Hello! This is my first Valdangelo fic so I hope you enjoy. I was inspired by a book called Empty Quarter by Julia Golding where there is a cruise down the Nile for children which is an idea I fell in love with and I am recycling for this fic.

Nico knew he was going to hate the Olympus Educational Programme as soon as he saw the brochure. He had been eating breakfast with his half-sister, Hazel, when their father had appeared and brandished the shiny leaflet beneath at the pair. The brochure had shown a modern cruise ship with a group of teenagers in purple and orange t-shirts with forced, painful smiles as they were frozen in fake laughter. Far too enthusiastically their father had started explaining how brilliant the reviews for the programme were and how much it helped children who had been through trauma and major changes adjust to normal life. It was obvious that this had been their bitch of stepmother's idea, wanting Nico and Hazel out of the house for as long as legally possible. A six month long cruise around Europe for 'troubled teenagers' was perfect - they didn't even have to come back home for holidays like the two did when they went to the various boarding schools she sent to. It was also nearly impossible to be expelled from the programme and it was much harder to run away when in the middle of the Mediterranean.

Despite Nico's moans and Hazel's protests their father had signed them up for the stupid thing, not wanting to make his latest wife, Persephone and his eccentric mother-in-law, Demeter angry. Hazel and Nico had watched all they owned packed in boxes and sent to Amsterdam where their 'luxury cruise liner' would set off.

They would then sail up to Edinburgh in Scotland before working their way down the British Coast, eventually sailing up the Thames to London. After leaving London they visited Dover, crossed the English Channel to France and Belgium which they would spend several weeks touring around cities like Brussels and Paris. They would then cruise down the French Coastline, visiting various towns and tourist attractions before getting to Spain. More touring around Spain and Portugal's coastal cities before entering the Mediterranean. They'd visit France, Italy, Malta, Greece, Turkey and even Tunisia before sailing back across the Atlantic, stopping at a few islands along the way.

Nico couldn't care less, he hadn't even heard of many of the places that their ship was stopping at. Hazel had slowly warmed up to the idea of visiting Europe a place neither of them had been to, but Nico was determined to stubbornly remain frosty towards the whole ordeal despite the fact it would mean Hazel and Nico could get away from their distant father and evil stepmother. Bianca would have understood that even though he hated being at the house he would prefer it to being stuck on a boat, in a room with a stranger for a whole year, while adults tried to diagnose and 'fix him'. He didn't need to be fixed. He wasn't broken.

Now he was sitting in an Amsterdam railway station, an overnight suitcase with him watching Hazel tried to ask a cleaner where the toilets were. They had flown into the city a night ago and were now waiting for the cruise companies car to pick then up from He watched his half sister wander off in a direction the cleaner had pointed in.

As she disappeared round a corner he pulled his packet of cigarettes and light one, ignoring the no smoking sign across the platform. No one apart from the cleaner was around and he was preoccupied with mopping up a pool of sick. Poor man. Nico took a lungful of the smoke and slowly breathed it out. Smoking was the latest in his list of frowned upon habits. He didn't even like smoking but his father had been angry when he had found out Nico had been smoking and that had been satisfying. His father deserved to be unhappy for sending Nico and Hazel away without a second thought. It had been the first time his father had talked to him in a month. Anyway, as unpleasant as it tasted the cigarette helped Nico to relax.

As he took his second lungful of hot smoke he heard a shout and saw the cleaner gesturing angrily to the no smoking sign Nico had chosen to ignore. Sighing he stubbed out the faintly glowing cigarette on the cold metal bench he was sitting at. He flicked the ashes onto the grey concrete floor. It was cold Nico noticed faintly but didn't really acknowledge it. He was lost in thought, thinking about his room back home.

Home. Italy, where he and Bianca had grown up. He remembered the small house somewhere near the Alps where they had lived. Vague memories of his mother smiling and laughing - chatting to him in Italian as she cooked. She had run a café, selling cakes and coffee to passing tourists and old women from the nearby village. Her cakes had been magical and beautifully decorated. It was how his father had met her, stopping for coffee when on his way to Switzerland. They had fallen in love and married but it had fallen apart a few months after Nico was born. He hadn't known why for years but now he guessed his mother had found out about his father's affair with a woman called Marie Levesque down in New Orleans. Hazel had been born and his mother became suspicious at the increase in 'business trips' back to America. Nico was angry at his father for cheating on his mother but he cared about Hazel. Not like he had loved Bianca before the accident. But he did really care about Hazel.

