When Hades found time to visit Demeter, she greeted him with a slap across his face.
"It is good to see you, too, Demeter," Hades said dryly, unfazed the the woman's hostile behavior.
"What do you want from me now Hades?" she demanded.
Hades never made it much of a habit to visit Demeter, mostly because she never appreciated his visits in the first place. Her greetings towards him were usually some forms of minor physical violence or a string of harsh words. It was completely understandable. Demeter never liked Hades to begin with, and she downright despised him now that he was married to her daughter.
"Have you any knowledge of that child Persephone has been taking care of?" Hades asked.
Demeter smirked as if she had just won a battle. "Is it possible that you're jealous of the child?"
"Demeter, I do not wish to play games," Hades replied, unamused, "I have no issues with the child, but it is clear Persephone hasn't the slightest idea how to take care of it. Neither do I for that matter. He is mortal, which requires a lot more attention we may not be able to provide. Do you not think it better that he stay here with you on earth?"
"Of course I do!" Demeter nearly shouted, "I would never want a child to be raised in that gloomy Underworld. I told Persephone to leave the child here with me, as did Hermes when he came to take Persephone to you. She wouldn't listen. Insisted that it was her responsibility to look after the poor thing."
Hades thought this over for a moment. Persephone had some sort of attachment to the child, yet Hades agreed with Demeter. The Underworld was absolutely no place for a human child.
"What do you suggest I do?" Hades asked.
"Oh, you want my help, do you?" Demeter seemed slightly amused by the prospect. "I suggest you pull your weight as a husband and make Persephone feel like you care. All I want is for her to be happy, and for some unexplainable reason, you seem to make her so. Don't you dare make her feel abandoned." Demeter made it a point to jab Hades in the chest with her finger before giving him a glare disappearing into the woods.
Hades agreed with her that in a situation such as this, Persephone's happiness was the top priority.
Hades helped Persephone take care of the child for the remainder of her stay and almost missed the kid as much as he missed his wife when the two of them returned to the upper world. When Persephone returned with the child the next year, he was holding her hand and walking beside her. The year after that, the child was speaking. By the time Adonis was five, he was running around the Underworld, making friends with its residence and acting as though there weren't a care in the world. He would often sit on Persephone's knee when she was in the throne room and Persephone would teach him everything there was to know about the Underworld. She told him stories of the other gods, too, and would make up bits of the stories she didn't quite know.
The child clung to Persephone like she was his own mother. Chances were, he believed Persephone to be his mother. Adonis never quite trusted Hades much, but after Adonis reached the age of ten, Hades began to distance himself.
It was true, Hades had grown to care for the child to some extent, but as the child grew, he noticed Persephone's affections toward the child growing as well. Persephone seemed to think of nothing but Adonis and would often repeat to Hades stories of how Apollo was teaching him how to hunt with a bow and fight with a sword. Persephone would talk for ages about how she believed the boy could be a great hero. Hades was proud of the boy, sure, but he grew increasingly jealous of Persephone's relation to him.
By the time Adonis was about fifteen, Hades noticed Persephone had left him behind as she returned to the Underworld that year. She was seething with anger as she was led to the palace and ignored Hades altogether for a whole of three days.
Hades finally got Persephone to speak to him, but could not get the whole story from her.
"She took him back," was all she said when Hades pushed the subject of Adonis.
He never quite knew who gave the boy to Persephone in the first place, but Hades could see the way that his absence devastated her greatly.
By the next year, Persephone was more herself and she brought with her a very attractive young man around the age of sixteen. Hades recognized him as Adonis and grew jealous quickly as he saw him bantering with Persephone. He recognized the way his wife looked at Adonis. It wasn't a look a mother would give her son, more so a look of pure infatuation. They looked at each other the way lover's do.
Hades had no proof of the relationship he suspected Persephone and Adonis having, but he noticed how close they would sit next to each other in her garden and the quick places she would give Adonis at the dinner table. They laughed together and hardly left each other's side. Persephone spoke little to Hades and when she did, her tone was much different than it was in the past. She spoke to him with kindness, but without the intimacy they once shared.
The next year, Hades said nothing to Persephone. She didn't seem to mind it, though, because she spoke so often with Adonis. The year after that, Hades wouldn't even look at Persephone, and the year following, he would avoid being in the same room with her if he could.
He grew increasingly angry with her infidelity to the point where he would snap at anyone who mentioned her name.
When Persephone returned to the Underworld once again, when Adonis would have been twenty, she was alone. Hades said nothing to his wife, but he noticed how close she seemed to crying. He wanted to comfort her, but he was also still very angry at her. He remained emotionless and quiet, waiting to see if Persephone would mention the boy's absence.
