𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐀 | 𝐬. 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞

71

With a sigh, Damon concedes, and Athena follows after him silently as they walk to the basement where Jeremy is.

When he opens the door, Jeremy's sitting slumped against the rock wall as he pulls at threads on his long sleeve shirt. His eyes snap up to the two in the doorway and he quickly looks away, feigning disinterest despite his visible tension upon their arrival.

"What do you guys want from me?"

Damon sighed and knelt before him, his face twisted unhappily. "Look at me,"

Jeremy did so reluctantly, his forehead wrinkled with the questions he's yet to ask. "What,"

Damon grips his jaw, his pupils dilating slowly. "Your name is Jeremy Sommers. Your parents and sister died in a car crash last year, and you changed your name and moved to Denver with your Aunt Jenna to get a fresh start. You don't know about vampires, or witches, or werewolves. You don't know Athena Hunt."

He pauses, letting out a stiff sigh. "You're gonna go to high school like a normal kid, and you're gonna graduate. Then you're gonna go to college and start your life, and you're gonna be happy despite the loss of your family. You will never feel the need to return to Mystic Falls, under any circumstances."

Silence follows his compulsion and Damon stands up, releasing Jeremy as it sets in. "We can keep him here until the morning, get him on a plane."

Athena nods silently, following Damon back out of the cell. "You said something about Jenna," She notes, earning a glance from the vampire. "She won't just leave willingly, I doubt she'll be happy about any of this."

"Yeah," He sighed, nodding. "I got a call from Alaric earlier. She's not happy with him that he told you about the bridge. She probably won't handle the news about Elena well, either, so I offered to compel her."

Athena looked up at Damon, shock shining in her eyes before something hesitant washed through. "I feel like a hypocrite, you know,"

"What could you possibly feel hypocritical about?"

"A while back, sometime last year before Stefan and I got together," Athena cleared her throat, leaning against the wall of the stairwell as Damon did the same a few steps above her. "He told me that the best thing he could do for me is compel me to forget about you two, about everything that had happened."

Damon's face twists in shock and Athena huffs, a wry smile twitching on her lips. "One of the many reasons I told him I didn't want that is because I never liked the thought of being compelled, let alone to forget my feelings or forget about these big things that had happened to me. I couldn't fathom the thought of losing a part of myself like that."

"It's different, you know?" Damon crosses his arms over his chest, a contemplative look on his face. "You had a reason to want to remember this stuff. It would've done you more harm than good to forget about us, or about anything that was going on with yourself. Jeremy, Jenna— they're human. They have the option of willful ignorance. We're deciding for them. Despite your less than favorable feelings for that family, you're saving their lives."

"I feel like," She heaved a sigh, suddenly looking lost and frightened. "I feel like I've done more harm than good. I know I've killed people that deserved it. I have no problems with that, which probably isn't a good thing. But the whole reason I left Olympus and my dad was because he wanted to control my life. By manipulating fate to his own will, he wanted to take all of the decisions out of my life, even if I wouldn't realize it. How am I any better than him if I do this to Jeremy?"

Damon leaned forward, clamping a hand down on her shoulder firmly. "You and I, we didn't have a choice when it came to this shit, you know? Stefan and his martyrdom can argue all day long, but we were all kind of screwed from the start. Even if we hadn't been turned, we still knew about vampires. We still would've gotten involved at one point. What you're doing for Jeremy– you're giving him the chance you never had. To grow up and live his life like a normal kid is supposed to. This is just one of those decisions we have to make for the bigger picture. You're doing the right thing, Athena, trust me. You're saving his life."

Athena nods silently, biting her tongue as she processes his words.

"And, hey," He moves his hand, smacking her arm lightly, making her smack him back instinctively. "I know you've got the whole goddess thing going on, but at the end of the day, you're only responsible for your own decisions."

He stops, briefly, face twisting. "Well, and some of ours. I think we can all admit you're the brains of this operation,"

Athena snorts, clapping a hand on his back as she bypasses him up the stairs. "We always knew that, Damon. It's not like we thought it was you,"

Damon stops on a step, watching her bounce away with a devious laugh, and he huffs, shaking his head. "You little shit,"

──────

"So, what now?"

Athena tilted her head back from where it lay on Stefan's lap, her dark eyes landing on Bonnie sitting on the other end of the couch. "What do you mean?"

Bonnie shrugged, looking around at everyone. "I don't know, we were all trying to get rid of Elena, and then the bridge. Now that that's done... what are we going to do?"

Athena's brows furrowed and she looked at Bonnie for a second longer before looking at the rest of them gathered in the living room.

Damon, smushed between Caroline and Rebekah on a couch, looking particularly unhappy at his seating arrangement as they had a louder-than-necessary conversation about their manicures.

Josh and Kol passed a bottle of wine between each other while Klaus flipped mindlessly through a book. Elijah was perched on the arm of a chair, looking up at where Iris stood before him, every bit the goddess she was if the gaze in his eye was anything to go by.

Alex was talking to Lexi about Olympus, about what Apollo had been up to, and Lexi seemed bittersweet about the whole ordeal.

Katherine was gone, had taken Athena's dismissal with no problem, and disappeared into the night, probably on a plane to nowhere by now.

Athena's eyes trailed up to Stefan, where he had absentmindedly been running his fingers through her hair and looking down at her with a peaceful smile.

Her gaze dropped back to Bonnie, and she made a small, contemplative noise in the back of her throat. "I think... I think we just do whatever we want. We can just be normal. Go to school, go to dances, graduate. We can celebrate Christmas, and throw a New Year's party if we want to. I think we get to just live our lives now, Bonnie."

Something hopeful pulled on the witch's features and her dark eyes lit up prettily. "Yeah?" Her crooked smile parted, revealing her pearly white teeth, and Athena felt her grin pull at her lips.

"Yeah," Athena nodded, repeating herself softly as she looked back at Stefan. "I think we can just be happy now."

──────

author's note; me with the entire rest of this book plotted out in my notes app: am i... a god? 

originally published; 5.25.22.

edited: 12.11.23.

- liz