Hazel knew something wasn’t right, but putting all the pieces together was impossible when she had only slight information. The last time, something happened, it was to Nick and she’d spent a party distracting Nick from his thoughts and doing her best to be the most distracting version of herself. But things had been off at the party, but Nick said he’d catch up with her about it later. So she’d waited.
Now she was here, gumbo and smoothies in hand to try to find out what was going on. She hadn’t said she was bringing food and she hadn’t exactly been asked to bring food, but gumbo and smoothies seemed like a good way to help things. If he didn’t eat now, at least he could eat later. She’d brought extra for Sabrina for later because she’d asked and Nick said Sabrina had gone to lie down.
It was weird going to an apartment instead of the Mortuary, but she didn’t question it too much. She just went. She casually set the food down and knocked, waiting for the door to open before she picked everything back up, shoving Nick’s food in his hands. “Hey. I brought some for Sabrina. I figure you can put it away and then if she wants it later, she’ll have it.” She tried not to let the concern be so obvious on her face, but she wasn’t very successful.
As stressful as the past few days had been, Nick was amused as Hazel shoved food into his hands. "So this is just for Sabrina?" he asked, maybe teasing her a little bit. But also he hoped not because he was hungry and hadn't yet made anything because Hazel was coming over.
He ushered her into the apartment and added, "If we keep it down she might just actually sleep decently." Yeah, he doubted that. He moved to the kitchen, putting food down and then helping Hazel with hers until both their hands were empty and he could hug her.
"Thanks for coming by, Haze," he said quietly.
Hazel rolled her eyes. “You have your own and I have my own because I’m not letting anyone eat gumbo without me.” Especially if these were complicated conversations. She wasn’t really a high sugar content kind of girl, which was probably a mix of when she grew up and training at Camp. “These people make it so it almost tastes like home. Almost.”
Persephone wasn’t actually that bad at it, though. She missed when Zee made it because she’d already had the time to taste test and tell her where she was wrong. She felt her eyebrows draw a little closer when he mentioned her not getting a decent sleep. It was bad, then. She wondered if it was Tartarus bad or...well, most of her other options weren’t much better, but she remembered Nico after Tartarus and Percy and Annabeth after Tartarus and neither was easy. She hoped it was just pirate dolphins taking over their ship bad, though. That was more manageable. Still, she’d be there for the worse options. It wouldn’t be the first time things had gone to shit.
The hug was more proof of whatever emotional situation she was in and she hugged him back the best she knew how. “Yeah. Of course I’d come. Your face at the party didn’t look like good news.” She gave him a searching look. “Memories or something else?”
"Yeah, I was trying to hold it together at the party," Nick said, stepping back and putting Sabrina's food away before grabbing spoons and taking his food and the smoothie to the table. "Memories. Things don't end well."
The fact that he mentioned things ending was the first clue he gave, but Nick elaborated. "Saved the world, sacrificed herself. We let her. And I…" He frowned. He'd said this a few times now, but it didn't make it easier to get the words out. "I drowned myself." There was no holding back this time, no disguising the words to make them slightly less harsh.
Hazel seated herself next to Nick, assuming he’d prefer someone close to someone on the other side of the table. And the more he spoke about what happened, the more she felt herself slipping back to a long time ago. It wasn’t like the flashbacks that came with the blackouts. It was just...her mind remembering an old feeling.
She reached out and put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Nick. I’m sorry for both of you.” It was a lot to take in, a lot to live with and she’d lived with it in her own way, mostly silent. She hadn’t really gone into much detail about her own death, just that it happened. She’d saved the world for a little longer, but she’d eventually have to come back and fight for it again sixty-nine years later. “It’s hard to let people sacrifice themselves.” Leo had done it while smiling and pretending things were okay. Thankfully, he’d had the Physician’s Cure with him and so it was a short-lived pain, but Jason...had come back to her as a lifeless body and that had been the hardest thing. She’d felt something before, but she hadn’t prepared herself for it.
