think happens to all those corpses that just magically dissolve into dust when a hero slays them?" Persephone asked irritably, adjusting the platinum tiara set with blood-red rubies the size of hens' eggs. As the gems caught the light, Percy could have sworn he saw a tormented face leering at him from deep within each stone. "They appear down here and the spirit gets separated waiting to be resurrected and then the whole messy process starts again. After the Battle of Manhatten this place was littered with monster corpses. They ruined my flowerbeds. Luckily it was summer and they'd all been taken care of by the time autumn rolled around for my stay."

"All these years and still squeamish about monster corpses," Hades commented affectionately.

Percy swallowed hard on the mouthful of meat and resisted the urge to push his plate away. He was basically eating roadkill. Hero roadkill, prepared by the best (un)dead chefs in Hades' kitchens, presumably, but still. No wonder Nico was off his food and Demeter was transfiguring it into cereal.

The silence lagged again, stretching on for an eternity. Percy's mind began to wander, wondering absently if these awkward silences ever felt awkward for gods, seeing as they had all of the time in the world and they must pass in a blink of an eye for them.

"Persephone, tell your stepson to sit up straight," Demeter demanded suddenly, nodding her head at Nico. "He's going to end up with a hunchback."

"He's your step-grandson," Persephone returned, apparently determined not to speak to Nico and be reminded of her husband's indiscretions. "Tell him yourself."

"Maybe I should turn him into a stalk of barley," Demeter considered, causing Nico to sit bolt upright so fast that he knocked his goblet over and Hades had to banish the liquid creeping along the tablecloth with a wave of his hand.

"Barley goes slumps over sometimes," Percy said, remembering something about bad crops Annabeth had forced him to watch. "When the weather's bad."

Demeter stuck her tongue in her cheek and sat up to her full height, her eyes flashing the colour of ripe corn. "Uh, is he talking about crop failure? To the goddess of agriculture?" Percy wasn't sure if she was addressing her comments to Hades or Persephone, but he realised suddenly that he had put his foot in it. "And whodo you think has a hand in creating the freak weather systems that flatten my poor crops?" Demeter continued accusingly, turning back to him. "All those hurricanes whipped up at sea blasting their way inland through my fields?"

Oh. Poseidon. Right…

Percy looked back down at his plate and had actually speared some meat on his fork before he remembered what he was eating. He dropped the fork down onto the plate and leaned back, patting his stomach as if he was full. Treacherously, it growled hungrily back at him.

"How… how are the crops this year?" Nico asked tentatively, and Percy was grateful that he wasn't the only one desperately trying to fill the mind-crushingly painful silences that kept springing up.

Demeter's face lit up at the interest Nico was taking, but Hades could barely hide a derisive snort in his goblet at the very mention of crops, and Persephone cut her mother off loudly.

"Oh, please. Unless you want to sit there until it's time for us to claim your immortal souls, do not get my mother talking about agriculture."

"What's wrong with agriculture? I don't hear you complaining when it provides the breakfast I fix for you every morning when you're living with me," Demeter said haughtily.

"I hate cereal!" Persephone burst out with. Although it was summer and she wasn't wearing her Queen of Hell regalia, save for the tiara, her dress flickered like an old TV back and forth between flowers and the black her husband was wearing. "It's been four thousand years and you can't conjure up a croissant once in a while?"

"They're made with flour," Percy said. "So they're kind of cereal-ish too." He had no idea why he said these things. He was inclined to blame the ADHD, which was ironic because Chiron had once told him that it was supposed to help him survive. Here in Hades, however, it just looked like it was going to get him vaporised. The sheer intensity of the oh my gods, did you seriously just say that expression that Nico had on his face didn't make him feel any more comfortable.

Persephone whipped around to glare at Percy, her lips pressed into a thin, angry line. "I'm sorry?" she asked, sickly-sweet. She turned to her husband. "Can I use him as mulch for my garden now?"

