As promised, a longer chapter! It's about 5600+ words, which is about 12 word document pages,(and it's the longest I ever wrote, so I) hope you're happy.

I usually don't write with a plan. I just plan out the first line and let my imagination do the rest. And this is what it gave me. I am so, so sorry. (And also, Zeus is kind of an a**h**** in this chapter, so if you love Zeus, I warned you…)

Warnings: Swearing, (1 F-word) mistakes, (I don't have a beta, cause I like it that way, so all mistakes are mine.) maybe slightly OOC characters, (I have no idea whether they're OOC or not, sorry if they are) Major Character death (You have been warned. Don't read this if you're looking for light-hearted fluff.)


She sees Leo in a mental hospital.

He looks like a teenager, but he looks like a child then, struggling and screaming and flailing about in the arms of the men holding him down. A guy in a white coat—a doctor, it seems to be—grabs him roughly by the wrist after ducking a flailing hand. Leo's black hair is matted and oily, and his voice is hoarse and raspy from screaming and tears are streaming down his cheeks.

Thalia has never seen anything so pitiful.

Leo shrieks louder, harder, and Thalia winces, clamping hands over her ears.

She turns to the nurse beside her. "Hey, why's that teenager over there crying?"

The nurse eyes her suspiciously, and Thalia mentally berates herself. She shouldn't have just asked that outright. But the nurse seems to want to ignore the abrupt question in favor of gossiping. "He's insane. He has nightmares. Terrible, terrible ones. He believes that they are dreams of his past lives. And he hallucinates. He sees so-called monsters. Of course, we know that's not real. Mark my words, sooner or later, they'll find out that there's something wrong with him." Her voice is full of scorn, and Thalia can only hear the 'There's something wrong with him,' over and over again in her head.

Thalia bites down hard on her tongue to keep herself from snapping and cursing the nurse out. Leo is not insane! He's just a clear sighted mortal. Slightly wacky, but certainly sane.

She ignores the nurse and turns to Leo again. Then she notices what she had missed before. Leo's eyes are scrunched close.

Nightmares.

She sucks in a startled breath.

Terrible, terrible nightmares.

Leo's dreaming.

"Terrible, isn't it?" The nurse sidles closer and Thalia watches, horrified, as the doctors drag Leo away.

"Why—how—what?" Thalia stutters, and she is so shocked she doesn't even berate herself for stumbling on her words in front of a mortal.

The nurse looks grim, for once. "He was found in a foster home, tied to a chair and wailing his head off. It turns out that someone had a grudge against the head of the family and decided to murder everyone—bad choice—and he was last, but the murderer heard police sirens and ran off, forgetting all about him. The doctors think this might have affected his mental health in some way."

Thalia freezes in shock, and she stares at the door that swings shut as the doctors drag Leo inside.

Room 64B.

She turns to the nurse. "I'm here to visit someone. Can you tell me which room Clarie Elmsworth is in?"


"Create a distraction," Thalia blurts out as soon as she enters the room.

The Hunter that's half hanging out of the window spares her a glance. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, come back in," Thalia huffs, dragging Clarie back into the room by her collar. "You're fairly new. You didn't think this one out." Clarie bristles, but Thalia ignores her and sits the Hunter down on the bed.

"See?" Thalia gestures vaguely at the window. "There's a bunch of mortals there, unloading stuff from a truck, and though there's a lot the Mist can obstruct from their sight, there's a limit too. They will still see you. Plus," Thalia crosses her arms, and says sternly, "Weren't you thinking at all? Why'd you babble something about the Minotaur and hellhounds and say you need to kill them immediately? You know they'll find it suspicious! And just my luck, they thought you're mentally unstable and locked you up in this room."

"Well, sorry!" Clarie folds her arms too, glaring at Thalia. "I'm so sorry if I was slightly in shock from being ambushed and separated from the rest of the Hunt and thus blabbed something to the mortals!"

