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clatoera · 4 months

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Picket Fence is Sharp as Knives Chapter 2: Barefoot in the Wildest Winter, Catching my Death

Heeeeeey. Welcome back, I call this a mini chapter. It's still almost 3400 words. Thats insane of me. This chapter is

Clove centric/ Clato

20 months after the war/ 7 after the epilogue of ARWBFB

Ironic because the starbucks I wrote this in was so cold my fingers were fucking numb, which you will understand the irony of once you read it.

This is not..intense. It's just a palate cleanser after the Glimmer Prequel I posted this week. I think everyone needed it. I honestly wrote it because we got 10 inches of snow last week and currently are getting multiple more inches as we speak.

Anyway!

Chapter title from Evermore (Taylor Swift)

Masterpost

AO3

Theres also a good bit of cashmere/enobaria mentioned in honor of @bodyelectric77 giving me brain amoebas. I'm just going to tag @kentwells because this whole sequel is your fault. Anyway! Love y'all! love the besties! love everyone! ( I just..love love),

By virtue of the location, the widespread villages littering the biggest mountain range in Panem like sprinkles atop a cupcake, District Two gets substantial snowfall. The kind of snow that allows an extra industry for capitol elites to come and pretend to live like a district citizen in a heated, maintained cabin on the mountainsides, where people can party and celebrate the simplicity of a winter snow in the way that only someone who doesn’t have to worry about keeping heat on can do.

If you were a child in the district without the commitment (Privilege? Curse?) of training, you could celebrate heavy snowfall with snowball fights followed by hot chocolate with your friends in one of your living rooms. If you were a trainee, a possible tribute, snow meant drills in the cold, running despite snow reaching your knees, agility trials on ice. If you were a trainee with just enough of a rebellious streak, snowfall meant you snuck out with the other kids in your class and rode makeshift sleds down the hills otherwise used for terrain testing. And if you were a trainee that got caught, snow meant laying on your back in a bank of it, in shorts and t-shirts, until your skin burned and your body ached. If you were the right kind of District Two training kid- the punishment was worth the glimmer of childhood you got to experience.

The snow was not even the worst part– District Two was extremely cold. Not the type of cold where the cute jackets and scarves produced in District Eight would be sufficient, but the type of bone chilling cold that it was a miracle the majority of the population did not freeze to death by the end of a particularly bad winter. The academy just factored the weather into training– figuring out ways to layer, to stay warm, how to get rest in these types of conditions, and how to keep at peak performance despite below freezing temperatures. The embarrassment of a tribute losing because they lost grip on a weapon (“because of the weather” is an unacceptable excuse), is deeply ingrained in any child who has gone through training in District Two. They considered it to be a privilege to train in such harsh conditions, a leg up on competitors of how to deal with what could be thrown on them in the arena. Weather was not an excuse for failure.

Clove, of course, knows these things. Years later she can handle Brutus’s remarks about her clumsy frozen fingers almost ending her life, but at the time it was an insecurity that was fortunately never addressed due to the scandal of her long-term hidden relationship and accompanying secrets coming to the surface.

Despite her games being a literal arctic blizzard, the snow and the cold had not bothered Clove in the immediate after her games. Sure, there were times where if she closed her eyes long enough on her porch that it felt like she was back in the arena for the briefest of seconds. However the heat of adrenaline that rushed to her chest brought her right back, and when her eyes would fly open and land on her Victor’s Village yard she’d be snapped back into her new reality. A reality of survival and victory.

She was even somewhat fond of the snow, with the recollections of childhood, of times her and Cato had snuck out back in the dead of night to “practice” in the wintry conditions.

“If it weren’t for your hair you’d blend right in.” Cato teased, but his hands slipping under her arms and knees revealed that he meant business. He tossed her, as hard as he possibly could, into an adjacent snow bank, where her tiny teenage body did indeed slip under the entirety of the pile. The fifteen year old girl would have in fact blended in if not for the deep espresso color of her hair. And the constellation of freckles all over her skin. And the deep evergreen color of her eyes. None of which, Cato knew, were normal details to notice about one’s training partner.

The brief distraction would always be enough for Clove to grab him around the ankle, pull his feet out from under him, and bring him tumbling down right into the snow beside her.

They’d always sneak back in with icicles in their hair, water dripping off their clothes as the snow melted away, and a redness that danced across both of their noses and cheeks. Sometimes the only thing that could properly warm them up after was sharing the same dorm room bed, with snide remarks from Clove about how he may as well be a human heater. While those remarks may be snide, they were never a complaint that is.

It wasn’t snow after her games that bothered her, and truthfully, last winter hadn’t even been too terrible. Maybe somewhere, some cosmic control of the universe decided the people of District Two (realistically, the people of all of Panem) had suffered enough the previous year during the war. A couple of inches here or there, temperatures that dropped but never quite hit that bone chilling type of cold they were so familiar with. It was cold but not cruelly so, and that was nothing short of a miracle considering how many District Two citizens were displaced and without housing as a result of the rebels’ bombing. Those signature temperature dip and the blizzards would have been catastrophic to a district that was already facing such immense population loss.

Now, over a year and a half since the conclusion of the war, brutal weather was back to strike their home with a bite.

Multiple feet of snow combined with temperatures plummeting to near zero, both confirmed what Clove knew was coming: Winter in District Two was back with a vengeance.

While Cato had been thrilled to have a classic District Two winter; to take his little sister sled riding, to introduce her to hot chocolate and the power of a hot bowl of soup at the end of a day in the cold (courtesy, of course, of Clove), Clove had truthfully been dreading the impending storm.

The cold, quite frankly, hurt.

It did not hurt from the biting sting of cold wind against flesh or because of tingling fingers and ears from too long outside; no, it hurt deep in her body, in every single movement of her joints. It hurt like her skeleton was crackling, like the marrow inside her bones itself was forming ice crystals that shattered with her movement. It wasn’t just the flexion of her fingers and shoulders that hurt at this point. It hurts to exist. It felt like her ribs were cracking with the expansion of her lungs. With every step, a dull pain inside of her hip sockets begged her to stop moving and just rest. She hadn’t been prepared for every joint that had been dislocated and every healed fracture to remind her that she was never truly going to be able to heal from what Snow had done to her.

Clove, for the first time, understood what they meant when they called it bone cold. And holy shit did it hurt.

She tried the rational and logical ways to warm up. She tried a shower with water so hot it should have blistered her skin off, but only slightly brought her down from the feeling of ice in her veins. She layered on two, three of Cato’s already oversized sweatshirts, swimming in layers of clothes that made her look like a child playing dress up without any warmth radiating deeper than her skin. She had laid in bed, weighed down by a comforter plus another ten pounds of throw blankets, that didn't even touch the ache inside her.

All this is to say that Clove tried a lot before her desperation for any comfort resulted in her current position. On the floor…in front of the fireplace… both on top of and underneath the same ten plus pounds of blankets she had dragged downstairs with her. Even this, the combination of blankets, heat, and Cato’s clothes were only enough to slightly tamper down the ache.

Still, it was apparently just enough for her to fall asleep that way, because the next thing Clove knows, she’s being gently shaken awake with a foot on her shoulder hearing the panicked whispers of “Babe….babe…Clove..babe…Clove..are you alive?” That can only possibly come from Cato, who is insistently shaking her awake. “Clove?”

“Hmmm?” Clove murmurs, peaking one eye open to glance up at the man oh so kindly waking her. He stands over her, flecks of snow melting on the tips of his hair, cold water running off the black waterproof fabric of his coat and onto her face all the way down where she lays under him. “Move back, you’re making me colder.”

“Are you okay?” He nudges her again, but kneels down to closer to the same height as her. He reaches out with an ungloved hand, and the second his icy fingers touch her face Clove recoils into her blanket shell. From this height Clove can see the redness along his cheeks and over his nose that makes him look closer to twelve than twenty three. “Why are you on the floor?”

“I’m cold Cato, and it really fucking hurts.” She whines, tucking her hands into the blankets with her. “I can’t get warm.”

“Right..okay…did you try the bed–”

“Do you think I laid on our living room floor without trying the bed first?”

“Okay, what about those really hot baths you like, I can take you-”

“Cato. I tried it. This is all that helps.” Clove whimpers, rolling from her back onto her side, facing the blaze in the fireplace.

“I’ll be back just… Give me like..fifteen minutes.” Cato stands, and is already taking long strides upstairs before Clove even gets a moment to ask where he’s going.

She lays there for what feels like years in the glow of the fireplace, in the warmth it irradiates and the minimal relief it provides. She feels the presence of him behind her, the light tugging of her blankets, before she sees him.

“Don’t unwrap me, Cato, I’m warm-” Clove protests, but when she feels large, warm hands sliding under her layers and practically wrapping around her torso she melts. “You’re warm, oh my god.”

