Heh... Heh heh heh...
*clears throat*
Well!
It appears I took an unexpected hiatus from FanFiction. But I have accomplished much in my nearly-one-year-long break, never fear. Let's see...
October, I updated last.
Then in November, I wrote a novel.
December, I took a well-earned break from writing.
January, I aced my finals.
February, I dealt with teachers who wanted to expel me because I was pro-gay marriage and anti-racism and a feminist.
March, I dealt with principals who wanted to expel me because I was pro-gay marriage and anti-racism and a feminist.
April, we got off for spring break and I cried because I was sick of dealing with people who wanted to expel me because I was pro-gay marriage and anti-racism and a feminist.
May, I dealt with well-meaning parents and not-so-well-meaning teachers and principals.
June, I aced my finals.
Oh, and I wrote an essay denouncing religion for a religious teacher. As extra credit. I wonder if she gave me the credit?
July, I got a job from 7:55 A.M. to 5 P.M. every weekday. And on the weekends, I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote because I wanted to come back with a ten-thousand-word bang.
I've had an awful year, but I'm back. And I've figured out my strategy for getting through the next three years.
I shall lace myself up in my uniform and be a good little girl.
I shall keep my mouth shut during school and I shall throw myself into my studies.
I shall not say anything when a teacher insults female people or black people or gay people.
I shall apply for every AP I can get my hands on and I shall study every night for tests that will have yet to have been scheduled.
I shall keep a 4.0 GPA and finish learning French so that I can get into Harvard and get an incredible job and move to France and NEVER ONCE LOOK BACK.
And, of course, during lunchtime, I shall sit in my desk or walk down the block to the library and I shall write five hundred words so that I will be able to update this fanfic either once every week with 2,500 words or once every two weeks with 5,000 words.
I shall survive, because people have survived worse things than sexist, racist, homophobic high schools.
Possibly the one thing that kept me going was the promise of an outside world. That there were people out there who didn't think of me as just a rebellious b****. So to those of you who PMed me for the last - hold on, I'm counting - nine months and to those 114 of you who reviewed within those nine months to a story that could possibly have been dead and to Toni and Justice and Emily and Esther specifically but gosh darn confound it all, to all of you nutters who are just the most amazing people ever.
Special thanks to foreverskysong, because she bugged me and talked to me and busted my writer's block.
So here you go! Installment number twenty-two of TSDIEM. Thank you.
IMPORTANT! I think I'll be changing my username to La Femme Libertaire. So don't be shocked, okay? :)
They heard the sound of laughter before they opened the door. Annabeth and Percy were sitting in the sterile white room, Annabeth with her feet propped up on the bed and Percy leaning back against the tall bed/chair, knees drawn up to his chest. Jason entered first and the two turned to see the five of them troop in in a quiet, orderly line.
"You guys are so cute," Percy said, grinning. "You're like a line of little ducklings."
Leo stuck his tongue out at him before leaping on to the end of Percy's bed. "Claimed," he said, grinning at the others.
Jason sat down on the floor and Piper plopped down next to him. Frank took the last chair and Hazel struggled to drag her suitcase over the raised doorframe.
"What the heck?" asked Annabeth. "Hazel, what's in there?"
She glanced up momentarily. "Provisions," she said, giving a quick smile before finally hefting he suitcase over the doorframe. She perched herself on the table next to Percy's bed. "I brought soup, and Miranda promised me she'd keep it warm."
"You know you're not allowed to have food in here, right?" Jason asked.
Hazel looked at Percy for confirmation. He shrugged. "I don't follow the rules, so I don't see why you should, either."
"Because as of yet, she is uncorrupted," Frank said, almost sternly. "Keep it that way."
"Nope!" said Hazel. She leaned down to unzip the oversize suitcase. "I brought hot cups, because it's easier to drink it, and we can just throw it out when we're done." She tossed two cups in the general Piper-Jason vicinity. It landed in Piper's skirt. "Bulls-eye!" she crowed.
"How are you going to get the soup in there if they have it?" Leo asked.
Hazel considered. "Throw it back," she said finally. Piper grinned and tossed it. Hazel caught it in her left hand, nose already buried in the suitcase. Percy applauded. "Nice catch," he said.
"Thank you," Hazel said, now completely buried up to her shoulders in the black fabric. They heard her curse, and then her shoulders disappeared, as well.
"That suitcase is like Mary Poppins' bag," Jason marveled.
"Tell her that when she comes back," Percy said. "See if she understands that reference."
"Hey, I understood that reference!" Annabeth said. They both laughed.
"I don't g-" Frank started, but then Hazel popped up triumphantly, holding a huge thermos in her hands.
"So damn heavy," she said, sitting it on her lap and unscrewing the top. A rich, meaty smell permeated the room.
"Hazel cursing?" Piper asked, astonished.
Leo jumped up and ran to the window. He looked back and forth exaggeratedly. "I don't see any pigs flying..."
"You're so corny," Frank groaned.
"'Damn' is not a curse," Hazel said primly, crossing her ankles. She passed a cup down the bed to Leo, who'd made his way back and was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. "Go give that to someone," she ordered, pouring another cup. Leo grumbled something unintelligible and unintelligent before scooting his was to the end of the bed and reaching as far as he could to give it to Piper, who stayed stubbornly and unhelpfully against the wall.
"It is, too," Frank argued, grabbing the cup from Leo and passing it to Piper. He took the another two from Hazel, handing one to Jason and keeping the other.
"I'm not basing my cursing classification off of a guy who says 'dang it' when Leo loses his pants," Hazel said, smiling. She gave a cup to Percy and another to Annabeth, who inhaled deeply, the cup right under her nose. "Mmmmmm."
"Thanks," Hazel said, holding the penultimate cup outstretched to Leo.
Piper drank first, the others watching her almost warily. "That is so good," she beamed. "Yum."
"You mean it isn't poisoned?" Leo asked jokingly, taking a sip and giving a nod of approval.
Piper clutched her throat and fell sideways. "Akkkkkkkk!"
"Hazel," Annabeth admonished, tasting her own, "You killed Piper."
Hazel shrugged. "Whoops."
Jason hauled Piper up, who was still acting dead, keeping her muscles limp and head flopping, her cup safely on the floor six inches away. Frank laughed before drinking. "This is good!" he said.
"Always the tone of surprise," Hazel grinned.
"Well, I didn't think it would be-" Frank began, but was cut off by Annabeth.
"Was that a Harry Potter reference?"
Hazel affirmed this with a nod.
"Who gave you Harry Potter?" Annabeth asked excitedly.
Leo raised his hand. "There's too much fandom out there for her not to belong to it," he explained.
"That's why I made bouillabaisse," Hazel said. "This. This is bouillabaisse. Do y'all like it?"
"Y'all?" Percy asked, raising his eyebrows. He took a sip. "Is this fish?"
"Maybe?"
"Mmmmmmm."
"Isn't that, like, cannibalism?" Frank asked, looking a little green.
"Of course it isn't," Jason reasoned. "Big fish eat smaller fish, and he's the big kahuna of the ocean, so all fish are smaller than him."
