"Will, you're dying."

Will rolled his eyes irritably. "You've said that a million times, di Angelo, and I'm still here."

"I wouldn't be so sure."

"Don't be so melodramatic."

"You're careless," Nico retorted.

"You're stupid."

"Don't call me stupid, Will. I'm serious."

"I know you are. You're never not serious. Lighten up, seriously. I'm not about to keel over and-" He broke into yet another coughing fit, and he turned away anything Drew held out to him that had the best chance of helping him- most of the time, unfortunately, nothing worked. Nico turned up his nose.

"I'm sorry. What was that?"

Even through coughing up his guts, Will managed to shoot Nico a dirty look. It was short-lived however, and Will slowly sank to the ground, so unstable he could hardly stand.

Rachel calmed Apollo, yet her furrowed eyebrows and worried glances showed how nervous she was. At this point, Drew appeared to be the only one on their best game. Except for the stray twig in her hair, she was in perfect shape, and her pursed lips were the only indication that she knew something horrible was happening.

After the fit, Will whimpered, yet the moment he let that sound slip, the noise that showed that he too knew what he was suffering from was something no one should have to bear, his ears turned red in embarrassment. It was the only color in his skin. The strong, confident son of Apollo was reduced to a crumpled, fearful mess. Will refused to admit it, but Nico saw the sadness, the near loss of hope mixed with fiery determination, with nearly every glance into his eyes. That was something Nico could hardly bear.

Nico turned away, scanning their surroundings. He had first brought the group to the Grand Canyon (an accident, of course), but within a few days, he brought them to a part of Yellowstone National Park that few people set foot on. He knew why. The mountain lions were a nerve-wracking possibility, but a man-eating beast of mythology sounded much, much worse.

Nico sat on the ground next to Will, feeling utterly useless. The other demigod was curled up in a ball, his back rattling with each muffled cough.

They had tried everything they could to help him. Nothing worked, not even the ambrosia. The monster was killing him from a thousand miles away.

And Will had to kill it. Apollo did, actually, but Will had to find the strength to let Apollo take control, and the idea of what could result from that terrified the son of Hades.

Drew sighed, shaking her head. She met Nico's gaze and nodded her head as if to say, Come here.

Nico stood and walked over. Drew placed her hands on her hips. "How long does he have?"

"Drew-"

"No, Nico. I want a straight answer. Give me a straight answer."

"It's impossible to tell. He's hanging on pretty tight, but... He should be dead. If he was mortal, he'd be gone."

"But he's not mortal. Answer my question."

Nico stared at the ground for a long while before answering. "I think, if he makes it to when Python comes... I think that he can make it through Apollo killing it, but only just long enough. Curing Apollo for that fight... Will is probably going to die."

Drew nodded, and a massive weight settled on Nico's shoulders. He was barely hanging onto this world himself, and it was Will that anchored him in the first place. After all the son of Apollo had done for him, Nico felt obligated to return the favor. He would have to do so before Python came, but none of them knew when that would happen. Even Rachel was completely in the dark.

Rachel glanced up at them, her eyes telling them that she knew what they were discussing. Nico quickly escaped her stare, shame washing over him. He had to cling on to hope. No matter what he believed would occur, he had to trust that Will would hang on.

Careful, he warned himself. Don't get your hopes up too high.

Will became silent, the coughs settling. Nico glanced at him- he was fast asleep and shivering. Again. It had become routine: awake, Will can not breathe. Asleep, Will freezes. Nico pulled a blanket from Drew's backpack and laid it across the demigod's lean frame, and soon Apollo had dived towards his son to sit next to him. It would seem Apollo knew Will would die soon, too.

"Death Boy?"

Nico stiffened. He was sure Will had fallen asleep- it seemed to be the only time the demigod wasn't coughing- but he must have been wrong. Or maybe he was talking in his sleep. Nico waited.

"Death Boy, if I talk any louder I'll kill myself."

Nico quickly knelt next to him. Will's blue eyes were sharp and focused, and Nico forced himself to meet their intense gaze. Will slowly tried to sit up.

"Will," Nico hissed. "Stop that or you'll hurt yourself."

"Stop, Death Boy," Will snapped. "Do you really think that your constant worrying helps me? I know that you can smell death or whatever, so you can probably imagine what your panic tells me. Look, di Angelo, I'm hanging on as best I can. I need you to do the same. Can you do that for me?"

