A/N: Story time. One of my best friends has been talking for years about Nico and Thalia's relationship, and I kept arguing that they didn't have one because they only interacted three times in canon. Then Blood of Olympus came out and "Are you two on bad terms?" "We're fine." implied HELLA EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE, so for my friend's birthday last year, I wrote her this fic, an in-depth study of every time Nico and Thalia have ever interacted, only three of which are in canon. And then I let it sit for a year and this week finally got down to editing it (read: checking things I forgot about canon and therefore blatantly contradicted). I tried really hard to keep it canon-compliant, but Blood of Olympus really messed me up because Nico and Reyna flee the flight with Orion and there is no time for him and Thalia to talk! So. For the purposes of this fic, we're just gonna pretend that that scene ended a little differently. Idk, they defeated Orion (for now, at least, cause doesn't he come back later? idek) and Reyna and Hylla got a chance to reconnect while Nico talked to Thalia, and then the ghosts of Reyna's past showed up. Let's just pretend that's how that worked. But everything else should be more or less canon-compliant, give or take some creative liberties.

Anyway, so here's this. I hope you all like it. Please let me know what you think in a review! And of course, this is dedicated to E, who cared so much about these two characters being friends that I wrote twenty pages about it.

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HoO.

A History of Death and Lightning

Nico is ten when, in the span of less than two hours, he is attacked by a manticore, saved by a terrifyingly charming son of Poseidon, and abandoned by the only family he's ever known. So you can't exactly blame him for not paying a whole lot of attention to the spiky-haired daughter of Zeus who also happens to be there, even when she almost drives him into a lake in the coolest school bus ride of his life.

But technically, Nico is ten when he meets Thalia Grace.

Nico is eleven, almost twelve, and has been having a very nice time meditating in a New Orleans graveyard, when a rogue shadow appears and drops him unwillingly into the middle of New York.

Percy is there— dear gods, help him—but so is Thalia, and she wasn't a Hunter of Artemis the last time Nico saw her, so he almost doesn't recognize her. It might as well be a brand new meeting, but then she calls him "Bianca's little brother," and Nico decides that it doesn't even matter because he hates her now.

But then she agrees to help him find his father's sword, so maybe she's not so bad.

As he and Thalia pull Percy's poisoned body away from the River Lethe, acting on instinct and sharing his weight without question, he takes a moment to feel bad that when he was younger and stupider and Minos first told him "a soul for a soul," his first thought after himself didn't go to Daedalus.

It went to the mysterious, spiky-haired daughter of Zeus that the Hermes kids once told him had cheated death by becoming a tree.

Nico is twelve, and he knows objectively that the Hunters of Artemis are there, at the Battle of Mount Olympus, but he also knows that they need to be there just as much as his father and his army do, just as much as Percy Jackson does, so he pretends that their very presence doesn't infuriate him.

He gets half a glimpse of Thalia leading her sisters against a horde of monsters, and wonders for half a second if she and Bianca were friends during the half a quest they knew each other, before he pushes his thoughts away and focuses only on the war.

There are three times when Nico di Angelo meets Thalia Grace when Percy Jackson is there to see it, and if Nico could have his way, those three times would be it. But Nico is still twelve and still sore from the battle when he is forced for the second time to run away from what should be his home, and unwillingly stumbles upon the Hunters of Artemis's camp.

He has realized, since his trip to Connecticut with Percy, that it's beyond dangerous how tired shadow-traveling makes him, so he decides to practice as often as possible, in order to work his stamina up as best he can. Unfortunately, this results in quite a few losses of consciousness upon arrival, and quite a few more accidental trips to China, before he exactly gets the hang of it.

He's leaving Long Island, aiming for Venice and hoping for somewhere along the way that's at least over the Atlantic Ocean, when he feels himself be pulled prematurely out of the shadows. Almost immediately, he knows something's wrong. This isn't one of his normal, if not exactly steady, landings. This isn't even one of his "tries to shadow travel too far and immediately passes out upon impact" landings that Minos used to make fun of him for. Everything's going smoothly— he feels energized, he has a clear image in his mind of where he's trying to go, and the shadows are cooperating to pull him along for once— and then suddenly there's a tightening in the pit of his stomach and he's catapulting out of the darkness, his vision already starting to blacken.

It is only with the strongest of his reserves that Nico is able to stay awake long enough to bend his knees and fall into a somersault that somehow ends up with him standing on two feet. It is only with the deepest of his demigod instincts that he is able, even as he's losing consciousness, to recognize the arrow that is now protruding from his left shoulder.

He grabs the arrow by its shaft and yanks it out, having only a few seconds to register the pain that follows before he blacks out.

"Nico!"

"Nico!"

"Di immortales, di Angelo, I do not have time for this, wake up!"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Nicòla!"

Nico jolts awake, starting to scramble to his feet when he realizes he has no idea where he is.

A firm hand lands on his shoulder and he moves to shake it off, but something makes him pause. The world is spinning a little bit, so it takes a minute, but eventually he's able to register who it is crouched in front of him with a hand on his shoulder: spiky black hair, silver circlet, a quiver slung over the shoulder of her silver parka.

"Thalia?" Nico exclaims, feeling an anger that he can't explain well up inside of him. "What are you doing here? Where am I?"

The daughter of Zeus glances behind her, looking annoyed. "I don't really have time to explain," she says when she turns back to him. "Are you all right?"
"Why do you care?" Nico automatically demands. He realizes she still has a hand on his shoulder and immediately shoves it off.