She doesn��t see him smirk, but knows him well enough to know he is, before he twists her to face him with the easiest twist of his wrists. He flashes her a grin, before pulling her flush against his bare, warm chest. Clove notices, absently, the way his wet hair falls just over his forehead how it did only in the immediate time after he showered until it dried.

“I’d prefer hot but I'll take it.” Cato taunts lightly as Clove buries her cheek against his chest, right over where his heart. “Comfy?” He teases, and a furrowed brow and a single narrowed green eye looks up at him in protest.

“Very.” Clove sighs, curling into him as his hands travel along the skin of her back and bringing heat with them. “You’re like a personal heater.”

“You could have called me, Clove…” Cato reminds her, tucking one leg over both of hers, using as much surface area contact as he could to bring her relief. “I would have come home.”

“You were with your sister, I wasn’t going to interrupt.” She doesn’t mention the embarrassment, the humiliation even, that she felt at the newest physical reminder of her time in the Capitol. A girl who used to love the snow, who loved the cold, now in pain greater than she’d ever admit to her husband. There were some things she didn’t even want him to know– her reduced pain tolerance, being one of them.“How did she like it?”

“She loved it!” Cato lights up, his smile reaching all the way to his eyes as he recounts his afternoon playing with his little sister. “Mom about killed me when she found out I was letting her go down the hill alone, but she had fun. No bones were broken.”

“Mmm, remember that time we found a trash can lid, and I sat on your lap as we went down that big hill behind the training center in the middle of the night?” Clove muses, freeing her hands from her blankety protection and tucking them against his abs. She holds back a giggle at the way he flinches away from her cold touch, his muscle flexing under her fingertips.

“You mean when we slammed into the brick wall and thought you broke your nose? And the giant bruise on my forehead that looked like you decked me with the handle of your knife?” Cato muses, wrapping Clove even tighter in his grasp, smiling to himself when he realizes that all the layers she used to try to insulate herself are his. “Of course I remember.”

“Your entire body weight landed on me and crushed me into the wall, yeah, I thought I was broken.” She wants to lift her head to scowl at him, but she is simply too warm, too comfortable, too safe right now to care. “You were giant, then, too.”

“We’re just lucky it was Brutus that punished us, not Enobaria.” There is a fond smile on his face as he thinks back to what cannot even be considered a simpler time –surely, laying on the living room floor with his wife, no games in sight, was far simpler than being fourteen and grasping for a glimpse of childhood– but certainly a nostalgic memory.

“Lucky? He made us run four miles barefoot, Cato. I would have taken whatever Enobaria was going to throw at us.” Clove tucked her icy feet against his for emphasis, and Cato actually flinched out of the way that time. “See? You still don’t like cold feet.”

“Speaking of Enobaria…doesn’t she have that hot tub, why didn’t you go over? She’s in One isn’t she? You would have had it to yourself…” One would have thought, twenty months into sharing custody of Enobaria with Cashmere and District One, they’d have gotten used to her schedule, used to her not always being readily available at their beck and call.

So many things had kept Enobaria in District Two, of course, in the past thirty some years of her life. Be it the limitations of interdistrict travel, the secret nature of her relationship with Cashmere (who had her own limitations, of course, considering the extent of the Capitol’s influence and abuse on her for over a decade), her commitments to her district and training, or maybe even Clove. Many reasons had existed to keep the Victor woman home, and now in the dawn of a new country, Enobaria had taken her well deserved freedoms.

Of course, that did not mean that they could keep track of her.

Some may go as far to say that Clove, Cato, and even Brutus, missed her sometimes.

Not that a single one of them would ever utter those words to her.

“I thought about it.” Clove sighs, turning her face to press the other cheek against his skin, equally warming her face. “But they’re actually here, I guess they’re here for a while…until Glimmer has the baby. Cash wants to stay in One for a few extra months straight after, I guess, so they’re making up time here for now. And I did not want to interrupt something over there again, especially not in the hot tub…” She shutters, not from the cold this time but from a distasteful memory that she clearly has brought to the surface. “Besides…I didn’t really want to go outside.”

“It’s kind of funny that Enobaria and Cashmere act like kids with divorced parents…back and forth back and forth to split their time evenly. Why don’t they just stay here?” Cato raises an eyebrow, a coy smile on his face. “District Two is obviously the better option.”

“Cashmere can’t leave her brother and sister, you know that. And she’s definitely not leaving now that Glimmer’s gonna have a whole kid soon.” Not just a kid, a little girl, a fact that Clove had to hear from Glimmer multiple times a day. “It would arguably make more sense for her to move to One if we’re suggesting permanent moving..and you know she isn’t going to leave here.”

“Enobaria would never survive with a neighbor named Rhinestone.”

Clove’s laugh is muffled against his chest, but he’s right. Splitting their time, like kids traveling between homes on holidays, was going to be their best bet. It didn’t make it any less funny, to imagine the mentor they all know and love spending half her time there.

Her laugh fades as her smile falls, and Clove can’t bring herself to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry I have to lay on the floor like this, I know it isn’t comfortable.”

“Clove..”

“I’m serious. This is just another new weakness, I guess. Just another thing Snow took from me.”

Cato’s hand slips off the skin of her back and Clove bites back a groan at the loss of warmth, before his hand holds the exposed side of her face. He doesn’t force her to look at him, simply strumming his thumb along her cheekbone. “Clove? I will bring the mattress down here, and we can sleep in front of this fireplace for the rest of Winter, hell, for the rest of our lives if it makes you feel even the slightest bit better. You aren’t weak, babe. I don’t even know if I could have survived what you did. You were tortured. And if this is how winter is going to go, this is how we’re going to survive it. Together.”

The composure she had tried so hard to maintain crumbles like the facade it is, and the gasping breath she takes startles Cato to the point that he has to look down at her.

“It hurts to breathe, Cato. My lungs hurt and my ribs hurt and it hurts to move and it hurts to bend my fingers. It’s like I'm frozen inside and it hurts.” Clove gasps out, burying her face firmly in the center of his chest. “I didn’t think i’d be in this much pain because of some fucking weather.”

Hurt. Pain. Neither words that Clove would ever admit to, not to anyone else in the world. To anyone but Cato, they made her a target, they made her vulnerable, and they made her weak.

“I know, Clove. I know.” He admits, bringing his hand back down to her side, warming her up from the inside of her shirts. “I wish I could take it for you.”

I wish I could take it for you.

What a gesture that is, in District Two, where pain makes you weak and vulnerable. To be willing to carry that burden, to take on that proverbial target. Only among District Two, would the admission of pain and the subsequent willingness to take it be such a marker of love.

“I just feel like someone could take me out so easily and i’m so useless right now and-”

“Noone’s coming after us. Noone’s going to take us out. And if they were, I think I’ve got it covered. I’m a Victor, too, you know.” Cato promises, bringing his lips down to kiss the top of her head, where she is nearly trying to burrow into his skin for the warmth he so readily provides. “I’ve got us, Clove. Pretend it’s my turn to keep watch in the games, okay? Sleep…relax..I’ve got us.”

“Am I gonna get a turn?” Clove nearly teases, and he can feel her lips quirking into a smile against his skin.

He snorts, and somehow manages to pull her closer. “Once a snowman isn’t your biggest opponent, sure.”

The pinch he feels on his side is enough for him to know that she was going to be just fine.

#clato #cato and clove #arwbfb au #arwbfb tag #always remember we're burned for better tag #clato fanfic #the hunger games fanfic #clato fanfiction #clato tag #clove tag #cato tag #cashmere and enobaria #cashbaria tag #arwbfb sequel #pfsk tag #picket fences sharp as knives tag

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clatoera · 7 months

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Always Remember We're Burned For Better Chapter 20: We Will Never Go Back to That Bloodshed

Well everyone...we made it. It has taken nearly nine months but here we are. We are at the end of ARWBFB (save for the Epilogue). This has been one of my biggest undertakings and I am so so so proud of it. You guys have followed me through two board exams, applications, and so so so many different speciality rotations during this journey. You have been incredibly patient but also incredibly supportive. I NEVER could have finished it without you guys. I wanted to get this up sooner or at least on the 13th. I failed at both of those, but I hope you will understand when you see that this chapter is the longest by a significant amount. I am so proud of this fic, and I hope you all decide that it was worth giving your time to sharing with me.

The chapter title comes from The Great War. A fun fact would be that this line actually loops back to "we will never go back to that bloodshed, crimson clover" with Crimson Clover being the title of chapter one. It's come full circle (save for the epilogue).

This chapter is designed like Chapter 4 was. Each segment is divided by a lyric that encapsulates the vibes. It is not as happy, but it is the start of happily ever after.

