About: one-shot, whim of the author.

Author's Note: There are just not enough Thuke stories that have happy or even happy-ish endings, so this is just what might have happened if all the major conflicts around Thuke had been solved-you know, Thalia being released from her oath and Luke coming back. This wasn't meant to be a story, just a scene, so please don't tell me how improbable that this would even happen. Thanks.

Update: *whimpers with cheesiness* Dear Gods this is awful. This will either be re-writen or deleted before the end of November. So beware.

Hatred

by Skadi*IdiosyncraticInk

He had been trying to catch her eye all evening, and she had finally left in a huff. Then, he had followed. Followed her all the way to the base of her hill.

"Go away!" she screamed at him suddenly, and he froze. "Go away!"

He just looked at her, still in the pouring rain.

"Just get away," she snarled, "and I don't want to see you ever again. I wish you'd never come back from the dead, but the least you can do is have the courtesy of either getting out of the country or committing suicide." She waited for him to respond, but he didn't move a muscle, except for his heart, which continued to run blood through his veins. The blood was wasted. Such a stupid, heartless, cruel person should not have been given the gift of reincarnation.

"Thalia," he said, and that was it. A blank word that told her nothing.

"Did you think you would just get me back like old times, Luke? 'Cause you were wrong, hear, me, wrong! I don't want to see you, talk to you ever again. You've caused too much death and pain for everyone here. You betrayed everyone, you turned evil, you tried to kill almost each and every one of us. You went willingly to the Titans, got demigods killed, almost destroyed Olypmus and brought down the gods, killed even more people, and poisoned my damn tree! If you had a shred of kindness on your monstrosity of a heart, Luke, you'd leave! Now!" But she was screaming at someone who did not seem likely to obey. His face was white and his fingers fisted, but he didn't move.

"Do you really think I'd do that?" he whispered. "Do you really think that?"

"Do I think that!" she screeched. "I know that! I saw the dead bodies and I damn felt the poison! Or do you have a twin? That would explain everything!"

"I don't have a twin," he said. "But am I a person to do that?"

"You are," she said. "The Luke I thought I knew would never, but you just standing here proves that that Luke never existed. It was just a figment of my overactive, infatuated, and gullible imagination."

"There is only one Luke," he said. "And that would be your old Luke. The old Luke wanted only what was best for his family. And that family was you and Annabeth! Gods, do you think I wanted to get those people killed? Do you think I'm that cruel? Kronos promised me what I'd always wanted-proof to my father that I was more than ordinary! He showed me an illusion of a world where you and Annabeth could live in safety, without worrying for your lives every other day. I was tricked, like every other person he has ever tempted."

"So you are weak," she said, and stared at him. He clenched his teeth.

"Yes. I was. I was. I might still be."

"I hope you enjoy your time in the Fields of Punishment then," she snarled and turned away from him.

"Did you ever consider it was hell for me to?" he said quietly.

"Oh, sure," she said sarcastically, striding towards him. "It was hell. You were at the top of the army, Kronos's favorite, killing the people you most despised in the world, and rid of us for the first time in five years. I'll believe that."

"Did you ever consider that the moment Kronos showed his colors I wanted to turn back? You didn't. I wanted to. I wanted to run away screaming. Unfortunately, you can't. Being Kronos slave isn't fun, especially when he's killing the few people you love in the world. It's Tartarus. Working day and night to stay alive and keep everyone else, too. If I had turned on Kronos, he would of killed me and I would have never managed to influence him. Hundreds more could have died! And then having to betray Annabeth, and hear you up on Mount Tamalpais, telling me I was heartless. Thank the gods you pushed me off. I wished I could have died, you thinking I was working against you instead of for you. Everything I did was for you and Annabeth's safety, and later it was to stop Kronos annihilating all the demigods. And all the time, you had to stand there and tell me I was a traitor, doing the wrong thing. You had no idea!" He was breathing hard, and glaring at her with real anger.

"Are you trying to make me pity you?" she asked, dangerously.

