A/N This takes places after The Last Olympian, and The Lost Hero never occurred! Please enjoy. :D

ETHAN NAKAMURA – Ogygia

I fell. That was all I was sure of. I fell and I hurt and I fell. I fell, fell, fell…

And then I was there. If only I knew where exactly 'there' meant. But it surely was beautiful. I woke up in a big, glistening cave, that had walls that kept shifting colors, just depending on how you looked at it, and stalactites that reflected rainbows on the floor. It was a cave like I suspected the old Oracles' caves to look like. But instead of the three-legged chair of the Pythia, there were beds and nightstands in the cave, making it look like a nursery. If it was a nursery, I was the only patient. All the other beds were empty.

I couldn't quite remember what had happened before, or how I had gotten there, just the falling. I believed Percy Jackson had something to do with it…
And Kronos..?

Kronos…

And suddenly, I remembered. I was Ethan Nakamura, son of Nemesis, I had joined the Titans' army and thus given Kronos a body. I had fought on his side, but eventually turned against the Lord of Time and then…

Falling. Did I fall through the floor of Olympus? That shouldn't be possible, I thought. And if so, how did I get here?

I lay there in the white hospital bed, just trying to figure things out, when I heard footsteps approach from the left, where I suspected the entrance to be. With difficulty, I turned my head that way. After blinking several times, my vision cleared so I could make out a girl with dark hair and a white dress coming my way. I decided she might as well be the nurse, seeing this place was some kind of hospital and most hospitals have nurses… Right?

The girl noticed I was awake and smiled at me.

I tried to say something, but my throat was really dry, so I think it sounded like, 'Ggrrg?'

The girl stifled a laugh and silently handed me a glass of water. I drank it thankfully. You know how they say you never notice how thirsty you are until you drink something? Well, it's true.

Soon, my glass was empty, but I was still thirsty, so I tried to ask for some more.

The girl seemed to understand, but shook her head.

'No?' I croaked.

'No, brave one,' she said, 'you must not drink too much. That liquid I gave you was not water, as you might have thought, but a very special medicination. You can, however, have some water.'

I think I managed to smile at her, signaling that I would like that, and she walked away, leaving me to stare at the nearest wall.

It wasn't very long before my 'nurse' came back with a glass in her hands.

'Very well,' she said, while handing it over to me, 'this is water. You may drink as much as you want to.'

I took some sips and thanked her. And, since I was really curious – you couldn't blame me for that – I asked her for her name.

She hesitated.

I took some more sips of the water and looked up at her. Her blue eyes looked sad as she answered, 'My name, brave one, is Calypso.'

Having studied all my mythology fairly well, I vaguely remembered that name. I believe she was in the Odyssey…

Wait.

'Like in the Calypso Odysseus stayed with for seven years?'

Calypso sighed. 'Yes, Odysseus has stayed with me, as have many other heroes, the last one being Percy Jackson.'

'I know Percy,' I said, startled that he had been there.

Calypso smiled sadly. 'How is he doing now?'

My thoughts drifted to Olympus, and the war in Manhattan.

'Last I saw him, he… He was doing fine,' I eventually answered.

'Last you saw him? What do you mean?'

I explained the situation in and around Manhattan to her the best I could, and what had happened in Olympus.

'I can only hope they won and everyone is safe.'

Calypso sat down on the bedside and felt my forehead. 'You are recovering very well, brave one. But tell me your name, please.'

'Ethan. Ethan Nakamura,' I said. I trusted her. I knew of course Odysseus hadn't stayed with Calypso fully by choice, but something about her and the cave made me feel so calm. So…balanced.

'Well Ethan,' she said, and her eyes locked with my one eye for a split second, but she quickly averted her gaze and resumed speaking. 'Your mother Nemesis, goddess of revenge, had the winds bring you here. She did not tell me your name or anything else, she just wanted me to tell you that she is proud of you and thinks you have proven yourself worthy to live. That means…' Her voice quavered. 'That means your mother will give you back what was taken from you in order to let you live.'

