Grover Underwood
Chapter 20

"So tell me, Grover, how did the Sun Chariot get in the pegasi stables?"

Chiron poised a great question, but it was just Grover's luck that he didn't have any great answers, "To tell you the truth, I don't remember anything after our fight with Artemis, and even then, I only remember half of the fight." His explanation disappointed even himself, but it was all he had to offer...well, almost all.

"Then explain to me what 'outside force' helped you fight Triton and Artemis? Or why you were even attacked in the first place?" Chiron once again picked apart his recap of the quest with expert precision. Grover had almost hoped Chiron's age had gotten to him and he wouldn't pick up on the strange parts, but he knew it was a unfruitful venture. None of the cabin heads had asked any questions, to Grover's surprise. No one spoke a word other than Chiron, and that bothered Grover that there was something so serious that even Clarisse had kept her mouth shut.

How could he possibly explain anything that happened without divulging the fact that Scott was the son of Aeolus?

He attempted time and time again in his head to answer Chiron's questions, but each time, he only became more and more frustrated with himself and with Chiron for putting him in the situation. Grover began to have his own questions for Chiron. 'What about that prophecy, Chiron?' being the front-runner. Even after all this time and everything he'd been through, Grover still found it easy to question who to trust and who not to trust.

The gods were against them, no doubt, and if the very beings they fought to preserve were fighting against them, then who was to say Chiron wasn't too? Who was to say that the campers hadn't been converted?

Grover felt a hand on his shoulder, but he was so lost in his thoughts, he didn't process the command to turn his head and see who it was. As if he knew what to do, Percy communicated through their shared empathy link, "Dude, calm down. You need to remember that we share the same thoughts. Your anxiety is giving me anxiety."

Then he heard Percy speak through his mouth, "Annabeth and I are done with clean up duty so we're here to answer your questions."

Grover turned around and saw Percy and Annabeth suddenly much redder than they were the last time he saw them, and even then, Annabeth looked like she was the worst of the two. She seemed to be sweating out her soul and with every breath, she looked a little more tired.

Falling in line with Grover's thoughts, Annabeth, who was standing beside Percy initially, crumpled to the floor, causing everyone to rise from the table in alarm while Percy shouted, "Annabeth!"

Chiron shouted, "Blasted girl! Grover, get her quickly to Will in the infirmary! She clearly hasn't recovered enough from her rusted gunshot wound, and the Sun Chariot's unbearable heat did not do her any favors. Now go!"

Grover quickly threw back his chair and scooped up Annabeth. Behind him, he could hear Percy begin to run after him, but Chiron stopped him, "Percy, you stay." The satyr didn't stick around long enough to know how he responded.

Anything he could do to get away from their very cynical situation.

Grover sat rocking back and forth in a rocking chair next to Annabeth's bed in the infirmary.

Will Solace had left around five minutes ago after injecting the IV into her arm. He had said to try and keep her in bed as long as possible because she definitely needed the rest, and just from looking at her, Grover could definitely see that much.

As a precautionary measure, however, Will had tied her down to the bed with leather straps which made her look more like a test subject rather than tetanus poisoning victim. Of course, Grover knew that without the straps, Annabeth would most definitely attempt to get up at first chance, and Grover was almost too tired to force her back down which embarrassed the satyr. He was supposed to be the "Protector of the Wild" but he couldn't even keep a girl who got shot with a rusty bullet confined to a bed because he himself was tired.

"How's she doing?" Percy walked up to the bed, shocking Grover from her self-pity.
"Ah, you know. Sweaty, pale, the usual, "Grover tried to joke, but even he felt the heaviness in his words.

Percy walked over, putting a hand on her forehead to gauge her fever, "Oh, she'll be fine; I know that for a fact. She lived through Ethan Nakamura's poisoned dagger, she'll live through a rusty bullet..." He sat down in the chair on the other side of her, watching her chest fluff up and deflate back down, then fluff back up and deflate back down, fluff up and deflate down, fluff up and deflate down, fluff and deflate, fluff and deflate..."Was it really necessary to bind her to the bed?" He seemed to ask out of nowhere, but the way he asked it sounded like he already knew the answer.

