CHAPTER ELEVEN—TO LIVE UNTIL TOMORROWLAND
CALYPSO
Calypso frowns at her patient. His aging spots are darker than the rest of his dark skin, but his hair was white and his smile bright. She finds it marvelous how he, though in numbing pain and in the apprehension that he is sick, he can still pass a conversation of the weather and her day with her. How even though his skin is cold, his smile is warm.
He chuckles. "Miss Calypso," he says in a heavy voice, drowsed by pain medicine. "You always here. Don't yah ever get a day off?"
She smiles lightly. "Occasionally," she responds. Though that is not all true. The last time she had gotten the whole day off was the New Year's before. Not even Christmas because she does not have any family.
"Now," He tilts his head at her, looking at her differently. "Don't yah be fibbing me."
Calypso doesn't respond as she moves around the bed and to the other side, to his right. Her knowledge of medicine and health coming to her like how sunlight turns the heads of sunflowers, she immediately puts her delicate fingers and observing eyes to the power of checking on his daily responding to the medication and current stage on his sickness. The patient's name is Larry. He is diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. There is more proof of this on his pillow behind his head where clumps of his washed-out gray hair lays. Calypso picks them up before he can see the marks he leaves behind.
"I am not fibbing," she tells him, "I'm being truthful. Occasionally—when I need it—I get time off. But otherwise, being here is like being at home. I like it here."
Larry's mustache crinkles pleasantly. "That's mighty kind of yah, Miss Calypso."
She nods in response. "I do what I must."
A nice silence becomes between them for a moment as Calypso balances the scales to measure how well he is today. She understands his situation and she knows there have been many others like it. She knows that everyone must come to their end, whether it's fair or opposing, so she also knows that it is inevitable. She knows when it's due time and for none other has she hoped so thoroughly that they make it through. She knows that Larry has a wife and a couple children and a few more grandchildren. He has a family. Why should one who is surrounded by people who love him have to go under? Reflecting this question upon herself blindly spits up the fact that she is going against her beliefs. Larry must go, at some point (whether near or far) away, just like all others.
"Yah know what I miss most?"
Calypso glances up at him as she takes his blood pressure. "And what is that?"
"My tomato garden." He flops his hands in his lap. "I tended to it every day for a whole three years. Best tomatoes I ever tasted, I tell yah." He leans a little closer to her. "One time, I even catched one of m' neighbors stealin' some," He eases back into his throne of pillows and chuckles heartily. "Mm, those were the days,"
Calypso had been smiling lightly, delighted to hear him talk about this, but at once she understands what is occurring. He is speaking his memories. You only think backwards on your life if you do not like the premonition of what it may feel to go forwards. The good memories to make you feel above the pain.
She clears her throat to ease his self-soothing words to an end and looks at him. "Are you feeling all right?" Calypso furrows her eyebrow with concern.
Larry turns to her and returns the eye contact with twinkling, foggy brown eyes. Smacking his lips into a ruffled smile, he lays a light hand on her arm. "And," he says, "I will never forget the sunflowers."
"Okay." She responds despite that she does not understand.
Calypso takes in a silent deep breath. Assuming the conclusions she has drawn from his check-up, he is not feeling well—possibly not even the slightest bit. Wondering this, she was even more stunned by his smooth performance of seeming at normal heart rate. She rests her other hand on his and after a few moments of his wrinkled skin meeting hers, she rests it on his forehead. He is warm. "Get some rest. It will do you good,"
He nods. "Thank you, Miss Calypso,"
Calypso tucks all of the supplies she had used back to their spots, spreads her fingers over wrinkles in his blankets, and before she leaves to close the door, she casts a last look over his sleeping figure. She is concerned for his wellbeing and that makes her heart tilt downwards.
She turns and leaves, softly closing the door, and makes a tiny mark besides his name on her list. Her next patient is one that she is always nervous to meet. He is never awake, nor barely responsive, and something about his presence intimidates her. It darkens her fear and concern but wakes up her reality.
Before she even remotely reaches the room, something whirs beneath her and her ankles collide with a hard, mechanical object. Losing her balance, she shifts forward and before she can understand what it was that tripped her, she's curtsied to the floor, twisted around. Her hair has loosened itself from her braid and is dangling in front of her eyes. She blows it out of the way to see the culprit.
What she sees before her is something unfathomable. Calypso blinks, furrowing her eyebrows together.
"… Wall-E?"
The object blinks, its metal eyelids clacking, and tilts its binocular-like eyes at her. It repeats its name. "Wall-E." It pronounces it in more emphasis, a robotic voice.
Calypso narrows her eyes and tilts her head. "What…?" Her eyebrows furrow together.
It rotates towards her, jerking in her direction, and nearly tips over due to the quick action. She purses her lips. Wall-E is a fictional character and if it is communicating, alive, in front of her, then her world must be fictional as well, but to her highest plausible exceptions—she doubts it.
She huffs in agitation. Someone must have brought this creature into the hospital.
"Who in the world would…?" Calypso starts, but she already knows the answer.
Letting out a long sigh of a nostalgically loving irritation, she blows a strand of caramel-colored hair from her face. "Leo Valdez, that little misfit…" she grumbles to herself as she carefully picks herself off the floor, dusts off the skirt of her work attired uniform, and regains her clipboard that had clattered to the floor.
Before she turns and continues to her work before any higher official sees her "wandering in the hallways", she notices the antenna that subtlety holds itself up from the creature's mechanical back. She only knows of one person whose hands would be able to build such a contraption. Totally not Leo.
Rolling her eyes, she turns back to the di Angelo room.
LEO
Leo snickers through his fingers as he bends down beside the doorframe, his head halfway poking out to watch as Calypso had fallen due to his mechanics.
Well… He reconsiders to himself. Her falling isn't a good thing, but he can't help but laugh. His little buddy is being a good entertainment for him at the moment.
In his hands he holds a controller that almost looks like one used while playing video games. The difference between one pressing between fingers for a video game and his reasons is that his holds an antenna that is identical to the one protruding from Wall-E's back.
Leo is wearing the same clothes he wore the day before: a black t-shirt with the short sleeves rolling up, the front has a fiery-type design, and suspenders holding up his brown, skinny khakis that are missing a zipper. His curly hair is usually hanging massive curls above his eyebrows but today they are pulled back by goggles sitting atop his head. The lenses of the goggles has a burnt spot, like something had once exploded in their face.