"As faultless as that logic is, his father spends half his time as a fish, and no one specific type of fish, and he's probably been this type before. He talks to fish!"
"He talks to horses, too, but he doesn't mind eating those," Leo said.
Everyone ignored him. "Please don't turn fish soup into a moral issue," Percy said tiredly. "Natural selection. It tastes good."
"Well, thanks," Hazel said, grinning.
"Do you just go through books looking for food you can m-" Leo started, but there was a soft knock at the door before it opened, without waiting for an answer. Emma poked her head in.
"Per-" she began, but then took in the sight of the six other teenagers sitting spaced out around the room and the soup that they were trying - all too conspicuously - to hide. "Perseus Jackson," she said. "What."
"They're here to console me," Percy said smoothly. "I need them all. And comfort food." He gave her a pleading look. "Please don't make them leave."
Annabeth nearly choked at the fakeness. Emma glared. "You're such a liar, Jackson."
"Yeah, so can I?"
She glared again.
"Please?"
She sighed. "You ever do this again, Jackson..."
He grinned.
"Five minutes before visiting hours are over, guys," she said, addressing the others. "And no food, and four at a time, and I'm going to enforce it."
"Jeez, your bedside manner needs work," Percy said. "Depriving me of my friends in my time of need." He winked at her.
"Percy, she's letting us all stay, could you please not get her mad?" Frank begged quietly.
"Five minutes," was all Emma said, before turning around and shutting the door.
"Could you not torment her?" Annabeth demanded. "Look how young she is. How long ago do you think she graduated?"
"Exactly. She's like a teenager. I can joke around."
The sound of a dinging bell sounded over the loudspeaker, signifying the end of visiting hours. They kept talking.
"No, she's a terrified recent graduate."
"That's true," Leo interjected. "She was, like, hyperventilating when you had that heart attack."
"Meh. I have more faith in her than that."
The door opened again and an aged woman stepped in, dressed in blue scrubs and carrying a clipboard. She frowned at the six teenagers in the room. "Guys, visiting hours are over."
"I-" Percy started, but Leo interrupted him.
"Okay," he said, standing up and discreetly sliding his bowl under the bed. "We'll be back tomorrow."
Piper and Frank each gave Percy an awkward hug as well as they could while he was laying down. Jason waggled his fingers. Hazel kissed him on the cheek and Leo, taking advantage of the tube-entwined arms, flicked him on the nose. Percy snapped his teeth up jokingly, but Leo jerked his hands back before winking and sidling out.
"Love you," Annabeth whispered, standing up. Hazel casually placed the thermos and bowls back into the suitcase, acting normally so that the nurse wouldn't say anything, and hefted it into her arms. She waggled her fingers from the bottom of the bag at Percy before kicking the door open and waddling out.
Annabeth followed suit. "Seeya, Perce." She smiled at him and the door shut behind them.
"Hello?" Piper peeked his head in.
Percy looked up from the book he was reading. "Hey! 'Sup?"
"Nothing much. I got an entourage here. Minus Leo and Frank because Reyna showed up in an Iris message to talk to him praetorially and Chiron is yelling at Leo for breaking curfew to work on Festus." She stepped aside and Annabeth, Jason, and Hazel walked in. Annabeth went straight to the seat next to the bed and planted a kiss on the very up of Percy's nose.
"Hey, you," she said.
Percy grinned, a quirky smile with only half of his mouth turning up. "Hey. Hey, Haze. Hey, Jace."
Hazel waved. Jason grinned. Percy sat up and crossed his legs into a pretzel, leaving room for Hazel on the end of the bed and Jason on the bar at the very edge. Piper sat on the nightstand.
They talked for about ten minutes before Leo and Frank walked in.
"Which subway did you catch?" Percy demanded. "There's no way you got here that fast."
"Festus took us," Leo answered. Preemptively answering the question of, "Where did you park the dragon?!", Leo held up a small Celestial bronze suitcase. "New feature. I folded him up into here."
"Wow."
"Yes, yes, I'm incredible."
Frank performed a spectacular oculogyration and plunked himself down on the floor, against the nightstand. "Jesus, Leo, if you ever wanted to commit suicide, just jump off your ego."
"Thanks for the advice," Leo said. "It's been duly ignored."
"I-" Frank began, but Jason interrupted them.
"A'ight, shut it."
"A'ight?" demanded Annabeth, looking scandalized.
"It's just slang, Annie," Piper said.
"Annie?" demanded Annabeth, looking scandalized.
"Oh, chillax," said Leo, who had appeared to have gotten the hang of it.
"Chillax?" demanded Annabeth, looking scandalized.
Percy laughed. "Very funny. Now it's annoying. Shush."
"Shush?" demanded Annabeth, looking scandalized.
"Godsdammit, Annabeth, if this was a book you'd hope the author would've changed the expression on your face already."
"Godsdammit, Piper, if this was a book you'd hope the author would've not shattered the fourth wall like that."
"Good point."
A nurse walked in and did a double take. "Guys, there are way too many people in here. At lest two of you need to leave."
"Can-" Percy began, but Leo interrupted him.
"I'monna go see what sodas they've got in the vending machines downstairs," he said. "Who's coming with?"
Hazel stood. 'I'll come. We'll be back in ten minutes or so," she told the rest of them, and then, hefting her suitcase into her arms, she stepped out, trailing Leo.
"She's attached at the hip to that bag," Percy said. "What's in there?"
Annabeth shot him a Look. "Probably books and stuff," she said, in a tone that made it very clear that there were no books in there. Percy opened his mouth to say something, but the nurse interrupted.
"I just gotta take some blood, Mr. Jackson, okay?" She glanced at the other teenagers. "Sorry, I'll just be a second." She began rummaging through a drawer. Annabeth drew her feet off the bed and scooted her chair to the end.
The nurse - Ree, as it said on her name tag - pulled a large fistful of vials from the drawer and placed them on the table. Frank and Piper exchanged glances. Percy gave a little smile at the look on their faces, pushing up the baggy left sleeve of his hospital gown. The awkwardness permeating the room was almost tangible, and every person there suddenly wished for Leo to break up the tension.
Ree walked around to the other side of the bed and pulled Percy's Hickman line from under the collar of his hospital gown. She examined the red lumen, ignoring the quiet in a practiced way.
Frank was the one to break the silence, unable to handle it anymore. "Y'okay?" he asked, the two words emerging as one.
"Yeah, fine," Percy said, creasing his eyebrows confusedly.
"He's breaking the silence," Annabeth explained.
"Sorry," Percy said, a bit sheepishly. "She'll be done in a second, right, ma'am?"
"Call me Ree, hon, but yes," the old nurse smiled. "'Kay, then..." She slipped the needle into the central line and he winced briefly as the blood began to flow out through the tube, looking towards the window.
"Percy?" Jason asked.
"Yeah?"
"Can I ask you a question?"
Percy sighed. "This one's going to be number three, but who's counting?"
"Sorry."
"Question?"
"How much of your arm are they cutting off?"
