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The first time they kiss it’s tentative. Peaceful. A quiet moment of a quiet day when monsters have mercifully left them alone. They’re just about a year into being friends (saving one another’s lives) the world feels buoyant and limitless because a broken boy and fearless(ful) girl can like each other and it’s just as simple as that. They can fix each other and maybe save the world and sunsets are free for the taking. A lighting bolt shoots across the sky and it’s full of triumph and promise.
The second time it’s a few weeks later. Shy smiles have been replaced by the new weight on their shoulders, the responsibility of having a whole new demigod to look out for and feed and keep mostly safe/alive. Annabeth’s sweet and they couldn’t have left her (obviously) but it’s not gonna be the same anymore. (not that they’ve actually acknowledged that fact.) The heightened urgency of their new normal means they take. Their. Time. on this and it’s better than before (they’re learning) Thalia memorizes the look on his face, the palpable happiness, because she knows nothing gold can stay and maybe this is the best she’s ever going to be. It’s a sobering thought and when Annabeth runs up to show Luke a picture she drew Thalia feels like she might burst into tears.
The fiftieth time they are DRUNK, WASTED and every other synonym a sober thesaurus could come up with. It’s a happy, desperate kind of discombobulated that comes from too little sleep and a night without “the kid” (Annabeth’s mission for the past three weeks has been to sneak into a fancy pool and she’d succeeded earlier that afternoon, temporarily abandoning her older compatriots.) Thalia brings out the cheap (stolen) vodka and the next few hours are spent in a series of alcohol fueled makeouts and cartwheel competitions because she and Luke aren’t an Official Thing but he’s also maybe the only person who’s loved her without asking for something in return and that counts for something. They’re only alive because of each other, and they need this. Luke treasures his girls because good things aren’t supposed to happen to him but they did and sometimes he’s the luckiest guy alive.
The day after that everything goes to hell and Grover finds them and Thalia dies (or is turned into a tree but that’s not ALIVE and a tenant of the world has fallen) Annabeth is young enough and optimistic enough that she hurts and hurts but still tries to learn things and make friends with her new siblings and adapts to the new life she’s been given. Luke doesn’t. He’s tossed into the least cared for cabin with people who he has nothing in common with (no one will ever understand him the way Thalia did) and he tries too, he does, but the pain is overwhelming and it grows every time he thinks about that last desperate crush of her lips before she fell and it’s hard to shake the sense that Anna’s life is just beginning but his has passed the apex and started a tortuous downward spiral. He tries, but the solutions he finds are wrong and when a boy named Percy Jackson arrives Luke leans into his downfall because Annabeth doesn’t need him anymore, any unspoken promise to Thalia is fulfilled, and he is free to go out however he sees fit. Leading up to the scorpion incident, Luke spends hours leaning against the tree that might hold some of her soul. Things seem clearer when he’s there but it’s a sad, half mourning and Kronos drags him further under with every heartbeat.
Thalia can’t ever describe her time as a pine tree. She’s aware but not conscious. Dreaming but not asleep. The biggest theme was a horrible, constant sense of WRONG like her world was imploding, but trees are slow to wake and their roots are heavy. When she finally appears, when the pine spits her out into the freezing camp ground she feels better than she has in ages. Annabeth and an oddly familiar boy are smiling at her and things seem ok, like she’s finally woken up from the nightmare but Luke isn’t there. He isn’t there when he should’ve been the first to arrive and when she learns the truth of his whereabouts everything crumbles. That night lighting flickers across the sky but it’s weak and keening, an echo of what once was. Eventually she’ll miss being large and strong and ancient. She could protect everyone so much better as a towering forest giant.
Things happen and when they face against each other, near the base of the sky, everything feels so, so wrong because they should be together, them against the world, because it can’t be like this, but their reality is what it is and they know each other too well to give up now. Luke’s been waiting for this reunion for years and Thalia aches for him but they’re different now, too removed, on irreversibly different sides.
