A/N: My first attempt in Luke/Percy. I stumbled across this pairing a few hours ago, and after reading a few stories, this story began to form inside my head. I know that there is at least one story who covers the same subject (Luke/Percy/Elysium), but I have not read it yet. I swear that I did not – and do not intend to – copy someone's story.

I have a plan how this story is gonna end, probably only one or two more chapters.

Tell me how you find this story? Is it total crap? Don't hesitate to tell me, but also tell me what I can improve. Whenever I write the first story for a new pairing, I'm more worried than usual whether I write utter shit or not.

Main Pairings: Percy/Luke

Side Pairings: None

Warnings: Character death (mentioned)

Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Heroes of Olympus are the intellectual property of Rick Riordan. I own nothing but the plot.

Never Reborn or Unfinished Business

'Move on, Wise Girl. Promise me.'

The death of Perseus Jackson had hit both camps with full strength. The twice saviour of Olympus had died at age twenty-three, fighting a larger-than-normal group of monsters while protecting his friends. All of them had escaped, but the son of Poseidon hadn't made it out of the monsters' hideout alive. What was the reason why he was now – the judgement of his life had been a mere formality – heading for Elysium…

The boat that brought me to Elysium was the fanciest one I'd ever been on so far, but it reminded me a bit too much of the Princess Andromeda. I sighed. A lot of bad memories were connected with the white yacht that used to belong to Luke. As far as I knew, the wreck of the ship had never been risen. The leftovers of it still lay at the bottom of the sea off Manhattan. I wondered how Luke was doing now, in his reborn life, as the boat approached the landing stage. Giving the river behind me – I didn't know which one it was – a last glance, I walked towards the archway in the hedge that surrounded the only happy part of the Underworld. Unlike a gated community in the mortal world, I didn't need to identify myself or something, the gate just opened itself for me. What can I say. I'd always been a city boy, but this place was paradise. Literally.

'Percy!' Before I knew what was happening, two arms wrapped themselves around me. At first, my battle reflexes snapped in and I reached for my nonexistent sword, but then I realised that nothing here could harm me. Freeing myself from whoever-the-arms-belonged-to's embrace, I turned around to face my attacker.

'Silena!' I hadn't seen the daughter of Aphrodite in seven years. Behind her, a broad smile on his lips, stood her boyfriend (assuming that they hadn't married or something – was that even possible if you were dead?), Charles Beckendorf. As soon as his girlfriend let go of me, he reached out and shook my hand. I must, to my shame, admit that I began stammering apologies – I still blamed myself for his death – but he cut me off, and after the umpteenth assurance that he didn't hold it against me, I began to believe him.

The next hours were filled with a lot of reunions, hugs, tears, and whatnot. All the people who had died when I had led them to defend Mount Olympus, all the people who had trusted me and whom I had led to their deaths, all the people who had died defending Camp Half-Blood against Gaea's minions… I apologised a lot that day. But most of them were like Beckendorf, assuring me that it wasn't my fault and that they didn't blame me. And even though I had left many friends behind when I'd died, I would have never thought that it would be such a relief to face these people. I had always imagined I would sort of be the outcast among all the dead heroes, because I wasn't a hero, no matter how many people kept assuring me that I was a hero. The thought of those who lived while I was dead stung, and I felt guilty for causing them sorrow.

'Percy?' I could have demanded a house, and I could do so at any time, but I hadn't wanted to settle down before I had come to terms with the whole being-dead-thing. Which was why I was staying at Silena's and Beckendorf's place at the moment, and it was Beckendorf who poked his head into 'my' room at the moment.

'There's someone else you'd like to see.' I wondered who it might be – if my memory served me correctly, I had met everybody whose death I had blamed on me, and yes, I knew every single name by heart – but if Beckendorf thought I would like to meet them, whoever they were…

'Sure. I'm coming.' Beckendorf stepped aside to let me out of the room. 'He's waiting at the creek, right around the corner and hundred metres down the street.' I nodded and followed his instructions. Yet, when I arrived at the spot he'd described, nobody was to be seen. Did dead people like to prank newcomers?

'Percy.'

I spun around at the sound of a familiar voice. Behind me, leaning against a tree, stood a young man, blonde hair, blue eyes. He was twenty-three years old, and a long scar graced his cheek. He wore an orange Camp Half-Blood shirt, jeans and combat boots. His arms and chest were as muscular as ever, and his hands were shoved into his pockets.

The sight stunned me. He was dead. Or rather, he should not be dead, but instead reborn.

