I sat on my bed with my back against the headboard. I was silently waiting for him.

The light of my night drawer lamp was dim, only casting a dull and soft orange glow around the room. Outside the doors of my bedroom, everything was dark and silent, because my mother had gone to bed about an hour ago.

In my hands was a novel I was reading, but I didn't concentrate very much on it, because I was too busy pondering about the questions that I had prepared. I thought about writing it down, so that I won't forget. But I decided against it, because that would just seem too silly.

I was broken out of my thoughts by a knocking on my door.

"Yes, Mom?" I said. But the door didn't open, so I slid off the bed and went to answer it.

I had expected to see my mother standing there, so I was completely taken off guard to see Hades.

I was almost about to scream in shock when he quickly placed a hand on my mouth and entered the room. When I felt the scream in me die down, I gently peeled his hand off me and greeted with a smile, "You creeper."

He only gave me a smirk and leaned in to kiss my lips. I kissed back for a while before I broke away to shut and lock the door quietly.

When I turned around, he was standing at the exact same spot, only looking at me. "So is there any reason you called me?" he asked.

I nodded my head in answer, and then took his hand as I went to sit on the edge of the bed. He sat with me, with one arm encircling me.

"Guess who I met today," I murmured.

As he stroked my cheek with a finger, he asked, "Who?"

"Athena."

Hades pulled away to look at me in surprise. "Really?" he asked, to which I nod. "What did the both of you say to each other?"

Playing with the hem of his navy blue shirt between my fingers, I said, "You're right about me and her being very close. She still treated me as though I was a sister. One whom she hadn't seen in fifty years. She and I talked for a while, and I found that she was studying in London, but was in Portland on an exchange program. Unfortunately, she left because has to go back to London tomorrow."

"What a pity," Hades murmured, genuinely sorry.

I sighed. "What to do?" I said in a murmur. And then, I asked, "That reminds me; this is the fiftieth year. Does that mean we'll disappear again soon?"

I could feel him tense at my question, and I turned my head to look at him properly. He was looking down on the floor, his eyes deep in thought.

I reached a hand out to cup his cheek, and only then did he turn to look at me. "I'm sorry I asked that," I apologised in a whisper.

He sighed and gave me a gentle kiss to my hair. "It's alright. It's not your fault. It's just that it's kind of difficult to think about the fact of us disappearing into an abyss of nothingness. It's like you're in a never-ending black void, with no sense of time. You don't know how long you've been there. And worse is no matter in which direction you walk, there never seemed to be an end. That's why it was usual for us gods and goddesses to suffer from trauma when we reappear again in the beginning of the new century."

I shuddered at the thought of being in a black void, forced to be trapped there for fifty years. Even though I couldn't personally remember it, I could imagine myself going on the verge of insanity after I had reappeared from the darkness.

"And how do we appear then?" I asked quietly, trying to hide the fear in my voice.

He shrugged. "There isn't any exact location of where each of us appears. For example, Artemis could be in Germany while Hermes could appear in Hawaii. It just depends on whether or not we can find each other again."

"And where did you appear fifty years ago?"

Hades scratched his head, trying to remember. "If I could recall, I think I appeared somewhere nearby Budapest, in the middle of a huge forest."

"Wow…" I breathed. "And where did you think I appeared?"

He sighed, and answered, "I don't really know. But unfortunately, you and your mother reappeared in the same place. That was what gave her the upper hand to run away, taking you with her."

I could feel the anger burning in his voice, and gently grasped one of my hands in his. He twined his fingers in mine, though I could still feel rage burning in his ichor.

"Athena told me that she fed me the waters of the river Lethe, so that she could take away my memories," I said to him.

He nodded. "Indeed she had. No one knew how she had managed to get the waters, but some of us think that she had gotten some nymphs to do it for her."

I raised an eyebrow curiously. "There are still nymphs roaming on Earth?"

He nodded. "Persephone, you already encountered a satyr. All the mythical creatures of the past still roam, but there are unseen and not immortal. Same goes for nymphs."

I was amazed that even such creatures such as nymphs roam among the mortals, possibly taking the disguise of normal, 'everyday' humans. But then I remembered one clear fact of nymphs; most were known to be the lovers of the gods.

And that immediately brought the names of two very special nymphs to my head.

I tore myself away from Hades and stood up in front of him as he remained seated down. He looked at me in confusion, while I glared at him.

