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Will had been told a lot of times over his life that he would do great things, his teachers said he was bright, and his mama and his grandparents said so many times that they were proud of him. But he didn't feel proud of himself.
.-.
When he first crossed the border into camp, he had been barely 9 years old and fucking terrified. His mama had dropped him off at that big tree, said she loved him, and then just walked back down the road.
“I’m so sorry, baby, but you’ll be safe here. I promise.” She had said before driving away, leaving him standing beside the tall tree at the camp's border. To say he cried was an understatement.
It took him three weeks to get claimed by his dad, it took three weeks before his powers came up in full swing, or what they thought was full swing at the time. Even at 9 years old, his skill rivalled that of Christina, who at 17 had the most experience of anyone bar Chiron, and ran the infirmary as if she was an army general.
.-.
The summer after Will first came to camp, they had the first storm to enter the camp’s borders in nearly 4 years, and before that, 20. That storm meant something big was happening, and despite being his siblings buzzing with excitement, Will was filled with nothing but dread. He was 10 years old when Percy Jackson stumbled down to hill to the big house, soaking wet and calling for his mom, Grover the satyr, and just anyone.
Lee got up to meet Michael in the infirmary, reassuring the rest of their cabin that everything was fine and they could go back to sleep.
Will didn't fall back asleep that night.
.-.
The first time Will took the Graveyard shift in the infirmary was in his third summer at Camp. They were short on people, having only 4 capable healers in their cabin, who each took turns working 6-hour shifts with another sibling for support, making sure injured campers didn't die. The protective border around camp was failing, and there were more and more campers being carried through those double doors on stretchers in the past three weeks than Will could remember in his whole time at camp.
His older sister Izzy looked close to breaking down every time a new patient was brought in, but she didn't stop working. Will watched her as she flew around the infirmary, from bed to bed smile on her face and ready to help. Even at 11, Will could see through it.
He, like most of camp, spent a lot of time scared these days.
.-.
Will stood on the hill again at the end of summer, and he was there when Thalia came out of the tree.
He and Lee were halfway through their shift in the infirmary, monitoring two Ares kids who’d gotten into a fight earlier in the day, both were only there for observation and would be free to leave in the morning. When Will and Lee heard the yelling, someone was screaming for a medic. They checked the two Ares kids were still asleep and not in any danger, then grabbed their medic bags and sprinted up to the tree, fearing the worst, that the fleece hadn't worked, that someone was dying, that the border was failing again and monsters were invading.
When Will saw Annabeth kneeling at the base of the tree, his brain nearly went into auto-pilot mode, but in the half-light, he could see the dark outline of someone else on the ground, black jeans and weirdly laced black boots, purple and yellow laces standing out against the scuffed leather.
As he moved closer, more of the person's form became clearer. They had choppy black hair, a smattering of freckles across their cheeks, and they wore a green army-style jacket that had more patches and pins attached to it than Will would have thought possible. A spear and shield lay on the pine-needle covered dirt beside the person as if they had just dropped them and fallen asleep right there.
“Will, Annabeth, help me get them down to the infirmary, Chiron says they’re a camper.” Lee said from behind Will, pulling a collapsible stretcher from his bag and setting it up.
The three of them worked together to slide the person onto the stretcher, and Will helped Lee carry it down to the infirmary, then to a curtained-off side room that they usually used for check-ups or isolation, although for the person (Will really should find out their name), it was more just for privacy than anything else.
Chiron followed them to the infirmary after dismissing the rest of camp back to their cabins, and hopefully to their beds, and once Will and Lee had the person settled on the bed, he had asked Annabeth to talk to him out in the hallway. Will couldn't make out what they were saying, their hushed voices nothing but a murmur as he and Lee began going through their baseline assessment of the person, to at least get some idea of if the person was in any danger through the night or not. Everything they did came up normal, as if the person was just in a really deep sleep.
All they could do now was wait for the person to wake up.
.-.
When Thalia woke the first time, Will was sitting writing notes while Lee was busy in the main room doing his rounds. Annabeth was out of the room, having only just been convinced to go get food and shower.
Thalia was murmuring something, almost too quiet to hear, but Will could make out a name. “Jason”.
When asked later, she would deny any knowledge of this, or anyone named Jason.
Will knew she was lying, the burning itch crawling down his arms said so, but he never pushed it.
It was nearly another full day after this that Thalia woke up enough to be properly responsive, albeit still drowsy, and Annabeth had barely left Thalia’s side, only ducking out for a minute or two at a time every couple of hours. Chiron and Annabeth had worked together to start filling in some of Thalia's information into the camp’s record system, but Will felt like her folder was still nothing more than a name and a shitload of cobwebs.
