Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians

This fic would not have existed without the encouragement of Stereden, who has also done a podfic of it, which can be found in its AO3 crosspost /works/57201739 or on my tumblr tsarisfanfiction!

When Chris came back in a few moments later, it was with Jake. Beckendorf's younger brother and successor still looked red-eyed, which Lee felt guilty about – he hadn't intended to bring back up the still-raw grief the Hephaestus cabin were going through, even though it had been an unavoidable part of alerting everyone to Silena's lack of loyalty.

"I'm here to help with the transport," Jake said, looking at Robyn when she turned to glance at him in curiosity. Her face relaxed slightly.

"Good," she said, and Lee could understand her relief – Jake, like most Hephaestus kids, was built like some sort of tank and was used to carrying around heavy and sometimes delicate objects. They were some of the best for carrying wounded campers because of it. She directed him to Nathan. "No broken bones," she reported. "Just severe flesh wounds. Don't break anything."

Jake nodded and knelt down next to the couch, carefully pulling Nathan into his arms. Lee's younger brother's head lolled with the movement, emphasising how vulnerable he seemed. Like most of their cabin, Nathan was lithe muscle rather than bulk, and against Jake's bulging muscles it was obvious.

"We'll do one at a time," Chris said, and Robyn nodded.

"I'll get Ignacy ready next," she replied. Jake's face tightened, and Lee understood – from Chris' rundown earlier, Ignacy was the worst off of all the injured. Lee hadn't yet taken a look at him himself, but Chris seemed doubtful that the son of Hephaestus was going to pull through. Jake had probably volunteered himself to help with the transport because of his younger brother, even if it was just to spend a few minutes with him.

Lee hoped Chris was wrong, but Robyn's face was tight, too. She wouldn't have given up on him, and nor would any of Lee's other siblings, but they weren't miracle workers. They'd lost too many new campers to fatal wounds suffered during their journey to camp to believe they were. Still, they were still bringing him with them. Just in case a miracle did happen.

Chris and Jake disappeared with Nathan and, still pinned by Tris, there wasn't anything Lee could do to help Robyn as she took herself over to the unconscious son of Hephaestus and checked his bandages, making sure his chances of surviving the journey to Olympus were as high as possible.

Lee hoped he survived. Not just for Ignacy's own sake, but for Jake and the other Hephaestus campers, who'd already lost one brother, and also for his own siblings, who never handled losing a patient well.

There was a cough from the other side of the room, hoarse and painful to hear. Lee's head whipped back around, away from Robyn, and towards the couch where the eldest of his younger siblings was laying. Michael groaned, his fingers twitching, before he started to move, inching upwards and clearly being fought by his body for every shift he managed.

Robyn cursed and ran over to him, gripping his shoulders. "Stay still!" she snapped at him.

Lee made the executive decision that it was time for him to get up, and nudged Tris. His younger brother looked up at him with wide eyes, but shifted, giving Lee enough room to stagger to his feet and across the room until he was standing next to Robyn, adding his hands to the careful restraints to stop Michael puncturing his own lung with a broken rib as he moved.

"What the fuck hit me?" his brother mumbled, brown eyes bleary but gaining a little more focus with every blink. "Fucking-"

"Kronos," Lee said bluntly, and Michael stilled. Robyn met his eyes and Lee gestured for her to go back to Ignacy – he could handle Michael.

Even injured, he could handle Michael.

"Kronos hit you. Hard," he continued as their sister disappeared back behind him, to their other patient – the one that was going to be much better behaved.

Michael cursed. " Bastard."

"Yeah," Lee said, in full agreement. "Your ribcage is so many fragments of bone floating around loosely in your chest right now, so don't move unless you want round two of your lungs turning into pincushions."

Michael obviously wasn't with it enough to understand exactly what he'd said, but one hand tried to float towards his chest until Lee caught it in one of his, so clearly at least some part of him was aware that his chest was hurt. He was waking up steadily, though, and with one last blink his eyes cleared enough to widen.

"Lee?"

His name was thin and full of hope. Lee smiled at him, and gripped his hand.

"I'm here," he promised. "I'm here, Michael."

His brother let out another string of expletives that Lee was pretty sure weren't actually aimed at him. If he had to guess, it had something to do with the small, aborted movement the younger demigod had just tried to do and discovered the hard way was a bad idea.

"Don't move," Lee warned him, and Michael groaned again.

"Fucking Kronos," he grumbled, so either he'd heard Lee's earlier explanation, or he remembered what had happened. Neither of those things were technically bad news. "Is he…"

"Not defeated yet," Lee admitted. "But we've been in a ceasefire since dawn." Since you fell, he didn't say.

"Urgh," Michael groaned again, but his eyes were clear now. "Percy got the bridge?"

Lee nodded. "No-one's crossing that any time soon," he assured him.

"And everyone's okay?" Michael pressed, before he gasped a little, as though one of his rib fragments had passed too close to his lungs. "Nathan- Tris-! You said-"

"Everyone's still alive," Lee assured him. "Nathan hasn't woken up yet but he should be out of danger. And Tris-"

"I'm here!" the boy in question said, popping up next to Lee and almost throwing himself on Michael, remembering at the last minute not to, to Lee's relief.

