Damn, it's good to be back.
Percy was lying on the bed with his eyes closed, but he opened them the second he heard the door squeak.
"Ah, excellent!" he joked. "Entertainment."
Annabeth smiled and sat down in the chair next to the bed. "Bored out of your brains, I guess?"
"You have no idea," Percy sighed, dramatically. "I actually look forward to when the nurses come in to stick me with needles. It's the only fun I get all day."
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "You've been awake for a few hours, Percy. Please shut up."
"But that's what I've been doing for those 'few' hours!" Percy protested. He put on a falsetto. "'Lie here quietly, Mr. Jackson, we'll have you right as rain in no time.' Who even says that?" He made a face. "I'm booooored."
"Sorry. Can't help you. We have school. Anyone else been here yet?"
"Well, Leo showed up for about four seconds. He was really talking to the surgeon about the prosthesis. I think looking at it made him squeamish, though, so he ran out. Wish I could," he added.
"You allowed to walk around?"
"Probably not," Percy said. He swung his feet out of bed. "You coming?"
Annabeth shook her head. "No way. If you aren't allowed to you're not going to-"
"Blah, blah, blah," Percy said, ignoring her. "Listen, if you don't come with me, I'll probably collapse in the hallway, and then where will I be?"
"In the hallway," Annabeth said, but he still wasn't listening to her.
"Anyway, it's my arm they lopped off, not my legs. I'm perfectly capable of – whoops!"
He slipped and landed hard on the bed.
"Ouch."
Annabeth sighed. "You're an idiot."
"Blah, blah, blah," Percy repeated. He hauled himself up, pushing on the railing of the bed with his left hand, his right arm pulled in towards his chest. He wrapped some of the many tubes around his IV pole.
"Seriously, I'm going. I'm really, really, really bored."
"You're also really, really, really pale," said Annabeth. "And you're one day out of surgery and you aren't walking around, ya imbecile." She spotted the call button. "And if you take one step, I'm going to push the call button, and a nurse will come running."
"Don't you dare," Percy said, testing his weight on the ground fully, without support. He swayed and went even whiter. "I'm not an invalid."
Annabeth rushed around to the other side of the bed and grabbed him so that he wouldn't fall. "I can't believe we're doing this."
"Wait, hang on," Percy said. "If a doctor sees me in this getup, he'll know that I shouldn't be out of bed. Close your eyes," he ordered.
"You're going to fall over."
"No I won't. Have a little faith, Annabeth."
She closed her eyes – kind of. She peeked a little bit. Don't tell.
"Okay," Percy said, after a good long while of hearing him bang into things.
She opened her eyes. Percy was slightly shirtless.
"I need a little bit of help getting the shirt on," Percy said. "Help?"
She laughed when she saw his left arm, which said in Percy's large, round lettering, "Wrong side!" "What's this?" she asked, cutting a slit up Percy's long sleeve T-shirt with her knife.
"Oh, all these horror stories I found on the Internet of the doctor coming in and amputating the wrong arm," Percy said, laughing too. "Dr. Semmel thought it was really funny. The surgeon kind of raised his eyebrows, but to be honest, I don't really give a-"
She coughed on cue.
"Whoops, sorry," Percy joked. "Hazel would wash out my mouth with soap."
Annabeth grinned. "That she would." She moved to the other side and tried to stuff Percy's right arm into the sleeve as gently as she could, trying not to look at the angry red stump or the prosthesis attached permanently to it – the first of its kind, as she had been told by a proud Leo. She finally gave up. "Percy, I can't do this."
"So tie it in a knot and forget about it," said the once-in-his-lifetime-practical Percy.
Annabeth did, and putting her hand on the small of his back, ready to catch him if he fell, they made their way out of the room very, very slowly.
Of course, they ran into problems only after an empty wing had given them false confidence of their being able to get away with this.
Of all the nurses in the entire hospital, they had to run into Emma.
"Percy Jackson, what the-"
Percy looked at Annabeth. "Uh-oh," he whispered.
"You bet, uh-oh. And you, Miss Girlfriend. Turn around. No, wait, no. Stay here. Don't move." She hurried away.
Annabeth looked at Percy. "I don't believe in saying 'I told you so', but I so told you so."
"I thought you didn't believe in it."
"I don't. Thant's why I didn't say it."
"You did!"
"No, I alluded to it."
"I never thought I'd be asking you this, but, Wise Girl, do you know what allude means?"
"Yes."
"You used it wrong."
"Shut up."
Percy laughed. "And that's how I know I've won."
"Shut up."
Percy snickered again. Emma came back around the corner, pushing in front of her a-
Percy groaned. "Emma."
"No way. One day out of surgery and you think I'm letting you walk around the hospital? No freaking way."
"Language!" Percy admonished. He turned around. "C'mon, Annabeth, let's go back."
"No," Emma said. "No. Get in here."
"I tend to agree with Emma, to be honest," Annabeth told him. "Think you can take me now?"
Percy looked down at the sleeve where his arm was supposed to be. He looked back at her. "Yeah, I could take you."
"Mmmm-hmmm," Annabeth said, nodding her head sarcastically. "Sure you could."
"Jackson, I am steadily getting more pissed. I can put you on the watch list, you know," Emma said, sounding very much like she would not be taking any more crap. "Sit before I wrestle you in."
Percy sighed and lowered himself gingerly into the wheelchair. He winced as his shoulder hit the chair, leaning forward slightly. Emma pulled the IV pole into the little holder at the side and wheeled him down the hallway, Annabeth walking next to it.
"This is stupid," Percy declared.
"That was a breach of hospital regulations," Emma told him. "I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to have you restrained to the bed at this point."
Percy whipped his head around to look at her. "No."
"Yes," she answered.
"You wouldn't," Percy said. "No way. Come on." He looked at Annabeth, who was snickering to herself. "You mock my pain!"
"She's not gonna restrain you, Seaweed Brain," she said, rolling her eyes.
"There's no way you could possibly know that," Percy said.
