Beyond All Expectation (Percabeth)

Chapter 26: Just Us

Percy POV:

Much later, we crept downstairs and escaped the party. I made sure not to let go of her hand, even when we climbed into the cab and left Woodsburgh. We got out at the Hospital and I led the way. She didn't say anything. 

When we rounded the corner to Tyson's room, Mary spotted me and frowned at her watch. 

"Have I been working too much and now I'm hallucinating? It's 1am, Jackson," she chuckled when she saw me. "I wasn't expecting you for another ten hours."

"I needed to see him, M," I said. 

"And who's your friend?" She looked between Annabeth and I. 

"Someone special to me," I replied. She smiled and walked the other way. Mary was my favourite Nurse in the ward - I suppose it was sad to say I knew them all by name now. There was Alan, who worked Tuesdays to Fridays, and Rose who always left a sweet out for me whenever I visited. And there was Carol, who looked mean but it was only because she had spent forty-five years on the job and had seen worse things in her life than you could even begin to imagine. And then there was Peter, who always smelled like apples, even though he claimed he was allergic to all fruit. Mary was my favourite because she seemed to care for Tyson the most. 

I pushed against the door to Tyson's room and led Annabeth inside. 

"Percy, where are we?" She asked finally. I smiled at her. 

"I wanted to show you my brother," I said softly. I dragged her towards the bed and stared down at Tyson. "Here he is, this is Tyson."

Annabeth let go of my hand and gently touched his arm. Of course, he didn't stir. 

"He's in a coma." 

"B-But... how?" She looked at me then, tears brimming in her eyes. "What happened."

I pulled the chairs closer to the bed so that we could sit, and I reached up to take Tyson's cold hand in my own. 

"My Mom and Dad had Tyson when I was three, but then my Dad died a year later and Tyson can't remember him at all," I explained. "He was born blind in one eye and had a type of autism that the doctors called ASD Level 2. It meant that he wasn't great at talking to people and he tended to get caught up in a lot of things. Despite that, the kid was a frickin genius. Like, Tyson had talent. He had a future. He was always creating things - his mind was amazing. When he was ten, my Mom and I showed him to Leo's Dad and he said that Tyson was cut out to be the best engineer of our generation. He was going to offer him a job when he got old enough."

I smiled at Annabeth, who was staring at Tyson with a sort of admiration. It made me feel proud, having someone look at my Baby Brother like that. 

"The two of us were best buds, we did everything together. I tried to help him out with his autism as best as I could. The problem was that we had to send him to a special school, which meant that Mom had to work overtime to pay for it, but we couldn't just leave him alone in the house all the time. So Mom met and married this guy named Gabe, who smelt really bad and ended up being a real prick. He ended up taking more money from us than providing, and he treated us all like shit."

I held up my wrist for her to see, showing a white scar that ran down it. "I got that one when I tried to kick him out of the house. Problem was, ten-year-old Percy isn't as strong as a forty-year-old drunk from Queens. Anyway, when I got into Goode and Tyson got into his school, Mom kicked Gabe out of the house and we luckily never heard from him again. Then along came Paul and things seemed pretty perfect. Estelle joined the family and we couldn't be happier. For someone who wasn't good at social interaction, Tyson got on so well with Estelle.