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A story both first and fourth, something that never should’ve happened to two perfectly decent people. But the universe is too busy to bother with protecting perfectly decent people… and some things have to happen, regardless of what the consequences look like. So the fourth first story happens in an infinite number of situations, no matter how many times you reset the timeline, and in a stroke of poor luck that borders on tyranny it hit the two least deserving most times. So it begins (and ends) because it would never really be over.
The last battle happens so quickly that Piper can’t describe it after. There is a sick blur when the Argo II crashes into the ceiling of Arachne’s cavern, the moment when her eyes catch on Annabeth’s diminutive form and she knows with a bone-deep weariness that the quest is over. Percy lets out a guttural cry of relief, and the loss of tension overwhelms Hazel so much the younger girl bends over the side of the ship, but Piper feels like someone’s injected caffeine directly into her bloodstream. The quest is over, but why? They haven’t defeated Gaea yet.
“Annabeth!” yells Percy. He’s already climbing down to her, his hands scrambling for purchase on a rope ladder. Piper doesn’t know when he got so far away. It’s like time itself has plucked Percy out of a safe moment on the ship and cast him down into the cave, unable to keep himself together because the only thing he can see is his girlfriend. He won’t take his eyes off Annabeth - he might die because of it.
The Athena Parthenos is standing so close to their ship Piper is genuinely worried the marble might scratch the wood. She’s not precisely sure if that’s something that can happen; but she’s a daughter of a love goddess, so she doesn’t care to know. Percy is rushing over the webs to try and pull Annabeth to safety, seemingly unaware or unbothered with the fact one wrong move could send them both into Tartarus. With Arachne’s disappearance came a fundamental loss to the structural integrity of her home: it now feels as though it could collapse at any second.
It’s this that sets Piper into motion. She finds another one of Leo’s rope ladders and ties it carefully in place. Her fingers slip a few times, probably because she’s so anxious, but she manages to get the stupid thing secured in a fashion she’s ninety percent sure won’t slip and doom her. She shoves her dagger into a sheath at her side and pulls her hair into a lousy ponytail, leaving her face free of obstructions.
Even all the way here, she can feel the tug of the Underworld in her stomach. It’s small and faint, but she knows she’ll feel better once they’re all safely away from it. There’s a voice in her mind that sounds uncannily close to Gaea’s, a whisper of how much simpler it would be to fall into hell and let the world fend for itself. At least in Tartarus, Piper could justify the number of things hurting her. It might be safer than land, safer than gods.
She raps herself briskly on the side of her head to rid herself of delusion. “Jason,” she says, and the golden boy next to her snaps to attention. “Don’t fly. The… the voices are too strong. They’ll drag you down to Hades and there’ll be nothing for you to hold onto.”
“Don’t worry,” says Jason, expression fixed into a grim mask. She can’t ever tell what he’s thinking, and it frightens her sometimes. Now she’s just grateful he hasn’t dissolved into a quivering mess. Hazel is shouting something to Percy and Annabeth below them, and Frank’s trying to help the coach get the worthless statue, and Piper has no idea what the fuck she’s doing.
“Piper!” yells Leo, and he jogs to her side. “Hedge said we need to help lift the thing from underneath. I’ve got an idea that might make that possible, but we’ve got to climb down first because it’s not a fantastic idea to fly around here.” He cocks his head to the side when he sees the ladder. “Maybe you’ve got the right idea of things.”
Piper nods and casts her gaze out into the shadows of Arachne’s home (tomb). Percy and Annabeth are specks wrestling to move back towards their friends, but something’s wrong. Piper’s sure her eyes widen to almost comical surprise when she sees Annabeth slip, slip and fall through a crack in the webbing, slip and fall in a way that there might be no coming back from, Annabeth Chase has been through too much already to die in Tartarus like a footnote in the Odyssey.
Leo sees it too, and he knows what she’s going to do before she’s decided on it herself. “Pipes, there’s nothing you can do, Annabeth wouldn’t want you to risk yourself—”
But Piper is already past the point of being able to hear him, she just knows they’ve already sacrificed the better part of a year to the Fates and they’re no closer to defeating Gaea than they were nine months ago. The world’s an afterthought at this point: Piper has to save Annabeth and Percy. She launches herself over the side of the ship and slides down the ladder fast enough to give herself rope burns, pain she barely registers. Her forearms hit the sticky dense webbing at an angle that should’ve caused them to break, but the gods have decided to grant her one small mercy. Piper doesn’t waste it - she runs toward Annabeth and Percy without a second thought for her own safety.
(Without looking, Piper can hear the sounds of Leo climbing down the ladder behind her. He’s always one step behind her, always going to risk himself to back her up, because he knows she’d do the same thing for him in a heartbeat. It’s part of the reason they work so well together.)
(Later Piper will wish she could race back to this moment and shove Leo back onto the ship, where he is safe and she is the only person hurt by her own recklessness.)
Annabeth is thrashing like a rag doll, her foot stuck in the same dark hole Arachne fell into. A single strand of webbing is drawn tight around her ankle, dragging her backward into the chasm. Most of the floor around her is solid, and Percy tries desperately to keep her on the only visible platform. Piper wonders for a moment why they don’t just cut the web, but the thin pen that has rolled just out of Percy’s reach answers her question before she asks it.
Sweat beads on Percy’s brow - he’s growing weaker by the moment. When he looks up and sees her, his face goes slack in relief, even as his arms tense with the effort of keeping Annabeth tethered. Piper reaches forward, directly into the hole in the ground, and cuts off Arachne’s last curse with one decisive swipe of her dagger, leaving the older girl to start forward and knock Percy back into the wall, where they slow to a stop.