"Actually, if you get caught by anyone else before we get back to the room it's not going to be up to me," Emma told him. "You're not supposed to get out of bed yet, and I'm sure as hell not gonna take the fall for you."
"So if we don't run into anyone you won't lock me up?" Percy asked, giving her his best puppy eyes.
"You better pray," was all she said.
Luckily for Percy, they managed to make it back to the room without being seen. After manipulating Percy out of his shirt and back into the bed, Emma left with the promise that should she return to find the bed empty, Percy'd have a lot more coming to him than a bunch of zip ties.
Annabeth perched herself on the end of Percy's bed. "Well done," she said sarcastically.
"You know what, Princess, I got what I wanted, okay? I got an adventure and I got to spend time with you not in a bed. So I'm happy."
"You're happy that we got to spend time together outside of a bed?" she inquired, raising her eyebrows and giving him a meaningful look.
"Well," he answered, equally coy, "I much prefer it when we're in the bed together, and also, when I don't have to wear any hospital clothing. In fact, I'd prefer to wear no clothing at a-"
Annabeth shut him up by leaning forward and kissing him. "Mmpf," he said when she pulled away.
"Yeah, well, that's all you're getting until you're out. I'm not going to be the reason you get the flu or something and have to stay here for longer."
"I'll take the risk," Percy grinned, but Annabeth shook her head and pushed him lightly back down.
"Nope."
"Sigh," Percy said dramatically. "Rejected again."
Annabeth rolled her eyes.
"What did I miss?" he asked, sitting up a bit straighter and tucking his legs underneath him. "What's going on out there?"
"Meh," Annabeth answered.
"For real? How'd everything go last night?"
"You really want to know?"
"Of course?"
"Everyone tried to stay for as long as possible. Hazel made cookies and made friends with everyone in the waiting room, Jason and Piper went room-hopping, Frank was on Tumblr-"
"Shocker."
"-I know, right? – Leo took turns between blowing stuff up and hacking his Kindle with Google Translate so he could read trashy romance novels in Greek, and I actually fell asleep somehow."
"Did you really?"
"Yeah. Pretty impressive, huh? Anyway, at some point while I was asleep they pulled Leo in to help work on you, so he's back at home passed out now. I woke up, sent most of them home, Frank stayed with me to wait for Leo and then I flew Festus home."
"You flew Festus?"
"Always the tone of surprise," she said, rolling her eyes at him. "What, you don't think I speak machine? I'm no Leo, but I'm fairly decent."
"Huh," Percy said, tilting his head to look at her. "Ya learn something new every day."
"Yeppers."
"Anyway, why did they need Leo to come work on me?"
"From what I could gather from the interrogation I gave your surgeon, they messed up the wire-nerve connections and the arm started moving on its own. Kinda like in a horror movie."
Percy cringed. "But Leo fixed it?"
Annabeth shrugged. "Seems like it. I guess they were just lucky that he memorized everything they needed to know. Have you seen how many wires are in that thing?"
"Honestly, I've been trying not to look at it," he answered. "I don't wanna get grossed out by my own body."
"Hey, listen, man, I respect that, but as soon as you think you can you should definitely look at it. It's insane, I swear."
"What do you mean?"
"There are so many wires. It's crazy that he managed to design this himself. I mean, he's what, fifteen years old? And he designed a prosthesis – which, even if it didn't work, would still be amazing. The fact that it even fits your arm is incredible. It'll be even crazier if it does work. Have you tried to use it yet?"
"I figured I should wait for PT," Percy said. Annabeth met his eyes and held them for a second. "What?"
"Nothing."
"Oh, come on. That's not fair."
"You don't just want to wait for PT."
"So what's the real reason, then?" Percy challenged.
"You're scared of it not working." She lifted her gaze to his again. He looked back at her steadily.
"That's possible."
She raised her eyebrows.
"Fine," he admitted, shaking his head. "That's it, you win. Jeez, you know me better than I thought."
She winked.
Percy opened his arms. "Come here."
"I'm not gonna hug you, your whole shoulder's gonna fall off," she scoffed.
He pouted. "Please?"
Annabeth rolled her eyes again. "I'll lie down next to you," she offered.
"Deal," Percy said immediately, scooting over to his left. She just sat there, giving him a look. "What?"
"Wrong side, Seaweed Brain. I'm not touching that arm until you're out of here."
"Jesus," Percy said, sliding back the other direction. "Sorry. Wow."
"Oh, come on," she said, settling back next to him. "You're such a drama queen."
He whipped his head around and made an offended noise. "Me? Never!"
"Case in point," she said, smiling. She leaned her head on his shoulder – the good shoulder – and the two continued talking until the bell sounded.
The elevator was climbing much too slowly for Leo's taste. He could take the stairs to the top of the hospital and come back down before the elevator had even reached the fourth floor, for the gods' sakes. After around four eternities, the doors dinged open and Leo bounced out, impatient. He walked down the hall at the fastest pace allowed by the nurses patrolling the hallways. He stopped at room 402, not bothering to knock before barging his way in.
"Hellooo," he sang out. Percy and Dr. Semmel whipped their heads around simultaneously
"Leo!" Percy half-yelled, throwing open his left arm for a hug. "How are ya, man?"
"Lack of human contact does strange things to a man," Leo observed drily. "You're never this happy to see me."
"Hey, I'm 'human contact'," Dr. Semmel protested.
"The human part's debatable," Leo joked.
"Thanks," she said, sending a half-amused, half-exasperated glare his way.
"We've just been admiring your beautiful piece of art here," Percy said, gesturing to his brand-new right arm with his left.
"It's true," Dr. Semmel added. "It looks like it belongs in a museum, or on someone's coffee table or something."
"Aw, shucks," Leo said, plunking himself down on Percy's right. Dr. Semmel pushed a tray of gleaming, newly sterilized tools towards him. "Oooohkaaaaay…" Leo let out a breath and picked up a screwdriver. "This shouldn't hurt at all, so if it does you have to tell me," he said, turning to Percy.
