A/N: Again, thank you very very very very (you get the idea :D) much to everyone who reviewed or subscribed or favorited! I try to update quickly for you guys especially, but unfortunately now that school and tests are back on, I might be a bit slower than I have been recently. But enjoy this chapter, and the next ones! And thank you again! Have a brownie!

Chapter 27

Nico had shadow-traveled to Percy's side, and he found himself standing next to his friend in one of the hallways in the Big House.

"Give this to Chiron," Nico said quietly, pressing the plant Persephone had given him into Percy's hand. "Persephone gave it to me – she said it'll heal her. Don't tell him where you got it from; he won't believe you. I have to –"

"Don't leave," Percy ordered. "I can handle Thalia – she's just stressed after today. She'll come around. We know you aren't a traitor, and Lily will want you to be there when she wakes up."

"Tell her I'm sorry," Nico sighed, stepping away. "I can't stay. I'll just make more stress and trouble for her if I do. But I really do care about her – try to make her understand." He melted into the shadows before Percy could protest any farther.

Looking curiously at the green plant Nico had given him, Percy pushed open the door of the room Lily was in and entered, going over to the bed. His sister lay still, her skin pale and her forehead beaded with perspiration. There was a little blood on her lip where she'd bitten it in her fever, and her hair was spread out over her pillow.

"How is she?" Percy asked Chiron, who was standing and watching over her. He sighed inwardly when Chiron simply shook his head, looking pained. "I think you should have this," Percy said, handing Chiron the plant.

The centaur examined it, his eyebrows flying up his forehead as he traced a leaf with his finger. "Where did you get this?" When Percy remained silent, Chiron bunched his eyebrows together, looking annoyed. "Percy, this is a very rare herb that grows only in the Underworld – the gardens of Persephone, to be exact. You got this from your friend Nico di Angelo, didn't you?"

Percy looked calmly into Chiron's eyes. "It's from Persephone." Which was, technically, true.

Chiron nodded, satisfied, and proceeded to send Percy out of the room, telling him that he didn't need him to start freaking out when he saw his sister's wound. "She should wake up in less than an hour, and I'll call you when she does. But it'll be one person at a time visiting her, and she'll get to choose who she wants to see, all right?"

"That's fine," Percy mumbled, walking out of the room. Once outside, he exited the Big House and found an irate Jessie waiting for him. "Hi, Jessie. What's up?"

"Where is Nico di Angelo?" She narrowed her dark blue eyes as she saw him searching for an excuse. "I asked Annabeth and she told me he left. Where is he? Lily will want to see him first when she wakes up, and I don't want to be the one trying to explain to her why he isn't there. And I tried to find Thalia, but she and the Hunters packed up and left earlier…something about a mission Artemis had for them.

"But when other people heard me mentioning Nico's name, they started talking about how he betrayed us all and would have killed Lily if Katie hadn't gotten in his way. I mean, really? What is going on?"

"They're all confused," Percy sighed. "It'll blow over – he's a good guy. He'll be okay."

"I'm not too sure," Jessie said slowly. "I mean, he always comes across as kind of scary. And the aura of death around him definitely doesn't help much. And he isn't the friendliest guy out there unless you know someone he likes. He won't approach people, he has some of the fastest reflexes I've ever seen, and he's powerful enough to make Zeus nervous. I mean, I never really trusted him until he started dating my best friend, and then I had to listen to her go on and on and on about what a great guy he is. And I started to believe her, and then I realized that she was right. But –"

She broke off as the sound of muffled shouting reached her ears. Jessie looked at Percy in time to see a mixture of surprise, sadness, and dawning comprehension appear on his face. Suddenly a window behind her practically exploded as a huge wave of water burst through it, spreading glass everywhere and leaving her dripping wet, although Percy remained dry (curse his parentage!).

"What's going on?" Jessie shouted after him, because he'd already started to rush towards the front door of the Big House.

"My sister has recovered and lost her temper!" He bellowed back, reaching the door. "Find Annabeth and come here as soon as you can!"

He ran through the hallway until he reached the correct room and wrenched the door open to find Lily standing on the bed and looking up at Chiron, who was soaked with water and who was still taller than her. She had a finger pointed at him and an infuriated expression on her face. Percy winced slightly. Lily looked dangerous – even though her jeans were frayed and the shirt she had been changed into was so large for her that her unwounded shoulder was exposed because the neckline had slipped off it.

"Percy! Where is he?" She turned to him, her large eyes widened so that she appeared half-crazed with anger. She was literally shaking with rage, Percy noticed. He wondered nervously when Annabeth and Jessie were going to show up.

"He, uh, he had to go somewhere," Percy fumbled, wishing her gaze wasn't as penetrating as it was. His father seemed to have given her all the wrong traits.

The girl crossed her arms and took a breath, which her inflamed cheeks suggested she deeply needed. Chiron took the opportunity to cut in.

"Lily," he said carefully, "You're very tired and not in your normal state of mind. I'm sure that Nico is perfectly fine, and that he will be back here shortly. Let Percy take you back to your cabin so you can get some rest, and if Nico shows up here I'll send him to you." Chiron was using his most placating tone, and Percy sighed with relief, certain that Lily would either see reason or collapse out of exhaustion – either was fine with him, as long as she stopped yelling at everyone she saw.