He twists his thumb around a revolving button. It jerks to one side and so do Wall-E's wheels. It faces Leo and then slowly rolls down the hallways, keeping to the very middle of the hall so that it will be more noticeable to those walking down.
A couple passerby's and witnesses stop, take another look, and then smile. Leo smiles as well as the heating expanding in his chest—a feeling of pride.
Earlier, Leo had felt the same feeling. He had crouched near other rooms, ones that he knew from insider information from Calypso who were very sick, and had led Wall-E inside. Some had cheered up, grinning and talking to it like it were some sort of dog, whilst others had continued snoring and the other portion of the whole had screamed in shock and demanded in the nurse (in which Leo had hustled out of there with full intention of not getting into more trouble due to his extremely overwhelming tiredness).
Apart from making other people's days, his other reason for Wall-E roaming these hospital walls is his extremely overwhelming tiredness. Nearly a year ago, Jason was submitted into the hospital. Leo has been here ever since. Ever since Leo had sat down at the plush green chair beside Jason's bed, Leo has begun to realize how enclosing a hospital can be. Leo never really understands what time of day it is nor what day of the week it is or even what month it is—though, he's been used to that his whole life. Leo has been more irritable than ever and the people around him, he can tell, are starting to also become irritable to his wallowing. He's been more tired than ever, living off of naps every couple of hours despite his constant urge to keep his eyes open. And the sadness that melts off of Tristan McLean makes the whole circumstance evermore unbecoming.
Leo sighs and brings himself back into the room, leaning in crouch with his back against the wall. His laugh begins to die as his eyes land on the two lifeless, coma-consuming bodies and then his lips form a scowl.
Suddenly, a figure walks in. Leo glances over to find the slumping over, sleepless silhouette of Tristan. A short burst of fire made of envious emotion explodes in Leo's face for a moment before he turns his head away.
"Hello, Leo," he greets.
Leo nods his head, unable to form words without replying bitterly. And bitterness was completely against his character.
Tristan takes his usual place beside his daughter's bed. He rests back against the back of the wood chair, one arm slung around the hook, and looks over at Leo. Leo can feel his scrutinizing look.
"Are you still mad?"
Leo bewilderedly thinks of how, in all plausible ways, he could not be mad. Well, mad isn't his first answer—still only jealous—but of course he was still under that impression. It is not fair that Piper had woken up for a few moments and Jason had not.
After Leo's second silence towards the actor, Tristan leans forward and says, "Listen, I didn't know she was going to wake up. I honestly was just as shocked as you. You cannot blame me for that…!"
Leo huffs slightly, putting all of his focus onto the controller. He is suddenly reminded of Wall-E still seated in the hallway and he twists around again, moving the character in dwindling circles, having him wave to people.
He says to Tristan, "You're right. But still. I don't like that my friend is still gone and your daughter isn't. Like, what the heck?'
The man stands, pats Piper's hand—and unconsciously to his next reaction was that he waits a few moments to see if it will stir (but she doesn't)—and then moves across the room to where Leo is perched on the floor.
"I know it isn't fair… But we still have to wait."
Leo grumbles, "We've waited for, like, a year already. I'm sick of waiting."
"So am I. You think I don't want my child back? After I've been gone her whole life? It's not fair for either of us." Tristan leans against the other side of the doorframe.
Leo frowns. He realizes that maybe he is overreacting. They were both in the same situation… They should get the same results, but the reality that he knows from measurements is that they probably will not.
"And," Tristan continues jokingly, "With you here, my sanity is dwindling. It's less fair."
Leo smirks. "Don't insult my insanity. I take pride in it." His fingers tap around the controls.
Tristan cracks a tired smile before his eyes flicker down to the controller. "What is that for?"
Leo glances down at it and then messes around with it for a while before the mechanical creature appeared in the doorway. Tristan blinks down at it.
"Looks like we're in the future." He says.
"If the future could be made from my hands, we wouldn't be here right now." Leo says. It seems to have been more directed to glance he takes to Jason.
NICO
Nico may be lying in a hospital bed and staring up at a blatantly boring and simply plain and he may be in completely safe hands but the shadow that takes his place is drowning in sorrows and nightmares and he cannot, even for his own heartbeat, consume the energy it takes to float to the surface.
It feels as though water is mumbling in his ear—dark and murky water. It fills up his brain and it rattles the past. He hates that what he had been forced through is what takes a huge bite out of his life.
Gnawing and spitting him back up, he lies there and he remembers the man sitting down from across from him and telling him that his sister was gone. Telling him that Nico was not normal and that was why he had been taken away. The man was talking into a world alone.
Opening and closing his right fist, he lets the blood flood through him. He tries to remember where he is at in the present, in the Terrible Reality, that he is not in the World Alone. That decent, sane beings found him and then substitute the cruel man with prodding needles and more men reliant on questions on how he feels and what does he think about it. And they believe that he can forget so easily, and that if he can move on it will make his cooperation easier, but he cannot because he was a maniac for not being able to save his sister whom saved him.
A blur settles across his forehead.
Nico opens his eyes, the dark world beneath the eyelids flooding with light and that Shining Ceiling that the cracks like him walk upon.
The blur becomes soft and it pushes back his hair and the light fingers trail against the pounding against his skull. They soothe it away. The presence dries up the water.
He only knows of one person that can do that.
Her name pushes past his cotton-y feeling tongue.
The soft blur disappears suddenly and the water creeps back up the edges of his vision. He is disappointed. The water leaks from the sides of his almond-shaped, dark eyes. They drip down the sides of his face.
Suddenly, the madness clears up. The Shining Ceiling comes back into focus once again.
Someone is talking. He cannot hear their words because they are too far away and he finds that he does not exactly care to what they have to say besides the interest of who is next to him.
His head flops over to one side. What he thought was someone he knows and loves is really a delicate stranger. All Nico can see about her is that she cares about his medical being right now. He does not notice her physical features.
"What… What are you doing?" he pushes out.
"Just checking up on you," She explains. "Rest; I won't be long."
"I've been asleep for too long. I need to wake up," Nico replies groggily.
She purses her lips as her fingers push past all the mechanics and go straight to the mentality. She sits on the edge of his bed. "I want to ask you how you are feeling."
"So why don't you? I won't bite."
She does not seem to like his exasperation. "Well?"
