It wasn't a question of her mind or her heart. No.
That choice had been taken away from the Heda, long, long ago.
Heda couldn't choose her heart. For if she did, her life would be the cost. Heda would not give up her soul so that her heart could be soothed. That wasn't what a good Heda does.
So she'd silence the aching thing deep inside her chest and she'd drown it out with reason and and rational thinking and she wouldn't allow herself to fall week by her own devices.
And this worked. For a while anyway.
She pushed away anyone who her heart could ever possibly beat for and she took away the life of anyone who ever tried to break her instead of allowing her heart to give them a second chance and she lived coldly and alone as to not allow her heart to grow fond of the people who she must protect with her life.
And all of it worked. Heda was content in the life she had made for herself. Because sure, maybe it wasn't really living but she was surviving, and that was the only thing that mattered.
But something changed one day.
Something snapped, like a poorly tied tether and just like that, Heda's heart ached with an all to familiar tug.
She had met her match. She had met Clarke Griffin.
And oh how her heart beat for Clarke Griffin. In a fast rhythmic pace that Heda couldn't slow no matter how hard she tried.
Her heart beat for Clarke and she couldn't use her mind to tell her heart otherwise.
So she didn't.
She didn't use her mind to tell her heart anything.
In the first time in 3 years Heda allowed her heart to take control and she silenced every single one of her mind's screaming protests.
She had fallen for a girl who had fallen from the sky.
And Heda allowed it.
As time went on, her heart only grew fonder and every time her eyes met with eyes that held raging deep blue oceans in them her mind shouted from the top of its lungs to run. Run far far away and don't allow the girl who was made from the stars to steal her heart away.
But she didn't listen.
It was now her minds turn to be drowned out and she decided to drown it in the same sparkling oceans she found herself mesmerized in every night.
So as her heart grew attached, her mind grew distant and Heda found herself doing something she doesn't think she's done since she was a child. Since before she was Heda.
She was living.
Because what was the point of surviving if she couldn't live as well.
Didn't they deserve better than that?
The beautiful sky girl thought so, and her heart ate up every single word that spilled from those pale pink lips.
Time went on again and as it did, Heda's heart grew tired of waiting.
So she allowed herself a pleasure that she was to afraid to allow herself of before.
She kissed the sky girl and let all of her stars brighten up her entire being.
She soothed her heart's deepest desires and did something purely for the benefit and enjoyment of herself and not for her people.
She took a chance.
But when the sky girl pulled her out of her own personal euphoria, her heart crashed and burned and it seemed as if that chance she took didn't pay off.
However a silent promise was made to her in that moment. A promise that gave every fibre of her being a small amount of hope.
The sky girl wasn't ready. Not yet.
Not yet. Meaning she could be one day.
And so Heda decided she would just have to wait.
As long as it may take.
In the nights that followed their kiss, the two leaders connected in ways the Heda had never connected to someone before. Not even the woman who her heart had previously beat for.
Clarke was so much more than her past though.
Clarke was her now.
And she wished Clarke would also stay to be her future.
Heda told the sky girl stories of her past. Stories of her family and her tribe, stories of Anya and even stories of her past love. Heda told her the story of how she became Heda in the first place and with each new piece of her life's puzzle, the sky girl only grew closer to her.
Heda heard stories too. Stories of how life was lived in the sky, stories of Clarke's father and best friend, stories of her time in the Ark's imprisonment and stories of some of her first nights on earth.
Heda's heart only beat harder after receiving all the information on the sky girl's past.
After countless days and nights, the two leaders finally made it to where they were trying so hard to get to.
Standing in front of the heavy metal doors of their greatest enemies base.
For the first time in a long time, Heda didn't feel like Heda as she stood here, beside the sky leader.
They were about to start a war, a painful, bloodthirsty war where it was guaranteed for many lives to be lost.
Yet Heda didn't feel like the strong, powerful grounder commander in this moment.
She felt like Lexa.
She felt like a girl who was afraid and she felt like a girl who was in love and maybe she was so afraid because she didn't want to lose the girl she loved just as she had once before.
All of her people were at risk, many of them would die and maybe if Lexa hadn't been thinking with her heart right now, maybe if she was thinking with her head she would fear for all of their lives a great deal more than she feared for just one girl who wasn't even one of her own. But instead her heart yearned for the sky girl and in that moment she only feared for one life. Hers.
Lexa was weak. She knew that given the opportunity she would save Clarke's life over one of her own peoples lives and she was terrified of being given that chance.
But then something else came dawning down on her.
She would save Clarke's life over her own.
And that was the exact moment she realized she couldn't be thinking with her heart. Because her heart was held securely in the hands of the sky girl, and her heart didn't plan on coming back anytime soon. She had given her heart up long ago.
If Lexa wasn't thinking with her heart that means she was thinking with her mind, and if she was thinking with her mind yet still caring so deeply for a girl she had only just gotten to know that means her mind had fallen too.
It wasn't just her heart that got lost in deep sea coloured eyes and it wasn't just her heart that felt the sweet taste of familiar pink lips in her dreams and it wasn't just her heart that had fallen in love.
Lexa was in love with Clarke. There was no more denying it, no more blaming her heart. Every single part of Lexa was completely infatuated with her.
So thats why every single part of Lexa completely broke when she heard those words escape that man's lips.
A deal was offered to her.
A deal that allowed all of her people to go free.
All of them. No war, no death, her people would be safe.
Lexa knew she would choose Clarke over one of her men but could she really choose Clarke over hundreds of them?
She had to be a good leader to her people. She had to protect them at all costs, before anything else.
She had to be Heda.
Even if she wished she could just be Lexa again. She wasn't. Not anymore.
So she marched back down that mountain, swallowed down every last guilt riddled scream inside of her and revealed her choice.
Lexa shut off every feeling and emotion inside of her in that moment. She allowed her mind to turn blank and her body to go numb. If she didn't, she wouldn't have been able to turn away from the devastated, suffering, betrayed sky girl behind her. She wouldn't have been able to stare into those pain filled ocean orbs and walk away.
But she did what she had to do.
She left the girl she loved, to most likely die, and she left her heart with her.