"Will? Where's Will?"

Alyss opened her mouth and found, for once, that she had no words to say. Her mouth had gone dry, and all she could do was stare mutely at the only other person who cared for Will as much as she did. He looked awful, just as bad as Crowley had said - no, even worse. Wrapped in bandages, slumped from weariness, dirty and disheveled, Halt was a man who looked little better than the dead his father ruled.

"Where is he?"

There was desperation in Halt's voice. It was hoarse with it. Alyss forced herself to meet Halt's eyes, red-rimmed and ugly with exhaustion as they were.

"He's not here," she said quietly. "He's still there. In - in Tartarus."

For a moment Halt stared at her uncomprehendingly. Then he took a single breath and went still.

"You... left him there?"

At the look on his face, Alyss stepped back. The air had gone frigid as though the sun had ceased to shine around her. Crowley stepped towards Halt, hand outstretched towards him, but Halt side-stepped it without a glance, his gaze intent on Alyss.

"I-I didn't want to. I never would have - we never would have if we had the choice. Morgarath came and-"

"Morgarath was there, and you left Will with him?"

Halt's voice was quiet, so quiet Alyss strained to hear it. It was not soft.

"There was nothing we could do," Alyss said. In that moment she stared into Halt's eyes and desperately wished that her words were true. Because there was - there always was - one thing more that could be done. One thing that all of them in that elevator could have done, had they been willing.

They had simply not wanted to die with Will.

"There is always something that can be done."

"Not - not this time. We were all in the elevator except him. We were too far away, he was the only one-"

"He was alone?" Halt interrupted, and his voice was so, so quiet. "You left him there, to face Morgarath, all alone?"

Her eyes were burning now, and she had to blink rapidly to make Halt out, a watery blur. "I-I didn't want to! I didn't mean to, he just went and no one stopped him! I tried to run after him, I tried to get to him, I tried - I tried to-"

"You should have TRIED HARDER!"

The ground quaked violently. Alarmed cries echoed throughout the camp; tents and structures caved in and collapsed. Alyss staggered and would have fallen, but a hand grabbed her and held her steady. She looked up to see Crowley, face grim as he looked at Halt.

"You knew he would die," Halt hissed, "and you still left him?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Alyss cried. Her voice gave out, her throat twinging in pain from her outburst. The ground was still shaking, enough that she could barely stand. "I tried to get to him! I ran to him - Erak pulled me back! If I had had the choice, I would have died with him!"

The echo of her admission rang through the suddenly silent air.

"Halt," Crowley said, but whatever else he had been going to say never left his throat. Halt nodded silently in acknowledgment. A moment later, the earth's violent shaking subsided. His hands' shaking did not.

"That's alright, Miss Alyss," Halt said quietly. "There was no need for you to die as well. I am... I am glad that you did not. Please, forgive my outburst. I am ashamed to have acted in such a manner to you."

Somehow, this was harder to take than his anger. Alyss' tears flowed over and she held a hand to her mouth. "Halt..."

Wearily, Halt straightened and turned back to his tent. It had somehow remained upright through the earthquakes, unlike many of the rest of the tents in the camp. Halt stepped inside and beckoned the two of them in as well.

"Come in," he said, a trace of his old, gruff tone returning. Then he hesitated. "If you would, Miss Alyss... I would like to hear the full story myself."

Alyss swallowed. Nevertheless, she followed Crowley into the tent. It was small and rather cramped, the only seating options being Halt's bedroll and the ground. Halt insisted she take the bedroll, and he and Crowley sat on the ground across from her.

"You can begin from when you fell into Tartarus, if you'd like," Crowley prompted gently. Alyss took a moment to look at him. If he had been honest in saying that he cared about Will, he must be grieving, too. But his expression was merely somber and a little sad. She supposed he must be holding it in, like she had. It was ironic - she had expected Halt to be the one to hold his grief in, not Crowley.

"Alright," she said. Taking a deep breath, she began the story, giving a broad overlook of the key points in their journey through Tartarus while glossing over some things (like her quiet moments with Will) and detailing others (his plan to recruit the Skandians). When she mentioned that, both Halt and Crowley looked startled.

"That was his idea? I didn't think he actively tried to ally with them like that," Crowley said. "It's smart thinking, looking for allies wherever you can find them."

Alyss nodded. "It served us well, too, trying to get out of the place. According to the Skandians, there's only one way out of Tartarus. The other one is little more than a rumor - no one knows if it even exists. The main exit, and most likely only one, is via the Doors of Death."

