This story is dedicated to Dori! Happy birthday to an awesome writer and a great friend! Hope you enjoy this story about your OTP!! Go check her one shot story out, "The Stories After" by Dori_6.

Nico's POV

"SOLACE!" I called out into the seemingly empty infirmary. No response. He was supposed to meet me at the Hades Cabin half an hour ago. Obviously, he never showed up, so I'm tracking him down.

I walked through the building. There was nobody there. No patients, no healers. This had to be a first. Well, there was one person. Just the one I was looking for.

My boyfriend was slumped over a desk, like he'd fallen asleep looking at records or some other doctor thing. I knew he'd be here. I already checked his cabin, so where else would he be?

"Will," I said softly. When he didn't stir, I went over to and shook his shoulder and shouted in his ear, "WILL SOLACE!"

He jumped to his feet and yelled, "WHERE'S THE INJURY?"

I couldn't help but grin; he had a paper chart stuck to his face and his eyes were wild from waking up in alarm.

I pointed to my heart and said, "Right here's the injury because you didn't show up to meet me."

"Sorry, Neeks-"

"Don't call me that." 

"I fell asleep looking at this and... let's just go." He pulled the paper off of his cheek and straightened the folder he was previously looking at and shut off the light. We walked out of the infirmary and into the bright summer light. We were scheduled to meet because we had hardly seen each other in the past few weeks. A particularly vicious match of Capture the Flag had just went on, so Will was always with a patient. Also, a huge party ship had recently sunk (Poseidon claims he had nothing to do with it), so I had been in the Underworld to sort out some chaos.

It's still a little weird feeling... well, always wanting to be around Will. For the past few years, I distanced myself from others. But now I was enjoying the company of people, and it was a little strange. But I decided it wasn't a bad thing.

The two of lumbered over to the strawberry field, but Will wasn't much for conversation. He was practically sleepwalking the whole way there. When we were finally next to the field, we sat down in the soft grass. Will almost instantly fell over, asleep.

"Will, wake up," I ordered. Nothing.

"Solace, I know you aren't dead so talk to me."

He finally groaned and rolled over. "What happened to always wanting to take naps?" he asked grumpily.

"Well, someone doesn't let me shadow travel anymore so I don't need to take naps."

He opened one eye and said, "True." Then he promptly resumed his slumber. I just sighed and laid down, too.

I was actually almost asleep when I heard the noise. A growl was coming from the woods. I shot up and drew my sword. I roused Will urgently and he was instantly wide awake. I pointed to the woods and he nodded, like he understood.

We stood up and crept towards the treeline. 

"No Underworld magic," he whispered to me.

"No promises."

I knew I definitely couldn't keep that promise when I saw the monster: the Nemean Lion.

"Well that's not good," Will deadpanned beside me. I had to agree. "What's the plan?" he asked me.

"Uh..." I knew my sword couldn't penetrate its hide, so we'd have to take a different tactic. "You distract it."

"Um, sure."

I didn't bother to look and see what Will was doing, because I closed my eyes and concentrated. Will was going to be mad at me for this, but I didn't see another option. I called on about fifty skeletons to my aid.

When I reopened my eyes, I saw my boyfriend running around in circles and yelling incoherently as the mammoth lion swiped and bit at him. Idiot, I thought.

I silently willed my un-dead army to climb the lion and suffocate it. A little weird? Yes. But the only way I know how to defeat the monster? Yes. Hercules had put the thing  in a choke hold, and Percy had lodged astronaut food in its throat. Speaking of Percy, that wasn't very long ago. I'm surprised the lion already is back to life.

I went and stood by Will with my sword drawn, even though I knew it wouldn't do any good.

"You did not just do that, mister!" Will yelled at me.

"Do what?" I asked, faking innocence.

"You know what."

We both ducked as the lion swung its paw at us. Apparently it hadn't noticed that skeletons were climbing over its back.

"They're going to take care of it, so calm down!" I retorted.

"I'm going to take care of you, di Angelo!"

I looked at him sideways. "No pun intended?'

"Shut up."

My skeletal army did work. They tried to pull the Hercules/wrestler move, but their bony arms (no pun intended) weren't strong enough to do any damage. So instead they did something way grosser. They crawled into the lion's mouth and started disconnecting their leg bones and shoving them down the lion's throat. It actually worked. The Nemean Lion choked on the bones, leaving behind it's impenetrable pelt.

"Did... did you just kill the Nemean Lion with dead femurs?" Will asked, astounded.

"I guess so."

"Well, you see something new every day, I guess. So are you going to take that or...?" He gestured towards the pelt.

"Nah, not really my style."

Will snorted and picked it up. "We can put it in the Big House attic then."

After we dropped off our trophy, we headed back towards the strawberry field. It'd been a while since I called up some un-dead people, so I was exhausted.

"So what do you wanna do?" Will asked me once we were back in our spot.

"I think I'm ready for that nap now."

"Sounds good to me."