"No," he growled, "but I am biting you straight back. Do you know what you did, Thalia, that made me turn to Kronos for support? Do you know why it's your fault that I became what I was?"

"What you are," she said.

He ignored her. "You joined Artemis. You joined her right when I had a plan where we three could escape, and then you made that oath. Annabeth had already been hurt by me, but I never would have thought you'd just leave me like that. I became Kronos's vessel because I had no more damn family. Even if I did get that illusion of a safe world for demigods, you would hate me. You may say I'm heartless, Thalia, but look at yourself!"

Thalia was pale now. "I joined Artemis," she said, shaking, "to get away from you. I never wanted to join Kronos, and so I never became sixteen. I never wanted anything to do with him, and you know even you couldn't convince me. I did it to bind myself permanently to the gods. I never would have followed you!"

"Oh really?" he snarled, grabbed her hand, and flipped it up, showing a small white scar along her ring finger.

"What do you think of Kronos, Thalia?" Luke asked her, the small bits of light falling through the trees, landing on his hair and face and dancing all around them in the quiet of the forest.

"I dunno," she shrugged. "I guess we shouldn't like him, but the gods don't either, and I'm not entirely willing to be similar to them in any way."

Luke smiled an impish smile. "He did eat the gods alive, you know, and castrated his father."

"What does castrate mean?" she asked, looking up a him. She was a good half foot shorter than him, something which he teased her regularly about.

"Another day, I think," he laughed, patting her on her head.

Thalia wrinkled her nose at him in playful anger.

"What if chose the bad side, Thalia? What if you did? You know, the villain's side. The dark side."

"Come to the dark side, we have cookies!" she sang, beginning to skip.

"I'm serious," he said, and spun her around to face him by the wrists. She seemed taken aback by the rough gesture. "What would you do if I choose the 'evil' side of the war?"

"It wouldn't be the evil side, Luke," she smiled at him. "It'd just look like it. You could never be evil. I'd know that, and I'd follow you no matter what."

"No matter what?" he asked.

"No matter what," she said, grinning. "You would look like the bad guy, but you'd really be on the good side. I wouldn't care if we were called traitors for a while. We'd still be together. I'd stay with you."

To Luke, her smile was more beautiful than the sunshine around them.

"You look a little dreamy eyed," Thalia said, punching him hard on the shoulder and running away, still looking behind her. Luke chased after her, laughing, and, distracted, she tripped right over a branch and fell straight down into a deep, dry, riverbed.

"Oi!" he called, standing at the edge. "You alright? Where are you?"

"Here, kid," she said, yanking his ankle and pulling him down the side to skid next to her.

"Ouch," he said crossly.

"Don't complain, bro," she said, putting her hands in the air. "I'm the one running blood."

Luke took her hand and used the edge of his shirt to wipe it off. "Sorry," he shrugged.

Thalia didn't have anything to say to that, so they both lay next to eachother in the ditch with the sunlight filtering in around them.

"I'm glad you'd stay with me, Thalia," Luke said finally.

"I'll always be with you," she said stoutly. "But there isn't a war coming anytime soon, is there?"

Luke shrugged.

Thalia yanked her hand away from him. "That was an old promise," she whispered.

"Obviously, I'm not the only one who breaks promises," he said.

"I never thought you'd actually join Kronos!" she cried. "I thought you meant...joining the gods, or something. I never would have chosen Kronos with you!"

"You broke a promise and you damn broke me," he told her, coldly.

"You broke a damn lot of promises, too, and you pretty much broke and tried to kill me."

"I really am not who you think I am," he said softly. "I really am that old Luke. I just grew up while you were a tree."

"Yes," she growled, "and I turned into a tree for you, Luke Castellano! Nobody else. Annabeth would be safe no matter what, because Grover had already gotten her over the line but I knew only one of us would survive and so I pretty damn near got killed for you! And how do you repay me? You follow Kronos's command and give me the arrow. Kind, wouldn't you say?"