“Drowning is a scary feeling.” Her drowning had been choking on oil and earth, but it had been drowning nonetheless. “I died once. I’ve...probably mentioned it.” She glanced down then. “My mom was...well, she allowed greed to ruin her life, to be the reason behind her choices. When she had me, my dad swore on the River Styx he’d give her anything she asked for and she asked for all the riches of the Underworld. He warned her that the greediest wishes have curses. So I can summon precious metals and jewels from the ground, but they’re cursed. Anyone that my mom gave them to as payment was injured or died. It’s why I don’t talk about that ability. Some people don’t care. This is only important in that it’s why Gaea bothered with my mom. She got into her head and convinced her to come out to Alaska, used her greed against her. Sometimes she would possess my mom and she’d say things she knew would hurt coming from her.”
Hazel frowned, then, remembering the cold, detached look she’d seen in her mom’s eyes when Gaea was there. “She forced us to raise her son in this island off the coast and for a while, I did. I was thirteen and scared. But she was going to destroy the entire world. She needed a willing sacrifice and my mom was going to give it to her to save me. We didn’t so much as talk about it, but I destroyed the island and made sure Alcyoneus didn’t rise, but my mom and I both died. All I remember is the taste of oil.” She shrugged. “Just don’t get any ideas here, okay?”
Whatever Nick was expecting Hazel to say, it wasn't all of that. She had his full attention as she spoke, and in a way it was a welcome distraction from his attention being solely focus on Sabrina and himself the past few days.
But there were similar aspects to her story, including way too much parental figure pressure to be the one to right things when they went askew. And she'd offered some glimmer of understanding, even if her own death was more of a self-sacrifice. Either way, she knew what it was to stare down death and embrace it and Nick couldn't imagine that was ever a pleasant sensation. It didn't seem to be for anyone he knew, at least.
Taking a deep breath, he spoke up finally, but still struggled to find words. "Haze… that's… intense." And then, "Thank you."
Hazel chewed on her lip, looking down at the table briefly. “Yeah. It’s...a lot. I know.” She hoped it wasn’t too much at once. It was a lot at once probably, but it was hard to explain dying without the rest of it. There was enough that she’d left out. She didn’t mention how her mother blamed her or her father for the things that happened in her life. She didn’t explain her guilt over harming people without meaning to. Or when her dad begged her mom not to go to Alaska. But there was never going to be a shortage of things she’d lived through.
“No matter what happens, I’ll be here for you and Sabrina. I might not talk about things all the time, but...I get it.” She moved her hand carefully, looking at him for a moment. “Do you both need anything from me? I can deliver food more often or groceries. Arion’s a little more open to letting himself be a distraction for bad news.” Not that she could speak to horses, but she was getting pretty good at reading his moods.
"I don't know how long we'll be here," Nick said, still somewhat preoccupied with everything Hazel had just said. It was almost stunning how much he hadn't known about her until right then. "This isn't home…" He just wasn't sure the mortuary would be anymore, either.
"Right now, I'm eager to eat. This looks amazing."
But before he did that he got up from his chair and then crouched down next to Hazel, leaning in for another hug, this one more for her than for him. "We're here for you too, Haze," he said quietly. At least they could understand each other, somewhat. He needed that. But that didn't make anything of what she'd gone through any easier to consider, and he imagined it wasn't something she enjoyed talking about, since she never had before.
He lingered there for a moment before pulling back and then moving back to his spot. "Thanks. For knowing I wasn't alright." Sabrina wasn't either, but she'd been fine at the party. Hazel had tracked him down and he appreciated it.
Hazel nodded. It was one of those things. “It might not be home now, but you could make it home if that’s what you wanted to do.” But she’d understand if they wanted to go back to the Mortuary or find someplace new.
“It is pretty good. I promise.” But then there was hugging instead of eating. She didn’t mind, though. He’d been through a lot and she’d been through a lot. Hades and Persephone probably knew the most about it, but that’s because she lived with them. But it was nice to let someone else in. Especially since she figured he needed to know. “Thanks, Nick.”
She offered him a small smile when he pulled back and sat down. “The day your body language and faces aren’t so easy to read is the day I’ll have to resort to tarot cards to figure it out, I guess.” Or tea leaves. She’d learned some of that, but with Zee gone, she hadn’t kept up as well. She was quiet for a moment as she opened her food and ate a little of the gumbo. “I’ve been thinking...I don’t really have Zee anymore to help me figure out what I can do magically...and I don’t really know what I want to do as a real job that isn’t working in the stables, so even with no one but me there in our group, I might go to the magic school next year.”
