Disclaimer: I don't the characters, they belong to Rick Riordan. I don't own the plot, it belongs to MBC. I just joined them for fun.

Episode 14: Part 2

Nico decided not to accompany Kayla to the hospital when the ambulance came for Apollo.

It was bad enough to give the news that someone has died but it's worst when the person you're telling that information is the father. He felt like an intruder and decided to wait until the next morning to visit.

But before, a call to know if it was alight.

"Yes, Nico." Kayla greeted him over the phone, softly.

"Is he awake now?" Nico wondered to her, hearing her voice tone.

"Yes, he woke up just a while ago." She told him. "Nico, one moment." Evidently, there was a doctor coming to check.

"Can you give me the room number? I'm on my way up."

"Room 810."

"Thanks." Nico thanked her and rode the elevator, wondering how would Apollo react to his visit. He was musing to himself when he turned the corner of the floor, he thought he saw Apollo on his hospital gown rushing up the staircase. Curious and worried, Nico followed him up the stairs until the roof...

Where he found him about to jump the rail.

He immediately ran to him and started to pull him back despite his protests.

"Let go! Let go!" Apollo screamed at him but Nico didn't listen and kept pulling him down until he was secured on the floor next to him.

"Why are you doing this?" Nico questioned him, serious.

"I did it." Apollo cried to him, not even looking at his face. "I was the one who shot. I shot Will. It was me who shot him."

"You did not shoot him." Nico argued to him but Apollo shook his head.

"No. I did shoot him." He insisted, sobbing. "I remember it all. I shot my son."

"No. That's not you." Nico tried to pull that thinking off him.

"I... can no longer live." Apollo complained. "I can not live anymore."

"Get yourself together and listen to me!" Nico had enough of that thinking and shouted at him, forcing the man- technically, his father-in-law -to pay attention to him. At least, he stopped talking... "Do you know why I sought for you? It's because you have something to do." Nico admitted to him. "Don't blame yourself. You did not shoot your son but the killer did. But the only one who could save him is only you. That's why you should get yourself together. You can't break down. You need to save your son!"

"How could I save him? He's dead." Apollo reminded him, not like Nico needed that.

"He did die, but you can save him." Nico continued his explanation. "Will became a halfway manhwa character like me when we got married. So, he gets hurt and bleeds in the manhwa, and that is why he died after being shot. But instead, because he became a manhwa character, you can save him by drawing. Just like how I was brought to life after being dead." Nico could see how his explanation was pulling Apollo out of his emotional state and into his rational one. Nico could see the spark of hope igniting again. "Do you understand? With your drawing, you can make him alive. That is why before he died I brought him inside the manhwa world. It's not the end yet. I will never give up. I will, with no fail save him." He promised to Apollo.

"How could I draw? It's all crushed." Apollo remembered, looking guilty. "I broke it with a hammer because that bastard told me to. That bastard told me so I crushed it all. There isn't a tablet anymore." He began to cry again softly.

"There is." Nico argued to him. "There is one for sure. Somewhere."

Nico helped Apollo to get up from the floor and to sit on a nearby bench to continue their conversation.

"You probably don't know what Will means to me." Nico began, looking at the horizon. "Will is my only family. Not the fake family that you made but a true family that has substance." He hurried to add. "Not with those fabricated memories but actual memories that we shared together. Not a predetermined fate but a fate that I chose myself. For the first time, only with my own will." He turned to Apollo, who was listening in silence. "That's why I can't give up. Will... is the proof that I'm human, just like you and him. That I am a human being. That's why I will surely save your son and be happy together. This time I won't back up. Nobody can make me despair. I will come from behind and win for sure. And the ending will be a happy ending no matter what."

After hearing him talk, Apollo decided to focus on something Nico had said before.

"How could there be another one?" Nico didn't need to be a genius to know Apollo was referring to the tablet. "Until now, I only used one tablet."