"I gotchu," Percy said, grinning. Leo began to unscrew the cover to the prosthesis.
"We noticed that he's been having a bit of trouble controlling his pinky," Dr. Semmel noted.
"Hmmm," Leo hummed absent-mindedly, poking through the wires with a silver pair of tweezers.
"Pinky," Percy said. "Pinky. Pinky. Pinky. Pinky."
"Okay, enough!" Dr. Semmel said. "He might not be listening, but as long as I'm stuck here we gotta…" She paused. "Hang on."
"What?" Percy asked.
"Okay," Leo answered.
Percy snorted. "He's oblivious."
Dr. Semmel placed her hand in Leo's periphery and he jumped. "Que paso?"
"Do you know how long you're going to be?"
"About twenty minutes, unless I find a problem," he said. "Give or take."
"Sounds good." She settled back into her chair next to Percy, explaining, "I have another patient to get to, but I have to be here for supervision."
"Sorry," Percy grimaced.
"Don't be sorry, we can talk about your treatment plan," she said, rolling her chair over to the computer. Percy groaned. "Yeah, I know, I know. Sorry."
"Yerp," Percy answered.
"Okay. So… so… so… okay. Fine." She swiveled in her chair so that she was facing Percy again. "Dantexronin didn't work for you, for a combination of reasons. It exacerbated your heart problems, it messed with your blood sugar, and it didn't reduce your cancer cell count at all. So we've got to move on."
"We're breaking up," Percy joked.
"Exactly. Dantexronin is over, so we've got to find someone new. There's a new drug on the market called Shaya. It did very, very well in experimental trials, and they used people with circumstances very similar to yours."
"I feel a but coming."
"Yes. Well. However. The normal symptoms of chemotherapy are exacerbated. Hair gone within a week or two, super fun vomiting, chemo brain, all of the truly sucky stuff that you kind of escaped the first time around."
"Shit."
"Yep. Also, it's super expensive."
"Shitter."
"So now we have a few options. We can find a different option, which is your prerogative as a patient. Or you can agree to their terms and get it for much, much less."
"And their terms are..?"
"Document every symptom and side effect and report it to the company. Kind of like an experiment, except an observational experiment as opposed to a controlled one. The plus side to this is that they pay for your doctor's appointments as well, since they want accurate documentation."
"I'm good with that."
"Right, that's not so bad. The tricky part comes where they ask you to sign a contract saying that you agree to take this product for at least six months, and if you break the contract you'll have to pay retroactively for everything they'd covered up until that point. Which kind of traps you, because it probably won't take a full six months for us to know that it's not working if it doesn't actually work."
"But you said you're confident that it will?"
She sighed. "Listen, Percy, I can't tell you that something definitely will or won't work. If I could, you wouldn't have cancer anymore. All I can tell you is that this product worked really well in the trials. It put thirty-one out of the thirty-six teenaged patients into remission within a year. It didn't work as well on older patients, but you're not an older patient. Trials are just over, so anyone who went into remission hasn't been there for more than a year, but it had an eighty-six percent success rate. That's really rare, Percy. That's really, really rare."
Percy looked at her for a moment, considering. "If I was your kid, would you put me on this drug?"
"Yes," she said immediately. "Without hesitation. This is what I would want for my child." When Percy didn't answer, she added, "I can't guarantee anything will work. But I couldn't guarantee that for my kid, either. If I had to be in this situation, these would be the odds I would take."
"Over any other drug out there?"
"Nothing has had the same kind of success that this one has. The science behind the way they designed the medication is fascinating, if you want I can give you their paper to read. I think that this will be helpful to you."
"You realize that if I sign that contract, I'm basically selling my body."
Dr. Semmel cringed. "Not exactly. There was a whole ethics debate over this a few years back. It's entirely legal."
"That doesn't exactly sound like a winning endorsement," Percy noted.
"That's because it isn't exactly a winning endorsement. But for someone in your situation, it might be the best you can get."
Percy shut his eyes. "Okay, I'll do it."
"I'll show you the math specs and details when Leo's done before you make a final decision."
"Cool, thanks." He smiled at her. "That's not it, right? What else ya got?"
"Radiation."
"Yay!"
"Yeah. So." She turned to her computer again. "We'll go ahead and start radiation pretty much now. Twice a week for a month, and then we'll assess, how does that sound?"
"Fun!"
"Oh, cut it out, none of this is ideal. You're young, you're a teenager, you have a good shot. And you have support," she said, nodding in Leo's direction.
"I know, I'm very lucky," Percy said, and when Dr. Semmel gave him a look, he added, "Genuinely! I mean it genuinely. No facetiousness."
"Ooh, big words," she teased, tucking her feet up underneath her in her chair. "Okay. One more thing. I'd like to put you on some pills to try and mitigate the symptoms of the chemo. Ready for the list?"
"The company will be okay with that?"
"Yeah, that was the part of the ethics case they lost. You can't really allow someone to suffer needlessly for money. Lots of blurred lines, but as long as we report the medications you'll be on, we'll be fine."
"Great! Hit me."
"Okay. We've got Cordrazine, which will help regulate your heart, just in case. Not too expensive."
"Sweet."
"PX-42, which will help with stomach pains."
"Can we wait to see how bad the stomach pains get first?"
"Sure. Last one, we've got J-Capulet, to help you sleep at night instead of falling asleep randomly and then staying up all night."
"Ooh, fun side effect!"
"Yeah, this one's nice. Same thing, see how bad it gets first?"
"Yeah, can we?"
"Okay. And then if you ever get chemo brain too badly, we can try Soma or KR-4."
"How much will it cost?"
She told him and he choked. "I'll just go ahead and sell my other arm on the black market."
"Didn't you say you had an organization helping you?"
Percy sighed. "Sort of. It's all sort of complicated. It's fine, though," he reassured her, "I won't sell my arm, I promise."
"Okay, good."