He takes in a long deep breath. Things become shinier, like a contrasting brightness, and he tries to lift his head and catches a glimpse of a man folding in a creaky, small chair, asleep and drooling. The rest of the room is ordinary and the faraway noise is a television talking.
"Tired." He responds.
"I won't bite." She uses his words to mirror him.
He frowns a little more and then turns the other way from her. "What is it like out there?"
"Where?"
"There. Outside."
"You've just missed a world full of celebrity gossips and politics—" She begins to explain dryly towards the subject.
"No." He interrupts her. "Not that world." He glances towards the television. "Never that one. I mean the other one. The one that no one really notices."
She studies him closely before smiling lightly. "It's a full moon. And each day is the same for the next. Leading to something."
"What do you think it's leading to?"
"What do you think it's leading to?" she reflected his reply.
Nico pauses. During his capture, he'd thought of the future for every second to deliver some kind of hope to himself. That hope left him stranded. He is empty of that feeling now and he has no idea of what the world is falling towards to greet him. He wonders of she—his sister—knows.
"I don't know." He says. "I guess we'll have to wait." He considers speaking more, but he cuts himself short.
Suddenly, the man that is folded in the chair stirs in his sleep. His black hair falls along his forehead. Nico realizes once again that he's there and asks despite his nostalgic memory of him, "Who is he?"
The nurse furrows her eyebrow. "You do not remember him?"
Nico shakes his head.
"He is the one who found you after you escaped." She explains, "His name is Percy Jackson."
The name surfaces to Nico's memory and he thinks of a dark blue night, sprinting along spiky trees that cut at his skin and the sound of yelling and cursing behind him. Nico remembers running into the front of a car that is skidding to a screeching stop due to his interruption but Nico remembers not caring because he is gone from the hellhole and he needs help now. He remembers running across the road, stumbling into bushes of strawberries, entering something that smelled like a campfire.
Nico shudders.
The nurse frowns. "Do you remember now?"
"More than I want to."
ANNABETH
Drowsy water, she thinks as her eyelids exhaustedly blink. Water streams from the fountain as she pours it into a water bottle. The level of the liquid slowly rises to the halfway of the bottle.
She's been here with her boyfriend, Percy, for nearly a year. Percy demands to stay behind—and she can understand why he would feel so guilty beneath the weight of Nico's care—and Annabeth has to straighten her spine enough to hold Percy's absence at the summer camp. She also has to make sure Percy himself is okay. Too much grief can make a broken heart and a broken heart is stricken enough to make one sick. Annabeth is losing sleep. Annabeth is losing her mind.
The person standing next to her looks at her weirdly and then slowly inches away.
Annabeth had not realized that she had spoken that aloud.
"Annabeth is losing sleep. Annabeth is losing her mind." She mutters to herself.
"Yes, yes, losing her mind. Staring at water. Water. H2O. Two hydrogen atoms and oxygen. Cohesion keeps water sticking together…" A new voice says behind her.
Annabeth warily looks over her shoulder to find a very bright red-headed, wiry girl. She twiddles with a couple hair bands around her fingers and holds a book under her arm. Her eyes twinkle voraciously as she spouts off facts of water—water that she has been waiting for while Annabeth was swooning beneath her suddenly fatigued thoughts.
Annabeth steps to the side, the water now filling up the complete inner embodiment of the plastic container.
"Ella needs water," she says as she steps up to the fountain. "Ella thanks Annabeth That Is Losing Her Mind."
This is where Annabeth presumes that most anyone who is grieving in a hospital goes through a phase of insanity.
She steps away from the fountain and Ella and is about to head to the elevator to go back to the room, but she figures Percy is still asleep and that Nico will like some rest as well so she pauses. She is a few feet away from the waiting room so she shifts the weight in her toes and returns to the area of anticipation from other patients.
Holding her water bottle that is now cold due to the liquid, she eases herself down in a stranded chair far away from others. She figures that if another patient comes in, they would like to find an immediate chair close to the door, so she glides in with the system as well as choosing the chair with a wall next to it so she can lay her head and rest as well.
Annabeth does so. The wall is hard, but it is sturdy enough to hold up her heavy head and thick enough to put a remote block between her spinning thoughts and her rationality.
Around her, there is a woman holding a child, and a man with his head in his hands, and two pale looking teenagers. Another is another man who can't stop pacing back and forth.
Annabeth analyzes them, her head against the wall, water bottle places in between her knees, until her eyes begin to sew themselves shut. The waiting vicinity becomes blurrier and blurrier until the time around her stops for a moment as she sleeps.
The girl with colorful eyes looked over at the man with his blonde hair. He looked back.
"I know you're sick." He told her.
She got to her feet, walked away, and then came marching right back. She wore a hat on her head now, which was odd to Annabeth's dream because she had not been wearing one in the previous moment. The hate was shaped with two cups standing on end of a cap. They looked like Mickey Mouse ears.
"How did you know?!" She yelled at him. Before he could answer, she continued yelling, "Yeah, well I know about you! I know you've lost your memory, I know you, too."
"I'd be better off if you didn't."
"And I know," she said, "that this is a dream."
And then the man got to his feet as well, turned to his left and walked away—he left her standing there on her own.
Shrieking and sobbing is what wakens Annabeth.
The stress that now clouds the waiting area has tied a rope around Annabeth's brain, and the woman's screams is what tugs it away from her hesitation—making it jump from her skull and into a pool of curiosity. With her blue eyes nearly seeming gray, Annabeth observes around her:
There is still the woman and her child, the man with his heavy head, the couple of adolescents, and pacing man who now gnaws on a handkerchief. There are more new people that did not look familiar to her from the time before she had fallen asleep and then there is the catastrophe that quickly bumbles and beeps down the hallway, leaving an echo of screams. The screams, Annabeth detects, come from yet another woman who attempts to follow the herd of doctors for the one that is hurt, but they refuse to let her get in the way of their priority and the patient.
She stands crookedly in the waiting area, watching the bumbling herd swallow up the hallway without hesitation, and even from their distance, Annabeth can see her shaking.
The first thing that she can understand about this woman is her hair. Wispy thin, but so curly that each strand touches itself. So far, it seems to be one of the prettiest features about her. The second thing Annabeth notices is her skin. It is dark colored, painted with the pride of her culture and heritage, but yet she still seems pale of shock. The third thing that she observes about this woman—Annabeth straightens as she has completely ridden her sleep from her system—is her height. She is rather short, about two feet shorter than Annabeth. And now the last thing that Annabeth sees is that she was not the skinniest woman ever, with wide and curvy hips and an oval face, her arms and calves about the same in width.