"There must be a replacement. There must be a copy drawn somewhere in the manhwa." Nico reasoned, serious. "If not, there's no way the killer would have broken it. That is the most important thing to him. He just had it crushed so that we could never use it." Suddenly, Apollo was looking at him as if he had the answer. "Don't you remember?"

"I put it in the trunk." Apollo said to him.

"Trunk of the car?" Nico checked with him. "When the police looked for evidence, there was no tablet." Nico recalled the report from the police but both reached the same conclusion. "Zeus Olympia."

"Zeus Olympia." Apollo repeated, sure of it. "But the copy will have the same functionality?" He wondered.

"We won't know. We need to use it to know what's different." Nico confessed to him. "But still, we have to find it. First, we must."

"Yeah." Apollo agreed, beginning to show the signs of tiredness. Without words, Nico stood up and began carrying him on his back and into the elevator, back to his room.

"Oh right, now your life is important to me too." Nico added once they were down the elevator on the right floor. "Not as the god who made me but as the father of my husband. You are already my family. You might not acknowledge it, but that's how it is to me. That's why, don't do things like what you did earlier, please! Okay?" He advised him, smirking a little bit while taking him to his room.

While Nico and Apollo were having their heart-to-heart talk, Kayla was helping Professor Asclepius looking for the missing patient.

"Where did he go?" Asclepius wondered, walking by Kayla.

"But why did he suddenly go out? What did you say?" Kayla wanted to know, looking around the hallway.

"Well, I didn't say anything much." Asclepius started. "I just asked something about the manhwa-" That got Kayla's attention. "-and when I asked why Will Solace died, and he just suddenly-" Kayla's silent gasp made the Professor stop talking and watch the young woman in front of him groan in understanding. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Sheesh! Why would you ask that? Why!" She told him, raising her voice. That only made her sound even higher-pitched and surprised Asclepius. "There are other things to ask! Why did you ask that to a patient! Are you in your right mind?" She screamed at him while Asclepius only stared at her, surprised. "As a doctor, you have no mannerism, and can't even get a hint about the situation! Why did you ask that kind of thing! Why! Do you have any thoughts or not! Oh, Master." Asclepius was saved of more ranting by the entrance of Nico, who was carrying an exhausted and asleep Apollo on his back.

"Call a nurse." Nico told Kayla, who relied on the order to Asclepius.

"Please call a nurse." He repeated before following Nico and fawning over Apollo and leaving a confused and hurt Asclepius behind.

Once Apollo was back in his bed, Nico told Kayla his intentions.

"I will be going back now." He informed her. "Please take care of him." He walked out of the room followed by Kayla and he swore he heard Apollo mumble something.

"Arrogant punk."

That made him smirk but hid it from Kayla.

"Nico." Kayla stopped him, looking worried. And Nico didn't blame her. "Please be careful. Honestly, I'm going crazy." She admitted to him.

"Don't cry and wait. I might call for help." Nico told her, trying to keep her grounded.

"To me? What?" She wondered, confused.

"I don't know yet, either." Nico recognized to her.

"Be careful, okay?" Kayla insisted on him before Nico left the hospital.

He had a mission to do.

It took Nico no time to arrive at Zeus Olympia's office, both in the real and manhwa worlds.

He was lucky, there was no one in the office and it was nighttime. He immediately spotted the tablet on Zeus' desk and went to retrieve it, making the mistake of leaving the gun he had carried with him to the side. As soon as his hands touched the tablet, he realized something.

It was not the tablet he was looking for.

"It's not the same one." He mumbled to himself, reaching the inevitable conclusion. It's a trap!

Before he could react, a hand came out of the shadows and hit his shoulder from behind, taking him by surprise. But what really took him by surprise was the syringe that was stuck into his neck, presumably full of sedative.

Nico fought the attacker and the syringe but the drug was immediately taking effect on him. The first thing he felt was disorientated and fell to the floor while someone mocked him.

"Hey, Nico di Angelo." Evidently, Zeus Olympia was waiting for him. "Is this what you are looking for?" Nico saw the tablet on Zeus's hands but couldn't move to grab it.

He passed out soon afterward.