Annabeth and Percy exchanged glances. "They're leaving about a six inch stump," Percy said finally. "The tumor was originally right above the elbow and it spread a bit."
"How are you going to... um... fence now?" Piper asked, giving Ree a sideward glance as the nurse switched vials for what seemed like the tenth time.
"Valdez built him a prosthesis," Annabeth said. "It's pretty cool, design-wise. It attaches permanently, it's waterproof, it has separate wires a nanometer thick connecting to each nerve individually... It's incredibly badass."
"And then Leo designed a glove," Frank added, seeing that she was going to leave this piece of information out. "So Percy can continue to hide the fact that he is managing to live life and save the world and lead a camp and battle cancer, for reasons unbeknownst to us."
"My decision, though," Percy reminded him.
"No one ever said it wasn't. But I think that we have a moral obligation to nag you about this."
"Their opinion of me will go down if they find out. I have to lead them, and lowering their opinions of me is not the way to do it."
"Actually, their opinions of you will go straight up. How kickass is it to fight cancer?"
"Haven't you read The Fault In Our Stars?" Percy asked. "There is no glory in dying of cancer."
Piper, Jason, and Frank all exchanged stunned glances. "Percy," Annabeth whispered.
"What?"
"We talked about this," she murmured, leaning close so that only he could hear her. "You can't just say that. You'll drive them nuts."
"I immediately retract my statement," Percy said, craning his head around Annabeth so that he could see the three other teens. "I did not mean to insinuate that I was dying. I am not, in fact, dying. I apologize."
"What he meant to say," Annabeth said, glaring at him, "is that many people unfortunately are forced to associate cancer with death. So while yes, it is incredibly kickass to fight cancer, it is not incredibly kickass to die from it."
"Exactly," Percy said. "Well put." He winced again. Ree had pulled the needle back out and was putting a tube in. A large bag of clear liquid hung connected to the tube from a tall IV pole.
"What is that?" asked Piper warily.
"Saline solution to flush the line first. And this is just Benadryl, in case of an allergic reaction," Ree answered. "Percy, Dr. Semmel will be in in a few minutes to start you up with your anesthesiologist, so start wrapping up." She took the test tube rack of blood samples and left the room.
"Is now a good time to ask for a Sharpie?" Percy asked.
"I could get one from Leo," Jason offered.
"Thanks," Percy told him. Jason nodded and quit the room as well.
Piper played with a tiny piece of peeling paint at the base of the wall. Frank cleared his throat uncomfortably. Each of them searched for something to say, but Annabeth beat them to it.
"What do you need a Sharpie for?"
"Oh, I want to write 'wrong side' on my left arm."
Piper snickered. "Sorry. But, uh, don't you think that if your surgeon doesn't know which arm he's operating on, you're in more trouble than the wrong arm?"
"She."
"Sorry?"
"She, not he. I guess I'm just confused as to why you, of all people, would automatically assume that my surgeon's a he."
"Oh, please," Piper said, heaving a great and martyr-worthy sigh. "Why is it that when I complain about gender inequalities, everyone always rolls their eyes and says, 'Oh, there goes Piper again, whining about how hard the life of a woman is when there are children starving in Africa', but when I try to make a comment using a commonly gender-nonspecific pronoun, I get corrected?"
"'He' is a commonly gender-nonspecific pronoun?"
"The most nonspecific, because since humanity is more commonly referred to as 'mankind', the most common pronoun is 'he', whether the organism in question is male or not. Jesus, Percy, why is this such a problem? I didn't think you cared this much."
"I would think 'they' is the most commonly used non-gender specific pronoun."
"I think this is the one sentence where you can use the word 'they' in that juxtaposition with 'is'," Annabeth said suddenly.
Percy and Piper both looked at her.
"I'm sorry, I felt the need to stop this mostly pointless argument with grammatical revelations. Also, there are loads of non-gender specific pronouns. And Frank, I thought this was your favorite topic? On a lighter note, where is Jason, and how long does it take for him to get a Sharpie, for metaphorical God's sake?"
As if on cue, Jason, Leo, and Hazel all entered the room, Hazel remembering to lift her suitcase over the doorframe this time. "We were hiding from Ree," Jason explained. "She was much too curious about Hazel's bag for our liking."
"Can you imagine her snooping in there?" Leo asked, throwing a Sharpie onto Percy's bed, the latter nodding in thanks and uncapping the marker. Leo put on a falsetto. "No good could possibly come of this much food, darling. Food is evil."
"She was nice," protested Frank.
"She was as skinny as a twig," Leo countered.
Percy and Annabeth rolled their eyes at the same time. Piper, noticing this, smiled a bit to herself.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing."
Chatter continued for only a few more minutes, interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Semmel and a tiny man, both in navy blue scrubs. Dr. Semmel spoke quietly with Percy, Annabeth listening in, while the other occupants of the room pretended to continue their conversation while casting furtive glances at the talking trio. The short man added an IV bag to the pole and fiddled with the tubes, adding a few words to the conversation here and there.
When Dr. Semmel finally finished talking to Percy and Annabeth, she nodded in greeting to the rest of the room. "I'm going to pretend that there are only four people in here because you only have about a minute anyway." Exeunt Dr. Semmel and the unintroduced man.
Percy and Annabeth were whispering to each other, Annabeth's face a bit pale and Percy's fingers fiddling, because for all of his joking and her pretending, they were both nervous, being the only two that knew what, exactly, was going to go on once Percy was wheeled behind those doors. The others stood awkwardly, one by one, realizing that they had better start saying some goodbyes or there'd be no time left to say anything once the anesthesiologist came in. Doctors are notorious for their false sense of urgency.
Annabeth noticed the others standing first, touching Percy on the arm to draw his attention to them. He smiled wanly.
"I guess I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Definitely," Jason said forcefully, possibly a bit stronger than necessary, but the others understood the conveyed message behind the emphasis. Everything would proceed in the manner which it was intended; the seven friends would see each other the next day, reunited.
Hazel kissed Percy on the cheek. "See you tomorrow."
Frank gave him a left-handed fist bump as two nurses walked in. Piper gave a little wave.
"Want me to hold your hand as you go down?" Leo asked, grinning, as two nurses took hold of opposite ends if the bed.
Percy pretended to consider it. "I'll give you one finger," he said as they wheeled the gurney through the door. He flipped him the bird as they went around the corner and out of sight.
They stood there, waiting for nothing. "I suppose we should go down to the waiting room," Frank said finally.
Piper tugged on Annabeth's sleeve. "C'mon," she said, and they went.
4:00 PM, EST
"You aren't as uptight as I expected you to be," the anesthesiologist said, smiling down at Percy - okay, so the mask blocked the smile, but the voice sounded like it was smiling.
Dr. Semmel grinned, discernible by the creases around her eyes. "I like your girlfriend a lot."
"Thanks," Percy said, smiling back. "I like her, too."
An orderly unbuttoned the button at the back of Percy's hospital gown and hefted it over his head. She positioned his body. "Percy, what's this?" the orderly asked, running her finger over the words 'Wrong Arm!' on Percy's left hand.