Michael's eyes widened, and he reached for Tris with his free hand, growling and wincing at the pain the action caused him but stubbornly refusing to give up. Tris met him halfway, clutching the offered hand between both of his.

"You're alive," Michael rasped, and his eyes shined a little, his voice thin and shaking. "Tris… gods. You're alive."

"I'm alive," Tris nodded. "Lee's alive. Nathan's alive. You're alive." There were tears glistening down his cheeks, and Lee used his free arm to pull Tris against his side, rubbing his hand up and down his arm comfortingly.

"Thank fuck," Michael breathed. Lee saw his hand flex inside Tris' grip, clinging to their little brother as best he could when he could hardly move. "Where's Nathan?"

"Being moved to Olympus," Lee said. "The strategy's changed. Injured and our cabin behind the lines, in Olympus. Everyone else is front line."

"Not trying to hold the fucking city now?" Michael asked, and he sounded somewhere between smug and irritated. "Fucking bridges and boats."

"I called Clarisse," Lee admitted, and felt Michael tense. "I don't know what went on between you two and right now, it doesn't matter. The Ares cabin is coming. Clarisse came on ahead. She had some things to say about the strategy."

Tension drained out of Michael's body, leaving him utterly boneless. It looked a lot like relief. "Fucking bitch," he muttered. "'Course she came when you called."

Lee decided against mentioning that Clarisse hadn't shown any signs of coming until he'd said that Michael had been taken down. He didn't think that would help anything.

"Lee's awesome," Tris said, and the corner of Michael's mouth twitched.

"Yeah," he agreed, before muttering, "always cleans up my screw-ups."

Lee frowned. "Michael-"

"I've been a shit head counsellor," Michael mumbled, closing his eyes. "Fucking- How did you do it, Lee?"

"You haven't," Lee said, confidently because he might not have been there to see him, but because he knew Michael. There was no way Michael was anything other than brilliant at it. Maybe he'd made a few mistakes – once again, Clarisse sprang to mind – but mistakes were normal.

"You haven't been here," Michael protested, and the reminder stung even though Lee knew Michael didn't mean it like that. "I- fuck. I kept fucking up- "

"Kayla adores you," Lee said, cutting off his brother's self-rumination. "It's been a real fight getting her to leave your side for anything since you went down. She basically told me to get lost when I tried to persuade her, because I'm 'not her head counsellor'. That's not the sign of a terrible leader, Michael."

"She doesn't know any better," Michael muttered. "If you-"

"That girl would've attached herself to you even if Lee was around when she showed up!" Robyn called over. "Stop saying stupid shit; you kept us together, Michael. This last year has been utter crap but your leadership wasn't."

Michael's face twisted into something unconvinced, but then Tris buried his face in his stomach, far enough from the shattered ribcage that Lee didn't stop him.

"You felt safe," Tris mumbled. "After the battle. After we thought Lee-" he broke off with a hiccup, and Lee swallowed. He'd forgotten that Tris had spent most of that summer under Michael's leadership, too.

Michael faltered. His hand was still trapped in between Tris' and he clearly wasn't ready to let go of Lee's – and Lee wasn't ready to let go of Michael just yet, either – but he tilted his head as much as he could to look at the dark mop of hair on his stomach.

"I'm not safe," he said hoarsely, and Robyn snorted.

"Bullshit," she said. "You know who doesn't have a single fucking scratch on them so far? Even with Kronos and the Minotaur and the hellhounds and all the rest of that fucking army that came straight for us? The kids."

Lee hadn't particularly noticed, too distracted by the dramatic injuries of Michael and Nathan, but while most of his siblings did sport some sort of bandaging or scratches that had been deemed shallow enough to not be worth using up limited supplies, Robyn was right – Austin and Kayla, who Michael had kept so far back they probably hadn't seen any close combat at all, had been uninjured.

"Kayla and Austin are absolutely fine right now," she continued ruthlessly, "physically, anyway. War's a bitch and all that. And the rest of us are still alive and walking despite that fucking titan throwing around shockwaves like confetti because you made sure of it. Even if you got yourself fucked up in the process, so you only get half points for that because you were supposed to keep yourself safe, too, you asshole."

"She's right," Lee said. "If nothing else, Michael, while I was gone, I knew the cabin was in good hands. You might be a bit prickly still-"

"A bit ?" Robyn muttered, almost out of earshot, and Lee suppressed a smile because she might think Michael's attitude was bad now, despite the praise she'd just heaped on him, but she hadn't seen Michael as a kid. Ten year old Michael had been an actual nightmare; he'd mellowed and grown up and learnt to trust so much since first arriving at camp and Lee was always so, so proud of him for it.

"-but you've always cared, and that's how you be a head counsellor, Michael. You care."

And that hurt, because Luke had cared. Silena cared. But their care had taken them the wrong way.

Oh gods, Michael didn't know about Silena yet.

