August 5

Will

Nico had been asleep for nearly 24 hours, which was fine and good according to Will. Nico needed it, and Will needed some time between him and his praise-Nico monologue yesterday. He couldn't believe he had rambled about Nico to Nico for so long. Hopefully the other boy would wake up and barely remember due to exhaustion or something.

The infirmary was almost empty now. Nectar and ambrosia and rest had healed most of those wounded in the battle enough to move back into their cabins. The Romans left camp earlier that day. Hazel, Frank and Reyna had stopped by to say goodbye to Nico, but insisted they didn't want to wake him when they found him still sound asleep. Hazel left a note and Reyna just put her hand on Nico's shoulder. Will noticed that some color seemed to return to his cheeks from her touch.

"Thanks for taking such good care of him, Will. I know he'd never come in here on his own," Hazel said quietly, smiling warmly as Frank and Reyna gazed at Nico's bandaged arms.

"Oh, you know, just doing my duty as a healer. It's nothing," Will replied awkwardly.

"Well, regardless, I'm glad you'll be at Camp Half Blood year-round. He isn't too great at letting people help him, or reaching out in general. It'll make me worry about him less knowing that he'll have a friendly face. And that you aren't afraid to lock him up in here and make sure he rests when he needs it," she said, smiling at him.

Reyna turned her solemn eyes to Will. "Nico is a true friend of mine. I don't have many of those, but I do have the whole Twelfth Legion at my command. I expect you to keep him safe, Solace."

"I - what? Yeah, of course," Will stammered. He had only seen Reyna in battle and at the campfires, but Will knew she scared him more than any of Nico's skeletons would.

Frank laughed awkwardly behind her. "Uh, she's kidding. I mean, as fellow praetor I'll try to talk her out of sending an army after you or something." Will didn't find that too reassuring.

"Anyway," Hazel cut in, breaking some of the tension. "Say goodbye to Lou Ellen for me. Tell her that next time I see her I plan to have something mist-y to rival her pig bomb. And Chiron and I are already talking about a party for the two camps, so.. see you soon, I guess." And with that she gave Will a quick hug and the trio left.

Will checked Nico's vitals again - he had panicked night before when he reached to check his pulse and his hand passed right through Nico's wrist. He'd had to take it at his elbow, but it was a few minutes before Will's own hands had stopped shaking. With the sun shining through the window, though, Nico was back to being solid. Coach Hedge had said something about Gatorade and unicorn draught helping. He'd have to track him down on his lunch break and get the formula.

Just in case, Will pulled the curtains back from the window all the way before he finished tidying up the rest of the infirmary. He wasn't prepared for Reyna to send the legion just yet.

Nico

Nico woke up to a bluish-grey sky - was it dawn or dusk? As he gazed out of the window constellations began to show and he figured he'd missed at least a couple meals. He glanced to the side table and saw a folded note from Hazel. He opened it, smiling. Her handwriting had the distinct tilt and uniform letters of decades past, when good penmanship was enforced and people wrote each other constantly. It was comforting. She hinted that she was planning some sort of Camp Half Blood trip to visit New Rome, and she promised to come see him before then, and to Iris message once a week, and that if he shadow traveled to see her any time soon she'd have some choice words for him. Reyna had left a p.s. with a simple "stay solid." Never one to waste words.

He put the note down and looked up, surprised to see Will asleep in a recliner that hadn't been there earlier. There was paperwork on the table next to him and a clipboard halfway off his lap. A pitcher holding something that looked suspiciously like one of Coach Hedge's mixtures was sitting on top of the pile of papers.

Nico looked down at his hands - they seemed solid, and he felt better than he had in weeks. But when he looked closer he could tell the tips of his fingers were a little too transparent, especially in his hand that wasn't sitting in moonlight from the window. He reached for the glass of water next to him and his hand passed right through. He took a deep breath and shook his hand a bit, and was able to pick up the glass on the second attempt.

"It was worse last night," Will said from the chair. He put the clipboard on the table and picked up the pitcher.

"Coach Hedge made this for you, it shouldn't hurt. Last night you were translucent past your wrists, so I found him this afternoon. It looks like the disintegration or transparency or whatever receded, though, so maybe rest helped or maybe it's just not as late as it was when I checked on you last night. I took the night shift to keep an eye on it."

"Uh, thanks," Nico said, as Will poured whatever the clear blue stuff in the pitcher was into his now-empty glass. "How long was I out? Hazel visited?"