“Piper!” screams Annabeth, too hysterical for someone who’s escaped the literal pits of hell. “Piper, get back to the ship! You’re not safe this close to Tartarus!” Her gray eyes are wide and frantic, and Piper feels the distinct pull of those damned voices grow tighter around her stomach. What other fate does she have but to go quietly? The thought terrifies her, and she tries to back up.
But Piper overextended when she saved Annabeth, so all she can manage is a short crawl backwards on her hands and knees. Fear mounts in her throat, rising like the familiar taste of bile and blood. Her hands grow sweaty and she drops Katoptris, which slides into the chasm without a sound. Piper has to physically stop herself from screaming in fear.
“Don’t move,” says Leo. He drops to his knees at a carefully calculated pace: he’s lowering his center of gravity without shaking the fraying floor beneath them. His hand reaches out to clasp her shoulder, and her chest rises and falls with panicked breaths. Piper doesn’t dare move her hands from where they grasp the webs beneath her; she’s holding on so tightly her knuckles pale in a sickly manner.
“Leo, go help Percy and Annabeth,” says Piper, trying to keep her traitorous voice steady despite her fear. She works honey and lavender into the rich tones of charmspeak. The longer Leo stays next to her, the higher his risk is of getting dragged into hell next to her. She’ll be damned if she lets that happen.
His hand stays firm and resolute on her shoulder. “No,” she says, and she ducks her hand back to look at him in alarm. Leo’s reaching into his tool belt with his free hand, setting an array of objects Piper doesn’t recognize across his lap. “Pipes, I’m not leaving you.”
Across the chamber, Percy and Annabeth clamber to their feet. At the same moment, Frank and Coach Hedge finally wrench the Athena Parthenos out of her ancient bindings. The pressure is too much to take, and Piper finally allows herself to scream as she’s catapulted into the vast space in front of her.
She expects to die just then, and would’ve if Leo hadn’t had the foresight to grab her hand before she fell. He’s not looking at her, he’s screaming at Percy with a voice she’s never heard him use before. “The Doors of Death, Jackson! You have to meet us there - swear it on the Styx!”
Piper hears Percy choke out a response, and Leo finally turns his eyes to her. His hair falls in limp curls around his face, and a familiar line of soot clouds out freckles, but his eyes are as stony and secure as she’s ever seen them. In that moment, she knows exactly what he’s going to do.
“Leo, let me go,” she says, pouring as much power as she can possibly muster into her charmspeak. The effort scrapes her throat bloody and raw, but it’s worth it if he’ll do it, if he’ll let Piper die and live himself, because she thinks she can go quietly if she can save Leo.
“I can’t lose you,” says Leo, and his voice is almost as thick with emotion as Piper’s is with magic. “Pipes, I’ll go to hell myself before I let you die alone, please stay with me, I’ll do anything…” His voice trails off as she realizes why he’s begging. When she glances down, she sees her body has begun to fade away, legs disappearing into Tartarus below. There’s no going back now, and Leo’s not going to let her die. Somehow, that matters.
“Please,” says Piper, and she’s so tired she can’t tell what she’s pleading for.
“I’m coming with you,” insists Leo, and they fall.
______________________
Piper doesn’t know how long it takes them. Later, Annabeth will tell her that Hesoid speculated it would take nine days to fall into Tartarus from earth. All she knows at the moment is that she is clutching Leo so tightly she’ll leave marks on his back, and his arms are so tight around her she can barely breathe, and the whole time she doesn’t have a clue when they started holding onto each other like this, because it’s definitely not the position they started falling in.
She was prepared to die. She wasn’t prepared to take Leo with her.
“Parachute,” she mumbles into his chest, then forces her head back so she can say it louder. “Leo, do you have a goddamn parachute in that tool belt of yours?”
“Is now really the time—”
“It is if you don’t want to end up splattered on the floors of hell!” she insists, voice rising with panic. She releases her hold on him just a little, so she can comfortably make eye contact and he can grab what he needs. Perhaps sensing it wasn’t the time to be contrary, Leo just nods and takes a hand off Piper’s back, fumbling in his pockets for something that could possibly save them.
She isn’t sure how much faith she has in the gods at this point, but she prays anyway. Then she discards that and prays for him. It’s going to take nothing short of a miracle for them to make it out alive, but nothing Leo is grabbing seems to be working. Piper inhales sharply and prays they have time.
“I wish the ground would cushion us,” she says, and that tug in her stomach increases to a point where it’s almost painful. “I know I can’t control the world, but it would be nice if I could.”
Leo looks at her, finally giving up on his futile search. He pushes his hair back like he always does when he’s considering a puzzle, trying to find a solution to a problem that can’t be solved. She knows they might be meeting their doom in a matter of moments, but she has to resist the urge to smile.
“Why don’t you just tell the ground to do it?” he asks. “The laws of physics are supposed to be different in Tartarus, no?” Given the rate at which they’re speeding towards the ground, Piper has to assume he’s right. It’s not like they’ve been accelerating: they’ve been going at a shockingly slow speed. Still, it’s a bit of a stretch to go from ‘we been falling for a while’ to ‘we can convince the ground to do what we want.’
“When did you learn the laws of physics in Tartarus?” she asks, momentarily distracted. “Between which of our near-death experiences did you schedule a science lecture?”
“I didn’t just goof off in the Wilderness School, you know,” Leo says indignantly. “Besides, that story about Sissy Fuss wouldn’t exist if gravity behaved like it normally does.”