"Um," Percy answered. "That's to let Dr. Bradeigh know which arm to cut off."
"I think she knows," the anesthesiologist said, his back to Percy. "I mean, your arm's pretty marked up already."
"He was reading horror stories on the Internet. Weren't you, Jackson?"
"Maybe?"
"I told you to stay off the Internet!"
"Saw-reeeee..."
Dr. Bradeigh entered, identifiable only by the Irish blue eyes peeking out from over her mask and the black hair from under her cap. "Yeh all sait?" she asked, her accent thick.
"Yep," the anesthesiologist answered.
"That's my cue," Dr. Semmel said. "Good luck!" She walked out.
"Yeh dohn't troost me, Pehrcy?" Dr. Bradeigh asked, eyes twinkling as she held up Percy's marked left hand.
"Not one iota," Percy said, grinning.
The anesthesiologist slipped a needle into one of the lumen in the Hickman line and turned to Dr. Bradeigh. "Ready."
"Roight," she said, scrubbing her hands in the sink.
"Okay, Percy. I need you to start counting down from fifty."
"Anything for you, Doc." The anesthesiologist smiled again, his eyes crinkling. "Fifty. Forty-nine. Forty-eight."
As he counted, the world went steadily dimmer until all was black, well before he reached one.
LINE BREAK
They arranged themselves on the padded gray chairs in the waiting room, usurping nearly an entire row. Leo watched as Annabeth tucked herself away in a corner and opened her laptop Nico had bribed some monsters to bring out of Tartarus. She didn't have to type anything in, which meant she'd definitely opened some sites before they'd come, and, knowing Annabeth, they were probably sites like CancerWillScarYourLifeForever dot com or another terrifying blog with equally terrifying stories of everything that'd gone wrong in any cancer patient's life and every horrific death any cancer patient had ever suffered. Was it his duty as a friend to double-check her sites so she didn't end up having a nervous breakdown? Probably, but she'd also probably slit his throat if he tried, so... that was the end of that.
He looked around the room. There weren't too many people around. Apparently Thursdays weren't too big in the hospital world. A man sat tethered to an outlet, crouching on the balls of his feet with his phone in his lap. As Leo watched, he set his phone down on the floor beside him, slid down the wall and landed with a thump, head in his hands.
Leo looked away, uncomfortable.
Two older men sat, hands intertwined, one sleeping on the other's shoulder while the other read a copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A young woman in a long skirt and high-necked blouse sat murmuring something to herself from a little book. An ancient man sat sketching something into a pad, occasionally glancing up at the ceiling and closing his eyes, probably visualizing what he wanted.
A teenaged couple with matching tattoos - a white triangle on the girl's copper collarbone and a dark brown one on the boy's pale one - sat sharing what Leo took to be a textbook, due to the size and proportion. An overtired-looking woman with the most incredible bags under her hazel eyes sat trying to shush her three young children, who were being quiet and loud simultaneously in the way only young children seem to be able.
Leo took pity on the poor mother. He stood up and walked over to them, pulling three colored balls out of his tool belt. "Hey, you," he said, grinning at the youngest one, who was now crying on the floor next to her older sister's feet. "Wanna see something cool?"
She stopped crying and put her thumb in her mouth. "Mama says no talky stranger."
"So ask Mama," Leo said. He turned to the mother. "Mama, is it okay if I play with them?"
She looked at him gratefully. "Oh, yes. God, yes."
Leo sat down a few chairs away. "Lookie here," he said, and he started to juggle.
4:30 PM, EST
Annabeth was getting misinformed.
This was the worst curse she could wish on someone. Instead of "Braccas meas vescimini," it would be "I hope the Internet starts giving you mixed messages!"
So how dangerous was an amputation, anyway? Who was more trustworthy, WebMD or TeensWithCancer? Were they even trustworthy? Should she use CancerCoping? Should she trust the hospital booklets, or were they making it seem better to calm people like her down? Because in that case, she shouldn't trust anything at all. Why wasn't there a swearontheriverstyxthatthisisrealinforomation dot com that she could trust?
She opened a new website that cancer dot gov had sent her to. To which cancer dot gov had sent her. Where to cancer dot gov - oh, bleep it.
They were basically just quoting the hospital pamphlets. Which were unhelpful.
Was it even worth it to waste her time doing any of this? How long could an amputation possibly take, anyway? This was all ridonculus. She could wait until he got out and see him or-
Or-
Or she could go find Emma. Emma wouldn't bullshit her, right?
But if she left the waiting room to go find her, she wouldn't know if a doctor came in or something. And what if she missed important news?
Well, the rest of them could tell her. They wouldn't forget anything.
Actually, yeah. They might not necessarily know what the important parts of a doctor's message would be.
Would Leo know? She looked up to see where he was.
He was on a table. Juggling.
Wow, that was an appropriate thing to be doing now.
So Leo was no help.
Ah, to hell with it all. She'd just stay.
She opened the oncology textbook she'd borrowed from the library to the first introductory page. Skimming it, she found she knew most of it. She turned the page.
Her mind exploded with a mess of new information. Terms in bolded black font littered the page and swarmed her head angrily. Sentences that would need to be translated into layman's terms buzzed and rearranged themselves on the paper.
She sighed and curled up in the corner to start reading.
5:15 PM, EST
The smell of cinnamon hit Jason first and he looked up to see that Hazel had slid into the chair that Leo had vacated. In the petite girl's outstretched hand was an open container of cookies. "Want one?" she asked.
"What are they?" Jason asked, looking over at them.
"Snickerdoodles," Hazel answered, and, upon seeing Jason's confused face, added, "The most incredibly soft cinnamon cookies you'll ever eat."
Jason smiled and took one. "When do you have time to make this stuff?" he asked, biting into it. "Yum."
"Thanks," she said. "I had an essay to write last night, so I pulled an all-nighter and cooked in between breaks."
"Why are you not falling apart right now?" Jason marveled. "And wait - you took off school today, you didn't have to write it last night."
Hazel sighed. "I realized that at about four-thirty."
Jason laughed in spite of himself. "Oh, Haze. I'm sorry."
She grinned. "It's fine. Je suis complètement débile."
"What? Completemaw debeel?"
She snickered a bit. "Sorry. I was calling myself a moron. Completement débile." She looked around the room. "Jason," she said, "That man looks like he could use a cookie, doesn't he?"
"Which one?" Jason asked. "The one that's crying by the outlet?"
"Yeah, him." She stood up and walked away.
"I suppose that was a rhetorical question," Jason muttered. He watched her crouch down in front of the man, watched him attempt to clean himself up in four seconds so he could pretend he hadn't been crying. She said something to him, and he smiled tiredly. She swung her body around and sank down to sit next to him, holding out the container. He said something and she laughed too loudly before clapping a hand over her mouth.
Jason looked to his left. And against the wall he found Leo standing on a table juggling for three awestruck little children. Jason nudged Frank.
"What's up?"
"Leo," Jason said, jerking his chin towards him.
Frank looked. He snickered. "That's by far the most entertaining thing I've seen all day."
