Trigger warning, this is after all the talk about everything that has happened after Red Sky At Night and how Nico coped with everything so they will talk about heavy stuff including drinking and flesh wounds (I don’t want to spell it out incase that is a trigger itself)

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Nico’s POV

“So Mr. di Angelo how are you feeling today?” the woman smiled and leaned back in her chair. She had her usual over sized shirt on and her jeans that had doodles all over the front. Her frizzy read hair wasn’t brushed but was indeed in an elegant ponytail that lay over her left shoulder.

   “I’m fine.” I never knew were to put my hands during these meetings, Dr. Dare was very laid back and a warm person to talk to but I still felt awkward.

   “Anything special happened this week?”

  “N-no.” I hesitated and she raised her eyebrows. Fuck, nothing had happened. “I promise nothing special.”

   “It’s your time Nico, we could do whatever you want with it, do you like to go back to last weeks discussion?” she smiled again and had started to doodle on her jeans again.

   “Sure… well… I don’t have nightmares anymore, Percy does.”

   “Why do you think that is?” Dr. Dare was always so quick with her questions.

   “I guess it is because I talk to you, we have been over this topic at least seven times and I… I no longer fear death. No that sounded wrong, I mean I want to live.” I swallowed hard. “Percy isn’t alone but we don’t talk about what happened that night on the bridge nor of the hospital afterwards.”

   “How long did you stay in the hospital? I suspect that you have told me several times but you know us psychologist we can’t remember schist.”

   “I stayed for a month… Percy visited everyday after work and in-between his collages courses. Piper and Jason babysat the twins a lot and when I got out...”

   “When you went back home, the hospital was not a prison.” Dr. Dare corrected me.

  “It felt like it.” a whisper that left Dr. Dare with a stunned silence.

   We sat like that for a couple of minutes, me staring down at the ground tracing the rug patterns with my eyes to calm my racing heart, and her staring at me with her mouth slightly open.

   “It really did.” I spoke up. “I couldn’t leave my room and when I was going to eat or going to the bathroom there was always someone there right beside me. It was like they waited for me to snap again, to try and kill myself again. It left me insane and the only cure was when Percy came. Then the nurses would leave me alone.”

   “How did that make you feel?”

   “Relieved, I was left alone like I wanted to be. After two weeks of that harassment the nurses cooled down a bit and let me go to the bathroom alone but still sat with me and talked during breakfast, lunch and dinner. They thought I was going to starve myself, it didn’t help that I said that I have always been skinny.” I laughed. “They backed down when Percy came and asked if they were making me eat like some pig for the slaughter. Then they realized that I was indeed only skinny and that I was almost puking of eating to much instead of anorexia or bulimia.”

   “Are you afraid?”

   “What do you mean?” for the second time during the meeting I met her green eyes. I was usually looking at her freckles that covered her nose or on the window behind her.

   “Are you afraid of the diseases and/or the hospital.” She tilted her head like she tried to tune into my voice.

   “The diseases no, like I said I want to live, I love Percy to much to leave him but I also want to live for myself. I haven’t fulfilled my dreams yet.” I clenched my fists. “The hospital… yes.”

   “Do you want to leave the topic?” I had probably gone pale.

  “No it’s fine. I hate the hospital for how they treated me but I understand them. I was a suicidal seventeen-year-old boy that was skinny and pale. I had scars on my wrist and I had been there before to have my stomach pumped.”

   “Why?”

   “Oh… well I, I started cutting when Percy was with Annabeth so much. It wasn’t deadly since I just wanted to feel something, just wanted to empty my brain. The stomach pumps were because when the cutting didn’t help the alcohol did.”

   “I thought you stayed away from that, you told me quite a bit about your father.”

   “I didn’t want to end up like Hades but it helped me clear my head. I felt nauseous when I drank but it left me dazed and blurry. No sharp edges.” I explain once again focusing on her freckles instead of her eyes.

   “Didn’t Percy stop you?” she asked tilting her head again.

  “He was nineteen and had a pregnant ex-girlfriend and a shitty boyfriend. Percy was a good kid and he tried his best to be there for everyone but it was too much for him. I had created a whole situation that we just couldn’t talk our way out of. I don’t blame him for handling the situation the way he did. He loved me and I him but I agree that I was a bit too much and a bit to stubborn.”

   “So he didn’t see you drinking or?”

   “Oh no he did. At least four times and he even saw the cutting marks on my wrist. Those he would tend and kiss all night but in the morning he would go and visit Annabeth again. The alcohol, well he tried to hide my bottles and sometimes he would just hold me in our bed. I would try to fight him when my high ended but he would hold me tight and kiss my neck and whisper that he loved me and wanted me to stop.”

   “Sounds hard.”

   “It was. It was a hopeless situation but I’m better, we’re better. I have left the alcohol, I left the cutting and the wounds have healed nicely. I’m happy.”

   “And how did you get there?”

   “Hope, love and friendship… and a whole lot of time with you, Rachel.” I smiled and met her eyes that shined at the mentioning of her name.

   “It’s good to see that you have grown up since our first talk.”

   “Well our first talk wasn’t official, you were still in school. It was just this year that you got your doctor’s paper or whatever you call it. I was soon turning eighteen and you were already twenty, it has been two, three years since then.”

   “We will continue our talks, I consider you a friend Nico and I want’s what’s best for you. I’m thinking maybe till spring and then we will see how you are feeling.” She cleared her throat and got her calendar out form her purse. “Same time next week?”

  I nodded with a smile.

   “Oh and Nico, do you think you can get Percy here. He hasn’t gone and talked to someone you said and I think it would be good for him. Of course he wouldn’t be assigned to me, I’m to involved, unless he wants me that is, but I was thinking that maybe he could visit my colleague Dr. Lupa.”

   “I will talk to him.”

   With that I left the small and cozy room and went out of the building and onto the cold street of New York.

   Yes things had really changed. Absently I stroked the scars on my wrist before I started to walk home again. I had a paper to turn in, soon collage was done, just two more tests and the ending paper.

   My phone vibrated and I saw that it was Percy calling.

  “Hello darling.” I said with a smile, letting go of the scars and returning to the world with a laugh.