Demeter, who was beaming at the point Percy had scored against her unruly, cereal-hating daughter, snapped, "You'll do no such thing. It's summer, so you'll have to listen to me."

"We're in Hell, though," Hades pointed out to his mother-in-law. "It's only right she defers to me."

"Summer trumps Hell," Demeter reminded him in a singsong voice, taking a victory sip from her goblet. "Isn't that the deal Zeus had you agree to?"

Hades was silent, but the tormented souls swirling around in his robe doubled in number, as if his internal anger was unsettling them. "Next course!" he screamed at the massive set of double doors at one end of the banqueting hall. Immediately three skeleton soldiers, dressed in slightly moth-eaten coats and tails instead of their usual tattered remnants of army clothes, bustled into the room and began clearing the plates. The next course that was laid down on the table was a soup. Percy's stomach growled again, but the dish appeared to be meat-based and after the last course he was kind of over any meat served in Hades.

"What's the deal with that whole summer/winter deal thing, anyway?" Percy asked, helping himself to a bread roll from a silver basket and praying to the (not-present) gods that there was no mystery meat in them. "Is it really winter because you miss your daughter?" He directed the last part at Demeter.

Demeter rolled her eyes in disgust. "I'm so sick of you mortals trotting that one out as an explanation for why winter happens. I mean, not that I don't hate to see my daughter descend into the depths of this… well, pit, let's be frank—"

"Demeter…" Hades intoned warningly, slurping at his soup.

Demeter turned on Hades, letting her shoulders drop and eyebrows shoot up incredulously. "Are really you objecting to me calling a massive underground hole a pit?" she asked. "Look around you, Hades. If you looked up the definition of the word 'pit' in one of those human dictionaries, there'd be a great big picture of this place. If the mortals had any idea about it, of course. Anyway. Not that I don't hate to see Persephone spend six months of her year down here but I doalways get her back in the end. And, well, if you eat the King of Hell's pomegranate, that's a decision you've got to live with. It's not like I didn't tell her over and over to not get into the chariots of strange immortals or take fruit sees from them. No. Winter happens in this hemisphere because I go and winter in Australia after dropping Persephone off. Give the southern hemisphere a bit of a blast of summer."

"Can't you just keep it summer everywhere?" Percy asked, thinking how much he'd prefer a permanent summer.

"I would have to be zipping all over the world to keep that up," Demeter said as if Percy had just asked a really stupid question. "Do you know what the commuting time is between Sydney and New York? It can take seven seconds to make that journey. I'd be exhausted if I had to do that all year. It's bad enough having to do it on the Winter Solstice."

Persephone snorted. "Mother, please. It takes three seconds, tops."

"What about traffic, Persephone?" Demeter demanded of her daughter. "While I'm weaving my way through all the teleportation traffic heading for Olympus for the Winter Solstice council meeting you're down here being waited on hand and foot as Queen!" She turned back to Percy. "Besides, if the mortals had permanent summer they'd start to take it, and me, for granted. I'd probably Fade."

Hades began massaging his temple, probably wishing that his mother-in-law would indeed Fade, and hurry up about it. Even though he was the only one that had touched his soup, he yelled for a course change. It was fish. Thinking of the giant squid he had seen his father vanquish during the attack on his palace, Percy was sure he had turned green.

More silence followed the dismissal of the skeletal footmen. Eventually, Hades said, "Persephone has a question she'd like to ask you, Nico," Hades said.

Persephone swallowed her mouthful and asked her husband pointedly, "Does she?"

"Yes, my dove," Hades returned, equally pointedly. He fixed her with a meaningful look, and it was clear that they had reached the part of the evening that he had intended his wife and illegitimate son to bond.

Persephone sighed loudly, putting down her cutlery with a loud click. "I suppose I do," she said, looking to Nico as if seeing him for the first time.

"Yes, my lady?" Nico asked, looking up at her.