"I'll just find a pole somewhere."
She swatted her folder in his general direction. "Stay off the pole!"
"Okay, okay…" He looked over at Leo, who was still carefully sorting through wires. "Why isn't he done?"
"It hasn't been twenty minutes yet."
"Sigh."
"Impatient much?" Dr. Semmel asked, laughing.
Percy grinned back. "Who, me? Never."
They sat in silence for a minute, watching Leo, until Percy asked, "Was that the end of the list?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah. Can't think of anything else at the moment, anyway."
A nurse poked her head through the doorway. "Hey, Per- oh, hey, Doc! Didn't realize you were here."
"I'm here," Dr. Semmel intoned. "What's up, Nat?"
"I'm just supposed to do a quick vitals check, but he looks busy," she said, gesturing to Leo, who hadn't shown any signs of having heard her enter. "Do we know how long he's going to be?"
"Forever," Percy answered, making them both laugh.
"I'll just check in later, then?" Nat asked.
"Nah, I'll get 'em when he's done," Dr. Semmel said.
"You sure?"
"Yes, Natasha, dear. Hurry up, your shift ends soon and you-know-who's waiting!"
Nat grinned and withdrew.
"Who's you-know-who?" Percy asked curiously.
"Nat's girlfriend. She works here, too, and her shift ended fifteen minutes ago."
"You hang out here long enough and you get all of the good gossip," Percy remarked.
"Yes, well-" Dr. Semmel leaned in conspiratorially. "It took them forever to get their acts together. We had a betting pool on how long it would take them to go out. Everyone thought Nat was straight, too, but it turns out the only thing about her that's straight is her smile."
Percy laughed. "That's a good line. I might steal that."
She grinned. "Be my guest. Just don't believe any rumors they tell about me."
"Well, whyever not?"
"They're most likely true."
"Oh, I see how it is," Percy said. "I see how it is."
Dr. Semmel rolled her eyes. "What's he doing?" she asked, nodding towards Leo.
"He keeps messing around with whichever wires are attached to the thumb."
"Why? I didn't see anything wrong with that, did you?"
"Nah, but I think it's covering the other ones."
"How does it look?"
"Like a mess. Remember those nice rows of colored wires he had before? It's a beat-up Pride flag now."
"So he won't be done anytime soon?"
"Nope. I mean, I have no idea, but I doubt it, anyway."
"Yay…"
"Think he'll find the pinky thing?" Percy asked.
"If he knows what he's doing, he should."
There was another minute of quiet, and then Percy spoke up again.
"Not that I mind, but why are you hear again?"
"I can't let some random guy poke around my patient alone, it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Especially when they're minors, and especially when they both have ADHD, and especially when one of them is Percy Jackson."
"But not when one of them's Leo Valdez?"
"Nah, him I trust."
"Oh, nice."
"Yeah, that's me. I'm a classy dame."
"Oh, me too!"
She looked at him. "You're also a classy dame?"
Percy cut a glance to his at least vaguely masculine body. "Yep."
Dr. Semmel said nothing.
"What? Can't I be a classy dame?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of 'plebeian' rather than 'dame', but whatever floats your boat."
"Being a classy dame floats my boat."
Leo's head popped up. "Did you guys know that there are four disconnected wires in this pinky?"
Percy looked at Dr. Semmel and rolled his eyes.
When Annabeth brought home the news that Percy was allowed to have bigger groups of visitors, there was a general feeling of relief among those of the Seven that had not been able to see him yet as they rearranged their schedules and juggled their respective clubs. Leo had been in every day since the surgery to check up on the prosthesis, but all he could tell them was, "He's fine." He had no information in medical terms, notwithstanding the vague statements of, "One fewer tube." "That bald doctor wasn't there today." "More skin was uncovered." "Less bandage was there." "I dunno, I'm not a fucking doctor!"
So apart from Jason, who had the first important debate for his team that day and would come after it ended, they took the subway to the hospital Percy had chosen, the one a few blocks away from his mother's house. Leo, already a seasoned subway veteran, led the way, helping Frank when his clumsy fingers failed to swipe the MetroCard properly a la Mr. Weasley and he banged into the gate not once, not twice, but three times, and saving Piper from death by nutter taxi driver when he careened around the corner, hopping the curb with his right front wheel.
As they walked up the block to the hospital, each of them marveled over the week of nerves they'd had. Not seeing Percy for a full week was six hundred and four thousand, eight hundred seconds too many. And as they walked up the steps to the oncology ward, the relief mingled with dread, for who knew what they would find when they reached room four-oh-two.
They filed into the room nervously, save for Leo, who had dropped behind to talk to one of Percy's doctors. Percy smiled wanly at them as they dropped into chairs set up by the bed, conscientiously ignoring the bandages with the purple-green-red bruising spreading out from his shoulder area. The silver arm winked at the corner of their eyes, hitting the sunlight from the corner of the room, but the five of them all looked away, focusing solely on Percy's eyes, which were sparkling with as much life as ever, filling them all with relief.
As soon as the niceties were dispensed with ("How are you feeling?" "Like Dionysus is hosting an orgy in my head." "Ew, man.") they filled Percy in on life - camp gossip ("Katie finally made a move on Travis." "It's about fucking time."), school stuff ("Your stepdad danced the Funky Chicken at the talent show!" "Please tell me someone taped that?") and whatever else had been going on while Percy'd been in the ICU ("Jason's at his first debate." "Is he a nervous wreck?" "Of course he is. He slept with his notecards under his pillow last night." "Some of the writing rubbed off on his cheek." "Awesome.").
He, in turn, gave them the lowdown on the nurses ("I swear, there's something going on between Hannah and Evelyn.") his condition ("I'll be out of here in two or three days, hopefully, but then I'm stuck at home for a week.") and the pranks he'd played on the nurses ("I got this great idea from this movie where you fill a urine tube with apple juice and tell the nurse you have to filter it down again and drink it in front of them, and it was awesome. He shrieked. It was the best." "Aw, I wish I could've seen his face!").
