Found Light in the Shadow (Solangelo)

Chapter Fourteen

Will

When we re-appeared, we were in the barn beside a very surprised elephant. Nico started to fall over, but I caught my angel before he hit the ground. As I poured more of my healing into his little body, he started to recover. Right after the color started returning to his face, he passed out in my arms. Reyna looked pretty beat as well, but she was still holding her own. The moonlight was the only thing lighting the barn, coming in between the boards. It was hard to tell exactly what time of the night that it was, or what day it even was.

Reyna knelt down beside me and asked, "is he going to be alright?"

"Yea, I think so. The sooner that I get him in bed though, the better. He is definitely going to need some rest. This was probably a lot easier on him when he was younger."

She started to laugh after I said that. "Are you saying that we're getting old Will?"

"Something like that."

"You pick him up and I'll get the door. Bob, are you going to be fine hanging out in here for a while? I'll send Annabeth over to check on you in the morning."

The titan seemed to get excited when Reyna mentioned Annabeth. "Bob will be find here. Bob can't wait to see Annabeth, have a present for her."

"Alright just stay inside the barn and hang out with Hannibal. He's the camp's pet elephant. I'm going to have guards posted here as well to make sure that you are kept safe."

Bob nodded and sat back down on the hay covered floor. I picked Nico up and followed Reyna to the door. Once outside, she walked with me back to New Rome. While walking through the city, we passed a newspaper machine. We stopped and checked the date on the paper in the glass window.

Reyna read the date to me. "September 22nd, we've been gone for over two weeks. That should still be yesterday's paper, so today is actually the 23rd."

"At least we still made it back with some time to spare."

When we got to our apartment, she unlocked the doors for me as I carried Nico inside. He was still completely passed out from exhaustion.

"Thank you for walking back with me Reyna, I really appreciate it. I'm going to get him cleaned up before I tuck him in."

"It's not a problem at all Will. After everything we have been through, making sure that you guys made it home safe was the least that I could do. I'm going to stop and wake Rachel up on my way back to the principia. Then I'm going to wake Frank's ass up so he can take care of Bob while I get some sleep. I feel like I haven't slept in two weeks, so I don't really care if I wake him up at 2 a.m."

Reyna left, locking the door for me behind her. I kicked my shoes off and carried Nico down the hall to the bathroom. Both of us were really cruddy and stunk beyond belief. I kicked the bathroom rug off to the side and laid Nico down on the floor. I started to fill the bathtub before trying to get Nico out of his clothes. His clothes were caked in dirt that was stuck to dried sweat. It took some doing to get everything off of him. The bath was ready by the time that I finished stripping him down. I peeled off my own crusty clothes and grabbed a wash cloth and bar of soap.

I picked him back up off the bathroom floor and stepped into the tub. Then, I slowly lowered us into the hot water, being careful not to slip. It was a tight fit for both of us in the tub, but I had him situated between my legs with his back against my chest. I scrubbed him off the best that I could. At one point, the water was almost black, so I had to drain the tub and refill it. I even had to wash his hair three times until I was satisfied that it was clean. Washing his feet was a pain in the ass too, but definitely needed. I was still amazed that through all of this washing, he still didn't wake up. Normally, I would have thought that something was really wrong with him, but I could tell that he was just exhausted.