As this woman finds herself completely alone in the waiting area, her screams die. Maybe because she knows that her dearly loved cannot hear her pleading her apologies or sorrows to them.
Annabeth observes the others around her. All whom cares or wants to care about something or needs entertainment stare at her with over exaggerated wide eyes.
The woman stiffens as if she realizes this too (but in fact, it is her knees buckling beneath her), and she soon shuffles over to the front counter of the hospital, tripping over a stifled sob along the way.
Annabeth likes to believe that she is not one of the whole who stares at her with the bug eyes, but she has yet to understand that she is—from the woman's perspective.
She evaluates that there are a couple seats beside her that could make do for the Wobbly Stranger. But there are also choices in other areas much closer to where the woman is and she concludes that there is not exactly a way the woman can sit by her.
And in fact, she does not. She crosses the area and sinks down in a chair near the Man with the Heavy Head. He does not even glance up. Annabeth shifts the weight in her chair to the side without realizing it and she observes the two with a wandering gaze. She begins to wonder if the man is even alive, or at least sensitive to anything around him.
The woman sits very still, Annabeth realizes. She seems to sit there like someone has set up an array of dominoes, and she was the weakest one, and it just stands there… Until she starts to waver. Her fingers initially undergo the rattling kind of shaking. The kind where your nerves seem like a twitch and your muscles seem like a seizure, and it sort of tickles, and there is no way whatsoever to tame it. It's inevitable beneath the burden of fear or panic or sorrow and the woman just sits there, wavering, pale, and completely unstill inside and out.
She is the typical loved one of one who is hurt, Annabeth knows. She is the one who experiences the most hurt. She is the one who does not know how to interpret what to do at moments like these because the thought of losing someone you love is so overcoming that it hurts and it hurts so bad that it scares us as homosapiens and since we are all humans, these emotions are inescapable whether we do the breathing exercises or the therapy or the hiding or not.
Her eyes don't dart around the waiting room; they stare at the scars that were left behind from the echo of the bumbling screams as they splatter across the walls of the hallway that her loved one was taken down. They look lost and Annabeth can't help but straighten a little more at this.
Annabeth is not surprised by her reaction. She has seen more case studies of this in her psychology class. She has seen these heartbroken subjects in camp when even they are the ones physically hurt. She knows how she must feel at least the slightest bit.
The thought pokes at her head at a sudden idea. She does know how this wobbly, wary woman must feel. Coming from a summer camp counselor, she knows remotely how she should feel. Coming from a similar woman, and one who takes courses in psychology (that goes along with her stage craft—which is like architecture), she should be able to help since the absence of another in the waiting room doing it.
So Annabeth gets to her feet, almost dropping the forgotten water bottle that she had placed between her knees, and catches it in time before it clashes with the floor. Feeling a few amused and tired smirks, she dismisses all others and continues to what her primary intention was—to soothe, not entertain.
Crossing the waiting room with all eyes on her was gauche in the beginning, but Annabeth finally got in the line of sight between the haunting and screaming hallway and the woman's large hazel eyes.
She sits down in the seat beside the woman, two seats away from the Unresponsive Man with the Heavy Head. Turning towards her, the woman glances away from the wall, but does not look at Annabeth at first.
Annabeth reaches over and gingerly takes her palms, dark as they may be, but soft as caramel, and she lightly places them around the water bottle. The coolness should ease the veins and the blood rushing and should calm the headache that must be pounding in her skull right now.
"It's okay." Annabeth says.
The woman finally looks at her face and Annabeth knows that she may not look startlingly marvelous according to the Standards of Perfection: from Our Generation, but she knows that she is beautiful in her own character. Not just in her features that set so round on her rounder face, but the kind light that speaks to Annabeth despite the fear and panic and sorrow.
"Thank you," she whispers softly. Her hands soon lose their shakiness as they clutch to the plastic container that once belonged to Annabeth, but is now becoming shared between her and a nice stranger. But the rest of her body still functions in intervals of twitches and hitching breaths.
Annabeth offers a smile of the same kindness, so that the woman can see that she has earned it through her own.
She asks, "What's your name?"
The woman takes a deep breath. "Why should I tell you?"
"Because I'm trying to get your mind off of the worst. I thought you would need it." She states truthfully.
The woman registers this, and it processes, because Annabeth can see it slipping through the gears in her nearly frizzy curly hair.
"Right… That makes sense." She looks down at the water bottle in her thought and then looks back at Annabeth's nearly gray eyes and nods. "It's Hazel. What's yours?"
It's proven that she listened to Annabeth's advice or else she wouldn't have seemed so interested in what Annabeth's name is. She is trying to strike up a conversation so as to dismiss her wobbliness.
"Annabeth," She says with a straight face. "And not Annie, nor Beth, nor Abeth, which frankly sounds like a sneeze so I will only respond the clichéd Gesundheit, and I do not like to be clichéd."
Some will call it word vomit. Annabeth Chase will call it the procedure on how to make a truthful first impression.
Hazel blinks at her. Focusing on this, though, does take away more of her nerves. She nods, biting her lip so she won't reveal a smile because she does not want to seem rude.
Annabeth figures she's done well to help Hazel until the doctor comes out of the hallway. He looks up from his clipboard and searches the room.
Hazel's head jerks towards him and she leans to the edge of her plastic seat, staring at him in wonder and hopefulness, and Annabeth can tell that she wishes so bad that her loved one's name will enter the atmosphere…
Unfortunately, the doctor announces, "Mr. Hedge?"
The man that has been pacing ever since Annabeth approached the area stops so abruptly that his large feet clomp against the tile floor. The handkerchief he had been chewing on in anticipation drops from his mouth and he numbly catches it in his open hands. His eyes have the same hope that Hazel had had.
The large man with a gruff build and a lot of hair follicles beams with tears, his face seeming blotchy and boil-like from crying, and approaches the doctor. "Yeah, doc,"
The doctor finally notices him in the large room and says, "The surgery on your wife was successful and complete, you can come back to see her now."
"How'd it go, doc?" He asks as he walks with the doctor as the scientist leads him down the hallway.
