Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Mortals are fragile things. It's something Apollo's always known – he's the god of healing, of course he's always known how easily they break – but it's been a long, long time since he last felt it like this.

In his arms, small enough that Apollo doesn't even need to change his size to cradle him securely against his chest, surrounded by his leaking essence, his son – his child, a warrior too young, just a child – is slipping away one faint heartbeat at a time. Michael's strong, always has been, and his body's done the near-impossible task – far greater, in Apollo's opinion, than any of the Herculean tasks – of clinging onto the faint vestiges of life for so long, but mortal endurance is still mortal. It still ends, all too quickly, and Apollo's all too aware that he's racing against time.

Michael is beyond mortal healing. Beyond demigodly healing. Beyond anything his fellow gods, even, could do (barring Michael's own godly brother, but Apollo hasn't seen Asclepius since he was a corpse and knows that now is not the time to try once again to break into his prison).

He's not yet beyond the god of healing, but that yet hangs like a sword of Damocles above them both, inching ever closer with every barely-there flutter of air that leaves the parted lips of his son.

Apollo does not allow even a second to be wasted.

Delos is home, in a way that not Olympus, not any of his temples and palaces, could ever be. It thrums with the power that comes from being the place of birth for not one but two Olympian gods, a place that dared defy the Queen of Olympus and still, more than four and a half millennia later, offers sanctuary to those same twins. His step-mother, his father, even, cannot encroach on Delos, but to Apollo and Artemis, and to those of their own, it is safety.

It is no coincidence that Michael's first breath after they rematerialise on the island is stronger. Only by a fraction, and by itself nothing more than a mere lengthening of an inevitability, but Michael is of the twins, Apollo's child, and Delos embraces him as though he, too, was birthed on its soil. This is why Apollo brought him here, despite the distance, despite the many temples and sacred places of his that were far, far closer to the shores of the East River in Manhattan.

Michael is not yet beyond Apollo's ability to save, but it's a close-run thing and they need all the help they can get.

There is no palace on Delos, no grand overtures of godly power, but there are living spaces for both twins, and it is his own that Apollo appears in, his son securely ensconced within both his arms and his power. Gently, all too aware that even with Delos offering him strength, Michael could shatter at the slightest disturbance, he sets his child down on the lavish chaise lounge. There's a reluctance to even do that, the underlying fear that Michael will die the moment Apollo is no longer holding him, and he crashes to his knees ungracefully the instant his son is out of his hold.

His hands reach out, trembling in a distinctly un-god-like manner, and rest lighter than air on the broken, dying, body of his son.

And Apollo sings.

He sings of the body, of heartbeats that dance to the rhythm of life, of lungs that stoke the fires of life from within. He sings of the soul, of the essence of life, of love and family and devotion. He sings of his child, of Michael and everything that he is, everything he lives for.

Gods' throats never tire and Apollo's song reverberates around Delos for as long as it takes.

Time, here on this immortal island, is near-meaningless. Apollo is vaguely aware of the fragment of him that is driving the sun chariot, and the number of times it takes to the sky while he sings, while his hands dance lightly over the broken body of his son and painstakingly begins to put his shattered, mortal, child back together again, but he doesn't bother to keep an active count. It doesn't matter how long it takes, for bones to realign, organs to un-crush, and blood vessels to reseal. What matters is that they do, that Michael's chest remembers how to rise and fall again, that his heart remembers how to beat, again.

Apollo cannot heal him entirely. He is a god of healing and second to only one, but all that means is that he knows that snapping his fingers and restoring everything in the blink of an eye will not save his son. Human bodies need the process, need time to remake themselves into something functional, into something that has learned from breaking. All Apollo can do now is give it a starting point to work from – bones aligned, set, ready to rebuild themselves correctly, organs that have a chance to function, blood vessels that can carry everything needed to where it's needed.

When the last notes fade from his lips, when his hands still from coaxing fragments of bone and wrapping bandages, Michael still looks half-dead. His skin is wan, colourless as though the East River washed it all away. His body is limp, head prevented from lolling to one side only by the pillows that surround it, yet there's a tightness to his face even in unconsciousness that screams of pain.

Even when Apollo hums lightly, brushing a hand across his brow and letting fingertips trail through stray black locks, the taut look doesn't fade. Michael is still too deep, too far under, to respond to even internal changes.

But his body no longer resembles a carelessly-discarded ragdoll. His limbs, while limp, are straight once again, bones all ready for the next step in the long process of healing. His chest no longer caves in as though a giant had trodden on his ribcage, but rises and falls to a gentle rhythm.

Michael is not out of danger yet, Apollo knows, but he also knows he has done all that he can at this stage, that the next step must be all Michael, wholly reliant on his innate stubbornness and will to live. All he can do now is kneel beside the chaise lounge that cradles his son so tenderly, brush feather-light touches across the small stretches of skin visible between the swathes of bandages while he tries not to let his tears land on the fresh linen, and wait.

I wasn't necessarily planning on writing any more for this AU, but my muses have been bouncing off the walls this last week so I have a few things that might appear, which means this fic is getting expansions!

Instead of being one continuous multichap, this is going to be more of a series of snapshot moments. I can't guarantee they'll always be chronological, though.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari