Previously...

"Are you okay?"

Your eyes filled up with tears involuntarily. You wanted to wipe them away, but they just kept coming until you were full out crying. "N-n-no," you managed to choke out. "I'm s-s-sorry."

Immediately, you were enveloped in a warm hug. Charity held you close as you cried, exhausted from the day, from all the new information, and most of all from the shame you felt for causing the exact opposite of what you intended for Percy. "It's okay," she whispered. "It's okay. Whatever it is, it's okay."

But it isn't, you thought. It isn't.

After you finished a good cry, your body felt so heavy leaning against Charity. All you wanted to do was let sleep take you and forget about the problems of reality. Charity let you go and promised to come back tomorrow to talk (but her eyes told you that she wanted to know what happened).

You collapsed backward onto your pillow. After zoning out for hours and learning so much new information, you were dead tired. Your eyes were dried out from the salty tears, so you shut them to give yourself at least some relief. Within seconds, you were half-asleep, despite that not being your initial intention. However, you gave in and let yourself be taken into unconsciousness. You were barely aware that someone covered you with a blanket and kissed your forehead.

By the next minute, you were out like a light.

(~)

The next day, you woke up as normal, although you most definitely were not expecting to see a face two centimetres away from yours.

"ARGH!" you screeched, jerking to the side in reflex. By luck, you jumped right off the bed and landed in a heap on the floor. That for sure earned me a couple bruises. Groaning, you tried to get up, but only a twitch of your arms answered your request. "A l-l-little help, here, -?" you asked, following the question with a string of curse words toward the person who scared you into leaping off the bed.

The sound of rushing feet came around the bed to your side and the person plopped down on the ground next to you. "Shoot, sorry (Y/N)!"

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion and you turned your head to see a mess of red hair atop a sheepish, grinning face. "Rex? Wh-wh-what are you doing... here?"

"I wanted to surprise you, but not in the way this turned out." He gestured to your current dilemma apologetically and scratched the back of his head. "Heh... sorry. Let me help you up."

Rex swung one of your arms around his shoulders and heaved you back up onto the bed. By the end of his 'intense workout', he was breathing heavily and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. You rolled your eyes. "Come on, I-I-I'm not that heavvvvvvy."

He shrugged. "Tomato tomahto," then laughed as you stuck your tongue out. "Anyways, you do realise what just happened, right?"

You frowned. It had literally just happened a few seconds ago... You thought about it nonetheless and made sure to speak slowly as to avoid stuttering. "Well, yeah, you s-s-scared the c-c-crap out of me and I basically launched myself off the... off the... HOLY HERA!" Your mouth dropped open then stretched into a huge grin which mirrored Rex's.

"I jummmmmped!"

"I know!"

"Off the b-b-bed!"

"Yeah!"

"I a-a-actually... moved!"

"You did!"

You let out a breathless laugh. It was unbelievable. You were getting better! You weren't going to be paralyzed your whole life (a thought which you refused to acknowledge, yet lingered at the back of your mind). Finally, some major improvements. Finally. Finally.

Rex leaped up to sit next to you on the bed and smushed his face into your chest as he hugged the living daylights out of you. His muffled voice said, "I can't wait until you're completely better."

Smiling down at him, you tried to ruffle his hair before remembering that you couldn't. I suppose I only managed to jump out of reflex, you guessed. "Me too, Rex."

At that moment, Will walked in. He raised an eyebrow and said, "I heard screaming."

You were too ecstatic to correct him, only laughing in response. You fell back on your pillow, giggling at Rex's "oof" as he was lobbed from the hug. All you wanted to think about was the fact that you were going to get better.

(~)

After you explained to Will what had happened and he basically fangirled over your progress, you were left alone. Only for a short time, though. Charity came walking in a few minutes later, true to her word of coming to see you.

"Hey, Charrrrrity, how's it going?"

The normal cloudiness in her grey eyes disappeared as she focused on you and smiled. "Great. But I don't want to avoid the topic you know I came here for. I want to talk about what happened yesterday."

You sighed. You'd been hoping she'd forget about that. "Yeah, I-I-I figured."

She relaxed on the chair next to you, crossing her arms. "You were seriously out of it yesterday. Will and I tried everything we could think of to snap you out of it, but all you did was stare wide-eyed at the ceiling. What were you thinking about?" She peered at you, her eyes imploring you to reveal what had caused that.

You'd never been able to withstand Charity's gazes like that. "It was P-P-Percy," you blurted out.

She blinked. "Percy?"