Later after Thalia has joined the Hunters, her sisters, she learns that Luke has been replaced by Kronos. She doesn’t know how to feel, if it’s better because now she’s not the one who killed him or worse because every trace of the boy she adored is gone. She thinks that his desperation makes sense now, the begging her to join him. It breaks her a little because once she’d have known in an instant if he was so scared. She’s missed too much and even though Anna says it’s not her fault, it kinda is because everything would have been so different if she had been around.
Kronos falls, Olympus is taken back, and Thalia is trapped under a truly despicable statue when the person she loves makes his last appearance on earth. They say he’s a hero, Anna tucks his last act into her heart and builds a whole new life with a man she loves. Thalia loves her and Percy, more than they know, but her feelings about Luke are still vastly complicated. He’s a hero, she knows that, because there was a time when she knew him inside and out. He’s a hero who did terrible things. He’s not the first and won’t be the last but he was hers and everything still hurts. Distance only does so much and sometimes she wonders if there’s no going back, if she’s irreparably wounded because her heart belongs (continuous future, always and forever) to a broken boy. (there wasn’t enough time. They didn’t let her fix him. Maybe they didn’t want her to)
A few months later, when everything’s settled down and the periodic crises are under control, Luke comes to her. He’s still dead, that’s the first thing he says after “please get your boot off my neck”, but he looks and smells and feels so real. It hurts but then happiness overwhelms her because he might be gone and she might be a Hunter, but they’re both here and the love they share has never disappeared, just taken on different shapes and hidden away in the center of their respective hearts. They talk about everything because wherever they are time isn’t as real and feelings are sorted, conclusions are reached, and Thalia’s left a lot lighter than she’s been in a long time. Finally, after the air is clear, she asks the final question weighing on her mind, “Were . . .were we a waste?”
Luke smiles and shrugs (Thalis wants to embrace and pummel this Zen version of her companion) “Did it feel like a waste?”
“Never”
“Then I don’t think it was.”
“That would be the worst right?”
“If we went through all that for no reason?”
“Yeah.”
Thalia leans into him and he slides an arm around her shoulders. “The world is better because of us, Annabeth turned out amazing, and . . . Thals?”
She doesn’t look at him, nestling into his chest and letting the vibrations of his voice roll through her body. “Mmm?”
“My life would’ve been nothing without you.”
“That’s not true!”
“Ok, my life wouldn’t have been anything near as good without you.”
“You count all this,” Thalia raises her eyebrows, “As good?”
Luke laughs, “Don’t ruin the moment! And yes, I do. We had a pretty good run didn’t we.”
“Yeah. Something worth fighting for.”
In the end, they didn’t fix each other. Maybe because they didn’t try hard enough, maybe because the world was against them, maybe because they didn’t know how, maybe because you can’t fix someone else, or maybe simply because they were too busy loving each other. Regardless, it turned out some version of ok. A run to be proud of. That’s enough. A while later, when Luke says he has to go, it’s not earth-shattering. There are a few tears, a stream of “I love you”s they never got to say, and a long hug, but it’s not horrible. They understand each other after all. One look and they’re on the same page. (it’s unbelievably nice to have that particular ability back.) They kiss, for what seems like the last time, and there are unspoken words and thoughts and the potential of everything, but in the end its just two people who love/need/understand each other and finally like each other again. It’s the best ending they could’ve hoped for. Sometimes the scared and broken children find themselves buried within one another and the time for a goodbye is a gift. When they break apart Thalia smiles. Luke touches her nose and vanishes. For the rest of her (extremely long) life Thalia will carry a thought with her.
“Happy endings aren’t real, I don’t think. The only end we get is death, no one escapes alive, and things aren’t somehow more important because of how they end. Even if things stop somewhere along the way, it still counts. If a relationship is briefer than it should be, if happiness is finite, grab it anyway. Collect all the good you can, everywhere along the journey. If you can’t hope for a happy end, aim for the best middle possible. It’s worth it.”
And, if she and Luke (and Percy and Annabeth and every one of their friends) end up in Elysium, a millennium later. Together forever this time. Well, that counts too. (His laugh is the same and jumping each other’s bones is a nice way to spend eternity)