So I know that I've been apologizing for not updating in the past few chapters, and I'm doing it again this time: I'm sorry! I was having final exams, and it's been my toughest semester yet so I really had no time whatsoever to write. Also, this was another really difficult chapter to write because Virginia's pretty...important, and I didn't do that much research on life during WW2. But since I got some inspiration again and I have six weeks of winter break ahead of me, I think there'll be plenty of updates coming!

Anyway, this is the very last monologue chapter for now (for those that are getting bored of them), and I hope it's a good way to get back to the real story :) Please review!

Ares was gone for a good half hour. When he came back, an uncapped crystal bottle was in his hand, half-filled with some amber liquid. His lips were wet. Really? I frowned. Was he really going to tell me about Virginia like this?

'Are you sure that is a good –'

A wave of his hand cut my sentence short. 'I'm not drunk. That takes more than a little bit of whisky.'

I shrugged and folded my legs, leaning back against the headrest. 'If you say so.'

He sat down, took a large swig from the crystal bottle and stared at the wall as he spoke.

'I knew Virginia for a year and seventy-three days.'

Okay. That was specific.

He swallowed another sip of whisky before he continued. 'It was October 16th of 1939, and the Second World War had just begun. The sun was setting and without any lights, the city was getting dark. I was out in the East End and the streets were wet, it had been raining for weeks. I'd only been in London for a little while, after my father had sent me away from Germany. He wanted to solve the war with Athena's help, without me interfering…' His voice was sour, and he hadn't once averted his gaze from the wall.

'I was walking in the streets and around me all I saw was misery. I didn't care. I was…morose. I knew one of the biggest wars of my life was about to erupt and I was banned from it before it had even properly started. So I stole a bottle of liquor – don't look at me like that, things were different – and sheltered myself from the weather in a dark portico. It didn't take long before I fell asleep.

'When I woke up it was light out, but still raining. A rag was spread over my legs and I felt around for my bottle, but couldn't find it – until a thin shadow leaned into the light. "Looking for this?" she asked me. Her hair was so dirty you could hardly see that it was blond and her voice was weak, but somehow there was still a sparkle in her eyes.' For a split second his glance shot towards me, but it was back to the wall immediately. He swallowed.

'We shared what was left in the bottle and she asked me what a guy like me was doing in an East End portico. I said I'd been hiding out, afraid of being drafted for the army. She looked down then, biting her lip, and told me her brother had been drafted and that he was all that she'd had since both her parents had died.

'So then I… For some reason I suddenly felt an urge, this need to protect her.' He looked down. I could hardly even hear what he mumbled next. 'I don't know why… She was so - so underfed, so sick, she was sure to die in a matter of days. But I couldn't just leave her.' He shifted his weight in his chair and looked up again, but he was still avoiding my eyes. 'So I got her a loaf of bread, and in the days that followed I didn't so much stay with her, but I kept an eye on her. I did whatever I could to keep her alive.

'But she was ill and it was pretty obvious that she…wouldn't make it. I managed to convince her to come with me to what I said was my parents' house, to get a good night's sleep, to stay until she was healthy. She ended up staying in bed for almost three months. She was alone and she needed someone strong to be there for her, someone who wasn't the god of war. I wasn't even allowed to be the god of war. I was denied myself and it frustrated me so much – without me the war was a boring one, it was phony. Not being able to do anything ate at me, but taking care of Virginia became my therapy.' He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, before taking another sip of his whisky. Then for the first time since he'd started talking about Virginia, he looked me in the eye. He lifted the bottle. 'Hey, do you want some?'

I shook my head. 'I'm good… I think.' I bit my lower lip. To be honest, I'd expected this part of the story to be worse, and Ares to be more emotional. So far, it wasn't that bad. Sure, it was sad – and since I knew how it ended, I knew it was going to be sadder – and I, admittedly, hated to hear about yet another way a girl had meant so much to him (I couldn't help but wonder again how on Earth I could mean something to him the way his past loves had), but I had expected some shatteringly tragic romantic love story. I had expected him to struggle more, what with his bottle of whisky.

I slid my legs under the soft white blanket. 'So why was she so special to you?' I mentally praised myself for sounding so composed.

He smiled weakly. For a few seconds he kept quiet. 'I guess it was her optimism.' He sighed and took another large swig from the bottle. It was almost empty now. 'She was alone, she was sick, she was dying and still she managed to always keep that sparkle in her eyes.' I saw his throat contract ever so slightly. He let his hands fall into his lap, looking down on them as he traced patterns on the crystal bottle with his thumbnail. The muscles in his face tightened. 'She was inspiring in that respect. She gave me hope… She opened me but with that came all the hurt. I was full of broken thoughts that I thought couldn't be fixed. She taught me that there was life after Elisabetta – not that she knew Elisabetta had died almost three hundred years before, of course.' He looked up at the ceiling, inhaled deeply again. He blinked. 'I'm just going to skip the part where she – where she died, okay?'