“I’m completely sure his name was not Sissy Fuss,” says Piper, then winces as their descent increases. “But maybe now is not the time.” The voices in her head have been dormant for the majority of their fall, but now a resounding chorus of doubt insists Leo can’t be correct. Oddly enough, it’s the doubt of evil spirits that increases her belief in the plan.
She’s impressed she still has enough strength to steel herself. By all logical accounts, she should have lost her mind at this point. But Leo is looking at her with such hope that she doesn’t know what to do with herself. Piper’s the one who got them into this mess, so she’s the one who has to get them out. She breathes in increasingly dirty air and speaks.
“I am commanding the ground to shape itself into something unknown to itself,” she says, and feels her vocal chords scraping and scratching until they ache. “Form a cushion, a soft piece of land where we fall. I am commanding the soil in Tartarus to save me.”
Her voice reverberates like there’s a thousand person chorus speaking with her, and she sounds like milk and honey and the soft flow of summer afternoons, and she is so goddamn tired by the end of it that she slumps forward onto Leo and tries not to give up right then and there.
“Piper,” he whispers, “I think you did it.”
“You have too much faith in me,” she grumbles, and winces like she’s got strep throat all over again. Leo hugs her tightly again, and she finally registers how much skinnier he is than a few months ago. Piper frowns and is about to comment on it when they hit the ground.
The first thing she registers is that they aren’t dead. The second is that the ground is actually comfortable, which means that she did it. She doesn’t have much time to bask in the newfound power before Leo pokes her in the side.
“I told you so,” he insists. “See, you’re good for more than just hiding lingerie in Mister Joyner’s office.”
Piper snorts. She leans back into the ground and thinks about a time when their greatest concerns were getting caught for Leo’s latest ridiculous prank. (If she’s being entirely honest, a lot of the more ridiculous pranks were hers. But that’s neither here nor there.) The voices in her head go quiet—they’ve probably never seen a happy person in Tartarus before.
“I thought hell would be hotter, actually,” says Leo. He’s already sitting up, analyzing the barren landscape around them. Piper pulls herself into a seated position somewhat less enthusiastically.
“The seventh circle of hell is cold,” she says. “Dante’s Inferno.”
“Of course I got stuck with the literature nerd,” says Leo, and shoves her shoulder good-naturedly.
“Would you prefer Jason?”
“You’re certainly a lot nicer to look at,” he says, then looks away.
Piper doesn’t quite understand why she blushes, but she switches her attention to the Underworld itself. At their front, there is a river of fire sitting under a patch of stony cliffs. The air smells like the cloying perfume of the girls who used to bully Piper in primary school and the distinct scent of sweat. It seems to stick to her skin with an inexplicable humidity. Outside of their circle of protection, Piper sees the ground is covered with sharp black rocks.
It’s not a place she would wish on her worst enemy, and she gets the sense that their experience is only going to get worse. Her chest shakes for a couple breaths, but then she spots Katoptris only a few paces away from them. The bronze glints against the ground, and she manages to grab it without injuring herself. Of course the cursed blade survived.
“I’m sorry I dragged you here with me,” Piper says, keeping her voice low. For some horrendous reason, she gets the sense someone is listening to them.
“I chose to go with you,” says Leo, unperturbed. “I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t let you do this alone. We’ve got to survive. There’s no use in apologizing.”
Piper nods. Even if she doesn’t have the will to save herself, she can do it for Leo. With a herculean effort, she pulls herself to her feet. She holds her dagger loosely at her side, comforted even though her shirt and shorts don’t provide much in the way of protection. At least they make the heat a little more tolerable.
“We’re getting out of this,” insists Leo.
Even though she’s the one who can speak like a sorceress, she finds herself compelled to believe just because Leo says it.
______________________
Monsters are the easiest part of hell.
Piper uses her charmspeak, Leo invents weapon after weapon, and they stick close to a fire river for almost nine days. They don’t go out of their way to travel to the Doors of Death (they’re still trying to figure out which way to go) but monsters seem to flock to them. Maybe it’s easier to smell demigod blood when there’s so little of it, maybe they’re getting hungry on their quest back to the normal world. Either way, Piper is too exhausted to think much of it.
On the fifth night she pours the last of their nectar over one of Leo’s cuts and hums to herself. The voices haven’t come back, but Piper’s found the best way to stave off minor effects is to keep her ears busy. It’s probably a habit that’s going to come back to bite her, but she doesn’t care.
“Do you ever wonder if the gods don’t care about us?” Leo asks. He seems unsure, and he’s bouncing his good hand against his thigh in a constant pattern. Piper puts the empty canteen by her side and thinks about it for a moment before responding.
“I don’t think they know how to,” she says. “I think if they really cared, they’d try to save their children more often, and they wouldn’t know how to be gods anymore.” She sits beside Leo and stares up into the sky; in hell there are no stars. They have been in the darkest depths of the world for five days now and they don’t even know which direction home is.
“I think you’re right about that,” says Leo, and he leans back to stare into the pitch black. What little she can see of his face comes from the light of the Phlegthon, a last-ditch grab at sustenance that miraculously worked out. Piper has never thought she would be so grateful for Jason’s lectures.
Jason. Every time she thinks about one of her friends, she worries about how they’re doing. She sends prayers for their well-being to the Fates, but the Fates clearly don’t give a damn about what’s best for Piper McLean. The cushioned ground feels like a blade against her hands even though the texture hasn’t changed at all.
They have to get to the Doors of Death. They have to close the Doors of Death. They have to figure out which direction the goddamn Doors are in, and they have to get there without dying when everything about their environment is trying to kill them. It’s an absolute nightmare.
“You know what this reminds me of?” Leo asks. “That night on the roof of the Wilderness School.”