"He'd either make a great father or a completely irresponsible one."
"If he ever gets Calypso off of that island, that is."
"Think she'll still be immortal?"
"That'd be awkward. Imagine their children being significantly godlier than ours."
"It won't matter. Leo wouldn't let it matter."
"True."
There was a momentary lapse in conversation, and then Jason picked it back up. "Are you going back to New Rome?"
"Yeah, January."
"You weren't planning on telling anyone?"
"I was planning on going last June, but then Percy had bigger news."
"Again, you weren't planning on telling anyone?"
"No, I was, but... I just didn't, I dunno."
"Well... plot twist, I suppose."
"Yeah."
"Hazel going with you?"
"I think she's going back after this school year ends. I'm not sure. We haven't talked about this."
"Hm."
"Are you going to take up Reyna's offer of being an ambassador, Jason?"
"I was planning on talking to Nico about it. I mean, he's the only ambassador. I can't very well just come and usurp his position."
"It's not usurping, it's joining."
"Honestly, same difference."
"I disagree."
"Okay."
A ball flew out of Leo's hands and hit Piper, next to Frank, on the head. She looked up, startled, from The Brothers Karamazov. "I guess there's really only one person I can possibly blame for this," she said aloud, hurling the ball at Leo's own head. He ducked and it hit the glass window by the nurses' desk. All three whipped their heads around, one nurse hiding a smile and another glaring, the last one perched on the desk carefully schooling his features into an oblivious mask. "Sorry," Leo signed, rubbing his fist over his heart.
"It's fine," mouthed the smiling nurse, while the other nurse continued glaring for another beat before turning back around. The last nurse looked at Leo and appeared to chuckle deeply, earning him his own glare. Leo looked at Piper and shrugged.
"Think he could possibly get us thrown out?" Jason muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
"He could probably get himself thrown out, but I don't think he can get us thrown out."
"We're freaking saints compared to that thing," Frank said.
"Speaking of saints, what's Hazel doing?"
Frank laughed. "Nice segue, Piper. I think she's cheering that guy up. I think he was crying before."
"Damn," Piper said. "What do you think's going on in his life right now?"
"Well, right now there are snickerdoodles. That's pretty good," Jason joked.
A door swung open and a doctor walked in slowly and tiredly. Every head in the room snapped up hopefully, but as he bypassed everyone and made his way towards the girl in the very back with the long skirt, their heads sank in disappointment. The doctor whispered something to her and her face lit up. She followed him out of the waiting room, practically floating. It was impossible to not watch, and yet those who did felt like an intruder.
Jason bounced a little in his seat impatiently. "How long does an amputation take, usually?"
"Ask Annabeth," Piper said. "Hey, where is she?"
"She went down there," Frank said, pointing to the pretzel-style sitting girl in the corner. "Down the Internet rabbit hole."
Jason leaned across the one empty chair between them. "Hey, Annabeth, how long does an amputation take?"
"Anything over six hours is unusual for an upper extremity amputation," she answered distractedly.
"Six?"
"For real?" Frank asked.
"You guys can go home if you want to. He probably won't be up to visitors anyway, you know, eight hours from now."
"I'll stay. Hey, think we can go to geriatrics and visit with people or you have to be a relative?" asked Piper.
"Who cares? Just charmspeak them," Jason answered, rising from his chair. "Coming, Frank?"
"Actually, I'm going to finish my book," he said. "You guys go enjoy."
Jason followed Piper out, shutting the door behind him.
5:45 PM, EST
Giovanni's wife had been having complications for twenty-five hours with a premature labor. His wife and son were now in real, serious danger and they wouldn't let him in to see either of them, nor would they give him any information. And they also wouldn't tell him why they wouldn't tell him anything. So he was going on nothing. He hadn't left the waiting room until it closed, and then he sat in the ER waiting room overnight until the one on the upper floor reopened. He hadn't eaten anything since they'd been admitted. Hazel's cookies were the first thing he'd had.
When Hazel heard this she dragged her suitcase over and took out a BMT sandwich - basil, mozzarella, and tomato - and handed it to him. Giovanni tried to decline, but she gave him a fake glare until the corners of his eyes crinkled and he started to unwrap it.
"Why do you have so much food?" he asked her.
"I know no one's going to leave until my friend gets out of surgery, so I made food. I don't think anyone ate breakfast, either."
"Your friend is lucky to have so many people to be here for xem," Giovanni said.
Hazel vaguely remembered Annabeth and Frank talking about non-gender specific pronouns. She thought xem could have been one of them. She ignored it.
"We've been through a lot together," she said. "It'd be hard to sit in school at this point and freak out all day."
"What grade are you in?"
"I'm a freshman at Goode High," she told him.
"Hey, my spouse teaches there," Giovanni said. "Do you know a Mx. di Monti-Rose?"
"I think she teaches just the sophomores and seniors," Hazel said. "I'm too new, I wouldn't know her. Percy would."
"Is that your friend in surgery?" Giovanni asked curiously.
"Yeah," she said. "He's been gone for a year and a half from school, but he'd know her now."
"Xe's been out of school for a year and a half?" Giovanni asked in astonishment. "Is xe - is xe okay?"
"It wasn't anything medical," Hazel told him. "We were all out. Touring Europe with our history coach."
"That sounds like fun," he said wistfully. "I wish I could've done that when I was in high school."
"It was," she said. The conversation lapsed into nothing until she said, "Well, nice meeting you!" and left.
"Frank," she whispered when she got back. "What were the pronouns you were talking about? The ones without a gender?"
He blinked. "Oh, uh... Xem? Xe, xem, xemself, et cetera?"
"Yeah. I just met a guy who used only those."
"Well, good for xem," Frank grinned.
"I really don't understand it," Hazel said, closing the snickerdoodle container and putting it back into the suitcase.
"I don't want to get into it, but there's no such thing as gender or its subsequent roles and gender is really a spectrum and the black-and-white female versus male thing is not really a thing and it's all been created by old-fashioned societies like yours and ours is moving away from it. Slowly," he amended.
"I suppose we can talk about this in a place where we can get loud?" Hazel guessed drily.
"I think it'll most likely get heated, yes."
"Blurghness," she informed him.
6:00 PM, EST
Leo was now teaching the kids how to juggle, having run out of tricks with which he could amaze them. He watched them attempt to toss the balls back and forth, back and forth, mostly hitting the floor and having them scramble after it, before remembering he'd started with scarves and these kids' fine motor skills were probably fairly underdeveloped. Ah well.
He cupped the youngest one's hands in his own and guided hers to catch and throw properly. He gave pointers to the oldest. He showed the tallest and second girl time and time again, until a doctor came in, woke up the sleeping mother, and whispered something in her ear. Leo paused, feeling strange, and gave each kid a few more balls in a bag to take with them. They trailed after their mother like ducklings - youngest girl in front, then the tall middle girl and the oldest boy - each turning around to wave a few times before they disappeared behind the doors.
