✮ Her head wished she had went on thinking he was an infuriating, overly-confident, horribly handsome asshole, that hated her people and always put himself first. Her heart knew he wasn't any of those things. He was a celestial; a man plucked from t...
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"After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom."
―Arthur Golden
They got down from the tower together, and once they were outside they stilled at the state ALIE left Polis in. Bodies littered the ground and overtop of them were wailing grievers that clung to their loved ones corpses desperately. Astoria felt the sickness in her stomach swell, but she didn't look away; if she did she would have to face the man that was stood on her right.
She would have to see what she had done. She didn't think she could handle that.
It nearly hurt to swallow the lump in her throat, but Astoria did and quickly tried to hurry away from her two friends. Bellamy seemed to know her too well, however, and grabbed her arm softly to spin her back around. He tried to ignore that she had to force herself to meet his eyes; he tried to ignore how much that hurt him.
Still, she kept his gaze desperately. She couldn't risk facing the forming bruises and dried blood.
"You can't blame yourself for what happened when you were chipped," he tried, voice low and comforting. Clarke stood awkwardly beside them, trying not to listen.
Astoria wanted to believe him—she wanted to push aside the horrible guilt she felt for allowing Jasper to chip her, and for not trying harder to break free from ALIE's control—but when her eyes flickered down to the cut on Bellamy's neck she shook her head.
She nearly killed him; she had a knife to his throat and was trying desperately to jam it through the skin to make him choke on his own blood. It seemed impossible to get the image out of her head, and she couldn't escape the fear that he had nearly died at her hands.
"I'm gonna go see if Abby needs help with the wounded," she mumbled. Bellamy didn't try to stop her as she carefully pried herself out of his grip and left them.
He watched her go and Astoria felt his eyes on the back of her head the entire way. She knew it was wrong to be frustrated and cold with him—she should have been the opposite, really, after the day they had—but she nearly killed him.
She nearly killed him, and he didn't even fight back.
As she moved through Polis in silence she roamed her eyes over the damage. People were being helped off crosses and bodies were being piled atop one another to make space for the wounded. Astoria stopped close to one of the buildings and rested her arm against the wall as she took deep breaths. They couldn't even return to Arkadia and attempt to regain normalcy.
Instead, they had to deal with the wave of radiation that was rushing towards them with the intention of wiping them all out.
"Well, you look horrible," Murphy made himself known, not bothering to properly greet her. Astoria could have guessed that would be how they reunited.