Piper looks to him in shock. “You remember that?” Ever since the Wolf House, little pieces of her real past have been coming back to her. The memories from the date she had with Jason have morphed back into the actual events, but she’s never dared to talk to Leo about it. Still, she’s spent many a night agonizing with Jason over the real relationship she had at high school.
Spending nights in my room isn’t going to help convince Leo you have feelings for him, Jason had said. She’d hit him with a pillow, but he wasn’t wrong. But with all the chaos of the last couple months, she hasn’t had time to worry about whether her feelings were reciprocated. Piper had assumed if Leo remembered their dates, he had realized he could do better than her.
There was probably a joke about Aphrodite’s daughter resolving her love life in Tartarus, but she couldn’t be bothered to think of a punchline.
“Do you remember?” Leo asks, then quickly backtracks. “I mean, even if you do, I know you’re dating Jason, and I’d never want to get in the way of that. I was just thinking - um, nevermind. Forget I said anything.” His face flushes crimson and he tries not to make eye contact with her.
She’s suddenly nervous, and wipes her sweaty palms on her fraying jean shorts. There’s no reason Leo should want to be with her again. If he doesn’t, they’re going to be stuck together until they die in hell, which is a pretty good reason to shoot her shot.
“I’m not dating Jason,” says Piper, “and of course I remember dating you.”
“I’m really sorry for your loss. Would you like financial or emotional compensation?”
“The only reason I’m not punching you is because you’re injured,” she says, and Leo laughs dryly. “You have to know the only person I’ve ever wanted to seriously date was you.” Piper says the words so quickly there’s no space for commas, and she glances at the ground as if the comfort her charmspeak generates is very important to her.
“You’re not kidding?” Leo asks, and his voice is so painfully hopeful she has to turn and look him in the eye. He’s the person who’s always on board for her stupidest plans, who she can talk to for hours on end, who backs her up and tells her when she’s wrong; this boy who’s followed her into hell.
“No,” she whispers, “no, it’s always been you.”
His face breaks into a surprised smile and he fidgets with his hands for a moment before replying. “I like you a lot, Pipes,” he confesses, “but I wish you’d told me when we could go get pizza or something.”
“Would you like a long drink of firewater to show I care?”
Leo scrunches his face into an expression that should be anatomically impossible. “I’ll pass, thanks,” he says, and Piper claps her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. There’s a languid pause, and then he turns to her again with the air of someone who’s forgotten to say something very important.
“It’s always been you for me too,” he says. “Um, I’m not great at coming up with romantic lines.”
“This isn’t a movie,” says Piper, “it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s pretty far from it, actually. Not you, the monsters about to kill us at any moment. I’m… I’m very good at killing the mood. I think you’re great?” Thank you for all the flirting skill, Mom, she thinks.
“You’re awesome,” says Leo, grinning like she’s personally handed him the keys out of this place. “You are excellent at flirting, might I add.”
“I wish you would shut up,” grumbles Piper, but she moves closer to him all the same. After a couple moments of deliberation, he puts his arm around her shoulders. It really does feel like their date on the roof, although the threat is farther from Coach Hedge and closer to death. “I’m glad you’re with me,” she adds. “It doesn’t matter if the gods don’t care about us. I care about you.”
Even though she can’t see him, Piper swears she can feel Leo smile. It’s the last moment of peace they’ll have for many days to come.
______________________
It shouldn’t be a surprise when Tartarus himself takes them. They’ve caused an inordinate amount of chaos in his realm, and he is a primordial god. He sees everything - he is the Underworld itself. There is nothing a pair of already exhausted demigods can do against such might. Piper, to her credit, does not shake when she sees him come. She plants her sneakers on the fleshy ground and prepares for her fate.
“Together?” Leo asks.
“Together,” says Piper, and she can hear the god laugh in the back of her consciousness.
You will make a rather worthy sacrifice when Gaea awakens, he promises. She has always found it hysterical when heroes believe love is some sort of power. I think that’s part of the reason why she never got along with your mother. The voice tugs at the remnants of her strength; undercurrents trying to convince her it would be best to lie down and not waste any more energy fighting. It’s hauntingly similar to Piper’s own charmspeak, and that is enough to break the spell.
“Go fuck yourself,” she says.
A couple feet away from them, bright matter begins to coalesce into something that looks like a man. Leo throws a metal contraption at the form, and it explodes faster than Piper can track it. The god seems to laugh again, as if telling them there are many other painful ways to be taken.
“This isn’t the end,” Leo promises. “I refuse to let this be the end.”
“I thought I was supposed to be the convincing one,” says Piper, and Leo almost smiles.
Tartarus rises again, this time behind them in the form of a middle-aged business man. He could’ve worked at a respectable bank were it not for the blood dripping down his carefully ironed suit. The man takes his time approaching them because running away is futile. They are in his territory, entirely at a god’s mercy. This is far beyond the power of the Olympians, and Piper resists the urge to curse the gods.
“I love it when my meals have personalities,” he says. “It makes a much more satisfactory dining experience. Of course, I can’t really eat you - your blood is necessary to wake my beloved on earth. But pain and misery make a delightful appetizer.”
“You must be fun at parties,” says Leo. “Have you ever heard of a Pizza Hut?”
“No,” says Tartarus, and frowns distinctly. “Although it does sound like something one of my children might’ve created. Does the food give you severe digestive issues?”
“There is a Meat Lovers pizza,” offers Piper, and Leo snorts.
“I will definitely make sure to burn at least one of these establishments to the ground,” promises Tartarus. “But not before I am finished with the two of you.” He snaps his fingers, and the ground splits open as if an earthquake has begun. Piper remembers something about Hades meeting Persephone this way, but she doesn’t think the Underworld holds such promise for her.