"And it takes practice," he continued. "It's not easy. But they're worth trying for, anyway."

Michael closed his eyes, as though that would stop Lee from seeing that he was starting to cry. Lee let him have the privacy. "Yeah."

A small hand wrapped around Lee's waist, and he looked down to see Tris now clinging to both of them. "Love you," their little brother said. "Both of you."

There wasn't a single trace of a lie.

They sat in silence for a little while, Tris still using Michael as a pillow and possibly falling a little bit asleep again, and Lee content to let his younger brother process at his own pace. Jake and Chris returned and then left again with Ignacy, then Robyn made her way over to them.

"You're next," she told Michael. "And you don't get to say anything about your regenerative bullshit, you're not walking."

"My legs are fine," Michael complained.

"And your ribs are shot to hell," she countered. "Lee's the only reason your lungs aren't still playing pincushion and you're going to fucking respect that by not undoing his hard work."

"What fucking happened, anyway?" Michael asked. "The bridge wasn't breaking near me."

Lee sighed. "You've been on Kronos' hitlist since stealing the chariot," he said. "Or at least, some of his lieutenants'. He promised them a hit on you. I don't know if that's why, or if you did something else to anger him, too, but he went straight for you when the bridge broke. Redirected the debris and accelerated it. You didn't stand a chance, Michael."

"Fuck," Michael laughed weakly. "Personal attention from a fucking titan. Great."

"Yeah." Lee could relate to that one a little too well, and Tris proved he wasn't asleep by squeezing him more tightly. "It sucks."

That got Michael's attention again, and dark brown eyes looked him over, settling on the bandages around his wrists. "Luke fucking told him?"

How Michael had made that leap of logic, Lee wasn't entirely certain, but he did have more puzzle pieces than anyone else in camp had.

Michael's brow furrowed. "Unless you've got anything else you haven't told me, it's the only thing that makes you stand out," he said, clearly reading Lee's confusion. "And if there was a fucking fake body, it was planned."

He had a point.

"Sort of," Lee agreed. "He found out from Luke, yeah."

Michael growled. "I am going to fucking murder that bastard," he promised, the same dark tone he'd used when he'd promised the same thing, years ago in the dead of night as Lee had sobbed into his shoulder, the betrayal raw.

"You're going to have to get in line for that one, Michael," Robyn told him. "I don't care if you called dibs first, you're going to be at the back with the other injured."

"Damn fucking right I called dibs first," Michael snapped back, but echoed their usual, playful snapping, and Lee was glad about it. "You can't stop me."

"You're going to be under Will's part of the field hospital, not mine," she retorted. "You think you're escaping Will?"

That stopped Michael in his tracks, and he growled again. Robyn was right and they all knew it – under Robyn, he'd snap back and push his way back onto the battlefield anyway. Under Will? He wouldn't do that to Will. "Bitch," he muttered, but it didn't have too much heat in it.

Then he looked back at Lee, and his face was serious again. "There's a fucking spy," he said. "You know?"

"Silena," Tris said while Lee was still following the change in topic, and Michael cursed.

Lee collected himself again, before anyone could mention Beckendorf again. "The head counsellors know," he assured Michael. "Drew's taken over their cabin."

He made a complicated face at that, and in a different situation, Lee would've laughed. Drew and Michael's relationship was an entertaining one, from the outside. They sniped at each other, but Lee was pretty sure there was the strains of a friendship lurking beneath the surface, if either of them would just stop to acknowledge it.

Michael clearly decided against saying anything on the topic. "And Silena?" he asked.

"Apparently went to fetch the Ares cabin while Clarisse was on her way here," Lee said. "They called Clarisse about it and got debriefed. Whether or not Silena comes back with them will depend on what her reason for fetching them was. They're on high alert."

"Why can't things be fucking simple," Michael muttered. "So we may or may not have a spy coming back into our ranks?"

"Drew's going to deal with her if she comes back," Lee said. "And she's fuming."

"They can have the fucking bitchfight away from me," Michael grumbled. "Where are you taking me, anyway?"

"Olympus," Robyn said promptly. "You and Nathan both. Neither of you are fit to fight and we're not letting you try. You're not shooting a bow with confetti ribs."

"But-" Michael protested, and Lee shook his head.

"You'll be with Will," he said. "Make sure he doesn't get overworked, or overwork himself."

Will might be enough of a threat to keep Michael in line, but it worked both ways, and Michael was sharp enough to recognise that.

"You could keep him in line, too," he grumbled at Lee, but Lee shook his head.

"I'm 'walking wounded'," he said. "I can still fight."

Robyn's head snapped around to him. "You what?" she demanded. "Lee, you are barely walking-"

"And I really, really owe Kronos and his army a few arrows in the face," Lee added. "I'm done running and cowering."

"He hurt you," Tris said, not for the first time, but there was a warning in there, their shared knowledge that Kronos didn't need to use weapons to hurt Lee, when he had words.

"I know," Lee said, and it was an acknowledgement, but, "that's why I need to do this."

He was still fit to fight. And for the first time in over a year, he could.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari