NUMB

Knocks on the door, the creak of a chair

Voices drift through the air

She hears nothing through the rasping breaths

That dangle her brother on the edge of death

They say that the human mind can only focus on one thing at a time. Sometimes, we have the illusion of pondering on several things all at once. But really, they're just flashes of different thoughts that go by so fast, you can't tell when one stops and the other begins. We cycle through memories, the good and the bad. One image leads to another and suddenly, you find yourself pulled away by the undercurrent of thought. You drift farther away and farther from reality until you lose yourself in the open waters.

The only problem was: Bianca couldn't keep her head up.

She was drowning, sinking deeper into the depths of guilt that had washed over her. Unanswered questions and stewed emotions wracked her mind. Was this all really happening? Out of all the people on the road that day, why did it have to be their car? After stealing Mom away from them all those years ago, was the world really taking Nico too?

"Unfair," she muttered to herself, throat raspy from lack of use. Bianca glanced at her brother's pallid face and tried to untangle some of the tubes and wires that were attached to his arms, his chest, his everything. Her hands were shaky and fumbled in their unnecessary task. "Why is life so unfair?"

"Because life just sucks sometimes," replied an unfamiliar voice.

Startled by the outward prod, Bianca's mind toppled out of its balanced tumult. She felt the reality of their situation come crashing down once again, her chest tightening to squeeze a few more tears out. But after the seemingly endless hours of waiting for Nico's surgery to end, all her tears had dried up; Bianca was left with no way to release the raw feelings that were mulling about her. Instead, she decided to talk. Talking about your feelings was good, right? So with her croaky, unused voice she turned to the spiky haired girl who'd popped into the room and asked, "Who are you?"

"Thalia Grace," the older girl said, stepping forward to sit on the chair Bianca's father had recently vacated. "Assistant head girl of Huntington Girl's Academy. The Headmistress wanted to talk to your dad and he asked me to keep an eye on you."

"I don't need to be babysat," Bianca said weakly.

"Well I'm here to keep an eye on your brother then," Thalia replied, crossing her arms. "From the looks of it, he's better off than you are."

Better off?

"How can you say that?" Just to double check, Bianca glanced back at her brother's fragile condition, at his beeping heart rate monitor, at the garish stitches that stretched across his torso, and wondered: how the hell could anyone think he was 'better off'?

"He's not beating himself up about something that obviously wasn't his fault," Thalia mused. She loosened the taught silver tie at her neck and let out a breathy sigh. "And he's on the road to recovery, as the dear doctors call it."

"But what if I'd just told him to buckle up? What if I listened to my gut and just begged to stay with dad? Why didn't I get out of that stupid car and look for help instead of just sitting there like an idiot?" Bianca rattled off every question, thought and statement that had been building up. She'd let go of her brother's hand in favour of gripping the low railing that surrounded his hospital bed. Her knuckles had turned white as she clutched the bar tighter. Her tirade dwindled into a whisper as she forced out the question that bore down on her like the weight of the sky. "What if the last thing I'll have told him was, 'Shut up, Nico'?"

"Don't let what could have happened bother you," the older girl advised. "That's just going to eat at you until you get more holes than Swiss cheese. And are you ever going to get an answer to all your what-if's? Nope, you aren't. So what's the point of asking something that can never be answered?"

"But he's got stitches and concussions!" Bianca went on, not answering the question. "Not to mention a broken rib—"

"And a punctured lung, I know. I read his file," Thalia interrupted, leaning back in her chair. "He'll pull through, don't worry."

"How do you know he'll be okay?" Bianca said, her voice back to its whisper. "The doctors said he only has a thirty four percent chance of surviving."

"That's going into surgery. Now that he's out, all he has to do is knit himself back together," Thalia told her. "Besides, I only had a twelve percent chance, and I kind of landed myself in the hospital on purpose."

But before Thalia's statement could settle, or Bianca could pose the obvious question, they heard a sound.

To Thalia, it sounded like a cat was choking on a hairball.

To Bianca, it was the most hopeful, hacking cough she'd ever heard.

"Nico!" she cried, leaning over her brother. "Nico, are you okay?"

Nico gave a soft groan before his eyes fluttered open. Panic spread across his face at the strange setting he found himself in. Bright white lights glared over him as he looked around for any sense of familiarity. He focused on his sister, standing way too close for comfort, and opened his mouth to say something. Unfortunately, all that came out was a rather unmanly croak.

"Oh God, he's mute," Bianca fretted.

"No, he's just thirsty," Thalia said, holding a cup of ice chips up for the boy to take. "He hasn't actually drunk anything in a while."

Nico reached out to take the cup from the girl-with-the-shockingly-blue-eyes and noticed something on his arm: stitches, the thread stained red with his own blood. He put a hand to his head and felt a mess of bandages wrapped around matted hair. Obnoxious beeps filled the air and Nico saw some kind of machine, beeping faster with every frightened gasp he took.

He croaked again, this time more urgently, before remembering the cup in his hand.

"Drink," Ms. Blue Eyes said while Bianca nodded encouragingly. "You'll be able to talk afterward."

As he downed his cup, Nico felt some tingling.

"The anaesthetics should be wearing off," Thalia informed the two of them. "It'll take a while before it's fully out of his system though."

"Bianca," came Nico's rasping voice.

"Yeah?" Bianca heeded, too overcome with relief to string together full sentences.

Nico looked intensely into his sister's black-brown eyes, the same colour as his, and confessed: "M-my legs, I can't feel them."

Note: Short chapter because I felt like that'd be a good place to end it. Also, this means you get your Nico-news earlier :) Maybe I'll get the Thalia!Backstory/Percabeth fluff chap out this weekend...but no promises. School's starting to get into that annoying overwhelming stage again :p

Also, I'm curious. How many people actually read the chapter titles?