When I Don't Remember You (Percico)

Chapter Twenty Eight: The One Behind It All

Nico di Angelo

Out of the stress of that meeting, I went back to New York early because censoring myself constantly is becoming harder and harder every day.

Also because they were going to try and brand me after the meeting and I'm having no part in that.

No thank you. I'm not even Roman.

I took a nap when I got back and ended up sleeping through dinner, although I didn't really care since I wasn't that hungry anyways and I just went to campfire, which surprised a lot of people.

"Nico!" Thalia nearly tackled me to the ground when she run up to me, from the side, and hugged me. "You're alive!"

"I— yeah, I am," I agreed. "Can you please let me go? I promise I'm real."

"Oh, yeah, sorry about that," she apologized, releasing the hug. "It's been forever since you've been here, though! Your birthday, and you like, just left without saying anything the morning after."

I shrugged.

"I had things to do," I insisited, even though it was a lie because I stayed with Sally for like two days after that before deciding that I should visit Hazel again. "i was technically supposed to leave the night before but I fell asleep so I didn't really have time to say goodbye. It's not like I went missing, I'm still on the job for my dad."

"How long is it going to last?" Grover asked me as I joined everyone, noticing a weird glance from Jason as I joined everyone. "Also! The link with Percy has started doing things again! Not much, but I can tell when he's awake and when he's not. That's about it, but it's more! You haven't run into him I'm assuming?"

I shook my head, although hearing the news about their mental link was refreshing.

"No, I haven't," I confirmed for them. "Nothing from the search parties?"

"The last one got back a few days ago with nothing," Annabeth confirmed. "You're in California a lot, right? Have you tried going to Camp Jupiter?"

I forgot that they know about Camp Jupiter because of Jason.

That's going to make thing weirder, cool.

"I've tried, but with no luck," I told them. "I can't get in, probably because I'm not Roman, and when I ask guards, they claim to have never seen anyone with his description, so."

"Well if Grover's mental link only recently started to be active again, he was probably in a coma or something of that sort," Leo reasoned, which I can only hope to be true because then at least he was protected during that time so he wouldn't be harmed. "So maybe he just hasn't found the camp yet. If he has amnesia, navigating is probably going to be harder than usual for him."

"Yeah, I'll try again in another couple weeks," I reassured them. "when I have time."

You know, when I have the motivation to get out of my bed.

I am still very unwell after the breakdown I had the day before my birthday. I didn't leave my bed on my birthday besides to pee and I ate some food, but I ended up throwing most of it up because I had an anxiety attack, and then I went to Sally's because she's the only person I'm taking hugs from right now and we did a self care day and it didn't help me much, but it distracted me for a few hours, and then I stayed the night and ended up meeting the lady who Sally had just started seeing like within two weeks.

The last time I visited Sally, which was a week and a half ago, they were still seeing each other but Sally's been hesitant about using the term girlfriend, but the person she's seeing had been very patient and nice about it because she knows that Sally's in a very fragile state right now. She stopped by to have dinner and stay over because I think they do that like once a week or so in order to keep Sally from getting too lonely between my visits.