I do apologize for the terrible ending I left you with last chapter! But in the wise words of Ed Sheeran, "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."

Chapter Quote:
"And if the moon and the stars could speak to you, my love, they'd narrate how much my heart aches for your gentle touch and how my soul misses its other half."
~Unknown
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Chapter 37: Hello Stars

Hallie

When Bryn's hand fell limply to the ground, signaling she had truly passed away, Luke let out a sound Hallie never wanted to hear again. It was so full of anguish and hurt and despair...

He had his forehead braced against Bryn's, whispering to her to come back. But Hallie had seen Bryn's life aura fade to nothingness, and she knew Derek had too. Bryn had been Hallie's first true friend. To lose the daughter of Zeus made the daughter of Hades feel like she'd lost a part of herself. She wanted to cry. She wanted to cry so badly but the shock of it all prevented her from doing so.

"Brady, where is it?!" Bradley suddenly exclaimed through his tears.

Brady blinked. "Where is what?"

"The cure!"

"My room!"

It suddenly made sense to Hallie what they were talking about. She'd been so wrapped up and distraught about Bryn that she hadn't remembered they had the one chance to save Bryn, even from death. Brady scrambled up and went down into the ship.

"What did you three do?" Will Solace asked, sounding rather suspicious.

"You're going to do to her what I did to myself," Leo said. "Aren't you?"

"What are they talking about?" Silena demanded through her tears. Derek and Luke were still focused completely on Bryn so they were oblivious to the conversation. Hallie began wondering if Luke would even relinquish his tight hold on Bryn even if it was to try and save her life. He wasn't exactly in his right mind.

"When the twins and I found out about Bryn's curse, she requested we not search for a cure or a way out for her. But without her knowledge, we went on our own quests in search of one. We finally came across some information that while it was in all honesty a probably futile attempt, we were desperate. Turns out it wasn't futile, although it wasn't easy to get," Hallie explained.

"What is it though?"

"The Physician's Cure."

Silena's mouth fell open. "As in... bring you back from death cure?"

Hallie nodded. At that moment, Bradley and Brady came bounding up the stairs, waving a syringe in the air and yelling, "We got it! We got it!"

"Easy, don't drop it! It's a glass syringe you know," Hallie chastised. Kneeling down next to Bryn, she took her friend's arm in her hand. Bradley sat down next to her and brought the syringe up to his sister's arm. Luke jerked Bryn away from them.

"What are you doing?!" He hissed with such fury that everyone took a step away from him.

"Luke," Silena said hesitantly. "What Bradley's holding is called the Physician's Cure. It has the power to bring someone back from the dead."

He blinked, as if realizing how strong his reaction had been. "Oh. And you know it will work?"

"I can assure it does," Leo promised. "I've used it before."

Luke hesitated before saying, "Okay, you can do it."

Bradley injected the fluid into Bryn's arm. Hallie didn't know what to expect. Maybe some sign that the cure was working, but the whole thing was very uneventful. They waited with bated breath for Bryn to wake up. But when she remained deathly still, Hallie lost hope, especially when Luke put his ear above her heart and reported in a depressed tone that he heard nothing.

"I-I thought it'd work," Brady whispered.

Silena placed her hand on his shoulder. In a voice that cracked near the end, she said, "Thank you for trying."

"We should place her somewhere comfortable until she can be buried properly," Will remarked gently.

"We can put her in my room," Hallie offered. "I can stay with Bradley."

Luke carefully stood up, refusing anyone who tried to help him carry her. Hallie went with him just so she could lead him to where her room was. He gingerly placed Bryn on Hallie's bed; her head lolled to the right towards the wall. Luke pulled up a chair next to the bed and collapsed into it, staring despondently at his dead girlfriend.

"Are you going to be okay?" Hallie asked softly.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Last time she died, I had something to distract me from her death. I had someone to kill to pay for it. If I got vengeance on Hannah, then I could've lived with Bryn's death. But she was killed by Tartarus, someone I can't kill because she killed him. I know... I know she wants me to move on and find a girlfriend but I can't get those dreams out of my head of the two of us together."

"What dreams?" Hallie inquired, sitting on the edge of the bed so she could face Luke.

"In Tartarus, Silena, Derek, and Bryn all had nightmares when they fell asleep. I did too, but I had one happy dream. I remember it was a very calm dream of us walking on the beach, holding hands, talking, kissing, and just... being normal. I thought I was seeing the future. I thought maybe Apollo or Aphrodite was getting into my dreams when I was all the way down in Tartarus to tell me that we were all going to survive the ordeal, that everything was going to be okay. But it's not. Nothing's okay right now." Luke buried his hands in his face. His shoulders shook as he broke down crying again.

