The New Heroes of Olympus Chapter 10: Honey Solves All Life Problems

Ok, how about I skip the author's note for this chapter and cut right to the chase. That saves a lot of reading for you about what I have to say. So basically: I AM GOING TO SHUT UP!

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Back At the Camp

"Aaron, how is the potion coming along?" Chiron asked a busy Aaron.

Wiping his sweat from his forehead, Aaron gave Chiron a soft grin.

"Don't worry Chiron, it's coming out well. Just a little more ingredients need to be added and then I have to make some adjustments. After that, the herb will add the finishing touches to the potions." Aaron answered the well respected camp director.

Chiron let out a sigh, "I must say, you have a talent for healing but we need to move faster. I don't want to pressure you but we are tight on time. We only have a few weeks left to heal the campers. Some of them already are worse than usual."

The blonde haired boy looked down at the table with troubled eyes. "What…what if I am too late? What if I can't make the potion in time? All of those campers are going to die because of me… it would be all my fault." He softly spoke.

The centaur placed a hand on Aaron's right shoulder and looked at him right in the eye with a concerning stare.

"Aaron, you have potential, you have skills, and you have what it takes to make this potion. Don't be so hard on yourself. Remember that the herb your friends are getting will give a higher healing rate to the campers. We just have to make sure that we get the herb in time." Chiron told him. "If we get the herb in time."

"Chiron, who would want to do something like this, what have we done to make them want kill us?" Aaron asked as his emerald orbs looked back at the wise camp director.

"I…I don't know. I am sorry Aaron, I am afraid that I can't answer that question." Chiron said as he looked sown in dismay.

"Maybe…the others will be able to figure that out." Aaron spoke.

"I hope so. The more information we know the better." Chiron explained.

Aaron nodded in agreement, having all knowing his friends; he had complete faith in them.

"You are right. In the mean time, while they are gone, we should do something to at least soothe the cough of the campers." Aaron suggested.

"You are absolutely correct, do you have any ideas?" Chiron asked.

Aaron went to his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of some sort of fluid.

"This is a little cough syrup I made, I am sure most of their coughing will go down, but their exhaustion rate will stay the same." Aaron said.

"Exhaustion rate? I am sorry, I do not follow." Chiron said, crossing his arms at the new information.

"When I went to the infirmary to look at the campers, I saw that the more and more they coughed, the cough would almost drain their energy. From looking at a few campers that had the cough for one day; they were perfectly energized, they could actually move. But compared to a camper who has had it for about a week, they barely can move, never less, talk. All they could do was just cough and sleep. Some can barely eat, they are so exhausted from coughing, and it's draining their energy. So if their coughing were to slow down, their exhaustion rate will still increase little by little because there isn't much coughing being done. Even if the coughing were to occur once every 10 minutes, they still wouldn't have the energy to get up. At least during that time of no coughing, the campers will be able to eat and sleep in some comfort so that could probably get their energy back up in that time period." Aaron explained as he gave Chiron the bottle.

After opening it, Chiron gave Aaron a look of approval.

"Good job my boy! Now, we are going to need a lot more, do you need someone to go and get some ingredients from the infirmary? Ancient herbs? Powerful potions? Anything special?" Chiron asked.

"Oh yes! I need some peppermint extract, mint leaves, cherries and the most important thing…honey." Aaron spoke with a smile.

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Aaron's POV

After explaining the ingredients needed to Chiron, he sent two people to retrieve the ingredients. I am going to have to make a lot of this stuff; I need to make sure each person gets a tablespoon every four hours. I am going to need some help. I tried asking my cabin mates but none of them are healers; mainly archers. There are only a few people at camp who really know about healing, I am going to need their help. I don't care who it is, I just need someone who knows how to make medicine and know stuff about healing. I even tried asking the nymphs but all they do is giggle and flirt. No way are these people going to be much help to me. I kept searching around camp while I waited for the ingredients; this was going to be harder than I thought. I realized that there weren't as much people who were healers in this camp. Most of the healers were the nurses who are taking care of the campers so I can't bother them or they would have my head…LITERALLY! I don't know about you but I officially developed a fear of nurses over the course of the weeks that I have been here. Just as I was frantically looking for someone, I accidentally bumped into someone. I seemed to drop their stuff as well.

