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If you asked Nico, three days was excessive. Honestly, he had a few scratches from Lycanon, but Reyna had patched him up just fine. The most he needed from the infirmary was a square of ambrosia. The only thing he did there now was take up much needed space. He wasn’t even being treated! Will had stuck an IV in his arm and ran off to some quarantined room in the back. So he had no choice but to sit and watch the chaos.
Most of the Big House had been temporarily converted to infirmary, which was saying something, since the infirmary took up almost half of the first floor anyway. The rec room and camp store had been cleaned out to accommodate more cots. Even the upstairs rooms were commandeered, for those who could be moved around but still needed surveillance. Nico wondered why he wasn’t put up there. Apollo kids from both camps were darting around the large room. Even at a glance, it was easy to see that Will Solace and Pranjal, son of Asclepius, were working the hardest. Not that you could tell at the moment, considering they’d been locked in a surgery room for the past half an hour.
Nico had a decent idea of what was going on, more than the other “patients” here at least. He could feel it, emanating from that dreaded room. Someone’s life force was slipping away. He didn’t know her personally; an Ares girl, thirteen years old, dying of a stomach wound. Will and Pranjal were using every last bit of their power, but it was a useless battle. Even if they did manage to rearrange her organs, and stitch her up without her bleeding out, she wouldn’t make it through the night. The girl had lost her will, let the thread slip through her fingers, and if she was brought back now, it would be in agony and longing for an Elysium she never got to see. It would only cause her more pain. And Nico could tell that Will knew this. He saw his power mingling with her lifeforce, felt it understand her plea, and recede to be better used elsewhere.
Through the door, Pranjal was crying. Will murmured words to him that Nico couldn’t hear, but they didn’t calm him down. We can still save her! Whatever Will said in return was lost in a torrent of sobs. They didn’t come back out for another ten minutes, in which Nico felt the girl’s soul slip from her body to join the many others who had died in this war. Maybe it was morbid, but the primary thought in Nico’s mind was, Gods, I’m going to have so much work to do once I’m out of here. You try putting dozens of souls to rest after fighting in a war yourself, and hauling a massive marble statue half-way across the world. Call him heartless, see if he cared.
When the door finally opened, Will met Nico’s eyes. Their blue was dark and stormy, and absently Nico wondered if they changed with his emotions, or mirrored the sky outside. Studying Will Solace’s eyes (not that he’d ever done that), it was obvious they’re colour shifted with some consistency. He swore that when they’re gazes met, the clouds outside gathered over the sun, dimming the infirmary of natural light. Nico knew what Will was asking, and he nodded, watching the smallest amount of tension leak from his shoulders. Behind him Pranjal wiped his nose, only adding to the ruddy rawness of his face where he had scrubbed away tears and snot. Will’s face, on the other hand, was entirely dry.
The two of them walked over to Kayla, who Nico vaguely knew as Will’s younger sister, the archery wiz. He hadn’t known she was a healer as well. Though obviously less skilled than her brother, she had been darting around, stitching wounds and dolling out ambrosia. Hers and Austin Lake’s, another child of Apollo’s, help was imperative to the careful ecosystem that was the infirmary. After chatting briefly, she rushed out of the room with a solemn look on her face. Nico assumed she’d been told about the dead girl. Will watched her go with sad, hard eyes, before he left Pranjal to his work and came to sit at Nico’s bedside. Despite the circumstances, the butterflies in Nico’s stomach rattled their wings. Will heaved a heavy sigh as he lowered himself to a chair at the head of the cot.
“It was kind, what you did,” Nico said, eyes deliberately forward. Will Solace wasn’t built to look so grave, and it was unsettling to say the least.
“I hope you’re right,” he replied, voice as cool and stoney as his face. “She wouldn’t have made it through the night, would she?”
Nico clenched his teeth, and said, “No.”
Will took a deep breath, and let it out harshly through his mouth. Nico tried to do the same. He smelt faintly of blood and stomach acid. It covered up the antibacterial soap, his spicy deodorant, and the stain of woodsmoke that clung to him, because Will Solace never missed a campfire if he could help it. Recently, he’d missed three. Dark bags hung under his eyes, and his freckles had faded without sunlight to develop them. He looked exhausted, and he was still working. Even now he reached for his clipboard, eyes scanning Nico with a clear kind of conviction.