Annabeth hears the doctor describe to him until she can't hear of them anymore, "She is doing very well and you have a healthy baby…"
"Maybe next time," Annabeth offers to Hazel.
Hazel leans back in her chair, not speaking yet.
Annabeth continues, asking politely, "Do you mind if I ask what happened to… Whoever it was you came in with?"
"Yes," Hazel mumbles through her lips as she leans her head back against the wall, quite interested in observing the ceiling and the ceiling only, and though the wall had proven to Annabeth that it was sturdy enough for her heavy head, it has now also proven that it is even heavy enough for Hazel's powerfully frizzy curls. "I do mind."
Annabeth understands the space that she is silently demanding, and the privacy, and she obliges. She looks away, not breathing another intruding word—polite or not, because she knew Hazel was in a disastrously fragile manner of the moment.
She suddenly remembers of Percy. That he was also around someone in the same trauma, and she quickly says, "I need to go check on someone. Good luck," and she pushes herself from the chair and returns to the room of the dying angel.
Annabeth approaches the room to find Percy sitting across the hall from it, and patting the head of a small, metal figure.
Annabeth furrows her eyebrows. Never has she seen something like this except for rarities in dreams. She makes her way over to him and then stops a foot before reaching him.
His head is turning the other way so he can look down at the figure that, much to Annabeth's surprise, is nearly an exact replica of Wall-E.
"... I was the one that found him and gave him help, and yet he hates me! Like, what the heck? I do everything for the kid and he pushes me away. It's not—" Percy stiffens as if he is used to feeling her looming presence. He stops himself and looks up at her, then smiles sheepishly. "Oh. Hey, Annabeth."
Annabeth makes a face at him and then lowers herself to the ground until she's sitting on the floor on the other side of him. "Percy," she addresses, "I'm going to say this in the kindest way possible but what in the world do you think you're doing?"
"I'm just…" He trails off as Percy finds he does not know how to even explain himself. He huffs and then sets his head back. "It's a long story."
"We have time." She narrows her eyes.
"Y'know, you kinda scare me when you look at me like that."
"It's what it's meant for."
"I think you mean it's why you practice it in the mirror," Percy smirks.
Annabeth looks over at him.
"Right, right," he clears his throat. "Anyways… So I wake up and Nico's awake now, too. So I was like, Oh, hey, dude, how yah doing? And he was like, being all moody teenager and I was like, What the heck…? I'm trying to help you. And he kinda got mad at me and said that I was in 'no position to help him' because I 'don't even know him'. But it's like, I helped you to safety for a reason. I'm the reason you're in the hospital. And then he gave me the freaking cold shoulder! I mean… I'm trying to be nice to the kid, because, y'know, I'm concerned 'cause he did just get freaking kidnapped for, like, his whole life, so… And now I'm just grumpy because I just woke up to this. And it kind of sucks."
Sometimes Annabeth worries about Percy's grammar choices, but in this instance of knowing that he is not feeling well physically nor emotionally nor mentally, she lets it pass.
"And that's what I've been telling Wall-E, here." Percy concludes.
Annabeth's attention dissolves from Percy and substitutes to the creature. She's seen the movies, but the movies were set in the future. She is sure they are not in that future just yet. Narrowing her eyes, she scrutinizes its features. She wonders where in the world it could've come from and she attempts to come up with a solution to this equation, but to no prevail does she give up.
Suddenly, there is snickering noises.
Percy hears it, too, as he looks over at the door that is open ajar to reveal the next room—the one across from Nico's. "What the…?"
"PFFTTT!" Suddenly, a person appears. They are laughing so hard that they fall out from behind the doorframe where they were hiding. They land on their back just a couple feet away from the couple. He has his curly hair, not as frizzy as Hazel's, Annabeth recognizes, but still curly to where it nearly looks unkempt.
As a man edges out from behind the doorframe as well, a charming smile on his face, the first man's laughter dies. Still lying back on the floor, he points a finger at the two, but speaks as if directed to Percy, "You, my man, are hilarious."
Percy smirks. "See, at least someone thinks so," He rolls his eyes towards Annabeth.
Annabeth squints her eyes at him as if wondering if he were serious and then pointedly glances towards the stranger.
The surprise splits across Percy's face again and he turns to the new man. "Wait, wait, wait… Who are you and how do you know I'm so funny?"
The man sits up and scoots out in the hallway, nearly in the middle, as he sits across from Percy and Annabeth. "I'm Leo. You two are Percy and Annabeth. My friend is in a coma and so is his daughter"—he points to the other man in the doorway, much, much older than the others and he stays back a bit, as if uncertain to leave the room—"ever since a car accident. And you"—he switches his finger to Percy—"are the hero that saved the kid, Nico, who's all over the news. And this is Wall-E!" Leo happily points to the creature. "I made him from scratch myself, I kinda work in mechanics. He's built from, well, scrap metal, a generator on the inside that transmits to my remote control device, and an audio recorder that speaks his voice that I pulled from the movie. Why? Because I'm nuts and nothing interferes with me being nuts—especially when I have absolutely nothing else to do with my life. And the reason to why you are so hilarious is because you just kept talking like he was actually Wall-E and I dunno, dude, I just have good vibes about you." Leo grins. "Any other questions?"
Percy blinks. To Annabeth's observation, it's clear to her that Percy had some difficulty keeping up with Leo, seeing as how he has just woken up and is grumpy—it's in his character to not think as much as act when he's grumpy—because she can see the small knit in his dark eyebrows.
But yet, Percy asks as he looks at the older man still sitting by the door, "Yeah, is that Tristan McLean, the famous actor?"
Tristan looks over in recognition of his name. He smiles at Percy, a charming smile that Annabeth recognizes from many popular films.
Leo responds jubilantly, "Right-o you are, Perce! I mean, I don't have any money… This is the closest thing I have to a prize…" He pulls a breath mint from his pocket and offers it to him.
Percy looks at the mint in confusion, and Annabeth can see his brain going into near overload. She quickly snatches the mint and takes it from his concentration before it can combust.
Leo looks at Annabeth weirdly because of this. Annabeth and he share a look, and she sees a crinkle in his eyes. It's the same kind of crinkle that makes his hair so curly. It's full of weirdness and imagination and wise and a bit of an attention disorder, but also full of curiosity. He's an observer, just like her. Annabeth isn't sure whether to become accustomed to him, or be cautious for what he could set off.
