Apparently, people actually take the time to talk to trees. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I used to be human, but the number of campers that decided to spill their guts to me was almost funny. Somehow I became this weird sort of touchstone when kids were down. And so, I knew pretty much everything about camp without having ever stepped foot inside it. I knew the couples and the enemies, the rule-breakers and the quests. Hell, I'd bet I knew even more that Chiron or Mr. D.

Six years passed. Things started going a little haywire. There was a new son of Poseidon, a huge quest, and Luke even joined Kronos. So I was pretty surprised when he showed up one day. I mean, he hadn't been a stranger while he was at camp. Actually, he had been one of my most frequent visitors. But he had joined forces with the most evil Titan of all time, so he wasn't exactly allowed there anymore. Yet here he was, climbing up to his favorite spot in my branches like nothing had changed.

"Hey Thals," his voice cracked and he cleared his throat. "I miss you. Things are getting crazy out here and I don't know if you would like it." Then he started telling me a story, his story of the last year. I already knew most of it, but I was still hanging off his every word. My Luke. The way he explained things it all sounded so right. It was the same thing we had complained about for so many years on the run. Our parents never treated us right. They never treated any of their children right. Kronos could help us start a new, better era. If I could have left my goddamn prison of a tree I would have joined his army without a second thought. He was the same Luke I had always known and loved. He couldn't be as bad as people were saying. They just weren't looking at things right.

And that was why what happened next surprised me so much.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He murmured again and again as he was climbing back down. I figured he was just sorry that I was a tree. When he reached the ground he stroked my trunk. It all just seemed like he really didn't want to go. Then he stabbed a hole in my side and I realized that was not what was going on. He added some sort of liquid which, due to the intense burning, I assumed was poison. I was stunned. My Luke…

"Goodbye." He whispered, touching the edge of the hole lightly. I wished I was human so I could scream and throw things and make that piece-of-shit traitor turn back into my Luke. I was wrong; Kronos had changed him into someone I had never met. I screamed on the inside, throwing insults at Kronos for poisoning him, at our parents for ignoring us, at Luke for letting this happen. He never turned around. My Luke was gone.

Years Later

I make them take to him, broken bones and all. I need to make sure that that Titan, that monster, is really dead. I won't have him killing anybody else.

They put me down on the ground next to him. He's dead. And, looking down on him, I'm not angry anymore. Well, I am. Kronos is and always will be a piece of fucking scum, but the boy beside me isn't Kronos. It's someone I haven't seen in a long, long time, not since the night he poisoned me. I'm sitting next to Luke. My Luke. The Luke that I joked with, that held me on cold nights, that always had my back. The Luke that I loved.

And he's dead. He's dead. My Luke was dead before, or so I thought, but he had to go and die again, the little bitch. I can't decide what I want more: to cry or slap the life back into him so I can beat him up for being such a loser. Probably both.

Annabeth shows up behind me and puts her hand on my shoulder. One look reminds me of all those years of just three of us and I burst into tears. My Luke is gone.