Nico nodded solemnly. "It's just... How do you plan on helping Apollo when you're in this kind of shape?"

Will sighed, his blond hair falling over his eyes. Nico considered pushing them to the side- as hard as they were to look at, Nico needed to see his eyes. They showed that Will was determined. Nevertheless, he decided against it.

"I don't know," Will admitted. "I was gonna wing it."

"Ugh, please don't. Your ideas suck."

"Oh? What did you have in mind?"

"Dunno. I was gonna wing it."

Will snorted. "You're mocking me."

"You're slow."

"Sorry. I wasn't trying to put on a show."

"I said slow. S-L-O-W. Gods, you're an idiot."

"You're flirting with me."

Nico almost raised a million dead animals. "Huh?"

But Will closed his eyes. "Stop, di Angelo. You're killing me."

"You're killing yourself."

"How's that work?"

"Because you're staying alive."

"So I'm surviving, not dying."

Nico turned away. "They mean the same thing."

Will didn't respond, and Nico glanced back at him to catch Will staring. "What?" Nico demanded.

"They are not the same," Will stated flatly. "You'd be stupid to think otherwise."

"Don't call me stupid," Nico grumbled, sitting down and resting his chin in his arms.

"Then don't act stupid." Will sputtered and turned away, coughing into his arm. Nico sighed, and Apollo patted Will repeating, "There, there, Will. There, there."

Rachel lay down next to Nico, stretching her arms out. "Nico, Will's right. You're stupid."

He shot her a glare. "Thanks. I really needed your input."

"You can't talk like that, saying that dying and surviving are the same."

"And you're saying they're different?"

She sat up, locking him in a steely glare. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am. Dying is letting go, letting the world throw all sorts of crap at you and just allowing it to happen until you're gone. Surviving is throwing crap back at the world."

Nico rolled his eyes and Apollo yawned.

"Niiiiiiiico, I'm tiiiiiiiired," he whined. Nico suppressed his own yawn.

"Then sleep."

"I don't wannaaaa."

"Then don't complain about being tired," Nico snapped. His patience was wearing thin- he didn't know how much more of Apollo he could handle. His gaze slid to Will, who tightly wrapped himself in the blanket like it was a cocoon.

Rachel snatched his arm, her eyes wide as she stared straight ahead. Her nails dug into his arm and he winced.

"Rachel, what's wrong?" he asked slowly. Drew kneeled down next to her.

"Rachel," she said softly. "Rachel, what is it?"

"He's close," she murmured. Drew frowned.

"Who?"

Rachel didn't even blink. "Python. He is nearing. He knows where I am."

"How close?" Nico demanded.

"Only a day away," she replied, her voice hardly above a whisper. "The battle will be fought soon." Her eyes closed and her head lowered. "Apollo must call upon his son soon in order to ready him for the fight. But not for the battle against Python: for the battle that comes after." She released his arm and shook her head, wild red curls bouncing. Nico's hands clenched his knees.

Does that mean there's another fight? It's not just Python? Is it Zeus?

Nico glanced back at Will. He had rolled over to where his face was planted in the dirt, yet didn't appear like he was planning to move anytime soon. Whether or not he heard Rachel, Nico couldn't tell. His regressed back to her words.

She said there was a battle after Python's that Will needed to prepare for. That meant he survives Python, right?

Or it's a battle in the Underworld, a quieter voice murmured. Nico shook the thought aside.

"What?" Rachel demanded. "What'd I do?"

Nico creased his eyebrows. "You don't know?"

Rachel squinted at him. "I'm so lost right now. Why were you guys staring at me?"

Drew's lips parted. "You said there's another battle after Python. Th-that... But Will won't be in good enough shape to..." Her frown deepened and she turned away to pace back and forth. Nico twirled the ring on his finger.

Drew's missing the point, Nico thought. How did Rachel say that when she's not supposed to be able to tell properties? Rachel's uncertain gaze told him she wondered the same thing.

Will muffled a cough, or more like the ground muffled it. "I thought I would die helping my dad fight Python. He said so." Will lifted his head for a moment to shoot Nico a withering glare. Nico glared back. Will coughed but held the stare. Eventually, however, the son of Apollo sighed, rolling over to face him.

"Nico, I just want you to know... or I want to know... There's no hard feelings between us, are there?"