Leo went back to his original seat, drawing out his blueprints for rebuilding Festus. He was working with Ayelet, a daughter of Hecate, to create a GPS within the dragon that would include cursed, magical places in its system of maps. Calypso was within reach, he just needed to make a few last adjustments on Festus. Then, he'd be able to go on this all-important search-and-rescue mission.
He took out a pencil and his miniature prototype that he used for helping him with visualization. He fiddled with the wires. He stopped. He fiddled some more.
Skip twenty minutes and Leo's had a breakthrough. The charts were making sense, the wires all connected, not a single code lacking in the computer systems. He studied his mini prototype, blinking with different-colored lights he'd strung up to make sure all of the circuits were unbroken.
He sat back in his chair, staring out the window situated diagonally from him. Calypso, he thought. Here I come.
The copper-skinned girl with the white triangle tattoo on her collarbone stood up and stretched casually, then walked over to Hazel. "Sorry," she said, "But do I know you from somewhere?"
Hazel frowned. "I don't think so," she said. "What's your name?"
"Renée. Renée Gauthier? I live in Alaska."
"I... well, I lived there a really, really long time ago, but I took a trip there a few months ago, spent a day there."
"I've been in France for the last six months, so unless you were there..."
"No, never been."
"This is going to bother me forever."
"I'm sorry, I just don't..."
"No, it's fine!" Renée said. "I just... argh!"
She laughed and walked away. Hazel saw her say something to her boyfriend under her breath, and he answered. They looked at her, then back at each other, and then the guy stood up and walked over to Hazel.
"This is going to sound weird," he said, "But did you have a relative named Hazel Levesque?"
At Hazel's panicked look, which he mistook for confusion, he said, "My grandmother had a single school picture of when she was in sixth grade. She labelled the names of the kids on the back and we - Renée and I - just realized that you look exactly like Hazel Levesque, the girl sitting next to my grandmother, Simone. By any chance, are you... This is weird, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked." He turned to leave, but Hazel stopped him.
"My grandmother was Hazel, and I was named after her."
"So you're Hazel Levesque, but a different Hazel Levesque. The granddaughter of the original Hazel Levesque."
Well, no, but she wasn't going to let him know that it was her in the seventy-year-old picture. But she remembered Simone, and she needed to just know one thing. "Is Simone still alive? My mother used to talk about how much my grandmother liked her."
"No, she died last year. Cancer."
"It takes everyone, doesn't it?" Hazel sympathized. She held out her hand. "Hazel Levesque the Second," she said, smiling.
The guy took it. "Alexandre Curie."
"Nice to meet you."
"Same." He smiled and left, nodding at Renée.
So her classmates were so old, they were dying. That was a heartening thought.
Woo-hoo.
7:00 PM, EST
"Booooored," moaned Jason as he sank down into his chair. He'd only just come back five minutes ago from the geriatrics ward with Piper, but she was already reengrossed in her novel. Some Dostoevsky classic.
Frank looked up from his iPhone, the one Leo'd monster-proofed. "Me, too. There's only so much time I can spend on Tumblr."
"Four-ish hours left. The two of us are screwed."
"Shoulda brought a book," Leo mumbled from his Kindle. He'd messed with the wiring so that all of the words were Google-Translated into Greek, which was similar enough to Ancient Greek that he could understand it. Although, of course, he had to laugh when εκφράζω, which meant to phrase or to couch, in the verb form, according to Google Translate, was changed to
καναπές, the sitting type of couch, and the main character ended up "sitting on a couch his opinion", but mostly, it was fairly accurate.
"I'll go visit more people with you," Frank said, standing up.
"As long as we don't go back to see the crotchety old people, I'm fine with that," Jason said.
"Children?"
"Sure."
They left.
7:30 PM, EST
They returned within a half hour. There was only so much cheering up one could do for a child who couldn't stop hacking up blood.
8:30 PM, EST
Hazel was handing out cookies. Oatmeal cinnamon raisin cookies. Because godsdammit, if she was going to be seventy years old, she was going to be stereotypical and bake.
She poked her head into the little enclosed nurses area. "Do any of you guys want cookies?" She held out the industrial-size container.
"Thank you!" smiled the nurse in the corner. He took one. "That's so sweet of you."
The other smiley nurse had left earlier, but Hazel tried the one who'd glared at Leo before anyway. She received a glare of her own for her troubles.
"Okay," she shrugged, smiling at her. "I'll be here if y'all get hungry."
The nurse who had taken a cookie winked. Crotchety, he mouthed, and Hazel laughed. The other nurse whipped around and glared at him. He widened his eyes and pulled one side of his mouth in an I'm-in-trouble kind of grinned and took that as her cue to leave.
9:30 PM, EST
Annabeth was freaking out.
Of course, she looked coolcalmandcollected, but that was just a façade. She was terrifying herself with articles and reports and experiments of all of the things that have gone wrong ever interns of amputations in the history of the universe. Of course, the ones about the Civil War soldiers getting their amputations done outside on a table that they wouldn't wipe down well before the next one sans anesthesia probably didn't apply anymore, but still.
To any of her friends, though, she looked fine. Sitting on a chair with a laptop on her lap's top and a textbook on the chair adjacent, she probably looked like she was doing a report. Leo had looked like he knew what she was doing to herself, but she also knew he'd never say anything - Leo was strictly non-confrontational.
But right now, she thought, right now her boyfriend was lying on a table, completely unconscious, while a team of doctors sliced and stitched and pried and snipped and took out and put in and pumped and pinned. And, of course, they had never done a surgery like this, where they also had to put on the new arm and match up he nerve endings to the circuits. They'd each done it virtually and in mannequins, but this was a real, live person. It should take the same amount of time, because they didn't have to do all of the post-op op stuff, because Leo had figured out a way to pump medicines directly to the places it needed to go, but still. Percy could die on the table, for the gods' sakes.
And the whole thing with all of the heart issues... It ran in Sally's family, which Percy had not known prior to his heart attack. So while it could very well have been the medication that caused his heart to just stop working, it could also be that he had already had whatever condition he'd had and it was being aggravated by the medication.
There was a loud bang, interrupting her thoughts. Leo's little project had blown up in his face, and there was soot all over his head and glass all over his lap. He looked up, stunned, before snapping his fingers. Annabeth could almost feel the Mist as it swirled into the room, and everyone looked down, almost immediately. Turning his toolbelt upside down and using as a vacuum cleaner, the magic sucked the glass up. He wiped his face with a rag.
There was only a half hour left before she could officially start freaking out. They'd been sitting there for almost approximately nineteen thousand eight hundred seconds.
And each of those seconds felt like an hour, she thought darkly.
It was really tearing her up, this whole cancer thing. Sometimes she'd think about what might have been, if this didn't exist. Percy would've probably proposed already. Sure, they were only eighteen, but the life of a demigod was always in question. If they died at twenty-three, then they'd have only been married for five years. And in the grand scheme of things, five years was not a long enough time to live.
She'd have proposed, actually. Not subscribing to the whole dude-asks thing, she would have just bought him a ring and proposed. But now...
Actually, that was an excellent idea.