AO3

Masterpost

As always..this is for everyone who has helped me and loved me and supported this story. I cannot even tag everyone but I will try. A LARGE portion of this goes to @ohhowwehavefallen who has talked about MOST things that happen in this chapter with me in depth and has enabled me (VSC immortalized forever with this one, so is Cato buying the academy). @kentwells who actually helped me make major decisions regarding the sequel, which affected the way Marvel and Glimmer ended here. Thank you for putting up with me. @dukeysquid and @mackcoleslaw for the constant constant support. @clarascrabarmy who talks me off the ledge and is my go to night reader (and night validator that im crazy). @mollywog who has tolerated this fic for 9 months. @crookedlyniceperson who comes in with the memes EVERY single time. @cyansadnessI dont even get to talk to you much any more but you were an OG reader and I am giving you kisses for your love. There are so many more who I am afraid I may have missed (and I know I have missed) but i'm emotional and hormonal and crying as I type this.

This is, and always has been, for you guys who have given me your support and love. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I never would have finished without the love and support of every single person who has read this.

Thank you.

How evergreen, our group of friends

The kitchen, despite the literal war that had raged on outside in District One, was quite literally untouched. Untouched, as in, no one had ever used it even prior to the games or the war that should have resolved the house itself to rubble.

They had quickly discovered that despite varying levels of damage to the districts, the Victors Villages were left nearly untouched. Call it symbolism, call it fate, call it making a point, but this was not a fact any of the surviving victors were going to debate or question.

For now they were all just going to be thankful to even have a place to live, especially one that wasn’t an underground bunker in a district that resented them.

It’s Clove, who is opening and shutting every single cabinet in the bright white kitchen. The golden handles and marble countertops are pristine– perfect and completely new. Every drawer is completely stocked with spices and the same sorts of things her own home had come with, but it is evident that these cabinets had remained untouched from their initial stocking. There was no dusting of cinnamon around the pores of the bottle, no slight film of salt from pouring over a steaming pot. They were still perfectly alphabetized, perfectly aligned in the spice drawer, as if the kitchen itself was taken right out of a capitol home decor magazine.

Funnily enough, though the kitchen was clearly new, it was so…Glimmer. Or at least the Glimmer she had been forced to become.

Gorgeous white marble countertops, shimmering golden metal for every door handle and knob on every drawer. The utensils were a beautiful gold, and even the appliances were designed to blend right in with the shining and glamorous surroundings.

In one drawer, she found incredibly sharp knives with mother of pearl handles, in another were soft baby pink pans. It was very much designed for the fifteen year old teenage girl who had won the house as part of her victor’s spoils.

Somehow, even without the Capitol’s influence, Clove still believes Glimmer would have turned out a golden, pink-loving girl. Or at least, it’s comforting to imagine it that way.

Clove curls her fingers around the shimmering handle of one of the paring knives, bringing it to eye level to inspect it. The blade is alarmingly sharp for one designed to dice vegetables or carve into fruits, further supporting Clove’s suspicion that it had never been used prior to well, right now. She weighs it in her hand, feeling the way it settles in her palm. Her other hand comes to run over the couple of inches of metal, evaluating the quality. It was top of the line in terms of cooking, of course, nothing but the best for any victor, but it may even serve well in terms of slicing through-

She drops the knife, flinching only a little at the realization of how the metal colliding with the marble will dull the beautiful little blade. It startles her, not the sound of the metal on rock, no that any District Two girl could sleep through like a lullaby, but by the harsh realization of her own thoughts. She would likely never slice through anything but food again, there would be no more blood spitting on her from pulsing arteries, no more tendons severed.

Clove would probably never kill anyone else ever again. The thought is both disconcerting and comforting, leaving Clove alarmed and settled.

“Are you okay?” A soft, sleepy voice asks from around the entrance to the kitchen. When Clove looks up she sees Glimmer, rubbing at her eyes with her long cream colored sleeves. She shuffles into the kitchen in fluffy white slippers, a sweater that reaches halfway down her legs, and exceptionally messy loose braids that tell Clove that yeah she probably did just wake up.

“Good morning, Princess.” Clove scoffs, gently grabbing the dropped knife and twisting it nimbly between her fingers. “It’s four in the afternoon, Glimmer. Did you have a busy night?”

“I was with Cash and Gloss all night, we’re trying to figure out what to do about our parents.” Glimmer sits herself at the island continuing to rub at her eye with the heel of her hand, exhaustion written all across her pretty face. “I didn’t come back until this morning.”

Clove flinches at her own insensitivity– while she was well used to being, well, alone. An orphan. On her own. Whatever, it was..new for the others. Cato’s family was still in the wind, but Glimmer and her siblings, as well as Marvel, were new to the world of being parentless. “God, Glimmer, I’m sorry–”

At least Glimmer had Cashmere and Gloss, the same could not be said for Marvel, who was the only surviving member of his entire family. Clove could easily relate to that, because even if anyone survived, they were dead to her long ago.

Glimmer just nods her head, acknowledging but not verbally accepting the apology her friend offers.

Nothing had been necessarily right between the four of them since the vote. Cato and Clove, they were perfectly fine, of course. Marvel however had lost any progress he had made with Glimmer, and Cato nor Clove had yet to fully return to her good graces. It wasn’t even like any of them could blame her for being mad. She had been right.

“Thanks for letting us stay with you.” She decides, instead filling the space between them with gentle words of appreciation. “Like..literally in your house with you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, you know that.. It’s nice not to be alone.” Glimmer sighs, resting her chin on her hand and looking across the island to Clove, who is still twisting a knife in her hand. “I don’t know if i’m quite ready to be alone yet.”

They weren’t necessarily far from anyone. Marvel spent the days over here with them, Brutus was in one of the empty houses, Cash and Gloss each in their own and then Enobaria was– “Is Enobaria staying across the street in the empty one or down the road–”

Glimmer cocks an eyebrow, the littlest smirk making an appearance on her face. “She’s staying with my sister.”

“Oh!” Clove looks nearly taken aback as she opens another drawer, absently sorting through the perfect, unused cutting boards and kitchen aids to distract herself from the awkward tension between her and her host. “I didn’t know they were even friends.”

“Girl..” Glimmer giggles, leaning in closer on the island, nearly pressing her upper body into the marble. “You know Enobaria and Cashmere are..” She makes a gesture with her middle and pointer finger that Clove can’t interpret, and the confused look on her freckled face must convey that to the blonde girl. “Right?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Do I need to spell it out for you, Clove? They’re fucking. They’re a thing.”

“What! No, I mean just because they’re staying together doesn’t mean–” The heat in Clove’s cheeks at the realization leaves her flustered, and flustered is not a look Clove wears well.

“Well that's what everyone thinks about the four of us.” Glimmer teases, before bringing her hand out infront of her to inspect the remnants of her nails. “Seriously. They’ve been a thing for like…god Cash won sixty-four? So… ten…ish years? Probably? I dunno. But it’s not a secret. I’m shocked you couldn’t tell.”

“Well I didn’t see them together much, okay? And noone thinks that the four of us are all fucking, Glimmer. That’s crazy Capitol type shit.” Clove defends, desperately looking through the drawers for a change of topic. Maybe she could understand why Enobaria got so irritated when ever she and Cato got caught–

Yep. Okay. Makes sense!

“Sure they don’t Clove, you don’t see the looks people give us?”

Clove digs through the drawers, finding the still boxed mixer and the perfect white plates, nothing seeming even a little out of place. She is flustered and the heat in her neck and face won’t even allow her to respond to such comments.

“For fucks sake, Glimmer, have you used anything in this kitchen.”

“Drawer closest to the refrigerator has two little plates and two forks. We used to …uh…we would eat a lot of cake.” Glimmer finds herself grabbing at the skin around her nail with her teeth, tugging at the cuticles until they ripped off. She couldn’t resist the urge to constantly be picking at and degrading something about her body, and right now her nails were all she had access to. “Other than that, not really.”

“How did you survive, Glimmer? Seriously?” Clove rests a hand on the back of her hip, strumming along the top of her hip while also trying to massage out some of the pain of her lower back that never seemed to go away.

“Well, everything I ate was precooked and preweighed, I had to keep a certain look you know?” Glimmer shrugs, kicking her feet just a little at the height of the chair, twisting just ever so slightly to keep herself comfortable. “I wasn’t really allowed to go beyond that. Cooking was never important.”

“You’re gonna have to learn to make something Glimmer, especially if you ever have kids–” Clove teases, but the biting response of Glimmer wipes the smile right off of her face.

“I told you in the Capitol I'm not doing that. I’m never doing that. I don’t want to.” Glimmer snaps before she pushes herself out of the chair so she can make a quick escape if the conversation goes any further south.

“You used to, I’m sorry, Glimmer. That's who I knew you as. The girl who wanted to settle into her life and be someone’s mother. And for what it’s worth, Glim Glam, I think you’d have been good at it.” Clove puts a hand up in defense, before she awkwardly goes back to going through the remaining cabinets, stopping prior to the refrigerator and pantry.

