He Woke Second

He Woke First

When Annabeth and Percy stumbled out of Tartarus, they were half dead.

The rest of the seven were fighting valiantly, sweat pouring and monsters disintegrating everywhere. The elevator doors were pulled open by trembling hands and two forms toppled out, a girl with matted blonde hair and a boy with sallow bruised skin. Frank was the first to notice, his heart leapt and he sprinted to where the couple had collapsed, breathing like they had just run a marathon.

The first thing Frank noticed was how thin they were. Percy's arms were like matchsticks, his tattered shirt hid a ribcage that was probably visible from a distance. Annabeth's hair which was once golden framed her sunken cheeks, her shirt was ripped up the back to reveal the ridges of her spine. The second thing Frank noticed was that Percy was conscious, and Annabeth was not.

As he skidded to his knees beside them, pressing his fingers to Annabeth's grimy neck in search of a pulse, Percy stirred. His hand waved in the air, pen uncapped and in sword form. Something fell out of his mouth as he opened it, a dribble of blood that ran down his chin in a slow current. He muttered something unintelligible and dropped the sword threateningly in Frank's general direction, narrowly missing Annabeth's arm. Then his hand dropped with a thud to the ground.

Frank murmured a few comforting words to Percy, who was barely holding onto consciousness. He found Annabeth's pulse which was comfortingly steady, though her breathing was not. Scratches and bruises littered her body, innumerable and bleeding, painful and swollen. But none of them seemed fatal, so he did nothing more than look at them before he turned away.

Moving onto Percy, Frank found his pulse to be much less steady that Annabeth's. His breathing was erratic, his eyelids twitched. When Frank touched his arm Percy jerked away before settling back with a barely audible groan. He didn't have as many cuts as Annabeth, though he seemed, if possible even thinner. His skin was practically yellow, papery in the dim cavern light. While he didn't have as many cuts Percy had dark bunches of bruises on his neck and arms and presumably on his torso and legs, dark purple and green and blue.

Frank deemed most of the bruises not fatal, though Percy's breathing was not getting steadier. Frank glanced back at Annabeth, concern wrinkling his brow. Annabeth's breath hitched and she moaned and shifted, clawing out in front of her for something. Frank watched worriedly before Annabeth suddenly jerked around still unaware and grabbed Percy's arm, which jerked hard but settled in her grip. Annabeth stopped moving clutching Percy's arm with her twig-like hands. Frank looked at them a moment longer before glancing back at the others.

Fighting was slowing down, monsters were being defeated and people were winding down. Nico was slashing through some empousa with his black blade, Jason was swooping about beheading things from above while also helping Hazel and Piper with some of the bigger monsters. Leo was nowhere to be seen.

Frank watched Hazel almost get pulverized by a flying chunk of rock before he made the decision to go back into battle. Gingerly, he shifted Annabeth into his arms, the wet blood from her face transferring to his clothes. She weighed practically nothing, and Frank carried her limp form over to a niche in the craggy cavern wall, lowering her to the ground and positioning her in a comfortable position. Then he ran back for Percy, picking his up just as carefully and being still more alarmed at how light his friend was, how knobby his hips and shoulders seemed. As he walked Percy began to struggle weakly to get out of Frank's arms, muttering but unintelligible.

Frank didn't let Percy go, just held on all the same until he reached Annabeth and settled Percy next to her. He hesitated a moment before he moved Annabeth's hand to Percy's side, so if she got scared she would know he was there.