Thalia rolls her eyes in frustration. "Can you fight?" she rephrases.

The tension in the air shifts, and Nico's eyes widen as he suddenly registers his surroundings. He's still half-sprawled on the dirt ground of what appears to be a clearing in a forest. There are trees surrounding him and Thalia, but if he listens carefully, he can hear the sounds of fighting coming from deeper into the woods— swords clashing, arrows flying. He hears an inhuman roar, and then a scream.

"Yeah," he tells Thalia, and gets to his feet without even having to think about it, already reaching to draw his sword. His left shoulder twinges in pain as he grips his sword with both hands, and he suddenly feels lightheaded. He stumbles back a few steps, trying to control the dizziness.

"You coming?" Thalia calls once the world stops spinning, and Nico looks up to see that she's moved to the edge of the clearing, her bow already drawn.

Nico grips the hilt of his sword tighter, nods, and follows her at a run.

As soon as he and Thalia burst through the trees into another clearing, Nico's instincts take over. In half a second, he's absorbed the situation— fourteen Hunters with bows and arrows, three with spears and swords, and a pack of nine hellhounds surrounding them.

"Take that one," Thalia commands, pointing to the monster closest to him. "We'll get the rest." By the time Nico registers her words enough to consider protesting, Thalia has already joined her sisters facing off against the other hounds. Nico considers himself not so immature that he would sit out a fight just to spite someone, but he is definitely just immature enough that he will kill his appointed enemy as quickly as possible so that he'll have no other choice but to assist his allies in killing the rest of them.

So, he jumps into the fray, sword raised high as he lets his demigod instincts take over once again.

Fighting hellhounds has always been somewhat of a hobby for Nico. They're creatures of Hades, and more blindly loyal to his father than most monsters are, so they don't often go after him specifically. When he does end up facing against one, for one reason or another, they tend to not know exactly what to do with him. They hesitate, demigod and son of Hades warring inside them, giving him just enough time to gain the upperhand.

This hellhound is no different— as soon as Nico confronts it, it growls and steps back, not knowing whether to attack or not. Nico doesn't give it the chance to decide, coming in with his sword while the monster's distracted. As he fights, a small part of him keeps the Hunters on the edge of his consciousness, ready to jump in and help if and when they need him.

They don't ever need him. In the time it takes Nico to turn one hellhound to dust, the Hunters eliminate the other eight and are already working on setting up their silver tents when Nico finally sheaths his sword.

His heart pounds in his chest, blood pulsing through his body to throb painfully in his left shoulder. His insides burn with something like jealousy as he watches girls, younger than his sister should be, helping each other set up their portable homes and chatting amiably with each other like he's not even there.

He's starting to feel lightheaded again, so he focuses on catching his breath and not thinking about how useless he is to the people he hates.

"Hey, thanks for helping out," Thalia says diplomatically as she approaches him, dragging him out of his childishly angry thoughts.

"Yeah, no prob," Nico starts to say, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, but trying to focus on Thalia's face is just making him dizzier, and before he knows it, he finds himself stumbling to his knees.

"Nico? What's wrong?" Thalia demands, crouched in front of him in a second with both hands on his shoulders to steady him. Before he can form the words to answer, Thalia lifts one hand off his left shoulder and immediately lets out a string of curses.

Blurrily, Nico registers what's happening as Thalia guides him onto his back and yells behind her, "Phoebe, get the first aid kit, now!" Blurrily, he recognizes the bright red stain of blood on Thalia's hands and registers in the back of his mind that it's his. Blurrily, Nico feels pain pounding through his shoulder, in sync with his heartbeat, and blurrily, he remembers pulling an arrow out of his arm when he first fell out of the shadows, before he blacks out for the second time that day.

Nico comes to on a wooden cot, staring at the silver cloth ceiling of what is clearly one of the Hunters of Artemis's tents. He looks around— his jacket is draped over a chair next to the bed, and a thick bandage is wrapped around his left shoulder. He sits up, and his right arm tugs uncomfortably. He turns, and his eyes widen at the sight of a portable IV pole set up next to the bed, transporting some kind of liquid through the tube inserted in his forearm.

Movement from his other side makes Nico turn his attention away from the IV and to the doorway of the tent, where a red-headed girl dressed in silver, with a half-empty quiver slung over her back, has just slipped in to check on him. She glares upon noticing that he's conscious and then sticks her head back outside to call out, "Thalia! Your boytoy's awake."

Nico's eyes widen and then narrow into a dark and deadly glare. Anger flares up inside him for more reasons than one, and more reasons than he'll admit to, but before he can either protest or rip the IV out of his arm and draw his sword, the girl disappears out of the tent, and Thalia Grace takes her place.

Nico's glare softens, but doesn't dissipate. "What's her problem?"

Thalia glances behind her in the direction her fellow Hunter went, then makes an uncomfortable face. "Phoebe… is still getting used to me, I think," she explains as she comes over to the bed and claims the chair at Nico's side. "She was Zoë's second-in-command, back before…" That quest that we don't talk about, Nico mentally fills in, averting his gaze. "Anyway, I think she expected Lady Artemis to make her Lieutenant, so when Artemis is on Olympus and I'm put completely in charge, she can… get a little testy."