'Luke' I choked out. 'How… you said you'd choose rebirth… how come you're… why?' I felt my knees buckle beneath me. He was the last person I'd expected to meet here. During the past seven years, I had been sure that he was somewhere out there, in the mortal world, reborn. The fact that he stood right here, in front of me, was overwhelming. The 'I'm gonna faint' kind of overwhelming. But before my face could make contact with the ground, Luke leapt forward and caught me.

'Sshh, Percy.' Luke's strong arms prevented me from falling, but once on my feet, I freed myself from his grip and pointed my index finger at him accusingly.

'YOU CAN'T BE HERE! YOU SAID YOU WOULD BE REBORN! WHY DID YOU LIE?' Tears streamed down my face as I kept yelling at him. I called him a liar, accused him of betraying my trust when he stayed dead instead of doing as he told, and whatnot. And though I'd denied it to myself for ten years, I knew exactly why I was so upset.

'Percy,' it was obvious that Luke himself, the strongest person I'd ever known, was close to tears himself, 'do you really hate me that much?' Scratch that, Luke was crying. 'I thought – I thought we'd made up, before… I died.' I stopped my yelling. No, I didn't hate Luke. Not at all.

The truth was: Since I had first met him, I had kind of developed a crush on him. He had been the nicest person I'd met at Camp Half-Blood, and he had been sort of a hero to me. He didn't even have to do anything heroic for that. And his betrayal had hurt the more because of that. I had not only harboured, but even intensified those feelings during the war, despite all the times Luke tried to kill me. And when he finally did something heroic, sacrificing himself to stop Kronos, he was even more of a hero than before.

But I had always refused to admit these feelings to myself, let alone to anyone else. I had crushed on him for ten years of my life, secretly. And now that Luke turned out to be here, alive if you wanted to call it alive, as alive as I was anyway, all the feelings that I had bottled up appeared again, getting my hopes up.

'No' I croaked out. 'I – I don't hate you, Luke.' Now the tears were streaming for another reason. I wrapped my arms around the son of Hermes, earning me a surprised yelp from him before he hugged me back. 'I'm sorry' I mumbled. Even though we were now the same age – Luke had died at age twenty-three, and so had I – Luke was still taller than me. Which meant that I could bury my face in his chest as I had always wanted. Not that it meant anything, Luke's last words before his death were proof enough. He'd asked Annabeth if she'd loved him, if that didn't prove that he wasn't even into guys, let alone me…

Luke ruffled my hair. 'It's okay, Percy. And… I didn't lie to you. I made the decision to stay dead spontaneous. In fact, I made it when I was about to claim rebirth.' He held me at arm's length and smiled ruefully. 'I had unfinished business. And I'm still taking on too much.' He did his best to smile. 'Now, tell me, Percy. How have you been?'

It was my first time at camp all over again. We would sit down and talk, but this time, about the events after his death instead of my mother and Smelly Gabe. I told him almost everything, about the second Giant War, about Gaea. About Annabeth and our breakup, and how much it broke my heart that she still loved me while I had to admit that I had never completely loved her. Of course, I didn't mention that that was because the better part of my heart was reserved for a stupid crush – said crush sat next to me. And against all odds, Luke didn't yell at me or something for breaking Annabeth's heart.

'I must say, Percy, I'm disappointed of you. I wouldn't have thought you'd get yourself killed by a bunch of minor monsters' Luke joked. And even though he was kidding, he hit a nerve. I had been disappointed of myself since I died.

'Percy… you do know that I was joking, right?'

'I know' I muttered. 'But you're right. I've failed my friends. Each one of them. I've left them behind.' A sob escaped my mouth. 'I left them down' I cried and hugged my knees to my chest.

'You didn't' Luke protested. 'You saved them' he continued more calm. 'You saved their lives, and you've died as a hero. You did not fail them.' He wrapped his arms around me once again, holding me until I stopped crying. Strange. When we had been alive, we had never been that close. Well, we had only known each other for a few days before I disappeared for a quest, and afterwards, he had tried to kill me, but I was still surprised that we were suddenly on hugging terms.

He hadn't much to tell me. According to him, he had spent the past seven years waiting for someone to appear – said unfinished business – and the thought that there was someone so special to Luke that he'd wait seven goddamn years for him made me angry. Outright jealous. Judging by Luke's last words, he was probably waiting for Annabeth. She had already told him that she didn't love him, so why couldn't he give up on her? I wanted him to notice me so badly – not that he didn't notice me, but I mean notice me.

When we parted, I felt strangely reluctant to let go of Luke's hand.

Scratch the 'strangely'. It wasn't strange at all.

Because I was head over heels in love with Luke Castellan.