She doesn’t remember much about falling in, but she does remember she went out holding Leo’s hand.
______________________
When Piper wakes up, she’s in a house she doesn’t recognize. In the distance, she can hear waves crashing, and the opening bars of Taylor Swift’s “Holy Ground” sound from her phone. She automatically reaches out to turn the alarm clock off, noting it’s eight in the morning. There’s something strange about today, although it is exactly how she woke up yesterday and the day before that.
In her room, there is a small bookshelf, a short sturdy desk, and a wall that is almost entirely window. The polaroids that fill her pastel green walls feature images of friends; Jason and Annabeth and Percy and Drew. She recognizes Lacey in a few and smiles.
What’s odd is that she knows the people, but she cannot remember the circumstances under which the pictures were taken. Her memories are full of dusty clouds of complete comfort, but all she can summon from yesterday’s events are vague recollections of fire, and pain, and… and monsters. That’s silly, of course it is. Monsters aren’t real.
The feeling she’s forgotten something mounts in her chest, but Piper dismisses it as pre-breakfast nausea. She wonders what her father’s made, or maybe it’s her grandfather’s turn to cook. Either way, she is sure it will be another wonderful morning. She walks out of her room and slides down the railing for the stairs with practiced ease. Pajamas are an absolute necessity for Sunday breakfast in the McLean household.
You’ve never been in this house before, something whispers. Wake up.
“Piper!” says her father. Tristan McLean is in the kitchen, wearing a matching set of sweats and flipping pancakes on a beautifully clean stovetop. Their whole house is clean enough to be picked directly out of a magazine, and her father looks like he could be in a commercial. “How’d you sleep?”
“Really well,” Piper says. “What about you?”
You didn’t sleep here. You’ve never slept in this house before. Food that burned a while ago still sits in crusts on your stove because your dad won’t let anyone else clean it. Your father is never home. Jane should be here. You have to wake up you have to wake up you have to—
“Oh, I slept really well,” says Tristan. “It’s so nice to have your mother back. She’s been on that work trip so long I could’ve sworn I forgot what she looked like.” He grins and slides another pancake off the pan and onto a plate. A stack is growing, tall and perfectly placed and almost pristine.
“My mother?” asks Piper, and those worries in her subconscious surge to answer her.
Your mother does not live with you. Your mother has never lived with you. Your mother is a goddess and she doesn’t love you and she left you to die. There is no use in waiting for your mother because your mother has never been interested in helping you. Come on Piper wake up you have to—
“There’s my darling girl!” A woman descends the stairs behind Piper, and she knows instinctively when she turns that this woman is her mother. They have the same dark brown skin and wide nose, although her mother’s forehead is lined significantly more than her own.
“Good morning, Aphrodite,” says Tristan, and Piper doesn’t think she’s ever seen her father this happy.
In what world does it make sense for a Native American woman to be named Aphrodite? Come on, Piper, you have to realize something isn’t right. Please wake up you’ve got to wake up I’m begging you to wake up please come back come back come back—
Piper shakes her head. She hopes she isn’t going crazy. That would really ruin breakfast, and the pancakes her father made look really delicious. It’s probably just nausea, or a headache, or some form of temporary illness messing with her head. Today is perfect, and nothing can possibly ruin that.
Grandpa Tom pokes his head in from the dining room. “I’ve already set the table for breakfast, although it looks too good to eat,” he says. “Piper, why don’t you come eat something? You’ve been looking so skinny lately.”
“We’ve got to get some meat on your bones,” agrees Aphrodite. “You’re a growing girl!”
You can’t do that, remember? Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds in the house of Hades and she was lost forever. The longer you spend in this dream, the less of you remains in reality. And I can’t lose you Piper Piper I am begging you please wake up please wake up you’re too smart to die like this Piper—
“I haven’t been feeling too well this morning,” she says, which is a complete understatement. “Food would definitely do me a lot of good.” The lines sound scripted and tinny even to her, as if someone is spooning them down her throat. Tristan picks up the plate and sets it at the table, which already bears platters of fresh fruit and a variety of pancake toppings. The family clusters around in their pajamas, reaching for food and piling it onto their plates in motions that seem robotic. Piper holds back, even when Grandpa Tom starts shoveling strawberries into his mouth. Something isn’t right.
Piper come back to me come back to me I can’t do this without you you know I can’t—
“Honey, I thought your boyfriend was going to join us for breakfast,” says Aphrodite, smile pasted on her face like clown makeup. “Do you know where he is?” She hasn’t touched her food, but taps her knife against the table rhythmically. This isn’t Piper’s life. It is falling apart at the seams.
“My boyfriend?” Piper asks. “Who is that?”
“Now she’s being silly,” says Tristan, and exchanges a fond look with Aphrodite. “You brought Jason around just last week. We all know him - there’s no need to keep secrets anymore.” It would’ve been reassuring if he hadn’t picked up his own knife and begun to tap it against the table, keeping perfect time with Aphrodite. Piper pushes herself away.
“Jason isn’t my boyfriend,” she says. The words grow hot and familiar in her throat.
This is all a dream this isn’t real you have to wake up you have to wake up you’re fading already Piper they will kill you Piper please I can’t let you die Piper wake up and come back to me because I need—
Grandpa Tom finishes his food and opens his mouth to speak. “Who is it, darling? What’s his name?” But he doesn’t sound like her grandfather at all, he sounds like a man turned inside out and beaten until he can assume the vague approximation of Grandpa Tom. Now the stranger wearing a face she knows lifts his own knife and begins to hit the table in time with Tristan and Aphrodite. Their speed grows faster, and fear builds in Piper’s chest. Something awful is happening, something she does not understand because she cannot remember a fundamental piece of the puzzle.
