A/N Sorry again for the end of the last chapter, I'm never sure how my stuff is gonna end when I start it, but when I write and I have an idea, I just have to use it...

Thanks for reviewing, guys. Here is the promised update.

It hurt. Will lay still as waves of pain smashed against him and washed over him. He kept his eyes closed, worried about what he would see when he opened them. What was going on? How long had he lain here? Listening hard over the noise of his pulse, he tried to detect his attackers. Nothing. No footsteps. Nothing.

Where did they go? Why had they stopped?

Will wondered if he was dead. If he was, at least he could still tell Nico to watch out. He wouldn't have thought that death hurt this much, but then he'd never died before, or talked to anyone who had. Maybe this was what dying always felt like.

Then he heard breathing. It was rapid and shallow, and slightly panicked. Someone was sitting next to him; sitting quite close judging by how loud their breathing seemed. This reassured Will: if he was dying, he shouldn't be able to hear anything...

The other person was saying something, he realised. They sounded tired and sad, and yet slightly desperate.

"Will, please. Wake up! Please wake up for me. P-please..." something warm landed on his hand. Was the other person crying?

"Come on, Will. Open your stupid eyes! Will!"

I should probably see what's going on...

With a tremendous effort, Will cracked open one eye. The other person caught their breath.

"That's it, Will. Wake up."

It was dark. Something white was just in front of his face, though, and as he adjusted to the darkness, he realised it was a hand. Only one person he knew had hands that pale.

"Ni-Nico?" That hurt his chest, and a nasty throbbing started in his temple.

Nico responded at once. "Yeah, Will, I'm here. Are you alright?"

Will pondered that question as he tried to open his eyes fully. One of them opened. The other... didn't. That gave him his answer.

"No." Holy Hephaestus, that hurt.

"No, of course you're not. Why did I even ask that? You look about as far from 'alright' as it's possible to get!"

"Thanks, Nico."

Nico chuckled weakly. "Sorry."

"Am I still -in the -cave?" His voice was interspersed with small gasps of pain. Definitely a broken rib, maybe two or three. There went his plans for the week. His headache increased.

"Yeah, sorry. I know you hate the dark-" Will winced "-, but I didn't want to move you... I didn't know how much damage they did. Do you want to try and sit up?"

It was probably a bad idea.

"Thanks."

Several painful minutes later, they had managed to manoeuvre Will into a sitting position; he leant against one of the walls of the cave.

Now that he was looking Nico full in the face, he could see that the pale boy was exhausted.

"Tell me what- ow! What happened," he requested.

As he took inventory of his injuries, Nico began.

"I got back to where we planned to meet, and you weren't there. I checked in the infirmary" -his left leg was just bruised, not broken- "and they said they hadn't seen you, so I retraced your steps." Right leg, also fine, if tender. His ankle, however... not broken, but...

"Nothing," Nico continued, "so I started shadow jumping around in the forest. I thought maybe you were planning to jump out on me, you know?"

Left arm: fine, but very painful.

"And then I saw Darla," Nico's face twisted with hatred, "standing outside this cave. I could hear chanting from inside, and when I walked up to her, she drew her sword on me." He held up a cut on his hand. "Took me by surprise, but I knocked her out. Then I checked the cave. I could hear them chanting..."

A large cut and several small gazes on his right arm- that was the one that had been trapped under him.

"I got in here and saw... you know what I saw. And then I kinda... exploded." Nico looked away from Will for the first time.

"What happened?"

"Skeletons." Will recalled the hand shooting up from the earth before he had blacked out. "Sy and Benji got pretty much what they gave, really. Then I went outside and grabbed Darla. All three of them are somewhere in Australia..."

That explained why he looked so tired.

Torso. Heavy bruising, but probably no internal bleeding. Second and third ribs broken on his left, and the third rib on the right side. "You have to go back for them, you know."

Nico scowled.

"Nico."

"Will, they were going to kill you! I'm not bringing them back here! Not now, not ever! Anyway, they'll come round soon. They'll probably be back here as soon as they work out where they are..."

Will couldn't really argue with that.

Nico looked back at him. "I'm going to tell Clarisse about it, though. She can control her cabin, and Nemesis won't touch you without allies."

"You thought that through."

Neck, fine. Shoulders, fine. Face...

"I had some time to think. While I waited for you to... to wake up."

Will blinked with his one good eye, and his head throbbed particularly painfully. "Why? How long was I out?"

Face. Split lip, broken nose.

"They broke my nose!"

Nico glanced at it. "Your nose ithe least of your problems..."

Blood was matted into his hair around a large lump above one ear, hence the headache. Ouch... And a huge bruise in the place of one eye.

"About an hour and a half. I I was worried that you weren't planning on waking up..."

Will winced again. An hour and a half?

Placing his fingers over his chest, he tried to push some magic into it to speed up his healing. No joy. Maybe he couldn't heal himself...? But then, he'd never been able to heal bones...

Nico seemed to be thinking the same thing. "Can't you do that healing thing?"

"Apparently not..."

Nico placed a hand on his arm. "Come on, let's get to the infirmity. I'd shadow-travel us, but I don't have enough energy, and-" his words were cut short by a gasp from Will, and he jerked his hand away.

"No, come back! Put your hand on my arm again."

The dark haired boy looked worriedly at him.

"Just do it, Nico! Good, now focus on me. Focus on my ribs..." Will put his fingers back over his chest, and there was a snapping sound. He cried out, but the pain stopped quickly. Feeling them again, he discovered that his ribs were no longer broken.

"Nico... how did you do that?"

Nico backed away. "I didn't do anything! It was all you. All you!"

Will shook his head. "No, I couldn't. But together, we... we mended my bones!"

He grabbed Nico's hand and touched a bruise on his forearm. Nothing happened.

"It must be something to do with the skeleton thing you can do, so we can't fix my nose, 'cause its cartilage... but hey! When we work together, we can fix bones!" He grinned at his saviour (it hurt, but he did it anyway), who grinned back, if a little reluctantly.

"Come on then, Sunshine. Let's get you to the infirmary. And then we'll have a talk with Clarisse."

Will stood up slowly, being careful of his tender limbs and back. When he tried to walk, however, he found that he couldn't.

My ankle really is sprained.

"Um, I could use some help here..." he blushed slightly.

Nico rolled his eyes, then ducked under his arm to help support his weight.

It was only as they left the cave in the light of the late afternoon sun that Will realised that the dark had not held such menace for him then. Nico seemed to keep the shadows at bay.

A/N Hope you're enjoying it! This chapter was mainly to fix the end of the last chapter, but we had some important stuff in there... hopefully more fluff next time (and important plot stuff...)

~Fi