She pauses, and turns to face her friend. She gives a heavy sigh, bracing herself on the counter behind her, when she begins.

“I’m sorry. I am. About the vote. You were right, and as soon as you pulled me into that room– I knew you were right. About his sister and about our friends’ kids and everything. I just wanted to feel like some wrong was made right, Glimmer. It wasn’t going to be me back in the games, and I wanted them to feel what it was like. But then you mentioned Cora, and god knows if she’s alive, but if she is she couldn’t ever go to the games. Or Finnick’s kids, or yours or– I don’t know. All of a sudden it wasn’t just like..nameless kid tributes. It was people we knew. It was kids we knew. It was little girls who looked like you and little red heads in four and! It was kids we love or will love and– you were right. And I’m sorry.”

There is a stunned silence for a few seconds that feels like years to Clove, as Glimmer looks at her with the look of a doe caught in the lights of a car.

“....thank you.” Glimmer whispers in response, but something palpable has finally shifted between them. Whatever permafrost had threatened to take hold on the boundaries of their friendship started to melt away in that moment. Maybe not a heat wave, but a start. “I…thank you, Clove.”

Clove gives Glimmer another once over as they stand staring at each other. The months of this war had taken a toll on Clove of course, evidenced by the aches in her body and the scars along her skin. Her scars would fade, as her bruises had, and even the pain isn’t visible. On the outside Clove still looked almost exactly like she always had.

On Glimmer though, the changes were blatant. The golden glow of her skin was long gone, replaced by pale, nearly gray undertones. That long platinum hair was longer than ever, but now revealed multiple inches of a honey blonde natural color that had been hidden since before she even won the games. Even the actual structure of her face and body had changed. Any capitol enhancement had long since grown out or metabolized away, leaving Glimmer with deep collar bones and sinking skin on her cheeks.

She looked exhausted but she also looked starved. She looked sick.

“Glimmer…you look hungry.” Clove gives her a look that must be riddled with pity, for the blonde looks away and at her hands instead. “Will you please let me make you something? I know there probably isn’t much in here but I can send the boys out…” B

Before Glimmer can argue or decline, Clove swings the door open to what she expected to be a barren refrigerator and is taken back by the fully stocked fridge that awaits her.

Well. Full. And Stocked. Maybe not with actual kitchen staples or ingredients for meals, but definitely full.

“What in the fuck–”

“Marvel does that sometimes. And Cato’s been talking nonstop about your cooking for literal months. They went yesterday, I think. I..don’t think either of them knew what they were doing but they’ve got the spirit. They mean well.,” Glimmer explains, not bothering to put up a fight with Clove and deny her this opportunity. Even if she didn’t eat it– Cato and Marvel sure fucking would. This was their new Hunger Games.

“Good intentions…that's why there’s seventeen tomatoes?” Clove raises an eyebrow, the ghost of a smile gracing her face as she surveys the fridge. Sure it was a little..odd.. Seventeen tomatoes, three bags of flour, at least fifty eggs, a dozen heads of garlic… odd but good intentioned nonetheless. “I’m going to guess they wanted pasta?”

“That sounds right. I think I heard Cato saying something about that, but they lost me when I heard them trying to remember if onions and garlic are the same thing.” Glimmer shrugs, but finds herself going back to sit at the island, no longer on the verge of running out of the kitchen at any moment.

Clove starts grabbing armfuls of the tomatoes to transfer them to the countertop, feeling the soft flesh of one under her fingertips. She probably wouldn’t even need the chef’s knife, but damn if she wasn’t going to take the opportunity to use it. “Do you have a big- you know what, nevermind.”

She decides against asking for a stock pot, knowing fully well Glimmer would have no idea what she was talking about. Instead, she rummages through the cabinets until she does in fact find a blush pink soup pot practically bigger than Clove herself. She immediately sets herself to gently slicing the skin off of the tomatoes, delighting in the way the acidic juice dripped down over her fingers.

“You should give him a chance, Glimmer, he’s a good guy.” Clove suggests, tossing each individual skinned tomato into the giant pink pot one at a time.

“I’m not the one not interested, Clove, you know that.” Glimmer reminds her bitterly, reaching forward to attempt to grab a tomato, dropping it when the acid in the juice burns the raw skin around her nails. “He doesn’t want me.”

“Now that isn’t true and you know it. You two seemed fine and then the vote happened and you shut him down again.” Clove points out, turning to the cabinet behind her to grab her selection of the endless array of unused spices. “Which, I get it, you were hurt–”

“He can’t just make my trauma a personal vendetta, Clove. He can’t advocate for slaughtering babies in an arena under the name of defending me and the things that happened to me.” Glimmer hops off the chair once again, this time letting herself scope out the refrigerator and whatever the hell the boys had come up with to fill it with.

“It happened to him, too, Glimmer. Maybe not as much as it did to you. But it happened to him, too.” Clove collects salt and sugar and various other jars of spices she currently can’t name but knows for some reason she needs to add them. “Glim. Sometimes we care more about avenging the people we love, rather than actually doing what's right. The things that are done to people you love..sometimes that's just worse.”

“You don’t know what it’s like, Clove. To be seen as the girl who fucks everyone. Whether I wanted to or not. And trust me, I didn’t want to. And no matter how hard I try, for the rest of my life, that is how everyone is going to see me. Do you know what the best part of all this is, Clove? That I never have to be seen in public ever again.” She filters through the fruit– half a dozen containers of strawberries, a single mango, an entire box of blueberries– before letting herself grab a single blueberry for a snack.

“We don’t see you that way, you know? Not me, not Cato, and god Glimmer you know Marvel doesn’t either.” Clove assures, using the palm of her hand to measure out the various herbs and spices she’s tossing in. There’s no recipe– she’s just doing what feels right. Such is the theme for all aspects of their lives right now. “And you never have to do that again. Hell, never have sex again at all for all I care, obviously I do but–”

“Yeah, Clove, I know. We share a wall. The wall your bed is on.”

“Oh! Right! Well.. anyway!” Clove fakes a grimace and mouths ‘sorry’ before she places a lid on her creation. “Come on. Let's go find the boys, then I'll show you how to make the pasta.”

“I think they’re laying in the yard.” Glimmer waves off, before grabbing another handful of berries to pop into her mouth.

“They’re…laying in the yard?” Clove raises a dark eyebrow, confusion mapped across her face. “Are they dogs?”

“Something about missing grass and fresh air in Thirteen, I don’t know, I could hear them through the window.” Glimmer shakes her head, but stands in the doorway of the refrigerator. “Do you need anything out of here?”

“They’re fucking weird.” Clove clears off a workspace to knead and roll out the pasta, recognizing that this is probably the first time these counters have been used for anything ever. “uh yeah I need eggs and flour… Honestly, I usually make Cato come do this part because I like to watch his hands knead the dough but…let them…become one with nature or whatever they’re out there doing.”

“Why do you need flowers in noodles? I didn’t think you could eat those?” Glimmer cocks her head, holding out the cardboard carton of a dozen eggs to her, but pausing with a perplexed look on her face as she searches the refrigerator for a bouquet of some sort. “I can go check the garden–”

“What? No Glimmer, Flour not flowers.” Clove wipes her hands on the side of her shirt– Cato’s shirt, actually–, and comes next to her friend to point at the various bags on the bottom shelf. “It’s like..it’s white powder, I can’t explain it. It makes bread. Noodles. Cookies… pizza. It makes all the good stuff you probably don’t eat. But we are going to change that.”

There are a few moments of silence, as Clove measures things. It’s nearly peaceful, with the only sounds coming from the dough being flopping and kneaded into the marble.

Silent, that is, until Glimmer finally breaks.

“Thank you for staying with me.” Glimmer manages to get out, when tears Clove didn’t even know were coming just start pouring out of her friend. “I-i’m going to be alone for the rest of my life, I don’t want to be alone yet.”

Clove pauses her hand folding, brushing her flour covered hands on her shirt before she rests her elbows on the counter, leaning in to truly hear her friend. “Glimmer, you aren’t going to be alone forever.”

“But I am! Yeah, Cash and Gloss are here but..they aren’t here. My parents are gone. You and Cato are going to go home, I don’t want to be alone yet.” Glimmer sobs, furiously wiping at her eyes with her sleeves, Mascara from god knows when smearing along them. “Noone wants a girl that everyone has had, at least not for more than a night, Clove! I’m alone and when i’m alone I just..I swear it’s like someone’s going to come in and they’re going to touch me and they’re going to hurt me and–”

“You’re scared.” Clove realizes, and her heart completely and utterly shatters for the girl. She sees her not as the twenty something girl in front of her, but instead a scared fifteen year old victor she never got to grow out of being. “It’s okay to be scared, but no one's going to hurt you anymore.” She nearly reaches for her hand, she nearly reaches to do anything to comfort her, but something tells her that sudden touch is the furthest thing from what Glimmer needs right now.

