I was silent the whole ride back to camp even though I was sitting with Percy on Chiron's back. It was a weird feeling knowing that you were sitting on the back of your centaur half-brother, but thankfully Percy didn't ask anything else about us being children of Kronos.
But he did say, "Huh, siblings," more to himself than to us, like that had just now dawned on him. Honestly, while Chiron may have been my brother, I viewed him more as a mentor than a sibling. Something about the three thousand some age gap made it very hard to view each other as siblings.
When we finally got back to camp, we got to witness the magic of the Golden Fleece. Clarisse had arrived five minutes before we did because of the centaurs' magic travel powers, meaning we'd get to see the Fleece in action.
Apparently it had been a rough two weeks here with the more frequent monster attacks. For example, we were now in need of a new arts and crafts cabin after having burnt down because of a Draco Aionius. There were so many injured that there wasn't enough space in the Apollo cabin's infirmary, forcing kids transform rooms in the Big House into makeshift infirmary rooms.
Simply put, the fifty some demigods that had been here the past two weeks were just as battered and exhausted as we were. The second Clarisse draped the Golden Fleece on the lowest bough of the pine tree, the moonlight seemed to brighten, turning from gray to liquid silver. A cool breeze rustled in the branches and rippled through the grass, all the way into the valley. Everything came into sharper focus – the glow of fireflies down in the woods, the smell of the strawberry fields, the sound of the waves on the beach.
We all began cheering as the pine needles slowly changed from brown to green, the Fleece working its magic and ridding the tree of the elder python venom. Chiron ordered a twenty-four/seven guard for the tree until he could find an appropriate monster to protect the Fleece.
I volunteered to take the first shift, placing a hand against the bark of the pine tree. This time when I touched the tree, I felt absolutely no pain, something that filled me with relief. I had no idea how Luke and Thalia were holding up inside their temporary home as the poison spread, so the fact that they were getting healed now made me very happy.
I skipped Clarisse receiving her laurels and the campfire that night, perfectly content to guard my friends' tree. I was so overprotective of them that Chiron had to force Annabeth to take the nightshift after he'd found out I hadn't left my post in three days.
"You wake me the moment something happens," I told Grover, who had tagged along with Annabeth to make sure I would get some sleep.
During the three days I'd been on guard duty, I missed the chariot race rematches and Tyson leaving to work in Poseidon's forges. I knew I'd also missed Hermes' second visit to Percy, the one that ended in him giving Percy an envelope from Poseidon.
When I walked into cabin three, I found Percy tossing and turning in his bunk, muttering under his breath while his face was pale. I'd gently rested my hand against his forehead, checking for a fever, before finally deciding that he was merely dreaming of my father. I would've waken him up, but Percy's dreams were essential to him and to the camp, so I let him sleep fitfully.
I crawled into my own bunk, my eyes closing for what felt like a few seconds before I heard Grover burst into the cabin, his pupils slit like a goat's in fear. Thunder rolled overhead, and lightning created false daylight across the camp.
Percy sat up in his bed, too, swearing when his forehead slammed into the upper part of his bunk. I scrambled out of bed, throwing on my raincoat while asking Grover what the heck was going on.
"Annabeth…on the hill…she…" Grover stammered.
Percy and I ran out of the cabin, seeing as others throughout camp made their way to the pine tree. Chiron caught up to us and hoisted us onto his back, galloping towards the borders. A small crowd had started to gather around the tree, satyrs and nymphs and heroes in an assortment of pajamas and armor.
I hopped off Chiron's back and crouched down to the base of the tree, my hands shaking as I began brushing off gnarled roots and dirt off two imprints in the bark. Annabeth, who was next to me, was crying, kneeling over our friends' bodies. I finally finished getting them out of the tree, setting them in the damp grass.
"Curse the Titan lord," Chiron said from behind me. "He's tricked us again, given himself another chance to control the prophecy."
"What do you mean?" Percy asked.
"The Fleece…the Fleece did its work too well."
All around us, people gasped at the sight of the two famed demigods laying unconscious on the ground. On first sight, Thalia seemed the more stable of the two, so I moved Luke a little farther away from the daughter of Zeus, giving me a chance to fully examine him.