Grover looked at him long and hard, seeing that he did, in fact, already know the answer, but they needed something to talk about so he humored him, "Oh you know, I told Will you liked S&M and he seemed to understand, "He held back his chuckling until he thought of another idea, " Now, if you look under your seat, you'll find a whip and riding crop..."

The two couldn't contain their laughter after that last bit, and after maybe five minutes or so, they stopped laughing and then started back up because Grover couldn't help himself from snorting like a pig. The truth was, Grover didn't want to stop laughing. It felt too good to laugh wholesomely and whole-heartedly like this after such a serious atmosphere around them. In fact, Grover didn't think he'd laughed this hard since the group had ventured out to Hoover Dam. Memories of 'I need to go the the dam restroom.' and 'I want a dam enchilada.' or even the classic 'Where is the dam cafeteria?' flooded into Grover's brain which fueled his laughter and snorting even more which, in turn, fueled Percy's.

All in all, the two best friends laughed for what seemed like hours, but in reality, it was only a mere fifteen to twenty minutes. Even then, it was still an abnormally long amount of time to spend laughing over a joke about S&M-especially when the joke was about Annabeth who had contracted tetanus from some hick in Mississippi.

After they finally calmed down enough for normal conversation, Percy started, "Man, that felt too good..." He wiped tears from his eyes, "It's been too long since we've had the time to do this. I know we just had the quest and all that jazz, but that was a serious situation. This? Oh man, it's just like old times..."

That struck a chord with Grover: was "old times" really old times? Something different happened every year at the camp, and to Grover, Percy vaporizing Ms. Dodds could have been only a few months ago and Luke's death just yesterday-which it basically was. Old times made it sound like they were a couple of oldies who still listened to Frank Sinatra now and then and still went on their annual hunting trip every November to escape their unhappy lives.

Grover realized he'd gotten that last part from Stephen King's Dreamcatcher and at once felt like a nerd. Although he'd made the comparison, no murderous aliens would come shooting out of peoples' butts and eat people alive. There were no quarantined areas with a psychotic general overseeing something called a 'phooka' and certainly no "special child" named Douglas(he pronounced it 'Duddits' as did his friends and family). Although, if there was a psychotic general, it'd be Dionysus and the 'phooka' would be called wine. The quarantined area would be and was the protective dome over the camp and the special child, by all means, was Scott.

Not to say no one else at camp was special; they were all special, for better or worse. If one had seen Scott do what he did, they'd believe he was special, and even though it was Aeolus pulling the strings, the fact that he was Aeolus's son just sent shivers down Grover's back. Not that Percy being Poseidon's son or Thalia being Zeus's daughter or even Nico and Bianca being Hades's children wasn't surprising, it was just that Aeolus never seemed to be the type of god to be able to attract any sort of romanticism from anyone.

The subject of Aeolus brought up Grover's next question, "What all did you tell them?"
Percy sighed, leaning back in his chair, "Told them that, for some reason, Apollo left us the Sun Chariot to spite Artemis because of some kind of sibling rivalry and before Triton or Artemis could do anything serious to us-"
"You mean spear one of us through with a trident?"
"Okay, so I might have mentioned about how the trident is nothing but an illusion to scare us and it'll disappear soon enough, "Percy finished.

Grover seemed pretty skeptical, "I don't know, man; that seems pretty flimsy to me..."
"Oh, well, if you had a better idea, it would've been in your best interest to explain it to Chiron and the others yourself, " When Grover nodded understandingly, Percy continued, "Besides, there's no way we can mention Aeolus. Absolutely no way. We can't even mention Scott is his son; they'll think we're even crazier than Aeolus is-not to mention Scott hasn't even been claimed. Do you remember what just being around that guy made us feel like? Made me feel like?"

The satyr remembered it vividly from the puddle of memories that he was having to search through. Percy had to experience it first-hand, Aeolus's madness, but even from being anywhere near it, Grover could feel an icy coldness creeping into his brain and numbing his nerves. Yeah, that hurt, but the empathy link that was being held up with Percy...that's what really caused him to feel like he was going mad. He was feeling what Percy was feeling, but since Percy's Curse of Achilles prevented any physical harm, all of his pain was in his head. In this case, "madness" was an understatement to describe it.