She stands up from the table, and the knives stop. Each of her family members holds a kitchen knife - which is not really a kitchen knife, but a sharp dagger made of black stone - and points it directly at her. The sudden silence is almost more frightening than the synchronized noise.
Come on Piper you can do this you’re so close I know you you can’t let them take you please please—
“You have always been a disappointing daughter,” says Tristan McLean. “You could’ve been happy with me.” He stands up and walks towards her, stopping when the knife is at her chest. Piper is too terrified to move. In this life, she is not a warrior.
“You are not a worthy child of the love goddess,” says Aphrodite, mimicking Tristan’s motions until there are two knives at Piper’s chest. “You do not know what you have lost in this world. You do not even know who you are.”
Grandpa Tom is the last to rise, and his look of disapproval is more meaningful than any words could possibly be. When there are three knives at her chest, Piper nearly breaks.
Remember who you are.
“I don’t know what I don’t have here,” whispers Piper, but no one moves. The knives pierce her skin and send blood running down her chest, but she feels no pain.
Come on, don’t make me pull out another cliché.
“My name is Piper,” she starts. “My name is Piper and I don’t live in this house. I… I am stuck in hell with a boy I care about and his name is Leo Valdez. Tartarus is not exactly an improvement on Saturday breakfasts, but it’s a hell of a better world when Leo is in it. But it’s more than that. You are not my family—you are cardboard replicas of real people with real flaws.”
Thank the gods. I was worried you were too far gone.
“No, you aren’t my family! And you’re not better than them, because you’re not real. So you can’t possibly love me as much as my actual relatives do. None of this—“ here she stops to wave her hand in dismissal “— none of this is real. I want to go back to the place I actually belong.”
“You think you are damned?” Grandpa Tom asks, eyebrows twitching. “You think you belong in Hades?”
“I think I belong in the real world,” Piper says. “I think I want to get back to my friends, and there’s nothing here that can help me do that.”
The knives sink all the way into her chest, and the blood splatters onto the table in a long wave of crimson. It covers the pancakes, the plates, the tablecloth, and runs out onto the floor until Piper’s vision is entirely clouded with blood she cannot smell or feel. The pretend world fades to a dismal shade of red that burns and brightens before fading out entirely. She feels herself being sucked away until she cannot see anything at all.
______________________
“Well, that was boring,” says Tartarus. “I thought you’d last much longer.”
Piper blinks back into reality, shuddering at what she’s seen. “What the fuck did you do to me?” She realizes she isn’t restrained at all, but lying on the ground in a fetal position. There is cold iron beneath her body, which she objectively knows shouldn’t exist here, but neither should any of the things she’s just seen. When she raises a hand to touch her face, she finds tears in her eyes and blood under her nose.
“I showed you everything you wanted,” says Tartarus. “It usually works on heroes.”
“You didn’t get it right,” accuses Piper. She pauses, considering her situation, trying her best not to vomit firewater all over the floor. “What did you do to Leo?”
“I remember when I was young and in love with Gaea,” says Tartarus. “I couldn’t have saved her from a simulation like mine if I’d tried. Good on your lad - I could’ve sworn you were about to disappear entirely.” He sounds incredibly unfazed about the course of events, as if Piper and Leo were no more interesting than a particularly tasty salad. Piper grits her teeth and resists the urge to rip the god apart.
“What did you do to Leo?” she demands, and feels anger rise in her throat and gnash into the familiar tones of charmspeak. “Show me where he is, no games or tricks. Do it now.” A powerful deity should’ve been able to resist her voice, but apparently it was in the god’s best interest to show her what had happened. The pseudo jail cell falls from around them, and Piper finds herself on a battlefield.
Around her are a thousand different versions of Leo Valdez, each one sitting on a chair and crying out in pain. The cacophony of voice fills the air around her until she cries out in pain, sinking to her knees. Tartarus has disappeared, but she can feel his presence in the humid air pressing on her shoulders and forcing her into utter despair.
“I’ve showed you where he is,” says the god, “but I don’t think you know him as well as he knows you.”
“Shut up,” Piper screams, but his laughter is already fading into the air around her. There seems to be nothing in this new illusion but Leo Valdez on a rocky plain, Leo Valdez sitting in a chair and screaming for help, Leo Valdez who she doesn’t think she can save. There’s so much riding against her that it would be easier to sink into the ground and let complete despondency claim her.
But she won’t, and she can’t, because she does know Leo. She can save him. There is no use in deciding anything else: the daughter of the goddess of love should be able to recognize her goddamn boyfriend in a typical trap like this. There must be something different about the real one.
She walks by hundreds of Leos with different screams and feels pain in her chest every time they beg her to save them. A hundred different ways to convince, a hundred different pleas, a hundred cries for mercy from someone she… she cannot get caught up in it. Piper has to keep walking or the crowd will swallow her whole.
Finally, she slows to a stop. Her heart is racing and her palms are sweaty. After so many hours of this, her ears ache with a fervor and her muscles tremble in pain disproportionate to regular walking. Piper falls to her knees again, right next to the final boy. This Leo is not distracted from his grief by her presence. He does not scream or thrash. He cries to himself, as if trying to keep a long while worth of agony under wraps. She reaches out to grasp his forearm, if only to remind herself that he still exists.
“This is Leo,” croaks Piper. “I know I’m right.”