She asks, "How do you know so much about us?"
Leo responds, "I'm a small guy, but I do a lot of stuff. Like, I've been here for a long time… A really long time—ask Tristan, he knows—and so I just passed time but knowing the gossip about my neighbors." He shrugs. "Well… Actually, it's Jason and Piper's neighbors since the room belongs to them and all, but neighbors nonetheless."
Annabeth knows that's partially not the truth. The other half of the truth is that he is just like Hazel. He twitches to know things under the weight of concern for his friend, but really he is just trying to pass off the stress. It must be working better for him, then, she thinks.
"Well, then," Percy says. Then he smiles. "I like you already. I mean, you're kinda weird. But a good weird."
Leo grins. "Awesomeness,"
Suddenly, there is a commotion down the hallway. Annabeth turns her head towards that direction and watches as a pack of doctors' wheels a bed down the hallway. Leo has to scoot forward so as not to be in the line of movement. Annabeth scrutinizes who is in the bed that they wheel past and all she sees is a large, stiff figure. He is unconscious due to medication, and his face is an ugly red… As if a burn. His whole body, in fact, from the waist up is burned, and so are his legs. A gasp scratches at her throat, but Annabeth swallows down because she doesn't want to come off as rude. She wonders who that poor soul was and who, in the waiting room, he could be attached to. She thinks of Hazel and considers the possibility, but she doesn't have any way to prove it so she sticks it in a data pile in the back of her head to save the question for later.
"Wonder who that dude was," Leo says out loud.
"Same," Percy agrees.
Annabeth abruptly asks at the thought (as she had put the question of Hazel's attachment to an injured one, she runs into this new thought), "So, who're your friends that are in a coma?"
Leo's face flinches and he shares a look with Tristan, who also looks grieved at the sudden reminder.
"In here," Leo stands and leads them into the room, Wall-E trailing in last.
JASON
Jason took a double-glance at her, scrunching up his face.
For a quick second, he saw Piper connect her fingers again, still hiding her eyes that he had demanded she keep closed, as well as the earphones he made her stick in her ears with loud music. He had to keep her mentally distracted, he knew due to his voracious studies in psychology, because once the mentality knew of another factor, the physical ability attributes to find out what made the mentality so interested. It was a term called behavior.
"You're peeking," he noted.
"Am not." She immediately stubbornly said.
"Liar."
Piper scoffed in a part of her throat that made her voice increase at least an octave higher. "Am not!"
"You so are. I can tell by your voice, don't try to hide it." Jason smirked.
"I am not hiding it," Piper claimed, "I'm being so serious."
Jason retorted, "If you were telling the truth, then you wouldn't be responding to me because you wouldn't be able to hear me over the music!" He poked her headphones.
Piper stopped short, seeming clearly dumbfounded that he figured that out. She waited a while until she put a hand to her ear and said, "What? I can't hear you!"
Jason grinned and chuckled, pushing her playfully. "You are terrible at lying." She really was, he knew. He'd studied all that she'd done for long enough to know exactly what triggered her movements and how she responded to things.
She huffed. Jason could tell it was in annoyance. "Can I take these things off now? Like, I kinda know where we are right now anyways…"
Jason wasn't surprised. If anyone else were where they were right now, they would recognize it from miles away. The packed crowds that moved like a Rubik's Cube; all attached to one block, but each layer shifting and shifting and turning and twisting to get to a different location in the same place. The air smelled of sweat and sweets and suntan lotion. And the music was a defining giveaway, talking all magical and nostalgic from the prominent films.
"Uh," he calculated how far away they were from the specific land he had intended to bring her to. The land that was caked with the color dark blue and said nothing but "Number one—Live to a hundred years old". "In a bit. We're almost there,"
Piper huffed a groan again and Jason grabbed her hand as they submerged into the crowd. Their fingers squeezed tightly because Piper was currently half-blind and half-deaf. Pushing through the large and thick crowds was hard enough and people's step lengths became short. Piper had to degrade to walking behind Jason, who kept back his arm that Piper held tightly and she squished herself behind him as they stepped minimally through the crowd. Jason felt her gripping his back, and that added a pound to his heart, but he quickly dismissed it and hurried them forward.
People pushed past them. People cursing, complaining, sweating… It was disastrous, Jason thought. It made him sick to his stomach. He wasn't very used to this kind of atmosphere and he honestly wanted no part of it. Most of things that he had participated to do with Piper in this interval together were things he didn't exactly want to do, but reminding himself of Piper made him eager to do it.
Finally, the throng of tourists spit them out of their multiracial intestines, Jason took in a silent deep breath. He could finally breathe in air that wasn't being exhaled from another the split moment before and he could finally exhale what wasn't being inhaled by another.
He stopped, and so did Piper, in front of a large, open space in the spot that gradually changed from one land to the next—their destination.
"Okay," he said in content as he grinned. Jason looked over at her. "You can take it off now."
Piper immediately took her hand off of her head (from where she tried to keep her beanie on from the shoving crowd, but Jason wasn't supposed to know that aloud, just in his observing thoughts) snatched off the darkly tinted sunglasses and the headphones and looked up at a structure that was built like a futuristic sign. It read: Tomorrowland. Because they were, in fact, about to step into Tomorrowland in the famous Disney World of Orlando, Florida.
Piper grinned up at it, and Jason saw her eyes light up. Her eyes that he knew were originally green, but had a rim of blue, and a middle of brown. And through light and tears and emotions, they deemed as true as a mood ring for her. Her eyes were literally, he thought, the window to her soul.
Those eyes blinked, though. They changed to a confused brown.
"Wait…" She tilted her head a little as she said, "… Why are we here, Jase?"
"Number one!" He announced and he poked her hip at her pocket. She obliged and took out a piece of paper and handed it to him. He unfolded it and pointed to the first demand. "Live to a hundred years old."
Piper gave him a look. "I meant the real thing! This is cheating!"
"Is not. You never specified. And you never know, the universe really could be like this in less than a hundred years." Though, according to Jason's previous studies before he ever met her, that was false.
She pursed her lips but Jason could see the kind blue in her eyes and that's how he knew that she was grateful to be here, she just couldn't admit it. And that was okay, he knew, because he knew. She didn't have to tell him.
He grinned. "C'mon. We're here. It makes sense. Right? I thought it was a cool idea, but if you don't think so, then we can just turn around and go back…" Jason turned his body around and made it look as though he were going to walk out of the park, but Piper took his arm—the place in front of the elbow—and he stopped at her word.