You nodded and kept talking. "Will t-t-told me he feeeeels guilty. B-B-Because of what I-I-I did. How I almost... died. I d-d-didn't mean f-f-for that to... happen! Heeeee shouldn't feel... guilty. I-I-I didn't mmmean- I-I-I didn't mean- I-I-I-"

Charity leaned forward and laid a hand on your arm. "Slow down, (Y/N). Think about your words or you'll start to stutter-"

"I d-d-don't care!" you shrieked. She flinched back, yet didn't let go of your arm. You took a deep breath, feeling ashamed for blowing up on her. Charity hadn't done a thing to deserve that. "I'm sorry. Sorry. I'm just m-m-mad."

"At yourself?"

"Yeah. It's my fault that P-P-Percy feels guilty. He... shouldn't. I d-d-don't know what to do." You felt helpless at the moment. You couldn't get out of the bed, you could barely talk, so how could you comfort Percy and tell him you were okay? Clearly, you were not.

As if reading your thoughts, Charity spoke up to offer some advice. "Maybe he just needs more time. Three weeks ago, you were in a coma. Now, you're half paralyzed. It's a lot to suddenly take in, especially since he had already been feeling guilty during those three months of sleep. It probably won't help him to come here and see that you're suffering from what happened. So, give it time. He'll come."

"Since when d-d-did you g-g-get soooooo wise?" you asked in amazement.

She smiled at you, although you could tell she wasn't looking at you, but somewhere far away. "You learn a lot by watching and listening."

"Thanks, Charity." Her eyes cleared and refocused on you. "That helped."

"No problem." She glanced down to look at her watch and cocked her head. "Huh. I'm late for my Ancient Greek lesson. See you later, (Y/N)." She got up and waved as she walked out of the infirmary.

"B-Bye!"

(~)

Following Charity's advice, you waited. You calmed yourself with the knowledge that Percy needed to take some time to accept what had happened. He would visit later.

Your days in the infirmary followed a schedule of sorts. You would wake up; someone would bring you breakfast; Charity or Rex would visit you to talk; you and Will would do some physical therapy, which included re-teaching yourself to write normally and read again (screw Ancient Greek, English was hard enough now!); you'd have lunch; you would take a nap; Will would return for speech therapy; and you'd be left alone for the rest of the day to do whatever you wanted- that is, whatever you could do with the little movement you had. It didn't include much.

However, your routine was interrupted one day by none other than Chiron.

You were lying down, throwing a hacky sack up in the air from one hand to the other in order to improve your hand-eye coordination. You'd been doing well so far, mostly because you knew that if you dropped it you wouldn't be able to pick it back up from the floor. You were so concentrated on your game, that you didn't hear the clop of Chiron's hooves nor see him until he spoke up.

"Good afternoon, (Y/N)."

You gave a start, launching the hacky sack up high and craned your neck forward to see the body of a horse with a human's torso standing at the foot of your bed. "What-" You were cut off as something smacked you in the face. "Ow!" Groaning, you grabbed your nose in pain and felt around for what had hit you. Your hand touched a yarn-covered ball. That damn hacky sack.

"Oh dear." Chiron trotted over to your side. "I'm terribly sorry about that."

"N-n-no no, it's fine. My f-f-fault, really." Letting go of your nose, you placed your hands on either side of you and hefted yourself into a sitting position with pale, shaking arms. You breathed a sigh of relief when you were done. For your stick-thin, underused limbs, that was like lifting the sky. Finally, you looked up at Chiron and quickly leaned forward in an awkward bow.

He waved his hand dismissively. "It's quite all right, (Y/N). I came here to see how you are doing, not as a formal meeting." He smiled warmly at you. "So, how are you?"

"Oh!" In all honesty, you had been wondering whether or not Chiron knew what had happened since he hadn't come to talk to you. Apparently he did. But why did it take so long for him to come? "I'm doing much b-b-better and improving evvvvvery day, thank you. How are you?"

"I'm doing fine, thank you. And yes, Will and the others have informed me of your improvements. I can clearly see that you've been working hard to regain your previous strength," he said, gesturing at how you had pulled yourself up to a sitting position.

Your cheeks heated up slightly from the praise. "Thank you, Ch-Ch-Chiron."

"I apologize for not coming to see you earlier." His tail swished in a nervous manner. "I wanted to give you some time to settle into a normal routine before talking about... what happened."

Your heart stopped for a second as you stared at Chiron. You swallowed to soothe your suddenly dry throat. "Wh-wh-what do you mean?" You knew perfectly well what he meant. You just didn't want to acknowledge the reality of what had happened.

He sighed regretfully. "We must speak about what happened with Percy all those months ago."