No one approached the unconscious demigods, except for Percy. He knelt down next to Thalia, placing a gentle hand onto her forehead. "She needs nectar and ambrosia," he said, but no one made any move to help her. Percy looked around in confusion, unaware of why people were so frightened of Thalia.
Percy then propped Thalia up against her own tree, yelling at the others to help him get her to the infirmary, while I took Luke's pulse, frowning at how sluggish it was. I needed to do a full workup on the son of Hermes, but right now, everyone was too focused on Thalia to help me with Luke.
Then I heard Thalia take a shaky breath and cough. I turned around just in time to see her open her eyes, her startlingly electric blue eyes frantically looking around, trying to understand what was happening.
"Who-"
"I'm Percy," he said softly, trying to calm Thalia down. "You're safe."
"Strangest dream…"
"It's okay."
"Dying."
"No," he assured her. "You're okay. What's your name?"
"I am Thalia," she said softly. "Daughter of Zeus."
Annabeth began crying even harder before flinging herself at the resurrected demigod, clutching on so tightly I thought she was going to suffocate Thalia. That managed to break people out of their stupor, as some of the Apollo children checked their pockets for the godly food. Cleo finally came forward, handing a crushed up square of ambrosia to Thalia.
"Oh, gods," Grover said, his face ashen. "Another chance to control the prophecy."
"Where's Luke?" Thalia asked, nibbling at the ambrosia. "He was right there…"
"He's over here," I told her, checking his pulse one more time. It had slowed another five beats since the last time I checked, which had been two minutes ago. Now, I knew that people's average bpm could lower depending how fit they were, but Luke had been a tree for six years now, and even if his body inside the tree had kept training, I doubted his actual body reaped those benefits.
I scooped Luke into my arms and stood up, telling Thalia to follow me to the infirmary for a checkup. Cleo and Will tagged along as they were in charge of the infirmary that night, plus, we were all dying of curiosity. Nobody had expected for Luke and Thalia to come back (other than me), so they must've been curious to find out how they had fared after being trapped inside a pine tree for six years.
Cleo and Will worked on Thalia while I ran every test that I could on Luke. Thalia was deemed as being in perfect condition other than a little vertigo, allowing her to leave the infirmary if she so wished. However, she refused to leave Luke's side.
When I got Luke's blood test results back, I reread the numbers three times, in disbelief of what I was seeing. His white blood cell count was 33,000, three times the normal amount of any person, mortal or demigod; his blood sugar was forty, well below the low end of the scale of what was considered normal. He was also running a 105 fever, his forehead beaded with sweat and his skin flushed.
As for his bradycardia, he was averaging a sluggish twenty-seven bpm, which not even the most athletic person in the world could achieve. With a heartbeat this slow, it was only a matter of time until he began suffering permanent brain damage from hypoxia.
What the heck had happened in that tree? Thalia was perfectly fine, so why was Luke in this catatonic state?
"What do you need me to do?" Cleo asked, wearing her doctor's coat and a fresh pair of bright blue latex gloves on her hands.
"Start him on an IV drip of glucose and antibiotics – it'll help raise his blood sugar and hopefully kill the infection. And give him two milligrams of epinephrine IV push," I instructed, flipping through Luke's chart again.
"What about me?" Will asked.
"Get Luke on some oxygen, and hook him up to a monitor and an EKG. Prep an AED and crash cart, just in case."
Thalia's eyes widened, taking one of Luke's hands into her own, while Cleo stuck the IV in his other arm. After he was hooked up to the handful of medications I'd just prescribed, Will returned with a bunch of electrodes, a monitor, and an EKG, dutifully attaching all the equipment onto Luke.
"Will he make it?" Thalia asked, her voice wavering as Will placed a pulse oximeter onto Luke's index finger before starting him on oxygen from a cannula.
"I'll be blunt, Thalia, I don't know," I said, checking the time on the analog clock on the infirmary's check-in desk. I'd rerun blood tests in an hour to see if the medication was doing anything. If not, I was going to have to add some nectar into the mix, maybe even use my own method of healing.