Halt's expression was grim. "If that's the only exit, then that means it's the monsters' only exit, too."

"Indeed," Alyss said. She sighed. "The elevator behind the Doors of Death requires people on both sides for it to work: someone in Tartarus to press the button once, and someone in the mortal world to hold it during the entire trip. It's not exactly the kind of system that enables people to sneak out. We knew our only option would be to wage a full-scale assault on the Doors. So we did."

Briefly, Alyss outlined their plan. She remembered with a guilty, unwelcome pang how averse Will had been to it, how he had kept saying something was wrong. If only she had listened. She went on to describe the first phases of the battle, but now her voice began to waver. Crowley and Halt's expressions had softened, and when her voice broke mid-way through a sentence, Halt set a gentle hand on her shoulder. When she looked at him, he held her same pain in his eyes.

"As more and more of the Skandians left on the elevator, we had fewer and fewer to defend the Doors," Alyss was saying. "And, every minute, more and more monster reinforcements were pouring in - Temujai, winged monsters, Telekhines, empousai, giants, every type of monster you could think of. Our position was growing more and more tenuous. We weren't sure if we would be able to hold it much longer."

She closed her eyes. A tear ran down her cheek. "Will was the first of us to decide to do something about it. He - Tartarus was... corrupting his powers, I think. And not just his, but Horace's and Cassandra's, too. Horace learned to channel Ares' rage in the middle of the battle. It was terrifying. Will was worse. He - he somehow learned how to use his powers to take the life out of others and restore it to... to himself."

Crowley's eyes widened. Halt dropped his. There was so much guilt and pain on his face it hurt to look at. "I told him to be careful," he said softly. "I told him not to use them until he had full control."

"You knew that could happen?" Alyss said, aghast. Halt shook his head.

"Not that specifically. But all power is dark as much as it is light - even light itself. When used by us, who are by nature dark and light ourselves... it has the potential to be corrupted and to corrupt. Of course it does. That is why I forbade him from using it on the battlefield until he had learned to control himself." Halt sighed. "Had I known this would happen... I would have given more importance to that part of his training."

"It's not your fault," Crowley said quietly but firmly. He and Halt looked at each other for a long moment, before Halt finally looked away, bowing his head.

"Please continue, Miss Alyss."

"Using his powers, Will broke through the enemy lines by himself. We didn't even realize what he was doing until he was through, just - just blazing with light. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Even the monsters we were fighting at the time stopped fighting to look at him. Some of them ran from us to fight him, deeming him the bigger threat. I was too far to get a clear picture of what was going on, but..."

Alyss stopped suddenly. She had already hurt Halt and Crowley enough by breaking this news to them. She did not want to also share some of her final perceptions of Will - that, in his last moments, she didn't believe he had been fully sane.

"What is it?" Halt asked. "I don't care if it's bad, Miss Alyss. I think I have already experienced the worst there is to tell me."

"I... I just don't think it's necessary. All it would do it cause you more pain."

"We want to know everything," Crowley broke in. His brow was furrowed and earnest. "If, by listening to his full story, we can honor him, we will do it. Even if it hurts us. We will not dishonor him by refusing the truth because it would bring us pain."

Halt's hand was still on her shoulder. He squeezed it gently, then withdrew, allowing her to make the decision.

"I don't think he was fully sane," Alyss confessed abruptly. "At the end, when he was using his powers. We got the last Skandians into the elevator and we were about to go up ourselves, but Will didn't turn back to us like he should have. He just kept fighting. At first I thought it was because he just... wasn't able to get back, that he had so many monsters around him that he was trapped. But the way he was fighting, he could have gotten through them easily. I called his name but he didn't respond to me. All of us - Cassandra, Horace, Erak, and me - were yelling at him, but he didn't seem to even hear us. He wasn't nearly far away for that.

"Finally, he seemed to hear me and he turned back. That's when I knew something was wrong. His reactions were all off. It was like - like he was dazed, or like he couldn't remember what was going on. He started back towards the elevator, where the four of us were waiting, but he was slow. Too slow."

Alyss breathed. "That's when Morgarath showed up."

"That's when you left?" Crowley asked.

Alyss shook her head several times. "No. No. No, we stayed. Morgarath was talking to Will, but I didn't catch most of it. I only gathered enough to piece together the corruption of his and the others' powers from being in Tartarus. We were trying to figure out a way to get Will out of there, but Morgarath attacked him and... there was no way we could've gotten to him in time."

"He was too far to run to?"

She breathed. "I didn't think so. He was... I don't know, a dozen or so yards away. But Morgarath was close to him, and if we'd run to him, he probably would've killed one or both of us. At least, that seems to be what Erak was thinking. I tried to run to him, but Erak held me back. When I ripped free and tried to run again..."

She looked down at her thumb. The injury was angry red, and there were red streaks beginning to spread out from it like an angry octopus.

Halt and Crowley had followed her gaze. Crowley said, "That looks infected. You need to get that treated right away."

"I know. I just... I got that for him. I - I can't tend to it myself." She shook her head, feeling silly. "It's stupid."

"It's not stupid," Crowley said. He gave Halt a dry look. "This one's doing the same thing. Apparently it's a theme."

Halt grunted. "Back to the story. What happened next?"

"Erak grabbed me before I could make it more than a few steps and hauled me back. I couldn't break free again. Will..."

A sob welled up in her throat. This was the most painful to remember, and it took everything in her to remember it, instead of blocking it out as she had been ever since she'd left. "Morgarath had... had mutilated him by then and we could do nothing more than watch. Will turned back to us. He... in his last moments, at least he was sane. He told us to go, to leave him behind. Morgarath was right there, Will the only thing between him and us. Erak pressed the button, and... we left."

She remembered her last glimpse of him. Bloody, battered, and dying. It was not a last glimpse she had ever wanted to have. He had been the last thing she had seen as those doors had closed, and she had been his.

Novels liked to talk about the last look between two people as being significant, or meaningful, or poetic in some form. But there was no hidden meaning, no poetic longing in their last look. It had only been a look between a dying man at peace with his own death and another forced to witness those last moments. It was not beautiful. It was not sentimental. It was not poetic. It was horrible.

"You didn't see it happen?" Crowley asked. "Could he... could he still be alive?"

Alyss willed herself to stay calm as her mind dredged more and more of those awful memories out. "No. No, he couldn't be."

"Why not?" Halt asked.

She wanted to give the easy answer: that Will had been cut so deeply that he would have bled out, and if not that, gotten infected and died from that. That, even if that had not been the case, he was still too heavily injured to fight the Lord of Tartarus and win. After all, what point would there be in Morgarath not finishing his first sacrifice? But all of those answers would still make room for a 'what if.' For the possibility that somehow, against all odds, Will had managed to make it.

He had not.

"Because I heard it."

There was one thing that none of the four of them had told anyone. One thing that they all knew - that they had all heard - that day. Alyss knew Erak, Horace, and Cassandra would take it to their graves. She had thought that she would, too.

As the doors had shut, as the elevator had begun to ascend, they had heard him scream once and only once. It had cut off partway through, suddenly and completely, fading into a choked gurgle. Alyss had turned away from the rest of them, then, and willed herself to feel absolutely nothing.

Halt's mouth had opened, about to ask another question, but Alyss shook her head. "Please... please don't make me say it. Isn't it enough to know that I'm certain?"

"It is," Crowley said. "Forgive us for asking you to relive this."

She bit her lip, unable to speak.

Crowley watched her for a moment, then turned to Halt. "Halt, why don't you tell her your side of the story? She was asking about you earlier, and I think it's only fair."

"Very well." Halt shifted, his eyes narrowing in a near wince. Alyss half-rose, mouth opening to offer him the bedroll, but he shook his head at her before she could get a word out. "There isn't much to tell. After you four fell into Tartarus, I shadow-traveled back to Camp Half-Blood. I took two days to recover and have been fighting since yesterday."

Alyss exchanged a look with Crowley. There were so many things she wanted to dispute about that, she didn't even know where to start.

"We saw you get stabbed through, and you only took two days to recover?" Alyss started, carefully keeping out her incredulity. Crowley had said as much, of course, but she hadn't connected just how little time Halt had actually given himself to heal from a near-fatal wound.

Halt's eyes hooded with annoyance. "Not you, too."

Alyss was not one to argue with her elders or her superiors, but she felt this called for at least something. Keeping her tone even, she said, "I know it is not my place to even suggest what a senior Ranger should or should not do, and I would not dare to do such a thing. But Morgarath is growing stronger since his first sacrifice, and all of us need to be as strong as possible if we're going to find the second in time."

