Never Again

Chapter 4 - Annabeth

I promise this is the last sad chapter for now

Percy lay in his bed gasping for air as if he were being drowned from the inside out. His eyes were shut tight, and I could see his eyes flickering around desperately under his eyelids. His face was contorted in such agony that my heart twisted. "Screw it" I muttered, and pressed the buzzer Will Solace had given me for if I or Percy needed him. I didn't want to bother him at four in the morning, but Percy could be dying and I had no idea how to help him. I waited, my hand gripping Percy's nervously, but I did not have to wait long. Within three minutes Will Solace came sprinting into the cabin, bleary-eyed and in his pyjamas but puffing from running across camp. He saw me sitting beside Percy, who was gasping and writhing on the bed like a fish. His back arched and collapsed, his mouth wide open and spit settling in the corners of his mouth. His brow creased, and eyes clenched tightly shut as his legs flailed and kicked.

Will's eyes widened and he hurried over to Percy's bed, pushing me aside in his hurry. He summoned a healing glow, and placed his hand over Percy's forehead. He jerked his hand back, cradling it to his chest as if he had been burnt, before frowning at Percy. He summoned a glow again, and placed his hand over Percy's heart, this time rather more tentatively. He stood there, frozen, for one minute, then two, before I noticed any sort of movement at all in him. His hand, frozen an inch above Percy's heart, was trembling. I looked up at his face, and noticed that his eyes were shut, as if there were something in the world he simply could not bear to see. As I watched, a single tear fell down his face, slipping over his cheeks and past the corners of his mouth, before stumbling on his chin and falling to the floor with an inaudible sound. Concerned, I reached for his arm. "Will," I said softly. "Will." Again, louder this time. Now truly worried, I tugged him completely away from Percy's body, correctly guessing that whatever was affecting him was linked to Percy. He startled awake as if from a trance, tears still wet from his cheeks as he blinked, readjusting himself. He turned to me, and something in his eyes had twisted, something awful and terrible. There was an emptiness inside them, a horror so deep that he couldn't begin to describe it, even if he tried. I understood, and imagined that looking at Will Solace's eyes right now would be much like looking in a mirror.

He took a steadying breath, closing his eyes momentarily to draw himself together, and when he opened them again I saw a spark of the fire in him that allowed him to give so much of himself to others so selflessly. It warmed my heart, but what he said next doused all happiness that had momentarily resided in me. "He's dying."

"What? But-but you said he was fine! How can he be dying? I don't understand? What can we do?" I will admit, I panicked slightly at the thought of Percy dying, but honestly, after all we'd been through, together and apart, the thought of him dying asleep and in his bed was outrageous.

"No. No- shit - sorry, I should have been more specific," Will muttered as he tried to console me. "He'll be okay but I just saw a fragment of his dreams." I frowned at him, confused, and he gestured for me to sit on the bed opposite Percy, who was still twitching and gasping in his sleep. "So, this is going to be a little tricky to explain. Have you ever had a nightmare-" I snorted at the ridiculous question, and Will at least looked abashed. "Sorry, stupid question. You know those nightmares, where something is killing you , or you're- you-re drowning say, and just at the exact moment you know you're going to die, that's when you wake up, covered in sweat and screaming?"

"Yeah. I know those ones," I said, all too familiar with what he was describing.

"That's where Percy is, except his body is so tired, so exhausted that he can't wake up. He's currently trapped in the moment of his death, stretching on and on until-" Wills voice faltered, "until he's too weak to sustain the dream, at which point he'll basically be gone."

I stared at him, horrified and waiting for the good news. When none was forthcoming, I said, "Well? What are we going to do?"

Will appeared to snap out of a trance and began to think. I stayed silent, knowing he was the expert here, but I couldn't help biting my fingernails, nibbling violently on the edges as I watched Percy twitch on the bed. Now that I knew where he was, what kind of pain he was experiencing, my desire to get him out was redoubled.

"We're going to have to wake him up. There's nothing else for it. Once he's awake I'll have to do a full assessment of, well both of you actually, but particularly him, and then I guess we decide how to help from there, but I am certain that we need to wake him up."

I nodded, satisfied that at least there was a plan of action. Then I paused. I had found a flaw in the plan. "How do we wake him up?"

Will grimaced. "Yeah... That bit's not so nice. I'm going to effectively have to give him an electrical shock. Essentially I'm going to restart his heart, like a defibrillator. It's going to hurt like hell, but I think he's deep enough in the dream that he shouldn't feel it too badly. It should give him enough of a shock that he wakes up, and enough adrenaline that he has the energy to stay awake at least temporarily."

"Okay, well we'd better do it fast then. I don't want him to be stuck there for a second longer than he has to."

Will shook his hands out, mentally preparing himself for the task, and then lifted Percy off the bed onto the ground. "It's so if he jumps too hard he won't fall off the bed and hurt himself," he said in response to my questioning glance. He knelt beside Percy's prone form, and I knelt on the other side, taking Percy's hand, which had gone terrifyingly limp. Will began to rub his hands together, slowly at first, and then gradually getting faster as his hands began to glow. I watched as his irises changed, and he stared unflinchingly at Percy. He paused briefly, and said, "you might not want to hold onto him for this bit. Don't touch him at all, in fact, unless you want your heart restarted too." I hastily placed Percy's hand on the ground and shuffled back a foot so there was no danger of me being in contact with his body. Will nodded, increasing the tempo of his hands once more before slamming them down on Percy's chest, one on his lower left ribs and the other high on the right hand side, almost behind him. Sparks flew like lightning and Percy's body spasmed on the ground, jerking wildly before coming to a stop. I barely had a second to process what had happened when Percy's eyes flew open and he lurched up into a sitting position, coughing his lungs up like his life depended on it. I reached for him, rubbing his back gently as he continued to cough. Finally, he stopped and looked up at me with heartbroken hope in his eyes.

"Annabeth," he said, and flung himself into my arms.