Thalia sighs and rubs her temples. Normally she would argue back, but she can feel a headache brewing already and she wants to get out of this room as soon as possible. The white washed walls blinds her and reminds her of the white walls she used to see her drunk mother smash beer bottles against. She doesn't like this place at all.

"I won't argue with you now. Let's just get out of here as soon as possible." Clarie opens her mouth, maybe to retort, but Thalia silences her with a death glare learnt from Nico. Oh gods, Nico… She hasn't thought of any of the demigods she used to love like brothers and sisters in so, so long, and her memory of them is frustratingly dim.

Thalia rids herself of the unpleasant memories with a shake of her head. "Anyway, I need you to create a distraction. I need to do something."

Clarie, sensing weakness, leans back and there's a self-satisfied smirk on her face, twisting her features into something cruel. "Why should I?"

"I just need to," Thalia hisses back. She hates having to ask her for a favor, but she needs—desperately—to do that something.

"Oh," Clarie tuts disapprovingly. "Wait till Lady Artemis hears of this, dear, dear Thalia not rescuing her fellow sister but instead blowing her off while she does something. Isn't this very suspicious?"

Thalia grits her teeth. "Please."

Clarie fakes surprise, hand covering her mouth. "Why, resorted to pleading now?"

"Is that a yes or no?" Thalia forces out.

"No, of course. We should be focusing on getting out of here, and not waiting for Thalia dear to do a certain something."

Something in Thalia snaps. She will not tolerate this Hunter who has barely been in the Hunt for a few years step all over her, Thalia Grace, Daughter of Zeus, Immortal Lieutenant of Artemis. She will not allow this Daughter of some minor goddess—Eris, was it?—of chaos, strife, and discord to step all over her. Something in her breaks, and Thalia finds herself standing straight and staring at the Hunter in the eye.

"Daughter of Eris, I have been around four hundred and thirty nine years longer than you have. I have seen wars. I have witnessed the Second Titan War and the Second Giant War. I was the original candidate for the Second Titan War's prophecy, did you know that? I was friends with Perseus Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Luke Castellan, Frank Zhang, Clarisse La Rue, Reyna Ramírez-Arellano, Hazel Levesque, Leo Valdez, Nico Di Angelo, Piper Mclean, Jason Grace. In fact, Jason was my brother.

"Bet you didn't know that, huh? Cause all I am is the snarky Lieutenant, always giving orders and never allowing you all to have fun, huh? Well, I'm trying to keep you all alive! How long do you think I have taken on this role? Four hundred and forty four years. I'm so, so tired of this all. Do you think I don't want to have fun, too? In fact, all I'm trying to do is save all of your fat asses and do I get any appreciation? No! So can you just help me for once?" Thalia exhales a shaky, shaky breath because all she's wanted to say for years now was out in the open.

She looks at the demigod, who is shivering now. "You knew Percy Jackson?" Is all Clarie can stutter out shakily.

"Yes. Percy Jackson was my cousin. I knew him well. So don't you dare just step all over me like I'm some random demigod you can find off the streets because, truth is, I'm not." Thalia says bitterly. "I have seen wars, things, horrors, that would haunt you, keep you up late at night, afraid to fall asleep."

Nothing can mask the strange glassiness to Thalia's eyes.

Clarie is shaking slightly now, and there's shame and awe and—curiosity?—in her gaze now. "What was the war like?" She asks, and Thalia finally understands the curiosity in her gaze. Daughter of Eris, discord, chaos, wars…

"It was horrible. You should be thankful you don't have to fight in one." Thalia says blandly. "Now, are you gonna help me or what?"

Thalia sees the fearful glance Clarie throws her way, and she smirks inwardly.


Thalia pauses outside the door of room 64B.

There's a commotion downstairs and a Hunter is missing from her room, but Thalia isn't worried about that at all. Clarie had put herself to good use for once.

She knocks on the door once, twice, thrice, and she hears a cheery, "Come in!" from the inside. She pushes the door open.