No way in hell could Percy afford a ring. So if she bought the ring, and proposed to him...
Also, knowing Percy, he wasn't proposing because he didn't want to put her on the spot of either saying yes and tethering herself to a sick man or saying no and hurting both of them.
So yes, this was an excellent idea.
Could she forge a ring herself?
Having been at camp for - holy shit - eleven years, she'd been to the forges more than once and forged a couple of things herself. Percy, with the amount of time he spent on quests as opposed to being in camp, probably hadn't ever set foot in the forges, except maybe when they were trying to figure out who his dad was. But she could. She definitely could.
A silver band with a green stone? A blue stone? A green stone? A - a green stone. Yep. An emerald? Or a green diamond? Did those even exist? What other green stones were there? Oh! A piece of green sea glass?
These thoughts swirling about her mind, she settled back into her chair to think.
10:30 PM, EST
It was a good thing Annabeth had fallen asleep, Leo thought, because they'd gone into overtime. A bonus half hour had already been tucked onto the end, and the other four had been exchanging uneasy glances for the full half hour. If Annabeth had been awake, she'd have been at the very least pacing by now.
But she wasn't, her body turned in towards the wall and her head resting on her textbooks. Her blond hair was now so long it brushed the floor. She was curled around her laptop, looking ridiculously tiny for the scary lady that she was. She and Percy could both fold themselves into the littlest balls when they were in the fetal position. It seemed as though someone as tall as either of the two of them shouldn't be able to do that, but, against all laws of physics, they could each scrunch themselves into minutiae.
The room was completely empty. The old man had pushed his wife's wheelchair out of the door, the two men had gone in earlier, and Hazel's two new friends, Renée and Alexandre, had gone in to bad news, judging by the doctor's face. Giovanni di Monti-Rose had finally been admitted as well, and he practically tripped over everything in the room to get in as quickly as possible, which was understandable, given everything he'd gone through. Another woman had come in, sat for an hour, but then (presumably) left, and so the room was empty.
Annabeth was asleep, Jason was nodding off, and Frank looked like he might go the same way soon. Hazel had asked the nurses to turn off some of the lights and they happily obliged for the cookie girl, flipping off every other row so that the room was now only fifty percent lit.
Leo himself was freaking out the most, but internally, because at this point, they were probably having technical difficulties with the prosthesis. And none of these doctors were mechanics; they'd have no idea what to do.
He stood up. He did a lap around the waiting room, pretending to examine the pictures. He sat down. He pretended to read his book. He stood up. He walked over to Hazel. They conversed about the weather. He walked away. He sat down. He took out the diagrams of the prosthesis, in case he had to fix anything when Percy came out. He hoped that he'd-
Bang! The door flew open and a white-coated, masked orderly positively ran in. "Leo Valdez?" he asked, panting. "Leo? Leo?"
Leo shot up. "What's wrong?"
The orderly beckoned. "Come on - no time to - come - just - you -"
Leo ran.
11:00 PM, EST
Thank the gods Annabeth hadn't woken up, because if she knew that there was something so wrong they had to bring the inventor in, she'd be a hot mess.
But no, she was still lying there, sleeping silently. The other four were freaking out, though. Really freaking out. It was an hour overtime, a half hour since Leo had gone in, and none of them could fathom what the outcome might be.
Jason could see Hazel trying to calm herself by chatting with the nurses at the nurses' station. She'd been there so long that she'd managed to charm the grumpy nurse to the point that she was smiling and eating cookies.
Piper, on his right, was trying to read The Brothers Karamazov, but he could tell that it could have been in the original Russian and she'd still be flipping pages at the same intervals.
Frank was pretending to be on Tumblr. He'd been pretending to be on Tumblr for a few hours. Oh, also, the screen was black. And he still kept scrolling down.
Jason himself was just sitting and thinking. Thinking about very philosophical questions and the meaning of life and getting absolutely nowhere. He hadn't expected to come to a conclusion, but it was still disappointing to not have any idea what you were doing on Earth, ya know? So he contented himself with watching Hazel charm the pants off the nurses.
Annabeth's laptop dinged, and she shot bolt upright, grabbing her dagger. She looked around, remembering where she was - not in Tartarus - and sheathed her dagger, breathing deeply. She unfolded herself and checked her watch. Jason watched anxiously as she shook her head as if to clear it, then checked it again.
"Jason," Annabeth said calmly, and Jason winced. "What time is it?"
"It's eleven o'clock," he said evenly. "And we have no more information than you do, I swear."
"Where'd Leo go?" she asked, poker-faced.
"They... asked him to come in and help."
"That didn't qualify as more information?" she asked, and her tone sounded dangerous, even though the topic probably didn't warrant it.
"...Sorry?"
Annabeth took a deep breath and turned to face the wall. She ducked her head briefly and opened her laptop again, stretching herself out. Jason could see her hands shaking - she really was terrified - and sighed. There was nothing he could do.
12:00 AM, EST
Annabeth really needed the four of them to leave. Between their whispering and their sideways glances, she might just slit one of their throats. So she walked over to Frank and explained, calmly and rationally, why they should go back to camp.
Then, Frank explained calmly and rationally why he needed to stay.
Then, Annabeth explained calmly and rationally how she might slit their throats.
Then, Frank walked over to Jason and Piper and explained calmly and rationally why Annabeth needed them to leave.
Then, Hazel walked over and explained calmly and rationally why Annabeth should stay, three of them should go, and one of them should stay so that Annabeth didn't have a nervous breakdown.
Then, they decided that Hazel made a good point. And they explained that to Annabeth and Annabeth agreed, on the condition that Hazel didn't stay, because she had pulled an all-nighter the night before and so she needed to be ticked off the list of potential stayers. It was decided that Frank should stay. Jason, Piper, and Hazel left after making Frank swear that he'd text when (the "if" hung in midair) Percy got out and Frank slid over to the seat next to Annabeth's.
"Annabeth," Frank said, when they'd all left. "Not to put you on the spot or anything, but can you explain to me why Percy wants to hide his cancer forever?"
Annabeth turned her head slightly to look at him. "He just really wants to make sure that the people under his responsibility still look at him as an infallible hero." At Frank's look, she hastened to add, "Not because of an ego thing, but because of the amount of times he's broken down and there was no authority figure able to help him. He didn't have a father and his mother was abused. He grew up not trusting adults, and he wants to make sure no one else ever has to deal with that."
"He can still be an authority figure without hiding his faults," Frank said.
"In his head, they won't come to him because they won't want to add to his problems."
"That's nuts."
"No one ever said it made sense. I just said it was understandable."
"Can we get him to not think that? Because it can't be making it better, having him stress about someone finding out."
"We can try and work on it, but I think he's getting frustrated with you."
"I'd be getting frustrated with me, too."
"So you'll stop?"
"No promises. I think this is important."
"This doesn't get back to him, right?"
"Under no circumstances."
"Excellent."
