Though lovers be lost, love shall not, and death shall have no dominion."
-Dylan Thomas
"I guess by now I should know enough about loss to realize that you never really stop missing someone – you just learn to live around the huge gaping hole of their absence."
-Alyson Noel, Evermore
Thaluke
There's not a day that goes by that she doesn't think of him. It's like she's Prometheus and every day she sees something that reminds her of Luke Castellan and suddenly a giant metaphorical eagle soars out of the sky and tears out her heart instead of her liver. It's September first after the Titan War, and all the Hunters have decided to go check out one of the mortal Labor Day fairs that are going on. One of the other Hunters, Cynthia, offers to get everyone else a snack since she feels a little nauseous after going on the Gravitron. Thalia Grace is a little dubious that she'll be able to get snacks for all 60 of the Hunters of Artemis on her own, so she goes with Cynthia to the food section of the fair.
Thalia carefully avoids the mortals as she weaves in and out of the crowd, looking for something all the Hunters can share. Something is tugging at the back of her memory about what she's looking for, but her thoughts have been closed off from that memory for too long and now she can barely access it. Finally, she sees something they can all share; a giant bag (about 4 feet long) of kettle corn. Once again, a nagging voice in the very back of her skull warns her not to, don't touch that it says, it'll do something horrible to you.
She ignores the voice, not understanding why, as she hands the money over the counter, it gets more urgent and pleading until it's practically screaming, tearing her mind to pieces. Cynthia comes up behind her with more money and buys another packet, clearly not having the same mental issues with it as Thalia did. The kettle corn bags are brought back to the girls, who each dig in a handful, Thalia going last.
The taste of kettle corn fills her mouth, and finally, her brain cannot hold back. The floodgates open as a rush of a memory fills her mind. The memory burns through her brain and blocks out any other thoughts. This memory is of That Day, and ever since becoming a Hunter, Thalia had vowed to never think of it again.
That Day was the one day Thalia had never even told Annabeth about. If she and Luke Castellan had been Annabeth's "parents," then That Day was their honeymoon phase. Luke and she had split up for a moment to steal some supplies. Thalia took one half of the Wal-Mart and Luke took the other. She was practical, and aimed for the bare essentials; trail mix, a small bottle of sunscreen for Thalia's pale skin, and a bracelet that could turn into a large amount of rope. It was easy for Thalia to stuff the items into the pockets of her leather jacket, use her powers to turn the electricity off on the security system, and go outside without being given even a second glance.
She waited for Luke outside, chastising him for being so slow. Eventually, she started to worry, as it'd been a full twenty minutes and he was still not outside. As she was turning around to go check for him back inside the store, Luke popped up from behind one of the trashcans and scared her.
Thalia screamed and then ran up to tickle him to get him back, but then noticed a bulge much bigger than Luke's scheduled list of supplies popping out of his coat pocket. The November wind whipped through her hair as she pointed the bulge out to Luke. He blushed, and then pulled out a paper bag that smelled delicious.
"Close your eyes Thalia." He said. And so she, being the hopeless girl she was, closed her eyes, and holding out her hands for whatever was in the bag. But instead of a surprise in her hand, Thalia suddenly felt Luke pop a small wonderful-tasting piece of kettle corn into her mouth. He'd never done something like that before, never gone out of his way to especially surprise her.
Thalia opened her eyes, savoring the worm, sweet flavor, and then promptly stuck her hand into the bag and shoved a handful of the kettle corn into his mouth, so as to be as forward as possible. Luke protested with a full mouth, but ate the stuff anyway, and this continued for a while, each of them getting closer and closer to the bag and stuffing more and more at each other until finally, Thalia was close enough to him to feel his warm breath through the cold air.
They both went for the kiss at the same time. Any person walking the streets that day would've just thought they were a happy, normal couple. Thalia still remembers her first and only kiss as the sweetness of the kettle corn fills her mouth at the fair. Luke was fingering her hair, and she was using his dark green, tattered-from-fighting-monsters shirt to pull him closer to her as the heat grew between the two of them. At least, until the growl of a hellhound interrupted them.
Sure, they fought the monster, got some battle scars, set up camp etc. but that memory, that sweet, passionate kiss is what stuck in Thalia Grace's memory. That kiss triggered a flood of emotions that filled her brain and her heart and threatened to show on the outside, and finally, Thalia Grace, fearless Lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis, started to tear up.