"Yeah, she and Frank and Reyna came by before they left this afternoon. You've been asleep for about 34 hours," Will said, as he took his pulse and made a note in his paperwork. "I'm guessing you're hungry? We have some food stashed in here, nothing too fancy though. Some bananas and oranges, peanut butter, potato chips, Pop-Tarts..."

"Yeah, Pop-Tarts are fine. Thanks." Nico thought Will seemed subdued, but maybe he was just tired. He couldn't help but watch the blond as he went to grab food from the main desk. The curtains around his bed were pulled back most of the way - he must have been the only one left in the infirmary. Nico still felt confused by Will's insistence that Nico was strong and brave and all that. Maybe healers were trained to make people feel better emotionally too?

"You don't need to stay here, you know," Nico said. "I'm the one who promised three days in the infirmary, I'm sure you have things you want to do, friends to go see, your own bed you'd like to sleep in."

"What? No. I mean, I do have friends and a bed, but … I'd rather be here. Unless ... you'd rather I leave you alone?" Will looked unsure.

"No, it's nice ... having you here. I just don't want to take up all your time or something. I'm not like, bleeding out or whatever, so," Nico said as he opened the Pop-Tarts.

"Bleeding out isn't that big of a deal, trust me," Will said, cracking a grin. "Actually, I need to take a look at your arms - I didn't want to mess with them and wake you up. I'll show you a cool Apollo trick. It's no shadow travel or zombie army, but not all of us can be the Ghost King."

Nico rolled his eyes at the nickname, but stuffed a piece of the Pop-Tart in his mouth and held out his arms. Will laughed and started unwrapping the bandages. The cuts already looked better - not tinged with red anymore - but they still had a rough look to them. Will held his hand right over one of the smaller cuts - Nico hadn't noticed how long and graceful his fingers were - and started quietly chanting. A soft glow came from Will's hand and Nico felt a dry warmth flood through him. When Will took his hand away there was just a faint line left.

"Darn, you can still see it," Will said, leaning closer. His breath tickled Nico's skin and he felt his pulse jump. "Usually I can get it so there's no scarring, but these are a bit more than the standard sword wound."

"No, that was - that was really cool," Nico said, ignoring the butterflies that had woken back up in his stomach. "Do you do that a lot?"

"Yeah, I usually do it right away but I wanted to make sure the infection was out of there first," Will said, as he moved his hand over the next one. "The craziest one I did was after that wild chariot race a year or two back, and some poor girl had been hit with a flying piece of metal. She was lucky it didn't take her head clean off, but it did slice right through her ear. Her friends dragged her in, half carrying her while she was hyperventilating and sobbing something about never wearing earrings again, and someone handed me her ear and I sort of taped it in place and chanted and it was as good as new. She was still covered in blood and looked ghastly but just looked in a mirror and stopped crying and walked right back out with her friends like nothing happened," Will said, grinning.

He did the chant over the next few cuts, and like the first one just a thin line of scar tissue was left.

"Do all of your siblings do this?" Nico asked. "I haven't seen anything like it at Camp Jupiter. They have all sorts of creams and herbs and stuff to speed healing, but it still takes a day or two."

"Right now I'm the only one in the cabin who can. Kayla has some other healing skills, but most of my siblings have archery or music or something. I'm terrible at the rest of it, but at least I have this and that whistle and some prophetic dreams and can do some other small things like poetry curses and making people get the flu. Who knows, maybe one day I'll pick up a mandolin and will suddenly be able to play, but for right now this is it," Will shrugged and moved to Nico's other arm.

Nico watched as he healed the other cuts, and by the time he was done Nico had gotten used to Will's touch and had gotten the butterflies under control. Will's hand lingered over Nico's arm when he finished, and then he gently ran his fingers over the faint scars. Nico suppressed a shiver. Will's hand moved to Nico's.

"Your fading looks a bit better," he said as he turned and squeezed Nico's fingers. "Maybe getting those cuts healed helped - gave your body some extra energy to, you know, stay solid," Will laughed. "I still want you to try to finish that pitcher before you go to sleep again, though."

"Ugh."

Will laughed again. Nico felt a bit lighter from the sound. Maybe it was another Apollo thing. "Oh yeah, when Reyna was in earlier it looked like she sort of healed you too? Your color came back a bit from her just touching you. Who is she a daughter of?"

"Oh, uh, Bellona, Roman war goddess," Nico said. Will probably liked Reyna or something - nobody could deny that she was beautiful and strong and intelligent, and the whole Praetor thing was pretty impressive. Nico's stomach sank a bit just the same.