Once again, the rest of the landscape crumbles to ash around them. They are once again in a dismal jail cell; Tartarus claps derisively from the other side of the bars. Leo seems to have passed out, so Piper puts her own body between him and the dangerous god. It’s a reflex more than anything: she knows she can’t protect him. The knowledge burrows into her chest like a knife and doesn’t leave.
“Well done,” says Tartarus. “Very well done. I’ve only seen one other pair who could accomplish that.”
“Is that enough for you?” Piper asks. Her throat twinges with pain and fights against her with every word, but she forces herself to speak anyway. “Did we pass your tests? Did we amuse you? Is that enough for you to let us leave?”
Tartarus wags his finger as if scolding a spoiled child. “Now, now, inquisitive girl,” he says. “Curiosity killed the cat! No, I’m afraid I’ve got much bigger things in store for you and your son of Hephaestus. I wonder how hot it has to be for him to burn…”
Piper screams in agony even though she knows no one will hear her.
______________________
It’s a well known fact that the brain represses traumatic memories. Piper wishes she could forget what had happened in hell, wishes that her useless demigod brain could push away the pain like it’s inconsequential. She doesn’t know how long they spend there. All that matters is that Tartarus seems intent upon picking them apart inch by inch; unspooling their minds until sanity was a mere drop along the lines of neurons instead of an intractable fact of the tissue.
“If you live, I live,” says Leo. “We can’t leave each other alone in this place.”
It is all she clings to.
With every passing day she knows Tartarus is just playing with his food before he eats it, wringing out as much excitement as possible from his newest toys before he offers them up to Gaea like a present. She is sick a hundred times over, and her body hurts in places she never knew it could, and when she is rubbed raw with blood all over he sends her into another simulation.
Piper feels pieces of herself chip away and fall into the jail cell drain. She holds on until her fingers grow numb and rot in position. Surviving goes from a single word to her entire vocabulary; the only thing she can bear to think about without collapsing entirely.
She has no choice but to get herself out — she has no choice but to save herself and Leo — because dying in this place is not a death worthy of a hero. I’m a hero, Piper thinks. I’m a hero because I haven’t died yet.
It’s an incredibly high standard of excellence.
“I want to die,” says Leo, his body shaking and his eyes rolling back in his head. “I want this all to be over.” It is one of the worst nights, and he is shattering before her eyes. There is very little she can do but bear it.
“Please,” whispers Piper, because she doesn’t have the energy to say anything else.
“I won’t,” says Leo. “I won’t because you’re here and it reminds me I’m alive.” He passes out directly after that. She doesn’t know how much more they can take.
The next day (or at least Piper thinks it’s the next day, because time is difficult) Tartarus wakes them to the sight of a rather pleasant-looking woman bawling her eyes out. The jail cell is as uncomfortable as any other day, and his shark-tooth smile is customary, but no one has ever visited them before. Piper has supposed that the darkest depths of hell simply aren’t a popular tourist destination.
“What—“ begins Piper, but the woman cuts her off before she can say anything of importance.
“Oh, they’re perfect! Almost too terrible to look at,” says the woman, although she does not stop crying.
“Demigods, meet Akhlys,” Tartarus says. “She is the goddess of misery, and will be your accompaniment back to the mortal world. Please give Gaea my regards - well, give her my regards before she murders you and destroys your homes.”
“You’re letting us go?” Leo asks in bewilderment.
“He’s letting us go to die,” says Piper. At some point over the past few day (months weeks years) she has become resigned to her fate. “We’re just going to be more useful if we bleed out on the surface rather than here.” She sounds bitter, and doesn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t be.
“I’m going to miss your tact,” says Tartarus, but she cannot bear to look at him.
Leo looks to her. Over the past few weeks, she’s come to know him more closely than she ever thought she would. It turns out being tortured together is a very good way to understand what makes someone tick. She knows Leo has always felt as though he isn’t important, as if he’s got to be useful in order to be loved, she knows him on a level she doesn’t think even Tartarus understands.
Of course the reverse is true: of course Leo knows the way Piper works too. He’s seen how horribly she struggles with guilt all the time and how her only moral code is protecting her friends and family and how she always feels like she’s disappointing part of her family. It’s not the full scope of her as a person, but it’s a pretty decent SparkNotes. Now, he reaches clumsily for her hand.
(It is covered in burns. Piper couldn’t believe it but he burned and it’s all her fault.)
“You two,” says Akhlys, “are absolute works of art.” Leo’s free hand clenches into a fist, but he seems too exhausted to do more than snarl angrily at the goddess. Their cage is opened and Akhlys takes them, holding them by the backs of their shirts as if they are nothing but dogs. Bat wings unfurl from her back as she makes the dogged journey to the Doors.
Of course it is uncomfortable, but too many horrors have already passed for Piper to register anything but mild discomfort and nausea from being swung in the air like a toy. She tries to hold onto Leo, but the roaring winds and red dust from the ground keep them apart with a vengeance.
“It’s going to be okay!” Leo yells.
“No it won’t,” says Akhlys, who is still sobbing like her life depends on it.
Below them, the Doors of Death come into view. The physical doors are black and forged with Stygian Iron, decorated in a style Piper does not recognize. Two Titans stand side by side as guards, pushing a large red button as monsters head in and out of the elevator behind. There are so many monsters - scores and scores of them that are practically unrecognizable save for their general look of villainy - that it is almost too much to handle. Even if they manage to get out of their latest predicament, there will always be another demon to fight. There will always be something else to destroy; or at least there will be until they die and leave new generations of demigods to suffer for them.
Piper slumps in the arms of the misery goddess and wonders if she wants to survive at all.
