When Worlds Collide

118) Sunshine? More Like Cloudy Weather

-Will POV- 

Will sat under the willow tree that he and Nico had their first kiss under. He spent most of his days there since being brought back to the manor. His siblings stayed close by, but they knew he wanted to be alone.

He stared at the empty spot next to him and wished he had the power to snap his fingers and have Nico be there. He wanted to stop feeling useless and alone. He was a medic whose boyfriend was hurting, and yet he was powerless to stop it.

"Will," a soft voice called from just outside the wall of leaves. Most trees were already bear this time of year, but the willow still held on to its summer leaves. "Can I join you?"

Will glanced up at the figure through the leaves. "Sure," he said quietly. He didn't really want company, but Hazel was Nico's sister. What right did Will have to turn her away when she was hurting just as much as him.

Hazel parted the branches before stepping in, letting them fall closed behind her. "You know, you really shouldn't be hiding in the shadows all the time. You're not gonna fully recover unless you spend some time in the sun."

Will unconscious drew his hand up to the bandages around his neck that covered the wound he had gotten from those gods forsaken collars. Most of the other demigods had been healed fully due to ambrosia and his siblings, but Will had refused both. He would heal eventually.

"I'm fine," he said.

Hazel sat next to him. For a while, neither said anything, they just sat there.

"I realized something just a little bit ago in the cave," Hazel said, eyes trained on the leaves. "The Waynes are working on it, but I don't think they'll get too far."

"Doubting the 'world's best detective'?" Will said with a slightly raised eyebrow.

Hazel shrugged. "This thing isn't really their area of expertise. The thing they're trying to answer isn't really something a detective can answer— it's more for doctors."

Will looked at her with furrowed eyebrows. "What?"

Hazel looked back at him, a mixture of emotions in her eyes. "I know that you're not technically Nico's doctor anymore, but you have the most experience of your siblings with treating demigods. You understand our physiological better than anyone."

Will stared at her for a long moment before looking down at his hands. "What did they do to him?" He asked, his chest feeling heavy.

"They never fed him while I was in the room. We know that demigod metabolism is too high for him to have never been given some sort of nutrition because I can tell he isn't close to death, but we don't know that they were doing instead, nor why it's happening."

Will let out a long breath, trying to push down the fear that had been bubbling in his chest every moment since he woke up and found out that Nico wasn't saved too.

Right now they didn't need a scared boyfriend. They needed the head medic of Camp Half-Blood.

"Well, there are a few different ways they could be giving the patient nutrients other than food," he said, forcing his brain to work analytically. "TPN, also known as Parenternal Nutrition, and feeding tubes would be the most likely methods. They could use NG, G, or J-Tubes, but they would probably opt for the NG method since it would be easiest to use. TPN would be unlikely since it's a whole lot more complicated considering its basically making your digestion happen externally. Plus, it runs a higher risk of infection and can cause sepsis."

Hazel nodded. "And why would they put an NG Tube on Ni— I mean, the patient— while the rest of us were given food?"

Will shook his head. "I don't know, sadism?" he said, attempting a joke but it just came out as bitter. "I mean, maybe the tests they were running on the patient were different than the ones done on us. They honestly didn't take my blood too often, but they used me to test probably around 15 different prototypes for that cursed collar."