Chapter Text
The city below looked so small from Mount Olympus. The ravaged streets of New York City were full of toy cars and barely-visible people. Smoke covered the golden city on top of the Empire State building, and many of the graceful palaces and temples had been reduced to rubble.
Thalia Grace sat numbly on the edge of a huge tear in the ground of Olympus, feet dangling over the vast expanse of air beneath her, her fear of falling dulled to a whine in the back of her skull.
She hadn't even gotten to say goodbye.
They'd carried Luke out about an hour ago, covered in his shroud emblazoned with the emblem of Hermes. The gold had faded from his eyes before Annabeth closed them and Hermes pulled the fabric over his face. Her knees had buckled after the pallbearers left, and she knelt there, feeling completely emptied out.
Most of the others drifted respectfully away. Nico knelt beside her and hugged her briefly but tightly, a thousand things unsaid, like they were survivors of a shipwreck. Percy came and kissed her on the forehead, murmuring a few words into her ear and then wrapping Annabeth in a long hug. She watched them, Annabeth's face buried in the crook of Percy's shoulder, her whole body trembling, and Percy holding her up, his hands running over her shoulders and back.
It left her feeling curiously alone.
Eventually it was only her and Annabeth, who stayed with her, rubbing slow circles on her back. "He loved us, you know. He died for the family we used to be," Annabeth whispered, her voice breaking. "He loved us even more than he feared Kronos." Thalia didn't know how to respond, but Annabeth pulled her into her arms anyway. They sat like that for a long time. Eventually Annabeth left her alone, understanding that Thalia needed silence.
She wandered the shell of Olympus, running shaky fingers over the broken statues and razed gardens. Finally she found herself in the temple of Hermes. A huge crack ran through its tile mosaic floor.
The house of Hermes would always be incomplete.
The tears came then, wrenching ugly sobs that twisted every muscle in her body. It wasn’t fair. Luke had come home to himself and she’d missed it. She grieved not just losing him but losing her last chance to see him as he was—the boy who fought at her side.
What would he have said to her?
Would he have said "I love you"?
It was pointless to imagine. There was never going to be another chance for them. Luke's final heroism had saved everyone but himself.
That's it. Not if I have anything to say about this.
She found herself in the elevator without remembering walking there, a blazing anger scorching the edges of her vision. There was not a thing on the face of the earth that could stop her now. The fury running through her set her vibrating with adrenaline, but she forced herself to think clearly. "Okay, Thalia, okay." She tried to slow her heart down, take deep breaths without the wrath nestling in her stomach burning her. What was happening?
I am getting Luke back, the voice at the base of her heart whispered, and nothing and no one is going to get in my way.
"Okay, this is crazy", she whispered to herself, feeling the fire in her stomach leap higher, spreading up her spinal column. "I don't have a plan, I need a plan, before I do something stupid. I am a daughter of Zeus. Hades would kill me as soon as look at me. I'm currently in New York City, on the opposite coast from the underworld. And most importantly, Hades doesn't give people back.”
He did once, though.
"Oh, no. Nuh-uh. That ended badly for everyone involved" she tried to talk herself out of her foolishness before it took root. But the fire burned stronger and higher and the voice grew louder and she knew there was no going back.
There was one hero who had talked Hades into returning someone for love.
Well, talked wouldn't be the correct word for it.
I will find Orpheus. I will travel to the underworld. And Hades himself will not keep Luke from me.
Luke Castellan, I'm coming after you.