Lily, on the other hand, blew a strand of hair from her face in exasperation. The herb that Persephone had given for her had not only flushed the poison from her system, it had also given her a boost in energy. Annoyed by the way the shirt she was kept slipping off her shoulder, she tugged it up and turned her glare back to Chiron.

"I know for a fact that he isn't just on some mission, and I know he isn't perfectly fine," she snarled. "I heard Percy say something about him getting threatened by Clarisse before Annabeth closed the door and told him to shut up because she thought I was asleep. So stop lying to me and tell me why you lot thought it was okay to kick him out of here! He's had a bad enough time without people getting on his case randomly for no reason at all! If you guys can't –"

The door banged open and Jessie and Annabeth rushed in.

"Lily, calm down!" Jessie shrieked, jumping up onto the bed so she could fling her arms around her friend. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

Lily returned the embrace, burrowing her head into her friend's shoulder. "Where is he, Jessie? Why won't anyone just tell me?" She whispered her question, softly enough that no one else could hear.

"If you'll let me spend the night at your cabin, I'll explain to you there," Jessie whispered back. When Lily murmured an affirmative, the daughter of Apollo pulled away. "And what are you wearing?" she asked in a normal tone. "Come on, let's get you into some normal clothes, okay?"

"That's…it?" Percy asked in disbelief as Lily let Jessie lead her down from the bed. "Are you for real right now?"

"Unless you want her to go into banshee mode again, shut up," Jessie advised, heading for the door. "Percy, you need to find somewhere else to spend the night. We're having a sleepover. Why don't you hang out at the Athena cabin? Kick everyone but Annabeth out, have a nice time…" She giggled and ducked as Annabeth swung a punch in her direction.

Twenty minutes later, Lily was showered and dressed in a warm, comfortable pair of pajamas – or rather, black sleep pants and a purple tank top, while Jessie was wearing a huge orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt that was apparently Will's and dark blue sleep shorts. They sat on the floor, leaning against one of the bunk beds.

"Okay, spill," Lily ordered. "What happened?"

"Well," Jessie sighed, "First you have to promise not to go on a rampage after I tell you, okay?" When Lily nodded, Jessie continued, albeit reluctantly. "So, I wasn't actually there, but I heard this from Isabelle, who found out from Connor, who was there and almost got his head taken off by Thalia when he tried to stand up for Nico. She and Katie and a bunch of other people are convinced that Nico didn't kill the griffin properly because he was waiting for it to attack you, and that he didn't take you to Chiron right away because he was waiting for you to bleed to death first. And because the poison you were under was from the Underworld, that only strengthens their belief in that."

"That's so stupid! He was in shock – that's why he didn't get me to the Big House right away! And he didn't kill the griffin properly, but neither did anyone else! So in that case almost anyone could be a traitor. And no one even noticed it wasn't really dead – as long as it wasn't trying to kill us, no one cared." She lowered her eyes to the ground, twisting the material of her tank top between her fingers. "Why did he leave, though?"

Jessie knew it was a rhetorical question, but she answered anyway. "Because he wasn't strong enough to fight them off, and they were threatening his life. It was a survival move. I heard about what you guys did together – that black and sea-green thing. Impressive. But it must have taken a lot of energy –"

"Yeah, he gave me a lot of his," Lily interrupted, her eyes misting over with nostalgia.

"Exactly. And then, he had to kill the griffin, summon his zombies, shadow-travel you back, fight for his life, and he himself wounded too. I saw the bruises on his stomach and chest, and they were HUGE. Black and blue and the size of his fist, or bigger. I don't know why he told Chiron he didn't want any medical help. I think he just wanted to make sure you would be okay."

Lily sniffled, and Jessie sighed. She had known the emotional breakdown was going to come soon after the physical one, but not so soon.

"It's going to be okay," Jessie murmured, letting Lily cry on her shoulder. "He'll be back soon, and he'll want you to be okay and in one piece, okay? So you can't fall apart on us now."

"He had no right to leave," Lily said after a while, drying her tears and sitting up. "Why couldn't he just go to Percy – he would've helped him! Everyone here is dead scared of my brother when he's angry. He shouldn't have just walked away! And what about me? Did he think I wouldn't want him to be here? Does he even care that I almost died? And –" She was starting to raise her voice again, and Jessie hastened to interrupt her.

"Lily, just shut up." She gave her friend the no-nonsense glare until Lily closed her mouth and leaned back against the bed. "First of all, you have got to stop being so moody the minute something goes wrong in your life. I understand how torn up you are about him leaving, but we'll find him and drag him back here – it's not like he's dead. And if the other campers don't want him back, you can threaten to drown them. They'll shut up. I can guarantee it."

"Sorry," Lily mumbled after an awkward silence. "It's just – well, my father is supposed to be a bit moody, and I think I inherited that. When things go wrong or I get stressed or worried, I go from shouting to crying to shouting, and I don't really know why. They're just really extreme mood swings – it's like my defense mechanism against life."

Jessie started laughing. "It's okay, I shoot things or play my electric guitar really loudly when I get nervous. Will had to wrestle my bass from me once to get me to stop because he swore he was going to wind up deaf and because I had burns all over my fingers from playing too hard for too long."

"Burns?"

Jessie began explaining how playing a bass could lead to getting awful burns, and the earlier tension seemed forgotten as they drifted from one topic to another.

A/N: Aaand another chapter is done! Stay tuned for more, and please please please review for me! I love to hear what you have to say!