Fate Withstands

Chapter 3

After Bob healed Percy, nobody needed convincing to take him with them. But Nico was reluctant to go to the palace, and in the end, hung out around its outskirts as Thalia and Percy went in. Eventually, Nico sat with his back against the palace and tried not to feel like he had been abandoned.

Before Thalia and Percy, it had been so long since he had seen another living soul. He craved their touch, craved their voices, craved their...liveliness. He had sat in those fields for too long, had surrounded himself with shades and shut his own feelings out, making himself a husk of what he used to be in hopes to fit it. But meeting Thalia and Percy had changed everything.

Now, life beckoned him. It called in whispers and screams and with each blink of his eyes. Live again, laugh again, see the sun and feel the breeze and walk the earth with the dirt between your toes. Live. The calling was too intense.

"Nico, are you ready?"

Nico looked up at Percy's voice, having half thought that the two demigods had abandoned him. Now they stood before him, Percy having three roses in hand.

"You came back!" Nico stood up, his eyes watering. "I thought you had left."

"It was a long talk." Percy scratched the back of his head. "But we have three flowers. We can all leave."

Nico looked at him in shock. "She gave you three? Why?"

"They probably know what's going on," Thalia admitted. "She didn't say anything about the third. Nor did your father."

Nico ran a hand through his dark curls. "You're serious?"

Percy handed the flowers out. "We're serious. Now...we have to step on them and envision where we want to go. If you come with me, I can take you back to my apartment until we get things sorted out. I don't think having a child of...your father at camp will sit well. Not until this prophecy is over."

"Okay," Nico accepted. "But how am I supposed to envision your apartment?"

"We'll just have to...try?" Percy guessed.

Nico sighed but couldn't help but smile. "As long as it gets me out of this place, I don't care where it takes me. So there's nothing to lose."

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Hands. He had physical hands. They were still pale, nothing as they were when he was alive, but they were hands. And his feet, they were the same. And his arms and legs and neck and face...

"Nico?" Percy knocked on the bathroom door, barely heard over the roar of the shower. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah!" Nico looked up from his hands and let the hot water hit his face. "Sorry, almost done!"

The steam filled the room, fogged up the mirror. Nico's old uniform laid on the floor, the khaki they had gotten from the British when the tides turned. Volunteers, recruits, Monte Cassino.

Nico shivered despite the hot water at the onslaught of memories. Maybe his momma had been right, maybe he never should have joined. But there was no going back now.

He turned the water off and let the room fall into silence. Heat and steam still lingered in the air, catching his attention for a few seconds as he dried himself off. The towel Percy had given him was the softest thing he had felt in decades.

The clothes he had also been provided laid on the ground by his old uniform. They were Percy's, that much was certain, but they were obviously well liked. Used, stained, but still in good condition. A blue hoodie, black sweatpants. They smelled amazing.

When Nico was dressed he opened the bathroom door and peeked out into the hallway. He could see the living room down the hall, could hear Percy talking in a low voice to his mom.