Archie died of a broken heart.

At least, that's what he kept telling himself as Thanatos guided him through the underworld on foot towards the Hall of Judgment. He was barely a shadow of the man he once was. His violet hair had long faded away, leaving behind disheveled brown locks. Bright emerald eyes lost their luster and gained dark, bagged circles beneath them. The muscles he once possessed were nowhere to be found as they, too, faded from the days of pain he endured.

He had survived seven years without Atlanta. Seven, long, painful years. He survived her funeral, which he wept at like a baby and his friends had to pick him up from lying on top of the freshly filled grave (though he returned on a few occasions to do just that without his friends there to intervene before he was ready). He survived the move out of the Brownstone – no one could stand living there now that Atlanta was gone. He survived his friends' wedding, which should have been a double wedding with him and Atlanta as the second couple. And he barely survived the birth of Jay and Theresa's first child, a girl, whom they had named after their fallen friend.

That last event hit him hard. He needed a way to stop the pain. Sleeping pills didn't cut it. They eventually wore off and he woke up needing to take more, which took time to kick in. And even then, the dreams of Atlanta tormented him. Prescription drugs meant a doctor, and Archie didn't want a doctor because they would tell him 'therapy' and he didn't want therapy either – he wanted Atlanta. Illegal drugs were out of the question, too. He'd have to find a source, which meant he would have to talk and be social, neither of which he really wanted to do.

Which was why he chose the bottle to drown his pain in. No down time between doses unless he wanted it, no doctors, and no social interactions except to nod at the liquor store cashier and take his change. The alcohol hugged him from the inside out, the warm feeling spreading through his body, just like the way he felt when Atlanta hugged him. And everything was okay. He started out with beer and wine only when he needed it or before bed, and progressed to the point where it was unusual to find him without a bottle of hard liquor nearby.

When they were each packing their belongings at the dorm, Theresa had offered him the vacation home her father owned so he would have time to grieve and figure things out. He accepted and never left, making it his permanent residence all those years. He could never really hold down a job to get his own place. Between the lethargy, as a result of losing his true love, and the hangovers, the longest he managed to keep a job would be two, maybe three weeks tops before he was fired or stopped showing up all together. She had pity on him, Theresa, and began sending him monthly checks to supplement his sporadic wages – which he promptly used to purchase more alcohol, then the occasional food item.

When he left the Brownstone, Archie took some of Atlanta's things with him. Her skateboard sat leaning against the fireplace alongside his old one. Sometimes he would find himself on the floor, pushing them back and forth with his hands. He took a couple pieces of her clothing, which sat in his nightstand drawer along with a small cardboard box that held the hand crossbow she used back when they were fighting Cronus. On the especially bad nights, he would hold her shirt in one hand and a bottle of whatever alcohol he grabbed first in the other. One of her Green Alliance posters hung on the ceiling above his bed. He also took with him the jewelry he had given her over the years and, finally, he took the photo album had she kept hidden under her bed. There wasn't a day that went by that he didn't have that album in his lap, staring at one picture or another in it –pictures of her throughout her life, pictures with all their friends, pictures with him.

Thanatos had guided Archie to the front of the line at the Hall of Judgment, paying no mind to the shouts and jeers from those who were waiting, and neither did Archie.

"I sentence you to ETERNITY IN TARTARUS!" The gavel hit wood and a frail old man vanished, leaving Archie to step forward.

"Ah. Another Hero? So soon?"

Archie made no sound, no movements. His eyes stayed steady at the floor. Being dead made the effects of alcohol wear off, leaving him feeling numb inside.

Archie knew he didn't die of a broken heart, per se. His heart had broken when Atlanta was taken from him, which led him to drink, which was why he couldn't react fast enough when the wooden rail of the second-floor balcony gave way, leaving him to plummet to his death on the brick patio below. In theory, he did die of a broken heart – if you looked at everything from beginning to end, that is.

He didn't pay attention to what was happening around him. He didn't hear Minos rattle off about him being a hero and saving the world. He didn't see Thanatos fly off to his next order of business. He didn't hear the verdict or the crack of the gavel on wood.

In fact, the only thing he noticed was the whooshing feeling that engulfed him in the hall and deposited him at his eternal resting place.

A bright glow drew his eyes up from the ground. His mouth hung open as memories came flooding back to him.

Elysian Fields!

The promise the gods had made the Heroes for defeating Cronus, Archie had forgotten all about it. The promise of being able to live in the Elysian Fields for eternity. All of them, together, for eternity.

"Looks like we get to have eternity to make up for all those years we lost, eh, Arch?"

All of them.

His eyes fixed on the source of the voice, which stood right in front of him just on the other side of the open gates. He was in awe. Atlanta stood before him, dressed in a simple ivory dress with gold trim, her hair and features just as he remembered them, with her hands on her hips just as she always did when she was rubbing it in that she was right about something.

He ran to her as fast as his legs could manage, sweeping her up off the ground and pressing her against his chest as he spun them both in a circle. "Atlanta," he whispered in her ear, finally able to speak her name again with a smile on his face. He felt a strange burning sensation deep within as he held her close. Suddenly, the sensation burst within him, reaching all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes. The pain was gone. He felt new, young again. Almost reborn, if he dared to go that far. Though he was unable to see it at the moment, he had indeed been reborn. The effects of age and pain were wiped from his body as he walked through those gates.

"You have no idea how much I missed you, you dork." Atlanta grinned as she grabbed the hair at the back of Archie's head and pushed his face towards her for a long awaited kiss.

"GAH! Must you do that out in the open?" A distant shrill voice called out to them. Atlanta chuckled as she released the man in front of her.

"Neil? Neil's here?" His face was still close to hers, puzzled, as Archie knew Neil was still alive and well, but he didn't want to look away from those beautiful hazel eyes he hadn't seen in so long.

"Close. It was Narcissus." She kissed him again as she wove her fingers with his. "Come on. Let's get started on eternity. You owe me big time for missing our wedding, Mister."