Driven

Luke didn't know why he did it. It still confused him, still left him angry and upset, still clouded his mind with unwelcome, unwanted thoughts. The doubt was the worst. Oh, the doubt. He would lie awake at night, staring at his bedroom ceiling soaked in sweat with the doubt in the form of voices screaming in his head that he shouldn't be here, that he was a traitor, that he deserved to die. They painted pictures, pictures of what life could have been like, of what he had caused.

The most common one was Annabeth. Her face, her pretty face etched with the deep betrayal and heartbreak and sorrow that he had caused, that he had put there. It made him feel sick.

Your fears and guilt always got to you in the dark, and at night on the Princess Andromeda was when he finally let his guard down. He writhed in his bed and threw the sheets off, curling into the most unholy positions and kicking and punching until he could barely breathe. His mind was playing tricks on him, cruel, cruel tricks until he felt like he was looking at everything through a sheet of fog.

The silent nights when he lay still, as quiet and motionless as a dead man, was when the thoughts really got to him. The confusion, the doubt, the haunting voices in his mind whispering taunts and answerless questions were as loud and real as the bed he was lying on, and no matter how much he begged they remained in his ears, buzzing around his skull and refusing to let go. They were very much a part of him, as was his own conscience, which he thought he had abandoned long.

He realized there was still a shred of it left, blowing like a ribbon in the wind through his mind, sending chills fluttering down his spine with the sound of the wind rustling through the dark, staring windows of a sad, empty house...

That's exactly what he was. Sad, empty. Pointless.

Then he would wake up and the noise would rise to a shouting, a screaming in his ears, the same thing that had driven him to give up everything he had only a few years ago, everything and everyone because of the burning hatred that grew in the pit of his stomach every day. It was Kronos, curling his talons around Luke's mind and pulling him towards him with the scythe around his neck, fuelling the loathing Luke felt towards the gods, towards his father. Kronos was the voices in his head, filling his skull, refusing to get out.

That was why he did it, Luke realized. He hated his dad. He hated everyone. He hated Annabeth, and Thalia, and Grover, and Percy, and he hated his father. He did – didn't he?

Then he realized, that the voice wasn't Kronos anymore. It had changed, morphed into a chorus of everyone who had loved him – Chiron, Thalia, Percy, his mother. Annabeth. It was they who asked the questions of doubt, asking him if this was what he really wanted, if he had felt as driven to do what he had done all the time.

It got to the point where he nearly broke, and almost considered going back, admitting that he was wrong, and being welcomed into Annabeth's arms, although he knew that he wouldn't be getting a warm welcome if he went back to Camp Half Blood.

Then the other voice, the scarier one, Kronos, reminded him what they had done to him, what his father had done to him, and he stayed put. He worked twice as hard, for his invisible master and for his troops, and slowly the voices in his head began to quiet down, until he thought they were gone completely one night when he sat up and covered his ears with his hands screaming, 'GET OUT!'

But, as he lay dying, Annabeth's tears splashing onto his cheeks, was when the voices actually, finally left him. Yet they weren't the ones he had wanted to originally. It was Kronos's influence, the voice that had been driving him from the start, finally left that day, and, for the first time in years, Luke experienced complete silence. He should have felt regret, now he didn't have some evil force throbbing in his head, but he didn't. He just felt – bliss. At peace. And even though he suddenly realized that he should of stayed with Camp Half Blood, and that he should never have betrayed them, he no longer felt the need to do anything.

All these years, he had been driven to do things he never should have done. But now, in the silence and lack of voices, he was finally able to rest.

A/N. Nooooo! Why hands can't you type short stories?

Anyway, this wasn't a request, but I wanted to write something Luke-centric, so here you go! Enjoy.

R&R! :)

~Franki