Thalia isn't sure what she's expecting, but it surely isn't an energetic boy bounding up to her and taking her face in his hands and staring. "Umm?" She mumbles and Leo hastily retreats back into the bed, face slightly red.

"Sorry about that. It's just been so long since I've seen someone aside from Doctor Boring No. one to six, it's just..." Thalia just tries to process all that Leo's rushed out in one breath as he fumbles for a word. She'd forgotten how fast Leo could talk.

"Refreshing," Leo decides, and then he leaps out of bed. "Yes, it's refreshing. I've been coped up here for years since the Government decided to be, so-called, 'kind' for once and support all the again, so-called mentally unstable kids."

"Whoa," Thalia cuts in before Leo can sprout any more irrelevant details. "Aren't you gonna ask why I'm here or anything?"

Leo blinks. "Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Why are you here?"

Thalia resists the urge to facepalm.

"I'm someone…" Thalia stops. How does she say this without coming off as a total weirdo?

"Yes, yes, you're someone, we all knew that." Leo rolls his eyes. "Elaborate please."

Thalia snaps out before she can stop herself and think of how to say it tactfully, "I'm someone from your past."

Leo sobers instantly. "So the dreams are true?" He asks, eyes wide and disbelieving.

"Tell me what your name is first." Thalia answers, because she's pretty sure if she doesn't start thinking of him as whatever he's called in this life, she'll slip and call him Leo.

He laughs bitterly, and Thalia doesn't know what to think. She's never seen him like that before. "My name is plain, old, boring James. I'm a nobody from a family of nobodies."

"Wrong," Thalia thinks. "You're Leo Valdez, and you're a brave idiot who sacrificed himself to save the world. And I don't think any of the Olympians will take kindly to being called nobodies either, but then again he isn't a demigod in this life."

She takes a seat by the wall. "Why're you here?" She already knows the answer, but she wants to hear it from Leo—James—himself.

"I see monsters. I have dreams. Dreams of past lives," Leo says, and there's a sort of grim acceptance in his eyes, like he's resigned to his fate. Thalia feels like hissing at Leo—James, whatever. The Leo she knows does not give up, and he always finds a way to defy fate itself, find a way out of a problem deemed unsolvable.

Thalia has learnt a lot from Leo, and they had this kind of we're-friends-but-at-the-same-time-partners thing going on. They relied on each other. Sometimes, Thalia's eyes would be bloodshot, and Leo would nudge her, or when she was being too snappy, Leo would give her a warning glance. Your façade is dropping. Because, truth is, war, horrible childhoods that had forced them into being adults in teenagers' bodies had changed them, and a facade was more than necessary. Everyone has it, which was why Thalia would poke Leo when he started off into space, eyes holding a strange glassiness. They were partners.

After Leo disappeared, it was so, so hard to discover what to do and when had she gone too far. Leo had always warned her. And slowly, she grew used to it. But seeing Leo's façade on—something he had never seen the need to put on around her—something in her gut twists and her heart pounds a desperate, frantic rhythm in her chest.

She notices she's been staring off into space for a while, and Leo's staring at her, waiting for a response. She gives him one.

"What are your dreams like?"

Leo stares at her, bewildered, for a moment, as though nobody has actually sounded that interested before.

"I dream," he says, and the normally mischievous tone of his voice is gone, replaced by something foreign and new which Thalia doesn't know what to think of. He falters, but continues softly, "Of fire. Of everything related to fire. I dream of smoke and ashes and the bitter taste of smoke filling your lungs, of being surrounded by heat."

"And?" Thalia prompts. She knows there's more to it than what Leo's telling her.

Leo looks at her strangely, and Thalia realizes that maybe she shouldn't have read him so quickly, because really, strangers in a hospital room aren't supposed to know each other that well. But as she opens her mouth, Leo is already talking.

"I dream…of dying."

Thalia's fingers, originally drumming against her thigh, stills. "Dying?" Thalia asks, and her voice is weak and fragile.

