Falling Through Portals

Coma Patient

Chapter 40

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It had been the longest night of his life. Leo was so tired he thought he was going to fall asleep in his taco flavored oatmeal.

Chiron had forced everyone out of the Big House and to the Palavon to eat breakfast. The surgery was not finished yet and no new news had come. It was horrible. Not one of the campers spoke at breakfast. Some of his other siblings looked at him questioningly, as if asking what was going on. Not everyone knew about Percy being gone and Annabeth who was dying. Leo was sure that confusion was running rampant through all the campers as they asked themselves why everyone was silent.

All Leo could think about was Annabeth.

Over and over again he saw her bloodstained shirt. He watched his shaking hands, over and over again, pulling back her shirt to reveal the torn skin and flesh. He saw this over and over again.

No matter how many times he had washed his hands before breakfast, he couldn't seem to get her blood off of them. It was Nico who had stopped him from hurting his hands.

Leo had been in the kitchen of the Big House at the sink. Leo ran his hands under the water on the coldest setting. But he still felt the heat of her blood. His mind would show him the red on his skin. Her blood on his hands. He would put more soap on and rinse. After drying them he would look at his hands and still see red. He would wash them again and again. His mind was toying with him, slowly corrupting him. . .

Nico had come over just as he was about to use the steel wool on his hands. He didn't care that the steel wool, if used as forcefully as he was about to, would tear the skin off of his hands and littler little specks of steel in his flesh. Leo didn't know that tears were running down his face as he shoved his hands under the water. Nico shut off the water and took the steel wool away from him before it touched his skin and looked Leo in the eye.

"They are clean," Nico said seriously. There wasn't pity in Nico's eyes, only understanding. Leo had never been so grateful for understanding. Nico understood the possibility of losing someone and it being their fault. Leo tried not to think about how Nico could have felt while Annabeth and Percy had been stuck in Tartarus when Nico couldn't pull them both back up.

But that didn't remove the fact that her blood was on his hands. If she died . . . it was his fault.

She had to live.

And he was sitting at the Hephaestus table, eating taco flavored oatmeal while she was going through surgery. What could his fire do for her? He was useless.

Then Leo spotted someone coming down the hill towards the palivon. Leo recognized Will's blonde hair and stood. Everyone stopped eating at his table. Leo almost stumbled over the bench as he scrambled towards Will. Leo was in almost a full out sprint towards the healer, all tiredness forgotten.

Will looked so haggard. Leo stopped just a few feet from Will and stared him down. Will looked at Leo.

"She," Will started, Leo needed to hear this, and he silently prayed to the gods that she would be alive, she had to live, if she didn't . . . Leo didn't know what he would do, "will make it."

Leo felt a huge weight lift from him.

Just like that his body collapsed. Leo fell asleep, there on Half-Blood hill, face first in the grass and dirt. He was so tired and relieved that he didn't care. She was going to make it.

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Finnick smeared the oil pastel onto the paper. In his mind he saw her in her dress from so many nights ago.