Hi again from the absolutely crazy world of 'The Merge'.

Right, so this chapter is kinda weird and definitely OOC but as we can't be bothered to change it, please don't complain. Yeah. Sorry, but we're tired and lazy. But whoo! It's Chapter 50!

Anyway.

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Hagbraten (Walley): We're really pleased that you liked the chapter so much! Yeah, we see your point about the ice… I don't know about AHermioneH, but I think that the whole 'selling out' thing felt like more of an act/trying to prevent her from destroying the entire world in a random rampage thing to me…? (I say that it was an act or at least I intended it to be, but if it makes an OC slightly more complex, we can say that he did that, sure). We're planning on rewriting at least one of our old fics and eventually posting it, but it might be a while (especially given that these fics are going to need literal, complete rewrites because they are genuinely terrible). Once this laborious task of getting this finished is done. But GCSEs are currently trying to murder us where we stand, so it might be quite a while until you get a fic after this one. But if you have any suggestions, we're planning to do a few fun one-shots in this universe afterwards while the workload is crushing and we don't have the time for a full fic.


Annabeth POV

The Apollo cabin needed all the help that they could get.

Even if that meant letting one of their patients (who happened to have nasty acid burns [from rescuing her boyfriend] and a long slash from a Stygian Iron sword on her arm) out of bed to help with cutting bandages and coffee runs.

I wasn't going to die, I insisted.

Considering that the head counsellor of their cabin was currently unconscious anyway, they relented.

So that's how I ended up making coffee in the dining pavilion at 4am three days after the fight with Nyx. Luckily for them, a child of Athena's brain was actually remarkably useful here, as I had quickly memorised everybody's coffee preferences (although most of them were now asking simply for black, as it was strong, with copious amounts of sugar).

I limped back to the infirmary with the tray of steaming mugs, trying to be relatively quiet.

The night before I'd woken up half the camp by tripping and cursing very loudly.

I placed the tray carefully on the table, before grabbing my own cup of coffee and making my way into the 'office' (aka one room that had been hastily converted so that at least one healer was in the infirmary at all times).

Kayla was currently on duty, and nearly asleep.

"Kay? I got you coffee."

She lifted her head and blinked. "Yeah, okay. Thanks, Annabeth. Can you just keep an eye on this while I fetch it and go check on the inmates?"

I nodded, fairly used to this. "Sure."

I then sat down in front of a (magic) holographic screen which displayed the vitals of all of those who were currently in the infirmary.

Anything happened, and it would flash up on here.

Then I could contact Kayla with a walkie-talkie and tell her to get her butt into the room of whoever was dying.

It was fairly straightforward.

I took a sip of my coffee and began a brief check of the historical data, to see if Kayla had missed anything that hadn't red flagged but should really be checked.

Several of the patients had blood pressure figures that were somewhat on the alarming side, but this was actually an improvement from the day before, so I didn't contact her about it.

Kayla herself had a few fairly interesting readings, which the machine had compiled to diagnose her with sleep deprivation, high stress levels and consuming far too much caffeine.

My own readings were almost the same. But I already knew this, so it didn't seem something to panic about.

Kayla returned after about fifteen minutes.

She sighed heavily, rubbing her eyes.

"Anything?" I asked.

Kayla sighed again. "Well, your boyfriend managed to pull a stitch in his sleep again. I still haven't a clue how he does it. But the acid burns are actually starting to heal. And I have no idea if his ribs are recovering and if his strength is returning because he is currently not in any sort of state to be speaking to anybody. Will's actually flagged as simply unconscious instead of comatose now, so things are generally looking up."

I nodded, and yawned. "Maybe we should call next watch. We'll fall asleep in front of the monitor at this rate."

Kayla glanced at her watch. "Alright. We've gone over shift anyway."

I pressed the buzzer to wake up whichever unfortunate soul had drawn the 4-o'clock shift.

o0O0o

This cycle continued for several days afterwards. Draw shifts in the morning, sleep until you're woken, do your shift(s), go back to sleep.

