Title: To Love a God
Pairing: Hades/Maria, Hades/Persephone
Summary: Italy, 1930. One god ponders, one god loves, and the girl with the dark locks is safe for at least another decade.
Author: Lady September

The woman is beautiful. She has a certain air to her, despite her young age, as she moves across the bar, of grace and dignity. Ignoring the catcalls and slurred compliments she's receiving from her customers, telling herself she's above it all, she brushes her dark curls out of her eyes and runs her eyes over the pub.

She's tiny – everything about her is small. She's not especially tall, and she's thin, almost as if she doesn't earn enough money to pay for breakfast-lunch-dinner every day. By the look of the place, and the conflict building in the world around them, it's not a surprise if she doesn't.

She takes the order from a family of four, smiling at them in an attempt to brighten their worried faces, ruffles the young boy's hair before she makes her way back to the counter. Her fellow waitress offers her a weak smile and, after exchanging a few words, a hair band. The woman returns the smile and thanks her friend before sweeping her hair back into a sloppy ponytail. Her nametag reads Maria in an elegant script.

It seems as if she's used to getting looks from men, because she doesn't pay any attention to them now. Maybe she would, if she knew.

But she doesn't.

Her friend, a Carlotta, makes a motion toward the scene in the back of the bar – which is really nothing more than a little piece of the floor hovering above the rest in a corner, not a scene: nothing like the Greek arenas – and Maria nods. She puts her pen and the notepad down, unties the apron and folds it neatly before handing it to Carlotta.

She's a singer, and she takes the stage with a smile on her lips. She's good.

If there's something about her that's curious, it is that she's always smiling. She seems like one of those who, no matter how hard the world treats them, always believes in the best outcome. Apollo already knows what'll happen to her, has been hinting at it for weeks, but of course everyone ignores him. They usually do, and are the wiser for it.

So the woman – Maria – steps into the dim spotlight, unknowingly sealing her doom, and would she still make the same choice if she knew?

The man is everything she's not. He's harsh, grim, torn by ages of death and darkness and war. Not somebody who usually sits in the run-down bar (that'll close in just a few months time) on the main street, open for everyone who wants to escape the dangers of everyday life. His dark eyes are watching, but they're not narrowed like they normally are – they are wide, and he's staring at the woman with something akin to amazement. It hurts more than it's supposed to; it's not like it's never happened before.

Night falls. The sky grows darker. Zeus rumbles in the distant, angry over some thing or other. Time means something different when you're immortal, but the woman is human – when did human become parallell to normal? – and it's almost as if she ages, gets closer to death, every second that passes.

It's strange that he doesn't notice. Or maybe he has, but refuses to acknowledge it.

He looks happy. It's been a while since the last time.

As the woman finishes up, the bar is almost empty. She steps down to another round of applause, still smiling, although the lights in her eyes seem to have dimmed. Another end of another day, and she still doesn't have anywhere to go.

He stands up and walks over. At first, Maria looks as if she's going to tell him to leave her alone, but then she looks at him, really looks, and her words die on her lips. The corners of his turn upwards slightly, and he gives a few gentle words and his hand.

She takes it slowly, nods.

They leave together: she's safe now, and she knows it herself, and she will be (at least for another decade). He holds up the door for her and she laughs, but the stars are back in her eyes, and she steps out into the cold. Just moments before he follows, he glances to his right. Eyes meet eyes, and there's a nod, a sad smile. Then he leaves, too, and the door closes behind them.

He'll come back eventually. With the turning of the tides and the spinning of the earth and the threads of the Fates, it won't last forever. What are fourteen years, really, to an immortal?

Persephone smiles.