Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Rick Riordan, Greco-Roman mythology, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Hello, everyone! Today's chapter is the one that many of you have all been waiting for! The chapter where we find out whether or not Luke recants Kronos or not! However, that being said, it's not the last chapter of the TLT arc – we still got one more to go (my mistake lol), then there will be a time skip of about two weeks or so...which may or may not also be the chapter where a very important OC will be introduced LOL. I'm very pumped for you guys to meet her, and will gladly take guesses as to who you guys think she is (besides a certain son of Hermes's future love interest, of course!). ;)

Next chapter will be posted on Friday, as current schedule dictates. So, that being said, until then,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~The Finding Home Saga~

~Finding Home~

~Chapter 27: The August Deadline Arrives~

After the Fourth of July and my date with Luke, the rest of July and August passed in something of a whirlwind.

Around a week after the Fourth, a letter from my mom arrived at camp, presenting me with a hard decision I hadn't really realized that I would have to make. In her letter, she told me that Gabe had mysteriously disappeared off of the face of the planet, presenting her with a second chance at life that she hadn't known that she would ever get – especially because she had a funny feeling that, even though she had reported my stepdad as missing to the police, nobody would ever find him.

That was alright with her, though – not only because it seemed that Gabe was gone from her life for good, but also because, just around the time of his disappearance, she had sold her first life-size concrete sculpture, titled The Poker Player, to a collector, through an art gallery in Soho. She'd gotten so much money for it that she'd been able to not only put a deposit down for a new apartment and make payment for her first semester's tuition at NYU, but she'd also been able to pay for a year's tuition at a private secondary school called Goode High School...providing that I wanted to go, of course. Apparently, around the same time that she had disposed of "the sculpting tools" that I had left her, she had run into one of the teachers there, who also served as the school's swimming coach. The guy was nice, she said, and veryinterested in my potential to be on his swimming team, provided that I could keep somewhat good grades and not get into too much trouble while at school.

...Which, I'm not gonna lie, sounded tempting. I mean, as much as I liked camp, a part of me wanted to do nothing more than return to my mom's, and have the ability to have privacy and time to practice my freaky water powers so that I could move water just like Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender or that lady from the Hephaestus' kids fireworks did/could.

However, that being said, I knew that, if I was going to be able to convince Luke to turn his back against Kronos, my boyfriend would probably need me more than my mom would, as bad as that sounds. After all, even if he went to Zeus and told the king of the gods about all that he had done and swore to never do anything like it again, there was still a very real chance that Zeus would decide to just simply smite him then and there, even with Demeter's interference. And even if he didn't decide to do that, there was still the very long list of things that I would have to help him out with – namely, his complete lack of confidence and self-esteem and his horrible tendency to keep whatever trauma he had previously experienced firmly locked up in a metaphorical bottle.

So...yeah. I had a hard decision to make when it came to my mom and Luke, even if I had already decided what I was going to do. And that was hard...really hard, especially when I could still hear the Oracle's voice hissing in my ears, telling me, "You shall go west, and face the god who has turned. You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned. You shall be betrayed by one who calls you more than a friend. And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end."

I tried not to dwell too much on that prophecy, though. After all, as Chiron had said, prophecies don't always mean what people think that they mean, meaning dwelling on what they could was practically moot and would only cause more grief in the end.

Besides, it wasn't like there were plenty of other things to think about – like the last night of the summer session, for instance, which came all too quickly in my opinion, and was also the night before my birthday. On that night, all of the campers had one last meal together, which was pretty fun. All of the campers who were (knowingly) going away for the year sacrificed a larger portion than usual for the gods, since burning offerings for them in their own homes ranged from difficult to do to outright impossible. Silena just about cried when she offered hers up, as apparently she had just realized we ("we" being her, Katie, Alabaster, and I) were going to be separated for nine months and it just "wasn't fair at all!"

But the feast wasn't anything special in comparison to the bonfire that occurred afterwards, because apparently it was a tradition for the senior camp-counselors to give out end-of-summer beads and leather necklaces for the campers who didn't have any necklaces to put their beads on, like me. This year's design was a sea green bead with a shiny black trident in the center on one side and a black, ancient Greek-style helmet on the other.