Leo smiles sadly. "Yes. I dream of standing at the edge of a building on fire, and seeing a dark, dark figure outside, screaming and shouting and I can't make out the words. Then I run into the building and I drag screaming children out, one by one, still alive. Then when I'm about to get out, the figure screams words of warning, and I don't get it. I scream back at the figure, but I never hear what I say. Then the building collapses on me."

The room is silent. Thalia doesn't know what to think or what to say. "Only this one dream?" She asks, finally breaking the silence, and her throat clamps up on the last two words, so much she can barely choke them out.

"No, that's not all. I dream of flying, flying so, so high and it's like I'm involved in an explosion, I'm flying so violently upwards. And somehow I feel dread and excitement, like I know I shouldn't feel so high flying through the air—" he snickers. "The pun."

Thalia sends him a withering glare and he gets back on track.

"And I feel excitement, and I feel like I've never flown before, not even been on a plane, and it's so exhilarating. Then I'm falling, falling so, so hard and damn, I know the impact's gonna hurt like hell. Then I hit something metal and it creaks and squeaks and I understand it. It says not to worry and so I don't. I don't know why, but I always trust it. Then I crash and add every curse word you can think of in here because goddamn it, it hurts! Then I hear, 'Sleep, my hero.' And I sleep."

Thalia doesn't know what to think. So she doesn't. She leans back, tries to block all the warnings invading her mind—did you hear that? Leo dreamt of his past life and of Festus and of landing on Ogygia and oh gods, that cryptic dream—and tries to pretend that they're not a poor, lonely mortal boy with horrifying dreams and a tired, tired daughter of Zeus, and are just Leo and Thalia.

It doesn't work.

"Monsters?" She questions after a while, unable to take the awkward silence.

Leo's eyes flicker with sadness. "Yes, I see monsters. Now go ahead and call me weird and insane, but I truly believe that they are real." Leo's eyes stare deep into hers, and Thalia can't help but think this is so much unlike the Leo all the demigods knew, the one who always made sarcastic comments and bad puns in the face of danger.

No, this Leo she's looking at is her Leo. She's looking at the Leo that breaks apart like fragile glass pieces when he's alone, she's looking at the Leo whose smile drops off his face the minute he closes the door behind him. She's looking at the Leo she knows best.

And then she wonders if she should tell him the truth about the Greek gods. He is a clear sighted mortal after all. Maybe she should tell him now, two of them alone in a hospital room with no monster charging in to kill her. Maybe she won't ever get a chance to if she doesn't do it now.

But no, she wants Leo to have a few moments of peace. A while more of peace before he is thrust into the world of Greek gods, into a world where monsters lurk around every corner and where adults in teenagers' bodies are forced into growing up without childhood.

She's been thinking for so long Leo's eyelids start to droop with exhaustion. "You can sleep if you want to, you know," Thalia says as she watches Leo's eyelids flicker shut. He bolts up.

"Oh, no, it's just that they gave me some sleeping medicine—sleep medicine? Oh, whatever—earlier and I—" Thalia snorts and recognizes the words as what they are: an excuse.

"Just sleep, L—James." Thalia almost slips and calls him Leo, because that shameless smile he's giving her is so much like Leo's she stops thinking of him as James altogether. Her heart aches when she remembers that Leo Valdez, brave, insufferable idiot was gone and dead. All that's left in his place is this fragile, mortal boy with nightmares.

Leo—James—lies down and closes his eyes, but not before giving her a last grin that stretches the corners of his mouth so wide Thalia's sure it can fall off his face.

Why's Leo smiling like that, so widely, so trustingly at her? She hasn't seen such trust in a long, long time. Why would Leo just tell a so-called stranger—though she isn't one—his nightmares? Why would he trust her, a girl who had just come into his hospital room demanding to know more about his dreams?

She leans back and watches Leo sleep, his breathing soothing and even. Thalia decides to wait till Leo woke up to ask him. And besides, she doesn't want to disturb him. There's peace on Leo's face, peace she hasn't seen in hundreds of years. Leo's face earlier was filled with sadness and anger and why, why did this happen to Leo? Even Percy didn't get the nightmares. Why did Leo have them?

