Nico

Will and I walked hand in hand to the Dining Hall. We never did that before. Even though we'd been together for so long, we never really showed any PDA. Maybe it was my refusal to do it to protect my Death Boy reputation. Or the fact that Jason and Percy would never let it go if we did.

Yeah, definitely the second reason.

Rather than tear my hand out of Will's grasp when I caught Percy and Jason staring, he held Will's hand tighter. I didn't want to give Will the impression that I didn't care about him. Never again.

We got our food, eggs and bacon, and sat down. I was still tired and wanted to go back to bed as soon as possible. Will must have had the same mentality, and picked at his food more than he ate it.

I saw Piper at Aphrodite table, and Hazel was with Frank as Ares table. Percy, Annabeth, and Jason were all chatting at Poseidon table. Leo and Harley were conversing about new inventions Hephaestus cabin was brainstorming.

Though there was no sign of Henry. She wasn't at Hermes table, or any table for that matter. Nor the area around the Mess, or the roof.

Before I knew it, I'd finished my breakfast, while Will was barely half way through.

Will glanced at my empty plate. "I guess you were hungrier than you thought," he suggested. He looked into my eyes, and his expression changed from weary gladness to worry. "What's wrong?"

I took one more look around the Mess, verifying that I wasn't just sleepy and skipping over Henry. "I don't see Henry. But Piper's here."

Will glanced around, his eyes not stopping as though they spotted her. "I wonder if she's back on the roof of Hermes Cabin."

"That would be nice," I said. I focused on Piper again, wondering if she knew where Henry was. "I'll be back in a second." I got up from Apollo table and went to Aphrodite table. Piper was the first to see me and didn't exactly look delighted.

I bet it was embarrassment from thinking I was the one who went to Aphrodite cabin in the middle of the night. I thought she'd know by now that I don't leave my cabin save for two reasons. And pranking her and her half siblings was not under either of them.

"Hey, Piper," I greeted. She gave me a toothless smile. "Have you seen Henry lately?"

Piper searched the Mess from her seat, and was alarmed when she saw no sign of Henry. "She said she would come down here for breakfast after I gave her new clothes. She left and I came down here by myself."

I groaned and rolled my eyes. Maybe she was a daughter of Hermes. Those kids have wandering spirits and tend to stray from the paths they are supposed to take. For instance, heading for the Mess but ending up in New York City.

Plotting a strategy to find Henry - again, I went back to Apollo table and told Will what was going on. "Henry's missing again, and we have to find her before she hurts herself or leaves the camp."

Will was almost done his breakfast, and started shovelling it in after hearing what I said. "No, no, don't do that."

With a face full of eggs, Will turned to me, confused. I explained, "Henry can handle herself for a few minutes. I don't want you to choke on eggs because Henry finds weird places to hide from us."

At that, Will slowed down and eat in a way that was less likely to clog his throat. I waited for him to finish and wondered where Henry could have run off to this time.

After Will finished eating, we got up with our plates together and places them in the stack of dirty dishes. Leaving the Mess, we began our second search for Henry. Hopefully, this one would take less time.

...........................

Of course, there was no such thing as luck for me and Will. We searched the camp for hours and found no trace of Henry. I wondered if this kid enjoyed running off and thinking nothing of it.

Then, I remembered my days before the Titan War. Shadow travelling from place to place, never staying around a certain area for more than a few days. I knew what it was like to have a base camp. A place to stay in the event that people start looking for you.

That's what I suspected the abandoned library had been to Henry. A shelter to go back to if things got too crazy. When the monsters patrolled the streets in search of her.

I knew what it was like to not think there was anything for me to go back to. To not think there were people out there that cared about me. After losing Bianca ... I felt like my life had turned for the worst.

I didn't understand that there were people in the world who missed me. Who wanted to back at camp and to take care of myself. There were a few out there that didn't project those feelings to me. But people like Will and Hazel, they gave me a home to go back to. A real home. Not a halfway house that I occasionally visited.

I wanted to give that to Henry. All she knew was running and hiding in her library. She couldn't remember having a family or friends. Not even a life outside of monsters and danger. I thought I could give her a time like the fun Bianca and I had. A happiness that makes you want to stay in one place.

A happiness that gives you a home, a family.

Of course, Henry made that hard to do, since she couldn't stay in one place for long. She couldn't even sleep in her own bed. She slept on a rafter for gods' sake. That could be from sleeping on branches and not beds for years. Or she was just that weird.