"No, no, don't you dare," She smirked at him. "Fine. Okay? It's a cool idea." Jason faltered at the green that nervously twinkled in her eye. She was nervous about the idea… But what could she be nervous about, he wondered. "Let's go,"
Jason didn't dismiss the idea, but he didn't speak it, so he gathered up along with her. "On Space Mountain," he added onto her words.
She paused for a moment and he watched as she took in a slow deep breath. He frowned in confusion. "What… Do you not like roller coasters?" He found this hard to believe.
Piper shook her head. "No, I love roller coasters! I just… Got a feeling of excitement for it, that's all," she cracked a smile, but it snapped at the end and that was another route he knew was labeled as a lie.
Suddenly, her beanie seemed to gleam beneath the hot sun. It caught his eye and it slowly dawned on him that her cancer—whatever kind it may be—gave her sickness. This roller coaster might not be such a good idea after all.
Then Jason paused. "You're right. Maybe we shouldn't." He shook his head. He would feel absolutely terrible if she felt even worse because of this idea. He should've reconsidered it before he because presumptuous about the matter.
"Oh," Piper gave him a teasing smirk, suddenly seeming fine again. "Don't be such a scaredy cat." She chuckled.
Jason scrunched his face at her again. "I'm—"
She gave an impatient groan and tugged on his arm. "C'mon, let's go! The line's only getting longer!"
He stumbled along with her, hoping that he and her, as partners in this expedition, would be able to keep things under control if they ever became under-tamed. Though, according to Jason's observations, that was nearly impossible with the Monster.
PIPER
During and immediately after she had stepped off of the insanely crazy and adventurous ride that was more adventurous than most she has ever ridden (and that's saying something) and even more dangerous to her than the Monster and even more uncontrollable than her cancer—which was her extra, secret passenger that she had brought aboard; she probably wasn't supposed to, but no one noticed nor said anything about it and there was a permanent leash that attached it to herself so there wasn't anything she could've done about it anyways—she felt more sick than ever (and that, too, was saying something).
In other words, the ride was her sickness. At least, it felt like it to her.
Inside the ride, it was completely dark. Just a few lights and stars, but the sounds were obnoxious and they banged at her, snarling, and it scared her for once. But they were nostalgic sounds, like it wasn't the first time she'd been trying to get fast away from something but it didn't like that so it grappled and barked. The ride jerked you around, and she felt as though she were just a jar that someone had stuffed intestines back inside of her and this ride shook them all up. Her stomach was where her throat was and her heart had cracked in pieces and tumbled into different places.
For now, though, the most prominent piece of her heart was on her sleeve.
Being on the ride, she sat in the very back. Jason was in front of her. She screamed so loud that her throat felt raw and she'd duck her head because she felt like the mesh wire would hit her. Then when they'd pass under it, she'd look up and see Jason's blonde hair through the darkness and she'd never wanted to do anything so badly except to wrap her arms around him and to hold on tight. But she didn't. Mostly because she couldn't reach without coming out of her seat and that would've been a disaster if happened.
When the ride was over, now, she waited until Jason stood and got off. Because she knew the moment she put all of her weight onto her already trembling ankles, she wouldn't make it.
Once he did, he immediately looked over at her, an airy grin on his face like he was content with the ride.
Piper couldn't bring it deep down in herself to smile back. It was because the sickness was sitting right on top.
His next instant reaction was a frown and a furrowing of an eyebrow. She knew what that facial expression meant. He was silently asking her if she were okay.
More than anything, Piper was not okay. Something was stirring in the wrong direction, and it was frightening her, and the urge for Jason to be by her side and help her with her secret—because the thought of being in space alone, with cancer alone, chilled her through the bone and out the other side of the limb and she didn't think she could take even the thought of being on her own anymore—but for that to happen, she had to get out.
Piper unbuckled the seat belt and gripped the sides of the car. She was the last person to exit it and the employee looked rather annoyed at that fact, hurrying her wildly so that the next set of people could get on, and Piper was beginning to get annoyed at him. Piper dismissed it though. You can have the stupid car, she thought. Because I'm never getting on it again. And she pushed herself out.
She had been right. Her first step was a wobble and the second was a trip, but the third was pushing down on another foot. Jason's foot. She'd stumbled forward and immediately found herself next to him and he steadied her with an arm.
"Get me out of here," she coughed out. She couldn't help herself. It was coming up, it was presumptuous through her throat. She couldn't keep it in. Her palm slammed to her mouth and when Jason looked at her in confusion, studying her with his scrutinizing eyes, she detached herself from him and sprinted out of the facility.
Piper blindly found herself outside, and it was pushing through her lips. Her brain felt like it'd been flopped upside-down and turned inside out. The sickness was crawling around her teeth and her legs were straining to use the muscles to stand and she couldn't go any further. Piper was just stuck there, in the middle of the crowd.
She never thought it would actually happen, but she was going to puke in the middle of the crowd at Disney World?! The thought probably sickened her further.
"Piper!" A voice hollered. A voice she knew.
Fortunately, the voice came sprinting up behind her and she felt an arm wrapping around her stomach. He easily picked her up and somehow she knew it was Jason. He ran fast to the nearest bathroom and dodged past the line of women who screamed in shock at the appearance of a male.
He didn't care, though, Piper realized. And neither did she. She was going to end up spitting it up all over his arm and herself if they weren't careful.
Jason barged into the nearest open stall and let her go. Piper immediately collapsed to her knees and let the rest of it pour out of her system. She drained it from the stomach that was disguised as her throat and she drained it out of her mouth. She wanted it all gone.
The whole time, she felt Jason standing behind her. He guarded the curious women and children and her, blocking the doorway to the stall. But not only that, he leaned over her—not to see what she was doing, but to rest his hands lightly on her back. Letting her know he was there, she felt comforted in a way and that was definitely odd since she was throwing up. It was difficult to feel comforted while throwing up and not after.
Finally, when all had been retched and convulsions had ended, Piper sat at the floor of a sticky bathroom and a decorative toilet. It was disgusting.
She wondered, though, why Jason hadn't reached for her "hair" beneath her beanie. One would hold a girl's hair back, and despite that she didn't have any, he didn't know that. Or… Did he?
