Chapter 8 A/N If today is your birthday. Happy birthday. Happy Easter! I know this chapter is a little short. So here is this chapter and then I'll have 2 more chapters. I'll the have a epilogue which is a spin-off for my next story.

Annabeth's POV

It was bad. Percy was laying there, dying right be fore Annabeth's eyes. Annabeth remembered Tarterus, when Percy had the curses from the auri. He was dying in front of her eyes but this was different, back there in Tarterus they had something they didn't have now, hope. Seeing Bob carrying him to Damasen's hut, Annabeth had hope. Hope that this friend of Bob's could heal Percy. Hope that they could find a way out. Hope that they could beat the monsters that stopped them from seeing the stars. The fact that they had a Giant, Titan and vicious skeleton kitty on their side didn't help.

But now there was no hope. There was no cure for Hydra venom, and celestial bronze was deadly to demigods. On top of it all, the wound was terribly infected. Annabeth knew Percy wasn't going down without a fight, but there wasn't anything short of a miracle that could save him. Annabeth's head was on Reyna's shoulder as they sat a Percy's side. Sally was on Percy's other side, barely able to hold back tears. After the social worker left 20 minutes ago, Joshua had asked Paul to go down to get coffee with him, and they still hadn't returned.

Sometime had passed before Paul came back. He told them that Joshua had to go to work that day and had gone home. He asked how Percy was, which was worse, and then sat down next to Sally. The room was silent except for the steady beeping of the heart rate monitor for a few minutes when there was a knock on the door and a doctor they had never seen before entered. "Hello," the man said. "My name is Marcus, and I think I can save him."

Marcus's POV

Marcus entered the room. There were two girls, a blond about 17 and another girl with black hair who looked 15 or 16. There also was a man and a woman, who he guessed to be the boy's mother and step-father. The black-haired girl had the tattoo off Bellona with 5 bars. She also wore the praetor's badge on her SPQR t-shirt. The blond had no tattoo, but Marcus could tell she was a warrior by the grey-eyed death stare she gave him. The boy was roughly 17 and bore the symbol of Neptune, with one bar. At camp on of the many things they had taught him was how to read people. He could tell that the blond was the boy's girlfriend and the praetor was a friend of the blonds, but felt close to the boy.

Marcus showed the praetor his tattoo. "Ave hail," he said and gave a small bow. The praetor looked him over.

"What do you bring us, son of Apollo? You have completed you 10 years I see."

"I have received a message from a god in the form of a dream, telling me how to heal a son of Neptune. It was prophesized that I would save the savoir of Olympus. I don't know if I'm right, I mean a first year saving Olympus, a son of Neptune no less. I thought they were bad luck."

The praetor smiled, "I'm guessing it's been a while since you've been to camp?"

"Little under 6 years."

"Well you could say we've had a busy year, the Prophecy of the Seven unfolded, so yeah. What were you saying about being able to heal Percy?"

"Like I said, I believe I can heal him of poison, and I will do it under one condition: you tell me the news of camp." He walked up to the boy, Percy, and looked at the wound. It was bad, but he'd seen worse. The only thing was the wound looked old. "How long ago did this happen?" he asked the praetor.

"About a week ago. He didn't tell anyone because it was an accident, and didn't want anyone to blame anyone."

"Who did this? I'm guessing it's Hydra venom, but what sort of weapon, and what sort of 'accident' are we talking about." The room went silent. The boy's parents looked at the blond and the blond went pale. The blond looked at the floor. "Tarterus did many things to me, he was just trying to protect me," she whispered. Marcus decided not to ask any questions.

"Do you have any nectar or unicorn horn? I need it to heal him." The praetor pulled small vial of nectar and a plastic baggie of unicorn horn some out off her coat pocket and handed it to him. He pulled out the water bottle of seawater and mixed them all together. "Now the only thing I need is a small piece of coral, I have no idea where to get some."

The blond's hand went to a leather necklace she was wearing. She took it off and pulled a coral pendant off. She handed it him with shaky hands.

Marcus slid the coral into the bottle and it bubbled for a second before turning into a golden mixture. Marcus poured the mixture into the boy's, Percy the praetor had said, mouth and he swallowed it willingly.

When the bottle was drained, Marcus could immediately see the color returning to the boy's face. "Make sure he has plenty of rest. Why don't we go down to the coffee shop? I believe someone needs to tell me about The Prophecy of the Seven."