“Someone is always ready to hurt me, Clove. It’s all anyone wants out of me. Noone wants me but they all want me. I just think about all the things they’ve done to me, Clove. How many times they’ve shot me up with something or gave me a handful of pills and just told me to swallow them. Who knows what they’ve done to me…” Glimmer cries, hot tears tracking down her face and onto the fabric of her sleeves. They speckle her sweater, soaking into the cream colored fabric and turning it dark. The levee has broken within Glimmer, and the rushing waves of grief cannot be stopped. “When I won..my sister and brother used to sleep down here. So when I wake up screaming they could come up to me. And then in the Capitol I was NEVER alone and as soon as I was…Cash would come in. She’d hold me, tell me how sorry she was that she let me become a victor, that she didn’t stop me from trying to go to the games. And then, god, once I had Marvel, he practically moved in and he slept me and I actually felt safe. I could sleep. Even back when we were just friends…he’d let me sleep in his room in the Capitol, he was never touchy or pushy or anything. He just let me sleep and sometimes he’d hold me and it was the best sleep I had since I won.” Glimmer wipes at the tears again, ignoring how messy she had to look right now. It was her own kitchen and really what did she have left to lose? Glimmer rambles on, “And you two are here and so I try to sleep and it isnt working as well as it used to and in thirteen I was so afraid every time I heard someone was in the hall that they were going to come in and —“

“When was the last time you slept, Glimmer? Actually slept?” Clove eases, sliding her a dish towel to use to clear the tears from her eyes. “You have to be exhausted.”

“Probably the games, funny enough. Weird that I felt safe enough there but- it is what it is. I tried in Thirteen! And here! it’s just…I can still feel their hands on my skin a-and feel them breathing on my neck and hear their voices and the sound of their feet coming to get me. If I fall asleep they’re there taunting me and grabbing me and-and-and!“ Glimmer continues to recount her nightmares and real life horrors, her breath catching in her throat and coming out in heaving, panicked, desperate gasps. “I just don’t see what the point of all this was. I don’t have anyone and I’m terrified in my own house and my parents are gone and what did I survive it all for if I’m going to be alone?”

“You aren’t going to be alone. You aren’t, and you can stay with someone or something but, God Glimmer. Out of all of us, all of the things we have gone through, you Glimmer deserve a happy ending. You deserve to feel safe and loved and god, Glimmer, you deserve to be happy.” Clove finally grabs at her arm, gently squeezing her forearm. “You are safe, Glimmer. And no one gets to hurt you ever again. I promise, Glimmer. You are going to be happy.”

Glimmer…does not learn how to make pasta that day.

Ten minutes of egg and flour stuck to her fingers is enough to send her back to the verge of tears and back to a safe distance away where she instead watches only.

Once the dough is chilling and the sauce is stewing, they retreat to the living area, sprawled out on the baby pink couches.

They sit in comfortable silence while the sauce cooks, Glimmer curled up on the foot of the couch, Clove outstretched on the other end with a book of District One history spread out in her lap.

It’s peaceful. Comfortable. Safe.

When Clove notices the Glimmer has fallen asleep, she grabs the fur throw blanket from the back of the couch and tosses it over her friend. Never in her life had she planned to care for some random victor girl from District One, with enough trauma and abuse in her short life for all of them combined, but here she was. War, she supposed, changed the way you see the world.

She doesn’t even need to call the boys in for dinner like a mother calling for her kids to come in at sundown, because like the bloodhounds men tend to be, they all but run through the glass back door like the children they never got to be once the smell of dinner reaches the outdoors.

“Clove? Clove, are you cooking? Do I smell food?” Marvel slips in the door first, literally just edging Cato out to get in before him. “Holy mother of god, that's food. I can SMELL the spice, there's salt in it isn’t there. You’re a fucking saint.”

“You’re a moron.” Cato rolls his eyes, but pushes Marvel out of the way just so he can beat him to the island. “…there is salt and stuff right?”

“You’re also a moron.” It’s Clove’s turn to roll her eyes instead, as she fishes a single pasta noodle out of the water to try it. “If i remember correctly you did talk about my cooking every day for weeks…”

“Months.” Glimmer chimes in as she makes her appearance. It’s only been a couple of hours since she fell asleep on the couch but even the brief nap has her looking noticeably better and more rested. “Every day for months.”

Clove catches Glimmer (but not Cato) off guard with how fast she moves when she reaches out to grab Marvel’s wrist as he goes to dip a spoon into the sauce. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Clove, I'm serious,this is the best moment I've had in months, let me have this. I need something good in my life.” Marvel half pleads, and the tired tone in his voice paired with the exhaustion behind his eyes is all that it takes before Clove is releasing his wrist and turning away.

“Do NOT go in twice, I will cut off your fingers.” She threatens and has to nearly slap Cato’s fingers away from the pasta noodles where they are cooling. “You two are like fucking children.”

“Oh my god.” Comes from Marvel, but it sounds somewhere between a cry and a gasp. “Clove this is the best thing i’ve had-maybe ever. Maybe that's the war trauma but-” Ignoring her threats he risks it for another dip, and then steps immediately a few steps out of her reach. “Can you stay here? Seriously, can we keep you? Cato you can stay too, if that helps.”

Marvel slides to the other side of the island, safely out of reach of all three of them as he debates just dipping a coffee cup and drinking the sauce. “For fucks sake, Cato, kiss her. Or Glimmer, you do it. I don’t care. One of you..just..appreciate her.”

“I’ll still kill you.” Cato warns, but he is slightly distracted by the handfuls of fresh pasta he is dropping into his mouth. “Clove is very appreciated, thank you very themuch.”

“.....are you crying?” Glimmer leans onto the counter, propping her chin in her hand as she outright smirks at her once boyfriend. There's the spark of light behind her eyes that Snow had snuffed out long ago starting to glow just a little again.

“No!” Marvel defends himself indignantly, but they all hear the sniffle and the stifled“......maybe a little.”

I can go anywhere I want, anywhere I want just not home

Two months after their initial arrival in One, at the end of the second great war, after months of Clove feeding them, many tears from Glimmer at their goodbye, and promises of continued communication under the new mechanisms and options– phones communications, along with travel between districts, were allowed once again– Clove, Cato, Brutus, and Enobaria were on their train home.

Maybe it was irony, or maybe it was fate, but they take the incredibly short trip home on the same train they had come to the Capitol on in their prior games. Neither had ever noticed how the high speed trains went from One to Two in under half an hour, but then again, why would they have paid attention when they were young invincible victors with the entire world at their fingertips?

Still, even a twenty seven minute train ride feels like absolute eternity when you do not know what waits for you on the other end.

She is sitting as she always has on these trips– curled up with her back against his chest, settled between his legs, head resting on his shoulder. Her fingers snake up to where his arm is resting on the back of the couch, and she laces her fingers in with his.

Clove sighs as her eyes flutter shut, choosing not to watch the passage of destroyed buildings, burned farms, and mass civilian graves. There was a time in her life where no amount of bloodshed or the loss of life made her bat an eye— it was what they were trained for— but now…something about it made her stomach turn.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re going home.” Cato mumbles into the crown of her head, sliding his other hand firmly around her waist and holding her tighter to him. “It doesn’t feel like we even have one.”

“I don’t think we do.” Clove twists in his arms just a little so that she can see his face and languidly brings her free hand up to graze along his jawline. “I mean, we have a house, but I don’t think anyone will want to see us. Exiled to Victor’s Village ..” Her nails scratch along the planes of his skin gently, as she cranes her neck back to really look at him.

She has spent over half of her life looking at him, learning with him, and ultimately the last six loving him. Looking at him now, though, it’s almost like seeing him through new eyes.

Scars that the capitol would never take from him along his arms from retraining, golden blonde hair that had grown out enough it reached nearly to his eyelashes, the brightest sky blue eyes that harbored exhaustion far beyond that of a twenty one year old man.

And yet. It almost felt new to look at this man right now, in the same position on the same train they had been in time and time again.

It was new to see him in a world without The Hunger Games.

In a world where they would not wake up day to day to train the next class of tribute children, a world where they would not mentor victor and victor to parade home with pride to their district. A world where they would not raise their own children to volunteer for the games, where they would sacrifice them with a smile on their faces for the glory of being the parents of their own victor child, or pretend it did not shatter them to lose that same glorified baby to the games because they wouldn’t want to raise anything less than ideal little victors.

There was a version of them, somewhere, that dedicates the rest of their lives to the Hunger Games.

This is not that version of them. Not anymore.