It took me a while to process these words, but it eventually sank in. I touched the eye patch over my left eye and Calypso nodded. She handed me a drink again and motioned for me to drink the pale green liquid. I did.

And then…I fell asleep.

I woke up to the sound of glass shattering on the floor and I opened my eyes quickly to… Wait, eyes? I blinked multiple times and looked around in wonder. The drink had worked! I closed my eyes again and sent a prayer to my mother to thank her. I didn't know if she heard me, but it felt right.

When I opened my eyes, Calypso was standing by my bed, smiling slightly. But as soon as I turned my gaze towards her, the smile fell from her face and was replaced by a sad expression, like she did not want me to see her smile.

'It worked,' the dark-haired girl stated.

'It worked,' I confirmed happily.

'And now,' she said, 'you will want to see the whole world all over again and you will leave me and my island Ogygia. Like everyone did.'

She looked so incredibly sad while saying this, that I just wanted to take her in my arms and soothe her. But she wouldn't let me, I could tell.

So instead, I told her, 'I haven't got anything to go back for. I might as well stay here.'

'You will not stay, I know that. I am not destined to be happy.'

'Everyone deserves to be happy,' I argued.

'Everyone, but not me,' Calypso sighed. 'You can stay here until you are fully healed, but after that you will have to leave immediately, before I get the chance to get too close to you.'

I was silent.

'Sorry,' whispered Calypso, and she walked away.

After what seemed like hours, but may also have been minutes, or days, I don't know, Calypso came to give me some fruit.

She left immediately.

I can't say I didn't understand why she acted the way she did – she just wanted to keep herself, and me, from getting hurt – but that does not mean I liked it.

The time passed quickly and as I started to take little strolls around Ogygia, sometimes accompanied by an invisible servant of my hostess, I couldn't help but noticing how beautiful Calypso was. She had this kind of serenity over her features, as if she had peace with the punishment the gods had given her. Still, seeing her there, banished from the outside world and cursed never to have a lucky – love – life, made me believe in Luke Castellan's words all over again: 'The gods are cruel, they have never cared and will never care about us.'

This was cruel, the girl hadn't done anything wrong, now had she? I couldn't exactly remember why in Hades she was banished to Ogygia, but I was sure it wasn't her fault.

Anyway, we barely spoke and whenever our eyes would meet, she'd look away directly. I felt truly bad for her.

Eventually the day had come that Calypso walked up to me and said, 'Ethan, there is a question I have asked all heroes that stayed here. And while I know what your reply will be, I am going to ask you as well: Will you stay with me?'

'Calypso,' I said, and I looked her in the eyes, 'I can't stay here, only to be ignored by you out of fear of me leaving anyway. If you had asked me a while ago, after I had just arrived on the isle, I would've said yes. You have created this situation yourself.'

She closed her eyes and bowed her head. 'If you say so, brave one,' she whispered.

'I'm sorry, Calypso.'

'Maybe,' the girl said. And with that, she walked away and left me standing in the middle of a field of pink-and-white flowers.

What just happened?

I stood there as the sun set and a crescent moon became visible in the night sky. And the stars, of course. I had been there for quite some time now, and the stars I saw on the firmament never ceased to amaze me. There were so many, it was almost surreal. I couldn't believe I had spent so much time of my young life underground while looking at the constellations and trying to count the enormous amount of stars.

And I almost couldn't remember why I had spent the time underground like I did.

But it was revenge. My fatal flaw. Revenge, holding grudges. Apparently, that was the fatal flaw of Hades's son too. He'd almost fought on the Titans' side because of a grudge. But I wasn't any better, was I? I just hoped my mother was right, and I did deserve to live.

One morning, I was just sitting on one of the marble benches on the island, looking out over the gardens in which Calypso was busy working with a lightning-blue plant.
Maybe it is a lightning plant, I thought, for it seems to give off sparks that looked like tiny lightning bolts.

