"He's seizing! Wrap him up!"
"Get her in a bag, we need to make sure we can bury her properly."
"What about him? He'll need gods' know how much ambrosia and nectar."
"We can't worry about that now, just keep him alive until we get back to camp."
"The mistress is going to be pissed, isn't she?"
"Not with him, no."
"He's alright."
Percy shot up, bewildered and sweating.
He was dripping with sweat, and his legs were practically stuck to his sleeping bag.
Sleeping bag?
He didn't remember being in a tent.
In fact, he didn't remember much at all, like a large black hole swallowed up his short term memories.
And by short, he means waking up in his cabin in the middle of summer, walking into his bathroom...
And then waking up, sweat freezing on his skin and right into the bone, in the middle of winter.
The zipper on the tent slowly opened, and Percy jolted towards it.
"Hey fish face, how are you... feeling?" Thalia asked hesitantly.
"Thalia? Where am I?" Percy asked back.
"You were in a bit of a... situation. Don't mess with the bandages, just trust me. I'm sorry." She looked down.
"What... happened?"
"Look man, just get dressed, I'll let Lady Artemis explain." She deflected the question, zipping the tent back up.
Percy fumbled around in the tent, completely oblivious to the bag with a sticky note in the corner labeled "clothes"
He continued his valiant search for articles of clothing in his tent.
"What the Hades is taking you so long? She's getting impatient with you." Thalia called from outside the tent.
"I uh... cant find any... clothes." Percy responded.
"There's a bag of clothes at the foot of
your sleeping bag, dipshit." Thalia was silent for a moment. "Sorry."
"Apology accepted." Percy responded, reaching for the bag and pulling out a pair of jeans and a shirt.
He slipped them on, and walked out of the tent, his feet hitting the cold, wet snow.
"You forgot shoes." Thalia commented bluntly, leaning against a tree.
Percy stooped back into his tent, pulling a pair of shoes on.
"N-no socks." He poked back out of the tent and stood up.
"Huh." Thalia looked at the ground.
"Well... Lady Artemis has something important to... speak to you about."
Percy nodded wearily, walking off towards the largest of the tents in camp.
"Enter, Perseus." Artemis said calmly from inside.
Percy lifted the flap and walked inside. "L-ady Artemis" he bowed.
"Rise, Perseus." He lifted his head, and sat on the floor.
"What do you ha-...have to tell me, Lady Artemis?" Percy asked.
"I'll lay the... basics down on you." Artemis took a shuttered breath in.
"You were out for 9 days, in quite a bad condition. Severe head trauma and suffering from a very, very bad case of hypothermia."
"That would explain the large ga..gap in my mind..."
"What was that, Perseus?"
"Nothing, malady. Please cont-continue."
"Alright." She took in another breath.
"When we found you, you were... clutching Annabeth, and having a very bad seizure."
"Annabeth? Where is she? W-what happened?" Percy started frantically clawing for the tent flap.
"Calm down, Perseus. Let me finish before your head trauma kicks another seizing fit into your gut." Artemis gripped his arm.
Percy just began clawing more rapidly, calling Annabeth's name the entire time.
"Perseus. Calm down child. Calm down." Artemis gently placed her hand over his mouth to quiet him, knowing that if she made any wrong move he'd hurt himself even more.
He began clawing at the bandages around his head, trying to tear them off.
Artemis let out an uncharacteristic shriek and swatted his arms away from his head. Percy crumpled to the floor, shaking violently, and softly weeping.
Thalia shot through the tent flap with a dagger in hand, (not that she wanted to use it on Percy) "Malady, what's-" she looked at Percy on the floor. "O-oh." She mumbled quietly.
"Get him away before he hurts himself. He's not in a good state of mind to talk about it right now."
Thalia picked Percy up by the shoulders and slowly dragged him out of the tent, soothing him the entire way back to his tent.
"M-mmother..." Percy groaned.
"We'll get you back to your mom, Perce. Don't worry."
"Mom..." he sighed, closing his eyes as Thalia tucked him into his sleeping bag and zipped up the tent.
Thalia sat outside for a while, listening to his distressed groans and pleads, before returning to Artemis' tent.
"Has his condition improved?" Artemis asked, as Thalia entered.
"No malady... it's gotten worse, he keeps calling out for his mother. We might have to take him to a hospital." Thalia solemnly responded.
Artemis grunted with frustration. "I'm not letting that dumb kid die in camp, you and me would bother be footstools for Poseidon if that happened. I'll get Apollo, if his condition gets too bad. Get everyone packed up for now, we'll haul him along with us."
"Yes malady. But, if I may ask, what caused his freak out? He seemed quite fine before. Did something trigger it?" Thalia asked, hand lifting the tent flap while she was about to exit.
"He was fine up until I mentioned Annabeth. He'll, well he might, be back on his feet with us eventually. The girls will warm up to him, especially in his current state." Artemis told Thalia, ushering her out.
Artemis sat on the floor in deep thought about the boy. She obviously couldn't just leave the Hero of Olympus to freeze and be pecked away at by wildlife. She watched the tent flap, and watched Thalia walked away. She definitely couldn't leave him.
She also couldn't have a mental breakdown about the decision in front of her lieutenant.
Now would be a good time to do that.
"This isn't good. This is not good. What in the Hades am I able to do?"
Artemis rubbed her temples, continuing to think of an idea.
She stopped, and figured it out.
She watched calmly as Thalia zipped Percy's tent back up, after moderately calming him down. She continued watching as Thalia headed for the fire pit to get everyone ready.
She stood up, ducking under the tent flap and walked towards the small, dinky tent they had Perseus in for the past 9 days.
She unzipped the flap and peered under.
She really felt sorry for the boy. He was shaking, not violently, more of a shiver, with tears streaming down his face. He was nearly completely delirious, and his eyes were closed, clearly asleep. She had never seen someone so helpless in many years.
She carefully approached, putting her hand on his forehead. "Rest." she whispered to him, lifting her hand carefully.
His breathing calmed, and he stopped shaking, he settled into the sleeping bag and stayed contempt.
She let out a short sigh of relief, then zipped his tent back up, walking away.