A/N: Okay, I got 10 reviews, so here's the promised update! I think there will just be five or six more chapters, but this story has already been longer and more complicated than I originally planned. I hope you enjoy this, I certainly enjoyed writing it. (War from a different perspective than a soldier)

This chapter is dedicated to cas-the-unicorn, I am very glad you have liked this story and kept with it for so long!

If you want a refresher on this part of the plot, the last Rachel POV is chapter 38 titled 'Would They Win?'

Read, review, and 10 reviews gets you the next update!

Rachel POV

When the Titans finally attacked, it was almost a relief. After the meeting, the Romans and Greeks had begun to mobilize, packing up medical supplies and any and all weapons they could find. Morpheus had agreed to help them, if reluctantly, so when they all trecked into the city, it was eerily silent. Luckily, Morpheus and a few of the other gods that had remained on Olympus had also made sure that the mortals were out of the way. Rachel went with the healers to the lobby of the Empire State building, and prepared for the battle.

Rachel didn't see much of the fighting, but she did see the effects of it. Smoke hung low in the sky to the North and she was covered in blood. Very little of it was her own, only the cut on her forehead, courtesy of an Ares camper thrashing as she pulled a few pieces of shrapnel from his side. The rest belonged to said camper and others she had treated. Clarisse had shown up unconscious with a huge gash across her side pouring out blood. Despite the exasperation of Will Solace, head medic, she had raced back to the battle as soon as she woke up and Will had stitched her side together.

"They'll pull out!" he had said, gesturing to the neat stitches when the acting battle commander leapt to her feet.

"And I need to get out there." She had snapped, tugging on her chest plate again, lot of good it had done her. Rachel had been too busy applying pressure to a fourteen-year-old's heavily bleeding right thigh to stop her running out the door. Will had dragged a dirty hand down his face, leaving trails of blood and sweat across his cheeks, which had grown pale with exhaustion and stress.

"Jackson was easier to get to lie still than that girl," he muttered, before washing his hands and kneeling with Rachel next to the boy. About two thirds of the injured got better quick enough (or were just stubborn enough) to go back to the battle within a few minutes, but the rest were on cots on the first floor of the Empire State building. Rachel almost felt badly about the amount of blood the janitors would have to clean up, but at the same time, that blood was there to save their lives, so it was the least they could do.

With steady hands, Will wrapped a clean, white bandage around the boy's leg and helped him over to one of the empty cots. There were Three Roman nurses and two Aphrodite campers taking care of those on the cots, and Will spoke briefly to James, a pretty new camper, only ten years old. The boy nodded and Rachel watched as he brought the patient (a son of Hermes) a small corner of Ambrosia.

"Come on Dare," Will muttered, walking back to the . . . for lack of a better term, medical reception area. "We're not done yet." Biting her lip, Rachel took over the care of a Roman girl so that the Iris camper so he could go back to the fighting. But he didn't. Instead, he turned to Will.

"Clarisse sent me," he said, slightly out of breath. "To tell you that we've spotted a flying ship."

"The Argo II" Will breathed, looking like he'd been hit over the head with something. Rachel concentrated on feeling the girl's chest for any broken ribs. Her breathing was labored.

"What else could it be? And that means the rest of the gods will be coming as well."

Which would be better if the gods would actually fight. Apparently they had decided that they only really needed to do much of anything if the Titans or monsters got too close to Olympus, which really wasn't likely to happen, according to Hestia, because Kronos still had not reformed. Which, really, Rachel was glad it now actually seemed like they had Tyche, the goddess of luck, on their side. Or Fortuna, depending on whether you were Greek or Roman.

The girl let out a yelp of pain. So . . . probably a broken rib then. Will crouched next to the girl as well, looking up at the slight boy. You'd never know that the messenger and Butch were half-brothers just from looks. "Thanks for letting us know. Bring any injured here, they just finished saving the world, probably. I doubt that they all got out of it unscathed." There was worry in his voice, but that was normal. Rachel didn't trust herself to speak, her voice was sure to be so full of worry it would crack.

