The train was quiet. Grover had long since fallen asleep, and Percy had no desire to talk to Thalia who was mad at him… again. He wandered past the cars until a figure caught his eye: Bianca, sitting alone on the hood of a convertible.
“Mind if I join you?’ he asked. She shrugged, which he took as a “yes.”
“Zoë’s meditating so she needs some peace and quiet,” she said.
“Zoë meditates?”
“Says it helps her sleep.” Another shrug.
“You should probably be getting some rest too,” Percy said. Bianca raised an eyebrow at him.
“Hypocrite.”
He laughed, but his chest felt tight. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he was afraid of dreaming about Annabeth again. Luckily, Bianca didn’t press him. They watched the stars whizzing by in silence for a minute.
“When we get back, I’m making spaghetti,” Bianca said.
It was so unexpected that Percy nearly fell off the car as he jerked to look at her.
“Why?”
“Because it’s Nico’s favorite.” She closed her eyes, looking as if she could already taste it. “I don’t even remember the last time we had it… but I’m sure I can remember Mama’s recipe. She always got annoyed because there are so many other foods that she wanted to teach us to make, you know, to celebrate our heritage, but we always wanted spaghetti.”
Percy’s stomach suddenly growled. Both of them burst out laughing.
“Spaghetti sounds pretty good right now,” he admitted. “With meatballs. And a ton of mozzarella.”
“Garlic and red pepper in the sauce,” she sighed wistfully.
A thought occurred to him. “Could you make the noodles blue?”
She stared at him like he’d suddenly grown another head, which was honestly fair. He forgot how weird it was sometimes.
“My mom has this thing about blue food,” he explained. “She got in an argument with my step-dad about whether or not food could be blue, and since then she’s done it every time she’s gotten the chance. She buys blue food. She makes blue birthday cakes every year.”
Not knowing Bianca that well, he wasn’t sure how she’d react. Plenty of kids at school called it stupid.
But Bianca smiled. Right then and there, Percy decided that she was alright.
“That’s really sweet.”
“She’s pretty cool,” he said, echoing Thalia’s words from when they’d been dropped off at Westover Hall. Gods, that felt like ages ago.
“We can figure out a way,” Bianca mused. “As long as the food dye doesn’t mess with the flavor.”
“We’ll stop by the grocery store after we save Annabeth,” Percy said, finding himself grinning.
“Maybe we can invite Lady Artemis.” Bianca was grinning back.
“I don’t know if Chiron would let us cook… we may have to sneak into the kitchen. We’ll ask the Stoll brothers to get us in.”
“And have a secret spaghetti party in Cabin Eight?” Bianca said.
They went on planning the details: how they would get the word out and distract the cleaning harpies. Any side dishes (Bianca insisted that nachos did not go with spaghetti and Percy vehemently disagreed.) Neither of them acknowledged the dark cloud hovering on the edge of their conversation—how it all depended on if they made it back alive, not when. And how their celebration of surviving would also be Bianca’s farewell to her brother.
For once, Percy was determined to believe that it would all be okay.
“It’ll be the best damn spaghetti ever,” Percy said.
…
He almost burnt the water (don’t ask how) and the kitchen was a mess, but it was worth it. Homemade noodles were really the only way to get the blue dye in and Sally wasn’t complaining if Percy was learning how to feed himself. Nico wasn’t really complaining either when a mound of blue pasta topped generously with sauce and cheese was placed in front of him.
“What’s this for?” he said.
Percy didn’t meet his gaze. “Someone told me it was your favorite.”
It still stung to think about Bianca. He didn’t know why he was dimly surprised to find out she’d talked about him. Maybe part of him had believed that she meant to abandon him—that despite her promises to visit him at Camp Half-Blood, she’d really never looked back. He blinked the tears out of his eyes, and shoveled his fork into the pile of noodles.
“I didn’t know your mom’s recipe,” Percy said nervously, “but she mentioned red pepper in the sauce.”
It tasted exactly like Mama’s. Nico was suddenly flooded with the memory of standing over a boiling pot in a sunny kitchen with a soft presence beside him saying instructions in his ear. His throat tightened in a way that had nothing to do with the spices.
“You got it right,” he choked out.
Well, not quite. The sauce was just like Mama’s, but when he got to the noodles they weren’t quite al dente, and there was something weird there. Probably the food dye. It didn’t taste bad. It was different and something new blended into the flavor he was familiar with. Something unique to the person who’d made it.
It tasted like home.
