Hey! I'm back. Sorry for the last chapter thing. I'm trying to fix. And since I wrote the ANs three times tonight, I'm going to be quick.

Fangirlshavenoreality: Glad you're liking it! It's okay to do fanart for any of my stuff and I'll appreciate it if you can send me a link if/when you post it. No, I don't watch DW (sadly) but I like reading fanfictions and crossovers for it. I'm glad I gave you pointers and I'm always happy to give out ideas and advice.

Matt: Awww, you do like this story! *Blushes* XD Heh heh. Hope this chapter eases the suspense from last week.

Neutrino 2000: Sorry for now answering your last review. I didn't see it for whatever reason. And I know I posted the same chapter twice but it wasn't my fault this time. It was a glitch. I specifically remember reading everything through and submitting it. Sorry 'bout that. Trying to fix it.

Kk: Heh heh. Glad you're liking it so far. And it's quite easy to get an account (unless you're not allowed to or something.)

Kay, sorry for the briskness of the responses, but I wrote them three times tonight and I'm all worn out. Here's your story:

Leo Valdez was not dead.

Which was wrong. All wrong. Leo knew what was going to happen to him. He should be nothing. I a realm so vast it should be incomprehensible (Blame Bill for his vocabulary).

Well, not that he was complaining, of course. But he should be, in the plainest sense, dead. Nothing. Nobody. Floating forever in internal nothingness.

But he wasn't even in the said place.

"Hello, Leo Valdez."

Leo turned around, and saw Hecate sitting at a table. In a blink of an eye, tea appeared in front of her. "Have a seat. Do you want some tea?"

Leo didn't sit down, "What the Hades is going on?"

"Please, sit down, Leo. I'm sure you're very confused, but I assure you that if you just sit down, I'll explain your options."

"Options?"

A cold light flashed through Hecate's eyes, "Sit."

Leo sat down. Absent mindedly, he worried about getting blood on the rug. But when he looked down, he saw that he was completely clean. Tea appeared in his hands. "Wh-what's going on? Why are you here? Shouldn't I be dead?"

"I am giving you options, Leo Valdez."

"Wh-what sort of options?"

"The way I see it, you have three options."

Leo rolled his eyes, "Again, what options are we talking about?"

"I'm giving you a choice."

Leo started to get annoyed, "What's this freaking choice you keep talking about!?"

"A choice to live, or to die."

Leo gulped, "Oh, that choice."

Hecate nodded grimly, "The realm Bill sent you to, Leo, is my realm. I control it. It's quite a nice place, actually, so long you aren't a mortal. So I'm letting you have the choice of coming back to life, or going to the Underworld."

"Life, please."

"Now hold on," Hecate said with a smile, "You haven't heard my third option."

"What's that?"

"Stay in my realm with me."

"Again, I think I'll go with life."

Hecate shook her head, "Valdez, you must hear your options thoroughly. Remember the last time you didn't study a deal completely?"

Leo nodded and bit his lip, "Y-yeah, I do."

"Then don't be so hasty. If you stay with me, you'll be forever safe. Away from war and quests and Gaea and Bill. You will have no nightmares, no worries, and no matter what happens there, you'll be fine here. I'll bring you to a state where you may comprehend what's around you. Though you will not be fully happy, as you will still experience normal emotions. But you will be content for the most part. Depressed, sometimes, maybe, but content."

"Err, yep! Eternal depression is totally my style!" Leo said sarcastically.

Hecate narrowed her eyes, "You will not be eternally depressed, Leo Valdez. There are other beings there as well. You will make good friends and have a great sub-afterlife. But you will not be truly happy, as you would be in the Underworld."

"What?"

"You have fought bravely, Leo Valdez. Sacrificed yourself to save others. You will be rewarded greatly in the afterlife. You can see your family and ancestors. They would be very happy to see you."

Leo's heart did a double flip. He would be able to see his Mom again!

"But…" Leo's heart sank, "Your happiness would be short lived, as Gaea plans to destroy the world and everything under the gods' rule. And that includes the underworld. You and everyone you hold dear shall be sent to Tartarus. But it would be the happiest last few months of your life."