"She sounds lovely," Nico mutters sarcastically as he reaches over to pull the IV out of his arm.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow your roll there, kiddo!" Thalia exclaims, jumping up and starting to reach for him. He stops her with a death glare to rival his father's, and she backs off, raising her hands in surrender. "Okay, fair, I'm sorry. Look, di Angelo, you can't just go running off, you lost a lot of blood."

"So lend me some nectar or ambrosia and I'll be on my merry way," Nico grumbles, starting to tug at the IV tube again.

"Will you stop messing with that thing and listen to me for a second?" Thalia snaps. Nico obeys with a sigh and a dramatic roll of his eyes. "Thank you," Thalia says once Nico's paying attention to her. "I didn't want to give you any ambrosia because I didn't know how bad off you were— you weren't waking up and I didn't want to risk an overdose."

"Hence all this hospital crap?" Nico guesses, gesturing at the IV next to him.

Thalia rolls her eyes and leans forward to remove the needle from his arm— he glares at her and doesn't stop until they're a safe three and a half feet apart again. "Some of my sisters are mortal, so we keep this stuff around in case someone gets injured who can't have nectar or ambrosia."

"Don't call them your sisters, it makes you sound like a sorority," Nico points out. "Or a cult."

"Are you always this difficult?" Thalia asks.

"Usually," Nico confirms. "Look, I'm fine, okay? Thanks for your hospitality or whatever, but I really must be on my way."

He starts to gather the shadows around himself, but Thalia grabs his arm before he can slip away into them. Nico immediately yanks it out of her grip, gritting his teeth against the pain of his injured shoulder.

"Nico, you're still hurt, will you stop trying to run away?" Thalia pleads.

It's a little too kind, a little too concerned, for Nico to take. "Why do you care?" he shouts. "We're not friends, we barely even know each other. Why should you care if I live or die?"

"Because I'm the one who shot you!"

Nico's comeback dies in his throat. "What?"

Thalia at least has the decency to look guilty. "Look, Nico. The Hunters, we— we weren't supposed to be here. We were heading upstate to hunt a bigger monster for Lady Artemis, but Mazie— one of our few nymphs with any real magic powers— she caught wind of that pack of hellhounds, and we didn't want to risk them getting too close to Camp Half-Blood."

"That still doesn't explain why you shot me with an arrow," Nico spits.

"I'm getting to it," Thalia assures him. "We didn't want to spend a whole lot of time hunting down hellhounds, so Mazie did a spell to draw them out. The spell… it called creatures of Hades out of the shadows."

It clicks in Nico's mind a few seconds later than he's proud of. "You threw off my shadow travel?"

"Incidentally, but yes," Thalia confirms. "And then, when I saw something coming out of the shadows, I fired on instinct. I didn't realize it was you until it was too late." She suddenly turns a glare on him. "Although, for the gods' sake, di Angelo, you could've said something! You woke up and claimed you were fine, and since I didn't physically see the arrow in your shoulder, I thought I'd missed!"

Nico doesn't respond right away. His memories of the moments before the fight are fully coming back to him now, and he registers something he was too barely-conscious to acknowledge before.

"You called me by my real name."

Thalia frowns, thrown off by the sudden change of subject. "Huh?"

Nico stares at her, unsure whether to be amazed or suspicious. "When you woke me up. I forgot about it, between the arrow and the fight and passing out twice, but. You called me Nicòla."

"Oh," Thalia says, looking strangely uncomfortable. "Yeah. Well—"

"How did you know my full name?"

Thalia sighs, averting her gaze to the tent wall so she doesn't have to look Nico in the eye. Nico knows what she's going to say even before she says it, and yet it hits him like a ton of bricks anyway.

"Bianca told me."

Nico stares past her, involuntarily curling his hands into fists. He kind of can't breathe, which he distantly recognizes is probably a bad thing.

Objectively, he knows that it's been almost two years since Bianca's death and that he should be fine now. Objectively, he knows that he's grown and matured exponentially in those almost two years, that he understands why his sister did the things she did even if he's not particularly happy about it, and that he shouldn't start hyperventilating at the sound of his sister's name.

But the idea of Bianca talking about him on that quest makes his heart pang. He's spent two years thinking she abandoned him, joined the Hunters so that she'd never have to see him again, never have to deal with her annoying little brother again. But she talked about him to her questmates, shared with them the name her brother was given by the mother she couldn't remember. And it wasn't even with Percy, who Nico can't be the only one to find terrifyingly charming; it wasn't even with Zoë, Bianca's new and chosen sister. It was with Thalia, whom Nico has spent almost two years avoiding because she's one of them. Thalia, who knew Bianca well enough to know Nico as her little brother just by Percy saying his name, something that Nico took as an insult at the time but now realizes actually says something about how well Thalia might have known his sister.

He thinks back to the war, when he allowed himself for half a second to be distracted with thoughts of that quest that we don't talk about, wondering if Thalia and Bianca were friends for those few days they were together.

Apparently, he was right to wonder.

"Nico," Thalia says gently, drawing him out of his thoughts. She says it only once. She doesn't move to touch him. It is exactly what he needs.

Nico lets out a shaky sigh. "Sorry," he whispers. "I didn't realize…" He trails off, staring down at his lap and slowly uncurling his clenched fists.

"She talked about you a lot on that quest, you know," Thalia fills in the silence. "Not so much once Percy got there, I think, but when we were first traveling, at the beginning. Zoë was driving like a maniac, Grover kept trying to impress her. So Bianca and I were left with a lot of time to talk. She felt bad, for leaving you so suddenly like that. She missed you a lot."