"I need you to tell me anything you remember or any guesses you may have that led Luke to be like this," I told Thalia, resting a hand on her shoulder in what I hoped she'd interpret as a comforting gesture.
"The last couple days, we were in a lot of pain," Thalia said, her eyes squeezed shut while she held onto Luke's hand like a lifeline. "I thought the two of us were going to die for real. But then Luke took my hand, and my pain would fade away while his grew stronger. I told him to stop, that he had no reason to do that for me, but he wouldn't listen. He took away my own suffering by doubling his."
I nodded silently, unsure of what I was supposed to say. Luke had been willing to take the brunt of the elder python venom to abate Thalia's pain, even if it meant placing him in this fragile state he was stuck in.
"Will, add in a nectar drip as well," I ordered, frowning as Luke shivered violently in his bed.
Thalia pulled the thin infirmary-issued blanket up to Luke's neck before deciding to lay down next to him, probably thinking that her body heat would be the next best thing to keep him warm. In any case, I gave her a thicker blanket in case she got cold, but as I expected, Thalia draped it on top of Luke.
Cleo, who had left on a bathroom run, returned to the infirmary with four Styrofoam cups, the steam curling off the top of the liquid. "Hot chocolate for us," she said, giving a cup to Will and Thalia while keeping one for herself, "and coffee for you. Yes, I added cream and sugar."
"You're the best." I smiled and took a sip of the scalding liquid, having a feeling that I was going to need to stay awake tonight.
Since Luke was in a pretty stable condition, Cleo, Will, and I sat on the floor and played various different card games. We'd offered Thalia a spot, but she shook her head no, refusing to leave Luke's side.
We were in the middle of a game of BS when an alarm started to sound on Luke's monitor. In a flash, the three of us were on our feet, understanding what had happened without even glancing at the monitor.
"Thalia, I need you to move aside," I told her urgently, watching as she threw off the blanket and scrambled out of the bed.
Cleo hit the button on Luke's bed that made the back collapse downwards, creating a perfectly flat surface. "Starting compressions," she said, entwining her hands as she began pushing hard and fast down on Luke's chest. "One, two, three…" she counted aloud.
"Will, you're on ambu duty. I'll take care of the medications." I then swore under my breath. We didn't have anyone to man the AED. I turned to Thalia, whose eyes were wide with fear. "Thalia, I know you're afraid, but I need you to manage the AED. It speaks, so listen to what it tells you to do, and we'll be here, too."
"Thirty!" Cleo shouted, as Will delivered two breaths via the ambu bag.
"Pushing one milligram of epi," I said, pushing the plunger down on the syringe as the clear liquid flowed into Luke's IV. Cleo returned to her compressions, while I quickly helped Thalia place the pads on Luke's chest.
"Hold compressions," I ordered when the AED said it was scanning for a rhythm.
"V-fib," the robotic voice told us, and I swore under my breath. "Charging to 200 joules. Stand clear. Press the green button."
Thalia pushed the green button in the AED's case, causing for Luke's body to arch upwards a second later. She flinched at the sight of her friend like that, but when the machine said, "Charge delivered," we all went back to CPR.
We finally got Luke back at minute eighteen. After our first two rounds of CPR, Cleo and Will had to change positions from how tired Cleo's arms had gotten from chest compressions. Thalia had put on a brave face through it all, following my orders as well as the AED's, which I knew played an essential role in bringing Luke back.
"I want another round of bloodwork, but add every single test we have on this one."
"Including our own ones?" Will asked, referring to scanning for traces of godly or monstrous materials, like poison, for example.
"Yes, and have them rushed, if possible."
I tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear, sighing as I took off my gloves and disposed of them. Thalia was standing next to Luke again, whispering that he better not scare us like that again, or she'd kill him herself.
I took a swig from my now cold coffee, needing some caffeine to calm my nerves after just reviving one of my friends. Cleo was rubbing her arms and doing arm circles to get rid of the knots that had formed while she'd done chest compressions. Speaking of which, I needed to check Luke's ribs now. Will and Cleo had probably cracked them during CPR, which was perfectly normal but highly detrimental to someone in this state.
