Silver Rose

Chapter XIV - The Strength to Carry On

It was Friday afternoon when class was dismissed. Athena spent the entire previous night and all of today in the infirmary, recovering from her wound, and both Teams LILY and APEX were headed there now to see her. When they arrived at her room, they were all shocked to see her up and about, throwing on a t-shirt and jeans.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Leon said, rushing into the room.

"I'm getting dressed," she said, tying her golden hair up into a ponytail as always. "Do you mind?"

"Yes, I do mind! You're in no condition to be standing right now!"

"Aww, is my wittle bwuvva wuwwied about his big sista?"

His eyebrows furrowed. "How 'bout I poke my finger in your wound, huh?"

"Do that and I'll break your wrist."

He stuck his tongue out at her and she returned the gesture.

"I knew you were a fast healer," Ingrid said, joining them, "but you've gotten faster. That was a pretty serious injury."

"Still not as fast as if dad were here," Athena said. "Now that's healing power."

"Athena!" Lilly said, running to her to give her a big hug, causing her to wince. "Sorry! I thought you were all better!"

"It's still sore."

"I told you you shouldn't be standing!" Leon said.

"Your dad's a healer?" Perseus said as the rest of the group entered her room.

"Yup," Athena said. "It's one of the reasons Leon and I were able to train so hard with him and mom. If anybody got seriously injured, he'd just heal us up and we'd be right back at it."

"That's a pretty useful Semblance to have on the battlefield. Hell, in regular life."

Echo was keeping a noticeable distance from Athena.

"Hey, what are you doing back there?" Xanthus asked her.

"I'm always in the back," she said. "Haven't you noticed?"

He sensed something else beneath the surface. She hadn't so much as talked about Athena all day in spite of the incessant chatter about her even among the other students who knew of their predicament yesterday. Seeing their team leader nearly killed must have taken its toll on her. Or perhaps it went much deeper than that. Either way, he wasn't one to pry.

"So," Athena said, stretching. "Ice cream?"

"No smoothies this time?" Perseus said.

"We always get smoothies. I want some friggin' ice cream."

* * * * *

Echo sat at the edge of a pond in one of Vale's largest parks, enjoying her ice cream alone while the rest of the two teams congregated at a table. She glanced over every once in a while, her eyes always on Athena, noticing every small wince and quiet gasp she would make when she turned too far this way or that way or overreached with her left arm. If only she had gotten to her in time. If only she had just kept a better eye on her team leader, that would not have happened.

Lilly was the one to leave the group to join Echo, sitting right next to her with her ice cream.

"Oh, hey, look!" she said, pointing to a group of ducklings following their mother around.

Even in the midst of her personal crisis, Echo could not stop the smile. She turned her head to Lilly, whose face lit up everything around her no matter how gloomy it was. She was watching as the family of eight swam around the pond in a line. There were other ducks around, most of them solo birds while others were paired up.