In the West Wing, the red phones— the phones that no one ever wants to hear ring— were rattling off of their holders at top volume. Secret Service agents who normally strolled the halls casually with mugs of coffee on their breaks were clipping on headsets and checking their ammunition packs, sprinting through the hallways and yelling code words that most of the staffers had never heard of.

"Eagle is fine—"

"Two down."

"One hit— repeat, one is hit. Two cars to Sibley— no, scratch, make that three cars to Sibley, enact Code Two One Seven."

"Praetor is hit, car three to Sibley."

At that, Piper grabbed her phone, her wallet, and her jacket and set off at as fast a walk as her heels would allow to Reyna's office. She knew what Code Two One Seven was, and it wasn't good. The drum of her pulse in her ears was loud enough to nearly block out the chaos erupting around her, and she smacked straight into a tall figure passing through a doorway.

"Oh, sorry—" she went to apologize, only to stop dead in her tracks. "Ms. Grace, what are you—"
Thalia Grace's mouth was set in a thin line, white knuckles clutching her own phone. "Praetor is hit. I just heard it on an agent's radio."

"That's Reyna's code name, isn't it." A lump rose in Piper's throat.

"And I haven't heard Jason's. That's my wife and my baby brother, and I don't care how important they are…" Thalia grimaced. "I'm getting a binder from Reyna's office and then I'm going to Sibley."

"Take me with you." Piper looked at Reyna's closed door and then back at Thalia.

"What?" Thalia blinked. "Oh. Jason. Right. You're the one who… "

Just then, another bit of radio chatter rushed past them on the radio clipped to an agent's belt. "Car with Princess to Sibley, FASTER."

Piper felt the blood drain from her face. "That's Annabeth's car. She's Princess. And Jason's in Annabeth's car today. What if— you don't think—"

Thalia's eyes went wide. "Wait here. I'm getting that binder, and then we'll go. I'll drive."

At Sibley General Hospital, Percy was in the waiting room outside of the surgery center and he couldn't manage to hold himself still. He'd cracked his knuckles, scraped as much of the asphalt and dirt and blood and goddamned smashed chocolate from his suit as he could, and now all he could do was sit, crossing and uncrossing his leg from his knee, jiggling his foot, fiddling with the loose threads from where his shirt cuff had torn when Annabeth had knocked him to the pavement.

Annabeth, who was now in a hospital bed, unconscious with a hole in her side.

Annabeth, who'd nearly bled out by the time they got to the hospital in the first place— Annabeth, who might have died for him, tackling him to protect him..

Finally, someone wearing scrubs and carrying a clipboard emerged. "Miss Chase is stable. Not awake, but—"

Percy surged out of his seat. "Can I see her?"

"Normally, we'd only allow family and emergency contacts to—"

"I was with her when it happened," Percy tried to explain. He was used to words and explanations pouring out easily, but all he could seem to do was stutter. "I was— I'm— she's my— Please."

The nurse gave him a long look, a note of appraisal in her eye as she glanced from the desperation written in the lines of his face to the White House staff badge on his belt. Finally, she nodded. "Fine. You can go on back, just be quiet about it."

He wasn't allowed to do more than just sit at her bedside either, but at least he could see her face and the machines attached to her, all ticking and beeping and providing continuous assurance that she was still alive. She was pale, the color leeched from her skin and lips, a thin sheen of sweat beading at her brow. The papery gown and hospital sheets she'd been wrapped in didn't help.

"I know you can't hear me," Percy muttered, gripping the arms of the stupid mostly-metal hospital chair because her arm was hooked up to an IV and he was too scared to take her hand, "But I'm going to say this anyway. I'm so fucking mad at you. I can't believe you did that. Or, maybe I can, because you always do the stupid thing and that's why you outrank me and that's why I can't believe you— God." He shook his head. "You might not have the damned nuclear codes, but we both know that if the White House was bombed tomorrow you'd get sent to the shelter with the President and I'd be left trying to find a way out. You don't get to save my life. That's not fair, or how this works. That's not… that's not okay. You don't get to die on me now. Hear that? You don't get to die for me."