Sure enough, when I felt Luke's ribs, I felt them shift under my touch. I got an x-ray to confirm, revealing eleven different hairline fractures on the six ribs closest to the middle of the sternum. I turned on the sink and brought the water to encase Luke's chest, imbuing it with my own powers to heal Luke's fractures.
"Why didn't you just do that in the first place?" Thalia asked, sliding back under the covers with Luke.
"My healing doesn't extend to changing a person's vitals," I explained. "I can only heal injuries, not sickness."
"Results are back," Will said, handing me the new papers.
"Oh, thank the gods," I sighed as I started reading the new numbers.
They were much better, approaching back to their normal ranges, though Luke's white blood cell count was still high, around 18,000. I'd also found the culprit for sudden cardiac arrest: residual elder python venom in his heart tissue. However, if I upped the nectar drip, it should help fight off the remaining residue. Worst case scenario, I'd have to perform open-heart surgery, cut out the infected tissue, and then heal his heart. Best case scenario, the nectar worked.
"Good news, I hope," Thalia said.
"Very," I replied, setting Luke's chart on the desk at the foot of his bed. "Luke's responding well to the treatment, but I still want to monitor him a few days after he wakes up."
"When do you think that'll be?"
"I can't give you a definite answer, but hopefully within the next few days."
"That's great news!" Cleo exclaimed.
"Remarkable," Will agreed, smiling at Luke's prognosis.
The sound of the conch shell blowing across the valley made me realize that it was breakfast time. I'd been awake since the crack of dawn, treating Luke from the moment he was purged from his tree.
"You guys go to breakfast," I told Cleo and Will, whose stomachs had growled so loudly, the both of them blushed. "Bring me back a plate, yeah?"
"You've got it, boss!" Cleo said happily, mock saluting simply to annoy me before jogging off. I rolled my eyes at her, but she had already left.
"Do you want to come?" Will asked Thalia, who shook her head no.
"I don't want to leave Luke."
Will shrugged. "Then I'll bring you back a plate, too."
"Please bring Annabeth, Grover, Percy, and Chiron here after breakfast as well. I'm sure they're wondering how our friends must be doing."
"Sure thing, Andy." Will waved goodbye before running out of the infirmary to catch up to the rest of his siblings.
I sighed and took a seat next to Luke's bedside, pulling out one of my books and reading to the sound of Luke's heart monitor.
The rest of the summer session was pretty peaceful after the Golden Fleece rebuilt the magical borders around Camp Half-Blood, preventing mortals and monsters alike from finding the safe haven for demigods.
Luke, who had woken up after being in a coma for two weeks, recovered remarkably well for someone who had almost died a couple of times during surgery. Yes, the worst case scenario came to pass, and I had to operate on my friend's heart. He was in perfect condition now, the only reminder of his near-death experiences a scar that ran the length of his sternum.
Thalia had refused to leave the son of Hermes, but I had to keep her out of the infirmary when I operated, not wanting to make a careless mistake because I was afraid of her watching me. That meant that it wasn't until Luke woke up from his coma did the two finally reintegrate back into camp, picking up their schedules again like they hadn't been gone the last six years.
When it was finally the night of the bead ceremony, we all gathered around the campfire as the nymphs passed out that year's bead. The background was completely white while a golden ram was delicately painted in the middle, a symbol of the Golden Fleece.
I added my seventh bead to my leather cord, feeling like a real old timer compared to some of the other campers. Heck, Annabeth and I were the only ones who had seven beads on our necklaces, because a lot of the older kids tended to leave camp after turning eighteen and never came back, whether that be because of monster attacks or trying to establish a life in the mortal world.
That next day, Percy and Annabeth left camp to return to their parents, who I'm sure were worried sick of their children's sudden disappearance. If I was right, Sally was going to hug the life out of Percy and then spoil him rotten with blue chocolate chip cookies, thanking the gods that he was still alive. As for Annabeth, I knew her father would be happy to see her, but I wasn't sure about her stepmother or stepbrothers.