She leans out of the window, and stretches her fingers out into the cool air.

"Haven't you done enough?" She asks the wind softly, knowing that up on Olympus, gods are probably listening and enjoying her pain.

The wind whistles through her fingers, a silent question and a warning to tell her not to go overboard and say something she regrets later. But that's what she is sure beyond belief that what she's going to say has to be said, even if she gets blasted to ashes because of it.

"Haven't you tortured us enough?" She says quietly. The wind stops abruptly and the fate of the world seems to hang on her shoulders for one long moment and she isn't sure she has the courage to say it anymore. But she glances at Leo sleeping peacefully, and feels a surge of anger.

Then she's saying it, saying all that she's bottled up for years. Somehow, Leo brings out hidden reserves of strength she never knew she had, and she says all she's wanted to say for hundreds of years. "Leo deserves a happy ending. And he didn't get one in his past life. He's a mortal boy now, must you still haunt him? Why can't you let someone have a happy ending for once in your immortal lives?"

The wind whips around her, strong now, and blows into her face strands of black hair. She tucks them behind her ear. Thunder rumbles. Is it true? It seems to be asking. Is it true? Take it back now, or else… The threat hangs in the air. Thalia doesn't care. She stopped caring a long time ago.

"So this is what you do again, huh?

The wind stops instantly, allowing her words to be heard clearly instead of being swallowed by the wind. Go on, the empty silence seems to say. Go on. Taunting her. She knows it, but she takes the bait anyway.

"And I'm tired, tired of this. You do know that there are many, many wars you brought upon yourself and even more you could have prevented if you weren't so paranoid and didn't let your pride get the better of you, right? No! You all just couldn't suck it up and take proper care of your children and do the duties that you are meant to do, instead you sit on your little thrones up on Olympus and pretended that you're ruling over the world!"

Then there's a pause, and lightning flashes straight at her and Thalia just manages to direct it away from her.

"So this is what you do, huh?" She repeats the words she said earlier. "Blast people to bits just because you don't like what they're saying, huh? Or maybe you're just afraid of hearing the truth." Thalia's eyes narrow challengingly, and she knows up on Olympus the same eyes narrow too. "The truth is that on Olympus, you all are acting like spoiled, selfish children, pettily squabbling over things that don't matter at all and just killing demigods or condemning them just because you are bored."

Lightning flashes and thunder rumbles, a warning.

She ignores it. Now that she's started, it feels addictive, like a drug she can't get enough of. "You have ignored Percy Jackson's wishes. You have grown lazy and power hungry. You forgot all Percy gave up in order to let you all see. You have become corrupt." She shakes her head slowly. "I fear for our future under your rule, Zeus."

Not Father. He's no longer her father. Not Lord Zeus. She doesn't think he deserves to be called 'Lord'. Not Mighty King of the Gods. That one's pretty obvious.

And then she takes a deep breath and drops the bombshell.

"I can almost understand why Luke turned to Kronos."

And that's what does it. Lightning comes at her again, and Thalia freezes in shock. This lightning is so much more stronger, she can feel it, and unlike the one before, this one is meant to kill.

She doesn't think she has the strength to direct it away like she did earlier. Zeus, her father, is going to kill her.

Thalia watches, frozen, as it races towards her, and all she can think is how ironic it is to die from lightning, her element, just as ironic as it would be if Percy had drowned. It races closer and all she can think is if I die, will I truly find peace, knowing that in the world, the gods are still governing the demigods like dogs trained to do their bidding?

And she exhales. This is no longer her war to fight. Let some other hero take over now. Just like she had let Percy be the hero of the great prophecy. Let her die. Let someone else replace her. She's tired of being the gods' pawn.

The lightning changes direction. She sucks in a quick breath, voice no longer cooperating. She wants to scream out in warning, but her voice doesn't work anymore.

The lightning races past her into the room, and her gut lurches. Leo. Leo!