Nico shakes his head, closing his eyes against a sudden barrage of tears. It's exactly what he's wanted to hear since he left Westover Hall, and yet he can't bear to hear it.

"Why didn't she say anything?" he asks, his voice hoarse. "Before she left? Or when I summoned her? Why didn't she tell me… anything?" Why didn't you? he doesn't ask.

Thalia answers anyway. "I should've come talk to you, after we got back. I should've been the one to tell you about Bianca."

Nico shrugs without looking at her. "You were a Hunter by then. You had responsibilities. And you didn't even know me. Besides, Percy—"

"Probably gave you some heroic bullshit about Bianca sacrificing herself for the good of the quest," Thalia cuts in. "Instead of realizing you had just lost the only family you ever knew."

"Or at least remembered," Nico mutters. He shrugs again. "I don't know. Percy did his best."

Thalia's silent for a moment or two. Then, "I'm sorry I didn't say anything last Christmas either. That quest for your father's sword… You were so… put together. Heroic. As far as I could tell, you were done grieving. And I thought bringing Bianca up would just make things worse."

Nico starts to respond, but Thalia continues before he can get a word in. "After the whole thing was over, Percy… caught me up, on what I missed at Camp. That whole mess with the Labyrinth, and… and Luke." She practically chokes the name out. Nico spares her a sympathetic glance. "I didn't realize how bad off you were, after Bianca died. If I hadn't gone back to the Hunters right after, maybe I could've—"

"You wouldn't have been able to find me," Nico interrupts. "But I appreciate the sentiment. And anyway. I'm fine now."

It's only mostly true, but Thalia takes it for the end of conversation that it is.

It's the most Thalia and Nico have said to each other, ever, and probably collectively the sappiest thing either of them has said in a while.

Less than a minute later, Phoebe sticks her head back in, gives Nico a dirty look, and says, "Thalia, we should get going, Mazie's got a ping on our next hunt."

Thalia nods and immediately gets to her feet. "Pack everything else up," she tells Phoebe. "We'll be out of this tent in a minute."

Phoebe salutes— Nico can't help but chuckle at the fact that she does so sarcastically— and leaves again.

Thalia turns back to him. "Are you gonna be all right?"

Nico rolls his eyes, leans over to reach awkwardly behind her and grab his jacket, then digs into the pocket and pulls out a baggy of ambrosia. "I'll be fine," he promises. He starts to gather the shadows around himself.

Thalia nods, looking somewhat unconvinced. "Okay, well, if you ever need anything—"

But Nico is already gone.

It has been three weeks since Nico last saw Thalia Grace, and about two weeks and three and a half days since he thought about her. So sue him, he's been busy.

Nico is still very much twelve, as his father and Chiron and every demigod he happens to run into so like to remind him, when he is summoned to his father's throne room for the first time since the war.

"Father," he greets the god with a bow once he's been led by one of Hades's zombie guards to the foot of his throne.

Hades gives him a look that he judges to be somewhere in between disgust and mild interest, which is a step up from how he usually looks at him, so Nico will take it.

"Nico, I have a job for you," Hades announces. Nico tenses on instinct, even though he's been expecting a conversation like this for weeks now— after all, when he appeared in his father's castle in mid-August with an arrow wound and a deep hatred of Camp Half-Blood, requesting to take up semi-permanent residence in the Underworld, Hades did flat-out say he would have to earn his keep. "One of my… more difficult shadow creatures has escaped its captivity and is wreaking havoc in Paris, Texas. I need you to capture it and bring it back."

"Which creature?" Nico asks.

Hades waves a hand, and the guard who'd brought Nico in hands him a blurry Polaroid of what looks like two black baguettes with eyes, crossed over each other into an X. Nico raises an eyebrow at his father, who sighs and explains, "France being in power was a bad time for mythology."

Nico bites his lip to keep from laughing. "All right… How do I capture this thing?"

"It should be loyal to you, whether it wants to or not," Hades explains. "It's in its nature to obey me and my children. However, if it does decide to give you any trouble, you'll need a special weapon."

Nico nods, waiting for Hades to either hand him the weapon in question or tell him what it is. When the god instead says nothing, glaring not necessarily at Nico but in Nico's general direction, and the silence drags on for a good 30 seconds or so, Nico ventures, "My lord? What is the weapon?"

Hades sighs dramatically, like the answer annoys him so much that he doesn't even want to say it. Finally, he says, "You'll need a silver net, woven by Artemis. Unfortunately, it is the only thing that will restrain the damn thing without hurting it."

Nico nods slowly, trying not to let himself smirk too obviously at his father's resistance towards asking other gods for help, and bows once more. "I'll get right on it, my lord."

Hades dismisses him with a lazy wave of his hand, and Nico sinks into the shadows.

He emerges an hour later in a forest clearing somewhere outside Denver, Colorado, wearing a thin black cloak in place of his signature aviator jacket, that leaves the Stygian Iron sword strapped to his belt in clear view. Between his father's resources, his own natural abilities, and Artemis's well-known hunting patterns, he knows with 100% certainty that he's in the right place, which is why he raises his hands in surrender immediately upon landing, even before he hears the sounds of eighteen bows being drawn from behind him.

"Nico?" a familiar voice says.

Nico flinches. In his haste to complete his mission and please his father, he'd honestly forgotten that asking Artemis for a favor necessarily meant confronting her Hunters. And therefore Thalia Grace.