“How much misery can you take?” Leo screams. “How much can you make us suffer and bleed and bruise and die before it’s all too much for you? How much misery can an immortal goddess possibly feel?” Tartarus took his belt and Piper’s dagger, but now Leo twists and scratches at Akhlys’s face. It has to be more than that - it has to be the sheer anguish of the demigods in her arms - but the goddess screams and drops them into the sea of monsters below.
“Laws of physics,” Leo says. He is on his hands and knees, inhaling heavily as his muscles tremble. “Remind me to the thank the science teachers at NYU for that one.”
“When did you have the opportunity to attend NYU?”
“It’s a long story,” says Leo, then notices the Doors of Death opening in front of them. Monsters crowd all around, clearly determined to keep them from saving themselves. Even the guard Titans have left their posts to approach, sheer size making them a formidable threat.
“Tell me when we get out of this,” suggests Piper.
Leo nods. “Good plan.”
“If this doesn’t work, tell Annabeth she owes me money,” says Piper. She drops to the floor, feeling for a crack in the control of the god. There must be something here she can leverage, some trick she can pull like what she did with the ground that cushioned their fall. Her hand skims dust and dry soil. Speech is beyond this power, Piper just thinks and the earth bends to her command.
When the floor disappears from around them, it reminds her of that cavern in Rome. There is no spider webbing but a distinct blackness that the monsters drop into, all their platform disappeared from beneath their feet until the only thing that remains is a perfect circle keeping her and Leo afloat. There’s magic in her voice that extends past conviction... she is the daughter of Aphrodite, goddamnit.
“You didn’t even say anything,” Leo says. She turns to him and finds an expression of absolute relief on his face. “We’re going to get out,” he says. “My gods, we are going to get out of this place.”
“I think that was a one-time trick,” says Piper, but she she can barely believe it herself. After the days (weeks months years) of suffering, it seems almost impossible that an escape should be so easy. She wants to fall to the floor and cry in relief, but it isn’t over yet.
Leo looks out into the space that separates them from the actual doors. It is too far to jump and there is nowhere to stand next to the elevator itself, which means they will have to lunge forward at the exact moment the doors open. Then he nods and stands up, still a believer after everything.
“Okay,” he says. “I can fix this.”
“You have nothing to build with,” Piper says, and starts fidgeting with the unraveling hem of her shirt. She gets to her feet, looking out in the direction of freedom without actually touching it.
The elevator doors begin to open.
“Do you trust me?” Leo asks, looking at her with an absolutely frantic expression.
“Of course,” says Piper, who is trying very hard not to shake and fall into the nothingness that awaits below.
“Get on my back.”
“Are you insane?”
“You said you trusted me!”
There’s really no arguing with that, so Piper gets on Leo’s back with a couple grumbling complaints. He pays her no mind, just takes a couple breaths like he’s about to do something terrifying. Then fire emanates from Leo’s palms at a volume Piper has never seen before, and they are cast into the elevator with violent speed.
Piper pushes herself onto her forearms and stares at Leo. The inside of the space is white marble, and it’s a wonder they didn’t smack into the back of the thing and lose their minds. Leo lands in an awkward splayed position on the floor, but quickly sticks a foot out to stop the Doors of Death from closing. They open again like any normal elevator, and it’s only once then that Piper finds her voice.
“Did you save both our lives by pointing your palms down and using your fire powers as rocket jets?”
“Did you have a better idea?”
She has to admit she did not, but Leo barrels ahead anyway.
“Will you keep the doors open for me while I fix something? I saw those Titans pressing the red button while we were in the sky, and I’d wager that that’s what the safety of this is relying on.”
Piper sticks out a hand and holds the Doors of Death open while Leo leans out and uses a roll of duct tape to firmly press down the red button and leave it there. She can’t even bring herself to be surprised she still has it - it’s not like it would’ve come in hand while they were being tortured. When he’s done, he slides back in and the elevator closes again.
“We’ve got so much more opportunity to avoid chores now,” Leo says nervously. “I mean, we can just remind everyone that we literally went to hell.”
“I would honestly prefer never to think about this again,” says Piper, leaning on a wall for support. She winces at her own tone, even more so when Leo looks away.
“I mean, same, I was just kidding. I mean, nevermind.”
“What’s wrong?” Piper asks, worry clouding her throat. “Aside from everything. I know about that.”
Leo laughs weakly. “You know, it’s totally okay if you don’t want to date when we get back to earth. It’s really normal to latch onto people who you’re with in traumatic times, and I promise I won’t be offended by it. Jason’s probably nicer to look at than I am anyway.”
She stares at him, and he awkwardly tries to finish his thought. “I mean, it’s okay if you didn’t mean it.”
“Of course I meant it,” she says incredulously. “I can’t believe you think that my feelings for you are a result of… Leo, you absolute idiot, I have romantic feelings for you and I will have them after we leave this pit.” Piper pauses. “I can’t believe that’s your biggest concern right now.”
“For the first time in a while, I don’t have much else to be worried about,” says Leo, and he actually smiles. “I like you too, Pipes. I just didn’t want you to feel pressured to like me.”
“There wasn’t any pressure,” she says. “I just chose to do it. Isn’t that better than falling?”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Piper worries she’s coming on too strong. Then his whole face lights up and reaches he reaches out for her hand. “Yeah. It’s better,” says Leo. “It’s how I know we’re going to be safe now.”
When the doors open, they find out he is right.
Does an ending to a first fourth story ever look like happily ever after? Is it all about ‘we forget what happened and never speak of it again?’ The unfortunate byproduct of goodness is a tendency towards tragedy, even when the worst of it has passed. But it is always better than living through hell again. Even if there is no real ending.