"I want you to answer these questions truthfully," I said to him fiercely. When he didn't reply, I continued on. "Did you do anything with Minthe and Leuce?"

Hades groaned immediately. "Do we need to go about this again?"

So we had this argument before. But I didn't back down. I had just found out that I was married my entire life, so I found it right that I became angry over this sort of matter.

"Please swear upon the river Styx and the Great Mother Gaia that what you tell me is the truth," I said to him in a serious voice. "I need to know."

After heaving a deep sigh, he said, "I swear upon the river Styx and the Great Mother Gaia, and my own immortality, that what I speak of is the truth." Shifting a bit in his seat, he asked, "Remember our talk at the cafe?"

I nodded, though I did not know what that had to do with the conversation.

"And remember what I said about Minthe and Leuce?"

I kept quiet for I only remembered that conversation vaguely.

He must have taken my silence as a 'no', so he went on. "Even though the myths say that it was me who pursued Minthe, in actual truth it was her. She tried to seduce me when you had gone to stay with your mother for six months, telling me that she could be a better lover than you. But throughout, I refused; even threatening to send her to Tartarus myself if she continued her acts of seduction. But she continued on anyway."

My hands clenched into fists at the thought of that bitch trying to steal my husband from me. "And then what happened?" I asked.

"Do you know of Hecate?" he asked me.

Yes, I do know of Hecate; the witch of the Underworld, and the Goddess of Magic and Witchcraft. I silently nodded my head in answer.

"She was a very close friend of ours, and your confidante. She writes to you while you're on Earth, informing you of what I have been up to. And so in one of her letters, she told you of Minthe. And I guessed you got so mad that when I came to collect you to return to the Underworld, you didn't kiss me, which would have been the first thing you would do. Instead, you kept silent until we've reached my palace, and you immediately ventured to the river Cocytus. I had followed you, and I saw you giving Minthe an extremely tight slap and cursing her for being a 'dirty wench'."

An image immediately appeared in my head, which I knew was another memory. In it, I was glaring down at a girl with whitish-blonde hair that reached her waist and green eyes. I knew immediately that she was Minthe. I witnessed first-hand how I grabbed her by her hair and slapped her mercilessly, cussing dirty names about her. She at first tried to fight back, but I proved too strong and had reduced her into mess that was begging for mercy.

My mouth gaped open immediately. I wasn't known to hit people, save for slapping 'Aiden' when I thought he was crazy, unintentionally throwing the greasy blonde at the party to the wall and fighting the satyr out of self-defence. But I didn't complain much. I actually found that I enjoyed punishing that whore.

"And then what did I do?" I asked him.

He quirked an eyebrow and said, "I believe you know what happens in the end."

What a stupid question I asked. Of course I did. I've read the story too many times to know that Persephone, which would be me, had turned Minthe into a mint plant.

"I should have done worse," I mumbled underneath my breath. Then when I turned to look at him, I asked, "So you didn't actually do anything with her?"

He shook his head, his eyes holding no trace of lying.

"Okay. I believe you," I said after a while. "Then what about Leuce?"

Hades sighed at the mention of her name, and I had a feeling that this tale was going to be a quite depressing one.

"She was my best friend. I met her centuries before you were born," he said solemnly. "She wanted to live with me in the Underworld, and I agreed. I thought at first that she could be my consort, but I realized that I didn't actually love her, nor did she love me. It was a mutual friendship, and she kept me company while I ruled. But…."

I watched as he down-casted his eyes to the floor, as though he was trying to hide tears. I went to sit by him again, and grasped his hand.

"What happened?" I asked gently.

He sighed once more before he continued on. "Her thread of life came to an end, and she passed away in the Elysian Fields. There, a tree grew from her soul. A white poplar."

Wow. That story actually touched my heart a bit. Though I was glad that Hades didn't actually take Leuce as a lover or a wife before me, I felt really sorry for him because he had to lose a very good friend.

"I'm sorry," I said sincerely and gave him a kiss on his cheek. He turned to me and gave me a small smile before kissing my lips softly.

Biting my lip, I asked, "So you were faithful to me throughout these years?"

Hades nodded. "I wanted none other than you, Persephone."

At that moment, I felt really privileged. I know of Zeus and Poseidon's many extramarital affairs, but I was glad that their older brother, the king of the Underworld and my loyal husband, had remained faithful to me alone.

"Will I be right to believe that the story of me and Adonis is a lie?" I asked him.