Persephone's expression changed from one of annoyance at being put on the spot by her husband to something unreadable on studying Nico's face. Then her lips tightened into a thin line and her nostrils flared. "Why… why do you look so extraordinarily like your mother? More so than your sister, even."

Hades put down his own cutlery and groaned softly, closing his eyes and furrowing his forehead as if he was getting a migraine. Percy wondered how big Olympian Tylenol was.

Nico blinked at Persephone. "What?" he asked, his voice low.

A small smile played across Persephone's lips at the rise she had got out of Nico. "I was just saying you had a touch of the mortal about you that's all. Just like she did I suppose… That mortal life, so fragile. Never able to go the distance."

"Persephone!" Hades barked, angry on behalf of both himself and his son.

Nico was on his feet so fast that he knocked his chair over backwards. His pale face had turned blotchy red with anger. "Take it back," he snarled, balling his fists at his sides. Percy could see him trembling.

"Which part, the comparison I made between the faces of you and your mother or the observation regarding the disposability of mortal concubines?"

"Well, what a lovely dinner," Demeter said loudly, standing up as well. "But look at the time. I ought to be getting along. Don't be too late, Persephone!" Her body broke up into a shower of grain and she vanished. No one really noticed her exit.

The banqueting hall began to tremble. Percy glanced over at Nico and noticed that his hands were balled so tight that his knuckles were glowing white. Small stones started to fall from the ceiling, clattering in amongst the tableware. One landed in Percy's goblet and slopped blue Cherry Coke over the sides.

"Nico!" Hades shouted. "Stop this ridiculous behaviour at once!"

"Take it back," Nico hissed through his teeth, glaring at Persephone. The polished black marble floor gave an almighty lurch beneath them and a crack boomed so like a thunderclap that Percy looked up to check for descending lightning bolts. An enormous chasm was racing its way across the room towards Persephone.

"Oh, please," Persephone sniffed, giving a wide, arcing wave of her arm and filling the crack with cherry blossoms, which reformed into marble.

The cavern continued to tremble and Percy grabbed Nico's arm, swinging the younger demigod around so that they were face to face. "Nico, listen to me. This is not helping!" Percy suddenly felt incredibly lightheaded, so much so that his grip on Nico's arm tightened just so he could stay upright. He felt a familiar tugging pull behind his naval and his eyes flew wide. "No… No, not now…"

The crack opened up again, this time with an accompanied fountain of saltwater that blasted cherry blossoms right to the ceiling and came down in a wave over the room, wiping everything off the table and soaking Persephone and Hades. Only Nico and Percy remained dry.

Persephone sputtered, spitting out a mouthful of saltwater and dragging her hair off her face. "What are you doing?!" she shrieked, her voice an octave higher with rage. "How dare you?!" Her tiara had been washed onto the side of her head and was dangling precariously from a few strands of sodden hair.

"It's not me!" Percy yelped, although the roaring of the tides buzzing through his veins right now said otherwise.

The chasm reached Persephone and swallowed her chair whole. The goddess herself disappeared into whirlwind of petals and reappeared on the other side of the room completely dry again. "Do something!" she yelled at Hades, gesticulating wildly at the two demigods, only to have sprays of flowers explode and burst apart before they could touch them.

Hades had remained seated until now, but he stood, rising to his full height and then growing taller and taller until he was as huge as he was on Olympus. "ENOUGH!" he yelled and his voice seemed to shake the room a thousand times better than Nico could ever have managed. He gave one, sharp clap of his hands and the room stopped trembling, the floor sealed itself again and Percy and Nico were blasted backwards in different directions. They skidded across the sodden floor and crashed into the wall behind them hard enough to dislodge what appeared to be an original Monet of Persephone from its hook. The picture fell to the floor and the frame cracked open. Hades shrank back to normal size, breathing hard. The remains of the water all turned into black dust and disappeared through the floor as he resumed his seat at the head of the table. "I will not tolerate this in my palace!" he seethed through his teeth, his jaw set rigidly. "Explain yourselves."