Many campers, myself included, looked at Luke and the other senior camp-counselors (Annabeth, Katie, Silena, Beckendorf, and Lee Fletcher, the six campers who had been here longer than anyone else) questioningly about it. But all that Luke said in response was, "The choice was unanimous. This bead commemorates not only the first son of the Sea God at this camp in a hundred years, and the quest that he undertook to stop the impending war, but also the first children of the God the Underworld to come to this camp ever. Be proud of yourselves, Percy, Silena, Katie, Nico, and Bianca!"

At his words, the entire camp got to their feet and cheered, even Annabeth, who still seemed to hate me with a passionate vengeance. Nico and Bianca, I think, flushed the most at the applause, due to how new they were and how most of the camp had pretty much ostracized them for most of the summer, but Silena, Katie, and I had our fair share of blushing as well.

I'm not sure I had ever felt as happy or sad as I did that night. I mean, I had finally found a family, a small group of friends and even a boyfriend who cared about me and thought that I was a good person, and cheered me on when I did something right. But, at the same time, Silena would be going away in the morning, along with most of the other campers, like Ethan (who was going back to his father's place in San Francisco, apparently) and Alabaster (who apparently traveled the world with his archaeologist father during the school year) and Chris (who was going back to his mom's place in Texas). In fact, out of our friend group, only Luke, Katie, and I were staying for the rest of the year – but I still hadn't told anyone of my decision about that yet.

...Or, at least, I hadn't told anyone until the morning after the bonfire, when I found a letter on my bedside table – a letter that I could tell had been written by Dionysus, because it went like this:

Dear Peter Johnson,

If you intend to stay at Camp Half-Blood year-round, you must inform the Big House by noon today. If you do not announce your intentions, we will assume you have vacated your cabin or died a horrible death. Cleaning harpies will begin their work at sundown. They will be authorized to eat any unregistered campers. All personal articles left behind will be incinerated in the lava pit.

Hoping you are well,

Mr. D (Dionysus)

Camp Director, Olympian Council #12

After I had read Mr. D's letter, I couldn't help but frown as I folded it up and put it in one of my shorts' pockets. It seemed like now was the time for me to tell Luke, not only because it was August and Kronos had told him he had until now to convince me to join him on the Titan King's side, but also because I wanted him to be the first one to know that I was going to stay at camp for the rest of the year, not Mr. D or Chiron or anyone else like that.

With that thought in mind, I decided to head down to the one place where I knew Luke would be, especially now that, with the exception of him, the Stolls, the di Angelos, and a few more kids, almost everyone in his cabin was gone for the summer: the sword-training arena.

As I walked through the campgrounds, I couldn't help but notice how deserted everything was, now that roughly 80% of the campers were gone or would soon-be-going for the summer. Silena had been one of the first campers to go, and I had seen her off that morning, just before I walked back to my cabin and discovered Mr. D's letter on my bedside table. I had also met her father, Jean Beauregard, who was a French guy as tall as Luke – which was saying a lot – with wavy black hair, dark green eyes, and olive skin. He actually kinda looked like my dad, even, but I didn't say anything about that as Silena had prattled on about me while she introduced me to him.

After a few minutes' walk, I got to the sword-training arena, where Luke was, just like I thought he would be. His gym bag was plopped at the edge of the stage, and he was working solo, whaling on battle dummies with a sword that I had never seen before, much to my surprise. It was half-bronze, half-steel in color, and that was when I realized that the steel color had to be actual steel, because the sword was actually slicing the dummies' heads right off, and successfully stabbed through their straw-stuffed guts.

As he moved, I couldn't help but notice that my boyfriend's orange shirt was dripping with sweat – hot – and that his expression was intense. Like, seriously intense, as if he was actually fighting for his life or something like that...which was also kinda hot, but also a tad concerning more than anything else.