No. No no no no no. You were not ready to talk about what happened. That experience had traumatized you. You hadn't told anyone that what you saw gave you nightmares, which was extremely rare for a child of Morpheus. You suspected that they weren't actually nightmares, but the memories springing up as you slept. Either way, you were seriously shaken. "I..." You swallowed again. "Do we... have to?" you whispered pitifully, like a child who was afraid of the first day of school.

"I'm afraid so, my dear." Chiron laid his hand on your shoulder. "You can take all the time you need to tell your story. If you need to take a break after every sentence, so be it. Just know that I will be here the whole time should you need me." He gazed at you with the wise, understanding eyes of someone who'd been in your position before.

You exhaled slowly, going over Chiron's words again and again in your brain. He'll be there the whole time. He'll help me if I zone out or have a flashback. He'll be there. He'll help me. Everything will be fine. With those thoughts as reassurances, you took one more deep breath and let it go, a final calming technique. "Okay," you said softly. "I'm ready."

And so you began your story, way back to when Annabeth first asked you to help out. You described what you saw when you delved into Percy's dreams the first time, and the horror that came with learning that some unknown force was messing with his nightmares. Even more terrifying was realising that his nightmares stemmed from his soul, not his mind, and seeing what it looked like for the very first time. You described your exhaustion, the feelings of panic and terror, and the desperation to save Percy before it was too late. You explained how you swore on the Rive Styx to save him, and you tried to ignore how Chiron's eyes grew sharper and stared you down. Next came planning out what to do with your siblings and the Hypnos cabin. You shamefully recounted how you were prepared to sacrifice yourself without telling the others. Finally, an hour later (you had taken a few breaks when explaining Percy's nightmares and the darkness you saw the first time as it had nearly caused a breakdown), you reached the point of when you and the others were standing in front of the rift connecting Percy's nightmare to his soul.

"And that's wheeeeeen we found it. Th-th-the opening to his... soul." You paused, not sure if you were ready to continue just yet. Your mind kept flashing back to that place and each time you banished the images from your mind. But if you started talking about it... you weren't certain you would be able to pull yourself away from having a panic attack.

Chiron leaned forward from his knelt position and gently grabbed your hand as encouragement. You squeezed his hand, needing the anchor to keep yourself in reality. Once again, you took a few deep breaths before continuing with the story. You managed to hold it together while describing the darkness and the evil you felt at the beginning and the method of using memories to restore light and purity in Percy's soul. You continued to push back the fear and tears while explaining how the shadows started to fight back, the discouragement that followed your last effort having not worked and finally how you told the others to go. But when you reached the part where you called out to Tartarus and his voice answered you... it was too much.

"He s-s-said... he s-s-said..." You stared at Chiron, who was saying something, but you couldn't hear the words, only see his lips moving. You felt yourself be shoved, or did you really? You couldn't feel anything. You couldn't see anything. Your eyes were unfocused, looking at nothing. Slowly, you came to realise that you were no longer in the infirmary (what infirmary?). You were no longer simply recounting a trauma to Chiron (who's Chiron?). No, you were back there.

The darkness surrounded you, encaging you. You were floating in a pit of inky blackness. The walls rippled, looking as though something was slithering in them. The sense of evil was all around. All you could hear was the sound of Tartarus' voice, the way it sounded like it was being projected inward instead of outward, and his laugh that was the sound of a mountain being cracked in half. You were remembering the fear that coursed through your body and immobilized you. You could do nothing but stare in horror at your surroundings. The darkness seemed to be closing in on you. It pulsed closer and closer, the ripples moving faster as they swirled around you. You jerked this way and that, trying to find an escape through the walls. When you came close, a tendril of blackness snaked toward you and tried to grab you. It was impossible.

There was no escape.

You screamed and shrieked, hyperventilating when the shadows were only an arms length away. From every direction, the tendrils reached out, grabbing you and little by little covering every inch of your body. No matter how much you struggled, you couldn't break free. They only squeezed tighter and pulled you closer. You were screaming and crying, jerking around violently. Tartarus' voice breathed into your ear while laughing in the other. Even though your hearing had been blocked, his voice still echoed in your ears. Your mouth and nose were covered, choking you. You couldn't breathe. Your sight was the only sense left. The tendrils slithered around, rejoicing in your agony, taking an excruciating amount of time in order to prolong the torture. Then, ever so slowly, your sight was cut off. Halfway through one eye. One eye down. The beginning of the other. Closing in on your pupil. It was so, so close. Only a little bit more-

"(Y/N)!"

Your eyes snapped open and you inhaled sharply, hyperventilating. Your eyes darted around wildly. What happened? Where were you? Weren't you just with the shadows and the darkness and Tartarus-

A face appeared in your field of view. That person's hands cupped the sides of your face firmly yet gently. "(Y/N), I need you to calm down."