No. She won't let Leo die. She won't. She throws her all into fighting the lightning, preventing it from hitting Leo.

Thalia doesn't know at the moment her eyes glow with power, electric blue and piercing and sharp, and her black hair floats out like she's in control of the winds, like Jason could.

"No!" A scream tears itself from Thalia's throat. Her stupid, uncooperative voice only decides to work then. Leo jolts awake, eyes flitting about in terror, and he spots the crackling blue lightning flying towards him and that's the point where she breaks.

Because of the pure, unadulterated fear she sees in his eyes a second before his doom.

The lightning hits the wires connected to the machine beside Leo's bed and she mentally laughs with glee, because shediditLeo'saliveatleasttheidiothadthecommonsensetorolltothefloor and she's happier than she's been in a long, long time.

Outside, thunder rumbles and she growls out, "Fuck you, Zeus." She normally isn't one for throwing the F-word around but her father had just tried to kill his own daughter and the reincarnation of a Hero of Olympus.

Leo stares at her, eyes wide open in disbelief. "Did you just—what did you—" He fumbles for words, and normally Thalia would laugh at him, but no. Not now.

She spots the tip of a flame dart out from the smoke and destruction the lightning had caused and the remains of the poor machine. She looks at the remains closely. Oh no, no freaking way…

"No," she gasps, voice hoarse and raspy from screaming. "No!" She grabs Leo and sprints out of the room, dragging Leo along, and he stumbles alongside her.

The room they just left erupts in flames.

They run through the halls at a maddeningly slow pace, for Thalia at least, having to practically drag Leo along. Along the way, a nurse even berates them for running in the halls, and Thalia shouts that there's a fire. Her face turns white and they run past her.

They duck through crowds of doctors and nurses, most screaming in panic. They reach the main doors and throw themselves out before the mob inside tramples them.

Thalia takes in deep gulps of fresh air, relieved beyond words.

Doctors and nurses flood the area, one after another, pouring out into the grass at a frantic pace. There are no children with them. Thalia chuckles bitterly. How selfish can the mortals be, abandoning the mentally unstable children inside to…Thalia swallows. Die. They will die.

Thalia is not someone who wants to watch helplessly as people die, but neither is she a fool. She knows that she won't make it out of the building in time. Would Thalia sacrifice herself just so another could live to see tomorrow? Percy would go in an instant, always the hero, but Thalia's a coward.

She is. She's willing to let innocent children die, just because she isn't willing to let herself die. She's selfish and she knows it well, but she just can't make her feet move. Just can't force herself to take one step towards the building going up in flames. She just can't.

And she doesn't need to. She recognizes the figure running towards the building on fire the moment she sees him.

"Leo!" She screams, and panic and fear mixed into one big mess. Dimly, she recognizes that this feels somewhat familiar, like maybe she's heard of this or dreamt of this scenario before. But this isn't a scenario. This is life and death and sacrifice in its purest form. "What are you doing?" Her voice is shrill with panic.

Leo stops and stares at her. "I'm James, not Leo. But Leo sounds familiar, like something you should know but doesn't, and it hovers at the edge of your mind, taunting you."

Thalia feels like stepping forward and hauling Leo away from that burning building. Though Leo probably won't budge, and Thalia really doesn't want to get closer to the fire. She eyes it cautiously. "Leo! James! Whatever! Come back, Leo." Thalia's voice drops and her heart stops for a second. The grim acceptance in Leo's eyes. And then she remembers his dream. No, it can't be, no, no…

"I have to. No one else will." Leo turns and runs into a building on fire.

Thalia screams. She doesn't know what she's screaming until she actually listens and realizes she's yelling, "Come back. Come back, Leo. I can't lose you again."

There's no reply.

She collapses on the dry grass and tries to blink away the panicked, frustrated tears that are welling up in her eyes. And she waits and she waits and she waits.

