Tell Me You Love Me

Names(Hundred-Eight)

Luke's POV

"Dad?" I asked. He was getting the twins(4) into their pajamas when Ariana and I found him later that day. 

"Hm?" He hummed, distracted. "Were we named after people you knew?" I asked and he froze before turning to look at me. 

"Yes..." he said slowly. 

"Can you tell us about them? I mean, we want to know who you and mom named us after."

He sighed. "I supposed you deserve to know. And it was be a disgrace to their honor if we didn't tell you their stories. Just let me finish up here and I'll meet you in the living room. Make sure gold fish and juice boxes are set up."

I nodded and grabbed Ariana's hand and we dashed down to the kitchen to supply snacks for our talk.

I poured gold fish into a bowl(I spilled some on the floor but no one needs to know that) and Ariana selected five juice boxes from the fridge. We went to the living room and Dad was sitting there, Bianca and Ethan sitting beside him on the couch, each with pajamas on.

"Alright," Dad said, already looking a bit sentimental, "I guess we'll start with the oldest."

I sat up a little straighter and sipped my juice, eager to hear about my namesakes. 

"I guess you could say our family has a thing for naming kids after important people. Grandma named me after Perseus, the Greek hero who--"

"Killed Medusa," Ariana finished. Dad nodded. "She gave me that name because he was one of the few demigods who got a happy ending. She was hoping that maybe I'd get one too."

"And did you?" She asked. I elbowed her. You don't just ask those kinds of questions. Especially not to Dad. Even if he didn't tell us about it often, I knew he had a pretty terrible life. And then with Mom dying...I wouldn't call this a happy ending.

"Of course I did. I've got you four," he said, surprising me.

"But--" I started.

"I've lost a lot, yes. But I've gained a lot too. And I love you kiddos to the ends of the Earth. End of story."

"Okay, okay. Now tell us about our names!"

He sighed. "Luke. How do I start. Luke had a very complicated story. I'll be honest with you, he wasn't a very good person. He didn't make good choices. But he was a hero in the end."

I didn't really know what to think about that. I was named after a bad person? Why?

"When your mom was seven years old, Ariana's age, she ran away from home. She was living in the streets and then one day Luke and Thalia found her. Thalia was twelve and Luke was fourteen. Luke was tall and tan and he had blond hair and this big scar that ran down one cheek that he got from fighting a dragon."

I no longer cared about why I was named after this guy, I was fully interested in hearing this story. And about learning more about my mom. She died four years ago, when I was seven and her memory was starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges.

"Anyway, they found her and took her in and they ran from monsters for awhile until Uncle Grover found them and tried to bring them to Camp Half-Blood. Did you know your Auntie Thalia used to be a Pine Tree?"

"Huh?" I asked, in total disbelief. "Yep," Dad said, nodding. "An army of Hellhounds and Furies caught up to them and Thalia sacrificed herself so Annabeth, Luke, and Grover could get to Camp safely. As she was dying on the hill, her father, Zeus, turned her into the big pine tree so it would protect Camp.

"Luke grew up at Camp and came to resent the gods. He thought that the age of the gods should come to an end and that it was up to him to destroy them. Then I came along to Camp and he was friendly to me and I thought I could trust him. But you see this?"