After the third hour of searching passed, the seven famous demigods from the war with Gaea caught wind of Henry being missing again. Well, everyone except Leo, who was still catching up with the campers from his cabin.

"Another search party? Have you guys checked the roof of Hermes cabin?" asked Jason, the corner of his mouth upturned in a smirk.

Will nodded. "It was the first place we checked."

"Maybe she went to explore the forest," Annabeth suggested.

"Or the lake," added Percy.

I rolled my eyes. "She's terrified of water. Why would she do that?"

He must have remembered that little detail just then. Because he found his shoes impossibly interesting afterward and could not take his eyes off them.

"Let's just split up into twos and look for her. Again," Jason said, choosing Piper for his partner, as always.

"Gimme a sec," the daughter of Aphrodite told Jason. He nodded, a tad concerned. She walked up to me and asked, "Can I talk to you in? In private?"

I glance to Will, who is already backing away from us. I sigh, and nod to her. She guides me to a spot behind one of the cabins. After scanning the area like a secret agent, Piper determines that the area is suitable for such a classified conversation.

She grimaces when she looks back at me, and I don't know what she's going to say. She already apologized for waking me up with a jumpscare and accusing me of scaring her and her half brother. There wasn't much left for Piper to get me alone to discuss with me.

It's like when someone asks, "Can I ask you a question?" and you think of every possible thing you could have done to incite that person's current emotions and you're just an anxious mess until they tell you what's up.

She took a few breaths, and I noticed how anxious she was. Her foot was tapping the ground, and she kept moving her eyes from place to place. I got more anxious at the sight of it.

At last, she ended the void of silence and began what she brought me with her to say. "Henry has a crush on you."

If there was a better bomb drop from history that didn't involve an actual bomb, I would have liked to witness it. Hundreds of statements echoed in my mind, Piper's latest one being the most prominent.

A dozen were from Will, saying how much he cared about me. Some being me on my sexuality, other from friends.

What struck me most is how Henry didn't seem to have a crush on me at all. And, more importantly, when would she have developed one?

Scratch that. I got my first crush after ten minutes of knowing Percy. A day was much more time than that. Still, Henry didn't seem like she had any sort of feelings for me. At least, not yet.

In disbelief, I had to question it. "Are you sure? It doesn't make sense."

"She told me herself, last night." Piper looked not more comfortable with the idea than I must have.

I scratched my head, and felt a weird sensation between my shoulder blades. My throat got tighter. "Does she know that Will and I are... together?"

"Yeah," Piper answered, no longer looking at me. "And she doesn't care."

Alright, I thought. Well, this is new.

The only person who'd ever liked me romantically was Will. Who was now my boyfriend. I knew what it felt like to desire being with someone who was in a relationship. But not how it felt to be admired by more than one person while being in a relationship.

Is this what it feels like to be Percy?

In most situations, I could come up with some sort of solution that would solve the problem. Either that, or shadow travel away until it was over. Since I didn't have any experience with this sort of event, I couldn't think of what to do.

And Shadow travelling away seemed to be a bit rude and extreme for this. So, with Piper being an expert on romance and love, I thought she might know what to do.

To which she told me, "I have no freaking clue, Nico! I don't know how to deal with this!"

"But you're a daughter of Aphrodite!"

"I know! But I don't know what to do when a girl is in love with my gay friend who has a boyfriend. There's not manuel for this, and i don't think there's anyone around we can ask for advice." She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot even faster. "One of the gods might have dealt with something like this before."

I blinked, confused. "Have you met any of the gods? As if they are available for advice on anything at any point in time."

Luckily, none of the gods heard that statement, and I got to live to die another day. Still, that didn't help my situation.

"I think," Piper started. "The best thing to do is to tell her how you feel about it. That you're with Will, and you just want to be friends."

It was my turn to grimace. "That's going to be awkward."

"More awkward than Henry having a crush on you for a long period of time and getting upset when she figures this out on her own?"

I had to admit, Piper had a point. Letting this go on any longer could be worse, and make Henry think me helping her adjust to life at camp could mean something else. All I wanted was to be her friend, and to be there when she needed help adjusting to camp life.

Maybe even find someone else to love, when she was ready.

Eager to end the conversation, we walked back to our boyfriends, and got back to searching for Henry. What I had to do, was figure out what I would say to her without making her angry or too upset. Because I knew from experience that bad situations and embarrassment lead to going A Wall.