literature

Caring for you

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Caring for you

Frank sat in a room of New Rome’s healing pavillon and watched the sleeping figure. Praying every second to every god he knew, Roman, Greek or other, that she might finally wake up.
With a sigh, he recalled the last days. They had finally beaten Gea. Roman and Greek demigods had joined in one last great battle to defeat the earth goddess and her sons, the giants. But they all got exhausted and wounded. Frank himself too, though thanks to his robust physique, he recovered fairly quickly.
Hazel, however, was still unconscious.
The three days that had passed since the victory over Gea had shown no sign of her awakening. That fact worried Frank more and more, the longer Hazel remained unconscious. Of course they force-fed her nectar and ambrosia, but this wouldn’t work long-time. Her body needed proper nourishment, or else she’d start to disappear, to fade away like a… a ghost. Frank shuddered as he thought that word. He didn’t like to use it regarding Hazel. For somehow she was a ghost, seen as she returned from the Underworld seventy years after her death. Yet at the same time she was burnig with the fire of life. He had felt her warmth, a warmth no dead thing would ever exude. And still… he was afraid that she might one day vanish, disappear into thing air like a ghost. Exactly because she had returned to life, when she was supposed to remain in the Underworld for all eternity, she seemed so much more fragile to him than the others. At least, when he saw her like this. Laying there beneath the blanket, she seemed like a glass figurine to him. The face was the only thing he could see, but he knew that underneath the blanket, parts of her body were wrapped in bandages. Her face too showed cuts and bruises. As did the rest of her. Not that Frank had seen her; but the medics occasionally had hushed him out of the room to renew the bandages.
„Don’t leave me“, he whispered. „Don’t go away, Hazel Levesque. I need you.“
He repeated her name a few times, like prayer or a summoning. Suddenly she stirred. His heart stopped. This was the first time in three days she had moved. He waited motionless for another sign of life, but there was nothing.
There was a sting in his heart.
„Hazel…“ Her name came out choked, like a sob. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t want her to die! Not after what they all had gone through. Hazel had even come back from the Underworld to fight Gea. Like a distant echo, he heard the words she had said to Thanatos: „I didn’t come back from the dead and travel thousands of miles to be called an idiot.“ She had faced many hardships and difficulties; in her first life, she had been terrorised by Gea and sacrificed her mother and herself to prevent Alcaenyas from rising. After she returned from the Underworld, she defeated him on the Hubbart Glacier, dealt with Hecate, learned how to control the mist and defeated the powerful sorceress Pasiphae. It just wasn’t fair for her to die now. Now that they had won their greatest victory and saved the Earth.
A tear fell from his cheek onto her hand. He hadn’t realised he had started crying.
„Hazel, come back.“
A second tear followed the first. The salty drop splashed onto Hazel’s chocolate brown skin.
Her hand twitched.
For the second time, Frank’s heart seemed to stop. He watched Hazel breathlessly.
She stirred.
„Hazel!“ Frank couldn’t hold back the scream. She was waking up! And indeed, her eyelids fluttered, then slowly, painfully slowly, they opened to reveal her dazzling golden eyes.
„Hazel!“
„F… Frank? Is that you?“
Her voice sounded weaker than Frank had ever heard it, so weak that it made his heart cringe painfully. However, he didn’t speak, just leaned down and hugged her as tightly as he dared. His tears now flowed uncontrollably. But he wasn’t ashamed. He almost lost one of the persons closest to him in this world. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply her scent of cinammon.
„Hey there, big teddybear. What’s with the waterfall coming out of your eyes?“
Hazel still sounded weak, but her smile was faintly audible in her voice. Still, Frank felt relieved. If Hazel was able to joke around, it meant that her condition was not too bad. Or at least he hoped so. There was, after all, something called dark, sarcastic humor. Right now, however, that was secondary. She had woken up, and that was what mattered. Fort he past three days, it had been Frank’s nightmare to image she might die unconscious, without waking up one last time to say goodbye. The concept of her death had been a nightmare in itself.
„I’m just so glad that you’re okay“, he sobbed. „You were out for three days, and I thougth… I feared… I feared you might never wake up again. That I’d loose you too.“
He glanced at her. Hazel was looking at him with such tenderness and affection that his heart ripped appart.
„You big silly chinese-canadian baby-man“, she said. Despite her words, her tone was so gentle that Frank knew that they weren’t meant to harm him. „Did you really I’d really leave you alone, so you have to deal with the demigod world on your own?“
