An escape.

Attempting (and succeeding) to end it all just felt like what he needed to do.

Maybe there was another way, but Percy didn't see it. And no one told him. Even if he didn't ask, even if he fell apart on the inside and not the out, he prayed for someone to tell him.

When he closed his eyes for the last time, images flashed through his brain. He remembers them clearly now that he's alive again.

His mom, Paul and his baby sister. His dad, and his friends. Annabeth. Then, Nico, separate from the rest, was the last image.

He recalled how sunny it was, that image of Nico in his mind. Like, an odd sunny - Because Nico looked dark, and he was in the dark, but the image felt good. Familiar, but not in the way he'd hated everything else, not a same-ness that he felt stuck in.

It was a familiar that he never got the chance to get enough of.

When he thought about this, laying in Nico's arms, he stared up at the ceiling. Nico was probably scramble egg-brained and doing his best to keep it together. Sure, Percy was trying not to cry, too, but he felt... lucky.

Not lucky that he's alive. But lucky that he finally has a chance to get enough of that familiarity.

He didn't know what to call that feeling of luckiness, but he also thought about how Nico traveled all this way to save Percy from a fate he wasn't sure he ever even wanted. No, he knew he didn't want it because he didn't want to die, he just thought it was the better option, but... besides the point, Percy was saved. By Nico. Not Annabeth or Grover or anyone else, but Nico.

And in that act alone, Percy wondered if Nico had chosen a path outside of self-destruction, a path Percy had no idea he could take: a rebellious change.