I asked you to deliver a message to them. Honor that. Tell them what I just said about how this game will end. Give them that choice. [His tone is sharp and bitter, but resigned. He has no reason to be angry now. What's done is done. He was coerced into playing this game and somehow he knew this would always come to him. He hates it. His friends shouldn't have died for him. What if he didn't pick the right choice?

But it was never a question. He's thought about this from the beginning. They're safe now.

Everyone will be safe now. This won't happen again. It's not ideal, there's so much more he wishes to fix, more he had argued about days ago...but this will do. Not for the first time in the face of doom, he thinks of Annabeth. He looks at the offered gun and thinks of Annabeth.

"I've put way too much time and effort into keeping you in one piece to let someone shoot you? We wouldn't want me to have to start from scratch."

People did this for him. He's a disappointment, he knows. A hero? He doesn't know. But he knows he can't waste their sacrifices. He has to end this right.

He takes the gun and lifts it to his temple, staring the Sheriff in the eye.]

It's been a real pleasure, Sheriff. [There's a lingering moment that he stares again.] See you soon. [And before he can take another breath, he narrows his eyes and pulls the trigger.]