.-.
The one reprieve that any of Cabin 7 had from the cold and bitter weather was the blanket forts.
They weren't supposed to make them, the rule stated that blanket forts would lose them points in cabin inspections, but at this time of year? Will know that nobody was following that rule. He’d seen nearly every other cabin with enough space making some kind of fort or nest on the floor, all the pillows, blankets, and strings of fairy lights like twinkling stars, and Will could almost imagine nothing was wrong.
Almost.
Clarisse was gone on her mystery quest, Thalia and Annabeth were meeting Percy somewhere in New England to pick up a couple of new demigods, half of his other friends had gone home for the winter, and the other half were stuck inside their cabins because of the cold weather.
It was enough that he almost felt okay.
He longed for the bright sunny days that summer brought, but all he had was the pale monotone of winter.
None of this was okay.
He fell asleep that night hoping that Thalia and Annabeth and Percy and Clarisse were safe, and he woke up that morning to his father’s sun chariot landing in the lake, Annabeth missing, and one new kid to be shown around camp.
Gods it was too early for this.
.-.
It didn't fully hit Will that Lee was gone until after the battle when the influx of admissions into the infirmary slowed, campers were stabilised (or shrouded), and they had a chance to burn their dead siblings and friends.
It didn't fully hit Will that Lee was gone until after they burned that golden shroud and there was nothing left but gold-flecked ashes.
It didn't fully hit Will that Lee was gone until days after the battle when he finally got to come back to cabin 7 and sleep in his own bed as he said goodnight to his siblings, that he realised whose voice was missing, and whose quiet call of “g’night lightning bug” he would never hear again.
It hit him hard then, hard enough that he had to stumble outside muttering the faint excuse of needing the bathroom just so his siblings wouldn't hear his sobs. he felt like he couldn't breathe, like something had wrapped his chest and his throat in concrete, like no breathe he sucked in could fill up his lungs.
He needed to be strong now. For them, for the rest of the campers, for Lee.
Because who was he if not a rock, a healer, stable and dependable? Who was he if he couldn't heal everyone who passed through those heavy doors into Lee’s, no, his infirmary?
Gods he wished Christina stayed at camp.
.-.
Will was done.
He was over this, and he wanted to go home to his mama and his old life and he wanted to just pretend that none of this was real. He wanted to just wake up from whatever shitty dream this was.
In a city usually so filled with noise, all he could hear was silence. Everything just stopped.
He wanted to go home.
.-.
He saved Annabeth, but if he’d waited any longer, took any longer to get to her, it would have been different.
It made him feel sick, thinking of all the other people he couldnt save. One person shied in comparison to the 20 others who he couldn’t save. To his siblings he coudn’t save.
Gods he hated Percy Jackson now.
The logic part of his brain knew that what Percy and Michael had done was out of necessity and there was no way that Michael would have escaped the bridge in time, but the emotional part of his brain was screaming with grief and rage and utter desparation.
He couldn’t be the oldest now.
He couldn’t be the only one left in charge.
Kayla and Austin had better be okay, or he may just lose what little control he had left.
.-.
The aftermath felt like the worst part of this all.
After days spent listening to the screams and yelling and the burnt-out cracking voices of his siblings desperately trying to save people, this quiet felt wrong.
It wasnt quiet like the silence of the city when everything stopped, where you could hear a pin drop.
It was the quiet of less campers in the dining hall.
It was the quiet of too many shrouds missing from the storeroom shelves.
It was the quiet of three people left in a cabin that once housed nearly twelve.
It was the quiet of working alone in the infirmary because three people rotating through 8 hour shifts was the only way it worked anymore.
It was too quiet now.
.-.
Will Solace was a healer, not a fighter. He spent his time working in the infirmary healing people and teaching whoever wanted to learn and learning when he didn’t know something yet.
He wasn’t a fighter. (He would fight forever to keep anyone alive).
He fought anyway. (And gods did it hurt).
He wasn't made for this. (Yet here he was).
He fit the mould needed. (Like a square in the rectangle).
His hands were saturated with blood that nobody could see, but that he tried and tried again to wash away, leaving his hands red and raw, made worse by the overuse of his healing.
It was these hands, these healer's hands, that held the gap between this side and the next, but already had too many people slipped through the cracks, like sand between his fingers, an inevitable end to too many too short lives.
If only he could have done more, maybe he could've saved Lee and Michael and Silena and everyone else who had slipped through his fingers.
Too many times had he hurt without meaning to, too many times had he gotten angry and given someone some sort of plague. He learned to keep calm now. To not get angry until he was alone and the only person he could hurt was himself.
He told himself it was better this way.