The apartment went deathly silent suddenly, broken only by Will, Rachel and Percy panting. They looked around, taking stock. All of them were walking, but none of them had escaped unscathed. Will was doubled over, clutching at his ribs from his flying lesson into the bookcase. Every breath felt like a knife to the lungs. There was a ringing in his ears that told him he probably had a concussion. Broken ribs were pretty much a given at this point.
Rachel had a freely-bleeding welt on her cheekbone that Will was itching to X-ray to check for a fracture. It would need stitches at least, and her eye was already swelling closed. There was bruises around her throat and puncture marks where talons had entered oozing yellow pus. She was still clutching her kitchen knife to her chest, looking like another monster was going to pop out of the woodwork any second.
Percy was looking around too, snorting blood back up his nose and cuffing the remnants on the back of his hand. He had cuts and scratches peppering his forearms; his shirt was torn and there was a gash above his left eye.
"What the hell happened?" Rachel demanded, swallowing and wincing as it made her throat throb.
"We got Annabeth out of the way," Percy answered, capping Riptide and turning it back into a pen. "They know the prophecy is starting just as much as we do now. It's her they're looking for."
"Is she going to be safe at Camp?" Will asked. Sure the place had its protective wards and Thalia's pine tree, not to mention an actual dragon guarding it, but how long would all that last in the face of an ongoing onslaught from the minions of the King of Hell?
"Maybe," Percy said, but he didn't sound convinced. "If she can have the baby there, and soon, then maybe..." He trailed off, realising he had repeated the word maybe twice and not liking how that sounded. Maybe was a lot to gamble the lives of his wife and children on.
Nico jumped out of the shadows in the corner of the room, patting himself down. "Oh good. I gave her the slip."
"Annabeth?" Percy asked, already knowing the answer.
"Yeah. Your wife? Pretty pissed. At me, by the way, which is so not fair. I did only what I was ordered."
"At least she's safe," Percy said.
"For now," Nico reminded them darkly. "How long can Camp really hold out with the full weight of Tartarus against it? It's been depleted since the attacks that killed Malcolm. And something tells me the gods aren't going to unlock Olympus and come down to save us this time. We're on our own."
The weight of that settled on Percy and his mouth pinched to a thin line. "We do what we have to," he said. "We give it everything we've got. I'm going to Camp. We can set up a command base there. I'll pick up as many people as I can as I go. Rachel, you get the goggles working again. Any insight you can give us could make the biggest difference. Will, I'm assuming you can patch Nico up?"
"I'm fine," Nico said automatically, but his stomach was still bleeding, he was even paler than usual and nothing could hide the strain in his voice.
"You're not," Will said. "We're going back to ours. Then we'll meet you at Camp."
Nico opened his mouth to protest but Will cut him off with a single look. Nico sighed and tilted his head in agreement, crossing the apartment to take Will's hand. "Good luck," he told Percy. "I'll be there as soon as I can, okay?"
"Go," Percy said. "I'll be fine."
Shadows coiled around Nico and Will but, just before they disappeared, they both saw Percy's face fall.
Nico hissed as Will applied nectar to his wound. Why the hell did a godly drink sting so much on contact? Oh, right. Because if Will went a bit nectar-crazy, Nico would light up like a bonfire.
Being a demigod, boys and girls. A real hoot.
Nico was laid back on the couch, with Will kneeling in front of him scowling at the bleeding, as if that could make it clot. The blood had slowed since the application of nectar, but Will wasn't having any luck with healing prayers thanks, he guessed, to the eclipse and his father's recent lunacy.
"Sorry," Will said, grimacing. His purple surgical gloves were slick with blood. He'd packed the wound with gauze, trying to get the bleeding to stop, but even with the nectar it didn't seem to want to heal. "They really did a number on you, huh?"
Nico picked at the corner of some gauze and took a look down at his stomach. The edges of the gash had healed closed into pink scar tissue, but the middle, where it was deepest, continued to malignantly bubble blood each time he drew a breath. Will smacked his hand away, pressing the gauze back into place.
"Looks like it," Nico said, chewing on a square of ambrosia. Either Will had turned the thermostat up – there were beads of sweat forming on his forehead and matting his hair – or he was dangerously close to the threshold of spontaneous human combustion.
Will looked up and paled, the opposite of the rosy flush on Nico's cheeks. "Okay, that's it. No more ambrosia and nectar. I'm going to have to stitch this."
"Stitches?" Nico groaned, swallowing his ambrosia. "I haven't had stitches in–"
"Sixteen months," Will supplied, snapping off his gloves so he could rummage around in the first aid chest without getting blood all over the supplies. "We were heading for a record for a while there."
Nico sighed and sank back further into the couch cushions as Will prepared a syringe of lidocaine and a surgical needle and thread. "Do you do any work at the hospital or do you just steal supplies?"
"A little from column A, a lot from column B," Will admitted, tapping the syringe. He set it down on the coffee table next to him to get some fresh gloves on. "Ready?"
"Not like I have a choice," Nico muttered, taking off the tattered remnants of his shirt as Will removed the gauze to get at the wound.
"Not if you want to keep your guts where they belong."
"Guts," Nico said, trying the word out in his mouth. He deposited the shirt on the couch cushion next to him. "Is that a medical term, doctor?"
Will looked up, about to insert the needle. "You realise I'm holding a syringe to your stomach down here, right?"