"Ares killed him," she whispered, "What was his fate?"
Hades had known of Adonis's death. The boy chose not to be judged and was sent straight to the Fields of Asphodel. Persephone sniveled, but held back her tears. He was lost to her forever. So many souls roamed the Fields of Asphodel, it was nearly impossible for her to ever find him.
Persephone threw her arms around Hades, crying into his shoulder. Hades pushed her off of him, rather harshly, and promptly left the room, leaving Persephone to fall to the floor and sob some more.
It took many years for Hades to speak to Persephone again. He had learned from Hermes that Adonis had been given to Persephone by Aphrodite, who lacked the responsibility to take care of him. Once the boy had turned fifteen, Aphrodite took him back. Persephone had been so attached to the boy that she fought with Aphrodite to almost no end. Their fighting became so problematic that Zeus had to intervene and granted that Adonis spend a third of his time with Aphrodite, and third with Persephone, and a third with whomever he chose. He apparently was more fond of Aphrodite, much to Persephone's displeasure, and Ares grew jealous of Adonis. Hades understood how Ares felt, but only to a small extent. Ares had taken action and had sent a wild board after the young Adonis and the boy had been killed.
Learning the fate of Adonis had done little to lighten Hades's feelings toward his wife. He still felt betrayed and he still held a grudge. Persephone had tried desperately for many years after Adonis's death to make it up to Hades, but he had very little to say to her, so indeed he said very little.
Persephone could tell how heartbroken her husband was and she felt awful. He tried so hard to hide his feelings under a facade of indifference, but she knew he was devastated. Persephone knew she could do very little to make him feel better, so she all but gave up. When she had returned once again to earth, she avoided almost everyone. She climbed as high as she could into a tree by the river and just sat up there all day. She had no energy to speak to anyone and she knew she would start crying if anyone pressed the matter.
Apollo made an effort to visit Persephone every day. He wouldn't ask her questions as to how she was doing or why she was upset. He just sat at the bottom of the tree for an hour or two and talked. He mostly told her stories of the other gods. He made an effort to make his stories light hearted.
Persephone appreciated Apollo's efforts, but couldn't bear to bring herself to smile. One day, when Apollo had visited, he climbed the tree to the branch just below hers and began telling another story. This one, however, was much different.
"You know how Artemis is extremely serious about her whole virginity thing, right," he began. Persephone looked down at him, wondering where his story was going. "Well, there was this hunter, not too long ago. Orion was his name. He was the only male hunter allowed in my sister's hunt. He respected the women and their oath of chastity and he was incredibly skilled. Well, he and Artemis got super close. They were best friends until one day they weren't." Apollo paused and looked out into the distance. He was unusually serious. He continued his story.
"Well, turns out they had fallen in love with each other. Now, normally I wouldn't make a huge deal out of this; gods fall in love with mortals all the time. But this was my sister. The virgin goddess. If she did anything with this guy and the other gods found out, her reputation would be ruined. She wouldn't be taken seriously by anyone anymore. It may sound selfish, coming from me, but her reputation is incredibly important to her. There may have been some selfish intent, though. I had always been the main male figure in my sister's life, and I suppose I grew a little jealous.
"Anyway, I knew she was in love with Orion, so I did something I regret, but something that was necessary. I sent a giant scorpion after the guy and it backed him into the ocean. He had no choice but to swim."
"Then he drowned?" Persephone asked. Apollo shook his head.
"I told Artemis that there was a man trying to rape some of her hunters and that he was swimming away. Artemis is a great show: she never misses. So when she fired her arrow, it hit Orion. When she went to retrieve his body, she started bawling because she realized what she had done. What I had done. She never forgave me for that."
"What's the point of this story?"
"Artemis may not have forgiven me, but she's speaking to me now. My point is that sometime we do something that hurts those we love and we always regret it, but if they truly love us back, they may not forgive us, but they learn to work past it so that those things don't happen again." Apollo chuckled to himself, but the laugh held no humor. He shook his head again and started climbing back down the tree. "If Hades really loves you, he'll try to work past your infidelity."
Persephone stayed in the tree long after Apollo had left. She thought about what he had said and hearing him say aloud exactly what she had done made her feel a hundred percent worse. She was never intimate with Adonis, but she had favored his company over Hades and made no attempt to hide it. She ignored Hades completely and made him jealous to the point where her relations with Adonis were unforgivable. She needed to make things right with him. They needed to work through this, just as Apollo had said. She didn't know how, but Persephone knew for sure that she had to find a way to see her husband immediately.