Who We Are [Bellamy Blake]

Chapter 59

Athena closed her eyes and soaked in Aslan's warmth, something so familiar and yet so foreign to her in that moment. Lucifer had been sent off to find anyone who might be able to help Athena. They had left their healer on the mountain, where he had at least three people to attend to when they departed. Surely two had died in the time that Athena had been away, and more had fallen ill or wounded. She missed that; the fight for survival in the most basic, human way. With a bullet lodged in her kidney, she did not feel like the fight was favouring her. It seemed unfair.

Clarke arrived, much to Athena's surprise. With the army having left her stranded, Athena imagined that she would be rounding up anyone she could to get inside the mountain. She still had her people, but that army was dwarfed by the numbers within Mount Weather. Many of them kids and the elderly, but that was no different than the Sky People, only they didn't bring their weak into battle.

"What happened?" Clarke dropped down beside Athena, she glanced at the wound as Aslan moved Athena onto her side, and then back into his lap.

Aslan looked at Clarke, "You're not the only one Lexa betrayed."

Clarke's eyes welled up, and she glanced away for a second. In the presence of two seasoned warriors, she could not cry. She couldn't cry until after the battle. Taking a deep breath, she looked up at Lucifer, who had found her and brought her to Athena. "There is nothing I can do... not without tools, proper equipment. You have to hold on until I end this."

"Go." Athena said; she could last a few more hours.

Clarke rose, "They have my friends, people I consider my family. I'm going to free them, and Athena, I will come back for you."

"D-Don't tell Bellamy un...til it is over."

Clarke nodded as if that was her plan anyways. Emotion and distraught could throw a whole plan down the gutter, could get people killed. Though Bellamy had pulled though when he learned that Octavia was in Tondc when the missile struck, he still did everything he needed to do. Clarke disappeared from sight and Athena dropped her guard, breathing heavily, or as heavily as she could while her body was slowing down.

"Y-you are my sweetest friend, Aslan."

"Stop." Aslan didn't want to hear the words of someone who was dying.

"You are a better person than I."

He didn't respond, simply kept his eyes locked on to Athena's. He ran his large fingers through her hair, pulling it back from her face so that he could see her better. He continued this for longer than Athena could recall, and she must have drifted off for some time, because when she opened her eyes, the sun was peering through the trees. It was an ominous glow that took over the entire forest, or perhaps that was just what she saw because of her blood loss. Either way, it was absolutely stunning, and the only way it would have been more beautiful is if there were snow falling in front of her. The feeling of the gentle snowflakes fluttering down on a calm day upon the mountain; she lived for those days.

"Here they come." Aslan said, his voice gruff, but light.

Athena waited anxiously, it wasn't as if she could rush towards the freed people of Mount Weather at this point, to see Bellamy's face. Neither her nor Aslan knew what happened in Mount Weather, only that Clarke had succeeded in getting her people back. Lexa was wrong to con them, to lie to Clarke and make such an awful game play, but it would be a lesson that Clarke would remember forever. If she became some leader in this world, on a larger scale than that she already was, then she would be well seasoned before she was even two decades old. Despite Lexa's decision being horrible, it was also good training. Clarke would see that, sooner or later, if she hadn't already.

There was a shuffle of footsteps coming her way, but the fastest ones Athena knew was Bellamy's frantic running. He skidded to a stop when he saw her lying there, and dropped down beside her, his hand darting to her cheek, holding her head so that he could see her. His eyes darted all around her, as if he could magically fix her. As his head began to shake, Athena simply smiled. "You did it."

"Athena... You're..."

"Shot." She sighed, "Yeah."

"I'm so sorry."

"Wasn't you who s-shot me."

"I should have been able to stop it."

"You stopped a genocide." She spoke freely.

"No... We radiated Mount Weather... We only caused a different genocide." He looked at Aslan and without speaking, they swapped positions. Aslan was reluctant, but he moved over and let Athena's head rest in Bellamy's lap now. He rose, looking at them both, and then turning towards the herd of people coming from Mount Weather.

"You ended a century of pain." She reminded him that his people were not the first to be victims of Mount Weather's twisted ways.

"Somebody get Abby!" He shouted, his voice cracking in a way that she had heard once or twice before. When he was absolutely defeated and broken down. No matter how strong he was, he did not have the power to fix her. But he would learn one day that what he had done was more than saving any one individual. He might not be able to see it now, but in time, he would learn that the Earth was harsher than anything he had ever experienced on the Ark.

"I want you t-to see the mountain." She said, unsure of what she was really saying anymore.

"I will, but you have to take me there." Bellamy said.

"I will." She echoed his words, her eyes closing for a few seconds longer than they should have.

"Look, Abby's coming, and she'll be able to save you. She saved Raven, she can save you."

Athena nodded, believing his words for a minute, before remembering that she had been shot in an organ, and though it was one she had two of and could live without, it was unlikely that she would survive a surgery at this point. A few blank faces appeared around her, and she realized that she could hardly see; the sunlight behind the people around her was brighter now, making them look as though they were simply created by the sun itself. She heard mutters, but did not hear the words that were being said.

Her eyes closed.

Tomorrow's chapter might not be published until the afternoon, as my work allows for me to write more in a less rushed period of time in the afternoon. However, I will probably post the epilogue as well tomorrow. Unless you guys want to wait a day in between? Let me know!