"I knew the plan, Thalia," he said wearily. "I did it because I knew the Fleece would bring you back."

Thalia froze. She had never thought of that. She had thought he was weak, or worse, didn't care for her anymore, didn't think him her sister. She looked at him, squinting her eyes through the thick, cold, grey rain. Did he really poison her for her?

"I...I guess we've both hurt eachother," she said. "I went to Artemis, and you went to Kronos. We broke our promises."

"I still say I was the kinder one. I tried to save you," he said, but there was a tone of almost playfulness in his voice that shocked her.

"I tried to bring you back," she said wryly.

"I am back," he said, and left it at that.

Thalia breathed deeply, and did something she knew she shouldn't do-she looked at him. She looked at the boy before her, not at Luke, and saw what was really there, not what she wanted to see. She did not see someone with a wrathful face and a sneering smile, but a young boy, blonde hair plastered to his forehead from the rain, eyes downcast, and a countenance so miserable, it might have belonged to someone beaten and bloodied by everyone he had thought was a friend.

With a shock, Thalia realized he had.

Luke had thought he was doing the right thing. He was doing it for Annabeth, for her, the entire time. He had gone on, doing "good," even when they spited him and fought him, called him traitor and pitiless. He had done what hero's in books had done-except, he had been on the wrong side. He had been tricked.

Only, he didn't know it until it was too late.

Thalia closed her eyes, and then opened them again.

"Are you willing to forgive me?" she asked. "I guess I was...cruel to you. I read you wrong. I thought you had gone bad, but...I guess I was blinded. I forgot about who you were."

"I already have forgiven you," he told her gently. "I thought it might have been that, though for a while there...I thought you were the monster." He smiled humorlessly. "I guess I, too, forgot about who we were."

They stood still for a moment, unsure of what to say. The awkwardness of forgiveness had not yet gone. Thalia shivered.

"There is your tree right up ahead, you know," he said dryly. They both hurried toward it, but on the way, Thalia caught his hand. She smiled weakly at him, an attempt to make up for three years of hatred. He smiled back.

Under the leaves of the tree, they stood next to eachother silently, not coldly, not friendlily, but edgily.

"Look, I already apologized," Thalia said, annoyed. "Can you stop giving me the cold shoulder?"

"I'm not giving me the cold shoulder, you are," Luke said indignantly.

Thalia snorted with the stupidity of the accusation, and snorted again, and then she was crying, her tears falling grey and cold as the rain. She was sobbing like she never had done in front of anyone except him, and he wrapped an arm around her, just like he used to do when she cried at night when they were young. She pressed her eyes and lips together to stop herself from hugging him back, burying her head in his chest, because they had gotten too old for that to be considered "cute," and she was sure he would have pushed her away.

" 'M sorry," she mumbled, pushing her tears back with the palm of her hand and stepping away from him.

"Don't be," he said. "Crying...is good, sometimes."

She nodded, then gathered herself up, and turned to face him. Thalia looked at him in the eyes, even if hers were still a little red, and asked him:

"Will you have me back as your friend?"

Luke hesitated, then whispered. "No. Not unless I must."

Thalia bit her lip, as if she had been expecting that, and was turning away when Luke caught her by the shoulders.

He held her very close to himself, and looked at her pale, stubborn, and beautiful face, her very expressive bottom lip, her dark hair. He told her quietly, "I would have you back, though."

Thalia looked at the scar torn face he had loathed for so long, saw it like it had been before they had come to camp. She struggled to not get her hopes high, if she had interpreted him wrong. Just...just in case...

"Artemis released me," she whispered, and Luke (it was Luke!) kissed her hard.

He kissed her, and she kissed him back, and it was as if the final problem had been resolved. They held eachother like they were meant to, him cradling her head, her drawing herself closer to him, arms around him. That last barrier had been broken, and they had finally done what they had needed to do since they had been eleven and thirteen-confess that they loved, loved, loved eachother. This moment had defied death, the fates, and the gods, and the kiss was strong enough to deserve it all.