Slowly, he turns around, keeping his hands raised and his sword sheathed. Thalia is standing at the front of the group of girls, her bow drawn but not raised, with Phoebe next to her pointing an arrow directly at Nico's heart.

Nico forces himself to ignore the both of them and addresses a girl at the back of their group who can't be older than twelve and yet has the distinct aura of a goddess. "Lady Artemis, I come in peace, as a messenger on behalf of my father, Hades."

No one responds at first, although Nico thinks he can see a glint of amused pride in the goddess's eyes at his having recognized her. Then she raises a hand, and the Hunters, somehow all simultaneously despite most of them facing away from her, lower their weapons.

Artemis steps forward, the Hunters parting to let her through. Nico keeps his gaze fixed confidently on the goddess, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees Phoebe glaring at him and Thalia sending him a warning look. Artemis stops in front of him and Nico bows formally, noting subconsciously that he and the maiden goddess are exactly the same height.

"And what might this message from Hades be, young demigod?" Artemis asks.

"Lord Hades has… misplaced a creature from the depths of Tartarus," Nico explains. "He sent me to hunt it down and return it to captivity, but to do so I require one of your silver nets."

Artemis looks him right in the eye, keeping her gaze locked on his for a few moments without saying anything. Then, without looking away from him, she says, "Lieutenant, take this boy to our camp and give him what he's asked for."

Nico bows again. "Thank you, my lady. Lord Hades thanks you as well."

Artemis smirks. "I'm sure he does."

"Come on, Nico," Thalia says, motioning for him to follow her. He nods politely once more to Artemis before he obeys.

Once Thalia has led him deep enough into the forest that they're out of the Hunters' earshot, she says to him, "You're weirdly good at that."

Nico frowns. "What? Talking to gods?"

"Yeah," she confirms, casually slinging her quiver over one shoulder. "I don't know, I guess I'm just used to Percy, who can't seem to ever keep his mouth shut and tends to offend every god he ever meets just by existing."

Nico snorts. She's not wrong. "Yeah, well, I'm not Percy."

"I know. You're much more mature."

They keep walking in silence for a few minutes until they reach another clearing, where the Hunters have set up their tents.

"Wait here," Thalia tells him, putting a hand out in front of him before he can fully enter the camp. "I'll get you the net."

Nico nods, and waits patiently on the edge of the clearing, one hand laid carefully on the hilt of his sword just in case, while Thalia slips inside one of the silver tents.

She reemerges minutes later, holding a patch of netted silver fabric no larger than a potholder. Nico raises an eyebrow. "That's it?"

Thalia smirks. "It expands, genius."

"Just like everything else in Greek mythology, apparently," Nico mutters as he gratefully takes the net and slips it into the pocket of his cloak. "Thanks for the help, Thalia."

"Any time, di Angelo," she says with a nod. "Hey, before you run off, how's everything at Camp?"

Nico averts his gaze. "I, uh… actually haven't been there since right after the war. I've… kinda been living with my dad these last couple weeks."

"In the Underworld?" Thalia asks, sounding honestly more curious than judgmental, which Nico can't help but appreciate. "Why? I mean, don't you have a cabin at Camp Half-Blood now?"

"I do," Nico admits, meeting her eyes again, "but having a building in my father's name doesn't actually mean people stop seeing me as a freak."

Thalia smiles sympathetically at him. "I get it. I… actually kind of know how you feel." At Nico's look of disbelief, she rolls her eyes and elaborates, "There was a month or two when I lived at Camp, after the Golden Fleece brought me back. A month or two where I slept in Cabin One, a cold and empty building that was built fifty years ago to be symbolic. No one was ever supposed to live there. They didn't even bother to bring in a bed when Grover first found us. I slept on a bedroll in an alcove, hiding from a statue of my father scarier than the horde of monsters his tree trick had saved me from. I was finally in the first place I should've been able to call home, and I'd never felt more lonely in my life. I mean, Annabeth tried to help me settle in- she gave me old pictures of us she'd saved, she caught me up on what I'd missed, but… Annabeth had been seven the last time I'd seen her. She still looked up to me like I was the older sister she never had, even though she was almost fourteen and I still felt twelve. Percy and I weren't really friends yet, and as much as we tried to get along, well- you saw us butt heads when we met up in Maine. Luke was… gone." She pauses, blinking rapidly for a moment, then continues. "The only other kid I knew there was Grover, who was off searching for Pan half the time, and the other half felt so guilty for letting me turn into a tree in the first place that he would barely even look at me. To everyone else, I was 'the girl who used to be inside Thalia's Pine,' 'the daughter of Zeus who's not supposed to exist.' I wasn't even a real person while I was there, because I'd become such a legend."

"You say that like being a legend is a bad thing," Nico notes.

Thalia shrugs. "Sometimes it is. I was just another myth revealed to be real. And sometimes, I think I was even more disappointing than the gods."

"I never would've known," Nico says honestly. "It looks like you've really found your place here."

"And you'll find yours," Thalia promises. She nods at his cloak pocket. "Good luck with your quest. Don't let your dad work you to death." She pauses meaningfully, and then adds, "Get it? Cause he's the god of death?"

"Okay, so comedy— not one of your talents, good to know," Nico jokes, making Thalia grin at him, and the smile he returns is still on his face as he retreats back into the shadows.