I spent the next few minutes after my arrival just watching him fight, fascinated. He really was an incredible fighter – the best swordsman in three hundred years, even – and I couldn't help but feel proud at the fact that he was both my sword trainer and my boyfriend, because that meant he was mine and no one else's.

Finally, though, after those few minutes' were up, Luke saw me and stopped fighting mid-swing. "Percy!" he greeted me with a grin.

"Hey," I breathed with a grin of my own, before I stopped and took a proper look at his sword. "New toy?"

Luke blinked. "Oh, this?" he asked as he swiveled the sword in his hands. "This is Backbiter. One side is celestial bronze. The other is tempered steel. Works on mortals and immortals both."

I swallowed at the way he said "mortals" – it was a harsh reminder of his servitude to Kronos, which I was hoping beyond hope that I could break with the hard conversation that was soon going to happen between us.

"I didn't know they could make weapons like that," I offered after a moment of thinking, all the while I tried to make myself sound as nonchalant as possible.

"Most people probably can't," Luke agreed. "It's one of a kind."

He gave me a light smile, before he slid the sword into his scabbard. "You know, it's good that you got here now, 'cause I was just going to come and find you. I got something to talk to you about...something important."

"Me too," I blurted out in response, before I flushed something awful. "I – I mean, I have some important stuff to talk to you about, too. If that's okay."

Luke's smile faltered ever-so-slightly for a moment, before it returned back to its bright intensity. "Great," he said. "Do you want to go to the cove to talk about it? Or – "

"The cove's fine," I interjected. We had gone there a few times since the Fourth of July for more "mock dates" – as I called them – and stuff like that, and I knew that it was just the perfect, private place for us to have our life-altering conversation in.

With that being said, the two of us walked down to the woods, and then from the woods to the cove. During our walk through the woods, no monster attacked us – probably because it was too hot, although a part of me couldn't help but be worried that there may be some more nefarious reason at play.

Once the two of us got to the cove, we sat down on two large rocks, and opened up some Cokes that Luke had stashed into his bag, in typical son-of-Hermes-fashion. Neither of us spoke at first, too entranced by the beauty of the cove – even if it didn't glow during the day like it did at night – but eventually, after several minutes of silence, the desire to speak became too much to bear, and I cleared my throat.

"So," I said, once I had Luke's attention. "I just...I was wanting you to know that Mr. D was wondering about whether or not I was going to stay for the rest of the year...and I intend to say yes, I'm going to stay...for you. For us."

Luke blinked again. "Really?" he asked, disbelief coloring his voice all the while.

I nodded. "Yes, really...at least, if you want me to, anyways. Do you want me to?"

"Of course I want you to, Percy," Luke said, before a dark look passed over his face. "It's just...it's not that simple."

I frowned. "Why not?"

Luke's dark look turned into a weary and angry one then, as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. "I've lived here at Camp Half-Blood year-round since I was twelve," he told me, "as you know. But, what you don't know – what I haven't told you, due to my 'metaphorical baggage', is that I was one of the demigods that came to camp with...with Thalia Grace, the daughter of Zeus. I...I watched her die in front of me, along with Annabeth, who was also with us, and there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing. Only Zeus had the power to do something about it, and he turned her into a pine tree, instead of allowing her to live or at least die peacefully."

Suddenly, Luke crumpled up his Coke can and threw it into the cove's water, which really shocked me. After all, one of the first things you learn at camp is to not litter for any reason, unless you want the nymphs and naiads to get even with you by filling your sheets with centipedes, water snails, and mud.

"Ever since Thalia," he continued after a moment to collect himself. "Ever since her, I've trained, and trained, and trained, both to honor her memory and to make sure that what happened to her would never happen to me. I never got to be a normal teenager, like you and Silena, out there in the real world. I just didn't. And the one opportunity I got to was on my quest, which I fucked up...badly."

"Whatever it was," I interjected then, desperate to prevent him from spiraling even more than he already was. "It wasn't your fault."