'You're absolutely right,' said a cheery voice from behind me, where the hospital cave was – I lived there now, 'that is a lightning plant. It only grows here and Zeus rather likes those plants. Maybe I should take one with me for him.'

I turned on the bench to face a young man with sparkly blue eyes and a huge smile on his face.

'Yeah, I should do that. I'm sure he'd like that.' Judging by his appearance, the man was not a patient in the cave-hospital – he looked way too healthy for that, and it was a weird thought either way; I would have noticed another patient.

So I did what everyone would do: I asked him who he was.

'Why, I'm Apollo of course!' he exclaimed, causing Calypso to look up from her plant and, apparently, to get shocked by it.

She hastily put the plant away and walked over to where Apollo and I were. The girl sadly smiled at me and bowed to the sun god.

'Lord Apollo,' she said, 'what an honor.'

The god's smile got even wider, if that was possible. Suddenly, I was eager for news from the outside world.

'Lord Apollo,' I said awkwardly – it felt so weird to call someone that young "Lord" ,'could you please tell me what happened in Olympus after… After I fell?'

The sun god sat down next to me and motioned for Calypso to sit on his other side. She didn't.

'Oh well,' said Apollo, 'it has all ended fairly well. It's been two months since you came here, and the mortals have already forgotten the whole incident. After you fell, Ethan, Luke Castellan killed Kronos and thus saved Olympus… Percy Jackson was offered immortality but he refused. Hades, Hestia and the minor gods were granted seats of power in Olympus, new cabins are being built at Camp Half-Blood, and Athena's daughter Annabeth Chase is designing a new Olympus with lots of statues of me!'

The only thing I said was, 'Whoa.'

'But,' he continued,' if you come with me now, you can see all that by yourself!'

'Whoaaaaa.'

'That's what I thought. We're leaving tonight. I just hope the sun doesn't crash in the meantime…'

'Sun?' I asked, not completely comprehending whatever he had said.

'Yeah, I set it on auto-pilot, but that feature has just been updated, so I hope it works correctly,' the god babbled. 'Oh hey Calypso, could you get me a lightning plant for my father, dear?'

Calypso walked away.

It took me until noon to fully realize the meaning of Apollo's words: I would be leaving Ogygia this evening, provided the sun did not crash. As soon as this sank in, I began searching th island for my hostess.

It was not until the sun was already setting – I hoped it was setting, and not crashing – that I found her sitting in the midst of a field of grey, crumpled flowers. She looked sadder than I had ever seen her, but you couldn't blame her for that, I guess. She gave no sign of hearing or seeing me, so I walked over and stood in front of her.

'Calypso?' I asked.

Cradling one of the plants in her hands, she looked up. 'You must go, brave one,' she said. 'Your destiny is not here. Mine is. I am sure our Fates are not intertwined.' I looked at her as she sat there.

Just a girl.

Life is cruel.

She rose from the ground, wiped the dirt off her long blue dress and handed me the grey plant she had been holding.

'Uhm, thanks?' I said clumsily.

'This plant is not dead, nor very ugly, as you might think,' Calypso told me. 'It is a special plant. It will only bloom at full moon. Take good care of it, and think of me whenever you see this plant. And please give Percy Jackson my regards, brave one.'

I nodded, though I doubted if I was really a "brave one", like she kept calling me.

'Very well!' Apollo's voice boomed from behind me. 'It's time to go, young hero!'

Hero?

'I guess so,' I said. Calypso turned her gaze to the ground.

'I'm sorry for you, Calypso,' I told her, 'I hope one day the gods will decide you've had enough punishment, and they will let you find real love.'

'Me too,' she whispered, her voice barely audible.

'Thanks for the plant, dear!' Apollo beamed happily.

Calypso walked away.

'How terribly rude of her!' grumbled the sun god.

'Don't blame Calypso, her life isn't exactly easy.'

'I guess. But let us go, my car is waiting!'

And with a last look over my shoulder, I stepped into the sun…car…

As we crossed the sky at an unimaginable speed, the only image on my mind was Calypso sitting on a huge pile of boulders.

And she was crying.