It was a ploy.
Cressida and Clarisse had walked into the woods so people wouldn't know that they were really going to the Big House, more specifically the basement. Percy didn't even know they had a basement. It was stockpiled with ambrosia and strawberry preserves, save for one side of the room that housed a bed and a teenage Hispanic guy in tattered camouflage combats and a dirty black t-shirt. His hair was greasy and matted and he was hugging his shoulders and crying.
"It's ok," Clarisse was telling him. "Try a little more nectar."
"You're an illusion, Mary!" Chris backed further into the corner. "G-get away."
"My name's not Mary." Clarisse's voice was gentle but really sad as Percy watched, invisibly. "My name is Clarisse. Remember. Please."
"It's dark!' Chris yelled. "So dark!"
"Lynn, are you nearly done?" Clarisse called over her shoulder, and Percy watched Cressida come out from where she was mixing something in a bowl, a golden glow coming from it as Chris went on and on about a room with a thousand skulls and the earth healing someone.
"This is Will's strongest batch yet. Keep mixing," Cressida instructed as she handed Clarisse the bowl.
"Are you sure that you won't die if you eat this?" Clarisse asked nervously.
"It's a wonder that I haven't died with all the ambrosia and nectar I've eaten in my life anyway," she replied as she turned on Chris. "Alright Chris," she sighed as she rolled her shoulders out and flexed her fingers. "You can speak sentences, you can recall memories - maybe not in order, but you can recall memories - but the only way to get everything back in order is to cross the biggest hurdle. Making you able to distinguish fantasy from reality. To get you to stop hallucinating."
"There's no way out. No way out. dark. It's so dark," Chris muttered.
"Here goes nothing then. Papa help us," she prayed, and she took a deep breath before fire engulfed her hands and she bathed Chris in the purple flames.
Her eyes were closed this time, as if she was seeing things behind her eyelids as her eyes darted beneath them. Chris screamed, but not from any pain as he clutched his head, blurting words in both English and Ancient Greek.
"CLARISSE!" he screamed at one point, as if he was crying for help. "Son- that son of Poseidon! He-he's horrible. Don't go near him. Clarisse! The earth keeps healing him! Clarisse! CLARISSE!"
Clarisse looked tortured, as if it broke her heart not to interfere and not to help him.
"Don't!" Cressida reminded her, her voice strained and sweat lining her brow. "You stop me now and you could hurt him more than the Maze did."
"I know," Clarisse said, tears streaming down her own face before she realised something and scrambled for an old watch. "Lynn, you've gone on too long! You have to stop! You could hurt yourself."
"I can hold out a little longer," Cressida replied but it sounded like she was on the verge of tears because of how much pain she was in.
"Lynn!"
"I'm almost there!"
"Lynn the magic of the Maze is old! You can't overcome it in one go! That's what put you in the infirmary yesterday!"
"I can-"
Her arms were shaking before her knees gave out and her flames died down. But she didn't fall onto the ground. Percy couldn't stay hidden anymore as he surged forward and caught her, Annabeth's cap falling off his head as he rested her head on his chest.
"Jackson!" Clarisse snarled.
"Yell at me later! Help her!" he pleaded and Clarisse stuffed the bowl into his hands.
"Feed her. Slowly," she ordered abruptly before she moved over to Chris, who curled into her arms in a moment of clarity but until his psyche was completely pieced back together, that moment would end soon enough.
"What is this stuff?" Percy asked as he spoon-fed the syrup-like liquid into her mouth slowly, after wiping the sweat from her brow with his sleeve.
"Nectar, crushed ambrosia and some of Chiron's rare medicinal herbs. It's as much godly food as one demigod should be able to consume without dying - theoretically."
"Theoretically?!"
"None of this has been done before!" Clarisse growled before Chris flinched in her arms and her anger instantly dissipated as she consoled the man in her arms.
"Percy," murmured a voice so softly that he almost missed it.
"I'm here. I'm here, Cress," he said, her head resting in the crook of his elbow as he held the bowl and then cupped her cheek with the other hand. "Here, have some more of this, " he said as he picked up the spoon again and drizzled more of the liquid into her mouth.
For every minute that Percy sat there, waiting for the godly food to kick in, his heartbeat got faster as he got more worried.
Clarisse had coaxed Chris back into his bed and she held him and tried to get him to fall asleep for a little while.
"Percy," Cressida said again, her eyes still closed but her mouth moving.
"Hey, Wine Vine. Can you hear me?"
"I'm ok. I'm ok," she promised even though she couldn't open her eyes, her eyelids feeling like cinder blocks. "You figured it out."
"I did," he said with a disbelieving smile. "And you pushed too far. Do I get to be mad at you now?"
"No," she breathed. "The lying was worse."
"Fair enough," he huffed as he poured the last of the strange mixture into her mouth, her skin getting even warmer. "Let's get you to your cabin."
And he set the bowl down as he lifted her up and carried her out of the basement.