Luke laughed bitterly, before he let out a short sob. "But it was, Percy," he said softly. "It was. You weren't there, you don't understand. I had a choice, like you, about who I wanted to bring on my quest...and I was so cocky, so wanting to please my dad, like you – " well, that was about as far from the truth as you could possibly get, but I wasn't about to interrupt him and tell him that " – that I only brought one person with me, instead of two like is tradition. And that person was...well, he was special to me, special like you. And because of my mistake by just bringing along him, I doomed the two of us. I doomed myself to getting my scar, and I doomed him to a death that no one deserves, a death in my arms, and there was nothing that I could do about it, just like with Thalia.

"But you know who could've done something about?" Luke asked me, causing me to blink in surprise.

"Err..."

"Aphrodite could've done something about it," he said. "Or my dad, or any of the Olympians, for that matter. They all could've done something to spare Thalia, to spare Al – to spare him. But they didn't – and not because they are bound by the Ancient Laws or anything like that, but because we're their pawns. They don't think of us anything more than that."

"That's not true!" I protested.

"Isn't it, though?" Luke snorted in response. "Your dad had a choice when the accusations of him having you steal the master lightning bolt and the helm of darkness came out, a choice to not involve you in the fight. But he did. He made you go on that quest for him, and for what? A pat on the head and some words of encouragement when you got back? He's using you, Percy. All of the gods are using you, using us – it's their way, the way of Western Civilization, and it's killing the world. The only way to stop it is to burn it to the ground, burn it all to the ground, and start over with something more honest."

"You mean something like Kronos's rule?" I couldn't help but ask.

Luke's eyes widened. "You know?" he asked.

"Yeah, I know," I replied. "I've known since I went to the Underworld, when I talked with the Lady Styx – " thunder boomed at the mention of her name, even though it was a bright and sunny day outside " – herself. She told me all about Kronos's plans, and about the Great Prophecy, too – you know, the one that's the real reason why the Big Three swore to not have any more mortal children. And I...well, I figured it out from there. So yeah, I know that Kronos is trying to take over the world, and I know that you helped him, but you don't have to keep helping him, Luke. You don't. You're better than that."

Luke shook his head. "No," he said, "I'm better than bowing down to the gods, like everyone else here does. I've seen them for their lies, and that's exactly why I'm leaving this place while I still can – and I want you to come with me, Percy. Please. Don't be the gods' pawn, the pawn that they want you to be. Come with me, and the two of us – along with a few others – can work together to bring a new age into the world, a golden age where demigods like you and me don't have to be pawns, and where we're safe from all sorts of monsters."

In an alternate universe, one where I was perhaps more bitter and hadn't pledged my loyalty to Demeter, I might've considered his offer. However, as it was, I could only stare at him disbelievingly in response, could only plead and beg for him to reconsider his loyalty to the Titan King.

"Please, Luke," I begged. "Don't do this. The gods may not be good rulers, but they're still our parents. And they can still change, even though they may not want to. We just have to convince them to change in other ways which don't involve changing one tyrant out for another."

Luke snorted. "Kronos won't be a tyrant," he said.

"But he will," I pressed on. "Don't you see? Kronos is using you just like how you think the gods have used us – it's in his nature. He's called 'the Crooked One' for a reason, after all, and it's not because of his scythe or a crooked nose or anything like that. It's because he's corrupt, and more corrupt than any of the deities that came before or after him. It's just as I've told you, just as I've been telling you all summer. Just as the myths tell us."

"Who do you think created those myths, Percy?" Luke retorted angrily. "The gods – our parents – did, because they feared what would happen if we found out how life really was back in the original Golden Age, if we found out how good it was for mortals and demi-titans alike. They weren't hunted down like we were, like we still are. They lived in peaceand in prosperity. All you have to do is ask any of the olde gods – Hecate, Nike, Nemesis – to realize that."

Luke suddenly stood up then, and leaned into me, to the point where our noses were nearly touching. Shakily, he cupped my face with his hand. "Please, Percy," he said softly. "Come with me. I – well, I love you and I don't want to lose you. I don't want for us to be enemies, like we most definitely will be if you don't join me, join Kronos. And we can even bring your mom with us, if that's what you would like – I know how much she means to you, and I'd love to meet her myself. I can already see so much of her in you, you have no idea."

