WARNING: YOU WILL CRY

THIS IS NOT MY OWN WORK IT'S @United_under_Skyfall WORK. AN ALTERNATE ENDING TO SILENCE IS GOLDEN! ENJOY! 

20 years later.......

At 12:00 AM on Christmas Day, Piper, Jason, Thalia, Nico, Hazel, Frank, Percy, and Annabeth were winding down their Christmas party, and they all met at the library.

Annabeth pulled out a book end and they all gathered around it in silence, as they had for hours on end every year on Christmas.

When a young doctor walked in, they hardly noticed his presence.

He glanced at the bookend, taking in the carefully carved dragon-like features before clearing his throat.

They all looked up at him, startled.

"Yeah, Will?" Percy whispered.

"There was a.....an.....accident. At the old workshop in town. It was pretty severe. And....I think you should just see for yourself." He answered.

They all got curious and started to get up and follow him.

They went to the hospital, the staff at the desk not questioning them because they were with Will.

He led them to the elevators and they went up several floors.

He them walked down a all too familiar white tiles corridor and stopped at a door.

Piper read the number.

214.

Jason and her shared a look before they all walked in the room.

The sight before them was too horrid to put into words.

There were nurses and doctors running around, or taking notes, and shouting orders and pressing at buttons on random machines.

There was the bed and the window, and a mess of wires and tubes.

But in the middle of it all, was a man. Not a boy.

He had slightly pointy ears and curly brown hair.

His eyelids fluttered open to reveal warm brown eyes.

He gave a small, odd smile, as much as if to say hi, but that was all he could manage.

Most of them gave him small, sad little waves, but Piper and Jason knelt by his bedside.

Jason was blinking back the tears, but Piper had them streaming down her face.

"Hey, McLean, Grace." He finally croaked.

"Hey, Leo." They sobbed.

His eyes flitted to Piper and he seemed slightly amused, with a grim sort of sense to it. "You....You kept your....promise....."

She cried even harder than before.

He made eye contact with all of them, one by one and unraveled his palm slightly.

His finger tips were slightly burned, and the group of friends saw that they had been curled around a match.

"I....I'm not afraid anymore..."

He gave a humorless laughter, and right when it would have reached the normal, stopped.

The line on the heart monitor went dead.

The doctors and nurses stopped working the machines and yelling at each other, just staring at the group and the man on the bed.

Two more eyes that saw without seeing.

Two more ears that would never hear again.

One more mouth that would never keep moving, one more heart that stopped feeling, one more body that stopped moving.

One more laugh that will never be finished.

So with the ghost of his quirky smile frozen on his face, Leo Valdez passed into the stars, just as many before him had.

And for once, the silence seemed fitting.