Nico

Words cannot describe the pain I felt, lying there in that hospital bed. I felt numb under pressure. An IV tube was stuck in my left arm, a large white cast on my right. I felt a wrap of some sort around my head, which was probably why I had a head ache. I also felt numerous small bandages along my free arm and legs.

My vision was blurry when I first opened my eyes. White sheets of the hospital bed looked like big blobs of spilt milk at first. When I could see clearly, I looked around to observe my surroundings. There was some device that looked like it kept track of my heart rate or something like that. The little red numbers shot up when I looked at it and the jagged lines grew more pointed. My guess is that it was good. Blinking rapidly, I made my attempts to sit up but they failed.

"Ungh…" I groaned. Then, just as if I had set off an alarm, two nurses dressed in white burst in, looking at me worriedly.

"What happened?" One asked urgently gazing from the end of my bed up.

"Are you okay?" The other asked, as if I could answer right away. I grunted.

"I don't know you're the doctor- you tell me." I said, then realizing how that came out. I didn't bother to rephrase what I had said because the nurse had left the room, leaving me with the first nurse who had spoken. Her gaze was serious.

"Are you Nico?" She asked, reaching for a clipboard that was apparently placed on the side of my bed. My head fell a little deeper into my pillow.

"Yes, I'm Nico." I said my voice almost hostile. My whole body ached.

"So Nico, do you have any idea what happened at the Grand Canyon?" She asked me again, not looking away from the clipboard. I didn't want to answer that question, so I decided to lie.

"G-Grand Canyon?" I bluffed. "I was never at the Grand Canyon."

The nurse knit her eyebrows together as she set down the clipboard. "Well then, we've got a lot of work to do. At least you're better off then your sister. When you fell, you landed in a patch of shrubbery that caught your fall. Your sister wasn't so lucky."

That's when the thought hit me. Bianca! What did she mean, saying I was better off than Bianca? Beads of sweat seeped through the bandage around my head. All I could manage to squeak out was "Huh?" The nurse smiled weakly and patted my head.

"Just get some rest. We'll get you some soup in a bit." She then turned around and left, leaving the door open. She left me in utter confusion, worry, and fear.

Bianca…Bianca…Bianca…dead….dead…dead…Bianca…dead….no…no…NO!

If she died, I couldn't let her go without seeing me. Slowly lifting my casted arm down my arm with the IV tube in it, I squeezed my eyes shut as I grabbed a hold of the tube. I took a deep breath as I yanked it out.

"Ouch!" I cried silently as tears streamed down my cheek. I kept my hand over the detached tube, covering it, as another alarmed nurse came in.

"Is everything okay in here?" She asked, popping her head in the room. I nodded.

"Yeah, just my broken arm is cramping is all." I said.

"Do you need some pain medication?" She asked. I shook my head no.

"I should be fine," My voice was weak. "They gave me some a few minutes ago."

Skeptical, the nurse nodded and walked away. Now I could focus on getting out of the bed. Dropping the IV tube, I used my free hand to reach under my back and slowly lift myself up. This was fairly simple because the bed was propped up. I was now sitting up in the bed. Trying to keep quiet, I slowly brought one leg off the bed, then another.

As I uncovered myself I found myself drowned in embarrassment. I was in a cheap hospital gown. Darting my eyes around the room, I spotted a pile of clothing folded on the side table. I recognized them as my clothes from when I was at the Grand Canyon. Slowly, I got up and walked over to the table. I was shaky and unstable as I walked, but I made it to the table. The wrap on my head began to ache as I pulled on my shirt. I winced as I unsettled a few of the bandages. Next I pulled up my shorts. Staring at my cut up body, I looked as if I had just stepped out of a war. There was a bandage that wrapped around the circumference of my ankle so I was careful when I put my shoes on. I pulled my sock over it as much as I could to try and hide it. Once I was fully clothed, I took the thin white sheet of the hospital bed and tore a piece of it off so I could tie it around my head like a bandana. I did this to hide the bandage around my head.

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Bianca

There have been so many times where I have been ashamed at myself for not being the stronger one. Poor Nico was only ten and he already was more mature than any other ten year old I have ever known. This was one of those times.