It may sound like there was a lot of sleeping involved.

Trust me, there was not. I tended towards three hours of sleep per day, what with long and often double shifts. Some of the healers were getting even less.

Will woke up after five and a half days, spent half an hour whinging and then promptly fell asleep again.

He started helping with the healing effort after an extra day, much to the irritation of most of the other Apollo campers, who were convinced that he would kill himself with the effort.

However, considering that Will was the most stubborn person alive, getting him to do what they wanted was a lost cause from the word go.

But anyway. The healers needed all the help that they could get. Even if that meant getting the Stolls to steal Coke for them when they got sick of coffee.

Even some of the Ares campers were mucking in and taking over some of the training sessions for the campers who were in or working in the infirmary. [Note that I said some. Not all].

And Chiron was trotting around anxiously and trying to keep camp morale up. Difficult, especially since Mr D had reappeared and spent a whole day complaining about the damage to the Big House porch that had been caused by a low-flying son of Poseidon. He didn't seem overly concerned about the welfare of aforementioned demigod, though. Figures.

Nico had returned to sulking in his cabin for a couple of days, before emerging and deciding that, yes, he would actually do something to help, rather than moaning about his comatose boyfriend.

Not that everyone wanted a son of Hades in the infirmary, but I think that Nico did track down Thanatos and tell him very firmly that no, he was not to take anyone from the camp infirmary. So, at least Kayla was cool with it.

o0O0o

As I finished my shift in the infirmary, Ellie ran in and skidded to a halt next to Percy's bed (where he was still drooling). "Flic..." she huffed, "Claimed... Hive... Which?" I bit my lip.

Hive? Who was that?

I let Ellie drag me by the arm to the volleyball pitch where the Hermes campers and Danny were surrounding the Brit. I turned to Connor. "What did it look like?"

"Uhh... a bee hive." He shrugged. "With like a slice of cheese. I don't know; it was weird."

I racked my brains for knowledge of the majorly minor gods. None of them apparently had claimed demigod children.

And none were the god of bees, or cheese.

I continued thinking.

Then a name floated into my brain, out of the deep dark depths of what can only be described as the maze of my long-term memory.

"Aristaeus!" I blurted out.

Danny blinked up at me. "Bless you?"

"No! That's Flic's dad, you dolt." I cuffed him upside the head.

If possible, Danny now looked even more confused.

I sighed. "Aristaeus. Minor god of beekeeping and cheese, amongst other things."

Flic blinked. "So my dad is a god of cheese. And bees?"

I nodded.

She shrugged slightly. "Cool. So… Why is everyone still crowded around here? I am not going to suddenly start bee-whispering. Nothing exciting is happening…?"

"This is the first really positive thing that's happened since the fight."

"I thought Will woke up a few days ago."

"He did. And that's positive, I know. But it is an event that arose because of the fight with Nyx. This claiming is a completely separate event. One that shows that life will, and is, moving on."

Travis frowned at me. "That's a bit too philosophical for like nine in the morning."

I frowned. "It's nine in the morning?"

Travis glanced down at his (presumably stolen) watch. "Yeah. It's eight forty-three."

I rubbed my eyes. "Gods. I've been up hours. It's not even nine yet?"

Travis shook his head.

"This-" I pointed my hand down at the ground. "- is the reason why we should not have a major battle on a Tuesday. We hit Sunday and nobody knows what day it is, let alone what the time is." I said, shaking all over. "So, if you will excuse me, I am going off to sleep."

And at that, I turned on my heel and flounced away.


So… Sorry if that was OOC (it made me cringe to read it but I literally could not be bothered to change it (and our wifi wasn't really working that well), so).

Anyway.

If you have any suggestions for one-shots in this universe, please drop us a review with your suggestion. Don't bother bringing up how bad this chapter is. We'll try and get another one out soon to compensate.