Luke and Thalia were going to remain as year-rounders, the both of them deciding that they had nothing in the mortal world to convince them to leave. I knew they'd be in Chiron's capable hands for the rest of the year.
Grover had also left as well, returning back into the wild to continue his search for the Lord of the Wild, Pan. I gave him a tip to head west, to which he responded by nodding and then walking into a tree.
I'd packed up my stuff, too, prepared to return for my second year of college at Columbia with my mortal friends, who'd kept me updated about their summers through the mail. I had a P.O. box near camp, so that's where I'd pick up my mail and send letters back to my friends as well. Hey, keeping up appearances was a part of my job.
My fall semester wouldn't begin for another three weeks, but the dean of students had told me that I was allowed to move back into my dorm room, so that's what I did. I shadow-traveled back to my dorm room and began unpacking, redoing the sheets on my bed and brushing off the dust from my textbooks, which I had left sitting on the small desk on my side of the room.
My roommate, whose name coincidentally happened to be Leah, was still in Florida as far as I knew, spending the rest of her summer back home with her family and friends. That meant I had our broom closet of room to myself, meaning I wasn't confined to my half of the room.
I began setting up shop again, taking out my Rick Riordan books and laying them out in front of me in chronological order. I took out a new notebook, scribbled the date on the front page, and began writing as I flipped through the pages, watching the words shimmer, fade, and replace themselves.
I'd gotten as far as our first chariot races this year when I felt the shadows around me begin to grow restless. I sighed and packed my stuff away, knowing who was about to summon me. Once all my stuff was hidden, I started lacing up my sneakers, ignoring the skeleton that had just walked into my dorm room via the bathroom door's shadow.
"Give me a minute," I told the skeleton, finishing up my other shoe before standing up straight. "Lead the way."
The two of us walked into the shadow, landing right in the middle of Hades' throne room. Gods, I hoped he wasn't upset about Thalia being alive again, because no way was I going to sic a bunch of monsters on her again. I'd had nightmares for months on end after the first time. No way was I going to subject my mental health to that torture again, especially when I was about to start up school again.
"You're dismissed," Hades told the skeleton with a wave of his hand, the bones collapsing into a heap next to me. "Welcome back, Andy. I see that a certain niece of mine is walking the earth again, something I thought you took care of."
"I did," I reminded him. "I blew that whistle and summoned those monsters as you asked me to. But it was imperative that we healed her tree to save demigods from being hunted to extinction."
"You make a fair point, and for that reason, I shall not kill the girl."
I breathed a sigh of relief internally, not wanting Hades to change his mind if he found out that we were friends.
After the serious introduction, Hades and I reverted back to our more relaxed ways, filling each other in with what had happened over the past year. The gods had behaved themselves, staying out of my life for the past year, until now. And I really didn't mind, because it wasn't like Hades was sending me out to kill someone at the moment. We were just talking.
I told him about how school was going and about the quest for the Golden Fleece. However, I had to bring myself to ask one thing. "Why Tantalus?" I asked him. "Of all the souls you have in your possession, why did the gods hire a cannibal king to be our activities director?"
Hades held up his hands in surrender. "I had no say in the matter, but even I wouldn't have sent Tantalus, not when I have heroes like Perseus, Theseus, Hector, and Achilles here, all of whom would've been fine choices."
"Would you have let them return to camp if the other gods asked you?"
"Of course. While I may not like demigods, I know that they're essential to our survival. I'd rather have a hero train you all rather than some damned soul."
I cracked a smile at that. See, Hades wasn't all doom and gloom if you gave him the time of day and treated him like anyone else. I wished that everyone would see the Lord of the Underworld like I did, but unfortunately that wasn't possible.
"So," I drawled out. "What's the real reason you summoned me? I doubt it was really about the daughter of Zeus."
Hades gave me a lopsided grin, bearing a scary resemblance to Percy's, though it's possible. They're uncle and nephew, after all. "Astute as ever," he commented, absentmindedly drumming his fingers against his armrests.
"Let me guess, this has something to do with Nico and Bianca."
Hades' smile widened. "It is time for my children to rejoin the rest of the world."