"Dear gods, I am so sorry, I wasn't paying attention at all!" I exclaimed. I started to help to pick up the other person's stuff when I realized, they were books all about healing and medicine. We both accidentally touched our hands and I look up to see a girl who was seemed to be my age. She wore glasses and had her hair in a side braid. Her hair was a dark brown color; it was almost black. She had brown eyes and slightly tanned skin. She was also wearing a purple shirt and blue jeans.

"Don't worry about it! I am the one who should be sorry, I guess I shouldn't have taken all of this stuff all at once." She said with a smile.

I guess I should ask her. After I helped her pick up her last book, I cracked the question.

"Hey, are you a healer?" I asked her.

"Ya, my name is Nicole Peterson, I am the daughter of Athena. Nice to meet you. Why do you want to know if I am healer?" She asked as she held out her hand. I shook it back and then replied.

"Well, my name is Aaron Holt, son of Apollo and I am a healer as well. I need help from another healer." I told her.

She hesitated a bit. Adjusting her glasses, she finally spoke.

"Well you came to the right person, I happen to be one heck one heck of a healer." Nicole said with pride. "Well, I probably have that title because there is so few of us here."

Good for me! Quickly I grabbed her hand and dragged her with me.

"W-What? H-Hey! I didn't even agree to what you asked." She yelled as I dragged her across the camp grounds.

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Once we arrived at my cabin, I explained the whole medicine situation.

"So that's what we're going to do until we get the herb and the reason why YOU DRAGGED ME HALFWAY ACROSS CAMP!" Nicole yelled.

"Sorry about that, I just needed someone else's help that is an experienced healer so I am pretty glad it's you." I told her. I saw her and she had a tinge of pink on her cheeks, it must be really warm in here for her…to be honest, it's chilly. (A/N: DENSE AARON IS DENSE! XD)

"L-Let's just get going o-on the medicine." Nicole stuttered as she looked away.

At that moment, we both got started on the medicine, adding adjustments if need be. It turns out that Nicole give less credit than she gives herself for; she is an amazing healer. She knows about almost all types of herbs, plants and berries that are great for medicine and some of nature's finest ingredients like honey or tree sap. Nicole also knows how much of what to add to the medicine. It's amazing!

"Okay, now that we made some adjustments to the quantity of each ingredient, we need one more thing to make this worth its while." Nicole said as she reached into her pocket. It was…cinnamon?

"What…cinnamon? What will cinnamon do?" I asked her.

"Trust me! It will work wonders, plus add some great flavor!" she explained. "Don't worry about how much I have, we will only need one stick per 1 liter bottle, and if we are going to make 50, I just need 50 sticks; which I have."

"Why do you have so much cinnamon sticks?" I asked her.

"Some of the boys in my cabin are slobs and have quiet an odor, I like to make the room smell nice with a little cinnamon and vanilla bean concoction. I am sort of a neat freak." Nicole admitted.

"Hey, that's fine with me. To be honest, I am not really sporty, except with a bow and arrow, but which Apollo child isn't good at that." I guess if she is telling one of her secrets, why shouldn't I as well.

"What?! No way! You look like you play a lot of sports because your muscles looked really strong, I thought you were a football player or boxer." Nicole said. "Not that I was staring at your muscles or anything!" She quickly added as she turned red again.

"I get that a lot, my mom is actually a personal trainer and well Apollo…he probably has strong arms because you know, archery and everything." I told her with faint laugh.

I started to stare into her eyes and she did the same with me. We were at this for about a minute then she quickly turned away.

"So, when are the ingredients coming in?" She asked as she still didn't make any eye contact with me; she was starting at the paper with the instructions on the concoction.

"Well, they should be here soon. I would say, about five more minutes." I told her.

There was an awkward silence then Nicole finally spoke.

"I am going to get the extra equipment from the infirmary." Nicole said as she started to walk away.

"Do you need any help?" I asked her. It's a lot of stuff that she has to carry; I don't want her to make two trips.

When she stopped, Nicole suddenly bumped into a shelf with books stacked on it and a few fell down.