They learned that he had started chemo again, a different chemo, and was going to be losing his hair almost immediately. This chemo was much more fast-acting than the other one, but with higher risks. He told them that there were myriad side effects, attempting to downplay the severity of said side effects, and not giving any specifics, saying vague things like, "You'll know."
"So this means your secret's going to be out, then?" Frank asked.
Percy made a sour face at him. "No, Frank darling, although I can tell that's all you want. But no, it's October and National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I'm just going to tell everyone I shaved it for charity."
Frank pursed his lips, but said nothing.
They talked about nothing for a bit longer, being interrupted by a nurse with pills (who didn't notice the amount of people in the room, mostly because Leo dragged Piper behind a curtain and wrapped it around the two of them while the rest tried not to laugh) and another nurse for vitals-checking. Jason made it about four seconds before the bell chimed to signal the end of visiting hours, beaming over the first victory of his team. They all left, promising to visit Percy again before he got out.
The problem with hospital rooms was that they were never truly dark, Percy mused, sometime around three in the morning. For instance, right behind his bed, there was a strip of lights on the off chance he nearly died at midnight and the doctors had to come in and rescue him. Which, of course, was the responsible, safe thing to do. However, he wasn't sleeping at all.
When a nurse tiptoed in to discreetly change a bag on the IV pole, Percy, bored out of his mind, struck up a conversation with her. He learned that she was putting herself through medical school, her parents being religious fanatics who disapproved of women setting foot outside the home, unless they were in the hospital giving birth. She went to school in the mornings, worked at McDonald's during the afternoon, and pulled the super-early shift at the hospital as part of her internship that she needed for med school, sleeping from eight-thirty to two to start her shift at two-thirty every morning. Her name was Mae.
They had a full half-hour conversation, after which Mae finally realized that it was three-thirty and as a semi-invalid person, Percy should be asleep. She pulled some sleeping pills from a room down the hall and stood there until Percy took them, waiting until he got drowsy to leave. He dreamed of McDonald's and babies and hellhounds and death.
Frank, Piper, and Hazel climbed the stairs, having heeded Leo's warning about avoiding the demon elevator at all costs. They knocked on the door of 402, waiting for Percy's "entrez-vous" before going in.
"Hi!" Percy greeted them, closing the book that was propped up against his knees.
"You're reading a book?" Hazel demanded, hand to her heart, aghast.
"Nope, I'm pretending to. Helps me masquerade as a human."
"Works for me every time," said Piper, plopping herself down at the foot of the bed. Percy shifted his legs to the left to make room for her.
"How ya doin'?" Frank asked, taking the chair at the computer.
"Pretty good, pretty good, how're you?"
"We're doing excellently."
"I thought Jason was coming, too?"
"Ah, yes." Piper nodded sagely. "He was, but his debate team had a crisis, so now he's MIA."
"Ooh, a crisis? What life-threatening crisis has struck the debate team now?"
"From what I've heard," Hazel said, leaning in and lowering her voice to a confidential whisper, "One of the researchers didn't really believe in his side of the debate."
"I thought the whole point of debate club was to learn how to play devil's advocate efficiently," Frank said, looking puzzled.
"Something like that. Anyway, Jace has to take over the research, so he's screwed. I can't wait to watch it."
"When is it?"
"Next week. You'll be there, right?"
"Hopefully. I should think so, anyway. Pretending to read is not as much fun as debate team."
"Exactly," Piper agreed. "I mean, debate team!"
"Speaking of teams," Frank interjected, "You never told Coach where you were going and now he's all worried. He won't stop asking me if you're in jail or whatever. What am I supposed to tell him?"
Percy groaned. "Just keep telling him you don't know, okay?"
Frank rolled his eyes. "Sure, man. Whatever works."
"Thank you," Percy said pointedly.
"Jesus, you two-" Piper began, annoyed, but Hazel cut her off.
"I made cookies!" She brandished the container.
Percy looked at her fondly. "Love you, Haze."
She threw a cookie at him. "Love you, too."
"You have to admit, though, it's an awesome arm," Sally said.
She, Percy, and Paul were standing in the living room of Sally's apartment. Paul wasn't taking the finality of the metal arm too well. He looked as though he was about to cry.
"It's so cool," Percy said. "I love it. If I had to have a fake arm, then at least it's this one, right?"
"True," Sally noted.
"Doesn't really make it better," Paul muttered. He shook his head, as though he were trying to physically clear his mind. "Never mind. You feeling okay?"
"Perfect," Percy said, smiling at him.
"It kind of is a cool arm, actually," Paul said, trying to match Percy's smile.
"You should see it when Leo takes off the cover," Percy said. "There are rows and rows of colored wires and gears and these amazing thingies that I couldn't name if you paid me - it's incredible."
"He's a genius," Sally said, shaking her head. "I made soup. You want?"
"I'm not that kind of sick," Percy said, grinning at her.
She rolled her eyes at him. "That's not why I said it. I just made soup and my son is here. But if he doesn't want soup, then fine." She turned and pretended to start for Percy's bedroom.
"Okay, okay, okay!" Percy said, laughing. "Don't take it far enough that I don't get soup!"
"Thought so," Sally said. She chuckled before grabbing Percy's left shoulder and beckoned for Paul to follow.
Sally was washing dishes, Percy perched on the counter next to her.
"Dahling," she said, stretching out the word.
"Mm?" said Percy, who was watching her get a stubborn burnt spot off the soup pot with a piece of steel wool.
"Have you told your dad? You know, about everything?"
He glanced up for a second. "What do you mean? I told Paul already."
Behind Percy, Paul froze. The dish he'd been drying slipped out of his hands and he barely managed to catch it before it hit the floor.
"Oh, you mean Poseidon," Percy continued, oblivious. "Nah, I haven't seen him. I guess when he becomes more accessible, I'll tell him."
"Oh," said Sally, whose smiling eyes were locked with Paul's. "Alright, that sounds good."