TJ, Primrose, and Evalyn are the closest to their Lieutenant, and so are the first to notice her tears. They're silent tears, and it's not like Thalia's making a big fuss, but the Hunters know how girls are when some memories uplift. For instance, just the previous week, the new girl Susan had had a breakdown because the song that her ex-boyfriend had loved came on the radio. Some Hunters chose to get their memories removed by the goddess Lethe, but for others, like Thalia most of the time, it made them stronger.
But Thalia Grace never gets teary-eyed, never even bats an eyelash on the outside whenever something that reminds her of Luke comes into her life, because none of those memories showed the pain of how far they both have come since then as that one did.
"What is it Thalia?" Raven asks, but she just shakes her head as a response.
"Just an old memory resurfacing." It's the partial truth, and she doesn't mind not sharing, because she's just not the type to talk about her past. The Hunters who had been at Camp Half Blood around the same time Thalia was heard the rumors though, the rumors about a certain son of Hermes who had been possessed by the evil time lord and the daughter of Zeus who led them now.
Rumors are not enough to let the other Hunters see inside her head though. None of them feel the eagle-tearing-your-heart-out-of-your-body pain that Thalia is determined is sent by Aphrodite for first of all, falling for the person who would allow the Titan Lord to rise again and try to defeat the gods, and for giving up on love after that said boy broke her heart.
Luke meant, and still means everything to Thalia. Hades, it was Luke who'd given her that choppy, perfect haircut that she used to have. Most girls cut their hair after a break-up, but Thalia let it grow down to her shoulders after she joined the Hunters of Artemis. Thalia runs her fingers through her black hair, and for a moment, is tempted to just pull her Hunter's knife out and chop all her hair off again. The Hunters wouldn't think anything of it, but Artemis would, and that might cause problems. The goddess had been there to see Thalia's heart shatter, that doesn't happen to most Hunters. For you see, with most Hunters, their past significant other doesn't still love them, with most Hunters, they don't still love their significant other, and for most Hunters, she is not immortal and he is not dead, still waiting down at the gates of Elysium for her.
Speaking of Luke Castellan, let's shift to him now. Do you know what it's like at the gates of the Underworld? It's dark, and gloomy, and awfully depressing. Luke waits there, with his red string visible on his finger now that he's dead. It stretches up through the darkness of the underworld, up through the ground and the dirt, all the way up to the pinky finger of the one Thalia Grace. The string accidentally brushes the popcorn, and suddenly Luke's mind is filled with the same intense, desperate, painful, memory of longing for someone. This happens every so often when the string encounters something that both of them share. This is the souls' last chance at feeling life. In Luke's case, who knows how long it'll continue.
He's waited for a month now, with the petty, selfish desire for the death of Thalia. He barely got into Elysium, a beautiful, golden paradise, where everyone forgives everyone for any mistakes they've made. It's almost impossible not to when you're stuck with them for the rest of eternity. Even Silena had forgiven him for playing her that way once she sees Luke standing there, every hour of every mortal day, his red string waving in the breeze of the underworld like a heartbroken, creepy kite.
The other soul mates of the other Hunters of Artemis either have their red string cut from the other end, and watch heartbroken as the string floats down from above, no longer tight with the love on the other end. Others get tired of waiting and get the fates to cut the strings for them, but Luke's string stays taught.
The kettle corn day passes, along with the rest of that week, month, year, and he still stays there, rehearsing in his mind the words he'll say to Thalia Grace to win her back, to get her to forgive him, or at least tolerate him. I'm so sorry Thalia, he'll say, I just got so bitter after I thought you died, and Kronos promised he'd revive you, I had no idea it would go that far. But now, look, I've waited here for you since I died, patiently, quietly, never giving up hope, not even trying to make you die.
Luke stays there for years and years, an unwavering, unmoving ghost, whose mind races fully with all the memories, never forgetting, never leaving. "Over there, by the Lethe, you can see the ghost of Luke Castellan," the new arrivals whisper, "he's been there even before I was, he's waiting for his other end to come."
The dark thoughts that had filled his mind purely out of love though were always a tiny part of Luke's brain, because it was their love that had caused Kronos to almost rise again, it was their love that killed all these people, and he was sure, somewhere far far above, Aphrodite was giggling with joy that a love story that could rival Helen and Paris' had finally happened.
When you feel the heat, look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Don't get too close; it's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
-Demons, Imagine Dragons