The wait is agonizingly long, and finally—finally, finally!—she sees a black figure that hauls two small children forward. They are wailing and Thalia can hear them from where she is, far, far away from the heat of the fire. Leo's alive. She wastes a precious second by just staring at that black figure. Leo's alive.

Then she leaps up and sprints as close to the fire as she dares. "Leo! You've rescued two lives, and you will rescue three if you come back!"

Leo, in true Leo fashion, waves and heads back into the fire to rescue more lives. She should have known. When had Leo ever listened to her?

Leo's relentless, only stopping when there's a pile of shouting children, crying and sobbing and some just staring blankly into space.

Thalia's a coward. She doesn't go into the flames, doesn't save a life, doesn't save Leo, and she just hangs around outside the fire and shouts for him to come out.

He never listens.

Mortals—foolish, selfish mortals—only come forward then, holding fire extinguishers. Thalia's hysterical, feeling like she wants to sob and laugh at the same time. What good will fire extinguishers do? Only a son of Poseidon—like Percy, she gulps—can salvage this. Where were they just now, hiding behind one another, cowering like the mortals they were?

The fire leaps forward and Thalia can't help but think how much they look like hungry tongues, leaping and swallowing everything in reach. The fire spreads, licking at the ground. The building is completely on fire now, and Leo the freaking idiot had better make his way out NOW and I will smack him into next week!

She ignores the nagging voice at the back of her mind that screams, "Look at the building! Leo won't make it out now!" Leo will make it out, no matter what.

And then she sees a dark figure on the ground, so, so close to freedom and fresh air. "Leo!" She screams, and her voice is raw with panic and fear and relief and hope, because Leo's so, so close to safety and freedom and Leo will surely make it out now—

She sees Leo, wreathed in flames, smiling a bitter, sardonic smile at her. He mouths something at her through all the smoke and ash and fire, something so bitterly ironic, something that should mean happily ever after but instead will forever symbolize sacrifice and death and destruction for her, and she feels like crying. "I guess my dream came true."

Then her mind goes blank and she can only feel grief and panic and fear and whywhywhy did this have to happen? Why?

The fire swallows the building whole.

Thalia doesn't know she's screaming till the Hunter she had come to rescue—when had she came?—puts a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay. It's okay," she repeats over and over again, calmly, like a nursery rhyme sang to make little children sleep.

"How could I?" Thalia doesn't realize she's screaming. "How could I have…"

She stares at the ground and the ashes that litter it, not even caring about the heat she feels on her face from the fire. "Ashes and fires and the bitter taste of smoke in his lungs…gods, Leo dreamed of this." She chokes on Leo's name. "And I killed him."

"What have you done?" She wails at the sky, no longer caring that she's causing a scene. Her voice drops to a whisper as she stares up the sky, a clear azure blue. She can see, in her mind's eye, a smirking, self-satisfied Zeus, sitting upon his throne, lightning bolt in hand. He had planned this all along. He'd meant to hit her where it hurt most, since he knew she had no desire to live anymore.

Her knees give way. She sinks to the ground.

"What have you done?"


(Long AN ahead…) I…I don't know what to say. I did warn you, at the start. And I killed Leo. I'm so, so sorry I killed him, (I actually like Leo) but he needed to die to make this work. (I feel terrible now, knowing I just killed Leo in order to get the 'feels'.) But I tend to gravitate towards darker themes, so somehow I'm not surprised. I suck at writing fluff.

Believe it or not, Thalia's outburst(s) was actually pretty easy to write. The hardest would be Leo sprinting into the building and Leo *swallows* dying. But hey, at least he died a hero, right? He can try for the Isles of the Best!

And I have no idea who I'm going to do next, so if you have a character and a scenario in mind you can PM me or write it down in your review. Thank you!

Also, I usually update once a month, but my exams are over, and thankyouthankyou all of you for reviewing and favoriting me! I don't have time to reply to all of you, but know that I read all your reviews and am very grateful that some of you think my story is worth reviewing or favoriting. I'm rambling, aren't I?

But whatever. Just remember to review!