A/N: I'm not sure how I feel about this, since it's the first time I've tried to write the amazing Thalia. I actually like Thalia/Luke, but I don't like stories where they actually get together, because it could never happen.

Summary: She felt pain. And she felt comfort, because, after, pain is all she has ever known.

Pain ripped through her shoulder as she fought. She was sorely tempted to lead the fight higher up the hill, but if she did, they would go down, too, and she couldn't afford that.

A monster slashed his sword at the back of her knees, and she screamed, but the sound was lost in the roaring wind as Zeus's fury was unleashed. She fell to her knees, and kept one arm protectively over her head as she continued to fight with her spear.

It was suiting, she mused, almost calm, that she should die alone and in pain. Just like old times.

Pain pierced her chest, and for a moment, she thought she was going to die from a fatal heart wound, before she realized that it was her soul crying out. She couldn't see because of the rain (thanks for everything, Dad), and as she tried to stab a monster, he broke the shaft of her spear. Lightning struck and monsters roared with fury, thinking she was the cause of it, when she was too numb to even think of doing something so smart.

Smart. Annabeth. Luke. She had to keep fighting for them. But not her father. No, never her father. If she could only hold them off a little bit longer… They would be safe, and she free, and she could leave this world without worry.

They say when you're about to die your life flashes before your eyes. It didn't flash, per se, but she remembered. She saw everything – blood on her arm and a broken beer bottle in her mother's hand; Jason, screaming, staring up at his Mommy, wondering how she could do such athing; Luke, his face inches from hers before a hydra burst out of the fray; Annabeth, sweet, adorable Annabeth with her big gray eyes and huge college textbook; Zoe, as she was tempted to join the hunters.

Of them all, she regrets leaving Luke the most, as fate tells her they were never meant to be, and even in another life, they could never work.

But she's used to pain, so she sucks it up and dies like a hero.

(Or at least, she tries to, before she is reawaken and proves fate right.)