"Do you want me to do it?"

Luke didn't look away from the cloth in his hands, "I've got it. Just- just go I'll catch up."

He waited until he could hear the footsteps grow farther away, and the only sound was the light breeze if the evening. It prickled his skin, but he tried to ignore the feeling as he unwrapped the cloth in his hands. Kneeling there, staring at that syringe made it suddenly feel heavy in his shaking hands. Even so he forced himself to pick it up and placed the needle against the pine tree's root.

"Luke."

The voice was so soft, caring, and familiar- not it was more than familiar, it was nostalgic. And it was that nostalgia that chilled Luke to his core.

"I'm talking to you idiot," The voice almost laughed.

Luke gave a hard swallow as he forced himself not to turn around. Not to face the sound- not to ruin the illusion his psyche had created, he wanted to enjoy the pain it would inevitably bring him for as long as he could.

"You saved us," Luke said slowly.

"I did," the voice agreed.

"You saved us," he said again. "And you weren't even properly saved... In your desperation you sacrificed yourself for us... But-but is being a tree really worth it?"

"Yes."

"But- I-I can set you free," Luke tried but he could hear the emptiness is in his own voice. There was no use in trying to convince her when he couldn't even convince himself.

"This is my life now."

Luke shook his head, he wanted to turn around and scream how wrong it was for her to have to be this way. He wanted to grab her tightly be the shoulders- and he wanted to hug her. But she wasn't there, and he wasn't going to move to face the reality of the nothingness behind him.

"They need to be taught a lesson..." He said after a pause. "I will-"

"And Kronos is the one to teach it?" He could hear the judgment in her voice, and he hated how easily he could picture a disproving face to match.

"Do you have a better idea? A better way to make them repent for what they did to you? To us? To every demigod they have and then cast away?" He shouted.

"I'm still alive Luke."

"You're alive but your not living."

"This is good enough."

Luke gave a curt hollow laugh, as he placed his thumb on the syringe's plunger. "They just expect us to fight everyday and do everything they ask- regardless of what happens to us... just look at you! ...Or look at my mother."

"Look at me Luke. Look me in the eye and think about what you're doing."

"But you're not there..."

"Turn and look at me and you'd see that I am."

Luke blinked back the tears prickling at his eyes. "Kronos is the only way."

"You know you don't believe that."

"But I do, after all these years of being on standby for the gods'... All these years of watching kids come and die forced me to believe... This is necessary for the future Thalia, and for that to happen-" He jammed the needle into the tree's root. "I need to get rid of the past."

"It's not that simple Luke."

He expected her to say more in response but all he got was the sound of the breeze. Because that's all he had been hearing all along.

He took another breath and pushed down on the plunger, injecting the poison as tears fell from his eyes.

He wasn't sure how long he knelt before that tree yearning for another sentence, another word, another sound. Finally he stood to his feet with the syringe- the murder weapon- held tightly to the point it hurt in his first. He used his sleeve to wipe away his tears as he spoke to the wind,

"Whoever said it was?"

"Ready to go?" He was asked when he descended the hill.

"Whoever said it was?" He asked again- the same question he had been asking since he began walking away from that dying pine tree- from his dying friend.

"Said what?"

"Said that..." Luke chuckled and shook his head suddenly very aware of the syringe in his hand, "Nothing we should get going."

"Alright..."

As they walked off Luke found himself looking back to the hill. "It's not simple," he told the wind- he told her. "Whoever said that a revolution is a simple thing?"