If you recognise it, it's not mine.

Will yawned as he walked down the corridor. It was almost three in the morning, and he was exhausted. His shift didn't end for another hour, but he knew that if he went and grabbed a coffee, he'd be awake until six in the morning, and that wouldn't help anything.

"Hey, Rachel," he said, pausing at the information desk. Rachel glanced up from her computer, looking about a billion times more alert than he felt.

"Morning, Will. Anything I can do for you?"

"I was just wondering if there were any cases I could take. It's getting quieter and if I take a break I think I'd probably just fall asleep, so I figured I could... I don't know, check up on someone?"

Rachel shook her head at him, curly hair bouncing on her shoulders. "You work too hard, Will," she said as she pulled up something on her computer.

Will spotted at least three empty coffee cups in the bin beside the desk as he waited. A couple of minutes later, Rachel nodded and tapped the screen. "Okay, there's a teenage boy, maybe a year younger than you, in room two-three-eight. He was brought in about an hour ago with a mild case of pneumonia; a janitor found him collapsed outside the doors. As far as I know, he's been unconscious since, but if he's awake it would be great if you could get some contact details and stuff out of him." She handed over a couple of forms for him to fill in.

"Thanks, Rachel," Will said, heading over to the lift.

He paused before opening the door, peering through the glass window. The boy was the only occupant in the room. Will could see a shock of messy hair, dark against the pale pastel of the sheets. He frowned; there was something familiar about the boy, even though he couldn't see his face. Will pushed the door open and crossed to the bed.

And stopped, the papers falling from his hands like a handful of loose leaves.

The boy's face, while it was a greyish shade of pale and almost skeletally gaunt, purple-blue shadows under his eyes and a stark red graze running along his cheekbone, was undoubtedly the face of Nico di Angelo.

Will sank into the chair neatly tucked in beside the bed, rubbing his eyes in disbelief. Nico was over a year younger than him, so when Will had graduated from university last year, along with a lot of their other friends, they'd not kept in touch as much as they could have. Will had assumed that Nico was busy, studying for a degree in history and archaeology.

But now Nico was lying in a hospital bed, looking like he hadn't eaten or slept in weeks.

Will stood up again and picked up the medical chart hanging on the end of the bed. He flipped through it quickly, finding out that as well as pneumonia, Nico had a broken wrist, the cast hidden by the blankets. Will sighed, and pulled out his phone, tapping a number out quickly. It rang several times before it was picked up.

"Hello?" a sleepy sounding voice said.

Will winced; he'd completely forgotten it was past three AM. "Um, hey, Percy."

"Will? Why're you calling in the middle of the night? Something wrong?"

"Yeah, sort of. Percy, when did you last hear from Nico?"

At the sound of Nico's name, Percy seemed to wake up suddenly. "Nico? About... what, two months ago? He sent me a birthday card. Why? Did something happen?"

Will sighed again. "He's in the hospital. With pneumonia and a broken wrist."

Percy was completely silent for a minute. There was rustling, and a slight jingling of car keys, and then, "I'm coming over."

"No, don't bother. Visiting hours aren't until nine-thirty, and Annabeth'll kill you if you run off in the middle of the night."

"Why're you there, then?"

Will had to bite his tongue to stop himself from sighing again. Apparently Percy wasn't as awake as he sounded. "I'm a doctor, remember, Percy? Or in training, at least."

"Oh. Right. Yeah. I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"Yeah, okay." Will hung up and felt in his pocket for a pen. He cursed as he realised that he'd left it in another room several hours ago. Then he glanced at the small table, on which Nico's few belongings he must have had on him were left. Amongst a pile of coins, a crumpled bus pass and a phone with a badly cracked screen, was a pencil, worn down to a stump. Will picked it up, turning it over in his hands. At the very end, he could just make out a faded gold 'O'. He recognised the pencil; last Christmas, Annabeth had given them all a set of pencils with their names on.

Will filled in the forms quickly enough, but hesitated when he got to the emergency contacts section. Generally, it would be Nico's father who should be filled in, but Will knew that their relationship had been strained, to say the least, ever since the death of Nico's mother and sister when he was a child. Will had seen patients who lived on the street before, and he couldn't ignore the fact that Nico would fit in with them. Decisively, he filled in the first spot with his own name and details, and left the other one blank. Nico showed no signs of waking up anytime soon, so Will tore a page out of the notebook he carried with him and left a note on the bedside table.

Nico, I work here now, get them to call me as soon as you wake up. -Will

He handed in the forms to Rachel with a quick explanation of the situation.

Rachel sighed sympathetically. "I'll make sure you're contacted as soon as he wakes up, okay?"

"That would be great, thanks, Rachel."

Will leant against the wall beside the desk, closing his eyes for a moment. Rachel prodded him in the arm. "Go home, Solace. You're falling asleep standing up again."

"Maybe, yeah." A stern glare and a shooing motion from Rachel sent him away to his locker, where he changed out of his scrubs and started to walk home in the chilly October night. Even then, his thoughts drifted to Nico, lying unconscious in a hospital bed, looking as if he'd been living rough for the past few weeks. Will shook his head as he reached his apartment. It was too early in the morning to try and think of a solution just now. He fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.

It seemed only moments later that he was woken by his phone vibrating insistently beside his bed. "Will Solace," he said drowsily, sitting up. A glance at the clock told him it was just past eight in the morning.

"Will, it's Rachel. He's awake."

Will was bolting for the shower before she hung up.