Piper didn't have any time to wonder that since all she wanted was some kind of simpler peace right now.
"Better?" Jason asked softly from behind her.
She coughed out, "Yeah; for now."
He let out a sigh of relief and lowered his head down, as if in releasing the stress, and lightly rested his forehead against the base of her scalp. She didn't have much trouble holding him up. "Good. You gave me the equivalent of a heart attack."
Piper smiled a little and suddenly remembered how she had gotten to the bathroom in the first place. "Thank you,"
Jason nodded and he helped her up after she flushed the remains of her rattled-up insides down the drain.
Outside of the stall, people stared at her in wonder and at Jason in bewilderment. Piper had to bite down her smile at the reminder that he was in a girl's bathroom.
"You should go wait outside," Piper said.
"Only if you're sure." He stared at her.
She nodded. "I think we've freaked these people out enough."
Jason smirked halfheartedly and then shuffled his way out of the bathroom, repeating several "pardon me's" along the way.
Piper turned to the sink. She was oozing back into the routine of becoming sick—do something or nothing to set it off, get it over with, wash it off.
But the one thought that was on her mind was how was she going to explain it to Jason? The questions he would ask would be inevitable.
Jason hadn't said anything as she sat down beside him on the sidewalk he was sitting on, across the street from the bathrooms. Tourists and baby strollers walked past, laughing and screaming, but all those colors were a blur to Piper as all that seemed focus now was him.
He was messing with his fingers. That's how she knew he was thinking in depth. She clasped her hands in her lap, knowing that her beanie was somewhat in place after checking it for the umpteenth time in the mirror before she left, and she looked over at him.
"… I'm sorry that had to happen."
"Why did it?" He immediately questioned. But a muscle in his jaw twitched and she knew something was off.
"I…" She had no explanation. None she could absorb enough courage to say aloud to him.
Jason looked over at her. For once, his face made her go completely silent. He looked as though all of his facial features, the entirety of it, were made out of some sort of woven fabric and the front part was expanding further and further, becoming wider, as something began to push out. Something, she knew, was trying to be said from him.
"I know you're sick." He blurted out.
The silence became louder inside of her.
The silence became thicker between them.
She blinked. "What?"
His eyes traveled up her face and landed at the top of her head. The dread of his realization became so humid that it seemed to squeeze huge droplets of sweat down her face, dragging her stomach down. Oh, no.
Jason carefully reached up and started to take down the beanie with his fingertips starting from where her hairline would've been. It was as if he were pushing her hair back, but his fingers trailed along an empty scalp, easing off the beanie until it slipped off her round head and he caught it. Taking it down, he held it limply, and his expression seemed broken but didn't look as hurt as hers felt. Tears came to her eyes—that he knew—and he didn't lay it back on her lap, but he reached over to a trash can and threw it away. The tears sobbed harder in her eyes.
"What…" She was at a loss for words. Her head felt so relieved now, but her heartstrings pulled in every direction. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen, but it did and she can't help but feel better about it.
"I'm not…" Jason shook his head, his expression now seeming solemn. "I'm not stupid, Piper. I figured it out a few weeks ago. Why didn't you tell me that it was cancer?"
Piper noted how he didn't mention the word brain. He only knew that it was cancer, not the specification in its location of her. Maybe that was something she could keep.
"Because…" She said softly, "You know those faces all those people gave me in the bathroom? I don't want you looking at me like that."
He looked at her with definition. "Pipes. A few weeks ago I've known. Have I been looking at you any differently since then?"
She pondered about it and came to the conclusion that… No. No, he didn't. And the respect for him swelled so much larger and she gave a small sigh, feeling grateful but not at the same time.
"No. And I know. But…"
"If you thought any differently about me, or if I thought any differently about you," he asked, "then why would you ask me to do this bucket list thing with you?"
"Because you were hurt, too. And I thought that maybe it wouldn't be like… Me being the explosion, and you being the casualty."
Jason shook his head, chucking lowly and almost bitterly. "It's not like that. I'm your friend now. And you can tell me anything."
"Could you tell me anything?" She retorted the question. Ever since the name Thalia had been presented, she knew there was something hiding beneath all those layers and layers of psychology. You just had to peel them all away and have enough patience for it.
Jason hesitated. She could see it, she could feel it, and she knew it. He hesitated and he didn't lie when he said, "Some things."
"Then you're right, maybe we are different. Maybe we shouldn't be doing this." She said with her agitation controlling her tongue.
Jason looked over at her with a wide look. "What? No!"
Piper blinked in surprise. "And why not?"
"Because we've gotten this far. And I am going to do this with you whether you like me or not because I like you too much to not help you after what I did to you." He demanded.
She felt a fluttering feeling in her gut. Another feeling came from her side and she scooted closer to Jason, like she was being pulled towards him. "Really?"
"Yes! How come you think I brought you here and stuff and went along with the house contract thing?!" He wildly gestured with his hands.
Piper smiled a little.
Jason looked over at her and he saw her eyes, not her hairless head.
"So… Yeah. Can we finish number one on the List now?" He continued. "Some secrets aside now," Jason added on.
"I would say sure, but…" Piper looked up, gesturing with her eyes towards her head. "Being bald in front of a lot of people can be awkward sometimes."
Jason knitted his eyebrows down at his fingering hands. Then he brightened and looked over at her. "I have an idea."
In search for a face artist station, they found that yes, people were distracted by Piper. But she paid no mind and Jason encouraged her not to with the squeeze of her hand. Once upon arrival at the station, they did not, however, let someone put makeup on her to make the bald headedness seem better. But Piper did use the makeup station.
Needless to say, by the end of the day, Piper was a moon and a star to compare to her galaxy (at the suggestion of Jason) and Jason was a thundercloud and a lightning bolt (at the suggestion of the little kid who was completely in love with Lightning McQueen).
Author's Note:
Hey, guys! Reading your reviews, I figured that I could really try to update sooner than five months and I honestly did try... I apologize if it's still too late. XD I also apologize if there are any grammatical errors or formatting errors; please know that I didn't have the most time in the world to edit, so don't be surprised if there were any problems. But, on a side note, I want to add in that the two different perspectives (the plural/past tense versus the singular/present tense) are there for a reason. A very specific reason, haha. XD
I really hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please review (reviews mean a lot to me x)).
Also, I do not own ANY characters that were featured in this story (except for Larry)!
Thanks for reading, :)