Broken ribs were tricky to heal, according to Will. If it didn't set right, it would be painful for the rest of the person's life. Rachel backed off as Will motioned to a nearby healer Rachel didn't know, probably Roman. The Iris camper took off again, feet slapping against the pavement of the eerily silent street, weaving through the parked cars. But for his moving figure, the sight in front of her could be a painting.

It was a rare moment of calm, and Rachel used it to step outside and look up at the sky, hoping she'd be able to see the ship coming in for a landing. Were Percy and Annabeth okay? What about the rest of the seven? And Nico? Gleeson Hedge had said he'd been rescued from a jug of some kind. Gods but she hoped they were alright. She hoped they'd defeated Gaea and all survived it. Leo and Jason and Piper and the Romans she didn't know. But the building must have been blocking her view, and Will called her back to the injured.

That's where she was, jeans and T-shirt covered in demigod blood and a bit of dead monster dust that had come into the area on the clothes of the fighters. (The battle was going well, according to those in any condition to tell them anything, which, to be honest, was most of them.) And there her thoughts went off in a direction other than the one they started in. Because that was where she was when they brought in Nico, Percy, and Annabeth.

Will swore. "Now now, keep a civil tongue in mind there, son," Apollo said, distracted. Rachel felt, instinctively, that something was really wrong.

"What's wrong?" Will asked. "What's doing it?"

"Tartarus," Apollo said grimly. "Not Hades' son, he just needs some nectar and he'll be on his feet."

Rachel took Nico, struggling a little under his deadweight. She dragged him to the nearest cot to lay him down, fetching a glass of nectar. James took the glass from her hand when she hesitated by Nico's side. How did an unconscious person swallow?

"Prop him up," the blonde ten year old said quietly. He poured a trickle of nectar into Nico's mouth, and then rubbed his throat. "This helps to stimulate the muscles to flex, in effect, an outside way to cause swallowing." His awkward phrasing reminded Rachel that he was ten, and not a son of Athena. Nico spluttered, then threw himself up and off the cot, falling to his knees as soon as his feet hit the floor.

"Woah, Nico," Rachel said. She didn't know Nico particularly well, mostly just what Percy had told her (Nico really kept to himself whenever he was at Camp Half-Blood.).

"The others, where are the others?" He asked, staring at Rachel as if not really seeing her.

"Apollo and Will are working on Percy and Annabeth. The others are fighting. They're fine, Nico."

Nico's skinny chest was heaving, but his previously panicked face smoothed. "Right. I suppose I ought to get out there then."

It's odd, how everything seems to slow down right before something really huge happens. Rachel suddenly noticed that it was evening, the reddish-orange sun shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows. She noticed that the wounded moaned and groaned, unless they were so badly injured that they didn't have the energy to so much as move a finger. She noticed that a smog hung over the city; whether fog or smoke, she wasn't sure. The stillness of the picture outside pressed upon her, and she suddenly noticed that Nico's pupils were blown wide.

Then two thing happened at once. Once, which was the cause of the second, Rachel had no way of knowing about. Ten blocks away, outside some restaurant, the last Titan fell. What she did notice, was the screaming. Percy and Annabeth, who had been unconscious, were thrashing against Apollo's and Will's hands.

A/N: A reminder of the number 10. That many reviews gets you a chapter. And cookies! Look! (::) (::) (:::) Some even have 6 chocolate chips! (I'm a bit crazy right now. Apparently. I've spent the last few days with minimum wi-fi. Oh life.)

Also, sorry if you wanted to see the battle. I wanted to see how it would look from a non-combatant's point of view. Ended up not being particularly violent. I think most of the violent chapters are over, but that's not to say the angst is. Just look at that ending. Sometimes I disgust myself with my cliffhangers. A bit cliche, some of them. Others . . . not so much. What do you think?