Too Late

Chapter 42

~ Will ~

He stared at the child of Nemesis, Nico stood next to him, his hand in Will's.

Shelby lay on the bed, eyes closed, but alive. Very much alive.

"Will they be okay?" Nico asked softly. Will nodded, "They're out of danger, for now at least."

Nico rested his head against Wills arm, "I guess that explains the dreams." He said. "They were memories."

"But it doesn't explain why I was getting them, or why this is happening."

"There's a lot we don't know." Nico summed up.

Will wrapped his arms around the son of Hades, "Do you think this has to do with the prophecy from Luke's book?" He asked.

Nico didn't respond at first, then he slowly nodded, "It does line up. The first two lines do anyway, the ones who lost their way, return home again." Nico recited, "That's probably Shelby."

"But it says ones." Will pointed out. "Who could that be? And what about the next lines? The beast sleeps, alive and well, screams unleash hell."

Nico shrugged, "I have no idea... But the last ones... broken mind, tortured soul, forgotten cure." Nico didn't finish, he didn't have to. Will knew they were thinking the same thing. Story left untold. Those words didn't have many different meanings. And most of them involved death.

Along with the other lines, the answer seemed pretty clear to Will. He wouldn't be able to save them, whoever they were. He would not be able to cure the madness.

* * *

It took three days. Three miserable days of waiting. But the moment Shelby woke up, Will was there. He was by their side, they sat up in a panic, a wild look in their eyes. but when they saw Will they smiled.

"Shelby?" He asked hesitantly.

"William." They said, their voice was soft and childish.

"You remember me." He said, relieved.

They nodded, "You're Harper's little brother." When they said Harpers name their voice dipped. Realization dawned in their chocolate brown eyes. Shelby closed their eyes and started to tremble. Memories taking over there fragile mind. Will just sat with them, muttering words of comfort. After a while Shelby took a deep breath, they looked up at Will, their eyes full of tears. It was strange to see tears in Shelby Lancaster's eyes.

"I should have done something." Shelby murmured. "I should have-"

"Don't beat yourself up about it." He said, "It was fate and there was nothing you could do to stop it. It's all in the past now, it's been a while."

Shelby looked up, startled, "A while?"

"About four years."

Shelby's eyes widened, the gold specs seemed to grow. Will continued, "You went missing the night she left. Then..." He hesitated, "Um... Blake left too." Shelby just sat there, they began to shiver and Will gently wrapped a blanket around them. "But you're here now." He said softly, "You're back and you're safe."

"Four y-years." They stammered, struggling to get the words out.

Will wanted to hit himself for being so stupid, of course Shelby would be in a state of shock, anyone who had been missing for three years and was a demigod probably would be too.

* * *

Will wrapped and re-wrapped his arm in a tensor bandage, lost in thought. He sat in Shelby's room, they were on a walk with Austin. To be honest, he'd been kind of disappointed that they didn't want to go with him, but he'd said that they could go as long as someone was with them.

"Will, stop that." Someone yanked the bandage away from him, he looked up to find Nico, "You've almost been doing that for ten minutes."

"How long have you been here?"

"Almost ten minutes."

"Oh..."

Nico smirked and planted a kiss on his forehead, "Let's go sun kid. you look like you could use some rest." Will was about to protest but Nico cut him off, "Austin said that he would stay with Shelby for the night. Now you're out of excuses, let's go." His boyfriend hauled him to his feet and took his hand, guiding him out of the room.

ooof sorry for the hella long update rip