At one point, I could literally feel the life ebbing from me- I could see images flashing past my face of me and Nico. I didn't want to lose him and I didn't want him to lose me. That was what kept me going. Every time I thought about Nico, I heard the beeping on the heart monitor speed up. I couldn't open my eyes so all I could do was dwell in darkness of my hospital bed. Pain was something I couldn't feel. As a matter of fact, I couldn't feel anything except the motion of people bustling around me. As the beeping sped up though, the more things I felt. For one, I felt something sticking up my nose, pumping oxygen threw it. Grateful for this, it helped me breathe a whole lot easier. It hurt to move. I felt tubes and needled stuck up and down my arms. I felt so helpless in that hospital bed. It was almost as if I was paralyzed from waist down. Wait, maybe I was Oh man!What if I had to be in a wheelchair? Nico and I would get split up for sure then. They'd probably put me in some special needs facility that was filled with a bunch of creepy sick people and Nico would be sent away to a foster home by himself. Or maybe Nico was paralyzed too! Then we'd be defenseless. Or even worse, maybe Nico was dead. These were the thoughts that were rolling through my head while I sat there in darkness. I couldn't tell how my body reacted to this, but I felt more movement- like nurses began to get more worried than ever.

After a small period of time, I'm not sure how small; the action died down around me and started up away from me. What was happening? I could hear the voices in the distance, but I wasn't sure how far away. Maybe I was dying.

That was when I heard the shouting.

"You have to let me see her, she's my sister!" Nico. "Please, please let me in!"

My eyes flew open.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Nico

The nurses could be so unreasonable when they wanted to be. Here I was, a ten year old desperate to see his dying sister and then they come and try to push me away.

"You have to let me see her, she's my sister!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. One nurse pulled me back and shushed me. I rebelled and twisted out of her grip only to land in the arms of another nurse. Suddenly feeling the burst of energy I needed, I writhed in the grip of the nurse until I fell flat on my face. "Ouch." Then there was a deeper call, more like a doctor rather than a nurse. Blinking rapidly, I felt a nurse lift me up gently and set me on the hospital room armchair. I let my head rest on the back of it because of the fact it was pounding.

"We have a response!" Was the man's call. I was getting the gist that this guy was the head man around here or at the very least this room. Before I knew it, the nurses had swarmed around Bianca's bedside, and were working vigorously. I couldn't see what they were doing but I sure as heck wanted to. I felt the urge to run over and shove all of the nurses and doctor away, but something told me to keep myself glued to the chair. I didn't know if it was fear or what, but I wouldn't move.

That was when I heard her voice.
"Nico…Nico…" It was a weak, almost whispery call, but I heard it. Her soft voice gave me the adrenaline rush I needed to stand up, but that was all. The beeping noise, it was speeding up. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing but I guess it was because the nurses seemed to start relaxing. I kept alert, to see if I could still hear her. I couldn't. That was when the beeping slowed down. I bit my lip in nervousness.

"We're losing her." The doctor said softly in his voice of authority. I was scared now, scared for Bianca's life.

That is until I knew what to do.

"Bianca." I said out loud, a very simple name that meant so much in my mind. Without that simple name I probably would die. The weird thing was is that when I said her name, the beeping sped up a little. Not so much, but it was definitely getting faster. After I said this, the nurses turned to me with wide stares, like I was some miracle worker. My lip quivered as I repeated myself. "B-Bianca." I said the name with meaning, with heart-felt love. To my surprise, the beeping got even faster. I saw a tear slip from one of the nurse's eye.

"Come here boy." She said, pulling me gently over to her bedside. Bianca looked so pale it was almost like seeing a ghost. I couldn't count the number of tubes and bandages were placed on her. All I could really focus on was her face. I knelt down by the bed to face her eyes. They were closed, but I was sure she had opened them when she heard me.

"Bianca, please." I begged as I reached over the bed to grab her cold hand. "Don't go. I can't imagine what it would be like without you. Please."

The beeping got a little faster and the numbers climbed. I could have sworn I felt her hand squeeze mine. After all that we had been through, I knew I wasn't going to lose her from a little fall. "Bianca, you can do this."

For two seconds, it was silent. For two seconds, not one word was spoken, not one tear was shed. After those long two seconds, Bianca's eyes opened. As dull as they were, I was never happier to see them. They were big, brown, and beautiful. A small smile spread across my face as the nurses behind me cried in disbelief.

"N-Nico." Was the first word out of her mouth. Next thing I know, we're both crying tears of joy. We knew that we had finally found each other again.

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A/N- I honestly have no real excuse for not updating… sorry :(. This will probably be the last chapter of this story, be it sad to say. I say this because (if anyone has read the Last Olympian…) That the story'd be kinda hard to tie together. From here, they are sent to that boarding school and then all that jazz with Percy. I really hoped you enjoyed the story!

~Rainy