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‘Thalia, you awake?’
There isn’t much point asking. She never sleeps well when she’s injured and Luke knows that, knows her too well not to know that even though she’s forcing her eyes shut, she hasn’t got a wink the whole four hours she’s been lying down. Her arm took a nasty swipe from some monster’s teeth and it’s throbbing uncomfortably, not letting her sleep on her side like she’s accustomed to.
She sighs and opens her eyes, dropping the pretence. She should have known he wouldn’t buy it; she just didn’t want him to worry about her. He’d mentioned a few days ago that he thought she looked too tired.
‘What?’ she whispers, sitting up. Luke’s sitting by the dying fire, on lookout. Glancing at her watch, she sees that it’s her turn in an hour. No point even trying to get some rest in that case.
‘I knew you wouldn’t be asleep,’ he says. ‘I was getting kinda lonely.’
Thalia cracks a weak smile and gathers up her blanket, shuffling out of the cave to settle herself down beside him.
‘How’s your arm?’ he murmurs, unwrapping the bandage to have a look. The cut doesn’t throb at his touch, which is reassuring.
‘Irritating more than anything,’ she answers, watching as he daps at the cut with a wet cloth, cleaning up the pus and blood that’s congealed there over the last few hours.
‘You’ll live,’ he agrees, winding round a fresh bandage.
She rests her head on his shoulder and they sit there in silence, watching the lump of blankets where Annabeth is sleeping.
‘Hey, Luke?’
‘Mm?’
‘What do you think’s going to happen to us?’
His hand, which had been rubbing along her arm, stills. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean…’ she pauses, weighing her words. ‘Like, we can’t keep doing this forever, you know we can’t. We’ll drop dead of exhaustion someday soon. And I don’t know… I feel like we owe it to Annabeth to get her someplace safe. Somewhere she can just be a normal kid.’
‘Too late for us, huh?’
She breathes out a laugh. ‘And don’t you know it. Imagine us in an orphanage.’
‘I know what you mean, though.’
‘Yeah?’
The rubbing has resumed. She’s pleased; she treasures moments like this, when they don’t have to put on their confident faces to reassure Annabeth.
‘More than anything, I wish she didn’t have to live this way. Fighting and killing before she’s even reached her tenth birthday. I hate it,’ he spits out.
‘I hate them,’ she says, flicking her eyes skyward. ‘They’re supposed to be gods, but they don’t give two shits about us. They don’t care that we’re suffering so much, that we’ve seen so many horrible things, that Annabeth’s only ever had a few years of school.’
‘You’d think they’d come and help us, at least once.’
She nods, pushing her face further into his neck. ‘Fucking deities. They think they’re so much better than us puny humans.’
‘Fucking deities,’ he agrees. ‘Who needs them?’
‘We’ve cared for that kid more than her precious mother ever did,’ she scowls.
He twists his head towards her. ‘That’s it, Thalia, that’s what we’re gonna do,’ he whispers, grinning suddenly. Thalia loves it when he grins. Sometimes it feels like the three of them never get to be happy, never get to act normal. When she looks at Luke, she sees a warrior – all sharp eyes and tightened muscles and twisting mouth. But when he smiles, it’s scraped away, and she can somehow pretend he’s okay. That she’s okay.
‘What are you talking about?’ she says instead.
‘What we’re gonna do,’ he repeats, gesturing with the arm not wrapped around her. ‘When… well, whenever we can get away from all this.’
She recognises that expression. It’s the ‘please can we not think about what’s really going on now’ look. She’s down with that. Being a demigod sucks; whenever they can, they love escaping to their own fantasy worlds.
Ironic, considering many would consider their story a fantasy world.
She twists round, positioning them so they’re both wrapped in the blanket, facing each other, foreheads touching.
‘What are we going to do, Luke?’ she whispers.
‘We’re going to find somewhere monsters can’t go,’ he answers, ‘because there has to be one somewhere – you know, a place where demigods can be protected, live normal lives.’
‘It’ll be our own little town, just for people like us.’
‘Just for people like us,’ he agrees. ‘And – and we’ll buy a house there.’
‘With a garden?’
‘A massive garden. Hell, we’ll buy one by the park.’
‘A park which has a lake in it.’
‘Oh, obviously.’
‘And if we live by a park, we’ll have to get a dog, won’t we? One we can play with.’
‘You mean like, not a hell hound?’ he chuckles.
‘Not a hell hound,’ she snorts. ‘Maybe, like… a Chihuahua?’
‘A Chihuahua,’ he says. ‘I mean. Naturally.’
‘What will the house be like?’
‘Man, it’ll be huge. Three storey.’
‘Four storey. Go big or go home.’
He laughs again and threads their fingers together.
‘We can have five bedrooms with en suite bathrooms and two kitchens. One for main course, one for pudding.’
‘Oh, hey, we should totally have a games room in the basement.’
‘Totally! I’ll kick your ass at table tennis.’
‘Dream on, Castellon.’
‘Okay, okay, that’s a lie. I’m not sure I can kick your ass at anything.’
‘And don’t you know it,’ she grins, planting a kiss on his nose. He closes his eyes.
‘We’ll get a swimming pool, as well.’
‘You know,’ she confesses, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever swum properly. Like, sure, I’ve waded to get away from a fair few monsters, but in a pool…’
‘Thalia, we are definitely getting a swimming pool. I’ll teach you how to swim.’