“Then I stopped her pain.” He swallowed, and it seemed like he was pushing down more than just saliva. “I did my job.”
After that it was straight to work. Will explained that the IV was saline, because Nico was incredibly dehydrated. He rambled medical jargon, throwing around words like malnutrition and poikilothermia, spouting nonsense about oxytocin and vitamin D, most of which Nico tuned out. It was nice just to listen to his voice. Maybe his voice had genuine healing properties, like the purr of a cat. It wouldn’t be that surprising, considering he could cure someone’s cold with a song. But not five minutes later, unfortunately, woefully, the spell was broken by the slamming of a door.
“Solace!” roared the camper in the doorway, another Ares kid Nico didn’t know. Will took a deep breath, he seemed to be doing that a lot lately, and shot Nico a dry smirk that said, Enjoy the show. He stood up and rolled his shoulders, eliciting some concerning cracks, then turned to face the disturber of their relative peace.
“Mark,” Will said, with a straight face and a calm voice. Mark marched up to him, and the bustle of the infirmary parted to let him through. Kayla stood in the doorway, looking tired and guilty. “Can I help you?”
“That was my little sister you just let die.”
The room seemed to flinch, medics and patients all bit their tongues. Death was an unfortunate inevitability that came with being a doctor, as well as a demigod. Poor Will had gotten the short end of the stick, since he was both. If there was anyone in camp who rivalled Nico in his acquaintance with death, it would be Will Solace. And unlike Nico, he made many personal connections. Not only had he lost siblings and friends, he’d been up close and personal with their mortality. He’d been the one to call the shots; to determine who took priority, and who was a waste of resources. He bore all of this unflinching. When the infirmary around them shook with the accusation, he stood firmly in the middle of it, an anchor of sense in the sea of emotion.
“I did all I could.” Untrue. He could have given her a few more hours of pain, spending precious energy and time only for her to die overnight. That was all he could do. But he didn’t. Instead, he’d chosen to be kind. Mark would never understand that.
“Bastard!” he yelled, taking the final few steps so he was nose to nose with Will, pulling him up by a handful of his surgeon’s shirt. He dwarfed him, which was decently impressive. Not many people at camp could claim they were taller than Will. He stood– or tiptoed– his ground, meeting Mark’s eyes with a patient stare.
“If you have something to say to me, then say it.”
“Why you little- what gives you the right to pull the plug on people’s lives, huh? You can’t even save one little girl!” He shook Will, hard, and Nico saw him close his eyes so they wouldn’t rattle. “You’re a coward, playing medic on the sidelines.”
Will opened his eyes, maintaining his unshakable chill. Nico bit back a smile when he asked, “Are you done?”
Mark laughed cruelly in his face, flecks of spit landing on his tan cheeks.
“No, but you are,” he growled, with a manic glint in his eye, “All these people in cots, perfectly fine, taking up space, while you let little kids die in the back. Get your priorities straight, Solace. Admit it, you’re out of your depth.”
In a fraction of a second, Mark was on the ground. If you could reroll time, and play it back in slow motion, you would see Will grab his hand by the thumb and dig a nail into the meat of his palm. The fabric of his shirt was released, and as soon as his feet were flat on the ground again, he spun Mark around and pinned his arm to his back. Mark’s bare knee was red with rugburn where it was shoved to the floor. All the air was knocked from his lungs. Will leaned in to speak by his ear.
“You don’t know shit about how I run my infirmary. Now I can’t fault you for bein’ angry, or grieving, but if you think for a second that I’m’a take this sittin’ down, then you’re a damn fool,” he said, and the look on Mark’s face was worth all the gold in the underworld. “Interrupt my work again, and I’ll show you what this coward looks like when he’s bowed up.”
Finally he let him go, straightening back up with a stern look on his face, as Mark caught himself on his hands. Will watched him stand and leave, eyes steely. Kayla, still in the doorway, murmured something under her breath. Mark didn’t show his face in the infirmary after that, and when Nico saw him again three days later, he was still speaking in hymnal quatrains.
Do not mistake his healing hands
For weakness or for fear
It’s of their poise and patient skill
That you are all still here