It's September of his twelfth (well… seventy-second… or so) year when Nico di Angelo meets his sister, and at first he doesn't think about Thalia at all, because why would he? He just found his new sister, and Hazel has nothing to do with Thalia.

But then he takes her to Camp Jupiter, and things change. Because it is there that he first meets Jason Grace.

The worst part is that it made sense, when Hades first explained it to him— the war, the split personalities, the reasons why the Greek and Roman demigods can't know each other exists, with Nico and Hazel as the sole exceptions. He knows it's safer that they stay separate, which is why under normal circumstances, he would obey his father's orders without question.

But then he sees Jason, with his electric blue eyes and military leadership and carefree smile when his superiors aren't watching. And he thinks about how lucky he felt to find Hazel and bring her back into the land of the living. He thinks about how devastated he felt when he realized that Bianca was truly lost from him for good. He wonders if Thalia knew Jason existed but not that he's still alive, and he thinks about how horrible he would feel if he became the one to keep Thalia's family from her. He thinks, and debates, and loses sleep, and steers clear of Camp Jupiter for weeks.

And then he bursts into his father's throne room and demands, "Let me tell Thalia about Jason."

Hades is lounging lazily on his throne while a zombie feeds him grapes off a silver platter. He raises a slightly threatening eyebrow. "I'm sorry, did I invite you in?"

Nico bows hastily. "I'm sorry, Father, but please, let me talk to her. Thalia deserves to know her brother's alive."

"I already explained to you—" Hades drawls, but Nico cuts him off.

"Thalia won't tell anyone about the Romans, this is just so she can get her brother back!"

"No exceptions, Nico, and that is final," Hades insists. "Now leave me alone, and don't bring this up again."

Nico stares his father down, gritting his teeth to keep from arguing more. He turns to leave, and then pauses just at the doorway.

"What would you have done?" he asks softly. "If someone had made you split me and Bianca up? Would you have kept her from me just because some gods told you to?"

After too long a silence, his father responds. "Yes. If it would keep you safe."

Nico is about a month and a half away from turning thirteen when Percy Jackson goes missing.

He raids the Underworld, confirming for Annabeth's sake and definitely not his own, that Percy's still alive. He scours the entire state of New York, including Staten Island, and finds not even a clue as to where he could've gone. He promises Annabeth and definitely not himself that he'll do absolutely everything in his power to find Percy and make sure he comes home safe.

He panics, just a little bit.

And then he makes his way to Camp Jupiter, if only to let Hazel know that he might be MIA (read: exclusively helping the Greeks) for awhile (read: until Percy is found) and finds out that Jason Grace has also been missing, for almost two months.

For the first time in years, Nico lets himself feel a deep and burning hatred for the gods.

It's not until a few months later that Nico is able to hide in the shadows and confirm Percy's presence at the Wolf House, but months before then he knows that if Jason and Percy are both missing, the Greeks and Romans won't be staying hidden from each other for much longer. He tells Annabeth he'll keep looking, but resigns himself to the fact that until whatever god is messing with them reveals their plan, there's nothing else he can do. And so he leaves, letting the shadows take him as far away from both camps as he can get.

He's barely touched down on Italian soil when he receives an Iris Message.

"Thalia?!" he exclaims as soon as the mist clears, eyes wide in fear-laden surprise.

It's not to say that he's been avoiding the Hunters since he found out about Jason, because he hardly made a habit of seeking them out before then, but yeah he's definitely been avoiding the Hunters since he found out about Jason. Or more specifically, he's been avoiding Thalia.

"Nico," she sighs in relief. "I assume you heard?"

There's no point in pretending. "About Percy? Yeah, I— I've been looking, but I don't think—"

"If anyone can find him, it's you," Thalia interrupts, and Nico's words die in his throat. "I mean, how did you find us so easily when you needed that net?"

"I'm good at finding things and powerful demigods are easy to track," Nico answers automatically, then winces. "But Thalia—"

"See?" she cuts in again. "Then you should be able to hunt Percy down in no time. Now officially, the Hunters can't organize a search party, for obvious reasons, but if there's anything you need from us— any resources we might have access to, just let me know."

He can't look her in the eye. "Okay," he manages hoarsely. "I will."

"Nico," Thalia says once, and then waits for him to look up at her. "I trust you."

You shouldn't, Nico thinks, and hates himself.

Nico is thirteen, although if you ask a certain mathematically-challenged writer in Boston, he'll tell you he's fourteen, when he makes one quick stop before descending into the depths of Tartarus.

"Nico, what's going on?" Thalia asks as she arrives at the meeting spot he arranged, a few miles north of the Door of Orpheus in Central Park. "Your message was ominously vague."

"I needed to talk to you," Nico begins. "I'm about to embark on a… quest, of sorts. Not camp-sanctioned. Extremely dangerous. I might not make it back."

Thalia rolls her eyes. "Nico—"

"Please don't interrupt me," he cuts her off. "Just— just let me get through this, okay?" Thalia's eyes are wide in concern, but she nods. "Before I leave, there's something I needed you to know. Your brother, Jason, is alive. He lives in California with a legion of Roman demigods."

He waits for the response, expecting a hateful, "How long have you known?" or worse. But Thalia says nothing for what feels like a really long time. And then she says, "I know."

Nico starts. "You— you do?"

Thalia chuckles. "Yeah, apparently he showed up at Camp Half-Blood with amnesia soon after Percy disappeared. I met up with him in the mountains last December and helped him and some friends of his with their quest."