"B-but… my f-friends will stop Gaea!"

Hecate shook her head, "The quest will fail without you, Leo Valdez. Perhaps if you didn't die so early, they could get by. But if you were to leave right now… your friends are doomed."

Leo bit his lower lip. Him? Important? It's not every day you hear that about yourself. Especially if you're Leo Valdez. "So… what's big deal if I choose life?"

"The 'big deal', Leo, is that your life will be very… difficult, from this moment on."

"Example please?"

"You will be hurt both mentally and physically for the rest of your life, scarred forever by your experience with Bill."

"Oh, that's… nice."

"In fact, your wounds are so severe, that you would just die the first moment you set foot in the normal world."

"That is a problem."

"But I will make sure this does not happen. I'm no Apollo… but I can make sure you do not die instantly. But it will still be severely painful."

"Oh, goodie."

"And on top of all of that, you still have the stress of being on a quest. And if you were to fail, you would be sent straight to Tartarus."

"O-oh…"

"Do you need help deciding?"

"Wh-what? I… no, no. I think I'm fine."

She nodded, "Very well then. Try doing pros and cons. That always helps me with my decisions."

"Like when you joined Kronos?"

"Exactly."

Leo rolled his eyes, "We can see how well that worked out for you," he mumbled.

"What?"

"Nothing! Nothing. Umm, yeah, I'll try the pro and con thing."

Leo started to pace, "So, for the underworld, I get to see Mom again."

Hecate nodded, "A definite pro."

"But, you know, we'll all be sent to Tartarus, condemned to eternal suffering, and I would have caused the end of the world."

"An unfortunate con."

"Yeah, real bummer." Despite his appearing cool and collected on the outside (of course, McShizzle Man was always cool and collected) he was really having a hard time with this. The answer should be obvious: save the world or die. Simple, right?

Wrong.

He really wanted to see his mom again. Like, really bad. And, if he was honest with himself, did he really like his life all that much? Multiple times, he seriously considered giving up. And he once almost did do it, if it wasn't for Jason. He stopped him at the very last possible second.

And now, he went through life. He died the proper way. Now he could see his mom again.

But there was that whole Tartarus and end of the world thing. He didn't want to see his friends go through that because of him. He didn't want his mom to go to Tartarus. He didn't want the whole world to suffer for his selfishness.

Leo shook those thoughts off, "Moving on."

"So, in your realm, I'll be…" he looked at Hecate for support.

"You'll be brought to a state of comprehension allowing you to understand what is around you. You will never feel worry, stress, pain, hurt, betrayal, and you will make many friends."

"That's… good."

"But you will eventually feel sadness, regret, and guilt for those you left behind, but not so much it is crippling. You will never be totally content or happy, but you will be comfortable enough. Your feelings will be neutral, most of the time."

"That was a mix of pros and cons."

"Two pros, one con."

"Oh, okay. Thanks."

It sounded like he would be okay, but after living for, like… ever, he would start to feel useless and depressed. And he'll probably be a jerk to. Must be what the gods feel like all the time.

But at the same time, he would never have to worry again. His life on Earth would not matter to him. Everything will be perfect, and all the guilt will be put into perspective. Kinda' like…

His heart clenched.

Kinda' like Bill.

Leo sometimes felt Bill's emotions, and he saw so many things, life was put into perspective. If Bill felt any guilt, that's how he dealt with it. Honestly, life on Earth was no more than the smallest piece of the puzzle in the entire universe. Everything they do only delays their destruction to another date. Save a life today? They'll die later. Compared to eternity, life was no more than a blink in the eye for a forever-living demon.

Leo would probably become somewhat like Bill. No longer caring if one world survives or not. Millions of planets die every day, but there's always more to replace them. Leo had seen it with his very own ghost eyes. Everything they did didn't matter. Their lives didn't matter. They die, but then they have eternity of the afterlife. Go to Tartarus? Tartarus will die. After that? Well, Leo didn't really know, but he knew you can't destroy or create matter. They would probably just go somewhere else. Become something else. Life didn't matter.

Leo shook his head. The point is, he wouldn't care anymore.

And that scared him. It scared him really bad.