Once seated back down, Nick ignored the gumbo no longer, eating as he listened. But he finished a spoonful and then nodded at Hazel. "I know I was pretty upset when I left Geliara, but I'm over it now. I'll support that decision. And besides, Roz is staying on for one more year."
He was going to continue on with the University, but with everything that had happened he was taking the summer off and then going full time there in the fall.
"This is really, really good, by the way," he added, before taking a drink of his smoothie, wincing due to brain freeze. He made a face and then added, "I'll try not to make you resort to tarot cards."
Hazel missed home sometimes. Not just Camp Jupiter, which had been her home for somewhere around 2 years, but Louisiana as well. She missed all the places she’d been to when she was younger. It had been so long that she probably wouldn’t even recognize it. But at least she could have gumbo and relive home in that way.
“Is she? I’ll be 17 in December, but I still have this year and next year at least. Then maybe I’ll go to the University. Or I’ll just work with the horses.” Cause she really didn’t know what else she’d do. She wanted to know more about Necromancy given her parentage, but she wasn’t sure she wanted that to be her main thing.
She smiled a little as he winced, remembering the time Dakota had tried frozen kool aid. There was a lingering sadness to it that came from knowing she’d never see him again, but she tried not to think too hard about it. “I’d appreciate it because I’ll have to be more annoying if you do.”
"Yeah, so you'll know her and she'll be grateful for the familiar face." Especially with him gone and Sabrina leaving. Though he didn't think that would bother her for long.
Nick laughed. "I don't know about annoying. But you should teach me how to read tarot cards anyway." He was grateful for Hazel, glad that they were spending more time together even if the circumstances weren't the best. But she'd been there for him at both parties Sabrina had hosted at Dorian's and that meant a lot. He finished his food silently, thinking about that but also too worn out to consider much else.
“It’ll be nice to have someone else there that I know,” she said after a moment. Because if there was no one, she’d manage, but at least she’d have one familiar face in the crowd that wasn’t a teacher. And she had spells to translate things into Latin if necessary. It was one of the few spells she’d gotten someone to teach her, but he’d left at some point. It made reading the books easier.
She smiled. “I have no practice with being annoying, but I’m sure I could manage it.” She nodded. “I can try. I’m not amazing at it, but I know some stuff. There are probably other people that are better at it than I am. I mostly just learned from Zee. Also reading tea leaves.” She was still figuring those things out, but she thought she’d managed okay so far.
"Roz is great," Nick said. "She was more Sabrina's friend than mine, but then we ended up stuck in Dark Vallo together, and I got to know her a lot better than I would have otherwise." Now he counted her among his closest friends. "So yeah, hard to go wrong there."
"The only way you'll learn is if you practice. And trust me, the cards can't show any worse than what I gained in memories."
He shrugged, finishing off his smoothie. It would probably be rude to drink Sabrina's right now, even if it was highly unlikely that she'd touch it. Actually that might be something she managed to drink, so no, he definitely should drink it.
Roz seemed pretty nice anyway. She’d been in regular Vallo then, looking after the Hellhounds and dealing with her dad just showing up to make sure she was still there. It was a weird wake up, but it was what it was. Now she lived with Hades and that was a different sort of weird.
“What if they tell you you’re going to lose all your hair in a week?” Not that they’d ever said anything like that, but who knew? “But yeah. There’s probably somewhere to learn more about it between now and the next school year, too.”
She got up to clean up after herself and throw out the take out containers and the smoothie cup. “You’ll tell Sabrina to reach out when she’s ready for more people. I’m sure there’s a line ahead of me, but…”
"I could shave my head and not have to worry," Nick replied, grinning. As Hazel started cleaning up, he gathered up the silverware and placed it into the sink.
"I will," he promised. "Thanks, Haze." Her visit was the first that week that someone had stopped by to see him, specifically, and it had been needed. He just didn't know that until she had arrived.