My eyes began to water. Luke loved me. He loved me, and yet he was about to all but sell his soul away to the devil, and my attempts to stop him – both present and former – weren't working. None of it was working. And I felt like such a failure in that moment – more like a failure than I had ever felt, actually, even with all of the verbal and physical abuse that Gabe had done to me over the years.

"Please, Percy," Luke pleaded with me, his glacier-eyes just as watery as my own.

"I – I can't!" I sobbed, before I tore away from his grasp. "You don't – you don't understand, Luke! I've known that you've been working for Kronos – I've known all this time, and because of it, I've done things to protect you! Things that no one else has done!"

"Like what?" Luke asked, still pleading.

"I became Demeter's champion!" I cried.

The effect was instantaneous. Immediately, Luke's eyes widened and he stumbled back, as if I had burned him or slapped him in the face. I watched as all of the color drained from seemingly every aspect of his body, and as he wordlessly mouthed the words I had already spoken: I became Demeter's champion.

"I love you too, Luke," I sniffled after a moment. "I love you with every single fiber of my being – do you know that? I don't think I've ever told you, but I do. And because of it, I've done everything that I can to protect you, to save you. Would Kronos do that for you? Huh? Would he?"

Luke didn't answer me – at least, not immediately. Instead, he stood up from where he had fallen, and dusted off his shorts, as if we were having the most casual conversation in the world. Then, he said, "You're...you're too far gone. I should've realized this. Really, I should have. Maybe if I did, I could have saved you before you pledged your allegiance to Deme – before you pledged your allegiance to them."

"L – Luke?" I asked, my voice shaky and weak. "Luke, what are you doing?"

He looked at me then, with a hard expression and cool, icy blue eyes. "I love you, Percy," he said. "I love you so much, that I have to let you go. I have to – "

Suddenly, Luke's lips were on mine – but this kiss wasn't anything like our previous kisses had been before. This kiss was hot and searing, to the point where it burned me to the very depths of my soul, burned me to places inside myself I had never been before, burned me to –

– My side, I thought with abject horror as Luke pulled away from our kiss. My side – it hurts. It hurts beyond belief! Luke, he –

– Luke had stabbed me, right on my left side.

"Luke!" I cried out.

"I'm sorry, Percy," Luke told me with an expression that looked more grieving, more longing than any expression I had ever seen on his face before. "But I can't let the gods corrupt you anymore. I can't. But don't worry. When all is said and done, I'll come get you from the Underworld, and we'll live in a new Golden Age together – forever."

Luke pulled his new half-celestial bronze, half-steel sword from out of its scabbard. Then, he slashed the air in front of him into an arc with it and disappeared into a ripple of darkness, meaning he was gone – just like that. He was gone.

"Luke!" I cried out again, even though I knew he couldn't hear me, that he was gone.

Blindly – because my vision was going foggy, way too foggy to be what I thought was possible– I reached out for where he had just been, arms outstretched. But I was so weak from the poison that had to be quickly spreading through my body that all I managed to succeed in doing was to collapse in the sand.

But that was okay with me. I was so heartbroken, I didn't want to move, didn't want to breathe, didn't want to feel.

The last thing that I saw was two naiads suddenly appearing out of the glowing water from the cove, frightened expressions on their faces as they quickly grabbed me by the arms and legs, both of them whispering sweet-nothings to me as they told me that everything would be alright, that they would get me to Chiron in no time.

I opened my mouth to tell them that the first thing that they said wasn't true, that nothing was alright and that it wouldn't be alright ever again. But, before I could, my world suddenly turned black, and I knew no more...

...Which was perfectly fine with me.

Word Count: 4,442

Next Chapter Title: I Talk Things Over With Chiron

Ending Notes: Am I evil? Yes. Did I have Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac stuck in my head the entire time I wrote this chapter? Also yes. Will your next chapter be uploaded on Friday, as previously stated? Also also yes.

Feel free to rant about one (or all) of those things. I look forward to the onslaught. ;)