Fate Withstands

Chapter 16

As the dead were rounded up, Nico gave them proper funeral rites. They burned the shrouds that night at the campfire. There was too much smoke, the fire was too big. It should have heated him like everyone else but he still shivered.

When the camp went to dinner that night, Nico held back. All the other campers had a table to go to, somewhere they belonged. Yet there was nowhere for him to sit, nowhere his father was welcomed. So he shrank back, watched from the shadows.

Campers ate and left rather quickly. Nico thought it was a little odd until he noticed them hiding out, hidden around the pavilion as they watched Percy and Annabeth, the only two left at dinner. When they kissed, they were outed and carried off to the lake.

It shouldn't have hurt, and he didn't expect it to, but the kiss sent a sharp pain into his heart. Percy Jackson, the one to rescue him from the Underworld. Percy Jackson, the one to invite him into his home. Percy Jackson, the one he betrayed.

Percy Jackson, the one that was now dating Annabeth, the one Nico knew he had to get over.

But his heart still hurt.

"Mr. di Angelo, may we speak?" Chiron wheeled over to Nico when most of the campers were gone.

"Course." Nico tore his eyes away from where Percy Jackson was sitting to look to Chiron. "What about?"

Chiron looked the son of Hades over. "Why aren't you with the rest of the campers? They've seem to have warmed up to you after the battle."

Nico shrugged. "I mean, they have. But..." He sighed. "I don't know."

Chiron gave him a smile. "You'll have a place at this camp, Mr. di Angelo, whether you believe so or not. The curse of the oracle ending should be proof enough. And the reason I've come to speak to you, son of Hades. We'll be building new cabins for those gods who don't have one. Your father is included."

"You...really?" Nico asked. "My father will have a cabin?"

Chiron nodded. "Yes, indeed. It seems you will have a place at this camp."

Nico didn't agree but thanked the old centaur for telling him the news. Of course, he'd help with the construction. He'd even design it if he needed to. But he wasn't fully sure that he was staying.

The next day, he raised some skeletons to start the construction after going through a quick blueprint with Annabeth. Solid obsidian walls with a skull over the door, torches that burned with green fire 24/7, and an extensive heating system inside so that if he did stay there, he wouldn't shiver all night long.

During the cold nights, he returned to the land of the dead to sleep in a warm bed. Hades and Persephone had agreed with him on one thought that gave him relief whenever he went to the Underworld now. Zeus had given him his gift, and it was the gift of ignoring him. If he stayed out of the air and sea, maybe he could go wherever he wanted (including both the land of the dead and the land of the living).

As a summer camp, Camp Half-Blood lost most of its demigods during the winter. A week after these demigods left for the season, Nico was sitting on his bed in the Underworld when his father told him about the Romans for the first time.

"You...you're really serious?" Nico asked. "They could have helped in the war, they could have stopped some of the deaths. Why didn't you tell me this before?"

Hades's serious tone didn't falter. "They aren't meant to mix, Nico. They can't. When they meet, they cause bloodshed. It has happened before."

Nico frowned. "We're all different people. This is a different time, dad. I should know better than anyone. When I was born, people like me would have been killed. Boys couldn't like boys. But now that's different."

And that's how he came out to his father without even thinking it through.

They stared at each other in silence as the minutes itched by. Nico himself had frozen in embarrassment, old instincts screaming at him to run away. But his father was Greek, after all, and the Greek gods were known for their sexual encounters both heterosexually and homosexually.

Finally, Hades broke out in a sharp laugh.

"I'm sorry," Nico apologized. "It wasn't mature of me to just spit something out like that, and it wasn't anything to do with the topic at hand..."

"Son, son, don't apologize." Hades moved a hand to his stomach. "That's the hardest I've laughed in a couple decades."

Nico let the tension drain from his shoulders. "So...um, as I was saying, times change."

"That they do." Hades stood up. "But trust me, Nico. Times have changed many times before. History repeats, even the mortals realize it. If the Romans once again meet the Greeks, there will be bloodshed."

"Okay," Nico accepted. "I'll work on keeping them apart."

Hades gave him a soft pat on the shoulder before leaving the room. Nico watched after him before sitting back on his bed, taking in the heat of the Underworld. The Romans...his father hadn't told him just to keep the camps apart, he knew that for sure. But if not for that, then for what? It was a riddle that kept him up all night.