I frowned. That had escalated quickly… I didn't know what to think of this. On the one hand, Virginia didn't sound like she was that much more special than Elisabetta. I'd shielded myself against the feelings Elisabetta's story had given me. That wall could surely handle another attack from Virginia, right? On the other hand, Virginia was so much more recent. It seemed so much more vivid. I grimaced, but tried to hide it behind a faked rub of my cheek. He didn't even notice; he was emptying the bottle, clutching it tight in his hand. I waited until he was done, wiping a drop of whisky from his cheek, neatly brushing a tear from his eye at the same time. The almighty Ares, crying. It was an unsettling sight.

'I need to know,' I said, speaking slowly to remain calm, and added, 'You've got to let me in.' I wasn't sure if he'd really heard it, but he nodded.

'You're right…you're right. I just, it's…' He promptly stood up and paced to the window. With his arms crossed, the bottle dangling from his right hand, he leaned against the frame. I couldn't see his face. 'The Germans had been bombing London for fifty-seven nights in a row. The city was burning. We were hiding out in a cellar but I didn't take it too seriously – I figured nothing would happen to us, to her, so long as I was protecting her. She was scared, she was so scared… I kept reassuring her that things would be okay, that we'd survived so much already, that we would get through this. That was the moment a bomb hit the building next to ours.' He uncrossed his arms and was about to put the bottle to his mouth, when he realized it was empty. He gripped it tight. For support, maybe?

'So it didn't take long for the fire to reach us, and I tried so hard to shield her from it, I did everything in my power to protect her. In the last seconds of her life she found out who I was. She died in a shock.' His fingers pressed into the bottle with so much force now that it broke. He only stared at his bleeding hand and the shards of crystal that fell to the floor. 'I'd never been burned before.'

He kept quiet for a long minute. I fumbled with the blanket. The silence was distressing. I didn't know what to do. 'So, uh, and then?' I asked clumsily.

His head jerked in my direction. 'And then what?' His voice broke.

I pulled the blanket up to my shoulders, as if it was some kind of protection, some kind of barrier I could pull up against anything he would say that could hurt me. 'Well, I mean, what happened next…'

He shrugged. 'I lost myself.' His casual tone didn't convince me. I stood up from the bed and walked towards him, carefully avoiding the shards of crystal. I lifted my hand, but dropped it almost immediately. He averted his glance. 'Tell me,' I said.

He shook his head. 'I can't, Emma.' He pressed his eyes shut for a second. 'I can't do this.'

I looked away from his face. I never should have asked him to do this – it only made me realize how for every thing that he told me, there were a thousand things about which he wouldn't open up.

He drew in a big gulp of air, and then the words came streaming out. 'I've never told anyone this much about her and it just… Talking about her hurts so much, and I've tried so many times to convince myself that I had fallen out of love with her, but-'

'Wait, what?' The words slapped me in the face. Was he really saying he still loved her more than anything? Was I just a distraction to help him forget about her?

He ignored my confusion, or maybe he simply didn't notice while he was…rambling. 'And the thing is, Emma, you remind me of her. You remind me so much of her that for the first time in seventy years I let myself open up to anyone, hoping that maybe I can feel the same as I did then, that I can be more than a shell of who I was.'

I couldn't process what he said. I couldn't even begin to understand what he was trying to tell me. I could only handle one thing at a time right now, and one thing in particular.

'What do you mean, I remind you of her?' My voice sounded way too hysterical for my liking.

Not his. He had suddenly calmed down enough, after getting all of this out, to answer my question. 'You look like her. Not too much, but you do. I thought you were her the first time I saw you. That maybe Hades had finally decided to give her back to me.'

I didn't know what to say. There was nothing I could say. I could only stand there, completely stunned and speechless, and wonder what I was supposed to think. Every feeling that I'd had in the past hours was coursing through me. I looked down and saw my right hand trembling. Soon my body was shaking all over.

'Emma…'

I buried my face in my hands. Oh my god. Oh my god.

He reached out his hand. I slapped it away. 'Leave me alone.'

'But Emma…' He sounded insecure.

'I said, leave me alone,' I spit out through my fingers.

'Are you – are you sure?' He was further away from me now. I lifted my head slightly. He was standing in the doorway.

'Yes, I'm sure. Go away.'

I saw him nod once, and hid my face again before he closed the door behind him.