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, trying to will her to move, to be okay. The machines ticked and beeped and her eyes moved back and forth under her closed lids, and nurses came in and out and swapped the liquid in her IV and checked her stitches and Percy just kept sitting there, hands clasped together in what might have been prayer if he was religious but instead was a silent appeal to willpower alone.

Finally, someone tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up, bleary-eyed, to see a haggard-looking Jason with a five-o-clock shadow appearing on his normally perfectly clean jawline. "We've got to go, Perce. I… something's happened."

Piper's first thought when they arrived at Sibley was that Thalia Grace drove like an insane person and it was a miracle she hadn't thrown up by the time they reached the parking deck. Her second thought was that no, Thalia drove like a woman whose wife and brother occupied immensely powerful positions in the U.S. government and had just been shot and, and she had no idea if any of them were okay.

The Secret Service agents at the doors to the hospital knew Thalia on sight, and let them in. Either they knew Piper, too, or they were too intimidated by the stony look on Thalia's face to stop her from following along behind her. Either way, it didn't take long before Thalia was barging down a hallway in search of someone to yell at, and Piper was slumped in a waiting room chair not far from the cafeteria where she'd just met Naomi Solace a few days earlier.

Piper stared down at her phone, at the dozens of unanswered texts she'd sent on the car ride there.

To Annabeth: Where are you?
To Jason: Are you okay?
To Percy: Wtf is going on over there?
To Silena: S, what just happened?
To Annabeth again: ANNABETH.
And again: ANSWER ME
To Jason: BABE, WHAT'S GOING ON
To Jason: ARE YOU OKAY
To Jason: With Thalia, we heard Reyna's code name, we're coming to Sibley
To Annabeth: WTF ARE YOU OKAY OR NOT

And then, right around the time Piper had realized that sending text after text to people in an active shooter situation might not be the smartest idea because what if someone was hiding somewhere and a gun went of near them— but no, that was stupid because they were all at an event in a loud noisy situation anyway, about five dozen news alerts had poured in, all about a shooting with no actual details, no information beyond what Piper already knew.

She didn't waste her time reading them, just sat there, gripping her phone so hard she worried for a moment the metal and carbon and glass of it all might bend in her slim fingers.

And then a raw scream ripped through the waiting room, nearly startling Piper out of her seat.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THERE'S NOTHING MORE THAT YOU CAN DO?" A slim guy wearing a band tee and slacks burst into the room, hot on the heels of a blond doctor in a white coat and scrubs. His dark hair stuck out at odd ends like he'd been raking his hands through it, and his tan cheeks flushed dark red.

"Mr. Di Angelo, I'm sorry. It's… we did everything we could. It was painless. Please." The doctor set his clipboard down on a nearby counter and reached out a hand to steady the dark-haired man— not that it did any good, as that hand was immediately knocked aside.

"Don't tell me you're fucking sorry." The dark-haired guy kicked a black leather boot into the gleaming tile floor, leaving an ugly scuff. "She's my sister, and she's DEAD, and you're sorry doesn't fucking bring her back."

"I know." The doctor shook his head, a strand of golden hair dangling down over his forehead.

The sight jogged something in Piper's memory, and she thought back to looking up Naomi Solace ahead of their conversation. Will. Her son's name was Will, and he worked here. And a patient in his care had died.

Di Angelo. She was pretty sure she knew that name, too. That was right, the pollster who they'd brought in to handle the questions about body cam requirements. He had a sister?

"Not fucking good enough," Di Angelo snapped, voice rising. "You bring her in there, all machines and knives and you carve her up and you put her on drugs, she didn't even know she wasn't alone in her dying moment, and then she dies in your care? That's as good as you pulling the goddamn trigger."

