A/N: Happy new year!

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or any related products, characters, information, etc.

The answer was sleep.

I couldn't do it at night anymore. So I stayed in and napped as much as possible when it was light outside. Nobody dared object.

"Won't you join us outside? La niege looks nice," CG asked. All our siblings had left, chatting excitedly about holiday music and cold weather.

I shook my head. East coast winters were proving to be too cold for a born and breed California girl like me. And Zeus must have been anxious or something, with the amount of thunder and winds we were receiving inside the borders. CG shrugged and sat on the foot of my bed, his expression calm and patient.

Half-heartedly, I raised an eyebrow and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Keeping you company, mon petit," he said brightly.

"You should go join the others. Have fun. I need to rest," I murmured.

CG reached over and patted my clenched fists, "I think you need me more. Even though you hesitate to admit it." I didn't respond, but I didn't make an attempt to remove his hand or him either. I guess I was thankful for someone's care, to be lulled asleep by the steady beating of another heart.

But my dream wasn't nearly as pleasant. It started the same way it had for a couple of weeks: empty. Just me, standing in a white void void of anything but a pair of stone doors. They looked heavy but they floated in the vastness. The doors were inscribed with signs that looked Greek, except a thousand times more ancient and powerful. When I tried to read it my brain hurt. I'd stare at these doors for hours, days- I wasn't sure- until someone came by, and he always did. Thanatos. Every day the white-haired demon invaded my dreams but not once did he see me. Thanatos only smirked, like he knew I was there. And he placed a ring against the doors and when he did everything turned pitch black and the doors rattled because something was trying to break through.

So when the same things happened that evening- Thanatos taking a bow as he disappeared- I was shocked when the gates opened a crack. Out flew a young man, around Percy's age. He was all around good looking: tall muscled, blond, blue-eyed, except for the scar beneath his eye and the one visible under his arm and his burned hand.

So he was only about an eight.

Luke.

I guess I said it out loud because the dead demigod looked straight at me; that's when I saw he was transparent. Luke was a ghost. Then our eyes met and he said,

"You've got to be kidding me."

Now, a lot of weird stuff had happened to me in my dreams but this was definitely up there: the ghost of my best friend's ex best friend berating me upon a first glance. Oh, as well as the way he was struggling against the doors, trying to keep them shut.

"Are you going to help me?" he snapped. I was frightened into submission. I moved through the emptiness until my dream self was pushing the doors closed. Now, I expected the stone to be cold but it was freezing. It burned a bit too, eating holes into my favorite yellow sweatshirt.

"Sedimentary stone from the sand of the river Styx," Luke explained, seeming completely immune to it. Even though he was standing right beside me he wasn't disappearing or disengaging or dissipating or whatever other spirits usually did.

"I'm not dead," he read my mind once again. I nearly let go of the door. It rattled and shifted but Luke grabbed my hand and placed it back. Not only did it shut the gate again, it proved whatever he was, dead wasn't it.

"Now listen carefully. You have to make sure the doors do not open. You already lost the key- good job by the way," he added sarcastically, "Though it's not too late. He's willing to stall a little, make you feel you're safe. He's arrogant like that. So get down here-" Luke gave the doors a final shove, "-and fix this." When the doors slammed I started floating between the dream and consciousness but I caught Luke saying,

"Tell her once again, I'm sorry."

IMPORTANT: I am really, really struggling here. I have a... plot 'direction', if you please, that I'm not sure I should take. So when you drop a review, tell me whether or not to take it up! Also, I'd really like a beta. Honestly, this time.

And anyway who can tell me what anime/manga the white voids/doors/gate idea was drawn from gets...a songfic?