Maybe it is because she knows what the life of a victor truly holds now. She learned in the confessions of Finnick, in the strangled screams of Glimmer in the middle of the night. She learned in the stories of Johanna, in the depravity of Haymitch. She learned in the desperation of Katniss, the destruction of Peeta. She learned of it in the loss of her mother.

She learns of a different life of a Victor, now. In the disapproving, but secretly adoring, looks from Enobaria when Cato carries her across a room. In the appreciative murmurs of Brutus, when he has pancakes with chocolate chips before him. In the updates on Annie’s growing family, in Marvel’s silly, stupid, but nonetheless endearing jokes.

Above all else she learns of it in the love of Cato, who saw her at the lowest shell of herself, and loved her even still.

Cato raises an eyebrow at her, shaking her just a little. “You’re thinking of something.” It’s his turn to bring a hand to her face, unwinding from her waist so he can tilt her chin up to meet his eyes more properly. “The corners of your lips twitch when you’re thinking too hard.”

Clove smiles gently, allowing the corners of her mouth to come to a soft grin. “I was just thinking about the last time we were on this particular train. On our way to the Quell. I didn’t think we’d be on our way back like this.”

“I also thought we were only leaving that arena in pine boxes. I didn’t think I’d be coming home. I never thought we’d come home together alive. ” He nods, looking past her rather than at her as he recollects the feelings and emotions of that day, leaving their district for what they expected to be the last time. Their days were numbered, or so they had every reason to believe.

For the first time, maybe in the entirety of their short lives, that was no longer the case.

Clove stretches both her arms out to wrap them behind his neck, relaxing fully and truly into his arms. “Is it crazy to say it feels like we won?”

The station is barren and silent when the train stops. There is no great crowd to welcome home the newest victor this time, no officials to celebrate them.

And yet, when the four of them are back on the train platform, surrounded by the rubble of what was once the greatest district in the country, there has never been a sweeter homecoming.

My house of stone, your ivy grows, and now i’m covered in you

The walk home is harrowing. Two months of cleanup had barely touched the majority of the evidence of the violence, especially along the bases of the mountain, where the various villages had to stack their dead. Slowly but surely they had been transported back to their towns to properly be buried under the traditions of each of the different villages.

That, of course, was just for the bodies that had even been recovered.

Nearly half of District Two’s population was unaccounted for, and reconstruction efforts had only barely begun to move the piles of rocks that represent the rubble of what was once towering buildings and neighborhoods full of homes.

The true carnage of the war, the gravity of the loss in this district alone was yet to be understood and tallied. Cato cannot say a word on the walk home, as every time he thinks about the bodies of his parents and sister rotting away under the ash of two, his throat feels like it is going to close on him. Clove by extension says nothing either, only threading her arm around his, holding that same arm with her other hand. There are no words to negate the pain of loss, to ease the ache of the unknown.

The gate to Victor’s Village is somehow perfectly intact, and from what they can see beyond, so are the pristine lines of ornate houses. A layer of ash covers the ground like fallen snow, and the air feels unseasonably cold up here. It is as if the ghosts of the victors, the families, all of the dead haunt these gates, encasing them in a blanket of melancholy as a reminder that they are the survivors yet again.

The chill especially wraps around Clove, sending an ache deep to her joints, a reminder that while she is a survivor, she was a victim, too. They have survived but they do not come home unscathed, they do not come home the victors they left as.

There are lights on in the two houses across the street from their own, and the reminder of life of their mentors is one of the only calming thoughts they can cling to.The rest of the houses sit empty, stale air circulating through them with no victors left to call them home. There is no evidence that there was once life in these houses, no shoes on the porch, no watering cans in the yards. Just like that what was once the fullest victors village has become a ghost town.

The decision to come back had not been an easy one. District One was in a far better condition, and frankly, none of them were quite ready for life on their own after so much time relying on each other for company and sanity during the war. They didn’t even really have motivation to come back– what did they have waiting behind for them. Eventually the announcement came – much to the dismay of many many many citizens– that the surviving Victors would continue to receive monthly stipends (albeit not near as much as pre-war days) as reparation for the torture and violence inflicted on them at the hands of the prior government ever since their victory. It made it easier to know that upon their return they weren’t going to have to assimilate into societal roles (and for Glimmer, the real relief came that she would never have to work in retail in one).

Ultimately, the decision to come back was their own. This place, despite the horrors, the violence, the brutality…it was their home. Maybe it was those things that made it home.

They stand in the charred grass at the very edge of their yard, Clove with her head resting against his body, Cato running his hand over her arm in an attempt to warm her body to ward off the ghosts of pain that the cold brings on. He rests his head on top of hers as they look at the grandiosity of the home they left behind, still frozen in time, as a relic of the time they were eighteen and in love, feeling invincible.

“Hey…babe?” Cato wrinkles his brows together, lifting his head from atop hers. “Do you have a key?”

Well of course they didn’t have a key– it wasn’t like they had considered leaving one under the doormat on their way to their certain deaths.

“Fuck.” Clove laughs against his arm, burying her face in the dark wool of his coat. Her laugh is contagious to him, and he’s shaking his head with a laugh not too long after her. Out of all the obstacles that should have kept them from ever crossing the threshold of their home again, they had not thought to anticipate a key being one.

She flashes him a playful smirk, raising her eyebrows teasingly. “Are we going to break into our own house?”

Sure, Cato could probably just go through the front door. Of course with the current state of Two, that door would not be replaced because a couple of kids broke into their own house.

“We left the bedroom window unlocked.” Cato reminds her, catching her off guard as he grabs her by the waist and throws her over his shoulder. “I mean.. I hope we left the window unlocked.”

Clove nearly shrieks as she ends up in the air, his hands giving taunting pinches on the very top of her thighs as he fully carries her to the back yard. The grass is overgrown in some places, burnt in others, Clove notices as she stares at the ground from her place on his shoulder.

Cato surprises Clove again when he flips her from his shoulder to his arms, one hand under her knees and the other under her shoulders as he cradles her against him. “Okay. You’re going in.”

It’s not even surprising how easily he lifts her to a standing position on his hands, how he can push her towards the bedroom window with such ease. All that to say, Clove's short arms and legs do not make it any easier, with her fingertips barely able to reach the window screen to pry it off. When she does she sends it flying down behind her, and only from the groan she hears from Cato can she tell it hit him. It is using all the dexterity of her little fingers that she is able to slide the window up and open.

“Got it!” Clove calls down to him, and lightly twists her ankle in his palm. “You gotta throw me a little.”

“I can’t throw you through the window–” Cato scoffs, shaking his head adamantly. “No way in hell.”

“Cato I can’t reach, You need to just give me a little boost-”

“A little boost i’m already holding you above my head–”

“Cato! A little toss!” Clove insists, jolting her foot with a little annoyance. “I’m serious, we need to get in–”

“Fine! But if you bust your face open don’t blame me.” Cato grumbles, and grabs her by the bottom of her shoes. “Okay, ready?”

Clove nods, already bracing her hands on either side of the window. When he gives her the little bit of a toss (more than a little, considering the strength he doesn’t even realize he exerts sometimes), Clove is able to flip in through the window.

All Cato can hear is a slight scream from his wife as she tumbles into the house.

“Clove…babe…you alright?” Cato calls up, an edge of panic infiltrating his cool tone. “Baby…”

Clove appears in the window, resting her elbows on the window ledge as she smiles down at him with a coy smirk. “You look like you’re here to beg me to sneak out.”

“If I remember correctly it was me who had the house first..” Cato responds to her smirk with his own, running a hand over the side of his hair. “Will you let me in? I didn’t throw you through the window just so I could still break down the door.”

“Patience, patience, Cato.” Clove teases, but the smile on her face could keep Cato going for the rest of his life. “I’m coming, meet you out front.”

Cato beats her to the front door. Patience has never been his strength, and frankly, it’s fucking cold and she is taking a weirdly long amount of time before she comes down. “Clove open the door, I'm not playing around.”

When the door does swing open to Clove, somehow already changed into one of his shirts and one of his shirts only, she greets him with a dark smirk, looking up at him from thick lashes. “Welcome home.”

The thin layer of dust that covers every surface in their house is a problem for another time.

Later…after.. Clove sits between his legs in the bath, the water as hot as they can possibly get it, soothing every ache in the crooks of her spine. His fingers trace imaginary shapes over the back of her hand, her head against his chest and shoulder. Hot water had been one of the biggest losses in Thirteen. Clove had imagined this particular moment for months. So much so that it was the first- well…second– thing they did once they were back in their home.

Their names were still carved into the bedpost, their laundry still in pre-sorted piles on the bathroom floor. Clove’s skin yearns for the softness of the clean sheets they had left behind (though maybe they were not so clean with the dust and ash layer on every surface). In the morning, Clove will treat herself to tea with the rest of the honey in the cabinet above the sink and to the left.