"You're going to poke me with it anyway," Nico said, rolling his eyes.
Will's nostrils flared but he didn't say anything. He started working as soon as the anaesthetic took effect, occasionally tutting to himself as he did so.
"Are we really not going to talk about the elephant in the room?" Nico asked suddenly, causing Will to nearly miss tying off a stitch.
"You better not be talking about Annabeth," Will warned. "She'll squish you like a bug."
"Not Annabeth. Please. I have some self-preservation instinct."
Will glanced up, his head cocked to one side. "Really? You do?"
"Shush," Nico said. "You know what I'm talking about. That prophecy Rachel had. The one that said a child of sun and prophecy was going to sacrifice himself to save the world by replacing the stolen light."
"Prophecies are riddles," Will said with a shrug, although he wouldn't meet Nico's eyes. "It took us long enough to figure out the last one, right?"
"Will–"
"Nico." Again there was warning in his voice, but there was none of the playfulness from before. Will meant business this time and his face said it all.
"I'm going to talk to you about this whether you like it or not," Nico said, dark eyes on fire. "The person in the prophecy is you. I've never seen any other child of Apollo do what you did on Olympus. You went freaking supernova on my dad's ass. Who else is this prophecy going to be about?"
"I was pissed off," Will replied. "It's not like I make a habit of doing it. Don't you think if I could I would have done it earlier in the apartment to save you getting all bloody on me? I don't even know if I can do it again. It could be a one-time thing."
"It's not," Nico said, shaking his head. "You stopped a speargun today. You've never been able to do that before, either. But you did it. You're getting more powerful."
"Yeah, I did that to save your ass. The only two times that's ever happened is when you've been in serious danger. Or I thought you were in serious danger."
"That's the point," Nico said. "My ass need saving right now. Our collective asses need a huge hail Mary pass and the only person in the frame to do that is you."
"Fine. So I'll do it."
"You're going to die, Will. The prophecy was pretty clear on that part."
Will stuck his tongue in his cheek and said nothing, leaving the needle and thread dangling from Nico's stomach.
"Look, Will–"
"No, Nico, you don't get to say look Will and have everything turn out okay. People are going to die if we don't stop Tartarus. Hundreds or thousands of innocent people are going to die, including everyone we know and love. Including your godchild. What do you want me to do here? Sit on the sidelines, make JiffyPop in the nuclear blast Tartarus is going to unleash on the world?"
"I don't want you to die." The words hung heavily in the air. The breath hitched in Nico's throat as he voiced his concerns out loud for the first time.
Will gave a grim smile. "Believe me, I'm not such a big fan of death, either," he said, sitting back on his heels. He almost touched his jeans with his gloves but then remembered they were supposed to be sterile so propped his elbows on his thighs instead and sat there with his purple hands floating in the air.
"You look ridiculous."
"You look like a dressmaker's dummy someone forgot about," Will shot back, although there was little humour in his voice.
"So that's it?" Nico asked. "Talk over, just like that?"
"I don't know what else you want me to say," Will said, rubbing his forehead with his forearm. "If the chance comes to nuke Tartarus somehow, I'm going to take it. You'd do the same thing. What about that stupid statue you lugged across the world? That practically killed you and yet you didn't stop."
"That's different."
"How?" Will demanded. "How is it different? Because it was you doing it and not me?"
"Yes." Nico's voice was small. "Yes, okay?"
"So what, you think it's going to be any easier for me to live without you than it will be for you to live without me? That you're expendable somehow?"
"I don't know. All I do know is that I can't do this without you."
"Do what?"
"Live," Nico said. "I didn't really have anyone before you came along and now I've got you… I don't know what I'm supposed to do without you."
The anger melted off Will's face, deflating his body. He sat back further on his heels, bumping the coffee table another few inches backwards. "You'll be okay," he said.
"No, I won't," Nico replied. "Nothing about this ends with me being okay. If you're gone, then… what? What am I meant to do?"
"Your best," Will suggested. "No matter what, you are going to have an amazing life. Whether I'm there or not. You'll find someone else, Nico. You will."
"I don't want someone else," Nico said. "I want you. That's all I'm ever going to want."
"We don't know anything yet," Will said, leaning forward and picking up the needle again to finish his work before the lidocaine wore off.
"We know one hell of a lot, Will. We know–"
Nico was interrupted by the apartment door bursting open. He had his back to the door, so he turned around to see a fuming Annabeth blocking out the light from the hall. Will bobbed his head up to, blinking at the sudden intrusion.
Annabeth's mouth fell open, taking in Nico's state of undress and Will's position kneeling in front of him. "What the hell is going on here?" she demanded, storming into the apartment. "Did you ditch me at Camp Half-Blood to have a nooner with your boyfriend?!" She was in full Annabeth rage mode now, grey eyes growing stormier by the second.
Will flushed red and stood up. "This is not what it looks like," he said, holding up his bloodied, gloved hands as proof. "I'm patching him up. That's all."
Annabeth was about to demand to know why Nico needed stitching up in the first place when a strange feeling overcame her. She looked down and realised she was standing in a puddle of liquid that she had no explanation for. Then, slowly, her rational brain ate through the anger, which melted away to horror as if it had never been there.
"Oh my gods," she whispered, her eyes blowing wide with panic.
"What?" Nico asked, grabbing his sword from where it was propped next to the couch.
"Guys… I think… I think my water just broke."