Halt considered her for a moment. Something like a smile flashed across his face, and he nodded slightly. "As the lady requests. I will make sure I am in my best condition."

"Will was...?" Crowley asked. Alyss nodded, lips tight. "And the second sacrifice?"

"We don't know," she admitted. "Will told us that the Temujai had mentioned that he was the first when he was first imprisoned by them, but as far as I know, they never mentioned who the other one was."

"So it could be anyone?"

"No, not anyone," Halt said. He tilted his head back, resting it against the beams of the tent. "Will was not just anyone - I'm sure he was the first for a very specific reason. The first one that comes to mind is his powers. A demigod with light powers, sacrificed for darkness..." Halt's face creased in sardonic amusement. "I'm sure Morgarath finds it quite poetic."

"But, there's no one else like that," Crowley said. "Will's the only one."

"Yes." Halt nodded a few times. "Which is why, most likely, the second sacrifice goes the opposite way."

Alyss and Crowley both stared at him uncomprehendingly. With a dry little smile, Halt opened his hand and let a sphere of darkness appear in it. "It doesn't get much more opposite than this."

Alyss gasped. "You can't be suggesting that you're..."

"But why didn't Ferris kill you, then?" Crowley asked.

"He tried," Alyss broke in, confused.

Both Rangers shook their heads. "No, not really," Halt said. "Remember, Miss Alyss, we are twins. We grew up together, trained together, fought together for years. Then, in the Titan War, we fought against each other. I became stronger in the time between when he was sent to Tartarus and when he escaped, but so did he. He knows better than to underestimate me."

"So... when he stabbed you, he wasn't trying to kill you?"

"Oh, he probably was." Halt shrugged. "My brother has tried lots of times, though. And he has gone a lot further on many of them. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was holding back out of pity. He certainly seemed upset when he realized what Styx had done."

Alyss contained her wince. Who wouldn't be upset, she wondered, realizing something like that.

"The point is, I was already heavily injured when I got there, and the Temujai were there, too. Ordinarily, even the five of us wouldn't have stood a chance."

"So, what?" Alyss asked. "Are you saying... they let you go?"

"No. I don't think so." Halt sighed. "If I had to make a guess as to what they were trying to do... they intended for you to fall into Tartarus all along. Will just made that easier. By injuring me, Ferris wanted to make it easier to throw me in as well - he wasn't counting on me still having the strength to shadow-travel away."

"But... why?" Alyss said. Then her eyes widened. "Oh."

"Exactly. Morgarath has to be present in order to receive his sacrifice. In order for it to work, you had to go down to him. They probably only wanted Will there to begin with; the three of you were collateral."

Alyss felt dizzy. She couldn't believe how close they had been to losing, and she hadn't even realized. If Halt had fallen in along with the rest of them...

Halt muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath about his brother. "Makes me glad I stabbed him back."

Both Crowley and Alyss startled.

Halt waved a hand. "I still had my throwing knife, I was hardly defenseless. After the four of you fell in, I managed to get a hold of it. He had turned his back on me to look at you, a mistake I'm sure he regretted. It wasn't my best throw, but I got him pretty solidly in the back. He fell into Tartarus and that's when I shadow-traveled away."

Wait.

"He fell into Tartarus?" Alyss asked, disbelieving. "Are you sure? We didn't see him at all."

"I wasn't in my top form, no, but I am fairly certain of what I saw." Halt swung his jaw. "I know this is just a theory, but from past accounts of those who have fallen into Tartarus, time-"

"Works differently," Crowley interrupted, nodding. "Yes. Alyss confirmed that for us, actually. According to herself, she was in Tartarus for at least three days - not one, like we thought."

"Then, there you have it," Halt said. "By the time Ferris fell in..."

He trailed off. Alyss could finish the thought anyway.

"It would have been several minutes later, at least," she said thoughtfully. "And given the vastness in scope of Tartarus, the likelihood of him landing near us would be small. Especially if he was mortally injured."

Which brought up another question. "You don't think he could have actually... survived that, do you?"

Halt shrugged. "Who's to say? He survived his first trip down there, though in fairness he was not injured at the time. If you had to ask me, though, I sincerely doubt he's alive."

Halt stood, clenching his jaw. "After everything he's done, I do hope he's burning in Hell."

A/N: Ohhh man. This scene had so many alternate takes, I rewrote it like three times. This finished product ended up being some sort of strange amalgamation of all three versions, so I'll take it I guess?