Paul cleared his throat. "So, erm, Perce, when are you going back to school?"
"I was thinking I might as well try tomorrow," Percy said. "I mean, why not?"
"Oh, of course!" Sally said sarcastically. "What could possibly go wrong?"
Percy pointed a wooden spoon at her. "Exactly what I was thinking," he said. "Exactly. So tomorrow, then?"
Sally rolled her eyes at him and shut off the water. "I was kidding."
Percy frowned. "What do you mean? Like, worse comes to worst and I have five other people in the school that know what's going on, plus Paul. It's better than languishing at home, right?"
"Languishing," Paul noted. "That's some vocabulary you've acquired."
"Acquired," Percy mocked, grinning. "That's some-"
He was cut off by Paul's towel mysteriously making a sudden turn towards his head. "Real nice."
"I don't know if I like the idea of you going tomorrow," Sally interrupted. "Wait until Thursday. You'll have two days and then the weekend to recover."
"Mom," Percy groaned.
"Nope. You're not winning this one, sorry."
"Game over, man," Paul said, shrugging at his stepson.
"Game over," Percy sighed. He turned back to the dish he'd been scrubbing. "Jeez, Mom, do you leave these spots for me?"
"Just for you, my son, my only," Sally teased.
They all met in the parking lot, Annabeth included, to take a field trip to Sally's. Despite Percy's obvious pain and fatigue, he continued joking around with them until they got to his mom's apartment, where he disappeared into the kitchen with his mother and left the rest of them standing there to fend for themselves.
"He seemed... decent," Hazel observed.
"Not bad for a first day back," Jason agreed.
Leo looked up from his notebook. "Y'all're just gonna talk about him like he's not here, huh?"
"We're just..." Jason tried to defend himself, but floundered to find a suitable word for what exactly we had just been doing.
"Drop it, man," Piper advised, brushing past him and claiming the busted-up, yet very comfortable armchair on by the window.
Annabeth came up behind Leo and peered over his shoulder. "Math mistake," she whispered, pointing to a formula at the top corner of his diagram. "You'll blow it up."
Leo gave her a strange look. "My math is fine."
"No, it's not," Annabeth persisted. "That's not how logarithms work. Plug your answer back in. Here." She dug around in her bag for a minute before coming up with a graphing calculator.
Meanwhile, Piper, Jason and Frank were laughing over something that had happened in their statistics class, with Hazel sitting cross-legged on the table in the middle of the room, working on her trigonometry. They'd all occasionally throw a glance towards the kitchen to see if Percy or his mother had yet emerged, to no avail. They had disappeared like a squirrel in January.
Paul entered the apartment, throwing his hood off his salt-and-pepper hair and shaking it like a wet dog. "It's really coming down out there," he noted to no one in particular. He stepped back a bit to take in the clusters of teenagers scattered about his living room, none of whom had actually noticed him. He rolled his eyes fondly and stepped off towards the kitchen.
Percy heard a door slam and he blinked the sleep from his eyes, adjusting to the darkness. Footsteps echoed from the hallway outside his bedroom. He could hear the shower running and Paul's voice. He strained to make out the whispered words.
"-anything? Hot chocolate, maybe, or a blanket?"
Percy couldn't hear his mother's hushed response.
"I'm sure he's asleep, Sal. Don't worry about him, he's fine."
Another reply.
"I know, love, I know. Come here."
Percy heard his mother's footsteps as she moved closer to where Paul was standing. There was silence for a moment, and then – was she crying?
"Sally, I don't want to pressure you, I know you know better than I do, but do you think you need to see a doctor?"
That was definitely a sob. Percy stood up and tiptoed to the door.
"I'm fine. We don't have to go tonight, I'll go tomorrow."
"I'll come with you," Paul whispered immediately. "Let me write an email to the principal."
"You don't have to come, I've done it alone."
"I know, but now you have someone here for you."
There was silence for a minute, and then Sally let out another sob. "Fucking Gabe!"
"Wait, is that why?" Paul whispered in astonishment. "What did he do to you?"
Percy couldn't remain behind the door any longer. He opened it slowly. "Mom?"
His mother and Paul were standing in the hallway, Sally wrapped in a towel, Paul in a t-shirt and sweatpants. "Did we wake you?" she asked, swiping away her tears with a quick pass of her arm. "Go back to sleep, it's fine."
Percy took a step forward. "No, what's going on?"
They exchanged glances, communicating silently, and then Paul turned to Percy. "Your mother-" he faltered for a moment, but continued. "Your mother has miscarried."
Percy's eyes widened in shock. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she insisted. "Listen, Percy, I'm going to tell you something, okay? This is not the first time I've miscarried. I had an injury a while ago and it's made it hard to carry to term. I thought this one would be different, it had made it the longest out of all of my other-"
"Was it Gabe?" Percy interrupted. Sally closed her eyes but didn't answer. "Mom, was it Gabe?"
Sally didn't move, which in itself was an answer.
Percy shut his eyes tight, then moved forward to hug her. "I love you," he said. "And I'm so, so sorry."
Paul moved in to close the hug, and Sally leaned her head against his shoulder. "I love you, too," she said. "Both of you."
The three of them stood in the hallway, their shadowy silhouettes merged into one on the wall behind them.
"Counselor meeting in five," Clarisse called, jogging past the pavilion.
"Gotcha," Percy called after her retreating back. It was the weekend, and Percy was back at camp, although he wasn't feeling his best. He turned to Annabeth. "I don't really know if I can handle a meeting right now."
"Not feeling too good?"
"Perpetually."
They started towards the Big House. "Want me to cover for you?" Annabeth offered.
Percy waited to answer as they passed Frank going the opposite direction, giving him a wave before answering. "I might need you to if the meeting drags on too long."
Annabeth laced her fingers in his. "You got it."
"You know what it's about?"
"Nope."
"So it's either an emergency or really boring."
"My bet's on really boring."
Percy laughed and held the door open for her.