Nico swallows. Okay, he should say. Okay, good, I just wanted to make sure you knew, and then he should be on his way.

But the guilt continues to eat at him. He can't bear the thought of going into Tartarus and potentially never coming back while he's still keeping things from her.

"No," he finds himself saying. "No, actually, I… I knew about Jason before Percy went missing."

Thalia frowns. "What? What do you mean?"

"I actually met him back in September," Nico explains. "My father told me I couldn't tell you, because it was too dangerous for the Greeks and Romans to know about each other."

Thalia just stares at him for a minute, her expression painfully unreadable. "You… you knew my brother was alive for months and you didn't tell me?'

"I know, I— I wanted to—" Nico tries.

"Can you imagine if I found out Bianca was still alive and didn't tell you?" Nico winces. "Can you think about how that might feel, Nico? I could've had four more months with him, and you kept him from me because your daddy told you to?"

Nico blinks back tears. "I know. I'm so sorry, Thalia."

"I thought we were friends," Thalia snaps. "Or at least starting to get there. But apparently, you are so obsessed with your son of Hades loner-boy image that you'll do anything to drive people away. Even betray the people who care about you." She scoffs. "Good luck on your quest, Nico. If you make it back alive, don't bother looking me up."

Nico is openly crying, a silent but constant stream of tears running down his cheeks, by the time she's out of sight.

Nico is still thirteen, but feels ninety after the ordeal that is Tartarus, when he reveals his darkest secret in front of Jason Grace.

He tries to avoid the son of Jupiter for days afterwards, hiding out in the crow's nest of the Argo II and ignoring the concerned looks Hazel sends him. When Jason says, "Hey, we need to talk," he curtly responds with, "We need to get to the House of Hades," and slips away into the shadows.

He doesn't sleep, staying up later and later each night that Jason returns from Auster's palace empty-handed, trying to reach his father through unsuccessful prayer. The one night that he does succumb to exhaustion, he dreams of darkness and shadows that refuse to obey, and then he dreams of Percy and Annabeth down there, dying or worse because he couldn't save them.

He doesn't realize the nightmare has turned into a demigod dream until he finds himself looking at Thalia Grace shooting arrows at a practice target in a dimly lit cavern. She gets three or four in before she speaks, addressing someone outside of Nico's line of sight. "Still no word from Lady Artemis?"

"Apparently she's changed her mind about disobeying Zeus's orders to lead us," a voice Nico doesn't recognize responds. "We're still on our own, for now."

Thalia fires again, hitting the bullseye with an almost angry intensity. "I hate not knowing things. I didn't realize how much information Lady Artemis gives us." Another arrow hits the target, centimeters from the last. "Without her, I feel so out of the loop."

The unidentified Hunter is silent for a moment, and then she steps into Nico's view. She's young, maybe his age or a bit younger, with long dark braided hair and bangs that fall purposefully into her eyes. Nico doesn't recognize her at all from his various stints with the Hunters, which he finds a bit strange— that amidst everything that's happened in the years since Bianca died, the Hunters are still recruiting.

"Lieutenant," the girl says hesitantly, stepping back a step when Thalia again draws her bow. "Have you heard from your brother at all?"

Thalia pauses and then sighs, letting her bowstring relax. "No," she admits as she returns the arrow to the quiver leaning against the wall and tosses her bow dejectedly to the dusty cave floor. "Not since they all left for California. I don't even know if they found the Roman Camp, much less if they managed to get Percy out of there. I can only hope they're off fighting Gaea somewhere since she hasn't taken over the world yet."

"What about Nico di Angelo?" the girl asks cautiously, and Thalia turns to her, looking just as startled as Nico feels.

"What about him?" Thalia practically growls.

To her credit, the young Hunter stands her ground. "I've heard the other girls talk about him— they say he's an ambassador from Hades, that he's the only mortal boy Lady Artemis can stand. Phoebe said he's a friend of yours— couldn't you ask him to find out what's going on?"

Thalia steps forward, pointing a finger threateningly in the girl's face. "Get this straight, Elda. Nico di Angelo and I are not friends. He kept secrets from me that he had no right to keep and then ran off on some dangerous quest to who knows where. I don't even know if he's still alive."

The girl, Elda, swallows. "Do you want him to be?" she asks bravely.

Thalia looks surprised by the question, and steps back out of Elda's personal space. "I told him not to look me up if he came back from his quest," she says as she retrieves her bow again, not looking Elda in the eye.

"But you could still look him up," Elda points out. "Lieutenant, I know it's not my place, but… in the world of gods and monsters, when any of us could die at any minute, is it really worth it to keep a grudge?"

Nico holds his breath, anxious to hear Thalia's answer. The daughter of Zeus fits an arrow into her bow and draws it, aiming directly at the target.

"As long as Nico di Angelo insists on keeping secrets," Thalia says coldly, "no one will accept him. I'm definitely not going to be the one to start."

Nico forgets how to breathe. He watches in pained shock as Thalia resumes shooting arrows and Elda, clearly noting the end of conversation, bows to her lieutenant and retreats.

Thalia's words are still ringing in Nico's ears when he wakes up in a cold sweat. He sits in the crow's nest, gasping for breath and basking in the silence of his solitude. Somewhere below him, his sister and her questmates are fast asleep, wrapped in the safety of friendship and trust, while he sits up here, alone and unwanted.