All Grover could feel was Percy's internal screaming and he could hear Aeolus's cackling like it was on surround sound-maximum volume.

"Grover?" Percy called out, trying to snap his friend back from whatever zone he was in, "You there, bud?"
Looking up suddenly, Grover realized he had spaced out, "Oh, yeah, sorry. Just thinking, I guess."
"Are you sure? It looks like you're kinda out of practice, " Percy joked.

"If I recall correctly, you're the one who fought Ares, jumped off the Gateway Arch, sat in a god's throne, took a bath in the River Styx, and is currently dating Annabeth Chase. Who exactly is out of practice with thinking, now?" Grover raised an eyebrow while Percy laughed out loud, nearly crying.

Between them, Annabeth groaned, "Could you two keep...it down just for once?" She absentmindedly reached for the glass of water at her bedside, but seeing as her arms and legs were bound, her arm didn't budge an inch, "Well...you guys didn't have to go this far for little ole me..."

Percy and Grover only looked at each other and laughed, "Well, Wise Girl, can't be too wise if you took a rusty bullet, eh?" Percy joked with his girlfriend.
"I can't move now, but when Chiron decides to let me go, you're both dead..."

"Now you see why you're restrained, " Grover wisecracked.
"Just shut up and give me some water, Seaweed Brain, " and that's what he did. Percy gingerly grabbed the glass of water, slightly tipping it so the water would flow with gravity and trickle into her mouth. After a few gulps, Annabeth made a low humming noise to signal she was satisfied since she really couldn't motion her hands or anything of the sort," That would have been a lot easier if I wasn't strapped down."

"A lot of things would be a lot easier if certain things hadn't been done, and yet here we are, so you'll just have to deal with it, " Percy kissed her forehead and sat back down.
Annabeth, clearly frustrated, remained staring at the ceiling for a while until she finally opened her mouth again, it forming a slight smirk,"I'm beginning to think you just like me strapped to a bed."

"Woah, woah, this is some pretty inappropriate humor, but I'll leave if you guys need me to, " Grover got up, making like he was getting ready to leave, but Percy playfully pushed him back down.
"You idiot!" All three of them shared a laughed, but Annabeth's was slightly more pained, seeing as she still hadn't completely recovered.

After the laughing died down, Grover leaned over, peeling off the bandage that Will Solace had put on her to examine the gunshot wound, "At least its not infected. You could've gotten gangrene, and that would have been where the real problems would be, "He put the bandage back on,"I know you've survived a poisoned knife to the back, but gangrene is nothing to laugh about either."

"Yeah, "Percy added, "Let's just be glad that you didn't move around too much after the fact, and also, good job on bringing the new campers back with a shot up arm. I don't think we topped that."
"Not that we'd remember, of course, "Grover put in, "But we did bring them back in the Sun Chariot."

Annabeth just stared at them, "Woah, hold on a second. You guys are telling me-"
"Grover, Percy, Chiron asked for you guys to meet him by the *Sound, " Pollux said, interrupted at an opportune, yet unfortunate time. They were just about to divulge to Annabeth the full happenings of their half of the quest, but Chiron needed them. You could disobey the centaur, but you couldn't ignore him. Grover and Percy got up from their chairs and told Annabeth to just lay back and relax because they'd be back in no time, whatsoever. All the while, she was demanding that they stay behind and tell her what all happened, but Percy and Grover, being Percy and Grover, ignored her all the way out of the infirmary tent.

*Sound: Long Island Sound; where Percy and his father usually meet at the camp.

A.N. This was a slow chapter, and I'm sorry for that. Another thing I'm sorry for is taking so long updating these days. I just really want you guys to know that I'm still here, but again, I'm sorry I only came up with this. My apologies, but I'm really looking forward to a future chapter that I've had written for quite some time now. When the time comes, I hope you all enjoy it also.

Once again, my apologies.

So...
Kawind OUT!