"You've lived a treacherous life, Luke Castellan!" Hades boomed, resting his arms on the sides of his blackened throne. "You betrayed your friends, family and took part in helping Kronos rise again before a sudden change of heart. Still inexcusable behavior, honestly, if it were up to me I would send you to the pits of-"

Persephone coughed and glared at her husband, who stopped mid-sentence and cleared his throat before continuing.

"..But, seeing that you've played a big role in saving Olympus and repented in the end, I have no choice but to reward you for your heroic sacrifice. That and Hermes would pester me to no end if I did otherwise." Hades grumbled. "First, streamlining the Hunters' application processes and now this. How many more times must I be overruled by the other gods when I'm the Lord of the Dead?"

"Thank you, Lord Hades." Luke bowed. His sandy blonde hair was slightly drenched in sweat and his heart was still pounding from anxiety, knowing very well that he didn't live a life that fully deserved to be rewarded. But the war was finally over and it gave him peace to know that Olympus had finally won. The Prophecy hadn't been about Percy after all. Luke unknowingly winced when he put a hand under his left arm, where his Achilles heel had once been.

"You must choose between two paths: being sent straight to Elysium and living the rest of your days in glory or trying for the Isles of the Blest, which will require you to be reborn three times and risk being placed in the Asphodels and blah blah blah- well, as a demigod you should know the rest. Don't make me repeat information that you already know." The Lord of the Dead rolled his eyes. He glanced down at Luke and stared at him for a solid moment before speaking again. "Well, what will it be, Son of Hermes? Elysium or rebirth for a chance at the Isles of the Blest?"

Luke opened his mouth to say that he'd try out for the Isles of the Blest but then stopped, another thought occurring in his head. If he chose to be reborn…he'd lose all of his memories of this life, wouldn't he? Everything would be washed away once he was reborn as a completely different person. His memories of Camp Half-Blood, the war, his friends and family… all forgotten in the blink of an eye.

He couldn't allow himself to forget everything that he and the others went through, even if it did mean giving up at trying to achieve the best paradise that the Underworld had to offer. He wouldn't trade his memories of being Luke Castellan for anything else in the world, no matter how wretched his life had been. Besides, there was someone who he wanted to see again.

Luke swallowed and met Hades' eyes unwaveringly, standing up straighter.

"I choose Elysium."


"Ethan. Me. All the unclaimed. Don't let it…don't let it happen again."

Crimson blood trickled down Luke's chin and began to pool underneath him. The blood began to flow faster and faster and suddenly, the Throne Room was flooded with a sea of red as Luke's body began to drift away from sight.

"Luke! LUKE!"

"Perrrrcy!"

Percy woke up with a start and scrambled up to his feet, reaching for Riptide in his pocket and stopped when he saw a familiar figure standing next to his bed.

"Yikes, take it easy! You're not turning me into minced meat!" Grover bleated alarmingly as he backed away. Percy sighed and dropped the pen back into his pocket, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"Sorry, Grover. It's… It's been rough the past couple of weeks. Sometimes I forget that-"

"-the war's over?" Grover looked at him sympathetically, one of his ears twitching. "Yeah, me too. Being a Lord of the Wild isn't all it's cracked up to be, either. Juniper's been furious with me always working with the nature spirits." He bleated sadly.

"Jealousy is a scary thing, G-Man." Percy grinned. He pushed his dark black hair away from his eyes and smoothed it over to the side. "Anyways, what'd you wake me up for?"

Grover nervously shuffled his feet. "I felt you from the empathy link. You were doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Saying Luke's name in your sleep. It was pretty bad this time, Percy. You were nearly shouting."

Percy furrowed his brows and wiped his forehead with his sleeve, only to find it beaded with cold sweat. He noticed that his hands were a little shaky and clenched them into fists, trying to get a hold of himself. This had been going on ever since what had happened in the Throne Room with him and Luke. His dreams constantly plagued him with having to relive Luke's death over and over again, sometimes in even more grislier detail than he'd remembered.

"Percy… you don't think this means anything, do you?" Grover asked, his eyes reflecting worry for his friend. "Chiron always said that dreams can be interpreted as a form of foreshadowing."

"No. I-I mean, I'm sure it doesn't mean anything. I guess I just wasn't ready for Luke to die." Percy bit his lip, frustrated with himself for looking so weak. Seeing someone die right in front of his eyes wasn't anything new to him. Why did Luke's death affect him so much to the point of not being able to get a good night's sleep for weeks?

Grover was looking at him with an unreadable expression, as if he knew something more about what was going on but didn't want to prod further.

"Anyways, thanks for waking me up." Percy patted Grover on the back and gave him a grin, trying to uplift the awkward situation. He yawned and glanced at the mirror on his bedside table and almost yelped when he saw the dark circles that had formed beneath his eyes overnight. "Gods, I really need some sleep. Do you think nectar works like sleeping pills?"