"No thank you. Erm, thanks for the offer and stuff, but everlasting life is seriously not my style."

Hecate nodded, "You were smarter than me, Leo Valdez." Before he had time to ponder this, she moved on, "That leaves you with the last choice: life."

Leo nodded, "Yeah."

From what Hecate said, his experience would leave him… scarred. But by how much? Would he need to lose a limb? Would he become insane? Unstable? Would he never be able to build again?

The thought terrified him, never being able to build again. It was the only thing he was useful for. If he couldn't build, will everyone leave him behind? What if he couldn't fight anymore? Or had panic attacks? He would become dead weight to everybody. Maybe even make a mistake that would cost everybody their lives.

"How… err… disabled would I be?"

"Disabled?"

"If I came back to life, how damaged would I be?"

Hecate sighed, "That is something you will need to find out for yourself."

Leo bit his lip, "Oh."

So life may or may not be a nightmare. But if he didn't go, the quest would end. Like, what was it that he did that was so important? What did he do that kept the quest moving? Maybe the ship was damaged or something. Yeah, that's probably it. They can't leave Gravity Falls with a damaged ship.

He bit his lip again. Of course, at least with life, he still has the chance of seeing his mother again. Life is a two-way street. He could back out of it if it became too painful.

Yeah, the crew wouldn't miss him anyway. He was the least important of the Seven. He'll return, but if he left, it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Life was the best option. The probability of any of them surviving long enough to defeat Gaea was very low. It wasn't like they had that much time left anyway.

Leo nodded, having made his decision, "Yeah, I think I'll choose life."

Hecate nodded, "Good, good. You are very wise, Leo Valdez. Just sign this." She handed him a clipboard and a pen. On the top, it read Life Insurance: Insuring you live another day! Leo gave Hecate a seriously? look and picked up the pen to sign. But before he did, he had to ask a question that was really bugging him.

"Look, I'm not complaining or anything, but, aren't the gods, like, not supposed to be involved with quests?"

Hecate sighed, "Yes, that is true. But the Fates have already woven your path, Leo Valdez, and Bill was not supposed to be in it. You were supposed to blow right past Gravity Falls, not giving it a second glance, but Gaea cheated. She went against the ancient rules. And Bill happily rebelled with her. They changed your course, Leo. And the Fates are doing their best to fix it. You were not supposed to die yet, and—"

"Yet?"

"—you weren't supposed to stop, either. The Fates, though he denies it, have a higher authority that Zeus. Not officially, but more mentally. They allowed us to try and fix it. I'm giving you the option of escaping my realm, Apollo gave me a small tidbit of his powers to help heal you, and Hermes will try his best to speed up your traveling so get to the place where you would've been if Bill hadn't stopped you."

Leo was amazed at the amount of gods chipping in to help out. Usually, they're too lazy to do anything other than hand out suicidal quests and watch for entertainment. But now, three gods were helping out, and not to mention a few powerful senior citizens with yarn balls.

Leo was a little hurt that his dad wasn't helping out, but he supposed that fixing the ship was a little too much.

"Do you have any more questions, Leo Valdez?"

"Hmm? Oh, no. That's it. Th-thank you." He hadn't realized he was silently staring out into space.

Before he signed, he took one last sip of tea. Leo had a feeling it would be the last time for a long time where he could sit happily in peace. After scanning over the paper real quick (you can never be too careful with deals nowadays) he signed it. His form started to fade away.

"Goodbye, Leo Valdez. And be prepared when you wake up. It's going to be quite a shocker."

Leo shrugged, "Nothing that the McShizzle Man can't handle."

Before he fully disappeared, he whispered, "I'll see you someday, mama. Just not today."

Then he disappeared.

That day Leo earned a new nickname: The Boy Who Lived. Yeah, that's right. I just stole Harry Potter's name. Deal with it.

Now this is the part where I ramble but I'm tired and I'm not going to post the votes for this chapter. I'll do it next time but not tonight. I hope you like Leo's character okay, and if you didn't tell me. Alright, need to go downstairs and eat dinner bye.

Don't own Gravity Falls, Percy Jackson, or Harry Potter. I only own this story and the ideas.