Hey peeps! Here is the second half of the previous chapter so I'll shut up.

She stood staring at me, hands still clutching the black material that was now around her neck. She said my name again, this time it was barely audible. The strong wind blew across again and she made no move to fix her hair but let it fly into her face. Her eyes watered, I'm not sure if it was from the wind and cold or if it was me. Her mouth kept making shapes like she was going to say something but no sound ever came out. She covered it with her hand and kept staring at me. She swallowed but still couldn't move or speak.

I smiled warmly at her. "Atalanta Charlène Hunter," I got down on one knee and offered her the box, "will you," I swallowed hard as the words got stuck in my throat, "marry me?" The words came out really quiet and ridiculously high. If this had been any other time I would have made some sort of quirky comment like 'Gods that sounded like someone just kicked me in the balls' but now wasn't the time and I couldn't speak. I was frozen like she was.

Above us the northern lights still went on forever changing from the green and blue hues and into the red and purple ones before switching again. They snaked across the deep purple sky obscuring the pin pricks of light that were stars. If I wasn't doing this I would be hypnotised by the swirling mass of colours but I had other things to think about. Behind me the skyline started to turn orange as the sun started to rise silhouetting the trees that stood there.

She said something but it came out more as a squeak than a recognisable word. She swallowed and moved her hand away before repeating it but it still came out more as a breath. "Yes..." Her face broke out into a grin. "Yes, yes, yes!" She ran over to me and wrapped her arms around my neck. I swear I almost fainted when she said yes. She whispered in my ear and ran her hand through my hair. "Yes, I will marry you Luke Castellan." She pulled herself away from me and I slid the ring on to her left hand. A delicate ring of silver beset with crystals of green and diamonds. She clenched her fist and hugged me again. I stood up and she was still hanging on to my neck.

After a while she still had her face buried in my chest. I nuzzled her neck and wrapped my arms round her waist. "You're missing the show." She looked up from my chest and up to the skies. They still united and combined, contrasting and changing above us. She looked back at me then the lights and back to me before leaning on my shoulder. I rubbed her back comfortingly and she sighed.

"I've always wanted to see them..." She was still being unusually quiet. I held her tight to my body, never wanting to let her go. I did it, I thought about in the real world but never got round to doing it with her being captured, me being possessed and all the other crap that was going on. I sent her a note about a week before I- well, before he became me. Basically saying how I was sorry about it ending like that and how I wished it could have ended differently for us. Half the paper was scribbled out words and I even wrote what I said only a few minutes ago. That went in the scratched out part. I'd even picked out a ring for her. I did plan to propose only four days after the winter solstice but then came the cliff incident and she wasn't with me and I was out for about a month so it was totally impossible and I never thought about it again, until tonight. "How did you know?" She snapped me out of my train of thought.

"Hmm?"

"How did you know that it's been my dream since I was a kid to be proposed to under the northern lights?" She looked up at me and I am bloody certain her eyes looked like the sky above, without the red and purple.

I shrugged but didn't move my arms from her waist. "Let's say some little bird told me-"

"Did you read my diary?" I looked away, I have no idea how I knew. "Luke did you?"

"Erm..."

"You did, didn't you? Luke I-" Yeah, yeah you're tired, cold, and pissed, I got it. Why don't you just shut up and kiss me? How `bout it `lanta? Oh, wait, you already are.

Well okay, I got fed up with her rants about her diary and how I'd 'looked' inside. I only did that once and Gods was she pissed, I couldn't be in the same class as her for a week and didn't speak to me for a month. Bit of an awkward position when you're both the Hermes and Artemis cabins' chariot team.

I caught her mid word and pressed her parted lips to mine. She tried to pull back and carry on her rant but I held her there until she relaxed which didn't take long. I held her hips and she held both sides of my face. She brushed her hands through my hair and I pulled back but only enough that our lips didn't touch anymore. There was a pinkish wash across her freckled cheeks. She smiled weakly at me. "Sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"You're tired and I woke you up, I deserve a bit of bashing." I smirked at her and she sniggered. She pulled herself out of my grip.

"What? Like this?" She pushed hard against my shoulders and I stumbled backwards. Luckily there wasn't a cliff edge behind me this time. I regained my balance and grabbed her shoulders and squeezed.

"Please don't do that `lanta, not here. At the house, yes, at the apartment, yes, on top of cliff, no definite no." She looked really confused and I'm guessing she had no idea what I was on about. Did no one tell her? I coughed to cover for Thalia. "...pushed me off Mount Tam."

"Who?"

"Doesn't matter." I took her hand and squeezed it.

"Is that why you didn't-" She looked at me, all concerned like.

"I was out for a month and I didn't stand up for another two." I looked at her and wrapped my arm over shoulders. "If I could have then I would have." We started walking back down as the lights ended and were replaced my ordinary daylight.

What would have happened if I had gone back for her, if I could have? How would this be different? Would I still have hosted him and would I still have died or would she have saved me? The titans would still have lost but would it be for a different reason? How much of an influence did `lanta have on my choices then?

The honest answer: I don't know...

Atlanta's ring web address is on my profile but it's green not blue.