“You know, I think Enobaria had the spare key.” Cato realizes with his lips on Clove’s neck, and he deserves the light smack to the side of his head once he says it.

“I do not want to think about Enobaria right now, thank you very much.” Clove mumbles, tilting her neck so he can have more more more as she feels his other hand wrapping around her waist and sliding lower.

“We made it home, sweetheart.” Cato kisses into the skin of her neck, pulling her somehow even closer. “We’re home.”

“We are home.” Clove repeats, but the emphasis she places changes the meaning of the statement. Yes, they are home. But they are home.

He is hers and she is his.

They are home.

And If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were still around.

Home is not as idyllic as they may have remembered, but it was home.

The thunderstorms that once lulled her to sleep, jolted her awake with a racing heart. The sound of rain no longer rain, but too identical to the distant sound of bombs in their homeland. When she ends up sitting on the porch in the middle of the night, forcing herself to face it, she is always joined by a heavy blanket being draped around her shoulders, and Cato sitting wordlessly beside her. What they don’t know is that in a district not too far away, another girl screams herself awake from nightmares of the past, and is joined by the innocent affection of a man who slides into bed next to her only to sleep, who holds her only with the intention to comfort her while expecting nothing in return.

The cold hurts more than she imagined it would. It is not just the recollection of nearly freezing to death that frightens her anymore, it is the pain in her body. Their home is somehow always chilly, her wrists and shoulders and back always aching fiercely. Cato knows her, he has her entire life, and is always adamant to add another blanket to the bed or turn up the heat even when it leaves him himself sweating.

Brutus and Enobaria still let themselves in multiple days a week for breakfast.

A few weeks into their return, a knock on their front door long before breakfast startles them both. He’s sitting at the kitchen island admiring the concentration on her face as she carves into something she will undoubtedly transform into something fantastic in an hour or so.

“Who comes to see us?” Clove raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t look away from her task before her. “Enobaria and Brutus have never knocked, and you know Glimmer and Marvel couldn’t be awake this early..”

“They’ll leave.” Cato shrugs, reaching out a hand to nab some of the intricately carved strawberries Clove had already finished with. “Ignore it.”

The knocking only increases in frequency and volume, and Cato rolls his eyes as he pushes himself away. “I’ll get rid of them.”

Clove can’t wipe away the smirk that rises as she watches him walk away, all shirtless with sweatpants slung so low on his hips that it wouldn’t take much effort from her when he comes back to–

She hears the door swing open but does not hear him scare anyone off with a threat, nor does she hear anything at all. “Babe?” Clove calls out behind him, wiping off the blade of her knife with a towel before she lays it down on her cutting board. “Cato?” She calls again, quickly covering the distance from the kitchen to the front door. Cato isn’t even in the doorway, and Clove doesn’t know why that makes her heart race.

Once she makes it to the door, to see what is waiting on the porch, her heart fully stops.

Wrapped around Cato’s torso are the long baby limbs of his baby sister, little arms clinging around his neck, long blonde curls covering where her face is absolutely buried in his neck. He’s got both arms around the girl, one hand holding her head to his shoulder. Immediately to his left, with her hand on his arm, is his mother. War was unkind to her, as the woman Clove once looked up to and yearned to emulate in some ways looked more fragile than ever.

“Hi Clove, Honey.” Cato’s mother greets her with an exhausted, bone tired smile. There is a lack of light in those blue eyes, a sorrow Clove hopes never to imagine.

Clove furrows her eyebrows, tilting her head just a little and it is enough of a question for the older woman to perceive it.

His mother takes in a sharp breath and shakes her head very quickly in the negative and it is all Clove needs to see to know that this is it, this is all that remains of Cato’s family. A mother and a sister.

“I missed you, so so much kiddo.” Cato whispers to the girl, gently running his hand over the back of her head over and over again.

Clove steps forward and gently places a hand on the taller woman’s arm, ever so slightly squeezing. “I’m so sorry.”

The blonde woman presses her lip together and nods, taking her arm off of her son and instead wrapping them around Clove in a hug. “I’m glad to see you again. I don’t think he would have survived it without you.”

“I wouldn’t have either.” Clove admits, allowing herself to squeeze a little tighter to the woman, analyzing her change in body structure.

“He’s been gone a long time.” His mother informs them both, patting Clove’s cheek gently before she goes back to wrap her son and little daughter in her arms.

“Where have you been?” Cato gets out, his voice nearly cracking as he looks down on his mother. “Where did you go?”

“We’ve just been on the move, huh baby?” His mom brushes Cora’s little arm, pulling her attention from where she is hiding in her brother’s arms. “We have just moved constantly, no one could catch us if they didn’t know where we were.”

“Is home…” Cato starts, unable to force the rest of the words out into the world.

“Gone. long gone.” His mother explains, as Cora raises her head and latches eyes with Clove.

“You can stay in my house.” Clove immediately offers out, waving slightly at Cora. “Hi, sunshine.”

Immediately Cora lifts her little blonde head and practically wriggles out of Cato’s arms, nearly running into her once she has her little feet on the ground. With his arms free Cato wraps his arms fully around his mother in a hug, and Clove can see the way he melts into his mother;s arms like a little boy

Clove initially wants to kneel to Cora’s level, to become eye to eye with her. However, this six year old child is nearly to her shoulder’s already, and Clove is taken back by how tall this little girl has become. “You’ve gotten so big!”

“I’m as tall as you!” She cheers, and this bright angel of a child wraps her arms around her sister in law. “I missed you, Clove.”

“We missed you too, Cora Jade.” Clove promises, leaning down just a little to kiss the top of her head. “I think you’re going to stay in the house next to us for a little while!” She can no longer scoop her up, with how tall and gangly she has become in the last year. Clove tries anyway, scooping Cato’s sister to sit on her hip despite the fact they are nearly the same size. Cora immediately relaxes against her, and somehow, some way, Clove feels like something deep inside her relaxes with relief, too.

And though I can’t recall your face, I’ve still got love for you

For kids who had been trained to kill, who have taken lives, they were more surrounded by death than ever before. They hadn’t expected the influx of funeral services and war memorials they would be expected to attend.

His father had of course been the most painful, with the heart broken sobs of his baby sister, asking when she’d see her daddy again. It was devastating for Cato, too, who had to learn how to be an adult man in a world without games without his father to guide him. The loss had hit him harder than he dared to admit.

At the end of what felt like the tenth funeral service they felt obligated to attend, this one of an old classmate and her younger sister, while Cato played nice with another ex-classmate Clove found herself wandering to a part of the cemetery that she had never allowed herself to cross into.

It was sacred ground, really, treated with utmost respect. Perfect lines of simple limestone grave markers stretched in perfect lines of 25, save for the last row. No tribute came home to be buried from seventy five. The victors, they were in a separate area even still, with lavish, over the top headstones. But here, in a well maintained corner of the District Two cemetery, rest every single tribute who did not make it to victor status.

The boy from her games did not even have solid grass on top of his grave plot yet, and the ceaseless bombing did nothing to aid in that process. The girl from Cato’s games is a little further grown over, with a thin but respectable layer of fresh grass that grows in all directions. She can remember some of the others, mildly. The boy who lost against Glimmer, the girl who Johanna took out.

It is not her own peers, though, that interests Clove.

She weaves through years and years of games, of either single or double headstones from every single Hunger Games, from 75 to 62, and finally to the one she had avoided the entirety of her life.

Six feet below her feet was the remaining body of Sevina Kentwell, being the closest Clove has been to her mother in nearly eighteen years.

It is a simple marker, like all of the others. With the name of the tribute, the date of their birth, and what place they came in their games. Somehow, seeing first runner up, though she had known it the entirety of her life, manages to rip her heart from her chest, coating the white limestone with the spray of hot, wet blood.

Or at least it’s how it feels.

There is no mention of the life Sevina had prior to the games. No mention of the daughter she left behind, how she was a mother who loved deeply and to the last day of her life, how she was the daughter of a cruel woman who only became that way after the loss of her child.

Clove does not know when exactly she ends up on her knees, kneeling before the stone that is no taller than her in this position.

It is when she notices the little symbol on every stone– some knives, some stars, some hearts– that she realizes there is some small personalization that makes these tributes people. Children.

Clove’s right hand reaches out, shaking just enough that she notices, as she traces her pointer finger over the etching of her mother’s name. It is then, as she reaches the I, that she realizes the dot over the initial is a clover.

The weight of a war, of physical torture, of two Hunger Games, the destruction of her home, and a loveless, empty childhood hits her. If she were not already on her knees she would have fallen to them, as it feels like she is the one who just had the breath slammed out of her against that cornucopia.

The death of her grandmother meant next to nothing. She had openly spoken out against Clove after her appearance in Two, proudly sharing the narrative that she was a traitor and that her daughter died because of this mistake of a child. Yes, she raised Clove and turned her into a victor with her cold demeanor and cruelty, and for that Clove had no choice but to be thankful, but still, she did not feel a great loss at the news of her death by rebels in Two.