Percy shot Nico a searchingglance, but his cousin was staring at the floor and not meeting his gaze. What the hell had just happened? Percy had never felt so powerful before. Never.

"I lost control, father," Nico said, sitting up and leaning against the wall. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"You're damn right it won't," Persephone told him, stalking back across the room to rejoin her husband. "I can't even begin to tell you how grounded you are. I should banish you to the Fields of Punishment for trying to kill your stepmother. There are souls there that haven't done anything anywhere near that bad."

"You can't die," Percy pointed out almost lazily, rubbing the back of his head where it had collided with the wall. "So I think you were pretty safe."

"Just because I can't die doesn't mean I wouldn't have been falling forever down that hole!" Persephone reminded him shrilly, stabbing a finger at the sealed fissure and clearly rattled. "And who asked you, anyway, Seadog?"

"Well, no one asked me but I'm not going to sit here and let you blame Nico after you baited him into it," Percy returned, confidence building in his voice. He tilted his chin up defiantly and got to his feet, adding an ironic, "My Lady."

Persephone coloured and raised an arm, a perfectly manicured nail levelled directly at Percy, but Hades gently grasped her wrist and gently placed her arm by her side. He murmured a few words into her ear and she sighed heavily, nodded, then spun on her heel and stormed towards the giant double doors.

The last thing Percy remembered was throwing a sarcastic wave at her retreating back, then seeing the goddess make a half turn and twist her fingers into a ball on her way out of the banqueting hall. A word Annabeth had taught him, 'omniscience', flashed through his brain before the hall disappeared from sight and he was stuck inside a tiny black cube with no visible means of getting out.

Hades sighed, propped his elbow on the table and then his chin on his hand. "Now look what he made her do," he murmured, watching his son tentatively approach the single dandelion sitting on the floor where Percy had been standing.

Nico scooped up the flower from the floor and a shower of dirt fell from the clump around the exposed root. "Is… this Percy?" he asked Hades.

"Well, it is now."

Nico's shoulders slumped as he tucked the Percy/dandelion into the front pocket of his jeans. "Thought so. She should have done me…"

"I think she knew I wouldn't have stood for that," Hades said simply.

"Really?" Nico asked, looking his father full in the face.

Hades nodded. "I'm not going to let any son of mine turn into something as ugly as a flower. A son of my brother, however…" he trailed off, shrugging. "Well, I can let that pass."

A smile flitted briefly across Nico's face, but it was chased away quickly by a frown. "I don't even know what happened. All I know is that I was so mad and then Percy grabbed my arm and it got worse…"

Hades smiled reminiscently. "I remember this one time, aeons ago now when we were all young gods, I crept up behind Poseidon, licked my finger and put it in his ear. As I said, we were very young. I believe the humans have a name for that now actually: a wet something or other. Anyway, Poseidon was furious. We fought for five days straight and when we were through, we discovered that we'd inadvertently slammed India into the bottom of Asia in our mutual rage. It was a complete disaster. Such a mess. There were Himalayan mountains everywhere. My point is that if Poseidon and myself could accomplish such a feat whilst striving against each other, well I'm sure you can begin to imagine what you and Perseus Jackson could achieve working together. Not that I believe you could manage to move a sub-continent, I mean you're only demigods after all, but still… Powers over the earth and powers of the seas combined? It could get pretty… 'hairy' I believe is the current mortal word."

Nico nodded only vaguely, barely connecting his father's story with himself and any abilities he could ever hope to possess. "I'm sorry Persephone got so mad, Dad. If it's important to you, I'll try and make it up to her."

"Thank you. And I'll work on her. She'll try harder with you as well. You know, your mother had the same steak of temper," Hades said fondly, smiling and looking almost through his son. "Good to know it didn't die with her."

"Do you ever… talk with her?" Nico asked, almost hungrily. "Do you ever get to see her?"