Will Solace didn't stumble, didn't take a step back in the face of Di Angelo's invective. Instead, he reached forward and laid that same hand as before on Di Angelo's arm, more firmly this time. "I did. Everything. I. Could. She wasn't in any pain. You want to be angry? Fine. Be angry at the guy who did it, or at the failures of modern medicine. Hell, if you've got it in you, be angry at the universe for putting her in the wrong time, wrong place. That's fine."

"Just don't be angry at you?" Di Angelo shook his head, voice breaking.

Piper tried to look away. This felt private; like something she shouldn't be seeing. But there was nowhere else to look, nowhere to really avert her eyes.

"No," Solace said, voice soft. "Be angry at me, too, if it'll help. I just… I don't think it will."

"I just…" a thud, as Di Angelo slid against a wall, losing his balance and his stride. "It's so unfair. She was so— it's so— the world's not supposed to go like this."

"I know." Solace grabbed Di Angelo's shoulder with his other hand, steadied him, pulled him back to his feet. "Trust me, I know."

Piper trained her eyes on the floor as Di Angelo slumped into Solace's arms, shaking.

A moment later, Percy and Jason came through the same doors from which Di Angelo and Dr. Solace had emerged. A rush of relief flooded Piper's chest. Jason was okay. They were okay, at least. They didn't seem to see her, Jason especially being more concerned with the distraught man crying into the surgeon's chest.

"I'm not going to tell you it's okay, or that it's going to be," Solace murmured. "Just know…"

Di Angelo spotted Percy and Jason and immediately straightened up. "You're right, it's not okay."

At the venomous look on Di Angelo's face, Jason took a step to the side, just a split moment faster than Percy did. That half-second difference was a half-second too much, as Di Angelo broke free of Solace's hold and swung a hard, wild punch at Percy's face. Percy stumbled back, cheekbone turning white, then red.

"YOU." Di Angelo roared. "You did this, you put her there."

"Mr. Di Angelo. Nico." Solace caught his fist before it went up for another swing. "Hey. It's..."

"Don't say it's not his fault." Di Angelo laughed, a horrid, grief-cracked laugh that cut through the air like a hacksaw through ice. "It is. She shouldn't have been there, shouldn't have been mixed up in this shit, and it's his fault she was."

Percy didn't defend himself, just tipped his head back against the wall with one hand to the forming bruise on his cheek.

Jason nodded to a Secret Service agent off to the side of the room. The agent muttered something quietly to Di Angelo, who made a rude gesture but allowed himself to be escorted out.

Finally, they turned and saw Piper. She leapt from her seat and half-fell into Jason's arms.

"You're okay," she said, breathless. "You— we heard— I thought..."

"Piper." Jason's voice was tense in her ear.

"Oh, no, you're right, not here." She shook her head. "Of course, the paperwork- public— I'm just so glad you're okay."

"No, it's…" he gently placed her an arm's length away. "Piper, there's something you need to know."

She blinked, and a deep, cold feeling spread through her chest, adding to the weight she'd felt since the moment the red phones had started ringing in the West Wing. Jason folded Piper into his arms again.

Piper barely felt the pressure, barely felt the heft of his body over hers. As Jason told her the rest, the words ran together and her vision swam. Clumsily, she pushed him away, which he must have let her do because she knew he was twice her size, and she sank back down into her waiting room chair.

"It's Annabeth and Reyna. They were both hit. Reyna's fine, Annabeth might not be. And Beckendorf is dead."

Piper's vision swam. She choked on air. Drowned in a vast nothing.

And then she swallowed hard, reached inside of herself for a vein of steel she wasn't sure was there, and picked up her phone. "Well then. If that's all, and we can't do anything for them because we're not doctors, then there's work to be done in the meantime. I'm calling the office. Do either of you need anything?"

Thanks for reading! As usual in fic (and apparently especially in my fics), things tend to get messier before they get better... which is my way of telling y'all that the fallout is going to take more than one chapter to wrap up, whoops. There won't be a 3-week wait next time, I promise.
— GT