She thought nothing of the news that her father and his entire new family also died in the roles of loyalists. He had been dead to her long before the war.

The entirety of her family would die with Clove. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in sixty years, but there would be no one left to remember any of them after her inevitable death.

Maybe that was the gift she could give to the ghost of her mother– the erasure of the people who treated them so cruelly.

That of course meant the erasure of Sevina Kentwell and Clove herself, as well.

While Clove had spent the entirety of her life to become a victor, to carve her place in history, right now the idea of slipping into anonymity and living a mundane enough life to not be remembered didn’t sound like the worst ending in the world.

Sevina Kentwell died nearly eighteen years ago, but somehow it hits Clove like it is the first time all over again. This feeling– the elephant on her chest, the choking, gagging sobs that she could not control, the tears that felt like burning salt on her cheeks– may as well have been from the little girl whose mother never came back for her.

She felt an overwhelming need to speak out loud– to the air, to the universe, to whatever could hear her– that she couldn’t really explain. It felt silly, to just speak into thin air, and yet she doesn’t have it in there to stop herself.

Clove wipes her tears on the back of her sleeves, rocking back to sit on her heels. She pushes her hair behind her ears, before she crosses her arm over her chest, tucking her hands along her hips on opposite sides of her body.

“I’ve always kind of wondered what was so wrong with me as a baby, if I was so unlovable of a little girl that it was just..so easy to leave me. Grandma always told me thats the case…that I’ve been fucked up since I was born and that it was easy to leave a crazy little girl. That the risk of dying was better than having to spend eighteen years with me. I believed it, too.” Clove leans her head back, squeezing evergreen eyes closed and taking a deep, shaky breath to the sky, desperate for cool morning air to fill her lungs and quench the burning that ravages the back of her throat. “I can’t remember what you look like. I’ve seen pictures but I can’t remember. I don’t remember the sound of your voice, or what it was like to be held by my mother.”

“I want to be angry and I want to blame you for everything that is just so fucked up about me, but I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t have been sent to training if you were a victor, huh?” Clove sniffles heavily, the skin of her face burning from the continued assault of tears that just cannot cease to flow. “And then I wouldn’t be a Victor..And then I never would have met Cato.”

She isn’t quite sure she can believe it, though it is rational. If she had not needed to win the games herself, she never would have been sent to training to become a victor, and by extension would have never crossed paths with Cato.

There is another part of herself though, the far less rational part, the part that let her fall for her training partner, that believes in any universe, in any version of reality, some way somehow, they would always find each other (though that she would never say out loud).

“I married him, you know. I’ve never said it out loud.. I’ve never told anyone about it.” Clove whispers to the universe, words barely falling past her lips. “But I did. I guess I wasn’t so terrible and unlovable after all, or maybe I was, and he’s a little terrible and fucked up too. We’re made for each other in that way. He’s…the love of my life.” She finds that her right hand is twisting at her left ring finger, the empty digit lacking any physical or public reminder of such love. It didn’t matter. They knew. “Enobaria took really really good care of me, too. Like she had promised you. I don’t know if I would have survived without her. Both literally as a baby, but also in the games.”

She exhales shakily. Her breathing is weighty and consuming, as she feels her throat tightening with the burning feeling of exhaustion. “I wish I had a mom these days, not that you’d know what a world without the games is like anyway…but it would be nice. To have a mom for the rest of my life….Whatever it looks like.”

Clove rests her body weight on her hands in front of her, steadying herself as she catches her breath and regains her composure. She raises her left hand again, branching herself on her mother’s headstone so she can push herself to a standing position. She brushes off the grass on her knees, smoothing down the skirt of her formal black dress. Digging the heels of her hand to stop the tears, she is unconcerned with the fact her makeup is certainly smeared around her eyes. Clove takes a shaking, stabilizing breath, gently reaching down to pat the top of the rock.

“I miss my mom. I miss you, and I don’t even know you but I know that I love you.” Clove brushes her deep hair behind her shoulders, standing up straight like the victor she will forever be. She is all that is left of, and all that there will ever be, of the woman who eternally rests deep under her feet. “I owe you, quite literally, for my life. In all senses of it. So uh..thank you. For ruining your life to give me mine.”

Clove takes one final shaky breath, craning her neck to the sky to stop the flow of tears. She wipes at her cheeks quickly, before shoving her hands in the pocket of her coat. Clove weaves back through the tribute corner, and before she even reaches the little gate she sees Cato leaning against one of the metal posts, one ankle crossed over the other, hands in the pockets of his own coat.

As soon as she’s within reach his arm is around her shoulders, using his hand to smooth down the hair at the top of her head before he kisses the crown of her hair gently and swiftly. Of course he can see the tracks of tears, the pink tint under the field of freckles, but he doesn’t comment on it. This was a private moment for her.

“Ready to go home?” He pulls her in closer to his side, body heat warming her against the cool, rainy air.

“I think we have one more stop to make.”

Everything you lose is a step you take

The only thing left of the academy which they met, trained, and ultimately, became themselves is a set of chipped marble stairs. The grand archway is reduced to piles of rubble, the long stretch of the building that was once home rests in various piles of rocks and decay.

Their classmates were mostly dead, either after being forced into roles as peacekeeper soldiers or victims of various bombings. There were no more dorms that they had once snuck around, no more rooms full of knives or spears or dummies to use as target practice. There were no more closets to sneak off too or bad showers with cold water and low water pressure.

All that was left of their childhood were the very steps they sat on now.

Cato sits beside Clove, hand in hand.

“I thought we’d spend the rest of our lives in this building.” Clove admits, brushing the hand that is not interlaced with his over the remnants of the grand staircase. “I imagined we’d be the most successful mentors, well, ever.”

“Spend our lives in the building? I thought we’d own it. Rename it to the Kentwell-Hadley Training Academy, then we could claim every District Two victor forever. It would be like our legacy.” Cato teases, but the longing edge in his voice tells Clove that no, that is not entirely a joke. He clears his throat, shifting so his chin was sitting on top of the crown of her head instead. “Do you ever think about the day we met?”

“Yeah, you broke my collarbone.” Clove smirks, craning her neck so she can look him in the eyes. They would never be back in the place they met, in the place she realized she loved this arrogant, temperamental boy. This, right here, was as close as it would get. “I thought we were going to hate each other forever…that we’d go out killing each other in the most violent, showy way we could.

“And you stabbed me!” Cato indignantly nudges her with his shoulder, but brings his other hand up to cradle her face in his. I never thought, in a million years, we’d be lucky enough to be right here, Clove.”

“Alive?” Clove teases, but takes the opportunity to lean in and press her forehead to his. “On the rubble of the academy?” As much as she teases, she knows what he means. He means hand in hand, far from the enemies they were the day they met. He means the love they share.

“Together. I never thought we’d get to be together.” Cato admits, leaning in somehow closer still, so that their noses also could touch. “All this shit Clove, and the only constant in my entire life, from the time we were actual children, has been you. It has always been you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not getting rid of me any time soon.” She promises, wrapping her arm around his neck so that she can pull her upper body flush to his as she finally finally finally connects her lips with his. Clove melts in his arms as he fully wraps his arms around her and holds her as close as he humanly can to him. When she pulls back, resting her nose against his once again, she laughs. “What do we do now with the rest of our lives?”

“I could say each other–” Cato taunts, but laughs as he gives the slightest shrug before she can refute him. “I don’t really know. We’ll figure it out, like we always do.”

“Together?” Clove teases, leaning back so she can fully lock eyes, green with blue, as a coy little smile creeps onto her face. “I love you. More than I loved the games.”

“Aren’t I special.” Cato soaks her in. Wet dark curls framing her face, freckles like constellations across her nose. If he got to see this for the rest of his life.. He’d die happy. Hopefully not for many many many years, but happy nonetheless.“I love you too. More than anything.”

“You just have to one up me..” Clove rolls her eyes playfully, but she does not actually move from her place in his arms. “You know, if you want to actually get married again, you do have to ask again.”

“Are you going to say yes?” He pinches her hip playfully, causing her to squirm in his arms which he uses as the opportunity to grab her even tighter.

“Depends on the day.” She warns, but grabs his face in both her hands immediately after. She can see it all in his eyes. The nine year olds they once were, the twenty one year olds they are now. Their entire past lies crumbled beneath them, but with her arms around his shoulders and his around her hips the entirety of their future rests in their arms.

All the uncertainty of this new world, it didn’t matter. The future, whatever it would be, would be okay. Whatever their future held, would be just fine, so long as it held them.

Cato and Clove.

“Always and forever, Cato. It’s you and me, always and forever.”

I had the time of my life with you.

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