Then his mother had been killed. She had been a singer at a restaurant every Friday night, wearing a red dress and crooning out old jazz tunes. She had had a lovely voice. Nico could just about remember her singing him to sleep. But one night the building which the bar was in was hit by a drunk driver. The old, unstable wall had collapsed causing the roof to fall in, dragging the rest of the walls with it. She had been up on stage when the ceiling fell onto the people sitting inside. The paramedics told his father that she had died instantly but Nico alway had always been worried. How awful and painful had that instant been? Had she realised she was dying?Did she think of Nico and Bianca, the two toddlers she was leaving behind?

Bianca and Nico had been taken to New York with their father. It had been so different from Italy but it had become home. Nico's bedroom had a view of Central Park and Bianca had been just next door. They had taught themselves morse code so they could tap out messages to each other if they woke up in the middle of the night. It had been home.

And then Bianca had her accident. Nico's father had decided to move away from New York where every street reminded him of his daughter. They'd moved to the cold, large house which had been empty and definitely not home. Eventually the the emptiness had been filled up, first by Evil Bitch Stepmother and her mother and then by Hazel, Nico's half-sister though you would never guess that they were related by looking at them - Nico was stick thin with almost translucent looking skin and dark hair while Hazel took after her mother; dark skin with a mass of brown curls and an innocent face. Nico in comparison was serious, scary, almost dead looking. They were almost opposites in respect to their personalities as well, Hazel a sweet, friendly, optimistic person while Nico was moody, pessimistic and introverted.

Hazel was walking back towards him and their suitcases. She smiled at him as she sat down, pulling one of his earbuds out and cutting off the voices of Simon and Garfunkel. He gave her a half smile back as she asked, "No one arrived while I was away?" Nico shook his head and Hazel sighed and checked her watch. "They should be here any minute now," she sniffed the air and frowned at Nico, "What's that smell? Have you been smoking again?" Nico shrugged nonchalantly, causing Hazel to groan and scold him, "Nico! You need to stop that! You'll just get cancer or some other disease! It smells horrible anyway!" Nico rolled his eyes at his half-sister and childishly shot back, "It's fine Hazel. I don't need looking after - I'm older than you anyway!" Hazel sounded sad as she adjusted his coat and replied, "I wouldn't be so sure about Nico."

Nico frowned at Hazel and was about to reply when an overly cheerful voice shouted down the platform at them, "Hello! Are you Nico DiAngelo and Hazel Levesque? I'm Mellie - from Olympian Cruises!" They looked up to see a small pretty lady hurrying towards them, her hair fluttering behind her in an unnoticeable breeze. She was holding a clip board and had a welcoming smile plastered across her face. Hazel and Nico rose, picking up their bags as Mellie approached them. She tucked her clipboard under one arm as she shook their hands, babbling away. "It's so nice to meet you, it's great to have you on the trip. I'm sorry Argus and I are so late - one girl was having a little difficulty leaving her hotel room - wasn't very happy about going on the cruise. Do you need help with those bags?" Without waiting for an answer she swooped down and grabbed the two small cases fro the pair. Hazel and Nico followed her as she swept down the stairs, still talking at them.

They reached a sleek black car at which a man in a chauffeurs uniform was waiting. He took the cases and slung them in the trunk before nodding silently at Nico and Hazel as he opened the door for them to slide in. His sleeve rode up his arm a little and Nico saw a tattoo of what looked like an eye. Mellie fluttered into the passenger seat as the tattoo man Nico presumed was Argus sat behind the steering wheel. As the car began to purr away from the station Mellie wrinkled her nose, "Is that - cigarette smoke?" Hazel looked pointedly at Nico with a look in her eyes that said 'I told you so'. Luckily Mellie couldn't see the glare. "We sat next to someone on the train who had been smoking," lied Hazel fluently, shooting Nico an evil look.

Nico sank back into the leather seat and tried to pretend he wasn't there. Buildings and people blurred past the window and he pretended to admire the view. Mellie chattered on but Nico blanked her words out. He did not want to be there at all. A cinema flashed past, as well as an old, abandoned factory building and a playing field before the car suddenly left the main clump of buildings behind and was speeding along by the grey sea.

As the car reached the docks it slowed, navigating round the sharp twists in the roads carefully despite Mellie's anxious glances at her watch. The boats knocked gently against the concrete walls and people bustled about. Then in the midst of the dull, weather-worn container ships appeared a gleaming white cruise ship.

Nico had known the ship was huge, with two swimming pools, a gym and over 30 rooms but he hadn't expected it to seem this massive. It loomed threateningly over Nico and Hazel as they slowly approached it, reflecting their dislike for the whole programme but Mellie seemed relieved to be there. She rushed to get their bags and shoved them into the pairs hands, obviously wanting to get them onto the ship. Hurrying up to the ship she turned to Nico and Hazel and smiled. "We're just in time. Welcome to the Argo II."