When the meeting started they could tell almost immediately that Annabeth had unfortunately been correct. Chiron opened up with an announcement that each counselor would have to hold a meeting reminding their campers of the importance of not breaking the showers. Percy and Jason exchanged glances, silently conveying the fact that they were both finally glad to have their own cabins, for once.
Many eons later, when Chiron had finished his uncomfortable spiel about "proper shower behavior", he gestured for Leo to stand up.
"Hola y'all," Leo began. "As you may or may not know, I landed myself in a pretty strange situation last year, when I was kinda just hurled haphazardly onto a picnic table in Ogygia. One thing led to another, and I somehow managed to get myself into a Stygian promise to break Calypso out of her hell of a paradise. Not that it's a bad thing," he hastened to add, "seeing as she's gorgeous and has a bad case of the Leos, something that – eheheh – doesn't happen as often as I'd care to admit."
Someone snickered.
"So anyway," Leo continued, glaring at the general direction of the snickerer, "I've gotten all of the necessary necessities to go rescue my chica, so I'm just here to do two things – say goodbye and appoint Jake Mason interim Hephaestus counselor. Jake?"
Jake stood up. Percy hadn't even noticed he was here, but when he noticed Jake's embarrassed look, he started to applaud, throwing Jake a wink. The other counselors followed suit, Jake shooting Percy a grateful glance before settling down again.
"Anyhoo," Leo began again, "I'll be leaving tomorrow, don't know how long I'll be, sort of like a solo quest situation, except this one is well-planned." He grinned. "So sayonara, adios, see y'all eventually."
Jason gave a wolf-whistle and Leo bowed before taking a seat.
"Connor?" Chiron said. "You're up."
Connor stood. "Hey, guys." He stepped out from in front of his chair to pace behind the table, and Percy was struck suddenly by how tired he looked. "This has been coming for a while, but I finally have to put my foot down. Cabin Eleven is too full."
Still seated, Travis nodded in agreement.
"I know Hermes is the god of travelers, so that kind of makes us the best cabin to hold everyone, but we've got some problems. Despite that oath that Percy got out of the gods a few years ago-"
Everyone looked at Percy, who didn't really notice, too preoccupied with wondering vaguely why his stomach was no longer in his abdomen.
"-But there are still too many unclaimed kids. I don't know if you guys know this, but we have eighteen unclaimed kids. Nine of them - that's half, guys - half of them are younger than eleven. We have twenty-two children of minor gods who are still waiting on their cabins to be built. Leo-"
Leo had stood. "I want to take responsibility for that. I haven't been giving my full attention to this project." He turned to Jake. "Jake, we'll redouble our efforts?"
"Of course," Jake said.
Connor nodded. "Thank you. However, we still have quite a few campers of our own, so we really do need to move some campers out in the interim. We have sixteen beds and fifty-three campers."
Percy could tell by the gasps that something had happened, but he was really focusing more on not vomiting. He forced himself to pay attention.
"Travis and I haven't slept in a bed since before Luke came to camp."
More gasps. Party looked over at Annabeth. Her brow was furrowed. She appeared to be thinking hard.
"All we're asking is for some brainstorming. Travis and I can handle the kids and be good counselors, but the kids can't handle the lack of space."
"Why don't we put them in my cabin?" Percy asked quietly. Only those closest to him appeared to have heard. Annabeth jerked her hands in an upward motion, as if to say, louder.
Percy cleared his throat. "Can't they go in my cabin?" he asked, as loudly as his head would allow.
Now everyone was looking at him. Shit. Bad idea. "My cabin has sixteen beds, and I use one. Tyson hasn't been back in years. Give me sixteen kids, I'll take the floor."
Clarice looked at Chiron. "Isn't there a rule about only Poseidon kids in Poseidon's cabin?"
Not giving Chiron time to answer, Percy snapped, "If he has a problem with it, he can come down here and talk to me about it."
Chiron gazed at Percy thoughtfully for a moment, before he finally said, "Okay. We'll send fifteen kids to Percy's cabin."
Someone said something else, but Percy couldn't make out the words. The noises reverberated in his head and he wished everyone would talk more quietly. He thought he would either vomit or pass out, and he couldn't figure out which one he would rather.
"If we want to send a group of fifteen to the Poseidon cabin, is there a logical cutoff?" Chiron asked, turning to Connor.
"We'll send fifteen of the unclaimed, starting with the youngest so we keep them together," Connor said, turning to Percy for affirmation. Percy, however, was gauging how long it would take him to make it out of the room in the likely event he wouldn't make it through the meeting.
"Percy, sound good?" Chiron asked again. Percy looked up, startled.
"Sure."
"I have fifteen beds, too," Jason said. "You can send some my way."
"Hades' cabin is empty," Connor reminded them. "That's another sixteen."
"But with no counselor?" Clarisse pointed out.
"If you're halving our kids, I could sleep there for a while. Send the kids of the minor gods who are waiting for their cabins. That way, it won't be permanent. Or we could put-" Travis stopped as Percy stood up. "Percy?"
Percy didn't answer, moving around the table and towards the door as quickly as possible. He grabbed the wastepaper basket as the door slammed shut behind him.
There was silence in the room. Chiron looked at Annabeth. "He wasn't feeling well," she said apologetically.
"Why'd he need the garbage?" Clarisse asked. "Is he throwing up? And why isn't anyone following him?"
Will stood up. "I got this," he said pushing the door open and stepping out.
"If he was feeling sick enough to throw up, then why did he come to the meeting?" Clarisse persisted.
Annabeth tried to fend the question off with a wave of her hand. "Oh, you know Percy, he won't admit to anything."
Will walked back in. "He's fine. We'll wait a sec for him, okay?"
They sat in silence, Leo drumming his fingers on the table until the door opened and Percy stepped back in, looking terrible. He sat down next to Annabeth, who laced her fingers through his despite the clamminess of his hands.
"You okay?" Connor asked him. "You don't look too good, maybe you should skip the meeting."
