A/N: *crawls out from underneath rock* Well. I'm actually quite ashamed of myself, really - it's been ... five months? Wow. *sighs* And this ... is a tentative foray back into the world of fanfiction. It was started pre-TLO, and so is not compatible with it - and was dug out of a bunch of raw, unfinished, completely horrible stuff in my hard-drive. I hope it's half-way presentable.

Hero

I'm looking back

Throughout the years

To breathe as hard

And my eyes are choked with tears …

He is dying now. It's funny that the end should come this way, with him stretched out on his back on a bloody field, vultures circling above him and uncountable bodies around him. Where's the honor? The glory? The sweetness of victory he's been longing for?

He has pain … bloody wounds, both fresh and new … and an overwhelming sense of realization. I have been wrong.

And it is this that brings the wave of tears that come rushing upwards and dribble down his cheeks and make him cry out in pain because the salt sears his wounds and reminds him of all that he has ever lost. The scythe is clenched in his fist still – even at the end he is grateful for the comfort of a weapon … 'I will wield. I will not yield' … and his fingers refuse to unclasp themselves. He stares up at the circling vultures and a calmness settles over him. He hasn't got long left. And then there will be no more pain. No more damned feelings … cursed emotions … heck, no more sensation. Peace, at last. Peace from the agony and the bitterness and the anger and the feeling 'I don't belong.'

It would be amusing, in a twisted sort of way, if even the Underworld didn't want him. Why should Hades give him a place there? He is willing to bet that even the darkest part of Tartarus won't be deemed a worthy punishment. Not for him.

He glances out along the length of his arm, and after a moment's consideration, pulls the heavy, two sided blade to him. Even if he is not a hero – never has been – he is allowed to feel like one – at least now, in his last moments, isn't he? Gritting his teeth, he lifts the scythe to his chest, placing the 'hilt' over his breast bone, and grasping it with both hands. You are Backbiter, he tells what was once his sword. Naturally you didn't spare even me. He smiles painfully down at it. You served only him, from the beginning, didn't you? And I, fool that I was, believed that to carry you would be an honor beyond compare. Did well for me, you did. Couldn't finish me off more quickly, could you? The blade glints in the light of the dying sunset, and he grasps the hilt tighter.

He is alone … clutching a traitor's weapon and bearing a traitor's mark … there is blood on his hands and blood on his soul and regret – cartloads of it – in his heart. But it's too late now. He forces out an empty, hollow laugh, and is immediately overcome by a fit of coughing. His shoulders heave; blood trickles down the side of his mouth and he bites down hard on his lip, attempting to contain the convulsions racking his body. The taste of bile fills his mouth, and his face twists into a grimace, eyes watering.

A mental picture of how he must look – covered in grime and blood and gore – with painfully white lines down his face where his tears have worn tracks through the dirt caking his cheeks – and a bi-colored scythe, of all things, resting on his sternum flashes before him – and he is overcome with a sudden desire to laugh again. The sound that leaves him is the wild, uncontained laughter of a madman, nuances of bitterness and the pain that refuses to leave him evident in the force of his mirth …

His breath catches; his amusement is cut short as a wave of pure, unadulterated agony ripples through him, and he is left gasping, racked by an abrupt sense of comprehension. I am alone. He cannot hold back the groan that escapes him – nor does he particularly want to. There is no one to hear him anyway – he is alone.

His breathing is labored now – his chest shudders spastically with each inhalation – and his vision blurs slightly. His mind begins to float away from his body – away from the battlefield – away from the blood he has spilt and the lives he has destroyed.

He is sitting by a dying campfire … a little girl's blond head rests on his knee … and another, older girl sits across from him, moodily poking the embers. "You can't believe that," she tells him, her spiky black hair quivering, and her blue, blue eyes – lined with too much black eyeliner – flash angrily. "It's never too late …"

Never too late. And he'd believed her then – given her his soul for safekeeping, because she was good and strong and loyal and true. But she'd been wrong. It was too late. It had always been too late.

He watches, once again, as she stands at the crest of a hill, her form crackling with energy, her blade blazing gold in a fading sun's rays, holding her own against a veritable army of monsters. "Go," she screams at him. "Just go!"

He'd gone then … and he was going now. He's always been going somewhere, he realizes. Going to camp. Going to the Garden of the Hespirides. Going to war. He's never come anywhere … never had anyplace to come to …

His eyes drift shut … his heart, thumping erratically in his chest, slows, and then picks up again as he panics, fighting the blackness creeping up his legs. I don't want to die, he tells it. Leave me alone! But the blackness laughs, and he suppresses his need to thrash about violently and scream. Go out like a hero, he tells himself. Go out like a hero 'coz you never lived like one. And then the darkness recedes;

And Thanatos gives him a nod and clasps his hand tighter. Peace, hero. His voice echoes.

And Luke Castellan smiles. Peace at last.

Fin.

A/N: I blame lack of inspiration. And a flighty muse. My apologies. *grimaces*