"What?" You were getting lightheaded.

"Come on, take deep breaths with me. In: one, two, three, four. Hold: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And out: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Come now, you can do it. Follow me."

Despite not knowing what was going on, the person radiated warmth and made you want to trust them. Your wide eyes stared at them, and you gradually started to follow their breathing rhythm. By copying this, your breathing slowed down and you eventually calmed down enough that you could make sense of what had just happened and where you were.

Glancing around, you recognized the infirmary, and looking up at the person confirmed it to be Chiron. You remembered, now, that you had been explaining your story to him. What happened after, though? Why had you been so confused?

Chiron let go of your cheeks and leaned back slightly. "(Y/N), are you feeling better now?" You nodded. "Good. That's good." He released a relieved breath and relaxed back into the kneeling position he had been in before.

"What-" Whoa. Your voice was crazy raspy. You swallowed a few times before speaking again. "What just happened?"

He sighed regretfully. "I believe you have just experienced a flashback, and a very intense one, at that."

"A... flashback?"

"Yes. When you started describing your encounter with the Father of the Giants, something must have triggered you and you fell into a flashback." He paused. "You were... you were screaming and flailing around. I wasn't able to rouse you back into reality until just now."

"Gods." You knew it would happen, although you hadn't expected it to be that extreme. Bits and pieces of afterimages of the hallucination floated around in your mind and you tried to ignore them for the time being. You shuddered. Even though I'm trying to ignore it, I still see them. Is that what actually happened during the flashback?

A hand was laid on your shoulder. You looked up at Chiron and was appalled to see that he appeared sorrowful. "(Y/N), I am so sorry for causing you to live through that. I knew it was a possibility, but I had been dearly hoping to be wrong. However, you do understand why it was important for me to know what had happened, correct?" When you hesitated, he explained it in more detail. "You are one of the few demigods who has had contact with one of the oldest primordials. It was imperative to know whether or not you had simply heard his voice, or seen a manifestation of him. I'm tremendously relieved that it was the former."

Slowly exhaling, you nodded. That makes sense. It makes sense. I did a good thing. It helped. You tried to ignore the shuddering breaths you took and the way your pulse continued to race no matter how many times you deeply breathed. You tried to ignore how you still felt the tendrils slithering across your skin and how you absentmindedly rubbed your arms. You tried to ignore it all, focusing only on the here and the now, yet you couldn't suppress a shudder every now and then.

Chiron obviously noticed you were distressed, since his next question was, "How are you feeling, (Y/N)?"

You didn't want to look him in the eyes. You knew that if you did, you wouldn't be able to lie and say you were okay. That would be a big fat lie. You were petrified, even though there was no danger to be seen. The only danger was your own mind, and that terrified you the most. However, you couldn't resist his caring, fatherly gaze. Your eyes twitched to meet his own, and you weren't able to hold it back anymore.

Feeling your eyes water, you started talking before you were too choked up to force a word out. "I-I'm-" A sob built up in your chest and you struggled to swallow it down. "I-" It emerged again, cutting you off. Your lips trembled as your eyes squeezed shut. "I'm sorry." You couldn't say a word more, since the sobs broke through and your head fell limp, your shoulders shaking as you cried.

Chiron's arms wrapped around you, pulling you close. You did nothing except allow yourself to lean into his embrace, needing the physical contact. He stayed as you sobbed, rubbing your back and whispering words of comfort. He didn't let go until your heart-wrenching cries had dissolved to sniffles.

Once you felt well enough, he released you. Rubbing your eyes free of tears, you attempted to diffuse the tension that had built up. "That's the second time I've had a breakdown," you joked, laughing a little, although your heart wasn't really in it.

"Well, it's understandable in your case, (Y/N). You've been through more than most demigods could imagine." Chiron looked at you sternly. "Don't think it makes you a weak person."

You said nothing. What else was there to say, after all?

He seemed to sense that your conversation had come to an end, after hours of talking and suffering a flashback. He stood up from his kneeling position, and you internally winced. That's gotta be painful, having stayed with his knees bent for so long. However, Chiron gave no sign that he was sore. He only smiled and wished you a speedy recovery, before leaving.

Glancing out a window, you noticed it was late. You had probably missed dinner, but you weren't hungry anyway. In fact, if you were focusing on how you felt, you were extremely worn out. You yawned. Time to sleep, I guess. You carefully lowered yourself down to a lying position, and the second your head touched the pillow, you crashed.

Hopefully, this time no nightmares would occur.