Hades paused before answering. "I am the Lord of the Dead," he said eventually. "I can choose to see any spirit that I want. But…" He sighed, looking down at the empty table. "Your mother is content in Elysium. At peace. She has accepted what has happened to her. Seeing her again… it's very painful. For both of us. To be reminded of all that love lost, all what could have been…" He cleared his throat. "Will you stay for dessert?"

Nico shook his head. "No. I should probably get going. Uh… Do you think you could fix Percy before we leave?"

"I could fix him," Hades said languidly. "But, to be honest, it is not worth nagging it will cost me from your stepmother. Besides, I doubt she made it a permanent change; I'm sure the world can deal without a son of Poseidon until it wears off. Unless the damn place decides it's going to come to an end again, of course. In which case, I'll be in touch."

"You want me to leave him as a flower?" Nico asked.

"Quite frankly, you could slice him up and steep him in boiling water to make dandelion tea for all I care," Hades said tiredly. "It would be no skin off my nose. But if you are really that attached to him I suggest finding him a vase. Or something."

"Thanks, Dad."

"For the horticultural tip?"

"No. For everything else."

Hades smiled, snapped his fingers, and sent his son back to the Overworld.

Oh, Gods. Annabeth was going to straight up murder him. And he hated to think what his stepmother would do with his soul once it took up permanent residence in hell. Probably make it dance for her all winter behind his father's back.

Nico knocked on the door of the Athena cabin and waited nervously, shifting from foot to foot. He had paid a visit to the Demeter cabin before coming to see Annabeth, and they had loaned him a ceramic pot and some compost for Percy and helped him plant his cousin. He was holding Percy behind his back, deliberately concealing him as long as possible.

The door opened a crack and Annabeth stepped out in a terrycloth robe with an embroidered owl on the lapel. Her hair was mussed as if she had been lying down, but her eyes were too bright for her to have been sleeping. "Nico. What is it? It's late."

"Uh…"

"Where's Percy?" she asked, narrowing her eyes immediately as Nico gaped at her like a fish out of water. "Nico. What. Happened?"

"I didn't do it," Nico blurted, thrusting Percy in his pot at her.

"What is this? Didn't do what? And Nico, this is a weed. I know courting has probably changes since the forties, but nowadays this is not the way to impress a girl."

"Would it help if I said that it's not so much a weed so much as your boyfriend?" Nico asked hopefully. Dawning comprehension, including the apposite dropping of the jaw, saw off the look of confusion that had first creased her forehead. Nico began to back away. "Well, good night."

Annabeth put Percy on the windowsill to the cabin and ran after Nico barefoot across the grass. She grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around before he could get deep enough into the shadows to pull his vanishing act. "Hey, you little runt. Not so fast. What do you mean, that dandelion is Percy?"

"Dinner didn't go so well," Nico admitted. "Sorry. But I spoke to the Demeter cabin and they said that when the flower dies and all the little white seeds come out the curse should be lifted. So Percy will be back soon."

"I lend you my boyfriend for like four hours and you return him to me as a flower?!" she shrieked, stamping her foot "Nico!"

"Hey, I didn't do it!" he reminded her, shrugging and spreading his hands as much as he could with Annabeth grasping a fistful of his jacket. "He ticked off Persephone."

Annabeth sighed and let go of Nico's shoulder. Suddenly, Percy's earlier comment about geraniums came flooding back to her. "Not exactly a geranium, but it looks like Rachel's got some competition for the Oracle gig," she muttered, glancing back over her shoulder at the potted Percy. When she turned back to Nico, he had vanished. She wandered back over the grass, leaving long tracks in the dew and getting the hem of her robe soaked. There was a label stuck in the pot with Percy, and she bent down to read it in the light spilling from the window.

Hi, I'm Percy.

Please water me.

P.S. Do not yell at Nico.

Annabeth rolled her eyes and brought her boyfriend inside for the night, thinking that somehow the usual rules about cross-cabin sleepovers may have ceased to apply.