His face grimaced at the mention of the name 'Adonis', and he answered, "It's the part of him being your lover that was a lie. Aphrodite did send you to take care of him, but it was he who desired you, same as how it was actually Minthe who desired me. The promiscuous boy kept on coming back to the Underworld to try and win your love, much to Aphrodite's chagrin. And soon after that, some dumbass storyteller created the whole myth of you and Adonis being lovers. I was extremely irritated with that part, because I know personally that you would never cheat on me. You wouldn't even think once about committing adultery."

I smiled at the thought, and was glad that I had no one other than him. That would make our relationship very genuine from the others of the Greek kind. We had remained faithful to each other, even until now, and the both of us had never once sought the company of others.

But of course, a good marriage was sure to be led to children…

"Our children…" I said under my breath.

"Hm?"

Gazing into his pitch black eyes, I said, "Did we have the three children? Macaria, Melinoe and Zagreus?"

Straight after that, the corners of Hades' lips tipped upwards into a smile, and he said, "Yes. We did."

I felt my heart beat faster at that piece of information. As if finding out I was married to Hades (aka. 'Aiden Cole') wasn't enough, I had to find out that I had already given birth.

But unsurprisingly, I wasn't upset. If only one feeling could describe me, I was happy.

"Are they really our children?" I asked him. "I read in so many myths that only Macaria was yours, while Melinoe and Zagreus were mine."

Hades' face scrunched up in dismay. "That is another lie," he said straightforwardly. "The three of them were our children. You were really Macaria's mother, Melinoe wasn't born out of rape and Zagreus was not reincarnated into Dionysus. Macaria has your hair and eye colour, though her's is of a darker shade. Melinoe is not half-black, half-white. I don't know where people got that idea from. She has a mixture of brown and black hair, while her eyes are black and flecked with amber. So she kind of looks like the both of us. And Zagreus really takes after me. He has my hair and eye color, only lighter

I stared at him in awe as he described our children. The more I thought about the fact that the three children of the Underworld were, in truth, mine and Hades', the more I wanted to meet them.

I've been gone from Mount Olympus and the Underworld for a thousand years. Of course I would miss them.

"Where are they?" I asked him. "Where are our children?"

His eyes softened at the sight of my questioning expression, and he said slowly, "Don't worry, my love. They are still in the Underworld, under the care of Hecate, and they are waiting for the day for us to return to them."

My heart broke a little all of a sudden. It was then I began to realize that I was feeling the pain of a mother who was forced to be separated from her children. It was heart-breaking, and really difficult.

Hades brought me into an embrace once again and, as he ran his fingers through my hair, he said, "You'll meet them… Soon."

How I wish that was true.

Hades stayed with me, and we had moved from sitting on the edge of my bed to lying side-by-side on it with our heads sharing the same pillow. There was nothing intimate; I was just resting in his arms.

He told me many other interesting stories and the truths of many myths. I was surprised by some, while I was all 'I KNEW IT!' for others.

Hades also spoke of the things he did when he was in his mortal form. He told me tales of him travelling on English ships that sailed to many exotic places and him being a member of the royal court during Queen Victoria's reign. He even told me of how he had managed to survive through both World Wars, thanks to his immortal and ever-healing body.

Hearing him speak was fascinating. He was like a history book that existed to no one but me, and he told the actual truth of many myths. He spoke of details that had not been included or details that were the right ones but had been altered by scholars to fit the tale. And his own stories of his adventures intrigued me so much that I couldn't stop gasping in amazement.

I wanted to stay up and listen to him tell more stories, but the sleep washed over me in an instant. When I first yawned, Hades muttered, "You should go to sleep, Persephone. You have work tomorrow."

I grumbled. "I don't want to go to work," I complained. "I want to listen to you. Listening to you brings me into a world which didn't seem possible, and going back to reality is a pain."

He chuckled breathily and then kissed my hair. I could feel my eyes going heavy as I heard him murmur, "You'll have all the time in the world for that. I would always be here for you. Even if reality sets in, I will be there. So sleep, my lovely Persephone. And wake up knowing that you have my eternal love."

Hearing those words made me feel so warm and cosy. A small smile built onto my lips immediately. So, after snuggling into his chest and breathing in the scent of his skin, I fell asleep in the arms of the god that I will love forever.

Author's Note:

Longest chapter I have written so far, and I have a feeling that a lot of questions would be raised from this. So feel free to ask me anything, and I will try my best to answer.

Muse of Fanfiction