His second death was much more painful than the first had been, Gansey decided.

Well… not in the physical sense. Blue's kiss was gentle, soft, and completely unlike a hornet's sting, and dying had been like falling asleep. (Non mortem, somni fratrem, Gansey thought, even though that didn't really apply in this case.)

But the first time, Gansey had died alone. It was much more painful to die when others were watching, because then he had to watch them crack with the realization that he was gone.

Gansey couldn't hear what they were saying over the roaring wind in his ears, but he didn't need to. The anguish was smeared across Ronan's face (Ronan's face, which meant that he wasn't unmade, which meant that the demon was dead, thank goodness) and spattered in Adam's empty eyes as they pulled his body onto the grass and left the car in the road and Henry hung back, glancing around like he'd find an answer in the blood on the street, and Orphan Girl hugged Adam's arm, and Ronan was crying and Gansey hadn't seen him like this since his father died, and it was his fault that he was this way now, and Blue was staring down at his body like the world had ended and she had no thoughts left, and Gansey tore his eyes away with an aching I'm sorry and looked at the clouds instead.

He wondered, suddenly, if he would be able to see Noah now that they were the same. If he would be able to help Noah, now that they were the same. But he spread his soul across the sky, reached out across Henrietta with the deepest thrum of his spirit heart, and he couldn't sense Noah anywhere. Right now, anyway. The past beat with a steady pulse just behind his ears, though — a past where Gansey was alive and Noah was decaying — and Gansey thought if he tilted his head in just the right way, he might be able to find it. But he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to.

Maybe Noah couldn't be sensed because he wasn't here anymore. Maybe… Gansey tilted his head up and filled his eyes with the sky. Now that he was dead, it didn't burn his eyes to stare directly at the sun. Maybe it wouldn't burn him to go up there either. Maybe that was where Noah had gone.

Excelsior, thought Gansey suddenly, and he had just taken his first inch towards the sun when he felt something tug on his left ankle.

Surprised, Gansey glanced down, and a fresh wave of surprise filled him when he saw how far he'd risen above his found family, and also that there was a vine wrapped around his right foot.

Before he could do much more than stutter out a gasp, another vine shot up and twisted around his other leg, preventing him from reaching the sky. He was almost indignant until a third vine pulled at his arm, and then Gansey realized that he wasn't being kept from the sky so much as being tethered to his body. With vines, and magic.

Cabeswater, he thought with a jolt, and then, What did they do?

The vines yanked at him insistently, dragging him away from the sun, and now when Gansey glanced up at it again, the brightness was uncomfortable. Which didn't make any sense, unless he was going to live again.

Was he going to live again?

He was going to

Was he

Wake up.

Gansey rocketed into his body and opened his eyes.

The sunlight burned his retinas.

"GANSEY!"

Blue flung her arms around his neck, and it was a lot of LIFE, LIFE, LIFE, all at once. Gansey gasped and spluttered and tried to remember how to breathe.

"You fucking asshole," Ronan said. "I can't believe you fucking…" But for perhaps the first time in Gansey's memory, Ronan didn't finish a curse. He just glared at Gansey with shining eyes and a smile that looked like Ronan was trying to remember how to breathe too.

"How did you—" Gansey struggled to sit up. Blue stopped hugging him, but she didn't let go of his hand. Gansey didn't want her to. He had a nagging feeling that if she did, this blissful moment of LIFE, LIFE, LIFE would end and he'd float away again. But as it was, the feeling of her fingers in his helped him refocus and finish his question. "How did you do that?"

"It was Cabeswater," Adam explained. The scratches on his face ripped at Gansey's stomach, but the relief in his eyes meant that Adam didn't mind the scratches nearly as much as Gansey did. "It remade you."

"How?"

"It used itself," Ronan answered for Adam, his voice gruff.

Gansey's eyes widened. "It used itself? But, Ronan, you've already lost so many dreams."

Ronan refused to look remorseful. "You asked me to dream you the world once." He spread his arms wide, gesturing at the forest and the grass and his BMW and the sky, too, and the sun. "Now you have it."

After that, Gansey didn't have anything to say. He just gaped at all of them, all of the marvelous creatures that he was lucky enough to consider his friends, and tried to adjust to the revelation that there was no more Glendower, no more demon, no more imminent sacrifice.

He was allowed to live for himself now.

To anyone reading this who has never read one of my fics before: Hello and welcome! I'm not on this website much, but I still adore getting reviews and respond to both reviews and PMs, so feel free to review if you like this fic because I need validation lol.

To anyone who read my pjo fics and was probably wondering if I had vanished off the face of the earth: Hello! I did not vanish off the face of the earth, but I have been gone long enough that all my docs have been deleted from docs manager (and i don't think i had all of those saved on my computer oops). Sorry? I'm just not super interested in writing pjo fic and now write and post things pretty exclusively for other fandoms and on ao3. But I do still exist, and I still love getting reviews and PMs, and I'll probably keep posting things on here every once in a while. (Like this fic haha.)

I'm also on tumblr ( actuallymollyweasley) and have an ao3 account (sunshineinthestorm) if you'd rather talk to me through those. Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!