"I'm fine," Percy interrupted, then reconsidered. "Actually, there's something I have to tell you guys."
Leo gave him a discreet, encouraging thumbs up.
"Um, I... I have cancer."
"Are you serious?" Clarisse asked immediately, her eyes wide. Percy nodded. Annabeth squeezed his hand under the table.
"So are you, you know..." Travis trailed off.
"Gonna die?" Percy finished with a grin smile. "We'll see."
"What cancer is it?" Clarisse demanded.
"It's, um, osteosarcoma - bone cancer?" Percy said. "I've actually known for a while, you know, had some stuff done, treatment, whatever. I - I'm not fully human anymore, I'm part-cyborg," he joked. "Leo built this awesome thing-" he rolled up his sleeves and pulled off the glove, revealing the prosthesis but keeping the angry red flesh above it covered.
"Wicked," breathed Travis leaning in closer. "I mean-" He stopped awkwardly.
"It's okay - I just - I mean, you guys should know. Because I've been, you know - you deserve to, I guess. And now you know what's going on."
There was an awkward silence for a moment, until Percy said suddenly, "Listen, it's all fine, it's all good, just treat me normally and I'll worry about myself. Don't tell anyone, that's my prerogative, and don't - don't make it weird, okay?"
No one answered, so Chiron cleared his throat. "Meeting adjourned. Connor, Percy, and Jason?" The room emptied slowly, Annabeth squeezing Percy's hand again before leaving. When it was just the four of them left, Chiron turned to Connor. "We'll need a list of all of your campers. Actually, if it isn't too much hassle, make two - one sorting them by age and then one by parent."
"Roger that," Connor said.
"You should have said something earlier," Jason told him. "Fifty-three kids is really not fair to you guys, especially when Percy and I are on our own."
"Yeah, um, about that," Connor said, turning to Percy. "Are we sure it's the best idea to give you a full cabin right now? I mean, maybe we should wait and see what happens with-"
"No," Percy interjected. "Don't you think it's a bit suspicious if we start moving campers around and my cabin's still empty? Plus, I'm not an invalid. I can handle some kids."
Connor put his hands up. "I didn't mean that," he said defensively. "I just-"
"What if we fill up the other cabins first and give Percy what's left?" Chiron interjected. "There should be eight campers left, right? Eight isn't too many, and if it becomes a problem we'll enlist some other counselors."
"Sounds great," Jason said immediately, seeing Percy open his mouth to argue. "Right, Perce?"
Percy closed his mouth in defeat. "Yeah, I guess."
"That's settled, then," Chiron said definitively. "Connor, go gather your campers for dinner. I'll see you there momentarily." He shooed them out the door.
"I have the preliminary reports on the new chemo," Dr. Semmel said, stepping fully into the room and closing the door. "I can show you now or we can wait to have a meeting later."
"No, now," Percy said immediately.
She nodded. "Usually, I wouldn't, but I know your schedule is tight now." She slid a chair closer to where Percy was sitting and perched herself on the edge. She slid the scans from the envelope. "See this?" she asked, pointing. Percy nodded, because he did technically see waht she was pointing to, even though he had no clue what he was looking at. "The cells that had spread, the ones being targeted by the chemo, they're dying," she told him. "This is pretty good news. However." She paused, eyes roving over the scan. "It's going way too slowly. At this rate, the cells will eventually start bouncing back faster than the chemo can deal with them."
Percy's heart sank through the floor. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but Dr. Semmel, who hadn't noticed, started speaking again. "I'm going to increase the chemotherapy dosage and start you on radiation sooner than we planned. You'll have to take a day off of school for your first radiation, because you'll have to stay here so we can monitor you."
"When-" Percy started to ask, and Dr. Semmel filled in the answer immediately: "Next week? Let's say Monday or Wednesday morning?"
"Sure," said Percy, trying to infuse an air of nonchalance into his tone. "Monday sounds good."
"Great. I'll just ask you to set up an appointment with the receptionist before you leave." She stood up to go. "How's the chemo treating you so far?"
"Just nauseous," Percy said.
Dr. Semmel nodded. "You'll probably start noticing the physical changes within the week," she said. "Hair, nails, that sort of thing. I'd also advise you to start bringing a sweater when you come." She moved towards the door. "I'll see you on Monday, then." Percy nodded and she disappeared.
He looked up at the bag of chemo, cursing the black covering that protected it from the light. He couldn't tell how long he had left to go. He nudged the basin on the floor closer with his foot and looked back down at his book. The words swam in his head, probably due more to the poison coursing through his veins than to his standard dyslexia, which, as he'd noticed, was compounded by the meds. He slammed the book shut and exhaled sharply in frustration, leaning back against the head rest. What a goddamn week.
What a goddamn week, indeed.
Although how long has it been, really? At least a year and a half, right? That's insane. Sorry about that. Hope this makes up for it, though, and I hope to post with a bit more regularity, although I'm not sure how regular regular will be.
QUICK GAME - all of the above medications were chosen with intent. Try and guess what they're referring to in the reviews!
In the months that I've been MIA, I've gotten a total of 108 reviews. Guys. That's amazing. Thank you all for your support, and just know that I love you all.
I've gotten a lot of reviews and PMs asking me if I was okay, and while I did respond to most, I want you all to know how much it meant to me. Knowing that there were people who cared, total strangers who didn't know me from anything but this website, honestly helped me get through a lot, and I'm incredibly appreciative of all of you.
Short Update - The insane religious school situation got bad enough that I had to transfer, and that definitely eased the tension in that sense, but then things went haywire around home. I've taken on an inordinate amount of extracurriculars and jobs in an attempt to keep myself as busy as possible, which is why this took so long. That's mostly it :)
Thank you to all of the people that kept me going, specifically Toni and Justice and Esther, but of course to all of you guys who kept reading and reviewing, even though it seemed like I had vanished. I love you all.
As always, please follow, fave, and review! I try to respond to everything.
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