Hallie realized Luke needed alone time so she got up and went back up to the top of the ship. The twins, Derek, and Silena were sitting in a circle. They were still crying but seemed to be talking, probably good stories about their time with Bryn. Nico, Will, Leo, and Calypso were at the steering wheel of the ship, talking in hushed voices. Bob the Titan was alone, staring up at the night sky. Hallie went over to him.

"Are you okay Bob?" she queried.

The Titan sighed. "I like the stars. The stars are very beautiful. Hello stars."

Hallie smiled. "The stars twinkling are them saying hello back to you."

"Are you okay?"

"I will be. You take care of yourself okay Bob?"
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Bryn

There was nothing but blackness and weightlessness. Was this death? Wasn't she supposed to go to the Underworld? Where was she? For a brief, terrifying moment, Bryn thought she was falling back down to Tartarus, but then told herself that wasn't possible. Her fate of her place in the Underworld would be decided by the judges. But where were they?

I'm dead. I should be in the Underworld but I'm not. What is this place?

The blackness shifted to Camp Half-Blood. She saw her parents, Annabeth, Percy, and Mr. and Mrs. Michaels talking on a computer to Silena. Luke, Derek, the twins, and Hallie stood in the background. They all looked like hell, but Luke looked worst of all. His eyes were puffy, his face splotchy red, as if he'd been crying for days. Her parents were tearing up, as were Percy and Annabeth, but she could tell the latter four were still happy their kids were alive.

"Drew, Penn, one of the last things Bryn said was that she loved you, and that she's sorry she didn't get to see you," Silena said.

Bryn's mom let out a sob. "She has nothing to be sorry for."

The scene then shifted to a tour of a ship. It started in the twins' room. Hallie was with them. The atmosphere was gloomy but they were talking quietly. Bryn caught her name mentioned a few times but otherwise was unable to hear anything. It then went to Derek and Silena who were hugging each other, tears falling down their faces.

Then she was with some familiar faces, and unfamiliar. She recognized Nico and Will Di Angelo. She didn't recognize the two people with them but their conversation could be heard clearly.

"How are the kids doing?" the strange man asked.

"Oh, hey Leo," Will greeted solemnly. "They're... doing okay. They miss her terribly. Luke's a wreck though. He's in her room again. I heard him talking to her. If I didn't think it was helping him to do that, I'd want him out of her room."

"If I knew how to be a mother, I'd try to help them but I'm not exactly a mothering type," the girl admitted.

Leo threw his arm around her shoulders. "Don't worry Calypso, the mother life isn't the life for everyone. Besides, you have your entire life to figure out how to be a mother. You'll figure it out sooner or later."

Calypso... as in the Titan? Bryn thought.

"There's something weird going on though. I can't shake this vibe that something's happening," Nico said.

"What is it Ghost King?" Leo asked.

"If I knew I'd tell you, Repair Boy. I'm an intuitionist, not a psychic. That'd be Derek."

"I'm going to go bring food to the kids. Maybe Luke will eat something this time," Will announced.

"The boy needs to eat or he'll starve himself," Calypso said.

"You can't force him to eat. If he doesn't want to, he won't," Nico remarked.

Then the dream shifted again and Bryn found herself lying on a bed, facing a wall. Now where was she? She turned her head to the left to find nothing but a chair next to the bed. Strange she thought.

Bryn tried to sit up but the movement was too exhausting. Her blood felt like lava, and she was sweating like crazy. So she decided to wait a while and try and move her limbs. It took a while but Bryn was finally able to at last sit up. She then had to deal with the room spinning. Once it settled down, she carefully walked to the bathroom. Wherever she was, she needed a bath. Bryn could smell her own stench and it was not pleasant. After grabbing some clothes that seemed to have magically been her own size, it dawned on Bryn that she must be in Elysium. Everything in this place was too clean, too light, the clothes were her own size, and she could think her own thoughts. It was the only logical reason. If she'd been in the Fields of Asphodel, she would've been a mindless, wandering soul. If she was in the Fields of Punishment, she'd be doing some form of... well, punishment. Here, she felt safe and secure. Elysium was the only thing that made sense. She decided after her shower, she would go explore her Elysium. Maybe, just maybe, she'd find some people she knew to help her figure out how to cope with the loss of being with her loved ones. She knew she was going to need it as her heart already ached for Luke, Derek, Silena, her brothers, Hallie, her parents, the Michaels, the Jacksons, and everyone at camp itself. That had been her home. She wanted to be home.
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Hope you enjoyed! :)