Drew and Rachel shared a glance. "C'mon, Fred," Rachel said. "We're gonna go exploring." She took the god's hand and pulled him to his feet. She and Drew led him away. Nico appreciated the privacy, but being left alone with the son of Apollo made him... anxious.

"Will, I..." Nico closed his eyes, gathering his thoughts. "I don't know what to think. I don't know where we stand at this point."

"That's up to you." Will glanced at Nico to catch his frown, and a slight smile played at his lips. "I'll go wherever you want me, Nico. You know how I feel, so you can-"

"That's where you're wrong," Nico interrupted. The edge in his voice made him flinch. "You said you liked me more than most other people, but what does that mean? Are you sure that... that you can move forward? With..." With us?

"I want to." Will's gaze remained steady. "I can. But I want you to be okay with it. I don't want to push you into anything like I did before. That wasn't fair to you."

Nico held Will's stare. The other demigod's eyes seemed to regain some of their color, blue overpowering pale.

"Fine," Nico said, the words rolling off his tongue. "I'll consider it if you survive killing Python."

Will beamed. It was the brightest his face had been in a while, and Nico felt guilty because of it.

Maybe it's something to live for, he told himself, yet Nico could not shake the feeling that he was bargaining with something he did not have.

"We've got a bigger thing to worry about, though," Will said, sitting up. The grogginess of his movements made Nico wince, yet he didn't help. "How is Rachel spewing out stuff when she isn't supposed to be?"

Nico stared at the ground. "Dunno."

Will remained silent for a while.

"That's it?" he asked finally. Nico raised his eyebrows at him.

"I'm sorry. Let's hear your grand idea."

Will stuck his nose in the air. "I predict, in a very-much-so grand fashion, that... " He sputtered and held a finger up while he coughed into his sleeve. "Maybe Artemis sent it somehow."

Nico stared at him, and Will deflated. "I know. Not likely. You know what, that doesn't even matter anyway. Now we know I need to cure Apollo tomorrow. Better than nothing."

"But how?" Nico asked. "You said you can't control it."

"I know." Will keeled over coughing, squeezing his eyes shut. When the coughing ceased and he didn't continue, Nico inched closer to him.

"I have to do this, Nico," Will said. "I have to. For my dad." He did not raise his head. He looked defeated. "I don't know how." Nico could barely hear him.

"You'll be able to," Nico urged. He never expected that it would be him trying to support Will. If anything, it would be the other way around.

I should have seen this coming, Nico thought. Will had never never been on a quest like this. He was never the fighter. He pacified the arguments, and now he's being thrown into a battle against Python.

But he had fought before. He sacrificed himself in that crazed plan during the battle against Gaea and done only the gods know what. He was not weak, and Nico realized that he was beginning to think Will was.

He realized Will was staring at him again.

"What?" he asked defensively.

"How are you feeling?" he asked. Nico snorted, glancing away.

"I should be asking you that."

"I think I'm the specialist here."

"I know. How do you think you are?"

"You're changing the subject."

"I'm fine, Will. I've been doing a lot better."

"You ready to help my dad fight Python? Have you gotten enough rest from shadow traveling?"

"I have," Nico insisted. "Now how are you?"

"Hungry. But not hungry." He met Nico's glare and laughed, resulting in more coughing. This fit lasted longer than the last one, and soon Nico found himself having to help support Will until it passed.

"Are you sure you don't want ambrosia?"

Will nodded and soon stopped coughing, yet he still tightly gripped Nico for help. "Actually," he sputtered, "I'll take you up on that ambrosia." He put on a slight smile and Nico nodded, quickly reaching for Drew's bag and digging through its contents until he found the bag. He passed the whole thing.

"I'll let you decide how much you can have," he said.

"Good choice." Will took the bag and opened it. He grabbed the ambrosia and quickly divided it. He passed the remains to Nico.

What's it taste like to you? He swallowed the question.

"Nico," Will said, and he turned back to the son of Apollo, "wake me up early tomorrow. I need to be ready. Understand?"

It fully dawned on him. The battle was tomorrow. Tomorrow, Will was going to have to force himself to do something out of his control. Drew and Nico could work to the best of their ability, but tomorrow, Apollo would have to become a god and Will would have to sacrifice his sanity. The demigod knew all-too-well about sacrifice.

They could only weaken Python, and Will had to stand by and wait for his dad to kill it again.

Tomorrow, Will could either live or die.