‘I’m sure that’ll go well, what with Zeus being my dad and all.’
‘Nah, it’ll be the perfect rebellion.’
She huffs out another laugh. They sit there for a bit, enjoying the moment. It’s a luxury to be able to consider something like this could ever happen. Hell, Thalia doesn’t even know if she’ll be around next week. All it takes is one slip up or one surprise attack and she’s dead. Gone.
She grips Luke’s hands more tightly and he squeezes back.
‘What else?’ she asks.
He thinks for a second. ‘We’ll have to get jobs.’
‘Yeah?’
‘To pay for the house. And the food.’
‘Holy crap, the food. Can you imagine it? Three good, hot meals a day.’
‘Roast every Sunday.’
‘Ice cream and sprinkles for pudding!’
‘Oh, oh – pizza. We used to do pizza and movies on Fridays, before, uh –’ his voice wavers.
She puts a hand on the side of his face. ‘Just look forward,’ she whispers. ‘What jobs will we have?’
‘I think… I think I’d like to be a teacher. Like, for primary school kids.’
‘I think you’d be good at that,’ she says honestly. She sees how he is with Annabeth – caring and affectionate, but treating her like she’s an equal, not patronising her. He knows what she’s capable of and he respects her for it. Yeah, she thinks, he’d be great at teaching.
‘What about you?’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe something looking after animals? It would be cool to be, like, not hurting creatures for once.’
‘That sounds perfect.’
She draws back to look at him properly. ‘It all sounds perfect. The perfect life.’
‘You know what the most important bit is?’
‘Hmm?’
‘We’ll adopt Annabeth. We’ll be old enough then; they’ll let us do it.’
Her breath hitches. ‘Fuck yeah. Luke and Thalia, super parents.’
‘Better than those shitty gods upstairs.’
‘So much better.’
Their lips meet, and she melts into it. They don’t kiss a lot, but somehow it feels right in this moment. Maybe the simple beauty of it just fits the comfort of the scene they’ve set up. The three of them, safe at last. A family.
And who knows? Maybe it can happen. She smiles into the kiss and he squeezes her arm in response, planting one more kiss on her lips before moving back.
‘Love you,’ he says, not breaking the eye contact.
‘Love you too, moron,’ she says, and leans back in.
Five years later
Thalia is shaking. Her arms feel numb, the sword in her hand a dead weight. Around her, the world is ending, but the horror of it doesn’t come close to the sickening feeling in her stomach.
He’s standing in front of her. After so many years, they’re together again, but this is nothing like how she imagined it would be.
‘Come with me, Thalia!’ he shouts. ‘Remember those nights we spent cursing the gods? They don’t deserve your alliance! You are better than that!’
She never thought he’d betray her like this. No matter what everyone had been telling her, she’d somehow refused to believe that he could do the things they’d said he had, that he’d even think about it.
‘This isn’t about our parents, Luke,’ she spits out, surprised when her voice doesn’t waver. ‘It’s about right and wrong. Can’t you see that this is wrong?’
He’s shaking his head.
‘No, it’s not. When it comes to the gods, it’s black and white. If it’s them, it’s wrong. You know that.’
‘Luke, please… don’t do this. Come back. Don’t make me hurt you.’
Something flickers in his eyes. ‘I don’t want you hurt you,’ he hisses. ‘Thalia, don’t you get it? Coming with me… you and Annabeth both… it’s the only way. You’ll die if you don’t!’
His eyes are shining and she realises in dismay that her cheeks are wet.
‘Remember that night?’ he says, quieter this time. ‘When we talked about our future? What we wanted to do?’
‘Of course,’ she chokes out. It feels like blasphemy to be talking about those dreams and plans in front of all these people, especially when the Luke in front of her is so different from the one she’d loved then.
‘We can have it. All of it. With the gods gone, we can be happy again – get a house, live by the park, get a dog. We can be a family.’
She’s shaking her head before she even realises.
‘Not like this,’ she whispers. ‘Not after you’ve done all this. We can’t be the same way we were.’
‘Thalia…’
She looks up and sees the agony written all over his face, and she can’t help it. She lets out a sob.
‘Why did you have to do this, Luke? Why did you have to mess everything up? We had it, we had our safe haven. We had the opportunity to be a family. But you… you destroyed it. When you decided you were on Kronos’ side, not ours, you destroyed it all.’
He stays poised, ready to attack, but Thalia knows him. She sees him stiffen and his eyes flicker and she knows she’s getting through to him. If she can just keep this up, maybe he’ll listen, maybe he’ll come back with her –
‘You’re not Luke. I don’t know who you are anymore,’ she hears herself say, though she doesn’t know why. Each word rips her apart as it leaves her mouth.
Luke lets out a strangled yell and charges, and they fight.
Neither of them try to hide the tears streaming down their cheeks as they remember that night, so full of love and hope and the promise of being together.
She’d never wanted it to end like this.
She’d never thought it would all end with a kick, that after all they’d survived together, she’d be the one to kill him.
She stands at the edge of the cliff, shaking. If there weren’t so many eyes on her she would have collapsed by now. Funny how the one person she wants to comfort her is the one she’s just made sure she’ll never see again.
When she agrees to become a Hunter, it isn’t because she wants to. It’s because she can’t see any other way to live without him.
At least this way, she’ll have a family again.