"Ha, that explains it. She's terrifying. No offense, but I'd take your walking dead stuff over her anger any day."

Nico felt a flash of relief. As much as he wanted Reyna to be happy, he wasn't sure if he could stomach her with Will. Just because ... he and Will were friends, probably, and it was new … that's all. "She isn't that scary. She just has a lot on her plate - a lot of people she has to be strong for. I don't envy her job, but she's great at leading the legion. I'm lucky to know her."

"Yeah, that and she basically threatened me with the Roman army if I let something happen to you," Will smiled, but Nico thought he looked a bit nervous.

"She- she what? Why?"

"Well, they all seem to think that you don't exactly take very good care of yourself. Not sure where they might have gotten that idea from..." Will said, glancing up and grinning, "but both she and Hazel decided that I need to make sure you take advantage of our state-of-the-art healing facility here when you need it."

Nico scoffed and glared at his feet. "I take care of myself. You didn't tell them the same hero-story you made up about me the other day, how I went out in the world and got all amazing and stuff?"

Will blushed and turned away to throw out the old bandages. "Uh, no, I try to limit my unsolicited rants to just one a week, so…"

Nico lost his train of thought when he noticed Will's blush. The other boy seemed to switch between overconfident and unsure a few times each conversation. Nico backed down.

"Well … I guess I can finish Coach Hedge's drink so you can tell Reyna that you tried your best," Nico said as he picked up his glass.

Will smiled at him. Not one of his casual grins or playful smiles, but something … softer. Nico tried to drown the butterflies with the rest of the blue concoction.

"Thanks, I appreciate it. Maybe when your strength is back up you can help me out with my sword fighting - just in case."

Nico nodded and tried not to blush. He looked around the room and scrambled to think of something to say before an awkward silence settled in or Will decided to do work around the infirmary or something…

"Uh, so Hazel wrote something about a Camp Jupiter trip? Did she mention anything to you when she was here?"

"Nope - just that she was working on something. That would be cool, though," Will said as he sat back in his recliner. "Is Camp Jupiter like this one? But, just with California palm trees or something?"

"Not at all," and Nico started to describe New Rome - the way the legion was structured, their war games, and all of the people living in the city. Will seemed excited to visit the New Rome hospital and to find out that there was a university. Nico hadn't really paid much attention to that - planning for the future wasn't something he was used to - but Will started explaining all of the training that went into becoming a doctor and wondering if there was a med program and if they had classes about treating monster attack wounds.

Nico couldn't help but smile at Will's enthusiasm. He had stopped understanding most of what Will was talking about once the blond had started going into detail about some infectious disease class he sat in on at a community college near where he grew up, and instead Nico noticed the way Will talked with his hands when he was excited and how his eyes seemed to turn more blue and maybe the room even got brighter. Nico eventually yawned in the middle of Will telling him about the similarities and differences between treating a hellhound bite and a regular dog bite.

"Oh my gods, I'm sorry," Will said, blushing a little. "You're probably so bored, I just nerded out so hard. Right, it's super late, you should be sleeping. I know I said I didn't make you come in here so I could talk at you forever, I wasn't lying. I just never thought there might be somewhere I could study to be a doctor for demigods and not just mortals."

"I think it's great," Nico said. "When we go to New Rome I'm sure I could ask Reyna to get us - er, you - a tour of the place."

"Cool, yeah, totally, we should do that," Will said, looking around the room. "Well, I'll stop bugging you and go finish this paperwork over at the desk. Try and get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow."

Will stood and turned off the light in Nico's half of the infirmary. Nico could still see the main desk Will sat at, reading through the stack of papers and signing off at the bottom or making some extra notes.

Nico was a bit tired, but felt like his mind wouldn't be able to shut down. It was sort of crazy that a couple weeks ago, the most he knew about Will Solace was that he was the camp's best combat medic. Now, Nico thought they were probably friends - was this how you became friends with someone without having to fight monsters next to them? Before he found out he was a demigod he had spent most of his childhood with his sister, playing video games at the Lotus Hotel, or obsessed with Mythomagic. Not really activities that made it easy to get to know other kids.

He was mostly surprised that Will seemed to be making an effort to talk to Nico. He was used to most people giving him a wide berth, but his creepy appearance and underworld powers and intimidating father didn't seem to bother Will. Nico wasn't complaining, though. Soon the rest of the Seven would leave camp and the thought of hanging out with Will … even if it was just sometimes helping him with sword fighting or something … made the next few months seem a lot more promising.