"I wouldn't recommend it." Someone stepped out from the shadows, making the two of them jump up in shock. "Percy, I swear, sometimes you seem like you have an early death wish."

"Nico?! What in the… How long were you there?" Percy yelled, horrified that the younger demigod had heard too much.

"Calm down. Well, I was sitting here long enough to hear most of everything." Nico grinned.

"Shadow-travel never ceases to amaze me." Grover shook his head in wonder.

"But I didn't use shadow-travel. You guys were so stuck in conversation that you didn't even see me when I opened Percy's cabin door to come inside." Nico walked over and sat down on the bed, crossing his legs comfortably. "But listen, Percy. I think I have a solution to your 'Luke' problem."

"It's not a 'Luke' problem." Percy said, sounding a bit embarrassed. "It's a sleeping problem."

"Whatever you want to call it. Gods." Nico shook his head. "Here, take this." He reached into the pockets of his tattered black jeans and pulled out a small black stone.

"Gee, thanks. A pebble." Percy said sarcastically, taking it and tossing the small stone up and down in his palm. "This is going to be such a big help in me reliving Luke's bloody death over and over in my sleep, Nico."

"You're going to regret calling that a pebble, Percy." Nico said warningly. "It's a very ancient and powerful form of magic. It was a gift to me from my father."

"Hades gave that to you?" Grover said, astonished. "What does it do?"

"It allows you to communicate with a deceased person in a dream, whether they be in Elysium or in the Isles of the Blest. But there are two stones. Each person, the living and dead, has to have one in order for both of you to meet."

"Nico, how is this pebble…sorry, stone." Percy corrected himself when Nico glared at him. "How is this stone going to help?"

"I think you're dreaming about Luke because you have some sort of unfinished business with him." Nico said slowly. "I can travel back to the Underworld and give Luke the other stone so that the next time both of you fall asleep, you can meet each other in your dreams and say whatever needs to be said."

Percy turned to Grover with a raised eyebrow, questioning his friend about this spontaneous plan.

"Well…" Grover started off. "Nico does have a point. I think you need some form of closure with Luke, Percy. He died without being able to explain himself and about what he did in the past."

"Okay. So say I agree to this absurd plan." Percy clutched the small black stone in his hand and looked down at it. "But there's one small problem; Luke isn't in the Underworld. I remember he told Annabeth that he'd try for the Isles of the Blest before he died."

Nico shook his head, his tousled hair falling above his eyes. "He chose Elsyium. He's there, I can sense it. I'll go down to the Underworld and give him the other stone. All you have to do is put your stone under your pillow before you go to sleep tonight."

"What is this, some kind of Tooth Fairy magic?" Percy grumbled. He glanced at Grover and Nico, both looking at him with expectant expressions. "But fine, I'll do it. Just make sure Luke's in on this, too, or I'll feel stupid for doing this. I'm gonna go get washed up."

Percy shoved the stone underneath his pillow and yawned again before walking to the back of his cabin to go get washed up. "And Nico, knock before you come in next time or I'm unleashing Mrs. O'Leary on you."

"Yeah, right. She likes me more than you, anyways." Nico smirked and turned to Grover. "You're not heading to the Big House for breakfast, Grover?"

Grover shook his head. "I have to get back to the nature spirits to listen to a proposal on saving the wildlife in North Carolina. Though getting sometime to eat doesn't sound like a bad idea." The satyr's stomach growled loudly as he eyed Percy's bed hungrily.

"G-Man? You better not be thinking about eating my mattress. Or any of my other furniture." Percy's voice rang out warningly from the bathroom.


After dinner at the Big House, Percy turned off the lights of his cabin and plopped down on his bed, exhausted. He had been practicing sparring with a couple sons of Hermes and was rewarded with a fresh pair of purple bruises on his sides.

He winced as he turned on his stomach and reached underneath his pillow, pulling out the black stone that Nico had given him earlier that morning. Honestly, the whole thing was absurd. But if this 'powerful ancient artifact' really did have the power to give him the chance to see Luke and talk with him about everything…

Percy placed the stone underneath his pillow again and turned on his back so that he was facing the ceiling, apprehensive yet slightly hopeful. If nothing happened and Nico was just pulling his leg about the whole thing, gods, he was going to kill him.

Before he knew it, he drifted off into blackness.

When he opened his eyes again, Percy found himself lying on his back and looking up at the night sky, a million stars scattered across the vast galaxy. He sat up and slowly got to his feet, looking around at his surroundings. The air was cold and he shivered a little as he observed that he was in a grassy field with no signs of civilization to be found.

"Percy?"

Percy jumped at the sudden sound of someone calling him. He turned around and found himself face-to-face with his former enemy.

Luke was standing a couple of feet away from him but his dark eyes reflected the same shock that Percy was feeling.

"..Luke."