Time and Earth: A Doctor Who and PJO Crossover (Bk 1)

Chapter 32: Pranksters

Chapter 32: Pranksters

There was a staircase leading down to the base of the mountain, and I raced down it as fast as I could. My combat boots pounded against the rocks so hard I feared I might cause an avalanche.

I found the Dionysus twins guarding the entrance, recognizable only by the symbols on their chests. They looked only slightly alike. Had it not been for their matching symbols I would never have guessed that they had shared a womb.

The two of them pulled out their swords at the sight of me, a movement which I mirrored. Their leader might be dead, but they might still kill me in retribution.

"Peter is dead," was all I needed for them to leave me alone.

They pushed past me and raced back up the mountain. I guess they hoped they could still save him.

Either way, I didn't particularly care, I began to run towards my own camp, to my family.

By the time I reached the demigods, the news had traveled. Everyone had dropped their swords and retreated to deal with their wounded and dead. Dead. People had died for this cause. Many I'd never know.

I went straight to the hospital tent, the largest we'd set up. It was filled with bodies, screaming and murmuring, and silent. The stench of unwashed people, blood, and something sickly sweet dusted the air.

I searched the place for Will milling between patients, and my heart sunk when I couldn't find him. He was always tending to people after battles like these.

There was a gathering of people around one particular body, one in which I spied friends, and I dodged others to get to them. Annabeth was weeping softly and staring down at the patient.

I already knew who it was when people parted to let me through.

Annabeth gripped my hand as I lost my ability to move when I took the sight in.

Will was there, his eyes half open, at least a quarter of his body red and blistered, bleeding. There was so much, too much blood.

Nico was at his side, working with another Apollo kid trying mercilessly to ease his pain.

The son of Apollo whimpered softly as if his aches was great but he had no more strength to yell out.

When Nico looked up and saw me, he immediately began to explain. "He insisted that he should help in the battle and then a Hephaestus kid showed up and his powers were...well."

I knelt down beside my friend, his gaze widening when he saw me, alive, knowing what it meant. Will should have stayed here, he knew that. And the anger and frustration, the pain at seeing my friend who'd stuck by me through everything in such a state...it only made my eyes prick with tears harder.

My face was damp when my hands began to glow when tendrils of it sprung from my fingers and I could feel all the potential days leaking out of my skin. But for Will, it was worth it. Annabeth and the Stolls and other people whose faces I hadn't registered gasped as I produced the regenerative energy, and placed my gilded hands on his burns.

The son of Apollo, at last, had the strength to cry out as his skin began to heal, scars going away like rainy days.

And I would've healed him completely, would have gone round to all of the wounded and done the same thing, if Annabeth and Nico hadn't yanked me back.

"Don't use all of it," Nico said, his eyes tired yet shocked at what I'd done, "Will only needs a few more cubes of ambrosia and nectar now. Besides, you might want to save it for someone else."

And that was when I saw the second group to the left of Will, and my world fell out beneath me.

Will reached out and grasped my wrist, pulling me to face him. "Go to him," he rasped, "Leo needs it more than I do."

With my friend's blessing, I rushed those last few meters to where Leo lay, bleeding out beside Will.

His armor had been pulled away, laying at his side, and was for the most part in one piece save for the hole that peeled through the abdomen.

A matching wound lay in Leo's stomach.

It sputtered blood just as Peter's had, it had stained the entirety of his white top, the one he always wore, and it pooled around him in a rosy circlet. His chest rose and fell feverishly, surrounded by the Apollo kids trying to ease his pain, trying to stop the bleeding.

But a wound that deep...it was impossible.

I pushed them aside and placed my hands on either side of his face. Leo's skin was cold.

Piper, seated beside me was crying, trying to explain to me between sobs what had happened. I got the gist. Jagjit, the halfhearted soldier had done it. And from how she described it, this wound had been a result of the pressure applied by his God Lord peers.

Nemesis was the goddess of revenge but she was also the deity of justice and balance. This...this was not justice nor balance. It wasn't even revenge.

Leo coughed, his eyes fluttered open and a ghost of a grin appeared when he registered who he saw. "Lucy," he whispered.

Not here. Not now. I was not going to lose him.

My limbs began to quiver with the force of the regenerative energy which pushed itself out of my veins like hellfire. He'd need a lot more of it than Will. If Will's had been a candle, then Leo's was a bushfire. It leaped out of my hands like solar flares, I couldn't stand to look at them because they were so bright, as if they'd come from my very essence.

Everyone, including Piper, Jason, Hazel, and Frank leaped out of the way when my arms began to burn with it all.

And looking down at the son of Hephaestus, his skin pale and dying, I realized that I loved him, and he needed to live so that he could hear the words, even if he didn't feel the same way yet.

And so I wrapped him in my arms and brought him to my chest, my regenerative energy encircling us and his failing body in a perfect storm. The amber energy glowed and twirled around us, removing the rest of the world as Leo's breaths grew more regular beneath me, and his skin returned to its usual temperature.

We might have stayed there, in the crucible of the alien power, for minutes or days or years, but when we came out, the near gaping hole in Leo's stomach had disappeared, replaced by new, tender skin. His eyes were closed, and for a moment I feared it had all been for nothing.

But then his eyes flew open. Brown, warm, alive.

I placed my hands on either side of his face and searched him for other wounds. "Are you ok?" I asked, running my hands over every part of skin I could manage, trying to feel for anything I could heal.

Leo looked around, confused, but his hands had immediately gone for my waist. Good; his memory was still there at least.

"What happened?" he asked, the sound of his voice making my chest jolt, "I was fighting and then that Nemesis kid from Demons Run stabbed me and..."

He trailed off, only now just noticing his bloodstained shirt. He placed his hands where he'd been bleeding out only moments before, eyes wide in disbelief.

Leo pulled me closer, registering what I'd done to keep him with me. His skin was warm. "Lucy, what did you do?"

I chuckled and brought my hands to the back of his neck. I didn't care that we were surrounded by our friends, I didn't give one flying damn. Leo was alive, and Will was too. We'd all gotten out, our home intact. My smile was painful in its size.

But as much as I wanted to say those words, now, in a tent of the dying, I knew it wasn't the time. When we got home, I promised myself, I'd tell him.

"It doesn't matter," I answered, settling for bringing my mouth to his.

And despite the groans of disgust from everyone surrounding us, I didn't care. It didn't matter that the Seven were watching, or that my people most likely hated me, or if I never saw the Doctor or River again. Because for that fraction of time, I was free.