Frank needed a moment to grasp the meaning of those words, to understand their full extent. When he did, he again didn’t reply in words, but hugged her once more. He laid all of his passion and love, and his promise of protection into it.Hazel was silent with surprise. Then she leaned into the hug, closing her eyes. Frank’s arms around her were strong and warm; she felt the fire of Mars burning in his soul. It was a comforting warmth, unlike all the other children of Mars, in whom an agressive, vengeful fire blazed.
„You really care for me, do you, big guy?“
„I do, Hazel Levesque. I do care for you.“
„I heard you calling.“
„Wha?“ That unexpected statement baffled Frank and he broke the hug to look at her. „What do you mean?“
„At first it was dark.“ A little shudder reverborated in Hazel’s voice, as if she didn’t like to think back about this place. „Then it started to rain. And through the rain, I heard your voice calling my name. I followed it until I finally found a light.“
Frank stared into her golden eyes while thinking about he just had heard. A fire started to burn inside him. Not the wild kind. But a flame that filled his body with warmth and his world with light.
„Hazel…“
He squeezed her hand.
They were interrupted by the door opening. When they turned to look, they saw Leo popping his head into the room. His mouth formed a surprised o for a second, then he grinned widely.
„Hazel! Just wanted to check on you!“ He came in and hurried to her bed. „You’re awake! That’s awesome!“
„Thanks, Leo.“ She smiled at him. „I’m glad to be back again.“
„Well then, I better go tell Percy and the guys“, the son of Hephaistos said. „Man, will they be relieved. Zhang, looks like you can end your watch here.“
„Watch?“ Hazel sounded slightly confused.
„He didn’t tell you?“ Leo raised an eyebrow and glanced at Frank. „Zhang, too much false modesty isn’t good. Hazel, how should I put it… as soon as he was able to walk again after the medics attended to him three days ago, he sat at your bed and watched over you.“
Frank blushed deeply.
„Oh, Frank…“ Hazel squeezed his hand. „I don’t know what to say.“
„Nutting“, he mumbled. „Besides, I didn’t keep watch over you the entire three days. I might have fallen asleep once or twice.“
„We practically had to force-feed him“, Leo added. „Lucky that I just came at the right time, Hazel. I doubt that Zhang would have admitted it to you. So, I gotta get the news to the rest of the crew. They’ll be thrilled to see you.“
„Wait!“ Hazel half extended an arm towards him. „Did everyone else survive?“
„Sure did.“ Leo grinned widely. And with that, he was gone.
Silence ensued. After a while, Hazel broke it by saying: „Big silly chinese-canadian baby-man.“
They looked at each other with blank faces. Then they broke into wide grins and struggled to have an outburst of laughter.
„I’m just so glad that you’re alive“, Frank said.
„And I’m infinitely relieved that you and the others survived the battle as well.“ Hazel gazed with her golden eyes directly into his soul. „You don’t know what a gift you made me by being here when I woke up.“
Frank didn’t get time to process these words. For in that moment, she pulled her other hand out from under the blanket.
It it was Leo’s sachel with his piece of wood.
„I kept it safe.“ Hazel’s voice sounded strangely hoarse. „I kept it safe, Frank. They tried to go after it, but I kept it safe.“
Frank stared at the sachel in disbelief. Shock, horror even. He realised that his must have been one of the reasons why Hazel got hurt so badly. She protected his piece of firewood, his vulnerable string of life, from Gea’s minions. The realisation struck him and left him at a loss for words.
„Hazel…“
She looked at him with her golden gaze, expetantly waiting for an answer. But Frank simply didn’t know. Didn’t know what to say, or how to react. When he remained motion- and speechless, it was Hazel to react. She pulled him down and hugged him. It was not a strong hug; Hazel was still weakened from her injuries. But he felt her love and tenderness in this gesture, her arms so warm around his torso.
„Silly Miss Lamarr“, he chocked, finally.
For a long moment, she said nothing. Then she gave him a kiss.
On the lips.
And as the tears flowed down his cheeks once more, he heard her whisper: „I care for you too, you big silly chinese-canadian baby-man.“
Yay! Now that I finally done the Illustration, I can upload this. I wanted to write a Frazel story for Ages, so I did it. Sure, I could have uploaded this without the Picture, but well, I had the idea and since I already started it, I wanted to finish it first.
The story itself is set after the final battle against Gea. I don't know how I got the idea. And I actually am very curious how Riordan lets this battle end. But well, this is a Scene I think is likely to happen, after all I read in House of Hades.
© 2014 - 2024 Aioros-sama
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