It is then, even before he tells Jason the next day on the balcony of Auster's palace, that Nico makes a decision. After Gaea is defeated and Percy is safe, he's leaving the world of Camp Half-Blood and never coming back.

"I could ask for advice," Nico says reluctantly, what feels like a lifetime later, when he's been weighed down by exhaustion and a 2,000-pound statue and feels like he's being eaten alive by shadows instead of by his own guilt for once. "Thalia Grace…"

"Jason's sister," Reyna confirms.

Nico nods. "The Hunters of Artemis are… well, hunters. If anybody knew about this giant hunter guy, Thalia would. I could try sending her an Iris Message."

"You don't sound very excited about the idea," Reyna notices. "Are you two… on bad terms?"

Nico grimaces. "We're fine." Even to his own ears, it doesn't sound convincing.

A fight and a half later, he's in Puerto Rico, waking up after clearly having been knocked out, tied to a chair and to Coach Hedge in the darkness of an abandoned restaurant.

There's a silver net draped over his legs, a note stuck through it with an arrow. He immediately groans. "Looks like Thalia got my message."

They don't get a chance to talk until much later, once Orion has been fully dealt with and Reyna's reuniting with her sister.

"Thank you for coming," he calls to her, stopping a safe few feet away from where the Hunters are packing up their supplies.

Phoebe isn't with them, Nico notices. He decides not to say anything.

Thalia shoves some extra arrows into her quiver without looking at him. "I wasn't just gonna let you die."

"Still," Nico presses. "It can't have been easy to team up with the Amazons like that. Especially not because of me. So. Thank you."

Thalia zips up her pack and slings it over one shoulder, hugging her quiver in the other arm. She stands there for a second, staring ahead of her, and then she turns to him.

"I'm really glad you felt comfortable coming to me for help," she says, meeting his gaze with an intensity that makes Nico slightly uncomfortable. "I hate the thought that you could've died today because you didn't think I would come." Nico doesn't know how to respond, but luckily Thalia continues before he has to. "In this world of gods and monsters, when any of us could die at any minute, it's not worth it to keep a grudge." Nico swallows, remembering the words from a dream what feels like ages ago. The Hunter who first said them, he notices, also doesn't seem to be present. "Jason was taken from me when he was two years old. I ran away from home right after, found Luke and Annabeth and… well, you know. I never forgot about Jason, I thought about him every day. But I also never told anyone about him. Not even Luke, not even Annabeth. Until… that quest."

Nico frowns. His thoughts immediately go to that quest that we don't talk about, but that can't—

"I talked to Bianca about him," Thalia cuts off his thoughts while simultaneously confirming them. "One night, really early in the quest, I was keeping watch and she couldn't sleep so we got to talking. She got really upset, missing you. So I told her that I understood what it felt like to lose a little brother. I talked about Jason for the first time, ever, and it was with your sister. I told her not to forget how much you meant to her, even when she knew leaving you was the right choice. Sometimes… I think that conversation was why she tried to take something from the junkyard."

Nico shakes his head. "No. Don't try to blame yourself for her bad choices, Thalia, that is such a Percy Jackson move." She cracks a smile. He sighs in relief. "I'm glad you trusted Bianca enough to talk about Jason. I'm sorry I couldn't trust you enough to tell you I'd found him."

Thalia nods slowly. "It's okay," she decides. "I understand why you did it."

"So…" Nico ventures. "We're good?"

Thalia chuckles. "We're good, di Angelo. Get back to your quest."

Nico nods. "Thanks, Thalia."

"Anytime, kid," she teases. He sends her a mock glare and then turns to go. He's only made it a few feet when she calls out, "Hey, Nico?"

He turns, raises an eyebrow questioningly.

"When this is all over," Thalia says. "Let me know you're okay, will you?"

Nico smiles and salutes. "Will do."

With a grin still tugging at his lips, he heads back towards Reyna and Hedge.

It isn't until the battlefield has been cleared and the Romans have returned to Camp Jupiter and Leo Valdez has been properly mourned that Nico thinks to contact Thalia. It isn't until his third required day in the infirmary has come to a close that he gets the chance to.

"Finally!" Thalia exclaims teasingly as soon as the mist clears. "Jason called me the second the battle ended, I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me."

Nico laughs. "No, I was just busy. Clean up and burials and all that. But I figured I should let you know I survived the whole thing."

"Thanks, I appreciate it," Thalia says with a smirk. "What are you guys up to now, now that you're no longer living in a warzone?"

"Well—" Nico starts to say, but is interrupted by a voice calling his name from behind him.

He turns, and immediately blushes (something he'll never admit to) when he sees Will Solace running towards him, grinning widely. "Hey, Nico!" he pants, out of breath, when he catches up to him. "Sorry, I didn't realize you were on a call— oh, hi, Thalia!— Come to my cabin when you're done, okay? I wanna show you something."

Nico stares at Will for probably a little too long before he manages, "Uh, yeah, okay."

"Great!" Will grins and squeezes Nico's arm excitedly before running off again. Nico's upper arm tingles where Will touched him.

It takes him a minute to get over his shock and turn back to his Iris Message, where Thalia is smirking at him.

"So," she says, raising her eyebrows meaningfully. "Tell me about that."

Nico sighs. "It's… a long story. How much time you got?"

"For you?" Thalia says genuinely. "All the time in the world."

A/N: I hope you liked it. Please review!