"O-oops! I am s-sorry, I-I didn't m-mean to do that!" Nicole exclaimed as she started to pick up the books. I walked over to her and crouched down next to her and took her hand.

"Don't worry, I will clean this up. You can go and get the other stuff." I told her with a smile. Once again her cheeks turned red. Wow, this cabin has serious heating problems!

"Um, ya okay!" She said as she got up. Once she did, Nicole bumped her head against the shelf again.

"Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah! I am fine! D-Don't worry about me! I am just gonna go and get the…um...the…utensils! Ya, that's the word, so I will go and get the stuff, so um…BYE!" Nicole exclaimed and left the cabin.

Girls can be so…so weird.

Nicole's POV

Smooth Nicole! Just plain SMOOTH! I rushed out of the cabin feeling completely embarrassed. So much for being the daughter of Athena; calm, cool and knows what they are doing...GAH! I embarrassed myself in front of Aaron; just like all of the other guys I talk to. I think I was also cursed by Aphrodite; dear gods! I walked to the infirmary and before I went in, I remembered to put on the mask I was given by Piper; I am so glad we have her here at camp. After putting on the mask, I walked in. Everywhere I turn, I see the poor campers; all sick and helpless…it breaks my heart. I see one of the nurses and ask her where the extra medicine bottles are. Without speaking, she pointed to one of the doors without looking up from what she was doing. It looked like she was making some sort of medication as well. I guess she is worried about the campers as much as we are. That's good! After retrieving the bottles and some other supplies that will come in handy, I headed back to Aaron's cabin.

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Once I arrived at the cabin, I saw a few campers that had a few shopping bags in their hands. Great! The stuff has arrived! Quickly, I walked to the cabin without dropping anything.

I walked in and saw Aaron's entire desk filled with all of the ingredients needed.

"Sweet mother Teresa, that is a lot of stuff!" I exclaimed. I knew we needed a lot of stuff; BUT NOT THIS MUCH STUFF!

"Yup, looks like we got everything! Let's get started!" Aaron yelled in excitement.

We spent about three full hours making the concoction. First, we needed to heat the honey till it started thin out. Then, I spent 40 minutes of my life pitting the cherries and cutting them into tiny pieces because a certain blonde haired boy couldn't cut them right…or even hold a knife.

Flashback

"Ok, now we have to pit and cut the cherries." Aaron informed me and we both got started. I first cut the cherry in half, took out the pit (and popped it into my mouth so I can stuck the cherry juice off of it….YUM!) and started to dice the fruit. I finished about 10 and I looked over at the pile and we had about 10 pounds of cherries…gods this is going to be a long process. I then looked over to Aaron to see how he was doing. He was still on his first cherry and was still figuring out on how to hold the knife.

"Um, need a little help there?" I asked him; laughing. He looked so concentrated in cutting that one cherry.

"Wha? No, I got this! I just need to know how to hold the knife." Aaron said as he eyed the sharp tool. Aw, he is so cute when he is hopeless! Not that I mean that I like him or anything! Whaaaaat? GEEZ Nicole! What are you saying!

"Before you cut yourself with the knife, I'll cut the cherries and you can grind the cinnamon sticks into fine powder; that is if you can use a grater." I said, teasing him.

"Ha ha, very funny, but if you insist, I will start with the cinnamon; one for each bottle, right?" He asked me and I responded with a nod.

End of Flashback

After the cherries and cinnamon, we grounded the mint leaves and mixed that in with the cinnamon powder in each portion. Next, we mixed the cherries with the honey over the heat and added the peppermint extract. After missing the dry and liquid ingredients separately, we mixed them together and finally the concoction was made!

"Well, we should deliver the bottles to the infirmary now before it gets dark." I said as we both examined the crates of the medicine. There was a total of 10 crates each with five bottles…the bottles are pretty big.

"Ya, but one question, how are we going to get them there?" Aaron asked. Each crate weighed about five pounds; he makes a good point…how are we going to deliver them?

After a few minutes, I figured out a perfect idea.

"How about we ask some help from the Ares cabin?" I suggested.

"Now I get how you are Athena's daughter." Aaron said.

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FINSIHED! Did Aaron finally find his first love interest? Will his substitute remedy help? Stay tuned!