1:00 AM, EST
Apparently, her façade was just that good, because Frank hadn't given her a single sideward glance since they had that last conversation. He was back on Tumblr, but he was too tired to be reading anything, because he was swiping down waaaay too fast to be reading. Annabeth, on the other hand, was "reading" her textbook with precisely timed page-turnings. Internally, though, she was debating the pros and cons of finding Emma.
Pro: she might get some information.
Con: how would Emma know? She wasn't inside the OR.
Con: who was to say Emma hadn't gone home? Who was to say she worked the night shift?
Con: how could she find Emma?
Con: how could she be sure a doctor wouldn't come in the moment she left?
As if on cue, the door swung open and a doctor stepped inside. It was one Annabeth recognized, though she didn't remember the name, who was one of the doctors on Percy's surgical team. Her eyes lit upon the two of them - no shit, they were the only patients left in the waiting room - and he walked over. Annabeth jumped up meet her and Frank followed.
"Percy's going to be fine," she said as an opening statement. Annabeth's eyes closed briefly, but they shot open again as the doctor continued. "I can't disclose much to both of you, but all you need to know is that he's going to be fine, and the technicalities were taken care of as soon as Mr. Valdez came in. The extra three hours were dealing with the attachment of the prosthesis, and there were unforeseeable issues due to the novelty of the arm. Mr. Valdez almost fell asleep the moment he was done working with the connections and nerves, and he is now in one of the unoccupied rooms in Pediatrics. Percy is asleep as well, in the ICU, because he needs to be under constant supervision due to the nature of the problems we had, but he will be fine."
"Thank you," Annabeth said, and it felt like the world had been lifted off of her shoulders.
Frank's arm had been gripping Annabeth's arm tightly, but as soon as he realized he was doing it, he stopped, someone for which Annabeth was extremely grateful. She doubted the panda bear had any idea how much strength was contained in those giant paws.
"Do you know when he'll wake up?" Annabeth asked.
"It doesn't matter," the doctor said, not without a trace of sympathy. "No one but nuclear families are allowed into the ICU. We will let you know when he has been moved out."
Annabeth looked at Frank and sighed. "You go home and I'll wait for Leo," she said.
But Frank was already shaking his head. "Nuh-uh. You go home or I stay here with you."
The doctor casually took her leave.
"Frank-" Annabeth started.
"I'm not letting you stay here by yourself," Frank interrupted.
"Frank! I can take care of myself! Thank you very much for staying with me, and I will see you back at camp!"
"Annabeth, what time did you go to sleep last night?"
Annabeth thought about it. "Twelve," she said, which was a lie, because she hadn't gone to sleep.
"And the night before that?"
"Two." Which was also a lie. It was more along the lines of four.
"Which means you're lying to me, because you forget that you drank coffee both mornings, and everyone knows you only drink coffee when you went to sleep past three the night before."
"Damn you, Frank!"
"Excellent. I'll text Leo and tell him to call when he wakes up. One of us will pick him up and bring him back so he doesn't have to be alone."
"He's got Festus. Let's wake him up now and bring him home. We can't let him sleep in the hospital."
"Fine, I'll go get him."
A sigh.
"Thank you," she said.
"Any time," he answered. He left the room.
A few minutes later, he reappeared, walking next to Leo, who looked dead on his feet. He smiled at her and the three of them left, waving goodbye to the nurses at the nurses' station. They entered into the brightly and artificially lit night sky of New York City and turned left. They had a ways to go.
Anyway, with so many words, I don't know if I quite made up for my absence, but I might have made it better. Come on, it's 11,551 words long. (Which isn't all that accurate, because I can't make line breaks until I get to the FF site, so I write "LINE BREAK", and I'm also counting the authors' note.) But still. That's pretty dang long. :)
Thanks for sticking around, you guys. As always, I love you all, and if you could review, letting me know what you thought of this chapter, yelling at me for being gone for so long, I'd appreciate anything. TSDIEM is on page 18 if you filter by reviews. That's pretty cool, and it's all because of you.
Guest Review Responses:
Guest I: Awww, thanks! That's sweet.
DWfanatic-SHS: How's this for soon? :P
Ana: ... I'm sorry!
Mandi2341: Love New York. Love, love, love. :) PM me! It's been too long. :)
HuntingStarlight, who isn't HuntingStarlight anymore: Hi, Ren!
Lily (I): Yep, you rock.
YourFavGuest: Seriously, my favorite guest. Thank you so much!
cantthinkofaname: Thanks for reading it and for the feedback! I was worried that no one went back to read it, because I didn't get too many reviews about it, so thanks!
Guest II: True statement. Grazie. :)
Lily (II): How do you know there will be a Percabeth wedding? O.o :)
Guest III: Thanks! And yeah, after the amputation (obviously) but closer to the end.
Lily (III): Thanks, but I've got a name picked.
Guest IV: Not quite the soon you were thinking of, amirite?
Lily (IV): Love that first quote. It's going on the wall. :)
Lily (V): Dear Jazmine, Tell Lily to be happy again. And to put broth on your kibble. You should both be happy, all the time. Enjoy your waterfall of all that is good on this earth!
Lily (VI): P.S. I'm not a dog, no. I'm too tall to be a dog. Although my hair is long enough that my family calls me Furry. Can I be an honorary dog?
Guest V: Thank yo8 :)
whatdoitypehere: Thank you!
Lily (VII): E.L. Doctorow is really smart.
Guest VI: Thanks!
Guest VII: I try to make it as canon as I can. Ya know, aside from giving the main character cancer. :)
Guest VIII (1&2): Yeah, I did it wrong. Thanks for telling me, though!
RustyWings: I know we talked before, on WattPad, but good luck.
Jack: Ohhhhh, your review broke my heart. Good luck to you, sir, and thank your sister for me!
Guest IX: Thank you!
Guest X: That sounds cute!
Guest XI: People from Brooklyn generally don't realize it, but it happens to be that there is a distinct Brooklyn accent. Pay attention when you talk to other New Yorkers: if you think they have the accent, then you'll know that Brooklyners talk differently from "Lon Gislanders" talk differently from Queensers. Queensites? Nah, that makes us sound like aliens. :)
Guest XII: It's a tad unrealistic, though, isn't it? I think I may take it out, or edit it so that they just know the curses and insults.
Guest XIII: I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, because I don't want to do the necessary editing. :)
random user: Oooookkkkkaaaaaayyyyy!
Guest XIV: Thank you so much!
Guest XV: Thanks!
Guest XVI: Aw, thank you so much!
fratchelya: Relax, I wrote! It's okay! :)
Lionkinglover: Glad you liked it so much. :)
Jane4444: Thank you so, so, so much for your superlong review! You are the best. Although you probably shouldn't be reading it at 4 in the morn, I'm not gonna lie - I've done it, too. Who hasn't, really? :)
Hi: Hi!
talltwin18: Well, it was only, like, a two-month long wait for you, right? :3
Guest XVII: Done!
Guest XVIII: Why don't you tell me how you really feel? :P
Guest XIX: As in, Hazel Levesque?
S: Did it. :)
Pinkglitterpanda: I did! Thank you for reviewing!
Sticks and Steam: You da best. Danke!
Please review, guys! Love you!